As Ben Gurion noted, the nascent Palestinian movement had no positive leadership. In fact, what leadership it did have - the Mufti and his men, did more damage to the cause than the Zionists ever did, because the Mufti consolidated power through assassination, making sure that the Palestinian Arabs never got a national leadership, beyond the Mufti and his local bully boys. After WWII, it hardly helped the Palestinian Arabs that their only leadership consisted of avowed Nazis. For some reason, Nazis were out of international favor in 1947.
As for the mass of the people (90% + illiterate felaheen) they certainly hadn't absorbed these new fangled notions of nationhood. As for the more educated Arabs of Palestine, they just were keeping their heads down, and were the first to pack up and flee to Cairo or Damascus in 1947 when war became inevitable. By the time the shooting started, the "effendi class" as the Brits called them, were out of the area.
When your ruling class packs up and leaves, that is called not having a nation. |
