One of the revealing facts in Oren Kessler’s book Palestine 1936 is that notwithstanding that publicly railed against the practice, many Palestinian leaders sold land to Palestinian Jewish institutions, who settled increasing numbers of Jewish immigrants from central and eastern Europe, and Russia. In the 1920s, land purchases doubled to 1.2 million dunams, the Turkish measurement, “At least a quarter of the Palestine Arab Congress Executive sold land to Jews, including its president and former Jerusalem mayor, Musa Karim Husseini, and the mayors of Jaffa and Gaza,” Kessler, a journalist, writes. He notes that of the eight members of the Arab Higher Committee, the AHC, at least four sold land. This fact alone shows that Palestinian Arab identity was not sufficiently strong enough at the time to have restrained Palestinian Arab leadership from putting their own self-interest aside for their national aspirations.
The book also details how there were moderate Palestinian Arabs who were willing to accept the British Peel Commission plan of 1937 which gave the Arabs 80% of Mandatory Palestine and the Jews 20%, the first two state solution. Rashib Nashashibi and allies including the mayors of Jaffa, Haifa, Tulkarem and Nablus and King Abdullah of Jordan at first accepted the plan, but did an about face under pressure from the extremist Mufti of Jerusalem who would tolerate no compromise. Nashashibi changed his mind after he became the target of death threats and saw a string of his allies killed off and King Abdullah faced pressure from other Arab states. Thus, an opportunity to have a “free Palestine” in 80% of the land was missed. As the Mufti told the Peel Commission he would rather starve than have less than a whole loaf. The Jewish leadership accepted the Peel Commision Plan.
There are many who claim that the Jews are white colonizers who were in cahoots with the British to develop what was then known as Palestine. But the book Palestine 1936 makes it clear that with the rise of Hitler the British were not willing to take steps to save the Jews of Europe by allowing them to immigrate to Palestine. The British may not have fully foreseen the Holocaust, but the British white paper of 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine. If the Jews and the British were acting concertedly to colonize Palestine, as Palestinians claim, it would only have made sense for the British to have flung open the gates of Palestine to absorb as many Jews as possible to save them from Hitler. This simply did not happen, because the Jews were not agents of the British colonial power nor were they protected by them.
At the London conference of early 1939, with war looming with Germany Malcolm MacDonald, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, effectively walked back the Balfour Declaration’s promises of a “national home for the Jewish people,” restricting Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine.. If Britain lost and Germany won, Kessler concludes Jews would have been slaughtered or expelled, just as they had been 2000 years earlier in Roman Times. (In fact, the Mufti had plans for A Final Solution for the Systematic Murder of Jews in Palestine and the rest of the Middle East, envisioning huge crematoria for Jews in the Dotan Valley Near Nabbus- http://jcpa.org/al-aksa-libel-advocate-mufti-haj-amin-al-husseini/#sthash.nYRtkqCg.dpuf )
Kellsler’s book examines the 1936-39 Arab Revolt against the British and increased Jewish immigration led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini, and concludes that this revolt backfired and set the stage for the 1948 Nakba But mid 1939, rebel leaders had been killed by the British or by Opposition bands. The figures Kessler advances are generally accepted by historians on all sides. In the three-year period, some 500 Jews were killed in dozens of attacks, most often by rebel insurgents backed by Hajj Amin. From 5,000 to 8,000 Palestinian Arabs were killed mostly by British forces. Many of these were leaders who would have led Arab Palestinians in the 1948 war with the Jews but were now dead. Most importantly at least 1,500 Arabs, including deputy mayors and leading Opposition family members from the Nashashibi clan were killed by Hajj Amin’s gangs for allegedly working with Jewish and British officials, or for being were more moderate and willing to compromise and back a partition plan. This fearful atmosphere meant educated members of the Palestinian elite and poor farmers alike dared not express any opposition to the Mufti.
In addition, over 40,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs, especially the political, commercial and landed elite, decided to flee the violence and anarchy of the three Great Revolt years for neighboring Arab countries. The exodus of the elite lead to disunity and unpreparedness for the 1948 war, a decade later.
Further, “The economy was crippled,” as a result of the revolt Kessler writes. “Crops had dried up as landowners fled and peasants were required to provision, feed, and fund thousands of armed men. Thousands of Arabs lost government jobs due to reduced public revenues and doubts over their allegiance…Forcing the British retreat from the Balfour Declaration was the Arab uprising’s singular, undeniable achievement. But the political, social, military and economic fabric of Arab Palestine was savagely, irreparably torn.” Kessler quotes Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi who notes : “The Nakba — the ‘catastrophe’ of their military drubbing, dispossession, and dispersal — was all but a foregone conclusion…The terrible events that bookended the year 1948 were no more than a postlude, a tragic epilogue to the shattering defeat of 1936-39.”
As Kessler concludes the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt left Palestinain Arabs not united, their economy crippled and caused the exodus of their elite. It left the Jews of Palestine united and better organized, with a port in Tel-Aviv, The Mufti of Jerusalem’s extremism had backfired. None of this relevant history will be in the Nakba exhibit in the Canadian Human Rights Museum, which will paint Jews with a single brush as white colonialists who caused the displacement of Palestinians in 1948. But had the Mufti of Jerusalem, accepted the 1937 Peel Commission plan and not terrorized the Palestinian Arab moderates, history would have been very different and the Palestinians would have had their own viable state almost 90 years ago.
