1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris Read Free Book Online Page B

leadership, spearheaded by Emile Ghury, a Greek Orthodox journalist, in April 1944 formally relaunched the Palestine Arab Party, whose central demands were immediate Palestinian Arab independence, the cessation of Jewish immigration, and "the dissolution of the Jewish National Home." By September, the Husseinis were once again the most active and powerful political faction in Arab Palestine.49 Returning to the fray, the Palestinians, led by the Husseinis, on Balfour Declaration day, 2 November, launched nationwide protests.
    The "repoliticization" of Palestine's Arabs at war's end coincided with the British-supported drive for pan-Arab unity, which had captivated the political imagination of the Middle East since before World War I. During 25 September-7 October 1944, delegates from seven Arab countries met in Alexandria and founded "a League ... of Independent Arab States," henceforward known as the Arab League. On 22 March 1945, these states formally signed a pact in Cairo. A secretariat was set up in the Egyptian capital, with the Egyptian 'Abd al-Rahman Azzam as secretary-general.50
    The Palestinians had sent Musa al- A1ami to the gathering in Alexandria. He was designated first an "observer," then a "delegate," the Palestinian Arab community thus enjoying, at least theoretically, an equal footing with existing or emergent Arab states.
    At the end of the conference, the delegates issued the Alexandria Protocol. A section was devoted to the issue of Palestine. The Arab states resolved that "Palestine constitutes an important part of the Arab world and that the rights of the [Palestine] Arabs cannot be touched without prejudice to peace and stability in the Arab world." The League endorsed the demand for a stoppage of Jewish immigration, the cessation of land sales, and "independence for Palestine." In light of the international circumstances-almost universal horror over the Holocaust and growing American pressure to resettle the remnants of European Jewry in Palestine-the Arab states declared that they were "second to none in regretting the woes which have been inflicted on the Jews of Europe by European dictatorial states. But the question of these Jews should not be confused with Zionism, for there can be no greater injustice and aggression than solving the problem of the Jews of Europe by another injustice, that is, by inflicting injustice on the Palestine Arabs. "51
    To add cogency to their demands for a voice in the expected postwar settlement, four of the states-Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia-in early 1945 declared war on the Axis, thus assuring membership in the nascent United Nations Organization, the heir to the interwar League of Nations.
    The establishment of the Arab League at once strengthened the Palestinian cause and weakened the voice of Palestinian nationalism. On one hand, the Arab states collectively weighed in behind Palestinian Arab demands. But at the same time, the pact gave the member states the right to select who would represent the Palestinian Arabs in their councils, so long as Palestine was not independent. Coupled with the continued factional deadlock within Arab Palestine, this assured, in the words of one historian, that "the initiative in Palestine Arab politics thus passed to the heads of the Arab states" and "major political decisions on the organization of Arab resistance to Zionism were thereafter taken not at Jerusalem but at Cairo."52
    And indeed, it was to be at the initiative of the Arab League that in November 1945 the AHC was reestablished as the supreme executive body of the Palestine Arab community. Months of haggling between the factions had failed to produce agreement. A twelve-member AHC was appointed, with five Husseini representatives, two independents, and five other members, including Gharib Nashashibi, representing the other (now resurrected) pre1939 parties.ss But the return to the Middle East of the mufti's cousin, Jamal Husseini, and renewed