The spark occurred on April 15, 1936, when a gang of Arabs shot three Jews on the road east of Tulkarm. Members of the Jewish Irgun Bet retaliated by killing two Arabs not far from Beit Sayeed. Events spiraled rapidly out of control, culminating with an Arab rampage through the streets of Jaffa that left nine Jews dead. The Arab Revolt had begun.

There had been periods of unrest in Palestine, times when Arab frustration would boil over into rioting and killing, but never had there been anything like the coordinated violence and unrest that swept the land that spring and summer of 1936. Jews all across Palestine became targets of Arab rage. Shops were looted, orchards uprooted, homes and settlements burned. Jews were murdered on buses and in cafés, even inside their own homes. In Jerusalem, the Arab leaders convened and demanded an end to all Jewish immigration and the immediate installation of an Arab-majority government.

Sheikh Asad, though a thief, considered himself first and foremost a shabab, a young nationalist, and he saw the Arab Revolt as a chance to destroy the Jews once and for all. He immediately ceased all his criminal activities and transformed his gang of bandits into a jihaddiyya, a secret holy war fighting cell. He then unleashed a series of deadly attacks against Jewish and British targets in the Lydda district of central Palestine, using the same tactics of stealth and surprise he’d employed as a thief. He attacked the Jewish settlement of Petah Tikvah, where he’d worked as a boy, and killed Zev, his old boss, with a gunshot to the head. He also targeted the men he viewed as the worst traitors to the Arab cause, the effendis who had sold large tracts of land to the Zionists. Three such men he killed himself with his long, curved knife.

Despite the secrecy surrounding his operations, the name Asad al-Khalifa was soon known to the men of the Arab Higher Council in Jerusalem. Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti and chairman of the council, wanted to meet this cunning Arab warrior who had shed so much Jewish blood in the Lydda district. Sheikh Asad traveled to Jerusalem disguised as a woman and met the red-bearded mufti in an apartment in the Old City, not far from the Al-Aksa mosque.

“You are a great warrior, Sheikh Asad. Allah has given you great courage—the courage of a lion.”

“I fight to serve God,” Sheikh Asad said, then quickly added: “And you, of course, Haj Amin.”

Haj Amin smiled and stroked his neat red beard. “The Jews are united. That is their strength. We Arabs have never known unity. Family, clan, tribe—that is the Arab way. Many of our warlords, like you, Sheikh Asad, are former criminals, and I’m afraid many of them are using the Revolt as a means of enriching themselves. They’re raiding Arab villages and extorting tribute from the elders.”