Recent anti-Jewish disorders in Cran and other places were condemned by Sheikh Zahiri, head of an Arab delegation from the Department of Oran, while here to negotiate with the Governor-General about rights for the native population.
He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
“The Mohammedan organizations of the country have issued an appeal to all Moslems to have nothing to do with the anti-Jewish agitators who, for their own private reasons, wish to bring about another Constantine massacre. The Arabs do not want any racial strife. They wish to live in peace with the other communities in the country.”
Asked the attitude of the Algerian Arabs on disturbances in Palestine, he blamed British imperialism for friction between Arabs and Jews and said his group would demand a League of Nations inquiry into the Palestine situation and an Arab-Jewish agreement to limit immigration.
“Why don’t the English give the Jews a part of their immense possessions, where they could be absolute masters?” he asked.
When he was told the Jews regarded Palestine as the land promised them by God and asked whether he would set himself against divine will, the Sheikh replied:
“Alas, the ways of the Lord are indeed inscrutable, and we are only human.”
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.
