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lines and stations with rare valor. The mujahidin’s attacks also included blowing up and setting fire to the pipelines of the British Iraq Petroleum Company extending from Kirkuk to Haifa, as well as other great deeds that forced the British Colonial Secretary to acknowledge their seriousness and strength and the courage of the rebels, whose patriotic convictions drove them to brave danger. They also compelled the British newspapers to acknowledge that “a small handful of weak, unarmed Arabs in Palestine is mounting a resistance that amazes the world with its force and willingness to fight to the death, and stirs enthusiasm among Arabs throughout the Arab countries.”

In late 1938 the revolt reached its highest peak, and the Palestinian mujahidin gained control of most of Palestine, until British armed resistance was almost confined to the interiors of Palestine’s major cities. Most British families were evacuated from Palestine.

The mujahidin’s boldness reached the point that some entered the government headquarters in the city of Jenin, stormed the room of the British governor (Moffat), shot him dead, and left without paying any heed to the soldiers, policemen and guards stationed inside and outside the headquarters.

The jihad movement embraced villagers and townspeople alike, men and women, old and young.

The fire of revolt continued to burn for two full years, from October 1937 to October 1939, that is, beyond the declaration of the Second World War. In this revolt, the Palestinian mujahidin in particular and the Palestinian Arab people in general inscribed the most splendid examples of valor and self-sacrifice in the record of the Arab cause—indeed, in the history of revolutionary movements undertaken for freedom and deliverance from the yoke of oppression throughout the world.

In this revolt, the Arabs of Palestine, whose numbers did not exceed one and a half million people, were fighting both the British Empire and world Jewry, with all the manpower, equipment, troops, massed forces, money, and military, political and economic means possessed by these two great powers. They were fighting these world powers while their own numbers, weapons, money and every means of war and combat were scarcely worth mentioning. It was their faith and certainty that drove them to fight to the death for their ideal purpose and supreme goal.

A book written by General Henry Maitland Wilson, who took part in fighting the Arabs of Palestine before assuming command of the British forces in Egypt and then in the Mediterranean region, contains an extensive account of the heroism of the Arabs of Palestine in those bloody battles. Among his statements is the following: