SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This PhD thesis contributes to the growing body of scholarship on the phenomenon of colonial violence in the history of the modern Middle East by analysing the campaign that British civil and military authorities launched against the Great Revolt in Palestine in the years from 1936 to 1941. Highlighting space as an analytical category, the thesis explores how Arab insurgents adapted their tactics to the complex terrains on which they fought and examines the attempts by British military and security forces to tailor their response to such tactics. After providing the larger historical context of the British counter-guerrilla campaign in Palestine, the thesis will focus on the specific methods and technologies British troops employed to suppress the revolt and regain control over both urban and rural areas. Not only will the use of modern military technologies such as motorized transport and airpower be discussed but also the role that civil engineering and architecture played in the British effort to undermine the rebel movement in the long term. The thesis outlines how the difficulties that British troops encountered while trying to defeat Arab rebel forces led to an escalation of violence against civilians and argues that the Palestinian population was not only directly targeted via collective punishments but also indirectly via the transformation of the physical environment. By zeroing in on British attempts to reorganize urban and rural space, the thesis will analyse in comprehensive detail some episodes that have been little examined in the historical literature such as the demolitions of parts of the Old City of Jaffa and the setting up of a large-scale security infrastructure in rural areas. Special consideration will be given to the role Sir Charles Tegart played in the establishment of this security infrastructure. On Tegart’s advice, the British government authorized the construction of a network of modern fortified police stations at strategically important locations throughout Palestine. While Tegart’s key role as one of the architects of the British counterinsurgency effort has been acknowledged by historians, little attention has been paid to the actual building scheme he helped initiate—a gap this thesis fills by offering a reconstruction of the different stages of its planning and implementation.