They rejected it even though it would have afforded them vastly more official power and influence than their numbers would have merited if it were just a strict representative system. And they had to reject it with their idiology. They had to reject it even though the deal itself was totally weighted in their favor, because at the core of zionist iteology was the conviction that the arabs had no actual rights over palestine, had the right to live there under the dominion of this jewish state, but they had no claim to political rights. Coming to a power sharing arrangement with the arabs would have legitimized their claim as people of palestine. And the zionists were very, very careful to avoid agreeing to anything that might have been interpreted as an admission that the arabs had any right to be in the land of the jews. This was the pattern for years, s and years, all through the 19 twenties ad it was by design. Year after year, proposals would be made, compromises would be offered. The sides would talk, talk, talk, but every offer the british put forward would have left the arabs with a minority vote in a country where they were still 80 to 90 % of the population. Very difficult to accept anything like that, or even to take it seriously or believe that the other side is negotiating good faith. And again and again, the arabs would come back with a proposal of their own for a palestinian government in which everyone would be represented according to their population. And every time the zionists rejected it. This is what the arabs would always ask for. By the way, up until the very, very edge of the crisis point, the arabs only ever asked for a representative government. They just wanted to vote on representatives, and then everybody could participate, zionists, middle eastern jews, arabs, everybody, and people would represent you in accordance with your numbers. That's what a representative system isw that was something the zionist thought was a great idea, just as soon as they became a majority in the country. Until then, they wouldn't agree to anything that would legitimize arab author r arab participation in the government of palestine. When any arab leader attempted to start an independent political movement, the british undermined it by supporting opposition movements. We talked about that. Or if somebody started a political movement, somebody got frustratedd looked like they were going to do something, the british and zionists would offer to make concessions at the negotiating table and get emback there and kind of break that momentum and then pull back. Over all the reason they were able to get away with this is that te the impression you get from the arab notables, the urban arab tribal leaders, for the most part anyway, is that they really don't mind the situation that much. It's not affecting them. They kind of like having the british around the people, though, the people, especially in the country, they're suffering. But but arab palestine, to this point, hadn't really yet been able to develop that sense of common purpose that would give the leaders a sense of responsibility toward the people as a whole. And so as the arab tribal leaders waste their time talking and squabbling amongst themselves, jockeying for status, whatever, the only community organization with the klaut or the resources, to reach the villages and to provide a channel for arab voices became the supreme moslem council, funded by the british and under the command of the grand mufti of jerusalem, ha jamin al huseni. Now this was something, at the time, that the british didn't actually have a problem with. The grand muti didn't have any real power to begin with. The british had given the mayorship of jerusalem, this was the other, i guess, major political aspiration that an arab might have. They gave the mayorship of jerusalem to one of the leaders of the nashashibi clan. But they totally neutred that office. It was powerless. So they figured that once they tied up the husenes in a politically impotent religious office, the two families would keep squabbling over symbolic titles in power and stige and so forth, so that the british could focus on important stuff, like building their oil pipe line from osol in a rack, to the palestinian port city in hyfa, along with their oil interest in persia and control over the suz canal as a route to india. The pipe line from arack to hyfa was the other really major british interest in this region. So both the british and the zionists are helping to empower religious organizations like the supreme moslem council in palestine. They're funding them there. They're helping promote them, hoping that they would undermine attempts to build secular political identities. And up through the late 19 twenties, it was working beautifully, a little too beautifully, as we'll see. See a concept, it's hard for us to understand how they could be so silly, but that's because we know what happens in the twentieth century. We know what happens on september eleventh, two thousand one and so forth.