Summary
The Muslim–Christian Association (MCA), established in 1918 in Jaffa and Jerusalem, one of the first associations with specifically Palestinian nationalist as well as political inclinations, which in Banko’s account organised the first Palestinian Arab Congress and acted as a civic practice through which Palestinian Arabs claimed rights as nationals (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.76 / printed p.65).
Details
- The MCA’s popularity was evident in branches soon opened in every major town in Palestine; with slogans endorsing Muslim–Christian unity it attracted a large following as a secular and inclusive association that advocated the Arabs have the political right to govern Palestine, and it touted itself in petitions and letters to the British authorities as representative of all Palestinian Arabs, using stamps and a flag combining ‘Palestinian’ images such as the Holy Sepulcher and the Dome of the Rock (PDF p.76 / printed p.65).
- The association was instrumental in organising the first Palestinian Arab Congress in early 1919 and continued to convene it; members of the congress went on to form the Arab Executive Committee in 1920, which assumed the MCA’s role as the political and civic representative body of the Palestinian people (PDF p.76 / printed p.65).
- The MCA and the Executive used the public sphere, including the press, schools, religious institutions and other public areas, as a site of civic expression and opposition to the mandate and Zionism; the MCA organised the January-February 1919 congress, whose delegates claimed to speak for all Palestinians and passed resolutions for independent representative democracy and unity with Syria (PDF p.77 / printed p.66).
- On the first anniversary of the British occupation of Jaffa, that city’s MCA wrote a letter stressing the relationship between the Arabs’ status and their rights and reminding the British that the nationality of the country and its people was Arab (PDF p.78-79 / printed p.67-68).
- The MCA in 1921 sent a letter to the Colonial Office reporting that all classes in ‘town, village, factory and farm’ comprised the nation and had the same demands; Banko notes the accuracy of that statement is rather in doubt for the early 1920s (PDF p.86 / printed p.75).
- After the Fifth Palestinian Arab Congress resolved to support the boycott of the 1922 Legislative Council elections, the Nablus MCA argued in a statement to the chief secretary that the 1922 Electoral Order was based on the mandate’s terms and therefore harmful to the nation’s interests; MCA claims published in the press that the council would threaten Arab civil and political rights prompted a wide, general boycott (PDF p.87 / printed p.76).
- Diaspora clubs sent letters and petitions to the MCA in Palestine throughout 1918 expressing support for an independent Syrian nation and opposition to the Balfour Declaration (PDF p.100-101 / printed p.89-90).
Related pages
The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, Arab Executive Committee, Communitarian citizenship, Palestinian Arab diaspora