Jerusalem: The Biography

The actual status of Palestine, to say nothing of Jerusalem, was far from decided. Picot again pushed the Gallic claim on Jerusalem. The British had no idea, he insisted, how much the French had rejoiced over the capture of Jerusalem. ‘Think what it must have been like for us who took it!’ retorted Storrs. Picot next tried to assert French protection of the Catholics by presiding on a special throne at a Te Deum in the Church, but the scheme collapsed when the Franciscans refused to cooperate.

When the mayor died unexpectedly of pneumonia (perhaps contracted by surrendering too often in the pouring rain), Storrs appointed his brother, Musa Kazem al-Husseini. But the impressive new mayor, who had served as the governor of Ottoman provinces from Anatolia to Jaffa, gradually assumed leadership of the campaign against the Zionists. The Arab Jerusalemites placed their hopes in a Greater Syrian kingdom ruled by Prince Faisal, Lawrence’s friend. At the First Congress of Muslim–Christian Associations, held in Jerusalem, the delegates voted to join Faisal’s Syria. The Zionists, who were still unrealistically adamant that most Arabs were reconciled to their settlement, tried to appease local fears. The British encouraged friendly gestures by both sides. Weizmann met and reassured the grand mufti that the Jews would not threaten Arab interests, presenting him with an ancient Koran.

In June 1918, Weizmann travelled across the desert to meet Faisal, attended by Lawrence, at his encampment near Aqaba. It was the start of what Weizmann exaggerated as ‘a lifelong friendship’. He explained that the Jews would develop the country under British protection. Privately, Faisal saw a big difference between what Lawrence called ‘the Palestine Jews and the colonist Jews: to Faisal the important point is that the former speak Arabic and the latter German Yiddish’. Faisal and Lawrence hoped that the Sherifians and Zionists could cooperate to build the kingdom of Syria. Lawrence explained: ‘I look upon the Jews as the natural importers of Western leaven so necessary for countries in the Near East.’ Weizmann recalled that Lawrence’s ‘relationship to Zionism was a very positive one’, as he believed that ‘the Arabs stood to gain much from a Jewish Homeland’.

At their oasis summit, Faisal ‘accepted the possibility of future Jewish claims to territory in Palestine’. Later, when the three men met again in London, Faisal agreed that Palestine could absorb ‘4–5 million Jews without encroaching on the rights of the Arab peasantry. He did not think for a moment there was any scarcity of land in Palestine,’ and approved a Jewish majority presence in Palestine within the Kingdom of Syria – providing he received the crown. Syria was the prize and Faisal was happy to compromise to secure it.

Weizmann’s diplomacy at first bore fruit. He had joked that ‘a Jewish state without a university is like Monaco without the casino’, so on 24 July 1918 Allenby drove him in his Rolls-Royce up Mount Scopus. There the foundation-stones were laid for the Hebrew University by the mufti, the Anglican bishop, two chief rabbis and Weizmann himself. But observers noticed that the mufti looked sick at heart. In the distance, the Ottoman artillery boomed as the guests sang ‘God Save the King’ and the Zionist anthem Hatikvah. ‘Below us lay Jerusalem,’ said Weizmann, ‘gleaming like a jewel.’

The Ottomans were still fighting powerfully in Palestine, while on the Western Front there was as yet no sign of victory. During these months, Storrs was sometimes told by his manservant that ‘a Bedouin’ was waiting for him. He would find Lawrence there, reading his books. The English Bedouin then disappeared just as mysteriously. In Jerusalem that May, Storrs introduced Lawrence to the American journalist Lowell Thomas, who thought ‘he might be one of the younger apostles returned to life’. Thomas would later help create the legend of Lawrence of Arabia.

Only in September 1918 did Allenby retake the offensive, defeating the Ottomans at the Battle of Megiddo. Thousands of German and Ottoman prisoners were marched through the streets of Jerusalem. Storrs celebrated ‘by playing upon my Steinway a medley of “Vittoria” from La Tosca, Handel’s Marches from Jephthah and Scipio, Parry’s “Wedding March” from the Birds of Aristophanes’. On 2 October, Allenby allowed Faisal, King-designate of Syria, and Colonel Lawrence to liberate Damascus with their Sherifians. But, as Lawrence suspected, the real decision-making had started far away. Lloyd George was determined to keep Jerusalem. Lord Curzon later complained: ‘The Prime Minister talks about Jerusalem with almost the same enthusiasm as about his native hills.’