offered on the 17th. We are satisfied that in making his decision that 41 special Jewish constables should be disarmed, Luke was following the highest military advice available to him and using his own unbiased judgment as to the line of action which was best calculated to serve the interests of the people with whose well-being he was charged. On the question of the present and future policy regarding the arming of the Jewish colonies there is a difference of opinion among us which is recorded elsewhere. Police and crews of armored cars exercised wise discretion in the use and withholding of fire during the disturbances.
POLICE BLAMELESS IN NOT PREVENTING JEWISH DEMONSTRATION
“Many exciting and intempered articles were published in the Palestine press between October 1928 and August 1929. We consider that the power of the Palestine government to suspend the press should have been invoked against the papers which published some of these articles.
“We cannot attach any blame to any police officer for the failure to prevent the Jewish demonstration at the Wailing Wall on August 15. It is our view that those who were present during the discussions with the leaders of the Jewish youth failed to make clear to Major Saunders that the Jewish leaders declined to accept one of the conditions which Luke attached to his decision that the procession schould be allowed to go to the Wailing Wall on the 22nd. Any attempt to have prevented by the force the Moslem demonstration on August 16th would have been dangerous and ill advised.
“Rumors current in Palestine immediately before were the natural consequence of the two demonstrations of the 15th and 16th.”
SAYS GOVERNMENT TRIED TO MAINTAIN IMPARTIAL ATTITUDE
Turning to the complaint that the Palestine government had consistently shown a lack of sympathy towards the Jewish National Home and that its policy had been one of weakness, the report says that “this is in large measure due to the difficulties inherent in the Mandate and the failure to appreciate the dual nature of the policy which the government has to administer. It is our view that the government did discharge to the best of their ability the difficult task of maintaining a neutral and impartial attitude between two peoples whose leaders had shown little capacity for compromise.”
On the subject of immigration, the report admits that Jewish enterprise and Jewish immigration were not in excess of the absorptive capacity of the country and “have conferred material benefits upon Palestine in which the Arab people share. We consider, however, that the claims and demands, which from the Zionist side had been advanced, regarding the future of Jewish immigration into Palestine, had been such as to arouse among the Arabs apprehension that they will in time be deprived of their livelihood and pass under the political domination of the Jews.
SAYS JEWISH AUTHORITIES DISREGARD DOCTRINE OF 1922
“We further consider that Sir John Campbell was right when he reported that the crisis of 1927-28 was due ‘to the fact that immigrants came into Palestine in excess of the economic absorbing power of the country.’ There is incontestable evidence that in the matter of immigration there has been a serious departure by the Jewish authorities from the doctrine accepted by the Zionist Organization in 1922 that immigration should be regulated by the economic capacity of Palestine to absorb new arrivals.
“In conjunction with other and more immediate causes for the disturbances, the feeling of Arab apprehension caused by Jewish immigration was a factor which contributed to the outbreak. The selection of immigrants under the labor schedule is, in effect, entrusted to the General Federation of Jewish Labor in Palestine. In the allocation of certificates supplied to them for this purpose, it is the practice of the Federation to have regard for the political creed of several possible immigrants rather than their particular qualification for admission into Palestine. This system cannot be defended. That political creed of any complexion should be a deciding factor in the choice between intending immigrants is open to the strongest exception.”
LAND PROBLEM CONSIDERED
The land problem comes in for considerable attention in the report of the Inquiry Commission. On this matter it says, “Soon after the institution of civil government in Palestine, the Administration became anxious lest the interest of the tenants and cultivators be prejudiced by the sale of large estates. The land transfer ordinances of 1920 and 1921 were passed with the object of protecting the interest of cultivators and preventing their expropriation from the soil. These ordinances failed to achieve their objects and were replaced by the Cultivators’ Protective Ordinance of 1929.
JEWISH LAND COMPANIES BLAMELESS IN TRANSACTIONS
“Between 1921 and 1929 there were large sales of land, in consequence of which numbers of Arabs were evicted without provisions of other land for their occupation. In some cases, the Arabs who were dispossessed received cash compensation and no criticism can be levied against the Jewish land companies in respect to these transactions. Those companies were acting with the government’s knowledge.
“The Cultivators’ Protective Ordinance of 1929 while giving compensation for the disturbance does nothing to check the tendency toward the dispossession of the cultivators from their holdings. The mere provision of compensation in money may even encourage that tendency. The position is now acute. There is no alternative land to which the evicted persons can be removed. In consquence a landless and discontented class is being created. Such a class is a potential danger to the country.
“Unless some solution can be found to deal with this situation the question will remain a constant source of present discontent and a potential cause of future disturbance. Palestine cannot support a larger agricultural population than it at present carries unless the methods of farming undergo radical changes. With more intensive cultivation, should this prove to be possible, room might be found for a number of new-comers in certain districts.”
ARAB GRIEVANCES DISCUSSED
The constitutional grievances of the Arabs aso come in for some attention in the report, which says on this subject, “it is a matter of regret that the Arab leaders did not accept the offer of a legislative council that was made to them in 1922. Today the Arab people of Palestine are united in a demand for a measure of self-government. This unity of purpose may weaken, but it is liable to be revised in full force by any large issue which involves racial interests. It is our belief that the feeling of resentment among the Palestine Arabs consequent upon their disappointment at their continued failure to obtain any measure of self-government is greatly aggravating the difficulties of local administration.”
Discussing some of the minor Arab grievances the report says: “Of the four complaints discussed elsewhere, some are not well founded and none can be regarded as constituting a serious grievance.”
The difficulties inherent in the Palestine Mandate and in the Balfour Declaration, the report declares, are factors of supreme importance in a consideration of the Palestine problem. “The issue of a clear definition of policy backed by a statement that it is the firm intention of the government to supplement that policy to the full, would be of the greatest assistance in securing the good government of the country.
SAYS ARABS RESENT Z. O.’S DIRECT CONTACT WITH GOVERNMENT
“There exists among the Palestine Arabs a strong feeling of resentment at the position in which, while they have no means of direct access to the government, the Palestine Jews, through the exercise of functions conferred upon the Zionist Organization by the Mandate, are allowed to approach the government directly.”
While praising the conduct of the British police in Palestine during the period of the disturbances, the report admits, in discussing defence and security, that the policy of reducing the garrison in Palestine and Transjordania was carried out too far. “The Pales
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
