Israel Arab Conflict History: The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine

The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the
Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936ñ39*

MATTHEW HUGHES, Brunel University

Embodied in the documentation by which Britain accepted the
League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922 were clauses
facilitating Jewish immigration to the country. The Palestinians
were hostile to Jewish immigration and settlement, resulting in
recurring bouts of violence in the 1920s and early 1930s as the
Arabs attacked Jewish settlers and the British authorities. Jewish
immigration peaked in 1936, the year in which the Palestinians
began a full-scale, nation-wide revolt. The spark for the uprising
was an attack on 15 April 1936 on a convoy of taxis on the
Nablus to Tulkarm road in which the assailants murdered two

Jewish passengers.1 Portrayed in the press as an act of Arab
banditry, the assault was possibly the result of speciÆc targeting
of Jews by Arab ëIslamic patriotsí, followers of the late Shaykh Izz

al-Din al-Qassam, killed by British police in 1935.2 At the funeral
for one of the dead Jews in Tel Aviv, there was rioting; at the
same time, gunmen shot two Arab workers sleeping in a hut in a
revenge attack. An Arab general strike and revolt ensued that
lasted till October 1936 when British diplomatic efforts channelled
through the rulers of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan and Yemen
led to a ceaseÆre during which a Commission headed by Lord Peel
came to Palestine to determine the territoryís future. The Arabsí
rejection of Peelís conclusion in 1937 that Palestine should be
partitioned led to a second phase of the revolt from September

1937 to late 1939: the violence Ænally petered out with the

approaching war in Europe. For long stretches of the revolt,
especially its second phase after 1937, the British lost control of
swathes of Palestine, including most major towns and, for about
Æve days in October 1938, the Old City of Jerusalem. The rebels
attacked Jewish settlers in Palestine, but as the revolt was an
attempt to divert British policy, they also targeted British soldiers,
colonial ofÆcials, police ofÆcers and Palestinians working for the
mandate government. To suppress the revolt, the British
launched an intense and prolonged imperial policing operation in
aid of the civil authority ó or, as we would say today, a
counter-insurgency campaign, a term that became fashionable
after 1945ó which involved at its height in 1938 an immense
force built around two army divisions numbering some 25,000
servicemen.

How humane were the British authorities in their response to
the revolt? Did the British operate within the rule of law, and did
servicemen avoid what today would be called human rights
abuses? Were the British comparatively enlightened in
suppressing the revolt compared to, say, other European powers
operating in similar conditions? These are topical questions, not

least as the military history literature on counterinsurgency

emphasises British success in this sphere, the ëhearts and mindsí
aspect to British counter-insurgency and British ë exceptionalismí
in which British armed forces ó ëgenerally more scrupulous than

mostí4 ó worked within the rule of law, avoiding the abuses
against non-combatants that supposedly characterised other
colonial and post-colonial powers. ëNo country which relies on the
law of the land to regulate the lives of its citizens can afford to

see that law Øouted by its own government, even in an
insurgency situation. In other words everything done by a
government and its agents in combating insurgency must be
legalí, was the conclusion of a leading British soldier that
expressed the ideal of the British ëwayí in counter-insurgency,
and an issue discussed in Sir Robert Thompsonís inØuential

Defeating Communist Insurgency (1965). 5 More recently,

Caroline Elkins in her examination of Britainís suppression of the

ëMau Mauí revolt in Kenya in the 1950s wrote:

Decades had been spent constructing Britainís imperial image,
and that image contrasted sharply with the brutal behavior of
other European empires in Africa. King Leopoldís bloody rule in
the Congo, the German directed genocide of the Herero in
South-West Africa, and Franceís disgrace in Algeria ó the
British reputedly avoided all of these excesses because, simply,
it was British to do so.

This was also the view of senior British military commanders in
Palestine at the time, one of whom remarked to a colleague, ëIf

the Germans were in occupation in Haifa weíd not have any

bloody trouble from the Arabsí.

The literature ó in Arabic,8 English9 and Hebrew10 ó on the
revolt is exiguous and skates over the issue of the conduct of
soldiers in the Æeld, excepting some of the Arabic-language
volumes, which record contemporaneous accounts of British
brutality. While the Arabic material is the most extensive, it is
dated, rarely uses British sources and is often printed primary
material. The Hebrew literature focuses either on the internal

dynamics within the Palestinian community or on Zionist military
training in this period, as opposed to any abuses committed by
British troops, Yuval Arnon-Ohanna and Hillel Cohenís books

being good examples of examinations of intra-Arab relations.

Simeon Shoulís recent English-language doctoral thesis on British
imperial policing recognised this gap, arguing that ëthere has
been to date a general reliance Ö. that the British employed
minimal force. Where this is gainsaid, and brutality alleged, there
are only partial attempts to quantify the force employed Ö. There
has been a persistent failure to dig into the experience of many
people ìon the ground,î an accompanying over-reliance on ofÆcial

sourcesí.12 Shoul is right; the methodological challenge when
examining the conduct of British armed forces in Palestine is
Ænding the evidence of abuse by soldiers and ofÆcials who were
reluctant to leave a record of abuses against non-combatants. For
both perpetrator and victim, so often, ëYou donít want to

remember the bad stuffí, which is hidden away or forgotten.

What was the legal system that bound and directed British
servicemen in Palestine after 1936, underpinning and legitimising
counter-rebel operations? Legally, British soldiers Æghting internal
insurgents conducted themselves as an aid to the civil power, an
issue articulated at the time by Major-General Sir Charles Gwynn
and Colonel H.J. Simson, building on the earlier work of Captain

C.E. Callwell.14 The Kingís Regulations and the 1929 Manual of
Military Law bound soldiers of all rank, the latter a bulky
hard-back volume updating the Army Discipline and Regulation
Act (1879) and Army Act (1881), the key points of which

appeared in abridged form in pocket-sized paper-back pamphlets
such as Notes on Imperial Policing, 1934 and the 1937 Duties in

the Aid of the Civil Power that ofÆcers could take with them on
operations. 15 The 1929 manual was precise on how soldiers

should conduct themselves, forbidding, for instance, stealing from
and maltreatment of civilians. The 1929 regulations stated that a
soldier was also a citizen and subject to civil as well as military
law, and that an ëact which constitutes an offence if committed by
a civilian is none the less an offence if committed by a soldierí,
but it also provided a legal framework for shooting rioters and
allowed for ëcollective punishmentsí and ëretributioní, both
loosely deÆned terms in the 1929 volume and both of which are

relevant to what happened in Palestine.16 Neither the 1929

volume nor the subsequent 1934 and 1937 pamphlets provided
any concrete deÆnition for what constituted collective punishment
and reprisals, thereby giving Æeld commanders considerable
leeway when it came to interpreting the rules. The law for
soldiers was clear: they should use collective punishment and
retribution as a last resort and, if possible, that they should avoid
needless civilian suffering and any offence towards religion, race
or class, but the 1929 law clearly stated that where coercion was
required or where terrorism needed to be checked, collective
punishment and reprisals, which will ëinØict suffering upon

innocent individualsí, were ëindispensable as a last resourceí. 17 As

the law stated, ëThe existence of an armed insurrection would
justify the use of any degree of force necessary effectually to

meet and cope with the insurrectioní.

In Palestine, in 1924ñ25, the British had formalised the

principle of collective punishment in the Collective Responsibility
and Punishment Ordinances, building on the idea that Palestinian
village life was a collective ësocial system based on mutual

protection rather than justiceí, a view in some measure endorsed
by arrangements such as the collective rural fazëa (alarm)

security system whereby certain villages would help one another

in times of crisis.19 The British updated these ordinances in 1936
with the Collective Fines Ordinance, these local regulations being
compatible with the personal instructions for soldiers detailed
above.

While civil proceedings against servicemen for individual
offences during any military operations were theoretically
possible, a strict reading of the military law in force with its broad
acceptance of group punishment and reprisal action meant that
tough action was within the law. Where theft, brutality and
assault occurred, unlawful under the ëcivilí element of the law
governing conduct, soldiers had little to fear from disciplinary
action as ëComplaints about military were frequent, lawsuits
rarer, and successful lawsuits almost unheard of Ö in the colonies
the military had a freer hand than in Britain, and restraint of

excessive violence was far lighterí.20 Victims could take out civil
proceedings but before 1947 and the Crown Proceedings Act the
Crown was immune from prosecution, so these would have to be
against individual soldiers, and the victim would have to prove
that the soldiers involved were acting beyond their lawful
operational orders. This was not practicable, especially when
soldiers had no identifying personal number or sign. One Arab
claimed that soldier ënumber 65í had beaten him, unaware that
all the men from that unit, the York and Lancaster Regiment,
formerly the 65th Foot, carried this number on the left side of

their helmets.21 Moreover, the establishment of military courts
and regulations in Palestine after September 1936 which could

ënot be challenged by the ordinary civil courtsí made any such
appeal almost impossible to succeed.22 This author has found only
one successful prosecution of servicemen in Palestine, that of four
British police ofÆcers who blatantly executed an Arab prisoner in
the street in October 1938, witnessed by a number of non-British

European residents, not Arabs, whose complaints never led to a

prosecution.

International conventions laying out rules of war, notably those
at Geneva (1864, 1906 and 1929; superseded by the Geneva
conventions of 1949) and the Hague (1899 and 1907; also the
Draft Rules on Air War of 1923) also constrained British forces in
Palestine. While the fourth convention of the 1949 Geneva

conventions dealt speciÆcally with the protection of civilians, the
international laws in place in 1936 dealt with the conduct of war
and the treatment of prisoners-of-war (POWs) rather than the
maltreatment of civilians. Britain classiÆed the Arab revolt as an
internal insurrection and not an international war and so denied
POW status to Arab Æghters. Thus it treated captured Arab
guerrillas as civilian criminals subject to the ordinary civil law
modiÆed by any conditions of martial law, such as the death
penalty for carrying ammunition or a Ærearm, and for whom
international law did not apply. Anyone found with arms or
ammunition, except for government-issued licensed shotguns
rationed out to compliant village mukhtars (headmen), was liable
for the death penalty, an anomalous position in a country where
rural villagers had riØes for hunting and personal protection. One
old man with no criminal record received a sentence of ten years
for having three rounds in a coffee pot ó which the police could
easily have planted during their search ó a sentence reduced on

appeal to four years. 24 The British during the revolt were careful

to put captured suspects before the courts, before hanging,
sentencing or acquitting them. Later on in the revolt, quickly
convened military courts passed rapid judgement ó and justice
soon followed, the convicted went very quickly to the gallows ó
but there was always the veneer of legal respectability.

While British forces in Palestine during the revolt operated as
an aid to the civil power, conditions in the country approached
martial law, a situation that further eased civil limits on soldiersí
behaviour as under a martial law regime ëacts might be carried

out which would normally be illegalí.25 The British never instituted
full (or ërealí ) martial law in Palestine, but in a series of Orders in
Council and Emergency Regulations, 1936ñ37, they issued

ëstatutoryí martial law, a stage between semi-military rule under
civil powers and full martial law under military powers, and one in
which the army and not the civil High Commissioner had the

upper hand.26 The British by the 1930s had ruled out full martial
law in situations of ësub-warsí, excepting in the most extreme
cases, the reference here usually being to the ëIndian Mutinyí of
1857, but after the Arab capture of the Old City of Jerusalem in
October 1938, the army effectively took over Jerusalem and then
all of Palestine. In fact, since late 1937, the army had been in
charge with the ëfull power of search and arrest, independent of
the police, and the right to shoot and kill any man attempting to
escape search or ignoring challenges. Grenades may be used
during searches of caves, wells, etc. Since November [1937]

co-operating aircraft have been ìbombed-up,î and pilots

instructed to machine gun or bomb ìarmed partiesî.í27 There was
de facto if not de jure martial law from late 1937 or early 1938.

To be fair, the British never removed civil authority in Palestine
from the decision-making process, but by 1938 the High

Commissioner tempered rather than directed the actions of
British armed forces and when Sir Arthur Wauchope, the High
Commissioner in place for the Ærst phase of the revolt, looked for
a political solution to the revolt and challenged army efforts to
institute martial law, he antagonised the armed forces who
thought him too lenient and referred to him as ëwashoutí and

ëga-gaí.28 In March 1938, the Colonial OfÆce replaced him with the more compliant Sir Harold MacMichael.

In the examination that follows, can we distinguish between,
say, ëbrutalityí, ëtortureí and ëatrocityí, terms that are often used
interchangeably? The language employed is signiÆcant. For
instance, in 1991 one senior British ofÆcer objected to the BBCís
use of ëbrutalityí when describing British army actions in
Palestine, suggesting ëdeterminationí as a substitute, the BBC

countering with an offer of ëharshnessí.29 The (British) dictionary
deÆnition of ëatrocityí raises the issue of ëmoral referenceí: an act
of ësavage enormity, horrible or heinous wickedness, an atrocious
deed, an act of extreme cruelty and heinousness with no moral

referenceí.30 For the Americans, such an act is ëoutrageously wicked, criminal, vile or cruel, heinous, horribleí.31 Such deÆnitions could also apply to torture or extreme brutality.

International conventions such as article Æve of the 1948 UN

Universal Declaration of Human Rights32 and article three of the
1950 Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms33 do not deÆne torture as
much as outlaw the practice: ëno one shall be subjected to torture

or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishmentí, 34 the same

wording as was used in the 1987 European Convention for the
Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or

Punishment.35 The 1984 United Nations (UN) Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment deÆned (part one, article one) torture (but not

brutality) in the following terms, the last sentence being

signiÆcant in relation to what happened in Palestine after 1936:36

Ö any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical
or mental, is intentionally inØicted on a person for such
purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or
a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has
committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating
or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on
discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is
inØicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or
acquiescence of a public ofÆcial or other person acting in an
ofÆcial capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising
only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Similarly, the Council of Europeís 1950 Convention for the

Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (article

2) also raised the issue of the legal use of force: ëDeprivation of
life shall not be regarded as inØicted in contravention of this
article [right to life] when it results from the use of force which is
no more than absolutely necessary Ö in action lawfully taken for

the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrectioní.

The legal framework of reprisals and collective punishments

directed British troops when they went on operations after April
1936. Punishment in the form of the destruction of Arab property
across urban and rural areas of Palestine was central to British
military repression after 1936, the countryside being badly hit
although there were some egregious house demolitions in urban
areas. Destruction and vandalism became a systematic, systemic
part of British counter-insurgency operations during the revolt,
and justiÆed by the legal measures in force at the time. Alongside
the destruction, soldiers looted properties, something not
ofÆcially sanctioned; indeed ofÆcers often tried to stop the men
pilfering. Alongside the blowing up of houses ó often the most
impressive ones in the village ó and the smashing up of Arab
villagersí homes, there were ëreprisalsí in the form of heavy
collective Ænes, forced labour and punitive village occupations by
government forces for which villagers bore the cost. One Arab
rebel noted that the British army was unable to ëstrikeí the
Æghters, so it had to resort to ërevengeí and ëcollective

punishmentí. 38 Using air support, radio communications,

intelligence, collaborators and mobile columns, the British
improved their tactics against the rebel bands, but as they never
were able to defeat an elusive enemy in open battle in rough
terrain, they adopted a two-pronged military approach, targeting
enemy Æghters and the civilians on whom they relied for support.
The level of damage varied depending on time, place and the
regiment involved, but it could be very severe. In 1940, after the
revolt was over, John Briance, a police ofÆcer who became the
head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Palestine,
witnessed the ëburn scarsí of the West Yorkshire Regiment at the
village of Bayt Rima, north-west of Ramallah, ëA disgrace to the

British nameí, an incident also referred to by a British doctor in
Palestine at the time.39 Abuses went unreported as the British
heavily censored the Palestinian Arabic-language newspapers,
while commanders such as Major-General Bernard Montgomery in
northern Palestine banished newspaper reporters so that his men

could carry on their work untroubled by the media.

During army searches, soldiers would surround a village ó
usually before dawn so that they could catch any suspects before
they Øed ó the men and women then divided off, held apart from
the houses, often in wired ëcagesí, while soldiers searched and
often destroyed everything, burnt grain and poured olive oil over

household food and effects.41 The men meanwhile were ëscreenedí
by passing hooded or hidden Arab informers who would nod when
a ësuspectí was found, or by British ofÆcials checking their papers
against lists of suspects. If the army was not on a reprisal
operation but was following up an intelligence lead and looking
for a suspect or hidden weapons, any destruction was incidental
to the searching of properties ó troops also used primitive metal

detectors on such operations.42 On such operations, however,
brutality against villagers could occur as the army tried to extract
from them intelligence on the whereabouts of hidden weapons
caches or suspects, as happened at the village of Halhul in 1939.
In some cases, the brutality would then extend to the vandalism
of property as a means of gaining information. The level of
destruction varied, the army using the excuse of weapons
searches to justify any damage if there were complaints. Army
engineers would also demolish houses or groups of houses.

The destruction of property was alien behaviour for soldiers but
they did the job with gusto, once prompted. The ofÆcer entrusted

with checking on destruction in one village reprimanded a
corporal who left intact a beautiful cabinet full of glasses; the

ofÆcer then destroyed the cabinet and its contents.43 The British
designated some searches as ëpunitiveí, as one private recalled,
ëOh yes, punitive. You smashed wardrobes with plates, glass

mirrors in and furniture, anything you could see you smashedí.

The local District OfÆcer told Colonel J.S.S. Gratton, then a subaltern with the Hampshire Regiment, that the unitís search of Safad (Zefat) was a punitive raid, and so they could

knock the place about. And itís very alien to a chap like you
or me to go in and break the chair and kick chatty in with all
the oil in and mixed it in with the bedclothes and break all the
windows and everything. You donít feel like doing it. And I
remember the adjutant coming in and saying, ìYou are not
doing your stuff. Theyíre perfectly intact all those houses
youíve just searched. This is what youíve got to do.î And he
picked up a pick helve and sort of burst everything. I said,
ìRight OK,î so I got hold of the soldiers and said, ìthis is what
youíve got to do,î you know. And I donít think they liked it
much but once theyíd started on it you couldnít stop them. And

youíd never seen such devastation.45

In such operations, away from ofÆcersí view, looting or the
taking of ësouvenirsí was inevitable, and periodic personal
searches of men by NCOs under ofÆcersí orders failed to stop the
problem of endemic petty thieving. Looting was not ofÆcial policy,
as a special order to the two battalions entrusted with re-taking
the Old City of Jerusalem in October 1938 from the rebels

reveals: ëAny attempts, even the most minor, at looting,

scrounging or souveniring by individual troops or police will be

rigorously suppressedí.

The largest single act of destruction came on 16 June 1936 in
the Arab city of Jaffa when the British blew up between 220 and

240 buildings,47 ostensibly to improve health and sanitation,
cutting pathways through Jaffaís old city with 200ñ300 lbs

gelignite charges48 that allowed military access and control. By
this act ó headlined in al-Difaë as ëgoodbye, goodbye, old Jaffa,
the army has exploded youí ó the British made homeless up to
6,000 Palestinians, most of whom were left destitute, having
been told by air-dropped leaØet on the morning of 16 June to

vacate their homes by 9 p.m. on the same day.49 Some families
were left with nothing, not even a change of clothes.50 Such
callous vandalism shocked the British Chief Justice in Palestine,
Sir Michael McDonnell, who frankly condemned the action, for
which he was dismissed; the Arabs with glee printed up 10,000

copies of the courtís critical conclusions for public distribution.

Unable to express their opposition to the destruction of Jaffa, the
Palestinian press resorted to sarcasm, reporting how the
ëoperation of making the city [Jaffa] more beautiful is carried out

through boxes of dynamiteí.52 Particularly recalcitrant villages
would be entirely demolished, reduced to ëmangled masonryí, as

happened to the village of Mií ar north of Acre in October 1938.

On other occasions, the British used sea mines from the

battleship HMS Malaya to destroy houses.54 Sometimes the
charges laid were so large that neighbouring houses came down
or Øying debris hit watching bystanders. British troops even made

Palestinians demolish their own houses, brick-by-brick.

Following a search and cordon of the town of Safad by the
Hampshire Regiment, the senior police ofÆcer, Sir Charles Tegart,
noted simply and euphemistically that the soldiersí did their work
thoroughlyí, adding that local villagers had little sympathy,
feeling that the townsfolk of Safad now ëknow what has been

happening to usí.56 Hilda Wilson, a British school teacher in
Palestine, concluded that the reason for soldiersí destructiveness
was because they were ëbored stiffí and had no social amenities,
compounded by the alienation that they felt serving far from

home:57

Soldiers are traditionally careless of other peopleís property Ö
so what can be expected when they Ænd themselves in a
distant country among people who, they are told, are the
ìenemy.î I remember one occasion when the troops were
giving me a lift from Ramallah to Ain Sinia [properly ë Ayn
Sinya], and while sitting in the foremost lorry of the procession,
waiting in Ramallahís main street, I heard a sergeant further
down the line instructing men on what they were to do when
they reached their destination. They were to cordon the village,
and then proceed to drive the people out of their houses on to
the hillside. I shall never forget the ferocity he put into that
word ìdrive.î

Trapped between the hammer of rebel operations and the anvil
of the British army, Arab peasants demanded army protection
from the depredations of the rebels while also complaining about

servicemenís behaviour.58 In June 1936, Muslim religious leaders

wrote to the High Commissioner detailing how police ofÆcers on
operations ëstampedí on things, destroyed everything, ësmashed
doors, mirrors, tables, chairs wardrobes, glass, porcelainí and
ripped womenís clothing and bed linen. Soldiers mixed in
margarine and oil with foodstuffs, they trampled on ëholy booksí,
and they destroyed wooden kitchen utensils, as well as glasses,

clocks, smoking pipes and basins.59 In the same month, another
protest complained about police and soldiers hitting innocent
people, insulting their dignity, stealing items and destroying

furniture, goods and provisions.60 As one rebel recounted, servicemen,61

Searched houses, each one by itself, in a way that was
sabotaging on purpose, and they looted some of the assets of
the houses, and burnt some other houses, and destroyed
provisions/goods. After putting Øour, wheat, rice, sugar and
others together, they added all the olive oil or petrol they could
Ænd. And in every search operation they destroyed a number of
houses of the village and damaged others. They also put signs
on other houses to destroy them in the future if there are any
incidents near the village, even if that incident is only cutting
telephone wires.

Britainís heavy-handed military methods combined with rebel
demands to weaken, perhaps to shatter, Palestinian rural village
society, creating in the process lawlessness, hunger and social
dislocation. This was unjust collective punishment. The collective
Ænes imposed were a heavy burden for poor Palestinian villagers,
especially when the army also took away all the livestock,

smashed up properties, imposed long curfews and police posts,
blew up houses and detained some or all of the men folk in
distant detention camps. Rebels also Æned (or robbed) villages for
non-compliance with the revolt, £P1000 in one case, £P10ñ100

per household in another.62 If villagers were unable to pay
collective Ænes, they paid them in produce: ëAs usual police were
called to do the dirty work, collecting chickens, eggs and grain

from each family and taking them to Haifa for saleí.

Police activity went beyond the forced requisitioning of
produce, as when the police went to a village after rebels had
killed some ëwogsí, at which point they indulged in indiscriminate
violence against villagers, not rebels. ëBy the time we arrived of
course they had vanished into the blue but we had orders to
decimate the whole place which we did, all animals and grain and
food were destroyed and the sheikh and all his hangers on beaten
up with riØe butts. There will be quite a number of funerals their

[sic] I should imagineí.64 When the police received a report that
rebels had blocked the road with trenches and roadblocks near
the village of Shafa ë Amr, they went to investigate. ëThe local
inhabitants protested that they had been compelled to do this
sabotage by rebel gangs, but this excuse did not relieve them

from a Æne of £[P]700í, and they had to repair the road. 65 For

villagers, £P700 was a considerable sum of money to Ænd. By
comparison, in the late 1930s a British police ofÆcer of constable
rank earned a basic pay of £P11 rising to £P18 for an Assistant
Inspector a month ëall foundí, an attractive wage that drew police
recruits to Palestine. Fines varied but could be as high as £P5,000
and they had to be paid promptly in cash or in the form of
produce such as animals, eggs and cereals; in the village of

a-Tira (or Taybe/Tayyiba, the transliteration from Arabic to
Hebrew to English is not clear), peasants responded to a Æne of

£P2,000 by picking up what they could carry and leaving.

Villagers were in permanent debt as village mukhtars attempted
to gather Ænes from their villagers who often had no livestock, no
men folk and no food. The rationale for Ænes was at times
bizarre, with the authorities Æning villages for forest Æres in the
summer months, the assumption being that local peasants must

have started these maliciously.67 Certain villagers were also
required to produce bonds of up to £P100 and additional sureties
to ensure their good behaviour. Failure to pay could result in

imprisonment.

While the British improved their methods of tracking rebels, the
impact of military operations on villages changed little during the
revolt. When rebels killed an RAF ofÆcer in an ambush twelve
miles south of Haifa on 18 February 1938, badly wounding a
British woman passenger, the British brought up a tracker dog,
specially imported from South Africa, and the dog picked up the

scent:69

The trail was expected to lead up the Wadi Mughar to the bad
village of Igzim [in literary Arabic Ijzim], and B Company, less
one platoon, under Major Clay was detailed as dog escort. The
fourth platoon was given the task of rounding up 2,300 goats
and 200 sheep for conÆscation as a punishment on the
inhabitants of the area in which the crime was committed. The
dog quickly took up the trail and moved up the Wadi Mughar to
Igzim, where it ìmarkedî a house on the northern end of the
village. It was then taken back to the coast road and put onto

another clue, again tracking back to the same village, but to a house opposite the Ærst one. When searched, however, the owners of both houses were absent. The whole village was then cordoned and searched, while reports were sent to Brigade Headquarters in Haifa on the result of the dogís tracking. Later in the morning orders were received to demolish the two houses marked by the dogs Ö.

A policeman present at Ijzim, Sydney Burr, recalled the
brutality of the ësearchí, one that was so tough as to prompt a
complaint about army behaviour from the Anglican mission in

Palestine.70 The use of Doberman tracker dogs specially brought
in from South Africa gave a spurious exactitude to an operational
method that relied on villagers doing the work of the British
army, suppressing the rebels on pain of the collective punishment
and reprisals that would inevitably ensue if there were any rebel
actions in the local area. Critics alleged that tracker dogs always
picked out some suspect on parade; on another occasion, the dog
followed a scent after a robbery to a distant village, leading the
police to an old blind man, and then barked at him proving that

he was the robber.71 Once the tracker dog had marked a
Palestinian or a dwelling, the police invariably ëfoundí some
bullets to conÆrm guilt, and the courts then took over with
hanging the ultimate penalty for the possession of even one
round.

The authorities punished villages because they were the
nearest to an incident or because they thought that a particular
village was pro-rebel ó a ëbadí as opposed to a ëgoodí village,
terms that appear with regularity in the British Æles. In one

operation, police dogs led troops to a house in the village of Naim
(possibly al-Na í ima, Nain or Bani Na ë im) in which police ofÆcers

found two Arabs ëof known bad characterí.72 They told the owner
of the house that unless he gave the police the information that
they required, they would destroy his house. After imposing a
collective Æne of £P50 on the village mukhtars, the British

withdrew to return several days later, whereupon they loaded up
grain on lorries to the value of £P50 and made the villagers and
the owner of the house carry 200 lbs of explosives up to the

village to blow the house. The authorities then collected the

inhabitants on the edge of the village to watch the explosion.

The British triaged villages, destroying Muslim Arab villages while
leaving intact neighbouring Druze villages that they viewed as
anti-revolt. As one police ofÆcer recalled, ëThe Druze are always
friendly and pleased to see the police and hate the Arabs like
poison. They are a much cleaner and better looking race and are
supposed to be descendants from the English and French

crusadersí.74 Soldiers reported that they had little trouble from
the Druze and Christian Arabs of Palestine, especially around the

predominantly Christian town of Nazareth.75 As the Hampshire
Regimental Journal described it: ëWe might mention Mughar is a
Christian Arab village and not in such bad odour with the
authorities as some villages, and consequently this time was not
searched Ö. The Druse are a friendly people and our relations

with them have been most cordialí.76 Yet the authorities Æned the
Christians of Nazareth and destroyed houses in 1939 after a rebel
raid, despite the local Christian clergy protesting their loyalty to
the government. ëThe terrorists will be glad that the Æ ne has
been imposed. Notices were said to have been left in the streets

calling the people of Nazareth traitorsí noted the Anglican
clergy.77 The sorting of villages was based on weak intelligence,
as police ofÆcersí letters home show: ëIt is very difÆcult to catch
the culprits as there is absolutely no information to work on and
you can receive no support from the population in the villages.
You may follow the police dogs into one village and upon this
vague clue you may smash the village and burn it down but the
next night the wires are cut in another part of the road ó and so

it goes oní.

A British doctor in Hebron during the revolt, Elliot Forster,
recalled the effect of living under sustained British military
occupation. Accustomed to local life, Forster worked in Hebronís
St Lukeís Hospital and held surgeries in outlying villages. He lived
through periods of intense military operations as the army and
police fought local guerrillas. The rule of law collapsed as troops
ran amok, shooting Arabs at random simply because they were in
what was, in effect, a ëfree-Æreí combat zone. While some ofÆcers
tried to restrain the men, local Arabs moved about Hebron and
the surrounding countryside in fear of their lives, not from rebel
actions but because of the violence meted out by marauding
troops and police. ëAnyone who sees the army nowadays runs like

a hare ó I do myself!í wrote Forster.79 In engagements with
rebels, the army would shoot Arabs near the battle zone, even
when these were old men and boys tending their Øocks. Forster
daily treated local people brought in to his hospital with gunshot
wounds. Candid as to when he was treating a real rebel, most of
the time he was tending gunshot wounds inØicted by
trigger-happy British troops. He included a well-documented
account of policemen executing in broad daylight in October 1938

an Arab suspect travelling in a police vehicle through the
Manshiya district of Jaffa, an outrage witnessed by non-British
European residents, and repeated examples of troops robbing
Arabs of money, including young children who were relieved of

their pocket money.80 The execution witnessed by non-British
Europeans did lead to an investigation and charging of four police
ofÆcers ó who received minimal sentences reduced on appeal ó
but this was a unique case of servicemen being brought to

justice.81 In October 1938 troops even robbed the Anglican

Archdeacon of Jerusalem, maltreating in the process the Arab boy

whom the cleric had left to look after his affairs.

For the soldiers, their activities in Palestine were unremarkable,
their job being ëto bash anybody on the head who broke the law,
and if he didnít want to be bashed on the head then he had to be
shot. It may sound brutal but in fact it was a reasonably nice,

simple objective and the soldiers understood ití.83 Regimental
histories and contemporary regimental journals did little to hide
the reprisals, destruction and collective Ænes, recording how

villages were ëbeaten upí, homes burnt and men detained in

cages ëon orders from aboveí because of rebel activity nearby.

While euphemisms would be used ó ëthe search was drastic

enough to shake the villagersí85 ó regimental journals would
cheerily and sportily describe the trashing of a village, as with the
Essex Regiment at the ësackí (obvious pun intended) of Sakhnin,
25ñ26 December 1937, with physical force that stopped short of
outright torture or blatant wanton destruction ó or these were

not reported.86 The repeated complaints about the reprisals made
to the mandate authorities by Arab petitioners and the Anglican

clergy in Palestine, supported by Ærst-hand evidence, met with

denials and promises to investigate.

Beyond the ofÆcial policies designed to break the resolve of the
Palestinian peasantry, there were also unofÆcial acts of brutality
committed by rank-and-Æle servicemen. While these do not form
part of the story of ofÆcial reprisal and collective punishment,
they contributed to the terrorising of ordinary Palestinian
civilians, and ofÆcers operating in the Æeld with the men
sometimes sanctioned or simply accepted a level of casual
brutality by their men. While the ad hoc outrages committed by
servicemen were in some measure the soldiersí revenge against
attacks and a means of defeating the rebels, a willingness to
inØict suffering on others played its part in what happened. As
the commanding ofÆcer of the Essex Regiment noted at the end

of 1937, punitive search operations against Arab villages were

ëenjoyed by all ranksí.

For instance, it was common British army practice to make
local Arabs ride with military convoys to prevent mine attacks.
Often, soldiers carried them or tied them to the bonnets of
lorries, or put the hostages on small Øatbeds on the front of
trains, all to prevent mining or sniping attacks. ëThe naughty boys
who we had in the cages in these campsí were put in vehicles in
front of the convoy for the ëdeterrent effectí, as one British ofÆcer

put it.89 The army told the Arabs that they would shoot any of
them who tried to run away.90 On the lorries, some soldiers would
brake hard at the end of a journey and then casually drive over
the Arab who had tumbled from the bonnet, killing or maiming
him, as Arthur Lane, a Manchester Regiment private candidly

recalled:91

Ö when youíd Ænished your duty you would come away nothing
had happened no bombs or anything and the driver would
switch his wheel back and to make the truck waver and the
poor wog on the front would roll off into the deck. Well if he
was lucky heíd get away with a broken leg but if he was
unlucky the truck behind coming up behind would hit him. But
nobody bothered to pick up the bits they were left. You know
we were there we were the masters we were the bosses and
whatever we did was right Ö. Well you know you donít want
him anymore. Heís fulÆlled his job. And thatís when Bill Usher
[the commanding ofÆcer] said that it had to stop because
before long theyíd be running out of bloody rebels to sit on the
bonnet.

British troops also left Arab wounded on the battleÆeld to die

and maltreated Arab Æghters taken in battle, so much so that the
rebels tried to remove their wounded or dead from the Æeld of

battle.93 Lane, the soldier with the Manchester Regiment, was in a
clash with guerrillas in which several British soldiers had died and
he provides a graphic, disturbing account detailing what
happened to the Arab prisoners captured after the Ære-Æght and
who were taken back to the military camp and tied to a post,

Ö they were in a state and they were really knocked about .Ö
whoever had done it when they got them on the wagons to
bring them back to camp the lads had beat them up, set about
them Ö [the interviewer asks him with what] Ö. Anything.
Anything they could Ænd. RiØe butts, bayonets, scabbard
bayonets, Æsts, boots, whatever. There was one poor sod there
he was I would imagine my age actually and Iíd heard people

say in the past that you could take your eye out and have it cleaned and put it back and I always believed it but itís not so because this ladís eye was hanging down on his lip, on his cheek. The whole eye had been knocked out and it was hanging down and there was blood dripping on his face.

When asked why the soldiers had done this, Lane replied
simply, ëSame as any soldier. I donít care whether heís English,
German, Japanese or what. Heís the victor heís the boss and you
accept the treatment that he gives you. I donít care what you
say. That was repeated to me later [the Japanese took Lane
prisoner in 1942]. But itís even today. Thereís a beast in every
man I donít care who he is. You can say the biggest queen or
queer that you come across but thereís a beast in him

somewhere and in a situation like that it comes outí.94 Lane then
described how the men destroyed their own tents, an act that the
commanding ofÆcer allowed so that his men could let off steam,
but in this trashing of their own camp the soldiers left untouched
the Arab detainees. One sergeant ó described by Lane as
deranged ó led the Arab captives to the armoury to show them
all the weapons there and spoke to them in English, which the
Arabs did not seem to understand. He was on the point of letting
the Arabs go free through the gates of the camp when an ofÆcer
stopped him. Then before the army sent the Arabs to Acre jail,

the soldiers took them95

Ö around the back and any lads who were doing nothing at the
time we all gathered round and stood and formed two lines of
men with pick axes, pick axe helves, some with bayonets,

scabbards you know with a bayonet inside, some with riØes,
whatever was there, tent mallets, tent pegs. And the rebels
were sent one at a time through this what do you call it?
Gauntlet and they were belted and bashed until they got to the
other end. Now any that could run when they got to the other
end went straight into the police meat wagon and they were
sent down to Acre. Any that died they went into the other meat
wagon and they were dumped at one of the villages on the
outside.

These excesses were soldiersí response to rebels wounding or
killing comrades in battles, with any prisoners, local village or
villagers becoming the target for a revenge attack, something

that Arabic sources also note.96 But British accounts also detail
soldiers bayoneting innocent Arabs97 and Arab Æghters in battle
being machine gunned en masse by men from the Royal Ulster
and West Kent regiments as they came out to surrender near
Jenin. ëAt one time the Ulsters and West Kents caught about 60 of
them [Arab guerrillas] in a valley and as they walked out with
their arms up mowed them down with machine guns. I inspected
them afterwards and most of them were boys between 16 and 20
from Syria Ö. No news of course is given to the newspapers, so
what you read in the papers is just enough to allay public

uneasiness in Englandí.98 There is also the question of the
methods used by Orde Wingateís ëSpecial Night Squadsí that
mixed British servicemen with Zionist Æghters and pitted them
against the Arabs in Galilee ó ëextreme and cruelí noted one
colonial ofÆcial, Sir Hugh Foot, a force that tortured, whipped,
executed and abused Arabs according to another source ó but is

a subject beyond the scope of this article.

The brutality of the Palestine police and prison service had
some ofÆcial sanction. Sir Charles Tegart, a senior police ofÆcer
ëheadhuntedí from India, authorised the establishment of torture
centres, known euphemistically as ëArab Investigation Centresí,
where suspects got the ëthird degreeí until they ëspilled the
beansí, a major one in a Jewish quarter of West Jerusalem was
only closed after colonial ofÆcials such as Edward Keith-Roach

complained to the High Commissioner.100 Interrogators used what

101

we now know as the ëwaterboardingí torture at these centres.

Keith-Roach, to his credit, raised the issue that the ëquestionable
practisesí carried out by CID ofÆcers on suspects were
counter-productive both in terms of the information gathered and

the effect on local peopleís conÆdence in the police.102 For the
Anglican Archdeacon in Palestine, police abuses were the cause of

the violence rather than a response to it.103 He wrote to the
Mandate Chief Secretary in June 1936 detailing the daily

complaints from Arabs of beatings at the hands of rampaging
police ofÆcers, concluding with an account of a constable who was
reprimanded for bringing in a suspect unharmed ó ëdeÆnitely

104

ordered to duff them upí was the police order.

The letters home of Palestine policeman Sydney Burr provide
an explicit personal account of police brutality ó ëit is the only

way with these peopleí.105 Extra-judicial executions, torture,
beatings and general violence were commonplace for the British
Palestine police ofÆcers with whom Burr worked during the Arab
revolt. Burr discusses the ëthird degreeí dished out to Arab
suspect along with general beatings and trashing of Arab shops

and houses in almost every letter home. Much of the brutality
was casual and wantonly destructive, described by the police and
soldiers in terms akin to a good, fair Æght ó rebel ëhunting is still

the great sportí ó enjoyed by all concerned.106 Most came in the
form of beatings in the street rather than in sinister torture
centres, but the effects could be severe, something than can be
overlooked in the sporting-style descriptions given in many
memoirs: ëit was a good fair Æght with plenty of bottles and
knives Øying about. They are greatly helped by their womenfolk
who specialise in dropping family utensils such as mangles and

bedsteads out of the window on our unfortunate headsí. 107 Thus,

another British police ofÆcer, Douglas Duff, recalled the effects of
a riØe-butt beating delivered by a colleague to an Arab in the

1920s:108

Ö our attitude was that of Britons of the Diamond Jubilee era,
to us all non-Europeans were ì wogs, î and Western
non-Britons only slightly more worthy. When one of the Nablus
detachment produced an old cigarette tin containing the brains
of a man whose skull he had splintered with his riØe butt Ö. I
felt physically sick Ö the sight of that grog-blossomed face of
the gendarme with his can half-full of human brains proudly
brandishing his smashed riØe-butt as proof of his prowess,
altered something inside of me; people who owned skins other
than pink Western ones became human beings.

Duff put it simply when talking about a Muslim Palestinian
crowd disturbance in 1922: ëHad our Arabic been better we might
have sympathised with them; though I doubt it, for most of us

were so infected by the sense of our own superiority over ìlesser

109

breedsî that we scarcely regarded these people as humaní.

Police ofÆcers in vehicles would try to knock down Arabs, ëas
running over an Arab is the same as a dog in England except we

do not report ití.110 Moreover, in the early life of the Palestine
police, many recruits were ex- ëBlack and Tansí and ëAuxiliariesí
from the Irish War of Independence (1919ñ21) and so came with
experience of that brutal conØict, imbuing the force with a tough
ethos when it came to policing the country. ëFor a time I was
seriously troubled at the ì Black and Tan î methods of the police,
of which I had overwhelming evidenceí, wrote the Anglican

Archdeacon in Jerusalem to his secretary.111 The toughness was,
at times, amusing, as when Burr received a handkerchief from
home, forcing him to write back, ëI am afraid I will not be able to
use it here, the old Black and Tans who were the beginning of
this force do not look upon such effeminate apparel in a kindly
light. They think the force is going to the dogs as it is. It is
because of the soft ways that are creeping into the police that the

Arabs are so deÆantí.112 There was also some fascist inØuence
within the police force, the authorities having to issue orders
forbidding the practice of men giving each other the Nazi salute in
public. On another occasion, Jews complained when a riot squad
in Tel Aviv appeared with swastikas painted on their short riot

shields.113 British police ofÆcers saw their service as akin to
serving in the French Foreign Legion, many making explicit
reference to this ó ëa British Foreign Legion. With the faults as

114

wellí ó and some seem to have acted accordingly.

The insouciance of the police was such that they
ësmartened-upí in jail a prisoner with rubber truncheons, not
caring that a British clergyman who was waiting in the police

station to report his car stolen witnessed this action. 115 This

ësmartening-upí might be the same instance recorded in the
Anglican Jerusalem Mission Æles in which a clergyman witnessed
the savage beating of a suspect whose teeth were already
knocked out before he was brought in for a sustained assault by
policemen and a man in civilian clothes who might have been a

military intelligence ofÆcer working with the police:116

A second man came in who was in plain clothes, but whom I
took to be one of the British Police, and I saw him put a severe
double arm lock on the man from behind, and then beat him
about the head and body in what I can only describe as a brutal
and callous way. Once or twice he stopped and turned to the
other people in the station, and in an irresponsible and gloating
manner said ìIím so sorryî ó ìIím awfully sorry.î And then
proceeded to punch the prisoner round the station again. A
third man came in. He was in plain clothes, and was wearing a
soft felt hat. He was, I think, British, and may have been a
member of the Police Force, but I thought at the time that he
was a soldier in civilian clothes Ö. But this man also made a
vicious and violent attack on the prisoner, and punched him
about the head and body Ö. I am gravely disturbed at the
possibility that one of the men who was in the station, and who
beat up the Ærst person who was brought in was not a member
of the police force, but a soldier ó this was the man who was
wearing a soft felt trilby hat Ö. I was for two years Chaplain to

a prison in England, and in the course of my duties not
infrequently witnessed the methods which police and prison
warders were compelled to use with men detained or serving
long terms of imprisonment, and can only say what I saw on
this occasion sickened me and Ælled me with the gravest
misgivings.

The presence of authority did little to blunt police violence, the
Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem having to remonstrate with one
police sergeant ó ëunder the inØuence of drink or mentally
disturbedí ó who was threatening a school boy travelling in the

bishopís car.117 Another police ofÆce remarked to the Bishop that

118

he had orders from the High Commissioner to assault Arabs.

When clergymen discussed these issues on the telephone, the
line went dead: ëWith regard to our telephone conversation this
morning I feel certain that someone was listening in and cut us
off just when you were discussing with me the serious aspects of

119

the situation in Palestineí.

On the receiving end, Palestinians made repeated complaints to
the authorities. One young man wrote to the British detailing the
treatment his father, ë Abd al-Hamid Shuman, a bank director,
had received at the hands of the police. Arrested on 20 February
1938 in Jerusalem, the British moved the father to Acre jail and
then al-Mazra ë a detention camp (near Acre) before he ended up
back in Acre prison hospital after what he claimed were severe

beatings by prison guards that left him unable to walk. 120 There

are other accounts in Arabic of suspects being tortured, of Arabs
being blown to bits in vehicles after being forced along roads in
which the British had placed mines, of British operatives placing

huge terrorist bombs in Haifa, of detainees being left in open
cages in the sun without sustenance, of men being beaten with
wet ropes, ëboxedí and having their teeth smashed, and men

having their feet burnt with oil.121 Those who were ëboxedí were
beaten until they were knocked out, ëneedlesí were used on
suspects, dogs were set upon Arab detainees, and British and
Jewish auxiliary forces maltreated Arabs by having them hold
heavy stones and then beating them when they dropped them.
Guards also used bayonets on sleep-deprived men and made

122

them wear bells around their necks and then dance.

In petitions made through the Anglican mission, Arab detainees
in Palestineís prisons protested at the extreme treatment meted
out by guards. Prisoners jumped to their deaths from high
windows to escape their captors, had their testicles tied with
cord, were tortured with strips of wood with nails in, had wire
tightened around their big toes, hair was torn from their faces
and heads, special instruments were used to pull out Ængernails,
red hot skewers were used on detainees, prisoners were
sodomised, boiling oil was used on prisoners as were intoxicants,
there were electric shocks, water was funnelled into suspectsí

stomachs and there were mock executions.123 As one British

resident in Palestine concluded, ëafter the murder [on 26

September 1937 by Arab gunmen] of Mr [Lewis] Andrews

[Assistant District Commissioner in Galilee] the police asked
permission to use torture to the prisoners to extract information
and that permission was granted from the Colonial OfÆce. Several
of the leading police ofÆcers in Jerusalem refused to countenance

it. One of them has since left the countryí.124 The Arabs claimed
that CID ofÆcers subjected suspects to such severe beatings that

they made false confessions. Thus, ëin order to extract from him a
fabricated admission, and as a result of this method [severe

inquisitorial proceedings and beating] he was compelled under
stress and force and in order to overcome such an atrocious
method against his body and spirit to admit that he gave to other

125

terrorists one time ó bomb, two bombs and a revolverí.

Two single incidents during the Arab revolt arguably meet the
deÆnition of an atrocity. Neither has been widely discussed, even
in the Arabic-language literature, but they have appeared in

printed primary records and in television programmes. 126 The

British army was responsible for both incidents. They occurred at
the villages of al-Bassa, in the Acre district by the Lebanon
border, in September 1938, and at Halhul near Hebron in May
1939. Contemporaneous Palestinian papers such as Filastin made
passing mention of an outrage that seems to be the one at

al-Bassa, but there was nothing in Filastin on Halhul. 127 As

already mentioned, strict British censorship during the uprising
ensured that Palestinian (Arabic-language) papers were closed for
long periods of time and the Palestinian Arabic press was unable
to make critical comment on British military activities in the

country after 1936.128 Indeed, the Zionist press ó such as the Palestine Post, Haaretz or Davaró had more comment on Britainís repression of the revolt than the heavily censored Arabic-language press.

The British killed some twenty villagers at al-Bassa, most if not
all in cold-blood, during an operation in which villagers were also
tortured according to Arabic sources. Up to Æfteen men died in
Halhul, mostly elderly Palestinians (the youngest victim was

thirty-Æve, the oldest seventy-Æve) who died after being left out

in the sun for several days in a caged enclosure with insufÆcient
water. Halhul villagers also claim that soldiers shot a local man at
a well during the same operation ó in fact, it seems that soldiers

129

beat the victim and then left him to drown in the well.

At al-Bassa, British troops claimed that they had been the
victims of roadside bomb and mine attacks ó what today we
would call ëIEDsí. On the evening of 6 September 1938, an RUR
armoured Æfteen-cwt lorry car hit a mine near the village of
al-Bassa, killing four RUR soldiers ó Lieutenant John Anthony
Law, Lance-Corporals J. Andrews and C. Kennedy, and RiØeman

A. Coalter ó two of whom (Andrews and Coalter) died on the 6th,
with two dying from their wounds on the 7th (Kennedy) and the

9th (Law).130 The blast also seriously wounded two men. An RUR
ofÆcer present at the time, Desmond Woods, recalled what
happened next in an oral history interview given many years

later:131

Now I will never forget this incident Ö. We were at al-Malikiyya,
the other frontier base and word came through about 6 oíclock
in the morning that one of our patrols had been blown up and
Millie Law [the dead ofÆcer] had been killed. Now Gerald
Whitfeld [Lieutenant-Colonel G.H.P. Whitfeld, the battalion
commander] had told these mukhtars that if any of this sort of
thing happened he would take punitive measures against the
nearest village to the scene of the mine. Well the nearest
village to the scene of the mine was a place called al-Bassa and
our Company C were ordered to take part in punitive
measures. And I will never forget arriving at al-Bassa and
seeing the Rolls Royce armoured cars of the 11th Hussars

peppering Bassa with machine gun Ære and this went on for
about 20 minutes and then we went in and I remembered we
had lighted braziers and we set the houses on Ære and we burnt
the village to the ground. Now Monty was our divisional
commander at the time, with his headquarters at Haifa, and he
happened to be out on his balcony of his headquarters, and he
saw a lot of smoke rising in the hills and he called one of his
staff ofÆcers and he said ìwonder what this smoke is in the hills
thereî and one of them said ìI think that must be the Royal
Ulster RiØes taking punitive measures against Bassa.î Well we
all thought that this was going to be the end of our
commanding ofÆcer Gerald Whitfeld, because you know
certainly if it happened these days it wouldíve been. Well
anyway Monty had him up and he asked him all about it and
Gerald Whitfeld explained to him. He said ìSir, I have warned
the mukhtars in these villages that if this happened to any of
my ofÆcers or men, I would take punitive measures against
them and I did this and I wouldíve lost control of the frontier if
I hadnít.î Monty said ìAll right but just go a wee bit easier in
the future.î

This is not the full story. Before or after destroying the village,
almost certainly the latter, RUR soldiers with some attached
Royal Engineers collected approximately Æfty men from al-Bassa
and blew some of them up in a contrived explosion under a bus.
Harry Arrigonie, a British Palestine policeman at al-Bassa at the
time, recalled what happened in his memoirs, with the British
ëherdingí about twenty men from al-Bassa ëonto a bus. Villagers
who panicked and tried to escape were shot. The driver of the
bus was forced to drive along the road, over a land mine buried

by the soldiers. This second mine was much more powerful than
the Ærst [i.e., the rebelsí mine] and it completely destroyed the
bus, scattering the maimed and mutilated bodies of the men on
board everywhere. The villagers were then forced to dig a pit,

132

collect the bodies, and throw them unceremoniously into ití.

Arrigonie provides grisly photographs of the maimed bodies,
taken by British Constable Ricke, present at the incident, and he
claimed that the ofÆcer involved had been ëseverely

reprimandedí.133 Recalling the same incident, a senior British
Palestine police ofÆce, Raymond Cafferata, wrote to his wife, ëYou
remember reading of an Arab bus blown up on the frontier road
just after Paddy [a slang term for the Irish] was killed. Well the
Ulsters did it ó a 42 seater full of Arabs and an RE [Royal

Engineers] Sgt [Sergeant] blew the mine. Since that day not a

134

single mine has been laid on that roadí.

The atrocity at al-Bassa prompted the Anglican Bishop of
Jerusalem, the Rt. Rev. G.F. Graham Brown, himself a former
military man who had been battalion adjutant of the Kingís Own
Scottish Borderers in the First World War, to visit al-Bassa and
then call upon Montgomery, the divisional commander for
northern Palestine. Keith-Roach, the senior colonial ofÆcial,
recounted the encounter between the bishop and the general: ëHe
had a long interview with Montgomery and came back absolutely
bewildered. To every question, he said, Monty had but one reply:
ìI shall shoot them.î ìThe man is blood mad,î the bishop moaned

135

across my ofÆce tableí.

A letter in Arabic of 8 September 1938 giving the Palestinian
side of events extends the atrocity to include premeditated
torture. The letter dates the rebel mine explosion to 10.30 p.m.

hours on 6 September, following which, on the morning of 7
September, soldiers came to al-Bassa. They shot four people in
the streets, in cafes and in the homes of the village, after which
the soldiers searched and looted the village, before gathering and
beating inhabitants with sticks and riØe butts. The British then
took one hundred villagers to a nearby military base ó Camp
Number One ó where the British commander selected four men
(the letter lists their names) who were tortured in front of the
rest of the group. The four men were undressed and made to
kneel barefoot on cacti and thorns, specially prepared for the
occasion. Eight soldiers then told off the four men and two per
Arab detainee set about beating them ëwithout pityí in front of the
group. Pieces of Øesh ëØew from their bodiesí and the victims
fainted, after which an army doctor came and checked their
pulses. The army then took the group of villagers to another base
ó Camp Number Two ó while soldiers destroyed the village of
al-Bassa. All of this happened on the morning of 7 September,

with the army withdrawing at 1 p.m. on the same day. 136 While

this letter does not mention the villagers blown up on the bus,
another letter of 20 September 1938 refers to the British and
Jewish police blowing up arrested suspects in this fashion along
the Lebanese border, the British sending back to the villages the

mangled bits of bodies or quickly burying them.137 Thus, it seems
that the army destroyed the village on the 7 September,

returning some days later with engineers and some police ofÆcers to kill more villagers in one or more mine explosions under vehicles Ælled with local Arabs.

An 11th Hussar NCO present at al-Bassa remembered how he
and his men had ëØattenedí the village ó ëblew the lotí ó

before referring to a similar incident near Nablus where the 11th
Hussars after suffering casualties destroyed another village. 138 In

the archives there are other cryptic comments from British
ofÆcers to their destroying and burning villages but the vague
references to what happened and the reticence of British ofÆcers
fully to record what they were doing hampers further research.
The Rt. Rev. W.H. Stewart, the Anglican Archdeacon of Jerusalem
and, from 1938, Hon. Chaplain to the Palestine Police and so no
enemy of the force, wrote of dark deeds in rural areas of
Palestine, concluding, however, that while his evidence was
ëabsolutely trustworthy, is second hand and not such that I can

produceí.139 After al-Bassa, the press in Beirut noted that British
troops ëont fait plusieurs expÈditions punitives dans les villages de

la rÈgioní, suggesting that it was not an isolated reprisal but one

140

of a set of punishments inØicted on the Palestinians.

The second major incident was at Halhul in May 1939. Located
on the road between Hebron and Bethlehem, Halhul was, the
British believed, sympathetic to the rebels. The Black Watch
Regiment surrounded and took over the village in May 1939.
What followed was an attempt to get villagers to hand over riØes,
a recurring British demand during village searches, by setting up
two wired cages. One was a ëgoodí cage in which there was plenty
of water, food and shelter from the sun, and one was a ëbadí cage
in which men were left in the open in the intense heat with
between half and one pint of water per day. In an interview with
a BBC ëTimewatchí team working on a 1991 programme on the
Arab revolt ó what it called ëthe Ærst intifadaí ó the
commanding ofÆcer of the Black Watch emphasised the voluntary
nature of the action; villagers could escape the heat simply by

handing over a riØe, after which they would be moved to the
ëgoodí cage. What he did not make clear is what the villagers

141

were to do if they did not have a riØe.

Again, a closer examination of the sources paints a less rosy
picture of the events at Halhul. Keith-Roach, in a private letter,
wrote that only a half pint of water was distributed, and he does
not refer to a ëgoodí cage. Instead, after the military high
command had given the commander of the Black Watch the

green light, soldiers rounded up all the men of the village,142

Ö instructed that they be kept there [in an open cage] and he
gave them half a pint of water per diem. I saw the original
order. The weather was very hot for it was summer. According
to Indian Army Medical standards, four pints of water a day is
the minimum that a man can live upon exposed to hot weather.
After 48 hours treatment most of the men were very ill and
eleven old and enfeebled ones died. I was instructed that no
civil inquest should be held. Finally, the High Commissioner,
MacMichael, decided compensation should be paid, and my
Assistant and I assessed the damage at the highest rate
allowed by the law, and paid out over three thousand pounds
to the bereft families.

The British doctor, Forster, talks of two cages, one for the men
and one for the women, and makes no mention of an option to
escape the cages. They were there just for punishment. ëWe may
yet teach Hitler something new about the conduct of

concentration campsí was Forsterís acerbic conclusion.143 An Arab
whose father died at Halhul claimed that between eleven and

fourteen men died after two weeks in the sun with no food and
water, one at a village well where ësoldiers kept pushing him and

he was killedí.144 The same man recalled electric generators/
Øoodlights/heaters running all night to increase the detaineesí
privations, some being so hungry that they ate dirt. A woman
from Halhul noted that ten men died, two at the well incident, the
British only releasing the men after the villagers produced forty
old Turkish riØes, and that this was after eight daysí captivity.
The same woman also recalled the night-time lights, and how the
soldiers beat them and threw away food that the women brought
for their captive menfolk. ëWithout guns those men will never be

releasedí, one British ofÆcial (local British ruler) told her. 145 Other

Arab accounts talk of the use of ëcagesí for three days ëat leastí in

146

military operations in other villages.

In correspondence surrounding a Thames Television

programme on Palestine,147 both Geoffrey Morton (formerly of the
Palestine police) and Sir Thomas Scrivener (a former Assistant
District Commissioner in Palestine) challenged the idea that
villagers were denied water in village searches, with Morton
questioning the ësenile oldí peasant that Thames TV had ëdragged
iní to recount his tale. It is not clear if these relate to Halhul or
are more general comment but Thames Televisionís reply is

interesting:148

The problems of the oral tradition (confusing hearsay with

personal experience) made us doubt it, too, and the sequence
was cut when our Zionist adviser told us that these stories
originated as black propaganda in Nazi Germany. One of my
colleagues, however, undertook a personal search in the Public

Record OfÆce and found the original papers. As soon as this
incident took place, Government House informed the Secretary
of State that people had died during an arms search. The
Secretary of State asked for full details because of the danger
of Nazi propaganda, and payments of £2,000 were made to the
bereaved families.

The mention of compensation suggests that this could be a
reference to the Halhul incident of May 1939. One of the

survivors of the cages at Halhul recounted to Forster, the Hebron doctor, the events of May 1939:149

On my return this morning I found man had been admitted
suffering from the effects of his internment at Halhul. He is a
Hebron man who had the misfortune to be caught in the round
up. He has not suffered permanently and is not seriously ill.
The point is that he strikes me as being a quiet and reliable
witness. He denies the lurid stories that were set forth in the
two [Arab] petitions you showed me this morning, and says
that apart from one man who was drowned in a well only the
ten men we know of died from exposure. The death of this man
in the well was bad enough, but again he says the horrible
story told in the petition is not true. The man was suffering
badly from thirst and in order to get a drink he told a false
story of a riØe hidden in a well. He was let down into the well
and drank his Æll, but on being hauled up empty handed he was
struck with the butts of riØes. He had a knife and managed to
cut the cord on which he depended, fell back into the well and
was drowned. My patient said the Ærst few days were terrible,

and the allowance of water was pitifully small. He says that he
and others did in fact drink their own urine. During the latter
part of his internment ó he was there twelve days in all ó
things were somewhat better. As is usual with the oriental
petitioner, these folk seem to spoil their case with exaggeration
and falsehood. In this present case surely the unvarnished
truth was terrible enough.

There are other references to similar excesses in the primary
sources. Forster mentioned a ëworseí atrocity at the village of
Bayt Rima, another example of the tangential comments to other
incidents for which there is some corroborating evidence:
ëApparently the military authorities declared that they had issued
strict instructions against ìfrightfulnessî. I donít know if this
makes things better or worse. Ballard [a military ofÆcer in

Hebron] says a man at Beit [Bayt] Rima died after a beating by

an ofÆcer. ìHeís a known sadistî is the explanationí. 150 The

Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem wrote of ëserious chargesí against
soldiers in operations at Bayt Rima and Michmash, following

which the Bishop protested to senior ofÆcers.151 The Anglican
Mission in Jerusalem listed twenty-two villages and towns in
which troops inØicted single or multiple outrages, sometimes over

152

a period of many months. In 1977, a local man, Qasim

al-Rimawi (likely a rebel and, later, ë Abd al Qadir al-Husayniís
secretary and a Jordanian cabinet minister), claimed that three
villagers were tortured to death by troops at Bayt Rima during a

thirteen-day search involving 2,000 troops.153 In November 1938,
the army also set up fake executions for villagers in Halhul in the
hope of getting them to hand over weapons, as a major recalled

with ëenormous prideí in a conversation with Forster. 154 There is a

reference in the regimental journal of the RUR to ësevere
reprisalsí following the death of soldier in a landmine attack on
the ëYirka trackí (usually Yarka, a Druze village about six miles

south-east of Acre) in February 1939.155 ëThe Royal Ulster RiØes
treated the Arabs very Ærmly indeed but by Jove it paid dividends
but of course you canít do those sorts of things todayí, was how

156

one RUR ofÆcer put it.

After a soldier was blown up by a mine near the village of Kafr
Yasif in February 1939, soldiers burnt down seventy houses, blew
up forty more and, reportedly, then told nine villagers from the
neighbouring village of Kuwaykat to run after which the soldiers

157

gunned them down. ëI do not think the circumstances differ

from those with which we are familiarí, noted a local Anglican

Chaplain.158 Under pressure from the Anglican clergy, the army
provided some relief to the homeless villagers, the Anglican

Chaplain in Haifa concluding:159

On the whole I cannot help wondering at the way the Arabs
trust us and believe us and believe that in the end we will try
and do what is right. Some of the villages which have recently
been hardly [sic] hit seem to go as far as possible in making
allowances. Sometimes they appear to accept the severest
treatment as the inevitable result of acts of violence by the
gangs, even though they themselves are not responsible. And
they do not hold the government responsible for actions taken
by the military authorities, though we know that the
government canít disclaim responsibility. The people at Kafr

Yasif were very eager to point out that the troops who destroyed their houses were not English but Irish.

Following the reprisal attack on Kafr Yasif, local Arabs gathered
outside the German Consulate shouting ëWe want Hitler ó We

160

want Mussolinií.

Arab sources make claims of police assassination squads

abducting and killing villagers,161 the RAFís use of ëincendiary
bombsí on villages near Bad al-Wad west of Jerusalem resulting
in ëburntí bodies, artillery Æ ring on villages at night ësowing fear
among the hearts of women and childrení, women being attacked
by soldiers, bias in favour of the Jews, and desecration of

mosques and Korans.162 Arab leaders complained to Wauchope,
the High Commissioner, that police and soldiers were ëdesecrating
mosques, stealing personal property, destroying Korans and

beating people upí.163 In retaliation, Palestinians targeted
ofÆcials, often those who were especially brutal or pro-Zionist,
one early victim being the British police inspector, Alan Sigrist,
ësentenced to deathí by local Jerusalemites, and shot along with
his guard by two assassins in his car on 12 June 1936 outside St

Stephenís Gate by the Old City in Jerusalem.164 Notorious for his
savage truncheon-wielding attacks on Arabs, including beating up
the staff of the al-Difaë newspaper ofÆce in May 1936, Sigrist
launched indiscriminate assaults on Arab passers-by, including a
well-dressed District OfÆcer who refused to pick up nails left by

rebels hoping to puncture tyres.165 After Sigristís shooting, British
soldiers captured and, allegedly, maltreated one of his wounded
attackers, kicking and beating him with riØe butts in the back of a

truck, after which he died. 166 Another high-proÆle victim was

Lewis Andrews, Assistant District Commissioner in Galilee, shot
leaving church on 26 September 1937, accused of supporting
Zionism; on 24 August 1938, a gunman shot dead British acting
Assistant District Commissioner W.S.S. Moffat, ëknown for his bad

167

behaviourí.

There were some complaints of soldiers molesting women,
usually the claim that they touched womenís breasts: ëthe wife of
Asfur Shihadeh [ ë Asfur Shihadeh] of Bir Zeit [Bir Zayt] while on
her way to the village spring for water was stopped by a soldier
who proceeded to search her and feel her breasts Ö. On the same
day, July 6th, 5 women of Bir Zeit [Bir Zayt] were fetching water
from the spring to the north of the village. The troops rushed,
searched them and shamelessly handled their breasts and bodies

in spite of their cries and protestsí.168 Similarly, there was an
account of an attempted assault by troops who ëattempted to
attack the honour of the wife of Issa Rabah [ ë Isa Rabah] but she
refused and yelled for help and consequently was rescued from
the claws of the civilised troops by her village women

neighboursí.169 Again, ëIn another case the soldiers went in and
found an unmarried girl in bed they forcibly took off her vest
played with her breasts and tried to assault her but her shrieks

attracted the neighbours and this was preventedí.170 At a search
at Tulkarm, soldiers made women line up in front of them and

bare their breasts to prove that they were not men.171 There was
also an accusation of an assault against a girl, directed at British
troops: ëSophiye Ibrahim Hamoud [Hamud] aged 12, raped by
the army. She received a dangerous wound on her head which

broke the skullí. 172 Finally, there was a serious sexual assault

allegation but this was against three Arab policemen, not British
soldiers: ëThey beat me with their riØe butts ó laid me on the
ground. One sat on my chest and kept my mouth shut, etc., while
another assaulted me ó then the men changed places; all three

173

had me in turní.

The issue of sexual violence is opaque; but, in general, the
Arabs complained about British physical force, not sexual assault
against women. It seems that sexual violence was not common
and some of the allegations might have resulted from soldiersí
clumsy attempts to search frightened women. Servicemen shot
dead stone-throwing women, but they were careful to avoid
sexual offence ó as were the Israelis after 1948 who, again, used

174

inherited British repressive methods against the Palestinians.

When it came to searching local women, female ëwardressesí
attached to British units were deployed to search women villagers

down to their ëprivate partsí.175 On another occasion, an army
ofÆcer complained of police ëmismanagementí in failing to bring
along a female ësearcherí on an operation, suggesting that female

searchers were used in the Æeld.176 There were, however, very
few female police searchers, some Arab/Armenian, some Jewish,
for the whole of Palestine, so outside the major towns women
should not have been searched unless a woman searcher was
present, impracticable in fast-moving operations. The British used
Jewish and Armenian women as searchers ó ëno British woman
would lower herself to do ití ó but, for example, in October 1938
in Jerusalem they had just two Arab women for this task, one at

the Jaffa Gate and one at the Damascus Gate.177 In June 1936,

when the British wanted to search women escaping the
destruction of old Jaffa, they sent seven women from the prison
service in Jerusalem down to Jaffa for the job, commandeering a

local building especially for the purpose.178 The British police
claimed that the Arab rebels hid their ëstuffí with Palestinian
women, the Arabs countering that hidden goods were simply
valuables or money that they did not want stolen by

179

servicemen.

Nor did the British army act as one, regiments behaving
differently on operations. Arab propaganda played on the fact
that Scottish regiments were especially unpleasant. One Arab
leaØet, written into (clumsy) English for distribution to soldiers,
made clear the link between abuses and Scottish troops deployed

to Palestine:180

One can never imagine inhuman deeds than bombing up the
houses over their inhabitants of innocent ladies and children, of
robbing passengers, then shooting them, of ruining whole
villages and scattering their inhabitants to die of cold and
thirst; and of obliterating the ladies of those killed persons in
order that they might terrify the peaceful citizens. These
savage actions are mostly committed by ìROYAL SCOTCH
REGIMENTS,î in so many places of Palestine; and hundreds of
photographs are kept for future generations to behold these
actions of ìROYAL SCOTCH REGIMENTS.î

This is corroborated by police ofÆce Burr who noted that
Scottish regiments were the ëworst offendersí when it came to
causing trouble, and ëif an Arab sees anybody in a kilt they run a

mile. In the trouble last year they used the bayonet on the
slightest excuseí.181 The Arabs were aware of regimental
differences, with Arab students in London in May 1939 protesting
speciÆcally against Black Watch soldiers following the Halhul

outrage.182 Following the death of two Black Watch soldiers by
the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem on 5 November 1937, General

Archibald Wavell remarked on the restraint shown by the Black
Watch on a subsequent operation against Silwan, the village
south of the city blamed for the attack, although he admitted that

a suspect died ëfalling over a cliffí.183 OfÆcially, after tracker dogs
led the authorities to the village, one villager ended up hospital
after falling off a cliff, while soldiers shot dead one man and
wounded another. Then the authorities sealed the village
forbidding villagers to leave without a permit, made all males
report every evening to the police and made the village pay for a

twenty-man police post.184 Yet, the private diary of a North
Staffordshire Regiment ofÆcer tells a different tale, recording how
Black Watch men beat to death twelve Arabs in Silwan with riØe

butts after the death of their comrades.185 Why would this ofÆcer
lie to his private diary? Palestine policemen recalled that Scottish
regiments were especially tough when it came to dealing with the
Arabs, and several later counterinsurgency excesses after 1945ó
at Batang Kali village in Malaya in 1948 (Scots Guards), the Aden
ëCraterí in 1967 (Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders) and the Falls

186

Road in 1970 (Black Watch) ó involved Scottish regiments.

While Black Watch (Scottish) troops were involved in actions at
Halhul and Silwan, other Scottish regiments behaved properly, as
Forster noted concerning the change in the Hebron garrison from

the Queenís Own Cameron Highlanders to the Cameronians
(Scottish RiØes), ëa far less aristocratic affair [and disbanded in
the 1960s] but worth about six times their predecessors. Soon
after their arrival a village patrol was ambushed and a truck
blown up by a land mine Ö. The Cameronians bore no malice and
for the rest of their stay became very popular with the people.
Gilmour [Captain G.H. Gilmour, the ofÆcer at the ambush]
encouraged his men to go, in properly conducted parties, to look

at the suq and the mosqueí.187 Moreover English county
regiments could also act very robustly.188 While certain regiments
recruited heavily from certain regions, these differences were
fundamentally regimental and not regional, and were a function
of the internal dynamics and leadership within different
regiments. All of the servicemen in Palestine were regular
volunteers, so there was continuity at the grass-roots level,
especially as the different regiments drew recruits from broadly
similar socio-economic backgrounds who then experienced a
shared training and soldiering regimen. But regiments were not
the same, some had weaker or tougher leadership cadres and
command structures, and different traditions of soldiering, and so
brutality was more or less likely to occur when men went on

189

operations against guerrillas.

On occasion, servicemen took the law into their own hands, not
least as they did not appreciate that the judicial system
supported their work in the Æeld against the rebels as, while
military courts with no jury did sentence to death Arabs brought
before them, they also acquitted suspects or handed out lesser
sentences. For instance, of eighty-two persons tried in the period
from 20 May to 31 July 1938, the courts acquitted thirty-six,

found one not guilty due to insanity and the average length of
sentence was three and a half years. The British handed out

nineteen death sentences, of which they commuted seven. 190 One

British military prosecutor recalled how a judge acquitted a sniper
caught with a riØe and ammunition on a legal technicality, and
that Jewish evidence would never be sufÆcient to convict an Arab:
ëThe Arab Bar appreciate the impartiality of the military

prosecutorsí.191 On the other hand, a policeman relating the trial
of a Jewish rebel in the 1940s, described military justice as akin

192

to ëkangaroo courtsí.

The perceived leniency of the courts might help to explain the
numbers of Arab suspects shot while ëtrying to escapeí, a
recurring phrase in police Æ les and which policeman Burr admits
were assassinations by colleagues who were tired of the legal

system and so ëshot out of handí suspects.193 Briance confessed
to his mother that colleagues shot on the spot an arrested

rebel.194 Troops also shot captives, including the Palestinian
suspected of assassinating acting Assistant District Commissioner
Moffat in August 1938 in his ofÆce in Jenin. The British quickly
apprehended the assassin after the murder ó he was,
apparently, a blond hunchback and so rather visible ó after
which he was shot trying to escape, despite his disability and

being surrounded by Æt, young British soldiers.195 Then again, the
Arabs nicknamed Moffatís assassin, ëMuhammadí, ëgazelleí

196

because he was so swift.

Arabic sources paint a harrowing picture of the judicial system.
Abu Gharbiyah secured a press post that allowed him access to
the workings of the military tribunals set up in 1937 and presided

over by three military judges. His accounts of the workings of
these military as opposed to civil courts highlight a judicial
system in which proceedings and the passing of the death
sentence could take less than an hour. The commanding ofÆcer of
the Essex Regiment noted how the courts worked at ëhigh

pressure. The Arab is slow to learní.197 The supreme British
commander ó at this time General Archibald Wavell ó conÆrmed
one sentence the same evening and the British hanged the
convicted man the next day. The whole sequence from the start
of the trial to execution took forty-eight hours. Abu Gharbiyah
noted with irony how he and his comrades, ëcheered for British

justice!í198 On another occasion, a family of nine from Gaza came
before the court charged with possession of one gun. The
judgement took fewer than two hours, with the family of nine
standing throughout with British guards pointing weapons at
them. The judges found six children guilty and sentenced them to
life imprisonment, sent two children who were minors to jail for
seven years, while they condemned the chief accused

(presumably the father) to death.199 Abu Gharbiyah claimed that
in 1938 military tribunals passed 2,000 ëlongí sentences and 148
death sentences, the latter not borne out by the ofÆcial Ægures of
those hanged. Finally, the British detained tens of thousands of
Arabs, many of whom had no connection with the rebellion but
were just unfortunate enough to be villagers in areas of rebel
activity, or were sent into detention after ëscreeningí procedures
whereby hooded Arab informers working with the British checked
over villagers, a widespread practice in later counterinsurgency
campaigns.

According to ofÆcial British Ægures, the army and police killed

more than 2,000 Arabs in combat, while 100ñ112 were hanged,
and 961 died because of ëgang and terrorist activitiesí.200 Building
on the British statistics, Walid Khalidi cites Ægures of 19,792

casualties for the Arabs, with 5,032 dead, broken down further
into 3,832 killed by the British and 1,200 dead because of

ëterrorismí, and 14,760 wounded.201 The accounts of the Æghting
in Palestine in which ëunofÆcialí deaths were high bear out
Khalidiís statistical examination. If we accept an overall Ægure of
5ñ6,000 Arabs killed during the revolt, how many died because of
non-British actions? Yuval Arnon-Ohanna produced Ægures of
between 3,000 and 4,500 Arabs killed due to intra-Arab Æghting,
often against suspected collaborators or because of Æghting
between the Nashashibi and Husayni families, a point he
emphasised in his critical examinations of Palestinian Arab unity

and social cohesion during the revolt.202 More recent Hebrew
work by Hillel Cohen questions ArnonOhannaís scholarship,
claiming that he misread Arabic sources, lowering the Ægure of
Arabs killed by Arabs to 900ñ1,000, providing a total that is more

sympathetic to the Arab cause as it puts less emphasis on

203

intra-Arab clashes.

What are we to make of these Ægures? The non-Jewish
population of Palestine in 1939 comprised 927,133 Muslim, plus
116,958 Christian and 12,150 ëotherí non-Jewish, giving a grand

total of non-Jews of 1,056,241.204 If we accept a total of 3,832
Arabs killed by the British, this results in percentages of 0.36%
non-Jewish killed. Khalidi shows that the comparable percentages
for Britain and the US, taking the higher total Ægure of dead of
5,032, would have resulted in 200,000 British and 1,000,000

Americans killed. 205 Put this way, the Ægures do look more

dramatic than they do when seen as absolute totals, and it is for
this reason that the same statistical method was applied by
pro-Zionist historians when detailing Israeli casualties during the
1948ñ49 Arab-Israeli War, showing that they suffered more

206

casualties than Britain did in the Second World War.

By late 1938, once the Munich crisis had passed, the British
had deployed two full-strength divisions to Palestine. The British
government was keen to resolve the Palestine revolt before war
broke out with Germany and so allowed these forces to increase
the tempo of their operations. ëThe military command in Palestine
and the High Commissioner were able to do more or less as they
likedí because of the threat from Germany, recalled one ofÆcer in

Palestine at the time.207 With such a large deployment, some level
of human rights abuse was inevitable, especially as successful
counter-insurgency demanded some degree of brutality. Did the
reprisals and collective punishment allowed by the 1929 Military
Law that the British used in Palestine in the 1930s constitute the
ësevere pain or sufferingí demanded by, say, the UN deÆnition of
torture? This article has uncovered evidence of blatant torture ó
and recognised as such at the time ó but most of what it
describes is premeditated, systematic, ofÆcially sanctioned
brutality in the form of collective punishments and reprisals
directed primarily at property not people. There are fewer
instances of unpremeditated and extreme ëwildí reactive
rank-and-Æle brutality. These could reØect soldiersí anger at a
guerrilla attack ó notably if rebels killed or wounded a comrade
in an attack ó and a subsequent desire for revenge. UnofÆcial
torture and brutality were illegal then and now ó pace the

arguments of those such as Alan Dershowitz legitimising the use
of torture against terrorist suspects.208 The ofÆcially directed
brutality was legal at the time, leaving aside the moral outrage
that such action would now provoke. Britainís concern to follow
the law ó modiÆed as necessary ó meant that her actions were
usually within the law.

While some incidents such as al-Bassa meet the dictionary
deÆnition of an atrocity, these outrages were not the systematic
excesses that one would expect to see in a police state in which
service personnel could act without ëmoral referenceí. In her
charged attack on British imperialism, Elkins described Kenya in
the 1950s as ëBritainís Gulagí, not a phrase that is readily
applicable to Palestine in the 1930s, at least not with the records

currently available.209 Army actions at Halhul and al-Bassa saw
the deaths of around thirty-Æve people, tragic, wrong and illegal,
but in a three-year insurgency evidence that restraint and ëmoral
referenceí rather than unalloyed wickedness guided military
operations. That recognised, other outrages similar to those at
al-Bassa and Halhul undoubtedly occurred ó this article has
touched on some of them ó although the numbers of dead in
each incident were small. Cumulatively, however, these boost the
Ægure of thirty-Æve dead to something much greater, especially if
one considers the recurring incidence of single or several Arabs
shot dead while running from troops, although troops were legally
empowered to shoot ësuspectsí who were running away following
a verbal challenge.

The question is partly how one measures the severity of
excesses, partly what one looks for in the archival material.
Wilson, the British teacher in the village of Bir Zayt, noted that

the British soldiers whom she met daily behaved very correctly
towards both herself and the local Palestinian community. 210 Of

course, that Bir Zayt was a Christian Arab village in which there
were female British teachers could also explain the troops ëgentler
behaviour, but when soldiers detained some local Arabs and took
them into captivity in Ramallah prison, they did little to them
beyond making them mend some buildings. The Arabsí main
complaint to Wilson was that the better-educated ones resented
their gaolers leaving them in a cell with ordinary peasants. The
extent of British military violence towards the suspects was to
manhandle them through the door into the basement cell in
which the soldiers detained them. Once released, their soldier

gaolers gave the local men cigarettes and then a lift home. 211 The

villagers were ënot specially indignant, taking it rather as part of
lifeís general unpleasantness. ìTurkish soldiers before 1918,î

they said, ìEnglish soldiers now. All soldiers are alikeî.í212 Forster,
typically very critical of the British army, also commented on
positive changes in British behaviour in Hebron ó ëmilitary

thieving has stoppedí ó showing that there was no consistent

213

pattern of abuse.

Local Arab women came to see Miss Hulbert, one of Wilsonís Bir
Zaytís teaching colleagues, crying and complaining about the
British detaining their menfolk for road repairs: ëìThey are
beating them! The soldiers are beating our men!î ìBeating!î
exclaimed Miss Hulbert. ìHow do you mean ó like this?î giving
an energetic pantomime of two-handed whacking with a stick.
ìOh no no!î replied the women. ìOnly like thisî ó demonstrating
the mildest of pats and pushes; obviously no more than would be
necessary to show the men where to go or what to do ó not

surprising when soldiers and villagers cannot speak each otherís
languageí.214 Whom are we to believe? Both Forster and Wilson
are credible witnesses, both spoke some Arabic and both were
sympathetic to the Palestinians amongst whom they lived.
Similarly, the account above from ë Abd al-Hamid Shumanís son
regarding his fatherís maltreatment at al-Mazra ë a detention
camp is not supported by one of Shumanís fellow detainees, ë Abd
al-Hamid al-Sa í ih, who remembered calling in take-away food,
jogging, sun-beds, educational classes, and a prison governorís

ëhumane gesture Ö worthy of praise and I thank him for

215

thisí.

British troops acted correctly and with humanity, contradicting
the negative accounts detailed above. ëIf we wounded a terrorist
or anything like that well I mean he was usually looked after as
well as one of our own chaps. I donít think there was any great
sort of animosityí, or, ëBritish soldiery were very bad at brutality;

we used it half-heartedly or even not at allí.216 The Arab revolt
raises methodological issues when faced with masses of primary
evidence pointing in opposite directions. Soldiersí memories of
the conØict vary greatly, acts of great kindness sitting oddly
alongside brutality towards vulnerable people, sometimes in the
same soldierís record, all evidence of the peculiar experience of
soldiering and the later process of memory and historical record.
Similarly, Arabic accounts are not consistent and do seem, at
times, exaggerated. Perhaps the issue is whether one is looking
to support or to deprecate the British army, its
counter-insurgency methods, and imperial rule generally.

Casual racism certainly inØuenced servicemenís conduct
towards the ëwogsí ó ëThere is apparently only one method of

handling the Arabs with the exception of the Bedouin, that is by
ruthless white dominationí, or ëthe Arab was a slightly half-witted

younger brotherí217 ó but there was none of the racial hatred
that, say, white settlers directed at the black Africans involved in
the ëMau Mauí revolt in Kenya. Moreover, soldiers disliked Jew
and Arab in equal measure. One police ofÆcer remarked on the
ërealí Arabs of the desert, like ëchalk and cheeseí compared to the
ëcraven, cowardlyí Palestinians, before going on to describe Jews
as ëpoor soldiersí lacking initiative and ëgutsí who were also

ëill-mannered, arrogantí and ësubversiveí.218 For the British troops,
ëby and large the Arab was a clean Æghterí and they respected

him accordingly.219 While servicemen commented on the dirt in
Arab areas, they rated the rebels as worthy opponents, they saw
the Arabs as a once-powerful culture and service in the Holy Land
impressed them. ëI think we British rather admire the Arabsí, was

one ofÆcerís far from isolated comment.220 Servicemen were
disinterested when it came to the Arab-Zionist conØict in
Palestine, excepting that the Arabs in the 1930s were the rebels
and so were the enemy. Towards the Arabs, there was little of
the prejudice shown after 1945, when anti-Semitism among

servicemen was rife, perhaps because while the Arabs failed in
their revolt, the Zionists were successful in their struggle against
the British.

As for the Palestinian villagers, they were so desperate to
escape the rebels who came by night for sustenance and the
troops who came by day to punish them that many Øed their
homes, creating an internal refugee crisis requiring ofÆcial relief

221

and soup kitchens, the latter organised by the Muslim waqfs.

By the end of the revolt, Palestinian villagers were referring to

the guerrillas not as mujahidin in a holy war but as rebels
(thuwwar).222 While grossly unfair, the targeting of non-

-combatants worked, the British suppressing the revolt by 1939,
leaving them free to deploy their troops for the coming war in
Europe. Britain directed operations against the Palestinian Muslim
population along with the rebel bands that the army hunted
down, when it could Ænd them and bring them to battle. As with
later successful counterinsurgency campaigns such as Malaya in
the 1950s, British forces discriminated in Palestine, targeting the
Muslim community while working with or treating leniently
friendly groups in Palestine such as the Yishuv ó the pre-1948
Jewish community in Palestine ó and, arguably, the Druzes and
the Christian Palestinians, the latter a sensitive subject that
deserves more examination. Support for the Yishuv during the
revolt is beyond the remit of this article, but Britainís recruitment
of thousands of extra Jewish supernumerary police ó 14,411
according to one source ó was one sign of her recognition of the

relative value of the different communities in Palestine. 223 When

inØicting reprisals and instituting collective Ænes, the British
treated the Jews softly, avoiding, for instance, house demolition
of Jewish homes in Tiberias following the death of an Arab in a

224

land mine attack.

After 1936 in Palestine, the British established a systematic,
systemic, ofÆcially sanctioned policy of destruction, punishment,
reprisal and brutality that fractured and impoverished the
Palestinian population. Most of this repression was legal to the
letter of the military law and the emergency regulations in force
in Palestine after 1936. The army maintained that destruction

was not its primary aim during operations even when this was its

operational method, suggesting that soldiers knew that such
actions were questionable morally if not legally ó servicemen

also had orders banning photographing of demolitions. 225 The

authorities (re)constructed the law to give soldiersí actions
legality. The British had to balance what was lawful, what was
morally right, and what worked, and these were not compatible.
The regulations in force after 1936 made, as a pro-Arab British
resident of Haifa wrote, ëlawful things which otherwise would be

unlawfulí.226 Lawlessness was the law. Servicemen were guided
by a legal system that meant that they could accept the
premisses of their government that allowed for brutal actions,
and they could do so with all the energy of good bureaucrats
obeying orders ó hence the phrase ëbanality of brutalityí in the

title to this article, a tilt to Hannah Arendtís study of Adolf

227

Eichmann.

Where the British army tortured and illegally executed
Palestinians, these were the casual, uncontrolled actions of
servicemen operating outside of the law and without explicit
orders. That noted, while there was no discernible army chain of
command guiding a system of extreme brutality directed at
persons, and which broke civil law, police ofÆcers and prison staff
might have directed torture that was systematic or even
systemic. Looking at the Arab revolt as a whole, extreme acts of
personal abuse were probably not systematic, and almost
certainly not systemic. Admittedly, the British high command
tolerated the less blatant abuses committed by its men in the
Æeld, but senior ofÆcers based in Haifa and Jerusalem were
sensitive to charges of abuse, politically if not morally, and so it
was junior ofÆcers in the Æeld who were intimately involved in

any excesses. The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem put it succinctly,
writing how outrages ëare not ofÆcially sanctioned although they

have not been ofÆcially regrettedí.228 Whether there was an
unwritten code from on high sanctioning grass-roots level gross
abuse is unproven, and probably impossible to prove, precisely
because those involved were unwilling to leave a written record of
such orders. For the Anglican Bishop, those in the ëhighest
positions of authorityí deplored the deaths of innocent civilians,
suggesting that civil and military forces acted as a brake on

counter-rebel operations.229 Britainís forces of repression were not
united, with the army, for instance, working with the Shai, the
Zionist intelligence branch, handing it Arab material to translate,
sidelining the colonial administration that opposed army

230

ëmethodsí that were outside ëusual police activitiesí.

Britain lost control of Palestine in the late 1930s during the
Arab revolt. Faced with similar disturbances, other imperial
powers responded much more harshly than the British did in
Palestine, as even a cursory glance at other twentieth-century
counter-insurgency campaigns shows, whether it is the Spanish
in the Rif mountains, the Germans in Africa before the Great War
and during the Second World War, the Japanese in China, the
Italians in Libya, the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam,
the Portuguese in Africa or the Soviets in Afghanistan. These
actions included systemic, boundless violence, large-scale
massacres of civilians and POWs, forced starvation, overt racism,
gross torture, sexual violence and rape, the removal of legal
process, the use of chemical and biological weapons against
civilians, ethnic cleansing, extermination camps and genocide.
This does not excuse British abuses in Palestine but it provides

some comparative context. Put simply, in Palestine the British were often brutal but they rarely committed atrocities. Indeed, by moderating its violence, Britain was probably more effective as an imperial power. Perhaps this is the best that can be said for the British ëwayí in repressing the Arab insurgency in Palestine: it was, relatively speaking, humane and restrained ó the awfulness was less awful ó when compared to the methods used by other colonial and neo-colonial powers operating in similar circumstances, an achievement, of sorts.

*This article has been completed during tenure of the US Marine Corps
Universityís Major-General Matthew C. Horner Chair of Military Theory, funded by
the Marine Corps University Foundations through the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas

A. Saunders. The author also acknowledges the support of the British Academy, the American University in Beirut, and the following individuals: Martin Alexander, Ian Beckett, Joanna Bourke, Zeíev Elron, David French, Itamar Radai, Najate el-Rahi, Helen Sader, Avi Shlaim and Asher Susser.

1. al-Jamië a al-Islamiyya [The Islamic Community] (Jaffa), 16 Apr. 1936 records three killed.

2. A. Schleifer, ëIzz al-Din al-Qassam: Preacher and Mujahidí, in E. Burke et al.,
eds., Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East (Berkeley, 2006), 139.

3. I. Beckett and J. Pimlott, eds., Armed Forces and Modern Counter-Insurgency
(New York, 1985); I. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies:
Guerrillas and Their Opponents since 1750 (London, 2001); J. Ellis, From the
Barrel of a Gun: A History of Guerrilla, Revolutionary and Counter-Insurgency
Warfare, from the Romans to the Present (London, 1995); D. Galula,

Counter-Insurgency Warfare (London, 1964); F. Kitson, Low Intensity Operations
(London, 1971); T. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919ñ60 (London,

1990); J. Paget, Counter-Insurgency Campaigning (London, 1967); M. Shafer,
Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of US Counter-Insurgency Policy (Princeton,

1988); R. Taber, War of the Flea (New York, 1965); Sir R. Thompson, Defeating
Communist Insurgency (London, 1965); C. Townshend, Britainís Civil Wars:

Counterinsurgency in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986).

4. J. Pimlott, ëThe British Experienceí, in I. Beckett, ed., The Roots of

Counter-Insurgency: Armies and Guerrilla Warfare, 1900ñ45 (London, 1988), 11.

5. F. Kitson, Bunch of Five (London, 1977), 289.

6. C. Elkins, Britainís Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (London, 2005),
306.

7. Conversation, Lt-Gen A. Wavell to Brig J. Evetts, in P.C. Munn, 4503, tape 3, I[mperial] W[ar] M[useum] S[ound] A[rchive].

8. Naji ë Allush, Al-Muqawama al-ë Arabiyya Æ Filastin, 1917ñ48 [The Arab

Resistance in Palestine, 1917ñ1948 ] (Beirut, 1969); Muhammed ë Izzat

Darwazah, Mudhakkarat Muhammad ëIzzat Darwazah: Sab ëa wa tisëuna ë aman Æ
l-hayat [The Diaries of Mohammed ë Izzat Darwazeh: 97 Years in a Life ] (Beirut,
1993); Bahjat Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal al-ë arabi al-Æ lastini:
mudhakkarat al-munadil Bahjat Abu Gharbiyah [In the Midst of the Struggle for
the Arab Palestinian Cause: The Memoirs of Freedom-Fighter Bahjat Abu
Gharbiyah (Beirut, 1993); Ghassan Kanafani, ë Thawrat 1936ñ1939 Æ Filastin:
KhalÆyyat, tafasil wa tahlil í [ëThe 1936ñ39 Revolt in Palestine: Background,

Details and Analysisí], Shuíun Filastinyya [Palestinian Matters] 6 (Jan. 1972),
45ñ77; Kayyali, Wathaíiq al-muqawama al-Filastiniyya al ëArabiyya didd al-ihtilal
al-Baritani wa al-Sahyuniyya [Documents of the Palestinian Arab Resistance]

(Beirut, 1968); W. Khalidi and Suweyd, Al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya wa al-Khatar
al-Sahyuni [The Palestinian Problem and the Zionist Danger ] (Beirut, 1973);
Khayriyya Qasmiyya, ed., Filastin Æ-Mudhakkarat al-Qawuqji [Palestine in the

Memories of Fawzi al-Qawuqji] (vol. ii) (PLO Research Centre and Jerusalem

Publishing House, 1975); Khalil al-Sakakini, Kadha Ana Ya Duniya [Such Am I, Oh
World!] [1955] (Beirut, 1982); Subhi Yasin, Al-Thawra al-ëArabiyya al-Kubra (Æ
Falastin) 1936ñ1939 [The Great Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936ñ1939] (Damascus
Shifa ë Amru Haifa, 1959); Akram Zu ë aytir, Wathaíiq al-Haraka al-Wataniyya
al-Filastiniyya, 1918ñ39: Min Awraq Akram Zuëaytir [Documents of the Palestinian
National Movement, 1918ñ39: From the Papers of Akram Zuëaytir ] (Beirut,

1979); Akram Zu ë aytir, Al-Harakah al-Wataniyah al-Filastiniyya, 1935ñ39:

Yawmiyyat Akram Zuëaytir [The Palestinian National Movement, 1935ñ39: Diaries of Akram Zuëaytir ] [1980] (Beirut, 1992).

9. T. Bowden, The Breakdown of Public Security: The Case of Ireland, 1916ñ21
and Palestine, 1936ñ39 (London, 1977); J. Norris, ëRepression and Rebellion:
Britainís Response to the Arab Revolt in Palestine of 1936ñ39í, Journal of Imperial

and Commonwealth History, xxxvi (2008), 25ñ45; Pimlott, ëThe British

Experienceí ; S. Shoul, ëSoldiers, Riots and Aid to the Civil Power in India, Egypt
and Palestine, 1919 ñ 39í, (Univ. of London Ph.D. thesis, 2006); C. Smith, ë Two

(University of Cambridge D.Phil. thesis, 1989); C. Townshend, ëThe Defence of Palestine: Insurrection and Public Securityí, ante, ciii (1988), 917ñ49.

10. H. Cohen, Tzva ha-Tzlalim [An Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaborators in
the Service of Zionism ] (Jerusalem, 2004) (translated into English, 2008); Y.
Eyal, Ha-Intifada ha-Rishona: Dikuy ha-Mered ha-Aravi al yedey ha-Tzava ha-Briti
be-Eretz Israel, 1936ñ39 [The First Intifada: The Suppression of the Arab Revolt
by the British Army, 1936ñ39] (Tel Aviv, 1998); and (translated into English) Y.
Porath, The Palestinian Arab National Movement: from Riots to Rebellion. Volume
Two, 1929ñ39 (London, 1977).

11. Y. Arnon-Ohanna, Herev mi-Bayit: ha-Maëavak ha-Pnimi ba-Tnuë a ha-Le ë

umit ha-Falastinit, 1929ñ39 [The Internal Struggle within the Palestinian

Movement, 1929ñ39] (Tel Aviv, 1989); Arnon-Ohanna, Falahim ba-Mered

ha-Aravi be-Eretz Israel, 1936ñ39 [Felahin during the Arab Revolt in the Land of Israel] (Tel Aviv, 1978); Cohen, Tzva ha-Tzlalim.,í48ñ1936 Revolts in Palestine: An Examination of the British Response to Arab and Jewish Rebellion.

12. Shoul, ëSoldiers, Riots and Aid to the Civil Powerí, 10. See also S. Shoul,
ëSoldiers, Riot Control and Aid to the Civil Power in India, Egypt and Palestine,
1919ñ39í, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, xxxvi (2008),

120ñ39.

13. US veteran quoted in C.M. Cameron, American Samurai: Myth, Imagination
and the Conduct of Battle in the First Marine Division, 1941ñ1951 (Cambridge,
1994), 258.

14. C.E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practices (London, 1896); C. Gwynn, Imperial Policing (London, 1934); H.J. Simson, British Rule and Rebellion (Edinburgh, 1937).

15. War OfÆce, Issued by Command of the Army Council, Manual of Military Law
(London, 1929); War OfÆce, By Command of the Army Council, Notes on Imperial
Policing, 1934 (War OfÆce, 30 Jan. 1934); War OfÆce, By Command of the Army
Council, 5 August 1937, Duties in the Aid of the Civil Power (War OfÆce, 1937).

16. Manual of Military Law, 1929, 103.

17. Manual of Military Law, 1929, 331ff, 343; Notes on Imperial Policing, 1934, 12, 39ñ41.

18. Manual of Military Law, 1929, 255.

19. Y. Miller, ëAdministrative Policy in Rural Palestine: The Impact of British Norms
on Arab Community Life, 1920ñ1948í, in J. Migdal, ed., Palestinian Society and
Politics (Princeton, 1980), 132; S. Fathi el-Nimri, ëThe Arab Revolt in Palestine: A
Study Based on Oral Sourcesí, (Univ. of Exeter Ph.D. thesis, 1990), pp. 128ñ30.

20. Shoul, ëSoldiers, Riots and Aid to the Civil Powerí, 18ñ19.

21. The Tiger and Rose: A Monthly Journal of the York and Lancaster Regiment, xiii (1936), 390.

22. ëPalestine: Martial Law Order Issuedí, Palestine Post, 30 Sept. 1936, 1.

23. Manshiya Exploits by the Three British Policemen in Mufti during the Night of the 23ñ24 Oct. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 2, MEC; J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 5, MEC.

24. El Abd Abu Shabaan of Nazareth, Free Translation of a Letter in Arabic
Received from a Reliable Friend in Nazareth, 27 Feb. 1938 in J & E Mission papers,
GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 3 M[iddle] E[ast] C[entre], St Anthonyís College,
Oxford.

25. Shoul, ëSoldiers, Riots and Aid to the Civil Powerí, 18.

26. Simson, British Rule, 96ff, 103.

27. Essex Regiment Gazette, vi/46 (Mar. 1938), 282.

28. Letter, Burr to Parents, 24 Feb. 1938, Burr papers, 88/8/1, I[mperial] W[ar]
M[useum] D[epartment of Documents]; The Disturbances of 1936ó Cause and
Effect (General Political No. 5), US Consulate General to State Department, 6 June
1936, signed Leland Morris, US Consul General, 867N.00/311, 8, N[ational]

A[rchives and] R[ecords] A[dministration II, College Park, MD, USA].

29. ëHackett Protests at BBC Palestine Filmí, Daily Telegraph, 26 Mar. 1991.

30. Oxford English Dictionary (1983).

31. Funk and Wagnalls College Standard Dictionary (1946).

32. Available at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html (accessed 20 Sept.

2008).

33. Available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm (accessed 20 Sept. 2008).

34. Ibid.

35. Available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/126.htm (accessed 20 Sept. 2008).

36. Available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/treaties/cat.htm (accessed 20 Sept. 2008).

37. Available at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/005.htm (accessed 20 Sept. 2008).

38. Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 59.

39. Diary, 13 Dec. 1940, Briance papers, in possession of Mrs Prunella Briance; Diary, 14 May 1939, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 119ñ20, MEC.

40. See Musafa Kabha, The Palestinian Press as Shaper of Public Opinion,

1929ñ1939: Writing Up a Storm (London and Portland, 2007), 227ff.

41. For an account of a village search, see Diary of School Year in Palestine, 1938ñ39, by H.M. Wilson, about 31,000 words, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, 36ff, MEC; also the correspondence and pictures in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 3, MEC.

42. D.S. Daniell, The Royal Hampshire Regiment, Volume 3 (Aldershot, 1955), 34.

43. ëPalestine: The First Intifadaí (BBC: Timewatch, 27 Mar. 1991).

44. Fred Howbrook, 4619, 2, IWMSA.

45. Col J.S.S. Gratton, 4506, 14ñ15, IWMSA.

46. Special Order by Brig I.C. Grant, CO, 20th Infantry Brigade, Oct. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 4, MEC.

47. A.W.A.A. Rahman, British Policy Towards the Arab Revolt in Palestine,
1936ñ39 (London: Doctoral Dissertation, 1971), pp. 140ñ42; Arnon-Ohanna,

Falahim, p. 33; Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 60ñ1; al-Difaë [The Defence] (Jaffa), 17 June 1936.

48. The Wasp: The Journal of the 16th Foot, viii/5 (Mar. 1937), 267.

49. al-Difaë, 17 June and 23 July 1936; Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal,

60ñ1.

50. Filastin [Palestine] (Jaffa), 19 June 1936.

51. E. Keith-Roach, Pasha of Jerusalem: Memoirs of a District Commissioner under the British Mandate (London, 1994), p. 185; Eyal, Ha-Intifada, p. 110; Khalidi and Suweyd, Al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya, 234.

52. Filastin, 19 June 1936.

53. N. Bethell, The Palestine Triangle (London, 1980), 49. See also Col W.V. Palmer, ëThe Second Battalion in Palestineí, in H.D. Chaplin, ed., The Queenís Own Royal West Kent Regiment (London, 1954), 102.

54. Letter, Burr to Parents, 9 Sept. 1938, Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.

55. Monthly News Letter No. 2, 2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, 1ñ30 Sept. 1936 in Abdul-Latif al-Tibawi papers, GB 165-1284, MEC.

56. Diary, 22 Jan. 1938, Tegart papers, GB 165-0281, Box 4, MEC.

57. Diary, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, 28ñ9, MEC.

58. Report dated 5 May 1939, 10 pages in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, 3, MEC.

59. Memorandum of Protest from the Religious Scholars to the HC about the
Police Aggression against Mosques and Houses, 1 June 1936 in Zu ë aytir,

Wathaíiq al-Haraka, 436.

60. Memorandum of the AHC to HC to Protest on the Laws and the Behaviour of

the Authorities, Jaffa, 22 June 1936 in Kayyali, Wathí iq al-Muqawam, 407ñ11 (from Filastin newspaper, 22 June 1936).

61. Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 60.

62. Report dated 5 May 1939, 10 pages in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, p. 1, MEC; Haaretz [The Land] (Tel Aviv), 18 Aug. 1938.

63. J. Binsley, Palestine Police Service (Montreux, 1996), 99.

64. Letter, Burr to Parents, n.d. [Dec. 1937], Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.

65. Palmer, ëSecond Battalioní, 100. At this time, £P1 was equivalent to £1 UK
sterling.

66. Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 60ñ1; Haaretz (Evening Issue), 22 Dec.
1937.

67. Disturbances of 1936: Events from May 6 to May 16, Report by US

Consulate-General in Jerusalem, signed by C.G. Leland Morris, 16 May, sent to

State Department, 867N.00/292, NARA II.

68. See the Æles in M4826/26, I[srael] S[tate] A[rchive], Talpiot, Jerusalem.

69. Palmer, ëSecond Battalioní, 85; Haaretz, 20 Feb. 1938.

70. Letter, Burr to Parents, 24 Feb. 1938, Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD; J & E
Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 3, MEC and material in ibid., Box 66,
File 2.

71. Request for Intercession, Abdulla Family by Attorney for Convicts, 7 July 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 3, 3, MEC. On the unreliability of dogs as trackers, see ibid.

72. The Hampshire Regimental Journal, xxxii/12 (Dec. 1937), 383.

73. Ibid.

74. Z. Lockman, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine,
1906-48 (Berkeley, 1996), 251; K. Firro, A History of the Druzes (Leiden, 1992),
337, 340ñ1; T. Swedenborg, Memories of Revolt: The 1936ñ39 Rebellion and the
Palestinian National Past (Minneapolis, 1995), 91ñ2; el-Nimri, ëThe Arab Revolt in
Palestineí, 184ñ6. For quotation, Letter, Burr to Parents, 24 Feb. 1938, Burr
papers, 88/8/1, IWMD. See also Lt-Col G.A. Shepperd, 4597, 47, IWMSA and Sir
Gawain Bell, 10256, IWMSA.

75. See, for instance, Maj-Gen A.J.H. Dove, 4463, 30, IWMSA.

76. The Hampshire Regimental Journal, xxxiii/2 (Feb. 1938), 51 and ibid., xxxiv/2 (Feb. 1939), 31.

77. Bishopís Visit to Nazareth, 4 May 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.

78. Letter, Briance to Mother, 8 Jan. 1937, Briance papers, in possession of Mrs

Prunella Briance.

79. Diary, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 74, MEC.

80. Diary, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 6, 74ñ5, 78ff, 105, MEC.

81. Manshiya Exploits by the Three British Policemen in Mufti during the Night of the 23ñ24 Oct. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 2, MEC; J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 5, MEC.

82. Diary, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 74, MEC.

83. Maj-Gen H.E.N. Bredin, 4550, 10, IWMSA.

84. C. Graves, The Royal Ulster RiØes. Vol. 3 (Mexborough, 1950), 28ñ9.

85. The Hampshire Regimental Journal, xxxiii/1 (Jan. 1938), 22.

86. Essex Regiment Gazette, vi/46 (Mar. 1938), 292ñ5.

87. See the correspondence in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 3,
MEC.

88. Extracts from the COís Quarterly Letter for Period ending 31 Dec. 1937 in Essex Regiment Gazette, vi/46 (Mar. 1938), 282.

89. G.A. Shepperd, 4597, 64, IWMSA. Quote from D. Woods, 23846, IWMSA.

90. Woods, 23846, IWMSA.

91. A. Lane, 10295, 18, IWMSA.

92. F. Howbrook, 4619, 35ñ6, IWMSA.

93. Letter, Percy Cleaver [Palestine police] to Aunt, 10 Feb. 1937, Cleaver papers, GB 165-0358, MEC.

94. Lane, 10295, 23ff, IWMSA.

95. Ibid., 26ñ7.

96. A Notice of the OfÆce of the Arab Revolt about the Tragedy of ë Atil [ ë Ateel], 11 Dec. 1938 in Zu ë aytir, Wathaíiq al-Haraka, 529 (see also 545).

97. Binsley, Palestine Police Service, 104ñ5.

98. Letter, Burr to Parents, Mar. 1938 [date pencilled in], Burr papers, 88/8/1,
IWMD.

99. H. Foot, A Start in Freedom (London, 1964), 51ñ2.; T. Segev, One Palestine, Complete (New York, 2000), 430ñ1; R. Catling, 10392, 16ñ17, IWMSA; Æles in S25/10685, 3156, 8768 C[entral] Z[ionist] A[rchive], Jerusalem.
100. Keith-Roach, Pasha of Jerusalem, 191; E.H. Tinker, 4492, 34ñ5, IWMSA; Smith, ëTwo Revolts in Palestineí, 114ñ19; (Judge) Anwar Nusseibeh, 28 Mar. 1977, Thames TV Material (not on open access), Lever Arch Æle: Nigel Maslin, I[mperial] W[ar] M[useum] F[ilm] A[rchive].

101. Segev, One Palestine, 416ñ17.

102. Typed two-page document by Edward Keith-Roach, untitled or dated, at the

end of which is added pencilled comment, Keith-Roach papers, in possession of Mrs Christabel Ames-Lewis.

103. Letter, Archdeacon to Stanley Baldwin, 16 July 1936, J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 1, MEC.

104. Letter, Archdeacon to Chief Secretary, 2 June 1936, J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 1, MEC.

105. Letter, Burr to parents, n.d., Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.

106. ëA Gunnerís Impression of the Frontierí, Quis Separabit, x/1 (May 1939), 45.
107. Letter, Burr to Parents, 22 April 1938, Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.
108. D.V. Duff, Bailing with a Teaspoon (London, 1953), 46.
109. Ibid., 36.

110. Letter, Burr to Alex, n.d. [Dec. 1937], Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.

111. Letter, Stewart to J.G. Matthew, 9 June 1936, J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 1, MEC.

112. Letter, Burr to Parents, n.d. [April 1937], Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD. 113. Letter, Burr to Jill, n.d., Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.
114. Alexander Ternent, 10720, 18, IWMSA.

115. Letter, Burr to Father, n.d. [Dec. 1937], Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD. See also the correspondence on police abuses in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 3, MEC.

116. David Irving (Anglican Chaplain, Haifa) to the Lord Bishop in Jerusalem (Graham Brown), 29 Dec. 1937 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, 21ñ3, 29ff, MEC.

117. Note by George Francis Graham Brown, Bishop in Jerusalem, 19 April 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.

118. Bishop in Jerusalem to Major Wainwright (Palestine Police), 18 Apr. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, 95, MEC.

119. Margaret Dixon, Government Welfare Inspector, to Lord Bishop [Graham

Brown], 3 Feb. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, MEC.

120. Letters of Protest to the British Government about the Torture of Abd al-Hamid Shuman and the Detainees in Acre Prison, 29 April and 23 June 1938 in Zu ë aytir, Wathaíiq al-Haraka, 478.

121. A Letter from the Fighter Arrested, Subhi al-Khadra, 20 Sept. 1938 in Zu ë aytir, Wathaíiq al-Haraka, 505ñ6. See also, ibid., 548.

122. Statement about the Torture of Arabs Arrested in Military Camps and Prisons, 1938ñ39 in Zu ë aytir, Wathaíiq al-Haraka, p. 548. See also the accounts in ibid., 579, 594, 601 and Yasin, Al-Thawra al-ëArabiyya, 47.

123. See, Palestine Prisons for Howard League for Penal Reform, 6 Apr. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, 76ff, MEC and Allegations of Ill-treatment of Arabs by British Crown Forces in Palestine (translated from the Arabic by Frances Newton, 19 June 1939) in ibid., 141ñ3.

124. The Alleged Ill-treatment of Prisoners by Frances Newton (sent to the

Howard League for Penal Reform), 15 Apr. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, 94, MEC.

125. Statement of Mutah Said Lababidi of Hama, Syria, Resident of Jerusalem in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 4, 1, MEC.

126. ëPalestine: The First Intifadaí (BBC: Timewatch, 27 Mar. 1991); Segev, One

Palestine, 421ñ2; ëPalestine: Promises and Rebellioní (London: Thames TV, three parts, 1977ñ78).

127. Filastin, 15 Sept. 1938, 1ñ2 was closed during the al-Bassa incident. al-Difaë was closed 13 Aug. to 13 Sept. 1938, after which it said nothing about al-Bassa. The press outside of Palestine brieØy discussed al-Bassa: al-Nahal [The Day] (Beirut), 9 Sept. 1938, 5 LíOrient (Beirut), 9 Sept. 1938, 2.

128. See Kabha, The Palestinian Press as Shaper of Public Opinion, 227ff.

129. ëPalestine: The First Intifadaí (BBC: Timewatch, 27 Mar. 1991); Allegations

of Ill-treatment of Arabs by British Crown Forces in Palestine (translated from the Arabic by Frances Newton, 19 June 1939) in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, 145, MEC; ëPalestine: Promises and Rebellioní (London: Thames TV, three parts, 1977ñ78).

130. Dates conÆrmed by the menís headstones in the Ramle British war cemetery. Palestine Post, 11 Sept. 1938, 1; Filastin, 15 Sept. 1938; H. Arrigonie, British Colonialism: 30 Years Serving Democracy or Hypocrisy (Bideford, 1998), 35ñ6. 131. Woods, 23846, IWMSA.

132. Arrigonie, British Colonialism, 35ñ6.
133. Ibid., 36.

134. Letter, Cafferata to Wife, 22 Oct. 1938, Cafferata papers, in possession of Mr John Robertson.

135. Keith-Roach, Pasha of Jerusalem, 194ñ5.

136. Letter from Acre about the English Soldiersí Atrocities in the Village of
al-Bassa, 8 Sept. 1938 in Zu ëaytir, Wathaíiq al-Haraka, 503ñ4.
137. A Letter from the Fighter Arrested, Subhi al-Khadra, 20 Sept. 1938 in ibid.,
505ñ6.

138. Charles Tinson, 15255, IWMSA.

139. Letter, Stewart to J.G. Matthew, 9 June 1936, J & E Mission papers, GB

165-0161, Box 61, File 1, MEC.

140. LíOrient (Beirut), 9 Sept. 1938, 2.

141. ëPalestine: The First Intifadaí (BBC: Timewatch, 27 Mar. 1991).

142. Typed two-page document by Edward Keith-Roach, untitled or dated, at the end of which is added pencilled comment, Keith-Roach papers, in possession of Mrs Christabel Ames-Lewis.

143. Diary, 13 May 1939, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 119, MEC.

144. Account Translated from Arabic of Hassan el-Quader, Thames TV Papers, GB 165-0282, Box II, File 5, MEC. This is a jumbled Æle and there is ambiguity about whether this witness is from Halhul.

145. Account Translated from Arabic of Woman Resident of Halhul, Thames TV Papers, GB 165-0282, Box II: File 5, 16ñ18, MEC.

146. Account Translated from Arabic of Unnamed Arab Villager, Thames TV Papers, GB 1650282, Box II: File 4, 12, MEC.

147. ëPalestine: Promises and Rebellioní, (London: Thames TV, three parts,

1977ñ78).

148. Letter, Nigel Maslin to Sir Thomas Scrivener, 29 Aug. 1978, Thames TV
Material (not on open access), Lever Arch File: British Letters S-T, IWMFA.
149. Forster [unsigned] to Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem [Graham Brown],

ConÆdential, Not to be Quoted or Referred to in Public, 25 May 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.

150. Diary, 14 May 1939, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 119ñ20, MEC.

151. Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem to Miss Trevelyan, 29 May 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.

152. J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, Files 1-2, MEC.

153. Dr Qassam al-Rimawi, Amman, 19 Sept. 1977, Thames TV Material (not on open access), Lever Arch Æle: Nigel Maslin, IWMFA.

154. Diary, 5 Nov. 1938, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 93, MEC.

155. Quis Separabit: The Regimental Journal of the Royal Ulster RiØes, x/1 (May 1939), 28.

156. Woods, 23846, IWMSA.

157. Anglican Chaplain [signature illegible], Haifa, to Bishop [Graham Brown], 28 Feb. 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC. See also Swedenborg, Memories of Revolt, 108.

158. Anglican Chaplain [signature illegible], Haifa, to Bishop [Graham Brown], 28
Feb. 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.
159. Ibid.

160. Ibid.

161. British sources claim that the executions were false ó shots Æred wide to
give villagers the impression that they had executed someone and so force them
to divulge information: G. Morton, Just the Job: Some Experiences of a Colonial
Policeman (London, 1957), 104; Frank Proctor, 16801, IWMSA.
162. Atallah Bey to Dr Tannous, 1 Mar. 1939, P361/5, ISA; Letter from the
Amman Ladiesí Committee, 28 July 1936, RG65 P3221/18, ISA; 1 Aug. 1936
entry, RG65 P3221/18, ISA; 8 Aug. 1936 entry, RG65 P3221/18, ISA; 19 Aug.
1936 entry, RG65 P3221/18, ISA; 5 Sept. 1936 entry, RG65 P3221/18, ISA; T.
Mayer, ëEgypt and the 1936 Arab Revolt in Palestineí, Journal of Contemporary
History, xix (1984), 275ñ87, 277; Rahman, ëBritish Policy Towards the Arab

Revolt in Palestineí, 148.

163. Smith, ëTwo Revolts in Palestineí, 26. 164. Haaretz, 14 June 1936.

165. al-Sakakini, Kadha Ana Ya Duniya, pages covering 13 June 1936; Abu

Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 72ff; al-Sirat al-Mustakim [The Right Path]

(Jaffa), 1 June 1936.

166. al-Sakakini, Kadha Ana Ya Duniya, pages covering 13 June 1936; Abu

Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 72ff.

167. Zu ë aytir, Al-Harakah al-Wataniyah, 438. Haaretz, 25ñ26 Aug. 1938; Davar [Thing/Issue], 25 Aug. 1938.

168. Points 7ñ8 in President of Bir Zeit Council in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 1, MEC.

169. S.O.S. From Halhool, The Martyr Village [stamped 22 May 1939] in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 1, MEC.

170. Report by Frances Newton dated 27 June 1938 on Search in Balad esh
Sheikh of 24 June 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 3,
MEC.

171. Segev, One Palestine, 421.

172. Allegations of Ill-treatment of Arabs by British Crown Forces in Palestine (translated from the Arabic by Frances Newton, 19 June 1939) in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 5, 144, MEC.

173. Report on Visit to ëAzzun, 12 May 1938 and ëAzzun, 16 May 1938 [account of assault on ëAysha bint Hasan al-Faji, wife of ëAbd al-Fattah al-Jammal í, aged about 16ñ18] both in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 66, File 1, MEC. Quote from 16 May report, 1.

174. C.G.T. Dean, The Loyal Regiment (North Lancashire) 1919ñ53 (Preston,

1955), 66.

175. Report by Frances Newton dated 27 June 1938 on Search in Balad esh
Sheikh of 24 June 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 3,
MEC.

176. Diary, 19 Oct. 1937, Major White, Relating to Service in Palestine,

1974-04-24-8, N[ational] A[rmy] M[useum].

177. J.M. Thompson (Government Welfare Inspector) to Archdeacon, 23 Oct. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 4, MEC.
178. al-Difaë, 18ñ19 June 1936.

179. Quote from Diary, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, MEC, p. 12. See also Interview, Ted Horne (formerly Palestine police), Barton-on-Sea, 9 Sept. 2006; Roger Courtney, Palestine Policeman (London, 1939), 88; Diary, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, MEC, 12ñ13.

180. Addressed to British Regiments in Palestine. Arab Revolutionary Council,
Southern Syria, Palestine, signed Aref Abdul Razik, Commander-in-Chief of the
Arab Forces in Palestine, 19 Nov. 1938, 41/94, Haganah Archive, Tel Aviv. See
also Diary, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, MEC, 12; Letter, Briance to Mother, n.d.
[Aug. 1936], Briance papers, in possession of Mrs Prunella Briance; Courtney,
Palestine Policeman, 88.

181. Letter, Burr to Parents, n.d [27 May 1937], Burr papers, 88/8/12, IWMD.

182. Mary Trevelyan, Warden, The Student Movement House, London to Anglican
Bishop in Jerusalem, 23 May 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62,
File 1, MEC.

183. J. Connell, Wavell: Scholar and Soldier. To June 1941 (London, 1964), p. 194. See also E. and A. Linklater, The Black Watch (London, 1977), 175.
184. Haaretz, 7ñ8 Nov. 1937.

185. Diary, 7 Nov. 1937, Major White, Relating to Service in Palestine,

1974-04-24-8, NAM.

186. Interview, Ted Horne (formerly Palestine Police), Barton-on-Sea, 9 Sept.
2006.

187. Diary, Oct. 1936, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 1ñ2, MEC.

188. Interview, Ted Horne (formerly Palestine Police), Barton-on-Sea, 9 Sept. 2006; Letter, Burr to Parents, n.d. [late 1937], Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.
189. See D. French, Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army, and the British People c.1870ñ2000 (Oxford, 2005).

190. Appendix. Analysis of Cases tried by Military Courts, Palestine, 20 May ñ 31
July 1938, Haining papers, Despatches, GB 165-0131, MEC; and the other court

statistics in the same Æle.

191. Col A. Ingham-Brokke, 13 Oct. 1976, Thames TV Material (not on open access), Lever Arch Æle: Nigel Maslin, IWMFA.

192. Jack Denley, Thames TV Papers, GB 165-0282, Box I, File 20, 17, MEC.

193. Letter, Burr to Parents, 19 Dec. 1937, Burr papers, 88/8/1, IWMD.

194. Letter, Briance to Mother, 14 May 1938, Briance papers, in possession of Mrs Prunella Briance.

195. Telegram to Secretary of State, n.d., S25/22762, CZA, Jerusalem; Haaretz, 26 Aug. 1936.

196. Zu ë aytir, Al-Harakah al-Wataniyah, 438.

197. Extracts from the COís Quarterly Letter for Period ending 31 Dec. 1937 in Essex Regiment Gazette vi/46 (Mar. 1938), 280.

198. Abu Gharbiyah, Fi Khidamm al-nidal, 113ñ14.

199. Ibid., pp. 115ñ16; Bishop in Jerusalem to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 26

Feb. 1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 64, File 4, MEC;

correspondence in Gaza Æle in ibid., Box 66, File 1.

200. W. Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest (Beirut, 1971), 846ñ9.

201. Ibid., 846ñ9; Swedenborg, Memories of Revolt, xxi; Khalidi and Suweyd, Al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya, 239ñ40.

202. Arnon-Ohanna, Herev mi-Bayit, 286ñ7; Arnon-Ohanna, Falahim. 203. Cohen, Tzva ha-Tzlalim, 142ñ5.

204. Statistics from A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and

December 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry [1946ñ47] (Washington, 1991), i, 141; A.M. Lesch, Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917ñ37: The Frustration of a National Movement (Ithaca and London, 1979), 56. 205. Khalidi, ed., From Haven to Conquest, 846ñ9.

206. E. Karsh, Fabricating Israeli History: The ëNewí Historians [1997] (London, 2000), 22ñ3.

207. Maj-Gen H. Bredin, Thames TV Papers, GB 165-0282, Box I, File 22, 5ñ6,
MEC.

208. A. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works (London, 2002), 144. 209. Elkins, Britainís Gulag.

210. Diary, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, MEC. 211. Ibid., 27ñ31.

212. Ibid., 32.

213. Diary, 14 Nov. 1938, Forster papers, GB 165-0109, 95, MEC. 214. Diary, Wilson papers, GB 165-0302, 27, MEC.

215. Shayk ëAbd al-Hamid al-Saíih, Filastin; la Salat Tahta al-Hirab: Mudhakkarat
al-Shaykh ëAbd al-Hamid al-Saíih [Palestine; No Prayer Under Bayonets: The

Memoirs of Shaykh ë Abd al-Hamid al-Saíih ] (Beirut, 1994), 44ñ8.

216. Maj-Gen H.E.N. Bredin, 4550, 11, IWMSA; Gen Sir John Hackett, 4527, 50,
IWMSA.

217. Letter, Briance to Home, June 1936, Briance papers, in possession of Mrs Prunella Briance; Bredin, 4550, 11, IWMSA.

218. Courtney, Palestine Policeman, 41, 50.

219. Lord Birdwood, The Worcestershire Regiment, 1922ñ50 (Aldershot, 1952),

16.

220. Capt C.P. Norman, 4629, 8ñ9, IWMSA.

221. Correspondence in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 61, File 3, MEC; Addressed by the Bishop in Jerusalem at the Council Meeting on 10 Jan. 1939 in ibid., Box 62: File 1; Letter, Archdeacon Stewart to Canon Gould, 17 July 1938 in ibid., Box 61: File 1.

222. Keith-Roach, Pasha of Jerusalem, 202.

223. Asa Lefen, Ha-Shai: Shorasheha Shel Kehilat ha-Modiíin ha-Israelit [The Roots of the Israeli Intelligence Community] (Tel Aviv, 1997), 273.
224. Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem to Miss Trevelyan, 23 June 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.

225. Report dated 5 May 1939, 10 page, in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, 2, MEC.

226. Frances Newton to Mrs Erskine, Secretary of Arab Centre in London, 5 Apr.
1938 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 65, File 4, MEC.
227. H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New
York, 1963), 231.

228. Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem to Miss Trevelyan, 23 June 1939 in J & E Mission papers, GB 165-0161, Box 62, File 1, MEC.

229. Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem to Miss Trevelyan, 29 May 1939 in ibid.

230. Y. Slutsky, ed., Sefer Toldot ha-Haganah [Book of the History of the

Haganah] vol. 2, part 2, Me-Haganah le-Maíavak [From Defence to Struggle] (Tel Aviv, 1963), 991; Lefen, Ha-Shai, 44ff.

Israel Arab Conflict History

Friday, August 21, 2015

The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine

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