Talk:1920 Palestine riots

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified 1920 Palestine riots as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the French language Wikipedia.
Good article 1920 Palestine riots was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

What is being disputed exactly here? ←Humus sapiens←Talk 19:12, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Aftermath

The fatality listing under the header is messy, does anyone have any ideas on how to clean it up? Red1 08:07, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intimidation of christians

We need a reference for " In the years predating 1920, these processions were marked by intimidation of Christian communities on their way."

fix it or it will be deleted.

[edit] which report??

I've added the fact tag (citation needed) to the non-specific reference to a british report. If the report described is the Haycraft Commission report, then the description in this article seems to severely misrepresent that report. See a better description here:L http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_riots#The_Investigative_Commission_report

I will return to see if there are any comments to this, and if not I'll make appropriate changes. Gni 19:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

No, the Haycraft report concerned events of 1921. The report on the 1920 events is usually called the Palin Report and unlike the Haycraft Report was not published. Actually I don't know if it is published still, and I have looked in many places. Palestine was still under a military government at this time. There is an article on the Palin report at answers.com which seems to be better than either of ours. --Zerotalk 13:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Zero. It looks as though much of the Answers.com summary comes from the 1945 Survey of Palestine. Here's what pg. 17 of the reprinted version says:

April, 1920 (Easter Sunday).
Savage attack were made by Arab rioters in Jerusalem on Jewish lives and property. Five Jews were killed and 211 injured. Order was restored by the intervention of British troops; four Arabs were killed and 21 injured. It was reported by a military commission of inquiry [gni: footnote states that this was "not published"] that the reasons for this trouble were:--
(a) Arab disappointment at the non-fulfilment of the promises of independence which they claimed had been given to them during the war.
(b) Arab belief that the Balfour Declaration implied a denial of the right of self-determination and their fear that the establishment of a National Home would mean a great increase in Jewish immigration and would lead to their economic and political subjection to the Jews.
(c) The aggravation of these sentiments on the one hand by propaganda from outside Palestine associated with the proclamation of the Emir Feisal as King of a re-united Syria and with the growth of Pan-Arab and Pan-Moslem ideas, and on the other had by the activities of the Zionist Comission supported by the resources and influence of Jews throughout the world.

I'm sure you agree, then, that the summary which was part of this article didn't accurately convey the report? I've updated the article accordingly. Gni 19:34, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Antisemitism

Just because it was sparked by nationalistic factors doesn't preclude it from taking on antisemitic colours like "the Jews are our dogs!" The Iraqi Farhud as well as other such events in the region mixed the two freely. TewfikTalk 16:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

If IDF soldiers made racist comments during an action against Palestinians I don't think most people would want to categorise it as a racist operation. The context of this event was the threat to Palestinian and Arab self-determination posed by the British commitment to the Balfour Declaration and its inclusion in the peace treaty with Turkey. --Ian Pitchford 16:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, a better analogy would be if a Jewish mob repeatedly made religious anti-Muslim statements and then, while beating and killing Muslims, specifically targeted mosques and tore up Qurans, then burning the building. That would qualify for something like "Category:Anti-Islam", even if the Jews were really just protesting an unjust government law. TewfikTalk 05:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I assume you discuss about the category "antisemitism". We are here at the limit of NPoV. Some would claim it is antisemitism; other (historians) would claim it may be not. In fact they are nuances (detailled in the article).
We are here in face of the limit of NPoV with categories that cannot be nuanced.
You will never convince any Jew that such events do not reflect antisemitism and I don't think you will succeed in having an "objective analysis" of what is antisemitism and what is not.
Historians in stating that this was a nationalist reaction to a another threathening nationalism are right but also lack empathy concerning protagonists. Jews and Arabs who fought that day didn't care at all about that global social context that influenced them to behave the way they did.
This critic of seeing the events of the arab-zionist conflit with lack of empathy and only based on documents or contextual analysis is made by french historian Henry Laurens in the French version of Eugene Rogan, Avi Shlaim, Palestine 1948 : Behind the myths.... (of course he doesn't say that this event was an example of antisemitism).
So I think antisemitism category is fully justified here, on the point of view of the victims. Alithien 06:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The most important issue in my mind is that we don't edit without sources. If a reputable source says that there is most probably a cause-effect relationship between Palestinian anti-Semitism and the riot then fair enough otherwise we are talking about original research. --Ian Pitchford 08:02, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Ian, I think people are going to fight about "reputable" source here.
A source from an historian stating that the whole palestinian nationalism was considered by the jews (of Palestine) as an expression of antisemitism would be good for you ? Alithien 08:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Will we also look for a source that says the Zionist enterprise was inherently racist and add the racism category too? I'm sure you realise that finding such a source would not be a problem. My suggestion is that we try to make the article balanced and historically accurate and leave the labelling game for polemic websites and chat rooms. --Zerotalk 08:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
+1
Except you will not find an historian who states that. ;-)
Alithien 08:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
If you were serious about your criterion a few lines above, I would only have to find a historian who says that the Arabs felt like that. No problem. --Zerotalk 08:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
I was serious.
Your comparison is not really fair. That would rather concern the article zionism after a section would have been developed on the fact that today some people consider zionism to be racism. I prefer not trying to introduce this category to the article zionism :-)
The reasons why the zionism's racist consequences cannot be introduced with such words today while the 1920 Palestine riots can widely be considered antisemitic acts are - I think - that while palestinians victims of 1948 have been deshumanized (seen as a group) and that each jewish victim have been humanized. I don't know if I am clear but wikipedia should not try to balance this and only reflect matters at the speed they are widely admitted and not necesseraly discovered by some.
NB: I agree not seeing antisemitism category here but you will manage Zeq&Co, right ? ;-)

Whatever. You know historians who have written that the Arabs felt [at that time] the zionism entreprise was inherently racist ? I never read this.
From what you know, how did each community perceive the other one at that time ? Alithien 09:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The King-Crane Commission report is one of the best sources:

For "a national home for the Jewish people" is not equivalent to making Palestine into a Jewish State; nor can the erection of such a Jewish State be accomplished without the gravest trespass upon the "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's conference with Jewish representatives, that the Zionists looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase. In his address of July 4, 1918, President Wilson laid down the following principle as one of the four great "ends for which the associated peoples of the world were fighting"; "The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery." If that principle is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine-nearly nine tenths of the whole-are emphatically against the entire Zionist program. The tables show that there was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine were more agreed than upon this. To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender the land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted, and of the people's rights, though it kept within the forms of law It is to be noted also that the feeling against the Zionist program is not confined to Palestine, but shared very generally by the people throughout Syria as our conferences clearly showed. More than 72 per cent-1,350 in all-of all the petitions in the whole of Syria were directed against the Zionist program. Only two requests-those for a united Syria and for independence-had a larger support. This general feeling was only voiced by the "General Syrian Congress," in the seventh, eighth and tenth resolutions of the statement. (Already quoted in the report.) The Peace Conference should not shut its eyes to the fact that the anti-Zionist feeling in Palestine and Syria is intense and not lightly to be flouted. No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist program, on the part of the non-Jewish populations of Palestine and Syria. Decisions, requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary, but they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interests of a serious injustice. For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a "right" to Palestine, based on an occupation of 2,000 years ago, can hardly be seriously considered.

--Ian Pitchford 09:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] importance

The history of the shaping of the problems in the middle east is known by far too few. The more people know about the history of the zionist movement the better they are able to make informed decisions regarding their choice of elected officials who decision impact U.S. foreign policy in that region. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.202.39 (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


I see this has been rated "high". It seems too much for me... This is just one point of the context of the Palestinian fight againt Zionism. Nothing special here. It could have not arise and nothing would have changed.
What do you think ? Alithien 08:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Segev's quote

Segev is not a historian; he is a journalist. As a source for facts, his book may be marginally acceptable, though only as long as no better source describing the events in such details has been found. But his opinions are completely irrelevant, especially such opinionated claims as "Meinertzhagen sounds like something of a lunatic". Beit Or 19:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[1]
Alithien 22:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold: FIxes needed before promotion

After comparing this article to WP:WIAGA and the good article criteria, I am placing it on hold for the following reasons:

  • The lead does not adequately summarize the article. See WP:LEAD for more information. Basically, the lead should summarize all of the highlights of the article; it should stand alone as a sort of "mini-article" on its own. I would recommend expanding the lead so that it briefly explains what the reasons were for the riots, who the principals were, and what the aftermath was. 2-3 paragraphs should be more than enough.

Other than that the article appears to be GA quality. Make that fix, and I will promote the article and list it. Good luck. If you have any questions, please drop a note on my talk page. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I was entirely successful as I discussed the significance of the riots rather than a step-by-step summary. Do let me know if I should rewrite it. Cheers, TewfikTalk 18:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure that the lead is an improvement. It is no more a summary of the article than the old lead. In fact, it really only lists some (rather POV) causes and results of the riots, and the weight of the info in the article does not seem to be mirrored in this summary. Consider a format like this:
  • Pgraph 1) Same as it is.
  • Pgraph 2) Named after the Nebi Musa holiday (avoid terms like "politically charged"...), the riots occured after events X, Y, and Z.
  • Pgraph 3) During the riots A, B, and C happened.
  • Pgraph 4) After the riots, the official British response was.... The relations betweem X and Y became ....
The trick is to stay in facts and not as much on interpretation. The article definately does a better job of this than the lead does. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:03, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I removed it, but "politically charged" referred to the generic nature of the Nebi Musa holiday, which was always characterised as a time for a show of force to prevent Christian pilgrims from threatening Muslim sovereignty. I generally tried to change the tone, but I'm not sure what facts could be added. Large parts of the sections deal with details that were not very relevant to a basic narrative (Jewish volunteers, Zionist warnings, Meinhartzhagen's allegations, details of the violence, specifics of British action, various punishments, halt of immigration etc.). Let me know, TewfikTalk 18:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks MUCH better. The lead now summarizes the article completely. I will list the article at the GA list. Please continue to improve the article so that it may reach feature status. For additional help on this, consider a Peer Review. Good luck and happy editing. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:36, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aftermath additions

In the aftermath section it says that the Haganah were formed as a result of the riots but I believe that the Haganah actually formed just before the outbreak of the riots rather than immediatley after.

I think it's also worth mentioning that Herbert Samuel lifted the sentences of Haganah members arrested after the riots like Jabotinsky and re-opened Palestine to Jewish immigration after the British O.E.T.A. was replaced by the civil administration and he was made High Commissioner. And also that in July a general amnesty was declared that allowed the release of all the Arabs arrested ater the riots. Incuding Aminal-Huseini being able to return to Palestine.

And lastly that Britain restated after the San Remo conference that the Balfour Declaration was still a part of British policy. Matthew C. Bell 18:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

You are right for Haganah
For the remaining, I think it concerns more 1921 Palestine riots's consequences. Alithien 22:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello Alithien, Sorry to see that the wikistress has gotten to you, but here is my belated reply. Segev is one of the better writers among his peers, but I've caught a number of errors in his work, and so I wouldn't discount that possibility. You might want to check Gelber's Jewish Transjordanian relations though, as he deals with this period in some detail and may have mentioned something interesting. Cheers, TewfikTalk 01:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

==Jabotinsky started Haganah in Russia== Altalena5768 (talk) 18:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps

To whom it may concern. Wikiproject:Good Articles in currently in the middle of its sweeps period, where we go over articles that have been passed as good articles and review them to ensure that they still meet the standard. In this case, I notice that this page is protected over disputes, though I can't seem to figure out what they are. If there were legitimate concerns, then the article would have to be delisted. If they have been resolved, however, I can unprotect the page. Please let me know what the case is. Cheers, CP 22:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

De-list it. This article looks as if it is written in order to paint the natives as violent racists, and the historical record does not justify this. The immigrants are known to have been bringing in guns for 30 years, and were acting in other highly offensive ways. PRtalk 21:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
It was protected several months ago, and I don't see any on-going disputes. Beit Or 21:54, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I will be reviewing the article now. Hopefully I will be able to take a more specialized eye than the average person to this review, given my background. Cheers, CP 02:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
PR, "if it is written in order to paint the natives as violent racists" - where ?
"The immigrants are known to have been bringing in guns for 30 years, and were acting in other highly offensive ways" - That is not true - could you give "secondary sources" for that claim. Ceedjee (talk) 09:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
It is well known in the literature (and amongst all interested parties) that significant sections of the immigrants were violent extremists, and they quickly dominated their new community. Despite the rigorous ethnic-exclusivity of the newcomers, this fact had become known to the Palestinians at least 30 years before the 1920 riots:
Here is Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p56, quoting Ro'i, Yakov. "The Zionist Attitude to the Arabs 1909-1914." Middle Eastern Studies 4:3 (1968), p206: "... the first recorded, organized "national" protest against the Jewish influx took place in 1891. Newspapers had reported that a large number of Russian Jews were about to embark for Palestine. On June 24 a group of Jerusalem Arab notables sent a telegram to the grand Vizier of Constantinople asking that the government halt Russian Jewish immigration and bar Jews from purchasing land. "The Jews are taking all the lands out of the hands of the Muslims, taking all the commerce into their hands and bringing arms into the country," they complained."
Earlier, in secret, the immigrants made clear to each other that dispossession of the natives, with force if necessary, was their intention: "... For decades the Zionists tried to camouflage their real aspirations, for fear of angering the authorities and the Arabs. They were, however, certain of their aims and of the means needed to achieve them. Internal correspondence amongst the olim from the very beginning of the Zionist enterprise leaves little room for doubt." Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Vintage Books, 2001, p. 49. (Morris then presents excerpts from 3 letters that demonstrate these threatening intentions).
It is puzzling indeed I should need to remind fellow editors of this material - and I distinctly remember helping you with portions of it when you first appeared (under a different name) a while ago. I treated you then as a potentially scholarly contributor. PRtalk 13:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
You didn't answer first question.
You don't give references to this : "The immigrants are known to have been bringing in guns for 30 years, and were acting in other highly offensive ways" but only to the facts that arabs viewed immigrants as agressive and feared them. PR, remembers too that you have to edit wikipedia to give all pov's at your disposal. You have "righteous victims", so you have certainly access to other pov's concering this in "Righteous Victims". Ceedjee (talk) 14:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Under your former UserName, I treated you as a regular editor who was set on building the encyclopedia using the available RSes. I'm quite prepared to give space to other POVs, but I don't recall seeing any in the works of the top Israeli historian. All I see from Benny Morris is proof that the immigrants were armed and intent on seizing the lands, homes, farm and businesses of the natives.
Your first question (the one you claim I've not answered) appears to be "Where is our article written to make it appear the natives were violent racists"? - and I can only express my opinion that our article is laced with material and weasel words to make it appear this way. I'm only pointing this out, because the historical record most certainly doesn't justify such treatment. PRtalk 17:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
"if it is written in order to paint the natives as violent racists" - where ?
Concerning the remaining, I will only answer you again when you have picked 10 quotes from Morris that could be considered as pro-israeli and added them in wp. Just to learn you to practice WP:NPOV.
Ceedjee (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
We've shovelled in propaganda nonsense such as "The annual Nebi Musa spring festival was instituted by Salah ad-Din to ensure a Muslim presence in Jerusalem during the influx of Christian pilgrims celebrating the Easter holiday. Arab educator and essayist Khalil al-Sakakini described how tribes and caravans would come with banners and weapons, as if they were going to war." when there was little or no problem between Christin and Muslim (certainly not over Easter pilgrims arriving).
Nasty nonsense such as "A petition circulated among American citizens and presented to their consul protested that the British had prevented Jews from defending themselves." - when it was the Arabs who were disarmed all over Palestine by Allenby and Bols, while Jabotinsky in Jerusalem (unmolested by Storrs) was training an army, some of it with guns.
There are outrageous statements of this kind all over eg "Named after the Muslim Nebi Musa holiday in which they took place, the riots followed tensions in Arab-Jewish relations and a number of anti-Jewish attacks.". Overwhelmingly, it was the immigrants attacking and dispossessing the natives, as they'd been doing increasingly for 30 years. Since the Balfour Declaration 3 years earlier, they'd become much more open about their plans - which were "to make Palestine as Jewish as England was English"
I should not need to be telling you this stuff, it should all be in this article instead of the papp that's in there now. PRtalk 20:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article Reassessment

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I question the quality of this article based on the Good article criteria. For that reason, I have listed the article at Good article reassessment. Issues needing to be address are listed there. While I don't take the strong stance of PalestineRemembered, I do feel that there are neutrality issues here and a lot of key statements remain uncited. In this case, it's best to get more opinions. Cheers, CP 02:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, What neutrality issues do you see ? Ceedjee (talk) 09:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
This article is a gross distortion of the record. The idea that it could have been tolerable for immigrants to arm themselves against natives, anywhere in the world, ever, is quite outrageous. When the immigrants are actually newly arrived Russian revolutionaries (as Jabotinsky seems to have been for 17 years since 1903) it's quite breath-taking that anyone would write supposedly NPOV articles as if his activities were anything other than intolerable.
Much of the historical record comes from the British Army, which had defeated the Ottoman's with the help of Palestinian Arabs (and then correctly disarmed it's former allies).
This same Army considered Jabotinsky (who'd also fought for the Allies, but had been excluded from Palestine by them) exceptionally dangerous. This is Huneidi 2001, "Allenby telegraphed to the War Office from Cairo saying that a modification of Jabotinsky's sentence, which had been suggested by Samuel, 'could only undermine authority' and would do no good. General Headquarters in Egypt also telegraphed the War Office two days later to report the 'lenient treatment' accorded to Jabotinsky. Commenting on these telegrams, Hubert Young minuted on 22 June: 'Colonel Deedes says that Jabotinsky is really a lunatic and should be kept under medical surveillance - if he were at large in Palestine now he would certainly cause trouble'. Sir John Tilley wrote:'We must see that Sir Herbert Samuel realizes this before he includes Jabotinsky in his amnesty'.[74.FO 371/5120, Allenby to War Office, 14 June 1920.] On 24 June, and with the consent of Lord Hardinge and Lord Curzon, the following despatch (drafted by Young) was sent to Sir Herbert Samuel through the British Embassy in Rome: Lord Allenby considers release of Jabotinsky or any modification of his sentence would undermine authority and prestige of Palestine administration - Deedes is of opinion that Jabotinsky should not in any case be set at large in Palestine as he is not responsible for his actions. We repeat these views to you for what they are worth.[75.FO 371/5120 E6714, 24 June 1920, Marked No Distribution - Docketed]"
Meanwhile, al-Husseini (who receives such blistering treatment in his WP biography) believed in and had actually fought to liberate Palestine from the Ottomans. Huneidi 2001: "the Palin report noted that Captain C. D. Brunton, who recruited these Arabs, acted in cooperation with a 'Sherifian officer named Hagg Ameen el Husseini, who was described at the time as being very pro-English' . Very mysteriously, Husseini is then supposedly sentenced to a similarly long term as Jabotinsky by a secret court in absentia, and so benefits from the same amnesty by the virulently Zionist first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel. No actual record of the proceedings against Husseini has ever surfaced.
All in all, there are massive problems here. I don't know how to fix them - but I know for sure it would be a travesty to grant this article any kind of GA status. PRtalk 17:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi there CP. This article is, as you noted, inadequately sourced, lacks inline citations, and a number of analytical conclusions are made throughout the article and even in the introduction are not attributed and not cited. It lacks WP:NPOV and I don't really understand how it managed to achieve GA status previously, but in its current state, it should definitely be de-listed. It would benefit from a good copy edit and a review of MOS guidelines once the sourcing and NPOV situation is taken care of. In short, this is not a good article. Tiamut 17:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
What you're really saying is that it was acceptable for Palestinian Arabs to attack unarmed residents of the local communities, based solely on the fact that they were Jewish. Then you're explaining this by saying that this was ok because Jews were newcomers, intruders, in the Mandate of Palestine. Ok, got it. you feel Jews don't belong there, and Israel has no right to exist, and was imposed wrongfully on the locals. ok, got it. i understand that's your view. Now, with that said, this is still a riot which targeted local indivudals based on nothing but their ethicity and religious identity, regardless of whether they were armed, because they identity made them a threat. so we actually have a similar view of this conflict, just from different ideological perspectives. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Whoa! Steve! Is that addressed to me? And even it it isn't, and is instead in response to PR's comments, what about WP:AGF? I don't see anything in PR's comment that that would lead to the conclusion that in his view it is "acceptable for Palestinian Arabs to attack unarmed residents of the local communities, based solely on the fact that they were Jewish." Perhaps a more nuanced, content-based response is in order? After all, he did raise a number of specific and interesting points about the article content. Regards, Tiamuttalk 20:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Tiamut,
Sorry but I have to disagree.
PR's comments are absolutely at the same level as people who deny that numerous Palestinians were expelled from Palestine and base their comments on personal analysis coming from nowhere.
That guy is disgusting. Ceedjee (talk) 21:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, upon a second read, it may be a little rambling and off-topic, and based on his personal analysis, as you pointed out, but I don't PR is "disgusting" for it. Tiamuttalk 00:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I appreciate your reply, tiamut. I am assuming good faith. As i tried to make clear, i am truly responding to the factual points in PR's record. he refers to Zionist as immigrants, meaning they have little political right to be there, and little validity to their claims of political status. i understand that is his perspective, but that is a view of ideology, not historical record. that is precisely where the two ideologies disagree. so I was simply pointing that out. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 15:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This article was nominated for good article reassessment to determine whether or not it met the good article criteria and so can be listed as a good article. The article was delisted. Please see the archived discussion for further information. Geometry guy 09:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for more details

In his biography of the Mufti, Philip Mattar writes (Page 149) : "The four cases of political violence in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1933 were not revolts, (...) They were localized spontaneous riots that resulted in no sustained (...)"
I get this from google.books but cannot get more. Would someone have his book ? (maybe p.17 ?) Could you give me more information about what he writes exactly ? I also read that Mattar writes that the Mufti was not accused of any involvment by Palin Commission. This should be in that book. Could someone check ? Thank you Ceedjee (talk) 21:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tel Hai

Technically Tel Hai was not part of Palestine at the time, but ceded to the French a year earlier (frm memory), why is it mentioned as part of the Palestinian riots?Nishidani (talk) 16:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

You added this in the lead yourself :-) : "the riots followed rising tensions in Arab-Jewish relations over the implications of Zionist immigration, tensions which had, in outlying areas, spilled over into attacks on Jewish settlements in the Galilee" ???
Ceedjee (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think Tel Hai events are important. This is the context of the context...
They just explain from where came the fears Jews had that the festival could lead to violence and explain the rightness of the critics of the British government that failed to take the appropriate measures to garantee security while they had received all the signals...
Ceedjee (talk) 16:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

There is a considerable literature on the political information available to Arab notables and newspapers on the implications of the Zionist project for Arabs in the area, not to speak of many other things. I find all of these pages on riots POV because a few days of rioting 9 deaths, many injured, yes, is given as a riot over the whole of the year, throughout all of Palestine. The whole framing of these events, a few among many (lacking pages) tends to create the impression through links that someone these scabby Arabs hated Jews, and were easily incited. No details are given of speeches, no references are made to comments in the Hebrew and Englsh press preceding the riots. It is all Muslim (not Christian) incitement to cut Jewish throats. Repellent as these acts are, they are being interpreted in Wiki as Zionists used them at the time, i.e. on a par with the 1000 pogroms, killing on an average 200 Jews at a time, in the Ukraine, not to speak of elsewhere. If you compare the 60,000 killed by Petliura's thugs in areas many immigrants hailed from, to the several small riots in Palestine over 1919-1929, then one cannot but be struck by how, relatively, placid the Palestinian response was to an imperial declaration that they would lose their homeland. Remember, the Arabs in early 1920 greeted the decisions taken by European powers as signally a great 'nakba of 1920', a word we tend to associate only with 1948. One could open a page on 'the great nakba of 1920' of course, but . . .

In Europe territorial disputes and ethnic enmities led to a huge toll of life. In Palestine, at least until 36-9, the violence was actually quite low, given the provocation. One would never gather this from Wiki, which, as I said, uses the Zionist press approach of the age, interpreting infrequent outbreaks of violence against what was a colonial (Herzl's word) expropriation as though it were fueled by Muslim fanaticism. As to Tel Hai, it is in technically the Galilee, but it was under French jurisdiction, and not part of the Palestine occupied by the British. It is, I disagree, important, because much was made of it in the Zionist press, and the Galilee was one of the areas were dispossession of tenants through land-sales and occupancy caused great poverty and disaffection among the deracinated fellahin who then drifted into the cities, Haifa and Jerusalem and elsewhere.Nishidani (talk) 17:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi,
you talk about a lot of things. It is not easy to answer you.
1. About Tel Hai, you want to remove this and later you say it is important. I don't understand your point. I still think it is the context of the context of the Jerusalem riots.
2. I understand you say that focussing on this event is not fair because 10d+250i is not relevant in comparison with all other things. Using Benny Morris's word, I would translate in : "this is pinuts". I don't agree : in the jewish eyes at the time, it was terrible and revealed them the "unseen question" (what about the Arabs of Palestine ?) to use Laqueur's words. More important, these riots (and next ones of 1921) had important consequences on the relation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine...
Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 18:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
My remark re Tel Hai was not intended to have it removed, but to remark an anomaly (Palestinian riots)
No, it is not that to focus on this event is 'unfair'. Au contraire, it is fair and proper to focus on the riots. But one is required to provide a full coverage of the context of those riots, not just a list of incitors, and then devote a lot of space to the unfairness with which Jabotinsky is treated. Fine that the 'Jewish' (actually not so simple) side at the time has its perspective given. That is one POV, and requires the other POVs, of Arabs, Christians or otherwise, etc., in order to create a balanced text. Perhaps their perspectives, as so often in Morris, are just 'peanuts'. The riots in themselves were 'peanuts', but were blown up out of all proportion and this operations troubled many relationships, particularly among devout Jews and secular Zionists. Many devout Jews attributed the Zionist project, and the vicious atmosphere that prospect created in certain Arab quarters, a fundamental cause for the ruin of their traditional life in Palestine (this is completely erased from the text). I'm not intervening, for the moment. But the text is POV, extremely POV, and could easily have been copied off the usual ultra-Zionist net sites that some editors use to prime Wikipedia. It lacks Olympian balance. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 18:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Palestinian riots ? It is written Palestine riots, in the sense in Palestine... I don't understand.
Anyway, Jerusalem riots would be better. The status of these territories before San Remo is not possible to fix.
I didn't notice so much place dedicated to Jabotinsky's unfair treatment.
I don't know who wrote this but he used much Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete and is rather fidel to this historian's own retranscription of events.
I didn't notice this article is that much pov, in the sense that I don't find many more major contradictory pov on these issues except one that insist on the provocation due by Jabotinsky versus Arabs or versus British (in function of the source).
Amicalement, Ceedjee (talk) 21:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Hi Nishidani. i appreciate your inpu8t as suaul. However, not sure i understand. that all does sound fine. if there are well-sourced detauils to add which are not in the article, i see no reason why they cannot be added now, in order to make more clear the Arab persepctuive on this. So i would suggest that editors who wish to add this sort of material should perhaps feel free to do so. does that sound ok? thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:22, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Tel Hai was an important battle, as Trumpeldor lost his life, and a Kiryat Shmona was named after him and the other martyrs. Altalena5768 (talk) 18:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)