The Haj - Leon Uris [41]
The Mufti slowly opened his eyes and came out of his trance.
‘Your Eminence!’ the voice repeated, reverberating off the marble.
The Mufti turned to see Gustav Bockmann, dressed clumsily as an Arab. ‘Can’t you see I’m at prayer!’
‘You must go at once,’ Bockmann said. ‘The British are rounding up your council and all your commanders. There is a warrant for your arrest.’
The Mufti grunted to his feet and looked about in confusion. ‘Quickly,’ Bockmann said, ‘you must hide.’
The two ran out of the mosque over the Haram esh Sharif to its other great building, the Al Aksa Mosque, entered, and fast made their way down a narrow stone staircase into the hidden caverns beneath the building. The mustiness of the ages mingled with the scent of gunpowder that had been stored for the revolt.
‘You must not move until I return,’ Bockmann instructed.
A day and a night passed until the German returned with several bundles beneath his arm. He brought food and drink, a shaving kit, and clothing.
‘What is going on out there?’
Bockmann rattled off a long list of those in his council who had been hauled in. Some leaders had escaped, but a dragnet was over the entire country. The rumor had it that the British were going to ship the captives off to the Seychelles Islands, somewhere out in the Indian Ocean.
‘Sons of dogs!’ Haj Amin cried.
‘We have a ship at anchor off Jaffa,’ Bockmann said. ‘You must remain here until the Arab Sabbath, when there will be thousands of worshipers in Al Aksa. It is our best chance to get you out of here.’
‘I don’t like this dungeon.’
‘You can’t move. Patrols are all over the Old City. All the gates are being closely watched.’
Bockmann told the Mufti to shave off his beard and to wear the clothing he had brought, the white dress that Moslem women wore to prayer on Friday morning.
On the Sabbath the Haram esh Sharif was jammed with twenty thousand worshipers. Prayers broke up at midday and the human flood poured into the narrow lanes of the Old City, making detection extremely difficult. Haj Amin al Heusseini, buried in a mass of women pouring out of the Damascus Gate, easily escaped the scrutiny of the British.
He was then hidden in a crate among crates loaded with tomatoes destined for the Port of Jaffa; from there, onto a German tramp steamer and up the coast to Beirut, and then inland to Damascus. From Damascus, Haj Amin regrouped his leaders and continued to run the revolt in Palestine.
Orde Wingate’s Special Night Squads firmly established a new era and a new principle. It could not be said that they alone defeated the Arab revolt, but they certainly took the starch out of rebel zeal. The time of the uncontested Arab night raid was over, forever. The Special Night Squads extended their operation, crossing the border into Lebanon, taking that sanctuary away from the rebels. Arab attacks began to dry up.
Kaukji’s Irregulars had been woefully ineffective. Now faced with a stiff challenge, their stomach for action, gold, and glory gave way to homesickness. They deserted in droves, fleeing Palestine for their own countries.
Unable to halt Jewish immigration or dislodge Jewish settlements, the Mufti turned his final energies to destroying his Arab opposition. As the revolt ended its second year, Haj Amin’s gangs went on a murder binge and when it was done, eight thousand Palestinian Arabs had killed one another.
With the Mufti gone and Kaukji’s Warriors of God in full flight, those anti-Mufti Arabs who had survived began to take heart and spoke out against the revolt, and it started to fizzle.
In another year the Mufti’s revolt began to collapse, but it had succeeded in putting the mandate in disarray. From the very beginning the British had locked themselves into an impossible position. Palestine was the twice-promised land—once to the Jews as a homeland through the Balfour Declaration and once to the Arabs as part of the Greater Arab Nation.
Between the years of riots and revolts, British commissions of inquiry investigated. Each would issue a White Paper, chipping