British officials predicted war – and Arab defeat – in Palestine in 1948
The British government knew from the moment it planned to withdraw its forces from Palestine more than 60 years ago that partition of the territory and the founding of the state of Israel would lead to war and defeat for the Arabs, secret documents released make clear. The documents, which have a remarkable contemporary resonance, reveal how British officials looked on as Jewish settlers took over more and more Arab land.
In the weeks leading up to the partition of Palestine in 1948, when Britain gave up its UN mandate, Jewish terrorist groups were mounting increasing attacks on UK forces and Arab fighters, the Colonial Office papers show. And they reveal how senior British officials were occupied in deciding how to allocate between them two Rolls-Royces and a Daimler. The papers, released at the National Archives, show how in regular intelligence reports to London, British officials in Jerusalem described a steady build-up of tension as Britain, the US, the United Nations and Zionists moved towards the partition of Palestine.
As early as October 1946, two years before partition, UK officials warned London that Jewish opinion would oppose partition "unless the Jewish share were so enlarged as to make the scheme wholly unacceptable to Arabs". British officials warned the colonial secretary, George Hall: "The Jewish public … endorsed the attitude of its leaders that terrorism is a natural consequence of the general policy of His Majesty's Government", including turning away ships carrying "illegal" Jewish immigrants.
Moderate Jewish leaders were frightened of being called quislings, British officials told London, referring to collaborators with Nazi Germany in occupied countries. The next UK intelligence report referred to "effective pressures which Zionists in America are in a position to exert on the American administration".
After an increase in violent attacks by the militant Zionists of the Stern group and Irgun, British officials reported later in 1946: "Arab leaders appear to be still disposed to defer active opposition so long as a chance of a political decision acceptable to Arab interests exists." But they warned: "There is a real danger lest any further Jewish provocation may result in isolated acts of retaliation spreading inevitably to wider Arab-Jewish clashes".
A report dated October 1947 refers to Menachem Begin, commander of Irgun, stating in a press interview that "the fight against the British invader would continue until the last one left Palestine". Begin was later elected prime minister of Israel and signed a peace treaty with Egypt's president Anwar Sadat in 1979, for which the two leaders were awarded the Nobel peace prize.
By early 1948 British officials were reporting that "the Arabs have suffered a series of overwhelming defeats." They added: "Jewish victories … have reduced Arab morale to zero and, following the cowardly example of their inept leaders, they are fleeing from the mixed areas in their thousands. It is now obvious that the only hope of regaining their position lies in the regular armies of the Arab states." London was warned: "Arab-Jewish violence is now diffused over virtually all of Palestine". A few days later, British officials spoke of "internicine [sic] strife" and the "steady influx of Arab volunteers" from neighbouring countries.
The papers show that two years earlier, British intelligence officials were reporting "disturbing indications of a revival of political interest and activity among the rank and file of Palestinian Arabs ... The decision to admit Cyprus deportees [Jews deported to camps on the island] against the immigration quotas, the impression that concessions have been made by His Majesty's Government in deference to Jewish pressure and terrorism … have been instrumental in arousing Arab public feeling.".. read more:
Secret government files from the final years of the British empire are still being concealed despite a pledge by William Hague, the foreign secretary, that they would be declassified and opened to the public. The withheld files are among a huge cache of documents that remained hidden from view for decades at an undisclosed Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) archive, in breach of laws governing the handling of official papers. Once the existence of the archive became known to lawyers for a group of elderly Kenyans who are trying to sue the British government over the abuses they suffered during the Mau Mau insurgency, Hague ordered an inquiry and promised disclosure.
He told MPs: "I believe that it is the right thing to do for the information in these files now to be properly examined and recorded and made available to the public through the National Archives. It is my intention to release every part of every paper of interest subject only to legal exemptions." However, it emerged this week that the Foreign Office is holding back significant numbers of documents, using a legal exemption contained within a catch-all clause within the very law that it had breached by maintaining the secret archive.
Among the papers known to have been withheld by the FCO are a file that contains the minutes of many of the meetings of the cabinet of the British colonial government in Kenya in 1963, the year before independence; a file about compensation that was paid after the 1946 bombing of the British military HQ at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem; and a file containing telegrams that British diplomats sent to London from Mauritius in 1968, the year that colony proclaimed independence...
