Part IX Alex Grobman, PhD
The first battle in the fierce clash between the Arabs and the Jews for control of Palestine began on April 19, 1936, notes Martin Gilbert. Known as the Rebellion, the passion, intensity, and the political response it precipitated far surpassed previous violent encounters between these two peoples, forcing the Jews to reassess their belief that Zionist goals could be achieved through peaceful means.
On April 15, 1936, the Arabs initiated a general strike for six months to protest any further immigration, historian Anita Shapira said. On May 7, Arab leaders met in Jerusalem and demanded an end to immigration, a prohibition against any more land sales to Jews, and the establishment of a government with an Arab majority. The strike would end once the demands had been met.
Initially, the Arab Rebellion did not appear to be different from prior violent Arab episodes, Gilbert said. After hearing fallacious reports that Arabs had been attacked in Tel Aviv, Arabs began assaulting Jews in the street. On April 19, “Bloody Sunday,” nine Jews were killed and 10 were injured. Throughout Palestine, Jewish homes and farms were ransacked and burned while Jews were attacked on public buses, Shapira said. In one month, 21 men, women and children were killed. By October 1936, the number had risen to 80, yet the Jewish Agency advised restraint, and the Jews did not retaliate.
Arab leaders responded to the strife—initiated spontaneously by young Arab radicals and supported spontaneously by large sections of the community—by establishing the Arab Higher Committee. The conflict had been transformed from “a violent protest movement to an organized rebellion.”
The Arab Economy
The Arab economy paid dearly for the strike, Gilbert said. The Arabs did not go to work in the Jewish settlements, stopped selling their produce to Jews, and Arab businesses were closed. Jews avoided the Jaffa port out of fear of being killed or injured. Without access to fresh fruit and vegetables, the Jews had to develop and manage their own agricultural facilities. Many Jews saw this development as justification for their insistence on “Jewish labor” and “Jewish produce,” which had been the subject of much controversy in the early 1930s.
Escalation of the Organized Popular Uprising
The violence accelerated the separation of Jews from the Arabs, a process begun in the aftermath of the 1929 riots, Shapira said. Fearing for their lives, Jews living in mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhoods, now called “frontier neighborhoods,” abandoned their homes and escaped to all-Jewish areas.
Shapira adds that, unlike the previous clashes, the Arab Revolt signified a marked increase in Arab participation, organization and sophistication. Arabs were willing to sacrifice their economic livelihoods, and often their lives, to fight the Jews. Over the years, increased Jewish immigration followed by economic growth in Palestine had caused anxiety among the Arabs that they could no longer contain the Jewish presence peacefully. A number of groups began to believe that violence was the only way to prevent more Jews from entering the country, and beginning in the early 1930s, gangs of Arab terrorists started killing Jews indiscriminately.
This popular national uprising was an organized political operation under a central command in which the Arabs remained disciplined, Shapira said. The failure of the British to accede to the three prerequisites for ending the strike did not affect the reputation of the Arab leaders. Arab kings had asked that the strike end to allow the British Royal Peel Commission that would arrive in Palestine to investigate the fundamental causes for the revolt.
David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, said Ibn Saud, the founder and first king of Saudi Arabia, persuaded the Arabs to end the violence. “All the intercession of the other kings had been valueless,” Ben-Gurion said. Ibn Saud was the only sovereign ruler. John Philby, chief British representative, Transjordan (1921-1924), asked whether the Jews had any rights in Palestine and if their arrival in Palestine had been lawful or talm (an injustice). Without the slightest hesitation, Ibn Saud responded, “Talm.”
Shipra states that the Arab rebellion revived the question in the Yishuv as to whether this was a pogrom or the manifestation of an Arab national movement. Ben-Gurion interpreted the attacks as “a bloody war against the [British] government and against us.” Others, she said, were not as convinced. Whatever the reasons for the disturbances, there was a realization that hostilities between the Jews and Arabs would continue until the Arabs accepted the permanent presence of the Jews in Palestine.
The brutal nature of the assaults against unarmed and defenseless civilians, Shapira said, reinforced the image of the Arab as bloodthirsty, “hungry for spoil” and devoid of all moral inhibitions. Arabs frequently set fires to Jewish property and fields just to destroy years of Jewish labor. When they chopped down thousands of trees that Jews had planted, they attacked one of the most visible symbols of the Yishuv.
She added that after graves in Safed were desecrated, Beryl Katznelson, one of the “political and ideological” founders of Labor Zionism, who played a key role in the establishment of the Jewish State, remarked that “human life is more precious than plant life and stone graves in a cemetery … but the destruction of plant life and stone is instructive regarding the nature of the destroyer and his dark urges; it teaches us [about] more than bloodshed.”
Daily interaction between Arabs and Jews was profoundly affected by the revolt, Shapira said. Old friendships were replaced by mutual suspicions, absence of trust and apprehension about engaging in any out-of-the-ordinary activities. Arabs could walk freely in Jewish sections, but Jews risked being killed if they were found in Arab areas.
For the Arabs, Jews were the enemy simply because they were Jews. This was an all-out war against the Jews in Palestine and they were determined to win. Arab terrorists were lauded for their exploits, whereas no Arab leaders denounced these vicious acts and killings. When Jews engaged in brutal actions against Arabs, Yishuv responded with outrage, alarm and severe doubts. Ben-Gurion claimed that Arab terror influenced the British but that it was destructive for the Jews: “Terror brings advantages to the Arabs; but terror will destroy Zionism and the Jewish community in Palestine.”
The rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, Shapira notes, struck a responsive chord among the Arabs in Palestine, causing concern among members of the Yishuv. The Arab Higher Committee received funds directly from Italy that were used to finance the rebellion. Arab shop windows were adorned with portraits of Hitler, and swastikas appeared in towns. Some Jews saw events in Palestine as part of Nazi terror.
The need to respond offensively to Arab aggression, Shapira said, encouraged the Yishuv to establish an autonomous Jewish fighting force to confront the Arabs or at least fill in the vacuum left by the British. The possibility of establishing a Jewish state added urgency to providing security for the nation, as did the growing interest of the Arab states in the future of Palestine. After the Arab kings called a halt to the Arab strike, they began to evince interest in the fate of the area, leading to fears that they might intercede in any conflict between the Jews and Arabs.
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society, a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and on the advisory board of the National Christian Leadership Conference of Israel (NCLCI). He has an MA and PhD in contemporary Jewish history from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
