REWARDING PALESTINIAN TERROR

 

Douglas J. Feith, Harvard graduate, and U.S. Under Secretary of War for Policy (2001-2005) is a world authority on the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine. The following article is based on his historical data.

In the late 1920’s, Britain governed the Holy Land. Haj Amin al-Husseini served as Jerusalem’s mufti at the time (subsequently collaborated with Hitler in WWII). His campaign of incitement in 1929 based on the false accusation, that the Jews were plotting to destroy al-Asqa, brought about horrendous anti-Jewish atrocities (torture, rape, murder, beheading, arson, pillage) in multiple towns and villages, of which the 1929 Hebron massacre was the worst instance. In total, 183 Jews were killed and 339 wounded.

Husseini had been the loudest voice accusing the Jews of plotting to destroy al-Asqa, fuelling the country-wide mayhem, which lead to the riots - and the astonishing subsequent British concessions.

Arab leaders for years had insisted that they would never consent to large-scale Jewish immigration, never agree to a Jewish national home, and never join an administration rooted in the Balfour Declaration. They would prefer to fight to the death than to compromise on these positions. British officials generally disregarded these “never’s”. They simply assumed that, over time, the Arabs would moderate their policy.

The British appointed governor of Palestine Sir John Chancellor championed ideas hostile to the Jewish national cause. He favoured radical policy changes to remedy Arab complaints against the Jews, and pressed for these changes as necessary to prevent future riots. This put him at cross-purposes with  Britain’s declared policy of support for the creation of a national home for the Jews in their ancient homeland. Formulated in the 1917 Balfour Declaration, it became a legal obligation when incorporated into the Palestine Mandate.

Chancellor pressed hard for his anti-Zionist policy proposals. He wanted the home government to gut the Balfour Declaration. His three immediate goals were: restricting Jewish immigration, curtailing land sales to Jews, and creating a Legislative Council that would be popularly elected and therefore dominated by Arabs.

Thanks to the British pro-Arab initiatives that followed the 1929 riots, the threat of more of the same became the mainspring of Palestinian Arab diplomacy.

For Palestine’s Arabs, the lessons of British action in 1929 were that rioting pays and when London is vacillating, the Arabs should be unyielding. The government was empowering Husseini and the Arab radicals. It was ensuring future political violence. And the violence soon came. Palestinian Arabs have been fighting Jews violently in the Holy Land for a little more than a hundred years.

The British appeasement of Arab violence has paid bloody dividends. Hamas’s October 7^th atrocities claimed it was defending “al-Asqa Flood.” The same claim - that of defending al-Asqa - led to the Hebron massacres in 1929.

In 1929, British officials responded to the bloodbath with pro-Arab policy initiatives, much as present-day governments in Britain and elsewhere have responded to the war launched by Hamas on October 7, 2023, by recognizing a Palestinian state.

The consequences of the 1929 appeasement efforts remain with us today. Linking the two episodes is the killers’ sense that massacres of civilians are politically beneficial.

The parallels to the current war in Gaza are obvious. Under the leadership of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas in Gaza planned a double catastrophe. First, it launched the savage October 7 attack. Then - having constructed its immense  tunnel system - it ensued that Israeli self-defense would harm civilians and cause vast destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure.

Condemnation of the IDF and calls for Palestinian statehood soon came. Even today, Hamas celebrates its strategy, not despite the human suffering it causes, but because the suffering has so fully advanced their cause.

To quote  William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”