"Who is a Palestinian?" • Chapter 5 • The Arab Revolt in Palestine

The rise of the Nazis to power

Following Hitler's rise to power in Germany (1933), a distressed emigration of Jews from Europe began. By the end of the 30s, this increase raised the share of Jews in the mandate population to 40%.

Following this, the Arabs started demonstrations against the Jewish immigration, aimed at the British rule. As soon as the Nazis came to power, a connection was established between them and the Mufti, Al Husseini. Haj Amin was the first to meet with the new Nazi consul in Jerusalem. At the meeting, the Mufti made a purely anti-Semitic request, which apparently had nothing to do with what was happening in Israel: he asked that Germany boycott the Jews in its territory.

The Nazi ideology and the common hatred of the British and the Jews suited Husseini very well. He dreamed of a German occupation of the Middle East, which would lead to the ethnic cleansing of the Jews, the elimination of Zionism and the establishment of a large Arab state under his leadership.
From then on, the mufti channeled all his energy and narcissistic personality in this direction.

The Arab Revolt - Part One

In 1935, Hajj Amin discovered that he had a tough competition in the form of the secular national independence party ("Al Istiqlal"), which was established with the encouragement of King Faisal of Iraq (formerly the king of Syria).

The line of "Al Istiklal" was that the great enemy of the Palestinians is not necessarily the Zionists, but the British government. The young people of the new party saw both the Hussains and the Nashashivs as representatives of an old elite, from which they wanted to shake off.

At that time, Az-e-Din al-Qassam was eliminated by the British who saw him as a threat. The death of al-Qassam and the shuffling of the traditional Palestinian leadership greatly increased the popularity of the "Al Istiklal" party, which announced a general strike of the Arab settlement on April 19, 1936. This strike was the beginning of an Arab revolt.

The Palestinian leadership and Husseini at its head were surprised. "Al Istiklal" called for the establishment of a "Supreme Arab Council" with representatives to be elected in democratic elections. The mufti, a representative of the old leadership, and the other old parties, opposed the elections, which threatened the power of the old establishment.

In the end, the Mufti managed to manipulate the move, so that a "Supreme Arab Council" would indeed be established, but he would head it. In this way, Hajj Amin became the leader of the rebellion that he did not initiate. The demands of the rebellion were the stopping of Jewish immigration, the end of the mandate and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

It was the only time in the history of Palestinian nationalism, in which the new people acted in agreement and with a minimum of internal friction. The rebellion was harshly and brutally suppressed by the British, who killed many Palestinians, burned entire villages and destroyed fields of crops. The British also blew up and destroyed entire parts of Jaffa.

Phil committee

In October 1936, a ceasefire was declared, and the British promised to appoint a committee to find a solution to the situation. A month later, a six-member committee headed by Lord Peel convened in Jerusalem and invited all those interested to appear before it.

Although the committee was established with the consent of the Supreme Arab Committee, the Mufti decided to boycott it, unless the demands of the Palestinians were accepted in advance. It was the Zionists, who did not request the establishment of the committee, but cooperated with it. Their representative, Chaim Weizman, informed the representatives of the committee about the willingness of the Jews to compromise, and the leaders of the Yishuv, including Ben Gurion, Jabotinsky, Golda Meir and others, appeared before the committee.

After about two months, right before the committee left the country, and following heavy pressure from Arab leaders in the area, Haj Amin agreed to cooperate with the committee. The committee decided to extend its stay in Israel by a week, which it devoted to hearing the testimonies of the Arab side. For a week, the members of the Supreme Arab Committee presented their position to the Peel Committee. Haj Amin's answers regarding the fate of the Jews in a Palestinian state, if it were to be established, sounded very worrying to the members of the committee.

After returning to London, the committee published its conclusions:

• The mandate must be ended
• The country must be divided into a Jewish state and a Palestinian state.
• Recommendation: The Palestinian state will be annexed to the Transjordan state, under the rule of King Abdullah.

A debate arose in the Zionist movement. The Zionist Congress in 1937 accepted the principle of partition, but challenged the stingy map that allocated less than 20% of the territory to the Jews. The Palestinian response was a complete denial. They did not accept the Jews' right to a state, nor the annexation of the Palestinian state to Jordan.

The Arab Revolt - Part Two

In September 1937, Arab assassins assassinated Andrews, the British governor of the Galilee, who they saw as a sympathizer of the Zionist idea, rekindling the Arab Revolt. The British reacted harshly. They captured and exiled the entire Arab leadership. Haj Amin Al Husseini managed to escape to Lebanon.

The Arab revolt required a huge effort on the part of the British, who poured forces into the area from other parts of the empire. In the meantime, the Arab rebels captured the old city of Jerusalem, captured Beer Sheva, looted banks, took over parts of the south of the country, and acted violently against the British and Jews.

To suppress the rebellion, the British raised the bar of violence. Dozens of Palestinian villages were destroyed, and thousands of Palestinians were killed.

Hajj Amin eliminates political opponents

From his seat in Lebanon, the former mufti compiled lists of the elimination of political opponents. He used his terror methods against his Arab opponents.

Two examples from Haifa:

• Ibrahim Bey Al Khalil He was the governor of Haifa in 1911-13 (under the Ottoman rule). He was a member of a wealthy Muslim family, who owned a luxurious house on Hamam Al Pasha Street in Wadi Salib. After the death of the "Greater Syria" dream and the birth of Palestinian nationalism, Ibrahim belonged to the moderate Nashashi faction, which opposed violence and terrorism from the seminary of Hajj Amin Al Husseini. Standing up to Husseini cost Ibrahim Bey his life, and he was murdered in 1937 by assassins.
• Sami Taha He was the leader of the Palestinian Workers Association (PAWS), which was an Arab movement reminiscent of the Jewish Histadrut. Taha led the organization from the mid-30s, and was its representative in the Supreme Arab Committee. He was a pragmatic man and not an extremist, which caused tension between him and al-Husseini loyalists.
  In 1947, Taha refused to accede to the committee's demands to authorize a one-day strike to protest the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The Husseins accused him of wanting to compromise with the Jews and he was seen as insufficiently anti-Zionist and anti-British." After an incitement campaign in the Arab press, Taha was murdered outside his home in Haifa on September 12, 1947. The murderer, who was not caught, acted on the orders of Hajj Amin al-Husseini.

In this way, the mufti was able to quickly degenerate the Arab rebellion into a civil war and a struggle between clans. This struggle included severe violence from the selection of the Palestinian violence repertoire known to us today, and the death of thousands of Palestinians at the hands of their brothers.

Under these conditions, the Arab Revolt collapsed in 1939. At this point, Palestinian society was shattered, fragmented and lacking local leadership, the result of brutal suppression of the Arab revolt and a severe civil war. Without the central leadership that was exiled or fled, the Palestinians returned to the old rivalries between the Nashashibis and the Husseinis.

The Jewish community is flourishing

The Arab revolt, which was also directed against the Jews, gave rise to British Jewish cooperation and the strengthening of the Jewish defense forces. The British acknowledged their failure to protect the Jews during the rebellion. They also helped the Jewish forces to protect the oil pipeline from Iraq. For this purpose, Charles Ord Wingate's "night cruises" were established, which were the basis of the future Jewish military force. 

The British also enabled the establishment of the Port of Tel Aviv, which freed the settlement from dependence on the Arab port of Jaffa. All of these brought the settlement to an unprecedented economic and cultural boom.

In addition, the settlement was also strengthened by Jewish immigration from Europe, which saw an increase in anti-Semitism. About 250,000 Jews, who came from Europe, increased the Jewish settlement dramatically.
In 1939, the Jewish settlement was run as a type of autonomy with functioning institutions.