Summary
The Palestinian revolt of April 1936 to September 1939, which Kanafani analyses as a Peasant Revolt defeated by the Feudal-Clerical Leadership, the surrounding Arab regimes and the British-Zionist alliance acting together, and as the period in which the foundations of the Zionist settler entity were laid.
Details
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Spark and outbreak: Kanafani treats the Qassamist movement of 12-19 November 1935 as the real start; the general strike was declared on 19 April 1936; the outbreak of violence and civil disobedience is described as spontaneous, the leadership lagging behind and then dominating the movement (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.18-21 / printed p.35-41).
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First phase, 1936: civil disobedience and armed insurrection in the countryside; a tax strike resolved for 15 May 1936; British repression under the British Emergency Regulations, with about 1,000 Palestinian Arabs killed by a British estimate and 220 houses blown up in Jaffa on 18 June 1936; an estimated 20,000 British troops and martial law from 30 September 1936; the strike called off by the Arab Higher Committee on 11 October 1936 in obedience to the Arab kings (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.22-23 / printed p.42-45).
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Second phase, late 1937 to early 1939: after the Peel Commission report recommended partition on 7 July 1937 and Andrews was assassinated in September 1937, the revolt resumed under almost complete peasant control, directed substantially against the British, with local commanders such as Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad and its command in Damascus; Kanafani says the armed popular revolt was never closer to victory than in the months between the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1939 (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.24-25 / printed p.47-49).
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End: fighting continued through the February 1939 London Round Table Conference until September 1939; the killing of Abd al-Rahim al-Hajj Muhammad in March 1939 was a crushing blow, after which the local commands collapsed (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.26 / printed p.50-51).
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Losses, on the estimate Kanafani calls the best: 5,032 Arabs killed and 14,760 wounded in the four years, 19,792 in total, with detainees of about 816 in 1937, 2,463 in 1938 and about 5,679 in 1939 (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.28 / printed p.54).
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Consequence drawn by Kanafani: in 1947 the Zionist movement plucked the fruits of the defeat of the 1936 revolt, and the defeat of the end of 1947 to the middle of 1948 was the conclusion of a chapter that lasted from April 1936 to September 1939 (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.31 / printed p.60).
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Sayegh’s frame for the same events (he calls it the famous rebellion of 1936, renewed in 1937 and lasting until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939) places it in stage (3) of the Palestinian response, the period of Arab resistance par excellence, 1917-1948, preceded by uprisings in 1921, 1929 and 1933 (Zionist Colonialism in Palestine, PDF p.17-18 / printed p.222-223).
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At its height, Sayegh says, the people of Palestine launched a devastating civil disobedience movement coupled with a country-wide strike which lasted for 174 days and affected all businesses, communications and government services run by Arabs, and they did not call it off until the rulers of the neighboring Arab States intervened and promised collective Arab negotiations with the British Government (Zionist Colonialism in Palestine, PDF p.18 / printed p.223).
Where sources disagree
Inside Kanafani’s source, the accounts Kanafani cites disagree on the first spark: Bauer’s commonly regarded start (Jaffa, 19 April 1936), the Qassamist ambush account of al-Sifri, Buwaysir and Yasin, and al-Kayyali’s February 1936 Haifa school incident; Kanafani sides with the view that the Qassamist rising was the real start (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.18 / printed p.35).
Related pages
The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, Izz al-Din al-Qassam, Amin al-Hussaini, Peel Commission, Peasant Revolt, Zionism