The year 1929 is a crucial one in the history of Zionism and Palestine. For nearly half a century already, the Zionist movement had been establishing settlements in Palestine, under Ottoman and then British rule. Those decades saw some clashes between Zionist Jews and Palestinian Arabs, but the violence remained localised and relatively small in scale: in 1896, a dispute between the colonists of Petah Tikva and their neighbours; in 1908, a brawl between Jewish workers and Arab youths in Jaffa; in 1920, riots in Jerusalem.
The events of August 1929 were different. Over the span of a week, a Palestinian uprising spread across the entire country, killing 133 Jews – at times in gruesome acts of mob violence. They attacked the old Jewish communities of Hebron and Safed, which predated the Zionist movement, and completely destroyed six Zionist colonies. At the same time, British colonial forces and Jewish militias killed 116 Palestinians. ….more
