AUGUST

Istiqlal independence party formed as first Palestinian party.

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The first Executive Committee of the PLO was constituted with 14 members.

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Peace Now reports 5,892 new units under construction and 2,888 empty dwelling units in WBGS settlements, meaning 7% of the existing 42,000 units are vacant.

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Demonstration and riots at the Wailing Wall.

After years of strife over the Wailing Wall several hundred Jabotinskyite Betar militia marched to the Wall hauled the Blue-White flag and sang the Zionist anthem. An Arab counter demonstration followed and sectarian incidents took place and led to more disorder throughout the country with many Jewish deaths within a few days.

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First Zionist Congress in Basle issued the Basel Program on Colonization of Palestine and established the World Zionist Organization (WZO). It was first supposed to be held at Munich but opposition from the rabbis was so strong that Herzl and his friends changed its location to Switzerland. This Congress is considered as a major event marking the onset of Zionism as a political movement: “At Basle I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly in fifty, everyone will know it" would Herlz write a few weeks later in his diary.

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U.N. SC res 478 rejects Israel's annexation of Jerusalem as "a violation of international law and does not affect the continued application of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since June 1967, including Jerusalem".

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Representatives of Israel and the PLO initiate an agreement in Oslo, Norway Agreement announced to public on 29 August.

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Herbert Samuel, future High Commissioner of Palestine, in a memorandum entitled `The Future of Palestine', proposes "... the British annexation of Palestine [where] we might plant 3 or 4 million European Jews".

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Israeli arsonists set fire to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. UN issues resolution asking Israel to respect International law.

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Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz published a Panorama Market Research Institute survey:

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Pogrom in Hebron, one of the worst events following the troubles at the Wailing wall on 15/08 that year (see above). Sixty-four religious Jews were murdered by Muslim zealots in retaliation against Zionists’ schemes while those Jews opposed Zionism and had coexisted peacefully for centuries with their Christian and Muslim neighbours. Not all Arabs supported the sectarian violence: in Hebron for example Muslims hid Jewish neighbours during the trouble. However its disservice to the Palestinian case was considerable as it was used to back the claim that coexistence was impossible and that the European Jews required a state of their own where they should be safe.