Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
19 April
The British & Jewish Auxiliaries crushed the three year Palestinian strike.
On this day in 1936, a general strike throughout Palestine launched the Great Revolt that lasted till 1939 before being finally crushed by the British with Jewish auxiliaries. Khalidi estimates that over 10% of the adult male Palestinian population was killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled. The Royal Air Force played a key role against the insurgents. Arthur “Bomber” Harris of Middle East Command stated that "one 250 lb. or 500 lb. bomb in each village that speaks out of turn" would satisfactorily solve the problem.
بدعم الوحدات اليهوديه ، سحق البريطانيون الإضراب الفلسطيني الذي استمر ثلاث سنوات
19 أبريل
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1936 ، أدى إضراب عام في جميع أنحاء فلسطين إلى اندلاع الثورة الكبرى التي استمرت حتى حتى عام 1939 قبل أن يسحقها في النهاية البريطانيون ومساعدوهم من اليهود. يقدر الخالدي أن أكثر من 10٪ من السكان الفلسطينيين الذكور البالغين قد قتلوا أو أصيبوا أو سُجنوا أو نُفيوا. لعب سلاح الجو الملكي دورًا رئيسيًا ضد المتمردين. صرح آرثر "بومبر" هاريس من قيادة الشرق الأوسط أن "قنبلة واحدة بوزن 250 رطل أو 500 رطل لكل قرية تبدي معارضة او احتجاج" من شأنها أن تحل المشكلة بشكل مُرْضٍ.
For comparison, total killed and wounded during WWII were 1.7% of the British and and 4% of the Japanese population.
The British Army massacred Palestinian civilians
"Al Bassa [was not] an isolated incident. Rather, it was part of a much wider policy of ‘reprisals’ that marked the British Mandate’s repression of the Arab Revolt. As conflict escalated this official reprisals policy saw houses blown up, or groups of houses demolished, property looted, food stores systematically destroyed, forced labour, ‘punitive village occupations’, the imposition of crushing collective fines and wholesale destruction of ‘bad villages’. Torture centres were set up and many Arab prisoners shot ‘while trying to escape’. ‘Special Night Squads’, consisting of British and Jewish settler policemen and moving at night (often disguised as Arabs) terrorised Arab villages, humiliating and killing Arab civilians; ‘something of a model for subsequent Israeli Special Forces’.Long before the Israelis started using Palestinians as guinea pigs on whom to test arms before they are marketed, the British were using Palestine to test new methods of air warfare:
"The RAF was the first independent air force created by any great power, instituted with the purpose of winning wars by aerial bombardment. Bombing gained in prestige when a tribal uprising in Iraq was bombed into submission and when rebellious Arab villages in Palestine were held down by 'air pin'. The officer in command in both cases was Arthur Harris
