Winds over Jerusalem by Perkul Debbi;

Author:Perkul, Debbi;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910383551
Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell Publishers
Published: 2017-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The USS North Carolina

As summer rolled into autumn, the governor of Jerusalem called all the citizens of the city to gather in the public gardens of the municipal building to hear an important announcement. It was 1 October and the gardens were filled with people waiting expectantly. As the governor stood before the crowd, he announced, with an immense flourish, the immediate cancellation of ‘capitulations’.229 He proclaimed ‘the great news that Turkey had cast behind her back the shame of foreign bondage, which she had been forced to endure by the European powers for centuries’.230

‘Capitulations’ referred to a status within the Ottoman Empire by which foreigners were exempt from certain Ottoman laws and were protected by the consulates of their home countries. For example, foreigners couldn’t be arrested without the consent of their consulates. Capitulations were of great benefit to the Zionist colonists, as this allowed them to work freely in Palestine without too much interference from the Ottoman government. Often, the citizens of the Ottoman Empire grumbled about this dual system of justice and privilege but the foreign nationals were quite happy with the arrangement.

The pronouncement was made throughout Palestine and was framed in a very positive light so as to not create panic among the thousands of foreigners living in the country. The government reassured them that this was a wonderful benefit for them as it would mean that they would receive the protection and support of the Ottoman government.

In actuality, it was a terrible setback for the colonists and residents of the cities. All their special rights and privileges, including exemptions from paying taxes, were now erased. They could also be arrested at the whim of the government without any protection from their home country. The Ottoman authorities rejoiced, telling the people they were now free from foreign dominance.

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Every day now, the nurses stopped at the Anglo-Palestine bank to talk with Dr Levy to learn what was happening around the country and the world. The war was raging in Europe, with opposing forces fighting on the battlefields of Belgium and France, and war preparations were moving at full pace in Palestine as the Ottomans planned an attack on Egypt and the British forces there.

The nurses heard stories about the continual pillaging of the colonies and agricultural settlements. They learned that, besides the money the Ottoman government was receiving from Germany to support its war effort, it had no other source of revenue to prepare for its entrance into the war other than the confiscation of materials from farms and villages.

Soldiers were stepping up their efforts to acquire the resources they needed, taking everything that would be of value to them by force. This included not just cattle and horses but also flour, sugar, wood and even silk stockings. They were stripping iron from farming tools and machinery, and ripping out irrigation systems to confiscate pipes and engines. Tin roofs were being torn down and gates were being dismantled for the wire they were built from.231 With all this activity and hardship, it was hard to believe that Turkey was not officially in the war.

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