History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

But the fact that the British authorities tried hard to calm the Arabs – and so were promptly accused of anti-Semitism by some of the Jews – made no difference. The post-war return of Jewish refugees from Egypt to Palestine, and the arrival of more, fleeing pogroms by the White Russians in the Ukraine, marked the point at which the Arabs, in Ha’Am’s words, began to feel threatened. Early in March 1920 there was a series of Arab attacks on Jewish settlements in the Galilee, during one of which Trumpeldor was killed; and they were followed by Arab riots in Jerusalem. Jabotinsky, bringing his self-defence force into action for the first time, was arrested, together with other members of the Haganah, tried by a military court and given fifteen years’ hard labour. Arab rioters were convicted and imprisoned too, among them Haji Amin al-Husaini, who fled the country and was sentenced to ten years in absentia.