The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (50 page)

One person who did resign his post was George Antonius, a descendant of a Palestinian Christian family that had settled in Egypt. He had returned to his homeland in 1921 and until 1930 served in the local Department of Education. Dr Crane of the American King– Crane investigating team freed him from the colonialist department that perpetuated ignorance among the Palestinians, and hired him at the academic institution he directed in the United States.

Al-Hajj Amin’s great faith in Antonius’ wisdom and experience was not always reciprocated: Antonius was wary of the religious fervor
that sometimes animated the
mufti
. However, at this critical time he agreed to help al-Hajj Amin and at his instigation opened a channel of communication with the Jewish Agency. He hoped its leaders would at least agree to limit Zionist activity, thereby preventing the bloodshed that might cost the
mufti
his position. But while Ben-Gurion was more accessible than the High Commissioner, he adamantly refused to make the smallest concession in matters he regarded as vital to the Jewish community – namely, unrestricted immigration and freedom to purchase every possible piece of land.
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In 1938 George Antonius wrote the finest essay written up to that point – some say to this day – about Arab nationalism. He was aware of the remarkable national awakening in Syria and Egypt during the 1930s, when young men laid down their lives for the national idea and urged conservative leaders to mount an all-out struggle against the British Empire. This nationalism had a dual nature, containing both a secular–liberal current and a religious–Islamic one. The situation in Palestine seemed similar, and as yet there was no telling who would lead the struggle. Antonius wanted to influence it in the liberal direction and hoped thereby to restrain Amin. But since his was a middle-class nationalism, and that of the Husaynis a notable nationalism, neither he nor others in the Palestinian leadership perceived that the driving force of the Palestinian uprising was the peasantry. The suffering of the
fellahin
and the laborers created the social-economic ground on which a national consciousness could grow. The Palestinian leadership did not make the effort to harness this power, which is one of several explanations for the failure of the revolt.

Only one of the Husaynis seemed to be aware of the peasants’ plight and to understand the close connection between it and the national crisis. The writer Ishaq Musa al-Husayni wrote a book, published in 1943, titled
The Memories of a Hen
that became a classic of Palestinian literature. Bits of the story were published in the local press in the 1930s, and the family heard about it during the years of the Great Revolt. The first to hear of it was Khalil al-Sakakini, who since his return to Palestine had become Ishaq Musa’s close friend. Sakakini – who adopted the nickname ‘Human being,
inshallah
’ – was still the family’s revered teacher. When he approved of the book, Ishaq Musa proceeded to publish it.

The story is the history of Palestine from the viewpoint of a hen. At first, the hen belongs to a peasant family and is free to walk about the yard at will, has enough food to eat and lives a comfortable life. She
observes that her peasant owners are content with what the soil produces, pay their taxes and do not fear the future. Then one day the hen finds that someone has set up barriers in the yard. To her amazement, she discovers that the peasants have sold their land to a rich stranger in order to pay their taxes. But the remaining land is insufficient to sustain the hen’s owners, and they begin to sell their other property. After being sold to a shopkeeper in a nearby town, the hen is put in a cage and loses her freedom. Though she does not starve, food is not regularly available – some days there is plenty, others she goes hungry. The cage begins to fill up with other hens, and at best she can find only a narrow corner for herself. The new hens are a source of trouble: they speak a language that the older hens do not understand and manage to grab most of the food in the cage. Gradually she learns to understand their language and realizes that they intend to throw out the hens that were there first. Fortunately, the owner of the cage comes to their help and prevents their expulsion, but the hen-heroine notices that the number of strange hens keeps increasing, and her life is filled with tension and anxiety about the future.

As an official in the mandatory administration, Ishaq Musa had to publish his criticism in the form of fiction, but no one failed to understand his meaning. The great Egyptian novelist Taha Hussein honored the book with an introduction that interpreted the parable.
⁷²
But no other Husayni produced a political document that expressed the sensitivity or insight that informed Ishaq Musa’s book.

Moreover, the main strategy adopted by the Higher Arab Committee – namely, the general strike – not only failed to break the British authorities in the summer of 1936, it actually worsened the plight of the villagers and urban workers. The British responded with great brutality, destroying parts of ancient Jaffa, including the old port, ostensibly for reasons of sanitation but in reality as a collective punishment. The Zionists’ watchfulness and energy were as impressive as always. As soon as the Port of Jaffa was destroyed, they sought and obtained permission to build one of their own. When it opened, it destroyed the livelihood of Palestinians in Jaffa.

A different approach to the unfolding crisis was offered by the Husayni branch in the city of Gaza, led by the mayor, Fahmi al-Husayni (1887–1940). Having received his superior and university education in Istanbul, Fahmi returned to Palestine to become a prominent lawyer and jurist. He issued Palestine’s first scientific legal journal, a
l-Hokouk
, in December 1923, which was published monthly
in Jaffa, in addition to Gaza’s first bi-weekly newspaper,
Sawt-al-Hak
, in October 1928.
⁷³

He was a man of many talents and of independent mind. He translated major legal works from Turkish into Arabic such as
Sharh Majallat al-Ahkam
(commentaries on the Codified Hanafi Commercial Law, prepared in four volumes by Allama Ali Haidar).
⁷⁴
He projected himself into politics later by winning Gaza’s first municipal elections in 1928, and became mayor of the city for two consecutive terms until 1938, the year of his forced exile by the British to Sarafand where he died a year later on 25 December 1940. As mayor, he is credited for implementing major road and infrastructure works, the establishment of the first girl’s school in Gaza, as well as the urbanization of a
l-Rimal
, Gaza’s current central district, extending the city’s borders to the sea front in an effort to thwart plans for Jewish colonization of the area.

Fahmi refused to take part in the strike, claiming it would only hurt the people of Gaza and not the government. The municipality of Gaza did not participate in the general strike of 1936 and continued to provide services to its citizens. On the other hand, he suggested a constructive approach, which was not adopted by the Jersualemites. In an open letter to Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, dated 10 May 1936, vehemently denouncing clandestine Jewish immigration and British sponsorship to the Zionist project, he put forward a series of proposals to achieve a peaceful solution to the Palestine question – in order to prevent “perpetual racial conflict” – covering
inter alia
the revocation of the Balfour Declaration, the proclamation of Palestine as a holy land where the rights of the three monotheistic religious communities are equally respected, the implementation of a single education system in Palestine, in addition to the appointment of an Arab government that includes Jewish members.
⁷⁵

His very perceptive understanding of the nature of the conflict was revealed later when he submitted a memorandum to the Peel Commission where he compared the plight of Palestinians to American First Nations.
⁷⁶

In the opinion of Awni Abd al-Hadi, the Nablusite leader of the pan-Arab party Istiqlal, al-Hajj Amin was being too passive. Having received the consent, perhaps even the encouragement, of the High Commissioner, he went in September 1936 to Transjordan to see Amir Abdullah. The Hashemite
sheikh
– who had astutely converted the southern Syrian province into a separate state in 1921, thereby
preventing its inclusion in the Zionist enterprise – was beginning to play an important part in the history of Palestine. His pro-British stance made him acceptable to the decision-makers in London. He agreed to intervene in the Palestinian crisis: he could hardly resist the chance of becoming the king of Palestine instead of the ruler of a desert kingdom with some 300,000 inhabitants. Moreover, the uprising in Palestine might have spread and infected his kingdom.

But Abdullah did not wish to appear to be the sole mediator, and so he enlisted two more kings: his kinsman, the young King Ghazi of Iraq, and his rival Ibn Saud of Arabia. Al-Hajj Amin had earlier sought the help of Ibn Saud to no avail – the British representative in Jeddah had advised Ibn Saud to turn down al-Hajj Amin’s appeal.
⁷⁷
Confronted with this triple intervention, al-Hajj Amin willingly agreed to call off the strike and to respond to a British attempt at conciliation. Britain allowed the Arab kings to mediate while it continued to use military force against the rebels and strikers, thereby expanding the local conflict into a regional one.

In November 1936, Lord Peel, a liberal politician and the son of the Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, was appointed to head a commission of inquiry that would seek a solution to the problem of Palestine. It seems that the British government had been shaken by the fact that more Jews and Palestinians had been killed in a single month than during the entire period of the mandate. Though al-Hajj Amin called off the strike, he was not in position to cooperate with the commission. At first he tried, but he was insulted and withdrew. He was offended by the fact the commission met in the former Palace Hotel, which had been the apple of his eye before the King David Hotel opened. But chiefly he was angered by the attitude of Lord Peel, who must have forgotten that his purpose was to mediate, not to humiliate.

On 14 January 1937, al-Hajj Amin came to the hotel accompanied by many of the Higher Arab Committee. Said Qabani, one of the country’s best interpreters, was assigned to him personally. From the moment he began to testify, Lord Peel needled him and challenged each and every one of his arguments, beginning with his claim that in 1922 General Allenby had promised the country independence and ending with the avowed 1930 British policy that was never implemented.
⁷⁸

Consequently, the Higher Arab Committee boycotted the commission. The reasons for the boycott were, of course, more profound. The committee’s position was clear and would remain unchanged when the United Nations sent a Commission of Inquiry of its own in 1947: the
cessation of immigration and land purchases were not subjects for negotiations but preconditions for negotiations, and the very willingness to negotiate should be seen as a concession on the part of those who were the original inhabitants of the country dispossessed by outside invaders.

But while boycotting the Peel Commission, al-Hajj Amin continued to seek channels of communication with the Zionists. This time it was Musa al-Alami, a member of a renowned family and a high official in the mandatory judiciary, who acted as intermediary. His contacts on the Zionist side were associates of Moshe Shertok (Sharett), the head of the political department, and were implicitly approved by Mapai (the dominant Zionist labor party). The contacts that took place in 1936 were intended to achieve a suspension of Zionist activity and a cessation of Palestinian resistance that would lead to substantive negotiations about the country’s future.
⁷⁹

But this round also ended fruitlessly. In the meantime, al-Hajj Amin found himself, inadvertently and perhaps unwillingly, the sole leader of Palestinian politics. Some of the leaders of the opposition had left the country because of the violence. Public opinion was no longer confined to the press – people were now forming groups to fight the strikebreakers and individuals suspected of having a moderate attitude towards Zionism. The remaining members of the committee resigned in protest at the
mufti
’s ‘mildness’. This criticism, and presumably the heated atmosphere, caused even Jamal to demand that the
mufti
take firmer action against the British.

This time it was Amin who was more cautious and who occasionally reined in Jamal’s fighting spirit. Jamal’s main activity was pressuring apolitical members of the family to join the national struggle. He persuaded the economist Muhammad Yunis to take on the directorship of the Agricultural Bank (a subsidiary of the Arab National Bank) and to join in on the effort to save Palestinian lands. He also convinced educator and journalist Abd al-Salam III to devote much of his time to national education and journalism.

Jamal remained a cautious leader even at the end of 1936, but not in his relations with opponents within the camp. One of the ugliest passages in the history of Palestinian internal politics began when the Nashashibis adopted a more extreme rhetoric and accused the
mufti
of cowardice. The newspaper
Al-Difaa
wrote:

Antara and Hatim al-Tay [two famous Jahiliya poets] met on the road. Hatim asked Antara, ‘What is courage?’ Antara
replied, ‘Put your finger between my teeth and take my finger between your teeth. You bite hard and so will I.’ They both began to bite down with all their might. ‘Stop, enough!’ shouted Hatim. ‘Courage is patience,’ said Antara. ‘If you had waited a moment until I cried out with pain, you would have been a greater hero than I. But you cried out first, so I am a greater hero than you.’ Oh, Arab! Your finger is in your enemy’s mouth and his finger is in yours. Be Antara and wait.
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