Conscription and disarmament were highly unpopular among the peasantry and their leaders, who

refused to implement the orders. New taxation policies also threatened the role of urban notables
and rural sheikhs as mutasallims, while Egypt's effective law enforcement measures threatened the
livelihood of Bedouin tribes who derived their income from extorting merchants and travelers. The
diverse array of social and political groups hostile to Egyptian reforms throughout Palestine
developed into a coalition.[478] Consequently, this coalition launched what became known as
the Peasants' Revolt in 1834. The core of the rebels were based in Jabal Nablus and led by
subdistrict chief Qasim al-Ahmad,[477] who had previously contributed peasant irregulars to Ibrahim
Pasha's forces during the conquest of Syria.[479] The revolt represented a major threat to the flow of
arms and conscripts between Egypt and Syria and to Muhammad Ali's program of modernizing
Egypt.[480] Rebel forces captured most of Palestine, including Jerusalem, by June. [481] However,
Muhammad Ali arrived in Palestine, opened negotiations with various rebel leaders and
sympathizers, and secured a truce in July.[482] He also managed to secure the defection of the
powerful Abu Ghosh clan of Jerusalem's hinterland from the rebel forces.[481]
During the truce period, numerous religious and political leaders from Jerusalem and other cities
were either arrested, exiled or executed. Afterward, Qasim recommenced the rebellion, viewing the
truce as a ruse.[482] Egyptian forces launched a campaign to defeat the rebels in Jabal Nablus,
destroying 16 villages before capturing Nablus itself on 15 July.[483] Qasim was pursued to Hebron,
which was leveled in August,[483] and was later captured and executed with most of the rebel
leadership. In the wake of Egypt's victory, the virtual autonomy of Jabal Nablus was significantly
weakened,[477] the conscription orders were carried out with 10,000 peasant conscripts sent to Egypt,
and the population was largely disarmed.[483] The latter measure effectively introduced a monopoly of
violence in Palestine, as part of Egypt's centralization policies. [483] Egyptian rule and the defeat of the
powerful rural sheikhs of Jabal Nablus led to the political elevation of the Abd al-Hadi clan of Arraba.
Its sheikh, Husayn Abd al-Hadi, supported Ibrahim Pasha during the revolt and was promoted as the
Wali of Sidon, which included all of Palestine. [477] His relatives and allies were appointed
the mutasallims of Jerusalem, Nablus and Jaffa.[484]
Britain sent the navy to shell Beirut and an Anglo-Ottoman expeditionary force landed, causing local
uprisings against the Egyptian occupiers. A British naval squadron anchored off Alexandria. The
Egyptian army retreated to Egypt. Muhammad Ali signed the Treaty of 1841. Britain returned control
of the Levant to the Ottomans, and as a result was able to increase the extraterritorial rights that
various European nations had enjoyed throughout previous centuries under the terms of
the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire. One American diplomat wrote that "Extraordinary privileges
and immunities had become so embodied in successive treaties between the great Christian Powers
and the Sublime Porte that for most intents and purposes many nationalities in the Ottoman Empire
formed a state within the state."[485]
Restoration of Ottoman control
In common usage from 1840 onward, "Palestine" was used either to describe the consular
jurisdictions of the Western powers[486] or for a region that extended in the north–south direction
typically from Rafah (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western
boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly defined place where the Syrian
desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the
Jordan River to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.[487] The Consuls were
originally magistrates who tried cases involving their own citizens in foreign territories. While the
jurisdictions in the secular states of Europe had become territorial, the Ottomans perpetuated the
legal system they inherited from the Byzantine Empire. The law in many matters was personal, not
territorial, and the individual citizen carried his nation's law with him wherever he went.
[488]
 Capitulatory law applied to foreigners in Palestine. Only Consular Courts of the State of the
foreigners concerned were competent to try them. That was true, not only in cases involving
personal status, but also in criminal and commercial matters. [489] According to American Ambassador
Morgenthau, Turkey had never been an independent sovereignty. [490] The Western Powers had their
own courts, marshals, colonies, schools, postal systems, religious institutions, and prisons. The
Consuls also extended protections to large communities of Jewish protégés who had settled in
Palestine.[491]

Map of "Palestine" in 1851, showing the Kaza subdivisions. At the time, the region shown was split between
the Sidon Eyalet and the Damascus Eyalet

The Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities of Palestine were allowed to exercise jurisdiction
over their own members according to charters granted to them. For centuries the Jews and
Christians had enjoyed a large degree of communal autonomy in matters of worship, jurisdiction
over personal status, taxes, and in managing their schools and charitable institutions. In the 19th
century those rights were formally recognized as part of the Tanzimat reforms and when the
communities were placed under the protection of European public law. [492][493]