Jews Offered Equal Citizenship in Arab Palestine

Abdul Rahman Hassan Azza, also known as Azzam Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League said that Jews could have “equal citizenship” in an Arab Palestine and “complete autonomy” in areas where Jews were in the majority according to the Belfast Telegraph of May 1948.

Speaking less than a week after Israel had declared independence and the invasion of the fledgling country by Arab states he said “They are there to fight the Jewish state.....The Jews are fighting for the Jewish state we are fighting for an Arab Palestine”

He went on to say that whatever happened the Arabs would offer the Jews equal citizenship in an Arab Palestine. They would be allowed “to be as Jewish as they liked in areas where they predominated” and would have complete autonomy.

Using words that now sound prophetic he believed that Israel had expansionist ideas “We must fight the Jewish state, otherwise they will be fighting us in Transjordan and elsewhere in the Arab states…..the Jewish state is a bridgehead into Arab territory”

Describing the war effort of the Arabs and of the Arab Higher Executive as a “fiasco” he said the massacre of Arabs at Deir Yassin had been a turning point. Deir Yassin had struck "terror in to the Palestinian Arabs, causing a large number to flee to neighbouring countries.....This murderous act brought in the Arab states regular armies. Had Deir Yassin not happened I don’t think the Arab states would have been so united but we felt, win or lose, we must act.”

He predicted that the Jewish state “will soon be seeking the protection of a greater power America maybe or perhaps Russia.”but said “America’s attitude towards the whole Palestine question has been unworthy of a great nation.”