1853 - 1934
Palestinian nationalist leader.
Musa Kazim al-Husayni played a major role in the early phase of the Palestinian national movement. Born in Jerusalem to a socially and politically prominent family, he acquired senior positions in the Ottoman imperial bureaucracy in Palestine, Transjordan, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. After the British occupied Palestine, he was appointed mayor of Jerusalem in March 1918, succeeding his deceased predecessor and brother, Husayn al-Husayni. Throughout his political career, Musa Kazim followed a policy of cautious engagement in politics and discreet opposition to the British, who sponsored and supported the Zionist movement. In 1918 he refrained from demonstrating against Zionism after the Jerusalem governor, Ronald Storrs, told him that he must make a choice between political activism and the mayoralty. His circumspect behavior, which was typical of a generation of Palestinian politicians whose political style was shaped by their experience in the Ottoman system of government, did not stop him from fighting for Palestinian nationalism. In 1920 he was removed from his post as mayor of Jerusalem by the British for participating in a demonstration against the Jewish National Home policy of the British government.
Husayni was elected president of the third Palestinian Arab Congress (held in Haifa in December 1920) and the Arab Executive, a loosely-structured political body formed in 1920 to coordinate the Palestinian national struggle. Husayni led the Palestinian Arab delegations that were dispatched to London to present the Palestinian point of view to the British authorities. During the 1929 Western (Wailing) Wall Disturbances, Husayni signed a manifesto urging his fellow Palestinians not to engage in violence and to arm themselves instead with mercy, wisdom, and patience.
Partly as a result of his disappointment with the British pro-Zionist policy, and partly because of the pressure of the action-oriented Palestinian groups that emerged during the late 1920s, he led the October 1933 Palestinian demonstrations against Zionist immigration in Jerusalem. A product of Ottoman times with a penchant for discretion and a love for senior political posts, Husayni was unable to devise a strategy that would alter the British pro-Zionist policy. The balance of power, which was overwhelmingly in favor of the Zionists and their British supporters, together with internal Palestinian bickering - epitomized by the Husayni-Nashashibi rivalry - put Husayni and his generation of Palestinian nationalists at a decisive disadvantage.
Beaten by British security forces during the October 1933 demonstration, he never fully recovered. He died the "venerable father" (al-ab al-jalil) of the Palestine national movement.
Bibliography
Porath, Y. The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918 - 1929. London: Frank Cass, 1974.
Porath, Y. The Palestinian - Arab National Movement: From Riots toRebellion, volume 2, 1929 - 1939. London: Frank Cass, 1977.
— MUHAMMAD MUSLIH
UPDATED BY MICHAEL R. FISCHBACH
