Palestine

Palestine, British mandate in the eastern Mediterranean where one million indigenous Arabs were in open confrontation with the country's 470,000 Jews, mostly immigrants, whose claim for a homeland in Palestine had been acknowledged by the British since the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

In July 1937 the British Peel commission announced the decision to divide Palestine between the Arabs, the British, and the Jews and this pushed the Arabs into what is now known as the Arab Revolt. It was led by Hadj Amin el-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, but once he had been forced to flee, and other Arab leaders had been interned, the revolt was crushed and Arab political life became paralysed, and remained so throughout the war. But approaching hostilities, and the need for oil, made the British government reverse its policy of partition. In May 1939 it announced its intention of creating a single independent state, to include both Arabs and Jews, within ten years. It virtually prohibited the sale of land to Jews and limited any further Jewish immigration to 75,000 over the next five years. No more immigration would then be permitted without Arab agreement.

The British aim was not only to obtain Arab acquiescence—in which, by and large, it was successful—but to pose the Jews an insoluble dilemma that if they opposed the British in Palestine they would, in effect, be aiding their Nazi persecutors. Not surprisingly, the Jewish Agency, which worked for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, opted to co-operate, and the Histradut, the Jewish labour organization, mobilized its agricultural and industrial resources to help the UK's war effort. At first the economy faltered and unemployment rose, but from 1941 war production boosted it considerably. By 1943 63% of the Jewish workforce was employed in the production of matériel for the British forces; and during the course of the war Jewish-owned factories tripled from 2,000 to 6,000, 47 new settlements were established, and cultivation was increased by 70%.

When the war started 136,000 Jewish men and women volunteered to join the armed forces. The first unit to see action was a mixed (Arab and Jew) company which served with the Royal Pioneer Corps in the fighting which preceded the fall of France in June 1940. In October 1940 men from this company became the nucleus of No. 51 (Middle East) Commando which fought in the East African campaign. When this was disbanded in late 1941 some of its members joined the Middle East Commando.

It was hoped that a Jewish Legion, similar to the one which had fought in the First World War, could be formed, but the British, fearing its creation would lead to another Arab rising, refused permission. However, the Jews were determined to fight. Many joined the East Kent Regiment (The Buffs), forming three companies which became known as the Palestine Regiment, and by August 1942 there were 18,000 Palestinian Jews serving with the British forces in the Middle East. About 25% served in the front line and a thousand, of whom only 45 survived, helped defend Bir Hakeim. Eventually a 5,000-strong Jewish Brigade was formed which from early 1945 fought in the Italian campaign as part of the British Eighth Army. Between March and September 1944, 32 parachutists were dropped into occupied Europe to help the Jewish populations escape the Final Solution. Estimates vary, but perhaps as many as 30,000 Jews served in the British armed forces, as did 9,000 Palestinian Arabs. Palestine itself had little direct contact with the war, though during the summer of 1940 the Italians bombed coastal towns killing about 200 people.

Apart from those serving in the British forces, special units called Palmach (Plugoth Machatz, or commando strike-force) were formed by the British from the clandestine Jewish army, the Haganah, to defend the country or to perform acts of sabotage should it be overrun. Some Palmach units were also used for intelligence and sabotage missions in advance of the Syrian campaign, as guides at its start, and in an abortive attempt to raid the oil refineries in Tripoli. However, once the German threat had passed the British closed Palmach training bases, reclaimed the arms they had distributed, and unsuccessfully demanded the dissolution of those units whose members had not volunteered to serve with the British.

While actively aiding the British, the Haganah openly flouted their authority by using every conceivable method to give sanctuary to as many European and Middle Eastern Jews as possible. This infuriated the British, who saw Jewish immigration as a German tactic to undermine stability in the Middle East, or even as a means of importing spies. Many illegal immigrants were interned on Mauritius and enforcement of the British immigration policy led to several disasters, including the loss of two ships (the Patria and Struma) and many of their passengers. In fact, both the British and the Americans, after holding the Bermuda conference in April 1943, opposed any plans for the mass rescue of Jews from occupied Europe. However, in 1944 Roosevelt did authorize the establishment of the War Refugee Board and British immigration policy was circumvented to allow the few thousand European Jews who escaped into neutral countries to enter Palestine.

In 1943, Churchill, who considered British policy towards Palestinian Jews ‘a gross breach of faith’ with them, set up a committee under Herbert Morrison which recommended its reversal. But this was strongly opposed by Anthony Eden among others, who understandably feared an Arab backlash, and there the matter rested. The Jewish Agency chairman, David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), whose desire for confrontation with the British had been outvoted by his executive, now mobilized strong support from American Zionists. In May 1942 these held a conference at New York's Biltmore Hotel, and then issued a manifesto (the Biltmore programme) which demanded Jewish sovereignty over Palestine, so that all Jews who survived the war would have a home to go to. It was ignored.

By 1944 the Jewish Agency had, in the words of the Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, Field Marshal Maitland Wilson, arrogated ‘to itself the powers and status of an independent government’. But though it strongly opposed the terrorist methods of the more extremist groups, such as the Irgun and the Stern gang, it was violence that eventually ended the British mandate and gave birth to the State of Israel on 14 May 1948. See consequences of the war.

Bibliography

Porat, D. , The Blue and Yellow Stars of David (Cambridge, Mass., 1990).