Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 126

126 did not see fit to apply the penalties provided in the Emergency Regulations. In not a single case was the death penalty carried out, although during the period under review in the Report 21 soldiers, 16 police and more than 80 Jews were murdered. Nor is any mention made of the fact that some of the Courts administered their functions in such a manner as to divest the Emergency Regulations of all practical effect. In this connection reference need only be made to the judgment of the former Chief Justice in the case of George Mikhail El-Quasir v. the Attorney General and the District Commissioner of Jaffa, and to the judgment of the President of the District Court in the case of the Attorney General v. Isman. El-Kurdi. 14. In the chronological statement of the main events which is given at the end of para. 25 as well as in the subsequent paragraphs, the generality of the language used does not bring out the fact that the acts of lawlessness and disorder there described were all committed by Arabs. In the same way when reference is made to British or other policemen having been killed, it is not stated that they were all killed by Arabs. Para. 26. 15. It is regarded as a serious omission that in mentioning that the Haifa Port did not from the beginning participate in the general strike, attention is not called to the obvious and well-known reason for this fact, viz., that in contradistinction to the Jaffa Port, where Arab labour enjoyed a virtual monopoly, a considerable number of the port workers in the Haifa Port were Jews, as a result of which the Arab port workers were unwilling to join the strike for fear lest their places be taken by Jews. The Jewish Agency pointed out to Government at the time that had the Government similarly given Jewish workmen a share in the work at the Port of Jaffa, this Port would in all likelihood not have gone on strike, and the duration of the disturbances might, as a result, have been greatly curtailed. For the same reason it is regretted that, in subsequently recording that the efforts made in the course of August to induce the Haifa Port Workers to join the strike, no reference is again made to the presence of Jewish port workers in Haifa, as an essential contributing cause of Haifa's continued abstention from participation in the strike! While the Jewish Agency fully appreciates the importance of the added protection given by the naval and military forces in this respect, it would submit that reference should have been made to the fact that an essential factor which rendered abortive the strike which had actually broken out at Haifa Port, was the presence of a considerable number of Jewish workers in the Port and the fact, which was well known to the Arabs, that the Jewish interests concerned had offered to provide as many Jewish workers as would be necessary to operate the Port services.