Palestine: A Modern History (ص 69)

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Palestine: A Modern History (ص 69)

المحتوى

144 The Lull: 1923-1929 ,
there were angry demonstrations by, excited crowds, and in the course
of an attack on a, Jewish school in Hebron one Jew:was killed. On the
following,day Arabs in Hebron made a bloody, attack on the Jewish
quarter and on, isolated Jewish houses .lying outside the crowded
quarters of the,town. More than sixty Jews were killed and more than
fifty were wounded. '
Jewish Counter-attack
On the same day a determined Arab crowd who wished, to obtain arms,
attacked .the police barracks in Nablus, where serious. trouble was
averted by the action of the police firing on the crowd. In Beisan an
attack was made on the Jews. There was a minor disturbance at Jaffa,
and: several Jewish colonies were attacked. On 25 August attacks by
Arabs were made on the outlying Jewish districts. Isolated attacks on
Jewish colonies continued -and burning. in Haifa there was an outbreak
in the old quarter, and several attacks were made on Hadar Hacarmel, a
Jewish suburb of Haifa. In Jaffa a police officer who opened fire on an
Arab crowd succeeded in beating, off an attack on the quarter which
lay between Jaffa and Tel Aviv:
In this quarter there occurred the worst instance of a Jewish attack
on Arabs, in the course of which, the Imam of a, mosque and six
other people were killed. On the 26th August, there also occurred a
Jewish attack on the Mosque of Okasha in Jerusalem, a sacred shrine
of great antiquity held in much veneration by the Muslims. The
mosque was badly damaged and the tombs of the prophets which it
contains were desecrated.*?
_ -On 29 August, Arab mobs attacked the Jewish quarter in Safad
‘where some forty-five Jews.were killed or wounded and.seyeral Jewish
houses and shops were set on fire.
Apart from isolated incidents and ,attacks the hostilities soon
subsided and the situation began to improve from day,.to,day., During
the disturbances 133 Jews were killed and, 339 were wounded, of whom
198 were treated in hospital;.116 Arabs were killed or died in hospital,
while the number of Arabs who receiyed treatment in hospitals for
injuries was 232,
t
The Watershed
The events of the last week of August 1929,proved to be the . watershed
in Arab-British relations in, Palestine. The rising began as an anti-Jewish
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145
outburst, since the Mufti had no desire to fight the British, and his men
were believed to have flourished the impression that the Government
1 was in sympathy with the Arabs (Doleh Ma‘-ana). Although the events
of 23 August in Jefusalem did not entail any hostile actions against the
Government, both the Government and the Muslim Supreme Council
(see to have) lost control of the situation less than 48 hours after the
initial Arab attacks on the Jewish Quarter. In the course of their
defence of Jewish lives and property the British troops fired at the Arab
mobs inflicting many casualties. The immediate effect was reflected in
the attitude of the purely Arab towns — Nablus, Acre, Jenin, Tulkarem
and Gaza — where the demonstrations assumed a pure anti-British
character. In the meetings of the Arab Youth (Shabab) which took
place in various places in order to decide on the form of solidarity
towards the Jerusalem Arabs two tendencies emerged. The stronger
tehdency, advocated by the clerical «class and the Muslim ‘notables,
called for attacks on Jews and revenge on Zionists. The second
tendency supported’ by the ‘left’ national element led by Hamdi
Husseini in Jaffa and the active members of the young Muslim Society
in Haifa, called for directing activity ‘against the English and not against
the,Jews’.*
With the arrival of British troops on 25 and 26 August the situation
took a sharp turn. Zionist leaders who were critical of the Government
suddenly returned to advocating ‘the necessity of maintaining the
Jewish goodwill towards Britain and the -Palestine Administration:
Correspondingly, Muslim notables — Hajj Amin, Ragheb Nashashibi and
Musa Kazem — signed a Proclamation, in which they dissassociated
thémselves from mob actions leaving the unarmed and unorganised
fellahin and bedouins to face aeroplanes, armoured cars and British
troops. The British military machine inflicted devastation on the Arab
villages of Lifta, Deir Yassin, and Colonia. Over one thousand-persons —
more than 90 per cent of these being Arabs — were tried on charges
relating to the disturbances of August 1929. In the final instance the
courts confirmed twenty-six death sentences, twenty-five of these being
upon Arabs, and one‘upon’a Jew.°>
Moreover, the Collective Punishments Ordinance was applied to the
towns and villages whose inhabitants were guilty of participation in the
concerted attacks on Jews at Hebron, Safad, Motza, Artuf, Beer Tuvia,
and heavy fines were inflicted.
For the villagers and the masses of the Palestinians two important
facts were made clearer and sharper by the events of 1929. The first
was that Zionism and the JNH depended, ultimately and inevitably, on
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تاريخ

1978

المنشئ

Abdul-Wahhab Kayyali

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