The Infamous Riots of 1929, in Palestine and Why It Happened

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                     

                   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAnogTH8Yyw                     

   Below:  A Palestinian protest meeting against Jewish settlement of then-British Mandate Palestine. (Courtesy Ian Black)

On 24 August 1929 in Hebron, Arab mobs attacked the Jewish quarter killing and raping men, women and children and looting Jewish property. They killed between 65 and 68 Jews and wounded 58, with some of the victims being tortured, or mutilated.  It continued on actually starting on the 23rd to the 29th of August.  The total deaths of Jews was 133.  

Hebron, the city so dear to Jews, was an ancient city of Judah, 18 miles south of Jerusalem where Abraham bought from the Hittites, a plot of land that the Cave of Machpelah stood which he needed in order to bury his wife/niece, Sarah.  This became their plot where Abraham and his line were buried.  Abraham was the father of Judaism.  

It was brought about by  a longstanding dispute between Muslims and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem that escalated into violence.

The Western Wall, also called the Wailing Wall, was the place where Jews could pray.  It had been part of the wall that enclosed Herod's Temple  that still stood in the Old City of Jerusalem.  As it happened, the area in front of this part of the wall was Muslim property, which caused the dispute. Rabbis, feeling that Jews would be standing on the Holy of Holies area of the High Priest, dissuaded Jews from praying on the Temple Mount.  The Jordanian religious leader was given the rights of ruling there by Moshe Dayan at the end of the 1967 War, so they absolutely didn't want Jews up there as they had a Mosque over the spot where Solomon's Temple had stood.  So Jews could not pray on the Temple Mount where Arabs were praying.  They had no choice left but Herod's wall, below the Holy Temple Mount.  

 Arabs were also incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The event also left scores seriously wounded or maimed.

The riots took the form, for the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed. There were 116 Arabs killed and at least 232 wounded, mostly by the Mandate police suppressing the riots. Around 20 Arabs were killed by Jewish attackers and indiscriminate British gunfire. After the riots, 174 Arabs and 109 Jews were charged with murder or attempted murder; around 40% of Arabs and 3% of Jews were subsequently convicted. During the riots, 17 Jewish communities were evacuated.    By 1931,  a special commission of the League of Nations had to be called to regulate the rights of the parties.  

Were the Middle Easterners affected by the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash causing the Great Depression in the USA?  10s of millions of humans suffered intense misery and suffering from this event.  Was it world-wide? 

• From 1929–1933, production at the nation’s factories, mines, and utilities fell by more than half.
• People’s real disposable incomes dropped 28%.
• Stock prices collapsed to one-tenth of their pre-crash height.
• The number of unemployed Americans rose from 1.6 million in 1929 to 12.8 million in 1933.
• At the height of the Depression, one of every four workers was out of a job.  

No doubt.  What was happening to the USA would affect the world and everyone would at least be under stress from it. The Brits in Palestine no doubt were stressed by it.   The spectacular crash of 1929 followed five years of significant credit expansion by the Federal Reserve System under the Cool­idge Administration." In 1924, after a sharp decline in business, the Reserve banks suddenly cre­ated some $500 million in new credit, which led to a bank credit expansion of over $4 billion in less than one year. " This could be used in investments in Palestine!  

After the crash in 29, the masses rushed on the banks to withdraw their money. The pressure on banks was great and tended not to decrease with the passage of time. In 1929, 659 banks failed; in 1930, 1,352; in 1931, 2,294, and in 1932, 1,456.  Policy decisions made by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC during the crisis of the 2000s can be linked to policies that go back as far as the 1930s. This history of bailouts reveals that the genesis of financial crisis is government policy, be it the mismanagement of monetary policy during the 1930s or the political push to expand homeownership that helped cause the 2000s crisis.

To think that these people could not come to terms on their own, and had to have the interceding of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS,, to solve the problem of letting Jews pray at the wall is simply ridiculous.  This was just a preamble of what was to come and how the Jews and Arabs could not come to terms with each other, and that by 2021 they were just beginning to with the Abrahamic Accords, and 6 Arab nations are now willing to work together with the Jewish nation of Israel besides Jordan and Egypt.                                         

     The wall is still the only place allowed the Jews on the Temple Mount.  2022.                             

                                                       

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots#:~:text=On%2024%20August%201929%20in,victims%20being%20tortured%2C%20or%20mutilated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Wall

https://www.independent.org/store/book.asp?id=94&gclid=Cj0KCQjwvLOTBhCJARIsACVldV16SVlsb8OmtNDYZoQaOJQmK3RFv0k5b1zi5TyfKvqIDI3VdZrzrJEaAjsQEALw_wcB

Terrorists in 1929 Jerusalem Against Jews Praying at the Wall-The Start of Terrorism on Temple Mount

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

The Women's Sector of the Wall, in about 1888  

The recent riots on the Temple Mount where Arabs were stabbing Jews is reminiscent of the 1929 riots on the Temple Mount that occurred in late August from the 23rd to the 29th  back then.  In 1929, there had been  long-running arguments between Muslim and Jews over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
                                         

                             

Police ready to stop rioting on Temple Mount

This year it had been over Jews' praying near the Mosque, a mosque that is covering the 2nd Temple of Solomon.

 Jews regard the wall as a holy site.  This is because it is a remnant of the ancient wall that once was around the 2nd Temple of Solomon.  It was King Herod who had rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale in later years of his period which ended in 4 BCE, making this the 3rd rebuilding.   The Muslims said they also had deep religious attachments to the wall. They are claiming that the was is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque which is near the Golden domed mosque, a silver domed one and this is where Mohammad tied his horse, Buraq before he made his night ride to heaven.
                                                                       

Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as Al-Aqsa and Bayt al-Muqaddas, is the third holiest site in Islam and is located in the Old City of Jerusalem.

 "The mosque was originally a small prayer house built by the Rashiduncaliph Umar, but was rebuilt and expanded by the Umayyad caliphAbd al-Malik and finished by his son al-Walid in 705 CE. After an earthquake in 746, the mosque was completely destroyed and rebuilt by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 754, and again rebuilt by his successor al-Mahdi in 780. Another earthquake destroyed most of al-Aqsa in 1033, but two years later the Fatimid caliph Ali az-Zahir built another mosque which has stood to the present day."                                                                           

The riots were the occasion of Arabs attacking Jews and then destroying the Jewish property.  133 Jews were killed by Arab and 339 others were injured.  110 Arabs were killed and 232 were injured, mostly by the British police who were trying to suppress the riots.  Jews had to flee and leave Jerusalem because of the attacks.

 At the time of the mandate,  the wall was placed under Muslim jurisdiction, but Jews tried to pray there.  Violent confrontations occurred when Arab mobs, provoked by Jews who were praying, attacked  two Jewish quarters in Jerusalem and killed Jews.
                                                                             

The Western Wall, or Wailing Wall, as Jews first called it, is part of the wall that surrounded King Herod's Temple which is still standing in the Old City of Jerusalem.  It has nothing to do with Islam.  Herod, King of Judea who got the kingship from Romans, lived from 73 BCE to 4 BCE, way before Muhammad was born in 570 and died in 632 CE.  That's almost 700 years before his time.                                              

Burq, Mohammad's night ride to heaven was on this horse

The only connection Muslims have to the Temple Mount is that Mohammad had a dream where he said he flew on his flying horse to the "farthest mosque, and his followers believe that would have been the 2nd Temple of the Jews.  The Romans were occupying Judea and built a Roman temple over the destroyed 2nd Temple.  Then when Islam was created, Calif Omar built a mosque over the Roman temple in about 638. A century later in about 738, Caliph Abd al-Malik built a beautiful golden domed  mosque over the first one since he said it was a temporary structure.   .  It's also called the Dome of the Rock.  It sits right in the middle of the Temple area (al-Harim ash-Sherif) in Jerusalem.  
                                                                             

1967 Dancing at the Wall in Joy

Jews praying at the Wall

Since Jews are not allowed to even stand nearby and pray, the only place they are allowed to pray at without being accosted is the Western Wall.  In 1967, Israel won a war against them started by Egypt and Syria.  They won in this huge battle in 6 days.  By doing so, they gained the land Jordan had taken illegally in 1948 which was supposed to go to the Jews.  By being so greedy and joining Israel's other enemies, they lost land their grandfather had helped himself to. East  Jerusalem  and its Old City was thus freed from Jordan and is now incorporated into Israel.  For the first time again, Jews could pray at the Western Wall.  

Terrorism started in Palestine with Arabs attacking Jews.  This was just the beginning.  Now terrorism is hitting Europe and the United States and by who?  Muslim extremists who interpret their religion as allowing murder against people not of their own particular beliefs.  
                                                                        
Whereas wars in other parts of the world are usually fought over land with the exception of Ireland who has had their own battles and terrorist acts between Catholics and Protestants, these are religious acts of terrorism.  ISIS has combined religion with taking land in creating a Caliphate for themselves.  
                                                                        

Israelis praying at the wall today

At any rate, the Brits read the situation carelessly and this is what they concluded:   London sent the first of many royal investigative commissions, the (Walter) Shaw Commission, to Palestine. The commission concludes that the main source of tension is the creation of a landless class of discontented Arabs along with widespread Arab fear that continued Jewish immigration will result in a Jewish dominated Palestine.   Instead of dealing with the Commission’s report, the British decide to send another commission of inquiry to Palestine.They had already told the Jews that Palestine would be the Jewish Homeland back in 1917.                                                                  

There had always been Arabs-not in any great number-but Arabs living on the land who did not own any land.  There had only been a few landowners.  The many empires that had been dominating the land made it hard to be a landowner.  Arab mostly were nomadic people.  They lived in tents.  Just ask the great author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, about who was living in Palestine.  He took a trip to the Holy Land and Egypt, the Crimea, Greece and other points of interest from Brooklyn, New on February 1, 1867 and saw the land before the Russian Jews did, when they made aliyah to Palestine in the 1880's.  Pages 186 and 203 are good examples of what the land looked like.  His camp was attacked by them, very dark-skinned Bedouins with inky black beards, tall, and muscular.  By the time Israel was created on May 14, 1948, Israel had a population of 650,000 Jews.  
                                                                         

The land situation of obtaining their ancient land was thought to be settled on January 1919:  That's when Chaim Weizmann pledged that the Jewish community would cooperate with the Arabs in the economic development of Palestine.  
                                                                        

 In return, Faisal of Syria – the leading Arab personality of the time — recognized the Balfour Declaration of 1917.   He consented to Jewish immigration so long as the rights of Palestinian Arabs were  protected and Arab demands for the independence of Greater Syria are recognized.  Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs.  These were not kept. 

He had no power except had helped the Brits, just like the Jews did, win WWI.  He supposedly had the respect of the Arabs as a leader.  He had wanted land, too, and wanted to be a king since he missed the chance to be king in Saudi Arabia.  The Brits also promised him land for this. 
                                                                         

   

 His nemisis, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was the Sherif of Jerusalem,  the big fish in the little pond. He was the main instigator of terrorism against Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the 1920s.  He didn't want to lose his position.   Arabs have always fought each other for power and they weren't about to allow a Jew or Jews to live on their land, let alone claim it as theirs.  They were oblivious to past history that it had been Jewish land before any Muslim had ever existed.  For the last 400 years it was the holdings of the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim Empire.  

Terrorism to a people is a horrible thing.  No one gets used to it.  It should never happen.  No religion should welcome it.  
Update: 4:30pm 5/10/15
Reference:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots
http://www.coldwarstudies.com/2012/11/30/palestine-israel-timeline-1917-1929/
Myths and Facts, a concise recordof the Arab-Israeli conflict by Drs Mitchell G. Bard, JOel Himelfarb, p17-19

One Reason Why Arabs Refuse to Recognize Israel: Caste System in 1920's Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot
India may have had a caste system going on for a long time, but the Arabs thought they had it too, in Palestine in the 1920's.  They thought Jews were their dogs. Only when they said that, it wasn't the typical American outlook on their pets.  It was a nasty derogative term.

At this time the French and the British held the mandates as to what to do with the land.  In March 1920, an Arab mob assaulted Jews in Jerusalem while calling out to slaughter the Jews, and that they were affronted with Jewish presence by chanting,  "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs."  The Jews that lived in Arab countries were of a lower status or caste;  dhimmis, or 2nd class citizens who had to pay more in taxes  the Muslims.  They were restricted in many areas.

They felt that the fall of the Ottoman Empire had changed the order of things and word was out that the Jews were coming to live in the Jewish National Home and would stop being subordinates.  To the Arab, the Jew was a 2nd-class local who dared to overturn the natural order.  Whatever else they aspired to didn't affect the Arabs such as recent immigration in greater volume.

So the Arabs who lived in the area would cause riots and attack Jews with this call of "slaughter the Jews" and they would "ransack homes, rape women and destroy synagogues.  They killed the old people they found who were natives.  Riots usually caused hundreds of injured Jews as well.  Then the Arabs  would turn around and blame the Jews for starting the riot by cursing and blaspheming them them which led to killing Arab women and children.  The British would side with the Arabs, always blaming the Jews.  Chaim Weizmann's office was raided in such an aftermath.  Zeev Jabotinsky, leader of the Haganah and his men were sentenced to years of hard labor.  Jewish immigration was stopped.

This is what the Jewish people have been facing from the Arab people

1. Rejection of the Jewish right to exist as a nation

2. Violence against unprotected Jews

3. Lies to justify the violence

4. Moral equivalence between murdered Jews and dead attackers.  

A large riot happened in 1929.  Arab murderers said they were defending the Haram el-sharif.  Tension had been growing at the Western Wall where Jews came to pray.  This was what remained of Solomon's Temple.  Arabs dropped stones and garbage from the Temple Mount onto the Jews praying below.  They would hurdle nasty lies inciting Muslims to protect their holy places from the scheming Jews who wanted to occupy haram and desecrate it.  They would then call Jews rapists and murderers of infants.  By August 23, a Friday, thousands of Muslims listened to an inflammatory speech during their religious service, ran out of the Mount bent on murdering Jews, which they kept doing throughout the week.  133 Jews were killed.  Only a few were armed and trying to defend themselves.  116 Arab died mostly by the British security forces trying to quell the riot.  

In Jerusalem's Old City, hundreds of Jews whose families had never left the Holy Land and had been living in the Muslim Quarter were evacuated by the British and never were allowed to return.  Hebron, where our Patriarchs are buried, suffered the worst.  Jews had been living in Hebron for the past 2,100 years out of the past 3,200 years.  That only because they were not allowed to be there after Hadrian died for 550 years.  Hebron was the first capital of King David.  The Jews of Hebron were old family folk, and not Zionists.  In 1929 the Arabs  took out their fury at the stronger Zionists by attacking these Jewish Hebronites that were defenseless.  64-66 Jews were killed.  The British then forced the Arabs to bury the "Mutilated bodies of the murdered Jews" and they sang as they did this.  They could not see Jews as anything other than a subject minority and they decided on war at this time.  By murdering defenseless Jews who had been their neighbors demonstrated that there is no distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.  

The Guardian: January 3, 2001

Barak's government had to make concessions as Palestinian violence was worse.  Faisal Bodi, a British Muslim journalist went back to original sources.  Citing G-d's biblical promise to Abraham, "unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the Euphrates,"  he expounded that whatever G-d meant, he must not have intended the land to be taken by force from its original inhabitants.  Having thus discarded the ancient Jewish claim, he then rejected their modern one.  This was under the title of "Israel Simply Has No Right to Exist.".  He said that even though the Arab had signed the Oslo agreement, they did so not realizing that Israel had come about falsely.  He then said that Palestinians could be prepared to follow these leaders in this" intellectual amnesia."  Bodi wasn't correct in his facts or his assumption about G-d.    

Arabs are intent to say that Jews have never lived in the land.  Their maps in schools do not even show Israel, but just all of it is labeled "Palestine."  Even though archaeology digs prove that Jews lived there, even though history books, Josephus, the Roman Jewish writer  and the Bible prove the point of our history, Arabs repeat this over and over so that even the UN has become brainwashed.  It is up to us to keep reminding the world that Israel is a nation honorably crowned as one with the world and has as much right to exist as the United States does.  

Resource: Book:  right to Exist by Yaacov Lozowick, a moral defense of Israel's wars p. 64-66

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4267724,00.html