The Arab Revolt began in April 1936 amid disputes over Jewish immigration and land purchases, demands for Arab self-government, and tension over Britain’s Mandate policy. A general strike expanded into armed attacks on Jews and British targets. In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed ending the Mandate and dividing the territory into Arab and Jewish states.
How the revolt unfolded
After violence in Jaffa in April 1936, Arab nationalist leaders called a general strike and demanded that Britain halt Jewish immigration, prohibit land transfers to Jews, and establish an Arab national government. The strike degenerated into prolonged violence. Britain’s Royal Commission, chaired by Lord Peel, investigated the causes and proposed constitutional alternatives. Fighting resumed on a larger scale after the report, and British forces suppressed the revolt by 1939. The USHMM account documents the demands, the commission’s work, and the revolt’s chronology. It also notes that Arab leaders’ positions shifted over time; the revolt should not be reduced to one leader or one cause.
What the Peel plan proposed
Published in July 1937, the commission report concluded that a single political framework could not resolve the conflicting national demands. It recommended partition, with a Jewish state in part of the territory, an Arab state joined to Transjordan, and a British-administered corridor including Jerusalem. It also proposed population transfers in connection with the new boundaries. The report was a recommendation, not an implemented agreement. The Royal Commission report sets out the plan and its reasoning. The later 1939 White Paper records Britain’s subsequent rejection of partition as impracticable.
The revolt’s end was followed by sharp British restrictions on Jewish immigration. See what the White Papers changed.