7/30/2019 New Documents Reveal Early Palestinian Attitudes Toward Zionist Settlements

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New documents reveal early

Palestinian attitudes toward

Zionist settlements

Petitions sent by locals to the Ottoman sultan in

Istanbul reveal the complexity of earlyencounters between local villagers and new

European immigrants.

ByNir Hasson| Nov.04, 2012 | 7:25 PM | 28

The Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V. Photo by P.S. Rogers

A deadly clash arose over grapes. Photo by Haim Taragan

In the history of Zionism, the Zarnuka incident of 1913 has gone down as

one of the first violent encounters between Jewish settlers and the local

Arab population.

The clash, which left two Jews and one Arab dead, broke out between

Rehovot settlers and residents of neighboring Zarnuka. It appears thatmembers of "Hashomer," the newly founded Jewish defense organization,

confronted two villagers who were stealing grapes from a vineyard

belonging to Rishon Letzion settlers. The confrontation led to a massbrawl and ensuing acts of revenge.

The Halutzim naturally wrote their version of events: "One day, during the

grape harvest, two Zarnuka thugs, sons of wealthy families, passed

through the vineyards of Rishon Letzion, on their heavily loaded camels,

and on their way, reached out to harvest some of the grapes," authorMoshe Smilanski wrote. "One of Hashomer guards, from Jerusalem, a new

'green' recruit, confronted them. Realizing he was no hero, the Arabs

ridiculed him, and even took his gun and beat him up."

As in so many incidents that enfolded in the early years of Zionism, oftenresearchers have only had access to the version of events written by the

Jewish side. At times, one could find another narrative the official

account of events as recorded by the local Ottoman administration. Still, a

new document referring to the Zarnuka incident was discovered recentlyby researcher Yuval Ben Bassat, in the Istanbul Archives, a petition

written to Sultan Mehmet V by heads of families in the area.

The petitioners present themselves as, "We, the residents of villages

neighboring with the Jewish colonies of Daran [Rehovot] and Lun Kara

(Rishon Leztion)," and complain that the Jews "wanted to strip the camel

owner of their clothes, money and camels, but these men refused to givetheir camels and escaped from Lun Kara with their camels, protecting each

other [to seek refuge with] men of the law The above mentioned Jews

attacked our villages, robbed and looted our property, killed and even

damaged the family honor, all this in a manner we find hard to put inwords."

The villagers continue to voice their grievances about the Jewish attitude,

the amassing of forbidden arms in the Jewish colonies, and even ofbribery: "By payments they do whatever they want, as if they have a smallgovernment of their own in the country."

The Zarnuka petition is but one of thousands of petitions sent from

Palestine to Istanbul at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th

century. A reading of this correspondence sheds light on the way rural

Arabs viewed the first Zionist settlements, as well as irreconcilabledifferences between the local population and the new European

immigrants.

A huge gap is evident concerning the concept of land and property. As far

as the Jews were concerned, purchasing the land from its owners usuallylandowners who lived elsewhere gave them full control of all rights

concerning the land. The local Fellaheen and Bedouins saw things

differently, however. They believed that the fact that they had lived andcultivated the land for centuries granted them rights on the land.

Thus, for example, in 1890, a Bedouin tribe who cultivated the lands that

would later be Rehovot, wrote: "Lately, the supreme government has sold

the place to certain people of the land. We did not protest since the new

owners of the land clearly knew that the place was cultivated and handledby us for many centuries but, still in this condition, the land was

suddenly sold to a group of foreign Jews [Asralin] who arrived with

funds They began to expel us from the land we lived on the farm,which was ours since the times of our fathers and grandfathers, was

forcefully taken from us by the strangers who do not wish to treat us

according to the accepted norms among tillers of the soil, and according to

basic human norms or compassion.

In short, they will not accept us, even as their slaves." The tribe requestedthat the sultan issue a decree allowing them to remain on their lands, or,

alternatively, allocate other land for them.

In a paper soon to be published in the prestigious Catedra periodical of the

Institute for the Study of Eretz Israel and its Settlement, Ben Bassatpresents the Jewish point of view on this event: According to the Jews,

they were the owners of the lands that were bought through Yehoshua

Hankin, who was responsible for many land purchases. As a gesture to the

Bedouins, they enabled them to continue cultivating the land for a certainperiod of time.

"We understood that after purchasing the land, paying its price and

receiving the purchase deed from the government then we are the owners

of the land, and no one else has a say about it," Levin Epstein, head of the

Rehovot settlement committee, wrote in his diary. "We asked them toleave the land, and they argued that they had leased their lands for two

years and have planted seed only once, for the summer harvest, and

therefore are entitled to plant winter seeds, harvest and thresh them, aprocess that would last all summer, and only then will they leave

Hankin told us that the Bedouins are right. So we then compromised with

the Bedouins, and agreed that they would remove their tents from our land,but could come and cultivate the leased land until they reap their winter

grain. Thus, the first conflict between us and our neighbors ended well."

The petitions were discovered by Ben Bassat in the Istanbul archive as part

of the research for his Ph.D at the University of Chicago, which focuses on

the relations between the Ottoman Empire rule and the Arab population ofPalestine. The petitions were a common means of voicing grievances to

the rulers. As modern times set in, with the invention of the telegraph and

the improvement of the mail delivery system, petition became ever more

accessible. "This is a deep-rooted ancient Islamic method," says BenBassat, "But if once, you had to approach the ruler by yourself or send a

delegation, people discovered they could simply go to the post office and

send a letter. That discovery vastly increased the volume of the requests."

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7/30/2019 New Documents Reveal Early Palestinian Attitudes Toward Zionist Settlements

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Ben Bassat found thousands of petitions from Palestine during the

Ottoman rule, the vast majority dealing with other issues, apart from theconflicts with the Jews. Most petitions protested taxing, abuse by

governmental clerks, and complaints against other Arab groups. Ben

Bassat, who now teaches at Haifa University, is soon to publish a book

based on the study of these petitions.

The petitions were formulated by professionals, the "azrohalajes," who hadknowledge of the proper style for writing such petitions and boasted the

rhetorical means of getting the message across to the regime. Ben Bassatsays that, for the first time, the professional writers gave a voice to apractically mute population.

In contrast to the Jewish settlers, the vast majority of local villagers did not

read or write, and after their villages were destroyed in 1948, and they

dispersed, only few oral accounts remained. In the first decades of Zionist

settlement there was little Arabic-language press. These petitions orrather their translation to Turkish in the Empire Archives are an almost

sole witness of life under the Empire as perceived by Ottoman Palestine

Arabs.

The petitions reveal that in contrast to present concepts, the rural Arabsociety was more cohesive and organized than previously thought. Thus,

for example, only four days after the violent incident at Zarnuka, dozens of

Mukhtars, leaders of villages, came together to sign a petition to the sultan,revealing networks for passing information and cooperation between thevillages.

"This is the first time we see how they describe things from their point of

view, "Ben Bassat says." It's not a matter of being for or against Zionism

it simply shows how complex this meeting was, and that can't be learnedanywhere else."