ABSTRACT
Creating an integrated armed force under foreign rule depends on the cohesiveness of the political elite, its ability to make political demands commensurate with its power, and the strength and resolve of the political actor to which these demands are directed. Palestine’s Arab leaders during the first two decades of British rule in Palestine did not act as a cohesive political elite, failed to balance between the demands they made and the power they possessed, nor were they astute in assessing the resolve of the imperial power to hold on to Palestine.
