The Arab Executive yesterday summoned three British officials as witnesses before the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, in an effort to show that the Arab notables had done all within their power to control their people. The three witnesses who occupied the stand today were Oswald Lees, in charge of the Arab villages during the troubles, Assistant Secretary Sidney Moody and Assistant Secretary George Antonious.
The credibility of Lees was challenged by Sir Boyd Merriman, counsel for the Jewish Agency. Merriman disclosed that the witness has only recently come from Zanzibar, that he is on terms of the greatest intimacy with the Arabs, that he knows the Arab language, has dealt only with Arab villages, and is particularly friendly with the villagers of Lifta, who have the worst reputation in Palestine, and has neither contact with nor knowledge of the Jews.
Under cross examination Lees confirmed that Sir John Chancellor had spoken to him about the one-sidedness of his reports, and that he had been removed from the District Commissioner’s office, and subsequently from the Secretariat, having recently been transferred to the Immigration Department because of his outspoken pro-Arab stand.
Describing the events which transpired between August 17 and August 23, Lees recalled only what happened to or against the Arabs, but neither saw nor spoke to a single Jew, nor heard of anything happening to the Jews.
Silley, Arab junior counsel, who cross-examined Lees, sought to show that the repressive measures only increased the terror among the Arabs, who were already in a state of fear because of alleged Jewish aggression.
Lees declared he thought the Jewish crowd at the Wailing Wall on Saturday, after the Moslem counter-demonstration, behaved rather badly. He said he was especially shocked because some jeered and hooted, when the muezzin, from a building on top of
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the Wailing Wall, called the Arabs to prayer.
Lees described the terror of an Arab family in Machnayim, whom he had arranged to have removed from a Jewish neighborhood. He stated hat he had been sent by Acting Governor of Jerusalem Cust to the Arab villages to calm the villagers. Finding them anxious about their families in Jerusalem, he reassured them that the government would protect them. The people of Lifta and other villages, he stated, complained that the Jews had assaulted them, and demanded that the government should search Jewish houses for arms. With apparent regret he stated that more Arabs were arrested than Jews, adding, however, that some were soon after discharged for lack of evidence.
He told of visiting a Jewish suburb several days before the riots broke out on August 23, and stated that although he received no complaints, he was given a cold reception. Speaking deprecatingly of the Polish, Russian and “that kind of Jews,” Lees told of seeing them hanging about Zion Hall, the evening of August 22, the night before the riots broke out. On August 24, he said, he attended a meeting in the office of Keith-Roach, District Commissioner of Palestine, and heard the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem angrily demand why the District Commissioner had failed to call the Jewish notables to lecture them about keeping peace.Some mukhtars, he related, with evident sympathy, delivered very angry speeches at this meeting.
He told the Commissioners that while accompanying certain Mukhtars, the car in which he was riding was stoned by the Jews and that the Mukhtars turned to him, saying: “Here are you, a British official, being stoned.”
He was tripped up by Merriman when he told only part of the story concerning one of the Arabs killed while escorting Jews whom he had sheltered at Surbahr. Asked who had killed the Arab, Lees said he did not know, until Merriman reminded him that the Arab had been killed by British troops, who mistook him for a bandit.
The witness also detailed the alleged Jewish looting of three Arab houses, one of which belongs to a relative of Mayor Nashishibi of Jerusalem. Merriman made Lees admit his insinuation that the Jews had anything to do with the killing of their Arab protector from Surbahr was unjust. He forced from Lees the admission that the Arab Executive’s accusation of Jewish treachery was a malicious slander.
Assistant Secretary Moody was the next witness called. How the Arab crowd poured out of the Damascus gate and began breaking up building material with which to make sticks was described by Moody. The crowd, suspecting him of being a Jew, he said, attacked him as he was enroute to the office of the Grand Mufti to ask him to disperse the mob.
The Mufti, he declared, told the mob: “The government will be responsible for the blood of the Arabs. Return to your homes.” The Mufti repeatedly warned him, Moody stated, that the police must not fire upon the crowd, lest there be a very grave reaction. The crowd was quite frantic, Moody asserted, and the Mufti could not make himself heard. Only with great difficulty did he escort the Mufti back to his office.
George Antonious, Assistant Secretary of the Palestine Government, in charge of Arab affairs, told the Commissioners that the Moslems welcomed the White Paper of 1928, concerning the Wailing Wall, and had urged its immediate implementing. The delay, he said, had increased their anxiety and transformed it into grave concern. The Mufti had warned him that serious consequences would ensue if there were further delay in carrying out the terms of the White Paper concerning the regulations at the Wailing Wall.
When the rioting broke out on August 23, he, too, went to see the Mufti, Antonious asserted, and urged him to quiet the mob. The Mufti did his utmost, but the Arabs alleged, “we are being fired upon,” and demanded arms. The Mufti addressed the frantic crowd of Arabs in the Haram area, he said, urging them to return quietly to their villages, but they refused and persisted in their demand for arms. When alarming reports came from the districts, alleging that Arabs had been massacred, the Mufti, at his suggestion, sent responsible leaders to restore confidence in the government’s ability to protect the Arabs.
H. C. Luke, Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government, and Acting High Commissioner during the riots, who has just completed his testimony in public hearings before the Commission, was examined in camera by the Commissioners yesterday afternoon.
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