This paper concerns the Palestinian Great Revolt of 1936–39, and draws on British and Zionist archival materials. It observes that the central organizing principle of the rebellion was the British criminological framing of the rebels. Arab militants, activists, and spokespersons adopted, rather than rejected, two central premises of the British representation of the insurgency: namely, that violence was justified when directed against criminals, and that a community's organizing itself into a national state rendered it competent to designate individuals as criminals. In agreeing to these discursive terms, the Arabs and the British reflected the prevalent understanding of nationalism as coded in international law and otherwise attested to in the international community of the interwar years. They thus committed themselves to demonstrating to the international community––theatrically, rhetorically, and propagandistically––their own national and the other's criminal credentials. The argument of this paper is that scholars' appreciation of this fact will enable them to approach the colonial archive from this period with a deconstructive agenda that, in the case of the revolt, has brought important new information to light.