land without people for people without land.” A few Zionists did raise the
concern, notably Baruch Epstein. In a 1907 essay entitled Sheela Ne’elma
(Hidden Question), Epstein argued that the economic advantages brought by
the Zionist settlers would be outweighed by the complexities of competing
Jewish and Arab nationalist visions. In retrospect, he was exactly right.
The first signs of conflict appeared during the early 1920s, the result of
three developments: the emergence of Arab nationalism, the growth of the
Yishuv, and British policy in Palestine. The spread of modern nationalism in
the Arab world engendered a sense that the entire region should be ruled by
Arabs and carved into separate states out of the defunct Ottoman Empire. In
general, the underlying source of hostility was not economic but political.
Arab agitators were more alarmed by the sale of land than by the wages of
Arab workers; less concerned with Jewish immigration per se than with who
would be the majority; not disturbed by Zionist settlement, but by who
would ultimately replace the British.
These sentiments crystallized into periodic Arab attacks on Jews in
Palestine. In 1920, during the Nebi Musa festival, Arab rioters attacked and
wounded 160 Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem. In May 1921, Jewish social-
ists in Jaffa were attacked. The rioters, denouncing Zionism as Bolshevism,
killed 44 Jews (48 Arabs were also killed by the Arab rioters) These riots set
the tone. Until the 1950s, Zionism was denounced as Bolshevism. Thereafter,
Arabs denounced Zionism as fascism.
Although the violence of 1920–1 shocked Zionists out of complacency
regarding Arab nationalism, the situation remained relatively quiet until
1929, leading most Zionists to conclude that the problem either did not exist
or was fleeting. Mainstream Zionist leaders such as Chaim Weizmann and
David ben-Gurion believed that a rising standard of living would prevent a
repeat of 1920–1. In August 1929, a second, more deadly wave of riots broke
out in Hebron and Safed. Though these were the last major Arab riots until
the Arab revolt of 1936–9, they precluded Zionist leaders from dismissing
the violence as ephemeral.
Arab nationalism and the accompanying violence was driven by the the
growth and development of the Yishuv by the end of the 1920s, particu-
larly by the maturing of the three major Jewish/Zionist political
institutions in Palestine: the National Council, which managed social, reli-
gious, and educational affairs; the Zionist executive, which managed the
Jewish National Fund; and the Jewish Agency (Histadrut), the major arm
for economic development and settlements. Together, these institutions
increasingly resembled the nucleus of a state, creating a growing sense
among Arabs that this settlement movement was permanent and would
keep growing. In other words, what the British had promised in the form of
the Balfour Declaration appeared to be coming to fruition, startling and
frightening Arab leaders.
216 From renewal to devastation, 1914–45