Palestine Investigated: The Criminal Investigation Department of the Palestine Police Force, 1920-1948

343 Pages·2016·3.97 MB·English

by  Eldad Harouvi

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“Dr Harouvi has conducted a wide-ranging study of the British archives and of memoirs by
veterans of the Mandatory Palestine Police, and recorded oral documentation from former CID
personnel still living. In his assiduous and painstaking research he has left no stone unturned;
even while not yet in book form, it has served and has been studied by researchers of the
Mandate period in the history of the Land of Israel and the Yishuv . . . and no less, by every
scholar engaged in the history of police organizations and their work generally.” Prof. Yoav
Gelber, University of Haifa
“Until the Mandate fell, the CID became a political intelligence body, charged with preventa-
tive security. It performed well during two great revolts, one by Arabs between 1936-1939, and
another by Jews between 1944–1948, though its limits against able Jewish competitors shaped
Britain’s decision to abandon the Mandate in 1948. The CID was a well-informed body, with
good sources among Jews and Arabs, and a judicious grasp of social attitudes and elite politics.
Its records include transcripts of secret meetings by Jewish leaders, conducted in rooms bugged
by the CID. Equally, Jewish intelligence had live access to many CID files.” Prof. John Ferris,
University of Calgary
This book tells the story of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the
Palestine Police Force (PPF) in the historical context which impacted the CID’s
missions, methods, and composition. At first, the CID was engaged in providing tech-
nical assistance for criminal investigation. Following the PPF’s poor performance in
the Arab Riots in 1929, a commission of inquiry, headed by Sir Herbert Dowbiggin,
recommended adding intelligence gathering and surveillance of political elements to
police functions. Teams were set up and a Special Branch established.
From 1932 the CID deployed a network of “live sources” among the Arabs and
Jews, and issued intelligence summaries evaluating Arab and Jewish political activity.
Post-1935 the security situation deteriorated: Arab policemen and officials joined the
Arab side, thus drying-up sources of information; the British therefore asked for assis-
tance from the Jewish population. In 1937 Sir Charles Tegart recommended that the
CID invest in obtaining raw intelligence by direct contacts in the field. In 1938 Arthur
Giles took command and targeted both the Revisionist and Yishuv movements.
Although the CID did not succeed in obtaining sufficient tactical information to
prevent Yishuv actions, Giles identified the mood of the Jewish leadership and public
– an important intelligence accomplishment regarding Britain’s attitude towards the
Palestine question. But British impotence in the field was manifested by the failure to
prevent the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Towards the end of the Mandate, as civil war broke out following the UN General
Assembly resolution of November 1947, the CID was primarily engaged in docu-
menting events and providing evaluations to London whose decision-makers put high
value on CID intelligence as they formulated political responses.
Eldad Harouvi is a military historian and director of the Palmach Archive in Tel Aviv. He
specializes in the role of British Intelligence during the Palestine Mandate. His MA thesis exam-
ined British Intelligence cooperation with the Jewish Agency during the Second World War. Dr
Harouvi was previously an officer in the IDF Military Intelligence.
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For my dear father, Yosef Harouvi,
who supported and encouraged me throughout the years
but did not live to see this book published
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Copyright © Eldad Harouvi, 2016.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2016.
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP, UK
and simultaneously in the United States of America and Canada
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78284-340-5 (e-pub)
ISBN 978-1-78284-341-2 (e-mobi)
ISBN 978-1-78284-342-9 (e-pdf)
This e-book text has been prepared for electronic viewing. Some features, including
tables and figures, might not display as in the print version, due to
electronic conversion limitations and/or copyright strictures.
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Contents
Foreword by Professor Yoav Gelber vii
Foreword by Professor John Ferris ix
Acknowledgments xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Map: Palestine 1945 xvii
CID Structure, 1946–1948 xviii
Introduction 1
1
The Colonial Police 5
2
The Beginning of the Palestine Police Force 12
3
From Disturbances to Suppression of an Uprising, 1929–1935 28
4
Reorganisation: Lessons Learnt from the Unrest of 1930 38
to 1935
5
The CID at the Turning Point of the Mandate: April 1936 to 55
June 1940
6
Threats Outside and In: June 1940 to May 1943 82
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vi | Contents
7
The CID against the Jewish Uprising: June 1943 to May 1945 114
8
The Hardening British Struggle against the Jewish Terror: 131
November 1944 to August 1947
9
The CID in the Waning of the Mandate: Autumn 1947 203
to May 1948
10
End of the Mandate: Transfer of Power 222
Summary and Conclusions 225
Appendices and Tables 238
Notes 254
Bibliographical Sources 289
Name Index 298
Place Index 305
Subject Index 309
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Foreword by
Yoav Gelber
Palestine Investigated tells the enthralling story of the Criminal Investigation
Department (CID) of the Palestine Police at the time of the British Mandate for
Palestine. This was far more than an ordinary investigative police section. It also oper-
ated as the major intelligence service of the Mandatory government in its contention
with Arab rioters and rebels, with the Jewish Hagana (the main paramilitary organi-
zation of the Yishuv) and underground groups, and with other perils — Nazis and
Communists. The CID, which was the object of hostility and dislike in the Yishuv (the
Jewish settlement in Palestine before the State of Israel), is therefore an original and
unique prism through which to study the history of Mandatory rule in Palestine from
the viewpoint of the British authorities.
The story of the CID is also a test case in the history of the British colonial police.
The various embodiments and transformations it underwent during the Mandate
years reflect the changes in the development of the British colonial police generally,
and in the conditions of British rule in Palestine specifically. From a unit whose main
activity was in the criminal domain, the CID turned into the colonial authority’s fore-
most tool in its struggles for self-preservation and in its fights against the liberation
movements that sprang up all across the British Empire in the course of the twentieth
century. The CID in Palestine was influenced by, and adopted, operational methods
and techniques derived from the rule and the conflicts of the British in Ireland, in India,
in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), in Egypt, and in Africa, which were imported into Palestine by
officers who had previously served in those countries and acquired their experience
there.
Arab and Jewish officers and other ranks served in the CID alongside their British
counterparts, but their standing grew ever more intolerable as the organization in
which they served concentrated increasingly on struggles against their communities.
Their numbers dwindled, and their duties were circumscribed.
The CID archive was left in Israel in 1948 and remained for many long years in
the storerooms of the Shabak (the Israeli Security Service, known by its Hebrew initials
‘Shin-Bet’ in Israel’s first years). With its ‘unfreezing’ and transfer of parts of it to the
Hagana archives, it became the basis of the research project of Dr Eldad Harouvi, who
worked in the hitherto untouched archive. The book is an adaptation of his doctoral
dissertation. In addition to his work at the CID archive in Israel, Dr Harouvi
conducted a wide-ranging study of the British archives and of memoirs by veterans of
the Mandatory Palestine Police, and recorded oral documentation from former CID
personnel still living. In his assiduous and painstaking research he left no stone
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viii | Foreword by Yoav Gelber
unturned; even while not yet in book form, it has served and has been studied by
researchers of the Mandate period in the history of the Land of Israel and the Yishuv,
and by anyone interested in the subject; and no less, by every scholar engaged in the
history of police organizations and their work generally.
THEUNIVERSITYOFHAIFA
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Foreword by
John Ferris
Britain is central to the demonology of more nations than any other country, even if
it remains a lesser Satan than Nazi Germany, the USSR or Imperial Japan. Britain
held so much territory, and handed power to so many people, that its rule is central
to the history of almost half of the world. In these histories, Britain’s role is complex.
Any self-respecting nation emerges through struggle; thus, it must have overcome a
tyrant. Britain easily fits this role, or can be fit into it. A rhetoric of resistance to British
tyranny links countries ranging from the United States to India, but so do other things
it left behind, like legal systems, political traditions, and the world’s leading language.
The scale of these legacies, and their complexity, produces confusion in memory.
After the passing of decades, in countries which once were its colonies, no one loves
the memory of Britain, yet few hate it without reserve. Modern Britons have hazy
memories of what they once were, and view that past through nostalgia and unease.
Everywhere, the issue of empire remains controversial, and discussion is dominated
by value judgments: was British rule good? Bad? Monstrous in nature, regardless the
consequences? Or worthy despite itself — in its effect, no matter the intentions?
These controversies turn on clashes between myth, ignorance, evidence and
history. The clash is not simply myth versus history. It also occurs between myths,
and then histories, as evidence emerges, subject to competing interpretations. These
clashes shape our grasp of how the British Empire worked, and ended. At their heart
are matters of power and coercion, which take complex forms. Police forces, for
example, are a central link between states and societies. Even in the best case, their
work involves issues which force value judgments, like collaboration, justice, order,
security, and resistance. Judgment on such issues is hard, doubly so when it involves
colonial police forces. British authorities viewed such forces as the tool of a legitimate
state, a screwdriver to maintain peace, order, and good government. Nationalists saw
them as the spy and the sword of a tyrant. Both sides turned these interpretations into
myth, and wielded them as a weapon. In hindsight, meanwhile, westerners cannot
easily regard political coercion as good, nor the British Empire as bad. Once colonized
peoples may conclude that order and good government were insufficient to justify
British rule, but still remember those aims with some affection after their passing, and
perhaps so too the means which enforced them.
Colonial police forces defined Britain’s rule, and the ways that subjects collabo-
rated with or resisted it. To study such forces raises mixed feelings all round. Nor are
such studies easy to conduct. These questions about rule and resistance remained
politically live for decades after decolonization, in Britain and its lost colonies, which