Women, Violence, and the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39

This new history brings women center-stage to the Arab revolt (1936–39) in Palestine and asks three related questions: how did Britain’s colonial pacification affect women, what part did women play thereof, and how did soldiers treat women? This includes discussion of sexual assault. It does this through deep mining of multilingual sources. The article argues that British soldiers eschewed sexual violence towards women, but military pacification had considerable oppressive effects on women as a target population during counter-insurgency. The analysis suggests more broadly that national-military cultures prompt armies in war zones to treat women differently, making brief reference to Israel today.