The 1945–1952 British Government's Opposition to Zionism and the Emergent State of Israel PDF
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The 1945–1952 British Government’s Opposition to Zionism and the Emergent State of Israel The 1945–1952 British Government’s Opposition to Zionism and the Emergent State of Israel Nick Reynold LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE Copyright © 2022 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any elec- tronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Reynold, Nick, author. Title: The 1945–1952 British government’s opposition to Zionism and the emergent state of Israel / Nick Reynold. Description: Lanham: Lexington Books, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021022707 (print) | LCCN 2021022708 (ebook) | ISBN 9781793629258 (cloth) | ISBN 9781793629265 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Zionism—Great Britain—Public opinion. | Great Britain— Politics and government—20th century. | Great Britain—Foreign relations—Palestine. | Palestine—Foreign relations—Great Britain. | Great Britain—Foreign relations—20th century. | Mandates—Great Britain— History. | Mandates—Palestine—History. Classification: LCC DS149.5.G4 R49 2021 (print) | LCC DS149.5.G4 (ebook) | DDC 956.94/04—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022707 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021022708 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Contents Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The State of Play in the Summer of 1945 5 Chapter 2: The Two Labour Leaders 9 Chapter 3 : Anti-Semitism in British Society and Anti-Zionism within the British Establishment 27 Chapter 4: The American President versus the British Prime Minister 53 Chapter 5: The Yishuv Declares War against Great Britain 89 Chapter 6: The Road Leading to the UN Partition Proposal of November 1947 121 Chapter 7: The Final Six Months of the Mandate: The Political Scene 155 Chapter 8: The Final Six Months of the Mandate: The Military Conflict 173 Chapter 9: Israel 209 Conclusion 231 Bibliography 237 Index 243 About the Author 247 v Abbreviations AAC Anglo-American Commission of Enquiry AHC Arab Higher Council ALA Arab Liberation Army B-G David Ben-Gurion CID Criminal Investigation Department (British Police) C-in-C Commander in Chief CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff CO Colonial Office COS Military Chiefs of Staff DPs Displaced Persons FM Foreign Minister FO Foreign Office GOC General Officer Commanding. HC British High Commissioner for Palestine HMG British Government H-S Sir John Hope-Simpson IDF Israel Defense Forces JAE Jewish Agency Executive JFF Jewish Fighting Force MP Member of British Parliament OETA Occupied Enemy Territory Administration PM British Prime Minister TGWU Transport and General Workers Union TUC Trade Union Conference UNO United Nations Organisation vii viii Abbreviations VE Day End of Second World War ZO World Zionist Organisation ZOA Zionist Organisation of America Introduction This book describes a somewhat unusual set of circumstances as it tells the story of a long-standing campaign conducted by senior members of a British Government over a five-year period against a fledgling nationalist movement immediately after World War II. It is even more unusual because the two senior Cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, had very little knowledge about or interest in their intended ‘victims’ at the time that they took office. What led them to this situation was that various bodies both internally and externally were able to persuade them to adopt their own firmly held position when they had no position of their own. The Zionist Movement was born in Basel, Switzerland at the end of the 19th century. Its father was Theodore Herzl. Herzl, in his position as President of the World Zionist Organisation, had visited Britain on a number of occasions before his death in 1904, in an effort to interest the British Jewish community and gain its support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. On his death, Chaim Weizmann, a Russian academic, moved to England and began to invigorate a British Zionist Movement, which as yet was very small, weak and divided. As part of his campaign, Weizmann set out to cultivate influen- tial and useful British political leaders, such as Lloyd-George, Arthur (later, Lord) Balfour and Herbert Samuel. During various meetings that Weizmann was able to arrange within the British hierarchy it was apparent that the British Government shared a com- mon interest with the Zionist Movement, in that both of them were seeking to establish a permanent presence in Palestine. For the previous 300 years the Ottoman Empire had been the masters of the Middle East, but now that the First World War had broken out in 1914, Turkey was fighting on the side of Germany against Britain and its Allies. There was now a strong likelihood that the Turks would be defeated in the Middle East and Palestine would be vacant and ‘up for grabs’, in which case Britain had high hopes that it would be nominated to take over the running of Palestine, which would completely satisfy the military and strategic needs that it had in the area. Lloyd-George and Balfour then concluded that Britain’s chances of landing the job, that would be allocated by the League of Nations, would be greatly 1
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