Aref Basha al-Dajani (1856 - April 14, 1930) was an Arab Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 politician who served as mayor of Jerusalem during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

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Aref al-Dajani was born in Jerusalem in 1856. During World War I, he served as mayor of Jerusalem.
In 1918, he joined the Administrative Committee of the Muslim-Christian Association (MCA) and went on to become Jerusalem and then regional president of the organization. The All-Arab Palestine Conference met in Jerusalem in January-February 1919 under the leadership of Aref al-Dajani and Izzat Darwazah. The resolution reached at this forum was cabled to the Paris Peace Conference on behalf of the Arabs of Palestine, demanding a renunciation of the Balfour Declaration and the inclusion of Palestine as "an integral part of...the independent Arab Government of Syria within an Arab Union, free of any foreign influence or protection."

Dajani was later elected vice president of the congress' Executive Committee and became a leader of the Palestine for the Palestinians which emerged in 1919. He was a member of the Arab Executive until 1922; Together with Raghib al-Nashashibi

Raghib al-Nashashibi

Raghib al-Nashashibi was a wealthy landowner and public figure during the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate and the Jordanian administration. He was mayor of Jerusalem in 1920–1934.-Background:...

, in the early 1920s he led the opposition before splitting in 1926.