In 1933, Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany, and the situation for Jews was deteriorating across Europe. Within a few years, demands for Jewish immigration to Palestine increased. Underground Zionist organizations began smuggling boatloads of Jews in ever greater numbers from European ports to Haifa, along the northern Mediterranean coast of Palestine. The British authorities struggled to control the flow. Between 1922 and 1936, the Jewish population of Palestine quadrupled—from 84,000 to 352,000. During the same time, the Arab population had increased by about 36 percent, to 900,000.
