bed as Jews were murdered near Kfar Saba, Yaknaam, Haifa,
band Safad. In Safad, a gang of Arabs broke into the home of a
bpoor scribe and killed him and his three small children in cold
bblood, despite the heartrending pleas of the mother. An incident
bthat particularly shook the Jewish community was the murder of
btwo Jewish nurses, Marta Fink and Nehama Tzedek, struck
bdown by Arabs who threw a bomb from a train in the heart of
bTel Aviv. The main thing was to kill Jews—none were spared.
bWomen, children, those who were “close” to the Arabs
bwere killed. Lewish Billig, respected lecturer in Arabic literature
bat Hebrew University, who had devoted his life to Arabic studies
band was a “good friend” of the Arabs, was murdered in his
bhouse in Jerusalem.
bThe first phase of the Arab riots and attacks, April–October
b1936, ended with 82 Jews murdered and more than 400
bwounded. Property damage was extensive: 200,000 trees were
bdestroyed along with 16,500 dunams (4,125 acres) of crops.
bDamage ran into the millions of dollars.
bNot until the end of 1938 did the murders end, in time for
bHitler’s Holocaust to begin. The Jewish community in Eretz
bYisrael counted its dead: 517 men, women, and children. The
bcost in destruction to property was in the tens of millions. The
bArabs had made it coldly clear that, for them, the very presence
bof Zionism in the form of Jews seeking their own homeland was
bunacceptable and would be met with death and destruction.
bNothing has changed, and nothing need surprise us. On
bJuly 23, 1937, the Arab Higher Committee, speaking for the
bArabs of Eretz Yisrael, issued a statement of policy in regard to
bthe Peel Commission’s suggestion of the possibility of partition-
bing the country into Jewish and Arab states. The statement de-
bclared that “the Arabs of Palestine are the owners of the
bcountry. . . . The Jews on the other hand are a minority of in-
btruders who before the war had no great standing in this country
band whose political connections therewith had been severed for
balmost 2,000 years. . . .
b“The Arabs have always repudiated the declaration given
bto Jews as an undertaking which Great Britain should never
bhave assumed, and which, moreover, was against all natural
bprinciples, insofar as it aims at establishing an alien people in a
bcountry where no sort of justification exists for their settlement
b