A new book by Oren Kessler, “Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict,” treats the Palestinian side respectfully, yet still received a Jewish prize.

The book, authored by the American-Israeli writer Oren Kessler, details how Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Zionists drifted into what would become an 88-year (so far) political and violent conflict. But it did not have to be that way.

If the rulers of the Ottoman Empire had taken advantage of Zionist leader Theodore Herzl’s offer of massive investments into the Ottoman Empire by European Jews like the Rothschilds in return for expanded Jewish settlements in Palestine, the Ottomans might not have joined World War I, and George Antonius’ book, “The Arab Awakening,” would have recounted the story of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim nationalists in Baghdad, Damascus, and Jerusalem versus the Turks.

Ben-Gurion’s meetings with George Antonius (pages 57-58) and Musa Alami (pages 38-42) might have led to a more peaceful outcome for both sides. Millions of European Jews might not have died in the Nazi Holocaust; and millions of Palestinians might not be living in refugee camps.

The book focuses on the period between 1936 and 1939, when several thousand Palestinians under the British Mandate rose up violently against the growing Jewish population and the British authorities. Kessler cites estimates that around 500 Jews, 250 British servicemen, and at least 5,000-8,000 Arabs died during the British crackdown, with at least 1,500 likely falling at the hands of fellow Arabs (page 211).

In response to the violence, Britain’s “Peel Commission” proposed partitioning the mandate into Jewish and Arab states while placing significant limits on Jewish immigration. Most Zionist leaders, including David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, were not in favor of the plan but accepted it.

Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and de facto leader of the Palestinian community, rejected the idea and called for jihad. Al-Husseini would later ally with Nazi Germany, leaving the Palestinians politically, economically, and militarily weakened after the revolt.

However, they succeeded in their goal of significantly slowing the growth of the Jewish population. If the Palestinians had accepted Britain’s “Peel Commission” proposal, hundreds of thousands of European Jews could have been rescued and settled in a Jewish state in the years before the Nazis implemented the Final Solution.

The failure of the revolt laid the groundwork for what the Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe), following their defeat in the 1948 anti-Zionist war.

Kessler’s book, released on October 7, 2023, inevitably fuels discussions central to the protests and counter-protests following the Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli war in Gaza.

The questions arise: Are Palestinian Arabs victims of a “settler colonial project,” or of their own failed leadership? Can these two peoples share the land by dividing it? And might understanding this history help bring both sides closer to a resolution?

Kessler remarks, “I think my book and this chapter in history is full of ‘what if’ questions. The idea that things could have indeed gone differently and that we weren’t fated for endless conflict suggests maybe they still can go differently in the future.”

He wonders, what if Herbert Samuel, the British high commissioner for Palestine, had appointed a moderate instead of al-Husseini as grand mufti? What if the two-state solution suggested by the Peel Commission in 1937 had been accepted?

“Jews would have gotten less than 20% of the country, and there would have been no Palestinian refugee crisis. There would have been no Nakba in 1948. The Gaza Strip would not be teeming with refugees today,” Kessler said, illustrating the compelling yet unknowable possibilities.

As a counterpoint to al-Husseini, who later aligned with Adolf Hitler and further discredited the Palestinian cause, Kessler highlights Musa Alami, a Palestinian nationalist known for maintaining relationships with both the British and the Jews.

Alami met with Ben-Gurion several times in the 1930s, proposing ways in which Jewish national ambitions could coexist within an Arab-majority region, benefiting from the economic and public health advancements being made by the Jewish community.

“Despite diametrically opposed political aspirations, they met in an atmosphere of real candor and respect and really tried to reach a modus vivendi, to reach some kind of agreement that both sides could live with,” Kessler explained. “Alami was not a peacenik. He participated in the Arab Revolt and was not opposed to violence, nor was Ben-Gurion.

“But I do think his personality was the polar opposite of the mufti’s in his ability to hear the other side, understand the other side, and try to reach a solution. And it gives a glimpse of what could have been had things gone differently.”

In his book, Kessler strives to see the Jewish state from a Palestinian perspective. “It’s not that difficult to understand that people who were living in a certain land and whose ancestors had lived there for centuries wouldn’t look kindly on another people arriving en masse,” Kessler notes. “We don’t need a very active imagination to understand that.”

Yet, he continued, “the question is how they responded, how they registered their opposition. And with every rejection by the Arabs in Palestine, their position worsened, and it continues to this day.”

Kessler leaves it mostly to readers to decide whether the lessons of the 1930s are still applicable in 2024. He hopes his book serves as a lens into a period that has not received enough attention, particularly in English.

In the end, Kessler returns to Musa Alami, who spent most of his life exiled from Jerusalem, raising funds and international support for Arab refugee youths in Jordan.

In an interview after the Six-Day War, Alami offered both sides a prescient warning that Kessler describes as “a note of hope”: “You are not considering the future — you are only considering the present,” he told the Israelis. “And we are not considering the future — only our present suffering. But I do believe, still now, that this country has the makings of peace.”

The phrase, “From the river to the sea,” could become an aspiration, focused on people first and the land second. “From the river to the sea, Palestinians and Israelis should be freed from hatred and suffering by achieving a two-state solution for two peoples, sharing the land peacefully.”

On October 27, 1978, only five years after Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War with a surprise attack on Israel, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize for their strides toward peace. The Yom Kippur War was followed six years later by a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Could such a process follow the defeat of Hamas and its opposition to a two-state solution? The only real hope for avoiding future wars lies in the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. However, this will not be possible with the current leaders on either side.

Extremists from both Israeli and Palestinian camps will continue to thwart the idea, as they have since 1937.

If thirteen months of war fail to produce a shock sufficient to break entrenched prejudices and make a two-state solution viable, nothing will. Without a mutually acceptable resolution, future generations of Palestinians and Israelis will face more wars.

Although it may seem impossible now, I believe that within a decade or two, Muslims will visit Jerusalem and pray alongside Jews as the Prophet Zechariah envisioned: “Then everyone who survives from all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths” (14:16).

For nearly nine decades, nationalist political leaders in Israel and Palestine have failed to end the conflict between their peoples. Perhaps religious leaders who comprehend the value of repentance, humility, forgiveness, compromise, and hope for peace could help overcome nearly nine decades of pain and anger.

Recently, BBC reporter Rushdi Abualouf highlighted Prof. Dr. Salman al-Dayah, former dean of the Faculty of Sharia and Law at the Hamas-affiliated Islamic University of Gaza, who issued a fatwa condemning Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, sparking a devastating war.

Dr. Dayah’s fatwa criticized Hamas for “violating Islamic principles governing jihad.” He noted that if the pillars, causes, or conditions of jihad are unmet, it must be avoided to prevent harm to civilians — an oversight by the country’s politicians. He emphasized the Quranic verses that establish strict conduct for jihad and the responsibility of Muslim leaders to protect civilians, even providing essential needs.

I deeply admire Dr. Salman al-Dayah for his bravery and compassion in issuing this fatwa during such a critical time, advocating reconciliation over retribution between Jews and Muslims. The time for enmity must end.

The Qur’an describes Abraham as a nation/community: “Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists” (16:120). If Abraham is an Ummah, conflict between the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should be avoided. “Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).

If Arabs and Jews can uphold the ideal that “the descendants of Abraham’s sons should never make war

against each other” as divine will, they will fulfill the 2,700-year-old vision of Isaiah: “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria.

The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day, Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the earth. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance’” (Isaiah 19:23-25).