Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: history

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Tuesday, September 20, 2022

The US Jews who opposed Orthodox rabbis pleading to save European Jews

On October 6, 1943, a group of hundreds of Orthodox rabbis came to Washington DC to plead for the lives of their brethren in Europe.

They presented a letter to Vice President Wallace asking for a government agency to help save the remaining Jews from the Holocaust. The letter demanded that the US open its doors to Jewish refugees, that the UN create a passport that could be used for Jews to travel, and for Britain to "open the doors of Palestine."

Some of the details about this trip are outrageous.

Historian Alex Grobman writes:

Dressed in long, dark rabbinic attire, the rabbis walked from Union Station to the Capitol Building. There, Rabbis Eliezer Silver, Israel Rosenberg and Bernhard Louis Levinthal led a recitation of Psalms. Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook), who was head of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, introduced them to Vice President Henry Wallace and a number of Congressmen.

Bergson enlisted the rabbis and the American Jewish Legion of Veterans for the march. He expected American clergy would join, but none did. Only the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, the Union of Hassidic Rabbis and a commander of the Jewish Legion participated. The modern Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America sent Rabbi David Silver, Rabbi Eliezer Silver’s son.

White House adviser Judge Samuel Rosenman told the president that those “behind this petition” were “not representative of the most thoughtful elements in Jewry.” The “leading Jews” Rosenman knew opposed the march, but he admitted failing to “keep the horde from storming Washington.”

A number of Jewish congressmen had attempted to dissuade the rabbis from marching. This backfired when Congressman Sol Bloom, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that “It would be undignified for these un-American looking rabbis to appear in the nation’s capital.”

At the Lincoln Memorial, the rabbis—who had declared a fast day—prayed for the welfare of the armed forces and the Jews of Europe and a quick Allied victory. Then they walked to the White House and prayed outside the gates. Though they expected to meet with the President, they were told he was unavailable. Later they learned he went to Bolling Field Air Force Base for a minor ceremony to avoid meeting them.

Rafael Medoff adds:

The era’s most prominent American Jewish leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, criticized the march in somewhat similar terms. Wise, who headed the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress, and the American Zionist movement, wrote that “the orthodox rabbinical parade [ sic]” was a “painful and even lamentable exhibition.” He derided the organizers as “stuntists” and accused them of offending “the dignity of [the Jewish] people.”

The oh-so-dignified Jews were aghast that Orthodox rabbis would make a scene while pleading for the lives of Jews in Europe.

And these self-appointed leaders were dead wrong. They thought that since they had their own access to corridors of power, they had influence in those corridors. In fact, Roosevelt didn't want to meet the rabbis specifically because he didn't want to be pressured to help save the Jewish refugees from Europe. FDR knew the power of public pressure. (His schedule that afternoon was remarkably open.)

The vice president issued a vague, meaningless statement of support meant to get rid of these strange Jews.

And there was a more than a little self-hating from the American secular Jews in this event, as these supposed defenders of Jews in America did not want to be associated with people who looked like their grandfathers did. The Orthodox embarrassed them. Public tears to help save millions of lives is not the image they want Americans to see.

They thought of themselves as superior, at having left their visible Judaism behind. And their conceit that they are better, and know better, than other Jews, indirectly resulted in more European Jews being murdered.

It is the same conceit that kept the daily attacks on Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn out of the news cycle for so long.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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There was a single Muslim poem about Jerusalem written before 1967. It is about revenge against Crusaders.

I have always been interested in finding any evidence that Muslims venerated Jerusalem before Zionism.

Jews, of course, have written hundreds of poems in the forms of psalms, piyyutim, zemirot and classic poetry continuously since the time of David.

Up until now, I have never seen a single Muslim poem about the holy city that predates Zionism (or 1967, for that matter.) Every article I had seen on poems about Jerusalem and Palestine have been about recent poetry.

At Raya.com, Dr. Ayman Al-Atoum wrote a series of three articles on "Jerusalem in Arabic poetry" where he says, "Jerusalem was the hearth of poets' hearts, the compass of their love, the beacon of their words, and the melting of their hearts."

In part one, he quotes from poems about Baghdad and Damascus, to show that Arabs have shown great affection for their capitals, so of course - he says - Jerusalem would be one of them. He provides a quick Arab history of Jerusalem. But he doesn't quote any of the poems he refers to.

In part two, al-Atoum asserts that there were lots of Arabic poems about Jerusalem:

If you go and research these huge events that Jerusalem has gone through, you will find their impact in every aspect, whether social, political, economic or cultural. These events inflamed the sentiments of poets, ancient and modern, and perhaps the history books that recorded the poetry of conquests at the beginning of the Islamic rule of Jerusalem, are the ones that re-recorded the poetry of occupation at the beginning of the Crusades, and not more famous than what Al-Abiwardi wrote.

Presumably, al-Atoum is a scholar and he looked for these Arabic poems of Jerusalem - and couldn't find any from before the Crusaders took over the city. So he pretends that there must have been many such poems, and they were copied by Al Abiwardi, who wrote what seems to be the only semi-famous Arabic poem about Jerusalem.

Al Abiwardi's poem is named Jerusalem, but it doesn't mention the city. It doesn't mention anything about Jerusalem. It doesn't extol the beauty of the city. It is all about the indignity of losing to the Christians ("Romans") and is a call to arms to take it back.

We mingled blood with blazing tears
So there was no mercy left in us.
And the wickedness of a person's weapon is a tear that sheds
This war caught its fire with the swarms

Al-Atoum then moves on to his next poem about Jerusalem, written in....1967.

So it appears that the only Arabic poem that may have been peripherally about Jerusalem was written at the time of the Crusades by an Iraqi poet.

Not exactly a tradition of showing veneration for Jerusalem.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The "anti-Zionist not antisemitic" crowd once argued that they would have no problem with Jews if Jews defeated them in battle

People who claim to be anti-Zionist and not antisemitic offer some reasonable sounding arguments. The reason we know that these arguments are disingenuous is not that the arguments themselves are logically false, but that we have over a century of such arguments - and they morph over time, while keeping the common denominator of always targeting Jews.

For example, the Arab boycotts against Jews from the early 20th century through the 1970s are now seen to be obviously antisemitic - even as they insisted in public that they have nothing against Jews. Today's BDS is a refinement of those methods, but again they only target Jews, not Israeli Arab businesses.

They keep trying to refine their arguments but when you look at history, you can see that the arguments may change but the underlying antisemitism remains the same.

I just saw a neat example of this from a July 12, 1919 article in the Deseret Evening News ("Is 'Zionism' A Threat to World Peace?") where Palestinian Arabs are interviewed about why they are against Zionism.

Their anger is against the perception that the British conquered Palestine only to give it to the Jews, who did nothing to deserve it. They actually say that if Jews have the right to Palestine, then Indians have the right to New York - tacitly admitting Jewish indigeneity.

Then comes this:

You see? The problem is that the Jews didn't earn Palestine, fair and square, by winning it in a war. They were cheating (by, for example, buying farmland at inflated prices, which the article similarly describes as a nefarious Jewish plot.)

Is that argument no longer valid? Or was it simply a logical sounding excuse to justify antisemitism after the fact?

Just like today, the argument sounded like it has merit at the time. Only since 1948 and 1967, when Jews did defeat the Arabs in battle, do we see that it was simply an excuse for hate, dressing it up as something respectable using rhetoric. They keep moving the goalposts to find other reasons to hate the Jews that don't sound antisemitic - "refugees" or "occupation" or "settlements" or "apartheid." Then as now, these arguments are created to find respectable clothing to dress up pre-existing hate.

Just as the "anti-Zionist not antisemitic" arguments of the past changed to avoid looking foolish, so will today's. And the modern antisemites really, really don't want you to look at history.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Jewish immigrants weren't "white" in the US as recently as 1952

From JTA, 70 years ago: August 20, 1952:

The Visa Division of the State Department, which had refrained from listing Jews as such on visa applications, is adopting a new system by which all Jews must be so identified. This was confirmed today by State Department sources.

Visa officials explained that the new listing is required because of “ethnic” data demanded by the McCarran-Walter Omnibus Immigration Act. The act goes into effect on December 24.

Anticipating the application of the new act, visa chief Herve J. L’Heureux has issued preliminary orders to consular officers to elicit information on whether or not applicants are Jewish. The Visa Division has cited section 222-A of the McCarran-Walter Act as its authority. This section requires that each alien “shall state his race and ethnic classification.”

A Visa Division source said Jews would be identified as a “special group” but that he did not yet have access to the “new details which are being worked out.”

Despite the fact that the new law is not yet in effect, Jewish visa applicants have already been asked if they were Jewish as a point of information.

September 11:

Immigration attorneys here point out that aliens who fail to provide an “ethnic classification” which satisfies the consular authorities may be arbitrarily denied visas under the new act. The penalty for not telling the truth is to be denied a visa, yet no definition is furnished of what constitutes the various “ethnic classifications.”

Finally, on September 18, after a month of criticism:

Eight national Jewish agencies issued a statement today announcing receipt of assurances from the State Department that “existing State Department policy does not require questioning of applicants for visas as to whether they are Jewish” and that “where consular officials inquire if applicants are Jewish, they do so without authority and in violation of State Department policy.”

But for a while in 1952, Jews who wanted to immigrate to the US were considered non-Caucasian and required to identify themselves as such. And they could potentially have been denied visas based on their Jewishness.

The co-author of the Act, Pat McCarran, definitely had limiting Jewish immigration in mind when he wrote it. "Senator Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, proposed an immigration bill to maintain status quo in the United States and to safeguard the country from Communism, "Jewish interests", and undesirables that he deemed as external threats to national security."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Did Jews buy land in Transjordan as early as the 1870s?

Jamil Youssef Al-Shaboul, writing in Sawaleif, tells a story about a brief episode of Jewish settlement in Transjordan.

Palestine was not alone as a destination for the Jews and the Zionist movement. With the intention of establishing the slandered national homeland, the eastern part of the river was also targeted.

When the Zionist Montefiore built the first neighborhood for the Jews outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem in 1862, after he purchased a plot of land specifically for that, the first two agricultural settlements for the Jews were built in both Jerash / on the Zarqa River and Salt, and through bribes received by some Ottoman officials to facilitate their entry into the country and their ownership for the land.

The Jordanian clans sensed the seriousness of the matter early on, especially after the Jews tried to buy other lands adjacent to the Zarqa River in order to bring in another group of immigrants. The northern and Bani Hassan clans came together and held a meeting in the guesthouse of Sheikh Mustafa al-Ayasra headed by Sheikh Mufleh al-Obaidat, the father of the martyr Kayed al-Obaidat, and they unanimously agreed to expel these Jews. With all the simple light weapons they had, they burned the settlement of Rachel in Jerash and expelled the Jews from it. They headed towards Al-Balqa and burned the settlement of Kfar Ehud near Salt. The presence of these bastards from East Jordan ended.

The Jordanian clans were able to save Jordan from the clutches of the Zionist movement, which was announced at the Basel Conference in Switzerland in 1891, and this confirms that the choice of force in the time of lies and hypocrisy is the one who restores things to their rightful place and that the thief will not escape punishment.

Notice that they admit that the land was purchased by Jews but the author still considers the land "stolen."

A similar story was published in 2020 in Rai al Youm, another Jordanian news site. It said that the Jews were there from 1870 to 1876 when thy were driven out, and the names of the settlement are the same.

The writers are gleeful that they ethnically cleansed Jews from Transjordan, and they regard this as an honorable story to tell today.

I cannot find English-language documentation of any of these Jewish settlements in Transjordan in the 19th century. But the story is not altogether implausible. Zionists did buy land across the Jordan, in the Golan Heights. See my previous articles about that here and here.

Moreover, I found an Arabic book about about a dozen plans for Jews to include parts of Transjordan in the Jewish homeland, from the mid-19th century up until the 1940s. Dr. Issam Muhammad Al-Saadi wrote "Zionist Aspirations in Transjordan, 1862 - 1946." It includes all of these attempts (autotranslated so the names might be misspelled):

■ February 1867 AD, Charles Warren publishes his study, which called for the necessity of beginning Jewish settlement in the region of "Gilead" in eastern Jordan

■ January 1871 AD, Yehoshua Yellin establishes a company to invest and reclaim the lands of the "Nimrin Valley" northeast of the Dead Sea in preparation for the Jewish settlement operations in eastern Jordan

■ April 1879 CE, Lawrence Oliphant after his trip to the Golan and Ajloun lays out the "Gilead Settlement Plan" that called for the establishment of a Jewish political entity in Transjordan

■ June 8, 1880 AD, Ottoman historical document, Sublime Porte rejected Lawrence Oliphant's proposal to establish a Jewish settlement with some privileges in Gilead "Sanjak of Ajloun, Transjordan"

■ July 27, 1888 AD, Eliyahu Shed was able to purchase land as part of Baron Rothschild's plan for the settlement of Jews in northeastern Jordan.

■ January 1891, Paul Friedman put forward the "Midian Project" for Jewish settlement in Midyan / the western region of the Arabian Peninsula

■ May 1891 AD, Lord Ghosh presented to the Ottoman government his project for the settlement of Jews in the regions of Gilead and Moab in eastern Jordan

■ October 7, 1894 AD, Zionist settlement attempts in Karak, Transjordan in 1896, and the letter of the Mutasarrif of Karak to the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem

■ June 1896 AD, the expulsion of Jewish settlers and the destruction of their property in Jerash and Hauran, east of Jordan

■ March 22, 1901 AD, Hillel Yefeh's plan and a meeting with the representative of the Zionist movement "Aes Nattoot" to purchase large lands in Karak, Transjordan, for Jewish settlement

■ March 8, 1903, Aharon Blum signs a lease contract for Zizia lands south of Umm al-Amad for the settlement of Jews in eastern Jordan

■ November 24, 1904 AD, a delegation from the Zionist movement headed by Yitzhak Levy visits Transjordan to learn about the "Lepontine" project for Jewish settlement in southern Jordan

■ On April 29, 1905 AD, Aharon Blum signed a contract to purchase land in Hamra in the Salt region for the settlement of Jews in eastern Jordan.

■ On September 20, 1906 AD, Aharon Blum signed a contract to purchase land in Tanib, in the Madaba region, for the settlement of Jews in eastern Jordan.

■ October 1910 AD, Najib al-Asfar's project for Jewish settlement in the Ottoman princely lands in the Jordan Valley

■ On February 15, 1917 AD, the Zionist movement announced through the "Palestine of Palestine" the borders of the national home it aspired to.

■ On June 28, 1919, the Zionist movement announced its strong protest against the separation of Transjordan from Palestine and expressed the importance of Transjordan for the future of the Jewish state in Palestine

■ July 13, 1928 AD, Pinhas Rotenberg presented to the British commissioner Henry Cox his plan for the Jewish settlement in the lands of Al-Baqura east of Jordan

■ January 18, 1931 AD, The New York Times publishes a land lease agreement in Ghor Kebd.

■ March 8, 1936 AD, Pinhas Rothenberg presented his plan for the Jewish settlement in Wadi Zarqa, east of Jordan

■ August 15, 1936 AD, a meeting was held in Ghor al-Safi for members of a Jewish group to discuss the plan for the Jewish settlement in the al-Safi Valley in eastern Jordan

Outside of Pinhas Rutenberg, I have never heard of any of these plans. But I found Aharon Yitzchak Blum did indeed attempt to buy lands across the Jordan and even founded an organization called "חברת חלוצי עבר הירדן", Association of Pioneers of the Transjordan.

This may be a very neglected chapter of Zionist history. I found this paper in Hebrew about Blum that begins with confirmation that there were many Jewish attempts to settle across the Jordan as well as the resistance of the local tribes.

In the second half of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the present century, until close to the establishment of the state, organizations, institutions, individuals and sometimes even private entrepreneurs made attempts to acquire land for settlement across the Jordan. ...There was no hesitation about moving across the Jordan; It was, like the West Bank, part of the Ottoman Empire and was perceived in the minds of the many as an integral part of the land, the land of the patriarchs, emphasizing the acuteness of the security problem there, due to the Bedouin ruling the land. The idea of settlement there was intertwined with political ideas, both during the Ottoman rule - to establish Jewish autonomy - and of a desire - especially during the rule of the French and British Mandates - to secure the full territory of the country.

There may be lands in Jordan that were purchased by Jews who were ethnically cleansed by the Arab tribes!

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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Columbia professor Joseph Massad espouses discredited - and antisemitic - Khazar theory

We've discussed Columbia University professor Joseph Massad before and noted his antisemitism and bigotry since this blog began in 2004.

In an article for Arabi21, Massad strongly indicates that he subscribes to the discredited Khazar theory. While it is not the main point of his article, he writes, "The Zionists of European Jews claimed that they are the descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews and that their settlement project is nothing more than a 'return' to their ancient country, Israel....The pan-Jewish nationalism of European Zionism, which sought to re-establish the glories of the 'Jewish' kingdoms of the Palestinian Hebrews (who were appropriated by the Zionists as ancestors of Europeans who had converted to Judaism), was portrayed as 'progressive' and socialist."

This is similar to what he wrote in English for Electronic Intifada in 2017, saying that European Jews were converts to Judaism.

The Wikipedia entry on the genetics of Ashkenazic Jews shows that nearly all studies find their origin is in the Middle East. So Massad, in the 2017 article, makes his argument that most European Jews as converts by calling it "an established historical fact."

That is "proof by assertion."

The usual version of the theory that Jews are converts is the Khazar theory, which has also been repeatedly debunked from genetic, historical, linguistic and other perspectives. It is embraced by Palestinians because their entire claim of indigeneity is destroyed when another people were there first and most Palestinian Arab families proudly trace their ancestry to Arabia. (The Palestinian Christians, on the other hand, seem to be descended from Jews.)

Since the truth is not on their side, they need to push the Khazar lie. And that lie is meant to say that Jews don't have any historic ties to the Jewish homeland.

Denying Jewish history is just as antisemitic as denying the Holocaust.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

16th century Islamic history book describes the strong Jewish attachment to Jerusalem

Zubdat-al Tawarikh is a 16th century Islamic history book that is filled with color, miniature illustrations. It is in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul.

Here is one of its illustrations, depicting Jonah, Ezra and Jeremiah.

The description of this artwork shows that Muslims not only were well aware of the Jewish ties to Jerusalem, but they created legends about how strong they are:

Still another miniature depicts the stories of three different prophets (fig. 9). In the upper section is found the story of Jonah and the fish. Jonah, the text tells tried to avoid his mission by sailing away but was caught by a violent storm. He was then swallowed by a fish and after three days left on shore. In the miniature Prophet Jonah is shown trying to hide nis nakedness in the midst of bushes. Below him is a brook full of brightly colored fish. On the upper left hand corner, another prophet is represented. Sitting among trees and animals according, to the text, Prophet Jeremiah, grieving over the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonians, hid in a wild forest. A similar story is narrated in the text for Prophet Uzeyr [Ezra], depicted in the lower section of the miniatures, who also grieved over the destruction of the Holy City but his grief was so deep that God took his soul and gave him life, years after Jerusalem was reconstructed. The building on the lower right hand corner undoubtedly symbolises the rebuilt city of Jerusalem, yet it is the accurate rendering of a typical sixteenth century Ottoman building with a dome and an arched portico. The ruins of the once destroyed city, on the other hand, are indicated by broken arches and columns on the left.

Before the 20th century, no Muslim doubted that Jerusalem has a Jewish history. The idea that Jerusalem has nothing to do with Judaism - which was one of the themes of a speech by Mahmoud Abbas yesterday - is just one of many Palestinian lies that is widely believed by dint of repetition.

See also here for another early Muslim work about the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Arabs habitually murdered Jews in Morocco 1898-1907

At the turn of the last century, every few years, Arabs in Morocco decided to kill their local Jews.

March 7, 1898:

July 29, 1903:

August 9, 1907, articles from Casablanca and Mazagan:

But besides that, I'm sure the Arabs respected their Jewish residents. After all, they keep telling that to us.

How Jews were treated in Morocco in the late 19th century

Here is an account of Jews in Fez, Morocco, part of a longer article about Morocco that was published in the (Chicago) Inter Ocean, November 4, 1894.

Although the article seems slightly exaggerated (Jews weren't forced to wear peyos, and I am skeptical that there was a death penalty for a Jew being on a street with a mosque), the article describes how the Jews are persecuted by their Muslim neighbors.

It also has a fair amount of the typical unconscious antisemitism that is often seen in 19th century newspaper articles.

Here is another account, from the Kansas City Times, June 27, 1888:

More proof BDS is antisemitic (and Ilhan Omar is a liar)

There was a Twitter spat between BDS supporters and Democratic Majority for Israel:

Many people responded to Hill and Omar pointing out quotes from BDS leaders that showed that they oppose the existence of the Jewish state altogether, and the claim that BDS has no position on the ultimate solution is specious since one basic tenet is to support "return" which would flood Israel with Arabs specifically to end it as a Jewish state.

I've also argued that BDS is antisemitic because the BDS movement targets only Jewish owned businesses in Israel and the territories, and ignores those owned by Israeli Arabs.

There is however one other fundamental reason BDS is antisemitic.

The BDSers love to pretend that the movement started in 2005 with a "call from Palestinian civil society." Pro-Israel groups point out that BDS was a direct result of the antisemitic 2001 UN Conference against Racism, held in Durban.

But BDS comes directly from Arab boycotts of Jews that have been declared for over a hundred years.

The earliest I could find was from 1909 in Hebron, when Arabs there decided to boycott Jewish merchants, followed by another in 1914. The Hebron Jewish community had lived there continuously since Biblical times, so they could hardly be described as Zionist invaders.

These anti-Jewish boycotts continued through the decades:

Boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses in Mandatory Palestine were organised by Arab leaders starting in 1922 in an attempt to damage the Jewish population of Palestine economically, especially during periods of communal strife between Jews and Arabs.[5] The original boycott forswore with any Jewish-owned business operating in Mandatory Palestine. Palestinian Arabs "who were found to have broken the boycott ... were physically attacked by their brethren and their merchandise damaged" when Palestinian Arabs rioted in Jerusalem in 1929.[6] Another, stricter boycott was imposed on Jewish businesses in following the riots that called on all of the Arabs in the region to abide by its terms. The Arab Executive Committee of the Syrian-Palestinian Congress called for a boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933 and in 1934, the Arab Labor Federation conducted a boycott as well as an organized picketing of Jewish businesses. In 1936, the Palestinian Arab leadership called on another boycott and threatened those who did not respect the boycott with violence

The 1945 Arab League boycott wasn't shy about saying that its targets were Jews. Its declaration stated, "Products of Palestinian Jews are to be considered undesirable in Arab countries."

Even after Israel was reborn, the Arab boycott was explicitly antisemitic. The Saudis and other Gulf Arabs, with their new oil wealth, were eager to use their economic power to boycott not only Israel but even US businesses owned by Jews. (Bnai Brith Messenger, 1956)

This explicitly antisemitic boycott continued through the 1970s (NYT, February 8, 1975)

Arab states were so eager to extend their boycott that they even started threatening any Arabs would would shop at high-end London stores owned by Jews:

Marks and Spencer department stores and Selfridges department store are undeterred by the news that they are to be picketed by patrols trying to enforce a boycott by Arabs because of their Jewish ownership and connections with Israel.

The Arab boycott conference meeting at Aleih, near Beirut, yesterday decided to keep a close watch on Arab visitors abroad. Observers of different Arab nationalities “who can discreetly spot their countrymen” will be posted in front of or inside “blacklisted” stores in Britain and other parts of Europe.

By the turn of the century, the idea of the boycott had already morphed into what looks like BDS nowadays. This 2002 Muslim News article (UK) bridges the antisemitic Arab boycott with the liberal language of BDS - three years before BDS was supposedly "launched."

Even BDS adherents acknowledge that the movement is related to the previous Arab boycotts. This 169-page white paper hosted on the BDSMovement site goes through the history of Arab boycotts, carefully excising any mention of "Jews" as the target and pretending that the boycott began only after Israel's establishment.

BDS did not sprout from out of nowhere. It came directly from this explicitly and proudly antisemitic background. Erasing the word "Jewish" from their literature doesn't make it any less antisemitic than it was in the 1920s, 1940s and 1970s.

Of course we should teach young Jews about 1948

Hey Alma has yet another article about how young Jews who attended Zionist summer camps are unaware of the complexities of the Israeli/Arab conflict.

As is typical in these articles, the assumption is that the newly anti-Zionist Jews have been cheated out of real knowledge, and now they know better, and must “unlearn” the hasbara/propaganda they were force fed by evil former IDF soldiers.

For example:

My Jewish education at camp heavily involved learning about modern-day Israel and the reason why it was so central for Jews to have their own homeland. I remember first learning about Theodor Herzl at camp, along with famous Israeli prime ministers like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. We had Hebrew lessons every day which often came with education about Israeli culture, and a section of our madrichim (counselors) were Israeli, young and usually fresh out of the IDF. They would teach us about where they grew up and put on a week-long celebration of Israel’s independence every summer. Posters with facts about Israeli culture and history were commonplace in camp buildings: Did you know that the average Israeli consumes 22 lbs of hummus each year?

I loved learning about Israel and felt a spiritual connection to this country I had never lived in or been to. When I was told by my counselors that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East, that it had every right to defend itself from missile attacks coming from the West Bank, I believed them — why would I not? I was never told about the nation that existed before the formation of Israel or the native Palestinians who lived there. I was never told about the occupation and what it means for Palestinians living under Israeli rule.

So they are “unlearning” that Israel is a democracy and “learning” that there was a Palestinian nation on the land beforehand. Isn’t that great? Myths are replacing a vacuum.

It is way past time (if it isn’t happening already) for Jewish kids to be taught an accurate version of modern Israeli history, one that is proud and unapologetic. There is no reason to demonize ordinary Palestinian Arabs but there is a need to describe the antisemitism of their leaders, of the Hadassah Hospital convoy massacre, of how the Arabs attacked immediately after the partition vote, of how the Zionists waited for months before finally fighting back, of the drama of the UN vote and the declaration of the state, of the Palestinian Arabs who fled from Jaffa after their leaders abandoned them. It can all be taught accurately in a way that kids can understand.

The Forgotten Pogrom–Tiberias, 1938 (American Zionism)

The Forgotten Pogrom

@AmericanZionism

Author Note: Please follow @americanzionism on Twitter

Abstract

A major pogrom took place in the city of Tiberias in Mandatory Palestine on October 2, 1938 during the height of the Arab Revolt. Tiberias had a significant Jewish majority and a diverse population of both Mizrachi and Ashkenazi Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Although this massacre is not as well knows as the massacres in Hebron, Safed, or Jerusalem, it was nevertheless one of the most disturbing and brutal events that took place during the British Mandate period.

Keywords: Israel, Mandatory Palestine, Arab Revolt, Tiberias, Pogrom

The Forgotten Pogrom

1938 was an especially violent year in the Holy Land. It was the midst of the first de facto Intifada of the Jewish/Arab conflict, a violent nationalist uprising called the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. Lead by the father of Arab nationalism in Palestine, Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amīn al-Ḥusaynī, the Arabs founded the Arab High Committee and set three key demands – end all Jewish immigration, ban all land sales to Jews, and give Arabs control of 100% of Mandatory Palestine, leaving them to deal with the Jews. A steady stream of incitement in schools, Arab press, and houses of worship ensued, along with a call to boycott Jewish products. It did not take long for the incitement to turned into violence. In April 1936, Arab terrorists attacked a Jewish bus and killed two. This event unleashed a Pandora's box of tit-for-tat violence which saw the death of many Jews and Arabs. This latest wave of Arab attacks on Jews and the unrealistic demands of their leadership led the British to establish the Palestine Royal Commission in 1937, known colloquially as the Peel Commission. The Peel Commission concluded that the Jews and Arabs in Mandatory Palestine simple could not live together and “Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace. No other plan does.”¹ They recommend partition of the land into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with the Arabs receiving the bulk of the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea and the Jews receiving a sliver of land on which they were the majority (Exhibit 1). The secretary of the Arab High Committee al-Ḥusaynī made it clear that the Arabs would not accept any partition. He testified “The Arab case in Palestine is one which aims at National independence.” ² In the commission’s final report in July 1937, in the midst of this wave of violence against the Jewish community, the commission noted that “The only solution of the problem put forward by the Arab Higher Committee was the immediate establishment of an independent Arab Government, which would deal with the 400,000 Jews now in Palestine as it thought fit.” ³ Given the Mufti’s association with Hitler, his role in founding a Bosnian unit of the Nazi SS and planning for an Einsatzgruppen in the Middle East, and his direction of the Arab Revolt, it is not hard to imagine the tragedy that “as it thought fit” would have meant. The Arabs ultimately rejected the Peel Commission’s recommendation for partition. The Jews accepted a less than ideal and far from equitable agreement.

Tiberias

Tiberias was a predominately Jewish city for much of its existence. It is located on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, in Northern Israel, and is surrounded by hills. It is one of the four holy cities in Judaism. It holds such an import place for Jews that Maimonides, the most famous of Medieval Jewish rabbis and philosophers, loved and respected by Jews as well as gentiles, asked that after his death in 1204 Jews take his remains to be buried in Tiberias. His tomb remains to this day.

In the 1896 comprehensive census done by geographer and orientalist Vital Cuinet, the population of the city of Tiberias was 7,433 with 5,700 Jews (77%), 1,400 Muslims, and 330 Christians, and the greater Tiberias district has a total population of 10,052, with 6,700 Jews (67%), 2,259 Muslims, and 1,093 Christian.⁴ Similar demographic proportions existed before the Cuinet survey, and afterwards. This was a quintessentially Jewish area in the Holy Land. Of note is that the Tiberias Jewish population was made up of many Mizrachi (Middle Eastern) Jews including those whose families lived in the Holy Land for innumerable generations.

The Pogrom

There were many violent attacks in Tiberias on Jews during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. The one that stands out for both its brutality and organization is the Massacre of Jews in the city of Tiberias on October 2, 1938. There were other attacks in Tiberias in 1938 before the Pogrom. In May, a Jew was killed in by an explosion, and in September three Jews were murdered, and a Jew and an Arab were wounded by four Arab terrorists.⁵ Dozens of similar attacks like these occurred all around Mandatory Palestine that year. But the Tiberias massacre in October was different. Its ruthlessness had not been seen since the violent attacks in Safed and Hebron in 1929.⁶

On October 2^nd, an Arab terrorist cell occupied the hills surrounding Tiberias.⁷ It is not exactly clear how many terrorists were involved in the attack, but it must have been anywhere from many dozen to over 100. They waited for the cover of darkness to begin their well-planned operation. At 9pm, the terrorists cut the telephone lines into Tiberias so that the victims could not call for assistance. Two terrorist cells hiding in the hills tactically entered city from the north and south (exhibit 2). Five minutes later, the terrorists remaining in the hills sounded a shrill whistle loud enough so both cells could hear it. This signaled the beginning of the attack. The small local police force was taken by surprise. The terrorists first hit the office of the British district commissioner, the police station, and the quarters where British police were housed hoping to weaken or eliminate any defenses. Tiberias was a poorly defended city with only a couple dozen British police officers and a small number of supernumerary Jewish constable called Notrim or Ghaffirs. In a harbinger of what the future could hold for Jews in Israel in a single bi-national state where Jews no longer have sole control over their security, just three months before the attack, Moshe Sharett (Shertok), Head of the Jewish Agency at the time, had petitioned the British government to arm additional Jews. He also asked for mobile patrols around Tiberias and other Jewish towns and cities. Both requests were rejected by the British and the concern by the Jewish Agency was deemed “exaggerated.”

After attacking the police and government offices, in stereotypical pogrom style, the attackers went to the central synagogue and set it on fire. The caretaker of the synagogue Ezekiel Katz, 42, was trapped inside and burned to death. The terrorists also burned down the local post office before making their way to the Jewish neighborhood of Kiryat Shmuel, north of the old city, armed with bombs, rifles, daggers, and torches. That is when the “systematically organized and savagely executed”⁸ carnage began. Even children were not spared. The terrorists set fire to several Jewish wooden homes. They entered the house of Joshua Ben-Arieh where he, his wife Shoshanna, and one of their sons, Arieh, were stabbed to death and then set on fire. There younger son Moshe, only 18 months old, was shot to death. Visiting the Ben-Arieh family were three siblings –Chaim age 12, Rivkah age 10, and Ezra age 8. The terrorists stabbed and burned to death all three children. While Shimon Yochanan Mizrahi was on patrol in another part of town, terrorists stormed his house and killed his wife Rachel, 26, and all five of their children ages 12, 5, 3, 2, and 1. The terrorists also attacked a third house, the home of Menachem Kabni, 60, and his wife Dora, 40. Both were American citizens. Mr. Kabni had been the beadle of a synagogue in New York for 30 years. Rabbi Asha Werner, who had been visiting Tiberias at the time, reported that the terrorists stabbed the couple to death and burned their bodies.⁹ Miraculously, Mr. Kabni’s sister Esther managed to escape the execution. In total, the terrorists set six Jewish houses on fire and savagely murdered anyone they could find inside. Two supernumerary Jewish constables, Israel Bookman and Zvi Chatzkeleviz, and an additional Jewish man, Jacob Gross, died in a gun fight valiantly trying to stop the attacks. Several other Jews were seriously injured. All but four of the victims were stabbed to death¹⁰ and set on fire.

So diabolical and well planned was the attack that police and troop reinforcements did not arrive in Tiberias for 25 hellish minutes because the Arabs who had whistled from the surrounding hills fired on them on the road to the city. The first to arrive were the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force stationed in the village of Samakh. They managed to fight their way through an ambush and road obstructions set near the hot springs to the south.¹¹The fighting and pogrom lasted until 11pm, two grueling hours, until the British police and armed forces, along with Jewish constables, were able to repel the terrorists. British troops then pursued the attackers to the nearby village of Lubya.¹²Fighting continued until morning and the terrorists suffered 50 casualties.¹³When all was said and done, twenty-one Jews were murdered, including seven men, three women, and, as The Times (UK) reported on October 4^th, eleven “Jewish Children Butchered”.¹⁴

The massacre could have been much worse. A brigade of Jewish constables from a nearby Jewish village called Mizpah encountered a terrorist cell on their way to attack the city and engaged them. They managed to kill six of the terrorists and seized one German and four English rifles, along with ammunition.^{15 16}

Immediately after the Pogrom the British Mandatory government placed a curfew on the city. It was only allowed to be broken for a funeral procession for the victims that walked past the ruins of the still smoldering synagogue while the dead body and destroyed Torah scrolls lay inside.¹⁷Chief Rabbis Dr. Isaac Herzog and Dr. Jacob Meir sent a joint appeal to British secretary Malcolm MacDonald, “Palestine Jewry is deeply horrified at the Tiberias massacre and sacrilege. In G-d's name, we appeal to you to end the terror.”¹⁸The Jewish Agency’s Mr. Sharett would add, “The murders were a terrible price to pay for arousing the authorities to take urgent measures.”¹⁹

Even after such a horrendous pogrom that saw infants shot, stabbed, and burned to death, the attacks on Jews did not stop. The Arabs did everything they could to make Tiberias vulnerable. They set rock barricades and other obstacles on the road to the city so that British reinforcements would have a difficult time arriving (exhibit 3). Less than a month later, on October 27^th, the Jewish Mayor of Tiberias Zaki El Hadef was shot to death by an Arab terorist in the middle of the old city, in broad daylight.²⁰What was unique about Mr. El Hadef is that he presided over a council that consisted of four Jews, two Muslims, and one Christian. He came from an ancient Mizrachi family that settled in Tiberias in 1715. He spoken both Hebrew and Arabic fluently and was by all accounts loved by all the residents of the city. He was a man for all people who at the start of the Arab Revolt in 1936 managed to pass a motion in the municipal council appealing for peace. Nevertheless, like Sadat and Begin would suffer after him, he could not save himself from extremist violence (exhibit 4).

After the Pogrom at Tiberias, Moshe Sharett of the Jewish Agency, who would go on to become the second prime minister of Israel, sent a message to the Arab Palestine Defense Committee in Damascus, a message that would be repeated over and over by Jewish leaders but which always fell on deaf ears – that the Jews in Palestine extend a hand of peace and cooperation to the Arabs of Palestine, but if it is not accepted the Jews will not be intimidated and the Arabs should know that violence and murder will not deter the Jews from re-establishing their homeland in the land of Israel.²¹

“Zionism cannot be deterred by threats of killing, and the fact the Jews have stood in Palestine for 3 years against all onslaughts is an eloquent testimony that they cannot be intimidated. If the Arab neighboring countries ever resort to the practice of massacring Jews they would not prevent the realization of Zionism, but would only disgrace themselves, just as the killing and burning of women and children at Tiberias will only remain as a shameful stain on the record of the Palestine Arab. We see a possibility for a full and fruitful cooperation in Palestine embracing Jews and Arabs as well as neighboring countries for the good of everyone concerned, but on the essential condition that the basic rights of the Jewish people in Palestine are recognized. The realization of Zionism can only be to the benefits of the Arabs. The Jewish return to their ancient home is dictated by historical necessity, and no danger or threat would deflect the Jewish people from the path or stifle their surge for freedom.”²²

The word pogrom often conjures up images of poor Jews in Eastern Europe being slaughtered or of Kristallnacht. People do not often think of what happened to the Jews in Mandatory Palestine as pogroms, but that is exactly what they were. The massacre in Tiberias in 1938, both by virtue of not being as well known as the massacres at Safed and Hebron, and of not being thought of as a pogrom, an organized massacre of Jews, makes this the Forgotten Pogrom.

References

The Evening Star, Washington D.C. October 3, 1938

The Evening Star, Washington D.C. October 30, 1938

Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938

REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938, United Kingdom, December 31, 1938

The Times, United Kingdom, October 5, 1938

The Times, United Kingdom, October 14, 1938

The Times, United Kingdom, October 31, 1938

The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC, October 4, 1938

The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC, October 18, 1938

Footnotes

1. “Palestine Royal Commission Report”, July 1937, p. 537

2. From “Palestine Royal Commission Notes of Evidence taken on Tuesday, 12^th January 1937”, p. 292

3. Ibid, p. 298

4. “Syrie, Liban et Palestine, géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonnée”, Vital Cuinet, p. 111

5. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

6. “Massacre at Tiberias, Jewish Children Butchered, Victims Burned”, The Times, United Kingdom, Tuesday, October 4, 1938, p. 14

7. Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938
The Evening Star, Washington D.C. October 3, 1938

8. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

9. “U.S. Citizen and Wife Among New Holy Land Dead”, The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC, October 4, 1938

10. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

11. “Massacre at Tiberias, Jewish Children Butchered, Victims Burned”, The Times, United Kingdom, Tuesday, October 4, 1938, p. 14

12. Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938

13. “REPORT by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of PALESTINE AND TRANS-JORDAN for the year 1938”

14. “Massacre at Tiberias, Jewish Children Butchered, Victims Burned”, The Times, United Kingdom, Tuesday, October 4, 1938, p. 14

15. Ibid.

16. Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, United States, Vol. IV, No. 154, October 4, 1938

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. “Ambushed Mayor Dies”, The Evening Start, Washington DC, October 30, 1938.

21. “Jewish Reply to Arab Threats, Refusal to be Intimidated”, The Times (UK), October 14, 1938, p. 13

Exhibits

Exhibit 1

Peel Commission Partition Recommendation 1937

Exhibit 2

Topographical Map of Tiberias and the Kiryat Shmuel Neighborhood

Exhibit 3

The Times-News, Hendersonville, NC October 10, 1938

Exhibit 4

The Times (UK), Obituary of Zaki El Hadef, October 31, 1938.

1948 Arab quotes shows the only “nakba” is that they didn’t slaughter the Jews

Here are some quotes from Arab leaders in 1948 around the War of Independence. (They were compiled by the late Ami Isseroff, whose MidEast Web site is an encyclopedic and accurate source of information.)

Encouragement by Arab Leaders and Rumors - A study by Childers, which examined British monitoring of Arab broadcasts during that period, did not find any evidence that Arab leaders called on Palestinians to leave their homes. However, considerable evidence and testimony exists that at different times, Arab leaders encouraged refugees to flee. This issue has been inflated beyond its actual importance. It has no real significance in international law, except to counter or support the Palestinian claims of expulsion by force.

During a fact-finding mission to Gaza in June 1949, Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo and no friend to Israel or the Jews, found that while the refugees "express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. "We know who our enemies are," they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their home. . . ."

The Economist, reported on October 2, 1948: "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit....It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."

Times Magazine (May 3, 1948) reported: "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city....By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."

Edward Atiyah, the secretary of the Arab League Office in London, wrote in his book, The Arabs: "This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boastings of an unrealistic Arabic press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to reenter and retake possession of their country."

According to Near East Arabic Radio, April 3, 1948: "It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees to flee from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem, and that certain leaders . . . make political capital out of their miserable situation . . ."

Nimr el Hawari, the Commander of the Palestine Arab Youth Organization, in his book Sir Am Nakbah (The Secret Behind the Disaster, published in Nazareth in 1955), quoted the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said as saying "We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down."

Habib Issa wrote in the New York Lebanese daily newspaper Al Hoda on June 8, 1951, " The Secretary General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade... He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean. -- Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes, and property and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down."

Reports of massacres and actual fighting caused fear among the population. In Tiberias, Haifa and Jaffa, the Arab irregulars initiated combat with the Jews, who retaliated. The Palestinian civilian population, often abandoned by their leaders, were unwilling to stay under Jewish administration and left. In Haifa, Jewish leaders including the mayor and head of the labor council pleaded with Arabs to stay. In Jaffa, the British pleaded with them to remain, but the exodus continued.

The atmosphere in Palestinian towns can be appreciated from the following quote:

"Jaffa was boiling: every second that passed you heard a new rumour, and after every minute the imaginary tales and lies became bigger, finally, they were accepted as definite truth by the public. At sunset, many of the Mufti henchmen patrolled the streets in private and lorry cars, calling upon the people: oh! men, oh! heros; Help..Help.., stop the Jewish attack! They have attacked your brothers in the Manshiya; they pillaged their properties; burned their holdings and raped their women and girls. They have committed awful acts of horror and brutality against your brothers!! In but a few minutes Jaffa's inhabitants were incited and agitated shouted and fired into the air -- On Them! On Them! ("aleihoom, aleihoom") on Tel-Aviv, the town of the wicked...Groups and individuals, they marched on and among them, behind them or in front of them, went the Mufti henchmen belittling the Jewish strength..."

[Muhamed Nimer Al Hawari in THE SECRET OF THE CATASTROPHE, Nazareth, 1955]

It is hard to square the actual atmosphere among Arabs in 1948 and the current narrative of Jews ethnically cleansing them. The “nakba” was and remains a problem created by and for Arabs, but pride and politics does not allow Palestinians to blame anyone but the Jews.

The narrative they say today is a lie. To know the truth, look at what they said in 1948.

1931 British census says while Jews in Palestine are a nation, Arabs are not

The 1931 British Census of Palestine includes an interesting observation:

In addition, however, to the development of this complex of religious communities, a political development has taken place, and the Jewish Community existing as legal entity, and created historically under a principle of religious freedom, has now a specifically political character. The following quotation descriptive of the community is extracted from Command Paper No. 1 700 of the 1st of July, 1922 :-

. . . The Jewish community in Palestine has its own political organs : an elected assembly for the direction of its domestic concerns elected councils in the towns : and an organization for the control of its schools. It has its elected Chief Rabbinate and Rabbinical Council for the direction of its religious affairs. The business is conducted in Hebrew as a vernacular language, and a Hebrew Press serves its " needs . It has its distinctive intellectual life and displays consider " able economic activity. This community, then, with its town and " country population, its political, religious and social organizations, " its own language, its own customs, its own life, has, in fact,' national ' " characteristics."

In fact, the Jewish Community is a " nationality ". The consciousness of the existence of this "nationality " has led the non-Jewish religious communities to a vague conception of an Arab "nationality ". This Arab " nationality " has no legal existence since there is no Arab community in any formal sense. Its basis is perhaps best described as an awareness, on the part of members of some of the non-Jewish religious communities, of the possibility of common factors in the aims of the several communities. This awareness found its expression in a request during the preparations for the census from the Arab Census Committee that persons enumerated at the census should be given the opportunity of declaring an Arab " nationality ".

While this is speaking about “nationality” from a legal perspective, realizing that the Jews of Palestine had even in 1922 already become a cohesive community that acts and self-governs like a nation, it is striking that it notes that there is no similar Arab consciousness of nationality.

Of course, the word “Palestinian” is not mentioned. They were taking about a general Arab nationality, not specifically Palestinian Arab national feelings, which of course virtually did not exist at the time.

McMahon clarified his 1915 agreement with the Arabs in 1937 - Britain did not promise Palestine to them

There has been a long standing dispute by Arabs against the Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising Palestine as a Jewish homeland.

Briefly:

Sir Henry McMahon, acting on behalf of the British government, met with Sherif Hussein of Mecca in 1915 and made what were taken to be a series of promises to the Arab people. These ‘promises’ were later disputed by the British government and, as with many issues concerning recent Middle East history, were open to interpretation.
Hussein interpreted the correspondence given to him by McMahon as a clear indication that Palestine would be given to the Palestinians [sic] once the war had ended. The British government was later to dispute this interpretation. They claimed that any land definitions were only approximate and that a map drawn at the time (but not by McMahon or a member of the British delegation) excluded Palestine from land to be given back to the Arab people.

...

By the time war ended in November 1918, two distinct schools of thought had developed regarding Palestine:

1) That the British had promised Palestine to the Arabs after the war had ended in return for their support to the Allies in the war.

2) That the British had agreed to give their support to the Jews for a homeland in Palestine as laid out in the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

It turns out that this same argument came up in 1937, when the Peel Commission issued its partition plan. In that plan, there would be a tiny Jewish state but the Arab state would become united with Trans-Jordan, seemingly under the rule of King Abdullah. ("two sovereign independent States would be established--the one an Arab State consisting of Trans-Jordan united with that part of Palestine which lies to the cast and south of a frontier such as we suggest in Section 3 below; the other a Jewish State consisting of that part of Palestine which lies to the north and west of that frontier.")

At the time, Palestinian Arabs argued that the McMahon correspondence gave them the right to an independent state in Palestine and therefore the Peel Commission plan was invalid.

As a result, Sir Henry McMahon himself wrote a letter to the Times of London and set the record straight. The Palestine Post reported:

Sir,

Many references have been made in the Palestine Royal Commission Report and in the course of the recent debates in both Houses of Parliament to the ‘McMahon Pledge’, especially to that portion of the pledge which concerns Palestine and of which one interpretation has been claimed by the Jews and another by the Arabs.

It has been suggested to me that continued silence on the part of the giver of that pledge may itself be misunderstood.

I feel, therefore, called upon to make some statement on the subject, but I will confine myself in doing so to the point now at issue—i.e., whether that portion of Syria now known as Palestine was or was not intended to be included in the territories in which the independence of the Arabs was guaranteed in my pledge.

I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised.

I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein.

Yours faithfully,
A. Henry McMahon.
July 22.

That should have settled the matter, yet even today Arabs and Arabists are arguing that the McMahon correspondence pledged an independent Palestinian state.

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