The 1929 al-Buraq / Western Wall Disturbances / Hebron Massacre of August, 1929

Although the insurrection had the appearance of being, and to some extent actually was, religiously inspired, its deeper wellsprings were tied to the increasing political and economic marginalisation experienced by the Palestinians. - Charles Anderson

In fact, people like the al-Husseini and al-Khalidi family were not marginalised, they were marginalisers. They maintained their status in the British Mandate religious, legal and landowning elite. They were large land owners. How many Palestinian peasants were permanently indebted to the Husseinis and the Khalidis they have never revealed, for obvious reasons. The fellaheen paid both rent on the land (20% or 30% of gross yield was common) and usurious interest (much the same and more so) on the loans they needed to pay the interest on their prior loans. If the Massacres were caused by deeper political and economic issues why was there such atrocious acts committed in Hebron? There were no Zionists in Hebron, the massacres were made on traditional Jewish families where Jews had lived for centuries which is why up to 450 Jews were saved by their Muslim neighbours.

On August 15, 1929, a group of Zionists led by members of Betar demonstrated at al-Buraq Wall, or the Western Wall, a place that is holy to Jews. They raised the Zionist flag and sang the Zionist anthem in provocation of the city's Palestinians. In response, Palestinians rioted, leading to a week of violence in which 113 Jews and 116 Arabs were killed and over 200 wounded. Importantly, the riots came after … a British Mandate decision to increase the number of Jewish worshippers allowed access to the Western Wall, which had been under Muslim authority for centuries. … Palestinians feared a Zionist takeover of the city's holy sites. In fact, the bulk of the clashes was between Palestinians and British police, and it is believed that mandate authorities underreported Palestinian casualties.

The wall is 20 metres high at the point where Jews pray.

The Palestinian Issue: Historical Background & Contemporary Developments - Dr Mohsed Mohammed Saleh, Al-Zayouna Centre
The al-Buraq Uprising lasted from 15th August until 2nd September 1929 and erupted due to the dispute over al-Buraq Wall (The Western Wall of the al-Aqsa Mosque) which the Muslims were defending against Jewish Zionist claims and aggressive attitude. The uprising spread all over Palestine, where 133 Jews were killed and 339 were injured, and 116 Arabs were killed and 232 were injured. Wikipedia: As a result of Arab rioting throughout Palestine, the British established a Commission of Inquiry whose purpose was to determine the cause of the rioting. The Shaw Commission found that the violence occurred due to "racial animosity on the part of the Arabs, consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future."

Land ownershipThe Shaw Commission reported there were 460,000 fellaheen and 20,000 Jews living in rural areas. Exactly how many Arabs could these 20,000 Jews have replaced? The Commission noted the presence of "landless and discontented" groups of Arabs that were growing as a result of the Yishuv. They didn't question any of these landless and discontented Arabs, they got their information from three of the largest landowning and politically powerful families of Arab Shylocks who were grinding the fellaheen into the dust (Awni Abd al-Hadi, Jamal al-Husseini, Hajj Amin al-Hussseini) and their lawyer M. Moghannam. "Racial animosity" by Muslim Arabs to Jews had been present since the time of Mohammed. These spokesmen for the Shylocks claimed it was Jewish immigration and land purchases that caused Arab discontent and recommended closer British regulation in these areas. The However the Jewish population was predominantly urban: almost three-quarters of the 83,794 Jews lived in the urban areas in or around Jerusalem, Jaffa and Tel Aviv. The Jewish rural land was predominantly in the Coastal Plain, the Galilee and the Jezreel Valley. Conversely, the Arab rural population was predominantly in the West Bank highlands. From where was the discontent rising?

This map from the U.N. shows the percentage of landownership in 1945. Click on it to see a larger image. In 1929 the Jews owned 80% of the land they had bought by 1945. So the map is showing 25% more land owned by Jews than in 1929. Exactly how many Arabs could these 20,000 Jews have replaced? How many Arabs in Acre or Jenin or Nablus or Ramallah or Hebron or Gaza or Beersheba had ever even seen a Jew? Not after 1929 in Hebron, that's for sure.

On 24 September 1928 a recently erected collapsible screen separating men and women at the Wall was removed by police during Yom Kippur prayers. Jews had been actively seeking better failities and access to the the Western Wall and Hajj Amin al-Husayni was determined to keep them humiliated. There was no large area available for worshipping in 1929. The Mufti began an anti-Jewish campaign for defense of Islamic shrines, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque and al-Buräq al-Sharif," the wall where Muhammed tethered his magic horsey after flying from Mecca. He arranged for muezzin calls and waste water dumping on the Jews during prayer times, mules and donkeys were frequently run through the narrow prayer area. Speeches were made in mosques that falsely claimed the Jews intended to seize the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple there.

Shaw Commission Report on the al-Buraq / Western Wall Disturbances / Hebron Massacre of August, 1929

On the 1st of September Sir John Chancellor, the High Commissioner issued the following Proclamation:- "I have returned from the United Kingdom to find to my distress the country in a state of disorder and a prey to unlawful violence. I have learned with horror of the atrocious acts committed by bodies of ruthless and blood-thirsty evil-doers, of savage murders perpetrated upon defenceless members of the Jewish, population regardless of age or sex, accompanied, as at Hebron, by acts of unspeakable savagery, of the burning of farms and houses in town and country and of the looting and destruction of property. These crimes have brought upon their authors the execration of all civilized peoples throughout the world."
"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. This savage attack, of which no condemnation could be too severe, was accompanied by wanton destruction and looting. Jewish Synagogues were desecrated, a Jewish hospital, which had provided treatment for Arabs, was attacked and ransacked, and only the exceptional personal courage displayed by Mr. Cafferata - the one British Police Officer in the town - prevented the outbreak from developing into a general massacre of the Jews in Hebron. - p.64"

 
The "Wailing Wall" Riots (1929) As A Watershed In The Palestine Conflict - Avraham Sela
the 1929 crisis - though sparked by the Wailing Wall affair - essentially resulted from factional struggle for power within the Arab-Palestinian community, combined with a growing anxiety at the recovery of the Zionist movement after a few years of decline. The internal struggle was aggravated by the prospect of establishing a Legislative Council (LC), and ultimately brought about its failure. Whether or not there was a real chance for establishing a LC, the lack of any constitutional development played into the hands of the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine) which had been already in an advanced state of social and political institutionalization.

Palestinian Political Action Against the Zionists

Zionists focused on building infrastructure and security for a future Jewish national home. The Palestine Zionist Executive (Jewish Agency) to liaise with the Mandate government; the Histadrut labor federation formed and established a cooperative movement; the Keren Hayesod (Foundation Fund) to fund immigration, settlement, and economic development; the Haganah an underground Jewish defense force to protect against Arab riots. The began to construct an alternative, segregated, autonomous Jewish economic and social structure. Only Jewish workers were to be hired, they acquired land for exclusive Jewish settlements, established Kibbutzim agricultural cooperatives, created autonomous health, education, and defense structures parallel to, but separate from the Mandate governments.

The Palestinians formed political parties, had congresses, complained to the British government, refused to interact with Mandate commissions, continued small scale attacks on Jews. The al-Hussaini and al-Nashashibi families fought over leadership of the Palestine which was still basically feudal with patron-client relationships. The Grand Mufti, Hajj Amin al Husseini was the éminence grise promoting violence and a policy of complete rejection of compromise through his domination of politics and the Islamic Sharia religious-legal-financial (Waqf) establishment.

There are 83,794 Jews living in Palestine. Does Hajj Amin al-Husseini think he can eliminate them by mobs of Muslims running amok with clubs and knives or does he think killing a few hundred here and there will force the British, still the most powerful navy in the world, to ship them elsewhere?

Mohmsen Mohammed Saleh: 483,000 Jews migrated to Palestine during the British Mandate period and by 1948 they were 646,000 (31.7% of the population) and controlled 6% of the land holding 291 settlements. All the land the Jews purchased was sold by Arabs or Ottomans. Every large landowner knew he was making his tenants, the long-term clients of his family, landless. The fellaheen had already been steadily losing "their" land due to debt, drought and poor farming practices. The patron-tenant relationship was a one-way power relationship.

At the end of the British Mandate period only 25% of the land was registered for private ownership

  • 12% of the land was owned by Palestinian Arabs
  • 7.5% of the land was owned by Jews

References