Premeditation in the Palestine disturbances of August 1929?

Abstract

Trouble was brewing in Jerusalem over the Western Wall during the summer of 1929, but neither the Mandatory Government nor the Jewish leaders anticipated the scale of the disturbances which erupted. The High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, was in London and the Commandant of Police, Arthur Mavrogordato, was on leave. The available security forces were scanty in the extreme. The Palestine Zionist Executive, headed by Colonel F.H. Kisch, had gone to Zurich for the Sixteenth Zionist Congress, which was followed by the first meeting of the new Council of the enlarged Jewish Agency. Kisch, a former British Army officer, was sensitive to security questions. In early August he flew to London to warn the Colonial Office of reports from the committee which had been left in charge of his office in Jerusalem.' The warning apparently had little effect.2 However, Harry Luke, Chief Secretary and head of the Palestine Government in the absence of the High Commissioner, became increasingly alarmed at the growing menace of the situation. He telegraphed the Colonial Office on the eve of the explosion, warning of the risk in the inadequate security forces available.3 At midday on Friday, August 23 murderous assaults on Jews commenced as mobs of excited Moslems swarmed from the Haram area after prayers and rampaged through the Jaffa and Damascus Gates of the Old City. Inflamed by false rumours of what had happened in Jerusalem, the next morning a large-scale massacre of Jews erupted in Hebron. Attacks on Jewish settlements and Jewish urban areas continued in other parts of the country, but order was gradually restored over the next few days with the arrival of troops and battleships, which sent out landing parties equivalent in strength to a battalion. Nevertheless in the late afternoon of Thursday, August 29 another massacre of Jews occurred in Safed while troops were on their way to the town. In all, 133 Jews were murdered and 339 were wounded. Most of the Arab casualties were caused by the actions of the police and military. These were estimated to be 116 killed and 232 wounded, the latter figure referring only to those treated in hospital.4 After nearly a decade of calm, the ferocity of the outburst came as a great shock. Why had it happened? Who was to blame? Was there premeditation? In London the minority Labour Government had been in office since June. It was to fall in August 1931, torn by dissension over the problem of unemployment. Yet most of its foreign and imperial policies, its handling of Palestine being one of the exceptions, received a considerable measure of support from the opposition parties.5 The first stage in its policy towards Palestine was the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the disturbances under the chairmanship of Sir Walter Shaw. The report of the Shaw Commission, published at