| abstract | - The riots coincided with and are named after the Nabi Musa festival and followed rising tensions in Arab-Jewish relations. The events came shortly after the Battle of Tel Hai and the increasing pressure on Arab nationalists in Syria on the course of the Franco-Syrian War. Among the slogans used to incite the riots were the implications of Zionist immigration and the previous tensions which coincided with attacks on outlying Jewish settlements in the Galilee. Speeches by Arab religious leaders during the festival, in which traditionally large numbers of Muslims gathered for a religious procession, led to a serious outbreak of violent assaults on the city's Jews. Five Jews and four Arabs were killed and several hundreds were injured. In its wake, sheikhs of 82 villages round the city and Jaffa, claiming to represent 70% of the population, issued a document protesting the violence against the Jews. The British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (OETA) was the military administration of Palestine, in anticipation of the grant of a League of Nations Mandate. OETA military command was criticised in the Palin Report into the riots, particularly the withdrawal of troops from inside Jerusalem early in the morning of Monday, 5 April and that, once martial law had been proclaimed, it was slow to regain control. As a result of the riots, trust between the British, Jews, and Arabs eroded. One consequence was that the Jewish community increased moves towards an autonomous infrastructure and security apparatus parallel to that of the British administration. Notwithstanding the riots, the Palestinian Jewish community held elections for the Assembly of Representatives on 19 April 1920, except for Jerusem where the voting took place on 3 May 1920. The riots also preceded the San Remo conference which was held from 19 to 26 April 1920 at which the fate of the Middle East was to be decided.
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