Palestine: A Modern History (ص 7)

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Palestine: A Modern History (ص 7)

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16 Setting for a Conflict: 1881-1908» \
: : : ia an
This nascent natioralist: feeling did not express itself in any
tet : ion
particular ‘form of anti-Jewishness. While: civil strife and tensi
i in his first
between thé‘ various religious. sects ‘wefe :not infrequent, in his fi
report on the state of the Jews in Palestind (1839) Vice-Consul vous
informed Viscount Palmerston that the Jews were being permitte
live ‘in the Mussulman Quarter“’and. 9
for safety, he would ask ‘it sooner ina
4
_. were a Jew here to fly qu it soo
Mussulman’s house than in that of a Christian.
In 1853 the British Ambassador in Constantinople reported that a
: AA . ;
Jew was-admitted to the meetings of the’Mejlis (Couhcil) o
%
four years‘earlienr? 4 3! 3!
‘ Rt, t
The Shape of Things to Come _
Howevet, with’ the advent of Jewish- apricultyral settlements inspired bY
“Zionist ideas of 4 national return -td Zion, ‘a definite change: ne
character of the Jew in Palestine occurred. The aa re me
i “ comingito* ine to pray“and die,
ld pious Jews’ coming'to Palestine
determined young Jews coming to live and establish a jewish sie wt
i i ts found reliable backing and’su
their-own. The new Jewish settle ba eae
i Y ¢ iid: and from 1896,-Baron ae:
in Baron Edmond de- Rothschild; ‘Baron Oe ne
Jewish»: Colonisation Association began to interest itself in Tewis
nt in Palestine.
rea he net increase in the Jewish population of Palestine betwee’ 189°
arid 19,10*amounted to -55,000. Almost from the bepinning the n
settlers caused friction and offended the: local Poe haeenernen
i Shic and oP:Atab ways. For example, ;
eee eth t ast Aasha regarded the incursions’of Arab
; }
miliar with the custom of M
shepherds with: théfr flocks as trespass rand expelled theri forcibly
v2
Somme’ of the wealthylando
immigrants at profitable prices. How
from the land caused serious clashes.
some instances lands were sold by the govern
the peasants were unable ‘to pay their tM
peasants fell Victims to usurers who in‘turn'so
immigrants.”? ft was not surprising,
evicted Arab peasants: should, as earl
established Jewish colonies in protest
away from them.” The apprehensions 0
g
ms wners weré Willing to sell land to the new
ever, ‘the eviction of the peasants
22 It is interesting to note that in
ment to the Jews because
d bn other-occasions the
thé lands to the Jewish
under those circumstances, that the
y as 1886, attack the newly
against having their villages taken ]
f the peasants were shared by
Setting for a Conflict: 1881-1908 ‘ awe 17
the small predominantly Christian, class of tradesmert'and professionals
whor feared the threat.of‘e¢onomic competition which was‘to follow.
The friction between the peasants and the Jewish colonists, among
other things, might have prodded the authorities towards imposing
restrictions on Jewish‘immigration. In March 1887, the’British Consul
in Jertsalem réportedthat, ‘for some time past the local Turkish
authorities!.. -have been inhibiting foreignews from coming to reside
in Jerusalem, or in Palestine genérally.’25 In 1890, the Arab notables of
Jerusalem -protested to Constantistple. against Rashad Pasha,. the
Mutasarrif of Jerusalem, for his leanings*towards the Jews. The, protest
was followed, on 24 June 1891, by a petition ‘organised byathe’Muslim
notables in Jerusalem to the Grand Vezir that Russian Jews should be
prohibited from entering Palestine and .from acquiring land there’.?®
We shall see later that this first protest spelled out the two cardinal
demands which ‘all .ensuing ‘protests against Jewish irhmigration: and
colonisation reiterated; namely, the, prohibition of Jewish timmigrdtion
and land‘ purchase in Palestine. "
: The conflict éver evicting, Arab‘ peasants from newly bought Arab
lands continued during the last decade of the nineteenth’centiry.
Mandel described the pattern of reactions among the rural population
of Palestine towards the new colonies as being one ‘of ‘initial
resentineht, suppressed or open hostility, giving way in time to
resignation’ and @utward reconciliation’.2” In 1895, after -talks with
Palestinian Arab merchants, Najib al-Hajj: the editor of Abu-dl-Hol ‘of
Cairo accused the Jewish colonists-of ékpropriating the Arabs’-means of
livelihood. ob ap : !
Both Rashad Pasha, the Gttomari Mutasarrif, and the‘ eduéated
Palestinian$‘were quick to perteive that the Zionists sought to establish
a Jewish ‘State in Palestine. Yusuf al-Khalidi ‘vidwed the'Zionist' nfove-
_ ment with grave ‘concern: -he feco} frised -the existencé -of'a Jewish
ft problem in Europe. . but he also forésaW that'a Jewish state‘could not
f. be established-in Palestine without hostilities and bloodshed because of
I, «Arab opposition’.”® 1
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhamtnad Taher al-Husseini¢-fdught
y Jewish itnmigration "and agricultural settlement, and -iné 1897, ‘he
presided over a commission which scrutinised applications for transfér
| Of land in the Mutasarrifiyya and so effectively stopped all purchases by
B Jews for the next few years.”? In 1900 there was a campaign of protest
i. by means of signed petitions against Jewish purchases of land.*°
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تاريخ

1978

المنشئ

Abdul-Wahhab Kayyali

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