The first migrations of jews had already occured at this time, mainly refugees from Russia fleeing pogroms against jews under the Tsarist regime. Yes jewish migration had begun but at this point majority of the migration was to america and only 30-40,000 went to palestine which was a tiny fraction of the population and the jews remained a single digit percentage of the population.

After the ottoman empire fell and British began administering the region the tension towards the British was justified since the arabs that revolted were promised their independent. But at the time of this protest I don't believe the anti jewish sentiment was justified. There was very little migration and there had not been any noteable violence. In the years after this protest things began to kick off and migration and violent clashes ramped up. Which is why I stand by my original statement.

Also i couldnt find what ottoman census you are looking at but the one i found which was the 1914 census puts total jews in the empire at 187,000 not 400,000. They were a tiny minority in a huge arab population the first wave of jewish migration didnt even put a dent in the demographic stats.

[–] Schmoo 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Anti-Jewish sentiment was and is never justified, but anti-zionist sentiment certainly was and still is. I don't doubt that xenophobia played a role in this protest, but it is inappropriate to say that it was purely motivated by xenophobia.

[–] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

I referred to the 1912 data here as I couldn't find any ethnographic data from the 1914 census there. However given the Ottoman involvement in the balkan wars and the territorial changes from that combined with large scale deportations of many minorities during the time period it is unsurprising that there would be rapid changes.