Pages in Section 2
The brief Existence of the 1921 Palestinian Defence Force
ii. The Peoples of Palestine in 1920
iii. Early Port Police
iv. Early Clashes
v. Brief Existence of the PDF
vi. Formation of the Palestinian Gendarmerie
vii. Captain James Wesley Mackenzie
viii. 1922 Formation of the British Gendarmerie
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During WW 1, three British Jewish Battalions of the Royal fusiliers, whose members were mostly from London, were included in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force.
By the beginning of 1921, most war time recruits had been demobbed and the Jewish Royal Fusiliers had been reduced to one battalion based at Sarafand. Most members wished to remain in Palestine although their battalion too was due to be disbanded.
In March 1921, Winston Churchill decided to form a new local paramilitary force, comprising an Arab and a Jewish Battalion to support the civil administration in Palestine. This was called the Palestinian Defence Force (PDF. The HQ was set up on Jerusalem's Mt. Scopus in the former home of a Sir John Gray Hill.
Arabs, the majority of whom had only recently learnt of the Balfour Declaration and the Syke-Picot agreement. were reluctant to join the new unit, but Jews from the Royal Fusiliers were quick to volunteer. As new recruits to the PDF, these ex=Royal Fusiliers remained in Sarafand, retaining their military uniform, while they undertook their initial training.
It was during this training period of training that the 1921 Jaffa riots took place.
As soon as the Arabs started rioting in the Jaffa area, without waiting for orders, the new Jewish members of the PDF, still wearing the their military uniform, dashed over to Jaffa to defend Tel Aviv. At the same time, some of the Arab established police joined the rioters.
This partisan behaviour convinced the British government that the defence of Palestine at times of politically based riots could not be left in the hands of Palestinians. The unit was disbanded and the HQ sold to the Hebrew University. The administration, however, for another comparatively inexpensive way of dealing with banditry in rural areas.