Thursday, 5 December 2019

Inter communal (Muslim/Christian/Jewish) relations in pre-1948 Palestine.


Inter communal (Muslim/Christian/Jewish) relations in pre-1948 Palestine.

Inter communal relations in historic Palestine have been the subject of much speculation. The purpose of this paper is to briefly try and dispel some of the inaccuracies surrounding the subject. It is shared in the hope that it might help members of the historic churches in Palestine to better understand, confess and repent.

 In 1923, Dr Alexander Paterson reflected in general upon the inter-communal relations within Palestine; "It was this age-long incompatibility, this irreconcilable enmity, that was more potent for evil than any other single factor, and harder to be dealt with than any other obstacle to mission work. The Moslem and Christian hated the Jew for denying and slaying the Messiah, the Christ. The Moslem and Jew hated the Christian for worshiping three gods. The Jew and the Christian hated the Moslem for his arrogance and fanaticism and oppression, from which they were never safe. Of course, they commonly existed in an armed truce; life otherwise were impossible. But an anniversary or an indiscreet word, an unequal deal in business, or a false report, and their passions were in full cry, too often the cry for blood."


Muslim Discrimination against Christians

Traditionally the Christians were a protected but discriminated against minority. They were a distinct subset of the Palestinian population, with little interaction or political agreement with the majority Muslim community. The Muslim community, or umma, was totally dominant. Christians could not hold the highest administrative posts, had to pay a special tax. Disputes with Muslims came under the jurisdiction of the Muslim courts, where Christians were not allowed to give evidence. Christians might also be barred from riding horses or wearing colourful clothing, be forced to provide food and lodging if a Muslim official demanded it, or even be forced off the road to give Muslims right of way.[2]

 The Ottoman court system punished Christians if they tried to reject or minimize the obligations of dhimmitude. In 1876 for but one example, Armenians were punished for resisting Muslim raiders, or for trying to obtain payment when forced to lodge Muslims.[3] Such actions were indeed seen as violations of the natural order. To resist Muslim oppression, either passively or actively, was a violation of sharia law.

General descriptions

Gedaliah of Siemiatyc, Jews and Christians in Jerusalem, 1700.[4]
“No Jew or Christian is permitted to ride a horse, for [in the eyes of Muslims] Christians and Jews are inferior beings.” “The Muslims do not allow entry to the Temple area to any member of another faith” “The Christians are not allowed to wear a turban, but they wear a hat instead. .. No one can use green, for this colour is used solely by Muslims. The latter are very hostile towards Jews and inflict upon them vexations in the streets of the city. .. the common folk persecute the Jews for we are forbidden to defend ourselves. If an Arab strikes a Jew, he [the Jew] must appease him but must not rebuke him, for fear that he may be struck even harder, which they [the Arabs] do without the slightest scruple. This is the way the Oriental Jews react, for they are accustomed to this treatment. Even the Christians are subjected to these vexations. If a Jew offends a Muslim, the latter strikes him a brutal blow with his shoe in order to demean him, without anyone’s being able to prevent him .. the Christians fall victim to the same treatment and they suffer as much as the Jews.”[5] 

Constantin de Volney; 1785 “Faithful to the spirit of the Koran, it [the government] treats the Christians with a severity which displays itself in varied forms. .. All kinds of public worship is prohibited the Christians, … The cannot build any new churches; and if the old ones fall into decay, they are not allowed to repair them, unless by a permission which costs them very dear. A Christian cannot strike a Mahometan without risk of his life, but if a Mahometan kill a Christian, he escapes for a stipulated price. Christians must not mount on horseback in the towns; they are prohibited from the use of yellow slippers, white shawls, and every sort of green colour.  .. when they travel, they are perpetually stopped at different places to pay tolls, from which the Mahometans are exempt: … in judicial proceedings, the oath of two Christians is only reckoned for one, and such is the partiality of the Cadis, that it is almost impossible for a Christian to gain a suit. .. These distinctions, so proper to ferment hatred and divisions, are disseminated among the people, and manifest themselves in all the intercourse of life. The meanest Mahometan will neither accept from a Christian nor return the salute of Salam-alai-ki .. the usual salutation is only good morning or good evening, and it is well too, if it be not accompanied with a Djaour, Kafer, Keleb i.e. impious, infidel, dog, expressions to which the Christians are familiarized.”[6]  

Mansour recalls a ‘pogrom’ against Christians in 1821 and 1823 due to the outbreak of the Greek war of independence.[7]

James Finn (British consul in Jerusalem, 1846-63), related several events from 1823; I that year the president of the Greek Orthodox Convent of Mar Elias was bastinadoed “to a fearful extent” in an attempt to discover hidden treasure. In the same year, some Christian villagers refused to pay “the excessive and arbitrary” taxation laid upon them (but not the Muslims). The soldiers then “caught hold of an infirm old peasant of the Christian village of Beit Jalla, shot him, cut off his head, and stuck it up inside the Jaffa gate of Jerusalem, where it was pelted and spit upon by boys of the street for three days. Christians passing by were melted into tears, but dared not give expression to their feelings.”[8] 

J.L. Stephens, Concerning Visit to the Jews of Hebron (1836). Muslim violence against local Christians was commonplace, and they were forbidden to visit many holy places. “[concerning the Tomb of the Patriarchs] The Jews and the Christians are not permitted to enter.”[9]

Colonel P. Campbell, A Visit to Israel's Holy Places (1839) “The Mussulmans [of Syria-Palestine], … deeply deplore the loss of that sort of superiority which they all and individually exercised over and against the other sects. … from the bottom of his heart he believes and maintains that a Christian, and still more so a Jew, is an inferior being to himself.”[10]

From the 1850s onwards, news of large scale, continuing massacres of Christians in other parts of the Ottoman empire made the Palestinian Christians increasingly nervous. The American Protestant missionary, Henry H. Jessup, wrote that; "the new liberties granted to the Christian sects, their growth in wealth, the appointment of their prominent men to foreign consular offices... all these and other causes had kindled [among the Muslims] fires of fanatical hatred."[11] Disturbances in Aleppo in 1850 targeting Christians and Mosul in 1854, targeting Christians and Jews, were seen as attempts by the traditional Muslim community to restore their old position. It was this same desire which contributed to massacres of the Maronite Christians in Lebanon in 1860 (20,000 killed, 380 Christian villages and 560 churches destroyed), the Christian communities in Damascus (also in 1860, 25,000 killed), and the Armenian Christians (1894-1896, 1915-1916 – over 1.5 million killed). Concerning the Maronite massacres; “Bitter conflicts between Christians and Druzes, which had been simmering under Ibrahim Pasha’s rule (mostly centred on the firmans of 1839 and later more decisively, of 1856, which equalized the status of Muslim and non-Muslim subjects, the former resenting the implied loss of superiority) resurfaced under the new emir.”[12] Even closer to home, “the establishment of European consulates in Jerusalem in the middle of the nineteenth century was greatly resented by local Muslims.”[13] 

Nablus. On the 3rd of November 1853, the local Greek Orthodox beat the local Protestants in their schoolhouse, “and drove them out of the premises.” At a general meeting called by the Governor, the Mufti signalled to the crowd outside who thought the meeting was to oppose the Greek Orthodox. They therefore shouted “as to the necessity of destroying Christian Churches, or at least of diminishing their privileges and lowering their doors and windows. They shouted ‘look at the Dragoman sitting on a chair – kill him, kill him. Did you ever see a Christian like that before?’ (The Dragoman was a Protestant from Syria) The Mufti then drew up a fatwa that; “it is against the honour of the Moslem religion to permit Christian Churches to be erected, but only to tolerate such as were found in the country at the time of the Mohammedan Conquest.” He continued that Protestants should not be allowed to worship in any place of general meeting, and even in their own homes not above three together, and in a subdued voice. Advised of the situation, the local governor, was ordered by the Pasha in Jerusalem that they were not to meet again for prayer in the school room, and were forbidden a special room for worship.(Bat Ye’or, 1985; 244-5.)

At the 1856 peace conference which ended the Crimean War, the Ottomans were forced to confirm the equality of all citizens under the law and guarantee full freedom of worship. While this equality “was not carried out in practice”[15] the “Muslims of Jerusalem in 1856 accused the Sultan of treachery for his being submissive to the dictates of foreigners, and for not applying Muslim law strictly on Christians and Jews.”16]

Local Christians were viewed as being disloyal, and as being a serious weak link, which aggressive foreign powers could exploit for their own advantage. This in turn provoked further attacks on the local Christians. For example, following sectarian violence in Lebanon in 1860, the French sent in troops and forced the Ottoman Sultan to grant the Maronites self-autonomy.[17] It was outrage at this which led to the massacre of Christians in Damascus.

At a result of the 1860 conflict in Lebanon, “tensions were also raised in other coastal cities such Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Tripoli, Sidon and Tyre, but their proximity to European warships in the Mediterranean helped maintain calm. Nonetheless, Tyre and Sidon were at the brink of civil war due to violence raging between Sunni and Shia residents and Christian refugees fleeing the war. Hundreds of Christians opted to leave Syria altogether, boarding ships to Malta or Alexandria. In the Galilee, peace was maintained by local Bedouin chieftains, who assured Christians in Nazareth and Acre of his protection. However, in the village of Kfar Bir’im near Safed, three Christians were killed by Druze and Shia Muslim raiders, while the mixed village of al-Bassa was also plundered. A violent incident occurred between a Muslim and Christian man in Bethlehem, ending with the latter being beaten and imprisoned.” The authorities maintained calm in Jerusalem and Nablus “by introducing additional security measures.” In Nablus, the Ottoman governor was keen to maintain order, but his garrison was too small to ensure security in the city. Instead, “many Christians pooled money together to pay for protection by local Muslims, who formed an ad hoc police force. [to protect them from the Muslim majority in the city]”[18]

Following a later episode of sectarian violence in Crete, Muslims in Damascus again threatened the local Christians, who, according to one missionary account, began fleeing "by the hundreds to the mountains and Beirut, fearing a repetition of the massacre of 1860.[19] Interestingly, in 1838, the British representative in Jaffa put forward the case that Britain should guarantee the rights of Protestants and Jews in Palestine. “Britain is the natural trustee for both of them.”[20] Lord Palmerston likewise thought that Britain could assume the role of protector of the Jews in Palestine, and that would grant them similar rights as those exercised already by France and Russia.

Ottoman Muslims continued to view the world through a religious lens. News of the 1875-78 Balkan Wars was “relayed to the Muslim population throughout the empire as a sign of yet another Christian onslaught against Islam. The intensified draft of soldiers into the ranks of the Turkish army and the pressure of added taxation to pay for the wars, carried out with great cruelty, caused the population to blame all Christians, including Christian Arabs, for their suffering.”[21] Note that taxation and drafting of soldiers were also prime causes of the 1834 rebellion.

Historical memory of the Crusades and more recent events informed this resentment on behalf of the local Muslims. “The visit of a French consul almost a hundred and fifty years earlier, in 1701, had produced similar outrage. Then, the local notables had responded with a petition stating that, "our city is the focus of attention of the infidels" and that "this holy land [could be] occupied as a result of this, as has happened repeatedly in earlier times."[22]

Jews and Christians were also not allowed under Ottoman rule to build houses of worship, a ruling upheld in Jerusalem as late as 1838.[23]

Christians in Jerusalem, 1858. “In continuing to report concerning the apprehensions of Christians from revival of fanaticism on the part of the Mahometans, I have the honour to state that daily accounts are given me of insults in the streets offered to Christians and Jews, accompanied by acts of violence. ... there is no clear case yet known of a Christian’s evidence being accepted in a court of justice, or in a civil tribunal against a Moslem. … only a few days ago, his Beatitude, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch was returning through the streets from the Cadi’s court of judgement … but had to pass through a gauntlet of curses hurled at his religion, his prayers, his fathers etc.,"24]

In 1858 the two villages of Zebabdeh and Likfair (where the inhabitants are Christian) “were utterly sacked, men and women stripped even to their shirts and turned adrift. This was done by the people of Tubas and Kabatieh ... and no redress or punishment has yet been given by the military force. I need not say that none is afforded by the civil authority, himself a factious leader.”[25]

In general, Muslims were unwilling to accept Christians in positions of authority. For example, James Finn noted that the body-guards employed by consulates needed to be Muslims, as these might "safely strike or lay hands on an unruly Moslem, or arrest him if a thief, which a Christian could not [do] without provoking a riot if not worse."[26] Palestinian (Muslims) resisted the edict establishing religious equality so strongly it had to be put in place very slowly, over a number of years. Outbreaks of intercommunal violence often followed its implementation.[27] “Muslim-Christian riots are found to have occurred every decade or so and disturbances between the communities were common.”[28]

In the 1890s, Ottoman soldiers closed down Anglican church schools in Jaffa (for an unknown period of time), and the governor announced that he would not be responsible if Muslims attacked Christians.[29]

The Muslim and Christian communities also often differed over politics and foreign affairs. A British report from 1904 about the Sino-Russian war stated; "the Christians with very few exceptions [were] fervently praying for the success of Russia. … by contrast, the sympathies of most Muslims, were with Japan.”[30] In 1911, Christians of Haifa were accused of disloyalty re the Italian occupation of Tripoli.

Within Ottoman Palestine, Muslims and Christians were not the same, and their relationships prior to Zionism were not perfect. In reality, the different elements in the community were separated in their social relations by unbridgeable gulfs.

Interestingly, in 1995 CPT leader Arthur Gish records going to St Georges in Jerusalem and meeting with “Palestinians who identified themselves as Christians.” “When they heard we are living in Hebron, they couldn’t believe it. They informed us that Hebron is Muslim, and no Christian can live with Muslims.”[31]

The example of Nazareth

As everywhere else, Christians were not allowed to repair or renovate their churches. In 1636, Catholic priests “were incarcerated by Muslims, who insisted that the church must remain the same as in ancient times.”[32] In 1696, the Christian community of Nazareth fled “In the face of persecution” but returned the next year.[33]

Standing up to Muslim violence guaranteed a pogrom. In 1708, there “was a brawl between the Christians and the Muslims of Nazareth; the covenant was pillaged again, and abandoned for a year.”[34] After better relations in the mid-1700s, relations again deteriorated; [after 1775] “it was especially bad on Fridays after prayer when Muslims, often villagers in town for the Friday sermon, would riot and attack Christians.”[35] The early Anglican priest, Michael Kawar mentioned in his autobiography that anti-Christian riots in Nazareth had forced his father to flee to Lebanon in the 1820s.[36] Relations were again reported to be better in the mid- 1820s. Note however that even in the good times, things could go suddenly bad, as when the Muslims in 1828 entered the church on Easter Sunday and robbed the Christian women of their jewelry.

The unproved accusation of blasphemy was always (and to this day) a frightening threat. In 1828 a Christian girl was accused by a Muslim boy she had rebuffed of insulting Mohammad. She was killed by tying her to a horse and dragging her through the streets.[37] Also in 1828, according to the Palestinian Rafiq Farah (an Archdeacon Emeritus of the Jerusalem Diocese of the Anglican Church); “The Arab Christians suffered a great deal under the rule of Abdullah Pasha, the governor of the Acre district of Galilee (1819-1831). He pulled down the Carmelite monastery on Mt Carmel, incited the Muslims of Nazareth to attack the Christians in 1828 and forced Christian and Jewish women not to dress like Muslim women.”[38] In the Peasants Revolt of 1834, the Christians of Nazareth sided with the Egyptians.[39] In 1864, relations were again described by Tobler as generally good, but added; “from time to time there were always occasional dark spots.”[40] 

Writing in 1876, P.J. Newman noted that Christians comprised three quarters of the population of Nazareth, and that as a consequence; “the Christians assert and defend their rights. In nearly all other parts of Palestine, the Christians are cringing and fearful.”[41] In 1881, some Muslim notables of Nazareth demanded the slaughter of the Christians, but this was rejected by the local sheikh.[42]

The expulsion of Protestants from Nablus, 1856 

In 1856, in Nablus riots a Greek church, Protestant missionary house and school were all attacked. Also in 1858, a Greek Orthodox construction and renovation was destroyed in Gaza.[43] R. Farah comments on the Nablus riots; “On the 4th of April, 1856, a fanatic Muslim mob at Nablus, who were incited by their leaders after the Sultan gave all Ottomans equality before the law … attacked the Christians in Nablus, especially the Protestants. They had to flee the town; their homes were ransacked and at least two were killed. The persecutions stopped after 1865.”[44]

In 1858 James Finn reported; “the house of the Christian priest (Greek) was taken in his absence and his stores of grain and oil for his household during the winter were taken, not to be consumed by the soldiers (for that would entitle the owner to a claim on the Government) but were mixed into one heap .. by the Muslims of the city and thrown into the street. I feel myself more and more to be warranted in attributing the riots of Nablus in 1856 to an anti-Christian feeling. In conclusion, I have the honour to quote the perpetual expression of the Christians in Palestine, that their lot has become far worse since the termination of the Russian war than it was before that period extending back to 1831.[45]

The Nablus Protestants sent their own petition (“The humble Petition of the Protestants of Nablous”) to the Sultan. In it, they spoke of “their afflicted and calamitous state … the injuries inflicted on them, the loss of their freedom, the insecurities of their lives, property and families, all of which they presently endure (and for the previous 5 months). Since the issue of the Firman (Feb 1856) declaring religious liberty, the Mohammedans of Nablus have been filled with rage against the Christians, insulting his majesty the Sultan and crying; ‘No obedience to a creature who causes disobedience to the creator.’” On Friday, April 4th, most of the Ulamahs of Nablus assembled in one of the Mosques … after this the call was given by one of them going through the streets; “Oh religion of Mohammad, attack the Christians.” At the same time, all the Mohammedans being assembled for prayer, the Ulamahs stopped the Muazzins and made them come down from the Minarets, saying there shall be no prayers for the religion of Muhammad is dead.” They aroused the populace “to fury, that they might fall upon the Christians.” They destroyed the school of bishop Gobat, and the attached chapel. They also killed a number of Christians, burying one boy in lime. The shouts of the mob were “frightful, together with those of the females who shrieked on the terraces to excite and encourage them.” The Greek Orthodox “from fear, have appeared outwardly satisfied with the Mohammedans …”

“They have continued to regard the Protestants with an evil eye,” forcing them to flee Nablus. “The Mohammedans make no distinction between the Christian nations, in their general hatred and enmity against that religion.” “The injury done is not to your humble servants alone … your humble petitioners have become a proverb and a taunt to all who are round about, everywhere now if a Christian disagrees with a Mohammedan, the later say to him we will do to you as it has been done in Nablus, and therefore in numerous places Christians have been maltreated since this disturbance.”[46]

Likewise; “the fury of the rioters was indiscriminately directed against all Christians without distinction … the Greeks church together with the house of the Greek priest were … ransacked.” Speaking on behalf of “the Protestant communities in Palestine and Syria” they continued “We are fully sensible of the necessity of the greatest caution, forbearance and prudence on our part towards the Moslems in avoiding every demonstration that would needlessly irritate their pride, prejudice and jealousy.”

“Most Muslims were having difficulties coming to terms with the idea of non-Muslims as political equals.”[47] That is not to say friendly relations were absent, or areas of commonality did not exist, but the relations between the two communities remained difficult, as both tried to adapt to the changing situations. Small village inter-faith relations were paradoxically more personal and more traditional. Local Christians were not particularly supportive of Western missionary activity.

“Whereas many villages in the district of Nablus have a few Christian families located in each, such families were subjected in every direction to plunder and insults.”[48]


Obstacles to Dhimmi Emancipation in Palestine
“A great change had passed over the land, as well as Jerusalem, with respect to toleration of religion in the existing generation, not only caused by (the Ottoman reforms of 1838) but also by the surviving effects of previous Egyptian dominion between 1832 and 1840, which had swept away much of the bigotry and tyranny of former ages. There has been since 1845 a profession of equality for all religions in the administration of local government, and   certainly less of insult and injury from the Moslem populace to the Christians. Their functionaries were no longer endured as intruders into Christian houses for food, lodging and money, remaining there till their demands were satisfied. Christian women were not now dishonoured with impunity of the offenders. Levies of money at any irregular time or place without reason assigned, were no more suffered. Christians were not now pushed into the gutters of the streets by every Moslem taking up the best part of the pavement and with a scowl crying out, “Shemmel-ni ya keleb” neither were Christians debarred from riding horses or wearing cheerful colours. … Christians had felt in 1852 much more secure in life and goods than their fathers had been.” James Finn.[49] "(As a specimen of the old times, see Journal of Rev. P. Fisk who was in Jerusalem in 1823. He was seated with two friends on the Mount of Olives and while singing a hymn an armed Moslem came up and commanded they be silent, threatening Mr Fisk to strike him with his gun.).”[50]

When fears of a new war with Russia surfaced, Finn recorded that the Muslim street believed that “every Moslem was to consider as his enemy every native Christian, or at least those who had any relations with Russia (Greeks and even Armenians). The timorous and panic-stricken Christians helped forward this idea by the very excess of their fears. They had not the sense to conceal their dread of a probable approaching massacre in which scenes of horror and bloodshed were to be enacted, such as their fathers had endured in consequence of the war of Greek independence about thirty years before.  … Fear had been suckled with their mothers milk, in days gone by, and now it overpowered them. If this was the case in Jerusalem, … it was tenfold worse in all distant towns and villages.”[51]

Muslim Discrimination against Jews

Muslim/Jewish relations were historically appalling. Within the Ottoman Empire, Jews, like Christians, were classified as Dhimmis, and forced to live a life of miserable subservience. As with the Christian communities, it was when they rejected this, and demanded equal rights that the Muslim community responded with genocidal rage. A major difference between the Christian and Jewish communities, is that while the Christians lost their battles with the Muslim majority, the Jewish community won theirs, and thereby avoided annihilation.

Elsewhere in the Arab world

As part of the Muslim, Arab world, Jews in Palestine were treated in a similar manner to Jews elsewhere in the same conditions.

Writing about their experiences in Egypt, from 1825-1835, Edward Lane and Poole described the conditions of the Jews there; “They are held in the utmost contempt and abhorrence by the Muslims in general, … the Jews are detested by the Muslims far more than are the Christians. … Not long ago,[52] they used often to be jostled in the streets of Cairo, and sometimes beaten merely for passing on the right hand of a Muslim. At present, they are less oppressed; but still they scarcely ever dare to utter a word of abuse when reviled or beaten unjustly by the meanest Arab or Turk; for many a Jew has been put to death upon a false and malicious accusation of uttering disrespectful words against the Kur-an or the Prophet. It is common to hear an Arab abuse his jaded ass, and, after applying to him various opprobrious epithets, end by calling the beast a Jew…[53]

There were pogroms in Lebanon and Jerusalem in 1847 and Syria in 1848 and in 1850 (the same year as attacks were also carried out against the Jews of Morocco).[55] Writing in 1835, the British diplomat Percival Barton Lord recorded how Jews in North Africa still had to walk barefoot when passing a Mosque, while in some cities such as Fez, they were forced to go barefoot at all times. In 1877, Jews were still prohibited from wearing shoes outside their own homes. “it is impossible to imagine the suffering of these wretches who, amid the jeers of the Muslim population along the road, jump and cringe with pain, their feet torn and their nails crushed by the stone.” In Yemen in 1910, Jews were still forbidden from walking publicly in shoes.[56]

In Palestine

Isaac ben Samuel of Acre (1270-1350) “they strike upon the head the children of Israel who dwell in their lands and they thus extort money from them by force. For they say in their tongue, mal al-yahudi mubah, “it is lawful to take the money of the Jews.” For, in the eyes of the Muslims, the children of Israel are as open to abuse as an unprotected field. Even in their law and statutes they rule that the testimony of a Muslim is always to be believed against that of a Jew. For this reason … Rather be beneath the yoke of Edom than of Ishmael.” When Acre was taken by the Mamelukes in 1291, he fled to Italy and thence to Christian Spain.[57]  
Samuel b. Ishaq Uceda 16th century; “The nations humiliate us to such an extent that we are not allowed to walk in the streets. The Jew is obliged to step aside in order to let the Gentile [Muslim] pass first. And if the Jew does not turn aside of his own will, he is forced to do so. This law is particularly enforced in Jerusalem.”[58]

Gedaliah of Siemiatyc, 1700. “We [Jews] were obliged to give a large sum of money to the Muslim authorities in Jerusalem to be allowed to build a new synagogue. Although the old synagogue was small and we only wanted to enlarge it very slightly, it was forbidden under Islamic law to modify the least part” No Jew or Christian is permitted to ride a horse, for [in the eyes of Muslims] Christians and Jews are inferior beings.” “The Muslims do not allow entry to the Temple area to any member of another faith.” “No one can use green, for this colour is used solely by Muslims. The latter are very hostile towards Jews and inflict upon them vexations in the streets of the city. .. the common folk persecute the Jews for we are forbidden to defend ourselves. If an Arab strikes a Jew, he [the Jew] must appease him but must not rebuke him, for fear that he may be struck even harder, which they [the Arabs] do without the slightest scruple. This is the way the Oriental Jews react, for they are accustomed to this treatment.” Even the Christians are subjected to these vexations. If a Jew offends a Muslim, the latter strikes him a brutal blow with his shoe in order to demean him, without anyone’s being able to prevent him .. the Christians fall victim to the same treatment and they suffer as much as the Jews.” [59] 

J.S. Buckingham, 1816. “these persecuted people [the Jews] are held in such opprobrium here, that it is forbidden to them to pass a mussulman mounted, while Christians are suffered to do so either on mules or asses, though to them it is also forbidden to ride on horseback”[60]

The Egyptian Government [1831-1840], with its rigour and rough justice, afforded much relief to all non-Moslem inhabitants of Jerusalem; and the institution of consulates  in the Holy City a further blessing to non-Turkish subjects of all religions, but especially to the poor, oppressed Israelites.”[54] 
The Peasants Revolt, 1834

As previously noted, one significant cause of the revolt was the granting by Egyptian authorities of equal civil rights to the Christian and Jewish communities. Within this context, much of the revolt became simply an enormous pogrom against the Jewish communities of Palestine. “Within Galilee, the main The most severe events took place in Galilee, climaxing with the 1834 looting of Safed which was mostly an attack against the Jewish community of Safed.”[1] Indeed, the “1834 looting of Safed was prolonged attack against the Jewish community during the 1834 Peasants Revolt… It began on Sunday June 15 and lasted for the next 33 days. Most contemporary accounts suggest it was a spontaneous attack which took advantage of a defenceless population in the midst of the armed uprising against Egyptian rule. ... The event took place during a power vacuum, whilst Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt was fighting to quell the wider revolt in Jerusalem. The 1850 account of Rabbi Joseph Schwartz stated that ‘Everything was carried off which could possibly be removed, even articles of no value; boxes, chests, packages, without even opening them, were dragged away; and the fury with which this crowd attacked their defenceless victims was boundless...’ Accounts of the month-long event tell of large scale looting, as well as killing and raping of Jews and the destruction of homes and synagogues by local Druze. Many Torah scrolls were desecrated, and many Jews were left severely wounded. These pogroms/massacres directed at Jewish communities spread to Ramla, Lydda, Jaffa, Acre and Tiberias, where Christian members of the local clergy noted that the perpetrators ‘robbed the Jews, who lived in these towns, of immense property.’”[2]

According to Avraham Yaari; “Revolt broke out on the 15th June, 1834. The Arab villagers, together with the townspeople, armed themselves and attacked the Jews, raping their women and destroying their synagogues. The riots in Safed went on for 33 days, but in Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias they ended sooner.”[3]

“However, the insurrection soon lost its original purpose and turned into bloody rioting and excesses directed against the Jewish population. Arab villagers joined with the townspeople to attack the Jews, raping, looting and destroying synagogues. The rioting was most severe in Safed, where assaults and vandalism forced many Jews to flee to safety amount the friendly Arabs of the nearby village of Ein Zetim.”[4]

Conditions did not improve after the revolt.

[4] Martin Sicker (1999). Reshaping Palestine: from Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831-1922. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed

 J.L. Stephens, Concerning Visit to the Jews of Hebron (1836). “I was among the unhappy remnant of a fallen people, the persecuted and despised Israelites. … My Jewish friends conducted me around their miserable quarter … [concerning the Tomb of the Patriarchs] The Jews and the Christians are not permitted to enter.”[62] Contrast this to the facile words of one of the early leaders of CPT; “For centuries Jews and Muslims lived together peacefully in Hebron. … relationships between Palestinian Arabs and Jews were generally positive.”[63]

As already noted, Jews and Christians were not allowed under Ottoman rule to build houses of worship, a ruling upheld in Jerusalem as late as 1838.[64]

1839. A.A. Bonar and R.M. M’Cheyne “We were much impressed with the melancholy aspect of the Jews in Jerusalem. The meanness of their dress, their pale faces, and timid expression, all seem to betoken great wretchedness.” Re Hebron, “the Jews are permitted only to look through a hole near the entrance.”[65] 

 Ottoman rule was re-established in 1840. Rav Moshe Reischer wrote of the time before 1847, when the Tanzimat reforms were confirmed and somewhat enacted; “I shall recount some of the suffering of our brethren in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberius, which my ancestors have related to me or which I have seen with my own eyes … It was a great danger for Jews to venture even a few yards outside the gates of Jerusalem because of the Arab brigands. They were accustomed to say ‘strip yourself, Jew’ and any Jew caught in such a predicament … would strip while they divided the spoil between them and sent him away naked and barefoot. They call this kasb Allah, that is, Allah’s reward. … If a Jew encounters a Muslim in the street and passes on the latter’s right, the Muslim says ishmal, that is, ‘pass on my left side.’ If he touches him or bumps into him… then the Muslim attacks him and strikes him cruelly and finds witnesses to the effect that the Jew insulted him, his religion, and his prophet Muhammad, with the result that a numerous crowd of Muslims descend upon him and leave the Jew practically unconscious. Then they carry him off to jail where he is subjected to terrible chastisement. When a Jew passes through the market, stones are thrown at him, his beard and ear-locks are pulled, he is spat upon and jeered at, and his hat is thrown to the ground. The poor Jew is so in fear of his life that he dares not question their conduct lest they murder him … [he] thanks God that at least his soul is saved, and all these tribulations he is ready to suffer for love of the Holy Land.”[61]

1852. Arthur George Harper Hollingsworth, “This Jewish population is poor beyond any adequate word; it is degraded in its social and political condition, to a state of misery, so great, that it possesses no rights. It can shew no wealth even if possessed of it, because to display riches would secure robbery from the Mahometan population, the Turkish officials, or the Bedouin Arab. … No advancement is made by the Jew of Palestine, in trafficking, in commerce, in farming, in the possession of settled houses or lands. … where in all other countries a Jew thrives and increases in wealth, in that one he is spiritless from oppression, and without energy, because without hope of Protection. He creeps along that soil, where his forefathers proudly strode in the fulness of a wonderful prosperity, as an alien, an outcast, a creature less than a dog, and below the oppressed Christian beggar in his own ancestral plains and cities. No harvest ripens for his hand, for he cannot tell whether he will be permitted to gather it. Land occupied by a Jew is exposed to robbery and waste. A most peevish jealousy exists against the landed prosperity, or commercial wealth, or trading advancement of the Jew. Hindrances exist to the settlement of a British Christian in that country, but a thousand petty obstructions are created to prevent the establishment of a Jew on waste land, or to the purchase and rental of land by a Jew. … If he appeals for redress to the nearest Pasha, the taint of his Jewish blood fills the air, and darkens the brows of his oppressors; if he turns to his neighbour Christian, he encounters prejudice and spite ; if he claims a Turkish guard, he is insolently repulsed and scorned. …Now, how is this poor, despised, and powerless child of Abraham to obtain redress, or make his voice heard at the Sublime Porte? The more numerous the cases of oppression, (and they are many), the more clamorous their appeals for justice, the more unwillingly will the government of the Sultan, partly from inherent and increasing weakness, partly from disinclination,—act on the side of the Jew. They despise them as an execrated race; they hate them as the literal descendants of the original possessors of the country. ” [66]

1854 Jerusalem. Because the Crimean War started with a religious dispute centred on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Karl Marx wrote about the city and its population. He stated that its; “sedentary population numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4,000 are Mussulmans [Muslims] and 8,000 Jews. … the Mussulmans, forming about a quarter of the whole, consisting of Turks, Arabs, and Moors, are, of course, the masters in every respect.” He then continued:
“Nothing equals the misery and the suffering of the Jews of Jerusalem, inhabiting the most filthy quarter of the town, called hareth-el-yahoud . . . between the Zion and the Moriah . . . [They are] the constant objects of Mussulman oppression and intolerance, insulted by the Greeks, persecuted by the Latins [Catholics], and living only on the scanty alms transmitted by their European brethren.” Marx concluded by quoting from a French author: “Attending their death, they suffer and pray. Their regards turned to that mountain of Moriah where once stood the temple of Lebanon, and which they dare not approach; they shed tears on the misfortune of Zion, and their dispersion over the world.”67]

July 18, 1855, A Jewish crowd greeting Sir Moses Montefiore outside the gates of Jerusalem “Never before in modern times had there been a Jewish demonstration publicly made, for in former days of oppression and sorrow, it would have been as impolitic as impossible.”[68]

1856. “the Jews are humiliated” by numerous forced payments to stop Muslims desecrating their graves, for not damaging the Sepulchre of Rachel near Bethlehem, for not molesting Jews on the road to Jaffa etc. The town cesspit was also situated in the midst of the Jewish quarter. “it was distressing to behold the timidity which long ages of oppression had engendered. Many times a poor Jew would come for redress against a native (Moslem) and when he had substantiated his case and it had been brought by the Consulate before the Turkish authorities, he would, in mere terror of future possible vengeance, withdraw from the prosecution, and even deny that any harm had been done him.”[69]

1879. Writing of an aristocratic Muslim family, “They are wicked haters of Jews. When they need to have something carried from the market to their house they wait around until by chance they see a Jew, even an elderly man. … they strike him to their merriment until he is forced to carry the burden on his shoulders to their house. … If they see a Jew dressed in green they take hold of him violently and strip him of his garments and have him imprisoned. ... Likewise it is impossible for Jewish women to venture into the streets because of the lewdness of the Muslims. There are many more such sufferings that the pen would weary to describe. These occur particularly when we go to visit the cemetery [on the Mount of Olives] and when we pray at the Wall of lamentations, when stones are thrown at us and we are jeered at.[70]

Anti-Jewish pogroms, initially sparked by the 1840 Damascus Blood Libel, were widespread across the Ottoman empire and north Africa. In Palestine, they occurred in Jaffa (in 1876), and three times in Jerusalem (in 1847, 1870 and 1895).[71] 

1880 Hebron and Jerusalem: Severe restrictions still in place over when and where Jewish people could pray.

Hebron and the Seventh Step

For an example of inter-communal relations prior to Zionism, within Hebron Jews were banned from entering into the Cave of the Patriarchs, and only (as a sign of their degradation) permitted to go up to the seventh step of the entrance outside it. As they went up these steps, Muslim boys were encouraged by their elders to hit and throw stones at them, to remind them of their proper place.[72] The prohibition was entirely religious, as was the ban from 1266 on Jews entering the Temple Mount.[73] Both were designed to show the religious supremacy of Islam over the Jewish religion, and that Islam was the true heir to the biblical account. The true children of Abraham these exclusions proclaimed, are the Muslims. Mandel likewise notes that traditionally, Muslims regarded Jews as “distinctly inferior,” and under obligation to “deport themselves as held appropriate by people tolerated by the true believers.”[74]

The impact of Zionism

A significant portion of the personal antagonisms between Muslims and Jews during the 1900s can be traced to the overthrow of this stereotype. Emboldened by Zionism, many Jews simply ceased being victims, ceased acting as dhimmis. This profoundly offended many Muslims, who felt it an offence against God and his order. In 1902, the prominent Muslim reformer, Muhammad Rida wrote that Jews were no longer the submissive people they had been, and Arabs had to wake up to this.[75] In 1905, a prominent member of the Husseni family objected when turned down for a loan by David Levontin, a Jew, in Jaffa. When al-Husseni objected angrily, Levontin replied; “you are an educated man, yet you deal with us like a fellah [peasant] from the village.”[76] Writing in the 1930s, French author A. Londres also noted the drastic change in personal and inter communal relations, as [addressed to the Palestinian Jewish community] “your restless, impassioned spirit brushed aside twenty centuries with a flip of the mind … you had enough of living under a boot.”[77] "The main insight of Jews from Islamic lands was that inverting the pyramid in the Arab world so that Jews no longer submitted to Muslims was going to create a permanent source of conflict."[78]

For much of the 1890s, land sales to Jews, both expatriate and subjects of the Ottoman Empire, were blocked by the then Mufti, Muhammad Tahir al-Husayni. Described in 1893 by the German consul in Constantinople as “one of the leading representatives of the fanatic faction among the local Mohammedans,”[79] his ban on selling to local Jews went against Ottoman laws (the ban on land sales to Jews had been struck down by the Tanzamit reforms decades earlier). While his banning of land sales to foreign Jews could be seen as a very early anti-Zionist measure, that the ban also applied to local Jews shows that it was also motivated at least in part by base anti-Semitism. The two are usually inseparable in practical terms anyway. It is mentioned here because of its religious aspect (“the fanatic faction among the local Mohammedans.”) al-Husayni was offended by Jews experiencing new liberties. He wanted then to remain incapable of buying land, stuck in their ghetto. The same attitude as was seen concerning Muslim/Christian relations after the Tanzamit reforms.

Christian Discrimination against Jews

Note also that the Jewish community existed at an even lower level than the Christian community and could therefore also be discriminated against by them. While also under the Muslim yoke, and therefore not free to act simply according to their own desires, the Christian community in Palestine humiliated, persecuted and at times sought to murder either individual Jews, or to incite massacres of the Jewish community. It should also be noted that while they themselves were also shamed and persecuted by the Muslim majority, still they found time in their misery and humiliation to inflict their own torments on their Jewish neighbours. Their own suffering at the hands of the Muslim majority did not make their hearts tender towards others also suffering the same humiliations. “Do not oppress a stranger for you know what it feels like to be a stranger.” Exodus 23:9. Indeed, it appears that as well as initiating their own persecutions, they would also join in Muslim persecution of Jews, finding in such persecutions a moment of bonding, not with the persecuted but with the persecutors, a habit that has continued. They likewise did not make the Jewish people envious of the riches they had in Christ, nor did they help them to receive God’s mercy, “as a result of God's mercy to you.” (Romans 11:31)

General descriptions – constant humiliations

1836 Colonel P. Campbell, A Visit to Israel's Holy Places (1839) “The Mussulmans [of Syria-Palestine], … deeply deplore the loss of that sort of superiority which they all and individually exercised over and against the other sects. … from the bottom of his heart he believes and maintains that a Christian, and still more so a Jew, is an inferior being to himself. … the conditions of the Jews “cannot be said to have improved … due to the feelings “of all the Christians and other sects in Syria against them.”[80]

1852. Arthur George Harper Hollingsworth, “if he [a Jew in Palestine] turns to his neighbour Christian, he encounters prejudice and spite.”[81]

Marx, 1854. [They are] the constant objects of Mussulman oppression and intolerance, insulted by the Greeks, persecuted by the Latins [Catholics].

Mary Rogers, the sister of the British vice-Consul, wrote in 1862; “I mingled at the same time with European and native Christians, and especially with the Sakhali family, and with devout Jews, who kindly helped me to understand all the laws and the fasts and the feasts which they observed. The Oriental Christians are unhappily very bitter in their hatred of the Jews. They generally treat them with great contempt, and make a merit of avoiding association with them, but they agree with the Moslems in admitting that the Jews throughout the East are, as a body, remarkable for the purity of their lives, the simplicity of their manners, and the strictness with which they observe their religious services.”[82] She also wrote that, during her stay in Palestine in the mid- nineteenth century, Muslim and Christian children rarely played with one another, and would "only unite to persecute the poor little Jews."[83]

In 1887, Laurence Oliphant concluded that Jerusalem’s Muslims were more tolerant of its Jews than were its Christians.[84]  

In the 1880s “most Muslim and Christian Arabs” treated Jews “with distain because both Islam and Eastern Christianity predisposed their respective adherents in that way.”[88]

Blood libels – lying to murder Jews

In 1840 members of the Christian community, trying to avoid a Muslim backlash against their recently improved status, started the 1840 Blood Libel against the Jewish community in Damascus.[89]  To quote from the Jews of Damascus at the time;

“Truly this is a time of great trouble and distress; for every Israelite dwelling in Damascus is in great dread lest he should be falsely accused: for there is none to say unto the Christians, Why do ye thus? It has been openly declared by some of them that they will grant Israel neither peace nor rest. Even already they have begun to conspire against the best, the most honourable, and esteemed of our community.”[90] “We know not what is to become of the people of Israel when the Christians see there is no hope for them, but their false accusations are listened to from the judgement seat; but to the voice of Israel there is none to give ear, to reply-none to pity.[91]

It is generally believed that it was Catholics under the protection of France who introduced this European anti-Semitic charge into the Muslim world.[92]

In 1862 and in 1890 blood libels resulted in Christian attacks on the Jewish quarter of Beirut. In 1890 order was restored by the Turkish authorities and the rioters were arrested.[93]

Turning specifically to Palestine, in 1847 it seemed probable that the Christian pilgrims, instigated by the Greek ecclesiastics, were about to reproduce the horrors enacted at Rhodes and Damascus in 1840 [against the Jews].[94] It started when a Greek Orthodox boy, on pilgrimage in Jerusalem, threw a stone at a Jewish boy. As the British Consul, James Finn wrote at the time; “Strange to say, the latter had the courage to retaliate by throwing one in return, which, unfortunately hit its mark, and a bleeding ankle was the consequence.”

“Direst vengeance was denounced against all Jews indiscriminately for having stabbed (as they said) an innocent Christian child with a knife in order to get his blood for mixing in their Passover biscuits.” (Passover, which was taking place at the same time.) The police took both parties to the Seraglio (court) and the case was discharged as too trivial for notice. Dissatisfied with this peaceful end of the incident, the clergy stirred the matter up again, proving from their ancient books to the Pasha (Ottoman ruler) that the Jews were addicted to non-Jewish blood. The Pasha commanded the Jews to give a response the following day. “The Greek ecclesiastical party came down in great force and read out of Church historians and controversial writings of old time direct and frequent accusations leveled against the Jews for using Christian blood in Passover ceremonies.”

“In the meanwhile,” continued Finn, “Greeks and Armenians went about the streets insulting and menacing the Jews, both men and women, sometimes drawing their hands across the throat, sometimes showing the knives they generally carry with them, and, among other instances brought to my notice was that of a party of six catching hold of the son of the late Chief Rabbi of London (Herschel) and shaking him, elderly man as he was, by the collar, crying out, ‘Ah! Jews, have you got the knives ready for our blood?!’”

The next day, the rabbis, “pale and trembling, arguing from the Old Testament and all their legal authorities the utter impossibility of the perpetration of such acts by their people.” The rabbis concluded by appealing to the Sultan’s Firman (Edict) of 5601/1841, which declares that after investigating the matter after the Damascus Blood Libel, the Jews were found innocent of the crime attributed to them. Since the next day was Friday, the Moslem day of rest, the Jews were instructed to bring the Firman to court on Shabbos.

“I then arranged with the Pasha that I should be present at the meeting and early on Saturday went down to the Seraglio,” Finn recorded. “But earlier still, His Excellency was happy (he said) to acquaint me that the Firman had been produced, and on his asking the accusers and the Effendis in council if they could venture to fly in the face of that document, they had, with all loyalty pronounced it impossible. He therefore had disposed of the case by awarding a trifling fine for the medical treatment of the wounded ankle.” Finn’s wife affirmed in a footnote that it was chiefly her husband’s interest in the incident that led to this swift conclusion.[95] Had the British Consul, James Finn, not intervened, matters could well have resulted in just such a massacre. This did not end the matter as far as the Orthodox were concerned.

In 1931, six weeks before Passover, the Greek Orthodox paper Filastin published a “blood libel” against the Jaffa Jewish community!![1] It concerned the alleged kidnapping of two Arab children, was described by Frederick Kisch at the time as “terrifying.” “Intense excitement spread throughout the country and a massacre seemed imminent.”[2] It led to the temporary suspension of the Filastin. The Palestine Bulletin (pre-curser to the Palestine Post and then the Jerusalem Post) reported on March 06 that “the instigators felt that nothing less than a religious libel would bring about a recurrence of the bloody events of August 1929.”[3] That is, two years after Jews had been massacred in Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed and elsewhere, this was an attempt by the Christian community to try and stir up a new massacre of Jews, using traditional Christian anti-Semitism! This is utterly horrific! Large numbers of innocent people could have been murdered! See also the excellent editorial of the Palestine Bulletin, August 11, 1930, predating this libel.[4] On April 13, 1931, the Palestine Bulletin editorial also mentioned the blood libel printed in the Falastin, and also noted that during the recent Nebi Moussa festival, “the crowd shouted ‘Palestine is our and the Zionists are our dogs. We have weapons enough, slaughter, be not afraid.’ No one was arrested, Falastin praised the behaviour of the crowd.”[5]

Between 1847 and 1931, twice the Orthodox community tried to provoke a massacre of the Jewish community in Palestine.

Death for a Jew walking past a Christian Church

“but that Greeks, Latins and Armenians, all believed a Jew might be killed with impunity under such conditions.”[98]

Unwritten rules coded the ritual humiliation of the Jews. Because everyone knew them, they are little recorded, and only brought to notice by the actions of visiting Jews who did not know about them, and who therefore unwittingly transgressed them. The British Consul, Finn, intervened and recorded such an occasion in 1847 (just after the blood libel case discussed above had been rejected). A Jew, newly arrived from Europe, had not yet had time to learn the rules and did not know that walking past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was, for Jews, forbidden. After he crossed the far side of the open square in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, without warning, he was attacked and almost killed by a crowd of Christians. This site was strictly out of bounds to Jews although not, of course, to Moslems. He appealed for justice to the British Consulate. “I appealed to the Pasha,” Finn writes. “The Greek ecclesiastics pleaded before him that the passage was not a public thoroughfare but part of the Sanctuary of Christianity, and only used for transit on sufferance. They even dared to send me word that they were in possession of an ancient Firman which fixed the ‘Deeyeh,’ or blood-fine, to be paid by them if, in beating a Jew in that vicinity for trespass, they happened to kill him, at the sum of ten paras, about one halfpenny English.”

After an inquiry was sent to Constantinople to ascertain whether this claim was true, word came back that no such document existed. “Thus that mischievous untruth was silenced,” Finn concluded. “But the incident shows the disposition of the high convent authorities towards the Jews. It may be that they themselves believed there was such a Firman: if so, what degree of pity of liberality could one expect from the multitude of brutal pilgrims? The Pasha said that he knew of no such Firman as that referred to, but that Greeks, Latins and Armenians, all believed that a Jew might be killed with impunity under such circumstances.”[99]

Even during the Mandate, Christians still forbade Jews from entering the Holy Sepulchre and the street leading to it. Indeed, Agustin Acre witnessed Greek and Armenian monks attacking a Jew who entered it in 1927.[100]

Christian ecclesiastical authorities were again prepared to fight legally for their ‘right’ to beat and even kill Jews who walked past the Church of the Holy Sepulcher! Their argument that the street outside formed part of the church simply means that they believed in beating any Jew who entered their church – this is Christian how??? We only know about the first instance because of the presence of the British Consul. Had he not been there, there would be no record of it, except perhaps buried in some forgotten Ottoman archive. Given the swiftness of the Orthodox response to the Jewish ‘intrusion,’ and their readiness to defend their rights to beat up any such Jew, one must wonder how often such events occurred unrecorded.

Speaking of Christians beating up Jews, C. Martin reported on the Arab riots in Jaffa in 1921; “A large number of the Jews are terror stricken … Unfortunately for the work, Arabs, who call themselves Christians, united with the Moslems in their endeavours to shed Jewish blood, so we have the unpleasant task of explaining and apologising for the falseness of this un-Christlike Christianity.”[101] For a quick reminder of the events of that pogrom, “On May 1, 1921 . . . hundreds of Arabs rampaged through the streets of Jaffa with clubs, knives, metal bars, and pistols. With an unstoppable drive for murder, the rioters stabbed helpless Jews to death, cruelly beat infants and the elderly, raped women and girls, and burned and looted anything they could get their hands on. Forty-three Jews died that day, and many others were wounded or died later on from their injuries.”[102] 

Conclusion

The idea then that Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together as one before the advent of Zionism is then a lie. While inter-communal relationships both varied from place to place, and also fluctuated within any given area, Christians and Jews in Palestine during the Ottoman time experienced constant discrimination, and periodic persecution, including murders, robbery, massacres and expulsions. Numerous contemporary sources note the fury of the Muslim community over the very idea that the other communities should have the same rights and protections as themselves. “In the Palestinian historiography today the discrimination in past and present of the Christian Palestinians and the periodical tensions among the Muslims and Christians are regarded as taboo.”[103]

The Muslim community in general viewed, and still view the days before the Tanzimat reforms as idyllic. After the massacre of Armenians by Muslim Kurds in the Sason area of Turkey in 1894-96, a Kurdish chieftain lamented the loss of “love and perfect confidence” that had prevailed ‘for hundreds of years between us and the Christians.’ In a petition to the great powers, he wrote ‘peace and safety existed among us, so that each one of us owned a Christian, and every year exacted a fixed amount for protection afforded, yet we cared for them more than for our own children.” As to the view of the persecuted of this same situation, a Sason Armenian wrote of their lives as being; “persecuted in all sorts of ways.” On top of government taxes, they; “had to pay tribute to some seven different Kurd[ish chieftains] … and at the same time we were continually exposed to their plunder, rape and murder.”[104] That is, contrary to the prevailing Muslim view, the situation prior to the reforms was not idyllic. The non-Muslims lived a life of humiliations, persecution and abuse. Robbery, rape and murder were all too common, and went unpunished by the Muslim courts, where for example, a Christian or Jewish woman would have had to find four Muslim men ready to testify for her and against a fellow Muslim man if a charge of rape were to be upheld.

Shamefully, the false narrative of the oppressor has been adopted by the Palestinian Christian community, one of the oppressed. See for examples the recent comments by two professors from the Bethlehem Bible College. Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac; “What distinguishes Palestine with its history and present is religious and cultural pluralism, and we have stressed in our first meeting that diversity is a source of wealth,” and Professor Daniel Bannoura; “Historically, we have a very good relationship with Muslims, but after ISIS, Christians have become ignorant and fearful of Muslims.”[105] 
Like an abusive husband and an abused wife both swearing to the police that everything is fine, Palestinian Christians now insist that, prior to Zionism, unlike the situation in the rest of the Ottoman empire, everything was fine. They do this for a number of reasons; they remain a tiny minority, still actively afraid of offending the Muslim majority. Also, they have they have bet the farm on Arab nationalism and hope that by agreeing with their oppressors about the past, they will be able to steer them towards a less violent future. They continue to hope for a bonding moment with their Muslim oppressors based on a mutual hatred of the Jews. Finally, because as the son of a leading Palestinian Christian once told me, they would rather be wiped out by the Muslim Arab population than thrive with the Jewish population. And so they lie about their past, and heap blame on the community which historically was the most persecuted, and most abused.



[1] W.P. Livingstone. A Galilee doctor being a sketch of the career of Dr. D. W. Torrance of Tiberias  
Published 1923, 51.
[2] Erik Freas, Muslim Christian relations in Palestine during the British mandate period. 26. file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/vdocuments.mx_freas-phd-muslim-christian-relations-in-palestine.pdf
[3] Morris and Ze’evi, The Thirty Year Genocide, 45.
[4] Bat Ye’or 1996, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, 377-80.
[5] Bat Ye’or, 1996; 378.
[6] Bat Ye’or, 1985; The Dhimmi, 214-17.
[7] Sethmann, Identity and Inclination:  The Arab Christians Between Zionism and Islam, 102. file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/The_Strength_and_the_Weakness_Palestinia%20(1).pdf Quoting page 83 of Narrow Gate Church’s.
[8] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 235-6.
[9] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 222.
[10] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 224.
[11] Freas, 39.
[13] Freas, 33.
[14] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 244-5.
[15] Rafiq Farah, In Troubled Waters, A history of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. 11.
[16] Farah, 11.
[19] Freas, 54.
[20] Farah, 19.
[21] Ruth Kark, American Consuls in the Holy Land. page 245. 
[22] Freas, 33.
[23] Farah, 19.
[24] Raphael Israeli, Green Crescent over Nazareth, 11. (See also Bat Ye’or, 1985; 252.) Taken from the official dispatches of James Finn.
[25] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 254, Israeli, 11. Again, taken from the dispatches of James Finn.
[26] Freas, 55.
[27] Robson, 19.
[28] Frantzman, 22.
[29] Farah,74.
[30] Freas, 89.
[31] Arthur Gish, Hebron Journal, 28. Gish seems to have treated this local advice with distain.
[32] Chad Emmett, Beyond the Basilica: Christians and Muslims in Nazareth, 21.
[34] Emmett, 22.
[35] Emmett, 23.
[36] Farah, 11.
[37] Emmett, 24.
[38] Farah, 12.
[39] Emmett, 24.
[40] Emmett, 25.
[41] Emmett, 29.
[42] Emmett, 29.
[43] Robson, 19.
[44] Farah, 52.
[45] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 254.
[46] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 246-8.
[47] Freas, 54.
[48] Israeli, 11., quoting James Finn.
[49] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 235.
[50] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 234.
[51] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 233.
[52] The situation had changed for the better under Muhammad Ali, so that the authors write that now (1830s) they “not only enjoy religious toleration, but are under a less oppressive government in Egypt than in any other country of the Turkish empire.” That the conditions then described are viewed as less oppressive than those in the rest of the Ottoman empire is also damning.
[53]  An account of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians, by Edward William Lane and Edward Stanley Poole, based on their numerous visits to Egypt over the period 1825-1835. Quoted in https://aijac.org.au/update/antisemitism-in-the-middle-east-in-1835/
[54] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 230.
[56] Eric Silverman, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress, 50. Bat Ye’or, 1985, 343.
[57] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 353-4.
[58] Bat Ye’or, 354. Samuel b. Ishaq Uceda. The Bread of Tears, 1606.
[59] Bat Ye’or 1996, 377-80.
[60] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 220., quoting J.S. Buckingham, Travels in Palestine, 1821.
[61] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 371. Rav Moshe Reisher, Shaarei Yerushalayim, chapter 4. (printed in 1879).
[62] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 222.J. L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel, 1836.
[63] Gish, 22.
[64] Farah, 19.
[65] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 225. A.A. Bonar and R.M. M’Cheyne, Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839, 1842.
[68] Bat Ye’or, 1985, 232. Quoting J. Finn, 1:115.
[69] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 233. Quoting J. Finn, 1:127.
[70] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 372. Rav Moshe Reisher, Shaarei Yerushalayim, chapter 4.
[72] Hillel Cohen, 1929; Year Zero of the Arab Israeli Conflict, 151 etc. For the status of Jews in Ottoman Iraq, see Edwin Black, The Farhud. 23.
[73] Cohen, 64.
[74] Neville Mandel, Arabs and Zionism before World War One, 33.  
[75] Beska, Responses, 38.
[76] Mandel, 43.
[77] A. Londres, The Wandering Jew has Arrived, 196.
[79] Emanuel Beska, Responses of Prominent Arabs towards Zionist Aspirations and Colonization Prior to 1908. 23-5.
[80] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 224.
[82] Mary Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine, 1862., 359.
[83] Freas, 88., Rogers, 189.
[84] Cohen, 64.
[85] Beska, Responses, 43, quoting Mandel, Neville J. The Arabs and Zionism, 52-54.
[86] Mandel, 53.
[87] Mandel, 53.
[88] Mandel, 32.
[89] The same accusation was raised on at least nine other times here. Mandel, 33. And that for the Vilayet of Syria, not including Beirut or Jerusalem.
[90] Bat Ye’or, 1985. 280.
[91] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 279.
[92] Freas, 87. Jews as scapegoats, and Jew-hatred as a means of creating a common cause with opponents was used by European Catholics in both the 1870s and 1930s. It would also be used by some Christians in Palestine, both Catholic and Orthodox – in is indeed (assuming it was only introduced in 1840) amazing at how quickly the Orthodox Christians adopted and incorporated the ‘blood libel’ into their own religious outlook – clearly, it fell on welcoming soil. Note however that the evidence produced by the Orthodox in 1847 would seem to refute this notion, and that the libel was also part of Orthodox anti-Semitism. “Christian Arabs were divided among a number of denominations of Eastern Christianity, and whilst there was often no love lost between them, they had in common a deep religious prejudice against Jews. Inter alia, this sentiment manifested itself in the “blood libel.” Mandel, 33.
[94] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 230., Sethmann, 18/9.
[96] Frederick Kisch, Palestine Diary, 390.
[97]Kisch, 390.
[98] Bat Ye’or, 1985; 232.
[99] http://strangeside.com/finn-english-consul-james-finn-in-palestine/ Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine, 189. Also, Bat Ye’or, 1985; 231.
[100] Cohen, 64.
[101] Gershon Nerel, Anti-Zionism in the “Electronic Church” of Palestinian Christianity, 30-31.
[103] Kimmerling, Processes. Quoted in Sethmann, 23.
[104] Morris, 54/55.

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