Illicit Drug Trafficking and Use in British Mandatory Palestine Zachary J. Foster 4/30/2010 Introduction In this study I explore illicit drug smuggling and use in Palestine during the British Mandate period. Historians of the international drug trade have not explored its local dimension in the Middle East, much less Palestine. This research, more broadly, contributes to the field of studies on marginalized and subaltern peoples. 1 To reconstruct the contours of this buried piece of history, I draw primarily from the English, Hebrew and Arabic press during the period as well as British reports from the Department of Health and the Police and Prisons Bureau. What role did Palestine play in the regional drug trade? How did smugglers transport their goods? How common was illegal drug use during the Mandate period? Are there any observable trends over the course of the Mandate? The argument presented below is that Palestinian Arabs engaged in illicit drug smuggling and use to an extent far greater than has been previously acknowledged. More specifically, I suggest that Palestine served as the crucial backbone for the regional drug trade, acting as the major link between the largest growers in the region—in Lebanon and Syria—to the largest market of users—Egypt. Hashish, followed by opium, constituted the most important illicit drugs smuggled in Palestine. Smoking hashish seems to have been a not uncommon pastime among Palestinians hailing from various socio-economic backgrounds, although in all likelihood it was the well-to-do that engaged most is this pastime. The growth of the café culture during the Mandate period, moreover, provided a public forum for indulging in hashish, as we have many reports of police arresting drug-users in the act of smoking at a café. The coastal towns of Haifa and Jaffa, followed by Jerusalem, seem to have been the dominant locals in which drug use and smuggling took place. 2 There were, by comparison, much fewer reported cases of drug-related arrests in the mountainous interior regions like Nablus, Jennin or 2 This is based on the fact that the vast majority of the reported cases of drug arrests are in these cities, particularly the coastal towns. While we cannot be certain that more press coverage necessarily means a higher frequency of actual cases, there is much compelling evidence for such a position. We know very well that the coastal cities experienced a kind of modernity that was far different, and, indeed, much more sweeping in its effect on the local populations attitudes towards a variety of “illicit” activities, such as women in the public sphere, alcohol, and we should certainly add hashish to that list. Moreover, it makes little sense to transport drugs through the mountainous interior of Palestine rather than the simple coastal planes, which were host not only to trains and paved roads, but also via the sea route. Indeed, as we shall see below, all of these methods are utilized by Arabs of the Levant. 1 The most significant works on the topic focus on Europe and the Far East. There is scant reference to drug trafficking anywhere in the Middle East. See Kathryn Meyer and Terry Parssinen, Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies and the History of the International Drug Trade (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1998); Alan Black, “European Drug Traffic and Traffickers between the Wars: The Policy of Suppression and Its Consequences” Journal of Social History 23(2) (1989): 315-337. One scholar has examined drug use in Egypt during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Gabriel G. Nahas, “Hashish and Drug Abuse in Egypt During the 19 th and 20 th Centuries,” Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med. 61(5) (1985) 428-444. For a very recent exception, see Cyrus Schayegh, “A Regional History: Drug Smuggling across the Mandatory Levant,” Paper presented at the Middle Eastern Studies Association Annual Conference, 2009. 1 of 12