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

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aliasesDisturbances in May 1921, Haycraft Commission Report, Cmd. 1540

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Summary

The official reports of the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry (Cmd. 1540, presented to Parliament October 1921) with the ensuing correspondence: the terms of reference, the Interim Report on the Khedera raid of 6 May 1921 (signed 1 July 1921), the Report into the Jaffa Riots (10 August 1921), Herbert Samuel’s despatch of observations, and Winston Churchill’s reply approving the police measures and publication. The Report’s Part I narrates the 1 May 1921 clash in Jaffa between the authorised Ahdut Ha’avoda demonstration and the unauthorised M.P.S. procession, the general attack on Jews in Menshieh and at the Immigration House, and the attacks on Kefr Saba and Ain Hai, Petah Tikvah, Rehoboth and Khedera. Part II concludes that the fundamental cause was Arab discontent with and hostility to the Jews, due to political and economic causes connected with Jewish immigration and with the Arabs’ conception of Zionist policy as derived from Jewish exponents; that the outbreak was not premeditated; that there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country; and that the Zionist Commission’s conception of its functions had exercised an exacerbating rather than a conciliatory influence. Appendix B’s medical statistics (read in the original) give 95 killed — 48 Arabs and 47 Jews — and 219 wounded admitted to hospital, the Principal Medical Officer estimating 385 casualties dealt with in all (Palestine. Disturbances in May, 1921. Reports of the Commission of Inquiry with Correspondence Relating Thereto, PDF p.45-62).

What the file is

  • The Internet Archive copy of Cmd. 1540 (1921, price one shilling net), downloaded from the URL above (access basis: public-domain). 70 PDF pages, about 30,151 words in the supplied text copy.
  • Contents (List of Papers, PDF p.4, read in the original): No.1 Terms of Reference (7 and 23 May 1921); No.2 Interim Report on the Khedera raid (1 July 1921, printed p.5); No.3 Report into the Jaffa Riots (10 August 1921, printed p.17); No.4 Despatch from the High Commissioner to the Secretary of State for the Colonies (25 August 1921 in the List of Papers, printed p.61; the despatch’s own heading is dated 26th August — see Open questions); No.5 Despatch from the Secretary of State to the High Commissioner (21 September 1921, printed p.64).
  • Text quality: the supplied text copy is OCR of a scan, with frequent slips (e.g. “Fresented” for Presented on the title page, signatures and names garbled in places) and it loses the casualty tables on PDF p.31, 34, 36 and 43, the police distribution table and lower text on PDF p.49, the Appendix B table and text on PDF p.62, and the Public Works Department table and the rest of PDF p.65; those pages were read in the original and the figures and passages are recorded from it. The signature on the interim report reads THOS. W. HAYCRAFT in the original (text copy: HAYCKAFT). PDF p.67 is blank in the original; PDF p.68-70 are University of California Library, Berkeley circulation endpapers of the scanned copy, with no report content.
  • Printed pagination runs 2 pages behind the PDF pagination (printed p.1 = PDF p.3 title page; the interim report begins printed p.5 = PDF p.7; the Jaffa Report begins printed p.17 = PDF p.19; Appendix B is printed p.60 = PDF p.62; No.5 ends printed p.64 = PDF p.66).

Section by section

No.1 — Terms of Reference (PDF p.5-6 / printed p.3-4)

  • A, 7 May 1921: Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner, appoints Sir Thomas Haycraft, Chief Justice of Palestine, as Chairman, with H. C. Luke, Assistant Governor of Jerusalem, and Mr Stubbs of the Legal Department, to inquire into the disturbances in the town and neighbourhood of Jaffa; assessors Aref Pasha Dejani El Daoudi, Elias Eff. Mushabbeck and Dr Eliash; powers under Article 2 of the Commission of Inquiries Ordinance, 1921 (PDF p.5).
  • B, 23 May 1921: the inquiry is extended to disturbances in any part of the District of Jaffa or elsewhere in Palestine (PDF p.6).

No.2 — Interim Report on the Khedera Raid, 6 May 1921 (PDF p.7-18 / printed p.5-16)

  • Setting: Khedera (Hadera), a Jewish agricultural colony of about 600 souls employing 400-500 Arab labourers, about 12 miles from Tulkarm, the administrative centre for about 40 overwhelmingly Moslem villages (PDF p.7). On 6 May a raid from neighbouring villages burned two houses and ransacked 14; the colonists’ lives were saved by an aeroplane (PDF p.7).
  • Lead-up: exaggerated reports of the Jaffa riots, stories of Moslems murdered by Jews, Jews supposed Bolshevik, rumours of arms sent from Khedera to Petach-Tikvah and Jaffa and of Arab workmen imprisoned in Khedera; the acting Sub-District Governor of Tulkeram, Wadi Effendi Isawi, turned back a first advance on 4 May with Indian Cavalry, obtained an aeroplane letter warning the colony to release the workmen at six o’clock, and on 5 May faced crowds over the attack on Petach-Tikvah and the false Kalkilieh rumours (PDF p.7-9). On the morning of 6 May, after Wadi Effendi returned from Kalkilieh (all quiet there) to a Nablus deputation that insisted on disarming the Jews and declined to send a member with him to Khedera to inquire into the imprisoned-workmen rumour, the report records: “At this time Wadi Effendi did not seem to have realised that anything very serious was happening in the direction of Khedera.” (PDF p.10).
  • The raid, 6 May: a crowd set out from Tulkeram via Kakon; Reserve Inspector Beard sent 10 mounted police under Sergeant-Major Inam instead of riding out himself, which the report criticises; the armoured cars stuck in the sand; Flying Officer Flynn, ordered to reconnoitre with “offensive action not to be taken unless necessary”, dispersed the advance by demonstration at 10.55 a.m. and, returning at 12.35 p.m. after raiders had entered and looted the south-east quarter, put them to flight with bombs and machine-gun fire — three Arabs killed and three wounded, four of the retreating policemen wounded by the airman who took them for participants (PDF p.10-12). The Commission finds not more than 1,000 men engaged in all and about 500 reaching the colony (PDF p.12-13).
  • Findings: the imprisoned-labourers allegation is disbelieved on the airmen’s and the colonists’ evidence (PDF p.13); the colonists had done nothing to provoke the attack and the crowd intended to kill and loot (PDF p.16-17); damage was put to the Commission at about 27,000 (currency sign lost in the text copy), on which it expresses no opinion (PDF p.17); collective responsibility is fixed prima facie on Tulkeram and Kakon, in a different degree on the Wadi Hawaret Bedouin camp, with Kalkilieh, Zeta, El-Lar, Baka, At-Til, Der-Ghusun, Beit-Lid, Saffarin, Anebta and the Damaira encampment probably but not conclusively implicated (PDF p.17-18, village spelling checked in the original); premeditation and the colonists’ claim that Government employees organised the raid are rejected — the attack was improvised (PDF p.18). Wadi Effendi “did his best”; Beard, Flynn’s orders, and traffic inspector Naim Shaker Effendi El Khoury (whose troop train waited an hour at Kafr Samir) are criticised in the terms given in the reading notes (PDF p.15-16). The Mayor of Tulkeram is reported as considering the raid an act of war against the Jews, if not justifiable at any rate excusable, and the Mukhtars as committing perjury to admit nothing (PDF p.17).
  • Context reserved and stated: the general attitude to the Jews and the “National Home” policy is reserved for the main report; the report rejects artificial-agitation and loot as sufficient explanations — “But that is not enough to explain the present state of things.” (PDF p.15).

No.3 — Report into the Jaffa Riots, Part I: Introductory and Description of Jaffa (PDF p.19-20 / printed p.17-18)

  • The disturbances began with the Jaffa riot of Sunday 1 May 1921, serious violence in the town on the two succeeding days, attacks on Jewish agricultural colonies on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and sporadic anti-Jewish manifestations in Jaffa in June and as late as July (PDF p.19). The Commission sat from 12 May to 26 July 1921 and heard 291 witnesses; the assessors had no hand in the report and are not responsible for its opinions; Secretary Mr E. Bryant (PDF p.19).
  • Jaffa described: population 45,000 — Moslems about one-half, Jews more than a quarter, Christians something less than one-quarter; the old town, Ajami, Menshieh, “Tin Town”, the sandy space between Menshieh and Tel Aviv, Boustros Street, the Governorate and square, and Suk-el-Deir are described as the geography of the events (PDF p.19-20). Native Moslems and Christians are said to claim the same Arab nationality and to constitute a united body politically (PDF p.20).

No.3 Part I — The Jewish Labour Situation and the M.P.S. (PDF p.21-24 / printed p.19-22)

  • The report distinguishes “old” Jews, European agricultural colonists and the “new” Jews of Zionist immigration with labour organisations (PDF p.21). Ahdut Ha’avoda is presented as the constitutional, patriotically Jewish bulk of organised Jewish labour, federated December 1920, whose Poale Zion affiliation to the Third International was voted at Vienna in August 1920, dissented from by the English and Palestinian representatives, and refused by Moscow (PDF p.21).
  • The M.P.S. (“Miflagat Poalim Sozialistim”), a small revolutionary group reinforced from Russia in early 1920, is narrated through the 7 November 1920 posters and demonstration, the furniture-makers’ assault case, the raid on the Borochoff Club in Menshieh, its peak of nearly 300 members, its failed turn to Arab labour with Arabic Communist literature from Vienna, the Moslem-Christian Society’s letter to the High Commissioner, and the Government’s decision to ignore a movement believed moribund; in spring 1921 it was expelled from Petach Tikvah and its club was closed on 5 March, yet still used (PDF p.21-23).
  • The Achduth Haavodah demonstration for 1 May was permitted on stated conditions after its Committee refused to undertake that it would be non-political, claiming that “in no civilised country is it forbidden for workmen to carry the Labour flag on the Labour festival.” (PDF p.23). On the night of 30 April police caught Jews distributing Palestine Communist Party proclamations in Hebrew/Yiddish and Arabic ending, in the Arabic version, “Long live Soviet Palestine!” (PDF p.24).

No.3 Part I — 1st May: Events at Menshieh (PDF p.24-27 / printed p.22-25)

  • 1 May was Orthodox Easter Sunday. Tewfik Bey forbade the M.P.S. demonstration at the Borochoff Club (50-70 persons with red rosettes); the demonstrators slipped away to the sea shore and reached the outskirts of Tel Aviv, where two processions collided twice — at the Gymnasium and near Spector’s Hotel — the one serious injury being an M.P.S. woman badly wounded in the head (PDF p.25-26). Police separated the parties into the sandy space; Arabs of Menshieh and Jews of Tel Aviv collected on opposite edges, police fired into the air by Atkins’ order, and police and Arabs poured into Menshieh, “where a general hunting of the Jews began” in the report’s narrative (PDF p.26-27). The report’s conclusion on the turn: “Had it not been for outstanding grievances felt by the Arabs against the Jews, the police would have had little difficulty in keeping the peace.” (PDF p.26). From this time, the report finds, the police became partisan (PDF p.27). Miller and three Arab notables (Mayor Assim Bey el-Said, Omar Effendi Bittar, Abdullah Effendi Dejani) stilled the tumult only momentarily; the Jewish market in Menshieh was entirely looted (PDF p.27).

No.3 Part I — 1st May: The Immigration House Attack (PDF p.28-30 / printed p.26-28)

  • The Immigration House in Ajami, under the Zionist Commission, held about 100 newly arrived immigrants. About 1 p.m. Abdin Bey promised the crowd arms if they followed him to the barracks and left Hanna Effendi at the main entrance; police fired at the gate, one or two bombs were thrown from the upper floor killing one man, and Hanna Effendi told the crowd to disperse and “went home to lunch” in his own account, as the report pointedly records (PDF p.28-29). On Rev A. C. Martin’s evidence the police broke through the door and led part of the mob into the yard; men fleeing were beaten to death in the street and others killed in the courtyard; one woman was killed, by a shot through a window; women who escaped were sheltered by an Arab neighbour; an Arab policeman who robbed women and made indecent advances under threat was later sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment (PDF p.29). The toll was 13 Jews killed or mortally wounded and 24 wounded, and one Arab killed and four wounded (PDF p.29). Looting in the bazaar and at the Immigration Hospital ground floor is also narrated (PDF p.29-30).

No.3 Part I — Arrival of the Troops and the 1 May Table (PDF p.30-31 / printed p.28-29)

  • Troops arrived from 3.45 p.m.: Captain Boutflower with 80 men of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment cleared Menshieh; Lieutenant Bradshaw with two armoured cars dispersed a crowd estimated at 4,000 to 5,000; Captain Hancocks with 40 Royal Field Artillery drew a cordon in Menshieh; in Menshieh Jews were found beating four Arab men, a woman and a boy, and one Arab shot a Jew dead (PDF p.30-31). The 1 May medical table (read in the original): Arabs 3 dead/mortally wounded and 34 wounded; Jews 27 dead/mortally wounded and 104 wounded (PDF p.31). That night passed quietly; on the morning of 2 May Jewish revenge attacks on two Arab families, casual firing from the unfinished houses on Tel Aviv’s western edge, and an Arab crowd bringing a dead girl’s body in a coffin to Captain Hancocks are recorded from the original (PDF p.31).

No.3 Part I — Events of 2nd May (PDF p.32-34 / printed p.30-32)

  • Lt-Colonel Margolin episode: Civil Secretary Colonel Deedes consented to 18 Turkish rifles for the defence of Tel Aviv only, in Margolin’s charge; 17 Defence Force N.C.Os had already left Ludd without permission with arms; Captain Jaffe marched 25 demobilised Judeans in khaki through Jaffa to collect the rifles contrary to the arrangement, and two N.C.Os took four more rifles from Surafend without authority — 39 rifles in Tel Aviv in all; Margolin took no disciplinary action and left Palestine after giving evidence (PDF p.32-33). The report links the 39 armed men in khaki to Arab complaints that Jews dressed as British soldiers were committing violence, Tel Aviv never having been attacked, and appends its warning that civilians wearing dress resembling British uniform in civil strife is a dangerous factor (PDF p.34, table page read in the original).
  • Military command passed Knolles to Colonel-Commandant Byron (about 200 troops); Major Montefiore took police command with the Police Training School; a soldier shot a Christian Arab supposed to be looting, which Byron treated as the only such occurrence; the murder of the author Yosef Haim Brenner and five other Jews off the Ramleh Road was disclosed — five bodies beaten or stabbed, a sixth with hands tied, afterwards not found (PDF p.33-34). Monday’s medical table (read in the original): Arabs 10 dead and 11 wounded (six Arabs killed and six wounded by rifle fire, one of them killed by a British soldier); Jews 13 dead and 26 wounded (PDF p.34).

No.3 Part I — Events of 3rd May, 4th May and After, and June-July (PDF p.35-38 / printed p.33-36)

  • Martial law, pressed by Byron on the ground quoted in the reading notes, was proclaimed; civil police were removed from Menshieh and disarmed in the town by concurrence with the Governor; Byron paraded the Tel Aviv men and required the rifles handed over and uniforms abandoned by 6 a.m. on 4 May, which was done (PDF p.35). The Feingold Hotel explosives (three and a-half tins, about 7 lb., and 100 detonators of the Kadem Building Company) are dismissed: “Undue importance has been attached to this episode, which has no significance of any sort.” (PDF p.35-36). Tuesday’s medical table (read in the original): Arabs 1 dead and 4 wounded; Jews 3 dead and 4 wounded (PDF p.36).
  • Events of 4th May and after (PDF p.36-37, lower p.36 read in the original): 150 immigrants were removed from the docks to Tel Aviv; a crowd over a false story of two murdered children was headed off by Major Pery-Knox-Gore and the children were found unhurt; the Duke of Wellington’s was relieved by the Highland Light Infantry. H.M.S. “Calypso” landed 50 men for the Old Jaffa quarter (PDF p.37).
  • The temporary prohibition of immigration, first ordered by Byron and confirmed by telegram on Saturday 14 May and announced by the town crier, “was received with acclamation” in the square (PDF p.37). Musa Kiazim Pasha (spelling as in this report) reported normal conditions restorable in three or four days; Byron preventively arrested seven Arabs on 16 May and three Jews on 18 May and reported that from that time the shops began to open and the town became more normal every day (PDF p.37, Byron’s words split by the attribution in the text). Fifteen non-Palestinian Jews convicted of M.P.S. membership were deported during May (PDF p.37). The 13 June amok killing of two Jews, the boatmen’s resistance to Jewish landing culminating in the 30 June picket incident (Government communiqué quoted in full), and the 7 July shooting of a Jew in the Ajami main street, whose arrested suspect was acquitted for lack of evidence, close the narrative to the report’s preparation (PDF p.37-38).

No.3 Part I — Attack on Kefr Saba and Ain Hai (PDF p.39-40 / printed p.37-38)

  • The report states its general cause for the colony attacks: long-fomenting political unrest and the immediate belief in exaggerated rumours of Arabs killed by Jews in Jaffa (PDF p.39). Kefr Saba (Kfar Saba), founded 15 years earlier by some 20 persons with the aid of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, was abandoned by its colonists on 3 May after its Arab labourers were called back to Kalkilieh, whose meeting had decided to attack Jaffa and “on our way to go in to Kefr Saba” in the quoted labourer’s account (PDF p.39); Abu Kishk Arabs seized 20 head of cattle on the retreat to Petach Tikvah; on 6 May two houses were found burned and the rest stripped, one house and a pump and engine destroyed, and Ain Hai destroyed (PDF p.39-40).

No.3 Part I — Attack on Petach Tikvah (PDF p.40-43 / printed p.38-41)

  • Petach Tikvah (Mulebbis), about 3,500 inhabitants and 25,000 dunums, was attacked on 5 May. Captain Hudson’s Indian Cavalry squadron drove Arabs from a ridge (about 15 Arab bodies seen; a horizon “black with people from 1,000 to 2,000 retreating”); four Jews were killed in the attack (PDF p.40). In the southern (Yahudieh) engagement, Flynn’s aeroplane dispersed about 400 Arabs by bombs dropped in front of their advance, Vickers’ cavalry counted seven Arabs killed and 14 wounded in its charge, and Bradshaw’s tender scattered two bodies inflicting casualties (PDF p.41). The corrosive-acid allegation, the multiple wounds (one man with as many as 10), the wounded Arabs’ story and the Indian soldiers’ counter-story about Mr Blum and an unidentified horseman shooting wounded and surrendering men are all left unresolved: Blum and Shapiro denied the accusations, Shapiro was not identified, and the matters were under criminal investigation (PDF p.42-43).
  • Sheikh Abu Kishk surrendered on 7 May but could not or would not surrender his tribe’s arms and the complained-of 400 stolen cattle; his “White House” was burned after warning (PDF p.43). The medical table for the two attacks (read in the original): Jews 4 dead and 12 wounded; Arabs 28 dead and 15 wounded, besides evidence that the Abu Kishk tribe removed about 20 more dead (PDF p.43).

No.3 Part I — Attack on Rehoboth (PDF p.43-45 / printed p.41-43)

  • Rehoboth (El-Deiran), about four miles from Ramleh. The section heading and opening are on PDF p.43 (read in the original): on Friday 6 May the annual Nebi Saleh Festival at Ramleh drew a said 25,000 to 30,000 people; its holding was permitted after leading notables assured Mr Miller, the Sub-District Governor of Ramleh, they would guarantee the people’s good conduct. Men moving toward Rehoboth, a false rumour that Rehoboth Jews had attacked West Zermuka — without foundation, and in Miller’s opinion deliberately concocted by certain notables — and cries of “Down with the Jews” preceded the move (PDF p.44). Wainwright stopped a body estimated at about 600 and another of 150 to 200; the raiders broke through the orange groves; a garden house was burned; Sheikh Amin El Khawaji’s appeals were met with “They are attacking our brothers in Zermuka and we must take our revenge.”; an aeroplane and Indian cavalry made the retreat general; the R.F.A. picket in the colony, armed with pick handles, disputed the defence with colonists firing at long range (PDF p.44).
  • Conclusion of the section (PDF p.45): the picket’s conspicuous posting probably drew the conclusion the colony was defended by armed troops. Three Arabs were ascertained killed by rifle fire; no colonists were injured; the Arabs carried no firearms so far as the evidence goes, and none had entered the village. Certain Arab notables were tried for incitement in connection with the affair, but there was no conviction; 17 Arabs arrested for participating had been released on bail and not yet tried when Wainwright gave evidence on 23 July (PDF p.45). There were no further attacks on Jewish agricultural colonies (PDF p.45).

No.3 Part II — Conclusions: General (PDF p.45-47 / printed p.43-45)

  • The immediate cause — the M.P.S. demonstration and its clash with the Jewish Labour Party procession — could of itself have produced only an ordinary street riot; the disturbance raged for days wherever Arabs met Jews and spread to colonies having nothing to do with Bolshevism: “The Bolshevik demonstration was the spark that set alight the explosive discontent of the Arabs, and precipitated an outbreak which developed into an Arab-Jewish feud.” (PDF p.45).
  • The Jewish witnesses’ theory — that there was no essentially anti-Jewish question and that the movement was engineered by a small class regretting the old regime together with foreign, principally French, agents, Arabs being primarily anti-British — is rejected: “We are satisfied that this is not the case.” The feeling against the Jews was too genuine, widespread and intense; discontent with Government is due partly to the policy regarding a Jewish National Home, partly to Arab misunderstandings of it, and partly to the manner in which it is interpreted and sought to be applied by some of its advocates outside Government, culminating in a suspicion that Government is under Zionist influence and favours a minority against the vast majority; had there been no Jewish question, Government would have had no political difficulty of importance in its domestic affairs; anti-British feeling originates in the association of Government with furtherance of Zionism (PDF p.46).
  • It was unwise, given the strained condition of Arab feeling, to allow the generally detested, numerically small Communists any propaganda; the most notorious have been deported. The Arabs were the first to turn the quarrel into a race conflict and then behaved with a savagery that cannot be condoned; Dr Beadles, Principal Medical Officer, Jaffa, is quoted on the dead of 1 May: “I was struck most with the number of wounds on each body, and the ferocity of the wounds. I am speaking particularly of broken skulls. Some of the victims had dozens of wounds.” The killing was accompanied and followed by an orgy of pillage; the Jews retaliated with equal savagery, but had much to revenge; two mutilation stories, one on each side, are not believed (PDF p.46).
  • Two corrosive-acid injuries in the Jaffa trouble were established, a Jew the victim in one and an Arab in the other. The charge that the outbreak was planned or pre-arranged for 1 May is rejected: “We are convinced that the charge constantly brought by Jews against the Arabs, that this outbreak had been planned by them, or by their leaders, and was pre-arranged for the 1st May, is unfounded.” Notables on both sides were always ready to help restore order; the belief that Zionist aims and Jewish immigration endanger the national and material interests of Arabs is well nigh universal among Arabs of every class, leaders and people feeling their interests identical; 1 May, Orthodox Easter Day, was an unlikely day for a chosen rising (PDF p.47).
  • The colony raids’ immediate cause was reports of Jews having killed Arabs in Jaffa, with local stimulants: Khedera the false imprisoned-labourers report; Rehoboth the story of an attack on a neighbouring Arab village (Miller and Wainwright think it concocted at Ramleh to promote an attack; two notables tried were acquitted, and no particular village’s responsibility is shown); at Petach Tikvah only the Abu Kishk tribe can clearly be saddled with responsibility, the Yahoudieh men having been stopped before raiding; no evidence shows by whom Kefr Saba and Ain Hai were raided. In none of the five cases can the Arabs’ conduct be excused; most colonists had lived for years on friendly terms with Arab neighbours and given regular employment on a large scale (PDF p.47-48).

No.3 Part II — Looting (PDF p.48-49 / printed p.46-47)

  • Looting in Jaffa and Menshieh was extensive on 1-2 May; looters almost exclusively Arabs and of the poorer and more ignorant elements, victims almost exclusively Jews; Suk el-Deir and Ajami suffered most. The Looting Committee appointed 5 May (Mr A. B. C. Gibson presiding, with a Moslem and a Jewish member) offered immunity for loot returned to the Governorate by 9 May; practically nothing of value was returned; 479 claims for loss by pillage were submitted, the Committee being unable to indicate the amount of damage; searches failed to disclose the property. Complaints of soldiers searching houses under Jewish guidance were probably of demobilised Jews in old uniforms; colony looting and damage went to a separate Government committee. Up to the present, 25 convictions for looting in Jaffa (PDF p.48-49).

No.3 Part II — The Governor and the Police (PDF p.49-52 / printed p.47-50)

  • Governor Colonel Stirling had a most difficult task; on May Day the Civil Administration had broken down; the outbreak was liable to occur at any moment yet totally unexpected; of Stirling the Commission is of opinion that he did all he could have been expected to do (PDF p.49).
  • Police strength and distribution (table read in the original): budget strength for the Jaffa Administrative District 10 officers, 53 mounted police and 135 foot; actual distribution — Jaffa 6 officers, 20 mounted, 84 foot; Ramleh 3, 17, 23; Tulkeram 1, 15, 22 (column sums computed from the table: 10 officers, 52 mounted, 129 foot). Two of the officers were British, five officers and 141 men Moslems, two officers and 19 men Christians, one officer and 21 men Jews. The men are enlisted for only two years; there is no barrack life; pay and conditions do not attract the recruit fit for impartiality; with reasonable conditions, ample training and longer enlistment the Palestinian offers good material for an efficient force, as the Jerusalem Training School men’s exemplary conduct under Major Montefiore showed; experienced British constables or N.C.Os. should be secured to leaven the force (PDF p.49-50).
  • District Commandant Wainwright’s absence at Khan Yunis, 66 miles away, from the morning of 30 April until his return on Tuesday 3 May had, in the Commission’s opinion, insufficient justification; he had told the acting Assistant Governor he thought there would be a fight, yet in telephoning headquarters for leave he did not tell the Deputy Director of Public Security of the officers’ fears of a Labour/M.P.S. conflict — a serious omission. The armoury storeroom, part of the police office partitioned off with a curtain of blankets, is a singularly lax arrangement; only 15 rounds were issued on the Sunday, yet the police held other ammunition, some of it without doubt improperly used, for want of any efficient system of checking returns (PDF p.50).
  • Officers: Cohen and Tewfik Bey did reasonably well; Abdin Bey bore a heavier burden than he could fairly carry but committed a serious error of judgment in leaving the Immigration House; Second Inspector Hanna Effendi Bordcosh must incur more serious censure — aware of the firing, the bombs and the crowd battering in the door, with the dead and wounded 42 in all subsequently found in and about the house, he went home to lunch and to clean blood from his belt: “It is difficult to conceive of a more flagrant disregard of duty.” (PDF p.51). The other ranks were on the whole unsatisfactory, racial considerations influencing their conduct and early partisanship infecting them; convictions against members of the Force for homicide, theft, attempted rape and unlawful wounding were recorded; the force also impressed the Commission unfavourably by slovenliness observed over its two and a-half months in Jaffa (PDF p.51-52).

No.3 Part II — Causes of Arab Hostility to Jews (PDF p.52-54 / printed p.50-52)

  • So long as the Jews remained an unobtrusive minority under the Ottoman Government they were not molested or disliked; hostility arose when Arabs came to believe the Jews were exercising a preponderating influence over Government. The Commission’s province is the statements and constructions put before it, not their merits: witnesses of all sections of the non-Jewish community — Moslems, Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Maronites and other Uniates, Anglicans, including priests — left it impossible to avoid the conclusion that practically the whole non-Jewish population was united in hostility to the Jews, and during the riots all discrimination between categories of Jews was obliterated. On 27 June two members met Arab children of six or seven in Ajami marching with sticks and branches shouting “We want to fight the Jews.”, policemen present not interfering; so long as this feeling continues, the mass of the people cannot be trusted to do justice where a Jew is concerned (PDF p.52).
  • The grievances, whose effect the Commission is satisfied of without pronouncing on their merits (PDF p.53): (a) Britain was led by the Zionists to adopt a policy mainly directed to a National Home for the Jews, not to the equal benefit of all Palestinians; (b) the Government’s official advisory body is a Zionist Commission, bound to regard Jewish interests before all others and by its singular prerogatives an imperium in imperio; (c) an undue proportion of Jews in Government service; (d) the Zionist programme of flooding Palestine with a people of greater commercial and organising ability, which will eventually obtain the upper hand; (e) immigrants an economic danger, and favoured in competition; (f) immigrant Jews offending by arrogance and contempt of Arab social prejudices; (g) immigrants of Bolshevik tendencies admitted through insufficient precautions, introducing social strife, economic unrest and Bolshevik doctrines.
  • Elaborations: the Transfer of Land Ordinance, 1920 is regarded as designed to keep down land prices and throw land into Jewish hands cheaply, and the 1920 cereals export prohibition as designed to force land sales and cheap food for immigrants; the Legal Secretary, a Jew and ardent exponent of Zionism, is said to lessen confidence in the Courts, and the Public Works Department personnel is pointed to; Jews are asserted exclusive in business and in official influence over contracts; Public Works and railway employment of Jews out of proportion to their population is said to displace Arab labour and to make Arabs pay for the Jewish National Home (PDF p.53-54).
  • Immigration: artisans’ and labourers’ objections are mostly economic — public-works and railway employment and competition as artisans, labourers and porters in relatively large numbers; the report remarks that it would be useless to argue with the Arab that the immigrants are not aliens because returning to their ancient home: “He tells you that they are Russians and Poles, and sometimes adds that they are Bolsheviks.” Immigration is likened to bounty-fed commerce because the immigrant is subsidised while the Arab must starve when out of work; non-working Arabs add clerical competition, Hebrew now being an official language. The main objection, originating with the educated and filtered through khans and coffee-shops, is political: “It can be summed up in the fear that through extensive Jewish immigration Palestine will become a Jewish dominion.” The Keren Ha-Yesod Book is quoted: “The object of the modern Jewish pioneer in Palestine is to prepare room and work for the thousands and millions that wait outside.” (PDF p.54).

No.3 Part II — Causes continued: Fear, the Haluzim, the Bolsheviks, the Zionist Commission (PDF p.55-57 / printed p.53-55)

  • Mr Reading, Sub-District Governor of Tulkeram, found a village notion that the Jews, sufficiently increased, would become so organised and well armed as to overcome, rule over and oppress the Arabs, probably connected with the rumour that Government was secretly arming the Jews, which had Arabs clamouring for arms (PDF p.55).
  • A limited social objection in Jaffa: younger “Haluzim” of both sexes perambulating arm in arm in free and easy attire, singing and holding up traffic, against Arab ideas of decorum — natural exuberance on arrival in their “National Home” on one side, natural irritation at self-assertion on the other, “new wine into old bottles”; those overseeing immigrants should impress considerate conduct on them (PDF p.55).
  • The Bolshevik element’s danger should not be underrated: its effect was out of proportion to its numbers through the genuine uneasiness it inspired, above all among the poorer country classes, evidenced in the Khedera inquiry; the Arabs had a real fear of it which they could not, as with the Khedera labourers story, have ascertained to be baseless; strikes, labour demonstrations and class-war leaflets were new and alarming; non-Bolshevik Jewish labour organisations’ strikes added dislike and distrust of Jewish labourer immigrants generally (PDF p.55-56).
  • “But for the considerations set forth above we feel convinced that there would be no animosity towards the Jews as such; that there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, racial or religious.” Educated Arabs credibly assured the Commission they would welcome well-to-do and able Jews who could help develop the country for all sections; but the Zionist Commission has failed to carry conviction to the Arabs that the National Home will benefit them, inspiring only profound distrust (PDF p.56).
  • That distrust’s roots: in the Military Administration’s early days Jews obtained railway travel and import permits promptly because the Zionist Commission was accepted as their sponsor, Arabs having no corresponding body — not the Commission’s fault, but it created ill-will. The Commission was best placed to conciliate the Arabs and render the Balfour Declaration policy acceptable, yet Arabs believe it ignored them or combated their interests; impressions were worsened by its practice, abandoned since April 1920, of paying subsidies to Jewish policemen and junior Jewish Government clerks, by evidence of its pressure on a large Jewish landowner of Richon-le-Zion to replace Arab labourers employed since he was a boy with Jewish labour (which he yielded to reluctantly, on alienation and profitability grounds), and by its influence, exercised or believed exercised, over legislation and the selection and reinstatement of officials. The Commission’s verdict: its conception of its duties and functions has exercised an exacerbating rather than a conciliatory influence on the Arab population and has thus been a contributory cause of the disturbances (PDF p.56-57).

No.3 Part II — Zionist Writing and Dr Eder; Reconciliation Basis; Concluding Observations (PDF p.58-60 / printed p.56-58)

  • Zionist writing in Europe is read and discussed by Palestinian Arabs in towns and country districts. Instances quoted: H. Sidebotham, England and Palestine (1918), quoted by a Tulkeram witness: “It is desired to encourage Jewish immigration by every means, and at the same time to discourage the immigration of Arabs… .” The Jewish Chronicle leading article, No. 2,720, 20 May 1921: “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.” Palestine, organ of the British Palestine Committee, 4 June 1921, called Palestine a “deserted, derelict land”, which hardly tallies with a population density, by Zionist figures, of about 75 to the square mile. Mr V. Jabotinsky’s letter in The Times, 14 May, urged that Jews alone should have the privilege of military service in Palestine, Arabs being excluded from bearing arms. The “Karen Ha-Yesod Book” [spelling as printed at this place; the footnote on the same page prints “Keren Ha-Yesod Book”, checked in the original] regretted that the draft Mandate did not secure the Zionist Organisation influence, through legally secured channels, in the choice of the High Commissioner (PDF p.58).
  • Dr Eder, acting Chairman of the Zionist Commission, examined: unaggressive and frank, he gave no quarter to the National Home view of the Secretary of State and the High Commissioner — in the Commission’s report of his evidence, there can be only one National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, with no equality in partnership but a Jewish predominance as soon as numbers are sufficiently increased; he declined “dominion” but chose “predominance”; Jews should, and Arabs should not, bear arms, a discrimination he believed would improve relations; the Zionist Organisation should be able to object to the Government’s choice of High Commissioner or submit its own nominees. As acting Chairman he presumably expresses the official Zionist creed; his claims are those at the root of the unrest and differ materially from the declared policy; Arab witnesses denounce the Government as a Zionist Government while Dr Eder stigmatises it as an Arab administration. The attitude arises perhaps from regarding Palestine as a deserted, derelict land without traditions of nationality (PDF p.59).
  • The reconciliation basis proposed: Arabs to accept implicitly the Government’s declared policy on the Jewish National Home, Zionist leaders to abandon and repudiate all pretensions beyond it; immigrants to understand they are seeking a home in a country at present overwhelmingly Arab and to be considerate; Arab notables to make clear that murder, violence and pillage can never be condoned (PDF p.59-60).
  • Concluding Observations: the Commission was unwilling to check the flow of witnesses, so no party should feel unheard; thanks to the Mayor and Municipal Council of Jaffa for the sitting room and a warm tribute to Secretary Mr Bryant. Appendices: (a) a resume of conclusions; (b) a plan of Jaffa (not reproduced); (c) a table of medical statistics; (d) a verbatim report of the evidence with exhibits (not printed, to be submitted separately). Signed THOS. W. HAYCRAFT, H. C. LUKE, J. N. STUBBS, 10th August, 1921 (PDF p.60).

Appendix A — Resume (PDF p.61 / printed p.59)

  • The resume states: “The fundamental cause of the Jaffa riots and the subsequent acts of violence was a feeling among the Arabs of discontent with, and hostility to, the Jews, due to political and economic causes, and connected with Jewish immigration, and with their conception of Zionist policy as derived from Jewish exponents.” The immediate cause was the unauthorised Bolshevik demonstration and its clash with the authorised Jewish Labour Party demonstration. The racial strife was begun by Arabs; the Arab majority, generally the aggressors, inflicted most casualties. The outbreak was not premeditated or expected; the general body of Jews is opposed to Bolshevism. A large part of the Moslem and Christian communities condoned the riot without encouraging violence; certain educated Arabs appear to have incited the mob, while notables on both sides aided the authorities. The police were, with few exceptions, half-trained and inefficient, in many cases indifferent, in some cases leaders of or participators in violence; the military’s conduct was admirable throughout. The five colony raids arose from reports of Arabs killed by Jews in Jaffa, in two cases on unfounded provocation stories believed without verification; few Jewish and many Arab casualties, chiefly through military intervention. The resume is not to be regarded as the conclusions except read with the report (PDF p.61).

Appendix B — Medical Statistics (PDF p.62 / printed p.60; read in the original)

  • Table, killed/wounded: 1 May Jaffa — Arabs 3/34, Jews 27/104; 2 May Jaffa — Arabs 10/11, Jews 13/26; 3 May Jaffa — Arabs 1/4, Jews 3/4; 5 May Petach Tikvah — Arabs 14 killed, none wounded, Jews 4/12; 5 May Yahudieh — Arabs 14/15, Jews none; 6 May Rehoboth — Arabs 3/5, Jews none; 6 May Khedera — Arabs 3/4, Jews none. Totals as printed: Arabs 48 killed and 73 wounded; Jews 47 killed and 146 wounded (column sums recomputed from the table agree). The table’s text gives 95 killed and 219 wounded admitted to the various hospitals in all, mortally wounded included under “killed”, with further considerable numbers treated for less serious wounds at clinics and out-patient departments of whom no precise records exist; the Principal Medical Officer estimates the total casualties dealt with by the medical authorities at 385, of whom 95 killed and 290 wounded; the Abu Kishk tribe removed about 20 dead from the outskirts of Petach Tikvah on 5 May (PDF p.62).

No.4 — Despatch from the High Commissioner (PDF p.63-65 / printed p.61-63)

  • Herbert Samuel to the Secretary of State, Government House, Jerusalem, dated 26th August, 1921 in the despatch’s own heading (the List of Papers and No.5 give 25 August; see Open questions). He had transmitted the interim Report on 8 July and the final Report on 16 August; the Reports are a very thorough and impartial review; his observations are keyed to passages of the Reports. The November 1920 Jaffa proceedings were abandoned not from reluctance but because evidence sufficient to secure conviction could not be obtained. On Jews dressed as British soldiers, he issued a Public Notice quoting Article 131 of the Ottoman Penal Code: wearing a British military uniform without authority is punishable by imprisonment up to one year (PDF p.63).
  • The legal authorities’ independent investigation of the Yahudieh complaints reached the same conclusion as the Commission (“in the main undoubtedly false”); two charges emerged — shooting at the wounded, and throwing vitriol on the wounded — and a printed footnote to the despatch records that these charges were dismissed. Sheikh Abu Kishk, whose case was under consideration at the Report’s drafting, was sentenced by the Military Court to 15 years penal servitude, reduced by the General Officer Commanding to 10 years on account of his youth, and is serving it. The Rehoboth charges were framed for trial; a printed footnote records the outcome: one man two years’ imprisonment for inciting, two men one year, the remainder acquitted (PDF p.63-64, Rehoboth footnote checked in the original).
  • Police improvement measures already taken: (a) a Training School established 1 February 1921, parties of 50 men trained intensively for eleven weeks — the Commissioners’ testimony to the school men’s “exemplary conduct” at Jaffa is quoted back; (b) barrack accommodation being provided so police no longer live scattered with their families in their own towns; (c) Palestinian Police Officers’ pay considerably increased; (d) a Reserve Force of Gendarmerie being recruited and trained, to number 500 men, fully staffed with British officers, trained with British military units, employed in parties of not less than 25 men against raids and disorders, at higher pay. Proceedings against Second Inspector Hanna Eff. Bordcosh have not yet been completed (PDF p.64).
  • The Transfer of Land Ordinance restrictions exist to prevent speculative companies buying large areas and holding them back from use or development in expectation of price increases. The 1920 cereals export prohibition followed a committee of department heads under the Civil Secretary which reported a serious danger of shortage, with the cost of living excessively high; more extensive prohibitions in Egypt and Syria are still continued in Syria. The Public Works Department personnel (table read in the original): British Christian 14 (12 senior, 2 junior), British Jew 4 (1 senior, 3 junior), Palestinian Christian 15 (all junior), Palestinian Moslem 2 (1 senior, 1 junior), Palestinian Jew 44 (3 senior, 41 junior) — column totals as printed, 79 in all (computed from them); exceedingly few Moslems have qualified as engineers and suitable candidates have not been forthcoming. Government contracts are placed by public tender through a Central Tenders Board (President: Controller of Stores; Members: Treasurer, Director of Commerce and Industry, and the head of the department concerned), with local boards lately established. On the complaint that Arabs have no body like the Zionist Commission, a Consultative Committee of leading Christian and Moslem notables has been constituted, to be in close and constant communication with the High Commissioner. Signed HERBERT SAMUEL (PDF p.65, lower page read in the original).

No.5 — Despatch from the Secretary of State (PDF p.66 / printed p.64)

  • Winston Churchill, Downing Street, 21st September, 1921, acknowledges Samuel’s despatches of 8 July (Khedera report) and 16 August (final report) — both footnoted “Not printed” — and of 25 August (observations). He notes and approves the police improvement steps in training, accommodation and pay and the improvement of the Reserve Force of Gendarmerie, and the institution of proceedings against Second-Inspector Bordcosh. The reports are most ably compiled and lucid and well reasoned; publication in Palestine of their impartial conclusions can only do good, and he telegraphed on 16 September authorising publication, the reports with the terms of reference and Samuel’s despatch to be published in this country as a Command paper; the addenda in Samuel’s telegram of 9 September have been noted. The reports make clear the necessity of revising some rules for police and military action in light of the outbreak’s lessons, and he asks for Samuel’s views in due course (PDF p.66).

Library endpapers (PDF p.67-70)

  • PDF p.67 is blank in the original. PDF p.68-70 are the scanned copy’s University of California Library, Berkeley due-date slips and bookplate, with stamps running to 1985; no report content.

Key passages

  • “You are warned to let all Arab workmen in the colony of Khedera go this evening at six o’clock” (the aeroplane letter to Khedera, quoted in the reading notes in full, PDF p.8)
  • “Long live Socialist Palestine.” (M.P.S. poster ending, 7 November 1920, PDF p.22)
  • “Had it not been for outstanding grievances felt by the Arabs against the Jews, the police would have had little difficulty in keeping the peace.” (PDF p.26)
  • “But that is not enough to explain the present state of things.” (on the artificial-agitation argument, interim report, PDF p.15)
  • Byron, quoted on PDF p.37, dates the shops beginning to open and the town becoming more normal every day from the 18 May arrests (his sentence is split by the attribution in the text, so it is not quoted here as a continuous string).
  • “The Bolshevik demonstration was the spark that set alight the explosive discontent of the Arabs, and precipitated an outbreak which developed into an Arab-Jewish feud.” (PDF p.45)
  • “We are satisfied that this is not the case.” (rejecting the Jewish witnesses’ engineered, anti-British theory, PDF p.46)
  • “I was struck most with the number of wounds on each body, and the ferocity of the wounds. I am speaking particularly of broken skulls. Some of the victims had dozens of wounds.” (Dr Beadles, quoted by the Commission, PDF p.46)
  • “We are convinced that the charge constantly brought by Jews against the Arabs, that this outbreak had been planned by them, or by their leaders, and was pre-arranged for the 1st May, is unfounded.” (PDF p.47)
  • “He tells you that they are Russians and Poles, and sometimes adds that they are Bolsheviks.” (the report on the Arab view of the immigrants, PDF p.54)
  • “The object of the modern Jewish pioneer in Palestine is to prepare room and work for the thousands and millions that wait outside.” (the Keren Ha-Yesod Book, quoted by the Commission, PDF p.54)
  • “But for the considerations set forth above we feel convinced that there would be no animosity towards the Jews as such; that there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, racial or religious.” (PDF p.56)
  • “It is desired to encourage Jewish immigration by every means, and at the same time to discourage the immigration of Arabs… .” (H. Sidebotham, England and Palestine, 1918, as quoted by the Commission from a Tulkeram witness, PDF p.58)
  • “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.” (the Jewish Chronicle leading article of 20 May 1921, as quoted by the Commission, PDF p.58)
  • “The fundamental cause of the Jaffa riots and the subsequent acts of violence was a feeling among the Arabs of discontent with, and hostility to, the Jews, due to political and economic causes, and connected with Jewish immigration, and with their conception of Zionist policy as derived from Jewish exponents.” (Appendix A resume, PDF p.61)

Evidence the work relies on

  • The Commission’s own public inquiry at Jaffa (12 May-26 July 1921), 291 witnesses heard, counsel not invited, with three assessors following the evidence (PDF p.19).
  • Depositions and documents produced, attached to the interim report as an appendix but not printed (PDF p.18).
  • Medical returns and tables for 1, 2 and 3 May and for the Petach Tikvah attacks, as presented by the medical authorities (PDF p.31, 34, 36, 43, read in the original), consolidated in Appendix B’s table of medical statistics covering all the disturbances (PDF p.62, read in the original).
  • Named testimony as the narrative presents it: the airmen Flynn and Routh on raider numbers at Khedera and Petach Tikvah; Rev A. C. Martin on the Immigration House; officers Byron, Knolles, Montefiore, Boutflower, Bradshaw, Hudson and Vickers on the military course; Dr Beadles, Principal Medical Officer, Jaffa, on the wounds of the 1 May dead (PDF p.46); a first colonist of Kefr Saba, quoted at length, as the sole evidence for that colony (PDF p.39).
  • For Part II: the grievance testimony of witnesses of all sections of the non-Jewish community (PDF p.52-53); the Looting Committee’s work and its 479 claims (PDF p.48); the police budget strength and actual distribution table (PDF p.49, read in the original); published Zionist and sympathetic texts quoted and discussed — Sidebotham’s England and Palestine (1918), the Jewish Chronicle of 20 May 1921, Palestine of 4 June 1921, Jabotinsky’s Times letter of 14 May, and the Keren Ha-Yesod Book (PDF p.54, 58); and the evidence of Dr Eder, acting Chairman of the Zionist Commission (PDF p.59).
  • A verbatim report of the evidence with exhibits was prepared as Appendix D, to be submitted separately and not printed (PDF p.60).

Analysis

  • The Commission’s method is an official inquiry: a public sitting over two and a-half months, 291 witnesses, no counsel, findings embedded first in narrative (Part I) and then stated as conclusions (Part II), with a resume (Appendix A) that the report itself warns is too condensed to stand for its views except read with the context. Its causal account is layered: a fundamental cause (Arab discontent and hostility connected with immigration and with Zionist policy as its Jewish exponents present it), an immediate cause (the M.P.S. demonstration), and local triggers for each colony raid (exaggerated or false reports believed without verification). It expressly rejects three rival explanations as sufficient: engineered anti-British agitation by a dispossessed class with French help, artificial agitation generally, and loot.
  • Its treatment of the grievances is deliberately two-sided: it finds the grievances’ effect on feeling established while pronouncing on neither their individual merits nor the truth of the statements composing them, holding that the statements and the constructions put on them are what explain the state of feeling in which outrages were explained and condoned by men opposed to violence (PDF p.52). Against that, it does reach findings of fact and fault on particulars: no premeditation, no pre-arrangement for 1 May, the colonists unprovoked, the police’s partisanship and particular officers’ failures, the Zionist Commission’s failure to conciliate, and Eder’s evidence as expressing claims beyond the Government’s declared policy.
  • Its limits are visible in its own pages: the verbatim evidence is not printed, the depositions are not printed, several matters are left to criminal investigation or later correspondence (the Yahudieh shooting and vitriol charges, Abu Kishk’s sentence, the Rehoboth trials and Bordcosh’s proceedings are completed only in Samuel’s despatch and its printed footnotes), and its casualty record is expressly a record of casualties dealt with by the medical authorities, with clinic-treated wounded uncounted except in the Principal Medical Officer’s estimate (PDF p.62). The correspondence (Nos.4-5) is Government answering the Report point by point — Samuel supplying justifications and subsequent outcomes, Churchill approving the police measures and authorising publication — and is part of the file, not an outside assessment of it.

Thomas Haycraft, Herbert Samuel, Winston Churchill, David Eder, Vladimir Jabotinsky, Musa Kazim al-Husayni, Edmond de Rothschild, Yosef Haim Brenner, Haycraft Commission of Inquiry, Jaffa Riots of May 1921, Zionist Commission, Ahdut Ha’avoda, Socialist Workers’ Party, Muslim-Christian Association, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, Hadera, Tulkarm, Petah Tikvah, Kfar Saba, Rehoboth, Immigration House, Jaffa, Nebi Saleh Festival

Balfour Declaration, Jewish National Home

How it relates to other sources

  • The Enduring and Racist Trope of Palestinian Rejectionism cites the Haycraft Commission as a British inquiry that pointed to the threat of Zionist takeover rather than antisemitism as the driver of Arab resistance. The primary text bears the comparison out in its own terms, with a distinction: the Commission finds the driver to be Arab discontent and hostility connected with immigration and with the conception of Zionist policy derived from Jewish exponents — its instances including Eder’s predominance evidence and the Jewish Chronicle’s “as Jewish as England is English” — and it states expressly that there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, while also finding that practically the whole non-Jewish population was united in hostility to the Jews and that the Arabs began the racial strife and inflicted most casualties as the majority aggressors (PDF p.52, 56, 58-59, 61).
  • The report is the earliest ingested primary source for the Jaffa Riots of May 1921 and for the working of the Jewish National Home policy in 1921: its account of Arab constructions of that policy, and of the gap between the declared policy of the Secretary of State and High Commissioner and the claims of responsible Zionists as the Commission reports them, sits beside the The Balfour Declaration text itself and the Zionist Organization’s 1919 statement (Statement of the Zionist Organization regarding Palestine), which sought a National Home secured toward an autonomous Commonwealth.
  • Samuel’s June 1921 letter to Churchill in Governing Gaza concerns the same administration in the same weeks: Feldman’s Samuel is managing unsuitable officials retained on security-of-tenure promises, while this file’s Samuel is answering the Commission’s criticism of the police and reporting the Gendarmerie reserve, the Consultative Committee of Christian and Moslem notables, and the Public Works personnel figures.

Open questions

  • Spelling and figure conflicts held as printed: the Sub-District Governor of Tulkeram is “Beading” on PDF p.8 and “Reading” on PDF p.14, and he is “Mr. Reading” again in Part II (PDF p.55); the assessor is “Dejani El Daoudi” in the terms (PDF p.5), “Dejjani” in the Jaffa Report introduction (PDF p.19); Captain Jaffe is also “Jaife” (PDF p.35); Kefr Saba’s distance from Jaffa is garbled in the text copy (PDF p.39, “about U miles”); the Khedera damage figure is given as about 27,000 with the currency sign lost in the text copy (PDF p.17).
  • Monday’s narrative says six Arabs were killed and six wounded by rifle fire on 2 May (PDF p.34), while Monday’s appended medical table (read in the original) gives Arabs 10 dead and 11 wounded in all categories; the report does not reconcile the two presentations, and both stand.
  • No.4’s date: the despatch’s own heading is dated 26th August, 1921 (PDF p.63), while the List of Papers (PDF p.4) and No.5’s acknowledgment of “your despatch … of the 25th August” (PDF p.66) give 25 August. Both stand.
  • Appendix B gives Khedera (6 May) Arabs 3 killed and 4 wounded (PDF p.62, read in the original), while the interim report’s narrative gives three Arabs killed and three wounded in the aeroplane action and, separately, four retreating policemen wounded by the airman (PDF p.11-12). Whether Appendix B’s four wounded are the policemen is not stated; both presentations stand.
  • Appendix B splits the Petach Tikvah figures into Petach Tikvah (Arabs 14 killed, none wounded) and Yahudieh (14 killed, 15 wounded) (PDF p.62), together agreeing with the combined table’s 28 killed and 15 wounded (PDF p.43); the narrative of the Yahudieh engagement counts seven Arabs killed and 14 wounded in Vickers’ charge alone (PDF p.41), the balance being accounted for only by the report’s note that undiscovered dead and escaped wounded were unknown.
  • The Rehoboth narrative gives three Arabs killed by rifle fire and no wounded figure (PDF p.45); Appendix B gives Rehoboth 3 killed and 5 wounded (PDF p.62). Both stand.
  • The police distribution table’s columns sum (computed) to 52 mounted and 129 foot against a stated budget strength of 53 mounted and 135 foot (PDF p.49, read in the original); the report does not remark on the difference, and both figures stand as printed.
  • The book’s title is spelled “Karen Ha-Yesod Book” in the text of PDF p.58 and “Keren Ha-Yesod Book” in the footnote on the same page and at PDF p.54 (checked in the original). Both spellings stand.
  • The despatch’s passage references (e.g. “Page 71” for the Rehoboth arrests, “Page 97” for the Transfer of Land Ordinance) do not match Cmd. 1540’s printed pagination; the printed footnotes give the corresponding Cmd. 1540 pages (“See p. 41”, “See p. 51”). What edition’s pagination the passage references use is not stated in the file.

Coverage

PDF p.1-70 of 70, read in full in parts 1-2 of 2.

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