A History of Zionism (40 page)

General security deteriorated sharply in Palestine after the revolution of 1908 against the sultanate. Jewish settlements in lower Galilee were frequently attacked, and there were clashes between Jews and Arabs in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem. The situation was even more critical in Galilee. Much of this, however, was part of the general lawlessness which spread as a result of events in Constantinople and the general weakening of Turkish authority. The Jews were not the only victims. The German settlements also came in for many attacks until Berlin intervened and dispatched a warship to Haifa.
†
But the way in which the Arab newspapers commented on these attacks showed that there was reason for concern. The Zionists had at first regarded the activities of Nagib Nasser as an isolated phenomenon. But
Al Karmel
was joined by other newspapers of a similar character, such as
Falestin
in Jaffa (founded in 1911), and
Al Muntada
in Jerusalem, which began to appear in 1912. Virulent pamphlets and books were published and the Arab press outside Palestine began to open its pages to articles about the Zionist danger.
‡
Leading Jewish citizens such as David Yellin expressed apprehension: ‘Fifteen years ago the Muslims hated the Christians, while their attitude towards the Jews had been one of contempt. Now their attitude towards the Christians has changed for the better and to the Jews for the worse.’ A group of leading citizens wrote to Ruppin from Haifa that ‘we are alarmed to see with what speed the poison sown by our enemies is spreading among all layers of the population.’ We must fear all possible calamities. It would be criminal to continue preserving the attitude of placid onlookers.
*

In part, the deterioration was the fault of the new immigrants, who did not know the language of the Arabs and made no effort to understand and respect their customs. There is no doubt that their communal living, their radical political and social ideas, and the ostentatious equality they observed between the sexes among the new immigrants, shocked and dismayed most Arabs. Their ways must have appeared to them indecent and immoral. There were other complaints: in their new settlements the Jews refused to employ Arab guards but tried to defend themselves against the incursions of thieves and robbers. In the past, Palestinian Jews had tried to cope with such emergencies by invoking the help of the foreign consuls, or by paying
baksheesh
to the local Turkish authorities or to the headmen of the neighbouring Arab villages. The new guardians and their association, the ‘Hashomer’, made many mistakes, partly because few of them had mastered the Arab language, partly because they were appalled by the cowardice of the old yishuv when it came to standing up to the Arabs. They wanted to impress on their neighbours that they belonged to a different breed: if they erred, they preferred to err on the side of toughness. They did not regard themselves as a race of supermen; they did not want to be feared; they did not despise the Arabs; they simply wished to be respected. They expressly excluded from their ranks those who claimed that ‘the Arab understands only the language of the whip’.
†

Relations in the cities, the real focus of Palestinian politics, were even less satisfactory. In 1908 the first elections to the Turkish parliament took place. The Arabs were in a strong position, electing about a quarter of all the deputies.
‡
The Palestinian Jews tried to have a representative of their community elected but there were not enough of them, and those with Ottoman citizenship and the right to vote were even fewer. Once they realised that they had virtually no prospects, they decided to establish an alliance with Muslim Arab groups on the assumption that these would think Jewish support preferable to Christian Arab support, and that those elected would feel some obligation towards their Jewish electors. Palestinian Jews acted with local Arab dignitaries in establishing ya Jerusalem committee of ‘Union and Progress’, the Ottoman State Party. However, the Arabs soon founded their own political organisations, such as the Decentralisation Party, in which there was no room for the Jewish community as such, even though a few individual Jews were permitted to join. The Arab members of the Ottoman parliament, in their speeches and in their articles in the Turkish press, frequently conjured up the Zionist danger. Demanding an end to immigration and land purchase, they accused Turkish ministers and the ruling party in general of deliberately ignoring the separatist activities of the Zionist settlers who had established para-military organisations, openly displayed their national flag, were singing their national anthem, and even maintained their own courts.
*
The Turkish authorities did not take the Arab complaints too seriously, but to placate them a number of anti-Zionist measures were promulgated as a result of this campaign.
†

When the next elections came round in 1912, the representatives of the Zionist executive in the Turkish capital recommended the Jewish electors to abstain from voting, since there was no chance of a candidate well disposed towards the Jews being elected. Palestinian Jewish leaders, on the other hand, argued that such abdication was dangerous, and suggested instead collaboration with the ruling Turkish party, ‘Unity and Progress’.
‡
Similar views in favour of Zionist-Turkish cooperation were voted by Max Nordau in his speech at the seventh Zionist congress. When the Arabs realised that they might have gone too far in antagonising the Zionists they tried to reassure Dr Jacobson, half suggesting the possibility of an Arab-Jewish alliance to be directed against the Turkish overlords.

It is doubtful whether there was anything of substance in these noncommittal Arab approaches. But four years later the idea of an Arab-Jewish alliance was again advanced by Arab spokesmen, this time with more conviction. The Zionists found themselves at this stage in the unaccustomed position of being wooed both by the Young Turks, who after their defeat by Italy and in the Balkan war were in desperate need of allies, and by the Arab nationalists, who were dissatisfied with the policy of the Young Turks. Salim Najar, a Syrian Arab and one of the leaders of the Decentralisation Party, wrote in a letter to Sami Hochberg that since the Turkish leading circles were out to crush the national ambitions of both Arabs and Jews, the moment had come for the two peoples to get together and establish a common front.
*

Hochberg, who was born in Bessarabia in 1869 and went to Palestine in 1889, was one of the founders of Nes Ziona; later he worked as a teacher in Tiberias. Eventually he settled in Constantinople, where he was active among the Young Turks. He founded the newspaper
Jeune Turc
which was subsidised by the Zionist executive and helped to promote the Zionist cause in the Turkish capital.
†

Hochberg reported that many Arab nationalists, while uneasy about Jewish immigration, were apparently inclined to enter into some form of alliance with the Zionists.
‡
According to Hochberg’s report, the Cairo committee of the Decentralisation Party was the one most likely to accept in principle Jewish immigration into Palestine and an Arab-Zionist
entente.
It was agreed between Hochberg and the leaders of the Decentralisation Party that the Arabs would tone down their attacks on Zionism, while the Zionists would publish sympathetic accounts of the Arab national movement in their own newspapers and in the European press. This agreement was regarded as the first step towards a wider and more comprehensive agreement to be reached at some future stage.

In June 1913 the first Arab congress was held in Paris. Again Hochberg, who was lobbying there on behalf of the Zionists, reported some goodwill. However, there was dissension within the Arab camp and Hochberg was given to understand that they would prefer an informal understanding since an open alliance would provoke the Turks and thus harm both the Arab and Zionist cause. Several Arab spokesmen, such as Ahmed Tabara and Ahmed Mukhtar Bayhoum, argued that there was enough room in Palestine for both Arabs and Jews, but others were more reserved in their attitude. It was argued that the Jews were not supporting the Arab national movement, and in the end the congress refrained altogether from commenting on the ‘Jewish issue’ in its resolutions. Following Hochberg’s initiative, Jacobson met Zahravi, who had acted as president of the congress, but no agreement was reached. The Turks had meanwhile dispatched the secretary of the ‘Union and Progress’ Party to Paris, who promised the Arabs that most of their demands would be fulfilled. As a direct result of this Arab interest in a pact with the Zionists dwindled rapidly.
*

The negotiations did not, however, break down completely. The Arabs realised after a few months that they had been unduly optimistic in their appraisal of Turkish intentions and there was a renewed interest among them in negotiations with the Zionists. Dr Jacobson, after talking to various leaders in Constantinople, summarised Arab demands under three heads: they wanted financial help for Arab schools and for public works, and guarantees against the dispossession of the fellaheen. The Jews, on the other hand, insisted on the cessation of the anti-Zionist campaign in the Arab press and of the petitions against immigration and land purchase.
†
But the Arab leaders in Cairo and Beirut had only limited freedom of action, for the majority of the Palestinian Arab leaders wanted a clearer and firmer stand against Jewish immigration, and were in no mood for an
entente.
Torn in opposite directions, the Egyptian and Syrian Arab leaders were considering various policies
vis-à-vis
Zionism without for the time being adopting any of them. The Zionist executive and its representatives in the Turkish capital were equally undecided. They were eager in principle to reach an agreement with the Arabs but they did not want to arouse Turkish suspicions. Nor did they have any clear idea what exactly to offer the Arabs.
‡

When Nahum Sokolow visited Beirut and Damascus in 1914, he was introduced to leading local nationalists, who expressed interest in a high level conference. It was decided that such a meeting should take place in July 1914 near Beirut. The attitude of the Turkish authorities was not clear. The governor of Beirut seems at first to have favoured direct Jewish-Arab talks, but later he advised the Zionist leaders against them. Preparations were made in Palestine for the meeting. The Jewish delegation was to include Kalvarisky, Dizengoff, Shabtai Levi, David Yellin and other leading figures. But the composition of the Arab delegation discouraged the Zionists. Of the ten Arab delegates appointed, only three were thought to be in favour of an Arab-Israeli
entente.
At the same time the list included several leading anti-Zionists such as the editor of
Al Karmel.
Nor did they like the agenda suggested by the Arabs, which put the onus on the Jews to prove that their intentions were not detrimental to the Arab cause. The Jewish delegates decided in their preliminary talks in Jaffa and Haifa to postpone the meeting with the Arabs, ‘but to do so in such a way as not to sever all contact with them’.
*
The outbreak of war a few weeks later put an end to these exchanges.

Was it lack of enthusiasm, and shortsightedness, on the part of Sokolow and the Palestinian Zionists which made them miss a great chance of reconciliation with the Arabs? The prospects for agreement were not exactly brilliant. A temporary agreement could have been reached if the Zionist leadership had been able and willing to invest substantially in the Arab national movement. The Zionists could have talked to Syrian and Egyptian leaders, but these were unable to enter any binding agreement against the desire of the Palestinian Arabs. Even if an agreement had been reached in 1914, it could not possibly have survived the storm of war. Once Turkish rule was overthrown, the struggle for Palestine would have become a free-for-all and the Arab-Zionist conflict would have reappeared with a vengeance.
†

Dr Thon, one of the Zionist representatives in the 1914 negotiations, relates that an Arab contact (Nasif el Khaldi) told him at a critical juncture in their talks: ‘Gardez-vous bien, Messieurs les Sionistes, un gouvernment passe, mais un peuple reste.’
‡
Sound advice but not really very novel. Four years earlier, at the time of the first elections to the Turkish parliament, Dr Thon’s superior, Arthur Ruppin, had received exactly the same instructions from the president of the Zionist World Organisation, David Wolffsohn, who wrote that the aspirations of the local population had to be taken into account: ‘The government party in Constantinople comes and goes but the Arab population of Palestine remains and it must be our first axiom to live in peace with it.’
§

It is not even certain whether Dr Ruppin needed such advice, for he was less likely than other Zionist leaders to underrate the importance of the Arab question. He had explained to the Zionist executive more than once that the goodwill of the Ottoman government was not of greater importance to Zionism than the goodwill of the local Arabs: ‘We must not purchase the goodwill of the one by incurring the enmity of the other.’
‖
In the presence of so much understanding, then, and even goodwill, why was it impossible to find a
modus vivendi
with the Arabs?

The conflict had various causes, although the one most frequently mentioned at the time was not in fact the most important. The number of fellaheen dispossessed was small. Only a tiny percentage of the land acquired by the Zionists was bought from small peasants; most of it came from the large landowners. One-quarter of all Jewish land in Palestine (the Esdraelon valley) was in fact acquired from one single absentee landlord, the Christian Arab Sursuq family which lived in Beirut. Various British committees of enquiry (such as the Shaw and Simpson committees) discovered in the 1920s that a large landless class was developing in the Arab sector and that more and more land was coming into a few hands. But this was not mainly the result of Jewish immigration. A similar tendency could also be observed in Egypt, and in other countries which were gradually coming into the orbit of the modern capitalist economy.