Palestine was reported as peaceful and quiet today. The disorders have, in the main, ended, and there is practically no danger of any further outbreaks.
In Haifa, the authorities lifted the curfew law, under which all inhabitants were compelled to stay indoors after six o’clock in the evening, since the city has returned to normal life, and the day passed without incident.
However, the general strike proclaimed by the Arab Executive following the disorders in Jaffa last week, is continuing despite the fact that the Arab Executive decided to call the strike off at a meeting in Jerusalem last night and ordered the strikers back to work.
Jerusalem was crowded today with large numbers of Arab villagers from the Arab centers around who flocked into the city for the customary mid-day prayers at the Mosque of Omar. After the services, sermons were preached.
Thursday, November 2, the sixteenth anniversary of the Balfour declaration, a day on which disorders were expected to occur, and to which the inhabitants of the country looked forward with fear, passed off quietly. There were a few abortive attempts at demonstrations, but they were quickly suppressed. Otherwise nothing else happened that was unusual. Even the Arab general strike, which was expected to flare up bitterly on Balfour Day, proved to be quiescent, and nothing untoward was in evidence.
Substantial and extensive Jewish contributions to the industrial, cultural and political development of Palestine coupled with the fact that Arab emigration from the country has been limited, are cited by Morris Rothenberg, president of the Zionist Organization of America, who issued a statement refuting the charges of Arab demonstrators in the Holy Land declaring they are being pushed from their homes by Jewish immigration.
The statement which represents “the Jewish point of view,” says that world Jewry has invested approximately $25,000,000 in Palestine. As a direct result of the scale of living of both Arabs and Jews there has been raised considerably.
“The influx of Jews into Palestine has not displaced Arabs,” said Mr. Rothenberg. “Conversely the records show that Arabs seem to have found greater opportunities within the country. The immigration statistics reveal that between 1920 and 1928, 13,432 Arabs left Palestine and 88,099 left the neighboring country of Syria. The population is 3.4 times greater than that of Palestine, and yet it has an emigration of Arabs 6.6 times as large. Arab emigration from Palestine is now only two-fifths of what it was before the war.”
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.
