An increase in the number of murders in Palestine in 1930 over 1929, apart from the wholesale murder of Jews in the riots of August 1929, is shown by the figures just made public here, revealing 126 capital crimes committed in 1930 as compared with 96 in 1929.
With the increase of murders, the number of attempted murders also went up from 154 to 179, and serious assaults from 274 to 347. The figures for highway robbery, theft and burglary and offences against women remained, however, practically stationary, a fact from which a local writer deduces that the argument brought forward by Arab propagandists that the crime figures are evidence that the economic conditions are becoming worse cannot be maintained, since if the economic conditions were the cause of the crimes, the number of thefts and robberies would have increased.
The large increase in the number of murders and attempted murders is due to the fact, he says, that if a fellah is told in 1929 that he may murder Jews, against whom he has no personal grudge, he feels that he may also murder his neighbour against whom and against whose family he has long borne an unsatisfied and very real grudge.
There was a rise also in the number of cases of fraud, embezzlement and forgery brought to the notice of the police. There were 251 cases in 1929, and 342 in 1930. There was a slight decrease in the number of witnesses who lied on oath, the number being 292 for 1929 and 279 for 1930. Fifty-two persons were sent to prison for life in 1930. Nineteen will serve 15 years sentences. More than 300 will serve sentences varying from 5 to 15 years. Nearly 3,000 will serve sentences of less than two years.
Six men were executed in Palestine in 1930, and seven in 1929, while in Great Britain, with a population of nearly 50 million the average number executed each year is only 10.
Forming one out of every five in the population, the Jews have a crime record of only one out of twenty, the figures showing twenty offences by Moslems for every offence committed by a Jew, and seventeen for every offence committed by a Christian.
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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.
