Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948

7. World War, Local Calm

C H A P T E R 7 WORLD WAR, LOCAL CALM 1 7 1 The great Arab revolt disintegrated late in 1939. The rebel leadership tried to cope with its military and political failure by initiating a new round of attacks on “traitors.” In June an intelligence source reported that the mufti had ordered the liquidation of all suspects, even those in his own family. This repealed his previous directive to murder only proven turncoats. A month later the rebel leadership in Beirut issued an updated list of head prices. Top rewards were for the murders of opposition leaders and commanders of the peace units, whose deaths would enrich their assailants by 100 Palestinian pounds each. The rate for lower-level traitors was 25 pounds. In comparison, murdering a Jew was worth only 10 pounds. Shortly thereafter the Shai learned that Sami alHusseini of Jerusalem, ‘Abd al-Qader’s brother and leader of the attack on the Jewish moshav Har-Tuv in 1929, had organized a team whose principal mission was the murder of traitors.1 A few assassinations were carried out after World War II began in Europe. Two police detectives who served in Haifa, Yusuf al-‘Aqel and Elias ‘Adas, were ambushed and shot in mid-October 1939. A policeman , Shafiq Sadeq, was gunned down in Balad al-Sheikh at the beginning of November. Liquidations of traitors also continued in Beirut. At the end of December, rebel agents killed Mahmoud al-Karami, a journalist , opponent of the rebellion, and brother of ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Karami, himself a man with close ties to the Jewish Agency.2 These were the rebellion’s final gasps. As the signs of its passing became concrete, more and more Arabs from all walks of life began reestablishing their ties with Jews. The strictures imposed by the rebellion were no longer obeyed. A TIME FOR RECONCILIATION The circles associated with the Nashashibi opposition were the first to reestablish ties with the Jews. In July 1939 the mufti of Hebron, Sheikh ‘Abdallah Tahboub, set up a meeting with A. H. Cohen in Jerusalem’s Baq‘a neighborhood, at the home of one of Tahboub’s supporters. A year earlier the rebels had issued a death sentence against the sheikh and fired at his home several times. Now Tahboub spoke to Cohen of the importance of understanding between Jews and Arabs and proposed that the Jewish Agency assist “materially and spiritually” in the establishment of an Arab organization for cooperation.3 Some members of the oppositionist Fahoum family, which controlled large tracts of land in Nazareth and its environs, had continued to speculate in real estate during the rebellion. Now the family renewed its unabashed political alliance with the Jews. In December 1939, Muhammad Tawfiq al-Fahoum, director of the Acre waqf (endowment), invited Eliahu Sasson of the Jewish Agency’s political department to a dinner party at his home. Muhammad’s brother Ahmad was also in attendance. The guests conversed about the political situation and recent difficult times. The Fahoum brothers promised that they would avenge the blood of their relatives whom the rebels had killed, the most senior being Rafe‘ al-Fahoum. They also discussed business; the brothers proposed to sell the Zionists tens of thousands of dunams. Their impression, like that of many others, was that the British took a dim view of the improving relations between Palestine’s Arabs and Jews.4 Whether or not this was indeed the British attitude, the reconciliation was unaffected. The change in atmosphere was evident throughout the country. Here is but one example, from Beisan. During the long period of the rebellion, even as old a friend of the Jews as Muhammad Zeinati was compelled to support the rebels, if only outwardly. Now the picture completely reversed itself. Emir Bashir al-Hasan, head of another faction of the Ghazawiyya tribe and Zeinati’s rival, contacted Re’uven Malhi, a Jew serving in the town as a Mandatory policeman. He asked that Malhi set up a meeting with a senior Jewish official. “He said that Jews had contacted him about twenty years previously and asked his assistance in the Zionist enterprise. In exchange for his agreement, they had sent him 1 7 2 / W A R I N E U R O P E , W A R AT H O M E 1,000 Palestinian pounds and a very fine mare, but he...