154 -^ Short History of the Middle East
proposal for a Jewish State, the problem of handling one and a
quarter million Arabs is dealt with in the vaguest of generalities.'1
As a shrewd observer had concluded ear her, 'Seeing the Jews and
hearing thek arguments in Palestine, even an admker of thek great
gifts is forced to the conclusion that they are politically an obtuse
people—that the very characteristics which give them such force as
preservers of a race, a religion, or a business are a hindrance in
social intercourse, or in the give-and-take of democratic politics.'2
From the beginning they have never been prepared to concede
any validity to the growing Arab nationalist movement. Though
provincial Palestine had played a smaller part in the movement
than the cities of Syria, the young Awni Abdul Hadi, members of
the Nashashibi family of Jerusalem and other Palestinian notables
had been prominent in the nationalist secret societies, and some had
suffered death under Jemal Pasha. The Muslim community was
divided into two great clan-partisanships, the Husainis and the
Nashashibis. 'In the face of Zionism Husainis might be said to
represent Church and extreme Arab nationalism, Nashashibis
State and making the best of a bad job/3 Sir Herbert Samuel as
High Commissioner sought to moderate the Husainis by appoint-
ing the most active of thek younger members Mufti of Jerusalem
and head of the Supreme Muslim Council; cand in fact Hajj Amin
was for years denounced by extremist Arab politicians as a British
agent/4 The Nashashibis, in spite of holding for years the
Mayoralty of Jerusalem, were conscious that thek influence in the
country as a whole was less than that of the Husainis, and sought to
redress this inferiority by a loose alliance with the Zionists, receiv-
ing some encouragement from thek middle-class elements.
The Zionist leftists, however, sought from the first to drive a wedge
between the Arab ruling-class as a whole, stigmatizing them as
'feudal exploiters', and the unorganized and inarticulate fellahin5
and town-labourers, holding out promises of material benefits to
the former and trade-union organization to the latter. The Arab
Rebellion of 1936-9 showed the Zionists that thek efforts to
divide the Arabs had almost completely failed, and they have
1 Ch. VIII, paras. 4-5.
2 Eliz. Monroe, op. cit., (1938), 59 f.
8 Storrs, op. cit., 401 f.
* Barbour, op. cit., 130.
6 F. H. Kisch, Palestine Diary (1938), Index, s.w. Nashashibi; Dajani;
Peasants' Party.