77. What were the causes of the outburst of violence in 1936- 1939?

A series of regional political events became the inspiration for the Arabs of Palestine to pressure the British by attacking them (1936-1939). In March 1936 there was a general strike in Syria, and although the French retaliation was hard on them, the government ceded and formed an Arab delegation that traveled to Paris to negotiate a French-Syrian independence agreement. This proved that the Arab economic and political pressure could end a fragile imperial administration. At the same time, on Mar/2/1936 the United Kingdom and Egypt agreed on the independence of Egypt. Allowing the British forces to remain in the Suez Canal area. The Arabs in Palestine interpreted these events as a “weakness”. During April of 1936, the Arab leaders of the British Mandate, led by Hajj Amin Al-Husseini (Great Mufti of Jerusalem), went on a general strike to protest against the Jewish immigration to Palestine. According to modern data from Israel, between 1933 and 1936, over 160,000 immigrants arrived legally and some more arrived secretly. According to Chaim Waxman, between 1931 and 1939, 225,000 people arrived. In 1931 the population of Palestine was 1,011,000 people, of which 174,000 were Jews (17%). The Arabs were also protesting about the land purchase by the Jews because they feared they would become a minority in the territory, although it was precisely the Arabs that were selling the land. They demanded immediate elections, which based on their demographic majority, would have resulted in an Arab government that would have granted autonomy to the Jews, according to the Mufti’s supporters. However, it would have avoided all Jewish immigration and would have made a retroactive review of all Jewish immigration since1918. In 1936 the Arabs went on a general strike against the British. A month later, the leading group declared their refusal to pay taxes as an explicit opposition to Jewish immigration. The next step was violence…