'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎25r] (54/294)

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Under this heading the urgent need for secrecy alone would have
supplied the answer* The leakage in official and police circles has
already been referred to, and so long as the military acted in aid of
the civil power and therefore had to lay their plans before it so long
were operations imperilled by lack of secrecy. Curfew certainly, and
also a form of censorship was enforced by the civil power so far as the
law allowed; but, to quote the opinion of the Royal Commission, H the_
penalties provided by t he Press Ordinance and the action tak en under it
were insufficient to coj^e with an aggravated evil like the Palestin e Press.
Restrictions on circulation were not imposed, and yet it would have^oeen
of inestimable value during the operations had inhabitants of certain
areas been forced to carry passes which could have been checked, say,
with fingerprints. Had this been combined with legislation to force
them to sleep each night in their own homes, villages could have been
visited in order to round up strangers and to note absentees for
apprehension and p uni slime nt • Such action would have gone a long way
towards curtailing the activities of armed bands, and is one of the
many ways in which martial law might have helped "to protect life and
property" without necessarily involving violence against the population.
(ii) Is the existing legal system, or the authority of the existing
criminal courts, inadequate to provide a deterrent against crime pr_
does the situation demand the more summary punishment of offence s^
which martial law alone can provide?
There can be little dispute that the failure of the existing system
under this heading alone was ample justification for the declaration of
martial lav/.
Here figures can be allowed to speak for themselves. To take
murder alone, 260 cases were reported in 1936 of which 67 persons were
convicted and yet not a single dea.th sentence was carried out. ihe
Royal Commission in quoting these figures, after comparing them with
the results of action taken against rioters in 1929, remarks "in_1936^
convictions were even fewer. Yet the prompt and adequate punishment
o f crime is a vital factor in the maintenance of law and order .^
Little more need be said here, and it is unnecessaiy to dwell upon the
influence exerted by the Arab judges and prosecutors whose sympathies
with the rebels were scarcely disguised. There are hov/ever two minor
points which are worthy of note for the future. Where rebels have
a substantial central fund the imposition of money fines on individual
offenders is a poor deterrent, since they are cither reimbursed by the
leaders or regard themselves lucky to have been able to contribute to
the "cause" by an often insignificant sum of money rather than by
personal inconvenience. It was noticeable in Palestine that many
members of gangs were youths of 16-18 years whom it was obviously
undesirable to sentence to capital punishment or long terms of
imprisonment. Here martial law might have provided a strong deterrent
in the shape of corporal punishment followed by a period of employment
in a special labour unit on v/ork of educational value.
fiii') i s the disorder so grave, and the situation so out of han d,_
that no consideration of the loss of prestige consequent upo n^hc^
abdication of the" civil power or its supersess ion can weigh
the call for immediate and drastic measures which the civil powe r
cannot provide?
This must always remain a matter of opinion and one on which the
military commander and the civil authorities are least likely to agree.
It is the civil official whose prestige is at stake^and naturally he
will regard abdication with extreme distaste, especially as he will
probably look upon it as a final confession of failure. A special
responsibility in this direction therefore-rests upon the commander
who recommends martial law, and he will be well advised to point
out that if repressive measures have to be taken which may leave
bitterness in their wake it is better for the soldiers to