The general feeling of insecurity of the Jewish community has increased during the past week, as the result of the killing of the Jewess, Fanny Badash, and the stabbing of Dr. Ticho. A series of shootings and stabbings have occurred with regularity since the government has announced the situation is well in hand. The Jews say to themselves: “Yesterday it was Ticho, today it may be I.” As a result the streets are unusually empty of Jews during the evenings, while Jewish taxi companies have greatly increased their evening business, since the Jews are afraid to walk about after dark.
In an interview with the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Colonel Frederick H. Kisch, member of the Palestine Zionist Executive, declared that “it is a grave mistake to allow the Ticho case to frighten us. This is no worse than the murder of an obscure Jew in the old city two weeks ago. The fact that Ticho is an eminent physician does not change my view as to general conditions. There exists in Palestine a general tendency toward crime, breaking out, in isolated cases, into criminal acts. This condition is natural after the August disorders. The chief cause is the Arab agitation as typified by the behavior of the Arabs on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, the boycott against the Jewish products and the Arab addresses. All these inevitably excite racial feeling and increase the tension, resulting in crimes.
“I do not see how public security can be effectively maintained so long as Arab criminal agitation is not stopped,” he declared, emphasizing the necessity for government action.
Permanent steps to guarantee security await the conclusions and recommendations of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, Colonel Kisch stated.
Police reforms are urgently required, he declared. More Jewish and British police are necessary, and higher pay must be given all members of the force, including the Arabs. In this way a better type of man will be attracted. In addition, he said, more posts and patrols are needed throughout the country. There should be new police stations in the new Jerusalem suburbs where the Jews today are unprotected.
The Jews can be trusted with arms, for self-defense, he maintained. Their sense of responsibility is apparent from the records which show that the Jews have never attacked an Arab village.
The Executive, Colonel Kisch declared, has taken steps to increase protections, and has launched a program of road building designed to increase the defense possibilities of isolated Jewish colonies. The government, he said, has contributed five thousand pounds to the Emergency Fund, two thousand colonists are contributing their labor, and the Pica, Palestine Colonization Association, is contributing large sums from its extraordinary budget. The government, he added, is rushing the installation of telephones linking up all the Jewish colonies.
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.
