EXCERPT
Righteous Victims
A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999
By BENNY MORRIS
Knopf
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The Land and the People
"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the
prince. The hills are barren. . . . The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed
with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and
despondent. . . . It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land. . . . Palestine
sits in sackcloth and ashes. . . . Over it broods the spell of a curse that has
withered its fields and fettered its energies. . . . Nazareth is forlorn; . . .
Jericho . . . accursed . . . Jerusalem . . . a pauper village. . . . Palestine
is desolate and unlovely."
So wrote Mark Twain in 1867. He may have been indulging in hyperbole, but then
neither was Palestine, in the mid-nineteenth century, the "land of milk and
honey" promised in the Bible.
As it is today, the Holy Land Eretz Yisrael or the Land of Israel for the
Jews, Falastin or Palestine for the Arabs was defined during the years of
British rule (1918 - 48) as the area bounded in the north by a range of hills
just south of the Litani River in Lebanon; in the east by the Jordan River, the
Dead Sea, and the Arava Valley (Wadi Araba); in the west by the Mediterranean
Sea and the Sinai Peninsula; and in the south by the Gulf of Eilat (or Gulf of
Aqaba). In all, it consists of about 26,320 square kilometers (10,162 square
miles), an area roughly the size of New Jersey.
Of this landmass, about 50 - 60 percent, the Negev and the Araba, is a
wilderness sprinkled with a handful of oases but largely uninhabitable and
uncultivable, as is the area called the Judean Desert, between the hilly spine
of Judea running from Ramallah through Jerusalem to Hebron and the Jordan
River.
Palestine is a dry land, with only one small river the Jordan which in
fact is not inside Palestine but rather demarcates the borders between Palestine
and Syria and, farther south, Palestine and Jordan. Otherwise there are only two
small streams with perennial water. Most streams run only in winter and are dry
beds for the rest of the year. Natural springs and wells dot the northern half
of the country; in the south they are relatively rare. The naturally habitable
north has rainfall between October and April each year; the remaining months are
dry, with summer temperatures reaching 30 - 35 degrees Celsius. The Negev has
virtually no rain, and temperatures at its southern end reach 40 - 45 degrees
Celsius in summer.
The population has tended to concentrate, in both ancient and modern times, in
the hilly central areas of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, and in the fertile
coastal plain and the west-east valley that branches out from it between Haifa
and the Jordan River, known as the Jezreel Valley or the Plain of Esdraelon. A
further fertile area is the northern Jordan Valley running, from south to north,
from Beit Sh'an (Beisan) to the Sea of Galilee and its surrounding lowland, to
Lake Huleh and then to the Jordan's sources, in the foothills of Mount Hermon.
In ancient times, it is estimated, Palestine contained between 750,000 and 6
million inhabitants, with most scholars giving the figure 2.5 million for about
50 a.d. During the second millennium b.c. it was inhabited by a collection of
pagan tribes or peoples Canaanites, Jebusites, and others who jostled for
control of this or that area. Toward the end of the millennium the Hebrews, or
Jews, invaded and settled the land, and for most of the next millennium
constituted the majority of the population and governed the bulk of the country.
The core of the Jewish state (at one point there were two Jewish kingdoms) was
the hill country of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Through most of the period
there was a minority population of Philistines, and later, Hellenistic and
Romanized pagans concentrated in the coastal plain, in such towns as Caesarea,
Jaffa, Ashkelon, and Gaza. The chapter of Jewish sovereignty ended when the
Romans invaded and then put down two revolts, in a.d. 66 - 73 and 132 - 35, and
exiled much of the Jewish population. After successive invasions and
counterinvasions by Persians, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders, Mongols, Mamelukes, and
(again) Turks, the country at the beginning of the nineteenth century, under
imperial Ottoman rule had a population of about 275,000 to 300,000 people, of
whom 90 percent were Muslim Arabs, 7,000 to 10,000 Jews, and 20,000 to 30,000
Christian Arabs. By 1881, on the eve of the start of the Zionist Jewish influx,
Palestine's population was 457,000 about 400,000 of them Muslims, 13,000 -
20,000 Jews, and 42,000 Christians (mostly Greek Orthodox). In addition, there
were several thousand more Jews who were permanent residents of Palestine but
not Ottoman citizens.
The small pre-Zionist Jewish population of Palestine usually referred to
collectively as the Old Yishuv (literally, the "old settlement") was largely
poor. Many if not most lived on charity from their coreligionists abroad. Both
Ashkenazim (Jews of European origin) and Sephardim (Jews of Spanish, North
African, and Middle Eastern extraction) were almost exclusively Orthodox and
were concentrated, in separate areas, in Judaism's four "holy" towns: Jerusalem,
Hebron, Safad, and Tiberias. Most were Ottoman subjects, extremely submissive
toward the Turkish authorities and deferential toward the large Muslim
communities among which they lived. Many spent their days learning Talmud and
Torah; a few were merchants and shopkeepers; more were petty craftsmen. All in
all, they were a numerically insignificant minority.
The overwhelming majority of the population was Arab, about 70 percent rural.
These were dispersed in seven to eight hundred hamlets and villages ranging in
size from fewer than one hundred to nearly one thousand inhabitants. Most of the
villages were in the hill country, their location dictated by access to springs
or wells and defensive requirements like hilltops or cliffs. Many had been
established by invading Bedouin who turned sedentary. The coastal plain and the
Jezreel and Jordan valleys were relatively empty, both because of the dangers
posed by marauding Bedouin bands and because their swamps presented health
hazards and were difficult to cultivate.
Many of the villages fought a continual if low-key battle against the Bedouin,
who periodically sortied into the settled areas of Palestine from the desert
east of the Jordan, from the Negev, and from the Sinai. There were also
protracted land and water disputes between villages and sometimes between clans
within villages. These feuds, and rivalries between leading urban families and
between various towns, such as Jerusalem and Hebron, were to serve as continuous
elements of division and weakness in Palestinian Arab society.
Agriculture was primitive, with little irrigation. During the first half of the
nineteenth century, land was usually owned by the villagers privately or
collectively. The second half of the century saw the growing impoverishment of
the villagers, in large part owing to more efficient Ottoman taxation, and a
great deal of rural land was bought up by urban notable families (in Arabic,
a'yan ), who had accumulated their new wealth as Ottoman agents, especially in
tax collection, and through commerce with the West. By the early twentieth
century, villagers in dozens of localities no longer owned their land but
continued to cultivate it as tenant farmers.
Almost all the large landowners (effendis) were urban notables, some of them
living outside Palestine, many in Beirut, Amman, Damascus, and Paris. During the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, Zionist land purchases from effendis
contributed to the roster of dispossessed villagers. The second half of the
century witnessed the rapid growth of citrus cultivation, mainly in the humid
coastal plain, the produce destined for highly profitable export to Europe. Land
became a more attractive investment, and the concomitant price rises led to
further sales by impoverished fellahin.
By 1881 a third of Palestine's population was urban up from only 22 percent
in 1800. Most of the Jews and Christians lived in the towns, making their
relative weight there decidedly greater than in the country as a whole. By 1880
Jerusalem's population numbered 30,000, of whom about half were Jews; Gaza's
population was 19,000, Jaffa's 10,000, and Haifa's 6,000. The notables in the
towns were nurtured by the Ottoman Empire, which gave them various local
positions and tax-collecting functions, and by the British authorities after
1917 - 18. The elite families the Khalidis, Husseinis, and Nashashibis in
Jerusalem; the Ja'bris and Tamimis of Hebron; the Nabulsis, Masris, and Shak'as
of Nablus, and others supplied municipal officials, judges, police officers,
religious officials, and civil servants. Inevitably, given their wealth, power,
and influence with the imperial authorities, the a'yan emerged as the
Palestinian Arabs' local and eventually "national" leadership. A vast gulf
based on disparities in educational level and social, economic, and political
position separated the a'yan from the largely illiterate masses.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw a gradual modernization of the
country, accompanying the growing urbanization. While most villages and towns
were connected by footpaths rather than paved roads, and people and goods still
moved on foot or by horse, camel, or mule rather than in wheeled vehicles, a
carriage-road, the first in Palestine, was constructed in 1869 between Jaffa and
Jerusalem. The first railroad was laid down in 1892 (also between these two
towns), and a second railroad, connecting Haifa and Deraa, running through the
Jezreel Valley, was constructed in 1903 - 05.
The century also witnessed a steady increase in literacy. It is estimated that
around 1800 only 3 percent of the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine were
literate (mostly elder sons of the a'yan). As the century progressed, an
education "system" emerged, mostly owing to the penetration of European
missionaries rather than to Ottoman or local Arab initiative.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, lighting was provided by
candles and the burning of olive oil. In the 1860s, naphtha was introduced, and
generator-produced electricity reached Palestine during the first decade of the
twentieth century. Through the nineteenth century the population was plagued by
diseases such as malaria, trachoma, dysentery, cholera, and typhoid fever. Water
supplies were inadequate and frequently impure. But the first pharmacy opened
its doors in 1842; and the first European hospital, in Jerusalem, in 1843. By
the end of the century, there were fifteen hospitals in the town, making it the
center of European medicine in Palestine and beyond.
The Turkish Administration
The Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1517 to 1917 - 18, was aware of
the land's importance as the cradle of Judaism and Christianity but never made
it a separate, distinct administrative district. In the 1870s Palestine was part
of the province (vilayet) of Syria, which was ruled by a governor (wali)
stationed in Damascus. The province was subdivided into districts (sanjaks),
three of them in Palestine: Acre, including Haifa, the area of today's Hadera,
the Jezreel and Jordan Valleys, the Sea of Galilee, Safad, and Tiberias; Nablus,
including Beisan, Jenin, and Qalqilya; and Jerusalem, which included Jericho,
Jaffa, Gaza, Beersheba, Hebron, and Bethlehem. The sanjaks in turn were divided
into subdistricts, administered by local governors called kaymakams.
In 1887 the sanjak of Jerusalem became an independent mutasarriflik
(subgovernorate) answerable directly to Constantinople rather than to Damascus.
The following year, the rest of Palestine the sanjaks of Nablus and Acre
were separated from the vilayet of Sam (Syria) and became the responsibility of
a newly created vilayet of Beirut. The new entity, which consisted of the area
of much of present-day Lebanon, thus also controlled the northern half of
Palestine.
During a decade of Egyptian rule in Palestine (1831 - 40), the authorities had
managed to impose more or less centralized government. The powerful Egyptian
army, led by Ibrahim 'Ali, brushed aside most of the local magnates who had
managed to carve out de facto fiefdoms in different areas of the country. They
also staved off the Bedouin incursions from the eastern and southern deserts
that had done so much to keep Palestine insecure and poor.
On their return, the Turks instituted a wide range of reforms (tanzimat)
economic, administrative, legal, military, and political but with mixed
results. The new, more efficient and centralized taxation resulted in massive
impoverishment of the rural population, which in turn led to the steady
depopulation of villages and an influx into the towns. Efforts to conscript
villagers into the Turkish army, a return of brigandage on the roads, and
renewed Bedouin incursions all had the same effect. The village rulers, or
sheikhs, who before the Egyptian conquest had had considerable authority, lost
much of it as their role as tax collectors for the central government passed
into the hands of Ottoman officials and urban notables.
At the same time economic conditions as well as law and order in the towns
vastly improved. Trade with the West picked up. The urban notables became
wealthier and acquired more land. Turkish reforms of local government, both in
Palestine and Syria, including the appointment of town councils, also resulted
in increasing the power of the a'yan and religious leaders (the ulema) at the
expense of Ottoman governors and subgovernors. These reforms proved to be
milestones on the road to the emergence of centrifugal Arab "nationalisms." In
other ways, too, the tanzimat which aimed at centralization and unity
contributed to disunity in the Arab provinces of the empire. The impoverishment
of the countryside and the growing prosperity of the towns drove a wedge between
townspeople and the fellahin, or peasantry. And the Sublime Porte's firmans
(decrees) of 1839 and, more decisively, of 1856 equalizing the status of
Muslim and non-Muslim subjects resulted in short order in the dramatic
alienation of Muslims from Christians. The former resented the implied loss of
superiority and recurrently assaulted and massacred Christian communities in
Aleppo in 1850, in Nablus in 1856, and in Damascus and Lebanon in 1860. Among
the long-term consequences of these bitter internecine conflicts were the
emergence of a Christian-dominated Lebanon in the 1920s - 40s and the deep
fissure between Christian and Muslim Palestinian Arabs as they confronted the
Zionist influx after World War I.
(C) 1999 Benny Morris
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-679-42120-3