The Palestine Revolt of 1936 and Other Arab-Israeli Prehistory

The Palestine Revolt of 1936
and Other Arab-Israeli Prehistory

Outside of a perennial longing of Jews to return to the land from which they had been exiled millennia ago the Zionist movement traces to the Dreyfus Affair. Russian pogroms had already taught Jews of their tenuous existence in eastern Europe;

Dreyfus showed that even in liberal France where Jews had legal equality safety was at best an illusion. The goal of Zionism was simple, find some land, somewhere, where Jews could live in peace.

Balfour Declaration 

From a Zionist point of view the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which stated British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, was a simple advancement of their stated goals. The British hoped the declaration would stimulate interest in the United States to enter World War I and encourage Jewish Bolsheviks in Russia to continue fighting Germany. Of course, at the same time others in the British government were promising Palestine to Arabs.

Hebron Massacre

By 1929, Arab resentment against Jewish immigration and the British failure to keep their promises of independent Arab states boiled over. A minor dispute over a screen erected at the Wailing Wall escalated into a pogrom. Arab rioters attacked Jews throughout Palestine. The worst of these occurred in Hebron. Rioters ravaged the city, breaking into homes and murdering the inhabitants. In all, 67 Jews were killed and British troops took all of the remaining Jewish survivors out of the city for their own safety. Jews were not allowed in the city again until 1967.

There was another Hebron Massacre. In 1994, an Israeli born in the United States attacked worshipers in a Hebron mosque killing 29, although some Arab sources claim the death toll equal to the 1929 massacre.

Hebron, where Abraham settled and made his covenant with God, is holy to both Arabs and Jews.

The Palestine Revolt of 1936

Now we come to the meat of things. The 1936 revolt was a defining moment in Arab-Jewish relations and, strangely, saw the first uses of some now common strategies. 

The riots started after the Mufti of Jerusalem called for a general strike and boycott of all Jewish businesses. Gangs would attack Jewish buses by throwing rocks (as in the later Intifadas). The picture above shows an armored bus of the time. The Irgun responded with a program of terror bombings targeting non-combatants that became the template for modern Palestinian terror campaigns.

The British were initially overwhelmed. One of the strategies they developed was the use of human shields. They would take Arab hostages and tie them to the front of trucks ("the bonnets of lorries," to use the British expression), or place them in front of trains so any attack on troop transports would first kill innocent Arabs.

when you'd finished your duty you would come away nothing had happened no bombs or anything and the driver would switch his wheel back and to make the truck waver and the poor wog on the front would roll off into the deck. Well if he was lucky he'd get away with a broken leg but if he was unlucky the truck behind coming up behind would hit him. But nobody bothered to pick up the bits they were left. ~ source

The British also tortured both Arab and Jewish prisoners (although mostly Arabs) using electronic shock, whippings, and waterboarding. The British used a strategy that the Israel Defense Force has adopted of demolishing the homes of suspected Arab "troublemakers." 

British Army Captain Orde Wingate organized elite counter-insurgency units called Special Night Squads (above, during the day). These units were manned by Jews and led by Brits. Wingate was an evangelical Christian who devoutly believed there had to be a Jewish state in Palestine for the anti-Christ to annihilate as a precursor to the second coming of Jesus.

The Arab Revolt of 1936 caused the flight of Palestine's intellectual and financial leadership. Much like in Iraq, any Arab who could leave did. The number of Palestinian Arabs willing to work with and coexist with Jews evaporated.

Of course, the British paid back the Jewish leadership that stayed loyal to England during the revolt by stabbing them in the back and cutting off German Jewish refugee access to Palestine