'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎81r] (166/294)

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It was therefore hardly surprising that in 1936 the British Con
stables should have had an infinite preference for the more militant
duties. Unfortunately hov/ever they had had little tactical training and
were not well organized for soldiers’ work. Too often in consequence
gallantry in action was not applied to the best advantage, and one or
two disasters occurred which trained soldiers might well have avoided.
Meanwhile beats had to be patrolled and routine policing carried out,
and under the special circumstances much of it had of necessity to be
done by British personnel. There were times when soldiers were left
to do this in amateur fashion while trained British policemen were out
after armed bands, a reversal of roles which obviously resulted in both
tasks being carried out with a loss of efficiency.
Even when there was not an actual reversal of rbles a certain
amount of duplication was difficult to avoid where police were used to
perform soldiers' duties under quite separate control. A call for
assistance from a Jewish colony which was being attacked would often be
answered by both police and troops independently, while it sometimes
happened that both police and military cars would be patrolling the
same road. Apart from the waste of effort which all this involved,
it necessitated very close personal touch between local commanders to
avoid the possibility of an accidental clash. Had both police and
troops been serving under one command, each would have been used for
the type of role for which they were best fitted and there would still
have been ample opportunity of ensuring that the British constable had
an active share in the operations. But it would have avoided duplica
tion of effort, would have saved all the loss of efficiency which re
sulted from using soldiers as policemen and vice-versa, and above all
would have enabled more troops to be employed upon offensive action.
The advantages of a unified command therefore appears to provide the
first lesson in the employment of troops and police on the task of
suppressing rebellion.
The Arab Police
Arabs made up the majority of the regular police, numbering in
round figures some 1500. They manned all the village police stations
and posts in the rural areas, except those which were exclusively
Jewish. Some of the rural stations were equipped with wireless and^
were admirably situated for collecting information regarding tne activi
ties of armed bands, but for reasons which have already been explained
practically none was ever forthcoming. In some cases it was even
necessary to remove wireless sets from certain stations, and during at
least one operation British police had to be sent to a post for the sole
purpose of preventing the Arab constables from using the telephone,
Arabs did however perform the very useful service of relieving uhe
British Police of much routine work in the prevention oi ordinary crime
and in duties such as traffic control.
The Jewish Police
The Jewish Police, in company with the rest of the Jews, suffered
from a conviction which seemed to be firmly held oy every British
official without practical experience that no Jew was ol a.ny use o^.
fighting purposes. It was a curious thing that the type of Eng is. an
who credited every Arab town lounger with the attributes ol Be °ain
warrior would not hesitate to class the toughest German emigiant
the old-fashioned ringletted Jew of the ghetto. The lalsity 01 this
view was plainly demonstrated to the Army t>y the worx of he ews \
drove most of the military transport in 1936, while tne records of 19
18 might well have provided further proof; but^never e ess in °
quarters the conviction persisted. In the Police i n^d^one j.mpoi
effect in preventing any Jewish Police being posted oO Ara &r a