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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
A building on Jaffa Road in the New City of Jerusalem
Courtesy Les Vogel
The British Mandate and the intensification of Jewish
settlement in Palestine significantly altered Palestinian
leadership structures and transformed the socioeconomic base of
Palestinian Arab society. First, British policy in Palestine, as
elsewhere in the Middle East, was based on patronage. This policy
entailed granting wide powers to a small group of competing
traditional elites whose authority would depend upon the British
high commissioner. In Palestine, Samuels granted the most important
posts to two competing families, the Husaynis (also seen as
Husseinis) and the Nashashibis. Of the two clans, the Husaynis were
given the most powerful posts, many of which had no precedent under
Ottoman rule. In 1921 Samuels appointed Hajj Amin al Husayni, an
ardent anti-Zionist and a major figure behind the April 1920 riots,
as mufti (chief Muslim religious jurist) of Jerusalem. In 1922 he
augmented Hajj Amin's power by appointing him president of the
newly constituted Supreme Muslim Council (SMC), which was given
wide powers over the disbursement of funds from religious
endowments, fees, and the like.
By heading the SMC, Hajj Amin controlled a vast patronage
network, giving him power over a large constituency. This new
patronage system competed with and threatened the traditional
family-clan and Islamic ties that existed under the Ottoman Empire.
Traditional Arab elites hailing from other locales, such as Hebron
and Haifa, resented the monopoly of power of the British-supported
Jerusalem-based elite. Furthermore, as an agricultural depression
pushed many Arabs westward into the coastal cities, a new urbanbased elite emerged that challenged the Nashashibis and Husaynis.
Tension between members of Arab elites was exacerbated because
Hajj Amin, who was not an elected official, increasingly attempted
to dictate Palestinian politics. The competition between the major
families and the increased use of the Zionist threat as a political
tool in interelite struggles placed a premium on extremism. Hajj
Amin frequently incited his followers against the Nashashibis by
referring to the latter as Zionist collaborators. As a result,
Palestinian leadership during the Mandate was fragmented and unable
to develop a coherent policy to deal with the growing Zionist
movement.
The other major transformation in Palestinian Arab society
during the Mandate concerned the issue of land ownership. During
the years of Ottoman rule, the question of private property rights
was never fully articulated. The tenuous nature of private property
rights enabled the Zionist movement to acquire large tracts of land
that had been Arab owned. The sale of land to Jewish settlers,
which occurred even during the most intense phases of the
Palestinian Revolt, reflected the lack of national cohesion and
institutional structure that might have enabled the Palestinian
Arabs to withstand the lure of quick profits. Instead, when
increased Jewish land purchases caused property prices to spiral,
both the Arab landowning class and absentee landlords, many of whom
resided outside Palestine, were quick to sell for unprecedented
profits. In the 1930s, when Palestine was beset by a severe
economic depression, large numbers of Arab peasants, unable to pay
either their Arab landlords or taxes to the government, sold their
land. The British did not intervene in the land purchases mainly
because they needed the influx of Jewish capital to pay for Jewish
social services and to maintain the Jewish economy.
Data as of December 1988
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