Following the Shaw Commission, Prime Minister MacDonald faced a difficult decision. He wished to appease the Zionist leaders, as they held considerable influence in Britain and America; at the same time, the Colonial Office, headed by Passfield, advised him to satisfy the Palestinian Arabs’ demands, as they could undermine British authority in Palestine and in […]
The August 1929 disturbances resulted in serious damage to life and property, leaving the Mandatory Government as well as the Zionist Yishuv shaken. On 4 September 1929, the very day the riots ended, the British Colonial Secretary, Lord Passfield, appointed a committee to investigate the disturbances. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was very clear about […]
As a result of the 1929 disturbances, the Yishuv leaders understood that they must no longer rely on the British to protect the settlements, but must strengthen their self-defense capabilities. Since the Mandate Government initially objected to forming a Jewish police force and refused to equip the Jews with proper armories, the Yishuv turned to […]
The August 1929 disturbances exposed the inadequacy of the British military forces and even more so the weakness, both in quantity and in quality, of the Palestine Police—a force run by the Mandate Government which included both British and local policemen. The Va’ad Leumi (Jewish National Council), representing the Yishuv, blamed the police force for […]
After a long period of escalation over the Wailing Wall dispute, anti-Jewish riots broke out on 23 August 1929, when incited masses of Arabs attacked Jewish towns, settlements and neighborhoods all over Palestine. The attacks began in Jerusalem, Hebron and the surrounding areas. Further outbreaks occurred in the vicinity of Tel Aviv and Jaffa and […]
The tension between Yishuv Jews and Palestinian Arabs over the Western (“Wailing”) Wall of the Ancient Temple in Jerusalem began soon after the establishment of the British Mandate. At the time, a number of Jewish leaders sought to revise the status quo regarding Jewish access to the Wall. Until that point the Jews could pray […]
The beginning of the civil administration in Palestine, headed by Jewish High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel, removed some of the legal and political obstacles impeding the building of a Jewish national community. The Zionist leadership was eager to advance Jewish immigration to Palestine, also known as Aliyah, and during the 1920s assembled a mechanism to […]
The years after World War I saw a period of political progress for the Zionist movement. Within five years the Zionists witnessed the Balfour Declaration (1917), the beginning of the British Mandate in Palestine and the transition from military to civil administration (1920), and the League of Nations’ confirmation of the terms of the Mandate […]
The 1920s saw the appearance of a recognized head of the Muslim community in Palestine, a position which had never existed under Ottoman rule. Its holder—Haj Amin al-Husseini—soon became the most powerful political figure in Arab Palestine and the foremost leader of the Palestinian nationalist movement. His path to power began with his appointment as […]
The summer of 1922 saw a string of bitter disappointments for Palestinian Arab nationalists. First, the White Paper outlined Britain’s intention to regulate Jewish immigration according to economic calculations as well as to establish a legislative council; next, the Palestine Mandate was ratified; and, finally, the British announced the Palestine constitution and thus set about […]