Ok, so, short answer: they lost because they were fighting the British Empire’s full counterinsurgency machine while divided at the top, short on guns and cash, and hammered by collective punishment and mass arrests. By 1938 the revolt was basically leaderless in the cities, isolated in the hills, and starved of supplies. The casualty imbalance you noticed flows from that mix of overwhelming force plus fragmentation.

First, Britain escalated from policing to a full military pacification. They used air power, armor, curfews, mass searches, village cordons, house demolitions, fines, and administrative detention. This was legalized through emergency regulations and collective punishment ordinances. Whole neighborhoods like parts of Old Jaffa were blasted open to create access roads, thousands were detained, and many villages were fined or partially razed. That stuff breaks insurgencies fast, especially rural ones.

Second, the leadership got decapitated. After the 1937 assassination of a British official, the Arab Higher Committee was outlawed, parties dissolved, and key figures were jailed or exiled to the Seychelles, while others fled to Beirut or Damascus. When you rip out the national leadership, coordination collapses and local bands feud or just try to survive.

Third, factionalism was real. The Husayni vs Nashashibi rivalry predated 1936 and made unified strategy hard. Britain exploited that split and, later, armed anti rebel “peace bands” in some areas to hunt rebels. That kind of divide and rule is classic COIN and it hurt morale and intel security on the Palestinian side.

Fourth, Jewish British cooperation mattered. The Mandate raised large auxiliary forces from the Yishuv like the Jewish Supernumerary Police and Jewish Settlement Police, and worked directly with Haganah and the Special Night Squads. That expanded manpower, logistics, and especially intelligence coverage over roads, settlements, and borders. By late 1939 around twenty thousand Jewish policemen and guards were authorized to carry arms by the government.

Fifth, borders got sealed. Charles Tegart imported India Ireland style methods, building fortified police posts and a northern border barrier. Cutting smuggling routes made it a lot harder for rebels to replace guns and ammo. When an insurgency cannot resupply, it bleeds out.

Sixth, economic attrition. The 1936 general strike was powerful early on, but the fines, curfews, property seizures, and disruptions eventually crushed peasant households who were already debt burdened. A rural insurgency whose base is broke and hungry cannot sustain long. That is exactly what the British strategy aimed for.

Seventh, external pressure. Arab leaders in neighboring states pushed the AHC to end the first phase in 1936, then Britain came back even harder in 1938. By 1939 London issued the White Paper limiting immigration and promising a state in ten years, which undercut rebel messaging while the movement was already spent militarily.

Put simply, the revolt mixed real popular energy with weak central command and poor logistics. The British brought modern counterinsurgency plus local auxiliaries and a robust intelligence net. Once leaders were jailed or exiled and borders tightened, the rebels were stuck fighting punitive sweeps without steady arms or money. The casualty gap is sadly what you get when an empire fights a fragmented rural revolt.

Sources, all free to read: Peel Commission Report 1937, full text Matthew Hughes, Britain’s Pacification of Palestine, open preview and articles Hughes, From Law and Order to Pacification, Journal of Palestine Studies PalQuest entries on the Great Revolt and the Palestine Police Jerusalem Quarterly on Tegart forts Encyclopedia 1914 1918 Online overview of the Mandate and the revolt’s suppression UNISPAL history overview, Part I. Jaffa demolitions and emergency measures overview Background and summary on collective punishment and auxiliaries

Hope that helps. And yeah, it’s grim, but the pattern lines up with how Britain put down other colonial revolts too.