Anonymous Soldiers

by Bruce Hoffman

  On the evening of July 6, however, the violence crossed a new threshold. Around 6:00 an Irgunist disguised as an Arab porter made his way through Haifa’s crowded central market carrying two metal milk churns. He casually set the churns down next to a stall across from a police station and left. Approximately an hour later a tremendous explosion ripped through the market as the time bomb concealed in one of the churns detonated, releasing a lethal fusillade of steel nails in all directions. Then the second bomb exploded. Panic ensued as suddenly shots rang out from every direction. It took the police half an hour to restore order, but the violence both continued and spread to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.57

  In less than two weeks, this sustained wave of Irgun attacks had claimed the lives of more than sixty Arabs and injured at least three times that number. But rather than paralyzing the Arabs with fear or inaction and deterring them from further violence, the Irgun operations seemed only to incite greater bloodshed, locking both communities into a vicious upward spiral of intercommunal butchery that refused to abate. Spontaneous rioting broke out in Haifa following the first round of attacks on Monday, claiming the lives of two Jews in addition to that of Weizmann’s brother-in-law, one of the architects of Jerusalem’s stunning, newly opened Central Post Office on the Jaffa Road. The Zionist elder statesman issued a public appeal for restraint on both sides and pointedly condemned any resort to reprisal.58

  His plea fell on deaf ears. Less than a week later, again on the Muslim holy day, the Irgun carried out another lethal bombing. A forty-pound explosive was left in the Arab vegetable market, just inside Jaffa Gate and opposite a mosque. It was timed to explode just as midday services concluded and the street would be filled with departing congregants and shoppers. The blast killed twenty Arabs and wounded more than thirty others. The carnage continued when, less than seventy-two hours later, three Arabs were found shot dead outside Tel Aviv and in retaliation Arabs killed four Jewish laborers near Ramat Ha-Kovesh. Indeed, within forty-eight hours, twelve Jews had been murdered and more than thirty others wounded. The Irgun’s aggressive new strategy, however, was proving counterproductive in other ways as well. An intelligence assessment prepared for Shertok by Eliyahu Sasson, head of the Jewish Agency’s Arab department, detailed how the group’s terrorist campaign was driving hitherto moderate Arabs into the rebels’ arms—much to the delight of the rebellion’s leadership.59

  As the violence from both sides intensified, Haining ordered the Black Watch onto the streets of Jerusalem to assist the beleaguered police, who were now suffering through daily sixteen- to eighteen-hour shifts. He also requested the dispatch of two battalions of reinforcements from Egypt. In addition, the HMS Repulse landed a company of Royal Marines in Haifa who were immediately deployed on curfew duty. Approximately six thousand troops were now in Palestine—a thoroughly inadequate number given the country’s worsening security. Quickly grasping the magnitude and dire implications of the situation, the War Office instructed the Fifth Infantry Brigade based at Aldershot, England, to prepare to depart for Palestine—although it would not arrive for at least another six weeks.60

  Of all Palestine’s major cities, Tel Aviv was arguably unique. Conceived and developed as the first truly Jewish city in modern times, it generally felt safer and more secure to Jews than mixed metropolises such as Jerusalem and Haifa. Saturday evening, July 23, began much like any other. Crowds strolled along Tel Aviv’s lengthy, palm-lined boulevards. So popular was this routine that a Hebrew word—l’hizdangeff—derived from the name of the city’s first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, and one of its central thoroughfares, was coined to describe the process of walking down Dizengoff Street. At twenty minutes past seven, a car packed with explosives blew up outside the nearby oceanfront San Remo Hotel. Twenty-three Jews, ranging in age from fourteen to sixty, were injured.61

  Less than thirty-six hours later the Irgun struck again in Haifa. Once more, an Irgun fighter disguised as an Arab porter arrived at the same central market early on the morning of July 25 with a delivery of pickles. Hidden in a large can were sixty pounds of high explosive again wrapped with steel nails. More than three times the size of previous bombs, this device was designed, in the words of the Irgun’s official historian, “to harvest blood on a scale that had not been experienced since the outbreak of the [Arab Rebellion] in 1936 and that would leave a long echo in the streets of the world.” The bomber left the can at a spot about sixty feet from the scene of the July 6 incident and then boarded an Arab bus. He was miles away when it exploded forty-five minutes later. Fifty-three Arabs were killed and forty-five wounded, seven of whom subsequently died of their injuries. This incident would stand as the single greatest casualty toll inflicted on one day in Palestine throughout the entire Arab Rebellion. A riot ensued as an enraged Arab crowd attacked Jewish passersby. The police had to stage multiple baton charges to disperse the rioters. By the time order was restored, four Jews lay dead, and ten others had been injured. Thirteen Arabs had also been hurt in the baton charges. At 8:15 a.m. the government declared a curfew. For the remainder of the day, all businesses and banks in Haifa were closed, court proceedings were suspended, and residents were confined to their homes.62

  These bomb attacks were different from any that the Irgun had previously carried out or that the Arabs had experienced. The fundamental objective of the market bombings had been wanton, mass, indiscriminate killing. Although low-level Irgun operations continued in Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba, Ramat Gan, and Petah Tiqva, among other places, the organization’s taste for the dramatic, spectacular, and stunning blow had been whetted. An internal circular boasted that since July the Irgun had inflicted three times as many casualties on Arabs as Arabs had on Jews. The Irgun high command bragged that the Arabs had sustained more casualties in the previous few weeks than the Yishuv had experienced since the start of the Arab Rebellion more than two years before. At the same time, the Irgun’s commanders were aware that the group had crossed a red line with the series of bomb attacks on innocent civilians shopping in crowded marketplaces or exiting mosques after services. One member of the Irgun team responsible for the second Haifa bombing had been “arrested” by the Haganah and, despite repeated entreaties, had still not been released (he was eventually handed to the police). The Irgun high command accordingly ordered the tightening of internal force security procedures. “All of the people of the Irgun are asked to exercise caution and to prevent idle conversations,” one directive decreed. “Always remember that there are many lurking ears.”63

  The Yishuv, in whose defense the Irgun claimed to have acted, was unsparing in its criticism. Newspaper editorials in Davar and Ha’aretz respectively denounced the group for its “shameful and calamitous” actions and for daring to “gamble with the fate of the Jewish community.” The official Zionist organizations were no less vehement in their criticism, going so far as to warn that the Irgun’s weapons would eventually be turned against its fellow Jews. An article on the importance of havlaga published on July 28 in the London-based Jewish Chronicle alluded to this prospect. Nor were such broadsides empty words. Two weeks earlier Golomb had traveled to London specifically to advise Jabotinsky of the dire consequences should the Irgun continue along its self-appointed path of vengeance. Jabotinsky replied that any Haganah action taken against the Irgun in Palestine would necessarily have serious repercussions throughout the Diaspora, suggesting that a Jewish civil war would not be confined to Palestine. As the threats of Haganah intervention grew louder, Jabotinsky held a press conference in mid-August in Warsaw, where he proclaimed, “This danger is unfortunately real. Already at the beginning of July I heard the same threat from a man who is very close to the security service of the Jewish Agency (Golomb); he made it perfectly clear to me that, should they not succeed in achieving unity on the havlaga question, the elements who are under the influence of the Agency would use their arms against the Revisionists.” Jabotinsky recounted other pointed threats that had been made to senior Revisionist Party officers in Te
l Aviv. These were not “empty phrases,” he continued, but “an attempt at an internal Jewish pogrom” that would be resisted in Palestine and elsewhere in the Diaspora. According to Jabotinsky, police sweeps, aided by leftist “riff-raff”—the Haganah—had already resulted in the incarceration of hundreds of Betarim. Members of the Irgun had also been seized by the Haganah and reportedly subject to brutal interrogation. Meanwhile, Arab terrorism continued apace.64

  Raziel caustically dismissed the editorials and other criticism of the Irgun’s actions. “They can kiss my …,” he reportedly told a fellow Irgun member, promising to continue to deliver “bouquets” to the Yishuv’s Arab enemies. The next delivery arrived in the Jaffa vegetable market on August 26—another Friday. The operation was a carbon copy of the July 25 Irgun bombing of the Haifa market. A young Irgunist disguised as an Arab vendor left behind a time bomb, again concealed in a large can of pickles packed with nails that exploded at seven in the morning. Twenty-four Arabs were killed and nearly forty wounded. An enraged crowd chanting anti-British slogans decrying the government’s inability to protect them torched the local branches of the Barclays and Anglo-Palestine Banks. A British businessman was also assaulted and his car set afire. A mob menacingly proceeded up Tel Aviv’s King George V Avenue (now King George Street), looting shops before police were able to restore order and enforce a daytime curfew.65

  Raziel’s defiant actions pushed the Yishuv to the brink of civil war. Two days later, the Irgun and the Haganah agreed to meet and once more attempt to bridge the ideological and operational chasms that separated them. On September 19, 1938, an agreement was reached. Unlike the 1936 unification experiment, it was decided this time that there would be no formal merger of the two organizations. Thus, while the Irgun would retain its complete organizational independence, for operational purposes it would agree to participate in and abide by the decisions of a joint Haganah-Irgun committee that would consider all matters concerning the Yishuv’s defense. Final ratification of the pact was made dependent upon Jewish Agency approval. Ben-Gurion, however, refused to countenance the agreement and threatened to resign if the Jewish Agency approved it over his opposition. “The only condition on which [the Irgun] can be brought into our ranks,” he insisted, “is for it to be willing to accept the political discipline of the Zionist Executive.” As he had done two years before, Jabotinsky rejected any agreement that involved subjugating Zionist Revisionist ideology to labor-socialism. Thus yet another attempt to reconcile the two competing Jewish paramilitary forces into a unified command collapsed. Although the threatened civil war never materialized, from this point forward the Irgun and the Haganah went their separate ways.66

  CHAPTER 5

  Dark Nights of Despair

  By the fall of 1938, Palestine was coming apart at the seams. The British army’s adoption of mobile columns to harass the rebel bands and cut off their escape routes had proven stunningly effective but frustratingly evanescent. The Arab guerrillas had suffered severe losses in back-to-back defeats at Jenin and the Galilee the previous March, but this had still failed to break the rebellion. Instead, the survivors had regrouped and dispersed into smaller units that deprived the army of the massed forces that it had previously so effectively targeted. Although the rebellion had always essentially been acephalous, its new disposition confounded Haining and his officers. “There are practically no major leaders controlling the gangs, and the various minor leaders,” he reported, “are practically completely independent and … there is no central organization whose destruction would cause the rebellion to collapse.”1

  Accordingly, no more than a thousand to fifteen hundred Arab guerrillas had been able to impose a reign of terror over the northern half of the country. Armed gangs roamed the hills, venturing into undefended towns and villages where they established shadow governments and parallel administrative structures that dispensed rough justice and collected taxes. Those Arabs who resisted were murdered. Others—landowners and merchants as well as ordinary shopkeepers—were routinely blackmailed or kidnapped for ransom. Arab government clerks and other functionaries together with Arab police either voluntarily or through coercion provided the rebels with information that enabled them to stay one step ahead of the security forces. Governance, commerce, and communications thus ground to a halt. Trains could travel only by day and even then under heavy military guard. Telephone and telegraph lines were regularly vandalized.2

  Haining had no choice but to redeploy his forces on static guard duties—over the railways and roads and in the cities and towns. The army’s new strategy of permanently occupying villages had commenced in late May. Twenty small communities in northern Palestine were thus permanently garrisoned in platoon strength by some forty men. Their mission, the GOC explained to the War Office, was

  (a) To deny the village and its neighborhood to the gangs as a source of food, shelter, and recruitment;

  (b) To assist the civil authorities to regain control of the area;

  (c) To protect, and gain the confidence of, the law-abiding among the inhabitants;

  (d) To assist in opening up the more inaccessible parts of the country by road-making, patrols, etc.3

  By August, Haining could report that the new program had mostly achieved its objectives. Indeed, it was so popular that the leaders of other villages had come forward with requests to be included, though the continued shortage of troops made it impossible for the GOC to comply. Nonetheless, the village occupation strategy was not without its problems. The Arab gangs, deprived of the opportunity to victimize these protected villages, instead found new—now less well-defended—targets for attack, with Haining citing an upsurge in sabotage of roads and railways and particularly of the Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline. In fact, the GOC’s new strategy was something of a boon rather than an impediment for the guerrillas. With the army and the police shackled to villages or assigned to protect roads and railway lines, the rebel bands were free to raid and plunder wherever they pleased. Indeed, a staggering 5,708 terrorist incidents would be recorded for 1938—a figure more than twelve times the previous year’s tally.4

  For the moment, no help either was forthcoming or could be expected from London. A succession of international crises in the Far East with Japan, in the Mediterranean and East Africa with Italy, and with Germany over the Nazi annexation of Austria had served to underscore Britain’s limited military strength and feeble strategic position in multiple theaters. Hence, for more than a year, both the Chiefs of Staff and the Treasury had been complaining that the ongoing military commitment in Palestine was adversely impacting Britain’s military strategic interests elsewhere.5

  The remainder of the fall brought no relief to the beleaguered Palestine government and its security forces. The country was in open rebellion and governmental authority at a nadir. Government facilities rather than Jewish settlements bore the brunt of guerrilla attacks, with the railway and post offices favored targets. Violence was now pervasive, and no part of Palestine was spared in contrast to only a few months earlier when the rebellion had been confined to just a handful of cities and the country’s northern regions. The uprising, the high commissioner reported, “has unquestionably become a national revolt involving all classes of the Arab community in Palestine and enjoying considerable support from the Arabs outside. While there are still a number of foreign volunteers it is no longer the fact that the majority of the armed men are foreigners; on the contrary they are ‘locals’ and moreover there have been several instances of the villages turning out en masse to assist a gang which is engaged with Government forces.”6

  So profound was the breakdown of security that the government’s authority actually stopped at the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. No one who was not an Arab dared venture inside, where shopkeepers were at the mercy of the rebels, who stole, looted, and vandalized with impunity. The Temple Mount functioned as their local headquarters—without any visible interference from the police or the military.7

  This
all began to change later in October as a result of the Munich Agreement. The settlement reached by Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, had permitted the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, but for the time being also averted war. Accordingly, the British military forces being held in reserve in the U.K. could now be deployed to Palestine. Within weeks, the British garrison had expanded in size from the two infantry brigades left behind after the 1937 drawdown to two full divisions, totaling some forty-five thousand men, including twenty thousand troops organized in eighteen infantry battalions along with two cavalry regiments, a battery of howitzers, various armored car units, and some seven hundred RAF personnel.8

  Their first order of business was to reoccupy Jerusalem’s Old City. Over the preceding months, the rebels had steadily bolstered their ranks with the arrival of additional fighters from the surrounding countryside. Their commanders had then embarked on a new campaign of intimidation and defiance of the government, setting fire to the police station near Jaffa Gate and hoisting the rebel flag over the Old City’s ramparts. On October 18 the Palestine government announced that jurisdiction over Jerusalem had been formally handed to the military. Using Arab civilians as human shields, British troops forcibly entered the Old City and within a week had cleared it of rebel forces. The Temple Mount, as a religious site, remained off-limits to the security forces so as not to provoke an international incident. Accordingly, many Arab fighters were able to find refuge there before escaping under cover of darkness.9

  The Palestine administration also imposed new security measures on the country, including strict controls on all movement by civilians whether via road or rail. No one was allowed to travel anywhere without both a government-issued identity card and a special permit. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was also imposed on all vehicular traffic in rural areas. By November, the army had essentially reoccupied the entire country, and Palestine was once again under government control. “From this time on,” Haining reported to London, “it became increasingly difficult for the remnants of the rebel gangs to find any security or rest.”10