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00:00:03I mean, tens of thousands of
00:00:23so on, at least
00:00:34is what has been preserved in
00:00:42You are not Arabs by origin. You are Turks, you are remnants.
00:00:45Remnants. That's why neither my uncle, nor my grandfather, nor my father
00:00:49participated in the political life, which did not last more than two years.
00:00:54Özal? Yes, The storyteller in Damascus is not really a profession, it is
00:00:57a demographic nature and urbanism.
00:01:00The spontaneous Damascene
00:01:03historian, the barber, was a narrator
00:01:07who used to tell and hear stories, he recorded them in colloquial Arabic
00:01:10with a colloquial accent. So when
00:01:12that he was dealing with Hafez al-Assad carried out his so-called "correctionist movement" coup on
00:01:15October 16, 1970, they wrote
00:01:18for him at the entrance of Al-Hamidiyah Souq: "We asked God for help, and He sent
00:01:22us Hafez al-Assad." This means that this person would protect us. He said, from whom?
00:01:26From this Shiite tide. I mean, this is a very harsh rule.
00:01:35In his pocket, he had date pits.
00:01:38No one found his body,
00:01:39he tells you that many and the winds blew the body away. With time,
00:01:43used to study. They would come to a palm tree grows from the date pits in
00:01:46his pocket. They dig under the palm tree and find his body, and he turns
00:01:51So what was the effect of this into a national hero. Among the Jews, his
00:01:53famous book, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," "Seven Pillars of Wisdom,"
00:01:57the dedication was to S.A.
00:02:01that I gathered a group of brave men to achieve
00:02:04your dream of a national homeland for you.
00:02:20with
00:02:22In this episode of "A Testimony to History" with
00:02:26Dr. Ahmed Ebash, we see how the urban
00:02:30development in Damascus, customs and traditions,
00:02:34trade, and adventure
00:02:38Aleppo, from emerged from these factors.
00:02:41The city's connection and its figures
00:02:45to Palestine and the beginnings of the project to seize
00:02:48Syria TV on the land from its indigenous inhabitants.
00:02:51Reading the details of stone and people in
00:02:54a scene open to the ages. In
00:02:58every carved piece in Damascus, you read
00:03:01politics, economy, and beliefs,
00:03:05we have in the state is not and you realize that the place is not enough for celebration, but
00:03:09for in-depth research into transformations
00:03:12and the course
00:03:13of change.
00:03:18Dr. Ahmed, in the previous episode of your testimony to history, we sailed
00:03:21through thousands of years around the Umayyad Mosque
00:03:24and Damascus until we reached the modern
00:03:27era and the end of the Ottoman Empire, arriving
00:03:31at Jamal Pasha the Butcher and his relationship with your grandfather
00:03:34and the beginning
00:03:36of a new era for the political and social role
00:03:40played by your grandfather and your father in
00:03:43Damascus.
00:03:46I mean, we can continue, maybe in the colloquial dialect, if
00:03:49you like. We reached the point where
00:03:52Sarah Aaronsohn was able to frame Jamal
00:03:56Pasha the Butcher. We mentioned the Suez Canal campaign
00:03:59of 1915. This was actually
00:04:02the establishment of the Nili espionage organization that
00:04:05we mentioned, which was founded by her brother and Sarah
00:04:09and her brother-in-law Avshalom Feinberg.
00:04:13They were established in the same year, 1915. Their
00:04:16first tasks, as we mentioned previously, were to spy
00:04:19on the movements of the Ottoman army,
00:04:22transfer of supplies, ammunition,
00:04:26train movements, officers. We mentioned all of this.
00:04:30So, in 1915, Sarah Aaronsohn convinced
00:04:33Jamal Pasha, and he became a British agent.
00:04:35In 1915, he decided
00:04:39that the garrisons on the road to
00:04:42Egypt were not enough, so he decided
00:04:45to launch a campaign they called the Suez Canal campaign,
00:04:49which is, of course, the Suez Canal.
00:04:52My father participated in the campaign because he spent his military service
00:04:56Bring me this, this hero in Palestine. And there was also a massacre, he mentioned.
00:05:00It was a massacre. I mean, the British army
00:05:03had information about the movements of the Ottoman
00:05:07army that was unusual. They were being shelled
00:05:10from land and from warships at sea.
00:05:15soldiers were annihilated. My father used to mention that when the British airplane came,
00:05:19everyone was not used to the participation
00:05:23of airplanes. This was the beginning of the occupation of Palestine.
00:05:26They were already there. Field Marshal Edmund
00:05:30Allenby was there, and now we will talk about the first and second battles of Gaza. Allenby
00:05:33was not on the verge of entering, no, after 1917, I
00:05:37agree with you completely. So my father used to mention that when the airplane came,
00:05:41which was not that dangerous at that time, all the soldiers
00:05:45would lie down on the ground and be afraid, hiding their heads
00:05:47with their hands. My father's uncle was an officer, and he told them, "Get up!
00:05:51What are you afraid of? Shoot at it with your rifles, you'll hit it."
00:05:54They were afraid. So a large part of the Ottoman army was annihilated
00:05:58because of Jamal Pasha's betrayal. Now, I want to
00:06:01mention something here. Do you remember the Turkish Prime Minister Turgut
00:06:06this man, one day, before he was assassinated
00:06:10by the army with a poisoned glass of orange juice.
00:06:13In one of his press conferences, he mentioned
00:06:16that Jamal Pasha was a traitor
00:06:19to the state. Why did he tell the story
00:06:24the English through Sarah Aaronsohn? He said,
00:06:28"And if you are not sure of my words, ask
00:06:31Hasan Jamal." At that time, people didn't know who Hasan
00:06:35Jamal was, and after a short while, the Prime Minister
00:06:38was assassinated. It turns out that Ahmed Jamal Pasha's grandson,
00:06:42whose name is Hasan Jamal, confirms, "It's true that he is my grandfather, but I
00:06:46state for history that my grandfather was complicit with the English,
00:06:49and he was the one who received bribes, and his primary mission was
00:06:52to create hatred and enmity between Arabs and Turks, as we
00:06:56mentioned in the previous episode, how they held a party and the
00:07:00Turkish officers came in and wanted to dance with the girls."
00:07:03on your grandfather
00:07:06and on his path in caring
00:07:09for the tribal and nomadic life around him? Exactly. When my
00:07:13father returned from the Suez Canal war and told his father this,
00:07:16his father was very upset, and it started to emerge that what Ahmed Jamal Pasha was doing
00:07:20was wrong. When,
00:07:23in 1919, we mentioned that he executed
00:07:26the Arab nationalists, my grandfather went
00:07:30to him and said, "You are not my friend, and I don't want any
00:07:33favors from you, and I don't want the Committee of Union and Progress. I
00:07:35am even withdrawing from your friendship." And of course,
00:07:39most of the notables and scholars of Damascus withdrew from the Committee of Union.
00:07:43After it became clear that he was indeed a traitor to the state.
00:07:47Hasan Jamal, his grandson, mentioned all these matters
00:07:50and mentioned how Ahmed Jamal Pasha even
00:07:53made a secret conspiracy to
00:07:56assassinate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Therefore,
00:07:59today Ahmed Jamal Pasha is hated in Turkey.
00:08:03One day, when he returns to Turkey
00:08:06after the loss of World War I, his two
00:08:09colleagues, Talaat Pasha
00:08:13and Enver Pasha, tell him that all the money
00:08:18enough to rectify the mistakes, disasters, and calamities
00:08:21you have committed. I want the path related
00:08:25to your father. Exactly. My father withdrew
00:08:28into himself. He did not participate in the Great Arab
00:08:31Revolt. Why? Because he was not against
00:08:34the state as a state, but he was against Jamal Pasha because he was
00:08:38a traitor. But he did not participate in the Great Revolt. No, he did not participate with
00:08:41that. I will mention something else to you. You did not have a presence.
00:08:45There was no political presence for the Ebash family at that
00:08:48time, during the reign of King Faisal. In reality,
00:08:51let me tell you why. There was a political presence
00:08:55before that. For example, my uncle Hussein Bey was a member
00:08:58of the Provincial Council of the State, meaning the council
00:09:02of the capital Damascus. But when Turkey
00:09:05completely left Syria on
00:09:09October 14, 1924, October
00:09:121, 1918,
00:09:15there was a perception among these people who were from
00:09:18the former regime that
00:09:21you are not Arabs by origin, you are remnants, you are Turks, you are remnants.
00:09:25Therefore, neither my uncle nor my grandfather nor my father
00:09:28participated in the political life that lasted only two years,
00:09:321918-1920. When Mariano
00:09:36Goybet entered Damascus, everyone tells you that
00:09:39Henri Gouraud was the one who entered, but he was not even in Syria
00:09:43or Lebanon. Mariano Goybet was the one who entered. He tells
00:09:47a strange story that his grandfather was named Jean
00:09:50de Montgolfier, he was a prisoner of
00:09:54the Damascenes in 1448, during the
00:09:58Crusades. They besieged Damascus.
00:10:01His ancient origin is Spanish. He even
00:10:05mentions a funny thing, he says that we came to the gardens surrounding
00:10:08Damascus and found a fruit we didn't know, they called it
00:10:14damask. It's apricots. So they were happy and started eating and eating and eating. They
00:10:18didn't realize until they suffered severe diarrhea. So the
00:10:22Damascene apricot was an effective element in eliminating
00:10:25the Crusader campaign. So from the Damascene apricot and
00:10:29the matters of religion, we go to the dark
00:10:33ages. Yes, that preceded the moment you
00:10:37mentioned, the departure of the Ottomans from Damascus. These
00:10:40centuries, historians in them are few
00:10:43and are essentially called the ages of decline or
00:10:48artistically. Among the historians, Al-Moudairi
00:10:51the barber appeared, who conveyed a picture of life in
00:10:55Damascus and in the Levant at that time. It
00:10:59memory, how life was in the city of Damascus
00:11:03and the social and demographic classes, and you wrote about this and researched it. Yes,
00:11:07yes, an excellent question. It is certain and 100%
00:11:11proven that I even had a thesis
00:11:15that I presented at Boğaziçi
00:11:18University about the beginning of the emergence of
00:11:22national sentiment among some military factions in Damascus. Among them
00:11:25were the Yerliler. Hmm, the local
00:11:28Janissaries. This period, as you mentioned,
00:11:31was when the spontaneous Damascene
00:11:35historian, the barber, was a narrator
00:11:38who used to tell and hear stories, he recorded them in colloquial Arabic with a colloquial
00:11:42accent. Then Sheikh Al-Qasimi, Jamal
00:11:45Al-Qasimi, came and refined and wrote them in
00:11:49classical Arabic. Regarding that
00:11:52period, I am completely sure that
00:11:55there was no actual Arab nationalist sentiment against the Turks.
00:11:59Why? Because the Ottomans were, first of all,
00:12:01Muslims. Secondly,
00:12:04officers
00:12:08the Umayyad Mosque or some of them. My uncle, with a Steyr pistol from
00:12:12his back, told him, "No, you walk in front of me." He looked
00:12:15at him like this. He stared at him and said, "You are a man."
00:12:19He said, "What?" He said, "I was planning, do you know what I was planning? He said, "We would walk
00:12:23about 100 or 200 meters
00:12:25and I would take whatever money you had, the five gold liras or whatever." Okay, allow me
00:12:29to go to a break and then we will return
00:12:33to find out what happened with Hussein Bey Al-Ebash in this adventure and whether he was able
00:12:36to save the son of Abdul Rahman Pasha, Youssef, or
00:12:40not. Okay. Dear viewers, we will continue our discussion
00:12:45Dr. Ahmed Ebash in his testimony
00:12:48to history.
00:12:55Radio Syria with you wherever
00:12:57you are. From Damascus to
00:13:03the coast to
00:13:05Al-Jazeera. The voice of Syria
00:13:08accompanies you wherever you are. Radio
00:13:13the unified frequency 99 FM
00:13:16in all Syrian cities and governorates.
00:13:19We accompany you with accurate news
00:13:22and diverse programs around the clock.
00:13:25Radio Syria TV,
00:13:29your voice wherever you are.
00:13:41Before the break, we talked about Hussein Bey Al-Ebash's
00:13:45adventure in saving Mohammed
00:13:49Said Al-Youssef, the son of Abdul Rahman
00:13:53Pasha Al-Youssef, the emir of the quarter at that time. Was he
00:13:56really able to save him, and what were the consequences of that?
00:14:00And I promise you that you will tell the people about Sarah because you mentioned
00:14:03this, so let's find out what happened with Sarah.
00:14:07The story, the historian has
00:14:09an internal tension. Of course, of course, we need to finish
00:14:12the narration, no doubt. My uncle arrived at the military school,
00:14:16and of course, the matter of the
00:14:20enormous Austrian guide ended. He walks around the wall, he
00:14:23finds the person whose picture he
00:14:26saw. He asked his father for his picture, and he waited
00:14:30a moment, I mean, it was a little dark. He called out to Muhammad Said. He came.
00:14:34He said, "There's no time to talk now. Take these clothes.
00:14:38Put them on." He cut the wires for him and got him out. He arranged
00:14:41for them to get in a car. He told him, "Don't say a word. You
00:14:45don't talk. I'll talk alone." They started driving
00:14:48and crossing the Allies' checkpoints. My uncle
00:14:52claimed that he spoke
00:14:55as if he was speaking with an American accent. He studied at the
00:14:58American University, like you, he studied at the American University. Yes, and my father too,
00:15:02of course. So they passed, and they passed.
00:15:05They arrived in Damascus.
00:15:09They enter the guest house of Pasha Abdul Rahman Pasha. Muhammad Said
00:15:12runs, oh, Muhammad Said runs to kiss
00:15:16his father. He tells him, "No, wait there. Stop!
00:15:21who brought you." He came closer and kissed him,
00:15:25and told him, "You are, I mean, we haven't seen such a person
00:15:28before, and I know that, I mean, there is
00:15:32a divine providence that chose you. I want to give you my daughter, Wajiha Khanum,
00:15:36and marry her. Wajiha married his daughter, Wajiha Khanum
00:15:38Al-Youssef." Yes, my uncle married her, and she became the mother of his children.
00:15:42Sarah? Sarah? We'll get to that later, if you remember. Exactly.
00:15:46Exactly. We got to the point that in 1915,
00:15:50it became clear to everyone that this was