Palestine · A closer look
1936
The Great Revolt
A six-month general strike became a three-year armed uprising against British rule and Zionist immigration. Britain answered with collective punishment, house demolitions and mass detention. Around five thousand Palestinians were killed, their leaders were exiled or imprisoned, and Palestinian society went into 1948 already broken.
From strike to armed resistance
The revolt developed from opposition to colonial rule and mass immigration into an extended confrontation with the British administration. Armed groups used ambushes, attacks on transport and other tactics against a much more powerful army. Rural areas became central to the conflict. British soldiers' photographs and records provide evidence of the campaign, but they reflect the perspective of the force sent to suppress it and should be read accordingly.
Source: National Army Museum: An Arab village, Palestine, 1936
A search for a political settlement
The uprising pushed Britain to reconsider the structure of its rule. The Peel Commission proposed partition in 1937, introducing territorial division as a possible answer to competing national demands. That proposal did not produce an agreed settlement. Repression and political division continued, while the revolt exposed the distance between the Mandate's governing arrangements and Palestinian demands for independence and control over immigration.
Source: UN: Origins and evolution of the Palestine problem, 1917–1947
The aftermath
By 1939 Britain was restricting Jewish immigration as it sought Arab support before another European war. The policy also closed routes to safety for many Jews facing Nazi persecution. The end of the revolt therefore did not settle the wider conflict. British rule remained contested, and the approaching Second World War transformed the circumstances in which Palestinian and Jewish national movements pursued their aims.