How Arab Aggression Against Jews Began

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

   Jews started immigrating back to Palestine of the Ottoman Empire from Europe and Asia in 1880-81 called the 1st Aliyah.  Pogroms against Jews had been becoming common.  There were at least 4 other Aliyote  that followed.  World War I started in 1914 and went onto 1918.  The Ottoman Empire was destroyed, lost in WWI being on the Axis side.  Turkey remained, being the heart of the Ottomans.   

  From Sailing ships to Steamers, Jews have been immigrating to Palestine

An ancient community: There was already an indigenous Jewish population in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire and before. Its members were concentrated principally in the holy cities of Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. Nonetheless, the Jewish presence in Palestine, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, had fluctuated through time, with various communities appearing and disappearing. Regardless, in 1880, before immigration began, Palestine’s Jewish population numbered about 25,000, and had been deeply rooted there for several generations.                                                              

 

The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a "National Home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population.  The population of Arabs was also small at that time; made up a lot of migrant Bedouins and a few farmers going into the red with unbearable taxes from the failing Ottoman Empire.  

In the 4th century, Jews were the majority population. .  By the 5th century, Christians were the majority population.  At the end of the 12th century, the Muslims were the majority population. The population then was less that 225,000.  

The British mandate from the League of Nations commenced on September 29, 1923; but had been  drawn up in 1920 and only came into effect on this day in 1923.  The British last day was May 14, 1948, the day Jews announced to the world that they had a state, named Israel.  This was named again for their  ancient empire of Israel, the name their forefather, Jacob had taken when he underwent an alteration of understanding  or new state of mind. 

                                                           

 San Remo Conference in Italy, April 1920 to discuss problems arising from Versailles Peace Treaty. Zionists were there proposing the Jewish right to Palestine to be recognized and backed with Britain's making possible the establishment of a Jewish National Home and eventually an autonomous commonwealth.  Result:  Palestine Mandate was awarded to Britain.

By 1919, Palestine had  385,066 Jewish immigrants from Europe, the Americas and Oceania which amounted to 89.6% of the population;  44,809 Jewish immigrants from Asia and Africa which amounted to 10.4% of the population;  22,283 Jews who did not state their continent of birth, which totaled 452,158 Jews.  Evidently this was looked upon as the small minority Jewish population by the British.   With the Jews already living in Palestine, this probably topped the number that originally entered Canaan with Joshua:  a total of 601,730 former slaves of Egypt who had been on the Exodus for the past 40 years, losing 1,820 since the beginning of their return to their father Jacob's homeland. This is according to the 1st and 2nd census taken before they started and when they arrived by Moses and Joshua as recorded in the Tanakh (Bible) ,Stone Edition. By May 1948, Israel had 650,000 population.  By May 1972 they had 3,164,000.         

The issue of Arab independence promised by the British in 1915 was an expectation that T.E. Lawrence and Prince Feisal took with them when they attended the Paris Peace conference in 1919. Lawrence and Prince Feisal had beat the Ottoman Empire alongside the British and sort to give sections of this to the Hashemite Kingdoms. However, the big powers such as Britain and France refused these requests despite previously being supportive of Arab independence, as they challenged their own territorial and economic aims in the Middle East set out in the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. It was a series of secret agreements  between Britain, France and Russia and later added on Italy done between 1914-1916.  They were about divving up the Ottoman Empire.  They involved Palestine and Syria.  Zionists only discovered these plans in 1917.  These "treaties" were partly responsible for the form of the post-war frontiers of Palestine.   It must be what cut out Judea and Samaria from what would be considered as The Jewish Homeland.                                               

                        The HaShalom Interchange in Tel Aviv 

The Jewish national revival and the community's efforts to rebuild the country had brought in many Arabs looking for work as documented in Joan Peter's book, FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL. Tel Aviv was being built.  Tel Aviv was founded on April 11, 1909. On that day, several dozen families gathered on the sand dunes on the beach outside Yafo to allocate plots of land for a new neighborhood they called Ahuzat Bayit, later known as Tel Aviv..  The many Aliyah's from 1881 and on from Russia, etc, had brought in Jews leaving pogroms, and downright anti-Semitic populations just waiting for release and ready to take a chance in the Ottoman Empire's loss.                                                                   

           Arab riots against Jews brought rioters inside Jewish homes  to do damage.  Here is one in Hebron in 1929.  Synagogues were entered and attacked.  

The Arab resentment and fear of what they might lose erupted in period of intense violence in 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936-39, when Jewish transports were harassed, fields and forests set on fire, and unprovoked attacks were launched against the Jewish population.  Zionists, for that was what these Jews were, Jews needing to return to the Jewish Homeland,  tried to have a dialogue with the Arabs, were ultimately unsuccessful, which may have polarized Zionism and Arab nationalism into a potentially explosive situation.                                                  

 The Arab riots that erupted in 1929 - also known as the Western Wall Riots - were the result of disputes between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Demonstrations escalated to weeks of riots and violence beginning in August of 1929. This was from King Herod's day, the only thing left for Jews to remember and a place to pray.                                                                    

         1937 Imperial Conference of Britain with king in Middle, striped pants.

 The British reaction to all this happening under their 30 year mandate recommended in 1937 to divide the country into 2 states, one Jewish and one Arab.  the Jewish leadership accepted the idea of partition and empowered the Jewish Agency to negotiate with the British government in an effort to reformulate various aspects of the proposal.  The Arabs, however, were uncompromisingly against any partition plan.  On November 5, 1937, Adolf Hitler held a secret conference in the Reich Chancellery during which he revealed his plans for the acquisition of Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people at the expense of other nations in Europe.   1937 was quite a busy year of conferences.                                                  

Jewish pioneering settlers and members of the pre-state Haganah defense movement in their guard post November 3, 1938 in Kibbutz Givat Brenner. 

GPO via Getty                                                                                                     

        Chamberlain made so many errors; befriending Nazis for one.  Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940, the most important era which was the Nazis most industrious. 

Large-scale Arab anti-Jewish riots led Britain in May 1939 to issue a White Paper, led by Neville Chamberlain,imposing drastic restrictions on Jewish immigration, despite its consequence  of Germans aggressiveness and acts of violence against Jews in Germany at that time.  It was common knowledge in Europe.  They did have newspapers and radio news.  In fact, it was the oncoming WWII and Germany's actions that brought on the Arab actions since they were privy to books such as Mein Kampf, very popular with the Arabs plus the Nazi propaganda against Jews. available. The start of WWII soon after caused David Ben-Gurion, later Israel's first prime minister, to declare:  "We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and the White Paper as if there were no war." Of this, there is no excuse.  To purposely deprive Jews of safety from Nazis was deplorable.  The Jews could not abide such behavior so devised ways of sneaking in; though not always successful.  

As if that wasn't bad enough, the British intensified their restrictions on the number of Jews permitted to enter and settle in the Land.  The Jewish community responded by instituting a wide network of "illegal immigration" activities to rescue Holocaust survivors.  The Brits not only worked hard to keep Jews OUT of their promised Jewish Homeland, but even after the war, those that lived through it still could not enter.  Between 1945 and 1948, some 85,000 Jews were brought to the Land by secret, often dangerous routes, in spite of a British naval blockade, and even border patrols set up to intercept the refugees before they reached the country.  Those who were caught were interned in detention camps on the Island of Cyprus, or returned to Europe, which they had done during the heart of WWII, sending Jews to their deaths.                                             

  Exodus 1947 was a ship that carried 4,500 Jewish immigrants from France to British Mandatory Palestine on July 11, 1947. Most were Holocaust survivors who had no legal immigration certificates for Palestine. Initially sold as scrap for slightly more than $8,000, the ship was acquired by the Hagana (an underground Jewish military organization). Hagana personnel arranged to dock the ship in Europe in order to transport Jews who sought to illegally immigrate into Palestine. The plight of the ship's passengers would capture the world's attention.

British soldiers deport "Exodus 1947" passengers

In July 1947 in France, 4,500 Jewish refugees from displaced persons camps in Germany boarded the "Exodus 1947" and attempted to sail (without permission to land) to Palestine, which was under British mandate. The British intercepted the ship off the coast and forced it to anchor in Haifa, where British soldiers removed the Jewish refugees. After British authorities failed to force France to accept the refugees, the refugees were returned to DP camps in Germany. The plight of the "Exodus" passengers became a symbol of the struggle for open immigration into Palestine.                                            

        Rockets hitting Israel From Arab Aggression Started on Jerusalem Day

Enough meddling.  Now Allies want  the present attack of Palestinian Hamas terrorists to stop because though they were the attackers, the Allies fear for them as their own acts against the Israelis are causing Palestinian deaths, as well as reprisals from Israel.  Allies do not seem to register in their minds that terrorists have planted their rocket launchers amid crowded populations on purpose, which cause deaths and tongues to click against Israel for defending themselves.  It is a conundrum for the Allies to swallow.  Neither Israel nor the Terrorists, who claim to have enough rockets to use against Israel for the next 2 months, have been ready for a cease fire.  It is they who must make that decision, not the Allies. It's coming shortly.  

 Resource:

Eye to Eye by William Koenig

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4467647?seq=1

edia.org/wiki/SS_Exodus

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-british-white-papers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936%E2%80%931939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/exodus-1947