Prologue

The history of Palestine is one of violence. Its land has been won and rewon a hundred times, and the price has always been death. One might think its soil would be fruitful with the constant gift to the earth of the rich protein of human flesh and the valuable minerals of human blood, but a large part of it remains a desert, the few oases torn from its arid soil only by great determination. Sitting as it does across the main trade routes between Africa and Asia, it has been the target for greedy invaders since recorded time. The Israelites ruled it; the Assyrians and the Babylonians ruled it; Alexander of Macedonia ruled it; the Ptolomies ruled it; the Romans ruled it; Islam ruled it; Napoleon tried to rule it and failed; the Ottoman Turks ruled it, and in between many others ruled it, and each left the mark of his hand upon the land and the people.

Now, in 1946, the country is ruled by the British under a League of Nations mandate approved in 1922, a mandate which incorporates within it the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, promising British support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Still, the British white paper of 1939, which restricted Jewish immigration to 15,000 persons per year is, in this year 1946, still the official British policy, despite the toll of the holocaust, despite the desperate plight of the Jews of Europe. But in the interim six years the Jews of Palestine fought with the British Army on many fronts and were an important factor in the struggle against Rommel and the Afrika Korps. Egypt and the other Arab forces behind the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husaiani, on the other hand, actively supported Hitler and the Nazis. As a result, the Jews feel they have a right to expect a relaxation in British immigration policy as the minimum they should receive for their sacrifices.

In November of 1945 an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry is formed to examine the status of Jews in former Axis-occupied countries and to discover how many are impelled by their conditions to migrate. After all, almost a year has passed since liberation of many of the camps in Europe, and many if not most of the survivors are still living in so-called assembly centers—camps in the very communities where they had been made to suffer. The committee recommends that all countries join in offering a new home to the survivors of the holocaust, and that as part of this program, Palestine permit the immediate immigration of 100,000 Jews. Although Britain has been instrumental in the formation of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, she refuses to follow the recommendations of the committee. The British detain thousands of persons attempting to run the British blockade, stopping their ships even on the high seas, returning the ships and their crews to the ports from which they originally sailed, and interning the passengers, men, women, and children, in detention camps both in Cyprus and in Palestine itself, camps which are simply British-style concentration camps, barbed wire and all.

Britain is neither cruel nor inhumane. They need Arab oil, and to assure themselves of it they accede to almost any Arab demand, including the severe restriction of Jewish immigration. The Arabs honestly fear the immigration of Jews, feeling that the intrusion of Jews on any scale represents a threat to their own national aspirations. And the British have promised all things to all people, Jew and Arab alike, and are now in the uncomfortable position of being unwilling or unable—or both—to fulfill their promises to either side.

In their frustration, the British increase their repression, and the answer of the Jews is disregard for the authority of the crown. The Haganah, the defense forces of the Jews in Palestine, together with its elite striking force, the Palmach, as well as the Mossad, the intelligence arm of the Jewish forces who are responsible for helping the illegal immigrants reach Palestine in defiance of British restrictions, turn their full efforts toward overcoming these restrictions. The Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang, underground armies dedicated to violent reprisal for each British act of repression, become more active. The Irgun and the Stern Gang are not particularly popular, nor are their methods approved by many Jews either in Palestine or in the rest of the world, but emotions are high and both underground armies have little trouble recruiting. Buildings are dynamited with large loss of life, Jews are caught and hung, British soldiers are hung in reprisal.

History is repeating itself in Palestine.