Peasants' revolt in Palestine

Peasant's Revolt of 1834
Part of the Syrian Peasant Revolt (1834–35) (Campaigns of Muhammad Ali of Egypt)
Date May–August 1834 Location Palestine and Transjordan (then part of the Egyptian-ruled eyalets (provinces) of Damascus and Sidon; nominally, part of the Ottoman Empire) Result Revolt suppressed Rebel leaders executed Egyptian rule reasserted Conscription orders carried out 10,000 peasants deported to Egypt
Belligerents
Egypt Eyalet Abd al-Hadi clan of Arraba Abu Ghosh clan of Jerusalem region (From July 1834) Supported by Shihab dynasty	Urban notables of Nablus, Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed Rural clans and Bedouin tribes of Palestine Qasim, Jarrar, Barqawi, al-Hajj Muhammad and Jayyusi families of Jabal Nablus Simhan family of Ras Karkar Barghouti family of Bani Zeid Abu Ghosh clan of Jerusalem region (Until July 1834) Madi family of Acre region 'Amr tribe of Hebron Hills Hawwara tribe of Galilee Ta'amirah and Fawaghrah tribes of Bethlehem region Awawna and Jabarat tribes of Gaza region Supported by Majali family of al-Karak
Commanders and leaders
Muhammad Ali Ibrahim Pasha Salim Pasha Rashad Bey † Mustafa Bey (WIA) Husayn Abd al-Hadi Jabr Abu Ghosh (From July 1834)	Qasim al-Ahmad  Yusuf al-Qasim  Isa al-Amr  Abdullah al-Jarrar Isa al-Barqawi  Mas'ud al-Madi  Isa al-Madi  Ismail ibn Simhan  Abd al-Jabir Barghouti  Aqil Agha Salim Atawna † Subh Shawkah Ismail Majali  Ibrahim Abu Ghosh (Until July 1834)
Strength
~26,000 professional soldiers	Tens of thousands of irregulars
Casualties and losses
Several thousand[1]	Thousands of rebels killed 10,000 peasants deported to Egypt
Thousands of civilians killed Total (rebels and civilians): about 10,000 killed

The Peasants' Revolt^[2][3] was a rebellion against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies in Palestine. While rebel ranks consisted mostly of the local peasantry, urban notables and Bedouin tribes also formed an integral part of the revolt. This was a collective reaction to Egypt's gradual elimination of the unofficial rights and privileges previously enjoyed by the various classes of society in the Levant under Ottoman rule.^[4]

As part of Muhammad Ali's modernization policies, Ibrahim Pasha, the Egyptian governor of the Levant, issued conscription orders for a fifth of all Muslim males of fighting age. Encouraged by rural sheikh Qasim al-Ahmad, the urban notables of Nablus, Hebron and the Jerusalem-Jaffa area did not carry out Ibrahim Pasha's orders to conscript, disarm and tax the local peasantry. The religious notables of Safad followed suit. Qasim and other local leaders rallied their kinsmen and revolted against the authorities in May 1834, taking control of several towns. While the core of the fighting was in the central mountain regions of Palestine, the revolt also spread to the Galilee, Gaza and parts of Transjordan. Jerusalem was briefly captured by the rebels and plundered. Faced with the superior firepower and organization of Ibrahim Pasha's troops, the rebels were defeated in Jabal Nablus, Jerusalem and the coastal plain before their final defeat in Hebron, which was leveled. Afterward, Ibrahim Pasha's troops pursued and captured Qasim in al-Karak, which was also leveled.

By the 20th century, the revolt was largely absent in the Palestinian collective memory,^[5] from which "the humiliating and traumatic events" were "conveniently erased", according to Israeli historian Baruch Kimmerling.^[6] Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal state that the revolt was a formative event for the Palestinian sense of nationhood in that it brought together disparate groups against a common enemy. Moreover, they asserted that these groups reemerged later to constitute the Palestinian people. The revolt represented a moment of political unity in Palestine. The goal of the rebels was to expel the Egyptian army and reinstate Ottoman rule to restore the Ottoman standards that defined the relationship between the government and the governed. These standards were made up of the religious laws, administrative codes and local norms and traditions that were disrupted by Egyptian reforms.^[4]