The forgotten 1929 massacre that explains the Middle East today
Since Oct.7, 2023, Hamas sympathizers have insisted that we must understand the massacre in its historical context — that it did not happen in a vacuum.
This much is true. To understand this context, we need to look back at a chapter of history that predates the state of Israel by two decades.That chapter is 1929.On Aug.
24, 1929, more than 3000 Muslim men armed with swords, axes and machetes marched through the ancient Jewish quarter of Hebron, then part of British Mandate Palestine.That Sabbath morning, they slaughtered 67 Jewish men, women and children, and wounded dozens more.
Children watched as their parents were butchered by their neighbors.Rabbis and yeshiva students were castrated.
Infants were murdered in their mothers’ arms.Young women were raped.
Those who survived endured horrific cruelty, with fingers and limbs severed and eyes gouged. Many victims of the Hebron massacre knew their assailants by name.Until that day, the rioters had been their friends, neighbors, coworkers and landlords.
Most of Hebron’s Jews were natives of the land who spoke Hebrew and Arabic.This was the world’s oldest Jewish community, dating back to the days of Abraham and Sarah, who are believed to be buried in Hebron’s Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.The massacre bore striking similarities to Oct.
7.But the significance of 1929 extends far beyond these parallels.This overlooked chapter of history offers a window into the forces that shape this conflict — forces that are entirely missing from contemporary accounts of its origins. In 1929, Jews represented 20% of a population of less than 1 million people. There was no persecution or oppression of Palestinians in 1929.
To be a Palestinian was to be a Jew or an Arab living under British rule.Jews and Muslims had lived alongside one another in Hebron for generations.What led thousands of Muslims in Hebron to turn on their Jewish neighbors was a campaign of disinformation initiated by the first leader ...