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Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary | Al Jazeera English | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Al-Nakba: The Palestinian catastrophe - Episode 1 | Featured Documentary
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[Music] 1948
[Music]
for Palestinians that year is anba or the
the [Music]
catastrophe when hundreds of thousands
were forced out of their [Music]
homes for Israelis that year marks the
creation of the state of Israel [Music]
[Music]
as a filmmaker and as a Palestinian this
documentary series was my way to
understand the events of the past that
[Music]
our story starts here in
1799 outside the walls of AA in ottoman controlled
controlled
Palestine an army under Napoleon
bonapart besieged the city all part of a
campaign to defeat the Ottomans and
establish a French presence in the
region in search of allies Napoleon
issued a letter offering Palestine as a
Homeland to the Jews under French
protection he called on the Jews to rise
up against what he called their
oppressors Napoleon's appeal was widen
defeated in acre today the only memory
of him is a statue a top a hill
overlooking the city yet Napoleon's
project for a Jewish homeland in the
region under a colonial protectorate did not
not
die 40 years later the plan was revived
by the British this time as a means of
thwarting the rising power of Egyptian
Governor Muhammad Ali
in 1840 British foreign secretary Lord
paliston wrote to his Ambassador in
Constantinople urging him to convince
the sultan and his Entourage to open
Palestine for the immigration of
Jews at that time there were estimated
to be no more than 3,000 Jews in ottoman controlled
controlled
Palestine over the years Jewish
immigration to Palestine increased
helped on by wealth
benefactors one of these was the French
Aristocrat Baron Edmund de
Rothchild he began visiting palestin in
the 1880s and became one of the Jewish
community's leading sponsors he spent
over 14 million French Franks to
establish 30 Jewish settlements the most
1882 today the remains of Baron D
Rothchild lie in a melum in Northern
isra Israel it's a popular site for
Israeli school children learning about
the wealthy Patron who bankrolled Jewish
settlement building in Palestine over
ago in 1885 the term Zionism was first
coined by Austrian writer Nathan bbam
it's derived from the word Zion one of
the biblical names for
Jerusalem Zionism came to mean the
establishment of a Jewish homeland in
this in 1896 Theodore Herzel an austr
Hungarian journalist wrote a book called
the Jewish state it is considered one of
the most important texts of early
Zionism Herzel envisioned the founding
of a future independent Jewish State
during the 20th
century his colleague Max nordau sent
two rabbis to Palestine to investigate
the prospects for a Jewish State
there their report concluded the bride
is beautiful but she is married to to another
man the rabbis understood that
palestine's spouse was the Palestinian
soil in 1897 Herzel with bbam and nordal
convened the first Zionist Congress in
the Swiss city of
Basil the Congress adopted a program for
the establishment of a Homeland for the
in 190 7 the British government set up a
committee to devise a strategy toward
the Muslim Arab population of the Ottoman
Ottoman
Empire the committee's report submitted
to British prime minister Henry Campbell
Bannerman in 1907 recommended
establishing a so-called buffer state in
Palestine the report proposed this state
be hostile to its neighbors and friendly
to Europe the aim was to divide the
region and so assure Britain's continued Imperial
Imperial [Music]
dominance in 1907
Kim vicman a chemist who had emerged as
a leader among British zionists visited
Palestine for the first time he set out
to establish a company in Jaffa to
develop the land of Palestine a
practical means to pursue the Zionist
dream of building a Jewish State his
Venture was supported by Baron de
roile within three years a major deal
was struck the Jewish National Fund set
up to buy land in Palestine purchased
some 10,000 Dunhams in the Maj bin Amar
region of Northern
Palestine the sale to the Jewish
National Fund had dire consequences for
the thousands of Palestinian Farmers
a more uh drastic form of
colonialism than the average classical
European colonialism in the sense their
purpose was actually not so only to
exploit the locals but uh to drive them
out from the very early moment the
Zionist movement targeted
Palestine as the the place for Jewish
Independence and statehood and it was
clear that there were Palestinians on
the land uh Zionist leaders and common
people alike were got used to the idea
that the only way of making Palestine a
Jewish state is by causing the
a Jewish militia known as Hashim was
established to protect the growing
number of Jewish
settlements Jews held demonstrations to
demand the recognition of Hebrew as an
n in 1908 najib nasar a Palestinian
pharmacist began publishing a newspaper
called Al Carl in it he warned of
Zionism as a movement aimed at
displacing the Palestinians
he wrote the Jewish state would be a
poisonous dagger in the heart of the
Arabs the outbreak of World War I in
1914 created new opportunities to
in 1915 a secret memorandum was
presented to the British cabinet under
the title the future of
Palestine it was drafted by Herbert
Samuel a British politician and Zionist
committed to Palestine becoming a home
for the Jewish
people in the document Samuel advised
that the time was not right for the
establishment of an autonomous Jewish
state in
Palestine he recommended instead that
Palestine be annexed to the British
Empire describing this as the most
welcome solution to the supporters of
the Zionist movement he expressed the
hope that under British rule and over
time more Jews would settle in the land
and grow into a majority among what he
called the muhammadans of Arab
race Samuel's recommendations were taken
into account in the secret British
French agreement formulated by British
politician Sir Mark Sykes and French
diplomat franois George
Pico the Sykes Pico agreement opened the
state in 1917 the British cabinet headed
by Prime Minister David Lloyd George
pledged to establish a Homeland for the
Jews in
Palestine The Pledge came in the form of
a letter from the British foreign
secretary Arthur balur to the
influential British Zionist Lord Walter [Music]
Britain had no moral or political or
legal right to promise the land that
belonged to the Arabs to another people
so the Bala Declaration was both immoral and
and
illegal a month after bala's pledge a
meeting took place in London to
celebrate the Declaration speakers
included Lord Lord Rothchild Herbert
Samuel Mark Sykes and Kim [Music]
[Music]
vican just several days later on
December the 11th
1917 the British army commanded by
Jerusalem entering the holy city
alongside Allenby was a Jewish military
unit established under British
aaces one member of this unit was David
benan who would later be Israel's first prime
prime
minister the unit also included zeev
jainy a future Zionist leader as well as
nemah Rabin soon to be father of young
boy yitzak
Rabin within a month General alen
welcomed Heim vican in
Jerusalem the are approximately 50,000
Jews in Palestine at this time 10% of
Arabs the Great War ended in 1918 and
preparations were made for a peace
conference in Paris president of the
United States woodro Wilson commissioned
an investigation into the non-turkish
areas of the former Ottoman Empire the
commission was headed by the academic Dr
Henry King and politic ition Charles
crane when it was eventually published
The Crane King report proved to be
political Dynamite the report stated
that the non-jewish population of
Palestine nearly 9/10 of the whole was
emphatically against the Zionist
program the report went on to warn that
anti-zionist feeling in Palestine in
Syria was intense and not likely to be
flouted it divulged convers ations with
British officers who suggested a force
of not less than 50,000 soldiers would
be required to initiate the Zionist
program the authors judged all this as
evidence of what they described as a
strong sense of the Injustice of the
Zionist program the report concluded
Jewish immigration should be definitely
limited and the project for making
Palestine distinctly a Jewish
Commonwealth should be given
[Music]
ears at the Paris peace conference in
1919 Britain was represented by Prime
Minister David Lloyd George and Arthur
balur a delegation from the Zionist
organization attended headed by Kim
BisMan they presented a map seen here
proposing the area to be allocated for a Jewish
Jewish
homeland the map included both Palestine
and the East Bank of the Jordan River as
well as parts of what are today Southern
Lebanon and
Syria parallel to the conference the
leader of the Arab delegation Prince
fisel bin Hussein signed with the
Zionist delegation's leader what became
known as the fisel vican
agreement it outlined fil's approval for
a Jewish homeland in Palestine and an
Arab nation in the larger Middle
East the agreement was mediated by
leftenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence
known as Lawrence of
Arabia fisel signed adding in his own
handwriting that the agreement be
[Music]
in 1920 the first British High
Commissioner for Palestine was
appointed controversially London
selected her but Samuel for the Post
Samuel was a committed Zionist many
suspected he would set out to implement
what he had proposed 5 years earlier by
favoring Jewish immigration to transform
Palestine into a Jewish homeland in 1922
the League of Nations formalized British
rule in Palestine the second Clause of
the British mandate document approved by
the League of Nations stipulated the
British mandatory shall be responsible
for placing the country under political
administrative and economic conditions
that will secure the establishment of
the Jewish National
Home British High Commissioner Herbert
Samuel decreed Hebrew as an official
language of Palestine alongside Arabic
and English the letters e and Y were
added to the word Palestine in Hebrew as
an abbreviation of the words eret Israel
meaning land of Israel
Britain provided the
muscle um under which they could simply
immigrate I mean they couldn't have
immigrated were it not for uh the
British presence um because the the um
the crucial battle in the early stages
was simply getting Jews into Palestine
and acquiring land they couldn't have
done that without uh British uh government
government
[Music] for
for [Music]
Palestinians viewed the British
mandatory Authority and British troops
on the ground as siding with the
Jews more and more Palestinian Farmers
expelled from farmlands began to join
newly formed revolutionary
groups in 1921 Palestinians organized
large demonstrations against Jewish immigration
at that time the Palestinian leadership
was in effect hereditary within one
family the grand Muti of Jerusalem Amin
al- husseini inherited his position at
the age of 25 following the death of his
father the leadership sent successive
delegations to London to discuss the
the changes on the ground in Palestine
can be noted in the British government's
report to the Council of the League of
Nations in
1925 the document reported the
immigration of more than 33,000 Jews who
were granted Palestinian
nationality this was three times the
figure of the previous
year 13 new settlements were built
according to the report a Jewish labor
union called the histadrut had been set
up under under the direction of David
benan and the Jewish town of Tel Aviv
was accorded Municipal
autonomy in addition the Hebrew
University was officially opened in
1925 at a ceremony attended by British
High Commissioner Herbert Samuel the
former British foreign secretary Arthur
balur and the head of the Zionist
organization Kim vican as vian's guest
balur visited a number of Jewish
settlements in Jerusalem he met with
Samuel and alanby the two men who had
helped implement the policy he himself
had laid out 8 years earlier in the
[Music]
declaration the Palestinians went on
strike to protest against bala's [Music]
[Music]
visit they raised black flags to Signal
their opposition to the the policies
Bala had set in [Music]
[Music]
train the Palestinians were in somber
[Music]
vican congratulated Samuel for his work
towards the establishment of a national Jewish
homeland the Zionist movement was active
in its propaganda this film in French
showed the map of Palestine with areas
highlighted as land the zionists claimed
to have acquired as of 1925 [Music]
the film also shows the areas zionists
planned to acquire within the next 25 [Music]
[Music]
years in the summer of 1929 Ardent
Zionist groups organized a gathering at
the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem known to
the Palestinians as
alarak the incident ignited violent
demonstrations called the Burak Revolt
led by a Palestinian farmer named Farhan
alsadi more than 100 Arabs and Jews were
killed on both
sides Sir John Chancellor the new
British High Commissioner in Palestine
issued a strongly worded memorandum
calling for all those who took part in
the Revolt to be severely
punished three Palestinians were
arrested and accused of participating in
the Revolt they were fuad Hassan hijazi from
from
safad ATA Ahmed alzir from
Hebron and Muhammad Khalil Jam jum whose
picture could not be found the three men
were jailed here at AA prison the
British sentenced them to
death Arab delegations pleaded for their
sentences to be commuted but on June the
17th 1930 the British authorities had
had the three men
executed a cemetery in acre still
contains the graves of the three
men in a final statement before their
execution they had written at the end of
our Lives we say to the Arab leaders and
Muslims all over the world do not trust
the foreigners we lived and died for the
such Sentiments of anticolonialism and
pan arabism would become increasingly
[Music]
decades during the first 10 years of the
British mandate the number of Jews in
175,000 zionists all over the world were
I am here today to ask you my fellow
zionists which attitude shall we
take which of the possible attitudes
that we Face shall be our
own I would say to England though I am
only an American Jew but an oldtime
reverencing admirer of Great Britain I
would say to England if I could
an Arab
Palestine is a threat to Great Britain
and a menace to the world a Jewish
Palestine is an asset to Great Britain
world D is in
G the CH his health and long life to the
with Kim vican beside him former British
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
credentials it is as your German has reminded
reminded
you it is nearly 16 years since he
Palestine Bon and malarial
swamp have been converted into Happy
Happy
settlements science has been harnessed
to Waters which had been running wild
creation without vegetation and without
life empty desolation that is Palestine
British news bulletins at the time
described Palestine as akin to a
different we had the foreign
foreign [Music]
[Music]
British politicians of the early 20s
Century had a distorted view of
Palestinian Society frequently labeling
it as muhammadan despite the population
including over 100,000 Palestinian
Christians they did not regard them as
yet belonging to either an Arab National
group in general or to local National
groups uh the only way they were able to
view them was as a religious uh uh group
of Believers so I think they they missed
the point for instance that um
Christians and Muslims actually founded
a new identity not the religious one but
by
1933 protests against Jewish immigration
were becoming ever more frequent in
Palestine women took Parts side by side
with men the British authorities cracked
down on demonstrations and arrested
thousands many were killed and [Music]
wounded Musa kazim al- husseini the
80-year-old former mayor of Jerusalem
was beaten by British soldiers during a
demonstration in
Jaffa he later died of his injuries the
British authorities became ever more were
heavy-handed this letter was written by
a Palestinian policeman condemning the
behavior of his British senior officer John
Faraday a number of other complaints
were filed against
Faraday the officer was never charged
four years later Faraday was awarded the
king's police medal for his valuable
services in Palestine [Music]
only still images of the Palestinian
[Music]
archives movie cameras did capture
Jewish life in Palestine as well as
British Pomp and
Ceremony this footage shows the Star of
David flag over the Tel Aviv municipality
municipality
building this is footage of work in the
diamond factories of Tel Aviv and this
footage shows the flow of new immigrants
settlements footage of Palestinian life
in the early 20th century proved more
a Palestinian film archive had once
existed but had since been lost or gone mysteriously
mysteriously [Music]
[Music]
missing we spent months searching for
pictures of Palestinian
lives eventually in the vaults of the
British Library we found glimpses of
most of the Palestinians intellectuals
leaders journalists were still unaware
how determined the Zionist movement is
of dispossessing them from
Palestine in the 19 1930s the number of
Jews immigrating to Palestine began to increase
increase
significantly from 4,000 in
1931 the figure jumped to
9,500 the following year in 1933 the
number Rose to 30,000 in 1934
42,000 and in 1935 a further jump to
62,000 that same year Palestinian poet
Abdul Rahim Mahmud wrote a poem which he
read aloud to Prince sa bin abdulaziz of
Saudi Arabia who was visiting
Jerusalem he asked did you come to visit
the holy AXA mosque or to bid it
farewell before it is [Music]
for she alasam established a
revolutionary group to strike at Zionist
and British Targets in 1935 in the Hills
near janin he and a small band of men
were surrounded by British
forces making a defiant stand Alam and
sh
pH the Palestinian political leadership
came under pressure to Halt negotiations
with the
British Palestinian poet ibraim Tuan
addressed a poem to the leadership in
1935 a poem dripping with
irony oh you sincere Patriots you who
carry the heavy burden of the cause only
a fragment of the country remains for us
so please step down before the the
remaining parts Fly
Away on April the 19th 1936 Palestinian
anger boiled over protests erupted in
the city of Jaffa in coordination with a
general strike the wave of anger spread throughout
throughout
Palestine the reasons for the protests
were explained by a spokesman for the
Palestinian political leadership the
main case of the Arabs is against the
British government's policy in
Palestine a policy which if continued
will surely have as a result the
replacement of the Arabs by the Jews
against all principles the British
government imposed the B for declaration
which is abhor by all Arabs in the near
East and on favoring the establishment
of a national home for Jews forgot
intentionally to safeguard the civil
rights of the non-jewish
population the Arabs who decided on a
general and a complete strike until the
total and immediate stoppage of Jewish
immigration is brought about and until
the government introduces an essential
the 1936 Revolt shocked the British
mandatory authorities who carried out
harsh punitive actions anyone suspected
of links with the revolutionaries was
arrested their homes destroyed in Jaffa
alone more than 200 houses were
demolished as a collective
punishment demolitions in other Villages
and cities followed the British insisted
that destroying Palestinian houses was
[Music] revolt
during the Arab Revolt David benan then
a prominent leader of the Zionist
movement reportedly made a startling
suggestion to the British High
Commissioner Arthur
warhop benorian is said to have
suggested all Palestinians expelled from
their land by Jewish settlement building
should be resettled in neighboring trans
Jordan the British High Commissioner is
reported to have replied that this was
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