A Chronicle Of A Defeat Foretold

A Chronicle Of A Defeat Foretold: The Battle for Jerusalem in the Memoirs of Anwar Nusseibeh

Introduction

Personal memoirs as a general rule, record personal accomplishments and success. In the public field, they stake a claim to the author's share in national triumphs and glories. On both counts, Anwar Nusseibeh's memoir are strikingly different. They could not be otherwise. Written in the immediate aftermath of Arab defeat in 1948, while the author was recuperating from a wound sustained during the fighting round Jerusalem on the eve of the termination of the Mandate, they are more in the nature of a comment on the political events surrounding the Palestinian debacle. They highlight the responsibility of the Palestinian leadership, and the Arab states in general for the catastrophe which befell them in 1948, while recording the selfless efforts of countless individuals who shouldered the responsibility for the defence of their homeland . At the same time the author is mindful of the wider forces at play, and here Britain earns a well deserved condemnation for its role in the dismemberment of Palestine and the dispossession of its Arab inhabitants.

While pointing out the failures and shortcomings of the established Palestinian leadership, its internal rivalries, and its unprepardness for the task that lay ahead, the author records the grassroots activities of ordinary Palestinians in their efforts to defend their city despite the lack of resources and the absence of political leadership, and presents us with a "history from below", which is unfailingly lacking in the official histories of battles and campaigns which record the activities of "the high and mighty". The heroes of Nusseibeh's memoirs are unknown characters, both Jerusalemites and volunteers from the neighbouring villages, who assumed on their own, the task of defending the Arab quarters of Jerusalem and who succeeded in preventing the Jewish takeover of the whole city in the crucial period from December 1947 to May 1948, when the battle of Jerusalem was being waged while the British were still in control. The latter preferred to sit on the sidelines and watch the unfolding of events in the pretence that they were uninterested onlookers and impotent to implement the responsibilities incumbent on them as the legal authority in the country. This too applies to the neighbouring Arab states, who full of bellicose declarations, were woefully ignorant of the real state of affairs in Palestine and much too pre occupied with their own internal rivalries, and with their hostility to the Mufti.

Through the Office Window: In the beginning There was Chaos

A few days after the United Nations General Assembly voted in favour of the Partition Plan for Palestine on the 29th of November 1947, Anwar Nusseibeh was sitting at home when his younger brother informed him that a protest demonstration was underway and he hastened to watch(p.9). A few days earlier when news of the United Nations decision reached Palestine, the Jews spent the whole day in jubilation, while the Higher Arab Executive ordered a country wide three day protest strike in response. On arriving at the scene of the demonstration he was soon to be disappointed. It was composed of "fifty odd urchins" and nobody seemed to know why or how the process started or where it would end. The Arab Higher Executive itself, disclaimed any responsibility and as he saw it "no other organisation was either interested or even capable of producing so uninspiring a protest as this". After assailing a Jewish journalist, the only Jew who happened to be on the scene, the demonstrators proceeded to attack and sack the commercial centre of the city. As he records they "indiscriminately looted Arab and Jewish premises alike" while British policemen looked on without intervening. The looting he tells us went on for weeks. Watching from his office window in Mamilla street, overlooking the centre, he notes that "nothing was spared". Doors, windows and eventually even sanitary installations were removed, and in time dynamite was used to pry open unwieldy locks, until the centre was transformed into "dust, noise and chaos"(p.10).

The Home Front: A people Divided

The main body of Arab leaders were outside the country. This had been the situation since 1937 and remained so till the very end of the Mandate. In Jerusalem itself there were only two members of the Higher Arab Executive, Dr Hussein Fakhri al-Khalidi and the elderly Hilmi Pasha Abdul Baqi Some time later Sheikh Hassan Abu al-Souod was dispatched, and Emil Ghouri, member of the Executive and a very close associate of the Mufti would make occasional appearances. This is not to say that the Mufti did not have his own men on the ground, which he did. But his absence meant that he was removed from the actual theatre of events and this was to have an effect on his political decisions and his ability to conduct the day to day aspects of the struggle(1).

In an attempt to explain the absence of plans and resources to mount a credible defence of Jerusalem, Nusseibeh journeys back to the years of the 1936 rebellion and the resulting social and political cleavages within Palestinian society. Notwithstanding the fact that nearly ten years had passed since the end of the Revolt, Palestinian society remained divided(p.29). Both the Mufti and his opponents were afraid of a repeat performance. For their part, the opposition were afraid that the Mufti will resort to the same methods of violence and intimidation in order to silence them, and thus they did everything in their power to thwart him and put pressure on the Arab League to prevent him from receiving material help and support. In this endeavour, Nusseibeh comments, they met with a large measure of success. For his part the Mufti was afraid that if his enemies were armed they will take revenge for what happened in 1939. Additionally, he felt that the moderates had let him down in the past and he had no guarantee that "they would he would not be let down again if he relied on them and their supporters" (p.37). This might have been one of the considerations of the Mufti to refuse to issue arms to any except his loyal supporters and to recruit for the forces of al-Jihad al-Mukaddas only from among his supporters(p.73). Yet it is possible to ascribe this to the Mufti's "lust for power, a lust that the years of the revolt only whetted but did not completely satiate". This partially accounts for the absence of an organised Arab force in the first months of hostilities in the aftermath of the partition resolution, and for the paucity of arms which continued to plague the defenders of Jerusalem throughout the period. Commenting on this self inflicted constraint, Nusseibeh writes that the internal divisions among Palestinians meant that "the Mufti entered the battle with one arm tied behind his back, while the opposition saw to it that his free arm wielded nothing more than a wooden sword"(p.37).

While clearly part of the Mufti's camp, Nusseibeh nevertheless evinces some sympathy for the stand of the opposition though he finds their political position untenable. Affirming that there were always moderates in Palestinian Arab politics ( and adding that his own late father was one of them) he considers it possible to ascribe their moderation either to an "innate sense of defeatism or realism" depending on how the issue is viewed. Yet he believes that it more likely sprang from "an ignorance of the nature of the Zionist menace and the implications of the Palestine Mandate"(p.29). While they termed themselves the "opposition", it was clear that what they were opposed to was the Mufti and his group, but not to "the essential national complaint against the Mandate". In showing readiness to accept British proposals for the establishment of a legislative council, the Peel partition proposal, the 1939 White Paper, or any other policy, however appealing, in the belief that it would lead to the abolition of the Mandate, or at least the minimisation of its ill effect, they were practicing " a form of self deception for which there could be no justification"(p.30). The opposition realised that the national demand for the abolition of the Mandate and immediate recognition of independence "corresponded exactly with the minimum needs for survival of the Arabs as a nation", and that the longer it took to achieve this objective the more distant it became, but at the same time they never accepted the implications of this position(p.31). On the contrary, the Mufti's determination to continue the fight filled them with apprehension and resentment.

The Arab Role: Politicians At War

As the conflict in Jerusalem intensified its inhabitants looked to the Higher Arab Executive and to the Arab League for leadership and support. Non however appeared to be forthcoming, as neither gave a lead and both ignored the real state of affairs in Palestine. On top of this there was the behind the scenes conflict between the Mufti on the one hand and most of the other Arab leaders on the other. The issue was over who was to be responsible for the direction of military operations in the field, and thus the ultimate authority in Palestine. The Mufti wanted his appointee Abdul Kader al-Husseini to be in charge, while the Arab League wanted Fawzi al-Kawukji, who in the end was given the command of Jaish al-Inkadh under the command of two Iraqi Officers Generals Ismail Safwat and Taha al-Hashimi(p.66). The fact that these two officers never set foot in Palestine compounded matters. Delegations from inside Palestine were continuously looking for them to ask for help in the form of arms and ammunition, only to be rebuffed as it was the Arab League's policy not to proffer any aid to Al Jihad Al Mukaddas. Even when pleas were made for the intervention of Jaish al Inkadh, Genereal Safwat explained to the supplicants that the role of that army was as a striking force and that it was not for defence. He summarised his general strategy by informing a Palestinian delegation asking for the Army's intervention by stating " Let Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Safad, Jerusalem, Nazareth, fall. All these towns are of no strategic importance and we can always take them back". (p.67) Nusseibeh comments that all these towns, with the exception of Jerusalem, fell while Jaish al Inkadh watched them fall from the peaceful hills of Nablus, and adds bitterly that General Safwat "has not been able to recover them".(p67) Citing a particular instance in which he was a direct witness, he records that during the attack on al-Kastal and Deir Yassin, two platoons of Jaish al Inkadh which were stationed in the nearby village of Ein Karem did not take part in the battle because their officers had orders to leave the area(p.119).

Without venturing an opinion, Nusseibeh reports on the widespread belief that the Arab rulers were "privy to the partition plan and only made a show of opposing it to justify subsequently their apparent impotence" (p.3) He does record however that Abdullah was "not entirely free to shape his own policy", and that the Arab Legion "is Arab in name only and is incapable of defending an Arab policy". As for Iraq, he comments that the British Embassy is reputed "to enjoy a high degree of prestige in the Regent's circle in Baghdad", and that the Iraqi rulers had "a grudge against the Mufti" because in their view he had been at the back of Rashid Ali's abortive rebellion of 1941(p. 68). As for Syria and Lebanon, the two considerd themselves "under a debt of gratitude to Great Britain" for the stand she took when they broke free from the French(p.3). The Arab leaders had conveyed to the Arab public the impression that they seriously intended to defend Palestine, yet no sooner had the Arab armies entered Palestine than a truce was called and "the sordid round of intrigues and shameful debacles began"(p.4). To the claim that the Arab rulers accepted the truce in June 1948 in response to pressure of the Great Powers, Nusseibeh responds that this should have been clear to them from the outset and that "the rattling of sabres among the Arab politicians, judged in the light of their subsequent behaviour, was either stupid or downright dishonest"(p.4).

The British Role: Original Sin

Once the Partition resolution was passed by the United nations, Britain declared its intention of evacuating Palestine by the 15th of May 1948, and refused to involve itself in the implementation of partition. Yet the Peel Commission had advocated this course of action openly as far back as 1937, and recommended a surgical operation to divide the country into two halves. Nusseibeh has no doubts that "partition was of her making". Although appearing to be a spectator, it was " a drama which she herself had created, produced and acted"(p.1). Despite the show of apparent neutrality, Nusseibeh condemns Britain as the "arch intriguer in the sordid drama, the guardian who had failed in her duty towards her ward and who, in order to cover up his failure, had condemned her ward to death"(p3). He records the widespread belief held at the time that the Arab states were prompted to enter Palestine by the British in order to force the Jews to accept "a different form of partition", and produces as evidence the Arab states willingness to accept the Bernadotte partition plan which gave the Negev to the Arabs and the Galilee to the Jews and recommended that the Arab part of Palestine be joined to Tran Jordan which at the time was under British control(p.4).(2) As For King Abdullah himself, Nusseibeh is content to record that despite his own personal inclinations he was "not entirely free to shape his own foreign policy"(p.3) and adds that "it is a fact..that King Abdullah accepted partition in 1937 provided that the Arab part was given to him"(p.3), with rider that his chief army officer is British, and the Arab Legion is subsidized by the British Treasury.

On the Ground in the period December 1947 to mid May 1948 British forces did not intervene in the battles which broke out between Jews and Arabs. Thus most Arab towns fell under Jewish control while British Forces were still in the country. They remained onlookers even when Deir Yassin was attacked. The only time they intervened was when their lines of communication were threatened by the fighting. In Jerusalem itself, which they had divided into security zones, they appeared to be in favour of the status quo with the Jews and Arabs respectively remaining within their own districts. Thus they were ready to expel Jewish forces from Sheikh Jarrah when the Jews occupied Arab homes on the "wrong side" of Nablus road(p.134), while at the same time attacking Arab forces which attacked a Hadassah convoy in the aftermath of the massacre at Deir Yassin(p.129), and rescuing trapped Jewish combatants in the aftermath of the Battle of Dheishe(p.92).

Nusseibeh is firm in his condemnation of the British regarding them as ultimately responsible for the massacres of Deir Yassin, Jaffa, Haifa and other Arabs towns and villages which "were sacked and ravaged by the Jews during the British occupation"(p.99). To his mind, not only could they have prevented these incidents ( and he is confident that the British had adequate armed force in the country for that purpose) but more importantly, "by holding their hand", they had helped in creating the refugee problem and consequently were to be held responsible for it. Blame however should also be directed at the Arabs themselves for having been so blind to the aims and policies of the West in general and Britain in particular. The only interest the West has shown towards the Arabs has been " a desire to dominate and devour"(p.125). They had been determined to help Zionism at the expense of the Arabs, while the latter have been "blinded by a hint here and a word of bribes" for betrayal of their own self interest, causing "(Arab) politicians to rub their palms and kow-tow, grinning apes that give away this, make away with that, tangible concessions in return for hints and words"( p.125).

Formation of the Jerusalem National Committee: Organising for Self Defence

The initiative for the formation of a national committee in Jerusalem was taken at a local level. The city's inhabitants expected the Higher Arab Executive to take the initiative and establish a national committee on the model of those that were set up during the years of the Revolt in 1936. When this did not materialise, and when it became clear that the British police had abdicated it role in the maintenance of law and order, people in local quarters started gathering together in order to appoint night watchmen to guard against Jewish armed incursions and bomb attacks(p.40,143). As the conflict intensified, people started thinking of purchasing weapons for their own self defence and in the absence of any material support from the outside, people had to self finance their own purchases and to procure their weapons on the black market(p.28). A number of local committees were formed in the various Arab quarters, Musrara, Wadi el-Joz, Bab al-Zahira. Eventually arms were supplied by the Higher Arab Executive but this was a haphazard operation both in terms of the quality of the arms supplied and in terms of delivery. Most of the arms delivered to the Arab combatants in Jerusalem were second hand weapons collected from the left overs in the Western Desert. Consequently most of the material rescued from the sands was "junk". Although attempts were made to repair it, the little that did reach Palestine was hardly serviceable(p.53). This was compounded by the great variety of weapons distributed and the absence of suitable ammunition for these guns. There were English, Italian, French and Canadian varieties of weapons "and a few others whose identity was difficult to establish". These had to be shared by all the quarters of Jerusalem as there were not enough numbers of each variety to assign to each quarter. During engagements, not only did many of these weapons prove to be defective, but once their ammunition ran out they were rendered virtually useless.

Eventually the pressure of events forced the hand of the Higher Arab Executive and it dispatched one of its members from Cairo, Sheikh Hassan Abu al-Souod to establish national committees in the main Palestinian towns and cities(p.70). The Sheikh proceed to establish committees in Jaffa and various other locations before he approached Jerusalem. Because of the special sensitivities and family rivalries he had left Jerusalem till the last. Eventually a committee of twelve members was elected "representing a fair cross section of the city's inhabitants". It consisted of two lawyers, two doctors, a couple of merchants and notables, and had both lay and religious members(p.71). With the exception of the Secretary of the committee who was Nusseibeh himself, all the members worked on a voluntary basis. The committee carried out a multiplicity of functions such as the issue of identity cards, arms licenses and movement permits for the transfer of foodstuffs from one locality to another. It regulated trade and strove to eliminate profiteering. It oversaw the work of the local committees responsible for the equitable distribution of bread, kerosene and other essential commodities (p.77). It also sent delegations outside Jerusalem; to other towns to discuss food problems, to Cairo to arrange for financial support, and to Damascus to request arms from the Arab League's military committee (Nusseibeh comments that "this useless practice was (later) dropped")(p.77). And not least of its functions was the maintenance of relations with Abdul Kader al Huesseini in the Jerusalem hills to coordinate steps for the armed defence of the city(p,78,89).The work of the committee was compounded by the daily petitions it received from the surrounding villages for all sorts of help. Mainly the demand was for ammunition and Nusseibeh adds that often this "would be made in the middle of an engagement"(p.82). The committee lived from day to day and spent the dues and fees it collected mainly on defence. But it saw its role as a holding operation. No plans he records were made beyond the fifteenth of May, when it was hoped "the Arab states would take over".

A War of Defence, A War of Partition

The Battle of Jerusalem started immediately in the aftermath of the United Nations partition decision and was to continue until the entry of Abdullah's Arab Legion into Jerusalem a few days after the final British withdrawal in mid May 1948. There was a motley collection of fighters in Jerusalem, though with very little coordination among them. On the one hand there were the volunteers in the various quarters who saw their main task as the defence of their own quarters. These were the inhabitants of Jerusalem, or what was left of them, the majority having left in successive waves after every new atrocity committed by the Jewish forces intent on spreading their control over the whole city. Among them were Adel Najjar, Shurki Kutteineh, Saleh Abdu, Bahjat Abu Gharbiyeh, Haj Eid Abdeen, Hind Dusseini, Shikh Hassan Abu al-Suoud, Fouad Khalidi, Jamil Wahbe, Issa Majaj, Dr. Hanna Attalah, Raouf Darweesh. There were also volunteers from the villages surrounding Jerusalem who had come to the city to undertake its defence. They included people like Ibrahim Abu Dayeh from the Hebron region who was instrumental in organising the defence of the Katamon Quarter. There were also groups from al-Jihad al-Mukaddas led by Abdul Kader al-Husseini and his deputy Kamel Ireikat who took their orders from the Mufti in Cairo; their main presence was in the hills surrounding Jerusalem and they enforced the siege on Bab el Wad, the gateway to Jerusalem which until the building of the Burma road by the Hagana, prevented Jewish reinforcements, both men and supplies from reaching the Jewish quarters of Jerusalem. They also fielded men within the confines of the Old City led by Hafez Barkat. After the fall of al-Kastel and the death of Abdul Kader al-Husseini in early April 1948, the Jihad's role became marginal. There were also groups from Jaish al-Inkadh, led by Fawzi al-Kawukji, whose army was mostly made up of Syrian and Iraqi volunteers. A small detatchment led by Fadhl al-Abdullah an Iraqi officer, was stationed in al-Rawdah school (p.97). They were thinly spread in various areas of the country and though some of their forces were in the vicinity of Jerusalem, they did not participate in the defence of al-Kastel or interfere in the massacre which took place at Deir Yassin. They followed the orders of the Military Committee of the Arab League based in Damascus and they perused a policy of non cooperation and rivalry with the Mufti's supporters. There was in addition troops from the Arab Legion, which were stationed in the environs of Jerusalem as part of the formations of the British Army and followed its command. Prior to its re-entry into Palestine after the termination of the Mandate, its most prominent achievement was the defence of the Augusta Victoria complex on the Mount of Olives in the face of a Jewish attack mounted from the Hadassah and Hebrew University compound.

Jerusalem was effectively partitioned into mutually recognised Arab and Jewish no go areas. During the last months of the Mandate, not a single day or night passed in which Jews and Arabs did not indulge in military operations of some sort or the other(p.55). Nusseibeh records that most of the Jewish attacks were the prelude to blowing up of frontier houses separating Arab and Jewish quarters, whether in places like Katamon which bordered Rehavia, or the Nablus road which bordered Measharim. The Jews were waging a war of nerves and placed explosive devices in the crowded Arab shopping areas of Jerusalem. He characterises Arab attacks as retaliatory in nature. Thus the blowing up of Ben Yehuda Street, the Palestine Post, the Jewish Agency, and the attack on the Hadassah convoy in Sheikh Jarrah were in response to various Jewish terririst acts, such as the blowing up of the Samiramis Hotel in Katamon, the massacre at Deir Yassin, the death of Abdul Kader al-Husseini at Kastel, and the shooting of Arab civilians in Jaffa road, the city's main shopping thoroughfare.

Perhaps the most important Battle that took place in the Jerusalem area was that at al-Kastel, not only because the foremost Arab Palestinian military commander, Abdul Kader al-Husseini met his death there, but also because the village possesed tremendous strategic importance controlling the road to Jerusalem and thus preventing Jewish convoys from bringing relief to the Jewish defenders in the city. Nusseibeh was present during the battle and he records the presence of a number of Jerusalemites at the scene among them, Adel Najjar, Hafez Barakat, Saleh Abdu, Bahjat abu Gharbiyeh, Kamel Ireikat, in addition to Ibrahim Abu Dayeh and Abdul Halim al-Jaylani from Mount Hebron. The village was initially occupied by Jewish forces in a surprise attack but a counter attack succeeded in dislodging them. Abdul Kader had arrived in mid battle from Damascus after failing to secure support from the Military Committee there and had been killed while leading the attack to liberate the village. In the aftermath of the battle, all the neigbhouring villagers had departed to their homes and Nusseibeh records that it seemed impossible to induce them to remain to defend it. All the fighters vere volunteers who owned their own rifles and bought their own ammunition and thus "were amenable to neither discipline nor pressure"(p.118) What was left was no more than fifteen men guarding the newly liberated village(p.116). The rest had either returned to their villages or were participating in Abdul Kader's funeral in Jerusalem. In the meantime, Jewish forces reoccupied the village virtually unopposed. Nusseibeh reflects that considering the price paid, the whole operation "had been in vain; absolutely, completly and wastefully in vain" (p.121).

The British in preparation for their departure had already divided Jerusalem into a number of security zones which had the effect of facilitating the partitioning of the city. Security zone D, around Schneller's Orphanage in the north-west of the city, was allowed to pass into the control of Jewish forces which immediately set up roadblocks and stopped all vehicles entering the Jewish controlled area for inspection, including British army and police vehicles. The British themselves retreated into the central security zone where government offices were located and which also included Lower Bakaa, Talbiyeh, the German Colony, the Railway station, the Government printing press, the Petrol installations Socony Shell, the Sweedish Hospital for the Lepers and the English Athletic Club. They also established another zone which included the King David Hotel, the US Consulated, the French Consulate, the Tera Sancta College, the YMCA, King George Street and the Government Press Office in David's Building. A fourth zone, included the Central Post office, the Police Headquarters, the Radio Station, the Prison, the Government Hospital, the Municipality and the whole area of the Russian complound. A smaller zone, comprising the Greek colony and Katamon was nominally under the control of the Arabs, but in effect became a battle ground as Jewish forces mounted continuous attacks in order to dislodge its defenders and put its inhabitants to flight. When British forces withdrew at the end of the Mandate, Jewish forces advanced and occupied these quarters as there did not exist an Arab force in Jerusalem ready and able to replace the withdrawing British forces(p.146). At the same time Nusseibeh notes that those quarters that had been defended by their residents from the very beginning of the year, like the Old City, Bab al-Zahira, Wadi al-Joz, al-Toor, parts of Musrara, remained with the Arabs. On the last day of the Mandate, Jewish forces launched a strong offensive which very nearly resulted in the occupation of the whole of Jerusalem. The Arab volunteer forces in Jerusalem, joined by three hundred Arab policemen who had joined with their arms in the defence of the city(p.147), succeeded in holding the Jewish forces at bay. Yet it was not possible to defend and hold on to Jerusalem without outside support. Abdullah was the only available address. Repeated calls for help eventually impelled Abdullah to order Glubb to send the Arab Legion to Jerusalem, which after "watching the city burn for days" he did, but not until the third day after British forces had evacuated the city. Nusseibeh, concludes by affirming that the whole of Jerusalem would have eventually fallen to the Jewish forces had the Arab Legion not entered the city (p.147).

The People and The Leader

Constantine Mavrides records in his diaries(3) that long before May 14th, many inhabitnats of the new quarters of the city, both Moslem and Christian had gone abroad, and only "the very poor and those who had no money stayed behind". The city inside the walls was emptied of its inhabitants with only five to seven thousand people remaining in Jerusalem. Nusseibeh for his part is full of praise for the many Jerusalamites who "had been stoically sharing the vigil, noise and danger of the past five months without complaint" (p.139) and commends the courage of the city's inhabitants whose spirit and ressistance enabled the city to hold out against the attacking Jewish forces until the arrival of the Arab Legion on the 19th of May 1948. Notwithstanding this, he notes that the wealthy inhabitants of the city were already starting to leave in January after the Haganah blew up the Semiramis Hotel in Katamon reuslting in the death of fourteen people. The National Committee had no authority to stop this exodus and had no right to do so, for as he asserts, to do so would have implied that it was in a position "to defend the citizens, and in particular the women and children", which it was not. He reflects that perhpas the only competent authority that could have effectivly put a stop to their flight would have been the Higher Arab Executive. But the Execuitve itself was outside the country. The only members left in Palestine were Dr.Hussein al-Khalidi and Ahmad Hilmi Pasah, in addition to Emil al-Ghoury who made occassional visits; the rest with their families "were away from Palestine and its dangers" (p.140). Some like the Mufti himself and his closest associates were banned by the Government from entering the country, while others were outside due to the nature of their work. But "the rationalising rich" took the absence of the Higher Execxutive members as "justification for their own departure" from Palestine. There was also the hidden fear of a repetition of what took place in 1938, when contributions to the national cause were forcefully levied from their ranks. As the situation deteriorated, he records that the less welathy began to follow the others out of the country "and so the movement once started, gathered momentum"(p.140). The massacre of Deir Yassin accelerated the process, and had the effect of causing many villagers in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem to abandon their villages(p.122). To Nusseibeh's mind, those who left "had the justification that they believed they would soon be reentering in the wake of the vitorious Arab armies to reoccupy a country to which order had been restored" (p.140) No one he affirms, thought the Palestine war "would last as long as it did or have the end it had". Soon after the fall of Katamon on the 29th of April, Nusseibeh himself dispatched his family to the relative safety first of Jericho, and then outside the country to the Lebanon (p.141).

Throughout the Mandate period the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini stood at the head of the national movement. The Higher Arab Executive through which he executed his polcies has been criticised from various quarters, and not least of all, because its policies had in actual fact failed, and led to the Nakba of 1948. Nusseibeh, not unmindful either of the methods employed by the Executive, nor by the accusations alevied against it is not harsh in his judgment. He turns his attention first to the individuals who made up the executive and comments that there is "an old world musty atmosphere of secrecy and intrigue" about their methods(p.7). This he ascribes less to their persons "steeped in the Old Ottoman tradition as some of them are, than to the nature of the work which they had to perform and and the kind of obstacles with which they had to contend". Whatever accusations were made, it was never suggested he comments that they "did not represent the hopes and aspirations of the Arabs of Palestine" (p.7). He points to over centralisation and the absence of the Executive from Palestine during the most critical period as among the most important shorcomings. But it is to the Mufti that he mainly addresses himself who " for better or for worse dominates the scene" and allongside whom " all the other politicians fade into insignificance against his luminous background. They appear and fade across the political horizon without leaving any great or deep impression behind them"(p.7). While he has been called "a gangster", there is no doubt that "his political opponents fear as well as respect him". "He has been described as clannish and highly unreliable. He is certainly ambitious and very single minded. It is quite conceivable that people who do not share with him his ideals find him a very unsafe partner. He is slow but thorough, not given to trusting people easily. Being stepped in the old Arab tradition according to which fmaily ties are stronger than they are in the West, he naturally leaned for support on members of his family because he could be more certain of their loyalty"(p.7). As for his relations with the British, Nusseibeh proclaims that this friendship "had been precarious and unnatural...the breakaway was inevitable". Many people regarded him as the friend, even the agent of the British, and pointed to the fact that they had approved his appointment as Mufti. Nusseibeh affirms that he was not "anti-British", but he was "pro-Arab, and he has not been able to make the two loyalties work together"(p.8). His principles were "sound and shared by all partriotic Arabs" but he "made the mistake of believing that he could achieve more though Italy and Germany; it was the British themselves who had driven him to despair". His final judgment is that although the Mufti succeed in providing the Arabs "with a symbol of ressistance, he failed them as a leader". But this failure, considering the circumstances was probably "inevitable".

*I would like to thank Sari Nusseibeh for allowing me to quote from the manuscript of his late fathers memoirs. All page references are to the edited copy of manuscript which is scheduled for publication in the forthcoming future. The manuscript was written in English in 1949.

*** Anwar Nusseibeh (1913-1986) was born in Ottoman Jerusalem. He studied law at Cambridge University in England in the early thirties and on his return to Palestine worked briefly in the legal offices of the Mandatory government. In 1948 he was elected secretary of the Jerusalem National Committee, and later in 1949 moved to Gaza where he held the position of secretary of the All Palestine Government established by Haj Amin al Husseini. He returned to Jerusalem soon after its annexation by King Abdullah of Jordan and participated in the first elections to be held after the "unification" of the two banks. He was elected deputy for Jerusalem in April 1950. He served two further terms in the Jordanian Parliament in 1951 and in 1954. In March 1953 he was appointed to the Jordanian Senate, and soon after resigned his seat upon being elected to Parliament. He served a further term in the Senate in November 1963, and resigned in June 1965 on his appointment as Jordanian Ambassador to the United Kingdom. In 1963 he was appointed Governor of Jerusalem. He served three stints as a cabinet minister, first in 1952 as Minister of Defense and Reconstruction , in 1954 as Minster of Defence and Education, and then again in 1954 as Minister of Defence. In 1956 along with a number of prominent East and West Bankers, he established the Arab Constiutional Party under the leadership of Prime Minister Towfic Abu al Huda. He continued to live in Jerusalem after it was occupied by the Israelis in June 1967, and served in the early 1980's as chairman of the Jerusalem Electricity Company.

NOTES

1.The Mufti did nevertheless personally intervene in field decisions and Nusseibeh recounts that during talks with the British to impliment a cease fire in Katamon when the Arab were faced with overwhelming force and had all but lost the battle for the defence of the quarter, Both Ahmad Hilmi Pasha, and Abu Dayeh the local military commander had to explain themselves on the Phone to the Mufti in Cairo who pressed on them the need to continue the fight (p.137). Another incident recorded is the Battle of Dheishe, when the British negotiated on behalf of the jews besieged in a convoy with Dr. Hussein al- Khalidi, member of the Exeuctive, for safe conduct for them.

2. In a recently published book, Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City, Profile Books. London, 2001. p.138. Bernard Wasserstien writes that the British Cabinet had decided as early 20 September 1947, that is even before the passage of the partition resolution, they would not cooperate in any way with partition and would simply withdraw from Palestine. According to the author, they wanted to avoid "incurring the odium" in Arab eyes of helping to implement partition. At the same time their secret objective was precisely the opposite: to help facilitate a partition of Palestine between the Zionists and King Abdullah, thus precluding the creation of a Palestinian state headed by. the Mufti.

3. Published in S.Tamari(ed.) Jerusalem 1948: The Arab