Exactly one hundred years ago, in April, 1920, marked the opening shot of the Arab Israeli conflict. It was a pogrom against Jews in Jerusalem and its surrounding areas. The pogrom, also called by some the Nebi Musa riots, took place between Sunday, April 4, and Wednesday, April 7, 1920. It cost the lives of five Jews, and
200 others were injured. The violence was instigated by the British occupation administration and led by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, who later became Hitler’s ally. The Jaffa riots a year later (May 1-7, 1921) killed
47Jews and wounded 146. Much like these days, the Arab-Palestinian terrorists used knifes to kill vulnerable Jews, such as women, children, and the elderly. A British investigative commission called the pogrom “cowardly, and treacherous.”
The pogrom was not a mere criminal affair, it was motivated by religious and nationalist sentiments that denied Jewish rights to sovereignty anywhere in the region. The Arab (the term Palestinians didn’t exist at the time, and Jews were actually called Palestinians) attackers carried such slogans as “Death to the Jews”(Atbach al-Yahud), “Palestine is our land, and the
Jews are our dogs.” The Jaffa riot was proceeded by the August, 1929 riot, which wiped out the ancient Jewish community in Hebron, and killed 133 Jews. Known as the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, it was led once again by Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem. This time the death toll was much greater, estimated by historian Benny Morris to be about 300 Jewish dead.
The pogrom of April 1920 occurred at a confluence of several historical and political events. In Syria, the Hashemite Emir Feisal, son of Hussein the Sharif of Mecca, was ensconced in Damascus, awaiting with his Arab tribesmen army for the fulfillment of British promises. Under the Mc Mahon-Hussein Correspondence, an Arab state in the Levant, including the native Arabia, was promised by the British to Hussein. At the same time, Britain and France, in 1916, concluded the Sykes-Picot Agreement which divided the former Ottoman Empire between them. The British government had also come out with the Balfour (at the time British Foreign secretary) Declaration in 1917, that promised a National Home for the Jewish people in their ancestral home - Palestine. The Balfour Declaration promises were confirmed at the San Remo conference in April, 1920.
Immediately upon entering Syria, the French army encountered local Arab revolts. In March, 1920, Feisal was proclaimed King of Syria. A month later, the League of Nations allocated Syria (and Lebanon) to be a French Mandate. The French then kicked out Feisal and his Arab army. On March 1, 1920, before the Jerusalem pogrom, Shiite Arabs from southern Lebanon attacked Tel-Hai in the northern Galilee, in which the Jewish hero Joseph Trumpeldor was killed along with five fellow defenders of the Jewish community. The pogrom in Jerusalem was also part of an Arab nationalist campaign which considered Palestine to be part of Southern Syria. In addition, it was anti-Jewish, and an anti-Jewish Immigration act in which Islamic and Arab nationalist sentiments were stressed.
It was the Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini who incited the blood libel that the Al-Aqsa mosque was in danger from the Jews who wanted to destroy it. This gave impetus to the rise of the Arab-Palestinian nationalist movement, which planted the Palestinian Arab conception that Jews can only be tolerated as “Dhimmis” (protected and subjugated people), but a Jewish people cannot be recognized as eligible for a sovereign state. Thus, the Palestinian Authority today, under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, still does not recognize Israel as the national state of the Jewish people.
The 1920 April pogrom in Jerusalem was an “eye opener” for many naive Jews who believed at the time that the quarrel with the Arabs was just about the newcomers, immigrants from Europe, and that nothing would happen to the old Jewish residents who were actually a majority in Jerusalem. It was dispelled by the wholesale murders and attempted murder of Jews, whether ‘old settled ones’ or newcomers, Sephardic or Ashkenazi, secular or religious, rich or poor, all that mattered was that the victim was a Jew.
(full article online)
Exactly one hundred years ago, in April, 1920, marked the opening shot of the Arab Israeli conflict. It was a pogrom against Jews in Jerusalem and its
www.frontpagemag.com
elderofziyon.blogspot.com
jewishjournal.com
www.camera.org
