Aref al-Aref

Aref al-Aref (1891–1973; Arabic: عارف العارف‎) was a Palestinian journalist, historian and politician. Aref al-Aref served as mayor of East Jerusalem in the 1950s, during the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank.

Contents

Biography

Aref al-Aref was born in Jerusalem in 1891. His father was a vegetable vendor. Excelling at his studies in primary school, he was sent to high school in Turkey. He attended the Marjan Preparatory School and Mulkiyya College in Istanbul. During his college studies, he wrote for a Turkish newspaper. Later, he worked as a translator for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[1] He served as an officer in the Ottoman Army in World War I. He was captured on the Caucasus front and spent three years in a prisoner of war camp in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. After the Russian Revolution he escaped and returned to Palestine. In Krasnoyarsk, he put out a prison camp newspaper in Arabic called Nakatullah [Camel of God] and translated Ernst Haeckel’s Die Weltraethsel into Turkish.

Aref al-Aref edited the first Arab nationalist newspaper in Palestine after World War I, Southern Syria Suriyya al-Janubiyya, published in Jerusalem from 1919. Aref al-Aref advocated a policy of militant but non-violent opposition to Zionism[2] and a mixture of Pan-Arabist and Arab nationalist politics.

Aref al-Aref died on July 30, 1973 in Ramallah.

Political activism

In 1918, as the Arab National Movement gained strength in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre and Nablus, Aref Al-Aref and Haj Amin Al-Husseini were among the founders of a secret society, el-Nadi al-Arabi (Arab Club).[3]The Arab Club rejected the British Mandate and sought to become part of Faisal's Syrian kingdom.[4]

During the 1920 Palestine riots, Aref al-Aref was arrested for incitement by British Mandate authorities. A speech he delivered on horseback led to anti-British and anti-Semitic chants describing the Jews as dogs. [5] Arab police joined in applause, and violence erupted in which five Jews were killed and 221 wounded in the Old City of Jerusalem.[6]Al-Aref escaped with fellow-accused Haj Amin al-Husseini to Syria. He was sentenced to ten years in prison in absentia on charges of fomenting the riots.[2] His newspaper, Suriyya al-Janubbiyya, was closed down by the British.

Political career

High Commissioner of Palestine, Herbert Samuel pardoned al-Aref[7] In 1921, he was appointed District Officer of the British administration by Colonel Wyndham Deedes. In 1926-1928, he worked in Transjordan, returning to Palestine in 1929.[2]In 1936, he was appointed District Administrative Officer in Beersheba, where he built his family home. From 1950-1955, Aref al-Aref served as mayor of East Jerusalem.[2] In 1963, he was appointed director of the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.[8]

Published works

References

  1. ^ Personality of the Month
  2. ^ a b c d Passia
  3. ^ Reference Guide to the Nazis and Arabs During the Holocaust, Shelomo Alfassa
  4. ^ Doing archaeology: A cultural resource management perspective, Thomas F. King
  5. ^ Segev, Tom (2001), One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, Owl Books, ISBN 0-8050-6587-3 .
  6. ^ Sachar, Howard M. (2006), A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time (2nd ed.), New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0-679-76563-8 
  7. ^ Cleveland, William L.(2000) A history of the modern Middle East, Westview Press, ISBN 0813334896 243
  8. ^ Personality of the Month
Ottoman Empire (1517–1917)
Musa al-Alami (n/a) • Ahmad Agha Duzdar (1838–63) • Abdelrahman al-Dajani (1863–82) • Salim al-Husayni (1882–97) • Yousef al-Khalidi (1899–1907) • Faidi al-Alami (1907–09) • Hussein al-Husayni (1909–17)
British Mandate of Palestine (1917–48)
Aref al-Dajani (1917–18) • Musa al-Husayni (1918–20) • Raghib al-Nashashibi (1920–34) • Hussein al-Khalidi (1934–37) • Daniel Auster (1937–38) • Mustafa al-Khalidi (1938–44) • Daniel Auster (1944–45)
West Jerusalem, Israel (1949–67)
Daniel Auster (1949–50) • Zalman Shragai (1951–52) • Yitzhak Kariv (1952–55) • Gershon Agron (1955–59) • Mordechai Ish-Shalom (1959–65) • Teddy Kollek (1965–67)
East Jerusalem, Jordan (1949–67)
Anwar al-Khatib (1948–50) • Aref al-Aref (1950–51) • Hannah Atallah (1951–52) • Omar Wa'ari (1952–55) • Ruhi al-Khatib (1957–67)
Titular: Ruhi al-Khatib (1967–94) • Amin al-Majaj (1994–98) • Zaki Al-Ghul (1999–)
Israel (1967–)
Teddy Kollek (1967–93) • Ehud Olmert (1993–2003) • Uri Lupolianski (2003–08) • Nir Barkat (2008–)