Under the Mandate:
From Congresses to the Great Revolt
For twenty years Palestinians tried every path: delegations and petitions, then demonstrations, then revolt. Along the way they discovered that the problem was not the settlers alone, but whoever protected them.
Timeline (1917–1939) · tap any point
Earliest on the left.
The Mandate: Occupation with an International Cover
“Now the Crusades have ended,” General Allenby is reported to have said in Jerusalem, 9 December 1917.
How did occupation become a “Mandate”?
Britain occupied southern and central Palestine in late 1917, then the north, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon in autumn 1918. It persuaded France to drop the internationalization of Palestine in exchange for abandoning support for Faisal’s government in Damascus. Then it obtained the League of Nations Mandate on 24 July 1922, and the Balfour Declaration was written into the Mandate instrument, turning it into an international obligation.
In theory, a mandate meant “helping a people and preparing it for independence,” and the instrument itself required protecting the rights of all inhabitants. But Britain always honoured the Balfour side and turned a deaf ear to the rights of the Arabs, who were about 92% of the population. It appointed the Jewish Zionist Herbert Samuel as the first High Commissioner (1920–1925); the shrewdest and most effective in carrying out the policy was Arthur Wauchope (1931–1938).
Two unequal scalesWhat did Britain do for each side until 1948?
For Palestinians
- Denied the right to build constitutional institutions and govern themselves
- Direct British rule, with absolute powers for the High Commissioner
- Economic pressure, and encouragement of corruption and family and sectarian division
- Disarmament: a man could be killed for having a weapon, or jailed for years for a few bullets or a dagger
For the Zionist project
- Encouraged immigration: from 55,000 (8%) in 1918 to 646,000 (31.7%) in 1948
- The Jewish Agency (1929), “a state within the state”
- The Histadrut labour federation and the Hebrew University (1925)
- Turned a blind eye to their arming, even quietly encouraged it
The Palestinian National Movement (1918–1929)
An exhausted people, a whole region under colonial rule, meagre means. And yet: no surrender of the right.
The five demandsAround which political work revolved throughout the Mandate
Leaders and congresses
Palestinians held their first congress in Jerusalem (January–February 1919). It rejected the division of Syria, considered Palestine part of Syria, and demanded a national government. Seven congresses followed by 1928. They were formally led by Musa Kazim al-Husseini until his death (1934), while the real rising figure was Hajj Amin al-Husseini: Mufti of Jerusalem (1921) and head of the Supreme Muslim Council (1922), then Palestine’s undisputed leader until 1948.
Why peaceful resistance first?Flip the cards
The First Uprisings (1919–1929)
Three popular uprisings, each wider than the last.
Choose an uprisingFigures as the book gives them from British and Arab sources, for both sides
Red Tuesday17 June 1930
Britain hanged three young men from the Buraq uprising: Ata al-Zir, Muhammad Jamjoum and Fuad Hijazi. They went to the gallows bravely; al-Zir and Jamjoum asked for henna to dye their hands, a local custom expressing joy, and they sang, and the people of Palestine sang with them:
after the night there is only the rising light of dawn.
The big lesson of the Buraq uprising
The three uprisings targeted only Jewish settlers, because hope remained that Britain’s position might change. After 1929 Palestinians realized that the Zionist project was protected by British bayonets, and that their struggle must be directed first against Britain itself.
The 1930s: “Nothing Was Left to Us but Martyrdom”
“Until 1932 we still had some hope, but it faded with time.” Hajj Amin al-Husseini
Why did things explode?
Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam (1882–1935)“Father of patriotism”
The structure of the “Jihadiyya” groupA secret organization founded in 1925 that went public in 1935
Its motto: “This is jihad… victory or martyrdom.” Only a “believer ready to die for his country” could join. Its members were poor men who “denied themselves bread to buy weapons.” Before setting out, al-Qassam sold his only house in Haifa, and his companions sold their wives’ jewellery and their furniture.
The battle of Ya’bad forest20 November 1935 · four and a half hours
“Do not answer the Arab soldiers’ bullets with your own, for they are poor men who know neither what we are doing nor what they are doing. Aim at the English.”
Al-Qassam, Yusuf al-Zibawi and Muhammad Hanafi al-Masri were killed, and the rest were captured. Some 30,000 people walked in their funeral in Haifa. Subhi Yasin writes that had the troops not withdrawn from the funeral’s path, the Great Revolt would have broken out five months early. Al-Qassam was right when he said that he and his brothers were “a match that will light the revolt.”
1936–1939
The longest strike by an entire people in history, and a revolt Britain could only crush by re-occupying Palestine village by village.
Stages of the revoltChoose a stage
Rebel operations year by yearAccording to British statistics
The day a whole people took off the fez
In summer 1938 the authorities could only pick out rebels in the cities by their keffiyeh and agal, the peasants’ headdress, so they hunted anyone who wore it. The rebels then ordered city-dwellers to take off the fez and wear the keffiyeh and agal, declaring that everyone was a rebel. Palestinians complied at once, the fez disappeared for good, and the authorities were astonished at a whole people changing its traditional headwear within days.
The revolt took on a clearly Islamic character. A study of 154 of its documents found that most band names were Islamic; statements opened with the basmala and verses such as “And prepare against them whatever force you can”; commanders signed as “trusting in God” and “servant of his faith and homeland”; and the revolt’s seal read “Allahu akbar” and “Help from Allah and a near victory.”
Why did the revolt stop?
The 1939 White PaperAn incomplete political victory
The London Conference (February 1939) failed, so Britain announced its own solution in May 1939:
What it contained
It was not British policy for Palestine to become a Jewish state. An independent Palestinian state within 10 years, with Arabs and Jews sharing government. Jewish immigration capped at 75,000 over 5 years, then stopping unless the Arabs agreed. Land sales banned or restricted.
Why most Palestinian leaders rejected it
Distrust of British promises after everything before. Independence tied to Jewish consent and cooperation. No amnesty for the rebels and no reconciliation with Hajj Amin. And since Britain would implement it anyway, time would reveal its seriousness. The Jews opposed it violently.
For group discussion
- Palestinians tried delegations and petitions for more than ten years. Why didn’t they work? Were they useless?
- How did Britain exploit the family rivalry (Husseini vs Nashashibi)? Where do we see internal division serving the opponent today?
- Compare al-Qassam at Ya’bad with Saladin and Qutuz in Part 2. What do they have in common?
- The 1939 White Paper offered gains and risks. Had you been in the leadership then, would you have accepted or rejected it? Why?
Test Yourself
12 questions on the Mandate and the revolts up to 1939.