After a week of Arab-Jewish clashes during which 35 persons were killed and 80 wounded, it seemed probable today that both sides had brought the situation under control and, at least for the time being, there would be no large-scale rioting in Palestine.
A correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has just returned from a five-day tour of Palestine’s potential danger zones. Once outside the Tel Aviv-Jaffa trouble area, nowhere along the coast as far as Lebanon, or along the frontiers of Lebanon, Syria or Transjordan or back through the heart of the country to Jerusalem, was there any indication that the Arabs hoped to fan this week’s incidents into nation-wide riots.
Jewish settlements reported without exception that relations with their Arab neighbors were completely normal. Leaders of the Arab villages showed no signs either of tension or hostility; several of them volunteered the opinion that the incidents were British-inspired and would not do the Arabs any good.
In themselves these expressions of local Arab opinion might not mean much. A determined push by the Palestine Arab Higher Committee might possibly stir volatile Arabs to violence which so far they have rejected. There is little evidence, however, that the Higher Committee wants trouble at this time and there are many signs it is unprepared for such a battle.
It is difficult to believe that these incidents–begun by Arabs without apparent provocation–were spontaneous. According to competent political observers here, the most probable explanation is that the source and inspiration of the rioting is the visit to Palestine two weeks ago of Brigadier General I.N. Clayton, head of the Middle East section of the British Embassy in Cairo, and former head of the Arab Affairs Bureau of the British Ministry of State, and a virulent anti-Zionist.
Shortly after Clayton’s talks with Jamal Husseini, vice-chairman of the Committee, the first of these incidents–the attack on the Cafe Hawaii in Tel Aviv–took place. This, and the rioting which followed, are believed to have been desired by him and other Arab extremists, as a trial balloon to test internal and foreign reactions, and particularly to remind the U.N. committee that the Arabs must be reckoned with.
There is every reason to believe, however, that the Higher Committee wishes to keep the outbreak within narrow limits. They want this, firstly because widespread violence would injure the Arab case before the U.N. In addition, the Committee is short of funds and is unable to finance large-scale riots at this time. Its military organization is acutely short of arms at the moment and is also torn by internal dissension.
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.
