In a world dominated by soldiers, sailors and airmen, it was, for once, the turn of the police to warm themselves at the hearth of official approval. There were gongs in the offing. At the top of the list was Geoffrey Morton who was put forward for the King’s Police Medal, awarded for ‘distinguished service’. The citation recorded how he had ‘performed dangerous and arduous duties in a manner beyond praise’. It went on: ‘To his personal efforts have been very largely due the success attending the rounding up of dangerous criminals. He has repeatedly shown outstanding coolness and courage of the highest order.’3 It was only what everyone was saying. Captain Wybrow, the Area Security Officer with whom Morton had clashed in the past, sent a note praising the ‘splendid way you have cleared up the Stern Group … the part you have played in this reflects great credit on your courage and tenacity’.4
As Morton would be the first to admit, the recent triumphs had been a team effort and several of those involved in the routing of Stern and his followers would get a share of the credit. Police Medals for ‘meritorious services’ were dished out to Dick Catling, Sergeant Daniel Day and the man who set Morton on the fatal trail – the charming but dangerously deceptive Sergeant Daly.
Stern’s shooting was presented to the outside world as a satisfactory outcome that required little justification. A bad man had got his comeuppance and the precise circumstances of how he met his end were not elaborated on. MacMichael wrote in a telegram home that Stern had been shot ‘while trying to escape or resist’,5 a formula that would be repeated mechanically in official statements in the months to come. The question of why it was necessary to shoot dead an apparently unarmed man was never addressed and at first no one seemed inclined to raise it. The Reuters news agency report, printed in many British newspapers, described Stern as a ‘gangster’ who had been killed ‘while attempting to resist the police’. The Jewish press seemed unconcerned about the exact details of Stern’s demise. Bad news from the war front forced the story onto page three of the Palestine Post. It repeated the claim that ‘the notorious gang leader’ had been ‘shot dead while making a bid for freedom’.6 The Hebrew-language press also gave limited attention to Stern’s death and the normally voluble Jewish Agency made no official comment. To help keep public opinion onside, some anonymous government propagandist produced a pamphlet designed to blacken Stern’s name further. Those who picked it up would learn ‘the amazing story of his attempts to ingratiate himself with the Axis’. It went on: ‘We are able to reveal … that while the gang were ready to add the role of fifth-columnists to their other infamies, Stern himself was prepared to drive a devil’s bargain with the Italians.’ However, ‘even they could not swallow the pretensions of this cheap double-crossing gunman whose success in murder and robbery has evidently given him the idea that he might rise to be a Quisling’.7
The apparent equanimity with which the public took the news was welcome. But the wiser heads in the administration doubted that the relief that the elimination of Stern had brought would last for long. In Government House, Sir Harold MacMichael reviewed events with his cold, appraising eyes. Three days after the killing, he cabled the Colonial Secretary with his conclusions. The tone was sombre and cautious. He started off by listing the positive results to date. Police action had resulted in the death of Stern and ‘two other terrorists’ and the ‘detention of the majority of the principal members of the gang’.8 Other arrests had been made and the hunt was on for the remainder of the band.
That was the upside. There followed a dispiriting catalogue of caveats and warnings. The first concerned the fundamental legal difficulties inherent in dealing with tightly knit, ruthlessly dedicated underground organizations of which the Stern group was a classic example. ‘It will not be possible, because of the lack of evidence identifying individual members with criminal acts, to bring the gang to trial before the Courts,’ he wrote. In the case of the most spectacular charge against the group there was no evidence that would stick even in a wartime tribunal. ‘While there are grounds for believing that at least the leaders tried to come to an arrangement with Italy,’ MacMichael judged ‘there is … no such evidence of this as would secure convictions.’
He went on to report a ‘very disquieting development’. It had been brought to his notice that ‘membership of the gang increased from about 100 to 300 during the period immediately preceding the murder of the police [officers], when the leaders appeared to have immunity and their terrorist activities appeared to be invariably successful’.
The tone of MacMichael’s report was a posthumous tribute to the effectiveness of Stern’s methods. Even in death he was capable of rattling his enemies. Sir Harold’s anxiety was revealed in the dramatic measure he now proposed to counter the threat that he believed the Stern group still posed to Palestine’s security.
The unlikelihood of obtaining convictions meant that the authorities would have to resort to the emergency regulations to keep Stern’s followers locked up. MacMichael had come to the conclusion that this was not enough. It was ‘most doubtful’, he wrote, ‘whether the detention of known members will of itself be sufficient to break up the gang finally and completely, or to provide adequate discouragement to the undertaking of similar activities by other hidden organisations’. As long as there were Sternists in captivity ‘there is always the possibility, despite any precautions taken here [that an] attempt at rescue or break out will be made’.
Drastic remedies were in order, which MacMichael now unveiled. ‘The most effective measure,’ he wrote, ‘would be the deportation of those members of the gang who are in detention, provided that accommodation suitable for the detention of terrorists with their criminal and seditious record could be arranged in the country of reception.’ MacMichael had already obtained the army’s support for the idea. ‘I consider, and the military authorities emphatically agreed, that deportation and detention in, for example, the West Indies, would be the only measure sufficiently rigorous to eradicate this terrorist organisation.’
The High Commissioner was effectively admitting defeat. The inference was that the security services of Palestine were neither capable of completely eradicating the menace posed by a small band of extremists, nor hanging on to those they had managed to lock up. Rather than dealing with the problem he would prefer it was shunted off to someone else.
It was a surprising attitude from a man who had never shirked the challenge posed by the Arabs, whose rebellion he had helped to crush with notable ruthlessness. Behind it lurked a deep pessimism about how events in Palestine would develop. The war was far from decided but already Sir Harold was peering into the future, where he could discern the almighty struggle for possession of the Holy Land that would erupt as soon as circumstances allowed. A short time before his report on Stern’s killing he had sent to Luke in London what the recipient described as ‘a most formidable account of the Jewish secret quasi-military organisations’.9 MacMichael attached a commentary in which he ‘expressed very grave apprehension about the possibilities of a Jewish resort to arms if they fail to gain the post war political concessions which they are now demanding’.
Luke was impressed. ‘It seems to me,’ he noted, ‘that it is vitally important that the most drastic measures should be taken to maintain public order in Palestine, not only because of the war, but because the end of the war will produce immediately a most delicate, dangerous and electric situation in the Middle East.’ Hitherto the threats to public safety had come mainly from the Arabs. Today, though, ‘there can be little doubt that they come from the Jewish side’.
Luke was all for backing the deportation proposal. Given the condemnation that the Yael Street bombing had provoked within the Yishuv, he was inclined to think that ‘the adoption of drastic action against the … group would not produce the violent revulsion of feeling that would normally be the result of Govt. action along these lines’. However, he warned, ‘we cannot safely assume that we should have the Jewish authorities and community with us’.
For the moment most of Palestine’s Jews seemed to accept the British line that, by shooting Stern, the police had rid Palestine of a dangerous outlaw. Saunders had noted in his report to Chief Secretary Macpherson, written eight days after the event, that ‘the news of Stern’s death has been received by the man in the street with relief’.10 It was true that the precise details given about how he met his end were vague. Within the administration there seems to have been no appetite to establish them, for no internal inquiry was ordered into the circumstances of Stern’s death. For public consumption the killing had been given legal cover by the Jaffa coroner, an Arab, whose inquest into the death of Stern returned a verdict of ‘justifiable homicide’. The same conclusion was reached in the cases of Amper and Zak, both of whom died of the wounds they received at 30 Dizengoff Street. The fact that the verdicts were given by an Arab was later cited as evidence of an official cover-up. As all the deaths occurred within the jurisdiction of the Jaffa coroner’s court, however, it followed that the inquest would be held there; and Jaffa was an overwhelmingly Arab area.
The present state of calm could not be relied on. Jewish public opinion was like Lake Tiberias. For much of the time it might look placid, but it needed only a breeze to whip the surface into menacing combers and, as Saunders went on to warn, the wind was already freshening.
‘There have been a number of reports … that politically minded persons and certain organizations view the shooting at No. 30 Dizengoff Street and 8 Mizrahi B Street with disfavour on the grounds that it [sic] was unnecessary and brutal,’ he wrote. He cited the evidence of a pamphlet which had begun to appear in the streets of Tel Aviv on 17 February, dealing with the two incidents. The headline was ‘MURDER’ and it purported to ‘correct the facts which have been distorted with criminal intent by the murderous gang of the Palestine Gestapo’.
There followed a denunciation of the police actions of the last six weeks and of Morton in particular. The rather clumsy police translation from the Hebrew read: ‘The four men caught at 30 Dizengoff Street did not fire at the Police. The stories about an “exchange of shots” is a criminal lie. The British Gestapo entered the house and opened fire immediately, although the men lifted their hands and surrendered. Jacob Levstein, when he saw that surrender was ineffective, threw himself on the ground so that the police should think him dead. The Gestapo officer MORTON kicked him and when he discovered that he was still alive, shot him.’* It went on to claim that the wounded men had been tortured while in the Government Hospital in Jaffa which had resulted in the death of Zak and Amper.
Then it dealt with the events of 12 February. ‘And last of all the story of the filthy murder of Abraham Stern which the “poor” police invented that he was shot “resisting arrest”. The gang of police murderers entered the room fully armed, ordered his girl-friend out of the room, so that she should not witness the crime and UNLAWFULLY MURDERED HIM COLD-BLOODEDLY WHILE UNARMED WITHOUT TRIAL OR JUDGEMENT.’ It concluded: ‘LISTEN ISRAEL. THE BLOOD OF YOUR BRETHREN IS CALLING TO YOU FROM THE GRAVE.’11
If the denunciation had been the work of the embittered remnants of Stern’s band it would have had little significance. But Saunders believed the pamphlet had been issued not by Stern’s friends but his erstwhile enemies − the Irgun Zvai Leumi. This was a far more worrying prospect. Since the start of the war the Irgun had by and large respected an agreement to do nothing to harm the British, and actively cooperated on many occasions. If Captain Wybrow was to be believed, they had gone so far as to offer to take out Avraham Stern. Did this mean that the truce was at an end?
Saunders also recorded another troubling development, emanating from the opposite end of the political spectrum. He had received other reports ‘stating that certain well-known figures, including Dr Magnes of the Hebrew University, have been asked to approach government with a request for an inquiry’.12
Judah Leon Magnes was one of the most respected figures in the Yishuv, a monument of rectitude and reasonableness. If he was disturbed by the circumstances of the death of his talented but troublesome former charge, how long would it be before disquiet – which adept propaganda might fan into anger and violence – spread to the rest of the Jewish community?
Stern was dead but it seemed that his memory would continue to trouble Palestine. Nor had his departure removed the threat of further action by those of his followers who were still at large. Saunders believed that it was ‘unlikely that the organisation has been completely exterminated’. It was highly probable that the diehards would be bent on revenging their lost leader, and Geoffrey Morton was surely near the top of their list of targets.
Morton wrote that within an hour of the shooting an armed guard was put on his house in Sarona. From then on he and Alice were under constant protection by a team composed of Sergeant Stuart, who had been with him at Mizrachi Bet Street, Constable Ternent, who had shot Yaacov Levstein as he shinned down the pipe at 30 Dizengoff Street, and Sergeant Shand, serving in the anti-narcotics branch, who had volunteered for the duty. They all bore the first name ‘Alexander’ and henceforth the three Alecs, as Morton dubbed them, ‘were always there, unobtrusive but ready to go anywhere at any time of the day or night and to tackle any job’. The trio ‘virtually became members of the family, and on the odd occasions when we went to a cinema, or out for a walk on the Tel Aviv sea front, two of them invariably went with us’.13 Wilkin, meanwhile, moved out of the Tel Aviv flat where he spent his spare time with Shoshana and into Jaffa police headquarters.
For the moment, at least the threat seemed limited. Those Stern followers who were not in custody were keeping their heads down, concentrating on staying out of the clutches of the British until the hue and cry had died down and they could start to plot their revenge.
In Jerusalem, MacMichael’s attention was now diverted elsewhere. As the month of February wore on, he found himself drawn deeper and deeper into a grim drama that would come to be seen as a symbol of the heartlessness of British rule in Palestine. Illegal Jewish immigration had been a continuous problem for the British authorities since 1934. When war broke out, efforts to block it continued as strenuously as before. The reality of what Nazi occupation would mean for the Jews was soon clear and became shockingly more apparent with every passing day. None of this had dented the determination of the Colonial and Foreign Offices to keep out refugees, regardless of the fact that many were fleeing in leaky, often unsanitary boats from death and enslavement. Towards the end of 1940, two ships carrying 3404 Jewish men, women and children arrived off Haifa after sailing from the Black Sea. They were stopped by the Royal Navy and those on board interned ashore. Later they were put on board a requisitioned French liner, the Patria, with the intention of deporting them to camps in Mauritius. Before it departed, however, a team from the Haganah boarded the ship and planted a bomb with the intention of preventing her from sailing. When it exploded the Patria sank and 260 were drowned.
The British relented and allowed the survivors entry to Palestine but the Yishuv blamed them rather than the Haganah for the tragedy. The incident did nothing to change official thinking. And no one was more intent on upholding the policy than Sir Harold MacMichael.
On 11 December the Struma, which had been built in 1867 as a luxurious steam yacht for the Marquess of Anglesey but had suffered a drastic change of fortunes over the years, sailed from the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta. It was crammed with 769 Jews fleeing from the pro-Nazi and murderously anti-Semitic Iron Guard. The ship, which had latterly been used for transporting cattle, was dirty, freezing cold and the diesel engines broke down constantly. On 16 December she reached Istanbul where she was interned by the authorities. The Turks asked the British ambassador, Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, whether the refugees would be accepted in Palestine. If not, they would be sent back to Romania. Knatchbull-Hugessen replied: ‘from the humanitarian point of view I did not like [the] proposal to send the ship back into the Black Sea’ and suggested that if the refugees
reached Palestine ‘they might despite their illegality receive humane treatment’. The ambassador had spoken out of turn. The last thing the current Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and their officials wished was to establish a precedent.14 ‘If we were to accept these people, there would of course be more and more shiploads of unwanted Jews later!’ exclaimed one Foreign Office official, Charles Baxter.15 The ambassador was ordered to make it clear that the refugees could not enter Palestine, but to say no more than that; certainly not to suggest an alternative course of action. For ten weeks the problem went back and forth while the refugees shivered aboard their stinking ship. A proposal to at least allow the children in collapsed when, after finding no one else who was willing to offer sanctuary, the Turks lost patience and ordered the ship to be towed back into the Black Sea. On 24 February, shortly after parting company with the tug, there was an explosion – apparently caused by a torpedo fired from a Soviet submarine – and the Struma sank, with the loss of all but two of the refugees on board.
When the first unverified reports reached the Palestinian authorities they were kept out of the press by the censors. On 26 February, the facts were confirmed and the Yishuv went into mourning. Almost every Jewish worker in Palestine observed a one-day strike and leaflets appeared in the streets denouncing British barbarity. MacMichael’s firm support for the official line was well known. One flier carried his picture. His eyes stared out, seemingly indifferent, below beetling eyebrows and a vast, domed forehead. Underneath his picture were the words: ‘Wanted for Murder’. Nor would Lord Moyne’s leading role in the affair be forgotten.
Why had the British authorities behaved so cruelly? The official justifications were practical and political. If the Jews were allowed unfettered access to Palestine, they would place an impossible burden on an infrastructure already creaking under the strain of war. Another wave of immigration was also likely to inflame Arab feelings – and the British were anxious to avoid encouraging already well-established pro-Axis sentiments. A final excuse that appears in the correspondence was the fear that German agents might be hidden among the refugees. This concern was simulated. No spy was ever uncovered among the ‘illegals’ – for, as Dick Catling pointed out, ‘an enemy agent would have been too conspicuous. He’d have been unmasked by the Jews themselves.’*16
The Reckoning Page 20
