Download - Britain's Naval and Political Reaction to the Illegal Immigration of Jews to Palestine, 1945-1949

cynthiamFile Attachment2000c546coverv05b.jpg

Britains Naval and Political Reaction to the Illegal Immigration of Jews to

Palestine, 19451948

This book provides an important shift in the analysis of Britains policy towards the illegal post-war Jewish immigration into Palestine. It charts the development of Britains response to Zionist immigration, from the initial sympathy, as embodied in the Balfour Declaration, through attempts at blockade, refoulement and finally disengagement.

The book exposes differences in policy pursued by the great departments of state like the Foreign, Colonial and War Offices and their legal advisors, and those implemented by the Admiralty. The book argues that the eventual failure of Britains immigration policy was inevitable in view of the hostility shown by many European nations, and America towards Britains ambition to retain her position in the Middle East.

Fritz (Freddy) Liebreich was born in Vienna in 1927, entered Palestine illegally in 1939 and now lives in London. He is an expert on the Royal Navys attempts to stop illegal Jewish immigrants from reaching Palestine until 1948. He left school at 14 to become a mechanic and engineer starting his studies again on retirement. He completed his Masters and submitted his PhD at Kings College London.

Britains Naval and Political Reaction to the Illegal

Immigration of Jews to Palestine, 19451948

Fritz Liebreich

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.

2005 Fritz Liebreich

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including

photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any

errors or omissions that may be made.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-30987-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-714-65637-2 (Print Edition)

Contents

List of figures vi

Foreword viii

Preface xi

Acknowledgements xiii

List of abbreviations and acronyms xv

1 Introduction 1 2

The determinants of British policy towards Jewish immigration into Palestine, from the Balfour Declaration via the Royal Commissions to the 1939 White Book and to the final abandonment of the national home commitment

8

3 The British preoccupation with the perceived danger of communist infiltration and subversion 41

4 Britains fight against the sources of illegal immigration beyond the borders of Palestine and her confrontation with the financial, logistic and moral supporters in Europe and North America

55

5 The legal issues involved 97 6

Detention in Palestinethe deportation of illegal Jewish immigrants to Cyprus and their detention/ imprisonment: the legal base constructed by Britain

135

7 The rules of engagement adopted by the adversaries 154 8 The British forces engaged in anti-immigration patrols and the confronting Jewish adversaries

180

9 The physical confrontation: interception and diversion policies in theory and practice 191

10 Refoulement and abandonment of the boarding policy 220 11 Conclusion: conduct and effects of the British policy and the final failure of the blockade

239

Appendix

1 List of RN and PP vessels engaged in the Palestine Patrol

247

Appendix 2

List of deportation and prison ships 251

Appendix 3

Details of Jewish illegal ships which landed immigrants on the Palestinian coast or were intercepted by British Armed Forces or Palestine Police

252

Appendix 4

Crew members of HM ships interviewed by the author 276

Appendix 5

Crew members of IJI ships interviewed by the author 278

Appendix 6

Biographical glossary 280

Notes 291

Bibliography 333

Index 345

Figures

Between pages 182183

1 Luggage belonging to illegal immigrants from the Susanna who came ashore on the beach near Nitzanim

2 Tank-loading space of LST 3016 before the embarkation of survivors from MS Athinai for Famagusta

3 Tank-loading space of LST 3016 after disembarkation of Athinai survivors, following Jewish sabotage

4 Welfare Wand

5 The Irini, crammed with more than 1,000 Albanian refugees heading from Velipoja

6 Sirius (Dalin), the first IJI ship despatched after the end of the Second World War

7 Launch of the Sirius

8 Sirius dressed overall for sea trials, 1945

9 The Paducah off the Turkish coast

10 The San Dimitrio heading into Haifa harbour

11 The San Felipe carrying 1,568 illegal immigrants, being towed into Haifa harbour

12 The San Felipe (Moledet/Patria), carrying 1,568 illegal immigrants, being docked in Haifa harbour

13 The Naval General Service Medal with Palestine Clasp

14 Abbruziana (Jerusalem the Besieged)

15 Wreck of the illegal immigrant vessel Athinai visited by divers in 1998

16 An antique chart of Sirina showing sites relating to the sinking of the Athinai

17 Remains of the controversial radio transmitter, recovered from the wreck of the Athinai in 1998

18 Immigrants from the Fede II being transhipped for deportation to Cyprus

19 One of the passengers giving birth on board the Fede II

20 Illegal Jewish immigrants from Algeria

21 Former US coastguard icebreaker Northland

22 Scene on board the Maria Christina

23 Anatomy of a boarding, 1: HMS Childers (R91) CH class destroyer

24 Anatomy of a boarding, 2: Passengers and crew are driven below decks by tear gas

25 Anatomy of a boarding, 3: A ketch anchor is fired across an IJI ship from HMS Childers

26 Anatomy of a boarding, 4: Boarding parties from HMS Talybont keep the decks of the Heleni (Gabriela) clear

27 Anatomy of a boarding, 5; The battle is overGalata (Shear Yashuv) under the control of a boarding party

28 Anatomy of a boarding, 6: Exodus 1947, Palmach, Hannah Szenesh, Eliahu Golomb and Haviru Reik on Rotten Row, Haifa breakwater

Foreword

This book provides an important shift in the analysis of Britains policy towards the illegal post-war Jewish immigration into Palestine. It charts the development of Britains response to Zionist immigration, from the initial sympathy, as embodied in the Balfour Declaration, through attempts at blockade, refoulement and finally disengagement. In doing so it exposes differences in policies pursued by the great Departments of State like the Foreign, Colonial and War Offices and their legal advisors, and those implemented by the Admiralty. The book argues that the eventual failure of Britains immigration policy was inevitable in view of the hostility shown by many European nations and the United States towards Britains ambition to retain her position in the Middle East.

The book begins, by way of background, by explaining the reasons for Britains early Zionist sympathies at the time of the Balfour Declaration and immediately afterwards, and by describing the gradual emergence of contradictions between the promises made to the Jews and those made to the Arabs and to the French.

It then describes the developing perception among leading British politicians and military/naval figures that retention of meaningful influence in the Middle East demanded the appeasement of the Arabs and the abandonment of the promised Jewish National Home. The book describes the British preoccupation with the perceived threats of Nazi and later of communist infiltration in the region. It also touches on differences between the positions of the Protestant churches in England and Scotland, which were largely sympathetic to the Jewish aspirations, and the more pro-Arab leanings of many prominent Catholics. Evidence is provided to demonstrate that these conflicting sympathies were factors in the deterioration of British-Zionist relations.

As the Second World War drew to a close there was a widely held belief in British political circles, based perhaps more on wishful thinking than on realistic appraisal, that given time and the expected economic and political recovery of Europe, Jewish holocaust survivors would renounce plans to end their diaspora and could therefore be resettled in their countries of origin. As it became clear that this belief was not well-founded, so the debate in Britain shifted in favour of limiting Jewish immigration and implementing a blockade against illegal Jewish immigrant ships.

Given Britains need to be acting under the auspices of international law, the judicial base for the blockade is of great importance. It is, therefore, examined in depth and contradictions between International, Palestinian and Cypriot Law of the period are exposed. The conventions of the Territorial Seas v. The High Seas, the Right of Hot Pursuit and the relevant precedents are also examined. The judicial, political and naval rationale for detention, deportation and finally refoulement is investigated and described in detail, as is Britains struggle to deny the illegal Zionist immigrants logistic, moral and financial support from nations beyond Palestines borders.

In describing the blockade, the book avoids repeating descriptions of already well-documented interceptions, boardings and arrests. Instead it focuses on two important case studies of illegal Jewish immigration ships and their attempted landings, the Guardian

(Theodor Herzl) and the Athinai (Rafiah). Why are these two exciting incidents singled out? Because in these otherwise fairly typical attempts to run the blockade, well-laid British and Zionist plans went awry. The book explains the why and how, and uses these incidents to illustrate the contradictions in British policy. What were the reasons for the otherwise untypical use of excessive force by the Royal Navy in the case of the Guardian? Why and how did the Athenai sink, and why did her survivors proceed to wreak such damage as they could on their rescuers ship? Just as in the famous Japanese film Rashomon there were conflicting British and Jewish versions of the story; both versions were factually correct but the respective interpretations could not be further apart.

The book also deals with the failure of Britains proposed last gasp refoulement policy. Refoulement itself was a euphemism for the forceful return of Jewish would-be illegal immigrants to their country of embarkation, and was the buzzword used at the time by the Foreign and Colonial Offices as well as by the Admiralty. The only time refoulement had been tried (President WarfieldExodus 1947) matters went disastrously wrong and the incident proved to be a public relations disaster for Britain.

In the context of the rapid run-down of Royal Navy capabilities in the years immediately following the end of the Second World War, and the resulting pressures to reduce overseas engagements, Britains attempts to thwart Zionist immigration became increasingly difficult to sustain. The blockade and its associated boarding policy suffered its terminal blow when the Admiralty conceded that the largest illegal Jewish immigration ships yet, the Pan Crescent and the Pan York, could be unboardable: as a result of their size and the number of refugees they carried, any boarding operation carried the risk of unacceptable damage and casualties, with potentially disastrous consequences for Britain and the world.

As far as the outcome of the confrontation is concerned: the illegals suffered about 3,000 casualties, drowned or shot, Britain suffered four casualties, three drowned in an overturned whaler of HMS St Brides Bay, and one through the inadvertent discharge of a revolver, used to hammer open a tin of compote during a friendly party in an Illegal Jewish Immigration (IJI) vessels cabin. Ultimately all the Jewish illegals intercepted ended up in Palestine/Israel, so the huge effort expanded by the Palestine Patrol appeared to have been wasted.

The book demonstrates that the endless and ultimately futile task of attempting to limit Jewish immigration contributed importantly to the British decision to terminate its government of Palestine. It also seeks to answer the question: who won the war of attrition between the Jewish immigration and Britain? There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of the illegal immigration vessels were intercepted and successfully boarded; but ultimately the efficient maintenance of the Palestine Patrol had become so difficult that it had to be abandoned.

New and important eye-witness accounts never published before, and a vast quantity of previously undiscovered original research from British, Israeli and Italian archives, will be combined with the considerable amount of secondary literature. A substantial number of officers and ratings who served in His Majestys ships involved in the Palestine Patrol as well as crew members and escorts of illegal Jewish vessels, were interviewed and many of their testimonies have been quoted.

The British refusal to release the Jewish internees from Cyprus for 247 days after Britains evacuation of Palestine, the British Navys Rules of Engagement and much else is covered through textual notes.

The book concludes with several useful appendices. One of these consists of the most complete list so far published of the Jewish and British ships engaged in the illegal 19458 immigration, a key resource for future historians of the period. Another appendix gives names, ranks and positions of the British and Jewish eye-witnesses interviewed.

Preface

In April 1939 the British government had approved involvement of the Royal Navy to block seaborne clandestine immigration. At the time the Admiralty carried out naval patrols, but these were only planned to continue until the Mandatory authorities in Palestine had sufficient resources of its (sic) own in the form of coastguards and Marine Police to guard its coastline.1

With the deepening international crisis which led to the Second World War the warships were diverted to tasks of higher priority, but once a state of war existed Great Britain exercised her belligerent rights to conduct blockading operations on the high seas.

Towards the end of the Second World War the Jews suffering united all the Jewish factions in their concentration on a single aim, the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. They were preparing for armed rebellion against Great Britain, if Britain should try to prevent the arrival of illegal immigrants outside the meagre official quota. Foreign Secretary Bevin criticised the Zionists for making political capital out of the suffering of the Jews. Britain regarded Judaism as a religion, and the Foreign Office2 refused to see the Jews as a separate nationality:

we insistently deny that it is right to segregate persons of Jewish race as such It has been a cardinal policy hitherto that we regard the nationality factor as the determining one as regards people of Jewish race Once abandon that and the door is open for discrimination in favour of Jews as such, which will ultimately become discrimination against Jews as such.3

Maurice Baxter, Head of the Foreign Office (hereafter FO) Eastern Department, cited inter alia: HMG must, whether they like it or not, adopt a strict and effective policy regarding Jewish immigration. They cannot afford, in their own interest, to do otherwise4

As long as the Labour Party was in opposition (or in a coalition) it was possible for the Party to make declarations which gave full reign to its sympathies with the Jews without paying too much attention to the views of the Arabs which were dismissed with scorn.5

When peace came to the Mediterranean in the late spring of 1945 the resumption of the Palestine Patrol was not at first considered amongst the Royal Navys first priorities, but in the autumn of 1945, Civil Power requested assistance of the British military forces. The Palestine government made a formal request to the naval authorities, this was endorsed by the Secretary of State (hereafter S of S) for the Colonies, by the Cabinet and agreed by the Admiralty. Approval was given for the use of the Royal Navy for interceptions and boarding and the Royal Air Force was ordered to conduct maritime reconnaissance to give warning of suspicious vessels approaching.

Demands for immigration from Europe naturally increased from the survivors of Nazi persecution and the trickle of would-be immigrants very quickly became a flood. Britain

tried to resolve the situation with scant international support, encountering hostility from the United States. The situation deteriorated, the politicians argued and the Royal Navy was saddled with the unpopular task of intercepting the many vessels with their human cargoes en route to Palestine.

Having used large-scale illegal immigration to such effect, the Jews had naturally learned the lessons of its political, demographic and military consequences. Nor was the lesson lost on the Palestinian Arabs. In 1988 the Arabs conceived a plan to take a leaf out of the Zionists book; they prepared a small vessel, called it Exodus and planned to set sail from Europe to the coast of Israel.6 The ship was to be crammed with Palestinian refugees, as well as foreign and Arab journalists, television and radio reporters. This was obviously a dangerous escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Mossad,7 acting on the orders of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (Yiszernitsky), promptly sank the ship. The Arab project was temporarily thwarted and unforeseeable consequences were prevented.

Researching the Jewish illegal immigration for this book was an exercise permitting the narration of past events in the turbulent Middle Easts history, but in the twenty-first century illegal immigration from many countries with records of political instability and economic hardship is still very much with us.

However, the main difference between the above-mentioned illegal immigration operations and the Zionist efforts remains the lack of motivation of the current batch of human traffickers and organisers, the so-called snakeheads or human smugglers profiting hugely from the traffic, and Britains Zionist opponents of the 1930s and 1940s, who were the ideologically highly committed men and women of the Palmach and the Mossad, steeped as they were in the ideals of ideological solidarity, and brought up in the frugal, puritan life-style of kibbutzim settled by the members of mainly left-wing Jewish parties. They proved more than a match for the British Intelligence Services and ultimately for the Royal Navy.

Note: The Jews considered immigration to Palestine to be their legal right and claimed that the phrase Illegal Immigrants was invalid, since it was based on the 1939 White Paper. Zionist sources, therefore, prefer the definition Unauthorised or Clandestine Immigrants.8 In 1938 the Admiralty referred to it as Illicit Immigration or Gatecrashing.9

Acknowledgements

This book was originally written as a Ph.D. thesis for the Department of War Studies at Kings College, London.

I dedicate this book to the memory of my parents Otto and Martha Liebreich of Vienna. I dedicate it also to their grandchildren Karen and Michael who share with their father not only a love for Israel but also a fascination with the near miraculous saga of the Illegal Immigration.

Otto and Martha were lucky enough to survive but also proved extremely wise in foreseeing not only the war but also the Holocaust and managing to escape in 1938 and 1939 from Nazi-occupied Vienna and Prague by taking passage on the clandestine immigration ships then trying to reach the asylum of Palestine. But the Liebreich familys four-and-a-half months Balkan and Mediterranean odyssey on the Danube paddle steamers Kralice Maria and Czar Duan, on the ancient tramp steamer Frossoula for the Black Sea section of their journey and for the final lap on the ill-fated Tiger Hill is another story to be told. It is a matter of deepest regret that my parents did not live to read their sons doctoral thesis, on which this book is loosely based or indeed this book itself, which in some ways is a testament to their memory.

I should like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for the generous assistance and fullest co-operation I invariably received from the staffs of the libraries listed in the Sources section. I should also like to thank Professor Geoffrey Till of the British Royal Naval College, Greenwich and now Dean of Academic Studies at the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) in Swindon, Wiltshire, and express my admiration, respect and enduring appreciation for his forbearance and invaluable assistance. Dr (now Professor) Andrew Lambert of Kings College, London, gave generously of his time. His advice, encouragement and assistance were invaluable. It is a pleasure to thank Professor Yoav Gelber, Director of the Herzl Institute for Research of Zionism at the University of Haifa. I hope my thesis and this book have not strayed too often and too far from his helpful suggestions. I am extremely grateful to Professor Martin Daunton of University College, London (UCL), now Chair of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Churchill College, Cambridge, and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from September 2004, who accepted me, a super-annuated engineer, at the tender age of 62 for a joint degree course in Economics and History at UCL. Kings College London allowed me to benefit from their excellent tuition for my MA and Ph.D. studies, I hope to justify their confidence.

I owe a debt of gratitude to the people, British as well as Jewish, who consented to be interviewed and gave willingly of their time, memories and in many cases the hospitality of their homes. I also wish to acknowledge with gratitude the willingness of everyone I consulted to help me in my task, inevitably too many to mention individually. I am very grateful indeed to Dr Simon Wiesenthal of the Dokumentationszentrum in Vienna, and to Dr Yoram Shalit of Israel for his encouragement. I have been fortunate in the kind assistance of the following, to whom I offer individual and collective thanks: Captain

Enrico Levi, Jossi Harel-Hamburger, (ex-Captain of the President Warfield and overall Commander of the Pan Operation), Dr Jonathan Morris of UCL, Edward P.Horne, BEM, of the Palestine Police Old Comrades Benevolent Association, Major (retd) Mike Kaufmann of the IDF archives in Givataim, Israel, the late J.David Brown, OBE, FRHistS, and Commander Ninian L.Stewart RN (retd) of the Naval Historical Branch. It is a special pleasure for me to acknowledge the debt of gratitude I owe to my good friend Sammek (Rear Admiral (retd) Shmuel Janai), the indomitable illegal immigration activist and nowadays Head of several Haganah Veteran Organisations. Arjeh and Tova Silberbach of Tel-Aviv gave advice, encouragement and help when most needed. To several others who prefer anonymity, profound thanks for insight and information. Finally my thanks go to the many, many other helpful persons who aided me in my researches, for their kindness and patience.

I must conclude by expressing my profound gratitude with a sincere personal note of thanks for the support of my family. Full credit for assistance and encouragement must go to my son Michael and to my son-in-law Dr Jeremy B.Levy, who between them patiently taught me how to tame my word processor. My thanks go to my daughter Dr Karen A. Liebreich for her constant encouragement. Finally I am totally indebted to my wife, Kitty, for her understanding and fortitude. Kitty suffered years of frustration by having to listen to my ramblings about important documentary evidence unearthed and she patiently and graciously forgave me for home and car maintenance jobs omitted or endlessly postponed, when the task of revising the manuscript consumed so many days, evenings and weekends. I dedicate this book to her with love and gratitude.

The Public Record Office (now the National Archives) at Kew formed the major archival source of this book, and I am indebted to the many members of staff and their courtesy when supplying documents and answering queries. Unpublished Crown copyright material from the Public Record Office quoted in this book appears by kind permission of the Controller of Her Majestys Stationery Office. All quotations from letters, telegrams and other documents preserve the original spelling and punctuation.

Finally, I am most grateful to my sub-editor Mrs Jenny Oates of Cambridge who applied her considerable skill, logic and patience to wade through the draft of my manuscript. I trust her suggestions made this a better book.

Despite the great help extended by these and many other people, I accept sole responsibility for any errors or shortcomings that may be found in this book.

F.Liebreich July 2004

Abbreviations and acronyms They will soon drive us all Cuccu=Cultural Union for cryptic Clichs Unlimited

The Star, 1951

The asinine jargon of capital letters reaches new heights of imbecility

Beachcomber, Daily Express, 20 July 1945.

Note: Some abbreviations may also refer to a department and not always to an individual. A Adjutant General

AB Able-Bodied Seaman; Airborne

ACA Allied Commission for Austria

ACAS Assistant Chief of Air Staff

ACNS Assistant Chief of Naval Staff

ACS Archivio centrale dello Stato (Central State Archives (Italy)

ADM Admiralty

Adm Administration/Administrative

AGM Admiralty General Message AHQ Army Headquarter

AJDC American Jewish Distribution Committee

AM.LDN. Air Ministry London

AS American Seamens Association

ASMAE Archivio di Stato Ministro degli Affari Esteri (State Archives, Foreign Ministry, Italy)

ASW Anti-Submarine Warfare

AVHR American Air and Sea Volunteers for Hebrew Repatriation

B busta (folder, file)

BCIS British Chief of Intelligence Service

Bde Brigade

BEM British Empire Medal

BMA British Military Authority/Administration

BST British Standard Time

Bt Battalion

CAB Cabinet Office Files

CAT Commnunication and Training

CB Commander of the Most Ancient and Noble Order of the Bath (awarded for bravery, second only to the Victoria

Cross); Confidential Book

CBE Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

Cdr Commander

Chish Chejl-Sadeh, the field force of the Haganah

CIC Counter Intelligence Corps (US)

CID Committee of Imperial Defence; Criminal Investigation Dept. (Palestine Police)

CIGS Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff

C-in-C Commander-in-Chief

CIS Communications and Information Systems

CM Cabinet Minutes

CMF Central Mediterranean Forces

CMG Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George

CNI Chief of Naval Intelligence

CNS Chief of Naval Staff

CO Colonial Office; Commanding Officer

Col. Colonel

Coll Collated

Comd, cmd Command

COMJEW Commissioner for Jewish camps (Cyprus)

COMPAL Command Palestine

Copd Copied

CP Cabinet Paper

CRA (force) 6 AB Div, North Sector (Sub Districts Safad, Tiberias & Beisan.) Inc. 17/21 Lancers, 1 IG, 1 Para Btn, One tp 33

AB Lt Reg RA & two tps RE

CRE Commander Royal Engineers

CS Centro Sicurezza, the Italian counter-espionage service which in 1946 was in the service of the Allied Control

Commission; Cruiser squadron

CTS Communications and Training

CVO Commander of the Royal Victoria Order

DC Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democrat Party, Italy)

DCTS Director of Communications and Training Section

DGPS Directore Generale Publica Sicurezza (Italian, General Manager Public Security)

Div/s Division/s, divisional

DLP Democratic Labour Party

DMI Directorate of Military Intelligence

DMO Director of Military Operations

DNC Director of Naval Construction

DNI Director of Naval Intelligence

DoD Department of Defence

DP Displaced Person

DSC Distinguished Service Cross

DSD Director of Signals Division

DSO Defence Security Office (Dodecanese or Palestine etc.); Divisional Signalling Officer; Companion of the

Distinguished Service Order

DST French Counter Espionage Service. Director de la surveillance du territoire.

DY Dockyard

Excl Exclusive

f. Female

Fmns Formations

FO Foreign Office

FRUS Foreign Relations US

FS Field Security

FSS Field Service Section

G (ops) General Staff Branch (Operations)

GBE Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire

GCB Knight Grand Cross

GCIE Knight Grand Commander (or Cross) of the Order of the Indian Empire

GCMG Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George

GCSI Knight Grand Cross of the Star of India

Gen General

GHQ MELF General Headquarters, Middle East Land Forces

GI Gunnery Instructor

GOC General Officer Commanding

Govt Government

GRT Gross Register Tons

GSI General Staff, Intelligence

GSO General Staff Officer

HDML Harbour Defence Motor Launch

HHMS His Hellenic Majestys Ship

HMG Her Majestys Government

HMY Her Majestys Yacht

HP Horsepower

I Intelligence; International

IC Intelligence Corps; in command (i.e. 2 ic=second in command)

IG Inspector General

IIP Illegal Immigration Palestine

IJI Illegal Jewish Immigration

Inf. Infantry

Int. International; Intelligence

IRO International Refugee Organisation

It. Italian

IZL Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation), Jewish underground defence and resistance organisation

JIC Joint Intelligence Committee

JNF Jewish National Fund

JSCSC Joint Services Command and Staff College

KBE Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

KC Kings Counsel

KCB Knight Commander of the Most Ancient and Noble Order of the Bath (awarded for bravery)

KCMG Knight Commander of the Order of St.Michael and St.George

KG Knight of the Most Ancient and Noble Order of the Garter

Kt Knight

L (Class). Leader

LC Landing Craft

LCI Landing Craft Infantry

LCT Landing Craft Tanks

LHC Lidell Hart Centre for Military Archives

LHI Lohamej Herut Israel, (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, the Stern Gang)

LO Liaison Officer

Lt, Lieut Lieutenant

M M branch

m. masculine

Maki Miflaga Communistit Israelit, (Israel Communist Party)

Mapai Mifleget Poalej Eretz Israel, (mainstream Palestine Labour Party

Mapam Mifleget Poalim Meuhedet (United Workers Party), Zionist Socialists

MC Military Cross

Med, Medn Mediterranean

MED Mechanical Engineering Department

MELF Middle East Land Forces

MFV Motor Fishing Vessel

MI Military Intelligence

MI5 Military Intelligence Department (War Office Counter Espionage); for clarity and uniformity the author suggests that modern usage should be accepted and MI, MI5 and

MI6 had been used throughout this book

MILPAL British Troops (Military) in Palestine and Transjordan

MIR Monthly Intelligence Report

MOT Ministry of Transport

Mov. Movement

MOWT Ministry of War Transport

MP Member of Parliament

MR Map Reference

MV Motor Vessel

MVO Member of the Royal Victorian Order

Nat. Arch. National Archives, new designation for the former PRO

NCO Non-Commissioned Officer

NKINDEL Narodnyi Kommissariat Innostrannykh Delam (Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Affairs)

NKVD Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del (Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs)Soviet Security

Service

NLO Naval Liaison Officer (to MILPAL)

NOIC Naval Officer in Charge

NV Note Verbale

OBE Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire

OETAS Occupied Enemy Territory Administration South (Palestine)

on Onorabile (honourable)

Org Organisation

OTP One Time Pad (designation of presumably safer coding)

Par Parachute

Para/s Paragraph/s

PC Privy Councillor

PCI Partito Communista Italiano (Italian Communist Party)

PCP Palestine Communist Party

P/L Plain Language

PN Pennant Number

PP Palestine Police

PRO Public Record Office, Kew

PSI Partito Socialista Italiano (Italian Socialist Party)

PSS Palestine Secret Service

P Palestine Pound

PREM Prime Ministers files (PRO)

Q Quartermaster General

QC Queens Council

RA Royal Artillery

RAF Royal Air Force

RCN Royal Canadian Navy

RE Royal Engineers

Recce Reconnaissance

Ref Reference

Reg. Regiment, Registration

Retd. Retired

RIN Royal Italian Navy

RN Royal Navy

RNLO Royal Navy Liaison Officer

RNR Royal Naval Reserve

RNVR Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve

RSV Revised Standard Version Bible

Rt.Hon. Right Honourable

SASO Senior Armament Supply Officer. (This could be a special department at larger Navy bases [i.e. Malta] or an

individual officer at small RN stations)

SBNOME Senior British Naval Officer Middle East

SHAEF Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces

Sigs Signals

SIME Security Intelligence Middle East

sing Singular

SIS Secret Intelligence Service (UK)

SITREP Situation Report

SL S/L Sea Lord; Sub Lieutenant

SNO Senior Naval Officer

SOE Special Operations Executive

S of S Secretary of State

Sq. Square

SS Steamship

Tp/s Troop/s

UDBA Yugoslav Secret Service Organisation

UNCLOS I, United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, I, II

II and III and III

UNSCOP The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine

USS Under-Secretary of State, Staff (this is one of the British Admiralty Intelligence departments)

VCIGS Vice Chiefs of Imperial General Staff

VCNS Vice Chief of Naval Staff

VN Verbal Note (a written summary of a diplomatic document)

V/S Visual Signalling

WD Works Department

wef with effect from

WJC World Jewish Congress

WO War Office; War Office Files

W/T Wireless Telegraph; Wireless Telegram

Y Jewish code-breaking organisation

1 Introduction

So a vicious circle is set up. The more refugees arrive in the west, the greater the activity of Zionists in organising illegal immigration, the greater the number of illegal immigrants making their way to the coast of Palestine, the greater the need for His Majestys Government to take measures to prevent such an influx from destroying the chance of an agreed solution to the problem. The stricter these measures, the larger the number of Jewish refugees piling up in camps in Europe.1

The high emotions raised by the subject of illegal immigration to Palestine have subsided long ago and it is now possible, indeed essential, to deal with the topic dispassionately. Most historians have described the events basically from the Jewish or Zionist view, this book, however, has outlined some aspects as seen and reported by the blockaders, although Jewish sources have frequently been consulted. There must be no misunderstanding; the author of this book has sought objectivity and detachment despite natural sympathy with the refugees. He obviously could not defend the views of those who either from pragmatic, or from other apparently justified reasons, supported restrictions on the number of immigrants allowed into Palestine and who demanded a more pro-Arab direction to the British post-war Palestine policy. The author did try to explain and describe this policy in the general immediate post-war context. Researches into the historical facts, a striving for detachment, but also a perception of the humanity expected by the survivors of the Holocaust became elements of this book, which examines the historical evidence in an attempt to understand how the situation has developed, how policies were executed and the extent to which they were effected. The contemporary words of policy-makers are often the most faithful way of presenting evidence, the author has therefore quoted, often extensively, from documentary sources.

Throughout this book the author, a relative newcomer to these shores, has used English and British as interchangeable concepts, perhaps an irritating solecism which was, however, common especially among Scottish and Welsh writers. He recognised that already in the eighteenth century, when the principle of nationality had entered European politics, England was fast becoming part of a single polity covering all the British isles.

In spite of an inevitable feeling of closeness and perhaps even identification with the passengers of the illegal ships, the author has tried not to take the side of the would-be immigrants, but neither could some of the British actions taken in prevention of illegal immigration be justified. Herbert Butterfields dictum that historians should refrain from judgemental moralising, self-righteous accusations and from the emphasis on sin and wickedness has always been kept in mind. The book attempts to be judicious and even-

handed and fails to blame anyone in particular, but the writer does not eschew the responsibility incumbent on a historian occasionally to point the finger.2

A number of officers and ratings who served at the time in His Majestys ships involved in the Palestine Patrol, as well as crew members of illegal Jewish vessels were interviewed in researching this book, and I am indebted for their generous assistance, but it is also well-known that the perspectives of actors who played roles in historical events could not always be entirely unbiased and objective, although the writer has sought to maintain a balanced approach that covered all the institutional participants. The perspectives, as recorded in memoirs, reports, memoranda and letters are compelling and fascinating, but the real question remains: are they history? When respectable historians such as Dalia Ofer and Zeev Vania Hadari could and did confuse the Patria with the Parita3 and the river steamer President Warfield (Exodus) with the corvette Norsyd (Haganah) or the Beauharnois (Wedgwood),4 or when Mordechai Naor locates the Athenai (Rafiah) sinking to Cyrenica,5 then unless authoritatively corrected this confusion will be perpetuated by generations of future historians, who may base their own researches on the perusal of such prestigious sources.

Corroboration of individual testimonies with documentary sources has been attempted, whenever possible or feasible. For as the historian Marc Bloch wrote in The Historians Craft: The majority of minds are but mediocre recording cameras of the surrounding world. There is no reliable witness in the absolute sense. There is only more or less reliable evidence.

In cases where memories of incidents reported in testimonies differ radically from those of other participants in these events, historians may wonder: Is he telling the truth as he honestly remembers it or is he suffering from that failure of accurate recollection that unfortunately affects all of us sooner or later?6

There is no doubt that participants in events may be totally mistaken and that the more likely reason for their version of events was attempting to paint themselves in the best possible light,7 but even serious publica-tions have accepted hearsay or anecdotal evidence as fact and thus perpetuated misconceptions.8

Researching and recording the history of any underground organisation, as the Zionist authorities promoting the clandestine immigration to Palestine necessarily had to be, as well as the measures adopted by their opponents who were occupying the Palestine desks of the great British departments of state, or perusing the reports by officers of Britains armed forces, presented special difficulties.

Jewish and British scholars and authors used basically the same documents in preparing their respective theses, dissertations, books and photographs and came up with quite different interpretations,9 with most British sources taking a lenient view of British responsibility, and most Jews laying the chief burden on Britain, while all agreed on the narrow limits of the engagement, that is, there was always mutual recognition of restraints and adherence to the unwritten rules of the game.

Researching the material for this book very soon revealed a major shortcoming: a surfeit of primary documentary material, mainly British, was unearthed in several archives, while most secondary sources as well as television programmes were written or produced by Zionist Jews and inevitably described the Jewish aspect of events. None of these accounts directly addressed the major questions of the crisis in British-Zionist

Britain's naval and political reaction to the illegal immigration of jews to palestine, 1945-1948s 2

relations, which culminated in the confrontation on the question of Jewish immigration to Palestine. I have tried to remedy this in this study.

There has hitherto been a marked absence of eye-witness accounts from British participants, who could testify and narrate the viewpoint of Royal Navys officers and ratings who participated in the efforts to stop the post-war illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine.

After considerable efforts it proved possible to alleviate this shortcoming partly by locating and identifying 45 sailors of different ranks, who served in HM warships during the critical time and were able to remember events and the attitudes of participants. I had the privilege to conduct interviews and conversations with a number of British10 and Jewish participants in the crisis. I again wish to express my gratitude to these men for their assistance.

A caveat about the reliability of the human memory has been given above by quoting the historian Marc Bloch and it seems relevant to add at this point some of the reservations expressed by the historian Jan Vansina11

In many instances the reminiscences of these elderly participants in events were seenas no more than attempts by the narrator to project a consistent image of himself and in some cases a justification of his actions. Other memories could be considered to have been reordered, reshaped or incorrectly remembered according to the part they played in the creation of the narrators self-portrait.

The authors interviews with the above-mentioned elderly ex-RN and Illegal Jewish Immigration (IJI) sailors proved again, if proof was needed that human memory is such, that it may rule out certain types of reminiscences genuinely believed to be correct.12

Following the perusal of a large number of testimonies dictated or written by participants in historical events, even of interviewees quoted in this book, and especially after a critical examination of many recollections of his own war experiences or memories, as related to his own children and grandchildren, the author can confirm that at some moment beweeen middle and old age most peoples memories start to falter and the brains function of eliminating the irrelevant and non-essential becomes unreliable.13 However, he did acquire a good insight into the gap between what may have been in the past and the rendering of memories.14

Furthermore, historians attempting to utilise oral testimonies in order to research contemporary or near contemporary events must be aware that memory is not immune to the influence of emotions and can therefore play strange tricks, magnifying and dramatising some experiences and diminishing or moderating others.15

I myself tried quite recently the reliability of oral testimonies being muddled by time. In a relatively late issue of the Navy News (December 2001) the writers of Letters to the Editor, all ex-naval personnel, made no fewer than ten statements, which although they were obviously from memory, contained more fiction than fact. But in spite of my reservation regarding the excessive use of oral testimonies, I still wished to rely in some cases on adherence to sections of witnesses often-cited oral narratives, albeit with the admonishment taken from an impeccable source, Josephus Flavius:

Introduction 3

if you [i.e. Justus] had written it twenty years ago, you might then have obtained the evidence of eyewitnesses to your accuracy. But not until now, when those persons are no longer with us, and you think you can no longer be confuted, have you ventured to publish it.16

True and applicable as far as the British-Zionist confrontation on the clandestine immigration is concerned, but many if not most British documents covering the subject were only released in the 1970s and 1980s and omitting this vital documentary evidence reposing in closed archives could have thrown grave doubts on the veracity of the narrative, which would not have been illuminated by oral testimonies, whose occasional reliability I sometimes permit myself to doubt.

The author can therefore confirm that in the case of some writers and in some interviewees a kind of retrospective embellishment happens when, probably unconsciously, they repress the negative aspects of their lives or the events they describe.17

I believe that in decrying the need to treat uncorroborated testimonies with care, I can do no better than to cite Siegfried Sassoon:

The unrevealed processes of memory are mysterious. Neither unconscious selection nor unconscious hazardry can be held responsible for ones recovery of some moment which emergesactual as everin contrast to the generalised indistinctness from which one elaborates the annals of personal experience.18

This book contains many attempts to verify dates, for the original date may have been false. Wherever the date of a quoted document was missing, the author has tried to ascertain it, and wherever a document was signed or initialled, the author has tried to establish the writers full name, his rank and his position in whatever authority he represented at the time.

Most of the relevant official papers in Britain are now open to inspection in the Public Record Office, but by 2001 permission to cite from the navys official pre-publication copy of the Narrative of the Palestine Patrol by Commander N.L.Stewart RN (retd) had not yet been granted. It was finally released with publication of Commander Stewarts Naval Staff History narrative The Royal Navy and the Palestine Patrol published by Frank Cass in August 2002.

Sections of this book refer to documents which came into the authors possession or were brought to his attention in their original French, Italian or Hebrew version. Minor inaccuracies may have crept in as a result of his translation, although every effort has been made to provide an English rendering faithful in substance and spirit to the original.

This book has been written around distinct aspects of the main topic: the policy of the British Cabinet and the major Departments of State, the Colonial Office (CO), Foreign Office (FO) and War Office (WO), towards post-Second World War Illegal Jewish Immigration to Palestine. The book investigates the immigration and anti-immigration activities of what were traditionally considered Britains finest institutions, the army, the Royal Air Force, and especially the Royal Navy, in sealing off the coast of Palestine against the entry of the remnants of European Jewry. A relatively large professional and


highly motivated Royal Navy force had applied their customary skill and initiative along with their arsenals of conventional and unconventional weapons and equipment to carry out their governments anti-immigration policy. However, the unwritten rules of engagement excluded the use of the ships primary armaments. They faced a fleet of miscellaneous ships crewed by a mixture of mercenary non-Jewish seamen and ideologically committed young Jewish men and women.

This book describes the motives for this policy and the tangled web of support it received from Britains centres of administrative and executive power, from the Colonial Office, the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, the Chiefs of Staff, the War Office, the Lord Chancellor, the Board of Trade, the Mandatory government of Palestine, the Cabinet and finally from the Prime Minister himself. The book also shows some of the disputes and divisions between Whitehall departments and between Whitehall and the Colonial governments of Palestine and Cyprus. It shows some of the disagreements between these institutions. There were differences of attitudes which sometimes seemed to border on rifts over the role of anti-Zionist themes in the denigration of immigration. It will be shown that the Foreign and Colonial Offices had developed different approaches in their confrontation with the Illegal Jewish Immigration. I hope the book will reveal some of the divergences of opinions based on contrary agendas advanced by the various offices of state and the inter-departmental search for compromises. Such controversies are illuminated at some length in the sections of this book which deal with the disputes about the three-mile limit of territorial waters, the legal background to the fight against the Illegal Jewish Immigration and the unsavoury saga of continued detainment of Jewish refugees after abandonment of the Mandate.19

The book will show that officials in the Foreign Office were quite prepared to stretch the facts in the service of what they perceived to be a wider political cause, while the Colonial Office was sometimes perhaps more scrupulous in their arguments, although they carried ultimate responsibility for Palestine and were, therefore, frequently biased in favour of the High Commissioner for Palestine and the Palestine government. The most global view of possible consequences of the confrontation was usually held by the Admiralty. In 1938 the Navy had already washed its hands of the business, except that ships on their way to and from Haifa were allowed to make a short detour (if fuel permitted), and keep a special lookout for any illicit activity.20 On the other hand the legal advisers to the various Departments of State were usually cautious and ambiguous, as legal advisers frequently have to be.

The raison dtre of the pre-war and wartime anti-immigration policy was supposed to be the Nazi threat, which after the end of the war turned seamlessly into the communist threat. Both these threats dried up in due course and revealed the true reason for the anti-Zionist policy adopted and especially for the U-turn on Palestine executed by the British Labour Partythe need not to antagonise Arab and wider Muslim feelings in the dangerous international climate of the pre-war Nazi threat and later in the anti-Soviet scenario of the Cold War. Following the end of hostilities it was mainly the self-preservation instinct of British imperialism which was trying hard to entertain the notion that communist plots lay behind most of the pressure for Jewish immigration into Palestine and indeed tried to prove that Soviet Russia stood to a large extent behind its organisation.21 The book also shows that, especially after 1938, British policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine became indelibly stained by a rather unsavoury mixture of

Introduction 5

cynicism, arrogance and sometimes plain dishonourable conduct. Worse was to come, and between 1945 and 1948, the period covered by this book, British policy on Palestine seemed to become mired in insensitive blunders and public relation disasters.

One of the aims of the author was, therefore, to research and analyse the policy of the British and Palestine governments towards the essential question of immigration and their attitude towards the Jewish survivors of Hitlers death camps.

Regarding the description of the British-Zionist confrontation as a blockade of the Palestine coast, it was necessary initially to define the applicability in this context of the word Blockade. What is a Blockade and did it apply to the British confrontation with the Illegal Jewish Immigration at its embarkation points in Europe, at sea and in Palestine itself?

Blockade has been defined as cutting a place off by troops or by ships in time of war,22 to prevent neutral ships from reaching enemy ports23 and as an act of war by the warships of a belligerent, detailed to prevent access to or departure from a defined part of the enemy coast.24 It differs from a quarantine operation, for example, the US-Soviet Union confrontation over Cuba which was not an operation of war and could not have been enforced against neutrals. Examples of typical blockades were Germanys declaration of a submarine blockade against Great Britain on 4 February 1915 and Britains retaliatory decision to seize all ships carrying goods of presumed enemy destination, ownership or origin.

It can readily be seen that the act of subjecting foreign ship owners to conformance with a British/Palestinian Immigration policy should, therefore, not have been classed as a blockade. But the processes adopted by Britain of enforcing measures designed to prevent immigrants from reaching the coast of Palestine were certainly defined at the time as a blockade, although the confrontation could not officially be so designated without, thereby, recognising that the Zionists enjoyed the status and rights of belligerents. It is, however, recognised that in International Law a blockade during time of peace may only be resorted to as a compulsive means of settling an international difference, to be allowed only as a case of intervention or reprisal.

Definitions of alternative methods such as visit and search or an embargo also did not cover adequately the various procedures adopted by British warships in the Mediterranean to ascertain whether certain vessels were carrying contraband. Visit and search is a right to be claimed only by belligerents to stop, visit and search neutral merchant vessels on the high seas and in territorial waters and confiscate contraband. Was Britain or were the Zionists belligerents and were immigrants contraband and could an embargo comparable to the US patrols attempting to enforce prohibition have been legally employed to prevent the Yishuv25 from acquiring a proportion of the population, deemed to be excessive by the Mandatory authorities?26

However, Britain claimed that a blockade instituted by a state against its own territory was not a blockade for the settling of international differences and therefore had nothing to do with the Law of Nations. However, the blockade was considered intolerable by the Jews, they saw themselves as victims and though initially defenceless, actually searched for and found means of retaliation.

There is another aspect of the British-Zionist confrontation over Jewish immigration which this book recordsthe indubitable fact that Britain was always very much aware of the minutiae of International Law and was, therefore, very concerned indeed to


establish that the exclusion of immigrants was solely within the domestic jurisdiction of the Palestine government.

To conclude: this book has been intended as a contribution to existing research and literature on the Illegal Jewish Immigration into Palestine, basing itself to a greater extent than has perhaps been accomplished by earlier publications on the frequently neglected British dimension. It will test the historical validity of some sources written on various aspects of the confrontation, such as the interaction between the various branches of the British establishment and it will also assess how far public opinion in Britain and abroad was able to influence decisions. Finally some space has been dedicated to appendices, listing for the first time in such a context as many details as seemed feasible within the constraints of space, of the protagonists: the vessels of the Royal Navy, Palestine Police and Mossad leAliyah Bet27 that were involved in the struggle.

Introduction 7

2 The determinants of British policy towards Jewish immigration into Palestine, from the

Balfour Declaration via the Royal Commissions to the 1939 White Book and to the final abandonment of the national

home commitment

This chapter shall endeavour to describe the general outline of the tortuous path from the Protestant idea for the restoration of the Jews in Palestine via the Balfour Declaration and over the various Committees of Enquiry to the final abandonment of the national home and mandate commitments. In order for the non-specialist reader to understand, and for him to be able to follow the tangled skein of the early honeymoon between Britain and the Jews, as well as the subsequent love-hate relationship with the Zionists, it was considered essential to include a chapter showing the deteriorating determinants of British policy towards Jewish immigration into Palestine. For the sake of the then prevailing atmosphere we may follow the atmosphere of idealism, practically from the period of Palmerston, his predecessors and contemporaries until Balfour and beyond and until the nadir of the British decision finally to abandon the Jewish national home and the mandate commitments had been reached.

It is essential to realise that, the development of British attitudes and policies towards an important historical movement, was the return of Jews to Palestine during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.1

The first phase in this development in English Protestant thought was the idea that the restoration of the Jews to Palestine was a necessary precursor of the Latter Days, when the Messias would come once again to inaugurate the reign of righteousness and justice, brotherhood freedom and peace.2

Evangelical Christians began to predict that Britain would henceforth be used by God in assisting the restoration of the Jews. These English Protestants read in the Old and New Testaments of Gods faithfulness towards the house of Israel, and they truly believed that God still had an ongoing purpose for the Jewish people.

The second phase followed in the 1830s and 1840s, when the attention of the British government as well as a body of high-minded English Christians was drawn during the Eastern Crisis, precipitated by the occupation of Syria by Muhammad Ali, to Britains strategic interests in Syria and Palestine. This festering crisis, as the author among many other historians believes, then led inevitably to the third phase, the process of strategic assessment and diplomatic negotiation during the First World War, which led to the issue

of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British occupation of Palestine, and the first attempts to carry out the undertakings made in the Declaration.3

In the seventeenth century there was already speculation that England had a central part to play in the advent of the Millennium and Christs Second Coming.4 The latter belief was supported by biblical texts such as the sentence in Romans, 9, 27: Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved. But the Old Testament prophecies had an even greater relevance for the Jewish aspirations:

I will bring thy seed from the east and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, give up and to the south keep not back: bring my sons from far and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

Isaiah 43, 56

Many Jews, but also many gentile Englishmen and women truly believed in the Old Testament prophecies:

I will take the children of Israeland will bring them into their own land And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children and childrens children forever.

Ezekiel 37, 215

Through their daily study of the Bible many an Englishman or woman, provided they were relatively high in the social scale of the time, had become familiar with the geography of the Holy Land. For them the deserts and towns of Edom, Judaea, Moab or Midian were as alive as their perception of English counties. They implicitly believed in the biblical prophecies which, by perpetuating Gods will, had vowed the return of the Jews to Palestine. However, the English Christian idea of Jewish Return to Palestine was unrelated to the nineteenth and twentieth-century concept of political independence for the Jews, but many Britons had been excited by the idea of restoring the Jews to their ancestral homeland after 2000 years: the British had seen themselves as secret guardians of time, capable of using their vast wealth and power to replay history.5

However, the motive force for Jewish nationalism was eventually to come not from the West, but from Eastern Europe, where continuing persecution and disillusion with the process of emancipation created a political and secular constituency for Zionism6

Palmerston wrote in 1840, There exists at present, among the Jews dispersed over Europe, a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine, and he proposed a British protectorate, under Ottoman sovereignty, over the country and that Palestine should be settled with wealthy foreign Jews.

But Palmerstons brief flirtation with the 1840 idea of a Jewish return to Palestine soon faded and,

until late in the First World War there was no serious political interest, in European circles, in the Return of the Jewsit was British political interests, as perceived in 1917, which prompted the Balfour Declaration, not dormant hopes for the Millenniumwhatever the sentimental gloss

The determinants of British policy 9

given their backing for the Zionists by bible-reading politicians like Balfour and Lloyd George,7

who as one of the fundamentalist Protestants felt hostile to the Catholics, but held to the belief that the return of Israel was nigh at hand and that England was destined to help them.

For some time there had been a supposition that the buffer zones of Sinai and Palestine were of vital strategic importance for the defence of Egypt, and Egypts north-eastern frontier had consquently already been pushed to Rafa and Aqaba.

Lord Shaftesbury was already aware of the idea of restoring the Jews to Palestine as part of Britains imperial interest and with England at war with Turkey the Zionist concept was increasingly seen as being in harmony with British interests. In the course of the war with Turkey it was frequently suggested that world Jewry be offered a Zionist arrangement for Palestine, in order to gain their support for the Allies. There had actually been calculation among British Policy makers of the effect that a pronouncement like the Balfour Declaration would have on the attitude to the war of Russian and American Jewriesthis particularly in view of rumours that the Central Powers might be contemplating a similar proZionist step. The rumours were well-founded. With the defeat of Russia and the occupation of vast Polish and Ukrainian areas, there were more than five million Jews living in the areas controlled by the Central Powers, compared to the puny circa 400,000 residing in England and the strict neutrality and largely pro-Turkish sentiments expressed by large sections of the American, German and Austrian Zionists. The author suggests perusal of even only one of very many pro-Imperial Germanys pro-Zionist documents, it read:

The Imperial Government is favourably disposed to the aspirations of the Zionist Organisation to create a Jewish National Home for the Jewish people in Palestine and is willing to promote this aim energetically.

In recognition of the great economic and cultural benefit which would accrue to the Ottoman Empire from a Jewish settlement of Palestine, the Imperial Government is prepared to intercede with the friendly Turkish Government, so that a basis may be created for the unhindered development of a Jewish settlement in Palestine.

The above draft was sent by Mathias Erzberger, a prominent leader of the German Centre [Zentrum] Party and Director of the Intelligence and Propaganda Bureaux, to Richard von Khlmann, Minister for Foreign Affairs.8

There had actually been calculation among British policy-makers of the effect that a mooted pronouncement like the Balfour Declaration would have on the attitude to the war of Russian and American Jewrythis particularly in view of rumours that the Central Powers might be contemplating a similar pro-Zionist step.

Some British statesmen became convinced that Britain and her allies would benefit immensely from the friendship of a world Jewry indebted to Britain by a Zioinist arrangement for Palestine.

This was probably one of the reasons accounting for the origin of Britains binding commitment to the Jews. Lloyd George believed that in 1917 Russian Jews had become


the chief agents of German pacifist propaganda in Russia and he announced, If Great Britain declared for the fulfilments of Zionist aspirations in Palestine under her own pledge, one effect would be to bring Russian Jewry to the cause of the entente.9

One other reason was the obvious desire to strengthen Britains hand vis--vis the French and escape the effect of the Sykes-Picot pact of 1916, with its agreement to an international administration in Palestine. Lloyd George, a fundamentalist Protestant, certainly did not want the French to have a foothold in Palestine. Together with Asquith in 1915, he believed it would be an outrage to let the Holy Places pass into the possession or under the protectorate of agnostic, atheistic France. Last but not least was the imperative to ensure that a friendly entity like a Jewish national home could prevent a potential threat to the Suez Canal.

But the British statesmen who proposed the possibility of large-scale Jewish settlement to Palestine had a rather exaggerated belief in the effect which would be produced on Jewish opinion in Russia and the United States by British support for Zionism, at a time when the attitude of both powers was considered of great, perhaps vital importance in deciding the outcome of the war. It has often been claimed that the Balfour Declaration

was an ill-considered, sentimental act largely concerned with the Hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs [Mr Lloyd George], and that it was a thing done in the tumult of the War. But hardly any step was taken with greater deliberation and responsibility.10

The Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine was meant to become a little loyal protective Ulster amidst the enveloping hosts of Arabism.11 But an inherent Arab hostility to Zionism eventually became a serious political force in the wake of the Balfour Declaration. This hostility began to command widespread support among Muslim and Christian Arabs, while the anti-Zionist awakening at the end of the First World War and its emerging Palestinian-Arab national movement led to total opposition to the Balfour Declaration and to the Jewish national home. Palestinian Arab political circles had already raised their voices in protest against Zionist settlement before the First World War, and these voices became even more vociferous after news of the Balfour Declaration had reached Palestine. Military Administration officers and British Intelligence at once encountered this opposition. In so far as the mandate incorporated a British obligation to support the National Home, the [Arab] nationalist movement also declared total opposition to the mandate.12

A conflict soon arose between those who demanded no more than civil and religious liberties and reasonable facilities for immigration and colonisation as well as such municipal privileges in the towns and colonies inhabited by them as may be shown to be necessary.13 and those who sponsored the Balfour Declaration which read:

His Majestys Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavour to facilitate the achievement of that object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and


religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,14 or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country.

This inherent conflict between aspirations and promises was never resolved. It should be noted that the National Home of the Jewish People of the original Balfour Declaration draft had been changed and watered down in the final version to a national home for the Jewish People, a subtle but not unimportant difference between two interpretations to the basic aim of Zionism. Another small but actually very significant difference between the earlier and the final version may be noted: The capitalisation of the N and H in National Home had been changed to the lower case n and h as in national home.15 These changes had probably been instigated by Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who later succeeded Balfour at the Foreign Office.16 Curzon was strongly supported by the Rt. Hon. Edwin Montagu, a Jew and then Secretary of State for India. His homeland, Montagu said, was Great Britain.

Curzon fought Balfour, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, strenuously but vainly in the latters insistence for a declaration upon a Jewish national home in Palestine, but he lost the struggle with the Cabinet for a pledge to placate the Jews, and bring them in on Britains side in the war. Lord Curzon was consistently pro-Arab and anti-Zionist, considering Balfours pro-Zionism unfair to the Arab majority in Palestine. He warned against Zionist policy and objected on numerous occasions to the terms of the Palestine Mandate. He wrote:

I have more than once pointed out the growing and almost insatiable ambitions of the Zionistswhat is the good of shutting our eyes to the fact that thisa statea body politican independent communitya republicis what the Zionists are after, and that the British trusteeship is a mere screen behind which to work for this end?17

Lord Curzon succeeded Lord Balfour as Foreign Secretary on 24 October 1919. As Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill already had to defend the

Balfour Declaration against fierce attacks in the Commons:

Broadly speaking there are two issues raised tonight, and it is very important to keep them distinct. The first is, are we to keep our pledge to the Zionists made in 1917 to the effect that Her Majestys Government will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of a National Home or are we to abandon it? Are the measures taken by the Colonial Office to fulfil that pledge reasonable and proper.18

And Churchill repudiated the McMahon promises to Shereef Hussain as made because it was considered they would be of value to us in our struggle to win the war [and] there was also accepted responsibility for fulfilling the promises we had made to the Zionists.

At that time (July 1922) the pro-Zionist policy of the Colonial Office under Churchill survived. After demanding that Britain should keep the word she has given before all the nations of the world, the anti-Zionist question was put in the House That Item A be reduced by 100 in respect of the salary of the Secretary of State and was duly defeated,


Ayes, 35Noes, 292. But it was an ill omen for the Zionists that even as far back as July 1922, the leaders of the anti-Zionist opposition in the Commons (Sir W.Joynson-Hicks and Sir J.Butcher), who had previously been enthusiastic supporters of the Balfour Declaration, had by then revised their judgement. They were soon followed by many more British parliamentarians and politicians.

Twenty-two years after the Balfour Declaration it was generally realised that the question of Jewish immigration to Palestine was critically important for the Jews of Palestine as well as for world Jewry, because it was abundantly clear that failure to rescind the 1939 White Paper restrictions would condemn the Yishuv to remain a permanent minority. In fact, demo-graphic forecasts based on birth and death rates revealed that over a foreseeable period of time without appreciable immigration the proportion of Jews in the general population of Palestine would diminish into practical insignificance. The hope of establishing a meaningful national home would thus have been dealt a mortal blow.

Repetition of the well-known arguments of nationalist Arabs about their political as distinct from their civil religious rights would exceed the scope of this book and other sources would have to be consulted for details of these claims, being based as they were on the wartime engagements to the Arabs, particularly as contained in Sir Henry McMahons correspondence with the Shereef Hussein of Mecca, given at the time with a view to securing military support against the Turks. In August 1915 Sir Henry actually wrote to the Shereef: Arab interests are English interests and English interests are Arab interests. These promises ambiguously made by McMahon were held later by Arab nationalists to have included a British promise that Palestine would form part of an Arab state, although the vague texts of the relevant documents enabled the British government to deny that there had been any such intention.19

A joint British-French declaration regarding the future government of the areas of the Ottoman Empire occupied by the allies, issued on 8 November 1918, was not so vague. It began:

The goal envisaged by France and Great Britain in prosecuting in the East the war set in train by German ambition is the complete and final liberation of the peoples who have for so long been oppressed by the Turks, and the setting up of national governments and administrations that shall derive their authority from the free exercise of the initiative and choice of the indigenous populations.20

In November 1918 the whole of Palestine was placarded by Lord Allenby with proclamations to the Arab people to this effect:

The war is to ensure the complete and final liberation of the people so long oppressed by the Turks and the establishment of a Government and administration deriving their authority from the initiative and free desire of the native population. They are far from wishing to impose any form of Government on the people against their will.


The Zionist interpretation of the Balfour Declaration, however, vigorously denied that the apparently conflicting British undertakings were incompatible. But these undertakings were quite obviously contradictory both in letter and in spirit.21

These conflicting engagements left British officials in Palestine with an uneasy conscience. Some were convinced that a British government pro-Zionist policy would involve an injustice to the Arabs of Palestine and they consequently searched for ways to change that policy, while many others were convinced that the passus in the preamble to the Mandate in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, recognised a historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and was absolutely binding on the Mandatory government.

War Office policy in the 1930s was inconsistent and fluctuated under successive commanders of the forces in Palestine. Generals Dill, Wavell and Haining saw their basic priority in defeating the Arab rebellion and they liaised with the Jews who helped the British to suppress it, but the new commander, General Evelyn Barker stressed the need to disband the Jewish armed forces.

The British dilemma of the 1930s regarding their policy in Palestine can be boiled down to three questions; Jewish Immigration, the Land Problem and the future Constitution of Palestine. The following statement with regard to British Policy was presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament.22

It is obvious that if the Mandatory Power had only to take into consideration the interests of the population, its immigration policy ought to be directed primarily by considerations of the economic needs of the country. It is, moreover, equally clear that if the Mandatory Power had to take into account the interests of the Arab population, and if its sole duty was to encourage Jewish immigration in Palestine, it might be in a position to pursue an Agrarian policy which would facilitate and expedite to a greater extent than its present policy the creation of a Jewish National Home.23

That dilemma was confronted by a Palestine government, which was supposed to base its policy upon the principle that immigration shall not exceed the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. Everything thus turned on correctly gauging the absorptive capacity of the country. Even at a perspective of more than 50 years since the events described it is mortifying for intelligent British people to observe the tortuous perambulations of British policy, which at the time were quite prepared to see Jews in Europe put to death by the Nazis for fear of Arab comment, by using the argument that Palestine had no more absorptive capacity for persecuted Jews, while at the same time importing tens of thousands of illegal Arabs into Palestine to do necessary work.24 The post-war Labour government had decided to continue Britains anti-immigration policy after the end of hostilities and was prepared to use the vestiges of her navys resources to ensure compliance with the 1939 White Paper restrictions, which had imposed restrictions on the further growth of the Jewish national home in Palestine.

The encumbrance of the Palestine government by apprehension of Arab sensitivities can characteristically be evidenced by a letter Lord Ormsby-Gore wrote regarding a


proposal to give a general service medal to armed forces personnel who had acted to suppress the 1936 Arab revolt. Ormsby-Gore wrote:

I am sorry to say that I feel I must submit reasons against the proposal on political and general groundsit can only be regarded as a medal for services against the Arabs. We do not want it to go out to the world, especially the Islamic world, that we have been at war with the Arabs. I should find the effect of such an award most embarrassing.25

Impartiality was ensured when a naval version was subsequently awarded for service in ships engaged in the Palestine Patrol.26

Following the British policy of appeasement27 which reached its peak with the Munich Agreement and the renewed confidence it created in the possibility of preserving the peace, there also came a renewed determination to settle the Palestinian issue politically. By the autumn of 1938, even after the Arab Rebellion had been put down, the military policies of the preceding summer had become a political embarrassment.

On social, political and religious grounds the general balance of the conventional British middle-class outlook on Jews was profoundly unfavourable. At one extreme was the affinity between evangelical Protestantism and interest in the Jews. In the nineteenth century this led to schemes for the re-establishment of the Jews in Palestine. It can be noted that the messianic elements in Zionism were well designed to appeal to the evangelical mind, and it is not surprising to find among the few outspokenly pro-Zionist officials in Palestine a number of nonconformist and Low Church Protestants.

This feeling, which was widespread among British officials in Palestine throughout the mandatory period, especially during its earliest and latest years, was reinforced by traditional attitudes of the British officer class towards Jews and Arabsunspoken or half-spoken assumptions which conditioned their thinking about the Palestine problem. The British officials in Palestine were drawn almost exclusively from the middle and upper-middle classes.28

On the other hand the general tenor of the Catholic Churchs attitude towards the Jews and towards Zionism was at best ambiguous. On Monday, 25 January 1904 Herzl thanked his Holiness for the audience granted to him and subsquently recorded in his diary some remarks made by the newly installed Pius X:

We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent Jews from going to Jerusalembut we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognise the Jewish people.29

On 22 January 1904 Theodor Herzl met the Vaticans Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, who told the Zionist leader: as long as the Jews deny the divinity of Christ, we certainly cannot make a declaration in their favour.30

On the occasion of the 1921 Palestinian-Arabs revolt, Pope Benedict XV, formerly Cardinal Giacomo Della Chiesa, declared that the situation in Palestine has been made


worse by the new civil arrangements (the substitution of the military government by a new civil administration) which aimed, in the opinion of the Pope, if not in their authors intention, at least in practice, to oust Christianity from its previous position and put the Jews in its place.31 Innumerable documents of the Vaticans long-time rejection of the Zionists ambitions are extant, but a more recent example of the Second Ecumenical Council Vatican II prepared by Pope John XXIII must suffice to drive home the point, so well illustrated, by recording some of the latest, somewhat futile, attempts to improve the nearly 2,000-year-old problem of the Churchs relation with the Jewish people. In 1962 the German Cardinal Augustine Bea. The Cardinal of Unity, had accepted from Pope John XXIII the formal assignment to prepare a Conciliar Declaration on the Relations of the Church to the Non-Christian Religions32 for presentation at the 196265 Second Ecumenical Council Vatican II. At the heart of the problem which soon arose were Cardinal Beas provocative questions: Are the Jews a deicide people? and are they Cursed by God?, in other words, it was considered a question of whether, when the authorities in Jerusalem of the period condemned Jesus and had him killed, they had become guilty of deicide. The expression: His blood be on us and on our children (Mathew 27:55) was quoted in this respect. The discussion over the content of Nostra aetate and the laborious process of drafting and approval of the document lasted three years. The proclaimed aim of Vatican II was aggiornamento (modernisation and updating) and the introduction of a new revolutionary dawn in Catholic-Jewish relations. But serious difficulties arose with the leaders of the traditionalist, conservative, radical-rightist groupings within the Roman Catholic Church around the French Archbishop Marcel Lefebver and the Genoese Archbishop Giuseppe Siri which led to a tactical alliance between these groupings and the Arab and Eastern delegates, the Syrian, Copt and Greek Melkite patriarchs. It proved impossible to insert even the eventually proposed watered down Nostra aetate into the Constitution of the Catholic Church. The reasoning was that if the Catholic Church and the Council absolved the Jews from the charge of deicide, they were betraying historical truth and the gospelit would have been a threat to Ecumenism.33

This moderated, unexpurgated Nostra aetate eliminated the proposed but controversial denial of the Jews collective responsibility for the death of Jesus and also omitted regret for the expression guilty of deicide. It also no longer condemned (damat) anti-Semitism, it merely deplored (deplorat) it. In the final of four versions of the statement on the Jews in Nostra aetate, drafted after almost five years of discussions, the participating cardinals thus managed to avoid any expression of remorse for the negative attitudes and consequent injustices of the past.

For his efforts in fighting for a meaningful Nostra aetate, Cardinal Bea was attacked as an enemy of the Church, a heretic, as having tricked Pope John XXIII and as having hatched a plot against the Catholic Church.

The debate on the exculpation of the Jews from guilt for the cruxifixion never came to a positive issue, not even in view of the ruthless policy of extermination, inflicted upon millions of Jews by the Nazis.

Consequently the distinctly anti-Jewish sentiment of the Roman Catholic Church,34 which rubbed off on English Catholic officials in Palestine, who were generally hostile to Zionism35 remained even after the publication of the bowdlerised Nostra aetate.


By the end of the Vatican II Council it remained clear that the Holy See never ceased to consider the Jews a rejected race and would not, or could not, remove the remaining seeds of anti-Semitism from Catholic Theology.

By the end of 1919, Arab opposition to the Zionists had stiffened and the nationalist Arabs hostility to Zionism became a political force, in spite of many attempts to tone down the anti-Zionist propaganda flooding Syria and Palestine at the time.36

After 1918 there developed a[n] [Arab] nationalist movement which, although riven by personal and clan rivalries, by suspicions between Muslims and by the end of 1919 Christians and by social and economic differences among townsmen, bedouin and felahin [peasants], commanded widespread support among Arabs. The dominant motif in the ideology of this movement was total opposition to Zionism, to the Balfour Declaration, and to the Jewish National Home Arab hostility to Zionism was demonstrated in a series of riots in 1920, 1922 and 1929, in which a large number of Jews were attacked and many killed.37

These riots and the military and political costs of their repression caused many British officials in Palestine to become thoroughly imbued with the perception of the depth of the Jewish-Arab schism. They consequently questioned whether the Balfour Declaration policy should be continued and,

repeatedly attempted to persua

Download - Britain's Naval and Political Reaction to the Illegal Immigration of Jews to Palestine, 1945-1949

Top Related