228 | Martin Buber’s Theopolitics
of Zionism’s general aims, the idea of a design on the Noble Sanctuary was not
far-fetched.^100 The mufti and the SMC tried to hold the British to their promise to
maintain the status quo from the Ottoman period at the Western Wall. In No-
vember 1928, the SMC convened a General Muslim Conference in Jerusalem (at-
tended for the most part by Levantine Muslims), which claimed the disputed site
for Islam. During the first half of 1929, the mufti initiated an intense campaign
calling for the defense of al-Masjid al-Aqsa. Jews were angered by Muslim build-
ing operations there, and Muslims by Revisionist demonstrations, during which
the Zionist flag was raised and the Zionist anthem sung; there were also rumors
that Arab residents of the neighborhood were beaten. A week later, crowds of
Muslim worshippers gathered at the al-Aqsa mosque and attacked nearby Jewish
communities. Jews retaliated, and over the following few days Arabs murdered
Jews in Hebron and Safed, while Jews reportedly took vengeance in Jerusalem,
Haifa, and Jaffa.^101 The British moved to suppress the violence, at the end of which
133 Jews and 116 Arabs had been killed, and 339 Jews and 232 Arabs wounded.^102
These riots set the tone for the Zionist-Arab conflict in the 1930s. After 1929,
the leadership on both sides faced internal challenges from more militant voices,
and calls for moderation went unheeded. The mufti faced the new, secular pan-
Arabist party Istiqlal (Independence), as well as the followers of Sheikh Izz al-
Din al-Qassam, a Syrian-born alim (Muslim legal scholar) who came to Palestine
fleeing the French invasion. Both factions advocated open struggle against both
Zionism and the British; by contrast, the mufti’s policy seemed overly accom-
modating.^103 Brit Shalom soon faced a parallel situation. Zionists were shocked at
the violence in Hebron and Safed, where Jewish victims included a large number
of unarmed, non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox, many Palestinian born.^104 Many Jews,
embarrassed that the religious non-Zionists had failed to defend themselves,
used their deaths to argue for armed Zionist strength.^105 Now that Zionists fo-
cused publicly on the Arab Question, Brit Shalom seized the opportunity to air
its views. It saw the riots as fulfilling its fears and vindicating its predictions,
and called for major policy changes on immigration and rejection of the Balfour
Declaration.^106 As a result, it was accused of treason and insensitivity to the suf-
fering Jews. The Labor newspaper Davar began to inveigh against Brit Shalom on
a regular basis, refusing to publish its statement on the riots, while the majority of
the public regarded Brit Shalom’s proposals as a cowardly surrender to bullying.
This was what Anita Shapira calls Brit Shalom’s “finest hour.”^107 Aharon Kedar,
however, faults Brit Shalom for its response to 1929: “While the Jewish population
of Palestine was still licking its wounds, Brit Shalom launched one of its most bit-
ing attacks on the policies of the Zionist movement.... [T]he association erred in
the manner in which it appealed to the Jewish public.”^108
The negative reaction to Brit Shalom’s positions split its radicals from its
moderates. The latter included Ruppin and Jacob Thon, colleagues at the Zionist