Everything, just not uniform

Remnants of cooperation. Sign on Hasan Shukri Street in Haifa, named after its former mayor, who was bombed in 1936 because of his conciliatory stance towards Jews

Remnants of cooperation. Sign on Hasan Shukri Street in Haifa, named after its former mayor, who was bombed in 1936 because of his conciliatory stance towards Jews

They sold land to Jews. They ignored the strike and bypassed the boycott. They did not take part in the so-called Arab Revolt – and helped the British and Zionists put down the uprising. Neither the terror nor the harassment by Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini persuaded them to adopt a nationalist line and thwarted the Hitler supporter's Palestine plans. When the Arab High Committee declared holy war against the newly founded Israel, they were in no hurry to join the fight.

We are talking about those Arabs who maintained ties to the Yishuv, the Jewish community in the British mandate, during the British mandate. Wait, Palestinians? For Zionism? They couldn't help but collectively oppose Jewish immigration. The Israeli historian Hillel Cohen showed over twenty years ago that this idea cannot be far-fetched and belongs more to the area of ​​national myths and anti-Zionist fairy tales. At that time, his book “Shadow Army” was published, initially in Hebrew, which thoroughly illuminated the blind spot called “cooperation” and is now available in German translation for the first time.

“We saw nothing bad from the Jews.” With these words, the Bedouin sheikhs from the Beit She’an Valley introduced themselves to the British High Commissioner.

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