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The Rise and Fall of the All-Palestine Government in Gaza
Avi Shlaim
 Journal of Palestine Studies
, Vol. 20, No. 1. (Autumn, 1990), pp. 37-53.
Stable URL:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0377-919X%28199023%2920%3A1%3C37%3ATRAFOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C
 Journal of Palestine Studies
is currently published by University of California Press.Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtainedprior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/ucal.html.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.http://www.jstor.orgMon Jun 25 18:45:39 2007
 
The Rise and Fall
of
the All.Palestine
Government
in
Gaza
Avi
Shlaim*
The All-Palestine Government established in Gaza in September 1948was short-lived and ill-starred, but it constituted one of the more interest-ing and instructive political experiments in the history of the Palestiniannational movement. Any proposal for an independent Palestinian stateinevitably raises questions about the form of the government that such astate would have. In this respect, the All-Palestine Government is notsimply a historical curiosity, but a subject of considerable and enduringpolitical relevance insofar as it highlights some of the basic dilemmas ofPalestinian nationalism and above all the question of dependence on theArab states.
The Arab League and the Palestine Question
In the aftermath of World War 11, when the struggle for Palestine wasapproaching its climax, the Palestinians were in a weak and vulnerableposition. Their weakness was clearly reflected in their dependence on theArab states and on the recently-founded Arab League. Thus, when theArab Higher Committee (AHC) was reestablished in 1946 after a nine-year hiatus, it was not by the various Palestinian political parties them-selves, as had been the case when it was founded in 1936, but by a deci-sion of the Arab League. Internally divided, with few political assets of its
"Avi Shlaim is the Alastair Buchan Reader in International Relations at Oxford University anda Professorial Fellow of St. Antony's College. He is author of
Collusion Anoss the Jordan: KingAbdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine
(New York: Columbia UniversityPress,
1988).
He would like to thank Linda Butler, Dr. Philip Mattar, and Dr. Moshe Shemeshfor invaluable help in connection with this article.
 
38
JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
own, the new AHC was unable to pursue an independent policy or to actdecisively. Consequently, the Arab League became the principal forumfor determining the all-Arab policy on the political disposition ofPalestine.Within the Arab League, however, there was no consensus on the
fu-
ture of Palestine. Most members, at least at the declaratory level, stoodfor an uncompromising policy in the fight against Zionism. They de-nounced the United Nations partition plan of 29 November 1947 as ille-gal, impracticable, and unjust, as did the AHC. The Arab League wasfully behind the Palestinians in opposing partition, and from the time itwas founded in March 1945 until Britain confirmed its decision to with-draw from Palestine in the autumn of 1947, there was consistent supportfor creating a unitary and independent Palestinian state.After that, however, there were conflicting views concerning the posi-tive policy to adopt on the future of Palestine. On the one hand therewas Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who pursued a maxi-malist program for an independent and sovereign Palestinian state overthe whole of Palestine.' On the other hand there was King Abdullah ofTransjordan, whose undeclared aim was to partition Palestine with theZionists and to annex the Arab part to his kingd~m.~After Britain's September 1947 announcement of its intention towithdraw from Palestine, the AHC appealed to the Arab League for sup-port in setting up a Palestinian government to fill the power vacuum thatwas going to be ~reated.~ut most members of the League were reluctantto extend active support to a government that would be headed by theMufti, or to entrust him with the leadership of the Arab war effort inPalestine. At the meetings of the Arab League Council in Aley, Lebanon,in October 1947 and in Cairo in December 1947, the Mufti pleaded pas-sionately for the establishment of a shadow government under the aegis ofthe AHC. His pleas fell on deaf ears, however, as did his warnings againstdeploying in Palestine the armies of the neighboring Arab states. In Feb-ruary 1948, the League not only rejected the Mufti's demand for the es-tablishment of a Palestinian government-in-exile and for the appointmentof Palestinian military governors for the country, but declined even toextend a loan to the AHC to cover its administrative expenses. DuringMarch, April, and the first half of May, the AHC kept up the pressure forthe establishment of a government to manage the affairs of the country,but the Arab League persisted in its negative stand. The Mufti and hiscolleagues were progressively marginalized during this unofficial but criti-cal phase of the struggle for Palestine.
By
15 May 1948, when the State of
of 00

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