1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine

Popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs yes April 2023 April 2013 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine the intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine, the decolonisation of Asia, and the precursor to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict British military parade, Jerusalem 1936.jpg Palestinian rebels 1938.jpg 2/2/2 Ghaffis in Nesher 2.jpg Miar3.png infobox 300From top to bottom, left to right: British military parade in Jerusalem Palestinian Arab insurgents during the revolt British supported Notrim guarding a Jewish settlement in Nesher Palestinian village of Mi'ar being destroyed by British forces 19 April 1936 – 26 August 1939(4 19 1936 8 26 1939) Mandatory Palestine Revolt suppressed Issuance of the White Paper of 1939 British Armed Forces Special Night Squads Mandatory Palestine Palestine Police Force Jewish Settlement Police Jewish Supernumerary Police NDF (from 1937) Arab "peace bands" Jewish National Council Haganah Symbol.svg 17px Haganah Posh Peulot Meyuhadot Irgun.svg 15px Irgun Palestinian flag 1938.svg 24px Arab Higher Committee (1936–October 1937) Local rebel factions (fasa'il) Volunteers from Arab world Central Committee of National Jihad in Palestine (October 1937 – 1939) Bureau of the Arab Revolt in Palestine (late 1938 – 1939) IRQ 1924 Society for the Defense of Palestine Mandatory Palestine General Arthur Grenfell WauchopeHigh Commissioner and Commander-in-chief (1932–1938)Mandatory Palestine Sir Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner(1938–1944)UK army Lt.-General John Dill, GOC (1936–1937)UK army Lt.-General Archibald Wavell, GOC (1937–1938)UK army Lt.-General Robert Haining, GOC (1938–1939)UK army Major-General Bernard Montgomery; Commander, 8th Infantry Div. (1938–1939)UK air force Air Commodore Roderic Hill; AOC, Palestine and Transjordan (1936–1938)UK air force Air Commodore Arthur Harris; AOC, Palestine and Transjordan(1938–1939)UK navy Admiral Dudley Pound; Commander-in-Chief, British Mediterranean Fleet(1936–1939)Political leadership:Raghib al-Nashashibi (from 1937) 17px Eliyahu Golomb 15px Ze'ev Jabotinsky Political leadership:Palestinian flag 1938.svg 24px Mohammed Amin al-Husayni (exiled)Palestinian flag 1938.svg 24px Raghib al-Nashashibi (defected)Palestinian flag 1938.svg 24px Izzat Darwaza (exiled) Local rebel commanders: Palestinian flag 1938.svg 24px Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad (General Commander)Palestinian flag 1938.svg 24px Arif Abd al-Raziq Regional Commander (exiled)Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir (Regional Commander) Yusuf Abu Durra (Regional Commander)Fakhri 'Abd al-Hadi (defected)Abdallah al-AsbahIssa BattatMohammed Saleh al-HamadYusuf HamdanAhmad Mohamad HasanAbd al-Qadir al-Husayni (exiled)Wasif KamalAbdul KhallikHamid Suleiman MardawiIbrahim NassarMustafa OstaMohammad Mahmoud Rana'anFarhan al-Sa'diHasan Salama Arab volunteer commanders: Flag_of_Iraq_(1921%E2%80%931959).svg Fawzi al-Qawuqji (expelled)Sa'id al-'AsFlag_of_Iraq_(1921%E2%80%931959).svg Muhammad al-Ashmar 25,000Hughes 2009a–50,000Black 2006 128 British soldiers20,000 Jewish policemen, supernumeraries and settlement guardsSwedenburg 2003 22015,000 Haganah fightersKimmerling Migdal 2003 1032,883 Palestine Police Force officers (1936)Millman 1998 222,000 Irgun militantsBowyer Bell 1996 44 1,000–3,000 (1936–37)2,500–7,500 (plus an additional 6,000–15,000 part-timers) (1938)Morris 1999 145 British Security Forces:262 killedc. 550 woundedLevenberg 1993 74–76 Jews:c. 500 killedA Survey of Palestine 1946 Government of Palestine Jerusalem 38–49 https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/a_su/A%20SURVEY%20OF%20PALESTINE%20DEC%201945-JAN%201946%20VOL%20I.pdf2 executed Arabs:c. 5,000 killedHughes 2009ac. 15,000 woundedHughes 2009a108 executedLevenberg 1993 74–7612,622 detainedLevenberg 1993 74–765 exiledLevenberg 1993 74–76 A popular uprising by Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine against the British administration, known as the Great Revolt,ar الثورة الكبرى al-Thawra al-KubrāHughes 2019 1 and later the Great Palestinian Revoltar ثورة فلسطين الكبرى Thawrat Filasṭīn al-KubrāKabahā 2014 9 or the Palestinian Revolution,ar الثورة الفلسطينية al-Thawra al-Filasṭīniyya lasted from 1936 until 1939. The movement sought independence from British colonial rule and the end of British support for Zionism, including Jewish immigration and land sales to Jews.Kelly 2017 2 The uprising occurred during a peak in the influx of European Jewish immigrants,Sanagan 2013 333 and with the growing plight of the rural fellahin rendered landless, who as they moved to metropolitan centres to escape their abject poverty found themselves socially marginalized.Yazbak 2000 93–113'While the majority of Palestinian fallāḥīn were dependent on bonds of "patrimonialism and elite parochialism" with notable families, these bonds weakened with urbanization as a'yān (the Palestinian notable class) abetted, or were incapable of stopping, land sales and dispossessions.'Sanagan 2013 338 Since the Battle of Tel Hai in 1920, Jews and Arabs had been involved in a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks, and the immediate spark for the uprising was the murder of two Jews by a Qassamite band, and the retaliatory killing by Jewish gunmen of two Arab labourers, incidents which triggered a flare-up of violence across Palestine.Hughes 2019 1–3 A month into the disturbances, Amin al-Husseini, president of the Arab Higher Committee and Mufti of Jerusalem, declared 16 May 1936 as "Palestine Day" and called for a general strike. David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Yishuv, described Arab causes as fear of growing Jewish economic power, opposition to mass Jewish immigration and fear of the British identification with Zionism.Morris 1999 136 The general strike lasted from April to October 1936. The revolt is often analysed in terms of two distinct phases.Kelly 2015 28Norris 2008 25,27,37, 45 The first phase began as spontaneous popular resistance, which was seized on by the urban bourgeois Arab Higher Committee, giving the movement an organized shape that was focused mainly on strikes and other forms of political protest, in order to secure a political result.Laurens 2002 306 By October 1936, this phase had been defeated by the British civil administration using a combination of political concessions, international diplomacy (involving the rulers of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan and Yemen)Hughes 2009a 313 and the threat of martial law.Norris 2008 27 The second phase, which began late in 1937, was a peasant-led resistance movement provoked by British repression in 1936Kelly 2017 5 in which increasingly British forces were targeted as the army itself increasingly targeted the villages it thought supportive of the revolt.Norris 2008 25,33 During this phase, the rebellion was brutally suppressed by the British Army and the Palestine Police Force using repressive measures that were intended to intimidate the whole population and undermine popular support for the revolt.Norris 2008 39 A more dominant role on the Arab side was taken by the Nashashibi clan, whose NDP party quickly withdrew from the rebel Arab Higher Committee, led by the radical faction of Amin al-Husseini, and instead sided with the British – dispatching "Fasail al-Salam" (the "Peace Bands") in coordination with the British Army against nationalist and Jihadist Arab "Fasail" units (literally "bands"). According to official British figures covering the whole revolt, the army and police killed more than 2,000 Arabs in combat, 108 were hanged,Levenberg 1993 74–76 and 961 died because of what they described as "gang and terrorist activities".Hughes 2019 377 In an analysis of the British statistics, Walid Khalidi estimates 19,792 casualties for the Arabs, with 5,032 dead:Hughes thinks this is a conservative underestimate and calculates that a final figure might run from 5,748 to 7,272Hughes 2019 381 3,832 killed by the British and 1,200 dead due to intracommunal terrorism, and 14,760 wounded.Hughes 2019 377 By one estimate, ten percent of the adult male Palestinian Arab population between 20 and 60 was killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled.Khalidi 2001 21,35 Estimates of the number of Palestinian Jews killed are up to several hundred.Morris 1999 160 The Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine was unsuccessful, and its consequences affected the outcome of the 1948 Palestine war.Morris 1999 159 It caused the British Mandate to give crucial support to pre-state Zionist militias like the Haganah, whereas on the Palestinian Arab side, the revolt forced the main Palestinian Arab leader of the period, al-Husseini, into exile. Economic background Association for Palestinian Products thumb|left|June 1936 cartoon in the Arabic-language Falastin newspaper contrasting the actions of Wauchope in 1936 against those of Allenby in 1917 World War I left Palestine, especially the countryside, deeply impoverished.Yazbak 2000 94 The Ottoman and then the Mandate authorities levied high taxes on farming and agricultural produce and during the 1920s and 1930s this together with a fall in prices, cheap imports, natural disasters and paltry harvests all contributed to the increasing indebtedness of the fellahin.Yazbak 2000 95–96 The rents paid by tenant fellah increased sharply, owing to increased population density, and growing transfer of land from Arabs to the Jewish settlement agencies, such as the Jewish National Fund, increased the number of fellahin evicted while also removing the land as a future source of livelihood.Yazbak 2000 96–99 By 1931, the 106,400 dunums of low-lying Category A farming land in Arab possession supported a farming population of 590,000 whereas the 102,000 dunums of such land in Jewish possession supported a farming population of only 50,000.Yazbak 2000 102 The late 1920s witnessed poor harvests, and the consequent immiseration grew even harsher with the onset of the Great Depression and the collapse of commodity prices.Sanagan 2013 333 The Shaw Commission in 1930 had identified the existence of a class of 'embittered landless people' as a contributory factor to the preceding 1929 disturbances,Yazbak 2000 103 and the problem of these 'landless' Arabs grew particularly grave after 1931, causing High Commissioner Wauchope to warn that this 'social peril ... would serve as a focus of discontent and might even result in serious disorders.'Yazbak 2000 103 Economic factors played a major role in the outbreak of the Arab revolt.Yazbak 2000 93–113 Palestine's fellahin, the country's peasant farmers, made up over two-thirds of the indigenous Arab population and from the 1920s onwards they were pushed off the land in increasingly large numbers into urban environments where they often encountered only poverty and social marginalisation.Yazbak 2000 93–113 Many were crowded into shanty towns in Jaffa and Haifa where some found succour and encouragement in the teachings of the charismatic preacher Izz ad-Din al-Qassam who worked among the poor in Haifa.Yazbak 2000 93–113 The revolt was thus a popular uprising that produced its own leaders and developed into a national revolt.Yazbak 2000 93–113 Although the Mandatory government introduced measures to limit the transfer of land from Arabs to Jews, these were easily circumvented by willing buyers and sellers.Yazbak 2000 103 The failure of the authorities to invest in economic growth and healthcare for the general Palestinian public and the Zionist policy of ensuring that their investments were directed only to facilitate expansion exclusively of the Yishuv further compounded matters.Yazbak 2000 105 The government did, however, set the minimum wage for Arab workers below that for Jewish workers, which meant that those making capital investments in the Yishuv's economic infrastructure, such as Haifa's electricity plant, the Shemen oil and soap factory, the Grands Moulins flour mills and the Nesher cement factory, could take advantage of cheap Arab labour pouring in from the countryside.Yazbak 2000 93–113 After 1935 the slump in the construction boom and further concentration by the Yishuv on an exclusivist Hebrew labour programme removed most of the sources of employment for rural migrants.Yazbak 2000 106 By 1935 only 12,000 Arabs (5% of the workforce) worked in the Jewish sector, half of these in agriculture, whereas 32,000 worked for the Mandate authorities and 211,000 were either self-employed or worked for Arab employers.Krämer 2008 273 The ongoing disruption of agrarian life in Palestine, which had been continuing since Ottoman times, thus created a large population of landless peasant farmers who subsequently became mobile wage workers who were increasingly marginalised and impoverished; these became willing participants in nationalist rebellion.Yazbak 2000 109 At the same time, Jewish immigration peaked in 1935, just months before Palestinian Arabs began their full-scale, nationwide revolt.Hughes 2009aKrämer 2008 262–263 Over the four years between 1933 and 1936 more than 164,000 Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, and between 1931 and 1936 the Jewish population more than doubled from 175,000 to 370,000 people, increasing the Jewish population share from 17% to 27%, and bringing about a significant deterioration in relations between Palestinian Arabs and Jews.Krämer 2008 239–240 In 1936 alone, some 60,000 Jews immigrated that year – the Jewish population having grown under British auspices from 57,000 to 320,000 in 1935.Sanagan 2013 333 Political and socio-cultural background thumb|upright|Feminist activist Tarab Abdul Hadi, organiser of the Palestinian Arab Women's Association. The advent of Zionism and British colonial administration crystallised Palestinian nationalism and the desire to defend indigenous traditions and institutions.Krämer 2008 239 Palestinian society was largely clan-based (hamula), with an urban land-holding elite lacking a centralised leadership.Krämer 2008 239 Traditional feasts such as Nebi Musa began to acquire a political and nationalist dimension and new national memorial days were introduced or gained new significance; among them Balfour Day (2 November), the anniversary of the Battle of Hattin (4 July), and beginning in 1930, 16 May was celebrated as Palestine Day.Krämer 2008 256–259 The expansion of education, the development of civil society and of transportation, communications, and especially of broadcasting and other media, all facilitated notable changes.Krämer 2008 265–266 The Yishuv itself, at the same time, was steadily building the structures for its own state-building with public organisations like the Jewish Agency and the covert creation and consolidation of a paramilitary arm with the Haganah and Irgun.Sanagan 2020 106 In 1930 Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam organised and established the Black Hand, a small anti-Zionist and anti-British militia. He recruited and arranged military training for impoverished but pious peasants but also for ex-criminals he had persuaded to take Islam seriously and they engaged in a campaign of vandalizing tree plantations and British-constructed rail lines,Segev 1999 360 destroying phone lines and disrupting transportation.Sanagan 2013 345–346 Three minor mujāhīdūn and jihadist groups had also been formed that advocated armed struggle: the Green Hand (al-Kaff al-Khaḍrā) active in the area of Acre–Safed–Nazareth from 1929 until 1930 when they were dispersed;Sanagan 2013 341 the Organization for Holy Struggle (al-Jihād al-Muqaddas) led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and operative in the areas of Jerusalem from 1931 to 1934;Sanagan 2013 341 and the Rebel Youth (al-Shabāb al-Thā'ir) active in the Tulkarm and Qalqilyah area from 1935 composed mainly of local boy scouts.Sanagan 2013 341Krämer 2008 256–259 thumb|upright|Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Arab Higher Committee The pressures of the 1930s wrought several changes,Krämer 2008 239 giving rise to new political organizations and a broader activism that spurred a far wider cross-section of the population in rural areas, strongly nationalist, to join actively in the Palestinian cause.Krämer 2008 254 Among new political parties formed in this period were the Independence PartySanagan 2013 339 which called for an Indian Congress Party-style boycott of the British,Khalidi 2001 25 the pro-Nashashibi National Defence Party, the pro-Husseini Palestinian Arab Party, the pro-Khalidi Arab-Palestinian Reform Party, and the National Bloc, based mainly around Nablus.Krämer 2008 256–259 Youth organisations emerged like Young Men's Muslim Association and the Youth Congress Party, the former anti-Zionist, the latter pan-Arab. The Palestinian Boy Scout Movement, founded early in 1936, became active in the general strike.Krämer 2008 254 Women's organisations, which had been active in social matters, became politically involved from the end of the 1920s, with an Arab Women's Congress held in Jerusalem in 1929 attracting 200 participants, and an Arab Women's Association (later Arab Women's Union) being established at the same time, both organised by feminist Tarab Abdul Hadi.Krämer 2008 254Fleischmann 2000 16–32 Myriads of rural women would play an important role in response to faz'a alarm calls for inter-village help by rallying in defence of the rebellion.Hughes 2016b 490 Inspiration from abroad General strikes had been used in neighbouring Arab countries to place political pressures on Western colonial powers.Krämer 2008 264 In Iraq a general strike in July 1931, accompanied by organised demonstrations in the streets, led to independence for the former British mandate territory under Prime Minister Nuri as-Said, and full membership of the League of Nations in October 1932.Tripp 2002 71–75 The Syrian National Bloc had used a general strike from 20 January to 6 March in 1936 which, despite harsh reprisals, brought about negotiations in Paris that led to a Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence.Commins 2004 113 This showed that determined economic and political pressure could challenge a fragile imperial administration.Thomas 2007 295 Prelude thumb|left|Funeral of Jews from Givat Ada that were killed in 1936. On 16 October 1935 a large arms shipment camouflaged in cement bins, comprising 25 Lewis guns and their bipods, 800 rifles and 400,000 rounds of ammunitionMorris 1999 127 destined for the Haganah, was discovered during unloading at the port of Jaffa. The news sparked Arab fears of a Jewish military takeover of Palestine.Matthews 2006 237Krämer 2008 263 A little over two weeks later, on 2 November 1935, al-Qassam gave a speech in the port of Haifa denouncing the Balfour declaration on its 18th anniversary. In a proclamation to that effect, together with Jamal al-Husayni, he alluded to the Haganah weapons smuggling operation.Sanagan 2013 344 Questioned at the time by a confidant about his preparations, he stated that he had 15 men, each furnished with a rifle and one cartridge. Soon after, perhaps fearing a pending preemptive arrest, he disappeared with his group into the hills, not to start a revolution, premature at that point, but to impress upon people that he was a man ready to do what he said should be done.Sanagan 2020 107,109 Some weeks later, a Jewish policeman was shot dead in a citrus grove while investigating the theft of grapefruit, after he happened to come close to the Qassamites' encampment.Sanagan 2020 xiii,115 Following the incident, the Palestine police launched a massive manhunt and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave just north of Ya'bad. In the ensuing battle, on 20 November, al-Qassam was killed.Sanagan 2020 116 The death of al-Qassam generated widespread outrage among Palestinian Arabs, galvanizing public sentiments with an impact similar to the effect on the Yishuv of news of the death of Joseph Trumpeldor in 1920 at the Tel Hai settlement.Sanagan 2020 117 Huge crowds gathered for the occasion of his obsequies in Haifa and later burial in Balad al-Shaykh.Sanagan 2013 316-317 thumb|right|Result of terrorist acts and government measures. Remains of a burnt Jewish passenger bus at Balad Esh-Sheikh outside Haifa. Picture taken between 1934 and 1938. The actual uprising was triggered some five months later, on 15 April 1936, by the Anabta shooting where remnants of a Qassamite band stopped a convoy on the road from Nablus to Tulkarm, robbed its passengers and, stating that they were acting to revenge al-Qassam's death, shot three Jewish passengers, two fatally, after ascertaining their identity.Hughes 2019 1 One of the three, Israel Chazan, was from Thessaloniki. The Salonican community's request that permission be granted to allow them to conduct a solemn funeral for Chasan was turned down by the district commissioner, who had allowed al-Qassam a ceremonial burial some months earlier. The refusal sparked a demonstration by 30,000 Jews in Tel Aviv who overcame the police and maltreated Arab labourers and damaged property in Jaffa.Laurens 2002 306Bar-On 2004 23 The following day, two Arab workers sleeping in a hut in a banana plantation beside the highway between Petah Tikva and Yarkona were assassinated in retaliation by members of the Haganah-Bet.Laurens 2002 306Laurens states that the identification is 'certain', citing Yehoshua Porath.Porath 2015 162 Hughes states that this was denied by the Jewish press at the time:'The only basis for the suggestion that the assailants were Jews was apparently the fact that they were dressed in khaki shorts and jackets. It is submitted that this form of dress is not uncommon amongst the Arab workingmen of this particular neighbourhood.'Hughes 2019 2 Jews and Palestinians attacked each other in and around Tel Aviv. Palestinians in Jaffa rampaged through a Jewish residential area, resulting in several Jewish deaths.Hughes 2019 3 After four days, by 19 April, the deteriorating situation erupted into a set of countrywide disturbances. An Arab general strike and revolt ensued that lasted until October 1936.Hughes 2009a Timeline Arab general strike and armed insurrection, April–October 1936 Arab general strike (Mandatory Palestine) 1936 Syrian general strike 1936 Anabta shooting thumb|left|upright|Khalil al-Sakakini called the revolt a "life-and-death struggle."Morris 1999 129 The strike began on 19 April in Nablus, where an Arab National Committee was formed,Horne 2003 208Peel Commission Report Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 96. and by the end of the month National Committees had been formed in all of the towns and some of the larger villages. On the same day, the High Commissioner Wauchope issued Emergency Regulations that laid the legal basis for suppressing the insurgency.Hughes 2019 3 On 21 April the leaders of the five main parties accepted the decision at Nablus and called for a general strike of all Arabs engaged in labour, transport and shopkeeping for the following day. While the strike was initially organised by workers and local committees, under pressure from below, political leaders became involved to help with co-ordination.Krämer 2008 272 This led to the formation on 25 April 1936 of the Arab Higher Committee (AHC). The Committee resolved "to continue the general strike until the British Government changes its present policy in a fundamental manner"; the demands were threefold: (1) the prohibition of Jewish immigration; (2) the prohibition of the transfer of Arab land to Jews; (3) the establishment of a National Government responsible to a representative council.Peel Commission Report Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 97. About one month after the general strike started, the leadership group declared a general non-payment of taxes in explicit opposition to Jewish immigration.Kayyālī 1978 193 right|thumb|Male and female Arab fighters during the revolt, 1936 In the countryside, armed insurrection started sporadically, becoming more organized over time.Peel Commission Report Cmd. 5479, 1937, p. 100. One particular target of the rebels was the Mosul–Haifa oil pipeline of the Iraq Petroleum Company constructed only a few years earlier to Haifa from a point on the Jordan River south of Lake Tiberias.Townsend 1988Khalidi, Walid. Before Their Diaspora : A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948. Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991, 210. This was repeatedly bombed at various points along its length. Other attacks were on railways (including trains) and on civilian targets such as Jewish settlements, secluded Jewish neighbourhoods in the mixed cities, and Jews, both individually and in groups.Peel Commission Report Cmd. 5479, 1937, pp. 100–102. During the summer of that year, thousands of Jewish-farmed acres and orchards were destroyed, Jewish civilians were attacked and murdered, and some Jewish communities, such as those in Beisan and Acre, fled to safer areas.Gilbert 1998 80 thumb|British policemen disperse an Arab mob during the Jaffa riots in April 1936 (The Illustrated London News, 13 June 1936) The measures taken against the strike were harsh from the outset and grew harsher as the revolt deepened. Unable to contain the protests with the two battalions already stationed in the country, Britain inundated Palestine with soldiers from regiments all over the empire, including its Egyptian garrison.Hughes 2019 3 The drastic measures taken included house searches without warrants, night raids, preventive detention, caning, flogging, deportation, confiscation of property, and torture.Krämer 2008 274 As early as May 1936 the British formed armed Jewish units equipped with armoured vehicles to serve as auxiliary police.Krämer 2008 291 thumb|Arab strike 1936. Car with brooms to sweep away tacks thrown by strikers. thumb|British soldiers on an armoured train car with two Palestinian Arab hostages used as human shields. thumb|Palestinian Arabs search the rubble of a house demolished by the British military in Lydda, 1936. The British government in Palestine was convinced that the strike had the full support of the Palestinian Arabs and they could see "no weakening in the will and spirit of the Arab people."Kayyālī 1978 196 Air Vice-Marshall Richard Peirse, commander of British forces in Palestine and Transjordan from 1933 to 1936, reported that because the rebel armed bands were supported by villagers, It was quickly evident that the only way to regain the initiative from the rebels was by initiating measures against the villagers from which the rebels and saboteurs came ... I therefore initiated, in co-operation with the Inspector-General of Police R. G. B. Spicer, village searches. Ostensibly, these searches were undertaken to find arms and wanted persons, actually the measures adopted by the Police on the lines of similar Turkish methods, were punitive and effective.Kayyālī 1978 196 In reality the measures created a sense of solidarity between the villagers and the rebels.Kayyālī 1978 196 The pro-Government Mayor of Nablus complained to the High Commissioner that, "During the last searches effected in villages properties were destroyed, jewels stolen, and the Holy Qur'an torn, and this has increased the excitement of the fellahin."Kayyālī 1978 196 However, Moshe Shertok of the Jewish Agency even suggested that all villages in the area of an incident should be punished.Segev 1999 423 On 2 June, an attempt by rebels to derail a train bringing the 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment from Egypt led to the railways being put under guard, placing a great strain on the security forces.Horne 2003 213 On 4 June, in response to this situation, the government rounded up a large number of Palestinian leaders and sent them to a detention camp at Auja al-Hafir in the Negev desert.Horne 2003 213 The Battle of Nur Shams on 21 June marked an escalation with the largest engagement of British troops against Arab militants so far in this Revolt.Troops Amhushed on Road, Heaviest Engagement of Palestine Revolt Follows (p. 9) The Baltimore Sun 22 June 1936 During July, Arab volunteers from Syria and Transjordan, led by Fawzi al-Qawukji, helped the rebels to divide their formations into four fronts, each led by a District Commander who had armed platoons of 150–200 fighters, each commanded by a platoon leader.Kayyālī 1978 197 A Statement of Policy issued by the Colonial Office in London on 7 September declared the situation a "direct challenge to the authority of the British Government in Palestine" and announced the appointment of Lieutenant-General John Dill as supreme military commander. By the end of September British troops in Palestine were deployed to "round up Arab bands". In June 1936 the British involved their clients in Transjordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in an attempt to pacify the Palestinian Arabs and on 9 October the rulers made an appeal for the strike to be ended.Krämer 2008 279 A more pressing concern may have been the approaching citrus harvest and the attractive, soaring prices on the international markets caused by the disruption to the Spanish citrus harvest due to the Spanish Civil War.Krämer 2008 278 On 22 August 1936, Anglo-Jewish Arabist scholar Levi Billig of Hebrew University was murdered in his home outside Jerusalem by an Arab assassin, one of three Jews killed by Arabs on 22 August, and one of 73 Jews killed since the beginning of the Arab armed insurrection.Black Ian Zionism and the Arabs, 1936-1939 (RLE Israel and Palestine) 2015 Routledge 978-1-317-44269-1 https://books.google.com/books?id=sT6sCQAAQBAJ&dq=%22levi+billig%22+arabic&pg=PT447 5 January 20243 Jews, Including Hebrew U. Teacher, Slain by Arabs https://www.jta.org/archive/3-jews-including-hebrew-u-teacher-slain-by-arabs 5 January 2024 Jewish Telegraphic Agency 1936-08-23 Peel commission; break in hostilities (October 1936 – September 1937) The strike was called off on 11 October 1936 and the violence abated for about a year while the Peel Commission deliberated. The Royal Commission was announced on 18 May 1936 and its members were appointed on 29 July, but the Commission did not arrive in Palestine until 11 November.Horne 2003 210, 218 In the early 1920s the first High Commissioner of Palestine, Herbert Samuel, had failed to create a unified political structure embracing both Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews in constitutional government with joint political institutions.Wasserstein 2004 106–114 This failure facilitated internal institutional partition in which the Jewish Agency exercised a degree of autonomous control over the Jewish settlement and the Supreme Muslim Council performed a comparable role for Muslims.Wasserstein 2004 106–114 Thus, well before Lord Peel arrived in Palestine on 11 November 1936, the groundwork for territorial partition as proposed by the Royal Commission in its report on 7 July 1937 had already been done.Wasserstein 2004 106–114 thumb|Fields on fire at the Gan-Shmuel Kibbutz. Picture taken between 1936 and 1939. The commission, which concluded that 1,000 Arab rebels had been killed during the six month strike, later described the disturbances as "an open rebellion of the Palestinian Arabs, assisted by fellow-Arabs from other countries, against Mandatory rule" and noted two unprecedented features of the revolt: the support of all senior Arab officials in the political and technical departments in the Palestine administration (including all of the Arab judges) and the "interest and sympathy of the neighbouring Arab peoples", which had resulted in support for the rebellion in the form of volunteers from Syria and Iraq.Peel Commission Report Cmd. 5479, 1937, pp. 99, 104–105. right|thumb|Lord Peel arrives in Mandatory Palestine on 11 November 1936. Privately, Peel believed that most Jews would remain in the Diaspora.Segev 1999 401 Peel's main recommendation was for partition of Palestine into a small Jewish state (based on current Jewish land ownership population and incorporating the country's most productive agricultural land), a residual Mandatory area, and a larger Arab state linked to Transjordan.Wasserstein 2004 106–114 A second and more radical proposal was for transfer of 225,000 Palestinian Arabs from the proposed Jewish state to a future Arab state and Transjordan.Wasserstein 2004 106–114 It is likely that Zionist leaders played a role in persuading Peel to accept the notion of transfer, which had been a strand of Zionist ideology from its inception.Morris 1999 138–144 The Arab Higher Committee rejected the recommendations immediately, as did the Jewish Revisionists. Initially, the religious Zionists, some of the General Zionists, and sections of the Labour Zionist movement also opposed the recommendations.Wasserstein 2004 106–114 Ben-Gurion was delighted by the Peel Commission's support for transfer, which he viewed as the foundation of "national consolidation in a free homeland."Morris 1999 138–144 Subsequently, the two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and Ben Gurion had convinced the Zionist Congress to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation,Wasserstein 2004 106–114Louis 2006 391"while the Zionist movement, after much agonising, accepted the principle of partition and the proposals as a basis for negotiation"; p. 49 "In the end, after bitter debate, the Congress equivocally approved – by a vote of 299 to 160 – the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiation."Morris 2004 11,48–49 and to negotiate a modified Peel proposal with the British."to negotiate a modified (Peel) proposal with the British."Raider Sarna Zweig 2012 100 The British government initially accepted the Peel report in principle. However, with war clouds looming over Europe, they realized that to attempt to implement it against the will of the Palestinian Arab majority would rouse up the entire Arab world against Britain."The British government initially accepted the report in principle...With war clouds looming over Europe, they began to have second thoughts about the practicality of partition, fearing that to attempt to implement it against the will of the Palestinian Arab majority would rouse up the entire Arab world against Britain."Wasserstein 2012 339 The Woodhead Commission considered three different plans, one of which was based on the Peel plan. Reporting in 1938, the Commission rejected the Peel plan primarily on the grounds that it could not be implemented without a massive forced transfer of Arabs (an option that the British government had already ruled out). Woodhead Commission report 1938 https://archive.org/details/WoodheadCommission With dissent from some of its members, the Commission instead recommended a plan that would leave the Galilee under British mandate, but emphasised serious problems with it that included a lack of financial self-sufficiency of the proposed Arab State. The British Government accompanied the publication of the Woodhead Report by a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable due to "political, administrative and financial difficulties".Statement by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty November 1938. https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/4941922311B4E3C585256D17004BD2E2 Policy statement/ Advice against partition – UK Secretary of State for the Colonies – UK documentation CMD. 5893/Non-UN document (11 November 1938) 11 November 2014 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20131103061306/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/4941922311B4E3C585256D17004BD2E2 3 November 2013 Resumed revolt (September 1937 – August 1939) 1938 Tiberias massacre thumb|British tanks pass through the streets of Haifa, 1938. With the failure of the Peel Commission's proposals the revolt resumed during the autumn of 1937 marked by the assassination on 26 September of Acting District Commissioner of the Galilee Lewis Andrews by Quassemite gunmen in Nazareth.Cohen 2009 125 Andrews was widely hated by Palestinians for supporting Jewish settlement in the Galilee, and he openly advised Jews to create their own defense force.Hughes 2019 4 On 30 September, regulations were issued allowing the Government to detain political deportees in any part of the British Empire, and authorising the High Commissioner to outlaw associations whose objectives he regarded as contrary to public policy. Haj Amin al-Husseini was removed from the leadership of the Supreme Moslem Council and the General Waqf Committee, the local National Committees and the Arab Higher Committee were disbanded; five Arab leaders were arrested and deported to the Seychelles; and in fear of arrest Jamal el-Husseini fled to Syria and Haj Amin el-Husseini to Lebanon;Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry – Appendix IV Palestine: Historical BackgroundHorne 2003 222 all frontiers with Palestine were closed, telephone connections to neighbouring countries were withdrawn, press censorship was introduced and a special concentration camp was opened near Acre.Horne 2003 222 In November 1937, the Irgun formally rejected the policy of Havlagah and embarked on a series of indiscriminate attacks against Arab civilians as a form of what the group called "active defense" against Arab attacks on Jewish civilians. The British authorities set up military courts, which were established for the trial of offenses connected with the carrying and discharge of firearms, sabotage and intimidation. Despite this, however, the Arab campaign of murder and sabotage continued and Arab gangs in the hills took on the appearance of organised guerrilla fighters. Violence continued throughout 1938.Hughes 2009a In July 1938, when the Palestine Government seemed to have largely lost control of the situation, the garrison was strengthened from Egypt, and in September it was further reinforced from England. The police were placed under the operational control of the army commander, and military officials superseded the civil authorities in the enforcement of order. In October the Old City of Jerusalem, which had become a rebel stronghold, was reoccupied by the troops. By the end of the year a semblance of order had been restored in the towns, but terrorism continued in rural areas until the outbreak of the Second World War. Attacks and casualties in numbers In the final fifteen months of the revolt alone there were 936 murders and 351 attempted murders; 2,125 incidents of sniping; 472 bombs thrown and detonated; 364 cases of armed robbery; 1,453 cases of sabotage against government and commercial property; 323 people abducted; 72 cases of intimidation; 236 Jews killed by Arabs and 435 Arabs killed by Jews; 1,200 rebels killed by the police and military and 535 wounded.Horne 2003 239 Irgun anti-British attacks Despite cooperation of the Yishuv with the British to quell the revolt, some incidents towards the end of the conflict indicated a coming change in relations. On 12 June 1939, A British explosives expert was killed trying to defuse an Irgun bomb near a Jerusalem post office. On 26 August, two British police officers, Inspector Ronald Barker and Inspector Ralph Cairns, commander of the Jewish Department of the C.I.D., were killed by an Irgun mine in Jerusalem.Ben-Yehuda 1993Devora Publications 978-1-930143-54-8 Golan Zev Free Jerusalem 2003 151 Response Role of the Mandate Government and the British Army Al-Bassa massacre thumb|Palestinians detained by British authorities, 1938. thumb|right|Jews evacuate the Old City of Jerusalem after Arab riots in 1936. thumb|British soldiers of the Coldstream Guards "cleansing" Jerusalem of Arabs participating in the revolt, 1938 Military law allowed swift prison sentences to be passed.Segev 1999 417 Thousands of Arabs were held in administrative detention, without trial, and without proper sanitation, in overcrowded prison camps.Segev 1999 417 The British had already formalised the principle of collective punishment in Palestine in the 1924–1925 Collective Responsibility and Punishment Ordinances and updated these ordinances in 1936 with the Collective Fines Ordinance.Hughes 2009a These collective fines (amounting to £1,000,000 over the revoltCabinet Papers, 30 July 1946, CAB 128/6.) eventually became a heavy burden for poor Palestinian villagers, especially when the army also confiscated livestock, destroyed properties, imposed long curfews and established police posts, demolished houses and detained some or all of the Arab men in distant detention camps.Hughes 2009a Full martial law was not introduced but in a series of Orders in Council and Emergency Regulations, 1936–37 'statutory' martial law, a stage between semi-military rule under civil powers and full martial law under military powers, and one in which the army and not the civil High Commissioner was pre-eminent was put in place.Hughes 2009aSee also WO 32/9618 Emergency Regulations 1936. Palestine Martial Law (Defence) Order in Council 1936. Following the Arab capture of the Old City of Jerusalem in October 1938, the army effectively took over Jerusalem and then all of Palestine.Hughes 2009a The main form of collective punishment employed by the British forces was destruction of property. Sometimes entire villages were reduced to rubble, as happened to Mi'ar in October 1938; more often several prominent houses were blown up and others were trashed inside.Hughes 2009aSegev 1999 423 The biggest single act of destruction occurred in Jaffa on 16 June 1936, when large gelignite charges were used to cut long pathways through the old city, destroying 220–240 buildings and rendering up to 6,000 Arabs homeless.Hughes 2009a Scathing criticism for this action from Palestine Chief Justice Sir Michael McDonnell was not well received by the administration and the judge was soon removed from the country.Segev 1999 399 Villages were also frequently punished by fines and confiscation of livestock.Hughes 2009a The British even used sea mines from the battleship HMS Malaya to destroy houses.Hughes 2009a In addition to actions against property, a large amount of brutality by the British forces occurred, including beatings, torture and extrajudicial killings.Hughes 2009a A surprisingly large number of prisoners were "shot while trying to escape".Hughes 2009a Several incidents involved serious atrocities, such as massacres at al-Bassa and Halhul.Hughes 2009a Desmond Woods, an officer of the Royal Ulster Rifles, described the massacre at al-Bassa: Now I will never forget this incident ... We were at al-Malikiyya, the other frontier base and word came through about 6 o'clock in the morning that one of our patrols had been blown up and Millie Law [the dead officer] had been killed. Now Gerald Whitfeld [Lieutenant-Colonel G. H. P. Whitfeld, the battalion commander] had told these mukhtars that if any of this sort of thing happened he would take punitive measures against the nearest village to the scene of the mine. Well the nearest village to the scene of the mine was a place called al-Bassa and our Company C were ordered to take part in punitive measures. And I will never forget arriving at al-Bassa and seeing the Rolls-Royce armoured cars of the 11th Hussars peppering Bassa with machine gun fire and this went on for about 20 minutes and then we went in and I remembered we had lighted braziers and we set the houses on fire and we burnt the village to the ground ... Monty had him [the battalion commander] up and he asked him all about it and Gerald Whitfeld explained to him. He said "Sir, I have warned the mukhtars in these villages that if this happened to any of my officers or men, I would take punitive measures against them and I did this and I would've lost control of the frontier if I hadn't." Monty said "All right but just go a wee bit easier in the future."Hughes 2009a As well as destroying the village the RUR and men from the Royal Engineers collected around fifty men from al-Bassa and blew some of them up with explosion under a bus. Harry Arrigonie, a policeman who was present said that about twenty men were put onto a bus; those who tried to escape were shot and then the driver of the bus was forced to drive over a powerful land mine buried by the soldiers which completely destroyed the bus, scattering the mutilated bodies of the prisoners everywhere. The other villagers were then forced to bury the bodies in a pit.Hughes 2009a Despite these measures Lieutenant-General Haining, the General Officer Commanding, reported secretly to the Cabinet on 1 December 1938 that "practically every village in the country harbours and supports the rebels and will assist in concealing their identity from the Government Forces."Palestine, 1938 Allegations Against British Troops, CAB 24/282, p. 4. Haining reported the method for searching villages: A cordon round the area to be searched is first established either by troops or aircraft and the inhabitants are warned that anybody trying to break through the cordon is likely to be shot. As literally hundreds of villages have been searched, in some cases more than once, during the past six months this procedure is well-known and it can be safely assumed that cordon-breakers have good reasons for wishing to avoid the troops. A number of such cordon-breakers have been shot during searches and it is probable that such cases form the basis of the propaganda that Arab prisoners are shot in cold blood and reported as "killed while trying to escape". After the cordon is established the troops enter the village and all male inhabitants are collected for identification and interrogation. The report was issued in response to growing concern at the severity of the military measures amongst the general public in Great Britain, among members of the British Government, and among governments in countries neighbouring Palestine. In addition to actions against villages the British Army also conducted punitive actions in the cities. In Nablus in August 1938 almost 5,000 men were held in a cage for two days and interrogated one after another.Segev 1999 424 During their detention the city was searched and then each of the detainees was marked with a rubber stamp on his release.Segev 1999 424 At one point a night curfew was imposed on most of the cities.Segev 1999 424 It was common British army practice to use local Arabs as human shields by forcing them to ride with military convoys to prevent mine attacks and sniping incidents: soldiers would tie the hostages to the bonnets of lorries, or put them on small flatbeds on the front of trains.Hughes 2009a The army told the hostages that any of them who tried to run away would be shot. On the lorries, some soldiers would brake hard at the end of a journey and then casually drive over the hostage, killing or maiming him, as Arthur Lane, a Manchester Regiment private recalled:  ... when you'd finished your duty you would come away nothing had happened no bombs or anything and the driver would switch his wheel back and to make the truck waver and the poor wog on the front would roll off into the deck. Well if he was lucky he'd get away with a broken leg but if he was unlucky the truck behind coming up behind would hit him. But nobody bothered to pick up the bits they were left. You know we were there we were the masters we were the bosses and whatever we did was right ... Well you know you don't want him any more. He's fulfilled his job. And that's when Bill Usher [the commanding officer] said that it had to stop because before long they'd be running out of bloody rebels to sit on the bonnet.Hughes 2009a British troops also left Arab wounded on the battlefield to die and maltreated Arab fighters taken in battle, so much so that the rebels tried to remove their wounded or dead from the field of battle.Hughes 2009a Sometimes, soldiers would occupy villages, expel all of the inhabitants and remain for months.Segev 1999 425 The Army even burned the bodies of "terrorists" to prevent their funerals becoming the focus of protests.Segev 1999 425 Tegart forts right|thumb|A surviving police Tegart fort at Latrun devised by Sir Charles Tegart, who also introduced border fences and Arab Investigation Centres Sir Charles Tegart was a senior police officer brought into Palestine from the colonial force of British IndiaHughes 2009a on 21 October 1937.Horne 2003 235–236 Tegart and his deputy David Petrie (later head of MI5) advised a greater emphasis on foreign intelligence gathering and closure of Palestine's borders.Thomas 2008 254 Like many of those enrolled in the Palestinian gendarmerie, Tegart had served in Great Britain's repression of the Irish War of Independence, and the security proposals he introduced exceeded measures adopted down to this time elsewhere in the British Empire. 70 fortresses were erected throughout the country at strategic choke points and near Palestinian villages which, if assessed as "bad", were subjected to collective punishment.Benjamin-Grob-Fitzgibbon,'Britain's small wars: the challenge to Empire,' in Randall D. Law, The Routledge History of Terrorism, Routledge, 2015, pp. 177–189, 181.Hoffman 2015 73 Accordingly, from 1938 Gilbert Mackereth, the British Consul in Damascus, corresponded with Syrian and Transjordan authorities regarding border control and security to counteract arms smuggling and "terrorist" infiltration and produced a report for Tegart on the activities of the Palestine Defence Committee in Damascus.http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/MEChandlists/GB165-0281-Tegart-Collection.pdf File And Item Level Description of the Sir Charles Tegart Collection 31 May 2010 4 March 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120304113513/http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/MEChandlists/GB165-0281-Tegart-Collection.pdf dead Tegart recommended the construction of a frontier road with a barbed wire fence, which became known as Tegart's wall, along the borders with Lebanon and Syria to help prevent the flow of insurgents, goods and weapons.Horne 2003 235–236 Tegart encouraged close co-operation with the Jewish Agency.Segev 1999 428 It was built by the Histadrut construction company Solel Boneh.Segev 1999 428 The total cost was £2 million.Segev 1999 428 The Army forced the fellahin to work on the roads without pay.Morris 1999 150 right|thumb|Pillbox built along the route of Tegart's Wall, still standing today near Goren industrial zone, northern Israel Tegart introduced Arab Investigation Centres where prisoners were subjected to beatings, foot whipping (bastinado), electric shocks, denailing and what is now known as "waterboarding".Hughes 2009a Tegart also imported Doberman Pinschers from South Africa and set up a special centre in Jerusalem to train interrogators in torture.Segev 1999 416 Role of the Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force developed close air support into its then most refined form during the Arab Revolt.Omissi 1990 74–76 Air patrols had been found effective in keeping convoys and trains free from attack, but this did not help to expose insurgents to battle conditions likely to cause their defeat.Omissi 1990 74–76 From the middle of June 1936 wireless vehicles accompanied all convoys and patrols.Omissi 1990 74–76 During rebel attacks these vehicles could issue emergency "XX calls" (XX with a coded location), which were given priority over all other radio traffic, to summon aerial reinforcements.Omissi 1990 74–76 Bombers, which were usually airborne within five minutes, could then either attack insurgents directly or "fix" their position for infantry troops. Forty-seven such XX calls were issued during the revolt, causing heavy losses to the rebels.Omissi 1990 74–76 In the June 1936 Battle of Nur Shams British planes attacked Arab irregulars with machine gun fire. This use of air power was so successful that the British were able to reduce the regular garrison.Omissi 1990 74–76 In 1936 an Air Staff Officer in Middle East Command based in the Kingdom of Egypt, Arthur Harris, known as an advocate of "air policing",Rotter 2008 51 commented on the revolt saying that "one 250 lb. or 500 lb. bomb in each village that speaks out of turn" would satisfactorily solve the problem.Gilmour, Ian and Andrew. "Terrorism Review." Journal of Palestine Studies, Volume 17, Issue 2, 1988, p. 131. In 1937 Harris was promoted to Air Commodore and in 1938 he was posted to Palestine and Trans-Jordan as Air Officer Commanding the RAF contingent in the region until September 1939. "Limited" bombing attacks on Arab villages were carried out by the RAF,Omissi 1990 158 although at times this involved razing whole villages.Ben-Ami 2005 11 Harris described the system by which recalcitrant villages were kept under control by aerial bombardment as "Air-Pin".Harris 1998 30 Aircraft of the RAF were also used to drop propaganda leaflets over Palestinian towns and villages telling the fellahin that they were the main sufferers of the rebellion and threatening an increase in taxes.Morris 1999 150 Low flying RAF squadrons were able to produce detailed intelligence on the location of road blocks, sabotaged bridges, railways and pipelines.Thomas 2008 246 RAF aerial photographs were also used to build up a detailed map of Arab population distribution.Thomas 2008 246 Although the British Army was responsible for setting up the Arab counter-insurgent forces (known as the peace bands) and supplying them with arms and money these were operated by RAF Intelligence, commanded by Patrick Domville.Black Morris 1991 16Harouvi 1999 33 At the beginning of the revolt RAF assets in the region comprised a bomber flight at RAF Ramleh, an RAF armoured car flight at Ramleh, fourteen bomber squadrons at RAF Amman, and a RAF armoured car company at Ma'an.Millman 1998 22 Role of the Royal Navy thumb|right|The Royal Navy used naval mines from HMS Malaya to destroy Palestinian houses.Hughes 2009a At the beginning of the Revolt crew from the Haifa Naval Force's two cruisers were used to carry out tasks ashore, manning two howitzers and naval lorries equipped with QF 2 pounder naval guns and searchlights used to disperse Arab snipers.Stewart 2002 7–10 From the end of June two destroyers were used to patrol the coast of Palestine in a bid to prevent gun running.Stewart 2002 7–10 These searched as many as 150 vessels per week and were an effective preventive measure.Stewart 2002 7–10 At the request of the Army additional naval platoons landed in July to help protect Haifa and Jewish settlements in the surrounding countryside.Stewart 2002 7–10 The Navy also relieved the Army of duties in Haifa by using nine naval platoons to form the Haifa Town Force and in August three naval platoons were landed to support the police.Stewart 2002 7–10 Following publication of the Peel Commission's report in July 1937 HMS Repulse sailed to Haifa where landing parties were put ashore to maintain calm.Stewart 2002 7–10 Various other naval vessels continued with this role until the end of the revolt.Stewart 2002 7–10 Following the Irgun's detonation of a large bomb in a market in Haifa on 6 July 1938 the High Commissioner signalled the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, requesting the assistance of naval vessels capable of providing landing parties.Stewart 2002 7–10 Pound dispatched HMS Repulse and diverted HMS Emerald to Haifa, which arrived the same day and landed five platoons, one to each police district.Stewart 2002 7–10 HMS Repulse relieved HMS Emerald the following day and after another bomb was detonated on 10 July five platoons from the ship, made up of sailors and Royal Marines, dispersed mobs and patrolled the city.Stewart 2002 7–10 On 11 July provision of three platoons from Repulse released men of the West Kent Regiment for a punitive mission against Arabs who had attacked a Jewish colony near Haifa.Stewart 2002 7–10 By 17 July the Repulse established a Company Headquarters where seamen and Royal Marines manned a 3.7-inch howitzer.Stewart 2002 7–10 Sailors, Royal Marines, and men of the Suffolk Regiment, who had embarked on the Repulse, accompanied foot patrols of the Palestine Police Force.Stewart 2002 7–10 The Repulse, Hood 51 6 and HMS Warspite provided howitzer crews which were sent ashore to combat gun running near the border with Lebanon.Stewart 2002 7–10 Detained Arabs were used to build emplacements and the howitzers were moved quickly between these positions by day and night to confuse bandits as to the likely direction of fire.Stewart 2002 7–10 Periodically, the guns were used to fire warning rounds close to the vicinity of villages believed to have rebel sympathies.Stewart 2002 7–10 Strategic importance of Haifa Britain had completed the modern deep-sea port in Haifa in 1933 and finished laying a pipeline from the Iraqi oilfields to Haifa in 1935,Krämer 2008 293 shortly before the outbreak of the revolt. A refinery for processing oil from the pipeline was completed by Consolidated Refineries Ltd, a company jointly owned by British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell, in December 1939.Ferrier Bamberg 1994 165 These facilities enhanced the strategic importance of Palestine and of Haifa in particular in Britain's control of the eastern Mediterranean.Krämer 2008 293 The threat to British control of the region posed by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935 and the deteriorating situation in Europe toward the end of the 1930s probably made British policy makers more willing to make concessions to Arab governments on the Palestine issue following the furore over the recommendations of the Peel Commission.Krämer 2008 293 Role of the British intelligence services thumb|right|Reuven Zaslany (Shiloah), later first director of Mossad, worked closely with British intelligence during the Arab Revolt. The Arab Revolt was the last major test of Britain's security services in the Middle East before World War II.Thomas 2008 244–246 The development and deployment of intelligence-led counterinsurgency strategies was integral to the restoration of British imperial control in Palestine as the revolt had demonstrated to the British authorities how a popular rebellion could undermine intelligence gathering operations and thereby impair their ability to predict and respond to inter-communal disorder.Thomas 2008 244–246 The rebellion had brought together urban nationalism and peasant economic grievances arising from rural poverty and landlessness, which was blamed on British misrule.Thomas 2008 244–246 Accordingly, the Palestinian revolt targeted the political and economic apparatus of the British colonial state, including the communications network, pipelines, police stations, army outposts and British personnel.Thomas 2008 244–246 It was this aspect of the revolt, rather than attacks on Jews or violence between rivals for leadership of the national movement, that most concerned the high commissioner.Thomas 2008 244–246 The mandate authorities were further disturbed by the unity of purpose displayed during the six-month general strike and by the resurgence of pan-Arab nationalism as evidenced by the rise of the Istiqlal Party.Thomas 2008 244–246 In response to these challenges the British army command ("I" Branch) and battalion headquarters across Palestine issued a daily intelligence bulletin every afternoon detailing political developments.Thomas 2008 244–246 Special Service Officers (SSOs) assigned to intelligence gathering reported directly to their local command headquarters and their cars were equipped with wireless transmitters so that high grade intelligence could be reported directly to "I" Branch immediately.Thomas 2008 244–246 These sources of intelligence gradually became more important than those of the C.I.D. in Palestine, which had been dependent on Arab informers, and which were no longer reliable.Thomas 2008 244–246 In September 1937, the Jewish Agency appointed Reuven Zaslany liaison officer for intelligence and security affairs between the Political Department of the Jewish Agency and the intelligence arms of the Royal Air Force and the C.I.D.Harouvi 1999 32–34 Zaslany sifted through intelligence collected by Jewish-controlled field operatives and forwarded it to the British military.Harouvi 1999 32–34 He was a frequent visitor at the headquarters of British intelligence and the army, the police and C.I.D. and he also travelled to Damascus to liaise with the Arab opposition's peace bands and with the British Consul in Iraq.Harouvi 1999 32–34 Colonel Frederick Kisch, a British army officer and Zionist leader, was appointed chief liaison officer between the British army and the Jewish Agency Executive with Zaslany as his deputy.Harouvi 1999 32–34 Zaslany also worked as interpreter for Patrick Domville, head of RAF Intelligence in Palestine (who was described by Haganah leader Dov Hos as the "best Zionist informer on the English"), until the latter was posted to Iraq in 1938, and through him became acquainted with many of the British intelligence officers.Friling 2005 279 In 1937 the Jewish Agency's intelligence groups were responsible for bugging the Peel Commission hearings in Palestine.Adelman 2008 154 Eventually, the Arab Revolt convinced the Agency that a central intelligence service was required and this led to the formation of a counter-intelligence agency known as the Ran (headed by Yehuda Arazi, who also helped to smuggle rifles, machine guns and ammunition from Poland to Palestine) and thereafter in 1940 to the creation of SHAI, the forerunner of Mossad.Friling 2005 28Laffin 1979 80 British and Jewish co-operation Notrim thumb|right|Men of Captain Orde Wingate's Special Night Squads, December 1938 The Haganah (Hebrew for "defence"), a Jewish paramilitary organisation, actively supported British efforts to suppress the uprising, which reached 10,000 Arab fighters at their peak during the summer and fall of 1938. Although the British administration did not officially recognise the Haganah, the British security forces cooperated with it by forming the Jewish Settlement Police, Jewish Supernumerary Police, and Special Night Squads. The Special Night Squads engaged in activities described by colonial administrator Sir Hugh Foot, as 'extreme and cruel' involving torture, whipping, abuse and execution of Arabs.Hughes 2009a The British authorities maintained, financed and armed the Jewish police from this point onward until the end of the Mandate,Kimmerling, 1989, p. 38. and by the end of September 1939 around 20,000 Jewish policeman, supernumeraries and settlement guards had been authorised to carry arms by the government,Swedenburg 2003 220 which also distributed weapons to outlying Jewish settlements,Morris 1999 132and allowed the Haganah to acquire arms.Cleveland 2000 255 Independently of the British, Ta'as, the Haganah's clandestine munitions industry, developed an 81-mm mortar and manufactured mines and grenades, 17,500 of the latter being produced for use during the revolt.Morris 1999 160Sacharov 2004 23Adelman 2008 156 In June 1937, the British imposed the death penalty for unauthorised possession of weapons, ammunition, and explosives, but since many Jews had permission to carry weapons and store ammunition for defence this order was directed primarily against Palestinian Arabs and most of the 108 executed in Acre Prison were hanged for illegal possession of arms.Krämer 2008 292 In principle all of the joint units functioned as part of the British administration, but in practice they were under the command of the Jewish Agency and "intended to form the backbone of a Jewish military force set up under British sponsorship in preparation for the inevitable clash with the Arabs."Segev 1999 427 The Agency and the Mandate authorities shared the costs of the new units equally.Segev 1999 428 The administration also provided security services to Jewish commercial concerns at cost.Segev 1999 428 Jewish and British officials worked together to co-ordinate manhunts and collective actions against villages and also discussed the imposition of penalties and sentences.Segev 1999 427 Overall, the Jewish Agency was successful in making "the point that the Zionist movement and the British Empire were standing shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy, in a war in which they had common goals."Segev 1999 426 The rebellion also inspired the Jewish Agency to expand the intelligence-gathering of its Political Department and especially of its Arab Division, with the focus changing from political to military intelligence.Morris 1999 149 The Arab Division set up a network of Jewish controllers and Arab agents around the country.Morris 1999 149 Some of the intelligence gathered was shared with the British administration, the exchange of information sometimes being conducted by Moshe Shertok, then head of the Jewish Agency, directly with the high commissioner himself.Segev 1999 427 Shertok also advised the administration on political affairs, on one occasion convincing the high commissioner not to arrest Professor Joseph Klausner, a Revisionist Maximalist activist who had played a key role in the riots of 1929, because of the likely negative consequences.Segev 1999 427 Forces of the Jewish settlement + Table 1: Security forces and infrastructure created during the Arab revolt Joint British-Yishuv Independent Yishuv Other Yishuv defence infrastructure   Jewish Supernumerary Police  Mobile units (mobile arm of the Haganah)   Ta'as † (weapons manufacture)  Jewish Settlement Police Fosh (field companies) Rekhesh † (arms procurement)  Mobile Guards (mobile arm of the Settlement Police)   Hish (field corps) Ran (counter intelligence)  Special Night Squads Special Operations Squads Community ransom (defence tax)  Tegart forts and Tegart's wall Guards Tower and stockade settlement † Ta'as and Rekhesh were developed and expanded during the Arab Revolt but already existed before 1936 and the Haganah had been in operation from the earliest days of the Mandate. Haganah intelligence services There was no single body within the Jewish settlement capable of co-ordinating intelligence gathering before 1939.Johnson, 2010, p. 807. Until then there were four separate organisations without any regular or formal liaison. These were an underground militia, forerunner of the first official information service, Sherut Yediot (Shai); the Arab Platoon of the Palmach, which was staffed by Jews who were Arab-speaking and Arab-looking; Rekhesh, the arms procurement service, which had its own intelligence gathering capabilities, and likewise the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, the illegal immigration service. In mid-1939 the effort to co-ordinate the activities of these groups was led by Shaul Avigur and Moshe Shertok. Role of the Revisionist Zionists List of Irgun attacks In 1931, a Revisionist underground splinter group broke off from Haganah, calling itself the Irgun organisation (or Etzel).http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac02.htm THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE IRGUN www.etzel.org.il 21 May 2008 7 November 2020 https://web.archive.org/web/20201107161514/http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac02.htm dead The organisation took its orders from Revisionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky who was at odds with the dominant Labour Zionist movement led by David Ben-Gurion.Krämer 2008 242 The rift between the two Zionist movements further deteriorated in 1933 when two Revisionists were blamed for the murder of Haim Arlosoroff, who had negotiated the Haavara Agreement between the Jewish Agency and Nazi Germany.Krämer 2008 242 The agreement brought 52,000 German Jews to Palestine between 1933 and 1939, and generated $30,000,000 for the then almost bankrupt Jewish Agency, but in addition to the difficulties with the Revisionists, who advocated a boycott of Germany, it caused the Yishuv to be isolated from the rest of world Jewry.Bajohr 2002 122Segev 1991 22, 29Nicosia 2008 99 Ultimately, however, the events of the Arab Revolt blurred the differences between the gradualist approach of Ben-Gurion and the Maximalist Iron Wall approach of Jabotinsky and turned militarist patriotism into a bipartisan philosophy.Ben-Ami 2005 14 Indeed, Ben-Gurion's own Special Operations Squads conducted a punitive operation in the Arab village of Lubya firing weapons into a room through a window killing two men and one woman and injuring three people, including two children.Segev 1999 386–387 From October 1937 the Irgun instituted a wave of bombings against Arab crowds and buses.Morris 1999 147 For the first time in the conflict massive bombs were placed in crowded Arab public places, killing and maiming dozens.Morris 1999 147 These attacks substantially increased Arab casualties and sowed terror among the population.Morris 1999 147 The first attack was on 11 November 1937, killing two Arabs at the bus depot near Jaffa Street in Jerusalem and then on 14 November, a day later commemorated as the "Day of the Breaking of the Havlagah (restraint)," Arabs were killed in simultaneous attacks around Palestine.Morris 1999 147 More deadly attacks followed: on 6 July 1938 21 Arabs were killed and 52 wounded by a bomb in a Haifa market; on 25 July a second market bomb in Haifa killed at least 39 Arabs and injured 70; a bomb in Jaffa's vegetable market on 26 August killed 24 Arabs and wounded 39.Morris 1999 147 The attacks were condemned by the Jewish Agency.Morris 1999 147 Role of the "peace bands" The "peace bands" (fasa'il al-salam) or "Nashashibi units" were made up of disaffected Arab peasants recruited by the British administration and the Nashashibis in late 1938 to battle against Arab rebels during the revolt.Krämer 2008 291Gettleman Schaar 2003 181 Despite their peasant origins the bands were representative mainly of the interests of landlords and rural notables.Gettleman Schaar 2003 181 Some peace bands also sprang up in the Nablus area, on Mount Carmel (a stronghold of the Druze who largely opposed the rebellion after 1937), and around Nazareth without connection to the Nashashibi-Husayni power struggle.Morris 1999 153 From December 1937 the main opposition figures among the Arabs approached the Jewish Agency for funding and assistance,Morris 1999 153–154 motivated by the assassination campaign pursued by the rebels at the behest of the Husseini leadership."it was the first manifestation of the Nashashibi group's armed defense against those who had violated the honor of their family and the honor of ... But when the general strike ended, he once again began coordinating his moves with the Zionists. The opposition's principal motivation for security cooperation was the assassination campaign pursued by the rebels at the behest of the Husseini leadership."Cohen 2009 146 In October 1937, shortly after Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the leader of the Arab Higher Committee, had fled from Palestine to escape British retribution, Raghib al-Nashashibi had written to Moshe Shertok stating his full willingness to co-operate with the Jewish Agency and to agree with whatever policy it proposed.Cohen 2009 125 From early in 1938 the Nashashibis received funding specifically to conduct anti-rebel operations, with Raghib al-Nashashibi himself receiving £5,000.Morris 1999 154 The British also supplied funding to the peace bands and sometimes directed their operations.Morris 1999 154 Fakhri Nashashibi was particularly successful in recruiting peace bands in the Hebron hills, on one occasion in December 1938 gathering 3,000 villagers for a rally in Yatta, also attended by the British military commander of the Jerusalem District General Richard O'Connor.Morris 1999 154 Just two months earlier, on 15 October 1938, rebels had seized the Old City and barricaded the gates.Horne, 2003, pp. 237–238. O'Connor had planned the operation by which men of the Coldstream Guards, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and Black Watch recaptured the Old City, killing 19 rebels.Morris 1999 154 Towards the end of the revolt in May 1939 the authorities dissolved the peace bands and confiscated their arms.Morris 1999 154 However, because members of the bands had become tainted in the eyes of the Palestinian Arabs, and some were under sentence of death, they had little choice but to continue the battle against the national movement's leadership, which they did with the continuing help of the Zionist movement.Cohen 2009 198 Role of rebel leaders thumb|right|Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad was designated the "General Commander of the Revolt" by the Central Committee of National Jihad in Palestine thumb|right|Farhan al-Sa'di following his arrest by British Mandatory police, 1937. He was later executed. Al-Sa'di was a key actor in setting off the revolt with his April 1936 attack on a bus, which left two Jewish passengers dead. At least 282 rebel leaders took part in the Arab Revolt, including four Christians.Cohen 2009 167 Rebel forces consisted of loosely organized bands known as fasa'il Sayigh, p. 669. (sing: fasil).Swedenburg 2003 125 The leader of a fasil was known as a qa'id al-fasil (pl. quwwa'id al-fasa'il), which means "band commander".Swedenburg 2003 139 The Jewish press often referred to them as "brigands", while the British authorities and media called them "bandits", "terrorists", "rebels" or "insurgents", but never "nationalists".Horne, 2003 p. 228. Ursabat (meaning "gangs") was another Arabic term used for the rebels,Anglim 2005 9 and it spawned the British soldiers' nickname for all rebels, which was Oozlebart.Anglim 2005 9http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788283,00.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100826053505/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,788283,00.html dead 26 August 2010 PALESTINE: Oozlebarts and Cantor 15 August 1938 www.time.com According to historian Simon Anglim, the rebel groups were divided into general categories: mujahadeen and fedayeen. The former were guerrillas who engaged in armed confrontations, while the latter committed acts of sabotage.Anglim 2005 9 According to later accounts of some surviving rebel leaders from the Galilee, the mujahideen maintained little coordination with the nominal hierarchy of the revolt. Most ambushes were the result of a local initiative undertaken by a qa'id or a group of quwwa'id from the same area.Swedenburg 2003 125 Galilee Abdul Khallik was an effective peasant leader appointed by Fawzi al-Qawuqji who caused great damage and loss of life in the Nazareth District and was thus a significant adversary of the Mandate and Jewish settlement authorities.Horne 2003 224, 238 He was trapped by British troops in a major engagement on 2 October 1938 and was killed whilst trying to lead his men to safety.Horne 2003 224, 238'Situation in Brief: Official Reports', Palestine Post, Monday, 3 October 1938. Abu Ibrahim al-Kabir was the main Qassamite rebel leader in the Upper Galilee and was the only active rebel leader on the ground who was a member of the Damascus-based Central Committee of National Jihad.Elie Kedourie Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel Qassamites in the Arab Revolt, 1936–39 https://books.google.com/books?id=tD-sCQAAQBAJ&q=Farhan+Qassam+Tulkarm&pg=PT119 Routledge 2015 978-1-317-44272-1 Abdallah al-Asbah was a prominent commander active in the Safad region of northeastern Galilee. He was killed by British forces who besieged him and his comrades near the border with Lebanon in early 1937.Ghandour Zeina B. A Discourse on Domination in Mandate Palestine: Imperialism, Property and Insurgency https://books.google.com/books?id=6Dd6AgAAQBAJ&q=Asbah&pg=PT186 Routledge 2009 978-1-134-00962-6 Jabal Nablus area Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad from the Tulkarm area was a deeply religious, intellectual man and as a fervent anti-Zionist, he was deeply committed to the revolt.Horne 2003 224–226, 239 He was regarded second to Qawukji in terms of leadership ability and maintained his independence from the exiled rebel leadership in Damascus.Horne 2003 224–226, 239Swedenburg 2003 88 He personally led his fasa'il and carried out nighttime attacks against British targets in the revolt's early stage in 1936. When the revolt was renewed in April 1937, he established a more organised command hierarchy consisting of four main brigades who operated in the north-central highlands (Tulkarm–Nablus–Jenin area). He competed for the position of General Commander of the Revolt with Aref Abdul Razzik, and the two served the post in rotation from September 1938 to February 1939, when al-Hajj Muhammad was confirmed as the sole General Commander. Al-Hajj Muhammad refused to carry out political assassinations at the behest of political factions, including al-Husayni, once stating "I don't work for Husayniya ('Husanyni-ism'), but for wataniya ('nationalism')."Swedenburg 2003 87 He is still known by Palestinians as a hero and martyr and is regarded as a metonym "for a national movement that was popular, honourable, religious, and lofty in its aims and actions."Swedenburg 2003 30 He was shot dead in a firefight with British forces outside the village of Sanur on 27 March 1939, after Farid Irsheid's peace band informed the authorities of his location.Horne 2003 224–226, 239 Yusuf Abu Durra, a Qassamite leader in the Jenin area, was born in Silat al-Harithiya and before becoming a rebel worked as a Gazoz vendor.Horne 2003 224, 226, 228, 239–240 He was said to be a narrow-minded man who thrived on extortion and cruelty and thus became greatly feared.Horne 2003 224, 226, 228, 239–240 Yusuf Hamdan was Durra's more respected lieutenant and later a leader of his own unit; he was killed by an army patrol in 1939 and buried in al-Lajjun.Horne 2003 224, 226, 228, 239–240 Durra himself was apprehended by the Arab Legion in Transjordan on 25 July 1939 and subsequently hanged.Horne 2003 224, 226, 228, 239–240 Fakhri Abdul Hadi of Arrabah worked closely with Fawzi al-Qawukji in 1936, but later defected to the British authorities.Horne 2003 224, 238 He bargained for a pardon by offering to collaborate with the British on countering rebel propaganda.Horne 2003 224, 238 Once on the payroll of the British consul in Damascus, Gilbert Mackereth, he carried out many attacks against the rebels in 1938–1939 as leader of his own "peace band".Swedenburg 2003 121Fry MacKereth Rabinovich 1985 172 right Aref had a little mare Its coat as white as snow And where that mare and Aref went We're jiggered if we know. British Army verse. Aref Abdul Razzik of Tayibe was responsible for the area south of Tulkarm and was known for evading capture whilst being pursued by the security forces.Horne 2003 225, 228–230 He signed his bulletins as 'The Ghost of Sheikh Qassam'.Horne 2003 225, 228–230 Razzik assumed a place in British army folklore and the troops sang a song about him.Horne 2003 225, 228–230 Razzik was capable and daring and gained a reputation as one of the army's problem heroes.Horne 2003 225, 228–230 Jerusalem area Isa al-Battat commanded a rebel group operating in the southern Hebron Hills and western villages of the Hebron district. His fighters attacked the police station at ad-Dhahiriyya, cut telephone lines, seized weapons and property, and extorted protection money from local communities. By April 1938, he commanded upto sixty men. Palestinian accounts and several later studies identify Battat as the principal perpetrator of the January 1938 assassination of the British archaeologist James Leslie Starkey in the service of aggrieved land owners from al-Qubeiba.Marom Roy Roy Marom Garfinkel Yosef Yosef Garfinkel 10 September 2026 The Murder of J. L. Starkey According to Local Palestinian Sources: Anti-Colonial Struggle and Local Intrigues https://archaeologybulletin.org/en/articles/10.5334/bha-749 Bulletin of the History of Archaeology 36 1 1–14 10.5334/bha-749 free 13 September 2026 Battat was killed in May 1938, either during a British operation or as a consequence of conflict with the al-Azza family of Bayt Jibrin.Horne 2003 225, 235, 238Jewish Spectator, 1937, Volume 3, p. 8. Arab volunteers In the first phase of the revolt, around 300 volunteers, mostly veterans of the Ottoman Army and/or rebels from the Great Syrian Revolt (1925–1927), deployed in northern Palestine. Their overall commander was Fawzi al-Qawuqji and his deputies were Said al-As and Muhammad al-Ashmar. Qawuqji also led the volunteer force's Iraqi and Transjordanian battalions, and al-Ashmar was commander of the Syrian battalion, which largely consisted of volunteers from Damascus's al-Midan Quarter, Hama and Homs. The Druze ex-Ottoman officer, Hamad Sa'ab, commanded the Lebanese battalion.August 2021 Funding In the contest of wills between the British Empire and Palestinian aspirants for statehood, the respective efforts to secure the financial means to sustain the hostilities also played out as a battle for funding.'The contest of wills between the British Empire and the Palestinians was also an organizational battle for funds and equipment in which London would bankroll the Palestine Government and pay for the troops needed for pacification.'Hughes 2019 82 The Mandatory Authority's repression of the revolt was bankrolled directly from London and through the revenue stream supplied to the administration by land and property taxes, stamp duties, excises on manufactured goods and customs duties on imports and exports. Draconian collective punishment fines on the peasantry –many heavily burdened already by debt and unable to pay them – were such that revenue extracted from punitive fines exceeded, and more than compensated for, the revenue lost during the revolt.Hughes 2019 83–87 The majority of funds raised to finance the uprising came from Arab/Muslim sources. In the broader Arab/Muslim world a measure of financial aid, never vast, filtered in from Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Muslim India for some time.Hughes 2019 106 In Palestine, the peasantry, often debt-ridden, could offer little towards subsidising the resistance.Hughes 2019 83 A variety of measures were adopted. Women donated jewelry and ran fund-raising committees, a jihad tax was placed on citrus groves, the industry being the backbone of Palestine's export trade; Palestinians on the government payroll contributed sums anywhere up to half of their salaries; levies were imposed on wealthier Arabs (many of whom went abroad to avoid paying them, or because they could not meet demands to provide financial aid to strikers).Hughes 2019 107,110 The AHC's functions in this capacity were truncated when it was abolished by the British authorities in October 1937. Displaced in Damascus, its leaders were cut off from contact with field units and donations gradually dried up.Hughes 2019 80 al-Husayni, by then in exile, proved unable to raise money, and in Syria militant contacts were informed by July 1938 that they would have to make do on their own.Hughes 2019 107 By 1938 the drop in revenues caused militant gangs to resort to extortion and robbery, often draining villages of ready cash reserves set aside to pay government fines, which then had to be met by the sale of crops and livestock.Hughes 2019 109 Some contributions were obtained from American sources.Hughes 2019 107 A great deal of speculation laterSource needed. The cited quotes mention nothing about "later speculation." October 2026 arose around the purported role of Germany and Italy in backing the revolt financially, based on early claims by Jewish operatives that both countries were fomenting the uprising by funneling cash and weapons to the insurgents.Joseph Laniado, a Jewish Syrian parliamentarian told his Jewish contacts that Germany and Italy had channeled 'large amounts of money' to foment rebellion in Palestine'.Hughes 2019 105–106 In June 1939, Hans Piekenbrock, an intelligence colonel in the Abwehr's Abteilung 1, boasted to his chief and friend Admiral Canaris that 'It was only as a result of the money we gave (al-Husayni) that it was possible to carry out the revolt in Palestine'.Herf 2009 32 German plans to ship arms to the rebels were never implemented due to distrust of the Saudi middlemen.Nicosia 1980 364 Italian attempts to furnish arms by the same venue were thwarted by British intelligence.Hughes 2019 106 The British never found arms or munitions of German or Italian provenance. RAF intelligence dismissed these claims as either referring to 'comparatively small' sums or as purveyed to bring discredit on the Palestinians.Hughes 2019 103,106 al-Husayni and his associates received limitedHughes 2019 87 funding from Fascist Italy during the revolt as the Italians were in dispute with the United Kingdom over Abyssinia and wished not only to disrupt the British rearMorris 1999 133 but also to extend Italian influence in the region.Arielli 2008 187–204 The rebels utilized the Italian funding to smuggle weapons into Palestine via Syria.Nicosia 2014 86 Total Italian funding amounted to approximately £150.000.Fiore 2010 89 It stopped in late 1938Hughes 2019 106 and played no decisive role since the uprising peaked after that date.Fiore 2010 109–110 In the first years after 1933 Germany was approached by a variety of Arab nationalist groups from Palestine and abroad asking for aid, but Germany categorically refused. Maintaining good relations with the British was still considered to be of the uppermost priority, hence it limited itself to expressing its sympathy and moral support.Nicosia 2014 74–78 Soon after the outbreak of the revolt, in December 1936, Germany was approached by the rebel commander Fawzi al-Qawuqji and in January 1937 by representatives of the Arab Higher Committee, both requesting arms and money, but again in vain.Nicosia 2014 81–82 In July al-Husayni himself approached Walter Döhle, new German general consul in Jerusalem, to request support for the "battle against the Jews".Herf 2009 29–30 Döhle found that Germany's hesitation in supporting the rebels had caused pro-German sentiment among Palestinian Arabs to waver.Herf 2009 28–29,30 Some limitedThe volume of Germany's funding was intentionally limited, as its goal was neither the collapse of the British Mandate nor the establishment of an independent Arab state (which would have been counterproductive to Germany's policy of expelling the Jews to Palestine), but to cause additional nuisance to the British.Nicosia 1980 364Nicosia 2014 80–81 German funding for the revolt can be dated to around the summer of 1938Nicosia 1980 364 and was perhaps related to a goal of distracting the British from the on-going occupation of Czechoslovakia.Nicosia 2014 108–109 The Abwehr gave money to al-HusayniNicosia 1980 364 and other sums were funneled via Saudi Arabia.Nicosia 2014 109 Outcome Casualties Despite the intervention of up to 50,000 British troops and 15,000 Haganah men, the uprising continued for over three years. By the time it concluded in September 1939, more than 5,000 Arabs, over 300 Jews, and 262 Britons had been killed and at least 15,000 Arabs were wounded.Hughes 2009a Impact on the Jewish Yishuv Tower and stockade thumb|right|Jewish protest demonstration against the Palestine White Paper, 18 May 1939 thumb|right|Jewish protest demonstrations against the 1939 Palestine White Paper. One of the big posters displayed the previous day. In the overall context of the Jewish settlement's development in the 1930s the physical losses endured during the revolt were relatively insignificant.Morris 1999 160 Although hundreds were killed and property was damaged no Jewish settlement was captured or destroyed and several dozen new ones were established.Morris 1999 160 Over 50,000 new Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine.Morris 1999 160 In 1936 Jews made up about one-third of the population.Krämer 2008 295 The hostilities contributed to further disengagement of the Jewish and Arab economies in Palestine, which were intertwined to some extent until that time. Development of the economy and infrastructure accelerated.Morris 1999 160 For example, whereas the Jewish city of Tel Aviv relied on the nearby Arab seaport of Jaffa, hostilities dictated the construction of a separate Jewish-run seaport for Tel Aviv,Morris 1999 160 inspiring the delighted Ben-Gurion to note in his diary "we ought to reward the Arabs for giving us the impetus for this great creation."Segev 1999 388 Metal works were established to produce armoured sheeting for vehicles and a rudimentary arms industry was founded.Morris 1999 160 The settlement's transportation capabilities were enhanced and Jewish unemployment was relieved owing to the employment of police officers,Morris 1999 160 and replacement of striking Arab labourers, employees, craftsman and farmers by Jewish workers.Krämer 2008 295 Most of the important industries in Palestine were owned by Jews and in trade and the banking sector they were much better placed than the Arabs.Krämer 2008 295 right|thumb|A Jewish bus equipped with wire screens to protect passengers against rocks and grenades thrown by Arab insurgents. Part of the Jewish strategy of havlagah ("restraint") As a result of collaboration with the British colonial authorities and security forces many thousands of young men had their first experience of military training, which Moshe Shertok and Haganah leader Eliyahu Golomb cited as one of the fruits of the Haganah's policy of havlagah (restraint).Shapira 1999 250 Britain published the White Paper of 1939, a policy paper that restricted Jewish immigration and land acquisition. Although the Jewish settlement in Palestine was dismayed by the white paper, David Ben-Gurion remained undeterred, believing that the policy would not be implemented, and in fact Neville Chamberlain had told him that the policy would last at the very most only for the duration of the war.Segev 1999 449 In the event the White Paper quotas were exhausted only in December 1944, over five and a half years later, and in the same period the United Kingdom absorbed 50,000 Jewish refugees and the British Commonwealth (Australia, Canada and South Africa) took many thousands more.Segev 1999 439, 459 During the War over 30,000 Jews joined the British forces and even the Irgun ceased operations against the British until 1944.Segev 1999 450–451 Impact on the Palestinian Arabs The revolt weakened the military strength of Palestinian Arabs in advance of their ultimate confrontation with the Jewish settlement in the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and was, according to Benny Morris, thus counterproductive.Morris 1999 121 During the uprising, British authorities attempted to confiscate all weapons from the Arab population. This, and the destruction of the main Arab political leadership in the revolt, greatly hindered their military efforts in the 1948 Palestine war,Morris 1999 159 where imbalances between the Jewish and Arab economic performance, social cohesion, political organisation and military capability became apparent.Krämer 2008 295 The Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini and his supporters directed a Jihad against any person who did not obey the Mufti. Their national struggle was a religious holy war, and the incarnation of both the Palestinian Arab nation and Islam was Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Anyone who rejected his leadership was a heretic and his life was forfeit."the silencing of the opposition and humiliation of its leaders continued in the months that followed. In July 1938 an armed squad appeared at the home of a family of Nashashibi supporters in the village of Beit Rima, ...Before they left, the gang offered an explanation for their behavior: The jihad, they said, was directed against any person who did not obey the mufti. In the passion of the moment, they revealed the militants' fundamental tenet: Their national struggle was a religious holy war, and the incarnation of both the Palestinian Arab nation and Islam was Hajj Amin al-Husseini. Anyone who rejected his leadership was a heretic and his life was forfeit."Cohen 2009 128 After the Peel report publication, the murders of Arabs leaders who opposed the Mufti were accelerated.Cohen 2009 122 Pressed by the assassination campaign pursued by the rebels at the behest of the Husseini leadership, the opposition had a security cooperation with the Jews.Cohen 2009 146 The flight of wealthy Arabs, which occurred during the revolt, was also replicated in 1947–49.Krämer 2008 291 thumb|left|London Conference, St. James' Palace, February 1939. Palestinian delegates (foreground), left to right: Fu'ad Saba, Yaqub Al-Ghussein, Musa Alami, Amin Tamimi, Jamal Al-Husseini, Awni Abdul Hadi, George Antonious, and Alfred Roch. Facing are the British, with Neville Chamberlain presiding. To his right is Lord Halifax, and to his left, Malcolm MacDonald. Thousands of Palestinian houses were destroyed, and massive financial costs were incurred because of the general strike and the devastation of fields, crops and orchards. The economic boycott further damaged the fragile Palestinian Arab economy through loss of sales and goods and increased unemployment.Morris 1999 159–160 The revolt did not achieve its goals, although it is "credited with signifying the birth of the Arab Palestinian identity."Nashif 2008 24 It is generally credited with forcing the issuance of the White Paper of 1939 in which Britain retreated from the partition arrangements proposed by the Peel Commission in favour of the creation of a binational state within ten years, although The League of Nations commission held that the White Paper was in conflict with the terms of the Mandate as put forth in the past."Capping it all, the Permanent Mandates Commission of the Council of the League of Nations rejected the White Paper as inconsistent with the terms of the Mandate."Morris 1999 159 The new policy was regarded by many as incompatible with the commitment to a Jewish National Home in Palestine, as proclaimed in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Al-Husseini rejected it, although it seems that this reaction was the reverse of that of the ordinary Palestinian Arab. His biographer, Philip Mattar wrote that in that case, the Mufti preferred his personal interests and the ideology rather than the practical considerations.Morris 1999 159 Impact on the British Empire As the inevitable war with Germany approached, British policy makers concluded that although they could rely on the support of the Jewish population in Palestine, who had no alternative but to support Britain, the support of Arab governments and populations in an area of great strategic importance for the British Empire was not assured.Segev, 2000, pp. 436–441. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain concluded "if we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs." In February 1939 Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs Malcolm MacDonald called together a conference of Arab and Zionist leaders on the future of Palestine at St. James's Palace in London but the discussions ended without agreement on 27 March.Krämer 2008 293The government's new policy as published in White Paper of 17 May had been determined already and despite Jewish protests and Irgun attacks the British remained resolute.Segev 1999 437 There was a growing feeling among British officials that there was nothing left for them to do in Palestine.Segev 1999 437 Perhaps the ultimate achievement of the Arab Revolt was to make the British sick of Palestine.Segev 1999 443 Major-General Bernard "Monty" Montgomery concluded, "the Jew murders the Arab and the Arab murders the Jew. This is what is going on in Palestine now. And it will go on for the next 50 years in all probability."Segev 1999 442 Historiography In 2003, Ted Swedenburg argued that 1936–1939 Arab Revolt has been and still is marginalized in both Western and Israeli historiography on Palestine, and even progressive Western scholars have little to say about the anti-colonial struggle of the Palestinian Arab rebels against the British Empire.Swedenburg 2003 xxii,13–15 According to Swedenburg's analysis, for instance, the Zionist version of Israeli history acknowledges only one authentic national movement: the struggle for Jewish self-determination that resulted in the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948.Swedenburg 2003 xxii,13–15 Swedenburg writes that the Zionist narrative has no room for an anticolonial and anti-British Palestinian national revolt.Swedenburg 2003 ? Zionists often describe the revolt as a series of "events" (Hebrew מאורעות תרצ"ו-תרצ"ט) "riots", or "happenings".Swedenburg 2003 ? The appropriate description was debated by Jewish Agency officials, who were keen not to give a negative impression of Palestine to prospective immigrantsSegev 1999 433 In private, however, David Ben-Gurion was unequivocal: the Arabs, he said, were "fighting dispossession ... The fear is not of losing land, but of losing the homeland of the Arab people, which others want to turn into the homeland of the Jewish people."Morris 1999 136 British historian Alan Allport, in his 2020 survey of the British Empire on the eve of the Second World War concludes that murderous incidents like al-Bassa: were outrageous precisely because they were unusual. On the whole, the British Army and the various colonial gendarmeries that worked alongside it in the 1920s and 1930s behaved fairly well—certainly with a good deal more self-restraint than security forces of other imperial states. There is nothing in the British record in Palestine to compare with the devastating violence of the Rif War in Spanish Morocco for instance or the Italian pacification of Libya, both of which involve killing on a vastly greater scale. Many British soldiers behaved impeccably in Palestine during the Arab revolt.Allport 2020 51 He concludes that it was the "Palestine surge"—that is, London's use of sheer weight of numbers to overwhelm and crush the Arab rebels—was a success.Allport 2020 66 Matthew Hughes, a leading authority on the Revolt, notes that it is a standard move in British historiography to contrast the relative mildness of British counter-insurgency achievements with those of other Western colonial powers. A contrast is frequently drawn between the German suppression of the Herero, Belgium's genocide in the Congo and France's violence in Algeria to the winning-the-hearts-and-minds approach Britain is said to have adopted in Kenya in containing the Mau Mau revolt. One British military commander asserted that "If the Germans were in occupation in Haifa we'd not have any bloody troubles from the Arabs."Hughes 2009a 314 Nonetheless, while moderating forces did mitigate the violence, atrocities were committed, torture used, brutality commonplace. Collective punishment, the razing of villages, the smashing of personal property in homes, and the destruction of foodstocks was widespread. Britain's pacification succeeded and "left Palestine in ruins."Hughes 2009a 313–354Hughes 2019 15 In popular culture Palestine 36, a 2025 historical drama film directed by Annemarie Jacir, is set during the Great Palestinian Revolt.Chang Justin 2026-03-20 "Two Prosecutors," "Palestine '36," and the Tribulations of Resistance in the Thirties https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-current-cinema/two-prosecutors-palestine-36-and-the-tribulations-of-resistance-in-the-thirties 2026-03-24 The New Yorker en-US 0028-792XIrfan Anne 2025-11-07 Palestine 36 tells a forgotten story of revolt – and how the legacy of colonialism endures in Palestine https://theconversation.com/palestine-36-tells-a-forgotten-story-of-revolt-and-how-the-legacy-of-colonialism-endures-in-palestine-269052 2026-03-24 The Conversation en-US See also 1929 Palestine riots 1938 Tiberias massacre 1941 Iraqi coup d'état Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine List of conflicts in the Middle East List of modern conflicts in the Middle East Palestinian nationalism Woodhead Commission Notes References Citations 20em Sources 35em Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938–1941 Allport Alan Alan Allport Profile Books 2020 https://books.google.com/books?id=9jGzDwAAQBAJ&dq=Britain+at+Bay:+The+Epic+Story+of+the+Second+World+War,+1938%E2%80%931941%2Boutrageous+precisely+because+they+were+unusual&pg=PT78 978-1-781-25781-4 Adelman Jonathan R. 2008 The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State Routledge 978-0-415-77510-6 Anglim Simon 2005 Orde Wingate, the Iron Wall and Counter-Terrorism in Palestine 1937–39 Strategic and Combat Studies Institute 978-1-874-34639-5 Italian Involvement in the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–1939 Arielli Nir August 2008 British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 35 2 187–204 10.1080/13530190802180597 20455584 145144088 1353-0194 Bajohr Frank 2002 "Aryanisation" in Hamburg: The Economic Exclusion of Jews and the Confiscation of their Property in Nazi Germany Berghahn Books 978-1-57181-485-2 A Never-ending Conflict: A Guide to Israeli Military History Bar-On Mordechai Mordechai Bar-On Greenwood Publishing Group 2004 978-0-275-98158-7 Ben-Ami Shlomo Shlomo Ben-Ami 2005 Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy Weidenfeld & Nicolson 978-0-297-84883-7 Ben-Yehuda Hahman 1993 Political Assassinations by Jews https://sunypress.edu/Books/P/Political-Assassinations-by-Jews State University of New York Press 155–157 978-0-7914-1166-7 Black Ian Ian Black (journalist) Morris Benny 1991 Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services Grove Weidenfeld 978-0-8021-3286-4 Black Jeremy Jeremy Black (historian) 2006 A Military History of Britain: From 1775 to the Present Greenwood Publishing 978-0-275-99039-8 Bowyer Bell John J. Bowyer Bell 1996 Terror Out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli Independence Transaction Publishers 978-1-56000-870-5 Cleveland William L. 2000 A History of the Modern Middle East Westview Press 978-0-8133-3489-9 Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948 Cohen Hillel Hillel Cohen 2009 University of California Press https://books.google.com/books?id=LMIk4adlKr0C&pg=PA122 978-0-520-25989-8 Historical dictionary of Syria Commins David Dean https://books.google.com/books?id=QyTCNAEACAAJ 2004 Scarecrow Press 978-0-810-84934-1 Ferrier Ronald W. Bamberg J. H. 1994 The History of the British Petroleum Company: 1928–1954. The Anglo-Iranian Years Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-25950-7 Anglo-Italian Relations in the Middle East, 1922–1940 Fiore Massimiliano 2010 Routledge 978-0-754-66964-7 Fleischmann Ellen L. Spring 2000 The Emergence of the Palestinian Women's Movement, 1929–39 Journal of Palestine Studies 29 3 16–32 10.2307/2676453 2676453 Friling Tuvia 2005 Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv leadership, and Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust University of Wisconsin Press 978-0-299-17550-4 Fry Michael G. MacKereth Gilbert Rabinovich Itamar 1985 Despatches from Damascus: Gilbert MacKereth and British Policy in the Levant, 1933–1939 Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Shiloah Institute, Tel Aviv University 978-965-224-004-0 Gettleman Marvin E. Schaar Stuart 2003 The Middle East and Islamic World Reader Grove Press 978-0-8021-3936-8 Gilbert Martin Martin Gilbert 1998 Israel: A History Black Swan Publishers 978-0-552-99545-0 Harouvi Eldad 1999 Reuven Zaslany (Shiloah) and the Covert Cooperation with British Intelligence During the Second World War Carmel Hési Intelligence for Peace: The Role of Intelligence in Times of Peace Routledge 978-0-7146-4950-4 Harris Sir Arthur 1998 Bomber Offensive Greenhill Books 30–48 978-1-85367-314-6 Herf Jeffrey Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World https://books.google.com/books?id=YzQNSTvHv-sC&pg=PA32 2009 Yale University 978-0-300-15583-9 Hoffman Bruce 2015 Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917–1947 Knopf Horne Edward 2003 A Job Well Done: A History of the Palestine Police Force, 1920–1948 Book Guild 978-1-85776-758-2 (First published 1982 by the Palestine Police) Hughes Matthew 2009a The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39 http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/7251/4/The%20banality%20of%20brutality.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20160221163210/http://v-scheiner.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/7251/4/The%20banality%20of%20brutality.pdf dead 21 February 2016 English Historical Review CXXIV 507 314–354 10.1093/ehr/cep002 Palestinian Collaboration with the British: The Peace Bands and the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–9 Hughes Matthew 2016b Journal of Contemporary History 51 2 291–315 10.1177/0022009415572401 free 159743031 Hughes Matthew 2019 Britain's Pacification of Palestine: The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936–1939 https://books.google.com/books?id=3sqCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105 Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-10320-7 Kabahā Muṣṭafá 2014 The Palestinian People: Seeking Sovereignty and State https://books.google.com/books?id=QyTCNAEACAAJ Lynne Rienner Publishers, Incorporated 978-1-58826-882-2 Kayyālī Abd al-Wahhāb 1978 Palestine: A Modern History Routledge 978-0-85664-635-5 Kelly Matthew Kraig Winter 2015 The Revolt of 1936: A Revision https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jps.2015.44.2.28 Journal of Palestine Studies 44 2 28–42 10.1525/jps.2015.44.2.28 10.1525/jps.2015.44.2.28 subscription Kelly Matthew 2017 The Crime of Nationalism: Britain, Palestine, and Nation-Building on the Fringe of Empire University of California Press 978-0-520-29149-2 Khalidi Rashid Rashid Khalidi 2001 The Palestinians and 1948: the underlying causes of failure http://ismi.emory.edu/home/documents/Readings/Khalidi,%20Rashid%201948.pdf Rogan Eugene Shlaim Avi Eugene Rogan Avi Shlaim The War for Palestine Cambridge University Press 12–36 978-0-521-79476-3 Kimmerling Baruch Baruch Kimmerling Migdal Joseph S. 2003 The Palestinian People: A History Harvard University Press 978-0-674-01129-8 Krämer Gudrun Gudrun Krämer 2008 A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel https://books.google.com/books?id=tWrW_CKODdQC&pg=PA274 Princeton University Press 978-0-691-15007-9 Laffin John John Laffin 1979 The Israeli Mind Cassell 978-0-304-30399-1 Levenberg Haim 1993 Military Preparations of the Arab Community in Palestine: 1945–1948 London Routledge 978-0-7146-3439-5 Laurens Henry Henry Laurens (scholar) 2002 1922–1947 Une mission sacrée de civilisation 1922–1947: A sacred Mission of Civilization fr La Question de Palestine 2 Fayard 978-2-213-61251-5 Louis William Roger 2006 Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization https://books.google.com/books?id=NQnpQNKeKKAC I. B. Tauris 978-1-84511-347-6 Matthews Weldon C. 2006 Confronting an Empire, Constructing a Nation: Arab nationalists and popular politics in mandate Palestine I. B. Tauris 978-1-845-11173-1 Millman Brock 1998 The Ill-made Alliance: Anglo-Turkish Relations, 1934–1940 McGill-Queen's Press 978-0-7735-1603-8 Morris Benny Benny Morris 1999 Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–1999 John Murray Publishers 978-0-719-56222-8 Morris Benny Benny Morris 2004 The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited https://books.google.com/books?id=uM_kFX6edX8C&pg=PA11 Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-00967-6 Nashif Esmail 2008 Palestinian Political Prisoners: Identity and Community Taylor & Francis 978-0-415-44498-9 Nicosia Francis R. November 1980 Arab Nationalism and National Socialist Germany, 1933–1939. Ideological and Strategic Incompatibility International Journal of Middle East Studies 12 3 351–372 10.1017/S0020743800026350 161300717 Nicosia Francis R. 2008 Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-88392-4 Nicosia Francis R. 2014 Nazi Germany and the Arab World Harvard University Norris Jacob 2008 Repression and Rebellion: Britain's Response to the Arab Revolt in Palestine of 1936–39 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03086530801889350 The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 36 1 25–45 10.1080/03086530801889350 159800348 subscription Omissi David E. 1990 Air Power and Colonial Control: the Royal Air Force, 1919–1939. Manchester University Press 978-0-7190-2960-8 Porath Yehoshua Yehoshua Porath 2015 1977 The Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion, 1929–1939 2 Routledge 978-1-138-90639-6 Raphael Patai Patai Raphael 1971 Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel Herzl Press Palestine Royal Commission Report Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, July 1937, Cmd. 5479 http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/88A6BF6F1BD82405852574CD006C457F https://web.archive.org/web/20120127035141/http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/88A6BF6F1BD82405852574CD006C457F 27 January 2012 London His Majesty's Stationery Office 1937 404 pages + maps. Raider Mark A. Sarna Jonathan D. Zweig Ronald W. 2012 Abba Hillel Silver and American Zionism https://books.google.com/books?id=p9kEdaR8ekcC&pg=PA100 Routledge 978-1-136-31495-7 Rotter Andrew John 2008 Hiroshima: The World's Bomb Oxford University Press 978-0-19-280437-2 Sacharov Eliahu Eliahu Sacharoff 2004 Out of the Limelight: Events, Operations, Missions, and Personalities in Israeli History Gefen Publishing House Ltd 978-965-229-298-8 Sanagan Mark January 2013 Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Martyr: Rethinking 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam Die Welt des Islams 53 3–4 315–352 10.1163/15685152-5334P0002 24268904 Sanagan Mark 2020 Lightning Through the Clouds: ʿIzz al-Din al-Qassam and the Making of the Modern Middle East https://books.google.com/books?id=bkrUDwAAQBAJ&dq=Sanagan%2BLightning+through+the+clouds%2BYishuv%2Bnation-state&pg=PA106 University of Texas Press 978-1-477-32056-3 Segev Tom 1991 The Seventh Million Henry Holt & Co. 978-0-8050-6660-9 Segev Tom Tom Segev 1999 One Palestine, Complete https://archive.org/details/onepalestinecomp00sege/page/360 Metropolitan Books 978-0-8050-4848-3 Anita Shapira Shapira Anita 1999 Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948 Stanford University Press 978-0-8047-3776-0 Stewart Ninian 2002 The Royal Navy and the Palestine Patrol Taylor and Francis 978-0-7146-8254-9 Swedenburg Ted 2003 Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past University of Arkansas Press 978-1-55728-763-2 Thomas Martin 2008 Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder After 1914 University of California Press 978-0-520-25117-5 Thomas Martin 2007 The French Empire Between the Wars: Imperialism, Politics and Society Manchester University Press 978-0-719-07755-5 Townsend C. October 1988 The Defence of Palestine: Insurrection and Public Security, 1936–1939 The English Historical Review 103 917–949 10.1093/ehr/CIII.CCCCIX.917 Tripp Charles 2002 A History of Iraq Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-52900-6 Wasserstein Bernard Bernard Wasserstein 2004 Israel and Palestine Profile Books 978-1-861-97558-4 Wasserstein Bernard Bernard Wasserstein 2012 On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War https://books.google.com/books?id=HJSQZJKHX_8C Simon and Schuster 978-1-416-59427-7 Palestine: Statement of Policy Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, May 1939, Cmd 6019 https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/EB5B88C94ABA2AE585256D0B00555536 White Paper of 1939 London His Majesty's Stationery Office 1939 Yazbak Mahmoud July 2000 From Poverty to Revolt: Economic Factors in the Outbreak of the 1936 Rebellion in Palestine Middle Eastern Studies 36 3 93–113 10.1080/00263200008701319 4284093 143687219 Further reading George Antonius Antonius George 1945 1938 The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement Hamish Hamilton Year Zero of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: 1929 Cohen Hillel Hillel Cohen 2015 Brandeis University Press https://books.google.com/books?id=dW25CgAAQBAJ&dq=Cohel+Year+Zero+2015+ius+soli&pg=PA8 978-1-611-68811-5 Goren Tamir 2004 The Judaization of Haifa at the Time of the Arab Revolt Middle Eastern Studies 40 4 July 135–152 10.1080/00263200410001700356 144109522 Hughes Matthew The Practice and Theory of British Counterinsurgency: The Histories of the Atrocities at the Palestinian Villages of Al-Bassa and Halhul, 1938–1939 Small Wars & Insurgencies 20 3&4 September 2009 528–550 10.1080/09592310903027090 144764155 Hughes Matthew A British 'Foreign Legion'? The British Police in Mandate Palestine Middle Eastern Studies 49 5 2013 696–711 10.1080/00263206.2013.811656 144152921 https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/9798/2/Fulltext.pdf Hughes Matthew Terror in Galilee: British-Jewish Collaboration and the Special Night Squads in Palestine during the Arab Revolt, 1938–39 Imperial and Commonwealth History 43 4 2015 10.1080/03086534.2015.1083220 590–610 159806598 free Women, Violence, and the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39 Hughes Matthew April 2016 The Journal of Military History 83 487–507 https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/17614/5/FullText.pdf Johnson Loch K. 2010 The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence Oxford University Press 978-0-19-537588-6 Kaplan Eric 2005 The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy University of Wisconsin Press 978-0-299-20380-1 Kessler Oren Oren Kessler 2023 Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict Rowman & Littlefield 978-1-538-14880-8 The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood Khalidi Rashid Rashid Khalidi Beacon Press 2007 978-1-851-68532-5 From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948 Khalidi Walid Walid Khalidi Institute for Palestine Studies 1987 978-0-88728-155-6 Baruch Kimmerling Kimmerling Baruch 1989 The Israeli State and Society: Boundaries and Frontiers SUNY Press 978-0-88706-849-2 Morewood Stephen 2004 The British Defence of Egypt, 1935–1940: Conflict and Crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean Routledge 978-0-7146-4943-6 The Role of the Palestinian Peasantry in the Great Revolt (1936–1939) Swedenburg Ted 2004 The Modern Middle East Hourani Albert Albert Hourani I.B. Tauris 467–503 978-1-86064-963-9 External links The Arab Revolt in Palestine – A Zionist point of view The First Intifada: Rebellion in Palestine 1936–1939 – A view from British historian Charles Townshend Category:1930s revolutions Category:Arab nationalism in Mandatory Palestine Category:Arab nationalist rebellions Category:1936 conflicts Category:1937 conflicts Category:1938 conflicts Category:1939 conflicts Category:History of Mandatory Palestine Category:Insurgencies in Asia Category:Political history of the United Kingdom Category:Rebellions in Asia Category:Riots and civil disorder in Mandatory Palestine Category:1936 in Mandatory Palestine Category:1937 in Mandatory Palestine Category:1938 in Mandatory Palestine Category:1939 in Mandatory Palestine Category:Labor disputes in Palestine Category:Rebellions against the British Empire Category:Terrorism in Mandatory Palestine Category:Wars of independence