A visit to the British graveyards in this country and in North Africa would quite clearly show where the balance lies.
This senseless violence and animosity only makes it more difficult for both our peoples, and with many of us who have deep sympathy for your people, merely makes one lose that sympathy.
Having had the unpleasant task of visiting Belsen after my troops … liberated it, I am fully aware of what the Jewish people have suffered.27
Barker’s conciliatory words are all the more extraordinary given the rumors then circulating in Palestine that the Irgun’s actual plan had been to kidnap him, as well as the extraordinary pressure that the new GOC now found himself under from the equally newly appointed CIGS. Only a few days before, the now ennobled viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Britain’s most celebrated wartime general and Barker’s former commanding officer in Europe, had completed his second visit to Palestine in as many weeks. Selected by Attlee to succeed Field Marshal Alan Brooke as CIGS, Montgomery had embarked on an inspection tour of Britain’s most important overseas bases in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and India. He was so alarmed by the deteriorating security situation in Palestine that he rearranged his schedule to accommodate another stopover to meet with Paget and Barker while en route back to England from India. “I was much perturbed by what I heard and saw,” Montgomery recalled in his memoir.
A political decision was, of course, needed in Palestine but the terms of it were not at the moment my concern. What was very definitely my concern was the action of the Army in aiding the civil power to maintain law and order, and in this respect the outlook was dismal. The High Commissioner seemed to me to be unable to make up his mind what to do. Indecision and hesitation were in evidence all down the line, beginning in Whitehall; a policy was required, and then decisions. The Palestine Police Force was 50 per cent below strength, and this at a time when the situation was clearly about to boil over; its morale was low and it was considered as a force to be no more than 25 per cent effective—through no fault of its own. All this had led to a state of affairs in which British rule existed only in name; the true rulers seemed to me to be the Jews, whose unspoken slogan was—“You dare not touch us.”28
Montgomery’s gloomy assessment had been shaped by the succession of briefings he had received from Paget in Cairo and Barker and his senior staff officers in Jerusalem. Individual discussions with Cunningham, Shaw, and Colonel William Nicol Gray, late of the Royal Marines, who had arrived in Palestine only two months before to succeed Rymer-Jones as the police force’s inspector general, had done little to allay his growing concern. To the contrary, according to Montgomery’s official diary, the CIGS designate had concluded that “General Cunningham was not the man to be High Commissioner in these troublous times. He appeared to be quite unable to make up his mind [about] what to do,” the diary states, “and was pathetically anxious to avoid a showdown.” Montgomery clearly considered Cunningham “a broken reed.”29
So harsh a judgment does not square with Cunningham’s repeated efforts to obtain cabinet approval for the internment of the Jewish Agency and Haganah leadership—an issue that he first raised, and had continually pressed, virtually since he arrived in Palestine the previous year. Whether Montgomery was actually aware of the high commissioner’s persistent lobbying efforts for this measure but simply chose to ignore or dismiss them is not recorded. What is beyond doubt is that Montgomery clearly felt a profound, almost visceral animus toward Cunningham that would deeply affect his attitude toward the Palestine issue as well. The fact that the high commissioner had once commanded the same Eighth Army that Montgomery subsequently led to victory at El Alamein alone appears to have ensured him the latter’s unmitigated enmity.30
Montgomery even took credit himself for the proposal to arrest and intern Jewish Agency and Haganah officials—when it had of course first been proposed by Cunningham months earlier. Indeed, so intense was Montgomery’s dislike of Cunningham that among the former’s personal papers may be found a document, written in Montgomery’s hand, titled “The true story of how Auchinlek removed Alan Cunningham from command of the Eighth Army in November 1941,” detailing the high commissioner’s complete unsuitability for that previous position of command, too.31
Montgomery’s vengeful mien and uncharitable behavior toward Cunningham were by no means atypical. The British military historian Ronald Lewin, for instance, has written of Montgomery’s utter “ruthlessness, intolerance, and sheer lack of empathy.” Rick Atkinson, author of the classic accounts of World War II’s North African, Italian, and northern European campaigns, has similarly described the hero of Alamein as “puerile, petty and egocentric, bereft of irony, humility, and a sense of proportion. It would not suffice for him to succeed; others must fail.”32
Montgomery’s appointment as CIGS, the pinnacle of British military command, clearly did little to blunt his characteristic imperiousness and impatience. Although he had not yet officially assumed this post, Montgomery blithely ignored that technicality. As his official diary records, before returning to England and actually taking up his appointment, Montgomery made certain that both Paget and Barker had a “proper understanding of the task that lay ahead of them.” Drawing upon his own experiences as the divisional commander for northern Palestine during 1938 and 1939, Montgomery laid out the elements of what he deemed would “form the basis of his doctrine when he became CIGS.” Foremost among these was the need to overcome the lamentably defensive frame of mind that the army and the police had assumed in Palestine and embrace a decidedly more aggressive and offensive posture. “All ranks must understand that they were in for a very unpleasant job,” Montgomery ordered. “The first task was a political one, namely to re-establish British authority; this would mean that the army would have to strike a real blow against the Jews by arresting the heads of the illegal Jewish armed organizations and those members of the Jewish agency known to be collaborating with the Hagana.” The CIGS designate acknowledged that this would “lead to war against the Jews” and all that it implied. Montgomery termed the Jews an especially “fanatical and cunning enemy who would use the weapons of kidnap, murder and sabotage; women would fight against us as well as men: no one would know who was friend and who was foe.” Therefore, a total ban on all social activities and unofficial contact between HM Forces and the Yishuv must be enforced immediately. Stringent force protection measures would also have to be implemented. Accordingly, “all ranks would have to be 100% prepared to enter into this unpleasant task with the fullest determination to finish it off with 100% success in the shortest possible time.” Finally, Montgomery pointedly instructed Barker that there should be no question of his commuting the two convicted Irgun fighters’ death sentences. “This did a good deal to strengthen [Barker’s] resolve,” Montgomery reflected.33
To those more intimately familiar with Palestine like Shaw, Montgomery’s pronouncements were but the latest in a long list of bold yet invariably ineffectual initiatives. “The great Monty is here at present and I have had a short talk with him,” the chief secretary wrote to D’Arcy, who was now enjoying retirement back in England. “I have the impression that he thinks the situation is easier than it is and that we are somewhat spineless and alarmist. They all do at first (including General Barker, but I think he is learning!).”34
Montgomery, of course, cared not a fig for the shilly-shallying of colonial civil servants or the endless posturing and preening of their political masters back home. Hence, having grasped the essence of Britain’s current travails in Palestine, he pressed his views with characteristic fervor on Whitehall, the War Office, and No. 10 Downing Street. “There is no doubt,” Montgomery’s official diary thus records, “that this greatly influenced the Cabinet to give their approval to the taking of strong measures in Palestine in order to restore the authority of British rule.”35
That events in Palestine during the latter part of June 1946 were being pushed to their inevitable climax is certainly beyond doubt
. But these fresh policy gambits were far more a product of Cunningham’s persistence and dynamism than of Montgomery’s carping and boasting. The fact that Montgomery’s newfound bête noire was so forcefully behind them may explain why, even by the hero of Alamein’s long-established track record of shameless self-promotion, his diaries purport to take full credit for the momentous decisions made between June 19 and June 20—a period, it should be noted, when the CIGS designate was mostly airborne, making his way from Cyprus to Greece and thence to Italy and back to England on the last legs of his inspection tour.36
Shortly before 2:00 a.m. on June 19, the cipher clerk at Government House was handed an urgent message marked MOST IMMEDIATE. TOP SECRET AND PERSONAL from Cunningham for transmission to Hall. As news had continued to trickle in throughout the previous afternoon about the succession of kidnappings and attempted abductions of British officers, Cunningham had spent the latter part of the day and the entire evening immersed in discussions over the fate of the kidnapped officers. It was well past midnight when he finally collected his thoughts and sat down to write to Hall. As things presently stood, Cunningham explained, the options to secure the officers’ release were limited. Intelligence on both the Irgun and Lehi was woefully inadequate, thus ruling out any hope of a rescue operation. Moreover, both British and U.S. intelligence sources were reporting that the Irgun was planning to abduct more British personnel, including high-ranking civilian officials. Despite the heightened security measures in force and the intensive, round-the-clock searches that the army and the police were mounting, the high commissioner despaired at the prospects for success, explaining that most Jews now either sympathized with the terrorists or were unwilling to inform on them for fear of retribution. To his mind, the Haganah’s attacks on the bridges marked a turning point in Anglo-Zionist relations: the extremist wing of the Jewish Agency, championed by Shertok in this instance, had decisively triumphed over the moderates, led by Weizmann. Confrontation, not conciliation, Cunningham had concluded, now ruled the day so far as Zionist policy toward Britain was concerned. Finally, there was the matter of the security force’s morale to be considered. Earlier that same evening, after word of the kidnapping had spread throughout the ranks, a British officer had shot dead a middle-aged Jewish man walking down a Tel Aviv street who had refused to step aside for him. The possibility could no longer be disputed that the months of pent-up frustration over the defensive posture imposed on the army by the ongoing Anglo-American negotiations might explode into widespread violence.37
In the circumstances, Cunningham proposed to Hall a two-pronged course of action. First, Britain should break off negotiations with the Americans about admitting the hundred thousand Jewish displaced persons to Palestine and announce that they would not be resumed until the hostages were freed. Second, the time had come to move against the Jewish Agency and the Haganah. The high commissioner therefore requested permission to implement the standing plan to arrest the leaders and occupy the Jewish Agency offices. He was not proposing to do this immediately, but rather to use the threat of its implementation for leverage in a last-ditch round of negotiations with the Jewish Agency leadership. He was scheduled to see Weizmann at 5:45 p.m., and the high commissioner hoped for a reply before then.38
By mid-morning, Hall had prepared and circulated to both the cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff a detailed brief. The colonial secretary’s own view was that the talks with the Americans had progressed to a point where it would be politically inadvisable to disrupt or otherwise impede them. Accordingly, Cunningham’s proposal to link the hostages’ release with the immigrants’ admittance to Palestine should be rejected. However, “in the absence of any alternative means of dealing with the situation,” and subject to the approval of the Chiefs of Staff, he advocated that Cunningham be granted the authority to execute the internment plan. The chiefs also met that morning. They agreed with Hall’s assessment and roundly endorsed his recommendation that the restrictions on military operations in Palestine be removed. The necessity of maintaining troop morale in the face of escalating violence figured prominently in their discussions—as did the recurrent fears of a repeat of the incidents at Netanya and Beer Tuvya. “The time has now come for the High Commissioner and Commanders-in-Chief, Middle East to be given the full power to deal with any situation that may arise.” As Montgomery’s formal ascension to the post of CIGS was as yet nearly a week away, and he himself was still traveling abroad, there is no evidence that the CIGS designate played any role in, or had any input to, the chiefs’ decision.39
The groundwork for this major policy change was completed later that same afternoon when Averell Harriman, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, was invited to call on Attlee at No. 10 Downing Street. The prime minister asked the ambassador to inform President Truman of the impending operation and to explain the rationale behind it. At about that same time in Jerusalem, Cunningham was attempting to reason with Weizmann and prevent a total breakdown of Anglo-Zionist relations. The crux of his message, having been cleared by Hall, was that the escalation of violence had imposed an intolerable strain on the security forces “which could not be endured for much longer.” Accordingly, the high commissioner beseeched the aged Zionist leader to use all his powers of persuasion to steer the Yishuv away from impending disaster.40
As Cunningham himself was doubtless already aware, the time had already passed to avert this clash. Indeed, that was what Hall had also concluded from his meeting with Ben-Gurion, who was then in London, that same day. Their discussions had gone reasonably well at first, with Ben-Gurion appearing “genuinely distressed” by the kidnappings and promising to issue a public statement deploring them. He had also provided his “categorical assurance” to the colonial secretary that there was no connection whatsoever between either the Irgun or Lehi and the Jewish Agency. But to Hall’s consternation, Ben-Gurion was much less forthcoming when asked point-blank whether the Haganah maintained relations with either or both terrorist organizations. What Ben-Gurion did not of course know was that British intelligence had been monitoring the agency’s communications for years and had accordingly amassed an incriminating dossier of both its duplicity and its involvement in all aspects of Haganah operations, including the latter’s alliance with the Irgun and Lehi.41
Just before 10:00 a.m. on June 20, Attlee and his ministers took their seats in the cabinet room at No. 10 Downing Street. Palestine was the third and final item on that morning’s brief agenda. The meeting’s outcome must have seemed preordained given all that had transpired the previous thirty-six hours. Nonetheless, Hall began with a summation of recent events in Palestine. “The patience of the Administration and the military was being seriously tried,” he argued, “and there was grave risk of the troops taking matters into their own hands”—a point that the outgoing CIGS, Alan Brooke, and the secretary of state for war, Jack Lawson, both reiterated. The cabinet agreed with Hall that it was a mistake to break off negotiations with the United States over the hundred thousand immigration certificates—not least because it would again appear as if the government had never intended to admit the Jewish displaced persons and were simply using the kidnappings as an excuse. Subsequent discussion revealed broad agreement that the “situation in Palestine called for firm action. We could not longer tolerate a position in which the authority of Government was set at nought.” The proposal to initiate a countrywide search for all illegally held weapons was again raised, only to be rejected. “The important step at the moment … was to break the illegal organizations,” the minutes of the meeting record, “rather than to compel individuals to surrender their arms. The wholesale disarming of Jews and Arabs might follow later, but it would be a difficult operation and it was impossible to foresee its implications.” The sustained and heavy commitment of additional troops once again outweighed all other considerations. Instead, the cabinet directed the high commissioner to “take such steps as he considered necessary to break up the illegal organisations in Palestine; that for t
his purpose the premises of the Jewish Agency might be searched and persons connected with it arrested; but that the Agency as such should not be closed or proscribed.” Finally, notwithstanding the leaked operational order that Kol Israel had already broadcast, the cabinet believed that secrecy would be paramount to the forthcoming operation’s success.42
The directive accorded perfectly with Cunningham’s intentions. Earlier in the day he had reported to Hall that Barker was now “extremely doubtful” that a massive arms search would succeed, thus leaving internment as the only viable option. Indeed, both the high commissioner and the GOC were convinced that the illegal weapons issue could only be resolved as part of a broader, comprehensive political settlement between Britain and both the Jews and the Arabs and not as a result of military operations. On this final point, the new GOC was especially emphatic. In a general order issued to his command two days later, Barker did not mince words, explaining the need for firm action against the Jewish Agency and the Haganah leadership. But at the same time he was exceptionally careful both to condition expectations and to frame the operation within the context of the wider, long-term political and security challenges that Britain faced in Palestine. “To sum up,” Barker concluded the order, “I could repeat that whatever the decisions of His Majesty’s Government regarding the [Anglo-American] Commission report it is essential that we get rid of the extremists now, whether more outbreaks occur or not. However, I would point out that it is impossible perpetually to subjugate a country by force, especially a virile and intelligent people like the Jews. The ultimate solution must depend on a satisfactory political answer.”43
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