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bmount importance to realize that the Arab-Israeli conflict did bnot begin in 1967 or in the Sinai campaign of 1956 or when the bstate came into being in 1948. The conflict began many decades bearlier, and it is not an Arab-Israeli one. It is an Arab-Jewish conflict. bJewish blood was shed in the land of Israel by Arabs long before b1967, or 1947 or 1927. And the issue then was indeed one of b“settlements,” but the conflict raged about the new Zionist set- btlements of Tel Aviv and Petah Tikva and Rehovot and Hadera band those in West Jerusalem. The “hate affair” between Arabs band Jews began before there was such a thing as Jewish settle- bments in Judea-Samaria and will continue even if by some mad- bness the Jews of Israel should agree to give up the liberated blands. bAll kinds of foolish people today speak of the need to recog- bnize the “Palestinians.” I agree. Come let us recognize them for bwhat they are. Meet them and know them, just as the Jews of the bLand of Israel knew them, thirty-five and forty-five and fifty-five byears ago, long before the “Israeli aggression of 1967.” The Pogroms of 1921 bOn 23 Nisan in the year 5681 (May 1, 1921), Arab mobs bbegan to gather in Jaffa. That city, unlike Jerusalem and others, bwas considered a model of Jewish-Arab coexistence. (It is re- bmarkable how many Jewish illusions have risen and fallen dur- bing the past eighty years of struggle with the Arabs.) The Jews band Arabs of Jaffa had extensive commercial relations, and the bSephardic Jews, who had lived there for generations, were balmost indistinguishable from the Arabs in their general daily bdeportment. Nevertheless, the mobs began to gather. The heavy bsticks and metal bars they carried left no doubt as to their inten- btions. For days the Arabic paper Falastin had been agitating bagainst Zionism with particular venom. Now, in the mixed bJewish-Arab neighborhoods of Nve Shalom and Menashiya, the bmob began to attack Jews in the streets with stones and heavy bmetal rods, but their major targets were the Jewish stores and bhomes—with their property and women. bThe Jews attempted to defend themselves, and since the bmob did not have guns, the police could have easily driven them boff. But the police were Arabs—first and foremost Arabs. Most pro- btected the Arab rioters, while others removed their badges and b
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