The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine - Ghassan Kanafani

THE REVOLT

Historians are at odds with each other with regard to the different incidents that took place in various places as the reason for the outbreak of the 1936 revolt. According to Yehuda Bauer, "the incident that is commonly regarded as the start of the 1936 disturbances" occurred on 19 April 1936, when Palestinian Arab crowds in Jaffa attacked Jewish passers-by. 1

In the view of Isa al-Sifri 2, Salih Mas'ud Buwaysir 3 and Subhi Yasin 4, the first spark was lit when an unknown group of Palestinian Arabs (Subhi Yasin describes it as a Qassamist group including Farhan al-Sa'udi and Mahmud Dairawi) ambushed 15 cars on the road from Anabta and the Nur Shams prison, robbed their Jewish and Arab passengers alike of their money, while one of the three members of the group made a short speech to the Palestinian Arabs, who formed the majority of the passengers, in which, according to al-Sifri, he said, "We are taking your money so that we can fight the enemy and defend you." 5

Dr. Abd al-Wahhab al-Kayyali thinks that the first spark was lit before that in February 1936 when an armed band of Palestinian Arabs surrounded a school which Jewish contractors were building in Haifa, employing Jewish-only labour. 6 But all sources rightly believe that the Qassamist rising, sparked off by Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam was the real start of the 1936 revolt.

However, the report of the Royal Commission (Lord Peel) which Yehuda Bauer regards as one of the more authoritative sources written about the Palestine problem, sidesteps (ignores) these immediate causes for the outbreak of the revolt, and attributes the outbreak to two main causes: the Arabs' desire to win national independence and their aversion to, and fear of, the establishment of the "Jewish national home" in Palestine. It is not difficult to see that these two causes are really only one, and the words in which they are couched are inflated and convey no precise meaning. However, Lord Peel mentions what he calls "secondary factors" which contributed to the outbreak of the "disturbances" These are: 7

The spread of the Arab nationalist spirit outside Palestine
Increasing Jewish immigration since 1933
The fact that the Jews were able to influence public opinion in Britain
The lack of Palestinian Arab confidence in the good intentions of the British government
The Palestinian Arabs' fear of continued land purchases by Jews
The fact that the ultimate objectives of the Mandatory government were not clear

The way the then-leadership of the Palestinian national movement understood the causes can be deduced from the three slogans with which it adorned all its de- mands. These were: 8

An immediate stop to Jewish immigration
Prohibition of the transfer of the ownership of Palestinian Arab lands to Jewish settlers
The establishment of a democratic government in which Palestinian Arabs would have the largest share in conformity with their numerical superiority

But these slogans, in the bombastic versions in which they were repeated, were quite incapable of expressing the real situation, and in fact to a great extent, all they did was to perpetuate the control of the feudal leadership over the nationalist movement. The real cause of the revolt was the fact that the acute conflicts involved in the transformation of Palestinian society from an Arab agricultural-feudal-clerical one into a Zionist (Western) industrial bourgeois one, had reached their climax, as we have already seen.

The process of establishing the roots of colonialism and transforming it from a British mandate into Zionist settler colonialism as we have seen, reached its climax in the mid-1930s, and in fact, the leadership of the Palestinian nationalist movement was obliged to adopt a certain form of armed struggle because it was no longer capable of exercising its leadership at a time when the conflict had reached decisive proportions. A variety of conflicting factors played a role in inducing the Palestinian then-leadership to adopt the form of armed struggle - firstly: the Izz al-Din al-Qassam movement; secondly: the series of failures sustained by this leadership at a time when they were at the helm of the mass movement, even with regard to the minor and partial demands that the colonialists did not usually hesitate to yield to, in the hope of absorbing resentment (the British took a long time to see the value of this manoeuvre; however, their interests were safeguarded through the existence of competent Zionist agents); thirdly: Zionist violence (the armed bands, the slogan of "Jewish labour only", etc. ) in addition to colonialist violence (the manner in which the 1929 rising had been suppressed).

In any discussion of the 1936-1939 revolt, a special place must be reserved for Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam. In spite of all that has been written about him, it is not too much to say that this unique personality is still really unknown, and will probably remain so. Most of what has been written about him has dealt with him only from the outside and because of this superficiality in the study of personality, several Jewish historians have not hesitated to regard him as a "fanatical dervish", while many Western historians have ignored him altogether. In fact, it is clear that it is the failure to grasp the dialectical connection between religion and nationalist tendencies that is responsible for the belittling of the importance of the Qassamist movement.

However, whatever view is held of al-Qassam, there is no doubt that his movement (12-19 November 1935) represented a turning point in the nationalist struggle and played an important role in the adoption of a more advanced form of struggle in confrontation with the traditional leadership which had become divided and splintered in the face of the mounting struggle.

Probably the personality of al-Qassam in itself constituted the symbolic point of encounter of that great mass of interconnected factors which, for the purposes of simplification, has come to be known as the "Palestine problem." The fact that he was "Syrian" (born in Jabala on the periphery of Latakia) exemplified the Arab nationalist factor in the struggle. The fact that he was an Azharist (he studied at Al-Azhar) exemplifies the religious-nationalist factor represented by Al-Azhar at the beginning of the century. The fact that he had a record of engaging in nationalist struggle (took part in the Syrian revolt against the French at Jabal Horan in 1919-1920 and was condemned to death) exemplified the unity of Arab struggle. Al-Qassam came to Haifa in 1921 with the Egyptian Sheikh Muammad al-Hanafi and Sheikh Ali al-Hajj Abid and immediately started to form secret groups. What is remarkable in al-Qassam's activities is his advanced organisational intelligence and his steel-strong patience. In 1929, he refused to be rushed into announcing that he was under arms and, in spite of the fact that this refusal led to a split in the organisation, it did succeed in holding together and remaining secret.

According to a well-known Qassamist 9, al-Qassam programmed his revolt in three stages, psychological preparation and the dissemination of a revolutionary spirit, the formation of secret groups, the formation of committees to collect contributions and others to purchase arms, committees for training, for security, espionage, propaganda and information and for political contacts, and then armed revolt. Most of those who knew al-Qassam say that when he went out to the Ya'bad hills with 25 of his men on the night of 12 November 1935, his object was not to declare the armed revolt but to spread the call for the revolt, but that an accidental encounter led to his presence there being disclosed, and in spite of the heroic resistance of al-Qassem and his men, a British force easily destroyed them. It appears that when he realised that he could no longer expand the revolt with his comrades, Sheikh al-Qassam adopted his famous slogan: "Die as Martyrs." It is due to al-Qassam that we should understand this slogan in a "Guevaris"" sense, if we may use the expression, but at the ordinary nationalist level, the little evidence we possess of al-Qassam's conduct shows that he was aware of the importance of his role as the initiator of an advanced revolutionary focus.

This slogan was to bear fruit immediately. The masses followed their martyr's body 10 kilometres on foot to the village of Yajur. But the most important thing that happened was the exposing of the traditional leaders in the face of the challenge constituted by Sheikh al-Qassam. These leaders were as conscious of the challenge as was the British Mandate. According to one Qassamist, a few months before al-Qassam went into the hills, he sent to Hajj al-Amin al-Hussaini, through Sheikh Musa al-Azrawi, to ask him to coordinate declarations of revolt throughout the country. Hussaini refused, however, on the ground that conditions were not yet ripe. 10 When Al-Qassam was killed, his funeral was attended only by poor people.

The leaders adopted an indifferent attitude, which they soon realised was a mistake, for the killing of al-Qassam was an occurrence of outstanding significance which they could not afford to ignore. Proof of this is to be found in the fact that representatives of the five Palestinian parties visited the British High Commissioner only six days after the killing of al-Qassam, and submitted to him an extraordinarily impudent memorandum in which they admitted that "if they did not receive an answer to this memorandum which could be regarded as generally satisfactory, they would lose all their influence over their followers, extremist and irresponsible views would prevail and the situation would deteriorate". 11

They obviously wanted to exploit the phenomenon of al-Qassam to enable them to take a step backwards. However, by his choice of the form of struggle, al-Qassam had made it impossible for them to retreat, and this in fact is what explains the difference between the attitude of the Palestinian leaders to the killing of Sheikh al-Qassam immediately after it happened, and the attitude they adopted at the ceremony held on the fortieth day after his death. During these forty days, they discovered that if they did not try to mount the great wave that had been set in motion by al-Qassam, it would engulf them. They therefore cast off the indifference they had displayed at his funeral and took part in the rallies and speeches at the fortieth day ceremony.

Notes:

1 Yehuda Bauer, Op. cit. p. 49
2 Sifri, Issa. Arab Palestine Under the Mandate & Zionism. The New Palestine Bookshop. Jaffa, 1937. Vol. II p. 10
3 Palestinian Struggle over half a century, by Saleh Bouyissir. al-Fatah House, Beirut, p. 180.
4 The Great Arab Revolution in Palestine. al-Hana House, Damascus. Subhir Yasine, p. 30
5 Bouyissir, Op. cit., p. 181.
6 Kayyali, Op. cit., p. 302.
7 Collection. p. 96.
8 Hadawi. Op. cit., p. 38.
9 Yasin, Subhi. Op. cit., pp. 22-23.
10 Ibid. p. 22
11 Kayyali, Op. cit. p. 296.