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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by Al-Ahram established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Al-Ahram:
A Diwan of contemporary life (338)
In the few years that followed the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the end of World War I in 1918, Jews streamed into Palestine and their settlements began to sprout. These were the seeds of what today is a major issue in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. An observant and perceptive Egyptian who travelled to Palestine and other parts of the Levant in 1923 saw the influx of Jews, coupled with the sale of Arab lands and the emigration of many Arabs to North and South America. He wrote about it all to Al-Ahram, which published his observations in 10 instalments over six weeks. He sounded the alarm about Jewish settlement in Palestine as early as 1923. Dr Yunan Labib Rizk * reviews his articles
Early warning on Jewish settlements
Like many Egyptian middle-class men in the early 20th century, Abdel-Mu'min Kamel El-Hakim decided to take a tour of the Levant in the summer of 1923. He called on the offices of one of the prominent tourist agencies in Cairo -- the Lebanon Resorts Company -- which booked him a tour through Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. What set El-Hakim apart from his contemporary travellers was that he kept a journal of his entire journey, and, moreover, sent his musings to Al-Ahram. These were published in Al-Ahram over a series of 10 issues from 21 September to 30 October under the heading "A week in Jerusalem."Although this was not a particularly accurate title, given that the trip lasted over a week and covered a far more extensive area in the Levant, Jerusalem did occupy a significant portion of El-Hakim's articles. As a result, they offer an eyewitness account of the Holy City at a crucial juncture in the history of the Palestinian cause: the period just after the five-year interval between the Balfour Declaration (1917) and the establishment of the British mandate over Palestine (1922).
The starting point for our traveller's tour eastward was in West Qantara, a city located on the west bank of the Suez Canal just north of Ismailia. El-Hakim was surprised to find that he had to pass through a customs point in that city, as though he were already at the Egyptian border. He was also dismayed by the conveyance that transported him across the canal. This was a small old barge, which was "so dirty, poorly lit and slow that it is unseemly that the Egyptian railways authority should use it as a mode of passenger transport."
A truckload of Jewish immigrants on the way to an assembly point for new arrivals
A greater surprise was awaiting him in East Qantara on the other side. There he found "a train station, an anomaly in every respect. Nothing in Egypt resembles it whatsoever. The Egyptian cannot help but feel that he is in a station in Britain, even though his feet are firmly planted on Egyptian land." Passport controls took place as soon as he boarded the train bound for Palestine. After inspecting his passport, the inspector stamped it with a seal indicating that he was permitted to enter Palestine. The inspector then asked him whether his purpose for travel was tourism, business or immigration, after which he handed him a bundle of papers in English, Arabic and Hebrew regarding health regulations. El-Hakim resented the fact that these procedures should take place in Qantara and not in Rafah at the Egyptian border, for "Egyptians should not be asked to show their passport until they arrive at their country's border." He also was irked by a customs duty levied on passengers on the Sinai Railway, particularly "as it is not clear whether this tax goes to Egypt or to Palestine."
It is interesting to note that the situation El-Hakim describes continued to prevail even after the British evacuation of Egypt, as a result of which the famous peninsula remained for decades little more than a passageway rather than a place of abode. It was not until after the October War of 1973 and the recovery of Sinai that officials in Cairo realised the dangers of allowing this situation to persist and launched an intensive drive to develop the region.
Following customs formalities, passengers were required to remain in their seats until the train departed. This did not occur until one minute after midnight, at which point the station bell rang and the train slid away from the platform on its way into the eastern desert.
Once again, the traveller picked up his pen to record his impressions. The stretch of desert through which the train passed appeared barren, "but it is not devoid of wells and springs. A chain of high, rugged mountains traverses the desert. One cannot open the windows of one's compartment for fear of clouds of fine sand. Conditions remain this way until Gaza."
El-Hakim learned from his conversations with fellow passengers that the desert through which he was passing was populated by nomads who lived in small huts located near the occasional wells. These nomads raised camels and goats and a few cows and fed on the milk and meat these animals produced. Some of them manufactured coal from acacia trees.
When the train pulled into Gaza, El-Hakim looked around him in horror. It was a lamentable sight. Most of its buildings were in ruins and there was little left of its ancient mosque. He learned that during the war the British had bombed the city because the Germans had transformed it into a munitions depot. The destruction and desolation took a heavy toll on the city's inhabitants. He relates, "The rich were reduced to average wealth, the middle classes became poor and the poor were wiped out, either because they died of starvation or because they fled and died or were heard of no more. The same applies to Gaza's surrounding villages."
As the train moved on towards Al-Majdal, El-Hakim was relieved to find that the dust cloud had dispelled and the land was less rugged and increasingly green. The scenery he describes from his window is charmingly pastoral: "You can see the Palestinian peasants in their traditional vest and sirwal (trousers), tilling their fields and driving their donkeys laden with manure or with vegetables to sell in the market, exactly like their fellow Egyptian peasants. And, you can see the Palestinian peasant women carrying on their heads baskets filled with fruit, tomatoes, pumpkins or, perhaps, eggs, exactly like their sisters in Egypt."
The area between Al-Majdal and Ashdod was devoted to the cultivation of olives, oranges and almonds. At one stop, vendors came into the train to sell these fruits, a selection of which El-Hakim purchased for his journey. He took great delight in the almonds, because the local farmers had cross-bred the almond trees with apricot trees imparting a distinct apricot flavour to the almonds. Because there was such an abundance of apricots, the villagers would dry and grind these fruits into the popular apricot paste known as qamar al-din. He also observed that the villages in the vicinity resembled those in Egypt's Buheira Governorate and that the houses were reminiscent of those in the villages of Abu Homos and Kafr Al-Duwar in the Nile Delta.
From Ashdod the train went to Lod, a junction of several railway lines: one to Jaffa, a second to Haifa, a third to Syria and a fourth to Jerusalem. Here, El-Hakim boarded the train to Jerusalem. The trip took two and a half hours.
El-Hakim could not help but observe the Zionist colonisation process that was in evidence en route. When his train arrived at a station called Al-Khubut, he remarked that this was "a new name given to it by the Zionist settlers and that originally the Arabs had called it Diran." Passing through Bir Yaaqub, he saw nestled on the mountain-tops smart solitary houses "that are apparently the summer homes of the Jews and some Britons." Arriving in Ramla he observed that many Jews had immigrated to this city and its neighbouring districts. "They called the valley adjacent to it Artov, where they established several Zionist companies for land investment and livestock breeding."
In making these observations, El-Hakim broached one of the most sensitive issues in Palestinian history, the sale of Arab land to Zionist land companies. The only way the Palestinians could stem this tide, he writes, was either to put their land in trust or to refuse to sell it "even for many times its worth." He relates one instance of "a man from Jerusalem who was offered 10,000 pounds for his land, but refused to sell it even though he desperately needed 2,000 pounds to pay off his heavy debts. Still, he preferred penury and prosecution over selling his land to the colonisers." He goes on to comment that, even in those early days of the Palestinian cause, there was a move to unite in the face of the Zionist threat. "One no longer finds a difference between the Muslims and Christians. All share a common sentiment, a sentiment that can be read on the doors of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and on the doors of every church. It is expressed in the words: 'In unity lies strength. With knowledge comes glory.'"
As the train approached the outskirts of Jerusalem, our passenger found a breathtaking view. He writes, "The many towering mountains are covered with trees producing olives, figs, oranges and lemons. Grape-vines span the folds of the mountains and their lofty heights and dangle over the entrances to caves and distant gorges some 50 metres or more below the train tracks. The lands spread over these yellow and black mountains are the source of livelihood for the inhabitants of Deir Al-Sheikh, Jerusalem and outlying areas. Farmers plow this uneven terrain, men fill their water-skins from its wells to sell in the city and women and girls carry baskets on their heads laden with fruits and vegetables -- all from this providential land blessed by God."
But these bucolic delights were not to last. As the train pulled into the city, he was shocked to find the many new buildings built by the Jews who had come to Jerusalem before and after World War I from Britain, the US, Russia, Poland and Italy. "Much expense and effort has gone into the construction of these buildings," he remarks. His tone reflected fears -- which later turned out to have been justified -- that this city would one day be wrenched from its native inhabitants. Apart from his shock, he noted Jerusalem's landmarks in the distance -- the Dome of the Rock, the Church of the Resurrection and other holy and historical sites "that remind one of the Arabs' ancient glory."
It was thus with conflicting feelings that El-Hakim descended onto the platform of the new train station that had been built following the war. From the station he took a carriage to the hotel. Friday, 16 March, in the home of Hoda Sha'rawi, located at 2 Qasr Al-Nil Street, the Permanent Committee of Egyptian Women was formed. The committee consisted of 24 members, of whom five were elected to represent Egypt in the conference. In addition to Hoda Sha'rawi, who, of course, was elected as head of the delegation, the team included Nabawiya Moussa, Esther Fahmi, Wahida Khulusi and Ceza Nabarawi. The formation of this committee coincided with the first news Egyptians heard about the substance of the conference. Featuring prominently on the agenda were: equality between men and women at work, unified moral standards and equality in education, the nationality of the wife and her autonomy with respect to her husband, women's economic status, illegitimate children and, finally, women and political parties.
General view of a Jerusalem district, with two Israeli settlements in the background, both built after the 1967 war photo: Antoune AlbertAfter arriving in Jerusalem, El-Hakim sent the first of his dispatches to Al-Ahram, encouraged by the fact that the Egyptian newspaper was readily available in the market-place only a day after it appeared on the stands in Egypt. He continues his travelogue, with his readers in mind, covering the famous Islamic, Christian and Jewish holy sites. But more interesting are his observations on the unfamiliar environment.
He was immediately struck by the plethora of different nationalities and "the contrasting features of Jews from Russia, Poland, Italy, Austria and Germany, not to mention the Bedouins from Al-Kark, Al-Salt and the desert." Walking through the city, he found "the dwellings huddled shoulder to shoulder, descending or ascending the steep inclines which one mounts through a maze of stairways, occasionally coming across an ancient church over a thousand years old. It is not until one passes through the narrow doorways off the cobbled lanes that one can sense the splendour of these churches, their space and the beauty of the their decorative elements. Many of the streets are covered, their arcades serving as foundations for peoples' homes above."
At one point in his wanderings, he turned into Haret Al-Yahud (Jews Lane), with its jumble of cramped houses, interspersed with breweries and tanneries. So rank were the odours of these industries that "passers-by had to plug their noses." At the other side of the residential scale, he was struck by the magnificence of the traditional palatial homes of some of the city's dignitaries, causing him to remark on the similarity between them and the old Turkish-style houses in Fatimid Cairo. Everywhere, people could be found hard at work, prompting him to discount the prevalent propaganda that the Jews were the only industrious element in the city. "The Muslims no less than the Christians are as assiduous in the pursuit of their livelihood and interests as the Jews," he remarked.
Passing by the Wailing Wall, located south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, he watched "devout Jewish men and women facing the wall, with their hands placed in its small crevices as they make continuous bowing movements and recite in a curious wailing chant their psalms lamenting the lost glory of Jerusalem. Each prays for an entire hour, and as soon as one worshiper leaves another moves in to take his place, and so on from dawn to after sunset."
It was only natural that El-Hakim pause for a long time at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, where he marvelled at the extensive arcades, the magnificent domes, the many columns hewn from variegated coloured stone and the splendid fountains. He relates that the Caliph Abdel-Malek bin Marwan allocated the kharaj (land tax) from Egypt for a period of seven years towards the construction of these edifices, for which reason "the people of Jerusalem hold Egypt in the highest esteem, for were it not for these funds the Al-Aqsa Mosque could never have been completed 1,240 years earlier. It is for this reason, too, that they hope that Egyptians today will contribute towards the restoration of the mosque."
He also relates that when Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mohamed Ali, brought the Levant under Egyptian control in the 1830s, he constructed an edifice dedicated to the poor and for the recitation of the Qur'an. However, he adds, "it is regrettable that this sanctuary fell out of use and that the name of God is no longer mentioned there. This is because the waqf foundation (religious endowment) in Egypt that administered it has consigned it to oblivion, even though it would take no more than LE100 a year to maintain it."
In spite of his obvious sympathies for the Palestinians as a whole, our Egyptian tourist could not help but reproach the wealthier Palestinian Muslims for their failure to come to the aid of their fellow citizens who had been tragically affected by the recent war. Because of this failure, thousands of Palestinians forced into destitution and near starvation had no alternative but to resort to the charitable institutions run by various Christian denominations where they found "bread and broth" and were treated for "osteomalcia (bone disease) that results from malnutrition."
The remaining instalments of "A week in Jerusalem" were devoted to the author's excursions in Lebanon and Syria. One cannot help but note that his observations were less detailed during this portion of his journey, perhaps because the plight of the inhabitants in Jerusalem continued to disturb him.
After a five-and-a-half hour train journey, El-Hakim arrived in Haifa from where he took another four-and-a-half hour trip by car to Beirut. He was immediately struck by the energies the Lebanese devoted to making their country a tourist Mecca. Sparkling new hotels and summer resorts were cropping up everywhere and he was particularly delighted by the omnipresence of essential tourist information posted in the various tourist offices, government buildings and public transportation. For Egyptians looking for a summer resort, he highly recommended Mount Lebanon for its "oriental virtues, Arab customs, excellent hospitality and honest treatment."
He was also impressed by the commitment of the Lebanese tourist companies. Already in Beirut of the 1920s we find the precursor to group tourism, for he writes that the tourist companies had come to an arrangement for reducing prices in the luxury hotels. Thus, it was possible for holiday-makers to obtain food and lodging so cheaply that "one can spend an extended period in Lebanon without great expense or strain."
Damascus, the first capital of the Islamic Empire after the first four "wise caliphs," was El-Hakim's last stop. Given the significance of this city in Islamic history, he felt bound to sketch a brief historical background in which he said, "From this city the Arab armies marched on their conquests, reaching the Great Wall of China to the east and the shores of the Atlantic to the west."
El-Hakim headed directly through the gates of the famous souq to tour the famous Ummayid Mosque. He writes, "One of the grandest mosques, the Ummayid Mosque, has been struck by fire more than once and renovated several times, and the addition of rare and exquisite ornamentation has revived much of its charm. Its minarets tower over the minarets of other mosques and it is forever vibrant with the invocation of God and religious services."
He took this occasion to remind his readers of that "noble project" that was begun under "the late Sultan Abdel-Hamid II": the Hijaz railway. "This long and winding railroad that passes through many tunnels has its starting point in the Damascus railway station. It was constructed with the purpose of facilitating the journey for the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, as well as for the Egyptians who wish to visit Madina, a function which it has been performing for more than 18 years now."
If the Hijaz railway marked a major advancement in transportation leading out of Damascus, the roads and means of transportation inside the city were in vast need if improvement. It was all the more surprising that such improvements were not implemented given the many "oppressive" taxes the government imposed. These included the road tolls, the poll tax and the benefit tax, which was a tax levied on craftsmen and merchants. He goes on to explain, "For example, if a shoemaker rents a warehouse on the outskirts of the city and converts it into a workshop for some of his employees because his current premises are too cramped to accommodate them, the government exacts from him 10 Majeeds (200 piastres) every year, even though the rent he pays for that period is no more than nine Majeeds (180 piastres)."
According to El-Hakim, the heavy taxes, among other things, accounted for the widespread emigration of Syrians and Lebanese to North and South America. In the few months that preceded his arrival, he heard that more than 1,200 people from the district of Rashia alone migrated to Brazil and Canada. "Everywhere in Syria and Lebanon one finds travelling middlemen offering to assist those wishing to emigrate by extending them loans to be repaid at enormous rates of interest over varying periods of time. If, in addition, the middleman pays the travel expenses, the recipient will leave (lose) his farm as quickly as Adam was expelled from Paradise."
El-Hakim found it bitterly ironic that while financial pressures were forcing thousands to leave Lebanon and Syria, Jews by the thousands were making their way to Palestine. He writes, "While the Jews are arriving singly and in droves, setting up agricultural, manufacturing and commercial enterprises in Palestine, against the wishes of its native inhabitants, not a ship sets sail from Beirut without dozens of Lebanese and Syrian emigrants on board." He concluded this portion of his journals with an appeal to the government of Palestine to curb the Zionist settlement drive, "for there will come a day when the Palestinians will find themselves slaves to colonialism, because the immigrants who are arriving are far too numerous for the country to accommodate." Today, in light of the repeated closures of the Israeli borders to Palestinian workers and the hardships caused by this, we can see how perspicacious El-Hakim was.
* The author is a professor of history and head of Al-Ahram History Studies Centre.
