Jaffa riots

This article describes violent events in the British Mandate of Palestine of May 1-May 7, 1921, usually referred to as the Jaffa riots, and their effects.

The events

On May 1, 1921, fighting began in Tel Aviv-Jaffa between rival groups of Jewish activists: Bolsheviks, carrying Yiddish banners demanding Soviet Palestine versus Socialists parading on May Day. The Socialists had police permission, while the Communists did not and, when fighting broke out, the police chased the communists back into the Tel Aviv.

Hearing the fighting, the Arabs of Jaffa feared they were under attack by the Jews and went on the offensive. Fighting went on for several days and spread throughout Palestine.

Immediate aftermath

Fatalities were: 45 Jews, 48 Arabs. Wounded: 146 Jews, 73 Arabs.

Note: Arab casualties resulted from clashes with British forces attempting to restore order.

After the riots, thousands of Jewish residents of Jaffa fled for Tel Aviv, and were temporarily housed in tent camps on the beach.

The newspaper Kuntress whose author and co-editor Yosef Haim Brenner was one of the victims, published an article Entrenchment: "on May 1 the age of innocence had ended."

The British administration made some arrests. After international outcry, the arrested Jews were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

The Arab leaders submitted a petition to the League of Nations in which they expressed their grievances.

The Investigative Commission report

The high commissioner of the Mandate Sir Herbert Samuel established an investigative commission headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court in Palestine Sir Thomas Haycraft. Its report has confirmed the Arab policemen's participation in the riots and also has deemed the actions taken by the authorities adequate. The report angered both Jews and Arabs: it placed the blame on the Arabs, but said that "Zionists were not doing enough to mitigate the Arabs' apprehensions".

Highlights from the report:

"The racial strife was begun by the Arabs, and rapidly developed into a conflict of great violence between Arabs and Jews, in which the Arab majority, who were generally the aggressors, inflicted most of the casualties."

"A large part of the Moslem and Christian communities condoned it [the riots], although they did not encourage violence. While certain of the educated Arabs appear to have incited the mob, the notables on both sides, whatever their feelings may have been, aided the authorities to allay the trouble."

"The [Arab] police were, with few exceptions, half-trained and inefficient, in many cases indifferent, and in some cases leaders or participators in violence."

"The raids on five Jewish agricultural colonies arose from the excitement produced in the minds of the Arabs by reports of Arabs being killed by Jews in Jaffa. In two cases unfounded stories of provocation were believed and acted upon without any effort being made to verify them."

That motif would be repeated in the 1929 Hebron massacre:

"In these raids there were few Jewish and many Arab casualties, chiefly on account of the intervention of the military."

The consequences

In his speech on the occasion of the Royal birthday in June 1921, Samuel stressed Britain's commitment to the second part of the Balfour Declaration and declared that Jewish immigration would be allowed only to the extent that it did not burden the economy. Then Jewish immigration was suspended.

Britain's policy regarding its League of Nations Mandate to re-establish Jewish National Home in Palestine changed to "fixing by the numbers and interests of the present population" the future Jewish immigration. Thus a popular contemporary criticism was that Samuel had revised the Balfour Declaration and Mandate from establishing the Jewish National Home into creating an Arab National Home.

New bloody riots broke out in Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem on November 2, 1921, when five Jewish residents and three of their Arab attackers were killed.

In Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv had been a bedroom community at the time of the Jaffa riots, with its workers commuting to Jaffa. However, when Jews started perceiving Jaffa as a hostile place due to the riots, they decided to develop a business district in downtown Tel Aviv, which eventually became renowned for its Bauhaus architecture.

References

*ISBN 0747573662 City of Oranges: Arabs and Jews in Jaffa by Adam LeBor
*ISBN 1566631890 Weathered by Miracles: A history of Palestine from Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and the mufti (by Thomas A. Idinopulos)

Jaffa riots: Encyclopedia BETA

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