Palestine: A Modern History (ص 6)

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Palestine: A Modern History (ص 6)

المحتوى

14. Setting for a Conflict: 1881-1908
failure could be explained by ‘thé obvious inadequacy of the assimila-
tionist view of anti-Semitism, the fact that bitter Jew-hatred persisted
even where its objects were most completely de-Judaized’."! The
reaction to this failure took the form of a cali for a national Jewish
entity, preferably a national return to Zion.
Thus, Zionism, with its inherent implication of loss of hope in the
future total acceptance of the Jew as an individual by the majority of
society, did not begin to find its way to popular appeal and acceptance
until after the Russian pogroms of 1881, which set a mass exodus of
millions, in eastern and western Europe, into motion.
There were a number of attempts to create Jewish agricultural
communities in Palestine prior to 1881. But philanthropy, not
nationalism; was the basis of the London Hebrew Society for the
Colonization of the Holy Land, founded by Jews in 1861.'* THe same
year witnessed the establishment of the Alliance Israélite Universelle,
an institution, for the protection and improvement of the Jews in
general and of those in Europe and in the Muslim lands in particular. In
1870, the Alliance established the Agricultural School Mikveh Israel
near Jaffa, obviously aiming at the‘ settlement of Jews in Palestine on a
considerable scale.
Following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and the
ensuing pogroms in Russia, the enthusiasm for Haskalah collapsed and
its place was taken by a new movement Hibbath (also, Hovevei) Zion
(The Love of Zion).’Societies were formed in‘Jewish centres where the
question of settling in Palestine as an immediate practical prospect and
the study of Hebrew as a living language were discussed:
The first Jewish colonists belonged to an organisation of Russo-
Jewish students formed at Kharkov for the colonisation of Palestine,
known as Bilu. The ‘growth of Jewish nationalism! coincided with the
rise of Arab nationalism in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
The Arab Awakening v4
In his well-known book, The Arab Awakening, George Antonius traced
the pioneering manifestations of political consciousness in the Vilayet
of Syria:
It was at a secret gathering of certain members of the Syrian
Scientific Society (1868) that the Arab national’ movement may ‘be
said to have uttered its first cry.’* '
There is no need to go into the question here in great detail. Suffice
Setting for a Conflict: 1881-1908 15
it to say that after centuries of political inertness the Arab East began
to experience a certain political awakening: and the beginning of a
consciousness;of a common Arab identity.,On 13 December 1875, the
British Consul in Beyrout (Beirut) reported:
For some years past there has existed amongst certain classes,
especially the Mohametans, of the population of Syria a secret
tendency to desire annexation to Egypt which has gradually grown
in intensity .'*
On: 28 June 1880, the British Consul;General in Beirut reported the
appearance of ‘feyolutionary placards in Beirut’.’* In subsequent
telegrams the British Consul reported the main points of the first
recorded statement of an Arab political programme (1880):
(1) the grant of independence to Syria in union with the Lebanon,
x (2) the recognition of Arabic as,an official language in the country,
-(3) the removal of censorship and other restrictions on the
freedom of expression and the diffusion of knowledge.'®
‘From the seanty evidence available we learn that Palestine was not
insylated, ,fram the new political trends in:,the Levant. Following
‘Arabi’s stand against the British in Egypt, the British Consul reported
riots and excitement in Jerusalem and Jaffa:
It is quite certain that the native Moslems profoundly sympathised
with Arabi, both as a Mohammadan fighting against unbelievers and
more especially, as the champion of the Arab Mussulman race,
upon whose success posed possibilities affecting the future of their
race other than merely, repelling the invasion of, Egypt.!”
Two years: later, the British Consul reported the Palestinians’
reactions to the revolt of the Mahdi in the Sudan in the following
manner:
i
Whilst the general feeling of the Moslems as, regards the religious
aspect of the (Mahdi) Movement is such as I have stated there isan .
undercurrent of. sympathy carefully -suppressed on their part in
favopr of the Mahdi as an Arab struggling for his race against
Ottoman domination and misrule.'®

هو جزء من

Palestine: A Modern History

تاريخ

1978

المنشئ

Abdul-Wahhab Kayyali

مجموعات العناصر

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