The Rumour Mill of Occupied Palestine
The Long Road to Jerusalem – Part 4; Mandates, Spies and Massacres
‘Intelligence is a Jewish virtue, intrigue is an Arab vice’ - Richard Meinertzhagen
Fictional writing is a selection of imaginary thoughts mixed with part reality, and part propaganda. Of it we should be eternally wary.
Nothing, is more valuable than the comparison of non-fictional accounts, first hand if at all possible, of what has gone before. The sources drawn from in this article are from a treasure trove of detailed accounts, diaries, reports and telegrams. They make for intriguing reading in their own right.
Things did not get easier for the Zionists, nor the Jewish Battalions, in Palestine after the end of World War One. In fact things got decidedly worse. The British military administration under Allenby were giving the Jewish Battalions a very cold shoulder, banning Jewish soldiers from entering Jerusalem and other cities from the spring of 1919, an even harder blow given it was Passover. Colonel F. M. Scott took the Jewish 40th Battalion to Rafah, which included a number of American Jewish soldiers. They were vocal in their discontent with being kept on the side lines and not being in the midst of the cities.
The Arabs, exercising their advantage of numbers to pressure the British Administration (four times the number of Jews), also petitioned to have Jewish soldiers removed from Haifa, the port city to the very north, bordering Lebanon, which was under French occupation.
It was only in the cities that a relatively small core of Arabs were starting to cause trouble (Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Butler et al, p.242). The Zionist Commission were powerless to challenge the decisions taken by the British, being told it was a military matter. It seemed the British were doing everything to appease the Arabs, seemingly also the French and doing nothing to forward the Zionist plan as laid out in the Balfour Declaration. To some Zionists it appeared that some British officers were actively working against it, including General Allenby.
The Zionist Commission recommended patience, in a similar way to their recommendation for inaction during the war, incase the German and Ottoman alliance won. Tensions amongst the troops rose even further when the order came for them to be shipped out to Egypt and Cyprus. The mass refusal, as Ze’ev Jabotinsky put it (Lone Wolf: A Biography of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinksy, Shmuel Katz, 1996, p.11348 iOS Kindle), also of a large number of American Jews, was the last straw. (n.b. The British were strategically keeping a number of Americans at arms length in Palestine including the Standard Oil Company representatives).
Scott, thinking on his feet, suggested that sending Jewish soldiers to fight against Egyptian Nationalists could well incite further anger in the Arabic population of Palestine. That gave the soldiers a temporary stay of execution. However, when Dr Eder visited, prior to becoming a member of the Zionist executive in Palestine, the two ringleaders of the refusal were away from camp. He then managed to persuade the battalion to go to Egypt for a short time.
The ringleaders were two men who had played a role in the defence of Jews both in Russia and in Palestine from before the First World War. Eliyahu Golomb had joined the Hashomer Militant group, founded in 1908, to be replaced by the Haganah Jewish military organisation which would be set up in 1920. He and Schmuel Yavnieli had been preparing with their fellow militants, for the insurrection against the Ottomans and creation of the Jewish State, only to find themselves hampered by the British occupation. Yavnieli had infiltrated the wealthy Jewish community in Yemen in 1910 under the messianic name Eliezer Ben Josef to recruit Yemini Jews to come to Palestine.
Commissions and Mandate
Having been under Ottoman rule for 600 years, a number of regions in the Middle East did not have established administrations who could step in and take the reins. They were vulnerable to attacks from aggressors, internal and external. In addition, the Ottomans had dissolved ancient borders, leaving highly disparate communities without formally recognised boundaries. They would need to negotiate nicely with their neighbours as to where these should lie. To achieve this, topography, natural resources, as well as the religious, cultural and social aspects of communities would need to be weighed up in the discussions. This would require patience and almost certainly mediation.
The Mandates, to be issued by the League of Nations under Article 22, were designed to provide caretaking administrations, preventing the ‘filling of the void’ by foreign aggressors, whilst internal administrations were developed. The regions in the Middle East earmarked for Mandates were Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Transjordan (now Jordan Valley and Jordan) and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Other regions included Togoland and Cameroon in West Africa, Rwanda, South West Africa, New Guinea, Samoa and the Japanese Pacific.
The Mandates were NOT a means to annexation of any of these territories under empires, commonwealths or other vehicles.
The President of the United States Wilson sent a commission of officials to the Middle East region to assess the situation between June 10th and July 21st 1919, as a part of the Paris Peace Conference. They would produce what became known as the King Crane Commission Report which you can read here. Published on August 28th 1919 it summarises a detailed survey of thousands of petitions submitted by, and face to face interviews with, the representatives of the different communities and organisations living within the five regions. Turkey was included in the report, as a mandate was also being considered there.
The purpose was to establish what the predominant wishes of the communities were, what country they would like mandated to them to act as interim administrators, and what their overarching requirements and red lines were going forward. The exercise also established what grievances there were, and the results were surprising.
Grievances about the French, who were occupying Syria and Lebanon whilst awaiting the Mandates, were submitted in great numbers. The French were accused of being heavy handed and even preventing local groups from submitting their petitions to the Commission. There were only 3 petitions against the British and 35 against the Arabs. Of course these grievances were totally eclipsed by those submitted against the Zionist plan, which totaled 1350. The overarching feeling, of which there may not have been concrete proof, was that France didn’t want to leave Syria and Britain didn’t want to leave Palestine.
Both nations had a habit historically of annexing their conquests, and the mandates working towards own independent rule, might not have seemed, at the time, assurance enough of the occupying forces intentions. In other words, the Arabs would believe the British and French would leave when they saw them leave.
The report gives a glimpse in to the difficulties each region would face in the coming years, in establishing coherence among what had always traditionally been divided communities of the Middle East. The different regions seemed to want different borders, different choice of mandated countries, choice of national leader and so forth. They were united however, in their wish for independence and their disapproval of the Zionist Plan.
Agents of Propaganda
The Commission report noted that many of the petitions coming from Arabic groups seemed to be drafted with repetition of key phrases and themes, which seemed organised with a strong tone of propaganda. They also noted that the same Arabic agent in Palestine had been seen helping groups in four different cities to draft their petitions. It was clear that one of more so far unknown parties had interests in the outcome of the petitioning, though the Commission report was advisory only.
Agents could have been acting on behalf of Hussein and his sons, Ibn Saud, the King of Saudi Arabia, the French, the British, the Germans, the Bolsheviks or the Americans. The debate encompassed all of the Mandated areas, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and even further afield.
Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, who had been transferred to Deir el-Belah, Gaza in 1918, noted in his diaries that Emir Feisal, the son of Hussein, who had staged the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans on behalf of the British, was a proponent of the Damascus Plan, as identified in the King Crane Commission Report. He was engaged with anti-French propaganda given that he wanted rule over Syria without any interference. (p.21 Richard Meinertzhagen Middle East Diaries) The French counter complained, also about the British assistance to Feisal. Of course Feisal’s father Hussein, being on a rather generous monthly stipend of £200,000, knew better than to bad mouth the source of this income. The French eventually drove Emir Feisal out of Damascus when he proclaimed to be the independent ruler of Syria, appearing to have gathered forces to support him in this claim.
Surprisingly, given the reported poor treatment of the Jews by Jabotinsky, the low number of grievances brought against British may indicate that the situation was being handled as tentatively as possible by the Zionists, so as not to upset any of the interested parties. The Zionist Commission’s may have actively withheld grievances against the British in the hope that the Mandate would sort everything out.
In a letter from Mr Herbert Samuel to Earl Curzon, April 2 1920, p. 242, (Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Butler et al.) Samuel notes that there are two opposing factions of Arabs in Palestine, the Effendi and the Fellaheen. The Effendi were of the mind that they would acquire greater political influence under their own leader, than they would under the British. This may have been driving some of the anti-Zionist sentiment in the cities, as of course officially Britain was deemed responsible for the Zionist influx, even though the movement of Jews from Europe had started in the 1880’s. Outside of the cities was another picture entirely. Samuel reported that Sheikhs from the rural areas and outlying villages had come to him to tell him how well the Jews and Arabs were getting on. The Arabs recognised they were greatly benefiting from the industriousness of their new neighbours, both financially and materially. Outside of the politically charged atmosphere of the cities, everything was ticking along just nicely.
St John Philby - Arabist
Further to the east, Abdullah, Feisal’s brother, had been given leadership of the Transjordan, which in the eyes of another influential British figure, St John Philby (father of Kim Philby, of the Cambridge Five spy ring), was a mistake. St John Philby started out as a member of the British Civil Service, and came via Lahore, Iraq (Mesopotamia) to Palestine and then to Saudi Arabia, converting to Islam on the 7th July, 1930. Findings on Philby were carefully documented in ‘H St John Philby, Ibn Saud and Palestine’, Jerald L Thompson, United States Military Academy 1971, some of which is summarised in this article. He worked primarily in governmental financial administration but became secretary to Percy Cox, the head of British Enemy Occupied Territories. He was also an accomplished linguist.
In November 1921 he became the head of the Secret Service for Mandatory Palestine, which drew him in to the discussions with Meinertzhagen, who described Philby as part of a ‘crazy band of Arabphils’. The other members of the Arabphil group according to Meinertzhagen were Storrs, Spears, Newcombe and Glubb, all British Military. T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) would later be added to this group (p.246, JL Thompson, 1971). Military Governor Colonel Ronald Storrs was noted by Jabotinsky as having appointed a majority of Arabs to the Jaffa Council at the expense of the Jews (Lone Wolf: A Biography of Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinksy, Shmuel Katz, 1996, p.9544, iOS Kindle).
During the First World War, Percy Cox had sent Philby to speak with King Abdulaziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, as he was allowing smuggling of weapons to the Turks through Kuwait. Ibn Saud worked with the extremist religious Wahhabi Sunni Islam group and the Ikhwan militia to establish his kingdom, and was making moves to expand it. Ibn Saud was deemed to be level headed and honest by those who had dealings with him. Philby seemed to attach himself to Ibn Saud over subsequent years without a clear reason or official mandate. He even spoke about Ibn Saud publicly with others, wrote about what he thought he should do and gave himself the air of being an advisor and legitimate spokesperson of the King. This did not go down well either with the King, his court or the British. As Philby had good business contacts with large American corporations like the Standard Oil Company and Ford, together with European companies like Marconi, bringing financial benefit to Ibn Saud and Saudi Arabia, he was tolerated.
Philby strongly promoted the idea that Ibn Saud should rule over Transjordan and Palestine as a whole, and that Ibn Saud should reject the British Mandate. This was a bold idea, and one of many plans for Ibn Saud that Philby seemed to magic from thin air. He also suggested open immigration to Palestine, regulated by a arab/jewish committee overseen by the League of Nations and freedom of religion and culture. As a means of giving Palestine and the Transjordan populations the idea that they had a hand in the decision making, a vote would be held on Abdullah’s fitness to rule the Transjordan.
It is possible, given the ties Ibn Saud was establishing with the United States, that Philby brought this idea to the table on behalf of them, particularly with regard to oil rights that were yet to be acquired in Palestine and Transjordan. It transpired that, even though Ibn Saud was at odds with Hussein and his sons, and would have likely celebrated their removal from the Transjordan and Syrian arenas, he was not at all keen on the idea. This scheme of Philby’s became known as the Philby Plan.
Richard Meinertzhagen - an enigma
Richard Meinertzhagen was unable to bring about a change in the general perception of the Zionist plan, amongst the British or the Arabs. Meinertzhagen was not only a Colonel in the British Army but it was also thought that he was an intelligence officer, who had claimed to be responsible for the Haversack Ruse. Meinertzhagen has since become a controversial figure not least because his ornithological claims of having found a new bird species, were debunked. The bird in question having been reportedly stolen from the Natural History museum.
He was the son of a Financier, Daniel Meinertzhagen, who worked for his family’s bank, Friederick Huth & Co, second to importance to the Rothschild Bank. He was dispatched early in his career to Bremen, Germany, his ancestral home, and Cologne to learn the banking ropes and German language. His wife was killed in a shooting accident at their remote home in Scotland in 1928, which was scrutinised by author Brian Garfield in his book ‘The Meinertzhagen Mystery’ (2007). Meinertzhagen apparently started out as an anti-semite, but on a chance meeting with Aaron Aaronsohn, who worked with the British as head of the Zionist spy network NILI (Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker), was so convinced by his explanation of the Zionist plan that he changed his mind. A decidedly weak argument. He was probably the only Britain in Palestine, on his appointment in 1918, who did fully and openly support the Zionist plan, and that stood out like a sore thumb.
Lawrence and Meinertzhagen spent a number of years from 1921 till 1924 in the colonial office then later until Lawrence’s untimely death, as he flew from a motorbike in to a hedge, in 1935 discussing a plan to radically reorganise the whole of British Government. They hatched a secret plan to join the foreign office, war office, air ministry, Scotland Yard, political houses and intelligence services all together as a unified body with training facilities in London and in the countryside. Just as they were about to ask for funding Lawrence had his fatal accident and the plan was shelved permanently.
Meinertzhagen had written in his diaries about three meetings with Adolf Hitler which, according to diary dates and analysis by Garfield, showed Hilter was not in Berlin for at least two of these supposed meetings. Meinertzhagen’s Middle East Diaries however are not too specific about dates. One of the accounts (p. 387) which included Ribbentrop, in the Autumn of 1934, seems convincing enough. Meinertzhagen had taken it upon himself to try and persuade Hitler to join the western allies against the growing threat of the more authoritarian Soviet Russia under Josef Stalin. If the meetings were indeed genuine, it seemed that Meinertzhagen was not party to the tendency of the Soviets and Germans to agree secret accords before and during war time. Later Ribbentrop would meet with his Russian counterpart Molotov, before the start of World War II to discuss terms of non-aggression between the two countries.
It was also rumoured that Himmler had met his Soviet counterpart prior to the Great Purge of 1937, otherwise known as the Great Terror. He is said to have provided a list of Generals and other high ranking officials in the Soviet administration who could not be trusted to act in the interests of both the Soviet Union and Germany in the event of war. These officials were purged along with supposed ‘fifth column’ groups and minorities. The agreement between Himmler and the Soviets remains however undocumented in this and other works ‘The Red Army and the Great Terror : Stalin's purge of the Soviet military’ by Peter Whitewood, 2015. It is possible that Himmler was appealing to Stalin’s need for 100% loyalty, anticipating the heavy treatment of those who went against him. Alternatively it could have been to weaken Stalin’s army enough that a War involving the Soviet Union would be short lived, or indeed that Germany and the Soviet Union had, as suggested by the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, each others interests at heart, and did not want spies in the ranks.
It is notable that Meinertzhagen was clearly comfortable liaising at a high level with all manner of officials, many of them German. General von Lettow-Vorbeck is mentioned in John Lord’s ‘Duty Honor, Empire: the life and times of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen (1970)’, as having visited the Meinertzhagen home (p. 386). Von Lettow had duelled with Meinterzhagen in east Africa in 1914, both coming away unscathed. At the time of his visit to the Meinertzhagen home, von Lettow was deputy to the German Reichstag.
Meinertzhagen had apparently once said that ‘Intelligence is a Jewish virtue, intrigue is an Arab vice’ (Middle East Diaries, p. 368) and as such he had arranged for himself a secret network of spies from both Arabs and Jews so he could keep abreast of developments. Apparently the British Military were plotting against the Jews and their own government. There are a few possibilities. The information was correct as confirmed also by Colonel Stirling (Middle East Diaries p.22). That the information was not true and someone was feeding propaganda in to the military and community at large, by an Arabic, Jewish, Christian or foreign influence? That the information, whether true, partly true or entirely false, was designed to seed distrust among the ranks.
The French were said to have a hand in some of the Arab unrest in Palestine. In a letter from Earl Curzon to Count de Salis (Rome) of August 6th 1920, also in the Documents on British Foreign Policy, Curzon urges de Salis on a number of points, most noteably that the British Government ‘would view unfavourably any suggestion that Catholic interests in the Holy Places’ that existed in Jerusalem under the Ottomans, ‘should be represented through the good offices of the French agent, a device clearly calculated to result in the restoration of the idea of a French protectorate.’ The French were clearly angling for a Greater Syria solution under a French Mandate, that would join Palestine to Syria, by using the French Protectorate of the Holy See to achieve it. The French relinquished the Protectorate in 1924.
Meinertzhagen went to Allenby, now in charge of Egypt, and reported that Lt. Col. Waters-Taylor, and Colonel Ronald Storrs had been liaising with Emir Feisal and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini. The Grand Mufti eventually was exiled to Syria by the British, clearly with permission of the French mandated administration. This subversion may have been a plan hatched between the Mufti, certain British officers and the French against the Zionists, perhaps all aware of the German influence on the Zionist Community. Waters Taylor would go on to write on the Zionist issue in great length in 1939. The first chapter of his book starts with ‘The Jewish “Community” […] constitutes an unmitigated power for evil which for twenty centuries has undermined civilization in every quarter of the globe.’
He would go on to claim that the Zionists had planned the seizing of Palestine all along, and when they learnt the Germans had built the Bagdhad Railway, they immediately set about working out how to get the land first. This sounds remarkably like some of the claims made by Mrs Webster and others, who had been convinced by the supposedly authentic notes taken at a meeting in Paris known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Waters-Taylor might have claimed, therefore, that the Jews organised their own pogroms and got German land owners in Odessa to carry them out, killing a number of Jews, but giving the Jews the perfect excuse to make haste with their wives, children and whole lives packed in to trunks, to claim Palestine for their own. A series of actions that would make very little sense at all to someone of a logical mindset.
Curt Prüfer - Spy
The only other persistent thread in this theory is the German Empire and the Germans. The German Empire had facilitated the installation of the Bolshevik Government, with which the Zionists were in accord. Germany’s best Middle Eastern spy Curt Prüfer was using Jewish immigrants as informants, including Chaim Weizmann’s sister (who was also Prüfer’s lover). Some of these spies might also have been informing Meinertzhagen, influencing his decision making and communications regarding the Zionist Plan. Alternatively Meinertzhagen could have been working with Prüfer. The network of spies could also have been informing others such as the Grand Mufti, tailoring the information delivered to create the desired effect.
In the book ‘Curt Prüfer, German diplomat from the Kaiser to Hitler’, the author, DM McKale (1987) lays out the German war time and post war strategy with the Zionists both in Palestine and in Germany. During the war Germany’s strategy may have included using the Jews to foment unrest in Russia and improve relations with Turkey ‘Some in the AA, especially those who hoped to employ Zionism to foment revolts by Jews inside the tsarist empire, thought Jewish colonization in Palestine useful to German interests because it would enhance the economy of the province and thereby strengthen Berlin’s ally, Turkey’ (p.41). Prüfer was part of a German Pro-Palestine committee formed very late on in the war, the summer of 1918, dedicated to encouraging the movement of Jews to Palestine. In addition, if the Central powers of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires were to somehow fail, Germany in theory had a foothold, through the Jewish spy network Prüfer had created as well as the German Jewish immigrant population.
As mentioned in the recent podcast, Curt Prüfer met with Chaim Weizmann in late 1921/early 1922 in Rome, to discuss Weizmann’s belief that the British were backing away from the Zionist Plan because of French demands. ‘Prüfer, for his part, left no record of his response to Weizmann’s proposals, probably because the AA [Federal Foreign Office] focused its attention almost exclusively on European problems and did not wish to take a stand on issues that did not directly concern Germany’. Whilst Prüfer did not record any response in writing to Weizmann’s request, that does not mean there was no response at all. Nevertheless the meeting gave the German an idea of how tenuous the situation in Palestine was. The impression that the British were failing in their quest to help achieve the Zionist state might be exactly the result he had hoped for. It might also be of potential future benefit to drive a wedge between France and Britain, which could be achieved by encouragement of whispers to both sides, through Jewish and Arab spies, to ask for more and concede less.
Far from a fading interest in Palestine, Prüfer was watching immigration figures of Jews to both Palestine and other countries intently through the 1920’s and 30’s. In 1933, when Hitler rose to power, Zionism was encouraged, arranging transport and shipping of a portion of the Jewish families’ belongings. Oddly, if the Jews chose to emigrate anywhere else their belongings were entirely confiscated (p.107, McKale 1987).
Germany were nurturing the Zionist settlement in Palestine. By allowing German Jews to transfer there on relatively favourable terms, they could potentially enhance their spy networks, stay ahead of any developments and keep channels open for trade, by appearing to treat the Jews with kindness. Prüfer was concerned that relations with the Arabs might be compromised by the Jewish influx, but numbers might have been carefully managed so as not to arouse suspicion of intent.
It is worth noting that Prüfer was one of a number of German officials who had transitioned through from the German Empire, in to the Weimar, then in to the German Reich finally to Hitler. Whilst the official structure of Germany had changed and a leader or two were deposed, did the leopard really change its spots?
Trouble Was Coming
Jabotinsky, meanwhile was dealing with his own trials. Following a letter to General Allenby voicing his concerns over the treatment of the Battalion at Rafah, he received notification from Major Waley that he wished to meet him at Chaim Weizmann’s brother’s house. This was also after Jabotinsky had gone to great lengths to try and dissuade the soldiers of the 39th and 40th Jewish Battalions not to strike.
Waley had been asked to assess Jabotinsky’s grievances, given that they were both Jewish. (Shmuel Katz, 1996, p.11551, iOS Kindle) Jabotinsky duly told Waley what he had told Allenby in his letter and probably a lot more. It was only by chance that he got sight of the report Waley made to Allenby, one which he should have been formally party to read, but he was not. Waley had dug a little and had come to the conclusion that Jabotinsky was a Bolshevik. Jabotinksy was reportedly horrified at the accusation, however, as his dealings in Russia were largely with the Revolutionaries and he had battalions around him which contained Revolutionaries, ones who were given to strike action, it would be quiet difficult to persuade them otherwise.
It is possible that these discoveries of Waley’s were a British effort to root out exactly who was causing the trouble in the Jewish ranks. As it happened, 35 of the mainly American soldiers Jabotinksy had so far managed to prevent from striking, then went on to strike properly, after a soldier was beaten for allowing a Mule from the mule corps to become chaffed. Jabotinsky intervened again, but they demanded immediate decommissioning.
The soldiers were hauled in front of a court marshall and charged with mutiny, but Jabotinsky managed to get sentences reduced to ‘Disobeying an order’. The damage was done however. Despite the appearance of his intervention, it may well have looked as if the Bolshevik accusation had driven him to urge the soldiers to strike in retribution. Jabotinsky was sent to Kantara and demobilised on August 29th 1919, the day after the King Crane Commission Report was published (Shmuel Katz, 1996, p.11867, iOS Kindle).
Jabotinksy, rather than skulking away, started to write political pieces again, this time for a new Jewish Newspaper called Hadshot Ha’aretz.
In Meinertzhagen’s Middle East Diaries (p.176) there is an entry for the 4th September 1939 about Jabotinsky. He had heard reports that Jabotinsky was working to raise an independent Jewish Army, and had managed to recruit 250 with a short term target of 700. He called him to a meeting in early 1920 and warned him, though he identified with the plight of the Jews, being so heavily outnumbered by some very irate Arabs, that to continue with this plan would lead to a court marshall. Jabotinsky continued, however, and formed what became known as Haganah, with 700 men and fully armed. How he acquired weapons for the group was a mystery.
His almost obsessive drive to create a Jewish Army as a defence force, despite protestations from numerous quarters including the Zionist leaders, had an element of premonition. Whilst Haganah was banned by the British administration and their arms were inadequate for the title of ‘army’, they defended the Jewish communities to the best of their ability.
Riots and Massacres
In Jerusalem, between the 4-7th April 1920, just one day after Passover, the Arabs attacked the Jews in the British Quarter. In Jaffa on May 1st, or May Day, celebratory processions were organised by the Socialist Zionists. Two were given permission and one was not. In Jaffa, a small Bolshevik style procession with flyers promoting Soviet ideals in both Arabic and Yidish were distributed. This did not go down well. The Arabs had been witnessing the steady arrival of Jews at the port of Jaffa. They had been told by an unknown source that most of the Jewish immigrants arriving were Bolsheviks, who opposed the ownership of property, marriage and religion. This rumour of how the Jews might affect their future lives would have spread like wildfire and be reinforced each time a boat arrived with new immigrants.
The Arabs surrounded one of the hostels where the immigrants were lodged and instead of the local police coming to their rescue they too began to attack them. The massacre that followed saw men and women attempting to flee and being bludgeoned to death. By the time the riots in the city and surrounding villages had stopped around 50 Jews and 50 Arabs had been killed. The Arabs and Jews involved were arrested, including Jabotinksy. Uproar amongst the Jewish community stating that a defending party should not be put on trial, managed to get his sentence commuted to just six weeks.
As we can see today, none of these supposed Bolshevik restrictions have thrived in Israel except perhaps the idea of commune style living on a Kibbutz for some of the true communist idealists. The hallmarks and propaganda surrounding these events however, are very similar to our situation today.
The initial attacks on the Jews by the Arabs took place between 1920 and 1921, then, after the Mandate was given, completely died down until the Arab Riots of 1929. It was as if the trouble was designed specifically to interfere with the Mandate process.
In 1929 the Grand Mufti led Arabs in an attack on Hebron, after new rumours were started claiming that the Jews were going to take possession of the Muslim Holy places. Jews were attacked in Jerusalem and surrounding villages.
Who exactly was responsible for the rumours is uncertain. If Meinertzhagen was to have his way, as you can see in the link to the Arab Riots of 1929, he would have us believe that the British Military were encouraging these attacks. Given his close relationships with a number of high ranking Germans it is most certainly worth taking that claim with a very large pinch of salt, or at least considering that the officials involved might also be victims of the rumour mill.
Next time we will take a look at the Grand Mufti’s activities in and around Palestine, and try to get a little closer in our hunt for the key propaganda architects in the lead up to World War II.