Page 83 - Personal Column (Charles Belgrave)_Neat

In some parts of the town the police arrived in time to prevent looting,
was the last time that I was involved in a real hand-to-hand scrap, and I
but about a dozen houses were completely wrecked before help came. cannot pretend that I did not enjoy it.
Old men, women and children were roughly, treated; one old woman When it became possible for the Jews to emigrate to Israel the Govern­
died later as a result of injuries, but throughout the affair there was a ment announced that any Jew who wished to go there was free to do so,
surprising absence of young Jewish men who might have done some­ and could take his belongings and money with him, but, once having gone
thing to protect their families. When I enquired about this afterwards I to Israel, lie would not bo allowed to return to Bahrain. By degrees most
was told that they were all out at work, but it seemed to me a poor of the Jews left Bahrain and there arc now no more than a dozen families
excuse. After the riot was over, as I was walking back through the bazaar, living in Manama. They set off" to Israel with high hopes that they were
covered in mud and blood, my clothes torn, followed by a few very bound for a land flowing with milk and honey, but soon reports reached
bedraggled policemen, most of whom had lost their turbans, I met two those who remained in Bahrain that life in Israel did not come up to their
spotlessly uniformed young naval officers with a couple of sailors. They expectations, and many of the younger people greatly regretted having
gave me a look and walked straight past me. I called to them, saying that left their homes. Among those who left Bahrain was a young man who
they had better not go into the bazaar. It then dawned on them that I was had worked as a clerk. After some time in Israel ho managed to get out of
the Adviser and they said that they had come to fmd out whether we the country, which was not an easy thing to do, and by devious ways he
needed help. Should they send a landing-party on shore? They were very eventually got back to Bahrain. He was arrested and brought up before
disappointed when I told them that ‘the tumult and the shouting’ had the court. We were rather at a loss to know how to deal with him, as it
died and nothing was now required. We had a young American staying was the first case of the kind that had come before us. We sentenced him
with us in the house; on the way home I met him and he, too, was to a year in jail, after which, we said, he could continue to live in Bahrain,
intensely disappointed at not having been in the scrap. or he could return to Israel. He thanked us with a beaming smile, and as
The leading Arabs were genuinely shocked by the affair; most of he walked out of the court he called to a group of his friends who were
them had behaved very well and, when possible, they had given shelter waiting to he \r the result of the case: ‘Only a year! Just one year, and after
and protection to their Jewish neighbours. That night I and one of the that I shall be able to go on living hereV We felt that perhaps we had
Shaikhs visited the houses which had been looted. It was a pathetic sight. erred on the side of leniency. This youth was the only one who came
The houses had been stripped of their contents, and what could not be back from Israel.
removed had been smashed. In some houses refrigerators and safes had
been thrown down from upper floors, and one saw children’s toys
crushed by the feet of the raiders. I then went to the hospital to see the
injured people. I was glad to find that, except for one Jewish woman
who had died, there were no serious casualties; the police had more
injuries than the Jewish victims. It was. a most unfortunate affair but it had
one surprising effect: it put an end to any active aggression by the Bah­
rain Arabs against the Bahrain Jews, though when only a few Jews
remained in the country one or two of the Arab merchants, if they were
in competition with Jews, did not hesitate to use a little sly blackmail,
suggesting that if the Jews were too successful there might be trouble for
them. The Arabs realized that it was not the fault of the Bahrain Jews
that the Great Powers had decided to create the State of Israel. I did
wonder whether the part I had played would earn for me the reputation
of being pro-Jewish but not even the most rabid anti-Zionists suggested
such an idea; even they disapproved of what had happened in Bahrain. It
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