ZIONIST & USA IMPERIALISM: Bab 5 - 1936

Rebut hakmu, Al-Qassem menapaki jalan itu sebelummu., penyair Palestin, 1936

Selepas pemberontakan 1929, Palestin bergelora dengan pemberontakan dari kampung-kampung yang tenang ke bandar-bandar yang sibuk. Lagu popular yang didengari di kampung dan pekan menggesa orang ramai untuk mempersenjatai diri. Pemberontakan itu pergi, "pemberontakan melegakan semua kebimbangan." Enam puluh akhbar Palestin terus mengkritik kerajaan British kerana tidak menghiraukan keinginan rakyat Palestin untuk kemerdekaan. Sentimen itu tersebar apabila kebangkitan puisi dan lagu melanda negara. Graduan universiti baru-baru ini, tidak dapat mencari pekerjaan, menggunakan tenaga mereka untuk mengarang manifesto menentang penjajahan British. Mereka mula mengatur dan bergabung dengan petani dalam sel-sel kecil yang dilatih untuk pemberontakan bersenjata terhadap British.

Rakyat Palestin sudah bosan untuk terus memohon kepada kerajaan mandat dengan tuntutan yang tidak berniat untuk diberikan oleh British. Dakwaan British sebagai "sama rata" dengan Yahudi dan Arab menjadi jenaka ironis, kerana setiap protes Palestin disambut dengan diplomasi mengelak atau penindasan kejam. Pada tahun 1933, semasa pemberhentian kerja sehari yang dipanggil oleh rakyat Palestin menentang mandat, tentera British melepaskan tembakan ke arah sekumpulan penunjuk perasaan Jaffa, membunuh dua puluh tujuh orang, termasuk ketua Eksekutif Arab yang berusia lapan puluh tahun. Demonstrasi merebak ke Nablus, Baitulmaqdis dan Haifa - dan ke Syria, Iraq dan Transjordan juga.

Tahun 1933 juga membawa gelombang besar pertama pendatang Yahudi yang melarikan diri daripada keganasan Nazi di Eropah. Ketika Hitler merampas kuasa di Jerman dan meningkatkan kempen anti-Semitik yang ganas yang membantu mendorongnya menjadi pejabat, beribu-ribu orang Yahudi memasuki Palestin secara sah dan tidak sah. Pegawai-pegawai British tidak berbuat banyak untuk membendung arus apabila angka imigresen tahunan meningkat secara mendadak daripada sembilan ribu pada tahun 1932 kepada enam puluh satu ribu pada tahun 1935. Pada kadar ini, dalam tempoh sepuluh tahun, rakyat Palestin akan menjadi minoriti di negara mereka sendiri. Apabila jajahan Zionis bertambah besar, ia menjadi lebih agresif. Pemintasan penghantaran lapan ratus senapang dan peluru dari Eropah kepada Zionis di Tel Aviv mencetuskan satu lagi serangan umum Palestin pada Oktober 1935.

Skuad malam Zionis menggeledah sebuah perkampungan Arab.

Undang-undang Tentera di Palestin

Pada Jun yang sama, Pesuruhjaya Tinggi British melaporkan bahawa Palestin berada dalam "keadaan revolusi baru." Terdapat, dia melaporkan, "sedikit kawalan terhadap unsur-unsur tanpa undang-undang di luar bandar utama, jalan utama dan kereta api."3 Lebih dua puluh lima ratus rakyat Palestin telah ditangkap. Lebih seribu telah dibunuh.

Pada bulan Julai, dengan sokongan jajahan Zionis, British meletakkan Palestin di bawah undang-undang tentera. Mereka menyerbu lebih ramai tentera dari England. Lebih dua puluh ribu tentera berkawal di Palestin, masih gagal mengawal populasi kurang daripada satu juta orang. Kapal-kapal tiba dengan sarat kereta kebal dan mesingan. Tentera Udara Diraja mula menyerang kawasan luar bandar. British membentuk peneroka Zionis menjadi "skuad malam" untuk menyerang perkampungan Palestin. Anggota Haganah, tentera Zionis yang telah berkembang sejak 1929, mendapat pengalaman perang pertama mereka, menumpaskan pemberontakan Palestin. Di Eropah, pemimpin Zionis Weizmann berjanji bahawa Palestin tidak akan jatuh ke tangan "kuasa pemusnah, kuasa padang pasir."4 Zionis melemparkan sepenuh perhatian mereka ke belakang British.

Kemarahan British dan Zionis yang tidak putus-putus membuatkan Jawatankuasa Tinggi Arab meragui kebijaksanaan untuk meneruskan mogok. Apabila petani menjadi lebih militan dan teratur sebagai tindak balas kepada British, Haj Amin dan pemimpin kaya yang lain merasakan cabaran terhadap kedudukan dan kuasa mereka sendiri. Mogok itu telah berlangsung lebih lama daripada yang mereka tawarkan, sebahagian besarnya kerana ekonomi Palestin yang diberi mandat terus hidup oleh peneroka Zionis yang terus menghasilkan dan menjual barangan.

Ramai pekerja Zionis rela berkudis, mengambil alih pekerjaan Arab dalam perkhidmatan awam, pelabuhan dan kereta api. Apabila penyerang Arab menutup pelabuhan Jaffa, Zionis membina pelabuhan di Tel Aviv dan meluaskan pelabuhan Haifa. Dengan pertanian Palestin terhenti, buah-buahan dan sayur-sayuran dari ladang Yahudi menawan pasaran eksport.

Ahli-ahli Jawatankuasa Tinggi Arab tidak berminat untuk mengorbankan kekayaan mereka sendiri dan menempuh jalan revolusi habis-habisan. Mereka berasa lega apabila, pada musim panas 1936, Britain mendekati Raja Abdullah dari Transjordan dan Raja Ghazi dari Iraq dengan cadangan supaya raja-raja campur tangan dalam mogok itu. Campur tangan "raja pelanggan" British mungkin menghentikan penyebaran pemberontakan Palestin yang mengancam untuk menghapuskan semua yang ada di laluannya - kerajaan mandat British, Zionisme, dan mungkin kepimpinan tradisional Palestin itu sendiri.

Apabila kemurungan dunia melanda Palestin pada tahun 1935, pekerja dan petani Palestin menjadi mangsa utama. Ekonomi Zionis disokong oleh sejumlah besar modal yang dibawa masuk oleh Yahudi Jerman yang lebih kaya dan sumbangan antarabangsa, termasuk pinjaman $2.5 juta dari England. Kemasukan wang ini membantu melindungi Zionis daripada kesan kemurungan. Mereka menggunakan wang itu untuk membeli lebih banyak tanah Palestin dan untuk membuka perniagaan baru. Pada tahun 1935, gaji Yahudi naik 10 peratus, manakala gaji Palestin menurun pada kadar yang sama. Di kalangan wanita yang bekerja dalam tekstil atau tembakau, gaji Yahudi sudah lebih tinggi daripada gaji Palestin sebanyak 443 peratus! Pemilik kilang Yahudi bertindak balas terhadap kemurungan dengan memberhentikan mana-mana pekerja Arab yang mereka masih bekerja.

Ekonomi Arab Palestin mengalami tamparan hebat dalam tahun-tahun kemurungan. Perniagaan Arab runtuh dan pekerja Arab kehilangan pekerjaan mereka dalam pembinaan, perlombongan dan industri. Pertanian Palestin merosot secara mendadak. Menjelang tahun 1936, sebanyak dua puluh ribu keluarga telah diusir dari tanah yang dibeli oleh Zionis. Sekurang-kurangnya separuh daripada petani tidak lagi dapat menyara diri di tanah yang mereka ladang. Hanyut ke bandar untuk mencari pekerjaan, kebanyakannya menyertai barisan besar pekerja yang menganggur. Pekerja pulang ke kampung nenek moyang mereka hanya untuk mendapati petani kelaparan. Makin lama kemarahan pekerja ditandingi oleh kederhakaan para petani. Apabila British enggan membenarkan seribu pekerja yang menganggur berdemonstrasi di Jaffa pada Jun 1935, Persekutuan Pekerja Arab memberi amaran: "Kerajaan tidak lama lagi perlu memberi pekerja sama ada roti atau peluru."1

"Mati sebagai Syuhada!"

Pada 12 November 1935, Sheik Izz ad-Din al-Qassem pergi ke perbukitan Galilee bersama dua puluh lima pengikut untuk mengeluarkan seruan pemberontakan bersenjata terhadap British. Qassem telah tiba di Palestin pada tahun 1921 sebagai pejuang berpengalaman menentang penjajahan Perancis di Syria. Selepas tahun 1929, beliau dengan sabar membina sel-sel anak muda dan petani untuk mempersiapkan diri menghadapi hari apabila rakyat Palestin akan menentang British - bukan dalam demonstrasi spontan, tetapi dalam pemberontakan yang teratur. Dia bercakap untuk kesengsaraan para petani dan harapan ribuan daripada mereka pergi bersamanya ke bukit. Qassem dibunuh seminggu kemudian oleh peronda British; tetapi ideanya tidak lama lagi akan mencetuskan kebangkitan besar-besaran rakyat. Dia meninggal dunia mengucapkan tiga perkataan yang bergema di Palestin, "Mati sebagai syahid!" Berita kematiannya dan kata-kata terakhirnya tersebar dengan cepat. Ratusan ratusan petani dan pekerja berjalan berbatu-batu, mengikuti jenazahnya ke tanah perkuburannya.

Perjuangan Palestin menentang peneroka Zionis dan British mula mengambil bentuk baru. Gerila Qassemite menyerang pada bulan Februari, mengelilingi dusun Haifa yang menguatkuasakan dasar "Buruh Yahudi", dan sekali lagi pada bulan April, menyerang jurulatih di Jalan Tulkarm. Pembunuhan mereka terhadap dua orang Yahudi telah dibalas oleh serbuan Zionis yang membunuh dua petani Palestin. Zionis berarak melalui Tel Aviv pada 16 April sambil menjerit, "Kami mahukan Tentera Yahudi!" Mereka memulakan perarakan ke arah Jaffa yang berhampiran. Keesokan harinya, skuad Zionis berpiket perniagaan yang mengupah orang Arab. Pada pagi Ahad, penduduk Palestin di Jaffa berkumpul di hadapan ibu pejabat British menuntut kebenaran untuk perarakan. Mereka ditolak. Orang ramai yang marah melanda jalanan, merejam kereta dan bas, bergerak ke arah Tel Aviv. Kedua-dua bandar itu, bandar lama Palestin Jaffa dan Tel Aviv yang baru bangkit, pusat negara Yahudi yang baru muncul, melambangkan dua matlamat yang bercanggah untuk Palestin.

Pada 19 April, jawatankuasa Jaffa mengadakan mogok umum rakyat Palestin terhadap kerajaan mandat. Ia merebak ke hampir setiap bandar - Tulkarm, Nablus, Jerusalem, Jenin, Haifa. Setiap jawatankuasa bandar mempunyai tuntutan yang sedikit berbeza, tetapi di barisan hadapan, satu berkobar-kobar: "Kemerdekaan untuk Palestin!" Semua orang mengambil bahagian - kesatuan sekerja, persatuan wanita, kelab sukan, Pengakap Lelaki dan YMCA. Kristian dan Muslim sama-sama bangkit untuk berkata "Tidak!" kepada pemerintahan British ke atas Palestin. Menjelang 22 April, kedai, perniagaan dan pasar Arab ditutup. Pengangkutan dan komunikasi telah terhenti. Negara mogok dan harapan tinggi.

Orang yang memulakan mogok mempunyai sedikit pengalaman dalam politik negara. Untuk penyelarasan nasional, mereka kembali kepada kepimpinan keluarga kaya lama Eksekutif Arab. Ia disusun semula pada 25 April sebagai Jawatankuasa Tinggi Arab, di bawah pimpinan Haj Amin El-Husseini, Mufti atau ketua agama Baitulmaqdis. Kemerdekaan kekal sebagai laungan rali, dengan penghentian imigresen Yahudi sebagai syarat untuk sebarang rundingan Palestin dengan British. Pemimpin-pemimpin Jawatankuasa Tinggi menyuarakan slogan-slogan yang timbul daripada kehidupan rakyat mereka, tetapi mereka menjangkakan hanya akan memimpin mogok pendek. Mereka melihat mogok itu sebagai satu cara untuk meningkatkan kuasa tawar-menawar mereka dengan British dan peranan mereka dalam kerajaan Palestin masa depan.

Majoriti rakyat Palestin percaya bahawa mogok itu mungkin membawa mereka kemerdekaan. Rakyat Syria baru sahaja memenangi janji pemerintahan sendiri daripada Perancis selepas mogok selama lima puluh hari. Sebaik sahaja serangan Palestin bermula, Jawatankuasa untuk Palestin bermunculan di Damsyik, Beirut, Baghdad dan Kaherah. Rakyat Palestin mengalu-alukan sokongan dari negara-negara Arab ini dan sangat menantikan tindak balas British.

Jawapan kerajaan mandat kepada mogok itu adalah segera dan keras. Ia mengumumkan peningkatan besar dalam kuota imigresen untuk orang Yahudi untuk bulan depan dan mengarahkan pemotongan semua wayar telefon dan telegraf dari Palestin ke negara Arab sekitar. Strategi jangka panjang untuk menangani mogok adalah mudah: kekerasan dan lebih banyak kekerasan. Pesuruhjaya Tinggi mengumumkan bahawa askar British bebas menembak ke arah penunjuk perasaan.

Secara berturut-turut, serangan oleh kelasi Haifa dan demonstrasi oleh ratusan wanita di Gaza menentang tentera bersenjata. British memutuskan untuk memusnahkan kepimpinan mogok itu. Mereka mengarahkan pengumpulan semua Komunis yang dikenali di Palestin untuk menghalang sebarang tindakan pada 1 Mei, Hari Pekerja Antarabangsa. Namun pada hari itu, dua ribu orang berdemonstrasi di Haifa. Selepas British menangkap enam puluh satu pemimpin utama jawatankuasa tempatan, orang lain mengambil tugas mereka. Peraturan Kecemasan British, yang dikuatkuasakan dengan tegas terhadap rakyat Palestin, membawa kepada hukuman seperti ini: "Lima tahun kerja keras kerana memiliki dua belas peluru; lapan bulan kerana memiliki sebatang kayu."2

Hukuman terhadap individu tidak dapat menghentikan arus pemberontakan. Seluruh bandar dan kampung menentang kawalan British. British mengalihkan perhatian mereka untuk mematahkan tulang belakang mogok, komuniti lelaki, wanita dan kanak-kanak Palestin. Denda kolektif dikenakan dan hukuman kolektif dikenakan ke atas kampung yang bermasalah. Jika tentera British mendengar satu das tembakan dilepaskan dari sebuah rumah, mereka menyebabkan seluruh kampung menderita.

Jaffa, di mana mogok itu bermula, menjadi sasaran perlakuan kejam. Pekerja dok, kelasi dan pelajar mengetuai bandar dalam konfrontasi militan. Pusat penganjuran mereka ialah kota berdinding kuno. Askar British takut untuk memasuki jalan berliku yang sempit, tidak dapat ditembusi oleh kereta kebal dan kereta. Pada bulan Jun, dengan berpura-pura "pembaharuan bandar," British menutup suku itu dan dinamitkan ratusan rumah, meninggalkan beribu-ribu orang tanpa perlindungan. Seribu rumah lagi diletupkan di kampung berhampiran.

Ramai rakyat Palestin menentang campur tangan raja-raja dalam mogok itu. Pada demonstrasi besar di Baitulmaqdis pada Ogos, lima belas akhbar yang melaporkan cadangan Abdullah untuk keamanan telah dibakar. Tetapi ahli-ahli Jawatankuasa Tinggi, masih satu-satunya badan penyelaras kebangsaan, menggunakan semua kuasa dan kuasa mereka sebagai ketua puak keluarga dan kampung, sebagai tuan tanah dan majikan, untuk memaksa menamatkan mogok. Akhirnya, selepas beberapa siri rundingan, raja-raja menyeru Jawatankuasa Tinggi untuk menamatkan mogok. Jawatankuasa Tinggi menurut dengan penuh rasa syukur. Pengkhianatan oleh raja-raja Arab ini menimbulkan kekecewaan pahit di kalangan rakyat yang diungkapkan oleh penyair Abu Salma:

Malu kepada raja-raja seperti itu, jika raja-raja begitu rendah

Demi Tuhan, mahkota mereka tidak sesuai dengan kasut tunggal

Kitalah yang akan melindungi tanah air kita dan mengubati lukanya.5

Pemberontakan dan Pengkhianatan

Mogok am Palestin berlangsung selama enam bulan, mogok umum paling lama dalam sejarah Timur Tengah atau Eropah. Ia merupakan titik tinggi kesedaran, pengorbanan dan perpaduan dalam sejarah rakyat Palestin. Tetapi dengan cepat menjadi jelas bahawa tiada satu pun tuntutan mogok itu dapat dipenuhi. Britain, dengan kedua-dua Zionis dan raja-raja Arab, enggan memberikan kemerdekaan Palestin.

Helah baru Britain, yang disyorkan oleh Suruhanjaya Peel 1937, adalah untuk membahagikan Palestin menjadi negara Zionis dan Palestin, dengan kedua-dua kawasan dikuasai oleh Britain. Walaupun Zionis hanya memiliki peratusan kecil tanah, di bawah rancangan ini mereka akan menerima sebahagian besar tanah yang paling subur di negara ini. Zionis menerima cadangan itu. David Ben-Gurion menyatakan dengan jelas bahawa penerimaan rancangan ini hanyalah satu batu loncatan kepada negara Yahudi yang lebih besar:

Tiada Zionis boleh melupakan bahagian terkecil dari Tanah Israel. Perbahasan telah melibatkan dua laluan yang akan membawa lebih cepat kepada matlamat bersama.6

Rakyat Palestin menolak cadangan itu. Gerila membunuh Pesuruhjaya Galilee yang pro-Zionis, yang merancang untuk memasukkan Arab Galilee ke dalam negara Yahudi. Peperangan terbuka berkobar sekali lagi.

British memulakan pengumpulan borong pemimpin Palestin dan menghantar pulang kebanyakan Jawatankuasa Tinggi. Taktik ini hanya menambah bahan bakar kepada pemberontakan. Menjelang musim panas, peperangan gerila merebak di perbukitan Palestin dan pemberontakan melanda seluruh negara. Kebanyakan pejuang adalah petani. British mula menangkap sesiapa sahaja di bandar yang memakai keffiyah, selendang tradisional petani. Sebagai sokongan kepada petani, penduduk bandar memakai keffiyah dan berhenti membawa ID supaya British tidak dapat memeriksa di mana sesiapa tinggal.

Petani mengambil alih beberapa bandar. Seorang jeneral British melaporkan pada bulan September bahawa "keadaan sedemikian rupa sehingga pentadbiran awam dan kawalan negara, untuk semua tujuan praktikal, tidak wujud."7 Pejabat British di kebanyakan bandar ditutup dan tentera British meletakkan Baitulmaqdis di bawah lima hari kepungan. Dalam tempoh empat bulan, British dinamikan lima ribu rumah, menambah seribu lagi banduan kepada tiga ribu yang sudah berada dalam penjara dan menghukum mati seratus empat puluh lapan banduan di penjara Acre sahaja. Namun, mereka tidak dapat menumpaskan pemberontakan itu.

Dihadapkan dengan prospek penentangan Palestin yang berpanjangan, British mengambil masa yang lama, melihat dengan teliti keadaan mereka di Timur Tengah. Peperangan dengan Jerman pimpinan Hitler semakin hampir. Sama seperti dalam Perang Dunia I, Britain memerlukan bantuan Arab, minyak Arab dan laluan perkapalan yang selamat. Ini bukan masanya untuk memerangi orang Arab. Tambahan pula, pemberontakan di Palestin telah mengikat satu pertiga daripada semua tentera British. Untuk mengelakkan kerosakan yang lebih besar kepada empayarnya, Britain memutuskan untuk kembali kepada janji-janji kertas untuk Palestin.

Kertas Putih British 1939 tiba-tiba mengubah dasar dua puluh tahun Britain terhadap Palestin. Ia menjanjikan siling ke atas imigresen Yahudi - hanya sejumlah tujuh puluh lima ribu orang Yahudi akan diterima dalam sepuluh tahun akan datang. Ia menjanjikan beberapa sekatan ke atas pembelian tanah Zionis. Ia termasuk ikrar yang sangat samar-samar bahawa Palestin akan merdeka dalam tempoh sepuluh tahun. Tetapi perubahan dari senjata dan kereta kebal kepada diplomasi licin tidak meyakinkan rakyat Palestin. Mereka menolak Kertas Putih.

Zionis sebulat suara marah atas apa yang mereka anggap sebagai "pengkhianatan" British. Bagi mereka, Kertas Putih adalah titik perubahan utama. Britain, penaja empayar mereka selama lebih daripada dua puluh tahun, telah meninggalkan perjuangan Zionis dalam menghadapi keperluan yang lebih mendesak dari Empayar British. Majoriti Zionis tidak mahu rehat terbuka dengan Britain, tetapi mereka tahu mereka perlu mencari penaja baru.

Dalam pada itu, Zionis melancarkan kempen menentang masyarakat Palestin. Mereka menganjurkan serangan, mengebom pasar Palestin dan meningkatkan latihan ketenteraan rahsia.8 Mereka telah belajar daripada pemberontakan Palestin bahawa rakyat Palestin tidak akan menerima penaklukan secara aman. Strategi yang telah tertanam dalam Zionisme sejak awal menjadi jelas: orang asli perlu dihalau dari Palestin. J. Weitz, ketua Jabatan Penjajahan Agensi Yahudi, menulis dalam diarinya pada tahun 1940:

Tidak ada ruang untuk kedua-dua rakyat bersama-sama di negara ini... Kita tidak akan mencapai matlamat kita untuk menjadi rakyat merdeka bersama orang Arab di negara kecil ini. Satu-satunya penyelesaian ialah Palestin, sekurang-kurangnya Palestin Barat [Barat Sungai Jordan], tanpa orang Arab... Dan tidak ada cara lain selain memindahkan orang Arab dari sini ke negara jiran, untuk memindahkan mereka semua: bukan satu kampung. , tiada satu puak harus ditinggalkan.9 [penekanan ditambah]

Pada tahun 1940, gerakan Zionis, yang dipupuk dengan teliti oleh imperialisme, menghadapi rakyat Palestin yang hancur. Dua puluh ribu rakyat Palestin telah terbunuh atau cedera, dan beribu-ribu dipenjarakan. Ramai pejuang dan penganjur terbaik, pemimpin yang paling dipercayai, telah mati. Pemberontakan besar telah berakhir, tetapi ia tidak akan dilupakan. Ia akan dicatatkan oleh penulis, dianalisis oleh pemimpin politik dan diteruskan melalui kisah-kisah yang diceritakan di kampung dan pekan.

Ketika rakyat Palestin meratapi kematian mereka dan merawat mereka yang cedera, peristiwa yang akan menjejaskan masa depan mereka berlaku di Eropah dan Amerika. Untuk beberapa tahun berikutnya, tindakan rakyat Palestin telah dikalahkan oleh perebutan kuasa besar di Timur Tengah dan di tempat lain yang dicetuskan dalam Perang Dunia Kedua.

Footnotes

PFLP Bulletin (September-October 1974), pp. 6-7.
PFLP Bulletin (June 1975), pp. 6.
High Commissioner telegram to CO, 2 June 1936 (CO 733/297/75156) cited by William Quandt, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, p. 35.
Cited by Matiel E.T. Mogannam, The Arab Woman and the Palestine Problem (London: 1937), p.295.
PFLP Bulletin (January-February 1975), p. 7.
David Ben-Gurion in a speech at the 20th Zionist Congress, Zurich, Switzerland, 15 August 1937, cited by Childers, "The Wordless Wish," in The Transformation of Palestine, p. 178.
General Haining, GOC, Report to War Office, 30 November 1938, paragraph 14; St. Anthony's College, Oxford, private papers collection, cited by William Quandt, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, p. 38.
John and Hadawi, The Palestine Diary, 1:320-21.
Joseph Weitz, Diaries and Letters to the Children (Tel Aviv: 1965), p. 181.

Seize your rights, Al-Qassem trod that path before you., Palestinian poet, 1936

After the 1929 uprising, Palestine simmered with rebellion from the quiet hamlets to the bustling cities. A popular song heard in the villages and towns urged the people to arm themselves. The refrain went, "revolt relieves all cares." The sixty Palestinian newspapers continued to criticize the British government for its callous disregard of the Palestinian people's desire for independence. The sentiments spread as a revival of poetry and song swept the country. Recent university graduates, unable to find jobs, used their energies to compose stirring manifestos against British colonialism. They began to organize and to join with peasants in small cells that trained for armed revolt against the British.

Palestinians were tired of continually petitioning the mandate government with demands the British had no intention of granting. The British claim of being "even-handed" with Jews and Arabs became an ironic joke, as every Palestinian protest was met with evasive diplomacy or ruthless repression. In 1933, during a one-day work stoppage called by Palestinians against the mandate, British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of Jaffa demonstrators, killing twenty-seven people, including the eighty-year-old head of the Arab Executive. Demonstrations spread to Nablus, Jerusalem and Haifa - and to Syria, Iraq and Transjordan as well.

The year 1933 also brought the first massive wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing the Nazi terror in Europe. As Hitler seized power in Germany and stepped up the vicious anti-Semitic campaign that helped propel him into office, thousands of Jews entered Palestine both legally and illegally. British officials did little to stem the tide as the yearly immigration figures increased dramatically from nine thousand in 1932 to sixty-one thousand in 1935. At this rate, within ten years, Palestinians would be a minority in their own country. As the Zionist colony increased in size, it became more aggressive. The interception of a shipment of eight hundred rifles and ammunition from Europe to Zionists in Tel Aviv sparked another Palestinian general strike in October 1935.

Undang-undang Tentera di Palestin

Palestinian men and women took up arms in 1936.

When the worldwide depression hit Palestine in 1935, Palestinian workers and peasants were the main victims. The Zionist economy was supported by large amounts of capital brought in by the wealthier German Jews and by international contributions, including a $2.5 million loan from England. This influx of money helped protect the Zionists from the effects of the depression. They used the money to buy more Palestinian land and to open new businesses. In 1935, Jewish wages went up 10 percent, while Palestinian wages declined at the same rate. Among women working in textiles or tobacco, Jewish wages were already higher than Palestinian wages by as much as 443 percent! Jewish factory owners responded to the depression by laying off any Arab workers they still employed.

The Palestinian Arab economy suffered a devastating blow in the depression years. Arab businesses folded and Arab workers lost their jobs in construction, mining and industry. Palestinian agriculture declined sharply. By 1936, as many as twenty thousand families had been evicted from land bought by the Zionists. At least half of the peasantry could no longer sustain themselves on the land they did farm. Drifting into the cities in search of work, most joined the large ranks of unemployed workers. Workers returned to their ancestral villages only to find the peasants starving. Increasingly, the anger of workers was matched by the rebelliousness of the peasants. When the British refused to allow a thousand unemployed workers to demonstrate in Jaffa in June 1935, the Federation of Arab Workers warned: "The government will soon have to give the workers either bread or bullets."¹

"Die as Martyrs!"

On November 12, 1935, Sheik Izz ad-Din al-Qassem went into the hills of Galilee with twenty-five followers to issue the call for armed revolt against the British. Qassem had arrived in Palestine in 1921 as a seasoned fighter against French colonialism in Syria. After 1929 he patiently built cells of young people and peasants to prepare for the day when the Palestinian people would stand up against the British - not in spontaneous demonstrations, but in an organized uprising. He spoke for the misery of the peasants and the hopes of thousands of them went with him into the hills. Qassem was killed one week later by a British patrol; but his ideas were soon to spark a massive uprising of the people. He died uttering three words that echoed over Palestine, "Die as martyrs!" News of his death and final words spread quickly. Hundred upon hundreds of peasants and workers walked for miles, following his body to its burial ground.

The Palestinian fight against Zionist settlers and the British began to take new forms. Qassemite guerrillas struck in February, surrounding a Haifa orchard that enforced the "Jewish Labor" policy, and again in April, attacking a coach on the Tulkarm Road. Their killing of two Jews was countered by a Zionist raid that killed two Palestinian farmers. Zionists marched through Tel Aviv on April 16, shouting, "We want a Jewish Army!" They began a march on nearby Jaffa. The next day, Zionist squads picketed businesses that hired Arabs. On Sunday morning, Palestinians in Jaffa gathered before British headquarters demanding permission for a parade. They were turned down. An angry crowd swept through the streets, stoning cars and buses, moving towards Tel Aviv. The two cities, the ancient Palestinian city of Jaffa and the newly rising Tel Aviv, center of the emerging Jewish state, symbolized two conflicting goals for Palestine.

On April 19, a Jaffa committee called a general strike of Palestinians against the mandate government. It spread to almost every city - Tulkarm, Nablus, Jerusalem, Jenin, Haifa. Each town committee had slightly different demands, but at the forefront, one blazed out: "Independence for Palestine!" Everyone participated - trade unions, women's associations, sports clubs, Boy Scouts and the YMCA. Christian and Moslem alike rose up to say "No!" to British rule over Palestine. By April 22, Arab shops, businesses and markets were shut. Transportation and communication had ground to a halt. The nation was on strike and hopes were high.

The people who started the strike had little experience of national politics. For national coordination, they fell back on the leadership of the old wealthy families of the Arab Executive. It reorganized on April 25 as the Arab Higher Committee, under the leadership of Haj Amin El-Husseini, the Mufti or religious leader of Jerusalem. Independence remained the rallying cry, with a halt of Jewish immigration as the condition for any Palestinian negotiation with the British. The leaders of the Higher Committee mouthed the slogans that arose from the lives of their people, but they anticipated leading only a short strike. They viewed the strike as a means to enhance their bargaining power with the British and their role in a future Palestinian government.

The majority of the people of Palestine believed that the strike might bring them independence. The Syrian people had just won a promise of self-government from the French after a fifty-day strike. As soon as the Palestinian strike began, Committees for Palestine sprung up in Damascus, Beirut, Baghdad and Cairo. Palestinians welcomed this support from Arab countries and eagerly awaited the British response.

The mandate government's answer to the strike was immediate and harsh. It announced a substantial increase in the immigration quotas for Jews for the next month and ordered the cutting of all telephone and telegraph wires from Palestine to surrounding Arab countries. The long-term strategy for dealing with the strike was simple: force and more force. The High Commissioner announced that British soldiers were free to fire on demonstrators.

In quick succession, a strike by Haifa sailors and a demonstration by hundreds of women in Gaza defied the armed troops. The British decided to destroy the leadership of the strike. They ordered the round-up of all known Communists in Palestine to prevent any actions on May 1, International Workers' Day. Yet on that day, two thousand people demonstrated in Haifa. After the British arrested sixty-one key leaders of local committees, other people took up their tasks. British Emergency Regulations, rigidly enforced against Palestinians, led to punishments like these: "Five years hard labor for possessing twelve bullets; eight months for possessing a stick."²

Punishment of individuals could not stop the tide of rebellion. Entire cities and villages defied British control. The British turned their attention to breaking the backbone of the strike, the communities of Palestinian men, women and children. The levied collective fines and imposed collective punishments on troublesome villages. If British troops heard one shot fired from a house, they made the entire village suffer.

Jaffa, where the strike had begun, was the target of especially vicious treatment. Dockworkers, sailors and students led the city in militant confrontation. Their organizing center was the ancient walled city. British soldiers feared to enter its narrow winding streets, impenetrable to tanks and cars. In June, under the pretense of "urban renewal," the British sealed off the quarter and dynamited hundreds of houses, leaving thousands of people without shelter. Another thousand homes were blown up in a nearby village.

Martial Law in Palestine

That same June the British High Commissioner reported that Palestine was in a "state of incipient revolution." There was, he reported, "little control of lawless elements outside principal towns, main roads and railways."³ Over twenty-five hundred Palestinians had been arrested. Over a thousand had been killed.

In July, with the support of the Zionist colony, the British placed Palestine under martial law. They rushed more troops from England. Over twenty thousand troops patrolled Palestine, still failing to control a population of less than one million people. Ships arrived loaded with tanks and machine guns. The Royal Air Force began strafing the countryside. The British formed Zionist settlers into "night squads" to attack Palestinian villages. Members of the Haganah, the Zionist army that had flourished since 1929, got their first taste of war, crushing the Palestinian rebellion. In Europe, the Zionist leader Weizmann pledged that Palestine would not fall to "the forces of destruction, the forces of the desert."⁴ The Zionists threw their full weight behind the British.

The unrelenting fury of the British and the Zionists made the Arab Higher Committee doubt the wisdom of continuing the strike. As the peasants became more militant and organized in response to the British, Haj Amin and the other wealthy leaders sensed a challenge to their own positions and power. The strike had lasted much longer than they had bargained for, largely because the economy of mandate Palestine was kept alive by the Zionist settlers who continued to produce and sell goods.

Many Zionist workers willingly scabbed, taking over Arab jobs in the civil service, the ports and the railroads. When Arab strikers closed the port of Jaffa, Zionists built the port at Tel Aviv and expanded the Haifa port. With Palestinian agriculture at a standstill, fruits and vegetables from Jewish fields captured the export market.

The members of the Arab Higher Committee were not interested in sacrificing their own wealth and traveling the road of an all-out revolution. They were relieved when, in the summer of 1936, Britain approached King Abdullah of Transjordan and King Ghazi of Iraq with a proposal that the kings intervene in the strike. The intervention of the British "client kings" might stop the spread of the Palestinian rebellion that threatened to sweep away all in its path - the British mandate government, Zionism, and perhaps the traditional Palestinian leadership itself.

Many Palestinians opposed the kings' meddling in the strike. At a large demonstration in Jerusalem in August, fifteen newspapers that reported Abdullah's proposal for peace were burned. But the members of the Higher Committee, still the sole national coordinating body, exercised all their authority and power as heads of family clans and villages, as landlords and employers, to force an end to the strike. Finally, after a series of negotiations, the kings called upon the Higher Committee to end the strike. The Higher Committee obeyed gratefully. This betrayal by the Arab kings created bitter disappointment among the people which was expressed by the poet Abu Salma:

Shame to such kings, if kings are so low
By God, their crowns are not fit to sole shoes
We are the ones who will protect our homeland and heal its wounds.⁵

Rebellion and Betrayal

The Palestinian general strike lasted six months, the longest general strike in the history of the Middle East or Europe. It was a high point of consciousness, sacrifice and unity in the history of the Palestinian people. But it rapidly became clear that none of the demands of the strike were to be met. Britain, with both the Zionists and the Arab kings on its string, refused to give Palestine independence.

Britain's new ploy, recommended by the Peel Commission of 1937, was to partition Palestine into a Zionist and a Palestinian state, with both areas dominated by Britain. Although the Zionists owned only a tiny percentage of the land, under this plan they would receive much of the most fertile land in the country. The Zionists accepted the proposal. David Ben-Gurion stated clearly that the acceptance of this plan was but a stepping stone to a larger Jewish state:

No Zionist can forgo the smallest portion of the Land of Israel. The debate has concerned which of two routes would lead quicker to the common goal.⁶

Palestinians rejected the proposal. Guerillas assassinated the pro-Zionist Commissioner of the Galilee, who schemed to include the Arab Galilee in the Jewish state. Open warfare flared once again.

The British began a wholesale roundup of Palestinian leaders and deported most of the Higher Committee. This tactic only added fuel to the revolt. By the summer, guerrilla warfare spread in the hills of Palestine and rebellion engulfed the whole country. Most of the fighters were peasants. The British began arresting anyone in town wearing a keffiyah, the traditional peasant scarf. In support of the peasants, townspeople donned keffiyahs and stopped carrying IDs so the British could not check where anyone lived.

Peasants took over some towns. A British general reported in September that "the situation was such that civil administration and control of the country was, to all practical purposes, non-existent."⁷ British offices in most cities were closed and British troops placed Jerusalem under a five-day siege. In a four-month period, the British dynamited five thousand houses, added a thousand more prisoners to the three thousand already in jail and executed one hundred forty-eight prisoners in Acre prison alone. Still, they could not crush the rebellion.

Confronted with the prospect of a prolonged Palestinian resistance, the British took a long, hard look at their situation in the Middle East. War with Hitler's Germany was fast approaching. Just as in World War I, Britain would need Arab help, Arab oil and secure shipping routes. This was not the time to be fighting the Arabs. Furthermore, the rebellion in Palestine was tying down one-third of all British troops. To avoid greater damage to its empire, Britain decided to turn once again to paper promises for the Palestinians.

The British White Paper of 1939 suddenly reversed Britain's twenty-year policy toward Palestine. It promised a ceiling on Jewish immigration - only a total of seventy-five thousand Jews would be admitted in the next ten years. It pledged some restrictions on Zionist land purchases. It included an extremely vague pledge that Palestine would become independent in ten years. But the turn-around from guns and tanks to slippery diplomacy did not convince the Palestinians. They rejected the White Paper.

The Zionists were unanimously angry at what they considered a British "betrayal." For them, the White Paper was a major turning point. Britain, their imperial sponsor for more than twenty years, had abandoned the Zionist cause in the face of more pressing needs of the British Empire. The majority of Zionists did not want an open break with Britain, but they knew they would have to find a new sponsor.

In the meantime, Zionists launched a campaign against the Palestinian community. They organized strikes, bombed Palestinian marketplaces and increased secret military training.⁸ They had learned from the Palestinian rebellion that the people of Palestine would never peacefully accept conquest. A strategy that had been imbedded in Zionism from the beginning became explicit: the native people would have to be driven from Palestine. J. Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department, wrote in his diary in 1940:

There is no room for both peoples together in this country... We shall not achieve our goal of being an independent people with the Arabs in this small country. The only solution is Palestine, at least Western Palestine [West of the Jordan River], without Arabs... And there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them: not one village, not one tribe should be left.⁹ [emphasis added]

In 1940, the Zionist movement, carefully nurtured by imperialism, faced a devastated Palestinian people. Twenty thousand Palestinians had been killed or wounded, and thousands jailed. Many of the best fighters and organizers, the most trusted leaders, were dead. The great rebellion was over, but it would not be forgotten. It would be chronicled by writers, analyzed by political leaders and passed on through stories told in the villages and towns.

As the Palestinians mourned their dead and tended to the wounded, events that would profoundly affect their future were unfolding in Europe and America. For the next several years, the actions of the Palestinians were eclipsed by the great struggle for power in the Middle East and elsewhere that was unleashed in the Second World War.

Footnotes

PFLP Bulletin (September-October 1974), pp. 6-7.
PFLP Bulletin (June 1975), pp. 6.
High Commissioner telegram to CO, 2 June 1936 (CO 733/297/75156) cited by William Quandt, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, p. 35.
Cited by Matiel E.T. Mogannam, The Arab Woman and the Palestine Problem (London: 1937), p.295.
PFLP Bulletin (January-February 1975), p. 7.
David Ben-Gurion in a speech at the 20th Zionist Congress, Zurich, Switzerland, 15 August 1937, cited by Childers, "The Wordless Wish," in The Transformation of Palestine, p. 178.
General Haining, GOC, Report to War Office, 30 November 1938, paragraph 14; St. Anthony's College, Oxford, private papers collection, cited by William Quandt, The Politics of Palestinian Nationalism, p. 38.
John and Hadawi, The Palestine Diary, 1:320-21.
Joseph Weitz, Diaries and Letters to the Children (Tel Aviv: 1965), p. 181.

Bab 5 - 1936 - Pemberontakan Palestine

"Die as Martyrs!"

Martial Law in Palestine

Rebellion and Betrayal

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