page_title: Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim
section_title: Independence Party of Palestine
hierarchical_section_title: Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim / Independence Party of Palestine
caption_attribution_description: English: The Istiqlal (Independence) Pan-Arab Party founded in 1932. Darwazah seated centre, al-Haj Ibrahim seated second left, Ahmad Shuqeiri standing first left
context_page_description: Rashid al-Haj Ibrahim was a Palestinian Arab banker and a leader of the Independence Party of Palestine. He was one of the most influential Arab leaders of Haifa in the first half of the 20th century and played a leading role in both the 1936–39 Arab revolt and the 1948 Battle of Haifa.
context_section_description: He joined the Istiqlal (Independence) Party—which promoted Arab nationalism and had counterparts in Syria and Iraq—along with Izzat Darwaza and Awni Abd al-Hadi when it was founded in 1932. The party held a congress in Acre in 1932 which al-Haj Ibrahim presided over. He was designated the leader of the party's branch in Haifa. In late 1932, he resigned from his position in the Haifa Islamic Society. According to the Filastin newspaper, he did so in protest of the sacking of Sheikh Kamal al-Qassab as the society's director of schools. It was also speculated al-Haj Ibrahim quit because of the society's dominance by al-Husayni who was reportedly aiming to undermine the al-Istiqlal party because of its rising popularity. However, he remained intensely involved in Haifa's YMMA whose leadership was intertwined with that of the Islamic Society. Under his leadership, Haifa became an al-Istiqlal stronghold. In line with the party's policy to expand the Arabic values, al-Haj Ibrahim became one of many investors to form an Arabic film company that would open cinemas in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, and Amman in 1934.
  Starting in the late 1920s, al-Haj Ibrahim became the closest political associate of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a religious leader from Syria who led an uprising activities against the occupying British military and Jewish gangs in Palestine. Because al-Qassam was frequently detained and tortured by the British authorities, al-Haj Ibrahim appealed to him several times to maintain his position; he would frequently negotiate with the British authorities To release al-Qassam. In 1935, al-Qassam was killed by the occupying British forces in an assault near Jenin, an action that would provoke the 1936–39 Arab uprising in Palestine in which al-Haj Ibrahim was a chief activist.
  Due to his role in the uprising, he was exiled to the Seychelles in 1936. Following a conference in London in 1939, al-Haj Ibrahim was among the Palestinian notables invited by Muhammad Mahmoud Pasha, the Prime Minister of Egypt, to discuss and modify the British White Paper—which called for a united Palestine led by both Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their population ratio. Al-Haj Ibrahim returned to Palestine in February 1940. In order to further their political influence, the Istiqlalists with al-Haj Ibrahim as their leader, negotiated with Abdullah I of Jordan to gain the support of his partisans in Palestine as a counterweight to al-Husayni's supporters.
caption: Leading members of the Istiqlal (Independence) Party, 1932. Al-Haj Ibrahim is seated second from left, to the right of Izzat Darwaza
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