The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph. D.

  In the relatively short 21-year period between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II, the Yishuv grew from 55,000 people, a meager 10 percent of the total population of Palestine, to almost half a million, more than 30 percent of the country’s population. By this time, the land holdings of the community had more than tripled—from its World War I total of 105,000 acres to 382,250 acres. Even more impressive was the industrial growth that the Jews had spurred—increasing the value by a factor of 20.

  The Jewish Underground Railroad

  The community’s growth was threatened with strangulation, however, by the 1939 British white paper (see Chapter 7). Still, to avoid complicating the political struggle, the Haganah and Irgun did not engage in overt violence in response to the white paper. Instead, they began to focus their energy on illegal immigration.

  The Jewish underground smuggled thousands of Jews into Palestine between 1938 and the outbreak of World War II in a secret program called Aliyah Bet. The Jews and the British played a game of cat and mouse, with Jewish “mice” trying to sneak past the blockade the British had created along the Mediterranean coast. When the British “cat” won the game, the ships were seized, and the illegal immigrants were sent to Mauritius, an isolated island in the Indian Ocean.

  Sometimes the game turned deadly. On November 25, 1940, the Haganah placed a bomb on the Patria, a ship loaded with immigrants in Haifa harbor, to protest the British policy. The intent was to blow a small hole in the hull that would cause a leak and force the disembarkation of the passengers in Haifa. When the bomb exploded, however, the Patria sank, killing 250 passengers.

  Jews Join the Allies

  The Jews’ immediate struggle in Palestine did not prevent them from wanting to take part in the fight against Hitler. But the British were not keen on the idea. In fact, they were incredibly persistent in their efforts to prevent Palestinian Jews from fighting Hitler.

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  Sage Sayings

  We must assist the British in the war as if there were no white paper, and we must resist the white paper as if there were no war.

  —David Ben-Gurion

  * * *

  The British didn’t allow the Jews to form a fighting unit until September 1940 (and then it was composed of only 200 men), and it was not until September 20, 1944, that a Jewish brigade was formed. To further restrict their participation in World War II, the number of Jews who enlisted in the army was not supposed to exceed the number of Arab enlistees (and the Arabs showed little inclination to fight Hitler).

  By the end of 1941, more than 10,000 Palestinian Jews managed to join the army. Meanwhile, in 1941, the Haganah created the Palmach to defend the Jews living in Palestine in the event of an emergency. (Palmach is an abbreviation for the Hebrew peluggot mahaz, which means “shock companies.” The Palmach was an elite strike force within the Haganah.)

  * * *

  Mysteries of the Desert

  British commanders repeatedly blocked the creation of a Jewish army brigade during World War II, fearing they would create a force that would fight for the establishment of a Jewish state. A Jewish brigade was formed within the British army in 1944, only after Prime Minister Winston Churchill intervened.

  * * *

  Growing Jewish Militancy

  In 1940, the Irgun split as the more militant members of the organization, led by Abraham Stern, decided to form a new group, the Lohamey Heruth Israel (meaning “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”), also called the Lehi (its Hebrew initials) and as the Stern gang (after Abraham Stern, one of its members). The group was small, ill equipped, and relied on robberies to get most of the operating money it needed. Initially, violence was seen as only a part of the Lehi strategy to undermine British rule; however, it eventually came to be the group’s sole course of action.

  On January 9, 1942, members of the Lehi robbed a bank, killing two Jewish employees in the process. Two British officers who witnessed the robbery were also murdered. The crime outraged the Jewish community, who from that point on gave no aid to the Lehi. The British, for their part, arrested or killed most of the gang. On February 12, 1942, Abraham Stern was caught and shot “trying to escape.” Afterward, the organization disintegrated, at least for a while.

  The issue of Jewish immigration was dramatized in February 1942 when the Struma, a ship full of illegal immigrants from Rumania, was turned away from Turkey because officials in Istanbul were afraid the British would not allow them to enter Palestine. On February 23, an explosion was heard and the ship sank. Later, it was determined that the ship had been hit by a torpedo from a Russian sub. For Jews, the main issue was that all but 1 of the 779 people aboard were killed because, in their view, the British had blocked their entry to their homeland. That incident gave the Lehi all the motivation they needed to reemerge as a force to be reckoned with. But the news that arrived at the World Zionist Organization meeting in May 1942 describing the fate of European Jewry gave even more impetus to the militant members of the Jewish community.

  Zionists Draw Up the Biltmore Program

  The news that European Jews were being exterminated while the British prevented their escape to Palestine provoked political as well as military activity. The Zionist leaders finally came to the realization that the British would never implement the Balfour Declaration and the Jews’ only way to control their own destiny and open the gates of Palestine to their suffering masses in Europe would be to establish a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Jewish community was too small and too widely dispersed to have formed a viable state, but by 1942, the population and economy were sufficiently strong to consider its establishment.

  * * *

  Ask the Sphinx

  When Churchill arbitrarily created the kingdom of Transjordan, Jews were prevented from settling there. King Abdullah and his successor, King Hussein, maintained this ban. The first Jews to live in the kingdom were the diplomats assigned to the Israeli embassy in Amman, opened after Jordan and Israel signed their peace treaty in 1994 (see Chapter 22).

  * * *

  In May 1942, Zionists meeting at the Biltmore Hotel in New York urged the British government to empower the Jewish Agency to form a Jewish state. The Jews in attendance agreed not to establish a state until the Jews formed a majority in the country, which was to be achieved through immigration regulated by the Jewish Agency. The Agency was also to be responsible for the development of the country’s agricultural and industrial capacities. The series of declarations became known as the Biltmore Program.

  The Revisionists (followers of Jabotinsky who believed all of historic Palestine should be a Jewish state) supported the Biltmore Program (and rejoined the World Zionist Organization in 1946), but they still called for the establishment of a state on both sides of the Jordan River, which would mean that Transjordan’s King Abdullah would have to be deposed and the country taken over. Meanwhile, the Zionists to the left of the political spectrum were wedded to the concept of a binational solution to the conflict in Palestine—dividing Palestine into an Arab state and an Israeli state.

  Palestinians Sit Out the War

  The focus on reaching agreement became more acute as the prospects for a compromise with the Arabs grew more remote. The inability of the Zionists to reach an agreement with the Arabs was just as much a result of Arab intransigence as it was Jewish callousness. During the war years, the Arabs were relatively inactive. The leaders of the Arab Higher Committee fled after the organization was declared illegal, and after they were gone attacks on the Jews subsided. The Palestinian Arabs were not interested in participating in World War II, but neither were they compelled to rebel against the British. The period of relative calm enabled the Jewish community to devote its energy to offensive strategies against the British.

  The Jews Revolt

  On November 1, 1943, 20 members of the Lehi escaped from prison. Among them was Nathan Friedman-Yellin, who resurrected the Lehi and became its leader. Soon afte
r, on February 1, 1944, the new head of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, declared the Jewish revolt against the British to protest their limits on immigration, their refusal to honor the Balfour Declaration, and their behavior as rulers in what should be the Jewish homeland:

  There is no longer any armistice between the Jewish people and the British Administration in Eretz Israel [the land of Israel] which hands our brothers over to Hitler. Our people is at war with this regime—war to the end This then is our demand: immediate transfer of power in Eretz Israel to a provisional Hebrew government. We shall fight, every Jew in the homeland will fight. The God of Israel, the Lord of Hosts, will aid us. There will be no retreat. Freedom—or death.

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  History and our observation persuaded us that if we could succeed in destroying the [British] government’s prestige in Eretz Israel, the removal of its rule would follow automatically. Thence forward, we gave no peace to this weak spot. Throughout all the years of our uprising, we hit at the British government’s prestige, deliberately, tirelessly, unceasingly.

  —Menachem Begin

  * * *

  The aim of the revolt was to undermine British rule in Palestine. When Begin declared the beginning of the revolt, the Irgun took part, too, and the Lehi found that it was no longer fighting alone. However, whereas the Irgun at least gave lip service to the intent of attacking only military targets, the Lehi saw no reason to spare the lives of any Englishmen as long as they remained in Palestine.

  The Lehi’s strategy was to threaten British army installations and camps, interrupt transportation with mines, and intimidate soldiers with the threat of murder. To emphasize this threat, the Lehi members patrolled the streets until they found a group of British police or soldiers and opened fire on them with submachine guns or pistols.

  Stepped-Up Violence

  The Jews ratcheted up the violence beginning in February 1944. In that month, the Irgun attacked the offices of the Immigration Department located in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa to protest the restrictive immigration laws. On February 14th, Lehi members shot two British officers who tried to arrest them for putting up posters. Two weeks later, on February 27, the Irgun bombed the income tax offices in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. The situation deteriorated in March. On March 2, the Irgun wounded a policeman, and on March 13, the Lehi killed a policeman. On March 19, a Lehi member was killed resisting arrest; four days later, the Lehi retaliated by killing two officers and wounding a third. On the same day, the Irgun tried to bomb British police stations in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Jaffa, with only the Haifa bomb causing any casualties (three dead).

  The British responded by imposing curfews on Jewish towns, engaging in mass arrests, and instituting the death penalty for carrying firearms. Designed to intimidate the underground and turn the mainstream Jewish population against them, the measures had the opposite effect. They made the underground more resolute and the community more antagonistic toward British rule.

  The Agency Sides with the British, Sort Of

  The Jewish leadership was appalled by the killing. Moreover, they were afraid the violence would upset the British and jeopardize the chance of a favorable disposition of the mandate creating an independent Jewish state—a possibility the leadership still believed in. They also saw no point in the violence, except to harden the British resolve to keep the gates closed and turn international opinion against the creation of a Jewish homeland. The agency leadership also feared that their own positions were being threatened by the terrorists.

  Consequently, on April 2, the agency formulated an official policy of opposition and pledged to increase propaganda against the Jewish dissidents and attempt to isolate them in the Yishuv, as well as to take measures to prevent their activities. In keeping with this policy, the agency declared open season on the Irgun and the Lehi, cooperating whenever possible with the British Administration.

  Dissidents on Trial

  After two British officers were gunned down on April 1, the Jewish leaders gave the names of those responsible to the authorities (along with those of many other dissidents). The British responded by surrounding a Lehi hideout; they killed one man, and two other rebels committed suicide. On June 20, for the first time, a Lehi member was given the death sentence, but it was commuted after the Lehi threatened a bloodbath if he were hanged.

  The period when the Haganah and Jewish leadership turned against the Irgun and Lehi was known as the “season of discontent.” The underground groups faced greater challenges now that they had to evade both their fellow Jews and the British, but they remained undaunted, particularly as the news of atrocities of the Holocaust began filtering out of Europe.

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  Mysteries of the Desert

  On July 6, 1944, Moshe Shertok, the director of the Jewish Agency’s political department, asked the British foreign minister, Anthony Eden, to order the Allied air forces to bomb the railways and concentration camps in Hungary. By the time Shertok received the Allies’ refusal, it was too late for most of Hungarian Jewry. This intransigence, combined with the British immigration policy, heightened the dissidents’ resolve to fight.

  * * *

  Dissidents More Defiant

  As the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur approached in 1944, Menachem Begin announced that the shofar, the traditional ram’s horn, would be blown at the Western Wall, an act that had been prohibited by the British since the 1929 riots. On September 27, as promised, the shofar sounded through the streets of Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the Irgun attacked four different British fortresses.

  The simple act of defiance, combined with the raids, provided the Irgun with a psychological victory. They had forced the British into a humiliating retreat from their ban on sounding the shofar to avoid a confrontation at the Western Wall. In addition, the failure of the British to retaliate for the Irgun attacks on the fortresses indicated that the British could be challenged successfully.

  The First Assassin’s Bullet

  The Yom Kippur actions gave dissidents renewed confidence and led them to believe that the time had come for a more daring plan—one that would focus world attention on Palestine and punish the British for their complicity in the Holocaust. They planned to assassinate the British high commissioner in Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael. After several attempts on MacMichael’s life failed, the Lehi chose another target, a well-known Arabist and anti-Zionist whom they also blamed for the fate of European Jewry. That man, a former colonial secretary and, at the time, British minister of state in Cairo, was Lord Moyne.

  * * *

  Mysteries of the Desert

  At one point in the war, the Nazis were reportedly willing to trade Jews for trucks. When the proposal was brought to Lord Moyne, he was said to have asked, “What would I do with a million Jews?” Moyne had also opposed the formation of a Jewish army, refused to allow the Struma to land in Palestine, and sent another ship, the Atlantic, to Mauritius. He also ordered the Patria there before Jewish rebels inadvertently blew it up.

  * * *

  On November 6, 1944, two Lehi members, Eliahu Hakim and Eliahu Bet-Zouri, assassinated Moyne in Cairo. The assassins were arrested by the British, tried, convicted, and hanged on March 23, 1945.

  Yishuv Outrage

  The underground intended the attack on Moyne to show the effectiveness of the armed resistance and to demonstrate that the British were not safe anywhere as long as they remained in Palestine. The Jewish community in Palestine, however, was outraged. Ben-Gurion called for a “liquidation of the terror” and appealed to the community to assist the authorities in the “prevention of acts of terror and the elimination of its perpetrators.” The Jewish Agency once again attempted to bring the Irgun under control. To weaken the group, the Haganah handed over a large number (one British member of Parliament said 1,500) of Irgunists to the British.

  Begin was unwilling to retaliate against his fellow Jews for turning them into the British. However, Lehi’s leader, Friedman
-Yellin, told the Haganah commander, Eliyahu Golomb, that the Lehi would shoot Haganah leaders and informers. Consequently, the Lehi was left alone during this season of discontent.

  Competition for Land

  Despite the wartime restrictions on Jewish immigration, the total population of Palestine increased from just over 1 million in 1931 to more than 1.9 million in 1946—an increase of more than 80 percent in 15 years. During the 24 years of the mandate (1922–1946), the population increased more than 180 percent. This prodigious increase cannot entirely be explained by Jewish immigration. The Arab population also grew rapidly as a result of immigration from neighboring Arab states (which constituted 36.8 percent of the total immigration into pre-state Israel), as well as from a reduction in the Muslim infant mortality rate from 199 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1923 to 91 in 1946, and an increase in the average life expectancy from 37 years in 1926 to 49 in 1943. As a result, the Arab population alone increased 118 percent between 1922 and 1946.

  Just as the Arabs resented Jewish immigration to the area, the increasing Arab population exacerbated the existing tension with the Jewish community. This was in part because the Arab immigrants tended to migrate to cities with large Jewish populations. The Arab newcomers were mostly poor and unable to afford land, thereby intensifying their feelings of dispossession.

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  Ask the Sphinx

  According to British government statistics prior to the establishment of Israel, 8.6 percent of the land area now known as Israel was owned by Jews, 3.3 percent by Arabs who remained there, and 16.5 percent by Arabs who left the country. More than 70 percent of the land was owned by the mandatory government, and this land was transferred to the Israeli government upon independence.