Extracts from the Report of the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry, 1921
'So long as the Jews remained an imobtrusive minority, as they did under the Ottoman Government, they were not molested or disliked. It was only when it came to be believed by the Arabs that the Jews were exercising a preponderating influence over the Government that a state of feeling arose which required but a minor provocation on the part of a small number of undesirable Jews to ignite an explosion of popular anger against Jews in general. This manifested itself in serious outrages, of which some of the best sort of Jews have been the victims....
Persons apparently representing all sections of the non-Jewish community have voluntarily come before us to explain why pubhc feeling became inflamed against the Jews. ...During the riots all discrimination on the part of the Arabs between different categories of Jews was obliterated. Old-estabhshed colonists and newly arrived immigrants, Chalukah Jews and Bolshevik Jews, Algerian Jews and Russian Jews, became merged in a single identity, and former friendships gave way before the enmity now felt towards all. ...
The grievances put before us by Arabs ...The principal ones are contained in the following allegations :
(a) That Great Britain, when she took over the administration of Palestine, was led by the Zionists to adopt a poHcy mainly directed towards the establishment of a National Home for the Jews, and not to the equal benefit of all Palestinians.
(6) That in pursuance of this policy the Government of Palestine has, as its official advisory body, a Zionist Commission, bound by its ideals and its conception of its role to regard Jewish interests before all others, and constituted by its singular prerogatives into an imperium in imperio.
(c) That there is an undue proportion of Jews in the Government service.
{d) That a part of the programme of the Zionists is the flooding of Palestine with a people which possesses greater commercial and organising ability than the Arabs, and will eventually obtain the upper hand over the rest of the population.
(e) That the immigrants are an economic danger to the population because of their competition, and because they are favoured in this competition.
(/) That immigrant Jews offend by their arrogance and by their contempt of Arab social prejudices.
(g) That owing to insufficient precautions immigrants of Bolshevik tendencies have been allowed to enter the country, and that these persons have endeavoured to introduce social strife and economic unrest into Palestine and to propagate Bolshevik doctrines....
A curious instance of the way in which men's minds work in regard to this question and the readiness with which the villagers take alarm at any movement which appears to threaten the existing relations between the races, is a notion which Mr. Reading, Sub-District Governor of Tulkeram, found current among villagers. It was this : that the Jews when they had sufficiently increased in numbers would become so highly organised and so well armed as to be able to overcome the Arabs, and rule over and oppress them. There was probably a causal connection between this notion and a rumour current in the early days of May, that the Jews were being secretly armed by the Government. This rumour caused considerable unrest, and the Arabs were clamouring for arms. ...
There is also a limited social objection to Jewish immigrants so far as Jaffa is concerned. Among the causes of the anti- Jewish irritation felt by the Arabs of Jaffa was a certain attitude of arrogance displayed in the streets and open places of the town by younger " Haluzim " of both sexes. Several witnesses have referred to the manner in which strings of these young men and women, in free and easy attire, would perambulate the streets arm in arm, singing songs, holding up traffic and generally conducting themselves in a manner at variance with Arab ideas of decorum. ...
It is important that it should be realised that what is written on the subject of Zionism by Zionists and their sympathisers in Europe is read and discussed by Palestinian Arabs, not only in the towns but in country districts. Thus a witness from Tulkeram, who appeared before us in the course of the Khedera inquiry, quoted as an instance of provocative writing the following passage from a book entitled " England and Palestine," by H. Sidebotham* :
" It is desired to encourage Jewish immigration by every means, and at the same time to discourage the immigration of Arabs. . . ." The book from which this quotation was taken was pubhshed as far back as 1918 ; but our attention has been called to other not less provocative statements appearing in Zionist publications since the disturbances, whilst we were sitting. Thus the Jewish Chronicle, No. 2,720, of the 20th May, 1921, makes the following statement in the course of its leading article :
" Hence the real key to the Palestine situation is to be found in giving to Jews as such, those rights and privileges in Palestine which shall enable Jews to make it as Jewish as England is English, or as Canada is Canadian. That is the only reasonable or, indeed, feasible meaning of a Jewish National Home, and it is impossible for Jews to construct it without being accorded a National status for Jews." ...
Notes:
The Haycraft Commission of Inquiry was a Royal Commission appointed by the British Government primarily to investigate the riots that took place in Jaffa in May 1921. The Commission was headed by Sir Thomas Haycraft, then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Palestine. The report was published in October 1921.
