Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict by Oren Kessler

n spring 1936, the Holy Land erupted in a rebellion that targeted both the local Jewish community and the British Mandate authorities that for two decades had midwifed the Zionist project. The Great Arab Revolt would last three years, cost thousands of lives--Jewish, British, and Arab--and cast the trajectory for the Middle East conflict ever since. Yet incredibly, no history of this seminal, formative first "Intifada" has ever been published for a general audience. The 1936-1939 revolt was the crucible in which Palestinian identity coalesced, uniting rival families, city and country, rich and poor in a single struggle for independence. Yet the rebellion would ultimately turn on itself, shredding the social fabric, sidelining pragmatists in favor of extremists, and propelling waves of refugees from their homes. British forces' aggressive counterinsurgency took care of the rest, finally quashing the uprising on the eve of World War II. The revolt to end Zionism had instead crushed the A