The staff officer tasked with drafting this assessment, Colonel W. R. Rolleston, saw no reason that any of these restrictions should remain. Technological advances in precision bombing, he argued, had improved its accuracy. Furthermore, the bombing of populated civilian areas was now an accepted part of modern warfare. Accordingly, there were no tactical or moral reasons to limit these weapons’ use in postwar Palestine, he argued. The only appropriate restriction to Rolleston’s mind should pertain to designated holy places that, if damaged or destroyed, would likely cause international outcry. The Joint Planning Staff’s response to the draft affirmed the extraordinary proposition that the “principle of the minimum force should not operate to hamper the operations of responsible commanders” in Palestine.10
Colonial Office officials were not nearly as sanguine about the propriety of attacking civilian targets by either artillery or air-delivered munitions, but the Joint Planning Staff saw little reason to demur from the initial assessment, noting only that technological advances in bombing accuracy notwithstanding, a certain margin of error had still to be taken into account. They conceded, however, that considerable discretion would need to be exercised by local commanders in the use of such weapons.11
It was only when the proposal reached the Chiefs of Staff that cooler heads prevailed. The chiefs instructed the Joint Planning Staff to redraft the proposed policy directive to require at a minimum the various Middle East commanders in chief explicitly consent to any use of such weapons. The commanders in chief were also asked to draw up a list of specific areas and buildings against which all forms of attack would be strictly prohibited—for example, religious sites and the entirety of Jerusalem’s Old City.12
So far as officials in the Jewish Agency in Palestine were concerned, the Irgun’s reemergence could not have come at a worse time. Immigration, not confrontation, was their foremost concern. Jews now constituted nearly a third of Palestine’s population—more than four times the World War I figure. Muslims accounted for 61 percent and Christians for nearly 8 percent. The agency hoped that this reality, coupled with the Yishuv’s unstinting support for the British war effort, would be rewarded by the loosening of immigration restrictions and eventual statehood. The dreadful condition of European Jewry had endowed this matter with grave urgency, not least because the quota of Jewish immigration certificates for the six months ending March 31, 1945, had still not been filled. Some nine thousand Jews were thus legally entitled to enter Palestine. The government, however, had not yet signaled whether it would in fact issue any certificates beyond the March expiry date.13
At this delicate moment in Anglo-Zionist relations, the renewal of the Irgun’s revolt was at best an additional complication and at worst a potentially fatal blow to Zionist aspirations. It also inconveniently laid bare the Jewish Agency’s claims about the Saison campaign’s effectiveness.14
Alarmed by the renewed violence, Shertok had written to Shaw within hours of the appearance of the Irgun’s warning posters to offer the agency’s continued assistance. He proposed to put at the disposal of the police for counterterrorist purposes a contingent of handpicked Haganah fighters.15
Shertok called on Robert Scott, who was acting chief secretary in Shaw’s absence, to discuss the offer two days later. The meeting did not go well. In what Scott doubtless imagined would be seen as a reciprocal gesture of goodwill, he told Shertok that the high commissioner was pleased to authorize the issuance of three thousand of the unused immigration certificates. The Jewish Agency leader responded with derision rather than gratitude, expressing his “utter disappointment” at such a “small figure.”16
The discussion then moved on to counterterrorism. Scott accepted on Rymer-Jones’s behalf the agency’s offer and promised that appropriate arrangements would quickly be made to enroll thirty Haganah men as PPF “special constables” and immediately deploy them to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. But any hope that Shertok had of sparing the Yishuv from blame or punishment for the Irgun’s resumed campaign was shattered the next moment by Scott’s blunt warning that “in the event of [any] new outbreak [of violence], public opinion in Great Britain from the Prime Minister downwards would not differentiate” between the Irgun and the Haganah and would blame the Yishuv as a whole. Shertok retorted that the government in fact was to blame for the failure to eliminate the Irgun, pointing out that the Saison’s “unorthodox measures” had proven “highly effective” until their enforced discontinuance. He warned Scott that “any attempt to resort to wholesale anti-Jewish reprisals by way of curfew, mass arrests or other punitive action going beyond measures specifically directed against terrorists, would have disastrous effects generally and, as far as terrorism was concerned, would do infinitely more harm than good.”17
Weizmann now intervened in hopes of averting a complete breakdown in relations. Within the week he had written to Churchill politely seeking clarification of the government’s postwar intentions regarding Palestine. Churchill’s reply was bluntly noncommittal. There could be “no possibility of the question being effectively considered,” the prime minister tersely noted, “until the victorious Allies are definitely seated at the Peace Table.” Weizmann was stunned. He again wrote to Churchill, bitterly recalling,
I had always understood from our various conversations that our problem would be considered as soon as the German war was over; but the phrase “until the victorious Allies are definitely seated at the Peace table” substitutes some indefinite date in the future. I am sure that it cannot have been your intention to postpone the matter indefinitely, because I believe you realise that this would involve very grave hardship to thousands of people at present still lingering in the camps of Buchenwald, Belsen-Bergen [sic] etc., who cannot find any place to go if the White Paper is to continue for an unspecified period.
The government had likely anticipated Weizmann’s entreaty and had framed its response in advance because all Shertok’s communications with Zionism’s elder statesman were being intercepted by British intelligence and duly reported to the prime minister and the Colonial Office. In any event, there is no record whether Churchill ever replied.18
Meanwhile, the Irgun’s ill-fated efforts to kick-start its terrorist campaign continued. On June 12, police discovered a battery of clockwork mortars in a vacant lot overlooking the government printing office. Then, the following day, acting on information provided by the Jewish Agency through its intelligence liaison, Teddy Kollek, police found an identical mortar battery behind the YMCA building on King George V Avenue pointing in the direction of the reviewing stand erected across the street from the King David Hotel. It was where less than twenty-four hours later the high commissioner and other senior government, police, and military officers and assorted dignitaries would be seated to take the salute on the king’s birthday and watch the annual parade.19
Seeking to capitalize on the Jewish Agency’s key role in foiling the assassination attempt, Shertok met with Gort a few days later. He requested that the high commissioner authorize on compassionate grounds the immediate issuance of an additional hundred thousand immigration certificates beyond the paltry six thousand remaining in the quota. Gort rejected it out of hand. The stage was thus set for a new confrontation between the British and the Yishuv when Ben-Gurion publicly announced on June 24 that the Jewish Agency would defy the government’s restrictions on legal immigration to Palestine and would instead illegally bring as many Jews to the country as possible. “If the British Government really intends now to maintain and enforce the White Paper,” he declared, “it will have to use constant and brutal force to do so.”20
That same day, Gort left Palestine for the second time in a month. A persistent illness described to the press as a “feverish chill” had left him bedridden during his home visit earlier in June, but X-rays and a complete physical examination had found nothing wrong. The high commissioner had accordingly returned to Palestine. But he continued to feel unwell and decided to go back to London for more test
s. Doctors again could find nothing wrong except for a mild stomach infection “as a result of a chill on the tummy” and prescribed rest. This seemed a reasonable diagnosis of illness brought on by stress, fatigue, and overwork. Accordingly, he remained in the U.K. throughout the summer to convalesce. Given the events unfolding in Palestine, it was an inauspicious time to be away.21
Zionism’s opponents in the Foreign Office both at home and in Cairo saw their chance to bury partition once and for all. From Cairo, Sir Edward Grigg, Moyne’s successor as minister of state, produced a memorandum that was extraordinary for its unrestrained condemnation of the Yishuv. “The self-imposed regimentation of Jewish life in Palestine,” one excerpt reads, “and the rigid fanaticism of their system of education from infancy up, are evidence of the fact that a considerable majority hail from Russia or Eastern Europe. The methods of the Stern Group and still more the Irgun show that too many spring from an underworld of the lowest type. A system largely organized and controlled by men of that character is irreconcilable with the liberal ideals which we have fought to preserve. If tolerated much longer, it will produce war.”22
Two weeks later, Grigg forwarded another, considerably more modulated memorandum on imperial security in the Middle East to the cabinet for consideration. It represented the views of the Middle East Defence Committee, which Grigg chaired, and described the region as having “life-and-death consequences for Britain and the British Empire.” Accordingly, the Palestine issue, the region’s ambassadors and military commanders argued, could not be considered in isolation from these wider imperial strategic and political implications. “I cannot indeed see,” the minister of state explained, “how any conceivable system of British security in the Middle East can be reconciled with the partition of Palestine.” Such a solution not only risked alienating the entire Arab world but would also imperil the imperial lines of communication, deprive Britain of key strategic ports and airfields in the country, and eliminate its control of the Kirkuk–Haifa oil pipeline. Palestine, he concluded, is “the core of our Middle East security and must be administered as an undivided whole.”23
Grigg’s analysis reflected the Chiefs of Staff’s position. Indeed, despite the end of the European war, several new construction projects had already commenced, including a base near Haifa that U.S. intelligence observed “is reported to be the largest British military installation in the Near and Middle East … Obviously the military authorities plan for permanence in Palestine.” Palestine’s centrality to British postwar strategic thinking is perhaps best illustrated by the views of Harold Beeley, the Foreign Office’s principal adviser on Palestine to the foreign secretary. “Abdication in Palestine,” he minuted, “would be regarded in the ME [Middle East] as symptomatic of our abdication as a Great Power, and might set in motion a process which would result in the crumbling away of our influence throughout this region.”24
As the ministry directly responsible for the day-to-day administration of Palestine, the Colonial Office had far more mundane concerns. Officials there thus regarded the risks involved in partition as no worse than those of any other alternative. When, for instance, in July, the idea was raised to simply transfer responsibility for the mandate to the United States and be done with Palestine, the chiefs predictably opposed it. Stanley, on the other hand, found merit in the proposal, noting to Churchill that he was hard-pressed to “see what advantage has ever accrued to Great Britain from the Palestine Mandate which has proved a continual drain on resources of material and manpower.” All these arguments were depressingly familiar. The same points had been made by the same ministries and by the chiefs during Britain’s previous search for a new Palestine policy nearly a decade before. This latest quest, however, was cut short by the outcome of the general election held in Britain on July 5—the first since 1935.25
On July 26 the results were announced. In a surprise, landslide victory, the Labour Party was swept into power. Only twice before in British history—in 1832 and 1906—had the country swung so decisively away from the ruling party. Pledging “a world of progress and peace,” Labour’s platform of full employment; the nationalization of utilities, transport, and key industries; the establishment of a national insurance system and nationalized health care; and an ambitious program of agricultural and housing reforms had catapulted the party to a commanding majority of 393 seats in the House of Commons—more than twice its preelection figure. The Tories’ presence in the House was halved—with Churchill, despite being widely regarded as the war-wearied country’s savior, shockingly turned out of office. That same evening he drove to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to King George VI and advised the monarch to send for Clement Attlee, who, as the victorious leader of the Opposition, would form the new government.26
It would be difficult to imagine two more contrasting personalities than those of the prime minister elect and his predecessor. Attlee was laconic where Churchill was voluble, unemotional where Churchill was stirring, and singularly lacking the charisma and star power that had made Churchill a household name around the globe. A survivor of Churchill’s spectacularly failed Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I, Attlee had nonetheless always deeply respected Churchill for his strategic boldness and vision, thus accounting perhaps for the extraordinarily effective relationship that both men established as deputy prime minister and premier in the government of national unity that ruled Britain for most of World War II. Indeed, Attlee and Churchill were the only members to serve in the coalition war cabinet from its first day in October 1940 until the last in May 1945.27
Attlee chose as his foreign secretary Ernest Bevin. Here, too, the contrast between two men in appearance, personality, and mien could not have been greater. Attlee was modest in stature, girth, inclination, and deportment. The same could not be said of Bevin, who was truly a larger-than-life figure in every way—in physique, temperament, and opinions, with an unbridled willingness to express them. Born of humble, working-class stock, Bevin was orphaned when he was eight years old. He started work as a common laborer at age eleven in order to help support his mostly illiterate family. Although Bevin never completed secondary school, Attlee described him as having “the most capacious mind of any man I ever knew.” Churchill, who brought Bevin into the war cabinet, recognized these same qualities in him. His name was the first on a list of four men “whose services in high office were immediately required,” Churchill had told Attlee as he set about building the coalition government in May 1940.28
Bevin was similarly indispensable to Attlee. At age sixty-four, however, he was also quite ill, suffering from advanced heart disease and often complete exhaustion. Bevin had recurrent, mild heart attacks and was also susceptible to fainting. As the Zionist historian Michael J. Cohen observes, “The great strains imposed on Bevin’s infirm health go a long way to explain his frequent outbursts of pith and anger, especially, but not only, on the Zionist issue.”29
Indeed, Palestine was to prove the Labour government’s Achilles’ heel—and perhaps the most problematic issue on Bevin’s plate. Although day-to-day governance matters affecting the mandate remained within the remit of the Colonial Office, Attlee handed to Bevin the task of formulating the new government’s policy for Palestine and determining the mandate’s future.30
Initially, at least, this was not something that would have displeased Zionists and their supporters. Bevin was regarded as a friend. In 1930, for instance, his intervention had been pivotal in softening the terms of the Passfield White Paper, which was ultimately repudiated by Ramsay MacDonald in his “Black Letter.” In 1940, Weizmann had described Bevin as one of the few Britons who understood the problems confronting Jewry and the Jewish Agency’s efforts to ameliorate them. He was a man, the Zionist leader believed, who was willing not only to listen but more critically to take action on the Zionists’ behalf. He was among the handful of ministers whom Ben-Gurion had found supportive of his efforts to raise a Jewish army early in the war and had backed Churc
hill’s partition plan during the cabinet’s discussions in 1944.31
Bevin’s views reflected the Labour Party’s position on Zionism. In December 1917, just weeks after the Balfour Declaration was issued, the party had enthusiastically endorsed the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Ten successive party conferences, including the most recent one held in December 1944, had reaffirmed that pledge. That conference in fact had endorsed a geographically and politically expansive pro-Zionist platform that included monetary incentives to persuade Palestine’s Arab population to relocate elsewhere. Such proposals went beyond what even Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency were advocating. The Labour Party had also staunchly opposed the 1939 white paper, which it had previously denounced as both a regrettable “breach of faith” and a “breach of British honour.” Indeed, as the end of the war in Europe neared, its National Executive Committee had called for the gates of Palestine to be opened to the Jewish survivors of Hitler’s death camps. “There is surely neither hope nor meaning in a ‘Jewish National Home,’ ” a report of the executive’s 1944 meeting had proclaimed, “unless we are prepared to let Jews, if they wish, enter this land in such numbers as to become a majority. There was a strong case for this before the War. There is an irresistible case now, after the unspeakable atrocities of the … Nazi plan to kill all Jews in Europe.”32
Anonymous Soldiers Page 30