History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

was Richmond who persuaded the moderate sheikh to stand down and then convinced Samuel that, in the light of the agitation, it would be a friendly gesture towards the Arabs to let Haji Amin become Grand Mufti. Samuel saw the young man on 11 April 1921 and accepted ‘assurances that the influence of his family and himself would be devoted to tranquillity’. Three weeks later there were riots in Jaffa and elsewhere in which forty-three Jews were murdered.38 This appointment to what was regarded as a minor post in an unimportant British protectorate turned into one of the most tragic and decisive errors of the century. It is not dear whether a Jewish–Arab agreement to work together in Palestine would have been feasible even under sensible Arab leadership. But it became absolutely impossible once Haji Amin became Grand Mufti. Samuel compounded his initial misjudgment by promoting the formation of a Supreme Moslem Council, which the mufti and his associates promptly captured and turned into a tyrannical instrument of terror. Still worse, he encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to make contact with their neighbours and promote pan-Arabism. Hence the mufti was able to infect the pan-Arab movement with his violent anti-Zionism. He was a soft-spoken killer and organizer of killers. The great majority of his victims were fellow Arabs. His prime purpose was to silence moderation in Arab Palestine, and he succeeded completely. He became Britain’s outstanding opponent in the Middle East, and...