Until the 19th century, the Jewish presence in Palestine was estimated at small numbers, and did not exceed a few thousand dispersed between Safed, Tiberias, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and other areas of Palestine, but those numbers began to increase with calls in France, Britain, Germany, and Russia to encourage Jewish immigration to Palestine for religious and economic reasons.
Some historians attribute the first phase of Jewish settlement in Palestine to Napoleon Bonaparte when he occupied Egypt in 1798 and issued a statement in which he called on Jews from both Asia and Africa to help him in his campaign in exchange for their support in reaching the “Promised Land,” according to his claim. This call by Napoleon came on the basis of The basis of his eagerness to achieve a distinguished achievement was the result of the Jews’ assistance to him.
According to Rafiq al-Natsheh in his book “Colonialism and Palestine,” with the failure of Napoleon’s campaign against Egypt and Palestine and his return after 3 years, the beginnings of actual Jewish settlement in Palestine began in 1840 AD, when Lord Shaftesbury presented at the London Conference a project to Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Minister, requesting that it be adopted. The British government organized the process of immigration of Jews and their transfer to Palestine.
Palmerston adopted this call and was enthusiastic about it to establish a Jewish commonwealth to establish the ancient Hebrew state in Palestine for political and religious reasons in which the Protestants shared with the Jews, namely to accelerate the return of Christ to Palestine, and to establish a buffer state to weaken and overthrow the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Privileges Law, since the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, had given the French the right to support, sponsor, and defend the rights of Catholics in the Ottoman Empire, while the Russians were later granted the right to defend the Orthodox and their interests. Finally, Britain realized the reality of this colonial rivalry and realized that establishing its influence within the Ottoman Empire would not It can only be through a religious sect that depends on it for its presence in the Holy Land.
London conference
Britain benefited from Napoleon’s idea of inviting the Jews to Palestine, and took one end of the thread from him when it established its consulate in Jerusalem in 1838 AD, then worked to establish branches in Haifa, Jaffa, and Acre. Finally, it held the London Conference, which called on the Jews to immigrate to Palestine to establish the Hebrew state to be a servant of British interests in Region.
In her book, “The Role of Foreign Consulates in Jewish Immigration and Settlement in Palestine,” writer Naila Al-Waari monitors this plan, which Britain began implementing immediately after the opening of its consulate in Jerusalem. It directly supervised the protection of the Jews and prevented confronting them or interfering in their affairs.
The Jews benefited greatly from this advantage, and the First British Consul in Jerusalem, William Young, wrote to the city judge a letter confirming that “the British Consulate is militarily and politically responsible for protecting its Jewish nationals in Palestine and that the Sharia judge must take this into account officially in his dealings and actions.”
By protecting the Jews from the British Consulate in Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities; It was natural for it to play a major role in intervening and supervising land transactions, buying and selling, as Consul Temple Moore (1863-1890 AD) intervened by confirming the ownership of the Society of English Church Missionaries in Palestine, one of whose goals was to help Jews buy Palestinian lands, and the sales were between Jews, some of them. Some can only be done directly through the British Consulate in Jaffa.
Thus, we will see that Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine was more than 90% under the guise of foreign consulates, led by Britain, and by visiting the Holy Lands, breaking the Ottoman visa granted to them, escaping and staying, and by changing their names and identities until they reached approximately 40 by the year 1882.
Sultan’s toughness
Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who ruled between 1867 AD and 1909, is considered one of the major sultans who largely controlled the course of the internal and foreign policy of the Ottoman Empire.
Abdul Hamid assumed power while the Ottoman Empire was suffering from financial and political difficulties and disasters during the Ottoman-Russian war, and the revolutions that were fueled by France, Britain, and Russia among the Kurds, Arabs, and Armenians.
In addition to this is the strong influence of these countries and their interference in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire under the pretext of protecting minorities and religious sects in accordance with the old Ottoman privileges law enacted by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent with the King of France, François I, in 1535 AD and after.
The question that arises is: What was the policy of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the Ottoman Empire that was ruling Palestine and the region at that time in the face of these British and Jewish plans for Jewish immigration and settlement?
Jewish immigration to Palestine began in 1840 and continued until 1881 AD. Throughout this period, the Ottoman Empire did not consider them a threat to the demographic composition of Palestine, and considered many of these arrivals a benefit to the economic conditions due to their investments in agricultural and commercial lands.
But with the coming of Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1876 AD, the Ottoman authorities began to notice the extent of the manipulation carried out by these people in purchasing lands from their owners, and the local authorities in Palestine and the Sublime Porte in Istanbul realized the danger of the fraud carried out by Jews coming from Europe.
The year 1882 was a turning point in the form of Jewish immigration, as Russian Jews were added to those coming from Europe. The reason for this is that in the previous year, 1881 AD, Jews were involved in the murder of the Russian Tsar Alexander II.
In addition, as a result of the warning of Russian economists and the necessity of taking official measures to prevent the collapse of the national economy due to the illegal means used by Jewish merchants and usurers, they were forced to flee and search for another country.
For this reason, in 1881 AD, Sultan Abdul Hamid II issued the first decree prohibiting the mass immigration of Jews coming from Russia towards Palestine.
In parallel with the beginning of the emergence of the Zionist idea, and its official announcement by the Austrian journalist, first leader and founder of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl, at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, Jewish leaders established a settlement called “Rishon Luzion” in northern Palestine.
Among their goals was to work to establish agricultural settlements in Palestine that would later be a tool for owning the entire country, as Youssef Al-Hajj explains in his book “The Temple of Solomon or the National Homeland for the Jews.”
In parallel with these movements, Sultan Abdul Hamid II issued a new law in 1882 prohibiting Jewish immigration and limiting their entry procedures.
Mediations with the Sultan
In view of this strong position of the Sultan towards Jewish immigration to Palestine; The Jews turned to one of their rich men, Lawrence Oliphant, to try to resolve the Ottoman position. He traveled to Istanbul and asked the American ambassador to mediate with the Sultan to change the immigration laws, but these efforts did not bear fruit.
On the contrary, the movements of the Jews and the involvement of the American ambassador were a source of suspicion from Sultan Abdul Hamid, who told their envoy Oliphant that the Jews could live in peace in any part of the state except in Palestine, and that the state welcomed the persecuted but did not welcome the establishment of a kingdom for the Jews in Palestine whose foundation was religion. .
Oliphant was shocked by the Sultan’s position and began spreading propaganda against him. Despite his repeated attempts, the Sultan ordered him expelled from Istanbul and banned from entering it again.
Hassan Hallaq, in his study “The Position of the Ottoman Empire on the Zionist Movement,” considers that the position of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the government in Istanbul was strong and a deterrent to the Jews.
But on the other hand, the local Ottoman administration in Palestine was circumventing the law and cooperating with foreign consuls and Jewish immigrants to facilitate their entry into Palestine without registering their names on the visitors’ list. This conspiracy was orchestrated by the consuls of Britain, Germany, Russia, France, and America, says Hallaq.
Strict procedures
Sultan Abdul Hamid and his government were keen to set new conditions for the Ottoman visa to Palestine. In the event of Jewish arrivals registering their names to visit Palestine, each one of them would acknowledge and sign in the “registry of undesirables,” and he knew, according to this declaration, that he might be expelled from the country at any time he wanted. Ottoman authorities.
The government in Istanbul also issued an official decree prohibiting the sale of lands to Jews and the building of colonies for them. Moreover, Sultan Abdul Hamid was keen to appoint Rauf Pasha, known for his integrity, as governor of Jerusalem to confront bribery and corruption in the Ottoman local administration in Palestine, and to confront the infiltration of these Jews into the country.
With the presence of Raouf Pasha, Ottoman laws no longer allowed a Jew to enter Palestine except in one case, which is Hajj and a visit for a period not exceeding 3 months.
However, many Jews were able, with the help of their rich people in Europe, such as the British Edmund Rothschild and the Russian Weinberg, to circumvent the Ottoman measures, and were able to establish 5 settlements in 1883.
When Sultan Abdul Hamid II became certain of the blatant interference of foreign consuls in facilitating the immigration, concealment, and support of Jews, and that they were complicit in harming the Ottoman interests and the Arab population, he sent in August 1887 an official communication of dissatisfaction with the Sultan and the Ottoman authorities at the failure of these consulates to take real steps to facilitate the task of expelling foreign Jews. Those whose residency period has expired in compliance with the orders that came from the Sublime Porte, and based on the will of the Sultan, “Jews are prohibited from residing in Palestine.”
As Hassan Hallaq reveals in his previous study, the response of the consuls to the Sultan and the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem was that they did not accept to implement the order until they received instructions from their embassies in Istanbul.
In the face of this challenge, the Sublime Porte issued new laws stipulating that foreign Jews must carry passports that clarify their Jewish faith in order for the port authorities in Jaffa to grant them a permit to visit Jerusalem. The Ottoman authorities also did not allow the entry of Jews arriving without a visa from the Ottoman consulates in the countries from which they came.
Expulsion of immigrants
In the years 1890 AD and 1891 AD, three other royal decrees were issued, the first of which stipulated the expulsion of Jewish immigrants to America because their presence would establish a Jewish government in Jerusalem in the future. The second stipulated that Jews should not be settled in Palestine because of their harm. As for the third, it warned that the immigration of Jews and their work in agriculture aims to establish A Jewish state and harming the interests of the Palestinian population. For this reason, orders came to the Governor of Jerusalem in 1892 AD prohibiting the sale of Miria lands (lands of the Ottoman Empire) in Palestine to Jews, even if they were Ottoman subjects.
In fact, British archive documents reveal that the British consul in Jerusalem at the time, John Dixon (1890-1906 AD), was constantly sent to London revealing the successive countermeasures that the Ottoman Empire was taking by enacting laws and decrees before the consuls and confronting the Jewish fraud of collective and individual immigration to Palestine.
New laws and procedures were issued in 1893 AD, but Britain was obstructing these laws until the number of Jewish families granted British protection reached more than 200 families, and America intervened to obstruct and take the same approach that the British took.
Meanwhile, Herzl was seeking in every possible way to persuade Sultan Abdul Hamid II to allow the establishment of a homeland for the Jews, through major international mediators such as the German Kaiser, who was close to the Sultan, in exchange for huge financial temptations, such as canceling Ottoman debts to European countries, or in exchange for financial support amounting to 5 million gold coins, and every time Sultan Abdul Hamid II stood steadfast in the face of these temptations.
Even more than that, Herzl offered, through intermediaries, that Britain return the island of Cyprus, which it occupied from the Ottoman Empire in 1878 AD, and that the Zionist movement strive with all force to stop European support for the Armenian cause, which began to threaten the unity of the Ottoman Empire in eastern Anatolia. The Sultan also did not accept these offers.
Hold on until the end
Finally, after many mediations, Herzl succeeded in meeting with Sultan Abdul Hamid, on May 18, 1901 AD. In that meeting, which Herzl recorded in his memoirs, Sultan Abdul Hamid said very clearly: “I will never go through with this matter. I cannot sell even one foot of the country because it is not mine, but my people’s, and my people obtained this empire by shedding their blood. They nourished it later with their blood, and we will defend it with our blood before we allow anyone to usurp it from us.”
Sultan Abdul Hamid II remained strict on the issue of Jewish and Zionist immigration to Palestine, and the British ambassador in Istanbul O’Connor often presented protests against the Ottoman authorities’ deportation of Jews or the prevention of others from the shrine, but the answer coming from Sultan Abdul Hamid was decisive and clear that Ottoman laws prohibited settlement. And establishing colonies.
On the other hand, the Jews continued to come and settle through illegal means, which included smuggling through southern Lebanon, entering as visitors and pilgrims with false names and descriptions, then breaking the visa and remaining under the protection of the consuls, and finally buying lands from the Palestinians sometimes under fictitious names, and sometimes under the pressure of need and poverty.
We can say that Sultan Abdul Hamid II’s position remained strict and strict towards Jewish immigration until the end of his reign, and he rejected many tempting offers to liquidate the Ottoman Empire’s debts or support its treasury with funds, as well as return some of its properties that Britain occupied, such as Cyprus.
He continued to reject all these temptations, and was strict against Jewish immigration until he was overthrown in 1909 and exiled. Only 8 years passed after his departure, and Palestine fell under British occupation, which opened the door wide for Jewish immigration to Palestine.