Jaffa Riots - Investigative Commission

Investigative Commission

High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel established an investigative commission headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Palestine, Sir Thomas Haycraft (see Haycraft Commission of Inquiry). Its report confirmed the participation of Arab policemen in the riots and found 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." The report concluded that, "the fundamental cause of the violence 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." .

Highlights from the report include:

"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, 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 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."