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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Insurgency and counter-insurgency in Palestine, 1945-1947. Charters, D A The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 09. Oct. 2021 NOTE This thesis has been produced on 8-1/2" x 11" paper because paper of the required A4 size is not available in Fredericton, New Brunswick. D. A. Charters BIOL. I.ONflIN. IThJI' . INSURGENCY AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY IN PALESTINE, 1945-1947 by David Anderson Charters, B. A., M. A. (New Brunswick) Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at KING'S COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ABSTRACT INSURGENCY AND COUNTER-INSURGENCY IN PALESTINE, 1945-1947 David Anderson Charters This is a study of the relationship of political and military factors in the British counter-insurgency campaign in Palestine between 1945 and 1947. From 1920 to 1948 Great Britain held the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine under the terms of which Britain was to facilitate the creation in Palestine of a national home for the Jews. The Zionist movement believed that British policy towards the Arabs from 1939 violated the terms of the Mandate in respect of obligations to the Jews. Consequently, after the war Jewish insurgents initiated an armed struggle for national liberation. The insurgents used terrorism, subversion and prop- aganda to"make Palestine ungovernable by normal means and within acceptable limits in terms of human, political and financial costs. The British Government responded to the challenge with political initiatives and internal security operations. British political endeavours failed to produce a solution to the Palestine question because it proved impossible to reconcile British strategic interests in the Middle East, Arab claims to Palestine and Jewish aspirations to statehood. In the absence of a political settlement Britain could retain control of Palestine only by coercion. The security forces, however, lacked a relevant counter-insurgency doctrine and were weak in the critical field of intelligence. Consequently, they were unable to contain the insurgency. The failure of political efforts and the inability to control violence in Palestine coincided with a period of economic crisis and strategic reassessment in Britain. As a result, the British Government decided in September 1947 to relinquish the Palestine Mandate. I TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ABBREVIATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS b FOREWORD S CHAPTER 10 I INTRODUCTION 1 'ý II BRITISH PALESTINE POLICY, 1945-1947 ti.4 III COUNTER-INSURGENCY DOCTRINE IV POLICE, INTELLIGENCE, AND LAW ENFORCEMENT ýl V JEWISH INSURGENT ORGANIZATION AND STRATEGY l t.F VI INSURGENT AND SECURITY FORCE OPERATIONS VII PROPAGANDA I3ä VIII ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS APPENDIX I THE AtINISTRATION OF PALESTINE 2M II THE DEFENCE (EMERGENCY) REGULATIONS, 1945 III THE PALESTINE POLICE FORCE 2t7 IV THE BRITISH ARMY IN PALESTINE V INSURGENT ORGANIZATIONS 22I VI INSURGENT OPERATIONS IN PALESTINE 2.2.'f VII SECURITY FORCE SEARCH OPERATIONS 2*1 VIII THE COST OF INTERNAL SECURITY BIBLIOGRAPHY I ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE TEXT AND THE FOOTNOTES AAR - Annual Administrative Report AB - Airborne AIG - Assistant Inspector-General ALFP - American League for a Free Palestine. AQDJ - Army Quarterly and Defence Journal Armd - Armoured BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation Bde. - Brigade BGS - Brigadier, General Staff BIS - British Information Service BPP - British Parliamentary Papers CAB - Papers of the British Cabinet Office, Public Record Office, Kew, Middlesex CDC - Cabinet Defence Committee CID - Criminal Investigation Department CIGS - Chief of the Imperial General Staff C in C - Commander in Chief CM - Cabinet Minutes CO - Papers of the British Colonial Office, Public Record Office, Kew, Middlesex COI - Central Office of Information COSC - Chiefs of Staff Committee COSITINTREP - Confidential Situation Intelligence Report CP - Cabinet Paper DIG - Deputy Inspector-General Div. - Division DSP - District Superintendent of Police f. - file/folio FIN - Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter FIS - Fortnightly Intelligence Summary FO - Papers of the British Foreign Office, Public Record Office, Kew, Middlesex G - General Staff y' GHQ - General Headquarters GOC - General Officer Commanding GS - General Staff GSI - General Staff, Intelligence HC - House of Commons Hon. - Honourable HQ - Headquarters IG - Inspector-General INF - Papers of the British Ministry of Information, Public Record Office, Kew, Middlesex Inf. - Infantry IS - Internal Security ISUM - Intelligence Summary IZL - Irgun Zvai Leumi JRUSI - Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies LHI - Lochmei Heruth Israel MELF - Middle East Land Forces MOI - Ministry of Information NCO - Non-Commissioned Officer 0I - Operational Instruction 00 - Operational order OPC - Overseas Planning Committee Op(s) - Operation(s) Para. - Parachute PHP - Post-Hostilities Planning Staff PIO - Public Information Office PMF - Police Mobile Force RAC - Royal Armoured Corps RAF - Royal Air Force Regt. - Regiment RHQ - Regimental Headquarters RIC - Royal Irish Constabulary Rt. Hon. - Right Honourable SAS - Special Air Service 5 SITREP - Situation Report SOE - Special Operations Executive Trg - Training UNSCOP - United Nations Special Committee on Palestine WCP - War Cabinet Paper WIR - Weekly Intelligence Review WIS - Weekly Intelligence Summary WMIR - Weekly Military Intelligence Review WO - Papers of the British War Office, Public Record Office, Kew, Middlesex WZO - World Zionist Organization ZOA - Zionist Organization of America (2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Dr. Wolf Mendl, for his continued guidance and encourage- ment. I am also grateful to the academic staffs at the Department of War Studies, King's College, and the Depart- ment of History, University of New Brunswick for providing the opportunities and atmosphere for stimulating research and discussion. My thanks are due also to those who have provided information, advice and insights, or who have read chapters in draft and provided comments, or who have made adminis- trative and other arrangements, including visits and research. The list, inevitably, is incomplete: Dr. G. P. Armstrong, Department of National Defence, Ottawa; Brigadier The Lord Ballantrae; General Sir Evelyn Barker; Field Marshal Sir James Cassels; Sir Richard Catling; The Rt. Hon. Sir Martin Charteris; Mrs. Thelma Clarke, Fredericton; Mrs. Joanna Connell, King's College; Major-General Anthony Deane-Drummond; Dr. Peter Dennis, Royal Military College, Duntroon, Australia; The Hon. Roy Farran, Calgary, Alberta; Dr. Toby Graham, University of New Brunswick; Mr. Monte Harris, Dublin; Lady Kathleen Liddell Hart; Mr. Yisrael Medad, National Studies Institute, Jerusalem; Mr. Dan Nimrod, Montreal; Mrs. Sylvia Smither, King's College; Captain Howard Steers, King's College; Brigadier Maurice Tugwell; Mr. K. M. White, Staff College, Camberley; Professor Paul Wilkinson, University of Aberdeen. I am particularly indebted to the large number of persons who agreed to be interviewed on the subject of Palestine and whose names are listed in the bibliography. I am grateful as well for the assistance provided by the staffs of the Public Record Office and the following libraries: The British Library; Harriet Irving Library, University of New Brunswick; Imperial War Museum; Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College; Middle East Library, St. Antony's College, Oxford; Rhodes House Library, Oxford; Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies; Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University; and the Wiener Library, London. Finally, I thank my family, and my grandparents in particular, for providing the encouragement and assistance which allowed me to study the subject that interested me. 7 To make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife. T. E. Lawrence, 1920. FOREWORD Between October 1945 and September 1947 the British Government and its security forces fought a violent, bit- ter and ultimately unsuccessful campaign against Jewish insurgents determined to establish an independent state in Palestine. The insurgents forced the British to fight a two-front war; a strategic/political battle for legitimacy-- the right to govern, and a tactical/military battle for control, the