Anonymous Soldiers

by Bruce Hoffman

  Labour’s election victory thus raised Zionist expectations to new heights. So prevalent was the belief that the change in government would soon be followed by a dramatic change in Britain’s Palestine policy that even the Irgun felt obliged to give the new government the benefit of the doubt and, as a sign of goodwill, suspended operations. It was not long, however, before these heady expectations began to sour as anticipation turned into frustration. The first blow had arguably come with the composition of the new cabinet itself. Although, for all the reasons previously noted, Bevin was a not unpopular choice, Hugh Dalton—who was chiefly responsible for the party’s pro-Zionist election platform—was the Zionists’ preferred candidate and had been expected to receive that portfolio.33

  Still more disconcerting was Attlee’s selection of George Hall, an old friend and political crony, as colonial secretary. Although Hall had previously served as undersecretary of state for the colonies from 1940 to 1942 and as parliamentary undersecretary for foreign affairs until the war’s end, he had neither a particular interest nor an expertise in Palestine or Zionist affairs. The same could be said about Bevin. “The truth is,” his biographer Alan Bullock explains, “that until he became Foreign Secretary himself Bevin had never taken an interest in Palestine or the Middle East comparable with that which he had long had in Europe and that he was nothing like so well-informed about the issues.”34

  Attlee doubtless reasoned that the appointment of Arthur Creech Jones, a protégé of Bevin’s with deep knowledge of colonial affairs, to the number two position in the Colonial Office as undersecretary would compensate for Bevin’s and Hall’s unfamiliarity with these issues. Zionists admittedly derived some solace from this news but remained concerned that the anti-Zionism prevalent among some permanent officials would unduly influence the ministers in both the Foreign and the Colonial Offices.35

  They were right. Bevin had only been at the Foreign Office a few days when he requested a meeting with Attlee to discuss Palestine. “Clem, about Palestine. According to my lads in the office we’ve got it wrong. We’ve got to think again.” Despite having been implacably against the 1939 white paper while in the Opposition, once in power the Labour government made it its de facto policy until a new one could be considered, agreed upon, and formally adopted. But with the fate of tens of thousands of European Jews hanging by a thread in the abject conditions of the war-torn continent, any delay was regarded by Zionists as intolerable and unacceptable. In Central Europe alone, for instance, some fifty-five thousand Jews had been crowded into displaced-persons camps awaiting exit permits for Palestine or elsewhere—anywhere, they hoped, so long as it was far from Europe.36

  More disappointment followed. That summer, the World Zionist Congress was meeting in London. Despite Weizmann’s counsels of moderation, Ben-Gurion led an impromptu delegation to confront the colonial secretary directly about the party’s preelection promises by demanding the immediate admission of a hundred thousand Jews to Palestine. Hall was deliberately noncommittal, promising only to get back to Ben-Gurion and his colleagues in due course. He did so three weeks later. Jewish immigration could continue at the current rate of two thousand persons per month until the remaining white paper quota was filled. However, in view of the conditions in Europe, the colonial secretary offered to consult with Palestine’s Arabs and hopefully obtain their consent to allow an additional fifteen hundred immigrants per month. “Either we stand on the threshold of a state … or we stand on the threshold of a grave,” Ben-Gurion had declared to the conference just a few weeks before. He now had his answer.37

  In a speech Bevin made the following year to a foreign policy gathering in New York, he explained, “We knew that at the end of the war the world would be very different from the world with which we had been familiar in the past … The guiding principle of the Labour Party has been to assist in the shaping of a new world.” But the role that Britain could play in shaping that new world was greatly circumscribed by the country’s postwar financial condition and declining position as a world power. The war fundamentally altered the old balance of power centered on Europe that Britain and Germany had dominated for the first half of the century. Instead, two non-European powers—the United States and the Soviet Union—were now the world’s new superpowers. This occurrence was as much the result of American and Soviet strength as it was the eclipse of German and British power. But whereas defeat accounted for Germany’s demise, victory paradoxically accounted for Britain’s decline. Exhausted and financially enfeebled after six years of war, Britain now saw its control over the lines of communication to the empire, as well as parts of the empire itself, threatened by both external and internal forces. Its traditional domination of regions like the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East was increasingly challenged by Soviet expansion and American influence, while indigenous nationalist movements and growing anticolonial agitation in countries like India and Egypt, coupled with the emerging civil war in Greece, tested Britain’s ability to reassert its authority in various corners of the globe that it had long ruled or controlled.38

  At the heart of Britain’s weakened postwar condition were its anemic finances. Indebtedness to other countries had increased almost tenfold between 1939 and 1945, and the country was spending approximately £2 billion abroad, while overseas income was only £800 million. The extent of Britain’s parlous economic situation was underscored on August 21 when the new U.S. president, Harry S. Truman, abruptly canceled the prewar lend-lease agreement that had significantly eased Britain’s terms of indebtedness to the United States.39

  This unilateral move put Britain, Dalton said, in “an almost desperate plight.” The famed British economist John Maynard Keynes, who even before news of the cancellation had warned of the country’s severe economic problems and proposed negotiation of a new loan from the United States, now declared that Britain faced a “financial Dunkirk.” Without an American loan of at least £1.5 billion, Britain could not afford to feed its citizens—let alone the war-ravaged people living in lands occupied by its army, repatriate its troops from abroad, restore its industries to peacetime production and the manufacture of consumer goods, or meet its manifold domestic and international financial obligations. An essential element of Britain’s economic recovery was the need for an adequate workforce to get the country’s industries back on their feet. But this would necessitate the expeditious mass demobilization of the three million men still in uniform.40

  Against this backdrop of great-power rivalry and the emerging cold war along with financial cutbacks and strategic retrenchment, the Labour government began to consider its policy for Palestine. The Chiefs of Staff were quick to note their objections to any precipitous change of policy. “From the military point of view,” they argued, “an announcement on PALESTINE at the present time would be most inconvenient, in view of our many other commitments.” Because sufficient reinforcements would not be available for internal security duties in the region for at least another year, the chiefs judged it imperative that the status quo be maintained for as long as possible.41

  Implicit in this assessment was the centrality that Palestine had come to assume in Britain’s postwar strategic planning. “Apart from Cyprus, which has limited capacity, and the Sudan, which is unsuitable, Palestine is the only territory between Malta and Aden,” a Joint Planning Staff assessment explained, “in which we can confidently expect to have facilities for the stationing of troops or the establishment of installations.” This was the thrust of the amended orders that the War Office issued to Paget on August 9. Henceforth, Paget should consider the depots and installations in Egypt and Palestine as the foundation for British power projection across the region. Most important, the chiefs’ position meshed perfectly with the views of Bevin, who was convinced that the Middle East would henceforth be the strategic center of gravity for Britain that India had once been.42

  On August 22, Attlee made his first move with respect to determining the new government’s policy fo
r Palestine by appointing Bevin, Hall, and Dalton to serve with other cabinet members on a special ministerial committee. The committee was charged with advising the cabinet on an interim policy for Palestine until a final decision on the mandate’s future could be made. It was agreed that the committee would report back to the full cabinet in two weeks.43

  The complexity and challenges facing the new government in fashioning a new policy for Palestine were underscored by a lengthy assessment that Shaw, the officer administering government in Gort’s absence, sent to Hall in late August. Running to twelve typed, single-spaced pages, the letter painted a disquieting picture of a volatile situation poised on the brink of explosion. The imminent expiration of the white paper’s immigration quota was the driving force behind the confrontation that Shaw believed was imminent. He cited the relentless stream of tendentious public statements being issued by Zionist officials as clear evidence “that the Yishuv is being psychologically prepared for what will be in effect an armed rebellion.” Material preparations for the coming struggle, Shaw continued, were also proceeding at a feverish pace. The Haganah, accordingly, “now considers itself equal to any task to which its leaders may assign it,” while the Irgun’s intensification of terrorist operations throughout June and July constituted “an openly proclaimed period of preparation for a final trial of strength.” But perhaps the most troubling aspect of these developments was the cessation of Jewish counterterrorist cooperation, which, the chief secretary predicted, could produce an alliance of all three underground movements against Britain.44

  The Arabs were quiescent. But this, Shaw emphasized, was less a product of any change in their attitudes toward Britain or Zionism than a reflection of the community’s continued exhaustion and political paralysis. Although the Arabs constituted a less serious menace than the Jews, he warned that they too were “being worked into the frame of mind in which terrorism and gang-warfare will again become political weapons.” In sum, Shaw concluded,

  the picture is a somber one. The young Jewish extremists, the product of a vicious education system, know neither toleration nor compromise; they regard themselves as morally justified in violence directed against any individual or institution that impedes the complete fulfillment of their demands …

  On the other side are the Arabs, for the most part backward and less politically alive. As far as Palestine is concerned there is probably nothing that has contributed so much to the growth of a sense of Arab nationalism as has the pressure of Zionism. Their political leadership may still be inept. Their daily life may still be hampered by mediaevalism and marred by ignorance and religious bias. But even in their poverty and ignorance … the mass of the Palestinian Arabs are still capable of resisting, savagely and tenaciously, what they may consider as an attempt to reduce them to a minority status in a land which they regard as theirs.

  Paget had provided a similarly depressing assessment, which in turn prompted both Beeley and Charles William Baxter, the head of the Foreign Office Eastern Department, to note, “Trouble with the 2 terrorist organizations cannot be avoided, whatever policy is adopted. But the important thing is the big battalions of the Hagana.”45

  The ministerial committee delivered its report to Attlee on September 8. Until a new long-term policy could be decided, it proposed that the 1939 white paper policy remain in force, thus formally endorsing Hall’s response to Ben-Gurion’s demands from the previous month. Jewish immigration should be allowed to continue until the white paper quota was exhausted but thereafter would be permitted—only with Arab consent—at a rate of fifteen hundred per month. In making this recommendation, the ministerial committee recognized that Britain ran the risk of provoking Jewish civil unrest in Palestine in addition to increased terrorism and illegal immigration. But it regarded these potentialities as less serious than the trouble that would erupt throughout the Muslim world, including India, if the white paper was abandoned. Although both options presented their own challenges, the latter would doubtless require a military commitment at least two or three times greater than the former. Moreover, there was the widespread perception among the ministers that no matter what option was chosen, Britain would be criticized by the United States. “If we adhere to the White Paper,” the committee concluded, “we may escape without adverse repercussions; there is no hope of doing so under the alternative course.”46

  The memorandum on security conditions in Palestine that Hall submitted to the cabinet two days later, however, belied that hope. “In connection with the report of the Palestine Committee,” he wrote, “I must draw the attention of my colleagues to the grave and threatening situation in Palestine.” Citing Shaw’s letter from the previous month and more recent discussions with Lord Gort, who was still in London, the colonial secretary explained that the Yishuv was poised on the brink of open revolt. “Extremists” had taken control of the Zionist movement and were “confidently and loudly” making demands for increased immigration and a Jewish state. There have been terrorist attacks on government buildings by the Irgun and “cold blooded murders by its off-shoot, the Stern Gang.” And the police were still nearly two thousand men below their authorized strength. Recruitment continued to be a serious problem. Efforts to lower standards in terms of educational attainment and intellectual rigor to attract more volunteers to the PPF had proven fruitless. The army, accordingly, would have to compensate for this grave deficiency of police manpower. But this was problematic too. The First Infantry Division had returned to Palestine earlier in 1945 to rest and recuperate from the long campaign to liberate Italy. It would shortly be joined by the Sixth Airborne Division—veterans of the D-day parachute assault on Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the victorious crossing of the Rhine into Germany. By November, there would be some thirty-five thousand combat-hardened troops in Palestine. Even so, the Chiefs of Staff still judged this number insufficient, estimating that another two divisions (that is, thirty-five thousand more soldiers), supported by an additional nine thousand administrative personnel, were required in Palestine to maintain order if the white paper was to remain in force. These additional troops were needed because the Sixth Airborne had been assigned to Palestine not for internal security reasons but for training purposes as part of the Imperial Strategic Reserve meant to support other British forces throughout the region and farther afield. As events would show, this proved to be a forlorn hope.47

  To Menachem Begin, the war’s end, coupled with the Saison’s collapse, and the Labour Party’s procrastination over Palestine provided the Irgun with a unique opportunity to place itself at the vanguard of the Yishuv’s nationalist aspirations. Although its remote-control mortar campaign suffered a new setback at the end of July when police raided two workshops in Tel Aviv where the weapons were fabricated, the group adjusted and effectively shifted tactics. Irgun gunmen hijacked a truck carrying a large supply of gelignite, fuses, and detonators, killing its police escort. Twelve days later, the group used the same explosives in its first joint attack with Lehi—the destruction of a heavily used railway bridge. Then, in early August, Irgun gunmen robbed a Tel Aviv bank of several thousand pounds with which to fund future operations. Another theft in mid-August provided more gelignite, fuses, and detonators. The Irgun and Lehi also concluded a formal “working alliance” in August that mutually reinforced the capabilities of both organizations. It also marked Lehi’s abandonment of its long-standing, self-described strategy of “individual terror”—as evidenced by the Moyne and Wilkin assassinations—and its adoption of the Irgun’s paramilitary-style assault operations.48

  As long as the police continued to be fed a stream of intelligence from the Jewish Agency despite the Saison’s demise, they were confident that they could handle the joint terrorist campaign. The assistance from Teddy Kollek, the agency’s liaison officer assigned to military and police headquarters, now led to the identification of a large Irgun training facility at Suneh, near Benyamina. Twenty-seven male and three female members of the group were arr
ested, and a variety of armaments, including Thompson submachine guns, rifles, pistols, hand grenades, and explosives, had been seized. In addition, Kollek’s information was instrumental in frustrating a Lehi plot to blow up oil storage facilities in Jerusalem and Haifa.49

  But the growing rift between the Zionists and the new government, coupled with Ben-Gurion’s increasingly confrontational policies, now threatened to deprive the police of this critical source of knowledge about the terrorists’ plans and intentions. Still more worrisome was the steady stream of intelligence reports that the Haganah had entered into negotiations with the Irgun and Lehi to coordinate antigovernment operations. What Begin described as the Yishuv’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” was ending. “No Labour promise, no Blackpool resolution, no friendship. All that remained was the traditional British fist.” And with this “disillusionment,” he recalled, “ended the most difficult phase in the period of the anti-British revolt. The Agency leaders realised that they could no longer collaborate with such ‘authorities’ … And the first feelers were sent out to us for the establishment of a united front.”50

  As a complete rupture of Anglo-Zionist relations loomed, Weizmann appealed to Attlee. Rumors were circulating that the government was about to announce its interim policy for Palestine. “If what we hear is true,” the Zionist leader wrote to the prime minister on September 21, “it would mean that nothing short of a tragedy faces the Jewish people, and a very serious conflict might ensue, which we would all deplore.” Attlee’s reply was brusquely dismissive: “If we thought that further consultation were required at this stage or that it would serve any useful purpose, we should certainly arrange it; but at the present juncture that is not so.”51