Jaffa

====1930s: Arab revolt (1936–39)====
[[File:Jaffa Alhambra Cinema03562ucroped.jpg|thumb|Jaffa's [[Alhambra Cinema (Israel)|Alhambra Cinema]] flying an [[Flag of Palestine|Arab flag]], 1937]]

The [[1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine]] severely impacted Jaffa. On 19 April 1936, [[Jaffa riots (April 1936)|riots broke out in Jaffa]] after rumors spread among the local Arab community that Jews had started to kill Arabs; Arab rioters attacked Jewish targets for three days before British security forces quelled the rioting. 9 Jews and 2 Arabs were killed and dozens more were wounded.<ref name="VitonArabsKill">{{cite news|last1=Viton|first1=Albert|title=Why Arabs Kill Jews|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/why-arabs-kill-jews/|access-date=24 August 2016|publisher=[[The Nation]]|date=3 June 1936}}</ref> In response to the riots, Arab leadership in Palestine declared a [[general strike]], which began in the [[Jaffa Port]] and quickly spread to the rest of the region.<ref name=LTBI>''The Land That Become Israel: Studies in Historical Geography,'' ed. Ruth Kark, Yale University Press & Magnes Press, 1989, "Aerial Perspectives of Past Landscapes," Dov Gavish, pp. 316–317</ref> After the start of the general strike, [[British Armed Forces|British troops]] stationed in Palestine were bolstered by reinforcements from [[Malta]] and [[Egypt]] to subdue rioting which had broken out in several major Palestinian cities. Arab rioters in Jaffa used the [[Old Jaffa|Old City]], which contained a maze of homes, winding alleyways and an underground sewer system, to escape arrest by British security forces.<ref name=LTBI/>

Beginning in May 1936, in response to further Arab unrest in Jaffa, the British authorities suspended municipal services in the city, establishing barricades around the Old City and covering access roads with glass shards and nails.<ref name=LTBI/> On June of that year, [[Royal Air Force]] bombers dropped boxes of leaflets in Arabic on Jaffa, requesting the city's inhabitants to evacuate that same day.<ref name=LTBI/> In June 15, the [[Royal Engineers]] used [[gelignite]] charges to [[House demolition|demolish]] between 220 and 240 Arab-owned homes in the Old City, leaving an open strip which cut through the center of Jaffa from end to end and displacing approximately 6,000 Arabs.<ref name="Hughes" >Matthew Hughes, [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31008337_The_Banality_of_Brutality_British_Armed_Forces_and_the_Repression_of_the_Arab_Revolt_in_Palestine_1936-39 'The Banality of Brutality: British Armed Forces and the Repression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936 – 39'], [[English Historical Review]] Vol. CXXIV No. 507 pp.323–354 pp.322.323.</ref> On the evening of 17 June, 1,500 British troops entered Jaffa and a [[Royal Navy]] warship moved near the Jaffa Port to seal off escape routes by sea. On 29 June, British forces carried out another round of house demolitions, carving a swath from north to south.<ref name=LTBI/> 

The British authorities claimed that house demolitions in Jaffa were part of a "facelift" given to the Old City.<ref name=LTBI/> Local Arab newspapers resorted to using sarcasm to describe the demolitions, writing that the British had "beautified" Jaffa using boxes of gelignite.<ref name="Hughes" /> [[Michael McDonnell|Sir Michael McDonnell]], then serving as the [[Mandatory Palestine#Government and institutions|Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Palestine]], found in favor of Arab petitions from Jaffa and, upholding existing laws regarding house demolitions, ruled against the demolitions carried out by British forces in the Old City. In response, the [[Colonial Office]] dismissed him from his post.<ref>Matthew Hughes, ''Britain’s Pacification of Palestine: The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936– 1939,'' [[Cambridge University Press]]2019 p.36.</ref> The report produced by the [[Peel Commission]] in 1937 recommended that Jaffa, together with [[Bethlehem]], [[Jerusalem]], [[Lod|Lydda]] and [[Ramla|Ramle]], remain under permanent British control, forming a "corridor" from the sea port to the Holy Places, accessible to Arabs and Jews alike; whereas the rest of Mandatory Palestine was to be split between an Arab state and a Jewish state.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20220803234548/https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/Cmd5479.pdf Peel Report], quote: "Jaffa is an essentially Arab town in which the Jewish minority has recently been dwindling. We suggest that it should form part of the Arab State. The question of its communication with the latter presents no difficulty, since transit through the Jaffa-Jerusalem Corridor would be open to all. The Corridor, on the other hand, requires its own access to the sea, and for this purpose a narrow belt of land should be acquired and cleared on the north and south sides of the town. This would also solve the problem, sometimes said to be insoluble, created by the contiguity of Jaffa with Tel Aviv to the north and the nascent Jewish town [Bat Yam] to the south. If necessary, Mandatory police could be stationed on this belt. This arrangement may seem artificial, but it is clearly practicable."</ref>
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