Muslim National Associations

The Muslim National Associations (MNA) was an organization founded in the 1920s by Hassan Bey Shukri and Sheikh Musa Hadeib. According to the Israeli historian Benny Morris, the organization was Zionist-supported and formed as a counterweight to the Muslim-Christian associations which had been formed in opposition to the Balfour Declaration and the creation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine.[1]

The organisation consisted of Arabs who were employed by the Palestine Zionist Executive and was organised by Chaim Margalioth Kalvarisky (1868-1947), who was Jewish representative on a three-member Land Commission appointed in August 1920 by Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner of Palestine, to assess state land in Palestine. Kalvarisky was a senior, European-born Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PJCA) official who settled in the Galilee in the mid-1890s.[2]

Hassan Bey Shukri was the mayor of Haifa and became the president of the Muslim National Associations. Musa Hadeib, from the village of Dawaymeh near Hebron, was also head of the Mount Hebron farmers' party.[3][4]

In July 1921, Shukri sent a telegram to the British government, declaring support for the Balfour Declaration and Zionist immigration to British Mandate Palestine:

We strongly protest against the attitude of the said delegation concerning the Zionist question. We do not consider the Jewish people as an enemy whose wish is to crush us. On the contrary. We consider the Jews as a brotherly people sharing our joys and troubles and helping us in the construction of our common country. We are certain that without Jewish immigration and financial assistance there will be no future development of our country as may be judged from the fact that the towns inhabited in part by Jews such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, and Tiberias are making steady progress while Nablus, Acre, and Nazareth where no Jews reside are steadily declining.[3]

In October 1929, Musa Hadeib was murdered near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem accused of collaborating with the Zionists. His sins were that he spoke out in favor of the British Mandate, and he had once hosted the High Commissioner Herbert Samuel.[5] His murderers were never apprehended, but both his family and the Zionist Executive claimed that the followers of Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the leader of the Supreme Muslim Council, were responsible.[5][4] His killers, according to Zionist intelligence, were three men dressed as women, from the Maraqa clan of Hebron.[1] Hadeib was the first Arab public figure who was assassinated and took place only two months following the 1929 Palestine riots.

In 1936, explosives were planted at the home of Hassan Shukri. He escaped without injury, but several months later an Arab fired four shots at Shukri as he entered the Haifa City Hall. While the assassination attempt failed, Shukri was shaken and fled to Beirut. When Shukri died on January 29, 1940, many of Haifa’s Jewish leaders attended his funeral.[6]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Tangled Truth, By Benny Morris, The New Republic; 7/5/08
  2. ↑ Chaim Margalioth Kalvarisky (Kalvaryski)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cohen, Hillel Army of Shadows: Palestinian collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. p. 15-17
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Shadowplays, by Neve Gordon, The Nation, March 24, 2008
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Cohen, Hillel Army of Shadows: Palestinian collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. p. 59
  6. ↑ Paraszczuk, Joanna "Melting pot on the mountain". Jerusalem Post, 12/03/2010