Many right-wing, radical French nationalists agreed with Charles du Bouzet's claim that the Algerian Jews were simply incompatible with Western civilization.

[12][8] Du Bouzet, the former prefect of Oran and special commissioner to Algeria, noted that it was the Algerian Jews' "morals, language and clothing" that made them Arab, hence different from the French.

For instance, Dr Jules Molle, who spearheaded the antisemitic Unions latines movement, became the mayor of Oran in 1925 and became the city's deputy in 1928.

Local newspapers in both Oran and Constantine, Le Petit Oranais and La Tribune, respectively, regularly propagated antisemitic messages.

[14] Based on contemporary press and police reports, there is no evidence that antisemitic messages were publicly propagated by the local Muslim politicians or clerics in the 1920s and 1930s.

The general consensus is that the initial cause of the conflict was what Bensoussan calls a "minor confrontation"[5] between Eliahou Khalifa, a Jewish Zouave, and Muslim worshippers at the Sidi Lakhdar Mosque on August 3, 1934.

[6] The Constantine division of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) hung up posters, both in Arabic and French, calling for peace and an end to the violence.

"It will take days before the world will obtain a true picture of all the atrocities committed by the Arabs during the pogrom on the Jewish quarter", the correspondent wired.