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The 1929 Massacre that Explains the Middle East Today
(New York Post) Yardena Schwartz - On Aug. 24, 1929, more than 3,000 Muslim men armed with swords, axes and machetes marched through the ancient Jewish quarter of Hebron, then part of British Mandate Palestine. They slaughtered 67 Jewish men, women and children, and wounded dozens more. Children watched as their parents were butchered by their neighbors. Infants were murdered in their mothers' arms. Young women were raped. Those who survived had fingers and limbs severed and eyes gouged. The massacre bore striking similarities to Oct. 7. Many victims of the Hebron massacre knew their assailants by name. 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. What led thousands of Muslims in Hebron to turn on their Jewish neighbors was a campaign of disinformation initiated by the first leader of the Palestinian people: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini. He claimed that the Jews of Palestine were conspiring to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. Hamas named the Oct. 7 attack "The Al-Aqsa Flood." The writer is the author of Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine that Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict.