Yes, you read that headline correctly on this 100-year-old article. An article with more than a little to say on the roots of the current conflagration.

‘U.S. Demands More Troops in Palestine War’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 7 No. 147. August 27, 1929.

British Navy Steams On Jaffa; 150 Dead; More Battles Loom; Land Thefts Cause Riot; Rich Arab Clerics Use Old Trick of Pogrom.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26.–Secretary of State Stimson cabled Ambassador Dawes at London, for the third time today, ordering him to urge upon the British government more vigorous repressive measures in Palestine, where many rich American Zionists have plantations on which both Jewish and Arabian workers are exploited.

Rush More Troops.

JERUSALEM, Palestine, Aug. 26. -Putting on all steam and nearly bursting their boilers in the attempt at more speed, the British battleship Barham and cruiser Sussex, the airplane carrier Courageous and the destroyers Veteran and Wanderer are speeding to Jaffa, carrying battalions of infantry rushed aboard to Malta, Alexandria and Gibraltar, to shoot down revolting Arabs who have been led by the policy of the British imperial government to an attack on the Jewish Zionists.

More Attacks Coming.

A new battle looms at Tel-Aviv, which contains 40,000 Jewish immigrants. The authorities have prohibited an Arabian funeral procession to bury those falling in the last two days fighting at Jaffa.

The officials figures are that 45 Jews are killed in Hebron and 59 wounded. One Jew was killed, 20 were wounded and 50 Arabs wounded at Tel-Aviv last night. The total number of dead is estimated at 150 for the last two days. Among those killed in Jerusalem was an English officer. Seventy Jews and 40 Arabs are reported killed at Babhamoud.

Imperialist Zionism.

British imperialism, in its attempt to subdue and ravish Palestine, encourages the so-called nationalist movement of the Jews, known as Zionism. The Jewish capitalists, agents of British imperialism, and the Jewish “labor leaders” of the second international, are the direct instruments of British imperialism in waging a campaign to drive from the land the Arabs so that such land can be turned into vast plantations on which fruit and other products can be raised.

The conquest of Palestine, with the aid of the Zionists, is also a part of British imperialist policy in relation to India and the whole Arabian East. Palestine is a part of the chain of British mandated territory that is held with the objective of eventually dominating all that territory between the eastern end of the Mediterranean and India.

Organized Terror.

The imperialist Zionists and the labor fakers affiliated with the second international are continually organizing pogroms against the native Arabs. It is not a religious war as the capitalist press would have us believe, but a class war. The events at the wailing wall are only belated effects of the frightful campaign of murder that has been carried out for half a decade. The propaganda of the kept press of the United States about religious persecution of Jews in Palestine is only an attempt to arouse sympathy for the Jewish tools of British imperialism and to deceive the Jewish working masses regarding the class character of the struggle.

Analyses Class Conflict.

A leading contributor (J.B., Joseph Berger) to the international press who is active in the labor movement in Palestine wrote a very illuminating review of the situation there in the August 9th issue of the International Press Correspondence, which we publish in full:

The Fight for Land.

“As a result of the methods of imperialist rule, a unique, hard and bitter struggle–the fight for land–has become the most immediate, in fact the central problem of political and economic life in Palestine. In order to convert Palestine into a favorable strategic base for its war activities, into a favorable key position for conquering the whole of the Arabian East, British imperialism requires the aid of a “Jewish national home.”

Fight Arabian Masses.

“The Jewish national home must, however, if British policy is to achieve its aim, be ‘built’ in fierce and lasting conflict with the Arabian masses, in the first place with the peasant masses. The British imperialists have, therefore, given their servants, the Zionists, to understand that if a Jewish colonization is to be tolerated at all, then it must proceed along agricultural lines.

Expropriation Campaign.

“Thus the Zionists have been given the hint to place once again in the foreground the expropriation campaign against the Arab peasants, which ever since the inception of Zionism has constituted the foundation of this idealistic movement. But in expropriating the Arab peasants recourse must not be had to such primitive means as brute force. The British are far too cautious to rouse the anger of the Arabs all at once by fulfilling the demands of the Zionists and directly handing over to them large stretches of land. The expropriation of the Arab Fellahin is carried out in a more subtle and refined way–and it is precisely these underhand methods of the Zionists that cause the resistance of the Arab peasants to be all the more fierce and desperate.

Big Landowners Aid.

“In carrying out its historical mission of helping British imperialism by driving the poor Arab peasants from the soil, Zionism makes use of two factors. The first is the Arab big landowners who “sell” to the Zionist societies the peasants’ land, the real possessors and cultivators of which, owing to the peculiar condition of land registration, are often quite unaware that it does not belong to them but to the Effendi (the big landed proprietors). Nay more, the big land owners are at the same time dealers in land, who bribe the elders of the Arab villages, make dirty bargains with the government officials and in this manner hand over the Arab lands to the Zionist colonizing companies. Once the first part of the business (the fraudulent bargaining away of the peasants’ land without the previous knowledge of the fellahin) is concluded, the Zionists, backed by the authority of the law, can now proceed to the second act of land-robbery.

Role of Labor Leaders.

“This is where the Zionist labor leaders, the section of the II. International, come to the scene. The chief task which the Zionist socialists set the members and supporters of their party, is to carry out the seizure of the land. The poverty stricken Jewish workers are incited in the most unscrupulous manner against the Arab small peasants in order to induce them to seize the latter’s land. Numerous bloody collisions result in the carrying out of this task. Upon the ruins of the small Arab farms there arise huge orange plantations, upon which a few parasitic capitalists exploit in the most unheard of manner hundreds of Jewish workers, who have “won” this land, and thousands of Arabs, mostly expropriated small peasants. And that is Zionism.

Communists Lead Resistance.

“The only force which offers resistance to this perfidious imperialist-Zionist-feudal-reformist game is the Communist Party.

“The Communists place in the foreground the interests of the Arab small peasants. The fighting slogan of the Communists is, active revolutionary fight against the expropriation of the small peasants’ land by the Zionists. Brotherly union of the Arah and Jewish workers in the fight against the base actions of the social imperialists, is the way indicated by the Communists. Fight Against Imperialism.

“Against this clear and plain policy of the Communists there is concentrated the whole fire of the British, Zionist and Arab reaction. On the Arab New-Years’ Day (8^th of June) some nationalist groups in Jaffa wanted to hold a demonstration against the sale of land to the Zionists. The Communists immediately placed themselves at the head of the movement, but turned it in the direction of the fight against imperialism and for the dividing up of the land of the big land proprietors.

Troops Called in Demonstrations.

“The Communist appeals made a great impression upon the Arab population, and the government summoned troops and police from all parts of the country in order to pre- vent a demonstration. As a further counter-measure it called upon the Arab notables (big merchants, land- owners and Sheiks) to render help in suppressing the Communist demonstrations. The Arab notables, some of whom only very recently posed as being very radical and even coquetted with the labor movement, immediately complied with the demand. A few weeks later the British High Commissioner was able to express his thanks to these notables with whose help he had succeeded in quelling the Communist disturbances!

Expose Zionist Lackeys.

“So far as the Zionists are concerned, the object of the Communist struggle is to expose the true character of Zionism. It is the chief aim of the Zionists to prevent the truth coming to light, even if it means employing the most brutal and criminal means. Thus the Communists, who are fighting against the Arabs being driven from the soil, are boycotted, beaten, driven from their homes, handed over to the police and condemned to imprisonment, compulsory labor and deportation.

“A Communist delegate who, at a Jewish ‘meeting of deputies, protested against the driving of the fellahin from the soil, was prevent- ed from concluding his speech, howled down and thrown out of the hall by the Zionist socialists who talk so much of justice and democracy. Similar incidents occur at trade union meetings, public gatherings, etc. “The fight for land has become the cardinal point of development in Palestine. It is an important instrument of British imperialism and at the same time an episode in the war preparations which are at present being made in the Near East. For this reason the Communist Party is connecting its anti-war campaign with its immediate slogans in the fight for land and with the fighting slogans against imperialism and Zionism, for the alliance of the workers and peasants and the agrarian revolution.”

About 10,000 bourgeois and petty-bourgeois Jews yesterday “protested” against the present situation in Palestine where the Jews and Arabs incited by British imperialism are slaughtering one another while the British and Jewish capitalists who exploit workers of both races accumulate tremendous profits. Starting at Tenth St. and Second Ave., a large delegation marched to City Hall where they were received by Mayor Walker. As they marched they sang Jewish national songs and the Star Spangled Banner. After leaving city hall they continued to the British consulate on Whitehall St., where a committee of three called on the consul, the majority of the paraders disbanding and going home.

Led by Imperialists.

The parade was led by the Jewish Legion which was formed by the notorious British Jewish imperialist, General Zabotinsky, who organized the Legion in 1914 on a promise from Great Britain that Palestine would be turned over to Jewish capitalists.

To show their loyalty to British imperialism, the Jewish Legion, led by Zabotinsky fought in the years 1915 and 1917 against the exploited masses of Dublin, Syria and Turkey. A mass protest meeting against British imperialism will be held tomorrow night at Irving Plaza hall, Irving Plaza and 15th St., under the auspices of the Jewish Bureau of the Communist Party. The speakers will include M.J. Olgin, Morris Wyneshensky, M. Epstein, and K. Marmar.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n147-NY-aug-27-1929-DW-LOC.pdf