40. 1929

The Arab-Israeli conflict exploded into its modern manifestation with the Jerusalem riots of 1929, centered around the use of, access to, and ownership of, the Western Wall.

THE PLOT

For several hundred years the Ottoman sultans allowed Jews to pray at the Western Wall in a tacit agreement known as the “status quo”: Jews can have access to the Western Wall but can’t make any alterations to the site. By the 1920s, as the Jewish population grew, more Jews sought access, increasing tensions. 

On Yom Kippur in 1928, the Jews put up a temporary divider between men and women at Wall, per Jewish religious custom. The British forcibly removed it following Muslim complaints. Throughout 1929 both sides ratcheted up their rhetoric. Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini’s anti-Jewish propaganda inflamed Muslim fears (that have persisted to this day) about the Jews destroying Muslim holy sites. He made opposition to the Jews on a religious level a central component of the emerging Palestinian national movement. Leading Zionists responded with their own calls for the Jews to aggressively access the Western Wall to return the site to Jewish hands.

All of this came to a head in August, 1929, when the Arabs attacked the Jewish Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem, killing several dozen Jews. The attacks spread all over Palestine and in some places were catastrophic. In Hebron the Jews had such good relations with their Arab neighbors that they didn’t think anything bad would happen. Although hundreds of Arabs did indeed hide their Jews neighbors from a rampaging mob, the Jewish community was utterly wrecked, Jews of every age not only murdered but also tortured. All in all nearly 30 Jewish communities were attacked throughout Palestine. Probably more than 130 Jews were killed. Perhaps slightly less Arabs were also killed — a few killed by Jews in self-defense or in a few cases retribution, but most Arabs were killed in fights with the British police and military. It was, without a doubt, the worst tragedy yet in the growing Arab-Jewish conflict.

The British, the Jews, and the Arabs, all drew their own conclusions from the 1929 riots, and acted accordingly.

The British investigatory Shaw Commission blamed the Arabs for the violence. Yet because the Zionists had been allowed so much immigration, and had bought up so much land, the Arabs, said the Commission, were justified in fearing a permanent Jewish takeover of Palestine. Subsequent British waffling on the Balfour Declaration and unrestricted Jewish immigration led to an outcome that pleased no one. Their muddled policy flip-flops had the effect of first raising Arab hopes, then dashing them, and at the same time leaving the Jews confused and outraged.

As for the Arabs, they were learning that violence against the Jews in the name of opposition to Britain’s policies could have the effect of getting those policies changed; the British would cave in to Arab demands.

For the Jews, the 1929 riots crystallized their thinking. For Jabotinsky and his followers, the Haganah’s policy of havlagah, “restraint” from initiating attacks on the Arabs, wasn’t working in the Jews’ defense. The Jews needed to meet violence with violence. They formed a separate paramilitary faction, one that would go on to have a bloody and very controversial history in pre-state Israel. They called themselves the National Military Organization, or, in Hebrew, the Irgun. 

FUN FACTS

The Western Wall back then wasn’t today’s large, visitor-friendly plaza but instead a cramped alleyway behind a neighborhood of homes that backed up to within a few feet of the wall itself.

One single British policeman fought back against the Arab rioters in Hebron, protecting as many Jews as he could and killing as many of the attackers as he could before he ran out of bullets.

During Purim in March 1929, the Graf Zeppelin, the world’s largest airship, floated over Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. The trip was organized by prominent Jewish Zionists in Germany and Vienna as a celebration of the revival of Jewish culture in Palestine.

 

THE PEOPLE

Amin al-Husseini: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, he served as both the Muslim religious leader in Palestine, and the political leader, since he was recognized by the British government as the top Muslim representative. He instigated a lot of the violence against Jerusalem’s Jewish community.

THE BIG IDEAS

Since Ottoman times the Muslims preserved Jewish access to the Jewish holy sites in an arrangement known as “the status quo.” This allowed Jews access to their holy sites, like the Western Wall, on the condition that they could make no changes. This prevented Muslim worry that the Jews would gradually take control of the sites if they were allowed to make additions. Some version of the “status quo” remains in effect to this day between the State of Israel and various Muslim authorities.

In 1922 the League of Nations made Palestine a Mandate of the British Empire, meaning that Britain had the responsibility of preparing the colonial territory and its inhabitants for future statehood. They also had the responsibility to protect the rights of minorities living in those territories, since the majority population was supposed to be the one eventually taking over. From 1922 until Israel was established in 1948, Palestine was often referred to as Mandatory Palestine, or the British Mandate. This meant that the British authorities got involved in disputes between Muslims and Jews.

In the context of the 1929 and burgeoning Arab nationalism in the Middle East, Amin al-Husseini injected a fierce strain of anti-Semitism into the movement in Palestine. By inflaming Muslims against the Jews over holy sites, he turned what had been an economic and political rift into a full-blown religious conflict that sparked the anger of Arabs throughout the Middle East.  Anti-Semitism became an official strategic and tactical tool of the Arab national movement: al-Husseini’s hatred of the Jews was made inseparable from Arab nationalism and the cause of opposing the British Mandate. The Arab political parties and paramilitary organizations that he created in the 1930s were thus oriented violently against the Jews, which was to have major consequences later in the decade.

38. Einstein, and Other People Ben-Gurion Didn't Like

The 1920s finds the Yishuv — the Jewish community in Palestine — building up the institutions that would carry it through statehood. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s most famous leader, steps onto the scene. Left wing, socialist, Labor Zionist, Ben Gurion begins to lead the Yishuv as farms, cities, cultural life, academia, and Jewish self-defense are all growing during a time of economic prosperity and more Jewish immigration.

PLOT

Into our storyline steps David Ben Gurion, who ranks amongst the giants of Jewish history. His life mirrors that of the Zionist movement’s pre-state focus, and he will go on to declare the establishment of the State of Israel and serve as its first Prime Minister. 

Born in Poland, he credited his commitment to Zionism to his love for the Jewish homeland, rather than the anti-Semitism of Eastern Europe. His idealism landed him in Palestine in 1906 where he became a committed Labor Zionist, working on kibbutzim around the Sea of Galilee at a time when Zionism was focused on developing the land. He was also active in the nascent Jewish self-defense movement and was deported to Egypt by the Ottomans during World War One. He went to America in 1915 to campaign on behalf of the Ottomans, hoping that if they won they would reward their Jewish support by carving out a homeland in Palestine. But when the British issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917 Ben Gurion fought against the Ottomans. 

Following the war, as the Zionist Movement emphasized institution building, Ben Gurion took on progressively higher Labor Zionist leadership roles. He became the leader of the Histadrut, the largest trade union in Palestine, in the 1920s. He turned it into the central institution of the Yishuv, the region’s largest employer, and a powerful political force. 

Ben Gurion’s focus was on Jewish immigration, which he considered an economic and moral imperative to create a prosperous Jewish homeland. The historian Paul Johnson cites Ben Gurion’s three principles: that Jews should make it their priority to return to Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel. That this community of Jews in Palestine should be built on a socialist framework. And that the cultural binding of Zionist society must be the Hebrew language. He was Vladimir Jabotinsky’s nemesis, for while Jabotinsky, on the right, believed in the urgent need for massive immigration, Ben Gurion, on the left, was more focused on establishing the necessary socialist conditions for later mass migration. 

The problem was that immigration wasn’t going so well in the 1920s. Global economic prosperity and Arab violence made emigrating to Palestine a less attractive opportunity. Still, tens of thousands came in, comprising what became known as the Third and Fourth Aliyah. The Third Aliyah were Ben Gurion’s kind of people: left, socialist, and idealistic, strengthening his power base. The large influx also angered the Arabs. The Fourth Aliyah were blue collar workers who moved to the larger urban areas, joining the Histadrut in large numbers.

In 1922 Winston Churchill credited the Zionists with a range of accomplishments in Palestine. A quarter of Jews were farmers and farm laborers. There was an elected assembly for domestic concerns, and an elected Chief Rabbinate for religious ones. Hebrew was the vernacular, with a vibrant press. The Yishuv had a distinctive intellectual life and considerable activity. The next few years saw more building: new neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. An airport was built. The agricultural market had matured. Cultural life and the arts were flourishing. And the Haganah defense organization was getting better organized. The Yishuv was burgeoning into a pre-state homeland.

FUN FACTS

The very first scientific lecture at the Hebrew University was given by Albert Einstein on the Theory of Relativity.

Einstein willed all his papers, including his original E=mc2 formula, to the Hebrew University upon his death in 1955.

David Ben Gurion offered Einstein the presidency of Israel in 1952. Einstein reluctantly refused, claiming he wasn’t enough of a people person to do the job well. 

 

THE PEOPLE

Albert Einstein: strongly identified as Jewish and an influential supporter of the Zionist movement, Einstein was skeptical about the need for an exclusively-Jewish state. He believed in the historical and moral case for the Jewish people to have a home in their native land but he worried about the trappings of nationalism. He hoped the state would be bi-national, shared by Jews and Arabs alike. “I am glad,” he said, “that there should be a little patch of earth on which our kindred brethren are not considered aliens.”

Judah Magnes: rabbi from Oakland, California, who became the first chancellor of the Hebrew University when it opened in Jerusalem on April 1, 1925. Like Einstein, Rabbi Magnes was a Zionist but didn’t support the idea of linking Judaism and nationalism. He was determined to use the university to promote equal rights and relations between Jews and Arabs. 

David Ben Gurion: born David Gruen in the Russian part of Poland in1886, his father ensured that Ben Gurion from an early age hit all the Zionist checkboxes — youth movements, advocacy for Jewish workers, immigration to Palestine, and, perhaps most important, a love for the Promised Land. Ben Gurion personified the Zionist Movement’s transformation into the State of Israel and served as its first Prime Minister.

Paula Munweis (Ben Gurion): a Russian-American, she met David Ben Gurion on his first trip to the United States. He later said of her, “she was not a Zionist, she had very little Jewish feeling, she was an anarchist. She had no interest in Israel.” But he convinced her to move there with him, and she remained his closest confidant and advisor for the rest of her life.

Goldie Mabovitch (Golda Meir): born in Kiev in 1898, her family moved to Milwaukee when she was eight years old. A prolific fundraiser for the Zionist cause, she met David Ben Gurion during his 1915 trip to the U.S. Ben Gurion later called her “the best man in government.” Under her adopted name, Golda Meir, she went on to serve as the first, and so far only, female Israeli Prime Minister in the 1970s.

THE BIG IDEAS

The 1920s was an era of institution building in Palestine. The biggest were Hebrew University and the Histadrut, both of which still exist today. The Histadrut was the workers union, but Ben Gurion made it more than that. He turned it into the central institution of the Yishuv and the single largest employer and owner of a wide range of companies. The Histadrut therefore had considerable political and economic clout, ensuring that its left-wing leadership, with Ben Gurion at the top, were also highly influential.

Although immigration slowed compared to the earlier decade, the 1920s saw two waves of immigration from Europe. The Third Aliyah immigrants, about 40,000, came immediately after World War One and were mostly from Eastern Europe. Having received agricultural training back in Russia, these immigrants mostly settled on the expanding kibbutzim, especially in the north. 

The mid-1920s saw another wave, the Fourth Aliyah. These were mostly blue collar workers from Poland, but unlike their predecessors they settled in urban centers like Tel Aviv. They built the Yishuv’s urban economy, joining the Histadrut in large numbers and expanding the organization’s mission to include classic social safety net features. 

37. Building the Iron Wall

Vladimir Jabotinsky advocated for a Jewish “iron wall” to defend against Arab aggression. He believed that the Arabs would never accept a Jewish homeland, and thus the Jews would have to develop an impenetrable system of self-defense to make Palestine their home. His thinking is the foundation of right-wing politics in Israel today.

THE PLOT

Vladimir Jabotinsky was born in Russia in 1880. Having witnessed firsthand the violent oppression of the Jewish community there, he was determined not to see the same fate befall the Jews of Palestine. He dedicated himself to building a strong Jewish fighting force for self-defense. He gained prominence during the 1920 Jerusalem riots, which led him to assume a leadership position in the Zionist movement. But pretty quickly he developed three serious disagreements with the movement’s strategy.

One: the nature of relations with the Arabs. Chaim Weizmann and the “mainstream” movement adopted a “gradualist” approach of patience, restraint, and collegiality with the British and relationship-building with the Arabs. Jabotinsky rejected this as unrealistic. In 1923 he wrote a manifesto titled “The Iron Wall,” arguing that the Arabs would never voluntarily accept a Jewish homeland. The only way they would accept it would be if the Jews were so strong that it would be impossible to defeat them. 

Two: Jewish immigration to Palestine. Jabotinsky was a “maximalist.” He interpreted the Balfour Declaration to allow massive Jewish immigration that was neither gradual or limited. The goal was for the Jews to become the majority population in Palestine, so that the British couldn’t ignore them and the Arabs couldn’t defeat them. 

Three: How much territory should constitute the Jewish national home. Jabotinsky was here, too, a maximalist. He insisted that the Jewish homeland should reside on the land where the Jews were indigenous and where their ancient kingdoms stood. That would include most of modern-day Israel, the West Bank of the Jordan River, today’s Jordan, and parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. 

The Arabs have the whole Middle East in which to live, he figured, while the Jews in Europe were faced with destruction. And so the moral case was clear and urgent, and could not suffer any compromise with the rejectionist Arabs.

Unable to reconcile his viewpoint with the mainstream movement led by Weizmann, Jabotinsky broke off in 1925 and formed a separate Zionist tree branch: Revisionist Zionism. The goal was to renegotiate the Zionists’ relationship with the British to get the British onboard with his three major principles around the Arabs, immigration, and territory.

At the same time, he was open to the idea of bi-national state shared with the Arabs. “I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone.”

FUN FACTS

In 1903 the Zionist Congress passed a vote to investigate Uganda as a possible Jewish homeland. It was ultimately rejected, but other places considered were Libya, Iraq, Australia, Canada, and Texas. Ten thousand Jews went to Galveston before World War One.

In 1921 the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) pooled together various self-defense units into one central body called Haganah — which means, “the defense.” The Haganah formed the basis of the future Israel Defense Force.

In 1922 there were only 87,000 Jews in Palestine — and 650,000 Muslims

 

THE PEOPLE

Vladimir Jabotinsky: One of the most influential Zionist leaders, he founded the right-wing branch of the Zionist tree. His perspective most clashes with the Arabs, most aggressively seeks as much land as possible for the Jewish state, and sets up antagonistic relations with other branches of the Zionist tree that Israel is still fighting over today. But from Jabotinsky we also get the Jewish self-defense movement to defend Jewish settlements and lives from attack. He was also an advocate for equal rights for Arabs, and for a social-democratic form of government in the Jewish state.

Yosef Chaim Brenner: early pioneer of Hebrew literature. Arrived in Palestine with the Second Aliyah. Aligned with the Labor Zionist tree branch, he maintained a pessimism that Zionism was the solution to the Jews’ powerlessness. He became a symbol of Zionist persistence and hope after being murdered by an Arab mob in 1921.

Chaim Weizmann: leader of the Zionist Movement. He was a moderate to Jabotinsky’s maximalist perspective, and believed in a more deferential relationship with the British. 

THE BIG IDEAS

In 1923 Jabotinsky wrote that the Arabs would only ever accept a Jewish homeland “when there is no longer any hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no breach in the iron wall.” In other words, the Arabs will accept the Jewish presence in Palestine only because they have to, not because they want to. His “Iron Wall” essay espoused an organized system of Jewish self-defense that would see the Jews rely only on themselves for their security. Though aggressive, Jabotinsky viewed this system as purely defensive, not to be used to attack the Arabs.

The Zionist movement debated different ideas for the future territory of the Jewish homeland. If the goal was to be safe from anti-Semitism, then anywhere the Jews could establish a majority of the population to ensure their security would be good enough. The homeland could be anywhere in the world. If Palestine, however, is the essential Jewish homeland, then the territory should encompass the ancient holy sites, which are located in what is today the West Bank and parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. This would not include the coast, i.e. where Tel Aviv is located, because there is no real connection to Jewish history there. But Jabotinsky and his followers believed in territorial maximalism in which the Jewish homeland, under the Balfour Declaration, ought to include anywhere the Jews were indigenous and had sovereignty in ancient times, an area that includes not only modern-day Israel but also the Kingdom of Jordan and other parts of the Near East.

In 1925 Jabotinsky broke away from the mainstream Zionist movement, led by the Labor Zionists, to start his own tree branch called Revisionist Zionism. His intent was to revise the relationship between the Zionists and the British. He wasn’t against the British. He wanted them to interpret the Balfour Declaration as propounding his maximalist viewpoints on the Arabs, immigration, and territory. Revisionist Zionism became the basis for the political right-wing in Israel.