'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎11r] (26/294)

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7
EVENTS LEADING TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION
The rebellion of 1936 was the fifth outbreak of violence since the
British occupation of Palestine. It was the first to be directed
deliberately against the Government and against British authority.
The riots of 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1933 had been solely of an inter
racial character, being directed by the Arabs against the Jews as the
latter developed with unprecedented rapidity from an unobtrusive
minority into a community of great political, industrial and agricult
ural importance. The years 1934 and 1935 saw an enormous increase in
Jewish immigration - over 100,000 being admitted legally during that
period - which, together with extensive land purchases by Jews, pro
foundly disturbed the Arab population. At the same time they noted
with deep interest the gaining of independence by Iraq and the example
of a prolonged and successful strike in Syria against the French
authorities. On top of this came the Mediterranean crisis in the
autumn of 1935, which followed upon the Italian invasion of Abyssinia,
Its immediate consequences in Palestine were the failure of the tourist
season, with the very serious local losses which that involves, and a
marked lowering of British prestige.
By October the Arab leaders were beginning to feel that the
opportunity to realise their political and national aims was drawing
close, and two further incidents occurred before the end of the year
which did much to confirm that belief. In October an abortive attempt
was made to smuggle a large quantity of arms and ammunition through the
Port of Jaffa, and every Arab firmly believed that these were intended
for Jews for purposes of aggression. Then, in the xollowing month,
one Sheikh Izz Ud Din A1 Qassam, acting on fanatical impulse, took to
the hills in the Jenin area with an armed following. His career was
cut short by the total destruction of his band by the police,^but his
action was acclaimed by the Arabs as an act of patriotic sacrifice.
The beginning of 1936 thus found the stage set for a further out
break of serious trouble; it is unlikely that any definite programme
had yet been prepared, but the crowd was ready and an unrehearsed cue
might send up the curtain. It came suddenly in the third week of April.
On the night of the fifteenth Arab highwaymen held up a number of cars
on the road between Tulkarm and Nablus and deliberately singled out
three Jews whom they shot down in cold blood. The following night two
armed men, who were generally believed to be Jews, entered a hut near
Petah Tiqva and shot dead the two Arab occupants. On the 17th and 18th
inter-racial feeling ran very high, particularly where Arabs and Jews
met on the Jaffa-Tel Aviv border, and various acts of violence occurred
including a number of Jewish assaults on Arabs.
On the morning of Sunday, the 19th April, the wildest rumours of
Jewish murders of Arabs — all quite unfounded — oegan to circulate in
Jaffa, and crov/ds of Arabs started to congregate in the centre of the
town. All the efforts of the District Commissioner failed to convince
either the crowd or their leaders oi the falsity of these reports and,
while the parley was actually in progress, further and even wilder
rumours reached tne mob. At this all semblance o± control broke, and
throughout Jaffa and on the first few miles of the road to Jerusalem
Arab crowds made violent and indiscriminate attacks on every Jew or
European, regardless of age or sex. By midday the rebellion had
started: murderous mobs of Arabs had stopped all road communication
between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the entrances to Jaffa were strewn
with overturned cars and burning buses amid a welter ol blood, stones
and broken glass.