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Arab/Muslim Immigration to the Holy Land
Part 1 - Bosnia, Algeria, Morocco, and
Egypt
We know a lot about Jewish immigration to the
Holy Land because the Ottomans and then the British did such a good job at
keeping Jews out that it became global news. But what about Arab/Muslim
immigration to the Holy Land during the same period. The usual narrative you
will read online is that the Jews arrived in the late 19th & early 20th
century, but that the “Palestinians” had been there since the beginning of
time. Is that true?
If you have ever spent time on social media
talking about Israel, you may have come across this quote from Robert Kennedy
“The
Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs, in the 12 years
between 1932-1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions
existing in no other Arab state …”
Kennedy, a young, recent college graduate and wise beyond
his years, made the remark after a trip to the Holy Land in March of 1948
- after the UN partition of Mandatory
Palestine and on the precipice of the Israeli War of Independence, which began
in May. The quote appeared in the Boston Post, in a series of articles about
his experiences on the trip. Kennedy was a supporter of the nascient state of
Israel and of the Jewish people and it is what eventually lead to his
assassination in 1968.
I’ve often thought about that quote. I’ve even referred to
it on social media. But, I haven’t seen much in the way of support for that statement. Did Arabs really
immigrate to Palestine to take advantage of the improved living conditions thanks
to the Zionists enterprises? Did they immigrate to Palestine at all? Could I
find any proof of Arab/Muslim immigration to the Holy Land in the 19th or early
20th centuries? I began studying
historic documents to see if Jews were the only people that immigrated to the
land of Israel or if they were joined by Arabs. As conditions in the Holy Land
improved, Arabs/Muslims did indeed come from around the Mediteranean, other
parts of the Levant, Egypt, and even from Europe at the same time as the Jews.
They immigrated, built colonies, and eventually became a component of the
people that would go on to call themselves Palestinians. Here are some of those
stories. This article is part one of what I discovered.
A Bosniak Muslim Colony in
Caesarea
Murray's Handbooks
for Travellers were among the oldest and most respected travel
guides in Europe. Their guides were well researched and revised as needed.
Their first guide on Syria and Palestine appeared in 1858. In the 1903 edition,
they report that a colony of Bosniak Muslims settled in the ancient seaside
city of Caesarea in 1883 (page 202). Later it states that the Bosniak colonists
were engaging in building operations (Page 205).
It certainly doesn’t sound like they were
planning on going anywhere. They were building a society. One question remains
from the passage. Murray’s guide mentions that the colony was ravaged by
malaria and that it might become extinct. Did it become extinct because of
malaria?
If you have ever taken a tour in Europe or
looked for a tour from Europe, chances are you’ve dealt with Thomas Cook. One
of the most well known travel agencies in the world, dating back nearly 200
years, Thomas Cook is a name that people trust. They also happened to produce
travel guides in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907, four years
after the Murray guide, they published Cook's Tourists' Handbook to Palestine and Syria. In the section under Ceasarea, they also mention that
Bosnian immigrants lived in Caesarea and “have houses among the ruins” of the
ancient city ( page 169).
Baedeker is known around the world for their travel
guides. They are so ubiquitous with international travel that the name Baedeker
came to mean “guidebook” in the dictionary. In the 1912 edition of Baedeker’s
Handbook for Travellers Palestine and Syria, on the section about Caesarea,
they mention that “Bosnians have been settled here since 1884 and can supply
rough nightquarters in case of need.” (page 237) This was nine years after
Murray mentioned them and five years after Cook.
Not only were they still in Caesarea, but they were the
only group mentioned that supplied sleeping arrangements in the city.
Obviously, the Bosnian colony did not become extinct and most likely grew,
eventually to be absorbed into the community that would go on to call
themselves Palestinians.
Colonies from North Africa
The Maghrebins of Jerusalem
In the 1876 edition of Baedeker’s Handbook
for Travellers Palestine and Syria, regarding the population of the city of
Jerusalem, it states “Among the Muslim Arabs is also included a colony of
Africans (Moghrebins).” (page 162) The Maghrebs are Muslim of North Africa,
mostly Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, and are either Arabs or Berbers. They
were previously referred to as Moors by Europeans. In the 1894 edition of
Baedeker, eighteen years later, it repeats the same statement about the Maghreb
colony and mentions that out of 40,000 residents of Jerusalem, 7560 are Muslims
including that community.
The 1907 edition of Cook's Tourists' Handbook to Palestine and Syria it lists the
population of Jerusalem at 50,000 with 12,000 Muslims and among them “a colony
of African’s from Morocco”. (page 65)
The 1912 edition of Baedeker’s also mentions North African
Maghrebins located near the Western Wall in Jerusalem, only this time they’ve
graduated from a colony to residents of the city.
If the colony existed at minimum 36 years and
the members were absorbed into the population at large, there is a good
probability that they eventually became part of the future Palestinian people.
The Algerians of Palestine
Emir Abdelkader was an amazing man. He was an
Algerian religious and military leader who staged a rebellion against the
French occupation of Algeria in the mid 1800s. He eventually failed and was
forced to flee with his supporters to Turkey and then eventually settled in
Damascus, Syria where he lived out the rest of his days. In the 1907 edition of
Cook's
Tourists' Handbook to Palestine and Syria on Page 286, it mentions that part of
the population of Safed in northern Galilee, one of the four holy cities of
Judaism in Israel, contains a large number of Muslims, including Algerians who
followed Abdelkader into exile after the failed rebellion. This episode is
interesting for two reasons. The first is that we have written proof that there
were North Africans who had a community in Safed. The second, is that since
Abdelkader went from Algeria to Turkey to Syria, it would logically follow that
those that settled in Safed came over from Syria. We know from history books
and other travel journals that the Ottoman occupiers of the Holy Land
restricted the number of Jews who could immigrate and live in the Holy Land,
while the same restriction did not apply to other populations and the border
was open to them. This entry supports that claim.
The 1907 Cook handbook lists two other
Algerian colonies in the Galilee. The first was the village of Kafr Sabt, which
is described as an “Algerian colony” (page 274). Kaft Sabt is often noted as a
Palestinian village on the Internet, but in 1907 it was cleary a strictly
Algerian colony.
The third reference to Algerians in the 1907
Cook guide can be found on page 287 and mentions an Algerian settlement near
the village of Ain ez Zeitun.
So far the only references to Algerians
immigrants is in the 1907 Cook guidebook. Are there any other references? In
the 1912 edition of Baedeker’s Handbook
for Travellers Palestine and Syria, it references the village of Kafr Sabt
as being “a village inhabited by Algerian peasants” (page 251) corroborating
the account in the Cook guidebook.
That is at least three separate Algerian
colonies in the Galilee that came from at least two different areas in the
Middle East (North Africa and Syria) and were established in the late 19th
century at the same time as Jews were settling in the area. We can draw some
conclusions. The first being that the Algerian communities did not return to
Algeria. There is no record to suggest it. They undoubtedly became part of the Palestinian people. They
were not a group of people who originated in the Holy Land and whose ancestors
had lived there for thousands of years, but recent North African immigrants.
The second is if it’s true that there were Arab/Muslim colonies established by
Algerians at the same time Jews were establishing colonies, then if you call
Jews “colonists” you have to also call the Palestinians colonists, since part
of the Palestinian collective was composed of recent immigrants that
estabilised colonies and settlements. As we will see, these weren’t the only
Arab/Muslim colonies.
Gaza’s Egyptian Character
and the Galilee’s Egyptian Colony
In 2012, Hamas’ Minister of the Interior and National Security,
Fathi Hammad, speaking from the Gaza Strip, declared on video that
“half the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other Half are Saudis”. Was he
just trying to get money from the Egyptian government when he said it, or did
some Palestiians actually immigrate from Egypt? Gaza is on the border of
Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and the connection between Egypt and Gaza goes back a
thousand years or more, including the Egyptian Mamluk occupation of Gaza in the
14th century and Modern Egypt’s occupation of Gaza between 1948 and 1967. Gaza
has served as a major stop in the trade route between Syria and Egypt, so it
would make sense that over the long history of the two, Egyptians would have
settled in Gaza. But do we have any historical proof to back it up?
In the 1894 edition of Baedeker’s Handbook
for Travellers Palestine and Syria (page 156), it gives a description of Gaza as having a
“semi-Egyptian character”, that the veil of the Muslim women “closely resembles
the Egyptian”, and that the bazaar too “has an Egyptian appearance.”
All three of those descriptions allude to the area being
inhabited by people who came over from Egypt. The 1906 edition of Baedekers
repeats the description of Gaza as having a semi-Egyptian character.
In the 1822 travel journal Travels Along The
Mediterranean Vol.2 by Robert Richardson, a Scottish physician and
travel writer, he writes that the southern half of Gaza below the town of Deir
al Balah (Dair), including Khan Yunis (Hanoonis), pays tribute not to the Pasha
of Acre or Jerusalem, but to the Pasha of Egypt (pages 195-196). Not only does
it seem like Gaza was a distinctly Egyptian area in feel, but part of it may
have actually been part of Ottoman Egypt.
That’s all fine, but it could be argued that the Gazan’s
adopted the looks and customs of the Egyptian traders and that who they paid
tribute to doesn’t reflect who they were. Even if they were Egyptians, who is
to say they didn’t come over during the Mamluk conquest 500 years prior and
remain? Is there any proof that Egyptians came as immigrants during the time
Zionists were cultivating the land? In fact there is, and they didn’t only
settle in Gaza.
In the 1903 edition of Murray's Handbooks for
Travellers it states that Ibrahim Pasha established a colony of Egyptian
peasants in the year 1840 in the ancient city of Bethshan now called Beisan
(page 213). It even states that the village is almost exclusively made up of
the Egyptian colony. What is interesting about this account is the location of
Beisan. It is not located in Gaza or even along the coast. Beisan is in the
Jordan Valley in the North close to the Jordanian border.
The Odd Case of the Al-Simalni
Tribe
The most fascinating story of immigration from Egypt might
be the story of the Al-Simalni Bedouin tribe in the Galilee. In 1924 the
Mukhtar of the tribe announced that they were secretly Jews and wanted to
officially convert to Judaism. The British were skeptical and determined that
it was probably not true and mostly likely motivated by economics. Whether or
not they went through with the conversion is unknown at this time. What is
known and more important in the context of this article is the background of
the Al-Simalni.
On August 30, 1924, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
ran a story about the Al-Simalni tribe, including an interview with their
Mukhtar Shiekh Mustapha. When asked why they wanted to convert to Judaism, he
explained that the founder of the tribe, Simlon was of Jewish origin and came
to Palestine from Egypt 80 years ago. He married a woman from Transjordan
(Jordan) and had six children. The tribe emerged from that union. What is not
clear is whether he came from Egypt with other Bedouins or he came alone.
What is clear however is that it was a Bedouin tribe in
the Holy Land that was not there since “the time of Abraham” as is often
sensationalized in books and articles about the history of the region, but one
that came from Egypt and Jordan in the mid 19th century! It’s always possible
that they were descendants of a Jew. That we will never know. What we do know
is they were Arab Muslims who came from Egypt and Jordan and became part of
what is know known as the Palestinians.
The story of the Al-Simalni also appeared in the August
31, 1924 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal.
This by no means is an exhaustive list of Arab/Muslim
immigration to the Holy Land during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
These are just a few examples of Arabs/Muslims that settled in the Holy Land at
the same time as Jews and who became part of the people we now know as
Palestinians. These were not people who had lived on the land from the
beginning of time or biblical time that converted to Islam as so many claim. These
were immigrants who established colonies and built communities just like the
Jews, whether for economic reasons to take advantage of the advances and
technologies brought by the Zionists or for other reasons. You probably didn’t
know about this wave of Arab/Muslim immigration because while Jewish
immigration was restricted, Arab/Muslim immigration was not, so it wasn’t noteworthy and rarely reported. Not all is as
it seems in the news and social media. It is important to search deeper.
In Part 2, we will discuss more settlements of
Arabs/Muslims in the land of Israel from the Middle East, including World War I
refugees and unauthorized immigration.
@americanzionism