Palestine. Statement with Regard to British Policy. Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, May, 1930

(ZIONISM)

His Majesty’s Stationery Office

London

1930

Seal of British Crown

Following the Arab riots of August 1929 in which many Jews were killed, there were numerous "Zionist complaints against the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, against the Palestine Arab Executive, and against the Government” (p. 6). In reply to the Jewish accusation that the British colonial police were remiss in their duty to defend the Jews against the Arab rioters, the fact-finding commission concluded that "the presence of troops or of British police in larger numbers on the 23rd August, 1929, would not necessarily have prevented an outbreak” (p.10). Moreover, the Commission absolved the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, of responsibilty for violence: “Whatever activities he may have indulged in outside the knowledge of the Government, in public the Mufti, both at noon on the 23rd August and thereafter throughout the period of the disturbances, exerted his influence in the direction of promoting peace and restoring order"