This is a paper I wrote for a Middle Eastern Politics class in university. I believe it might be of some interest to some readers.
Many conflicting ideologies and movements throughout history have been ubiquitous in the Middle East; the same Middle East that was the birthplace of the three Abrahamic religions, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The advent of the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire brought about critical questions that needed action and answers right away. For instance, the then victorious imperial powers, Britain and France, had to answer the question of how the former Ottoman territories would be divided between them. One of the key zones of conflict was the area known as Palestine that was administered by the British, and two separate movements sprung up during the British mandate era, both nationalistic and reactionary in nature, and both that eventually became violent even if they did not necessarily subscribe to violent teachings or ideologies. In this paper, I will compare and contrast between Arab nationalist and Zionist use of political violence in Palestine before the formation of Israel and during the mandate era. Despite their starkly contrasting ideologies and sworn animosity, the violent and coercive methods used by both Arab nationalists and Zionists, in addition to the rationale and motives behind these acts, were inherently similar.
The Middle East was unceremoniously divided into arbitrary borders by two men sitting in an office somewhere in Europe, with countless promises made to the local inhabits of the lands, not necessarily with the intention of being kept. For example, the aforementioned region, Palestine, was a hot zone for conflict and balanced on a very thin line of tolerance due to the religious value of the land to all three Abrahamic religions. Palestine was a land populated by Muslims, Christians, and Jews at the start of the 20th century but, following Zionist undertakings, the demographics were drastically forced to change.
‘His Majesty’s government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’[1]The infamous document known as ‘The Balfour Declaration’ planted the seeds of a conflict that has not been resolved to this day. The division of borders has only further contributed to the frayed social equilibrium and intensive Jewish migration. [2]
In order to secure their own interests and answer the so-called “Eastern Question” that arose with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain took up three key diplomatic initiatives; the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration.
The author of the Balfour Declaration claimed that, “The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”
The quote above shows the solemnness of the International Zionist Movement and the lengths to which it was willing to go to secure a homeland for the Jews. Ironically, it was a form of ultra-nationalism with hints of Euro-Fascism and perceived religious justifications that very much resembled the fascism that had once powered the holocaust. Both movements were adamant and uncompromising when territory and homeland came into question, and these were issues that became pre-cursors for both Arab and Jewish resentment and political violence against the British.
The first and foremost comparison between Zionism and Arab Nationalism regarding their use of political violence is actually in the nature of both movements. Both are, in their essence, reactionary. For instance, Zionism originated in the wake of growing anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe by the 18-19th centuries. Jews in Europe that had begun to feel unsafe and marginalized opted for and supported the idea of a Jewish nationalist movement. As for Arab nationalism, in Palestine, Zionism awakened a dormant sense of Palestinian national identity and “Arabness,” which had a ripple effect on other parts of the Arab world. Arabs saw it as a necessary duty to defend Palestine and her people as for her symbolic value as Arab national land.[3] “Arabness and Jewishness were formulated as nationalist concepts in historically unprecedented ways.”[4] The use of political violence by both groups in Palestine involved a game of ‘One-upmanship’ between them.
One case is that of the Arab bandits on the road near Tulkarm and Nablus ambushing a bus in order to rob its passengers. They specifically targeted the Jews on the bus, murdering one and seriously injuring the other two. In retaliation, two Jews went into a random isolated Arab farmer’s hut and murdered both him and his wife, which in turn sparked a riot in Jaffa. Arabs were fed up with the continued British support of Jewish immigration into Palestine.[5]
Arab nationalists started a nationwide insurgency with the help of Syrian, Iraqi, and Trans-Jordanian Arabs, who felt that Arabs were being marginalized and that the British largely favored the Jewish population. Under the leadership of a notorious man named Fawzi al-Qawukji, the Arab force started targeting Jewish and British targets in Palestine, “They threw up barricades, cut telegraph wires, threw bombs into crowded markets and attacked the IPC pipelines.” The insurgency later spread to night-raids on British positions to the point where the British were so undermanned that the streets belonged to the Arab forces during the night.
“Poorly informed, under-strength, ill-equipped and frightened of landmines, the British forces were on the defensive, Patrolling ceased at nightfall and, once the rebels owned the night, the police abandoned their remote outposts because these had become death traps”[6]
The British, following the arrival of new troops by the end of 1936 lead by Sir John Dill, started to aggressively crack down on Arab nationalists and rebels, which further escalated the political violence in Palestine. Orde Wingate, a young army officer, took up the initiative to create ‘special night squads’ made up of mixed ranks of British soldiers and local Jewish recruits. Wingate and his extremely violent night squads saw some initial success, but the overall incompetence and overarching ambition ultimately led to the failure of the program. The British realized that the only way to keep Palestine stable was through political, and not military, means. The colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald put it as such,
‘The real problem in Palestine is not a military problem but a political problem. Our troops can restore order; they cannot restore peace.’[7]
Around this time was when the Jewish militia group Haganah had a schism, as previously Jewish communities and groups practiced a policy of self-restraint called the ‘Havlagah’. The Haganah militia was initially set up to protect Jewish settlements exclusive, avoiding offensive measures. However British failure in counter-insurgency in curtailing Arab nationalists, and the perception that Havlagah was a defeatist mindset by many who believed that ‘a best defense is a good offense lead to the schism. The Haganah split up into elements that rejected self-restraint and purely defensive policy to take offensive action.
The Schism lead to the formation of a rogue element within the Jewish paramilitary called the Irgun Zvai Leumi, and the Irgun practiced the exact same methods Arab rebels and nationalists had practiced a few years prior but escalated it to target bigger crowds and aggressively seeking out Arabs/Muslims to take fulfill their bloodlust.
“On 6 July two bombs were thrown in Haifa market, killing twenty-one Arabs and six Jews… On 15 July another bomb, on David Street in Jerusalem, killed ten Arabs and wounded thirty more… Another bomb exploded in Haifa market on the 25th. Fifty-three Arabs were killed and thirty-seven wounded.”[8]
The Jews and Arabs exploded into an escalating tit-for-tat political violence in which each side respond with greater violence and aggression. The Times reported in 26 July, 1938 that Palestine was a nightmare in which the police ‘ must protect themselves against assassins, moderate Arabs from extremists, Jews against Arabs, and now innocent Arabs from well-planned attacks which almost everyone considers to be Jewish reprisals’[9]. The British government could not quell the violence because each attack triggered a response from the opposing group and vice versa, thus creating a loop of constant violence. The outbreak of war 1939 was the only thing that forced the Jews to stop and wait, but in the meantime they had learnt that when dealing with British, violence seemed to work.
After the war anti-British sentiment grew on both sides, especially the Zionist factions which had gathered resentment due to British policies in attempting to slow down Jewish immigration to placate the Arabs, and a new surge of political violence sprung up, but this time the Haganah was also participating against the British.
The Jews already had knowledge of British policy thanks to the French intelligence, and in October 1945 the chairman of the Jewish Agency implored David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Haganah to cooperate with the other rogue non-restraint Jewish militia to start a combined Jewish militia against the British and Arabs. The Zionists had fallen into full advocacy for violence and military methods instead of the moderate political. As the high commissioner Lord Gort highlights there was really no voice left for moderation, the general discourse was taking the independence instead of waiting for it to be given to them. The high commissioner, Lord Gort wrote the following about the situation in Palestine post-WW2 “I am afraid Dr Weizmann and his counsels of moderation are out of fashion and that Ben-Gurion and the wilder men have taken control”[10]
The Zionist and Arab nationalist movements not only shared same methods in political violence but also shared very similar motives for conducting the violence. Both the Zionists and Arab nationalists felt that a political solution was near impossible. They had both placed hope in British authorities only to be let down and had a perceived idea of injustice.
The Arabs were deceived by the British with Balfour declaration and Sykes-Picot agreements, and were cynical with any dealings with the British. The Balfour declaration was the root cause of the political problem in Palestine and its effects could not be reversed. The reason for Arab nationalist political violence was the fact that they perceived British policies were unjust and were effectively against their interests. They saw the British on the side of the Zionist movement and unbothered by Arab interests, and thus saw violence as the only solution. The Arabs quickly learned that political violence and sabotage got the British interested in dealing and possibly compromising to them on certain things. For example the British slowed down Jewish immigration to placate the Arabs that risen in revolt against accelerated Jewish immigration and displacement of Arabs.
The Zionists had a similar motive, evidently like the Arabs they strived for an independent state of their own in the same region. The Balfour declaration gave the Zionists and later Jews the motivation and legitimacy to establish a state in the British mandate of Palestine. The Balfour declaration as cited above gave the Zionists a means to project their Zionist agenda, and the letter itself was deceitful in it’s very nature. When observed even with the slightest detail the declaration is well worded to ignore the political rights of the existing communities. “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country”[11]The letter mentions that the civil and religious rights of existing ‘non-Jewish’ communities shall not be infringed but it does not include the political rights of the existing non-Jewish communities.
Zionist motives for political violence were intrinsically the same as the Arabs and also akin to the Arab idea of perceived injustice. Similarly to the Arabs the Zionists felt like Britain had abandoned them and saw a future only through armed insurrection, a political solution was fundamentally outdated after nearly a century of aggression and no indicators for the possibility of Britain withdrawing from the mandate. A member of the Stern Gang, a Zionist extremist paramilitary group, wrote:
“The basic principle was that the more British officials, soldiers and policemen were eliminated, the sooner the foreign occupier would have to leave our land”[12]
In Conclusion, the period from the Balfour declaration 1917 to the formation of Israel in 1948 Palestine was in a constant state of turmoil due to conflicting interests between the Arabs, Jews and the British. Both the local Arabs and the immigrating Jews had polar interests that they dully defended, and starting first with the Arab reaction to the British mandate and Jewish migration into Palestine then with the Jewish retaliation which proved far more effective and brutal, Palestine was turned into a political warzone that still persist today. The use of political violence by Arab nationalists and Zionists were reciprocal and more similar in their methods and motives. The Arabs resorted to sabotage, assassination, night raids and guerilla tactics to terrorize the British soldiers and Jewish settlers, and the Zionists did the exact same and even targeted the same locations. From tossing bombs into crowded markets to raiding and sabotaging railroads it was tit-for-tat process that escalated the other. Not surprisingly enough the motives behind the political violence was also identical to some extent, as both felt abandoned and deceived by the British, and both movements felt the general discourse that change would not come by them waiting around and that they had to take radical actions to force a reaction. The British reaction of conceding all the time only encouraged the terrorists even more. In this context it is fair to compare terrorists to a child that keeps throwing their food on the floor and expects the parent to pick it up and give them what they want. That being said this analogy is a bit oversimplifying of the whole terrorist argument but nevertheless concessions encourage and strengthen illicit groups from taking bolder actions with higher expectations.
Sources:
- Mansfield, Peter, and Pelham Nicolas. A history of the Middle East. London: Penguin Books, 1991.
- Barr, James. A line in the sand: Britain, France and the struggle for the mastery of the Middle East. London: Simon & Schuster, 2012.
- Kamrava, Mehran. The modern Middle East: a political history since the First World War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.
- Ella Shohat, “ The Invention of Mizrahim,” Journal of Palestine Studies 29 (Autumn 1999): 8.
- Arthur James Balfour. Balfour Declaration 1917
- HC Deb, 24 Nov. 1938, Vol.341, c.1988
- The Times, ‘Insecurity in Palestine: Government’s Loss of Prestige’, 26 July 1938
- MEC, MacMicheal Papers, Gort to MacMicheal, 10 Oct. 1945
- Eliav, Wanted, 216.
Citations:
[1] Arthur James Balfour. Balfour Declaration 1917
[2] Kamrava, Mehran. The modern Middle East: a political history since the First World War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.
[3] Kamrava, Mehran. The modern Middle East: a political history since the First World War.
[4] Ella Shohat, “The Invention of Mizrahim,” Journal of Palestine Studies 29 (Autumn 1999): 8.
[5] Barr, James. A line in the sand: Britain, France and the struggle for the mastery of the Middle East. London: Simon & Schuster, 2012.
[6] Barr, James.
[7] HC Deb, 24 Nov. 1938, Vol.341, c.1988
[8] Barr, James
[9] The Times, ‘Insecurity in Palestine: Government’s Loss of Prestige’, 26 July 1938
[10] MEC, MacMicheal Papers, Gort to MacMicheal, 10 Oct. 1945
[11] Arthur James Balfour. Balfour Declaration 1917
[12] Eliav, Wanted, P. 216.
Bayt Al-Hikma 