The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty

by Ilan Pappe

  When he came out after testifying before the commission, Jamal was surrounded by Jewish journalists, most of whom he knew, and was as always revitalized by such an encounter. ‘What will be the outcome of the investigation?’ the journalists asked. But Jamal preferred to discuss the situation on the ground, and he made a prognostication that would not be realized: ‘If you believe that a Hebrew state will come about, you’re mistaken. If you think that an Arab state will come about, you are again mistaken. Things will go on as before. If only the two sides, the Arabs and the Jews, had any sense, they would reach some sort of agreement.’ ‘Is it possible to reach an agreement?’ asked one journalist. ‘I believe it is,’ Jamal replied, ‘but on one condition – not with the existing Jewish Agency.’ ‘Nor with the existing Higher Arab Committee either,’ another journalist remarked. ‘Perhaps,’ replied Jamal on a conciliatory note. That was his last friendly encounter with the country’s Hebrew press.46

  Jamal was mistaken: the Jewish state did come about, while the Anglo-American commission became a footnote in history. Except for one of its recommendations – to enable the immigration of another 100,000 Jews – it defined the difference between the British and American positions. Bevin made one or two further attempts to keep his promise to solve the conflict, then gave up. He convened another Anglo-American commission, resulting in the Morrison–Grady Report, which recommended dividing Palestine into cantons, such as those in Switzerland, an idea that both sides rejected outright.

  To conduct the negotiations, the Arab League now appointed a body that gradually displaced the Higher Arab Committee and barred it first from taking part in the diplomatic struggle for Palestine and later from preparing for the military campaign. The Syrian resort of Bludan reappeared on the map of Palestinian history. But whereas al-Hajj Amin had been an honored participant there in 1937, in June 1946 the cause of Palestine was appropriated by the Arab League. When the League met in Sofar, Lebanon, to discuss the Palestinian struggle a few months later, it did not even bother to invite al-Hajj Amin. His dismay can only be imagined, given that he had formed a close association with the Arab League when he settled in its birthplace of Cairo.47

  Jamal was more welcome in Bludan, though not more effective. He demanded that the Arab states provide military support for a revolt if an Anglo-American solution were to be forced on Palestine (based, he assumed, on the creation of an independent Jewish state). The representatives of Syria and Iraq declared their full support. Since the end of World War II, Syria had been in favor of aggressive action, though it did not support the Husaynis. The Iraqi delegates were two-faced. They supported the ambition of Transjordan’s King Abdullah, the kinsman of their Hashemite king, to take over all or part of Palestine, assuming he could reach an agreement with the Zionists. At the same time, in pan-Arab gatherings, whether secret or open, they were the keenest supporters of comprehensive military action.48 Jamal tried to impress the delegates by claiming, falsely, that he had recruited 30,000 young men for the revolt, but it is doubtful anyone believed him.

  This diplomatic effort did yield some results that inspired false hopes in the Palestinian public. In January 1947, after years of conflict, the British government recognized the Arab Higher Committee (a few months later the committee was also recognized by the United Nations). But the gesture was almost meaningless, since over the following months, hit by a severe winter of austerity and economic crisis, the British government resolved to quit Palestine. The Palestinian leadership tried frenziedly to devise ways of dealing with the imminent power vacuum. The Jewish Agency, by contrast, had been preparing for this juncture since the 1920s. Jamal directed the team that struggled to create a Palestinian state out of nothing to replace the British Mandate. Perhaps he had the necessary qualifications, but he had neither the means nor the time in which to do this.

  Nevertheless, he carried out some impressive operations. At his initiative, the Arab Higher Committee set up the Arab Treasury, the supreme financial institution of the national movement. It solicited funds from the Arab world and sought to nationalize the nation’s capital. It was a good replica of the Zionist financial structure, but it was founded too late. The pace of organization had become more dynamic in May 1946, when al-Hajj Amin began to play an active part in these moves. Under al-Hajj Amin’s direction, the committee began to function as a government-in-waiting, with ministries and collective responsibility. The general headquarters was in Cairo and the local headquarters in Jerusalem. Such a structure, which might have suited a European government in exile, only weakened the Palestinians’ ability to act.49 Al-Hajj Amin was more effective in obtaining and storing arms in various places in the Arab world.

  The main burden fell on Jamal, who carried on as best he could. In April 1947, he nationalized the People’s Fund, Istiqlal’s private finance ministry headed by Ahmad Hilmi, a dim personality who would become the prime minister of a symbolic Palestinian government in Gaza at the end of 1948. But Jamal was unable to nationalize Musa al-Alami’s Project for Saving the Land, and the organization of funds and infrastructures faltered.

  After intense efforts, in June 1947 Jamal succeeded in unifying the two main youth movements, the Husaynis’ Futuwah and Nimr Hawari’s al-Najada. He placed Mahmud Labib, a retired Egyptian officer, at the head of the unified organization. But in August, Labib carried out a fairly successful operation against Jewish youth in Tel Aviv, and the British authorities expelled him. Hawari also harmed the common enterprise by reaching an understanding with the Jewish Agency. He then served the Hashemites until 1950 and finally settled down in Israel and became a justice of the peace. But all the operations together could not create a Palestinian fighting body, build a firm financial foundation for taking over the power bases in the country and sustain the diplomatic campaign.

  The greatest obstacle on the diplomatic front was that, since February 1947, the British government had adopted the basic Zionist argument that a vast gulf existed between Jewish ‘progress’ and Palestinian ‘backwardness’. In their eyes, this made it impossible, if only on social grounds, to let the Palestinians run the country – except under Jewish dominance and outside supervision. In vain Jamal tried to prove to the mandatory government that illiteracy in the Arab population had greatly diminished and that the Palestinians could no longer be described as an ignorant population by comparison with the Jewish community. Had he not been a member of a notable family, and had he been conversant with the ideology and discourse of nationalism, Jamal might have explained to the British government that ‘progress’ and ‘illiteracy’ were irrelevant to the question of who owned the country.50

  Being outside Palestine, al-Hajj Amin probably could not help Jamal to impose his authority. The family – that is, the Tahiri branch – mistakenly believed that it stood at the center of events. In fact, al-Hajj Amin had to resort to violence to impose his authority and that of his family. Once again, though on a smaller scale, accounts were settled and enemies eliminated in the urban power bases that al-Hajj Amin valued. The murder of Sami Taha, the Palestinian trade unionist, has already been mentioned. Most of the actions were not as violent and consisted mainly of jostling to dominate the national committees. (These bodies ran the local struggle after having made their appearance during the great uprising.) Al-Hajj Amin tried to create new committees to replace them everywhere but succeeded in creating only three, and they did little to stop the Zionist determination to ‘cleanse’ Palestine.

  One victim of the account-settling was a member of the family, Fawzi Darwish al-Husayni. Fawzi favored collaborating with the Zionists against the British and had founded a party called Filastin al-Jadidah (‘New Palestine’) for this purpose. In his opening speech before a mixed Palestinian and Jewish crowd at the party’s founding, he said:

  Experience has shown that the official policy of both sides has brought nothing but harm and suffering to both. The Jews and the Arabs used to live together in amity and cooperation. I myself went along for many years wi
th my cousin Jamal al-Husayni. I took part in the events of 1929, but over the years I realized that this road leads nowhere. The imperialist policy is fooling both of us, Arabs and Jews, and there is no other way but to unite and work shoulder to shoulder for all our sakes.

  Fawzi was manipulated by Zionists such as Haim Kalvarisky and by more genuine peace seekers such as the leading members of Brith Shalom. The latter pressured the British police to find Fawzi’s killers – believed by everyone, including the police, to be members of his family. The day before he was murdered, Fawzi had made a brave speech attacking Jamal for his uncompromising attitude towards the Jewish community:

  They will no doubt incite against us, perhaps even attack us, but if we can demonstrate cooperation with the Jews, useful and productive cooperation, the Arabs will follow us. Because many of those who are following Jamal are doing so from lack of choice.51

  On 10 March 1947, the day Fawzi was killed, the newspaper al-Wahada, which favored Jamal, published a strong attack on all who cooperated with ‘the alien invaders who had come to Palestine after 1918’.52

  Fawzi stood out because he had chosen political cooperation with the Jews, but individuals who had personal relations with Jews were not affected. For example, Safwat’s son, Fuad al-Husayni – an attractive man with whom many women, Muslim, Christian and Jewish, fell in love – had a long affair with a woman who would later become the wife of a prominent Israeli journalist. Their relationship was well known yet did not provoke particular annoyance or censure.53

  These internal dissensions came at the expense of the most important campaign in the history of the Palestinians – in the diplomatic arena of the United Nations. The UN had been in existence for two years when it took up the question of Palestine. It was still an inexperienced organization wholly dominated by the United States. In May 1947, it handed the problem to a committee of experts, but unfortunately these experts knew nothing about the subject and some of them were indifferent to it. The UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) sat on the issue from May until November and brought forth the Partition Resolution. In 1988, the Palestinians would still regard this resolution as a crime committed by the world against them: partition meant the recognition of a Jewish right to part of Palestine.

  Palestine: United Nations Partition Recommendation, 29 November 1947

  Fawzi would have accepted it, perhaps even Musa Kazim, but not Jamal or al-Hajj Amin. Had the Nashashibis been a major political power they might have supported it. But once it was known that Britain was about to quit, they attached themselves to King Abdullah, who thought that dividing the country between himself and the Jews was a good idea. The leadership of the Jewish Agency eagerly welcomed the proposition, and the absence of a formal agreement between them was due to Ben-Gurion’s territorial aspirations to rule over most of the country, Abdullah’s concern not to seem to betray the pan-Arab interest and the atmosphere of uncertainty before the outbreak of hostilities.

  The two sides agreed informally that Abdullah would stay out of the territory of the Jewish state, and in return the Jewish state would let him annex large chunks of Palestine. This was how the West Bank was born, and the Jewish state was spared a direct attack by the Arab world’s best-trained army. Pettiness and religious sensibilities prevented them from agreeing to the partition of Jerusalem – which they would do after the war – but otherwise their understanding prevailed.

  In February 1948, after Bevin’s main advisor on Palestine, Harold Beeley, was sacked, the British government also supported this agreement without reservation and directed the commanders of the Arab Legion to uphold it. The British, the Hashemites and the Zionists all objected strenuously to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, believing that it would become ‘the mufti’s state’. Thus al-Hajj Amin ended up as the bête noire of the three most powerful factors in the struggle for Palestine.

  But worse was already happening on the ground in February 1948. That month a small group of Zionist leaders and military commanders, under the guidance of David Ben-Gurion, finalized a master plan for the massive expulsion of the Palestinians from any part of Palestine that they deemed to be the Jewish state. In February they evicted by force five villages, and in March they had already produced ‘Plan Dalet’, a systematic blueprint for the ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine. Neither al-Hajj Amin nor Jamal was aware of this or paid attention to what happened on the ground. It seems also that even if the Palestinians had taken a different position or a different Palestinian leadership had been in place, they would not have weakened the Zionists’ determination or undermined their ability to cleanse Palestine of its indigenous population.

  The only way Jamal and al-Hajj Amin could counterbalance Hashemite ambitions was to stick to Egypt. Jamal relied wholly on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As early as May 1946, when the movement launched a branch in Jerusalem, Jamal, as vice president of the Higher Arab Committee and al-Hajj Amin’s deputy, honored them with his presence. In a way, the effort reaped some success: the Brotherhood provided half of the fighting force sent by Egypt into Palestine on 15 May 1948. However, this was not enough to avert the catastrophe.54

  Jamal represented the Palestinians before the UN investigating committee that came to the country a few days after the ‘Exodus affair’ made international headlines. The Exodus was a ship that came from Europe with many Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in a PR campaign meant to embarrass the British for their anti-immigration policy. As expected, the ship was refused entry and made its way back to Germany, a symbolic return that enraged and galvanized Western public opinion.

  Jamal had to vindicate the Palestinians’ moral position at a time when world public opinion tied the fate of the Holocaust survivors – like the passengers caught between hope and despair on board the Exodus – to the solution of the problem of Palestine. The case of the Exodus persuaded many about the Zionist argument that the Holocaust proved the necessity for a Jewish state in Palestine. Jamal was not at his best, perhaps because of the charged atmosphere. He also made the mistake of allowing the committee to invite a separate Christian Palestinian representative – as though there were two Palestinian peoples in the country. At least Henry Qatan, a Jerusalem lawyer, made a better presentation than Jamal.55

  As we have seen, it was the Arab League that waged the diplomatic campaign on the future of Palestine, and it systematically prevented al-Hajj Amin from taking part in it. Al-Hajj Amin represented an independent Palestinian position, and the League, particularly its general secretary Azzam Pasha, used the opposition and the Hashemite king of Transjordan to undermine the mufti’s efforts to obtain substantial support for the struggle in Palestine. As noted, Abdullah had his own agenda and was supported by Britain, Iraq and the Jewish Agency.

  Britain’s diplomatic moves were all carefully coordinated with the Arab governments rather than the Palestinian leadership. Consequently, the Palestinian leadership objected on principle to the Anglo-American delegation and to the Grady–Morrison Report and Bevin’s plan, which was based on it. It regarded them as attempts to undermine al-Hajj Amin’s legitimate claim to represent the Palestinians. This was also the background for al-Hajj Amin’s refusal to accept the UN Partition Resolution.

  The British effort to exclude the mufti went furthest in January 1947 when, in a last attempt to solve the conflict on the basis of Bevin’s plan to divide Palestine into cantons, it convened a meeting in London to discuss the proposal and barred al-Hajj Amin and his representatives from attending. When this conference failed, the British government decided to quit Palestine for good.

  When the League first became involved in the Palestinian issue following Britain’s decision to return the mandate to the UN, al-Hajj Amin was not worried. In September 1947, the league met in Sofar and gave al-Hajj Amin 180,000 pounds sterling to buy arms, but then it all turned into a prolonged nightmare as the League systematically undermined al-Hajj Amin’s standing. His diminished prestige in the eyes of the league m
embers was demonstrated in the seventh session of the League’s council, which met in Aley, Lebanon, to shape their policy on the UNSCOP and Britain’s imminent departure from Palestine. Not only did they fail to invite al-Hajj Amin, he was the subject of a minor debate instigated by King Abdullah and the Iraqi delegates about his ‘subversive activity in Iraq and his part in the revolt of Rashid Ali al-Gaylani’. Feeling that things had gone too far, al-Hajj Amin went to Aley without invitation, stormed into the council session and was allowed to stay.56

  This was one of the lowest points in al-Hajj Amin’s career. Like others, he heard the Arab intelligence experts’ reports about the strength of the Jewish community and warnings that the Arab world would be unable to present a serious military challenge to this power unless it mounted its maximum military force. He learned that the Arab statesmen preferred the extension of the mandate above all other political solutions. He was dismayed to find that his rival Abdullah had won, because he had been the only one to act on the diplomatic front. Al-Hajj Amin’s own ally, Egypt, was less than eager to send an army into the battlefield – and without Egypt he was lost.

  In Aley it became evident that it was mainly Hashemite Iraq and Transjordan that cooperated in limiting al-Hajj Amin’s role, sometimes with regional support. The first independent Syrian government after French colonial rule ended, being a fairly democratic republican regime, was more loyal to Palestine than were the Hashemites, and more loyal than it has been given credit for in the history books. But it was not loyal to al-Hajj Amin – it pinned its hopes on Fawzi al-Qawuqji. As we have seen, al-Qawuqji was a leader of the Syrian uprising against France who during the 1930s took part in pro-Palestinian activities and directed the pan-Arab volunteer recruitment for Palestine. He was obedient to Damascus and therefore was presented as the mufti’s rival. He was even appointed commander of the Arab Salvation Army – a volunteer army created to fight for Palestine.