Feeling prevailed among the Jewish population in Palestine tonight that a behind-the-scenes Arab plot is brewing.
Open defiance of the recently issued order of High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, forbidding civilians to constitute themselves self-appointed watchdogs against the influx of illegal Jewish immigrants, took shape on several portions of the Holy Land coastline and borders.
High tension prevailed as roving bands of lawless Arab youths flung themselves with renewed fury into the night hunts being carried on along the shore by official police for Jews attempting to smuggle themselves into the country.
A battery of airplane searchlights beat down with merciless brilliance all along the coast line in Nathania, flooding the beach with daylight illumination while coastal guards and their reckless and unlawful volunteer assistants combed every recess for concealed would-be entrants unequipped with visas.
Police in Haifa and Tul Karem eluded the letter of Wauchope’s edict by recruiting gangs of young Arab strong-arms into service and investing them with temporary government protection by designating them as auxiliary officers.
Voice was given to the general feeling of alarm which clutched at the minds of Palestinian Jewry by the Hebrew press. Haaretz, important daily newspaper, declared in an unequivocal editorial that the Jewish residents suspect an underground Arab scheme is afoot to pave the way for a new onslaught, as intensive as the one five years ago, which threw the entire Holy Land into an engulfing wave of bloody rioting.
Arab jealousy, coupled with annoyance at the tremendous strides toward prosperity which Jewish settlers have made recently, Haaretz feels, is behind the purported plot.
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.
