ed as Jews were murdered near Kfar Saba, Yaknaam, Haifa, br

and Safad. In Safad, a gang of Arabs broke into the home of a br

poor scribe and killed him and his three small children in cold br

blood, despite the heartrending pleas of the mother. An incident br

that particularly shook the Jewish community was the murder of br

two Jewish nurses, Marta Fink and Nehama Tzedek, struck br

down by Arabs who threw a bomb from a train in the heart of br

Tel Aviv. The main thing was to kill Jews—none were spared.

Women, children, those who were “close” to the Arabs br

were killed. Lewish Billig, respected lecturer in Arabic literature br

at Hebrew University, who had devoted his life to Arabic studies br

and was a “good friend” of the Arabs, was murdered in his br

house in Jerusalem.

The first phase of the Arab riots and attacks, April–October br

1936, ended with 82 Jews murdered and more than 400 br

wounded. Property damage was extensive: 200,000 trees were br

destroyed along with 16,500 dunams (4,125 acres) of crops. br

Damage ran into the millions of dollars.

Not until the end of 1938 did the murders end, in time for br

Hitler’s Holocaust to begin. The Jewish community in Eretz br

Yisrael counted its dead: 517 men, women, and children. The br

cost in destruction to property was in the tens of millions. The br

Arabs had made it coldly clear that, for them, the very presence br

of Zionism in the form of Jews seeking their own homeland was br

unacceptable and would be met with death and destruction.

Nothing has changed, and nothing need surprise us. On br

July 23, 1937, the Arab Higher Committee, speaking for the br

Arabs of Eretz Yisrael, issued a statement of policy in regard to br

the Peel Commission’s suggestion of the possibility of partition- br

ing the country into Jewish and Arab states. The statement de- br

clared that “the Arabs of Palestine are the owners of the br

country. . . . The Jews on the other hand are a minority of in- br

truders who before the war had no great standing in this country br

and whose political connections therewith had been severed for br

almost 2,000 years. . . .

“The Arabs have always repudiated the declaration given br

to Jews as an undertaking which Great Britain should never br

have assumed, and which, moreover, was against all natural br

principles, insofar as it aims at establishing an alien people in a br

country where no sort of justification exists for their settlement br