History of Palestine - 1936 - 1939 Arab Revolt - Part 6

Arab Revolt and the White Paper

In 1936 widespread rioting, later known as the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine broke out. The revolt was kindled when British forces killed Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam in 1935, in a gun battle. Izz al Din El Qassam was a Syrian preacher who had emigrated to Palestine. The demands of the strike were Independence for Jerusalem and a stop to removals of workers from the land.[1]

According to Abdullah Schleifer, Al-Qassam was:

'An individual deeply imbued with ‘the Islamic social gospel and who was struck by the plight of Palestinian peasants and migrants. Al-Qassam’s pastoral concern was linked to his moral outrage as a Muslim at the ways in which the old implicit social compact was being violated in the circumstances of British mandatory Palestine. This anger fueled a political radicalism that drove him eventually to take up arms and marks him off from the Palestinian notable politicians’ [2]

In 1930 al-Qassam organized and established the Black Hand Black Hand, an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organisation, which was subsequently classified by the Mandatory authority as a terrorist group.

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. However, on the first day of the revolt, the UK had no response or action to the attacks. 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 Haganah (Hebrew for "defense"), a Jewish paramilitary organization, actively supported British efforts to quell the 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. In 1931, an underground splinter group broke off from Haganah, calling itself the Irgun organization (or Etzel)[2] The Irgun adopted a policy of retaliation against Arabs for attacks on Jews. During the revolt Jews were systematically armed by British while 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.[3].

Despite the assistance of 20,000 additional British troops and several thousand Haganah men, the uprising continued for over two years. By the time it concluded in March 1939, more than 5,000 Arabs, 400 Jews, and 200 Britons had been killed and at least 15,000 Arabs were wounded[4].

The Yishuv (Jewish community) responded with both defensive measures, and with random terror and bombings of Arab civilian targets, perpetrated by the Irgun (Irgun Tsvai Leumi or "Etsel,"). The Peel Commissionof 1937 Palestine Royal Commission, was a British Royal Commission of Inquiry set out to propose changes to the British Mandate of Palestine following the outbreak of the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. It was headed by the Earl Peel. Peel Commission recommended partitioning Palestine into a small Jewish state and a large Arab one. The commission's recommendations also included voluntary transfer of Arabs and Jews to separate the populations. The Arab leadership rejected the plan[citation needed], while the Jewish opinion remained heatedly divided. The Twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich (3-16 August 1937) announced "that the partition plan proposed by the Peel Commission is not to be accepted, [but wished] to carry on negotiations in order to clarify the exact substance of the British government's proposal for the foundation of a Jewish state in Palestine". [5]

The population exchange, if carried out, would have involved the transfer of approximately 225,000 Arabs and 1,250 Jews. The British response was to set up the Woodhead Commission 1938 to "examine the Peel Commission plan in detail and to recommend an actual partition plan" This Commission declared the Peel Commission partition unworkable (though suggesting a different scheme under which 5% of the land area of Palestine become Israel). The British Government accompanied the publication of the Woodhead Report by a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable.

Partition Plan by Peel Commission

In response to the riots, the British began limiting immigration and the White Paper of 1939 decreed that 15,000 Jews would be allowed to enter Palestine each year for five years. Thereafter, immigration would be subject to Arab approval. At the same time, the British took drastic and often cruel steps to curtail the riots. The policy paper also abandoned the idea of partitioning the Mandate for Palestine in favour of creating an independent Palestine governed by Palestinian Arabs and Jews in proportion to their numbers in the population by 1949

1- A History of Palestinian Resistance, Daud Abdulla.
2- Abdullah Schleifer, 'Izz al-Din al-Qassam: Preacher and Mujahid,' in Edmund Burke (ed.), Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, IB Tauris, London and New York,1993 Ch.11 p.164
3- ^ Benny Morris (1999). Righteous Victims. Knopf. pp. 159. ISBN 0-679-421203
4- Aljazeera: The history of Palestinian revolts
5- a b "Timeline: 1937", Jewish Agency for Israel