History of the Palestinians

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.The Palestinian people (Arabic: الشعب الفلسطيني, ash-sha'ab il-filastini) are an ethnonational group with family origins in the region of Palestine.

al-Muntada al-Adabi, dominated by the Nashashibi family, militated for the promotion of the Arab language and culture, for the defense of Islamic values and for an independent Syria and Palestine.

[6] When the First Palestinian Congress of February 1919 issued its anti-Zionist manifesto rejecting Zionist immigration, it extended a welcome to those Jews "among us who have been Arabicized, who have been living in our province since before the war; they are as we are, and their loyalties are our own.

"[4] According to Benny Morris, Palestinian Arab nationalism as a distinct movement appeared between April and July 1920,[6] after the Nebi Musa riots, the San Remo conference and the failure of Faisal to establish the Kingdom of Greater Syria.

[7][8] When Zionism began taking root among Jewish communities in Europe, many Jews emigrated to Palestine and established settlements there.

[9] Though there had already been Arab protests to the Ottoman authorities in the 1880s against land sales to foreign Jews, the most serious opposition began in the 1890s after the full scope of the Zionist enterprise became known.

It was clearly a source of strength to them [Turks], rather than weakness, that they were cut off altogether from their age-long ineffective conflict with the Arab.

A flood of poor Jewish immigrants poured into the promised land and was speedily involved in serious conflicts with the Arab population.

The Arabs had been consolidated against the Turks and inspired with a conception of national unity through the exertions of a young Oxford scholar, Colonel Lawrence.

In contrast the text included six articles (2, 4, 6, 7, 11 and 22) with obligations for the mandatory power to foster and support a "national home" for the Jewish people.

The British however made acceptance of the terms of the Mandate a precondition for any change in the constitutional position of the Palestinian Arabs.

The Jewish Agency was entitled to diplomatic representation e.g. in Geneva before the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, while the Palestinian Arabs had to be represented by the British.

From 1922 to 1947 the annual growth rate of the Jewish sector of the economy was 13.2%, mainly due to immigration and foreign capital, while that of the Arab was 6.5%.

[22] In ruling the Palestinian Arabs the British preferred to deal with elites, rather than with political formations rooted in the middle or lower classes.

For instance they chose Hajj Amin al-Husayni to become Grand Mufti, although he was young and had received the fewest votes from Jerusalem's Islamic leaders.

[24] Hajj Amin was a distant cousin of Musa Kazim al-Husainy, the leader of the Palestine Arab Congress.

According to Khalidi before the mid-1930s the notables from both the al-Husayni and the al-Nashashibi factions acted as though by simply continuing to negotiate with the British they could convince them to grant the Palestinians their political rights.

Khalidi ascribes the failure of the Palestinian leaders to enroll mass support to their experience during the Ottoman period, when they were part of the ruling elite and were accustomed to command.

The younger generation also formed the backbone of the organisation of the six-month general strike of 1936, which marked the start of the great Palestinian Revolt.

The death of the Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam at the hands of the British police near Jenin in November 1935 generated widespread outrage and huge crowds accompanied Qassam's body to his grave in Haifa.

The 2 main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and Ben-Gurion had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation.

The British officer Charles Orde Wingate (who supported a Zionist revival for religious reasons[40]) organized Special Night Squads composed of British soldiers and Jewish volunteers such as Yigal Alon, which "scored significant successes against the Arab rebels in the lower Galilee and in the Jezreel valley"[41] by conducting raids on Arab villages.

[citation needed] The Jewish militias the Stern Gang and Irgun used violence also against civilians, attacking marketplaces and buses.

Significantly, from 1936 to 1945, whilst establishing collaborative security arrangements with the Jewish Agency, the British confiscated 13,200 firearms from Arabs and 521 weapons from Jews.

Thirdly, the British responded to Arab opposition with the White Paper of 1939, which severely restricted Jewish land purchase and immigration.