Great Uprising
The
Great Uprising,
Great Revolt, or
Great Arab Revolt was an uprising by Palestinian
Arabs in the
British Mandate of Palestine which lasted from 1936 to 1939. It should not be confused with the
Arab Revolt of 1916-1918.
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The Great Uprising in Palestine. A Jewish bus equipped with wire screens to protect against rock and grenade throwing |
In April
1936, the
Arab leadership in the
British Mandate of Palestine, led by Hajj
Amin al-Husayni, declared a
general strike to protest against, and put an end to
Jewish immigration to Palestine. The revolt was driven primarily by Arab hostility to
Britain's permission of restricted Jewish immigration and land purchases which Palestinian Arabs believed was leading them to becoming a minority in the territory and future nation-state. They demanded immediate elections which, based on their demographic majority, would have resulted in a democratic Arab government.
About one month after the general strike started the leadership group declared a general non-payment of taxes in explicit opposition to Jewish immigration. In the countryside, armed insurrection started sporadically, becoming more organised with time. One particular target of the rebels was the major TAP oil pipeline constructed only a few years earlier from Kirkuk to Haifa. This was repeatedly bombed at various points along its length. Other attacks were on railways (including trains), Jewish settlements, secluded Jewish neighbourhoods in the mixed cities, and Jews, both individually and in groups.
The strike was called off in October
1936 and the violence abated for about a year while the
Peel Commission deliberated and eventually recommended partition of Palestine. With the rejection of this proposal, the revolt resumed during the autumn of
1937, marked by the assassination of Commissioner Andrews in Nazareth. Violence continued throughout
1938 and eventually petered out in
1939. The decision of the French to crack down on Arab leaders in Damascus may have been a significant factor in stopping the conflict.
The
British responded to the violence by greatly expanding their military forces and clamping down on
Arab dissent. "Administrative detention" (imprisonment without charges or trial), curfews, and house demolitions were among British practices during this period. More than 120 Arabs were sentenced to death and about 40 hanged. The main Arab leaders were arrested or expelled.
Amin al-Husayni fled from
Palestine to escape arrest.
The mainstream
Jewish military organization, the
Haganah (
Hebrew for "defense"), actively supported British efforts to quell the largely
peasant insurgency, which reached 10,000 Arab fighters at their peak during the summer and fall of 1938. Although the British administration didn't officially recognize the
Haganah, the British security forces cooperated with it by forming the
Jewish Settlement Police,
Jewish Auxiliary Forces and
Special Night Squads. A smaller
Haganah splinter group, the
Irgun organization (also called by its Hebrew acronym
Etzel), adopted a policy of retaliation and revenge (including against civilians).
Despite the assistance of 20,000 additional
British troops and 14,500 well trained and well armed
Haganah men, the
Great Uprising continued for over three years. By the time order was restored in March of 1939, more than 5,000
Arabs, 400
Jews, and 200 Britons were killed.
Another outcome of the hostilities was the disengagement of the Jewish and Arab economies in Palestine, which were more or less intertwined until that time. For example, whereas the Jewish city of
Tel Aviv relied on the nearby Arab seaport of
Jaffa, hostilities dictated building a separate Jewish-run seaport for Tel-Aviv. Historians later pointed to the uprising as a pivotal point at which the Jewish population in Palestine became independent and self-sustaining. During the revolt, 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 Israeli War of Independence/
al-Nakba.
* Ted Swedenburg, "The Role of the Palestinian Peasentry in the Great Revolt (1936-1939)," reprinted in
Hourani, Albert H., et al.,
The Modern Middle East (
I.B. Tauris, 2004), pp. 467-503. ISBN 1860649637
*
British Mandate of Palestine*
Peel Commission*
Woodhead Commission *
White Paper of 1939*
The Arab Revolt in Palestine at
Zionism Israel Information Center*
The 1936-1939 Revolt in Palestine A Palestinian point of view by Ghassan Kanafini.
