On the occasion of the Nebi Musa riots of 1920, which arose in protest at the incipient implementation by the British Mandatory authorities of the Balfour Declaration's opening of Zionist immigration into Palestine, Beidas was one of the key speakers, credited with giving a 'soul-stirring speech. Some speakers were thought to be incendiary: the crowd responded by chanting 'we will drink the blood of the Jews'(" Nashrab dam al-yahud.") Beidas's own words concluding with the remark,'My voice is weakening with emotion, but my national heart will never weaken'. He, together with several others, was rounded up and detained. He was released in 1921, according to one account in the expectation that lenience would secure his support and mitigate his opposition. Overtures came from the French Mandatory authorities in Lebanon to "grease his palm" and get him to write political propaganda against the British, an offer he refused on the grounds that he had no intention of being either a lackey of the British or a sycophant of the French. Soon after, in 1922, he published his history of the city of Jerusalem, "Ta'rikh al-Quds "(History of Jerusalem), (1922) A short story collection "Masarih al-Adh'han" (Pastures of the Mind) came out in 1924 and displays his use of fiction to moralise and edify the reader.