Introduction to Mavrides' Diary on the Fall of Jerusalem in 1948
(S.Tamari (ed) Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighbourhoods And their Fate in The War.
Institute of Jerusalem Studies & Badil Resource Center. Jerusalem. 1999)
What is so striking about Constantine Mavrides' five short memorandums all of which were written during the few months when the Old City of Jerusalem was being fought over yet once again between politically contending forces with whom he finds little to identify, is how strongly it brings home the notion that there is not a single identifiable entity recognised by all and sundry as constituting the Jerusalem (perhaps this is made clearer by the Arabic name of the city Al Quds - The Holy)
Mavrides text, despite its extreme brevity and rather parochial outlook, enabled me for the first time, to consider Jerusalem in a new light. Having been born in Jerusalem in the closing years of the Mandate, to a family whose home was in one of the Arab quarters of West Jerusalem, I have always rather lazily identified with a view of the city, which along with other diverse cultural luggage was unspokenly bequeathed to me, and which I accepted uncritically, of Jerusalem as an Arab Moslem city (albeit possessing a Jewish minority, a concept which I carried along but it was extremley hazy; there were also Christians, but those I tended to regard as a rather outlandish Moslem sect). This was transformed in 1948 as a result of the magnitude of the defeat inflicted by the Zionists on the Arabs, and the implosion of the existing social and economic structure. The truncated Jerusalem I grew up in, in the nineteen fifties was Moslem and Jordanian. Or at least so it appeared to me.
On my daily walk from Shikh Jarrah neighbournood, down Nablus road, I pass the old derelict Synagog,then the American colony, the Tombs of the Kings, St.Georges Cathedral, and an assortment made up of the American Baptist Centre, the First Church of Christ the Nazarene, the YMCA, the American consulate, the Church School Service, The Dominican Convent de St.Etienne, The Ecole Biblique, The Garden Tomb, The Convent of the White Sisters (Franciscans de Marie), Schmidt Girls School and into the Old City, itself a veritable museum cum art gallery of Christian religious artifacts. All of a sudden Al Quds appears in a new light. Now I realise what what I have always perceived as Al Quds is only one of "many Quds's". I muse how an orthodox Jew who would venture out of his embattlements, physical as well as cultural, would view Jerusalem. Perhaps as a Jewish city with a troublesome Moslem minority, and a veritable amount of expensive real estate whose title deeds are jealously guarded by a multitude of feuding Christian denominations ?
In Context
According to the United Nations partition resolution, Jerusalem was designated an international zone forming a Corpus Separatum, an enclave within the proposed Arab state. Covering a total area of two hundred and fifty eight dunums, this included Bethlehem, Beit Jalla, Beit Sahour, Sour Baher, Beit Saffafa, Saharaft and Ramat Rahel in the South, Silwan, Al Tur, Izzariye, Abu Dis, and the Sawahreh in the east, Al Malha, Lifta, Deir Yassin, Ein Karem in the West, and Issawiya, Shu'fat, Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University in the North.
According to the most authorotitave source on the agreements reached between Prince Abdullah and the Jewish Agency, both parties undertook not to interfere with each others plans (Shlaim, P.178, 1990). Abdullah would not allow his army to enter the area allocated to the Jewish State, while the Jews undertook not to thwart his occupation of the Arab parts of Palestine. There was however no agreement over Jerusalem. There is no doubt that both Ben Gurion and Abdhullah coveted Jerusalem, but neither made his stand public nor communicated his opposition to the Partition decision to the United Nations.
The Battle for Jerusalem had already started immediately after the United Nation's partition decision in November 1947. The Haganah which had a strong military presence in Jerusalem, took the offensive while the British were still formally in control. The villages of Lifta, Romema, Shikh Badr (the site of the present day Kenesset), were attacked and emptied of their inhabitants by January 1948. By April, Qatamoun and Talbiyeh had been taken over. By the onset of May 15th Western Jerusalem had become completely Jewish (Morris,P.52,1987). Al Quds had been reduced to the Old City and the sparsely populated neighbourhoods of Shikh Jarrah and Bab el Zahera.
Until the entry of Abdullah's Arab Legion into Palestine on the 15th of May 1948, the brunt of the fighting in Jerusalem had been borne by assorted irregulars, more often than not locally organised, and rarely operating outside the vicinity of their immediate villages or neighbourhoods. Having been expelled from West Jerusalem the Arabs concentrated their defense on the ramparts of the Old city walls. But the Old City itself was home to nearly two thousand Jewish inhabitants, and rather than evacuate the Jewish Quarter, the Haganah leadership planned to hold on to it and use it "as a springboard for capturing the entire Old City" (Shlaim, P.180, 1990). Without the intervention of the Arab Legion there is little doubt that the Old City would have been overrun by the Haganah. On the 17th of May Abdullah ordered Glubb, the British commander of the Arab Legion to send his troops into Jerusalem, and on the 18th of May the first company of Jordanian soldiers entered the Old City. With the Jewish offensive in Jerusalem halted, the battle shifted to the Latroun Salient which dominated the main road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The war that ensued was the result of the Hanganah's attempts to dislodge the Arab Legion and break the stranglehold on Jerusalem. For its part, the Arab Legion did not conduct any offensive operations and remained loyal to Abdullah's pledge not to enter Jewish designated areas.
The Greek Orthodox Church at War
Mavrides has written briefly about the effect of the 1948 war on the Greek Orthodox church. He has written about his Jerusalem, and indeed he makes brief references to other Christian sects; negatively to Arabs, and in a more hostile vein, to Jews. Right from the very beginning he declares his neuturality (two peoples claiming the country). The Arab quarters he refers to like Katamon, had been occupied by the Jews who had "dislodged...the armed Arabs and occupied it militarily..". Their attack on the old city was with a view "..primarily to rescue the about two thousand pinned down and besieged inside the city Jews....". Most of the Arab inhabitants of the city (inhabitants of the Muslim and Christian suburbs) had already gone abroad before the 14th of May. The remaining took refuge in the Old City itself. They received the hospitality of their relatives, or sought refuge in convents and monasteries. Only the Franciscans refused to open their doors to the refugees. His own church, the Greek Orthodox offered its hospitality to over 400 people, both Arab orthodox and Greek.They gave shelter to their own.
The highlight of this first period is the entry of the Abdullah's Arab Legion which is greeted with joy and enthusiasm. The author himself is not immune from a certain sympathy both for the Officers of the Legion and for their commander in chief, Abdullah of Trans Jordan. Not only did this safeguard the Old City from falling into the hands of the Hagana, but it also resulted in destruction of the two ancient Jewish synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, and the surrender of the Jewish community, both combatants and civilians. He records the Arab plunder of the Jewish Quarter, but hastens to add that the Jews behaved in a similar fashion towards Arab owned " and mostly Christian owned" property in the western quarters of the city.
The intense bombardment of the Old City by the Hagana which followed the fall of the Jewish quarter and the surrender of the besieged Jewish community is viewed as an act of revenge, pure and simple. Mavrides does not offer a political perspective. The direct hits scored on the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, and the Greek Orthodox Monastry are deliberate attempts in retaliation for the destruction of the "simple and without important historical value Jewish synagogues". Christian sites are deliberately "marked out". Two Greek orthodox priests fall victim to the bombardment. In a rare mention of destruction in other parts of the Old City, he does mention a shell landing at the Mosque of Omar which resulted in the death of twenty-two Arabs, presumably Moslems!
In a general comment on the behaviour of the Arab middle class of Jerusalem and other Arab urban centres, Mavrides notes that long before the 14th of May, many inhabitants of the Muslim and Christian quarters of the City had gone abroad. Closer home, he records that the heads and leaders of the Arab Orthodox community left their posts and to save themselves also went abroad. Only the very poor and those who had no money were forced to stay. During the first truce in June, a total exodus from the city took place, and the city inside the walls became empty of population. Only five to seven thousand people remained in Jerusalem.
The glimpse Mavrides gives us of Jerusalem is of a city which is sharply divided along confessional lines, and one moreover that is abandoned by its own inhabitants. From the passing reference to a demonstration in the Moslem quarter, it is clear that people were aware early on in the war that the battle had been lost. It is not surprising that in those circumstances Abdullah should appear as a saviour. Indeed Mavrides does not hide his admiration for the King's cleverness, and records that on a tour of the West Bank in December 1948, he is warmly received by the people. Abdullah of course is a victor. But Mavrides is not blind to the human tragedy and ends by remarking that with the end of hostilities those who took refuge within the city walls are awaiting "the unification of the two sectors of the cut-up city, to go and visit and recover their abandoned homes".
Avi Shlaim The Politics of Partition: King Abdullah, the Zionists and Palestine 1921-1951. Oxford University Press. 1990.
Benny Morris The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem 1947-1949. Cambridge University Press. 1987.