Riots in Palestine of 1920: Encyclopedia II - Riots in Palestine of 1920 - Warning signs

Riots in Palestine of 1920 - Warning signs

During their annual spring festival Nebi Musa (Prophet Moses), Muslims march from Jerusalem on the road to Jericho to where they believe Moses is buried. In the years predating 1920, these processions were marked by intimidation of Christian communities on their way.

After Emir Faisal I had agreed to the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine by signing the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the local leaders of the Palestinian Arab community, among them the Jerusalem Mayor Musa Khazim al-Husayni, rejected this agreement made in their name and relations between Arabs and Jews worsened. This agreement was rejected because it did not meet the conditions that Prince Faisal wrote next to his signature, which rendered the agreement non-binding. This condition was that an independent Syrian state be created prior to the agreement taking effect. It is worth noting that this state was never created during Prince Faisal's reign.

The Arab attacks of March 1920 in Galilee (see the fall of Tel Hai and Joseph Trumpeldor) and the activities of the Arab terrorist group Black Hand (Palestine) caused deep concerns among Zionist leaders, who made numerous requests to the Mandate administration to address the Yishuv's security. Their fears were ruled out by the Chief Administrative Officer General Louis Bols, Governor Ronald Storrs and General Edmund Allenby, particularly at their meeting with the president of the World Zionist Organization Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who warned them: "pogrom is in the air".

Storrs issued a warning to Arab leaders, but his forces included only 188 policemen, among them but 8 officers. The Ottoman Turks had usually deployed thousands of soldiers to keep order in the narrow streets of Jerusalem during the Nebi Musa procession.

Zeev Jabotinsky, who was earlier discharged from the British army as an "indiscreet political speaker", led an effort to openly train Jewish volunteers in self-defense. The request to the British authorities to allow arming of the defenders was declined, however about 600 Jews were secretly armed with small guns.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Warning signs", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki