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In the summer of 1929, a long-running dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem became steadily more violent, erupting in a week of riots in late August. During the week of riots, 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded (mostly by Arabs); 116 Arabs were killed and 232 wounded (mostly by British-commanded police and soldiers). The worst events were the massacre of 67 Jews in Hebron by Arabs, which caused a complete Ethnic Cleansing of that city's ancient Jewish community.

Sequence of events

From 1922 through 1928 the relationship between Jews and Arabs in Palestine was relatively peaceful. However, in late 1928 a new phase of violence began with minor disputes between Jews and Arabs about the right of Jews to pray at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem. These arguments led to an outbreak of Arab violence in August 1929 when Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, fomented Arab hatred by accusing the Jews of endangering the mosques and other sites holy to Islam.

On August 15, 1929, rumors spread across the Arab comunity by leaflets - some apparently prepared in advance by Muslims -declared that the Jews were preparing to take control of the holy place and that Muslims should come to Jerusalem to defend them.

On Friday, August 16, 1929, after an inflammatory sermon, a demonstration organized by the Supreme Muslim Council, marched to the Wall and proceeded to burn Jewish prayer books such as the Tora and Talmud, supplicatory notes left in the Wall's cracks (considered sacred paryet between a person and his creator) were burned as well.

The acting High Commissioner Harry Luke answered to the jews compliants that "no prayer books had been burnt but only pages of prayer books". The Arab riots continued, and the next day one Jew was killed in the Bukharan Quarter. His funeral was turned into a political demonstration.

On August 20, Haganah leaders proposed to provide defense for 600 Jews of the Old Yishuv in Hebron or help them evacuate, but the community leaders declined these offers, insisting that they trust the A'yan (Arab leadership) to protect them.

On August 22, 1929 the leaders of the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine) met with the British Deputy High Commissioner to alert him of their fears of a large Arab riot. The British officials assured them that the government was in control of the situation. The following day the Riots of 1929 erupted throughout the Palestine Mandate, lasting for seven days.

On Friday, August 23, Arab mobs attacked Jews in Jerusalem, Motza, Hebron, Safed, Jaffa, and other parts of the country. The Old City of Jerusalem was hit particularly hard. By the next day, the Haganah was able to mount a defense and further attacks in Jerusalem were repulsed. But, the violence in Jerusalem generated rumors throughout the country, many carrying fabricated accounts of Jewish attempts to defile Muslim holy places, all to inflame the Arab residents. Villages were plundered and destroyed by Arab mobs. While attacks on Jews in Tel Aviv and Haifa were thwarted by Jewish defenses, there were Jewish deaths in Hebron, where 67 Jewish men and women were slaughtered and Safed, where 18 Jews were killed, as well as scattered other losses totaling 133 Jewish deaths, with more than 300 wounded. Despite the fact that Jews and Arabs in Hebron had been on good terms, a mass of frenzied Arab rioters formed and proceeded to the Hebron Yeshiva where a lone student was murdered. The next day, the Jewish Sabbath, the killing continued as an Arab mob of hundreds surrounded homes where Jews sought refuge, broke in and murdered scores of Jews in a bloody rampage.

By the end of the riot, during which the British police did nothing to protect the Jews or stop the violence, sixty-seven Jews were dead and hundreds wounded. The survivors were isolated in a police station for three days while the Arabs rampaged through their houses, stealing and destroying Jewish property, unmolested by the British authorities. At the end of the three days the survivers from the Jewish comumnity of Hebron were sent to Jerusalem, by the British authorities, who feared for their lives and were unable to protect them in Hebron. Hebron's ancient Jewish quarter was by that time empty and destroyed.

Throughout Palestine British authorities had only 292 policemen, fewer than 100 soldiers, six armored cars, and five or six aircraft.

While a number of Jews were being killed at the Jaffa Gate, British policemen did not open fire. By August 24, 17 Jews were killed in the Jerusalem area.

The massacre

The worst atrocities occurred in Hebron and Safed, where massacres of Jews occurred. In Hebron, Arab mobs killed 67 Jews and wounded many others. The lone British policeman in the town, Raymond Cafferata, was overwhelmed and the reinforcements he called for did not arrive for 5 hours (leading to bitter recriminations).

Cafferata later testified that:

"On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a police constable named Issa Sherif from Jaffa in mufti. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, "Your Honor, I am a policeman." ... I got into the room and shot him."

On August 24, 1929 the violence reached its zenith with an attack on the Jewish community of Hebron, which numbered approximately 600 at the time. Violence was both imported and home-grown, with witnesses reporting both the arrival of outside elements and the rising up on locals against their neighbors. The worst attacks were carried out against the Slobodko Rabbinical College and a preparatory school in Hebron, 30 students were killed. A group of Arabs rushed into the college, killing, among others, twelve American citizens and wounding fifteen other American citizens. The Shaw commission reports that: About 9 o’clock on the morning of the 24th of August, Arabs in Hebron made a most ferocious attack on the Jewish ghetto and on isolated Jewish houses lying outside the crowded quarters of the town. More than 60 Jews—including many women and children—were murdered and more than 50 were wounded…Jewish Synagogues were desecrated, a Jewish hospital, which had provided treatment for Arabs, was attacked and ransacked"

Some Arab neighbors took in their Jewish friends and hid them from the mob — the family of Avrum Burg, former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset has reported that his family was saved in such a way. With time, the Haganah entered the fray and, together with British forces and mentionable numbers of Arab policemen, the violence was suppressed in Hebron. A British Colonial Office communiqué issued on August 26 stated that, “Up to the present the known casualties include forty-five Jews killed, while fifty-nine Jews were seriously wounded. Moslem casualties were eight killed and ten wounded. The town is now reported quiet, but 450 Jews have been temporarily accommodated in police barracks.” Describing the community, Joseph Levy of the New York Times wrote that “almost all of (the Jewish residents of Hebron) belonged to families who have lived there for three generations and always on the friendliest and most neighborly.” But by the time the riot was over the Jewish community had evacuated the city.

The other major centers of violence were in Safed, where 18 Jews were killed in a brief attack, and in Jerusalem.

During the week of riots, the fatalities were:

• Killed: 133 Jews, 116 Arabs.
• Wounded: 339 Jews, 232 Arabs.

The Jews were mostly killed by Arabs, while the Arabs were mostly killed by British-commanded police and soldiers.

On September 1, Sir John Chancellor condemned "the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evildoers... murders perpetrated upon defenseless members of the Jewish population... accompanied by acts of unspeakable savagery."

Commission of Enquiry

A commission of enquiry lead by Sir Walter Shaw took public evidence for several weeks. The main conclusions of the Commission were as follows.

• The outbreak in Jerusalem on the 23rd of August was from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews for which no excuse in the form of earlier murders by Jews has been established.
• The outbreak was not premeditated.
• took the form, in the most part, of a vicious attack by Arabs on Jews accompanied by wanton destruction of Jewish property. A general massacre of the Jewish community at Hebron was narrowly averted. In a few instances, Jews attacked Arabs and destroyed Arab property. These attacks, though inexcusable, were in most cases in retaliation for wrongs already committed by Arabs in the neighbourhood in which the Jewish attacks occurred.
• the Mufti was influenced by the twofold desire to annoy the Jews and to mobilize Moslem opinion on the issue of the Wailing Wall. He had no intention of utilizing this religious campaign as the means of inciting to disorder. events which lead to the outbreak, the Mufti, like many others who directly or indirectly played upon public feeling in Palestine, must accept a share in the responsibility...
• ...in the matter of innovations of practice little blame can be attached to the Mufti in which some Jewish religious authorities also would not have to share. ...no connection has been established between the Mufti and the work of those who either are known or are thought to have engaged in agitation or incitement. ... After the disturbances had broken out the Mufti co-operated with the Government in their efforts both to restore peace and to prevent the extension of disorder.
• The fundamental cause ... is the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future. ... The feeling as it exists today is based on the twofold fear of the Arabs that by Jewish immigration and land purchases they may be deprived of their livelihood and in time pass under the political domination of the Jews.
• In our opinion the immediate causes of the outbreak were:-

1. The long series of incidents connected with the Wailing Wall... These must be regarded as a whole, but the incident among them which in our view contributed most to the outbreak was the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on the 15th of August. ...
2. Excited and intemperate articles which appeared in some Arabic papers, in one Hebrew daily paper and in a Jewish weekly paper...
3. Propaganda among the less-educated Arab people of a character calculated to incite them.
4. The enlargement of the Jewish Agency.
5. The inadequacy of the military forces and of the reliable police available.
6. The belief...that the decisions of the Palestine Government could be influenced by political considerations.

The Commission recommended that the Government reconsider its policies as to Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews. This lead directly to the Hope Simpson Royal Commission in 1930.

Aftermath

Altogether 195 Arabs and 34 Jews were sentenced by the courts for crimes related to the 1929 riots. Death sentences were handed down to 17 Arabs and 2 Jews, but these were later commuted to long prison terms except in the case of 3 Arabs who were hanged. Large collective fines were imposed on about 25 Arab villages or urban neighborhoods. Some financial compensation was paid to persons who lost family members or property.

After the massacre in Hebron, the British authorities evacuated the remaining Jews. In his book The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz describes it "the first instance in Palestine of "ethnic cleansing," as all the Jews of Hebron were either murdered or transferred out of the city in which Jews had lived for millennia." (p.141)

A few dozen families returned to Hebron in 1931, but the community never reestablished itself, and there were no Jews remaining in Hebron by 1936.

References

• Righteous Victims by Benny Morris
• The British in Palestine by Bernard Wasserstein
• Shaw Commission enquiry report

External link

• 1929 Massacre homepage
• The Palestine Riots of 1929 A detailed account with additional background and history.
• The Hebron Massacre of 1929 A detailed account.

• 1929
• History of Israel
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Riots