Arab Revolt

From April 1936 to 1939 the Arabs of the Mandate territory rose against British rule and Jewish immigration. It began with riots in Jaffa and a six-month general strike called by the Arab Higher Committee under the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. After the Peel Commission proposed partition in 1937 and the district commissioner of the Galilee, Lewis Andrews, was assassinated, the revolt turned into an armed insurgency: bands attacked Jewish settlements, buses, railways and British forces, and also killed many rival Arabs. Britain crushed it by 1939 with tens of thousands of troops; more than 300 Jews were killed.

For the Yishuv the revolt was a military school. The Haganah adopted active defense, thousands served in the British-sanctioned Jewish Settlement Police, and Orde Wingate's Special Night Squads trained future commanders such as Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan. The closure of Jaffa port led to the building of Tel Aviv's port, and 57 tower-and-stockade settlements went up. Politically, however, Britain answered with the 1939 White Paper, sharply restricting Jewish immigration.