Editing Zionism (section)

=== Zionist policies and the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt ===
For the Zionist movement, economic development and policies were a mechanism by which political aims could be achieved.{{sfn|Sternhell|1999}} A new economic sector exclusively for Jews, controlled by the Labor Zionist movement, was established with support from the Jewish National Fund and the agricultural workers' Histadrut. Despite the universalist ideals of Zionist pioneering, this new Jewish economic sector was fundamentally based on exclusionary practices.{{sfn|Shafir|1996}} The goal of achieving "100 percent of Hebrew labour" was the primary driver of the territorial, economic and social separation between Jews and Arabs.{{sfn|Flapan|1979|loc=The Policy of Economic and Social Separation}}

The Zionist economic platform was partially based on the assumption (eventually demonstrated incorrect{{sfn|Flapan|1979|pp=19}}) that economic benefits to the Arabs of Palestine would pacify opposition to the movement. For the Zionist leadership, the economic status and development of the Arabs of Palestine should be compared with Arabs of other countries, rather than with the Jews of Palestine. Accordingly, disproportionate gains in Jewish development were be acceptable as long as the status of the Arab sector did not worsen. While British support for Zionist aspirations in Palestine established the parameters within which the Arab economy could develop, Zionist policies reinforced these limitations. Most notable are the exclusion of Arab labor from Jewish enterprise and the expulsion of Arab peasants from Jewish-owned land. Both of these had limited impact in scope but reinforced the structural limitations put in place by British policies.{{sfn|Roy|2016|loc=The Economic Transformation of Palestine: Key British and Zionst Policies}}

With the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, the Jewish community was increasingly persecuted and driven out. The discriminatory immigration laws of the US, UK and other countries preferable to German Jews, led to in 1935 alone more than 60,000 Jews arriving in Palestine (more than the total number of Jews in Palestine as of the establishment of the Balfour declaration in 1917). Ben-Gurion would subsequently declare that immigration at this rate would allow for the maximalist Zionist goal of a Jewish state in all of Palestine.{{sfn|Pappé|2004}}{{page needed|date=November 2024}} The Arab community openly pressured the mandatory government to restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases.{{sfn|Roy|2016|p=33}}

Sporadic attacks in the countryside (described by Zionists and the British as "banditry") reflected widespread anger over the Zionist land purchases that displaced local peasants. Meanwhile, in urban areas, protests against British rule and the increasing influence of the Zionist movement intensified and became more militant in the early 1930s.{{sfn|Khalidi|2020|p=44}}

The outbreak of violence in the course of the 1936 Arab Revolt was a turning point in Jewish-Arab relations, unifying previously divided factions within the Zionist movement and leading them to view the use of force as a necessary means of defense and deterrence.{{sfn|Gorny|1987|pp=243,251}} Moreover, some, like Beilinson, viewed the Jewish struggle for Palestine as a matter of survival, whereas they argued that for the Arabs it was not an existential issue. Consequently, they believed that Jews could not afford to make significant concessions and that Arab motives — whether noble or base — were not historically or morally significant.{{sfn|Gorny|1987|p=251}} 

During the revolt, the [[Irgun Zvai Leumi]] engaged in the use of terror attacks against the Arabs of Palestine. Similarly, for the labor Zionist [[Palmah]], the lines delineating what was acceptable and unacceptable while dealing with Arab villagers were "vague and intentionally blurred". These ambiguous limits practically did not differ from those of the self-described "terrorist" group, Irgun. According to Anita Shapira, beginning in this period, Labor Zionism's use of violence against Palestinians for political means was essentially the same as that of radical conservative Zionist groups.{{sfn|Shapira|1992|pp=247, 249, 251–252, 350, 365}}