National Defense Party (Mandatory Palestine)

The National Defense Party, Hazb al-defa al Watany, was set up by Raghib al-Nashashibi in the British Mandate of Palestine in December 1934. [1]

The party was regarded as less extreme than the more popular Palestine Arab Party. Its program called for an independent Palestine with an Arab majority and rejection of the Balfour Declaration. The party was represented on the first Arab Higher Committee, 26 April 1936, but soon withdrew and managed to avoid being banned when all the other Palestinian Arab nationalist parties were suppressed by the authorities, 1 October 1937. The party actively assisted the British during the Arab Revolt and were regarded as collaborators and subject to attacks and assassinations. The second Arab Higher Committee tried to exclude members of the NDP from being included in the Palestinian Arab delegation to the 1939 Round Table Conference. A compromise was reached and Raghib al-Nashashibi and a colleague joined the conference two days after its start. The NDP was the first Palestinian political party to announce that it accepted the 1939 White Paper.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Cohen, Aharon (1970) Israel and the Arab World. W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-00003-0. p.206
  2. ↑ A Survey of Palestine - prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. Reprinted 1991 by the The Institute of Palestine Studies, Washington. Volume II. ISBN 0-88728-214-8. p.948,949


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