Haining’s success in Palestine, however, had created new problems for Britain elsewhere. The harsh methods used to suppress the revolt had provoked criticism in Egypt and Iraq as well as in India. Given that Britain in 1938 had more Muslim subjects than any country in the world, with some twenty million in India alone, this was a matter of no small consequence. The Chiefs of Staff and the Committee of Imperial Defence were already closely monitoring German and Italian efforts to turn Muslim opinion against Britain. Indeed, the increasing likelihood of war with Germany despite the Munich Agreement’s pledges to the contrary made achieving lasting peace in Palestine of paramount strategic importance to Britain. In the event of war troops involved with internal security duties in the mandate would be more urgently needed for home defense or deployment to Europe. Additional reinforcements would also be required from India. But if Italy entered the war on Germany’s side and blocked British access to the Suez Canal from either the Mediterranean or the Red Sea, these forces would have to travel overland across the Middle East, through Palestine. Continued fighting there would impede their movement. Accordingly, a major reassessment of British policy for Palestine was in motion that MacDonald intimated to Haining on October 15 would entail “political moves in the next few weeks which will make a contribution towards ultimate peace.”11
These “political moves” inevitably focused on the Royal Commission’s recommendation for Palestine’s partition into separate Arab and Jewish states. The Foreign Office had always opposed partition on the grounds that it could only be imposed by force, thus necessitating a military commitment beyond Britain’s means to fulfill while incurring the enmity of Arabs in Palestine and in surrounding countries, and of Indian Muslims as well. This was also the position of the War Office and the Chiefs of Staff. Accordingly, the viability of partition was ultimately decided on the basis of the negative effect that its implementation would have on Anglo-Arab and Anglo-Muslim relations, not only in Palestine, but across the region. The report of the commission chaired by Sir John Woodhead to examine the challenges of implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendations presented the government of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with an opportunity to abandon partition once and for all.12
The Woodhead Commission Report was published in early November. The government seized upon its inability “to recommend boundaries which will afford a reasonable prospect of the eventual establishment of self-supporting Arab and Jewish States” as sufficient justification to jettison partition. A white paper issued the same day explained that the “political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish States inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impractical.” Accordingly, the government announced that a conference would be held in London early in 1939 to consider Palestine’s future. Representatives from Palestine’s Arab and Jewish communities as well as from surrounding Arab states would be invited. However, should the conference not produce agreement “within a reasonable period of time,” the government reserved the right to impose on Palestine a policy of its own devising.13
The London Conference began on February 7, 1939. Britain was determined that its outcome should assuage Arab discontent and thus ensure peace in Palestine at a time when British military commitments were strained by the exigencies of home, continental, and imperial defense. To this end, the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, told the cabinet, the British delegation’s intention would be to avoid “arousing antagonism with the Arabs.” The Arab delegation—which included four of the five Palestinian leaders whom the Palestine government had exiled to the Seychelles fifteen months earlier along with representatives from Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia—was unyielding in its demands for the mandate’s termination, complete independence, and an end to Jewish immigration and land purchase.14
The government’s attitude toward the Jews, meanwhile, was influenced not just by British strategic priorities but by what the Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has called a “matter-of-fact inclination to view the Arab cause as more logical and correct” than Zionist claims to Palestine. “The conclusion,” he argued, “was clear enough—there was no escaping the sacrifice of the Jewish cause on the altar of preparation for a second world war.” The cabinet justified this policy on the grounds that in a war with Germany the Jews had nowhere else to turn but to Britain for help. Chamberlain had been brutally frank on this point. “It was of immense importance,” he explained to the cabinet, “to have the Moslems with us. If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs.”15
For more than a month the talks continued. Neither side was prepared to accept the British proposals to resolve the impasse. Weizmann recalled the “atmosphere of utter futility which dominated the Conference.” On March 15, Europe was again plunged into crisis when German troops, in defiance of the Munich Agreement, occupied Prague. That same day, the British government announced that if agreement on Palestine was not reached soon, it would declare the conference closed and impose a solution of its own. Two days later the conference ended.16
The new policy was unveiled in the white paper issued on May 17. It declared that the Royal Commission’s proposal to partition Palestine into “self-supporting, independent Arab and Jewish States … had been found to be impracticable.” This realization also accorded Britain the opportunity to clarify the “ambiguity of certain expressions in the Mandate, such as the expression ‘a National Home for the Jewish people.’ ” To this end, the statement of policy continued, the government therefore now “declare[s] unequivocally that it is not part of its policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State.” Instead, Palestine should remain a unitary entity—“a State in which the two peoples in Palestine, Arabs and Jews, share authority in government in such a way that the essential interests of each are secured.” Britain would grant Palestine independence at the end of a ten-year transition period. Jewish immigration was to be strictly regulated at a maximum rate of ten thousand persons per annum over the next five years but thereafter would be dependent upon Arab consent. In view of what the white paper termed the “Jewish refugee problem” in Europe, however, Britain would allow an additional twenty-five thousand immigrants to settle in Palestine. Restrictions were also placed on Jewish land purchase in Palestine—including a complete prohibition covering about two-thirds of the country—although these would not take effect until February 1940. After that date, Jews would be entitled to purchase land without restriction in only about 5 percent of Palestine.17
The Higher Arab Committee denounced the white paper as unacceptable in a statement issued from Beirut on May 30. Its objections centered on the proposed transition period to independence, which was dismissed as unnecessarily long, and on the continuance of any Jewish immigration and land purchase.18
“All in all, the White Paper was a failure,” the German historian of Palestine Gudrun Krämer notes. “It enraged the Zionists without satisfying the Arabs.” The Chamberlain government in fact grossly miscalculated the intensity of the Yishuv’s reaction. MacDonald had been especially optimistic. In April, for example, he had suggested to the cabinet that there would be a rough patch of perhaps two to three months, during which “Dr. Weizmann would no doubt try to exercise his moderating influence” and any lingering protests would then abate. Accordingly, the colonial secretary had confidently told his colleagues, the cabinet did not need to take seriously the threat of Jewish resistance. He was not alone in this assumption. MacMichael thought the Yishuv too economically weak to confront the government for any sustained period, while British army intelligence in Palestine similarly discounted the likelihood of any trouble from the Jews.19
On May 18 an oath was taken in synagogues and other public gathering places across Palestine. “No sacrifice will be too precious in order to set [the new policy] at nought,” its adherents pledged. Protests and rallies took place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. A demonstration in Tel Aviv organized by the I
rgun erupted in rioting as a crowd numbering in the thousands ransacked the district government’s building and set fire to the Immigration Department and Land Registry offices. In Jerusalem, the Immigration Department was also attacked and gutted by fire. The following night renewed rioting in Jerusalem resulted in the fatal shooting of a British police officer and injuries to at least two hundred protesters. Afterward, community leaders accused the British police of deliberately preventing the arrival of ambulances of the Red Shield of David, the Jewish first aid society, to treat the injured.20
Scenes of Jews battling British soldiers and police in the streets of Palestine were unprecedented. Haining was furious. The following morning he summoned Ben-Gurion and five other Jewish leaders to his office and angrily told them that there would be “no … mincing matters” in the event of renewed unrest. Ben-Gurion subsequently replied in writing on the group’s behalf. After expressing regret over the police officer’s death, he explained,
With all due deference I must, however, take exception to your statement this morning that the blood which may be shed will be on the heads of the Jews … The Jewish demonstrations of yesterday marked the beginning of Jewish resistance to the disastrous policy now proposed by His Majesty’s government. The Jews will not be intimidated into surrender even if their blood be shed. In our submission the responsibility for what may occur in this country in the course of enforcing the new policy will rest entirely with the Government.21
The Jewish Agency’s formal response to the white paper, which was presented to the high commissioner later that same month, contained an identically defiant message. The agency immediately began to implement its active program of resistance to the new policy. As Ben-Gurion explained, “It’s either the Mandate or a Jewish State. Britain has definitely come out against a Mandate, so it must be a State.” The two most critical means to achieve this objective would entail an intensification of efforts to bring Jewish immigrants to Palestine illegally and the Haganah’s transformation into a full-fledged underground army. Accordingly, the program embraced the following specific measures:
• non-cooperation with any government agency or office charged with implementing the White Paper;
• defiance of all laws and regulations pertaining to immigration and land purchase;
• acquisition and stockpiling of weapons—and resistance to government efforts to disarm the Yishuv;
• the building of fortifications and development of nascent naval and air power capabilities;
• training Jewish youth for military and national service;
• the establishment of two separate Haganah streams—a “legal” one (e.g., the Supernumerary Police) and illegal one (e.g., special commando units);
• the establishment of a clandestine press and attendant information operations capabilities;
• the development of a Jewish shadow government with the intention of eventually seizing power when the time was judged propitious;
• the institution of Jewish control over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv; and
• the continued development of local Jewish industries, including arms manufacturing.
These steps necessarily marked a profound change in Anglo-Zionist relations. The time for self-defense and restraint had passed. The Yishuv was at war with Britain.22
Ben-Gurion, accordingly, insisted that the Haganah now have a proper budget—provided by both the Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency Executive and not just by the shadow tax called the Kofer ha-Yishuv (the Yishuv ransom) routinely skimmed off sales of luxury items, restaurant bills, cigarettes, and so on, as had previously been the case. He also created clear lines of command and control whereby the Haganah would answer directly to the Yishuv’s elected civilian leadership—with Ben-Gurion in effect acting as civilian defense minister. All Jewish adults between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five would be required to serve within its ranks, and Haganah units would be assigned either to local defense or to national defense missions while also maintaining a “semi-regular army” of some fifty-seven battalions.23
Perhaps the most far-reaching change, however, would involve the abandonment of havlaga. Bowing to mounting pressure within the Haganah for more aggressive operations, Ben-Gurion ordered the creation of a dedicated commando unit referred to as the Special Squads. The handpicked members of these elite operational teams reported directly to him, thus completely bypassing the Haganah’s newly restructured chain of command. The Special Squads’ mission would be to attack select British government and economic targets as well as carry out retaliatory strikes against the Arabs. They were also given responsibility for dealing with Jewish informants working for the British authorities. Plans were actually developed for the Special Squads to assassinate British government officials and assault Government House, the police headquarters in downtown Jerusalem, other PPF facilities around the country, and the government printing office. The fundamental differences between the Irgun and the Haganah thus seemed to fade with the Special Squads’ establishment. Moreover, the squads served an important cathartic purpose for the Haganah at an especially desperate and uncertain time: they maintained internal discipline and cohesion and discouraged defection to the Irgun.24
The Special Squads’ existence, however, was short-lived. They were disbanded in September shortly after Britain declared war on Germany. Their record was accordingly commensurately modest: the sinking of a PPF launch used to intercept illegal immigrants arriving by sea; the sabotage of the Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline; the firebombing of some police vehicles in Jerusalem; and a raid on a Bedouin village near Haifa. For Ben-Gurion, all these activities were nonetheless of vital importance to the Yishuv, thus further solidifying a common purpose and communal ethos of self-sacrifice and commitment. In addition, they served notice on Britain that it would pay a high price for what was regarded as the betrayal of the Balfour Declaration contained in the 1939 white paper.25
On a personal level, these events also elevated Ben-Gurion’s stature and leadership within the Yishuv. According to his biographer, Ben-Gurion emerged as its preeminent figure during this time. “His image as a daring leader,” Shabtai Teveth writes, “took root in the public mind, and his charisma—which was to grow steadily in direct proportion to the intensifying struggle for the establishment of the state—began to manifest itself. There is no doubt that the days of the White Paper were his finest hour.” For a man who had only graduated from high school and always lacked the polish, education, and sophistication of a Weizmann or a Jabotinsky, this was a remarkable achievement.26
The Irgun’s response to the white paper’s announcement was suddenly derailed when police arrested Raziel on the morning of May 19. Hanoch Kalay, his deputy, replaced him as interim commander, but it took another week for the Irgun to react. In a calculated snub to the official Zionist leadership, four Irgunists stole the car belonging to Weizmann’s brother, which they then used to gun down Arab passersby as they drove along a busy Haifa street. Eight persons were killed and three wounded. A week later the group attacked an Arab village using a plan that Raziel had previously conceived. Three Irgun teams totaling some twenty-five men converged on the village from three directions under cover of darkness. In the ensuing confusion, four women were killed and a child wounded. Jabotinsky was furious. He demanded that the men responsible be punished and that warnings henceforth be issued to avoid harming women, children, and the elderly. Kalay scoffed at these suggestions but assured Jabotinsky that the Irgun would be more careful in future.27
That same night, the Irgun also bombed Jerusalem’s Rex Cinema. Although only two of its four bombs exploded, eighteen persons were injured, including ten Arabs, a young Jewish couple, and three Arab and three British policemen. In reprisal, Major General R. N. O’Connor, the Jerusalem district commander, ordered the indefinite closure of all Jewish cinemas, coffeehouses, and restaurants and the cancellation of the philharmonic orchestra concert.28
On June 2 the Irgun attacked government
targets, destroying the telephone exchanges in three different parts of Jerusalem that severed nearly half of the city’s phone lines, including communications at police and military headquarters. But this was only the beginning. A few hours later, a powerful time bomb exploded in an Arab market near Jaffa Gate. Five Arabs were killed, including a policeman, and nineteen others injured. O’Connor now ordered the suspension of local Jewish bus services as punishment. In defiance, the Irgun pressed ahead with its campaign of shooting Arabs and mining roads, footpaths, and orchards in and around Arab villages. Following the Irgun’s murder of another Arab passerby in Jerusalem, O’Connor ordered his troops to cordon off the city’s Jewish neighborhoods and conduct house-to-house searches for terrorist suspects and weapons caches. This was the first time that Jewish neighborhoods experienced the same security operations that had routinely been applied to Arabs during their rebellion.29
The Irgun’s propaganda campaign and public information efforts now also shifted into high gear. Slogans with the Irgun’s motto, “By blood and fire Judea fell, and by blood and fire Judea shall arise,” began to appear on the walls of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and various other Jewish areas. The group’s clandestine radio station also commenced broadcasting. “We shall retreat before nothing,” a typical broadcast from this time period asserted, “for our souls revolt against slavery in which there is no danger, against life in which there is no honor, against peace which has no freedom.” The broadcast would then close with the Irgun’s anthem, “Hayalim Almonim” (Anonymous or unknown soldiers), sung suitably grave maestoso, per its composer’s instruction. Derived from a poem written by Abraham Stern earlier in the decade, “Hayalim Almonim” proclaimed,
Anonymous Soldiers Page 14
