The Cement Incident took place in the

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

on 16 October 1935.Krämer, 2008, p. 263. While Arab dockers were unloading a consignment of 537 drums of White-Star cement from the Belgian cargo ship ''Leopold II'', which were destined for a Jewish merchant called J. Katan in

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

, one drum accidentally broke open spilling out guns and ammunition. Further investigation by British Mandate officials revealed a large cache of smuggled weapons, comprising 25 machine guns ( Lewis guns),Matthews, 2006, p. 237. 800 rifles and 400,000 rounds of ammunitionMorris, 1999, p. 127. contained in 359 of the 537 drums, but because the merchant was not identified and the final destination was not uncovered, no arrests were made.Swedenburg, 2003, p. 78 Almost overnight, protests erupted throughout Palestine and swept other major Arab urban cities, including Amman, Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. Alongside other groups in Palestine, Al-Qassam carried out incursions against British Mandate forces and Jewish settlers.

Background

It was no secret that the

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

had been smuggling arms into the country ever since the riots in 1929, and the discovery of the shipment gave credence to the claim that the Jews of Palestine were arming on a large-scale for an eventual confrontation to take control of Palestine.Palestine Royal Commission Report, July 1937, Cmd. 5479, p. 88. Since 1929, the Haganah had sent representatives to

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

to purchase weapons, which were often smuggled into Palestine in crates and luggage. The perception that the Zionist movement was on the road to attaining the military capacity to establish its state led to a sharp sense of danger.

Reaction

General alarm in the Arab press over the arms discovery and the failure of the British authorities to take action was followed by a general strike on 26 October, which was widely observed and became violent in Jaffa.Kedourie, 1982, p. 69. At the end of October, in response to the storm of public controversy over the arms shipment,

Sheikh Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning "elder (administrative title), elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim ulama, scholar. Though this title generally refers to me ...

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (; 1881 or 19 December 1882 – 20 November 1935) was a Syrian Muslim preacher and a leader in the local struggles against British and French Mandatory rule in the Levant and an opponent of Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s. Qassam was born in ...

, a reformist preacher, leader of the

Black Hand Black Hand or The Black Hand may refer to: Extortionists and underground groups * Black Hand (), 1919–1924 Mexican-American raiders of the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant * Black Hand (anarchism) (), a presumed secret, anarchist organization based ...

, an

anti-Zionist Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the Palestine (region) ...

and anti-British militant organisation, approached his followers with a proposal to take up arms. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants and by 1935 he had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. The cells were equipped with bombs and firearms, which they used to kill Jewish residents in the area, as well as engaging in a campaign of vandalism of settler-planted trees and British-constructed rail-lines. In November 1935, two of Qassam's men engaged in a firefight with a

Palestine police The Palestine Police Force (, ) was a British colonial police service established in Mandatory Palestine on 1 July 1920,Sinclair, 2006. when High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel's civil administration took over responsibility for security from ...

patrol hunting fruit thieves, and a policeman was killed. After the incident, British police launched a manhunt and surrounded Qassam in a cave near

Ya'bad Ya'bad () is a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank, 20 kilometers west of Jenin, in the Jenin Governorate of Palestine. It is a major agricultural town, with most of its land covered with olive groves and grain fields. According to the Pa ...

. In the ensuing battle, Qassam was killed. Qassam's funeral in

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

became a major nationalist demonstration attended by thousands, and he was subsequently regarded as a nationalist cult hero and became an inspiration to diverse Palestinian nationalist groups, not least during the ensuing Great Revolt of 1936–1939, which his death helped to spark six months later.Khalidi, 1998, p. 115.

References

Sources

*Gelber, Sylvia (1989). ''No Balm in Gilead: A personal retrospective of mandate days in Palestine.'' McGill-Queen's Press. * Kedourie, Elie (1982). ''Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel''. Routledge. * Khalidi, Rashid (1998). ''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness''. Columbia University Press. * Krämer, Gudrun (2008).'' A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel''. Princeton University Press. *Matthews, Weldon C. (2006). ''Confronting an Empire, Constructing a Nation: Arab nationalists and popular politics in mandate Palestine''. I B Tauris. *

Morris, Benny Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the g ...

(1999). ''Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1999''. John Murray. *Swedenburg, Ted. (2003). ''Memories of Revolt: The 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past''. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. {{ISBN, 978-1-55728-763-2 1935 in Mandatory Palestine Haganah Arms trafficking Zionism in Mandatory Palestine October 1935 1935 in international relations Maritime incidents in 1935 1930s controversies British military scandals