Having set out in the previous Chapter the wider political context within which Jews and Arabs confronted each other immediately before World War I, the present Chapter sets out the roots of the substantive components of that confrontation.
Section 1 describes the characteristics and motivation of the Jewish migrants, and their lack of capital and skills.
Section 2 The Ottoman central and local governmental structure is described and the attitude of the administrators and local centres of power toward this Jewish immigration is examined.
Section 3 sets out the economic and cultural factors which formed the initial framework for the conflict over land acquisition and labour-employment.
The initiation of World War I hostilities in 1914 changed the dynamics of this confrontation from what was essentially a domestic issue for the Ottomans to one in which the Great Powers saw for the first time their interests being affected by Arab-Jewish relations. Nevertheless, while the basic roots of the domestic conflict still remain, they created radiations of international concern which cannot be understood if divorced from their source.
The character and ideology of the Second Aliyah (1904-1914) was different from the two earlier waves of immigrants. The very early Jewish settlement, known as the “First Yishuv” (covering the period from the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE until 1881), was motivated by a desire to return from exile in the Diaspora to resettle in Eretz Yisrael for purely religious reasons. It was urban in character and centred mainly in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Sefad and Hebron (see Chapter IV section 3.c).
The First Aliyah immigrants of the “New Yishuv”, estimated between 20-30,000 souls, emigrated from Czarist Russia and Rumania between 1881-1882 ; they were motivated by their will to escape from European anti-Semitism and a desire to return to and redevelop the ‘Land’ to its full agricultural potential. But both the First Yishuv and the First Aliyah were heavily dependent financially on philanthropic support from abroad. Those from Russia relied upon donations collected by emissaries (shlihim) who maintained connections with the towns and villages of their birth, while those from Rumania depended on the financial investment, technical and administrative support given by the Rothschilds and other Jewish philanthropists who established the private farm colonies (moshavot), such as Petach Tikva and Rishon-LeZion (see earlier Chapter V sections 2 and 4).
The pogrom served as the forerunner of many other anti-Semitic attacks which occurred subsequently throughout the Russian Empire and was the spur which compelled Herzl (who died in July 1904) and the Zionist Organisation (ZO) to consider the search for a Jewish homeland even outside of Eretz Yisrael.
Many of the Jews from Eastern Europe who formed part of the Second Aliyah, especially the youth, were attracted to socialism as it developed in Western Europe for a variety of reasons. These included the adoption of “brotherhood and equality among men as a main plank in the building of a “just society.” Others saw socialism as a reply to Anti-Semitism and as a way of escaping the smothering environment of the ghetto.
"the Jews, being guests everywhere, were never fully integrated into the class structure of their society…. The Jewish class structure formed an "inverted pyramid" with fewer real proletarians and more professionals, intelligentsia and people engaged in non-essential consumer production… As economies developed, native populations produced their own professionals and intelligentsia, and competition for jobs in all spheres intensified. This generated antisemitism, because native populations coveted the jobs and positions of Jews, and it forced Jews to migrate from country to country, in a 'stychic process'"
The Zionist socialist movement does not appear to have made any great attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and the Arab fellah. Indeed there is some evidence to support the claim that First Aliyah migrants, being more conservative, mature and having also the benefit of the influence of Baron Rothchild’s organisation to support them had better relations with the Arab fellah and the Ottoman authorities. In contrast, the younger inexperienced Socialist immigrants who did not have such support when confronted with Arab opposition also had to contend with the fears of the Arab effendis and urban notables who saw in the Jewish socialist movement a threat to their own social, political and economic standing in relation to the fellahin.
Yuval Ben-Bassat, Proto-Zionist–Arab Encounters in Late Nineteenth-Century Palestine: Socioregional Dimensions, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2009), pp. 42-63.
Emile Marmorstein, European Jews in Muslim Palestine, vol 11, No.1 (Jan 1975) Middle Eastern Studies, pp 74-87.
In this Aliyah, the European immigrants, especially the young, wanted to abandon Yiddish and replace it with Hebrew as the medium of daily communication. While Hebrew as the language of Jewish identity and used in religious observance, it was not seen originally as crucial central to Jewish to nationalism. There was a growing sentiment in the Zionist movement that had Hebrew had to be adopted if its nationalist objectives were to be attained.
For the secular settlers of this Aliyah, Hebrew and Hebraic culture would become the norm in their newly chosen home whereas, Yiddish was associated with the impoverished masses left behind in the ghettos and had to be discarded as being as too “Jewish.” Hebrew was to be retained but reinvigorated - not the language of the Talmud which dealt with ‘tribal sectarian’ matters irrelevant to the contemporary needs of immigrants in their new land.
Significantly, the language of the host country, Arabic, was not to be adopted as it would have been were the new immigrants desirous of being absorbed into the culture of the majority population. Neither was Hebrew accepted automatically and without heated debate. French was employed as the language of instruction in the secularly oriented Alliance schools in Palestine and German was considered more appropriate than Hebrew for commercial endeavours and scientific development.
For the Zionists, the process of nation-building and the protection of the Hebrew cultural heritage involved a variety of language policies such as: standardisation of grammar, public institutional use of the language, linguistic modernisation and expansion. If Hebrew was to be adopted and developed not only colloquially, but as the official language it required to be institutionalised. This had in fact already occurred in 1880 with the founding in Jerusalem of the ‘Language Committee’ (vaad halashon) which was reorganised in 1904 with onset of the Second Aliyah.
Thus the use of Hebrew became a communication barrier between Jewish immigrants and the indigenous Arab population except in areas where there was a direct interaction between them. The significant exception was in the area of self-defence.
William Safran, Language and Nation-Building in Israel: Hebrew and its Rivals, Nations and nationalism 11(1)2005, 43-63.
Itamar Even-Zohar, The Emergence of a Native Hewbrew Culture in Palestine, 1882-1948, Plystem Studies – Poetics Today 11:1 (1990) 175-191.
Bernard Spolsky, Language in Israel:Policy Practice and Ideology, Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, 1999, Digital Georgetown and Georgetown U Press.
The earlier settlers of the First Aliyah relied upon the protection of the foreign consulates and upon paid Arab watchmen to protect their communities, farm settlements and their crops from Bedouin and other marauders. However, the Socialist Zionists participants in the Second Aliyah, having experienced pogroms in Russia believed in their own self-realisation and reliance as being preferable and were determined that in Eretz­Israel, Jews would be more effective in defending themselves. Certain members of Poale Zion took it upon themselves to form a small secret guard society called Bar-Giora, to guarded the Sejera commune in the Lower Galilee (now Ilaniya) and Mes'ha (now Kfar Tavor). With advice from Yehoshua Hankin, who was to be very involved with Arthur Ruppin in Jewish land acquisition, and a loan from Eliahu Krause, the manager of Sejera, they organised themselves under the name of Hashomer (the Watchman) in 1909 and acquired their first arms with the aim of providing an organised defence for all the Jewish communities in Palestine in return for an annual fee.
"You do not seek an encounter with the thief; you chase him off, and only when you have no choice do you shoot. After all, he is out to steal a bag of grain, not to murder you, so don't murder him, drive him off. Don't sleep at night. If you hear footsteps, fire into the distance. If you feel he is a few steps away and you can fire without him falling upon you, fire into the distance. Only if your life is in danger - fire."
The Organisation succeeded in attaining its objectives but in the process it aroused the ire of Arab watchmen who lost their jobs, frustrated Bedouin pilferers to the point of anger and antagonised the Arab population by retaliatory raids to such an extent that some of the older settlers worried that Hashomer might upset the status-quo with the local Arab settled population.
Although HaShomer numbered fewer than 100 men at the organisation's peak, it became extremely important to Jewish security interests especially during the British Mandate when, in 1920, it reorganised itself to become the Haganah. This was much broader-based group, committed to coping with new defence challenges and needs of the growing Jewish community in Palestine, ultimately becoming the foundation of the Israel Defence Forces upon the establishment of the State Israel in 1948.
Elkana Margalit, Social and Intellectual Origins of the Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement, 1913-20, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 25-46 Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/259660.
In emphasising a return to the land, the Second Aliyah movement advocated the employment of Jewish agricultural labour to the exclusion of the Arab fellah, upon whom many of the First Aliyah had relied. This topic assumes considerable importance in the relations between Jews and Arabs and will examined in greater depth in the Chapter IX together with the matter of Jewish land acquisition with which it became inextricably intertwined.
Notwithstanding the pressures placed upon it by the push of Jews desiring to leave Eastern Europe, the ZO, having learnt from of the experience of the First Aliyah, publicly attempted to dissuade potential migrants from coming to Palestine unless they had the financial means and skills to maintain themselves without institutional or philanthropic support.
Although many of the new migrants sought employment – both in the cities and especially in Jewish agricultural settlements, during the earlier part of the period under discussion – they encountered difficulties due to inadequate preparation, training in the agricultural skills and their disappointment at being unable to realise their expectations of attaining a higher standard than that of the fellahin with whom they had compete in the labour market.
Consequently the ZO began to insist upon potential immigrants receiving preparatory technical training and social orientation appropriate to their new lives before their migration and that sufficient land should be first acquired before the arrival of the migrants.
As will become clear later, the implementation of these policies created a tension between the migrant Jewish settlers and the Arab fellahin as did the Zionists’ introduction of new scientifically based methods of intensive agriculture derived from veteran German settlers and new forms of landholding (collective settlement – kibbutz and the cooperative small-holders’ village- moshav) unknown to both urban Arab notables and the indigenous fellahin share-croppers.
As a recognised millet (religious community) within the Ottoman Empire, Sephardi Jews succeeded in creating and maintaining their own aristocratic wealth and power structure, which extended to the election of Jewish members to the Ottoman parliament and the establishment of educational institutions focused around the religious leadership.
The Jewish newspapers of the time demonstrate a clear division of interests between the Ashkenazi Zionist immigrants and the Sephardi Jews holding Ottoman citizenship. The Ashkenazi workers' papers, ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir and ha-Ahdut, affiliated to two Zionist political parties, ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir and Poaley-Tzion, respectively, concerned themselves with the ways in which Palestine could be brought under Jewish control, particularly by securing the Jewish labour market from Arab competition.
Sephardi Jews did, however, become involved with the Zionist Ashkenazis by acting as middlemen in the acquisition of land. However, apart from this activity, Sephardi interests and activities did not coincide with those of the Ashkenazi immigrants until after WW I. Indeed in some areas, they collided; the Sephardi establishment saw the Zionist sponsored Ashkenazi immigration as undermining the former's relations with the Ottomans, particularly where the immigrants retained their foreign citizenship and rejected that of the Ottoman.
To the detriment of their relations with the indigenous Arab population, the new immigrants were somewhat self-absorbed, preoccupied with overcoming many difficulties - including climate adjustment whilst ignoring the impact which their activities had on the indigenous Arab population – especially in the rural areas.
Important and often overlooked in the Second Aliyah was the contribution made by a small but significant Yemenite migration to Eretz Yisrael which the Palestine Office had advocated. Some settled among the earlier urban immigrants in Jerusalem and Jaffa, but the majority joined the pre-existing and the new agricultural settlements which were to be established during this period.
They not only contributed their previously acquired agricultural skills, but were accustomed to living at a lower economic level than their Ashkenazi counterparts. The latter did not view the former as being ideologically motivated to settle but considered them as indigenous population capable of replacing Arab labour at lower wages and accepting standards of living lower than that demanded by the European immigrants.
Consequently, in failing to seek out and integrate any Yemenite leadership within the ZO, the Zionist movement regrettably lost an opportunity to create a cultural bridge in the rural areas where a cultural confrontation arose between the Jews and Arab fellahin stemming from the migrants’ land acquisition and utilisation.
On the other hand, Arab nationalists, encouraged by the Young Turk Revolution, were strongly opposed to Jewish immigration and land acquisition. When Jewish immigration increased noticeably, Arab pressure forced the Ottoman Government to prohibit the entry of additional migrants and to limit Jewish land purchases as they had done previously in 1884 and on three subsequent occasions 1887-8, 1890-1 and 1892-3. Although foreign consular pressure forced the Ottomans to remove these restrictions, the government vacillated in the wake of Arab counter pressures to re-instate those restrictions.
Even the Ottoman central government itself deviated from its own declared policy. For example, in the north of Palestine, the Jewish Colonisation Association (JCA), a non-Zionist organisation, whose resettlement policy was not exclusively linked to Palestine, began to interest itself in acquiring large tracts of land between 1896 -1904 from the Suraq family.
Notwithstanding the legislation prohibiting land sales to non-Ottoman Jews, the Council of Ministers in Constantinople ruled that under the 1867 Land Code the sale was permissible provided the purchaser gave an undertaking that it would not install foreign Jews on it. Accordingly the Council granted the JCA a concession. This transaction caused considerable alarm among local Arab fellahin when surveyors came on to the site to measure it for sale. Such was the scale of the opposition that the Central Government abrogated the JCA Concession in 1901 but not before the JCA had managed to acquire enough land for six colonies to be established in northern Palestine between 1899-1904.
the Ottomans attempted to change both the method of tax collection and expand the tax base. They replaced the multitude of taxes imposed on a large variety of goods and property and transactions by a relatively simple set of taxes: a standard head tax was applied in urban areas; a 10% tax (usur) payable in kind was imposed on the agricultural yield while head taxes placed on non-Muslims were divided into a number of classes according to wealth and ability to pay. Tax collection by tax farming was replaced by the appointment of government officials (mubasirs), who in return for a fixed salary, were employed to collect a predetermined amount of tax from each administrative area set by the central treasury.
As shown earlier in section c (i) above, in Ottoman Palestine a relatively small number of influential families in Jerusalem, Nablus and in the other towns succeeded in maintaining control of the major municipal councils throughout successive generations or were members of it while their relatives found influential executive and clerical employment in the many administrative offices which the system created. These included tax commissions, land registries, courts, agricultural committees, chambers of commerce.
In summary, this Chapter has attempted to outline the nature and character of the European Jewish immigrants participating in the Second Aliyah and their interests which differed from those of their Sephardic co-religionists and the context within which that Aliyah had to manoeuvre among the Ottoman central and local governmental policy makers and administrators.
Although these interactions were to influence the future political direction of Jewish and Arab relations, the human interaction which lies at the basis of the Arab-Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish conflict finds its roots in the their respective attitudes towards the acquisition of land and of the Jewish exclusionary employment policies in respect of Arab labour. These two major issues form the topics of Chapter IX following next.