The Great Arab Revolt
Palestinian Arabs rise against British rule and Jewish immigration with a six-month general strike and then armed rebellion; Britain crushes it, leaving Palestinian society weakened before 1948.
- Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past — Ted Swedenburg, University of Minnesota Press (1995)
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books (2020)
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books (2000)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
In April 1936, after years of rising Jewish immigration, land loss and the killing of the preacher-rebel Izz al-Din al-Qassam by British police in 1935, Palestinian Arabs launched a general strike that lasted six months. The newly formed Arab Higher Committee, led by Jerusalem’s Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, demanded an end to immigration and land sales and a representative government.
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books (2020)
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books (2000)
In 1937 the British Peel Commission proposed partition. Rejection of the plan reignited the revolt as a guerrilla war led by village bands, who for a time controlled much of the countryside. Britain sent tens of thousands of troops, demolished homes, carried out executions and imposed collective punishments, working with Jewish auxiliaries and “special night squads”. Rebels also attacked Jewish civilians and killed Palestinian rivals accused of collaboration.
- Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past — Ted Swedenburg, University of Minnesota Press (1995)
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books (2000)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
By 1939 the revolt was over. Around 5,000 Palestinian Arabs had been killed, according to Rashid Khalidi, and many more wounded, jailed or exiled, along with several hundred Jews and British. Britain’s 1939 White Paper then limited Jewish immigration, a political win that came too late to rebuild a shattered leadership.
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books (2020)
- Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 — Benny Morris, Vintage (2001)
A national revolt against colonial rule and the Zionist project, crushed by an empire with collective punishment, executions and house demolitions.
- Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past — Ted Swedenburg, University of Minnesota Press (1995)
- The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 — Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books (2020)
Known in Hebrew as "the Events", a campaign of Arab terror against Jewish civilians and settlements, in which hundreds of Jews were killed; it pushed the Yishuv to build up the Haganah and its own defences.
- Israel: A History — Anita Shapira, Brandeis University Press (2012)
- One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate — Tom Segev, Metropolitan Books (2000)
Why it matters today
The revolt is remembered as the first great Palestinian uprising, with the keffiyeh as its badge; the peasant rebel became a national hero. Its defeat, and the loss of so many leaders and fighters, is part of why Palestinians were so vulnerable a decade later.