Where’s the Coverage? Videos Prove Arab Violence against Jews NOT Because of Israel

It seems as though “peace talks” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have hit another stumbling block – or completely fallen apart perhaps – as Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party has entered into an agreement with the terrorist organization Hamas to form a Palestinian unity government.

The Wall Street Journal notes:

Wednesday’s declaration wasn’t the first time the two sides have vowed to unite and follows past agreements that eventually fell apart over bickering.

But the timing of the announcement, however uncertain its outcome, was certain to complicate peace negotiations with Israel. Hamas is pledged to Israel’s destruction.

In fact, Hamas aims to kill all Jews everywhere, “no matter how long it takes.” Arab animosity toward and terrorism against Jews is nothing new. As CAMERA has previously reported:

Arab violence against Jews is often alleged to have begun with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 or as a result of Israel’s capture in 1967 of territories occupied by Jordan. But even before the Mandate for Palestine was assigned to Great Britain by the Allies at the San Remo Conference (April 1920) and endorsed by the League of Nations (July 1922), Palestinian Arabs were carrying out organized attacks against Jewish communities in Palestine.

CAMERA details the infamous 1929 massacre in Hebron:

According to Dutch-Canadian journalist Pierre Van Passen who was in Palestine at the time, fabricated pictures of Muslim holy sites in ruins were handed out to Hebron Arabs as they were leaving their mosques on Friday, August 23, 1929. The captions on the pictures claimed that the Dome of the Rock was bombed by the Zionists. That evening, armed Arabs broke into the Yeshiva (Talmudic academy) and murdered the lone student they found. The following day, an enraged Arab mob wielding knives, axes, and iron bars destroyed the Yeshiva and slaughtered the rest of the students there. A delegation of Jewish residents on their way to the police station was lynched by an Arab mob. The mob then proceeded to massacre Hebron’s Jews — both Sephardi and Ashkenazi — who had lived peacefully with their Arab neighbors for years. With only one British officer supervising, the Arab police made no attempt to prevent the massacre.

The head of Hebron’s Ashkenazi community, Rabbi Ya’akov Slonim, had been on good terms with his Arab colleagues and offered his home as a refuge to Hebron’s Jews, believing that they would be spared. But the mob broke in and killed the Rabbi, members of his family and all those assembled there. Van Passen gave the following account, revealing an attempted cover-up by British officials:

What occurred in the upper chambers of Slonim’s house could be seen when we found the twelve-foot-high ceiling splashed with blood. The rooms looked like a slaughterhouse. When I visited the place in the company of Captain Marek Schwartz, a former Austrian artillery officer, Mr. Abraham Goldberg of New York, and Mr. Ernst Davies, correspondent of the old Berliner Tageblatt, the blood stood in a huge pool on the slightly sagging stone floor of the house. Clocks, crockery, tables and windows had been smashed to smithereens. Of the unlooted articles, not a single item had been left intact except a large black-and-white photograph of Dr. Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Around the picture’s frame the murderers had draped the blood-drenched underwear of a woman.

We stood silently contemplating the scene of slaughter when the door was flung open by a British solder with fixed bayonet. In strolled Mr. Keith-Roach, governor of the Jaffa district, followed by a colonel of the Green Howards battalion of the King’s African Rifles. They took a hasty glance around that awful room, and Mr. Roach remarked to his companion, “Shall we have lunch now or drive to Jerusalem first?”

In Jerusalem the Government published a refutation of the rumors that the dead Jews of Hebron had been tortured before they had their throats slit. This made me rush back to that city accompanied by two medical men, Dr. Dantziger and Dr. Ticho. I intended to gather up the severed sexual organs and the cut-off women’s breasts we had seen lying scattered over the floor and in the beds. But when we came to Hebron a telephone call from Jerusalem had ordered our access barred to the Slonim house. [Van Passen, Pierre, Days of Our Years, Hillman-Curl, Inc., New York 1939]

In total, sixty-seven Jews were killed and 60 were wounded. The Jewish community in Hebron was destroyed.

In the last week, British Pathé has released thousands of videos from its archives, including some newsreels relating to Palestine under the British mandate. Here, American Jews in 1929 are so concerned about their brothers and sisters in Palestine that a reported 35,000 marched in front of the British consulate in New York City demanding protection for them:

And in Jerusalem, nervous Jews erect makeshift barriers and patrol the streets to protect themselves:

Though the video declares that the arrival of British troops meant that “the situation is well in hand,” this was not the case. There were many other incidents of anti-Jewish violence predating the establishment of the state of Israel.

These videos are a treasure trove of new evidence to an old reality: Arab terrorism against Jews in the land of Israel is not about occupation, settlements, the contours of future borders or refugees. It is not even about the existence of a Palestinian state. Arab terrorism against Jews is about the existence of a Jewish presence and it has been for ages. So… Where’s the coverage?