The sectarian violence in Mandatory Palestine between Jewish and Arab communities began with the 1920 Syrian crisis and consequent defeat of the Arab Syrian nationalists in the Franco-Syrian War. Serious disturbances erupted in British controlled territory as a fallout of the Franco-Syrian war, but the return of hard line Palestinian Arab nationalists to Jerusalem from Damascus, led by Haj Amin al-Husseini, essentially shifted the conflict to local intra-communal topics. Serious eruptions of violence followed in 1921 and 1929.