The Anglo-Jewish Economic Board for Palestine-The First Decade (original) (raw)
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In 1943, the British Colonial Office initiated a far-reaching process of arrangements to prepare plans for detailed reconstruction in the territories subject to British control. Reconstruction as a concept, a tendency and an action plan was basically directed at building and constructing that which had been destroyed in the war, based on a plan thought out in advance. This article explores the struggle between the British plan for the reconstruction of Mandatory Palestine and the Jewish interpretation that the main aim of their steps is to implement the White Paper policy of May 1939. After six months of confrontation , the British intention to promote economic steps while presenting them as separate from the political tension over Palestine's political future and the Jewish-Arab confrontation proved to be a false assumption. In a radio address given by the British high commissioner for Palestine, Harold MacMichael, on 23 March 1943, the British Mandatory government placed on the political agenda a plan for the reconstruction of Mandatory Palestine. MacMichael indicated that the likelihood of its implementation depended on two main conditions. The first was the soundness of the planning of the schemes and the second was 'the degree of cooperation and goodwill which all are willing to contribute to the work to be carried out'. 1 Cooperation and goodwill were the two things which David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, did not even vacillate over giving MacMichael and his plan. The years of the Second World War were marked in Palestine by a lengthy series of frictions, confrontations and crises over the local Jewish community's relations with the Mandatory authorities, focusing primarily on the areas of immigration and
American Journal of International Law, 1993
In 1897 Zionism emerged as a European-wide political move ment with the first World Zionist Congress held in Basle, Switzer land, where Theodor Herzl, an editor of the influential Viennese paper, Neue Freie Presse, had emerged as a leader. Herzl's 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews) had called for a Jewish state in Palestine, and its publication in Vienna made a great impact. Not surprisingly, Zionism had its strongest following in Russia, but even there it was only one of several nationalist currents in Jewry.2 Despite the difficult circumstances of life, most Jews remained in Eastern Europe and of those leaving most still preferred the United States. 3 In Palestine, an Arab-populated country under the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, Zionist immigrants set up agricultural settlements on pur chased land. "From the very beginning," wrote Ariel Hecht, an Israeli analyst of land tenure in Palestine, "it was clear to the leaders of the Zionist movement that the acquisition of land was a sine qua non towards the realisation of their dream."4 Land was not acquired in a random fashion. The effort, wrote Israeli General Yigal Allon, was "to establish a chain of villages on one continuous area of Jewish land.'0 The Arabs, soon realizing that the immigrant's aim was to establish a Jewish state, began to oppose Zionism.6 As early as 1891 Zionist leader, Ahad Ha'am, wrote that the Arabs "understand very well what we are doing and what we are aiming at."7 In 1 90 1 the World Zionist Organization formed a company, the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), to buy land for Jewish settlers.8 According to its charter, the Fund would buy land in "Pal estine, Syria, and other parts of Turkey in Asia and the Peninsula of Sinai."9 The aim of the Fund was "to redeem the land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people."10 Fund director, Abra ham Granovsky, called "land redemption" the "most vital operation in establishing Jewish Palestine."11 The Fund's land could not be sold to anyone and could be leased only to a Jew, an "unincorporated body of Jews," or a Jewish company that promoted Jewish settlement. A lessee was forbidden to sublease.12 Herzl considered land acquisition under a tenure system that kept it in Jewish hands as the key to establishing Zionism in Palestine. "Let the owners of immovable property believe that they are cheating us," he wrote, "selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are The British Connection 5 not going to sell them anything back."13 The Fund thus kept land as a kind of trustee for a future state.14 The Fund purchased large tracts owned by absentee landowners. Most of this land was tilled by farmers whose families had held it for generations with possessory rights recognized by customary law. Re grettably for many of these families, in the late nineteenth century Turkey had instituted a land registration system that led to wealthy absentees gaining legal title to land, often by questionable means. After this occurred, the family farmers continued in possessionas tenantsand considered themselves to retain their customary right to the land, although that was no longer legally the case.15 At the turn of the century the better farmland in Palestine was being cultivated. In 1882 a British traveler, Laurence Oliphant, reported that the Plain of Esdraelon in northern Palestine, an area in which the Fund purchased land, was "a huge green lake of waving wheat."16 This meant that the Fund could not acquire land without displacing Arab farmers. A delegate to a 1905 Zionist congress, Yitzhak Epstein, warned: "Can it be that the dispossessed will keep silent and calmly accept what is being done to them? Will they not ultimately arise to regain, with physical force, that which they were deprived of through the power of gold? Will they not seek justice from the strangers that placed themselves over their land?"17 An element of the Zionist concept of "land redemption" was that the land should be worked by Jews. This meant that Arabs should not be hired as farm laborers. While this policy was not uniformly implemented, it gained adherence. In 191 3 Ha'am objected to it. "I can't put up with the idea that our brethren are morally capable of behaving in such a way to men of another people ... if it is so now, what will be our relation to the others if in truth we shall achieve power?"18 But Herzl viewed the taking of land and expulsion of Arabs as complementary aspects of Zionism. It would be necessary, he thought, to get the Arabs out of Palestine. "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.. .. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."19 Some Zion ist leaders advocated moving Palestine Arabs to neighboring coun Israel as a Fact 89 draw its support for Israel's membership in the United Nations and warned against any further idf offensives.20 Under that pressure Ben-Gurion withdrew the idf from Egyptian territory and canceled plans to take Gaza and the Sinai.21 At the same time Ben-Gurion withdrew the idf from southern Lebanon, where it had penetrated. The Litani River, an important water source, flowed through southern Lebanon. General Yigal Allon criticized Ben-Gurion's decision to withdraw, complaining that the Index Aaland Islands, Abdiilhamid II (sultan of the Ottoman Empire), 7 Abdullah (emir of Transjordan, King of
The American Historical Review, 1979
The Sanjak of Jerusalem was independent and directly linked to the Minister of the Interior in view of its importance to the three major monotheistic religions. It comprised the greater part of the territory of Palestine and more than three quarters of its population.(*1) The total number of villages was 672 with an estimated population of 457,5922 (*2) (not including the Beduins). The number of educational establishments in Palestine amounted to 956 most of which were primary and elementary schools. The overwhelming majority of the population was Sunni Muslim. Small numbers of Shi'a and Druzes existed, while around sixteen per cent of the population was Christian, mainly Greek Orthodox, Latin and Creek Catholics. Arthur Ruppin put the number of Jews living in Palestine in 1880 at 25,000. (*3) Both Jews and Christians were free to practice their religions and enjoyed a degree of autonomy through the Millet system.(*4) The majority of the Muslim population was engaged in agriculture and lived in villages. Apart from the peasants there was a considerable number of unsettled beduins, particularly in the vicinity of Beersheba. The urban population, both Muslim and Christian, was engaged in commerce, the crafts and modest agricultural industries, and some people held government posts. Prior to 1880 almost the entire Jewish population of Palestine lived in its Four Holy Cities': Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safad and Hebron. A sizable proportion of Palestine's Jewry was supported to a very large extent by the challukah system; the organised collection of funds in the Diaspora for the support of the pious scholars in Palestine. Never-the less, piety was not the sole characteristic occupation of Jews in Palestine. As early as 1851, the British Consul in Jerusalem reported that Jews are the majority of artisans-which included the glaziers, blacksmiths, watchmakers, tailors, shoemakers, book-binders.(*5) In addition they almost monopolised money-lending and the limited banking business in the country. Palestine and the Great Powers The effects of the decline of the Ottoman Empire were not confined to the growth of the power of the notables. As the Ottoman state became increasingly dependent on foreign protection vis a-vis other foreign powers as well as ambitious vassals, the European powers sought to establish direct links with the various populations of the Empire. Thus, France became the 'protector' of the Catholic communities in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, while the Orthodox Christians came under Russian protection. The British Government's interest in Palestine was aroused by Napoleon's Palestinian Campaign (1799) which posed a threat to the British overland route to India. When Mohammad Ali of Egypt occupied Palestine and Syria and defeated the Ottoman armies, even threatening Constantinople itself, the British Government adopted a course of military intervention and was instrumental in driving the armies of Ibrahim Pasha (son of Mohammad Ali) back to Egypt. It was during that period (1838) that the British Government decided to station a British consular agent in Jerusalem and to open the first European Consulate in March 1839. Mohammad Ali's advance into Syria opened the 'Syrian Question'. New British policies were formulated as a result. To begin with, Britain sought to emulate the French and the Russian approach in the area. It was during the 1840s and 1850s that the British Government, which had no obvious proteges of its own, established a connection with the Jews in Palestine, the Druzes in Lebanon and the new Protestant churches. reconciliation:"(*27) In 1895, after talks with Palestinian Arab merchants, Najib al-Hajj, the editor of Abu-al-Hol of Cairo accused the Jewish colonists of expropriating the Arabs' means of livelihood. Both , Rashad Pasha, the Ottoman Mutasarrif, and the educated Palestinians were quick to perceive that the Zionists sought to establish a Jewish State in Palestine. Yusuf al-Khalidi " viewed the Zionist movement with grave concern: he recognised the existence of a Jewish problem in Europe...but he also foresaw that a Jewish state could not be established in Palestine without hostilities and bloodshed because of Arab opposition".(*28) The Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Taher al-Husseini, fought Jewish immigration and agricultural settlement, and in 1897, he presided over a commission which scrutinised applications for transfer of land in the Mutasarrifiyya and so effectively stopped all purchases by Jews for the next few years."(*29) In 1900 there was a campaign of protest by means of signed petitions against Jewish purchases of land.(*30) Fears and Apprehensions In the same year, A Antebi, of the Jewish Colonial Association (a non Zionist institution) reported: The Zionists had made the Muslim population ill-disposed to all progress accomplished by the Jews. A year and a half later, illiterate Muslim peasants asked him, 'Is it time that the Jews wish to retake this country?' and in early 1902 the ill-will had spread to the Administrative Council, the law courts and government officials many of whom especially at lower levels were drawn from the population.(*31) Religious sentiments were an additional ground of resentment: Muslim sentiments in Jerusalem were reflected in the following statement made in 1903 by a young (and, it is reported not very fanatical) Arab: "We shall pour everything to the last drop of our blood rather than see our Haram Sharif fall into the hands of non Muslims".(*32) It is also worth noting that local government officials, Christians and educated Muslims, were interested in reading Zionist literature, and some of them even read Ha-Po 'el Ha-Za 'ir. This explains the state of alarm among the Arab population of Palestine. following the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, which resolved that Zionist efforts must be directed entirely towards Palestine. The Palestinians were not entirely alone in conceiving the implications of Jewish immigration and agricultural settlement in Palestine. Rashid Rida, one of the most prominent Islamic reformists and of the influential AI-Manar, recognised that the Jews were seeking national sovereignty in Palestine.(*33) In his book La reveil de la Nation Arabe (Paris, 1905), Najib Azoury warned that Zionists and Arab nationalist aspirations would come into conflict. Because Azouri called for Arab independence, copies of his manifesto had to be smuggled into Palestine as a result of which several Arab notables in Jaffa, Gaza and Ramla were imprisoned by the Ottoman authorities.(*34