THE MUSLIM WORLD Vol. LXXXiy No. 1-2 January-April, 1994
THE "WAILING WALL" RIOTS (1929) AS A WATERSHED IN THE PALESTINE CONFLICT *
Introduction
The riots of 1929 were unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, in duration, geographical scope and direct damage to life and property.2 The ostensible cause of the violence-a dispute over Jewish rights of worship at the Wailing Wall-triggered a countrywide outbreak of bloody clashes that reflected the volatile nature of the national conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Official British definition of these events as the "Wailing Wall disturbances" was clearly understated3
Compared to the Arab-Palestinian rebellion of 1936-39, the 1929 crisis has been conceived as a lesser turning point in the Palestine conflict. %t, the latter contained the seeds of new processes and forces which would produce a sustained Arab rebellion seven years later. This article argues that the 1929 riots were a watershed in exacerbating the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, catalyzing social and political changes, reshaping strategies and setting new parameters of political action for both sides involved. On the local level, the riots generated a process of rapid social, geographical, and political separation between the two rival political communities whose relations came to assume an increasingly hostile nature. On the regional basis, the 1929 crisis and its consequences precipitated a structural change of the Palestine conflict, turning it from an inter-communal into a regional one, and heralded a reassessment of Britain's Zionist policy.
Moreover, the Palestine conflict began to assume the form of an all-encompassing clash of religio-nationalist aspirations between the immediate parties to the conflict and their respective supporting peripheries namely, diaspora Jewry versus the Islamic-Arab world The religious and cultural inputs of this dispute were to cast a paradigmatic imprint on the Palestine conflict for generations to come. Given the essential role of religion in the political identity of both Jews and Arabs, it was incumbent on their leaders to turn the "Wailing Wall dispute" into a major political issue.
The immediate background and aftermath of the 1929 riots have been discussed extensively by some studies which, by and large, singled out a specific aspect or party Scholars have dealt with this episode within the context of the development of the Arab-Palestinian national movement under the British Mandate. Others examined the impact of the riots on British policy Several studies indulged in argument over the Mufti's responsibility for the riots. Other studies discussed the riots' impact on Arab-Jewish diplomatic relations or on Zionist political thought. A few studies observed the all-important transformation of the Palestine Question from a local dispute into a Pan-Islamic and Pan-Arab issue. Yet this last aspect has been discussed briefly, focusing on the Arab-Palestinian part without revealing the interaction with and inputs of neighboring Arab-Muslim societies and governments.4 As far as I could determine, no study has ventured to discuss the 1929 riots and their historical impact on the overall Palestine conflict from both the Arab-Palestinian and Jewish-Zionist viewpoints.
This article intends to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive assessment of the origins and significance of the 1929 crisis as well as of its long-term ramifications on the Palestine conflict in a broad historical context. It examines the riots repercussions on the changing alignment within each side in the conflict as well as on their relations with one another and with their respective supporting peripheries. It should be noted that in spite of the significance related in this article to the consequences of the riots, they had no bearing on the basic premises and ultimate goals of either of the disputed communities in Palestine. Their symmetric mutual denial of the rival's political right over an equally claimed homeland remained unchanged.
Three interrelated observations constitute the pivotal conclusions of this article. First, 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 ulti mately 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. Furthermore, the traumatic impact of the riots on the Yishuv and the Zionist movement all but instigated this tendency drawing on lessons from the riots to make a further cohesive political community.
Secondly, the Arab-Palestinian appeal to the Muslim and Arab world and the latter's response following 1929 can be seen as an attempt to counterbalance the perceived gap of political capabilities in favor of Zionism and the YJSJIÜV which had come to the fore in 1929. Ironically, it was an antidote to the Zionist effort which, since 1918, had attempted to come to terms with Pan-Arab nationalist leaders, or neighboring rulers, at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs. From Weizmann to Ben-Gurion, the Zionist movement adhered to a policy of supporting the Pan-Arab idea of erecting a regional Arab federation as long as Palestine was to be excluded and reserved for a Jewish state. The exception was when the Zionist movement, under the traumatic events of the 1929 riots and fear of a pro-Arab revision in Britain's Palestine policy, tactically adopted bi-nationalism in the form of parity and non-domination.
Thirdly, in this context of local capabilities and regional politics, the Jewish Yishuv and the Arab-Palestinian community embarked on different tracks as of 1929. In the early 1930s, the center of gravity of the Zionist movement moved into the YJSJIÜV with its growing demographic and material resources, with diaspora Jewry assuming the role of support from afar. Contrary to this centripetal convergence, the Arab-Palestinian political community's growing appeal to the Muslim and Arab world for support following the 1929 riots catalyzed a centrifugal process of Pan-Islamization and Pan-Arabization of the Palestine conflict. In a historical perspective, the weakness of the political center, and reliance on the neighboring Arab-Muslim societies and rulers, resulted in political disintegration which proved detrimental to the Arab-Palestinian community as it had given way to growing interference of external interests and actors in the Palestine question.
The Zionist Movement and "the Arab Question"
Manifestations of political opposition evinced by the Palestinian Arabs toward the Zionist settlement enterprise, though sporadic and ineffective, led officials of the Yishuv and the Zionist Executive [ZE] to place "the Arab question" on the diplomatic agenda as early as 1913.5 After 1917, the Zionist leadership was inclined to draw on the Balfour Declaration as the source of legitimacy for the Zionist enterprise. The movement sought to come to terms with Pan-Arab leaders in the neighboring countries rather than with the local Palestinian leadership. This tendency assumed that political understanding on the Zionist goals could more likely be reached with the former group of leaders whose aspirations for regional Arab unity might divert their attention away from Palestine.6
In spite of the divergent attitudes to the "Arab Question" within the Zion ist movement, the mainstream never lost sight of the two paramount objectives which seemed as slne-gua-non to achieving the Zionist national goals namely, continued immigration and purchase of land. Aware of the small Jewish presence in Palestine and its economic weakness, and realizing the Palestinian total rejection of the Jewish National Home, the Zionist leadership had no illusions as to the chances of coming to terms with its Arab counterpart, nor was it willing to accept their national aspirations.
The Zionist leadership identified Britain as the main guarantor for an unhindered development of the Jewish national community in Palestine. Of particular concern to Zionist leaders was the damage which Palestinian opposition could cause by adversely affecting British policy toward Jewish immi gration and settlement, as virtually happened following the 1921 riots. Accordingly, Zionist policy on the "Arab Question" was shaped to weaken the Arab opposition in order to secure Britain's continued support.
The resources allotted to this policy had been directly proportional to the level of resistance evinced by the Palestinian Arabs and its potential damage to the Zionist enterprise. Thus, by 1928, allocations for political action in the Arab sector were virtually halted, following a few years of calm that prevailed in Jewish-Arab relations, compounded by the severe crisis which struck the Zionist movement in 1927-1928.7
Practically, the Zionist response to this opposition took the form of "preventive diplomacy-the buying of a temporary peace, while hoping for the continued growth of the Jewish national home/8 This included primarily propaganda intended to allay fears of Zionist domination and exploitation, and efforts to deepen internal divisions within the Arab-Palestinian leader ship through abetting opponents with cash bribes and other material induce ments. However, the Zionist activity in the Arab sector was aimed principally at encouraging an opposition movement to the radical nationalist stream led by the Husainis, namely, the Arab Executive Committee [AEC]-the overall Arab-Palestinian national leadership since 1920-and the Supreme Muslim Council [SMC-the administrative authority of the Muslim establishment in Palestine]. The Zionist-sponsored groups were intended to refute the AECs claim for an exclusive representation of the Arab population and to serve as mouthpieces urging recognition of the British Mandate and cooperation with the government. From a Zionist viewpoint, the results of these efforts largely disappointed their promoters, though they apparently did serve to deepen the divisions and internal rifts in the Palestinian camp.9
Beginning in 1926, the Zionist enterprise had been struck by severe crisis. With economic depression in the YJsAüv and a crisis of morale within the Zionist movement, the number of Jewish emigrants exceeded the number of new arrivals in 1927. Widespread Jewish unemployment resulted in intensified struggle for "Jewish labor" which aggravated relations with the Arab working class. Nonetheless, the crisis led to the Arab perception that the Zionist enterprise was at the end of its tether. The crisis rendered all the more urgent plans for enlarging the Jewish Agency (JA) to include powerful non-Zionist organizations, particularly in the American Jewry, finally concluded in an agreement on the eve of the August 1929 riots.10
The Palestinian National Movement: Internal Political Struggle
By the mid-1920s, the Palestinian national movement was in a state of decline and disintegration. It had reached the zenith of its prestige in 1923 following its success in foiling the elections to the LC and preventing the ratification of the Anglo-Hijazi Treaty on Palestine. The standing of the AEC diminished as a result of its failure to prevent the approval of the Mandate by the League of Nations, as well as its inability to win the establishment of satisfactory representative national institutions from the Mandatory government, along the lines of those created in neighboring countries. Above all, the movement's tarnished image was due to the growing split in the political community between supporters of the AEC and SMC fmajA'sIyyunJ, identified with the Husainis, and their critics, loosely grouped under the banner of "the Opposition" {mucaridünj, identified in the main with Râghib al-Nashâshïbï.
The divisiveness had its roots in the competition between leading figures and families for access to power and material resources through positions and influence in the municipal, religious and administrative systems; in rivalries between urban elites; and in social conflicts between town and rural leaders.11 From 1924 on, the party feuds became increasingly marked by differences over political cooperation with the government in building self-governing institutions. Particularly in view of the Zionist crisis of 1926-1927, the opposition strongly advocated cooperation with the government, regardless of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate Paper.
In the absence of institutions which could attract and respond to the energies, needs and ambitions of personalities and interest groups in the Arab-Palestinian elite, the national movement itself was transformed into an arena of competition and struggle. Anti-Zionist agitation became a source of legitimacy and a primary means of mobilization of political support, thus contributing to radicalization of Palestinian attitudes on the issue around which a consensus did exist: opposition to the Jewish national home.
The decline of the AEC, and the Palestinian national movement as a whole, had the effect of bolstering the standing of the SMC led by al-Häj Amin al-Husainï as a major center of political power and influence within the Arab population in Palestine. Contributing heavily to these developments were the authority and the variety of responsibilities which the government bestowed on it; the substantial financial resources originating in revenues from the religious endowments fawqâfj at its disposal; and the multitude of religious and administrative positions it could dispense as patronage. Practically functioning as a "Muslim Government," the SMC under al-Häj Amin became the target of the Opposition's political effort and an arena of Arab-Palestinian power struggle.12
Al-Häj Amins position made him vulnerable to barbs and criticism; he held high-level positions to which he had been appointed by the Mandate government, while politically identified with the AEC in its policy of non-coop eration with that government. In the local press, the opposition hurled vitriolic denunciations, accusing the SMC's president of utilizing the Council as a political tool to enhance his own standing, exploiting Waqf funds and other contributions for political purposes, engaging in rampant nepotism, and lack ing the requisite abilities to fulfill his high post.13 The fierce attacks, combined with the weakness of the AEC, resulted in striking political gains for the adversaries of the Husainis in the Council elections of late 1925, and an even greater success in the municipal elections of 1927, with opposition candidates winning overwhelming victories and attaining the height of their power.
By 1927, the demand for political representation and participation in the government grew widespread among Arab-Palestinian politicians, including the AEC's President Müsa Käzim al-Husainî.14 Apart from the conviction that the Zionist enterprise had arrived at a dead-end, the change of attitude in this respect was apparently the outcome of growing expectation for political participation of a rapidly developing new Arab urban middle class in Palestine. The interest in cooperating with the government gathered widespread support also in view of the progress achieved by neighboring Arab countries under Mandatory regime towards establishing self-governing and representative in stitutions. Indeed, by 1928, Palestine was the only Mandate territory in which no constitutional progress had been made towards the creation of representative institutions or a national government.15
In mid-1928, the differences between the opposition and the AEC over cooperation with the government narrowed noticeably. Thus, preparations for the Seventh Palestinian Arab Congress-the first to be held since November 1923-were marked by a tendency to overcome differences in order to advance the idea of establishing representative institutions. Reconciliation efforts were conducted by non-Palestinian leaders, such as Syrian Pan-Arab nationalist Ihsän al-Jäbiri and Tunisian Shaikh al-Tha(alibï, culminating in the convening of the Congress in June 1928.16 At the Congress itself, the rival factions agreed not only to reinstate the AEC with opposition participation, but also expressed their willingness to establish representative government in Palestine, thus signalling a readiness to acquiesce in the Mandate authority.17
The Congress marked a significant realignment of Arab Palestinian politics. Leading figures of the rival factions closed ranks in order to curtail the Mufti and his SMC, as well as the young radicals within the AEC. The new British High Commissioner (HC) to Palestine, Sir John Chancellor, who took office by the end of 1928, welcomed the renewed effort to promote the establishment of a LC, launched by the united AEC in the wake of the Congress. In June 1929 Chancellor submitted his proposal for establishing a LC to the Colonial Secretary in the new Labor government, after having obtained Musa Kâzim al-Husainî and Râghib al-Nashâshîbîs confidential support. Both men had even agreed to participate in the Council. On the eve of the HC 's departure for an appearance before the Permanent Mandates Commission in Geneva, both the Government and the AEC were on record as favoring the imminent creation of self-governing institutions for Palestine.18
A new situation thus emerged in which Musa Kâzim al-Husainî and Râghib al-Nashâshïbï forged a broad coalition advocating the establishment of a LC. This coalition by its very existence threatened the standing of the Mufti, who unremittingly sought the leadership of the Arab-Palestinian national movement. The realization of this goal was incumbent on preserving the status of the SMC as the paramount, if not the sole, indigenous Arab political authority in Palestine as long as he was its president. In 1922 the Mufti utilized the apparatus of the SMC for preaching boycott of the elections to the LC, an idea which, according to one of his biographers, was the Muftis own initiative.19
His dilemma now, however, was how to foil creating a council without clashing head-on with the Government, since he wished to demonstrate cooperation that would ensure his public position and authority. This was doubly necessary given the oppositions growing threat to his political position. The elections for the SMC in 1925 had already shaken the Mufti's position-he managed to maintain the presidency only due to Government interference-exposing him to further attacks and recriminations on the oppositions part. In April 1928, 39 Muslim opposition notables presented Chancellor with a petition which effectively called for curtailing the Mufti's power by reducing the term of the presidency of the SMC to three years, and by promoting public supervision of the Council's expenditures of awgäf funds.20
Under these circumstances, the Mufti and his associates in the SMC sought to distance themselves from the national mainstream and to assume leader ship of a radical minority group which asserted itself at the Seventh Congress. The members of this group opposed the creation of self-governing institutions under the aegis of the Mandate authority and insisted on full independence for Palestine.21 They represented a new generation of educated urban elite, mostly professionals and independent of employment in the government service. They manifested a tendency to adopt radical political attitudes concerning the struggle for national liberation in their quest for a social and political status which would allow them to influence the process of decision-making in the emerging Arab-Pälestinian national movement. Some of these figures, veterans of the Pan-Arab Isù'gJâJ (independence) party, drew their inspiration from other Arab national movements in the Fertile Crescent with which they had maintained social and political ties since the Ottoman era.
The state of division and disarray that prevailed in the Palestinian national movement in the years 1924-27 no doubt called for an urgent change and made all the more valid the strong criticism levelled at the old-guard leadership.22 This was demonstrated in the emergence of new political groupings such as the Jaffa-based Liberal Party in late 1927, followed by the formation of the Young Mens Muslim Association (YMMA) on a countrywide basis. The new organizations attracted members of the newly emerging middle-class: journalists, lawyers, merchants, and teachers. In the early 1930s the YMMA leaders, along with IstJgJâJ figures, would be among the first to call for a radical change in the strategy of the Arab-Palestinian national movement, towards civil disobedience and armed revolt against Britain itself. Some of them would play a key role in organizing the armed groups during the revolt of 1936.23
The Road to Riots
The issue of Jewish rights of worship at the Wailing Wall flared up as a result of an incident on 24 September 1928 when the screen separating men and women at the Wall was removed by a British police officer in the midst of prayers on Yom Kippur.24 The installation of the screen by the Jews was a technical violation of their traditional status guo rights of worship at the Wall. The ensuing outcry of world Jewry and the Zionist movement in the wake of the screen incident was accompanied by an increasing Jewish challenge to the status guo rights of worship at the Wall, as well as demands for possess ing the Wall and its surrounding area. Indeed, during the 1920s a number of Zionist and Jewish leaders sought to expand the Jewish standing and rights of worship at the Wall. They made inquiries to British officials and to Muslim notables regarding the purchase of buildings adjacent to the Wailing Wall, with the aim of building a convenient plaza for the growing crowds of Jews who flocked to the site on holy days.25 While from a Jewish viewpoint these overt attempts reflected a genuine need, they aroused the Muslim leadership's fears lest the Jews intended to take over the whole area of aJ-ffaram aJ-SAarfi (the "Noble Sanctuary," corresponding to the Temple Mount area) injecting tremendous tension into Muslim-Jewish relations.
Soon enough the Mufti seized upon the incident as a springboard for an all-out political campaign against the Jews under the banner of defense of the Islamic shrines in Jerusalem. Intensive Muslim activity began with the creation of the " Committee for the Defense of al-Aqsa Mosque and aJ-Buräg aJ-SAarff," (the "Noble Buräq"-corresponding to the Wall) fueled by the out raged Zionist-Jewish outcry that followed the Yom Kippur screen incident, with branches established in various parts of the country On 1 November a massive gathering of Muslim figures from Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan was held in Jerusalem under the auspices of the Mufti to advance the struggle over the Muslim holy places. The appeal to the Arab-Muslim world was followed by a series of provocations on the part of the SMC in the vicinity of the Wailing Wall which meant to disrupt Jewish prayers there, thus intensifying the growing Jewish-Muslim tension.26
The Mufti's campaign continued to gain momentum in spite of reassuring developments. Not only had the original Wall incident been well handled by the police, but in the following months the HC appeared to favor the SMC's claims concerning the Jews' limited right of prayer at the Wailing Wall. Yet the government's procrastination over a verdict on the issue, in spite of the White Paper it had published in November affirming the status guo, left matters unsettled This situation continued to feed the activities of both parties to the dispute.
The escalating Islamic campaign against the Jews was aggravated by renewed Arab concern about the changing trend in Jewish immigration which was discernible since the beginning of 1928, though the number of immigrants remained low and exceeded only by slight margins the number of Jewish emigrants. Another reason for Arab-Palestinian concern was the imminent formation of the enlarged JA which had already aroused the morale of the Yishuv. This was perceived by the Arabs as a setback to their cause. This was accompanied by an economic crisis which reached its peak in 1929, as a result of a poor harvest affecting mainly the fel/aAfn, many of whom were obliged to sell their lands to Jews. The economic crisis also affected the urban middle class, especially those relying on the rural sector.27
The year-long period of escalation in the inter-communal dispute which began at the Wall culminated in violent riots in August 1929. Historians differ regarding the Mufti's motives of action and responsibility for the eventual crisis. Whether he actually incited the crisis, turning a local religious dispute into a full-fledged war-as argued by the Jews-or, what seems more accurately, had taken advantage of it for his own goals, it is obvious that the Mufti was not acting in a vacuum.28
Indeed, the Wailing Wall dispute was a gift from heaven for the Mufti constituting both an obligation-to defend the Muslim shrines, as the chief Islamic authority-and an opportunity-to exploit the issue for his own personal or communal ends. The religious dispute provided him with a power ful means to entrench his standing among the ordinary folk and the rural population, whose identification with Islamic symbols and values was the essence of their political consciousness and collective identity.29 Above all, the Wall issue served well his immediate political interests: impeding the establishment of a LC and defeating the opposition. The anti-Jewish campaign waged under his leadership during the year that followed the screen incident, and especially in the aftermath of the riots, tremendously boosted his political prestige and influence, consolidating his position as the paramount leader of the Palestinian Arabs.
Historically speaking, the way the Mufti tackled the Wailing Wall dispute before and after the riots was consistent with the strategy he had adopted ever since his appointment as the SMC's President in 1922: that of exploiting Jerusalem's holy status in Islam in order to mobilize the Muslim world's material and moral support for the struggle of the Palestinian Arabs against Zionism. This effort paved al-Häj Amin's way to unchallenged leadership of the Pales tinian national movement and enhanced his personal standing as a prominent Muslim leader. As early as 1923 he had initiated a fund-raising campaign throughout the Hijäz, Iraq, India and Egypt for the renovation of the Temple Mount mosques, stressing the threat they faced from Zionism. Aside from establishing connections with Islamic and Arab nationalist leaders from India to the Maghreb, this effort was coupled by an active involvement in Pan-Is lamic and regional affairs, such as the Caliphate question, participation in the Islamic congresses held in Cairo and Mecca in 1926, maintaining political ties with leading Syrian Pan-Arab figures and organizing material and political support for the Syrian revolt of 1925.
The renovation of the mosques of aJ-Haram aJ-SAarlf in Jerusalem was crowned with celebrations on the Prophet's Birthday feast on 29 August 1928, with the participation of Emir(Abdallah of Transjordan and cAbd al-Hamid Sacïd, President of the YMMA in Egypt The Mufti's efforts to glorify and defend the Muslim shrines of Jerusalem underlined his tendency to imbue the struggle against Zionism with an overall Muslim religious coloring. These efforts, which were to intensify in scope and effectiveness in the aftermath of the riots, were equally significant because of their contribution to aggrandizing the Mufti's personal standing and cementing his relations with prominent Muslim as well as Arab nationalist leaders in the Arab world and beyond
The Impact of the Riots-the Arab Side
The violent Arab outburst of August 1929, interpreted retrospectively by its leaders as a national uprising against the governments "Zionist policy,"31 injected new vitality into the moribund Palestinian national movement. A series of British and international committees of inquiry continued for almost two years after the riots serving as incentive for renewed diplomatic efforts, intense political agitation, and mobilization of public opinion in Palestine and the neighboring countries. Public gatherings and protest rallies, fund-raising campaigns, the hanging of three Arab rioters by the government, the economic boycott against the Jews and continued anti-British agitation, all kept Arab public attention in a high state of alert, boosting national consciousness and political radicalism. A growing anti-Jewish sentiment was now more evident also within the rural population whose political standing became increasingly identified with the Mufti and the SMC.32
The Divisive Struggle for Leadership
The riots brought to the fore the struggle for political leadership within the Palestinian Arab community. The SMC assumed the leadership of the fund-raising campaign in Palestine and the neighboring countries for the benefit of Arab victims of the riots, outweighing the AEC which had been reeling under the effects of a protracted financial crisis.33 The SMC-AEC competition became all the more crucial in view of the perceived opportunity to effect a change in Britain's Palestine policy on the establishment of self-governing in stitutions in Palestine. The AEC resolved to cooperate with the Shaw Commission-appointed by Britain to inquire the causes for the riots-and sought to conduct direct negotiations with the British government, despite the militant atmosphere within the Arab-Pälestinian public The anticipation of a change in Britain's Mandatory policy apparently stemmed from the HC's discussions with Arab-Palestinian leaders following the riots. In his dispatches to London the HC repeated his proposal of June 1929 for establishing a LC, presenting it now as part of necessary profound revision of Britain's mandatory policy and commitment to the Jewish national home.34
Plans to send a delegation to London to discuss the prospective LC turned into a showdown over national leadership between Musa Kâzim, the AEC's aging leader, and his younger nephew and president of the SMC, al-Häj Amin. Indeed, an AEC-sponsored delegation aimed at negotiating the establishment of a LC was viewed as detrimental to the Mufti. Tfet the Mufti opted to support the idea while overtly claiming its lead for himself. Such a position would not only secure his control of the Palestinian delegation, but also set precedence of his national leadership, openly challenging Musa Kâzim al-Husainï. Having control over the bulk of funds raised following the riots, the Mufti was in a position to interfere in determining the composition and terms of reference of the delegation.
The prolonged power struggle within the Arab-Palestinian leadership aggravated the AEC's weakness and fragmentation and underlined the futility of diplomacy with Britain under such circumstances. Although ultimately compelled to give way to Musa Kâzim as the head of the delegation, the Mufti managed to have not only himself, but also two of his followers, included. Moreover, the delegation was not given authority to conclude an agreement with the British government.35
The late arrival of the delegation in London coincided with the publication of the Shaw Commission report in March 1930 which recommended, inter alia, measures for constitutional development in Palestine. Despite the Palestinian opposition's advice to avoid extreme demands, the delegation insisted on establishing a Palestinian national government and a representative legislative council under the Mandatory's supervision; Muslims, Jews and Christians were to be proportionally represented in both institutions Whether this position represented the radicals' pressure for "full independence" or misinterpretation of the British Government's position, the delegation's demands were immediately rejected by Prime Minister (PM) MacDonald The Palestinian leaders, however, scored an achievement in gaining the British Government's consent to suspend Jewish immigration until the end of another inquiry-by Sir John Hope Simpson-into the economic aspects of immigration and land sales. This time, unlike the 1921 visit to London, the Arab-Palestinian delegation refused to hold any meeting with Zionist leaders, explaining that "they did not recognize that any non-Palestinian Jew had anything to do with Palestine."36
White Paper and Black Paper
The suspension of Jewish immigration heralded a fundamental change in British Mandatory policy which was to culminate in Lord Passfields White Paper of October 1930. The new British policy imposed serious limitations on Jewish immigration and land sales, tacitly viewing the Jewish national home as a goal already achieved. This change in Britain's Palestine policy, shortlived as it was, was a foretaste of the growing awareness by the Mandatory decision-makers that Britain's dual obligation towards Jews and Arabs in Palestine would require more attention to the needs and wishes of the Arabs, and not just to those of the Jews.37
Ostensibly, the Arab-Palestinians' willingness to negotiate with the British government over the establishment of self- governing institutions demonstrated consistency in their policy. However, the growing militancy of the Palestinian public and within the AEC had compelled the delegation to London to present demands which were far from being negotiable-let alone acceptable-for Britain. Even though the Arab mission ended without agreement being reached, the delegation was subjected to sharp criticism upon its return home for the moderate posture it had adopted in London.38 The widening gap between the AEC's leadership and the radical nationalists, was now increasingly the main character trait of Arab-Palestinian politics.
This conflict was strikingly expressed in response to the October 1930 White Paper, the most favorable document of British Mandatory policy to the Arabs of Palestine to date, even though it promised no progress regarding constitutional development beyond establishing a LC. The AEC generally viewed favorably the new declaration of British policy as a harbinger of a possible radical turnabout in the British attitude toward the Jewish national home, and its leaders indicated now readiness to cooperate with the government.39
Yet, the White Paper offered the Palestinians too little in terms of their national aspirations to enable them to welcome it publicly. In his memoirs, the Mufti argued that the Palestinians had responded positively to the White Paper even though it did not meet their hopes.40 In fact, the Mufti's associates and his mouthpiece newspaper ai"Jamica ai-iirabiyya reviled both the White Paper and those who viewed it positively. The clash of attitudes within the AEC again emphasized the division between the Opposition and Musa Kâzim al-Husainî, on the one hand, and the Mufti and his militant SMC associates, on the other. Ultimately, the latter forced the inclusion of their misgivings into the AECs official response to the White Paper. The memorandum was couched in moderate language, but repeated the traditional Palestinian Arab national demands: namely, abolition of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, an end to Jewish immigration and land sales, and the establishment of a representative national government.41
In short order, the internal Palestinian debate over the White Paper became academic. On 14 February 1931, PM MacDonald's letter to Weizmann was published, effectively reversing the Passfield White Paper by removing from it the restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchase. The MacDonald Letter, which was the result of Zionist pressure brought to bear on the ruling Labor Party and on His Majesty's Government, aroused a wave of rage and bitterness in the Arab public against Britain and became known as the "Black Paper."
Pan-Islamization of the Conflict
In its "Declaration to the Noble Arab Nation," the AEC utterly rejected the PM's letter to Weizmann, concluding that the Arabs of Palestine should cease relying on Britain for ensuring their national and economic well-being and, instead, put their trust in the Arab and Muslim world.42 In the coming years, this declaration would turn into a set of new guidelines for the Arab-Palestinian national movement, representing a major change in its political tactics, namely, the Pan-Islamization and Pan-Arabization of the Palestine problem.
The MacDonald Letter was a blow to the AEC's pragmatic leadership which had since June 1928 adopted a policy of cooperation with the Government. Concomitantly, it contributed to radicalizing anti-British and nationalist sentiments, placing the AEC under growing pressure to refrain from cooperating with the Government as long as the MacDonald Letter was not rescinded. The call for non-cooperation was even applied on the Development Project for the welfare of landless Arabs stipulated in the Passfield White Paper. Supported by the Mufti's organ, this pressure practically paralyzed the AEC and expedited its disintegration.
Amin al-Husainî himself continued to manifest loyalty to the Government, a policy that turned out to be rewarding as far as his official position and authority were concerned.43 At the same time, he continued relentlessly his efforts to exploit fully the issue of defending Islamic holy places in the face of Jewish encroachment, turning it into an all-Islamic issue with ramifications beyond the local context. Tb this end he endeavored to bring non-Palestinian Muslims from various Arab countries, as well as the head of the Indian Caliphate Committee, to testify before the commission of inquiry set up by the League of Nations to examine the issue of Jewish and Muslim rights at the Wailing Wall.44 The Mufti's connections with Arab-nationalist and Muslim-religious networks abroad, established throughout the 1920s, stood as the backdrop to yet another endeavor of the Mufti: the General Islamic Congress eventually held in Jerusalem in December 1931.
Arguably, the Islamic Congress in Jerusalem was a response to both the MacDonald Letter and the June 1931 report of the Western Wall commission of inquiry.45 The latter had affirmed Muslim sovereignty at the site, but had permitted Jews to bring an Ark of the Covenant and other appurtenances there on holy days, a compromise the Mufti and his SMC opted to reject. While these two events contributed to the urgency and relevance of such a gathering, the idea of convening such a conference was born earlier, in January 1931, with the burial of Muhammad (AlI, the Indian Muslim leader, at the Haram ai-SAarlf in Jerusalem.46
The Islamic congress in Jerusalem represented an "accidental convergence of interests, though not of identical political convictions" of its two main exponents; the Mufti, and the Indian Caliphate Committee.47 The Congress was, above all, a culmination of the Muftis ongoing efforts to call on the Muslim world for support of the Arab Palestinian national cause against Zionism and the British Mandate and to promote his own prestige and political leadership. With the participation of Muslim delegations from 22 countries, including India, Iran, Yugoslavia and the USSR, the Congress represented the most spectacular achievement of al-Häj Amin, the chairman and moving spirit of the gathering.
Contrary to the Mufti's intention, no official representatives attended the meeting, with the exception of Yemen's delegates. A more serious blow to the Congress was the bitter conflict it triggered within the Arab-Palestinian lead ership itself, following the traditional SMC-Opposition lines. It was the Mufti's insistence on keeping his critics from exercising any influence over the Congress that brought about its boycott by the Opposition and the holding of a separate conference at the same time. The internal Palestinian dispute over shadowed the Congress and was not overlooked by its participants, arousing dissatisfaction among leading delegates at the authoritarian manner in which the Mufti directed the Congress and his intransigence towards his Arab-Pal estinian counterparts.48
Nonetheless, and although the Congress eventually failed to implement its concrete resolutions, particularly the establishment of an Islamic university in Jerusalem, it was an impressive gathering of leading Islamic and Arab nationalist figures of high reputation in their own countries and beyond.49 It is this personal composition and the mixture of Islam and politics that-inspite of the Government's effort to restrict the discussions to the religious aspect-turned the Congress into a demonstration of concern with political problems of the Muslims everywhere, with a strong anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist flavor. The Congress set the basic parameters of the Arab-Muslim world's commitment towards the Palestine conflict, namely, a strict boycott of Jewish products in all the Muslim countries; financial aid for purchasing and exploiting land in Palestine; and a protest against the Wall Commission's report and the Mandate's policy. In this context the Islamic Congress in Jerusalem can be interpreted as an attempt to balance the Zionist movement's all-Jewish backing by establishing an all-Islamic front to provide financial and political support for the Palestinians.50
Through its permanent secretariat (which remained active until 1935) headed by the Mufti, the Congress provided for the establishment of new networks of nationalist and Islamic leaders from Palestine and Arab-Muslim world. These networks were to play a crucial role in deepening the commitment of Islamic communities and organizations to the Palestinian Arabs' cause. In the coming years this commitment-a result of mixed religious, cultural, and political motives-would assume growing manifestations of attachment to the Palestine cause among Arab Muslim societies. This, along with intensifying criticism of Britain for its Palestine policy, was to turn the Palestine question from a local to a regional and Pan-Islamic problem for the imperial power itself.51
An indirect result of the Islamic Congress was a meeting convened in Jerusalem by some of its delegates-Arab nationalist activists from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries. The meeting resulted in formulating "The Pan-Arab fgawmfj Charter" and decided to convene a Pan-Arab national con ference to promote the idea of Arab unity.52 The Palestine issue was not explicitly referred to in the group's charter, nor in fact did the proposed conference come to fruition. Nonetheless, it can be safely assumed that the central role played by Palestinian figures on the preparatory committee, and the contacts they held in the coming two years with public and official bodies in the Arab countries, including Egypt, helped imbue nationalist circles in those countries with a heightened awareness of the national struggle of the Arab-Palestinians. Their solidarity with the Palestinian cause would later find its most striking expression in the period of the Palestinian Arab Revolt.
In retrospect, the Arab nationalist meeting in Jerusalem indicated the emergence of a more conscious Pan-Arab and Palestinian secular nationalism that supplemented and reinforced the movement's previous orientation to ward Pan-Islam. This change led to the intensification of political radicalism and introduced more non-religious issues and symbols into Palestinian nationalist politics.
Political Radicalization
Jewish immigration, and particularly land sales, came in the early 1930s to the top of the political agenda in Arab Palestine, encroaching upon the constitutional issue which would regain its priority by 1935. As immigration was entirely determined by the Government, most of the political energy of the Arab-Palestinians was focused on efforts to prevent land sales to Jews, which had, since the end of the 1920s, taken a new pattern of far-reaching socio-economic repercussions. Until then most land purchases involved large areas whose landlords were in many cases non-Palestinians or non-residents. As of the early 1930s, the land problem reached a crucial point as a result of several consecutive years of drought that impoverished small Arab landowners and forced them to sell their land at a time when the Jewish institutions had more funds for land purchases. The result was more sales of small plots on which relatively large number of landowners had been dependent.53
The growing concern about dispossessed and displaced Arab landowners and peasants, the growing migration of penniless Arabs to the coastal cities, and legal disputes over land transactions, all gained vast publicity and led to an active political response by the Palestinian national organizations. The SMC led the campaign against land sales to Jews, using Islamic norms, values and institutional means to effect its policy in conjunction with the Wailing Wall dispute. The late 1929 public gatherings concerning the Wall took an oath to protect Arab lands and to keep them in Arab hands. In January 1931, the AEC requested the government to ban the transfer of Arab lands to Jews.54
The land issue was also on the agenda of the General Islamic Congress which resolved to establish an agricultural association to purchase and exploit lands in Palestine, ifet lack of funds prevented a meaningful implementation of this attempt to follow the Zionist example of the Jewish National Fund. Nonetheless, in the years 1932-33 the "National Fund" fSundüg aiUmmä), initially established as a national fund-raising institution became a company for redeeming Arab land from being sold to Jews, in collaboration with the "Arab Bank" (established in 1930). In the absence of adequate financial resources, however, the activity of these primary national financial institutions was doomed to remain limited in scope and short-lived. In 1934 the SMC made a few attempts to purchase lands in order to prevent their sale to Jews, but here too the task was much beyond its financial capabilities.
Practically, it left the Mufti mainly with his religious authority as a means of placing collective moral and social pressure on Arabs involved in land sales to Jews. The sale of land to Jews became tantamount to a high treason against Islam and the homeland. Among other means enlisted by the Mufti to support his campaign was a fatwâ (learned Islamic opinion) forbidding land sales to Jews submitted by himself as well as by leading 'uiamä' (religious scholars) from the neighboring countries, among them Shaikh Rashïd Rida, a famous Lebanese 'alim residing in Egypt. This effort reached its peak in a religious congress convened by the Mufti in January 1935 which called the 'uiamä' in other Muslim countries to use their religious authority for defining those who sold their land to Jews as infidels who were forsaking Islam.55
Political radicalization among Arab-Palestinians, caused by deep frustration over British policy and the growth of Jewish immigration and land purchases, brought the AEC under growing pressures to adopt more militant policy towards the Mandatory government. This trend stood at the backdrop of the emergence of new militant political organizations, most prominent of which were the Youth Congress and the Istigiäi party founded in 1932.56
The Istigiäi party and the Youth Congress represented a new brand of political organization in Arab Palestine, with no inclination to either of the traditional political factions or leaders. Many of their members, who were from Nablus, posed a challenge to the Jerusalem-based old leadership by advocating political activism, namely, escalating actions of protest, boycotting of the Government, initiating demonstrations and even military preparations. Both groups were radically Pan-Arab nationalist, who insisted on claiming no less than independence for Palestine within Arab unity as a basis for cooperation with the Government.57
The Istigiäi party contributed more than any other group to the process of political radicalization of the Palestinian Arab public throughout the 1930s. Promoting the perception that only the support of the Arab world could help the Palestinians contain the Jewish enterprise, it served to consolidate Pan-Arab sentiment among the younger generation. Ibrtraying Britain as the true enemy of the Arab people, and Zionism as organically linked to British imperialism, helped spread the conviction that liberation from Britain was essential to rid the Arabs of the Zionist threat. The party called on the Arabs to fight Britain and urged a policy of non-cooperation with the government, at a time when the Mufti continued to appear as tacitly cooperating with the Mandate. Through intensive use of the written media, the Istigiäi delegitimized public figures on the grounds of inadequate patriotism, establishing itself as the standard bearer of national values. It succeeded in forcing Arab figures to resign from governmental consultative committees, the sole framework in which Arab- Jewish official cooperation existed It also took the lead in the Arab-wide campaign against land sales to Jews and Jewish settlement in Transjordan.58
The growing pressure to take a more militant line against the Government dragged the enfeebled AEC, forcing it to lead the violent demonstrations of October 1933 which, this time, were directed against the British, with a clear aim of triggering a full-blown confrontation.59 Political radicalization of the young and growing calls for active resistance soon led to the formation of clandestine societies bent on waging JiAäd (holy war) against both the British and the Yishuv in order to preserve the country's Arab and Islamic character, most prominent of which was IkAwän ai-Qassam. With the exception of ai-ßAäd ai-Mugaddas ("the Sacred Holy War")-a Jerusalem-based clandestine group founded in 1933 by cAbd al-Qadir al-Husainî (Musa Kazims son), which came under the patronage of the Mufti a year later-armed groups maintained no subordination to, or coordination with, the national leadership of notables, reflecting the growing political gap between the latter and grass-root radical groups.60
Regionalization of the Conflict
The 1929 riots can be considered as the starting point for the development of institutional Arab interest and, later, involvement, with the Palestine question. The religious facet of the event was instrumental in heightening the significance ascribed to the Palestine issue in the Arab and Muslim countries. Public interest stemming from an Islamic-Arab sense of solidarity with the Palestine cause came to play a growing political role as a rallying force and a source of legitimacy. Soon politicians on both domestic and regional levels were to make intensive use of this interest. Arab involvement in the Palestine question would assume an official and collective character during the 1936-39 Arab revolt, growing ever stronger through the 1948 War.
The riots generated wide reverberations in the neighboring Arab Muslim countries, as witnessed in a greater response than in the past to requests for financial aid for Arab casualties. In Egypt, Islamic movements such as the YMMA collected money for Arab victims of the riots and encouraged solidarity with the cause of the Palestinian Arabs, exploiting it to strengthen their domestic influence. In the following years these Islamic societies, particularly allkAwän alMusiimün (the Muslim Brethren) forged stronger links with al-Häj Amin al-Husainï. These ties would turn into close cooperation during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, in which the Muslim Brethren, more than any other political group, were responsible for placing the Palestine question high on the public and official agenda in Egypt, hence also for Egypt's increasing involvement in the inter-Ar ab arena.61
In Syria, several commercial strikes and public demonstrations were or ganized in some cities in solidarity with the Palestinian Arab cause.62 In Iraq, the rising tension in Palestine served as a rallying theme in the campaign of anti-British nationalist opposition already before the riots. Interwoven in the Iraqi elite's Pan-Arab doctrine, the interest in the cause of Palestine was boosted by the riots and manifestations of Iraqi public solidarity with the Palestinian Arabs. This led to the first Arab official involvement in the Palestine question. In December 1929 King Faisal submitted to the British government his program for unity of the Fertile Crescent under his throne which was said to contain the Palestine problem and advance his aspirations for Pan-Arab leadership by winning British support. Faisal's program offered to divest Britain of its role in the Palestine quandary, allay Palestinian fears at the prospect of a Jewish majority emerging in Palestine, and enable continued Jewish immigration in small numbers based on a narrow interpretation of the Balfour Declaration (the Jews were to remain a permanent minority in Palestine).63
Despite its rejection by Palestinian nationalists and British officials, both Faisal and his successors in Iraq continued to espouse this plan till the mid-1940s. A similar program, yet competitive, had been put forward by Emir ^ Abdallah of Transjordan based on unity of Greater Syria. During the 1929 crisis the Emir had been actively involved in correspondence with the Mandate government and public gatherings over the Wall issue.64
Manifestly, the radicalization process fomented among the Palestine Arabs following the riots, was closely accompanied by a tightening of recipro cal relations between Arab-Palestinians, and the neighboring Arab-Muslim societies. This tendency intensified in the coming years by the continued stalemate on the issue of establishing representative institutions, and the rapid growth of the Yishuv, particularly in the years 1932-36-in which it swelled from 250,000 to 400,000, or, a third of the total population. The looming Italian threat to British hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, and the new stirring of a violent national struggle for independence in Egypt and Syria in late 1935 and early 1936, all formed the background to the outbreak of the Arab-Palestinian strike and revolt in April 1936, marking a new and more intense stage in the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine and its regional implications.
The Impact of the Riots-the Zionist Side
The August 1929 riots shook the Jewish community in Palestine and world Jewry as had no other event since the onset of the Zionist enterprise. About 60% of the Jewish settlements in the country were attacked and suffered losses in human life or property. Communities of both the "old" (i. e, pre-1882) Yishuv and the "new" (post-1882) Zionist Yishuv came under attack. Ten settlements were evacuated or temporarily abandoned, some were completely razed; others were partially destroyed and looted. Two ancient Jewish communities were devastated: in Hebron the oldest Jewish community in Palestine was virtually annihilated within two hours and 66 of its members massacred; and in the north 20 inhabitants of the venerable Safad community were murdered65
In the mixed towns Jews fled from their neighborhoods until the storm would subside. Jewish pockets in Arab quarters of Jaffa and Jerusalem as well as buds of Jewish settlement in the Arab towns of Gaza, Bïr al-Sabic, Jinin, Ramla, Tulkarm, Beisan, Nablus and Acre, were abandoned, never to be resettled. Thus, with the exception of Jerusalem, the mountainous area from Jinin to Bïr al-Sabic was cleared of Jews.
For a whole week the Yishuv, appalled at the small number and general unreadiness of the government forces that were supposed to defend it,66 had lived in the grip of unprecedented tension and dread. The Government's orders shutting down newspapers and cutting off telephone and telegraph links while the riots lasted, heightened these feelings creating a sense of siege. The situation was aggravated further by the absence from the country of HC Sir John Chancellor, and of the senior members of the ZE, in Zurich to attend the Zionist Congress which had opened shortly before the outbreak of the riots. Furthermore, the shock and consternation among Jews in Palestine and else where were all the greater because the riots followed a lengthy period of quiet- since the previous round of riots in 1921. Indeed, if ever the Zionist presence in Palestine was in genuine danger of physical eradication, it was in that grim week of August 1929.67
The magnitude of frustration and depression the riots caused among world Jewry should be understood against the background of the euphoric expectations for the Zionist enterprise aroused by the establishment of the enlarged JA on the eve of the riots. The significance of world Jewish solidarity with the Yishuv and the victims of the riots received its full expression in the fund-raising campaign among American and European Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists alike. This campaign succeeded in collecting about $3 million, most of which was submitted to the Vacad Leumi (the Yishuv's National Council) for public needs, immediate relief and rehabilitation of individuals and settlements, fert of the funds was allotted to security and the building of new settlements.68
Defense and Settlement Lessons
A major result of the 1929 events which proved to be of a lasting significance in the Palestine conflict, was the Labor movements vigorous policy aimed at building a self-reliant defensive capability for the Yishuv. Such capability was not only conceived as essential for defending what had already existed, but primarily to create a sense of security that would encourage Jewish immigration and the transfer of capital to the Yishuv, the two essential conditions for achieving a Jewish majority in Palestine. It was Ben-Gurion's memorandum of October 1929, the "Fortification" fBitzaronJ plan, that set forth the central security tenets to be gleaned from the riots: expanded immigration, particularly of young people, increased mobilization of financial resources, land settlement, Hebrew labor in the Jewish economic sector, and upgrading the Yishuv's defensive capability69
In the following years these principles would become the linchpins of the security and settlement strategy of the Jewish national institutions. Accordingly the establishment of isolated settlements was precluded for security reasons. Instead, the policy of land purchases and the establishment of new settlements came to be guided by the principle of creating large homogeneous blocs of Jewish population which would ensure territorial continuity and facilitate a regional defense strategy For this reason it was decided not to rebuild on the ruins of the Hebron community, but rather establish the nearby Etzion Bloc of settlements. These decisions meant that settlement activity in the period from 1929-1936 was overwhelmingly concentrated along the coastal plain, with the aim of creating a continuous chain of settlements from Be^r Tuvia (east of Asqalan) in the south to Haifa in the north. The long-term effect was a considerable change in the Yishuv's map and reassertion of the segregation of Jew ish from non-Jewish areas. Moreover, it created the basis for the recommendations of the British Royal Commission in 1937 regarding the partition of Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state.70
The events of 1929 also had a lasting impact on the development of the Hagana-the main armed force of the Yishuv At the time of the riots the Hagana was a rather ramshackle organization, lacking a properly-functioning general headquarters, whose activity was directed almost exclusively by one-man authority, though officially subordinate to the Histadrüt Labor Federa tion. The guiding conception in the Yishuv until 1929 had been that responsibility for defense rested with the government; the role of the Hagana was at most to guard settlements until British reinforcements could arrive. Never theless, due to the scant presence of British security forces during the riots and their late arrival at the scene of trouble, Hagana personnel played crucial role in safeguarding life and property in the old city of Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa and in settlements where a nucleus of the organization existed. Thus, the scale of the massacres in Hebron and Safad was attributed to the fact that there had been no Hagana personnel in either city. Nonetheless, criticism was levelled at the Hagana for its manifest inadequacy and weakness, lack of horizontal coordination and poor intelligence. "The first commandment of the disturbances to the Yishuv and to Zionism/ Ben-Gurion said, lay in the "reinforcement and strengthening of the Hagana."11 This conclusion was broadly echoed in the Labor movement which in 1931 became the largest and the leading political party in the Zionist movement.
Clearly, then, the first order of business was to restructure the organization. The issue at stake was turning it into a national organization subordinate to the Yishuv's institutions. In the summer of 1930 the Va,{ad Leumi set up a central command composed of an equal number of representatives of the Histadrüt Labor Federation and the non-Socialist sector. It took another year, however, until an agreement was achieved by all sectors of the Yishuv, as well as the JA, over the formation of a Hagana central command based on the same principle of parity of representation between the Histadrüt and the non-Socialist sector. Finally, the Hagana was placed under national authority, which meant, inter aiia, expanded financial resources and a rapid growth of manpower.72 This arrangement would remain in force until the establishment of the state in 1948.
Though the Hagana's reorganization involved internal objections and crises at the high echelon's level, the main fallout was discerned in the political sphere. The Hagana's reorganization entailed a power struggle of various institutionalized sectors in the Yishuv, all of which had been eager to secure for themselves a standing in the central defence organization. It is against this backdrop that the growing political tension between the Labor and the Revisionist movements in the early 1930s led to the most serious crisis sustained by the Hagana during this period In 1931, a Jerusalem-based group of Hagana activists seceded and joined the Revisionist movement, to form later the nucleus of the National Military Organization flrgun ZvaiLeumiJ.
Social and Economic Separation
The revamped settlement and security policy, now directed by the Labor movement, had the effect of intensifying and entrenching trends toward segregation between the society and economy of the Jewish Yishuv and those of the Arab sector. Indeed, such segregation was one of the foundation stones of the Zionist enterprise and particularly of the Zionist-Labor movement, being perceived necessary for securing the needed infrastructure to absorb additional Jewish immigration and the development of a distinctive national society in Palestine. However, the events of 1929 were also crucial in expediting this trend socially, economically and politically Social and official meetings between Jewish elite figures and the Mufti came to an end. The refusal of the Arab delegation to London to continue political contacts with Zionist leaders became a guiding principle for decades to come, boycotting any official Arab-Zionist encounter, even though unofficial and secret contacts between the Zionist leadership and key Arab figures, including members of the Husaini faction, continued.73
The riots also sounded the death-knell for the small Arab-Palestinian workers' organization established in 1927 under Histadrüt's patronage, another indication of the total nature that the Arab-Jewish inter-communal dispute had assumed. Indeed, when Arab workers walked off the job temporarily in the Jewish citrus-fruit settlements in the wake of the riots, the Histadrüt tried, without much success, to take advantage of the walkout in order to strengthen and implement the principle of Jewish labor. The early 1930s saw the exacerbation of the struggle in this sphere, accompanied by growing nationalist polarization between Jewish and Arab workers.74
The Arab boycott imposed on the Yishuv economy in the wake of the riots was also important in spurring the process of segregation between the two communities in the economic sphere. Principally motivated by security considerations, Jewish merchants left the Old City and Arab sections of Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa and moved to predominantly Jewish neighborhoods of these cities, with a reverse phenomenon discernible on the Arab part.75
Moreover, the boycott and Arab objection to joint economic activity brought about a separation of the activities of citrus-fruit exporters, merchants and workers, in effect consolidating a structure of dual economy in Palestine with a growing gap between their local "national* gross product.76 Already in 1932, with 25% of the total population in Palestine, the Jewish community's share in the Government's revenues reached more than 37%-according to JA's estimates, 43%-upon which Zionist leaders capitalized in their claim for political parity in the envisioned LC.77
The Yishuv's rapid economic and demographic growth coincided with the transfer of Zionist leadership to the Labor movement for whom the Yishuv was the mainstay. As a result, by the mid-1930s, the center of gravity of Zion ist decision-making moved from the diaspora into Palestine, expediting the consolidation of the Yishuv as an institutionalized political community with a strong political center.78
Political Reassessment and Diplomacy
The manifestation of world Jewish solidarity with the Yishuv could not mask the divisions regarding the Zionist policy towards "the Arab question." In Zionist and non-Zionist circles the riots generated stock-taking and reap praisal of this matter which had been dormant during most of the 1920s. Criticism was levelled at the Zionist leadership for failing to forge relations of trust and peace with the Arabs, and missing opportunities to consolidate ties of friendship and cooperation in the period of relative quiet preceding the riots.
The ZE's main concern in the wake of the riots was their possible negative effect on British policy, as had been the case following the riots of 1921. It was feared that London might place restrictions on the continued development of the Jewish national home, or establish a legislative assembly based on proportional representation-according to the Arab position-whose consequences would be equally calamitous. Such fears were grounded in the immediate impact of the riots on British policymakers and willingness among dissident pacifist Zionists, such as the Hebrew University President, Judah L. Magnes, to accept a permanent minority status for the Jews in the country. Magnes' overtures towards Jewish-Arab negotiations won considerable support of prominent American and German Jewish leaders, mainly non-Zionists. Their pressure on Weizmann to adopt a new approach towards the Palestinian Arabs went, in some cases, as far as threatening to stop raising funds if such an action was not taken by the ZE.79
Led by Weizmann, the ZE refrained from criticizing the Government, convinced that it was still the key for any future development of the Yishuv This guideline remained valid even in the wake of the Passfield White Paper of October 1930, which led to Weizmann's resignation as the President of the WZO. Neither did the ZE attempt to enlist American pressure to be exerted on Britain.80 At the most, Zionist leaders levelled their criticism and misgivings at the Mandatory Government, demanding better security for Jewish settlements and expanded Jewish participation in the Palestine police.
The need to reduce potential Arab impact on Britain's Zionist policy led to both a tactically-modified definition of the Zionist aims and renewal of action in the Arab sector. The riots gave way to adoption of the non-domination principle entertained by leftist and liberal Zionists along the 1920s in conjunction with the ideas of political parity and bi-nationalism. In practice, this formula was meant to divide political power between Arabs and Jews regardless of their demographic relations. The principle of non-domination was primarily intended to prevent Arab domination over Jews.81 Inspired by David Ben-Gurions political thought in the immediate aftermath of the riots, this principle was embraced by his party MAPAI, the mainstream of the Labor movement, in 1931, and later that same year by the Zionist Congress.
By and large, this formula was viewed as instrumental in support of the Zionist claim for unlimited Jewish immigration, as long as the Jews constituted a minority.82 The underlying assumption of those advocating this formula was that when the Jews became a majority and the Mandate came to its end, the shape of the government would be determined by the proportion of population anyway. This formula, however, could not alleviate Palestinian Arab fears of becoming a minority in their country, particularly in view of the Yishuv's rapid growth in the early-mid-1930s and perceived prospect for reaching a Jewish majority. Thus, Ben-Gurion, the new head of the JAs political department since 1933, adopted a new formula of establishing a regional Pan-Arab federation with which the Jewish independent state would join to create a Middle East confederation. It is worth noting that this idea had never been approved by the ZE which viewed it as unrealistic and even dangerous to the Zionist goals.83
On the ground, the ZE and the Vaad Leumi together set up the " United Bureau" fHalisAica HameuAedetJ as an instrument of the ZE political department in Jerusalem, charged with action in the Arab sector. Its budget, following the model of the previous decade, covered payment of bribes and the publication of leaflets and propaganda material in Arabic, and a stepped-up intel ligence effort to monitor developments on the Arab side. Its immediate purpose was to influence the Shaw Commission through encouraging Arab peti tions expressing reservations about the riots and confidence in the benefits to be derived from Jewish-Arab cooperation, as well as Arab testimonies before the committee about their dissociation from the disturbances and the Palestinian leadership that had fomented them. It was also used to bring about an end to the Arab boycott. The United Bureau was an ad-hoc instrument which did not aspire to establish contacts or conduct political negotiations with prominent Arab leaders.84 By the end of 1930 it was dismantled and its functions were transferred to the political department of the JA.
As long as Britain was still inquiring into the causes of the riots and their implications on its Palestine policy, the ZE was united behind Weizmann in his objection to approaching the Arabs with any diplomatic initiative. Any signal of moderation, it was believed, would be tantamount to a "prize for the rioters" and, following the Shaw Commission's report and the Passfield White Paper, moderation would be construed as a sign of weakness on the Zionists' part. Thus \^izmann and the ZE denounced Magnes' interference in politics as harmful and counter-productive. This aggravated the ZE's differences with non-Zionist Jewish circles in the United States, but eventually the ZE's attitude prevailed. Even the advocates of immediate negotiations with the Arabs could not ignore the need to come to terms with Britain first if an Arab-Jewish understanding was to be effected. Nonetheless, at the end of March 1930, as a gesture of good will toward the Arabs, and under pressure of American non-Zionist Jews, the JA's administrative committee adopted the principle of non-domination in relations between the two communities in Palestine regardless of their relative weight in the total population.85
Neither the parity and non-domination ideas nor the non-Zionist American pressures for negotiations with Palestinian Arabs coalesced into a platform for political action until after the MacDonald Letter was published in February 1931. The lack of clarity which marked British policy in Palestine from the end of the riots to the announcement of the Passfield White Paper in October 1930 was hardly conducive to a Jewish-Arab meeting or to induce either side to take the initiative in that direction. Prior to the Shaw Commission report, the Arabs had sought to exploit the impact of the riots, dispatching a delegation to London and enlisting support from nationalist and Muslim circles in the neighboring countries. They perceived the Shaw Report as a political and moral victory, and took a largely favorable view of the White Paper as well. However, the anticipation of modification of British policy in their favor had no bearing on their attitude to a Jewish-Arab dialogue or the establishment of self-governing institutions. The MacDonald Letter put an end, for the time being, to any prospects of a Jewish-Arab or even an Anglo-Arab dialogue. Zionism's success in reversing the outcome of the White Paper left the Arabs embittered and in a position of political inferiority.
The MacDonald Letter was followed by a Zionist diplomatic effort, led by Chaim Weizmann with the Colonial Office's backing, aimed at reaching an understanding with the Palestinian Arab leadership. But even before Weizmann arrived in Palestine, Arab nationalist leaders resolved to boycott him as long as the "black" interpretation of the White Paper (i.e, the MacDonald Letter) held sway. The militant climate deterred those opposition figures who were favorably disposed toward meeting with Weizmann. Attempts to enlist the influence of the Indian Muslim leader Shawkat cAli to moderate the Mufti's stand proved unavailing.86
Nevertheless, the concept of parity in the self-governing institutions was adopted as part of the official platform of the Zionist movement at the 17th Zionist Congress, held in June 1931 at Basel. It was a victory for the pragmatic approach represented by the Weizmann-Labor alignment against the Revi sionists' demand to adopt a bold resolution defining Zionist goal as reaching Jewish majority in Palestine. In essence the labor movement differed with the Revisionists only in tactics namely, the best way to achieve that majority. The adoption of the Weizmann-Labor's pragmatic approach achieved its goal-paving the road for a close and substantial cooperation with the Labor-based British Government and new HC to Palestine on the principle of political parity in any future constitutional settlement in Palestine. The wide support for political parity and non-domination culminated in the Congress decision to charge the ZE with the task of taking vigorous measures in order to bring about peaceful relations between Jews and Arabs based on the principle of political parity87
The 17th Zionist Congress saw a political realignment within the Zionist leadership. Factional politics, the trauma of the riots and fluctuations of Britain's Palestine policy, all combined to weaken Weizmann's position. He was held responsible for the failure of Zionist policy and was ousted from office, the political achievement of the MacDonald Letter and the approval of the parity and non-domination formula notwithstanding. At the same time, the Labor movement became the largest faction within the Zionist movement. Now, under Chaim Arlozoroff's leadership as head of the JAs Political Department (1931-1933), an incipient change was discernible in the Arab policy of the ZE. A series of secret and informal meetings with politically influential Palestinian figures took place in an attempt to explore the possibility for an overall settlement of the conflict between the two parties on the basis of parity and non-domination, uninterrupted Jewish immigration and land purchases, though the Zionist goal of achieving a Jewish majority remained the guiding principle. The futility of the new diplomatic effort and consequent despair in view of the gathering difficulties impeding the Zionist enterprise echoed in Arlozoroff's far-reaching conclusion, expressed in a private letter to Weizmann in June 1932. lb secure a Jewish majority in Palestine, or even an equilibrium with the Arabs, Arlozoroff wrote, would require a Jewish revolutionary takeover of power in the country by force, allowing for mass immigration of Jews, as opposed to the current incremental growth of the Y/sAüv88 The Zionist effort to conduct a political dialogue with Palestinian-Arab leaders was given further significance with Ben-Gurions appointment as head of the JAs political department (following Arlozoroffs assassination in 1933). Beyond the discernible radicalization within the Palestinian Arab society, Ben Gurions diplomatic effort essentially reflected a sense of distress in view of possible unfavorable developments in Britain's Palestine policy. In addition to the Passfields White Paper which had remained a constant reminder of how precarious Britain's Zionist policy was, the HC's efforts, as of 1933, to enhance Arab participation in government committees, and consultations about the establishment of a LC, culminated in a renewed government initiative in this respect in late 1934.89
Ben Gurion was strongly motivated by the necessity to ensure uninterrupted Jewish immigration into Palestine in response to the plight of European Jewry following the Nazis' assumption of power in Germany in early 1933. The close cooperation between the JA and the Mandatory Government, and the growing wave of Jewish immigration notwithstanding, Ben-Gurion was attentive to the growing interaction between politics in Palestine and in Arab-Muslim neighboring countries as well as in India. He viewed this linkage with concern, assuming that it might oblige Britain to revise its Zionist policy according to the new compelling regional and imperial conditions.90
It should be stressed that, in spite of the political radicalization of the Arab population, the years 1933-1934 saw a greater readiness than in the past among the Palestinian leadership, including the Mufti, to agree to the creation of a LC. This stemmed partly from the surge in Jewish immigration from Europe, but mostly from the financial difficulties of the SMC and the threat to the Mufti's authority embodied by the HC's intention to hold elections to this institution and put the Islamic sAarica courts under its jurisdiction. Ideas were even put forward by Palestinian figures about demarcating the Jewish national home within a limited territorial framework (a canton) in which Jewish autonomy could be maintained along with free immigration.91
However, the Zionist insistence on parity effectively blocked the government's efforts to form a LC. Indeed, under the leadership of Zionist-Labor activists, for whom an on-going immigration and settlement were the very essence of Zionism, the Zionist movement was now more adamant than ever before not to render the fate of the Zionist enterprise conditional on the Palestinian-Arabs' agreement.
In 1934, impressed by the magnitude of Arab-Palestinian nationalism and the rising idea of Pan-Arab unity in the neighboring countries, Ben-Gurion adopted a new formula in his talks with Palestinian and Arab leaders. Though parity and non-domination remained the official platform of the Zionist movement's Arab policy, he replaced them by a claim for a Jewish state in the whole territory of Mandatory Palestine, including Transjordan which in fact represented the maximal Zionist program. Obviously, Ben Gurion was en couraged by the unprecedented wave of Jewish immigration and flow of financial and professional resources, particularly in the years 1933-36, dra matically enhancing the Yishuv's demographic and economic weight in the country. From 170,000 in 1929 the Jewish Yishuv grew to 400,000 in 1936, constituting about a third of the whole population in Palestine. Beginning in 1934, Ben Gurion initiated a series of meetings with recognized Palestinian Arab nationalist figures, and with the heads of the Pan-Arab Syrian-Palestinian delegation in Geneva in which he raised his ideas. In effect, it was a return to the model of Weizmann-Faisal agreement of 1919 namely, that any agreement between the two sides had to be based on mutual recognition of the aspirations of both nations--Jewish and Pan-Arab Ben-Gurion gave his enthusiastic assent to the idea of Pan-Arab unity and offered Zionist support for its realization though he underlined the Zionist insistence on continued alliance with Britain and the European cultural orientation of the Yishuv The quid pro guo he sought was an unhindered immigration and free settlement with the declared aim of creating a Jewish majority in Palestine.
Ben-Gurion's initiative produced the most wide-ranging political dialogue, albeit on an informal basis, held between the Zionist movement and spokesmen of the Arab-Palestinian national movement during the Mandate period The futility of these talks was demonstrated by the outbreak of the Arab general strike and revolt in April 1936 which brought Zionist diplomacy with Palestinian Arabs to an end, shifting the Zionist quest for political collaboration with Arab partners exclusively to the neighboring countries.92
Conclusions
The major impact of the 1929 events lay in the deepened political cleavages they engendered between the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine. The riots expedited the process of separation and segregation particularly in the context of geographic residence, security, and social and economic intercourse. The religious facet of the riots resulted in blurring the distinction between Jews and Zionists in Palestine, a pattern which in the coming years would expand to the Arab neighboring countries. Indeed, both the Zionist movement and its Arab-Palestinian rival could not but undertake the defense of its community's religio-national values, thus attributing to them a political character. Given the centrality and significance of religious values in the political culture of both communities, neither side was capable of isolating the Wailing Wall episode from the political context. In the new pattern of intercommunal relations, any disagreement between Arabs and Jews, even on day-to-day issues, invariably took on a political character and contributed to worsening the over-all conflict.
The separation process and inter-communal strife would be intensified in the course of the Arab revolt of 1936-1939 and become instrumental in validating the idea of partitioning the country between the two rival political communities, as proposed in the Peel Commission report issued in the summer of 1937.
The political and intellectual debate over Jewish-Arab relations sparked by the riots in the Zionist camp had no proven bearing whatsoever on the deteriorating conflict, yet they revealed the unbridgeable gulf between wishful thinking and reality. Zionist thought on the Arab question was always secondary to the political goal of creating the demographic and economic basis for a Jewish state in Palestine. "Yet this debate reflected a moral dilemma and need for self-assurance.
On both sides, the riots instigated a change of the guard Particularly in the Palestinian national movement, the raging struggle for leadership not only played a major role in agitating the riots, but also gave rise to the radicalization of the Palestinian community and the adoption of violent struggle. However, the Palestinian political center remained institutionally and politically weak, lacking the instruments of political action which was to be compensated for by expanding the Palestine problem to the Arab and Muslim world. The combination of these factors was to prove devastating once the violent confrontation with the British Mandate assumed a national scope.
In comparative perspective, the riots put in motion contradictory directions of political development in each of the disputed communities. On the Zionist side, a centrifugal trend was discerned, shifting the center of gravity from the diaspora to the Yishuv, along with its considerable demographic and economic growth, and most important, its political institutionalization and emergence as a political community. At the same time, the Arab Palestinian community experienced centripetal trends that weakened its collective internal capabilities and aggravated its dependency on the neighboring Arab countries. Indeed, if the riots were meant to inflict a death blow on the Yishuv, as many Jews at the time believed, they failed despite the relatively favorable and irrevocable conditions for realizing this aim.
Given the unbridgeable political gap between the two national movements, and their mutual dependence on the Mandate government, both gave priority to diplomatic efforts toward Britain in order to ensure its support. In this competition, the Zionist side had an advantage by virtue of Britain's commitment to the Jewish National Home by the Mandate Paper, but no less due to its institutionalized and resilient decision-making process.
Although the deepening strife underlined both communities' need for external support-world Jewry vis-à-vis the Arab Muslim world- the significance of that support for each side differed greatly. As noted the focal point of Zionist political consciousness shifted more from the diaspora to the Yishuv in Palestine where the local Zionist leadership consolidated its decision-making structure and organizational networks. This process was aided by Zionist ability to rely on British backing when necessary.
In contrast, Arab-Palestinian reliance on external support led to a weakening of internal political leadership. Ultimately this meant further fragmentation of the movement caused by socio-economic as well as political factors and encouraged by the recognition that there was no fundamental British commitment to Arab concerns. These rifts emerged most clearly in the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt which turned inward against fellow Arabs after failing to dislodge the British and the Zionists.
The failure of the revolt, coupled with al-Häj Amins flight into exile, left Arab-Palestinians with no recognized domestic leadership or political direction, in sharp contrast to developments occurring within the infinitely more cohesive Zionist organization. Arab reliance on the support and advice of external supporters and neighboring Arab leaders ultimately became a sustitute for Palestinian political authority rather than reinforcing that authority as occurred within the Yishuv.
Avraham Sela
Department of International Reiations
Hebrew University of Jerusaiem
Mt. Scopus, Jerusaiem
Notes:
1 The author would like to thank Charles D. Smith and Neil Caplan for comments on earlier drafts.
2 For a detailed record of the riots and their results, see Y. Slutzki et. al. (eds), Sefer To/dot Ifa-Hagana, vol. 2, pt. 1, p. 195, 313-340; Peport of tne Commission on tne Palestine disturbances of August J929, London, March 1930, Cmd. 3530, p. 63-66 (henceforth, Shaw Commission). Yosef Lang, "MeoraW Tarpat: Hafracot, Pra(ot, O Mered", Catnedra, 47 (March 1988), p. 136-137.
3 The toll at the end of the week-long riots stood at 133 Jews dead and 339 injured, while the Arab side sustained 116 dead and about 232 injured. For a comparison, the riots of April 1920 in Jerusalem resulted in 9 Jews dead and 211 injured; the riots of May 1921 resulted in 47 Jews dead, and 146 wounded, mainly in Jaffa and five rural colonies. Among the Arabs, 48 were dead and 73 injured, Paiestine Poyai Commission fieport, July 1937, London, 1937, p. 50-51.
4 The main relevant studies referred to are: Y. Fbrath. The Emergence of the Arab-Palestinian NationaJ'Movement 1918-J'929. Cass, London, 197?, and The Palestinmian Arab National Movement 1929-1939. Prom Pjots to Pebeii/on. Cass. London, 1977 A. M. Lesch, Arab Pohtjcs w Palestine 1917-1939, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1979. (Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyah. Tar/Ah Pilast/n al-Hadith, Beirut, 1970. K. M. Khila, Piiastin xval-intidabal-Bantani i922-1 939 Beirut, 1974 Y Taggar. The Muftj of Jerusalem and'Palestine Arab Politics 1939-1937 Gartiand Publications, London, 1986 T. Jbara, Palestinian Leaderfia/jAmin Al-rYussami Mufti of Jerusalem Kingston Press Princeton. 1985. ? Mattar, The Muftì of Jerusalem Columbia University Press. New York. 1988 U M Kupferschmidt, The Supreme Muslim Council islam under the British Mandate lor Palestine E J. Brill, Leiden, 1987 ? Mattar, "The Role of the Mufti of Jerusalem in the Political Struggle Over the Western Wall 1928-1929*. Middle Pastern Studies, Vol. 19(January 1983)1 M Kòlinski, "Premeditation in the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929?". Middle Eastern Studies Vol 26. (Jan 1990)1. Anita Shapira. Land and Power The Zionist Pesort to Porce 13S1-19JS Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992. Y Goldstein, "The 1929 Disturbances and their Impact on the Formulation of Zionist Positions Concerning the Palestine Problem*, Asian and African Studies 24 (1990) Neil Capia ?, Futile Diplomacy Volume One Early Arab-Zionist Negotiation Attempts 191 J-1931 Cass. London, 1983.
5 Caplan, Putile, I, p. 10-27. For the development of political thought in the Zionist movement towards the Arab question until 1917, see Y. Gorni, Zionism and the Arabs 1882-1948: A Study of Ideology Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987, p. 40-77. For the Arab viewpoint in the early stage of Zionist enterprize see Kayyali, p. 57-82. N. J. Nfendel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War University of California Press, Berkeley, p. 32-57.
6 Mandel, p. 186-188. E. Rubinstein, "Hakdama", in N. Bentwich and Michael Kisch, Brigadier Fredrick Kisch; Hayyal Ve-Zioni, Tel-Aviv, 1978, p. 27-28.
7 N. Caplan, "Maga(im cArviyim-Yehudiyim Be-Eretz-Israel Lechar Milhemet Ha(-Oiam Ha-Rishona," ffa-mizrah He-Iiadash, Vol. 27, (1977). p. 20-21. Gorni, p. 129-138.
8 Caplan, Putilef I, p. y77
9 Caplan, "Maga(im," p. 23. For an Arab perspective on the Zionist dividing policy, see Khila, p. 241-255.
10 Porath I, p. 239, 243-244. Taggar, p. 59. Royal Commission, p. 63-64. On the discussions over the creation of the enlarged JA, see: Y. Eilam, Ha-SoAhnut ha-Yehudit: Shanim Pishonot, 1919-1931 The Zionist Library, Jerusalem, 1990, p. 34-127.
11 Pörath I, 208-213.
12 M. cIzzat Darwaza, ffawlai-ffaraAaal-cArabi}yaal-Haditha, al-Maktaba al-(Asriyya, Saida, pt. 3, p. 52-53.
13 Ibid. Porath I, p. 230-240. Kupferscmidt, p. 66-71.
14 Jamal al-Husainî had approached Kalvariski, in charge of Arab affairs in the ZE, about an agreement on establishing a LC as early as 1924, see Caplan, Putile, I, p. 72-74. Khila, p. 273-277. Porath I, 244-245.
15 Darwaza, pt. 3, p. 57-59. Taggar, 58-60.
16 Porath I, p. 250. Khila, 277-278. The mediation involved contacts with Kalvariski, reaching an agreement over establishing a LC, rejected by the ZE, Caplan I, 76-77.
17 An Arab-Palestinian nationalist historian, portrayed it as the "weakest" of all previous congresses for its moderate resolutions, Darwaza, pt. 3, p. 59. Porath I, 254-257. Khila, 281-282.
18 The HCs proposal followed the model proposed seven years earlier, only now the new LC was more heavily weighted in favor of a coalition of government and Jewish representatives. Taggar, pp. 60-63. Ibrath I, 256-257, Kayyali, p. 235.
19 Taggar, p. 44-45. Jbara, p. 67.
20 Taggar, p. 55-57.
21 Porath I, p. 257.
22 Khila, p. 278-280. A. al-Shuqairi, Arbauna (Aam fi al-Hayat al-'Arabiyya wal-Dawliyya, Beirut, 1969, p. 65-69, 110.
23 On the Istigläl party, see, Y. Arnon-Ohana, "Mifleget al-Istiqlal-Reshito shel Radicalism Palestinai 1930-1937", Kathedra, vol. 12, (July 1979). Porath II, p. 118-127.
24 For a first hand and detailed testimony of the incident by the British officer involved see, D. V. Duff, Bailing with a Teaspoon, London, 1953, p. 169-174.
25 Mattar, "Role", p. 107. Gad Frumkin, DereAh Shofet Biyrushalayim, Tal Aviv, 1954, p. 276-279. I. A. Orenstein, Yoman ha-Kotelha-Maaravi, Jerusalem, 1968, p. 56 of the introduction.
26 For a record of these activities see, Slutzki, p. 305-307. Ibrath I, p. 267-268. Jbara, p. 82-85.
27 Khila, p. 287.
28 For an indictment of the Muftis role, see Chaim Arlozoroff, Jews, Arabs, and Great Britain, Winnipeg, 1930, p. 8, and Kolinski's article. This charge has been refuted by Palestinian historians: Mattar, "Role," p. 111-116; Khila, p. 291; Jbara, 86-87, offering evidence of the Mufti's calls to the Muslims for restraint and relating his agitation to his official responsibility to and genuine concern for the third holiest place in the Muslims world. Israeli Historians-Porath I, p. 266. Taggar, p. 69-maintain that the Mufti capitalized on the Wailing Wall issue to stir up Muslim religious sentiment in order to force a favorable British response to Arab grievances in the disputed Wall issue. Taggar adds that such action was also instrumental in defeating the Opposition and strengthening the Mufti's own position. Palestinian historians-Darwaza, pt. 3, p. 61-62; BayanN. al-Hout, Al-Qiyadät wal-Muassassât fiPiiastin, 1917-1948, Beirut, 1986, p. 230-231-maintain that the Mufti used the incident for reactivating the dormant Palestinian national movement ascribing to him "full historical responsibility* for the riots.
29 Kupferschmidt, p. 228-247. Forath I, p. 266. Porath II, p. 54.
30 Kupferschmidt, p. 129-133, 190-192. Jbara, p. 62-64, 69-79. Forath I, 261-265. Tkggar, p. 36. M. Kramer, Islam Assembled, The advent of the Muslim Congresses, Columbia University Press, New York, 1986, p. 82-122.
31 Porath I, p. 270. Ifelestinian historiography portrayed the riots as habba (outburst), Khila, p. 292; intifada (uprising), Kh. al-Budairi, Sitta wa-SittunacAaman Maa al-HaraAa al-Wataniyya al-Piiastiniyya wa-fiha, Jerusalem, 1982, p. 54-55; and thawra (revolt), Hout, p. 221.
32 Khila, p. 302-303. Hout, p. 222-228. Porath II, p. 54.
33 Amin al-Husainï, Hagäig An Qadiyyat Piiastin, Cairo, 1954, p. 172. Darwaza, pt. 3, p. 90. The fundraising harvest was 13-15,000 Pound, Shuqairi, p. 116; Porath II, p. 3, 13-19.
34 Kayyali, p. 248-249; I. al-Sifri, Piiastin al-Urabiyya Bayn al-Intidâb wal-Sahiuniyya, Jaffa, 1937, p. 136-137 Rsrath II, p. 22-23.
35 Taggar, p. 86-88. Ibrath II, p. 23-24.
36 Jamal al-Husainï, quoted in Caplan, Putile, I, p. 84-85.
37 Taggar, p. 104, 114-115. Lang, p. 140, 163.
38 Porath II, p. 26.
39 For the first time under the Mandate, the AEC refrained from calling for a general strike on the Balfour Declarations anniversary, Taggar, p. 117. Porath II, p. 31.
40 Husaini, p. 48. See also Shuqairi, p. 124. Emil al-Ghori, ai-Muamarâ al-Kubra, Cairo, 1955, p. 37
41 AEC Memorandum in A. Zufaytar, Wathaig 1918-1939, pp. 333-354 (docs. 167-8); cf. íbrathll, p. 30-32. Taggar, p. 116-120.
42 Porath II, p. 34. Khila, p. 319, observed the anouncement as a "tactical change" in the Palestinian national movement's history.
43 The Government refrained from reducing the Mufti's authorities by separating the Sharia Courts from the SMC, and from holding elections to the Council. On the contrary, the Government extended financial assistance to the SMC in view of its financial crisis, Porath II, 116-118. Jbara, 119-125.
44 See a witness' version, Muhammad (Ali cAluba, an Arab nationalist figure from Egypt, in his Piiastin wal-Damir ai-Insäni, Cairo, 1964, p. 37-41. Taggar, p. 152-153.
45 As was argued by H.A.R. Gibb "The Islamic Congress at Jerusalem in December 1931", in Survey of International Affairs 19S4, London, 1935, p. 100.
46 "Note on the Situation in Palestine", Police Report, 18 June, 1931, Public Pecord Office (PRO), CO733/204/87156/1. Taggar, p. 163. Kramer, p. 124-125.
47 Quoted from Kupferschmidt, p. 194. See also PRO, ibid.
48 Kramer, p. 133-134, 141. Kupfershcmidt, p. 211-212.
49 For details about leading participants, see Kramer, p. 133-137. Kupferschmidt, p. 204-214.
50 Taggar, p. 175. Jbara, p. 111-113. Kiipierschmidt, p. 196.
51 India Office to the Secretary of the Colonies, 20 March, 1934, attached a letter from a prominent Muslim Indian leader, 24 February 1934, PPO, C0733/251/37250. Letters from Imam Yahya of Yemen to King George V, 30 October 1934; and from Emir Abdallah of Transjordan, 25 July 1934, ibid. Taggar, p. 153.
52 Darwaza, pt. 3, p. 83-84. 302-303. Kayyali. p. 269-271.
53 K. W Stein, "The Jewish National Fund: Land Purchase Methods and Priorities, 1924-1939*. Middle Pastern Studies, vol. 20, (April 1984)2, p. 197-199. Borath II, p. 82-92. Jbara, 126-127.
54 Porath II, p. 91-92. Hout, p. 221, 225.
55 Zucaytar, p. 388-91 [doc.207]; Hout, p. 739-42 [doc. 18, 19]; Ibrath II, p. 86; Kupferschmidt, p. 220; Jbara, p. 131-136.
56 Police Reports, 3 September 1931, PPO, CO733/204/87156/1. Young to Thomas, with attached reports, 26 September 1931, PPO, F0371/15333. Ibrath II, p. 118-121. Arnon-Ohana, p. 102-106. Kayyali, p. 271-276. Khila, 302-317; D. Duff, Palestine Picture, London, 1936, p. 43-44, 66-68. 123-125; B. D. Wbinryb, "Socio-Economie Relations of Arabs and Jews in Palestine", Contemporary Jewish BecordiAugust 1944), p. 375-380. Interview between the Mufti and HC, 1 October 1932, PPO, C0733/219/97113. Lesch, p. 105-110.
57 Khila, p. 354-355.
58 M. C. Wilson, King Abdallah, Britain and the Maaking of Transjordan, Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 105-111. Porath II, 125-126. Kh. Qasimiyya, "Suria wal-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya" in H. Nashabe, Studia Palestina; Studies in Honour of Constantine ? ZurayA, Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut, 1988, p. 205-206. On the Istigiäi role in this respect, see C.LDJS Periodical Appreciation Summaries of 23 December 1932 -23 October 1933, PPO. F0371/16926.
59 C.I.D!s Periodical Appreciation Summaries, 7, 23 October 1933; 15 November 1933, PPO, F0371/16926. Kayyali, 280-283. See their effect on Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, Vol. 1, p. 683.
60 Porath II, p. 118-139. Kayyali, 252-254, 291-293.
61 A. Abd al-Rahman, Misr iva-Pilastm, Kuwait, 1980, p. 107-109. Israel Gershouni, "The Muslim Brothers and the Arab Revolt in Palestine 1936-39," Middle Pastern Studies, Vol. 22, (July 1986)3, p. 368-369.
62 S.H. Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon Under the Prench Mandate, London, 1958, p. 184-186. PS. Khoury, Syria and the Prench Mandate, Princeton 1987, p. 538.
63 T. Mushtaq, Awrâç Ayyaml, Dar al-Tatfa, Beirut, p. 188-192. Caplan, Putile, I, p. 83. For the text of Faisals document, see ibid, p. 221-224. On his Palestine policy, see Porath, In Search of Arab Unity, Cass, London, 1986, p. 4-22.
64 Abdallahs letters to the HC, July 2, and October 12, 1930, in Al-athar al-Kamila lil-MaliA iibdallah Bin al-Husain, al-Dar al-Muttahida lil-Nashr, Amman, 1979, p. 324-331. For his initiative of 1934, see N. Caplan, Putile Diplomacy, Volume 7\vo; Arab-Zionist Negotiations and the End of the Mandate, London, Cass, 1986, p. 13-14; Porath, In Search, p. 73-75.
65 See above, note 1.
66 The number of policemen in the whole country was 1500, of whom 171 British, Shaw Commission, p. 59-60. See also Duff, Bailing, p. 125, 166.
67 R. Yanacit et. al. (ed&), Ha-Hagana Biyrushalaim, cPduyot VeziAhronot Mippi Haverim, Jerusalem, 1973, p. 101. Ben-Gurion, Memoirs ibid, p. 370. Davar (daily, Tel-Aviv), September 2, 1929. Arlozoroff.yfcPK*; Arabs, p. 9-12.
68 Naomi Cohen, The Year After the Riots American Responses to the Palestine Crisis of 1929-1930, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1988. p. 63-67 Slutzki. p. 395-396.
69 Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, p. 363. 370-371. Sh. Teveth, Ben-Gurion Ve-Arriyei PreU-lsrael Tel-Aviv, 1985, p. 133-136, 146.
70 Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, ibid. p. 363. Teveth. p. 134-135. Y. Avidar. "MeoráOt 1929, Hashlakhot Mediniyot u-Bithoniot," MaaraAhot. no. 272 (February 1980). p. 42-47
71 Slutzki, p. 416. Teveth, ibid.
72 For the Hagana'sreorganization, see Slutzki, 416-434; I. Elam, Ha-Hagana: ha-DereAh ha-Tzionit Pi ha-Poah, Tel-Aviv, 1979, p. 45-66. M. RrU Min ha "Hagana" le-Tzva Hagana, Tel-Aviv, 1979, ch. 1-3.
73 Frumkin, p. 281. Caplan, Putile, I, p. 84-85. M. Assai, Hitorerut iirviyei Pretz-Israel u-Brihatam, Tel-Aviv, 1967, p. 95, 97.
74 A. Shapira, Ha-MaXvaA ha-MAhzav: Avoda Ivrit 1929-1939, Tel-Aviv, 1977, from p. 45 on. Assaf, p. 96.
75 Ibid, p. 96, 109, 181. Sifri, p. 138.
76 J. Metzer and O. Kaplan, MesheA Yehudi u-MesheA Arvi beBretz Israel, Totzar TaasuAa u-Tzmiha be-TitAuIat ha-Mandat, Jerusalem, 1990, p. 155-159.
77 Chaim Arlozoroff, Vornan Verushalaim, Tel Aviv, 1948, p. 212-215, 268.
78 M. LissakandD. Horowitz, Mi-Yishuvle-Medina, YehudeiPretz-Israelbe-TiAu/atha-Shilton ha-Briti Ae-Pehila Politit, Am Oved, Tel-Aviv, 1986, p. 62-64. See also some of Arlozoroff's insights regarding the changes in the Yishüv and its interrelation with the WZO in Palestine Bulletin, 10 March, 1932.
79 For Magnes' attitude, see A. A. Goren (ed. ) Dissenter in Zion, Prom the Writings of Judah L. Magnes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1982, p. 276-285. Caplan I, p. 87-91. Cohen, p. 72-76,138-139. N. Rose, Chaim Weizmann, A Biography, Viking, New York, 1986, p. 287. Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, ibid, p. 403-405.
80 Cohen, p. 62-63, 132-133, 141-142.
81 Arlozoroff, Yoman, p. 188.
82 Meeting of the ZE, October 14, 1936, Central Zionist Archive (Jerusalem), S/25, 1827.
83 Susan L. Hatis, The Bi-NationalIdea in Palestine During Mandatory Times, Haifa, 1970, p. 164. D. Ben-Gurion, My Talks with Arab Leaders, The Third Press, New York, 1973, p. 28. Meetings of the ZE, May 19, 20, 1936, Vol. 25, CZA.
84 Caplan, Putile, I, p. 96-98. Rubinstein, p. 36-37.
85 Caplan, Putile, I, p. 154-165.
86 Caplan, Putile, I, p. 104-106. Ibrath II, p. 35-36.
87 Rose, p. 288-291. Goldstein, p. 257-258. Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, ibid, p. 477-478. Caplan, Putile, I, p. 108. See also my "Sihot u-Magaim Bein Manhigim Zioniyim le-Vein Manhigim Arviyim-Falastiniyim, 1933-1939*, Ha-Mizrah He-Hadash, pt. I, vol. 22 (1972) pp. 401-432; pt. II, vol. 23, (1973), pp. 1-21.
88 Quoted in Ben Gurion, TalAs, p. 13.
89 Arlozoroff, Jews, Arabs, p. 42-43. Palestine Bulletin, March 10,1932. Correspondence between the HC, Sir A. Wauchope, and the Secretary of the Colonies, Sir P. Cunliffe-Lister, 23 March-27 October, 1932, PPO, CO733/219/97105/2. Ben-Gurion, Memoirs, ibid, p. 557-558.
90 See Ben-Gurion's letter to Weizmann, 26 October, 1933, ibid, p. 674, and also p. 684-686.
91 Porath II, p. 70; Hatis, p. 123-125.
92 Ben-Gurion, Talks, p. 14-20, 24-39, 42-103. Caplan, Putile, II, p. 5-8,189-196,199-202. Teveth, p. 221-265. See also my article, "Magacim.*