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Holy Land, the protection of the Christian Holy Places and the capacity of Christian pilgrims to visit those Holy Places freely and safely. Whilst the Holy See would not forbid its local diocesan bishop from expressing such views as he wished regarding local issues in Palestine, the Holy See was determined to distance itself from his conduct and views and to ensure that a good working relationship with the British Government, both in London and in Jerusalem, was maintained so that there would be no impediment to the pursuit of the Holy See’s policies for Palestine.

A substantial aspect of this change of direction for the Holy See in the Holy Land at this time was the friction being experienced between the Latin Catholic and Greek- Melkite Catholic hierarchy and clergy in Palestine, which brought into play the interaction within the Roman Curia between the two Congregations, Propaganda Fide and the Eastern Churches, in exercising oversight of the Catholic missionary activity in Palestine. However, this had not been a significant issue during the tenure of Monsignor Camassei as Latin Patriarch and all of the available evidence tends to suggest that the Holy See’s growing disillusion with its principal diocesan bishop in the Holy Land, Monsignor Barlassina, was a significant contributory reason for the Secretary of State to pursue the change of direction proposed by the Robinson Visitations from 1926 to 1928. It might also be observed that, just as the British Government waived the priority of the right of the local population to self- determination in Palestine alone of all League of Nations Mandates, so the Holy See, which in this period adopted a policy of “localization” in regard to the clergy and episcopal appointments in its dioceses around the world, made the decision to downplay the claims of the indigenous Catholic population of Palestine in favour of maintaining this valued good working relationship with the British Government in the Holy Land. In doing this it made sure, in particular, that it never criticized the Zionist project for a Jewish national home in Palestine, never sought to reduce the level of Jewish immigration to Palestine, and never said anything to oppose the progress towards establishing a “self-governing Jewish Commonwealth” within the territory of Palestine.

Whilst the Holy See’s principal policy concern for the Holy Land continued to be the protection of the Christian Holy Places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth, in the furtherance of which it had decided to rely on the principles and privileges of the Status Quo deriving from Ottoman firman of 1852, the fact was that there were other places in Palestine which were also holy both to Jews and to Muslims. The British administration in Palestine found itself having to resolve substantial disputes between those two communities. In doing this, and in the absence of appointment of the Holy Places Commission contemplated by the terms of the Palestine Mandate, its officials were drawn to the concept and principles of the Status Quo as the model upon which to base dispute resolutions between the Jewish and Muslim communities.208 The key area of dispute related to the entire Temple Mount [al- Haram al-Sarif in Arabic] but in particular the area at the western base of the Temple compound, known as the “Wailing Wall” or “Western Wall” [often referred to as the

Mur Occidental or Mur des Lamentations]. The disputes between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Jerusalem over this site overflowed into the broader relationships in Palestine and contributed to the ongoing decline in intercommunal relationships in Palestine from 1928 onwards and which the Holy See could not ultimately ignore.

On 23 September 1928, the eve of the Jewish Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur], as the result of a dispute between members of Jerusalem’s Sephardic and Ashkenazic religious communities, a small and portable dividing screen [mechitza] was set up in front of the Wailing Wall to divide male and female worshippers.209 A complaint was made “by the Mutawali of the Abu Madian Waqf [property belonging to the religious Muslim endowment, in which the pavement and the whole area around the Western or Wailing Wall were vested], ‘that the dividing screen had been affixed to the pavement adjoining the Wall, and that other innovation had been made in the established practice’”. This action led to an attempt by officials of the Mandate administration to remove “an appurtenance of Jewish worship” in order to meet

208 _{Molinaro, The Holy Places of Jerusalem in Middle East Peace Agreements, 64-66.} 209

“the Mandatory obligation ‘to preserve the status quo’”.210 The concern of the Muslim community was that the erection of the screen might simply be the first step towards appropriation by the Jewish community of the entire Western Wall area to the detriment of the Muslim community.211 The subsequent British inquiry into the violence which erupted between Muslim and Jewish communities in Palestine as a result of this dispute led to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies’ “Memorandum entitled The Western or Wailing Wall”. This report was presented to the British Parliament in November 1928 and confirmed the Status Quo’s purported progressive extension to non-Christian Holy Places in Palestine by stating, in relation to the terms of Article 13 of the Mandate for Palestine, that “the Palestine Government and His Majesty’s Government” also felt “bound to maintain the status quo” in relation to the Western or Wailing Wall.212

In the months following the 1928 Wailing Wall disturbances tensions remained very high between the Muslim and Jewish communities in relation to the Wailing Wall and surrounding area. In 1929 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, convened an international Islamic conference for the protection of the Western Wall area of the Temple compound and this was attended by four hundred people.213 On 14 August 1929, the Jewish fast day of the ninth of Av marking the destruction of the Temple, hundreds of members of the Jewish Committee for the Western Wall marched on the Wailing Wall, violated the conditions of their permit, and shouted inflammatory slogans whilst waving the Zionist flag.214 This initiated a cascading series of events which climaxed when, on 23 August 1929, some thousands of Muslims poured into Jerusalem to pray at the Temple Mount, gunshots were fired and the Arab mob began to attack Jewish shops and individuals, violence quickly

210

Molinaro, ibid, 65. This had been preceded by a similar episode in September 1925 when

Palestinian officials had applied the concept of the Status Quo to Jewish activity around the Western or Wailing Wall, Molinaro, ibid,65; Segev, One Palestine, Complete, at 296-297, provides an account of the way in which this dispute escalated in September 1928.

211

Segev, One Palestine, Complete, 298-299.

212 _{Molinaro, ibid, 65.}

213 _{Segev, One Palestine, Complete, 306-307.} 214

spreading through the Old City.215 This violence quickly spread to Hebron, Motza and Safed and continued for a week or more.216

Barlassina wrote to Cardinal Gasparri on 29 August 1929 to report on these recent grave disturbances in Palestine, saying that they resulted from economic suffering as a result of increased taxes, and that many Arabs were selling their lands to the Jews.217 The Latin Patriarch began his list of causes of the disorders with “the Jewish invasion which impoverishes frighteningly” and concluded that “amongst the people life is becoming impossible”.218 This episode, following on similar disturbances in 1925 and 1928, led to the appointment by the British Government of the Shaw Commission whose Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August, 1929 was presented by the British Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament in 1930. This Report confirmed that the Mandate Government and the British Government would apply the principle of the status quo to non-Christian Holy Places such as the Western Wall in Jerusalem.219 As a result of these events, and the various resulting enquiries including a White Paper issued by Lord Passfield in October 1930, the incumbent British High Commissioner, Sir John Chancellor, developed the very strong private view that “the Balfour Declaration had been a ‘collossal blunder’, unfair to the Arabs and detrimental to the empire’s interests” and that it should be withdrawn as the basis of Britain’s administration of the Palestine mandate.220

The Holy See could not avoid some involvement in these events. Dr Fuad Shatara,221 President of the Palestine National League, cabled Pope Pius XI on 29 August 1929 to inform him that:

215

Segev, One Palestine, Complete, 314-314.

216_{F.34. f.38, The Palestine Weekly, 6 September 1929, Palestine’s Week of Terror.} 217

E.1. Prot.3133,Protocollo N.279/29 of 29 August 1929 from Monsignor Barlassina to Cardinal