oa Waarom werd Jacob Israël de Haan vermoord?

In 1924 the Dutch journalist and poet Jacob Israel de Haan was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the Zionist Haganah. His death has been described as the price he paid for his struggle on behalf of the Palestine Arabs. He was labeled therefore as the Jewish (or even Dutch) Lawrence of Arabia. Indeed, in his writings De Haan pointed out the incompatibility of Zionist demands with Arab expectations. Yet he was in the first place a champion of Jewish orthodoxy as represented by Rabbi Chaim Sonnenfeld, the leader of the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem. His quarrel with the Zionist Organization crystallized around their claim also to represent Jewish orthodoxy. Because of De Haan’s efforts the British Colonial Office in London did not combine the Sonnenfeldgroup into the Zionist Chief rabbinate as had been planned by High Commissioner Herbert Samuel. The Zionist Organization became nervous about De Haan’s propaganda. Extracting from King-Caliph Husayn of the Hedjaz in February 1924 a statement that His Highness considered the ‘godless’ Zionism a danger for Islam was De Haan’s last diplomatic act. This was denounced at the instigation of Frederick Kisch, the political Zionists' chief in Jerusalem, and probably sealed De Haan’s fate, following a number of other threats in the previous years.