Summary
Andrews, the British District Commissioner of Galilee, whose assassination by four commandos in Nazareth in September 1937 Kanafani treats as the spark that restarted the revolt after the strike’s end and the Peel Commission report. The booklet gives no first name for him.
Details
- In September 1937 Andrews, the District Commissioner of the Galilee district, was shot dead by four armed commandos outside the Anglican church in Nazareth; the commandos are believed to have belonged to one of the secret cells of the Qassamites (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.24 / printed p.46-47).
- Kanafani quotes Nevill Barbour’s Nisi Dominus (footnote 27) characterising Andrews as the only official who administered the Mandate as Zionists consider it right, and as never having succeeded in winning the confidence of the Fellahin, the Palestinian peasants (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.24 / printed p.46-47).
- The Arabs regarded him as a friend of the Zionists and believed his task was to facilitate the transfer of Galilee to the Zionist state demarcated by the partition proposal; the Arab peasants disliked him and accused him of facilitating the sale of the Huleh lands (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.24 / printed p.46-47).
- Although the Arab Higher Committee condemned the assassination on the same night, the situation had got out of the control of the Mufti and his group, and the second phase of the revolt followed, directed substantially against the British (The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, PDF p.24 / printed p.46-47).
Related pages
The 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, 1936-39 Revolt in Palestine, Peel Commission, Izz al-Din al-Qassam, Arab Higher Committee