The “interfering fingers of ambitious persons of eminence who wanted to impress their leadership upon the Arab people, who desired to show the government that they were persons of influence, but who always acted for their own benefit” was given as the reason for the recent Palestine disturbances by Mohammed Tawil, ex-Turkish officer, at the session of the Investigating Committee today.
Two independent Arabs appeared voluntarily before the Commission this morning to offer their testimony. They were taken to and from the court by a police escort, because of fear they might be feared by organized Arabs.
The ex-Turkish official gave the lie to previous testimony in which it was claimed that Arab villagers of the Emek were impoverished and that Nazareth is on the verge of ruin because of Jewish colonization.
Silley, Arab lawyer, went into details about Tawil’s admittedly chequered career. He showed that the Turkish officer, who was later telegraphist of the Palestine government, was a wireless operator at Medina and that he roamed the entire Middle East with Abdullah when the latter made his unsuccessful march in 1921 to become king of Syria. Tawil stated that he lived in Safed from May to October, 1928, that everything was peaceful that year until the 28th of August when excitement began on account of rumors that the Jews had trespassed the Omar Mosque. Subhi Khadra and other agitators supervised the demonstration in Safed on the 24th of August, when the mufti of Safed positively declared he heard the Jews had attacked the Haram area and killed Moslems.
“The Safed disturbances happened because certain fingers played with fire. There would have been disturbances in Tiberias had anyone set the flame alight, but the Arab notables of Tiberias wanted peace with the Jews,” said the witness.
After the riots, Tawil said, he visited about ninety Arab prisoners who empowered him to act as their attorney. The prisoners wailed that they had been sacrificed and duped by their ex-leaders who were trying to regain their power over the people.
Kawar, the second Arab witness, declared that he was a tax collector in the Tiberias district and that until 1926 he was in touch with the Jewish Arab cultivators. The first signs of ill feeling appeared in that district when trouble started in Jerusalem. He denied that the impoverishment of Nazareth was due to Zionist colonization in the Emek, but said that the emigration of Arabs which started twenty-five years ago was owing to the non-extension of the railroad towards Nazareth. He admitted that Zionist colonization had injured some evicted villagers, but said that many Arab farmers learned from their Jewish neighbors new methods of ploughing and fertilizing. He also declared that Jews stamped out malaria in the Emek and that the Jewish farmers contributed more taxes, but the Arab fellaheen were unable to cultivate successfully because they were ignorant and indebted to Arab money-lenders of Nazareth.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
