Another Alternate History Scenario: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Raghib Al-Nahashibi:
In the 1921 election for Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the guy who's now infamous as one of Hitler's propaganda bosses came in fourth. This scenario would be if the Nahashibis, the alternative to the Husseinis, had managed to be the ones to build the prototypical Palestinian leadership. Relative to the Husseinis the Nahashibis were more in tune with geopolitical pragmatism, and if a Palestinian leadership had arisen that did show an interest in a partition of Palestine in order to force the Zionists to recognize that at least something of an Arab presence in Palestine had always been there, what would have happened? Herbert Samuels chose Al-Husseini for the reason that an incompetent leader would be worse for the Palestinians than one who might be competent, so since he was free to disregard the will of the Muslims in Palestine historically, this scenario relies on him adhering to it.
To me I think that a more rational Palestinian leadership would have had a number of impacts that would have been to the good of Palestinians. Imposing the likes of Husseini and Shuqeri on them ensured that an incompetent thug like Arafat, the only guy who bothered to be obviously not beholden to someone else or with a power base that amounted to that, was to assume power in the 1960s. I'm not saying that this would necessarily prevent the rise of *an* Israel of some sort. David Ben Gurion and his like had a lot going for them. It would be extremely unlikely that a change within the Mandate of Palestine butterflies away either Hitler or Stalin, though it would be more interesting if it did (though the conceptual leaps here escape me). But in this context, ironically, the British would have for once done something in tune with the will of the Arabs in a region and thus less likely to backfire on them and on the post-colonial order in the region in the long term.
What do you guys think? Do you think that if Palestinian history had begun with a Mufti named Nahashibi instead of Husseini that the sad history of Israel and the Palestinians would have been different in a bbetter way, a worse way, or about the same?
To me I think that a more rational Palestinian leadership would have had a number of impacts that would have been to the good of Palestinians. Imposing the likes of Husseini and Shuqeri on them ensured that an incompetent thug like Arafat, the only guy who bothered to be obviously not beholden to someone else or with a power base that amounted to that, was to assume power in the 1960s. I'm not saying that this would necessarily prevent the rise of *an* Israel of some sort. David Ben Gurion and his like had a lot going for them. It would be extremely unlikely that a change within the Mandate of Palestine butterflies away either Hitler or Stalin, though it would be more interesting if it did (though the conceptual leaps here escape me). But in this context, ironically, the British would have for once done something in tune with the will of the Arabs in a region and thus less likely to backfire on them and on the post-colonial order in the region in the long term.
What do you guys think? Do you think that if Palestinian history had begun with a Mufti named Nahashibi instead of Husseini that the sad history of Israel and the Palestinians would have been different in a bbetter way, a worse way, or about the same?