This article by Ernest Walker first appeared in Unity, the weekly publication of the Irish Communist Party.
THE ARAB Revolt of 1936-1939 is the core part of the film Palestine 36. The film was on at the Queens Film Theatre (QFT) in the first week of November.
In 1929 violent clashes occurred between Palestinians and Zionist settlers. The British set up two commissions to investigate the cause both of which came to the same conclusions that it was as a result of the Zionist project of dispossessing the Palestinian farmers and the Palestinians rejection of Zionism.
The final report recommended limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine. In October 1930 a British Government White paper was presented that proposed restricting further land purchases and immigration on part of the Zionists and was heavily critical of Zionist organisations for exacerbating Arab unemployment.
This was a dramatic change in Government policy. However, in 1930 there was a very influential pro-Zionist lobby in Britain. Under pressure from Chaim Weizmann, then the leader of the World Zionist Organisation and later the first president of Israel, the British Prime Minister Ramsey McDonald issued a letter as a “clarification” of the White Paper early 1931. Which was in practice a retraction meaning pro-Zionist policies in Palestine would continue unimpeded.
Between 1930 and 1936 the Palestinians attempted to alter the British policy through petitions, demonstrations, and conferences in London –all in vain. In 1936 the Palestinian leadership knew something more dramatic was needed and formed an umbrella group, The Arab Higher Committee, which called for a six-month national strike in April of that year demanding an end to Jewish immigration and land purchases and the establishment of a Palestinian national government.
However, the younger and more rural elements of Palestine resistance did not stop at strike action going onto stage an all-out revolt, targeting British and Jewish forces. The revolt which took three years to suppress was met with extreme brutality including aerial bombardment by the RAF.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe recently wrote that the models of collective punishment deployed by the British were similar to the scenes now unfolding in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In June 1936 the British army blew up over 200 buildings in Jaffa’s old city, making over six thousand Palestinians homeless. Thousands of Palestinians were killed, many were arrested and wounded. Those military leader’s judged to be behind the revolt were ruthlessly targeted-just as Israel does today-with a large number being killed.
The goal was not simply to quash the revolt but to the ensure the Palestinians could not effectivity revolt again.
It worked as in 1948 the Palestinians were swiftly overcome by the advancing Zionist forces. Some months into the revolt during a ceasefire the British set up the Peel Commission to find a solution to the conflict.
It recommended the partition of Palestine offering a small future Jewish state alongside Jordon (then known as Transjordan) which would annex what the report referred as the “Arab” parts of Palestine.
As for the roughly quarter of a million Palestinian remaining in the land earmarked for the Jewish state it proposed transferring them to Transjordan.
The Arab Higher Committee rejected this recommendation entirely. While some Zionists also rejected, it their new leader David Ben-Gurion-thinking ahead-believed that by accepting the recommendation now, that did not rule out taking more territory in the future which is exactly what they have been doing since 1948.
A further Commission, Woodhead, claimed that the solution proposed by Peel was impractical as it would require the forcible transfer of Palestinians. Instead it proposed a small Jewish state, a larger Palestinian state and in the north and South, as well as Jerusalem, would remain Mandate Territory and would all be joined in a customs union.
In short the Commission made it clear that it was not possible, without huge injustice, for the bulk of Mandatory Palestine to become a Jewish State.
Following this realisation, leaders hoped Britain finally understood it was impossible to impose a Jewish state on the Palestinians.
Little did they know!
Palestine 1936
As noted above, the film Palestine 36 was shown at QFT at the beginning of November. Having seen the film, we were reminded of the price that people paid for the British empire and the similarities with the genocide that is happening today in Palestine.
The film is a 2025 historical drama written and directed by Annemarie Jacir. It recounts the 1936–1939 Arab revolt against British colonial rule in Palestine. Principal photography was set to take place in Palestine; however, the Gaza war in 2023 postponed production.
Later they were able to return and finish production, making it the only feature film to shoot in Palestine in the past two years.
The film had its world premiere in the Gala Presentations section of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September, to a 20-minute standing ovation.
It received its European premiere as part of the Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025. It was released in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2025, by Curzon Film.
It won Best Film at the Tokyo International Film Festival in November 2025. It was selected as the Palestinian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
The Guardian gave the film 3 stars describing it as an “emotionally stirring drama [which] follows a year of brutal conflict in the Middle East with a huge cast of characters caught up in the turmoil”.
The review continues: “This is a heartfelt film, if rather stolidly paced and sometimes pedagogically conveyed. The cast includes such Palestinian heavyweight actors as Hiam Abbass and Saleh Bakri as passionate rebels. Jeremy Irons plays the high commissioner Sir Arthur Wauchope who presides with bland complacency over this troublesome possession.
The other colonials are divided, in the traditional style, into “good British” – Billy Howle as a troubled and ineffectually pro-Arab civil servant – and “bad British” – Robert Aramayo as the brutal Captain Orde Wingate, who here personifies the arrogance and cruelty of the coloniser, shooting civilians in cold blood and ordering the collective punishment of entire villages”.
When reading about how the film got a standing ovation in Toronto one Belfast person remarked that when the film ended at the QUB “there was total silence” for ten minutes, a collective feeling of anger and devastation.
There is the knowledge that the film will expose the shocking brutality that happened in the 1930’s and what is happening in Palestine now-and if that contributes to peace and justice then we welcome it. But more than likely it will be the converted who go to see it.
To some extent replicating a view that the difference between the famine in Ireland in 1845 and the famines now is that you can see them on TV-and Film. It is a film to be seen but the war goes on.