Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (24 page)

And yet, perhaps in reaction to the image of the Renaissance man as the gold standard for the Ottoman parliament, another candidate cautioned that the electorate needed to maintain realistic expectations. “Yes, the representatives should be of the highest morals and intelligence, with vast knowledge about the country and its condition and laws, liberal in his thinking and known for promoting the general interest over private interest. [But] some people expect the representative to be not a human but a king, attributing him with such traits as are only to be found [in fairy tales].”
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Real patriots, liberal and experienced, should be chosen, not idealized. However, in contrast to the dynamic discussion taking place in some cities and provinces, other regions dispensed with the firsttier elections entirely, instead designating notables or tribal chiefs and further revealing the very real limits of reform and active citizenship in the early months after the revolution.
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In terms of the imagined work of the parliament, the platform of Salim al-Jaza'iri, running for a seat in Damascus, is illuminating. Al-Jaza'iri promised reforms along three lines: liberal political reforms, administrative restructuring, and economic and infrastructure development. In terms of political reforms, al-Jaza'iri committed himself to freedom of speech, action, and press, amending unjust clauses in the Ottoman law books (which he left tantalizingly vague), and reforming the military conscription laws “to be fair to the whole nation.” Administratively, al- Jaza'iri proposed revamping the Ottoman military “so that it can defend the honor of the nation and homeland,” eliminating unnecessary
governmental positions and returning their salary to the treasury, and reforming the municipalities, provincial councils, police and gendarme “in accordance with the principles of the civilized countries.”
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Al-Jaza'iri's economic and infrastructure development platform was much more extensive. He called for tax cuts to promote commerce and agriculture; redistribution of land “based on fairness and equality” between landowners and peasants according to cadastral surveys; promotion of river commerce; protection of domestic industry and promotion of exports; reformation of banking laws based on equality; promotion of trade via railroads and the sea; reformation of the imperial currency; standardization of weights and measures; reformation of the postal service; establishment of tribal schools “to enlighten their thought, to increase their numbers in civilization, and to settle them eventually”; and establishment of agricultural and vocational schools in every province. (Despite his ambitious and detailed platform, however, al-Jaza'iri failed in his parliamentary bid that fall.)

In Jerusalem, according to French consular reports, over one hundred men stood for election in the first tier, including twenty Christians and Jews. Alongside members of the city's leading Muslim families, including at least six members of the al-Khalidi family (‘Uthman Zaki, Jamal alDin, Jamil, Shawkat, Nazif, and Ruhi), three members of the al-Husayni family (Husayn Hashem, Kamil, and Sa'id), Rajib al-'Alami, and ‘Uthman al-Nashashibi, candidates included members of the city's middle class—like Jewish schoolteacher David Yellin, Jewish bank official Yitzhak Levi, the Greek-Orthodox Dr. Photios, and the Roman Catholic lawyer Nejib Abousouan. In addition, apparently there was a political organization of peasants from the villages outside of Jerusalem.
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Unfortunately very little material survives about the election campaign of any of the Jerusalem candidates. Reports do indicate that the elections featured several elements of a modern political campaign, with stump speeches on the campaign trail and backroom negotiations for support. Khalil al-Sakakini mentioned in his memoirs a visit by two (unsuccessful) parliamentary candidates, Jamil and Nazif al-Khalidi, to discuss their platform and ask for support. Another report from the Ramle district indicated that political candidates went from village to village to attract electoral support.
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The Sectarian Prism II: The Millet in the Voting Booth

Empire-wide, voting took place over several weeks. One foreign traveler noted that the night before the election in Istanbul, town criers went throughout the city's neighborhoods accompanied by drummers reminding
voters that “it was their duty as good citizens of a free country to go on the morrow to the appointed places and drop their voting papers in the ballot boxes.”
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Various other sources describe the day of the elections in festive terms: processions were led by units of the Ottoman military band playing patriotic songs with infantry troops lending a dignified aura; after them were carriages draped with Ottoman flags transporting the voting urn and public officials; and religious leaders, citizens, and schoolchildren marched alongside en route to the voting site. In one Istanbul district, Muslim, Greek, and Armenian schoolgirls dressed in white and adorned with flowers stood next to the voting urn to “protect” it with their unity and purity.
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Voting took place in the courtyards of select neighborhood mosques, churches, and schools, likely chosen because they could accommodate sizable crowds. Local elections commission members sat close by to verify the voters' eligibility. In some locales, there were complaints about eligible voters being turned away deliberately, and these accusations took a sectarian turn. For example, in Istanbul, one foreign observer reported that Greeks complained that “they were treated like ticket-of-leave men
reporting themselves to the police. They were subjected to endless crossexaminations as to their age, business, and qualifications, the accuracy of their replies was disputed, and the validity of their certificates was denied. So, under one pretext or another, many of them were excluded from the polls.”
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In contrast, another foreign observer who was admittedly unsympathetic to the Greek community accused them of committing voter fraud by using the documents of dead men or émigrés, or of voting more than once. He also accused the Greeks of adding unnecessary drama to the elections, causing riots in Izmir and Istanbul at the behest of the Greek government in Athens. “It was noticeable that when a man of another race was not permitted to register his vote on account of some irregularity in his papers or other disqualification, he went away quietly, whereas the Greeks in like circumstances stayed to protest and bluster until they formed crowds of disappointed voters who blocked the way to the urns, and by so doing considerably delayed the course of the election.”
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In the Jerusalem district, voting took place over several weeks in October 1908. The city of Jerusalem had six electoral districts, based more or less according to adjacent neighborhoods, and voting sites were located in each of the districts. After two weeks, the winners of Jerusalem's first
round of elections, who would become second-level electors, were announced, consisting of four Muslims and two Jews: Shawkat al-Khalidi, Ishaq Abu Sa'ud, Taher ‘Umar, Jamil al-Husayni, David Yellin, and Yitzhak Levi.
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Many first-level voters—if they bothered to show up at the polls at all—had displayed confessional loyalty at the voting booths. Indeed, surviving fliers from several Jewish electoral districts indicate that Jews were expected to support other Jews; members of the Jewish community were alarmed by the possibility that the deep rivalry between two leading Jewish politicians, Yitzhak Levi and Albert Antébi, could split the Jewish vote. Such appears to be the case in a heavily Christian district where Jurji Zakaria and Todor Yanko split the votes between them.
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For their part, the Christians displayed the weakest political weight and unity, and not a single Christian candidate made it to the second round. Even in districts that were evenly split demographically between Muslims and Christians, the Muslim candidates succeeded in winning.

In other words, as we see in
Table 3.3
, despite their absolute demographic majority in only one district of Jerusalem (I), the city's Muslims yielded disproportionate electoral weight in three other districts (2, 3, and 5), displacing Christian majorities in one district (2) and a Jewish majority in two other districts (3 and 5). Stated differently, in districts 2 and 4 an apparent Christian demographic lead did not correspond to electoral weight; likewise for the Jews in districts 3 and 5.

At the second level, it became even clearer that without establishing alliances with more powerful candidates, non-Muslim candidates had little chance of influence; as a result, negotiations and agreements across communal lines became more important. One member of the Jaffa Jewish community noted that while the Jews from Jaffa and the surrounding Jewish colonies supported Levi's candidacy, their numbers were too insignificant in the current electoral system. “The chances for the election of a Jewish delegate are quite minimal, according to the present mode of election and taking into account the small number of the Jewish voters, meanwhile we must unite forces for a Jewish candidate and seek to prevent a splitting of the Jewish vote.”
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In order to help Levi's chances, Yellin dropped out of active consideration (his Ottoman Turkish was also considered not good enough), but Levi's long-time political rival, Albert Antébi, stubbornly refused to mobilize support on Levi's behalf. As well, it seems that some votes were bought by the Zionist movement for their preferred candidate, although they turned out to be inconsequential in the final count.
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Numerous accusations and complaints briefly swirled around the election. ‘Uthman al-Nashashibi, one of the top three vote earners in Jerusalem, was accused of securing false votes and thus was disqualified from
the election. Another complaint was registered that the temporary deputy governor in Gaza, Hafiz Bey, had pressured voters in his district to elect him to the parliament.
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In addition, a ministorm erupted when one Jewish newspaper,
The Deer
(also of the Ben-Yehuda family), published a negative report in its Arabic-French supplement about Sa'id al-Husayni, calling him an anti-Semite and a fanatic. The article reportedly “caused indignation among the voters and peasants”; complaints were lodged against the paper by al-Nashashibi, and two additional influential families demanded right of reply in the local Greek newspaper. The Jewish newspaper was forced to publish a retraction on October 23, where the correspondent Mendel Kremer wrote that “Sa'id Effendi has only ever been kind to us [the Jews], and he will be an honorable representative in the parliament.” In fact, an internal report of the Zionist organization had concluded that while al-Husayni was an enemy of Zionism and of the immigration of foreign Jews to Palestine, he was no “Judenfeind” and had respect for Ottoman Jews.
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