March To The Western Wall and Counter Demonstrations
On Thursday 15 August 1929, during the Jewish fast of Tisha B'Av, several hundred members of Joseph Klausner's Committee for the Western Wall, among them members of Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism movement Betar youth organization, under the leadership of Jeremiah Halpern, marched to the Western Wall shouting "the Wall is ours". At the Wall they raised the Jewish national flag and sang Hatikvah, the Jewish anthem. The Shaw report later concluded that the crowd was peaceful and allegations that the crowd were armed with iron bars were not correct, but that there may have been threatening cries made by some "undesirable elements" in the Jewish procession. The authorities had been notified of the march in advance and provided a heavy police escort in a bid to prevent any incidents. Rumours spread that the youths had attacked local residents and had cursed the name of Muhammad.
On Friday, 16 August after an inflammatory sermon, a demonstration organized by the Supreme Muslim Council marched to the Wall. The Acting High Commissioner summoned Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and informed him that he had never heard of such a demonstration being held at the Wailing Wall, and that it would be a terrible shock to the Jews who regarded the Wall as a place of special sanctity to them. At the Wall, the crowd burnt prayer books, liturgical fixtures and notes of supplication left in the Wall's cracks, and the beadle was injured. The rioting spread to the Jewish commercial area of town.
Inflammatory articles calculated to incite disorder appeared in the Arab media and one flyer, signed by "the Committee of the Holy Warriors in Palestine" stated that the Jews had violated the honor of Islam, and declared: "Hearts are in tumult because of these barbaric deeds, and the people began to break out in shouts of 'war, Jihad ... rebellion.' ... O Arab nation, the eyes of your brothers in Palestine are upon you ... and they awaken your religious feelings and national zealotry to rise up against the enemy who violated the honor of Islam and raped the women and murdered widows and babies."
On the same afternoon, the Jewish newspaper Doar HaYom published an inflammatory leaflet describing the Muslim march, based partially on statements by Wolfgang von Weisl, which "in material particulars was incorrect" according to the Shaw report. On 18 August, Haaretz criticised Doar HaYom in an article entitled "He who Sows the Wind shall Reap the Whirlwind": "The poison of propaganda was dripping from its columns daily until it poisoned the atmosphere and brought about the Thursday demonstration....and this served as a pretext to the wild demonstration of the Arabs."
Read more about this topic: 1929 Palestine Riots
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