From the early days of Zionist settlement in Ottoman Palestine it was clear that the project faced opposition from the native Arab majority. Hostility escalated with the start of British rule and the violence that engendered. Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion admitted privately that a national confrontation was under way but official public messaging was that Arabs would benefit from the Jewish economic development of the country. By the end of the Palestinian “great rebellion” of 1936-1939 that was exposed as an illusion.