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Jaffa Riots of May 1921

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aliasesMay 1921 Disturbances, Jaffa Riots 1921

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Summary

The disturbances beginning in Jaffa on Sunday 1 May 1921, with serious violence in the town on 1-3 May, attacks on Jewish agricultural colonies that week, and sporadic manifestations in Jaffa into July, as narrated in Part I of the Haycraft Commission’s Jaffa Report (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.19, 38).

Details

  • The immediate sequence in Jaffa: the permitted Ahdut Ha’avoda demonstration and the unauthorised M.P.S. procession collided in Tel Aviv; police separated them into the sandy space by Menshieh; shots fired in the air were followed by a general attack on Jews in Menshieh and the attack on the Immigration House, Jaffa, where 13 Jews were killed or mortally wounded and 24 wounded and one Arab was killed and four wounded (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.25-29).
  • Medical tables in the report (read in the original): 1 May — Arabs 3 dead and 34 wounded, Jews 27 dead and 104 wounded; 2 May — Arabs 10 dead and 11 wounded, Jews 13 dead and 26 wounded; 3 May — Arabs 1 dead and 4 wounded, Jews 3 dead and 4 wounded (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.31, 34, 36).
  • Colony attacks narrated in this part: Khedera (6 May, interim report), Kefr Saba and Ain Hai (3 May, destroyed), Petah Tikvah (5 May) and Rehoboth (6 May, section opening) (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.7, 39-44).
  • The Commission’s stated turn: had it not been for outstanding grievances felt by the Arabs against the Jews, the police would have had little difficulty keeping the peace (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.26).
  • The Commission’s conclusions (Part II and Appendix A): the M.P.S. demonstration was the spark; the fundamental cause was Arab discontent and hostility connected with Jewish immigration and with the conception of Zionist policy derived from Jewish exponents; the outbreak was not premeditated or pre-arranged for 1 May; the racial strife was begun by Arabs, the Arab majority generally the aggressors inflicting most casualties; and there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country (PDF p.45-47, 56, 61).
  • Appendix B’s consolidated medical statistics (read in the original) give, for all the disturbances, 95 killed — 48 Arabs and 47 Jews — and 219 wounded admitted to hospital, the Principal Medical Officer estimating 385 casualties dealt with in all, 95 killed and 290 wounded (PDF p.62).
  • Outcomes recorded in Samuel’s despatch: Sheikh Abu Kishk sentenced to 15 years penal servitude, reduced to 10; the Yahudieh shooting and vitriol charges dismissed (a printed footnote); the Rehoboth trials ending in one two-year sentence for inciting, two one-year sentences and the rest acquitted (PDF p.63-64).

Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, Haycraft Commission of Inquiry, Jaffa, Tel Aviv

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