|
Israel
The Palestinian Revolt, 1936-39
By 1936 the increase in Jewish immigration and land acquisition,
the growing power of Hajj Amin al Husayni, and general Arab frustration
at the continuation of European rule, radicalized increasing numbers
of Palestinian Arabs. Thus, in April 1936 an Arab attack on a
Jewish bus led to a series of incidents that escalated into a
major Palestinian rebellion. An Arab Higher Committee (AHC), a
loose coalition of recently formed Arab political parties, was
created. It declared a national strike in support of three basic
demands: cessation of Jewish immigration, an end to all further
land sales to the Jews, and the establishment of an Arab national
government.
The intensity of the Palestinian Revolt, at a time when Britain
was preparing for the possibility of another world war, led the
British to reorient their policy in Palestine. As war with Germany
became imminent, Britain's dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and
therefore the need for Arab goodwill, loomed increasingly large
in its strategic thinking. Jewish leverage in the Foreign Office,
on the other hand, had waned; the pro-Zionists, Balfour and Samuels,
had left the Foreign Office and the new administration was not
inclined toward the Zionist position. Furthermore, the Jews had
little choice but to support Britain against Nazi Germany. Thus,
Britain's commitment to a Jewish homeland in Palestine dissipated,
and the Mandate authorities pursued a policy of appeasement with
respect to the Arabs.
Britain's policy change in Palestine was not, however, easily
implemented. Since the 1917 Balfour Declaration, successive British
governments had supported (or at least not rejected) a Jewish
national home in Palestine. The Mandate itself was premised on
that pledge. By the mid-1930s, the Yishuv had grown to about 400,000,
and the Jewish economic and political structures in Palestine
were well ensconced. The extent of the Jewish presence and the
rapidly deteriorating fate of European Jewry meant that the British
would have an extremely difficult time extricating themselves
from the Balfour Declaration. Furthermore, the existing Palestinian
leadership, dominated by Hajj Amin al Husayni, was unwilling to
grant members of the Jewish community citizenship or to guarantee
their safety if a new Arab entity were to emerge. Thus, for the
British the real options were to impose partition, to pull out
and leave the Jews and Arabs to fight it out, or to stay and improvise.
In 1937 the British, working with their regional Arab allies,
Amir Abdullah of Transjordan, King Ghazi of Iraq, and King Abdul
Aziz ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, mediated an end to the revolt with
the AHC. A Royal Commission on Palestine (known as the Peel Commission)
was immediately dispatched to Palestine. Its report, issued in
July 1937, described the Arab and Zionist positions and the British
obligation to each as irreconcilable and the existing Mandate
as unworkable. It recommended partition of Palestine into Jewish
and Arab states, with a retained British Mandate over Nazareth,
Bethlehem, and Jerusalem and a corridor from Jerusalem to the
coast .
In 1937 the Twentieth Zionist Congress rejected the proposed
boundaries but agreed in principle to partition. Palestinian Arab
nationalists rejected any kind of partition. The British government
approved the idea of partition and sent a technical team to make
a detailed plan. This group, the Woodhead Commission, reversed
the Peel Commission's findings and reported in November 1937 that
partition was impracticable; this view in its turn was accepted.
The Palestinian Revolt broke out again in the autumn of 1937.
The British put down the revolt using harsh measures, shutting
down the AHC and deporting many Palestinian Arab leaders.
With their leadership residing outside Palestine, the Arabs were
unable to match the Zionists' highly sophisticated organization.
Another outcome of the Palestinian Revolt was the involvement
of the Arab states as advocates of the Palestinian Arabs. Whereas
Britain had previously tended to deal with its commitments in
Palestine as separate from its commitments elsewhere in the Middle
East, by 1939 pan-Arab pressure carried increasing weight in London.
In the Yishuv, the Palestinian Revolt reinforced the already
firm belief in the need for a strong Jewish defense network. Finally,
the Arab agricultural boycott that began in 1936 forced the Jewish
economy into even greater self-sufficiency.
Data as of December 1988
|
