Sunday Oct. 5. [5 October 1919] Went to see the Mufti who is a
member of the Husaini family. Descended from Husain, they have
been settled here for 600 or 700 years and are the oldest Moslem
family in Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)]. Their
wealth and influence have however somewhat declined, partly owing
to the fact that many of them have taken to drink, and Gharib Beg
Nashashibi, ex-deputy, son of a man who made his money in building
speculations, probably carries now more weight than any of the
Husaini. The Mufti is a charming man, our very good friend. He has
lately been given a C.M.G. He talked for an hour, mostly about
Zionism, anxiously asking me whether it were conceivable that we
should set up a Jewish administration. He spoke very strongly on the
necessity of making Arabic, not Hebrew, the official language of the
country. He is anxious that Hebrew should have no official
recognition and remarked that while all local Jews know Arabic, no
Moslems know Hebrew. He agreed that there was no reason why
Jews should not hold high office here as long as they held it as
Palestinians, not as Jews. He praised our land bank (not knowing, I
take it, that it has been suspended) and said that if the fellahin were
helped over the next two or three difficult years and at the end of them
found that they could live without being ground down by taxes, nothing
would induce them to part with their land to Jews or others, no matter
what price were offered them. He admitted that there had been some
revulsion of feeling against us on account of our support of Zionism
and said that Faisal had reaped the benefit. He is firmly anti-French
and said that a French mandate would mean the destruction of hope
for Syria. He questioned me about the 'Iraq, being chiefly desirous of
knowing what proportion of the population were Shi'ahs and whether
there was any tension between them and the Sunnis. \n\nSo to St
Etienne where I had a long talk with that distinguished archaeologist
Pere Vincent, most delightful of men. All his notes for the second
volume of his book on Jerusalem have escaped destruction and he
hopes to bring it out next year. He refuses to believe that money for
archaeological research will not be forthcoming and maintains that in
a world so harassed by material and economic difficulties we need
more than ever that door of escape which is provided by intellectual
preoccupations of a non-utilitarian kind. He is thinking of paying us a
visit in Baghdad. He then began to talk of the duty incumbent upon
Western nations of guiding small oriental states and not allowing them
liberties which they would certainly abuse - a subject which might
have led to interesting developments - when the superior, Pere La
Grange, came in and we reverted to archaeology, a safer topic. I
asked after the Beyrout [Beyrouth (Beirut)] Jesuits and heard that
Sheikho and one of the Roncevals are still there. \n\nI then went to
Mrs Vester where I found the Sitt Nasirah Haddad, {bint al Khalidi}.
She was first married to one of the Khalidi family and on his death
married Haddad, a lawyer of not much importance. She herself is the
most remarkable Moslem woman here. About 25, very attractive and
very advanced in her views. She and the wife of the Mayor (another
Husaini) are Presidents of a society for the relief of the poor, and she
has been very active in house to house visits. In these the daughter
of the Mufti has also taken part. Mrs Vester helped and encouraged
the society. Nasirah has lately been to Damascus [Dimashq (Esh
Sham, Damas)] to take to Faisal a present from the society, a picture
of the Haram. Mrs Vester said that this was an example of the trend of
feeling towards Faisal. At the same time Haddad has refused to go
to Damascus and take office in the judicial administration there, on
the ground that he is more profitably employed at home. Nasirah told
me to go and see Naziq al 'Abid, head of the Madrasat Banat al
Shahadah at Damascus. She also enquired after a cousin of hers,
Nafiyah bint al Khalidi who has married a son of the Naqib of
Baghdad. Finally she talked of the great {difficulty} drawback of
being a veiled woman, said it interfered with her work at every turn
and expressed a hope that another generation would see the end of
it. She said that Jerusalem was behind Beyrut as regards the position
of women, but that Damascus was a long way behind Jerusalem.
She herself sees Mr Vester and Ronald Storrs unveiled, though this is
not mentioned. She is the only woman in Jerusalem who holds views
so advanced. \n\nI lunched with Mrs Vester. Her brother Dr Spafford
and an intelligent man, Mr Whiting, also of the American community,
were the other guests. They related all their experiences during the
war. \n\nAfter lunch I went with Mrs Vester to the Bait Nashashibi.
Gharib Beg was away and I saw his sister in law, wife of his elder
brother. She was at the opposite end of the scale from Nazirah, a
Turk from Trebezond [Trabzon (Trabizond)], sold when she was a
child into 'Abdul Hamid's harem where she passed 10 years which
she looked back on as the happiest of her life. She talked
exclusively of the joys of Yildiz Kiosk. She had been very handsome,
with hair falling to her ankles, and was still pleasant to look at.
\n\nGharib Beg, said Mrs Vester, is a bit of a rogue, private life
discreditable, out for the main chance. He has gone hot and strong
for an American Mandate for the whole of Syria, on anti-Zionist
grounds. This the American colony here regard with dismay, saying
that the U.S.A. has no oriental experience and would make an infinite
number of mistakes. \n\nI spent the rest of the afternoon in visiting
Bethlehem [(Beit Lahm)] where I was taken by Ronald Storrs and
Major Burke - the latter has a brother with us in Mesopotamia. We
had tea with the Gladstones. He is Military governor there, an ardent
Catholic but much liked. He adores Bethlehem and asks for nothing
better than to pass the rest of his days there. \n\nGeneral Watson
was back for dinner. He had been touring south of Hebron [(El
Khalil)]. He makes a point of visiting the villages of his province and
speaks with enthusiasm of the friendliness of the country people and
their desire for progress. They are eager for schools, agricultural
improvements, railways and all modern methods which will help them
to get on. The provision of adequate teachers for the primary schools
is as difficult here as with us. They have a small normal school in
Jerusalem. {They leave religious teaching severely alone; no
instruction in the Quran is given in the primary schools.} General
Watson is constantly asked by the Moslems for a clear statement of
our future policy here and is unable to get permission to announce
that we shall leave a fair field to everyone, Jews and Moslems. He
points out that our official declarations leave no doubt as to our
intention to see that the Moslems come to no harm. He says that
there is a good deal of land which the existing population cannot
tackle and thinks that they would be willing to part with the surplus.
This would leave room for some 2,000,000 Jewish settlers, at the
outside. NB This would completely alter the balance, the whole of the
present population not coming to more than 11/2 millions. General
Watson would deplore any attempt on the part of the Zionists to
hasten colonization. The Jews settled here would look askance at a
flood of immigrants from Galicia or elsewhere. Fear of Zionism has
united the Moslems and Christians. There is a combined society, the
President in Jerusalem being a Moslem ('Arif Beg) and in Jaffa [Tel
Aviv-Yafo (Joppa)] a Christian, the main object of which is to oppose
the absorption of the country by the Jews. There is nothing secret
about it and its leaders are in constant communication with the Chief
Administrator. NB Ronald Storrs says that its only lifespring and bond
of union is anti-Zionism and that on that account it has been at
moments rather anti-British. 'Arif Beg is of no account. General
Watson is very much in favour of a better exchange of information with
Mesopotamia and would like our administrative reports.