Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948

353 Pages·2009·1.07 MB·English

by  Hillel Cohen

ARMY OF SHADOWS
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous
contribution to this book provided by the Literature in
Translation Endowment Fund of the University of
California Press Foundation,which is supported
by a major gift from Joan Palevsky.
ARMY OF
SHADOWS
PALESTINIAN COLLABORATION
WITH ZIONISM, 1917–1948
Hillel Cohen
Translated by Haim Watzman
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON
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University of California Press
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University of California Press, Ltd.
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© 2008 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cohen, Hillel.
[Tseva ha-tselalim. English]
Army of shadows : Palestinian collaboration with
Zionism, 1917–1948 / Hillel Cohen ; translated by
Haim Watzman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn: 978-0-520-25221-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Jewish-Arab relations—History—1917–1948.
2.Collaborationists. 3. Palestinian Arabs—Politics
and government—20th century. 4. Zionism—
History—20th century. 5. Jews—Palestine—Politics
and government—20th century. I. Title.
DS119.7.C632513 2008
956.94'04—dc22 2007011571
Manufactured in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains
50% postconsumer waste and meets the minimum
requirements of ansi/nisoZ39.48-1992 (R1997)
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
PART ONE
TWO NATIONALISMS MEET, 1917–1935
1 Utopia and Its Collapse 15
2 Who Is a Traitor? 43
3 We, the Collaborators 66
PART TWO
REBELS AND TRAITORS, 1936–1939
4 Old Collaborators, New Traitors 95
5 Unity Ends 121
6 The “Traitors” Counterattack 145
PART THREE
WAR IN EUROPE, WAR AT HOME
7 World War, Local Calm 171
8 Prelude to War 202
9 Treason and Defeat: The 1948 War 230
Conclusion 259
Notes 269
Bibliography 317
Index 327

Acknowledgments
First, I wish to thank Abu-‘Atiyyah and his friends for inviting me, as a
boy, to listen to their conversations, and the many Palestinian national-
ists, “collaborators,” and Islamists who shared their views and experi-
ences with me. Though this research is based on documents, I do believe
that the long, long days I have spent among Palestinians since childhood
helped me understand what lies beyond the written word.
I am grateful to Moshe Maoz, who advised me in this research; to
Salim Tamari, who inspired my view of early Palestinian nationalism;
to Avraham Sela for sharing his vast knowledge with me; to Alon
Kadish; to Saleh ‘Abd al-Jawwad for his invaluable comments; to Neve
Gordon, whose friend I have been lucky enough to be; and to Dror
Yinon, whose questions helped me understand what I sought. None of
them is responsible for the content of this book and, in fact, most of
them do not entirely agree with my analysis of the collaborators’
motives. But I owe a debt of gratitude to them, and to many other col-
leagues and friends with whom I discussed the subject for long hours.
I am grateful to the Oral History division of the Avraham Harman
Institute of Contemporary Jewry, which allowed me to use testimonies of
land purchasers from the Mandate period that had been sealed until
now, and to the following institutions, which provided me with grants to
pursue this project: the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement
of Peace; the Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism, the Yishuv, and
the State of Israel; and the Yad Ora Memorial Fund—all of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem; the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East
Studies and Diplomacy of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; and Yad
Ben-Zvi in Jerusalem. A grant from the Yitzhak Rabin Center for Israel
Studies in 2001 enabled me to commence the research, and the British
Council gave me a Chevening Scholarship for 2003 that enabled me, as a
visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London,
to complete the first draft of this book.
vii
viii / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Last but not least, I thank the generous support of the Emory Univer-
sity Institute for the Study of Modern Israel and its director, Professor
Kenneth W. Stein, for providing the subvention for translating the man-
uscript. Neither the Institute nor Dr. Stein is responsible for the content
of this work.
INTRODUCTION
The large pine tree in Abu-‘Atiyyah’s vineyard, not far from ‘Ayn Yalu in
southern Jerusalem, was in the mid-1970s a meeting place for Palestinian
fellahin from the surrounding area. Some of them, like Abu-‘Atiyyah,
were refugees from the former village of al-Maliha. The tree also
attracted roaming boys, like me, from nearby Jerusalem neighborhoods
and passersby on their way to or from one of the local springs or the
Palestinian villages of Beit Safafa, Walaja, and Battir. There was always a
jerry can of drinking water waiting in the shade, embers were always
glowing and ready for brewing a pot of tea, and the visitors conducted
lively conversations about any and every subject. But the fellahin were
especially fixated on telling stories from the period of the British
Mandate. They analyzed the Arab defeat by Israel in 1948 and how they
were uprooted from al-Maliha. Time after time, they spoke of Sheikh
‘Abd al-Fattah Darwish.
In the 1940s, Darwish was the chief of a nahiya,a cluster of villages
southwest of Jerusalem. In the stories told by the men under the tree, he
appeared as a hugely powerful man who lorded over the region’s villages
and became a prominent figure in Jerusalem as well. They told of his
American automobile, the first car in al-Maliha, and pointed out his
home-cum-castle, which still stood, occupied by Jewish families. From
time to time they retold the story of how Arab rebels besieged the house
in 1938, and how the sheikh repelled the attackers. They also told of his
son Mustafa, an officer in the British Mandate’s police force, who was
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