Arab and Zionist institution-building

One of the questions often asked is: why, following the partition of Palestine in November 1947, did only the Zionists end up with a state in 1948 while the Palestinians remained stateless? This can be partially explained by the differences in the Zionist and Palestinian institution-building processes over the preceding five decades and partially by the outcome of the 1948 war, Arab disunity and the Palestinian refugee problem.

Jewish immigration, land purchases and self-sufficiency were vital to the Zionist state-building effort and that was reflected at the institutional level. The early institutions included the Jewish Colonial Association (JCA) which was established in Paris in 1891 and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) established in 1901. These bodies were responsible for acquiring land for collective use by the Jewish nation. In addition, there was the first Palestine Office of Herzl’s Zionist Organization, opened in the port city of Jaffa in 1908, which, in turn, established the Palestine Land Development Company to train Jewish immigrants in agriculture with the aim of settling them on the land purchased by the JNF and the JCA.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration, followed by the arrival of the British in Palestine and the mandate, resulted in a proliferation of Zionist institutions encouraged by Sir Herbert Samuel as well as by the belief that the incorporation of the Balfour Declaration into the 1922 Mandate Charter amounted to inter­national support for the Zionist state-building efforts.

The Zionist Commission arrived in April 1918 and, as it had been granted semi-independent status by the British Foreign Office, it was in a better position to extract concessions from the mandate authorities than were Arab institu­tions. For instance, its requests to give Hebrew equal language status to Arabic and appoint Jews as government officials were granted early on, providing the Zionists with a foundation from which to push for full equality, despite numerical inferiority.

The 1920s and 1930s saw the proliferation of Zionist institutions, including the main financial institution Keren Hayesod (Foundation Fund) and the Histadrut (General Federation of Jewish Labour), as well as the Palestine Worker Party Mapai and Zeev Jabotinsky’s Zionist Revisionist Party which respectively formed the basis for today’s centre-left Labour Bloc and centre-right Likud Bloc. The key political institution, however, was the Jewish Agency established in 1929, which served as the official representative body of the Jews vis-à-vis the British admini­stration and the League of Nations. The basic aims of the Jewish Agency included the facilitation of immigration to Palestine, the advancement of the Hebrew language, the acquisition of land through the JNF, the development of agriculture and the fulfilment of Jewish religious needs. Moreover, the Jewish Agency effectively became the government of the emerging state with its executive not only assuming the role of a cabinet, but also providing the training ground for future Israeli politicians, including Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, and its first female prime minister, Golda Meir.

The last bodies that need to be discussed are the defence organizations, for these completed the transformation of the Zionist institutional network into a proto­state. The establishment of the Haganah (Defence) in 1920 with the aim of protecting Jewish community property was a reflection of the growing conflict with the Arabs and the declining trust in the British. It also paved the way for the ‘victory’ of the ‘hawks’ within Zionism over the ‘doves’. The 1920—21 Nebi Musa riots and the 1928—29 Wailing Wall riots further increased the sense of Jewish insecurity, resulting in the 1931 foundation of a rival paramilitary organization, the Irgun Zvat Le’umi (National Military Organization) and the 1939 formation of the Lohamei Herut Israel (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) or Lehi, also referred to as the Stern Gang.

What is clear when looking at the institutions of the yishuv is not only that they organized virtually every aspect of Jewish life but also that they, in all but name, functioned as a state with its own domestic, economic, foreign and defence policy. It is thus not surprising that upon the end of the British mandate, these institutions were easily transformed, with the Zionist Executive becoming the Israeli government, the Haganah becoming the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and so on.

What is equally clear when looking at Palestinian Arab institutions during the same period is that they lacked the strength, cohesiveness and comprehensiveness of their Zionist counterparts. It is thus no accident that they could not be that easily transformed into a Palestinian government in 1948, although it must be stressed that this was not the only obstacle to state formation. The question that consequently must be asked is why Palestinian Arab institutions developed so asymmetrically.

The Palestinian process of institution-building was inspired by the 1913 Arab Congress as well as the need to deal with the Zionist challenge. A number of organizations sprang up at this point, the most important of which included the Arab Palestinian Economic Company, the Arab Club — al-Nadi al-Arabi —and the Literary Club — al-Muntada al-Adabi — which, despite its name, was a political organization. They promoted a blend of local and Arab nationalism, were strongly anti-Zionist and concerned with countering the growing Zionist presence, particularly in the economic sphere.

By far the most significant organization in this period, however, was the Muslim-Christian Association — al-Jamiyya al-Islamiyya al-Masihiyya — which convened the First Palestinian Arab Congress, also known as the All Palestine Congress, in Jerusalem in February 1919. It served as the mainstay of the Palestinian nationalist movement with branches in all major cities and represent­ing both Christians and Muslims. The Muslim-Christian Association’s political platform advocated opposition to Zionist immigration and the creation of an independent and elected Palestinian legislature. But it also saw Palestine as a self­governing province within a Syrian federation rather than as a state of its own.

Just as Zionist institutions proliferated under Samuel’s encouragement, so too did Arab institutions as Samuel aimed at creating fully parallel structures. Thus in December 1920, at the Third Palestinian Arab Congress, an executive was established to deal with the mandate authority. It was headed by Musa Kazim al-Husayni of the Husayni notable family. However, while the Arab Executive represented Palestinian nationalists, it also reflected the divisions in Palestinian society. The Husaynis’ rivals, the Nashashibis, for instance, boycotted the Executive, and this weakened it as an institution. It also ensured that the Executive was associated with a particular person rather than representing the people as a whole and when Musa Kazim al-Husayni died in 1934, the Executive virtually ceased to function. The Supreme Muslim Council, established by Hajj Amin al- Husayni in 1922 to manage Muslim religious affairs, suffered from similar weaknesses.

Palestinian factionalization and institutional weakness were also to a large degree a reflection of Palestinian traditional society which had been under Ottoman governance until 1919. Palestinian fellaheen approached politics on an intensely local and personal level. As a result, the idea of bureaucratic institutions was not easily embraced. This placed them at a distinct disadvantage compared with the Zionists who came from a European tradition of state-building.

The British divide-and-rule policy further exacerbated Palestinian divisions. For instance, in 1921 the British supported Hajj Amin al-Husayni for the position of mufti of Jerusalem. When they perceived him as too strong and too extreme, they shifted their support to the mayor of Jerusalem, Raghid al-Nashashibi. In 1927, the Nashashibis won the municipal elections and the Arab Executive temporarily closed its offices. It was not until 1928 that the Husaynis and Nashashibis agreed to push for representative institutions together, only to be undermined by the 1928-29 riots.

In the 1930s, to some extent mirroring Zionist developments but also those in other Arab countries, a number of Palestinian parties were formed. They included Awni Abdel Hadi's Istiqlal (Independence) Party which was founded in 1932, Hajj Amin al-Husayni's Palestine Arab Party, Raghid al-Nashashibi's National Defence Party, Hussein Khalidi's Reform Party, and Abdel Latif Salah's Nationalist Bloc. While all these parties advocated resistance to the Jewish national project and the maintenance of the Arab character of Palestine, and while all lobbied the mandate authorities to improve the socio-economic position of the Arabs, unity in aims was eroded by the continuing focus on personalities.

see Chapter 18

intifada (Arabic: shaking off)

Name given to the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation which began on 9 December 1987 and lasted until the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel.

The 1930s also saw the rise of Arab civil disobedience and violence, culminat­ing in the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. The revolt itself led to institutional change with its greatest success being the establishment of the Arab Higher Committee, which was composed of the leaders of all the main factions and thus provided Palestinian unity. Despite the July 1937 secession of the Nashashibis, its proscription in October 1937 and the dismissal and exile of Hajj Amin in an attempt by the British to break the revolt, the Committee became a symbol of Palestinian unity and an example for future generations to emulate. Thus it is not surprising that the Arab Revolt served as an inspiration for the 1987 intifada.

While the Palestinian nation-building process benefited from the revolt, the Palestinian state-building process did not. In contrast to the Jewish case, the proliferation of Arab guerrilla bands did not lead to the establishment of a united paramilitary organization or indeed a Palestinian army. Instead the rise in violence, which influenced British policy so effectively, also led to a forceful clamp-down on the emerging national movement, resulting in the suspension of Arab institutions and the exile of Arab leaders. Finally, the revolt caused severe damage to the Palestinian economy, ultimately speeding up the unravelling of a highly factionalized and increasingly leaderless Palestinian society.

This overview of the Arab institutions reveals a number of weaknesses, the first of which was that not only were they competing with Zionist institutions, but they were in themselves divided between those focusing on Palestine and those advocating a greater Arab or Syrian agenda. Another problem concerning, in particular, the early Palestinian institutions was that many of them emerged outside the existing structure of elite politics. On the one hand, this meant the politicization of new segments of society, but, on the other, it threatened the interests of the current leadership, which wanted to preserve the existing political and economic patterns. This leadership was composed of a small number of wealthy Muslim families, including the Husaynis, the Nashashibis, the Alamis and the Khalidis, who had their bases in and around Jerusalem, had fared well under the Ottomans, and were essentially feudal in their approach. While being sincere Arab and Palestinian nationalists, their nationalism remained conservative and fearful of any move that could spark social changes which would undermine the existing political order. The leadership's indifference, and indeed hostility, to new nationalist institutions assured that many of these movements were weak and short lived.

While the disunity within the Palestinian leadership prevented the creation of strong institutions from above, the general erosion of the socio-economic foundation since the late Ottoman period undermined them from below. The combination of oppressive tax and land-tenure systems with the practices of the urban landowners led to the dispossession of the fellaheen, to rural-urban migration, and to unemployment, all of which were aggravated by Zionist land purchases, the exclusion of Arabs from the labour market and the Arab Revolt. By the 1940s the Arabs in Palestine were not only unable to compete with Zionist institution-building and proto-state formation, they were without credible leadership and on the verge of societal collapse. Thus, when Palestine was parti­tioned in November 1947, Arab nationalist dreams in Palestine lay in disarray. Palestine collapsed into civil strife and the Palestinian exodus began. The dispersal of a large part of the Palestinian population across refugee camps in neighbouring Arab states dealt Palestinian statehood the final blow.