News Brief

The long-debated report of the Commission of Inquiry, consisting of Sir James William Murison (formerly Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements) and Harry Herbert Trusted, K. C., Attorney-General for Palestine, “to inquire into and report upon the events … between October 13 and November 31, 1933,” has now been published here as a Gazette Extraordinary.

The main part of the report consists of the narrative of events in Jerusalem (on October 13), in Jaffa, Haifa, Nablus and Jerusalem again on October 27. The casualties are given as one policeman and twenty-six of the public killed, and fifty-six policemen and 187 of the public injured. The policeman was killed by a large stone, which smashed in his head, and all the civilians were killed by rifle and revolver fire.

“Apart from one lorry, the property of a Jewish colony, which was destroyed by fire in Haifa, no serious damage was done to property,” says the report, although there was minor damage, such as broken windows, etc., in Jaffa, Haifa, and Nablus. There was no damage done at Jerusalem, and generally no claims in respect of any damage to property in any of the districts have been made to the Government.

POLICE ARE PRAISED

In the general observations, which make up the last part of the report, praise is lavished upon the police, and this has already been reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency–a fortnight before the report appeared. Mention is made about the three District Police Superintendents–Major Wainwright of Jerusalem, McConnell of Jaffa, and Major Foley of Haifa–having taken adequate and proper precautions, and that there is nothing in their conduct which is open to criticism. Of John A. M. Faraday, the report says that he was placed in a position of particular difficulty and responsibility, and, in the events which happened, danger. It proceeds:

“Of him, we wish to say that in our opinion, based upon the evidence that is before us, his ability, personal courage and discretion in the conduct of the Jaffa operations were wholly admirable.”

It is difficult to reconcile this complete exoneration of an admittedly brave officer with the instructions issued by the High Commissioner that he is to be transferred to the arid desert of Beersheba.

There is one phrase in the general observations that has aroused the bitter resentment of the entire Jewish population, which was not directly involved in the October disturbances, although indirectly, of course, they were the butts of the Arab demonstrators. This phrase reads as follows:

“The immediate cause of the disturbances with which we are concerned was the resolution of the Arab Executive calling upon the Arabs to hold demonstrations to protest against the policy of government, the ground for which was prepared by a general feeling of apprehension amongst the Arabs engendered by the purchase of land by the Jews and by Jewish immigration.”

Anyone reading over the report will not find a single shred of evidence to justify such a point-blank assertion. It will be noted that the introduction of this political motif, without any factual basis in the body of the report, was not accompanied by any statement that the “general feeling of apprehension” had been artificially engineered–was, in fact, the result of incitement and propaganda by the Arabs; it is left to the reader uninstructed in the march of affairs in Palestine to gather that the entire Arab population of Palestine is enraged because the Jews are buying land and entering the country. This is certainly not the truth. The commission should have made it clear that Arab apprehension was confined to a small class of trouble-makers, who cunningly instilled their propaganda amongst the excitable riffraff of the towns, always ready to “demonstrate” owing to the possibility of loot and plunder.

As for the narrative of the events, they are substantially the same as were reported at the time, although naturally they enter into more details than were broadcast by journalists. One point worthy of note is that Musa Kazem Pasha Al-Husseini, president of the Arab Executive, promised the Officer Administering the Government on October 9, four days before the first Jerusalem disturbance, at an interview to which Musa Kazen Pasha had been summoned, that he would collect members of the Arab Executive and persuade them to send a delegation to the Officer Administering the Government (John Hathorn Hall) to discuss their contemplated protest, instead of demonstrating, in view of Musa Kazem Pasha’s statement that he himself could not cancel the resolution of the Arab Executive calling for a demonstration. But no such delegation visited Hall.

Another point to note is that Hall told the Arab leader at that interview, in which he advised him to have the Arab Executive resolution canceled, “that no political procession had been allowed in Palestine since the disturbances of 1929 and that the government would not allow a procession in Jerusalem.”

The question comes immediately to the fore, what happened between October 9 and January 17 that led the Palestine government to permit a political demonstration in Jerusalem, which it had previously been adamant in not allowing, on the latter date, the end of Ramadhan?

The ways of government are indeed mysterious and inscrutable that in a little over three months it carries out a complete volta face of its considered policy.

Taken upon its merits as the conclusions of a judicial inquiry into what happened in different places during that fateful three weeks in Palestine, the report of the Murison Commission is certainly a grave incrimination of the Arab Executive and Arab leaders, whose reckless policy led to so much bloodshed. It is an incrimination of the actions of those Arab leaders who were arrested on charges of spurring on and participating in the attacks upon the police and the creation of lawlessness and disorder. As an impartial document, it is admissible in court as proof of the culpability of those participating in the rioting, and must be considered as adequate support of the evidence produced by the prosecution.