Palestine: A Modern History (ص 5)

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عنوان

Palestine: A Modern History (ص 5)

المحتوى

12 Setting for a Conflict: 1881-1908
that Jews are the .majority of artisans — which included ‘the glaziers,.
blacksmiths, watchmakers, tailors, shoemakers, book-binders.* In
addition they almost monopolised money-lending and the limited
banking business in the country.
Under Turkish rule Palestine was dominated by the leading Arab
families who, principally on the strength of their long established local
position, were recruited into the governing class of the Ottoman Empire.
It was a kind of feudal systemr consisting of a small number of land-
owning families and a backward peasantry, whereby the ‘Ulama’
(interpreters of Muslim laws and traditions) occupied a strong position,
for. they alone could confer legitimacy on the Ottoman gdévernment
acts.
In his excellent study, Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables,
Mr Albert Hourani analysed the relations of mutual dependence
between the monarch and the notables; a concept which had far-reaching
implications not merely under the Ottomans but throughout the period
under study:
The political influence of the notables rests on two factors; on the
one hand, they must have access to-authority, and so be able to
advise, to warn and in general to speak for society or some part of it
at the ruler’s court; on the other, they must have some social power
of their own, whatever its form and origin, which is not dependent
on the ruler and gives them a position of accepted and ‘natural’
leadership.® 4
The Ottoman attempt to reform administration — the Tanzimat
(1856) — tended to strengthen the position of the notables rather than
limit their role: )
... Notables became ‘Patréns’ of villages, and this-was one of the
ways in which they came to establish their claims to ownership over
them.”
i
Palestine and the Great Powers
The effects of the decline of the Ottoman Empire were not confined to
the growth of the power of the notables. As the Ottoman state became
increasingly dependent on foreigh protection vis-a-vis other foreign
powers as .well as ambitious vassals, the European powers sought to
establish direct/links with the various populations of the Empire. Thus,
France became the ‘pfotector’’ of the Catholic communities in Syria,
wore sme
wre vmer ei So ee
Setting for a Conflict: 1881-1908 13
Lebanon and Palestine, while the Orthodox Christians came under
Russian protection. The British Government’s interest in Palestine was
aroused by Napoleon’s Palestinian Campaign (1799) which posed ‘a
threat to the British overland route to India. When Mohammad ‘Ali of
Egypt occupied Palestine and Syria and defeated the Ottoman armies,
even threatening Constantinople itself, the British Government
adopted a course of, military intervention and was instrumental in
driving the armies of Ibrahim Pasha (son of Mohammad ‘Ali) back to
Egypt. It was during that period (1838) that the British Government
decided to station a British consular agent in Jerusalem and to open
the first European Consulate in March 1839.
Mohammad ‘Ali’s advance into Syria opened the ‘Syrian Question’.
New British policies were formulated as a result. To begin with, Britain
sought to emulate the French and the Russian apprdach in the area. It
was during the 1840s and 1850s that the British Government, which
had no obvious protégés of its own, established a connegtion with the
Jews in Palestine, the Druzes in Lebanon and the new Protestant
churches. ‘Behind the protection of trade and religious minorities there
lay the major political and strategic interest of the powers:"®
From its start, British presence in Palestine was associated with the
promotion of Jewish interests. Albert Hyamson stated, *. . this question
of British protection of Jews became, however, and remained for many
years the principal concern of the British consulate‘in Jerusalem’.? Ina
dispatch to the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Viscount
Palmerston explained why .the Sultan should encourage Jewish
immigration to Palestine over and above the material benefits:
... the Jewish People if returning under the Sanction and Protection
and at the Invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any
future evil Designs of Mehemet Ali or his successor.!° ~
The Rise of Political Zionism
Modern political Zionism could be said to have been the outcome of
the failure of the era of liberalism and equality which had been
heralded by the French Revolution, on the one hand, and the growth of
nationalist and colonialist ideas and aspirations in nineteenth-century
Europe on the jother. For in spite of Rothschild’s ascendancy in
European finance, that of Disraeli (a converted Jew who gloried in his
origins) in British politics and that of Lassalle in the leadership of
German socialism, the Haskalah, the ‘Enlightenment’ or Jewish
assimilationist movement, was not a complete success. This partial

تاريخ

1978

المنشئ

Abdul-Wahhab Kayyali

مجموعات العناصر

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