1 00:00:07,070 --> 00:00:17,870 Good afternoon and welcome, everybody. It's a great pleasure to introduce our friend Peter Bergen, who is for the few who a few who do not know him. 2 00:00:17,870 --> 00:00:21,050 Peter is a lecturer in Oriental Studies at Maskin College. 3 00:00:21,050 --> 00:00:30,140 His research focuses on the period of the British mandate for Palestine with particular interest in maximalist revisionist Zionism. 4 00:00:30,140 --> 00:00:39,230 His first book, The Making of the Israeli Far Right Baqi Me and Zionist Ideology, published earlier this year, 5 00:00:39,230 --> 00:00:50,090 focussed on the ideological and political genesis of one of the major leaders of pro fascist far right Zionism in the 1920s and 30s. 6 00:00:50,090 --> 00:00:54,650 Because growing research from which his lecture today is derived examines British archival 7 00:00:54,650 --> 00:01:01,730 sources to study the reasons for Britain's withdrawal from its Palestine Palestine mandate. 8 00:01:01,730 --> 00:01:09,470 And the title is given to his talk, his guns and Moses Jewish and British resistance during the mandate for Palestine. 9 00:01:09,470 --> 00:01:16,220 Maybe before we begin, I must say that the title is that a bit too suggestive for us, too for many of us to resist suggesting alternatives. 10 00:01:16,220 --> 00:01:22,870 So if we could keep it for the Czechs to offer your alternative pop music references. 11 00:01:22,870 --> 00:01:27,970 Peter, thank you for coming. Lovely to have you on the stage. 12 00:01:27,970 --> 00:01:32,360 Ya'akov. Thank you very much for the invitation as always. And it's really fun to be here. 13 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:39,340 And since you talked about the Guns and Roses reference, I just might inform you all in kind of I think we're all a bit fed up. 14 00:01:39,340 --> 00:01:42,440 I assumed, as I say in Yiddish at this stage of the term. 15 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:48,740 So what I've done to try and keep everybody a little bit interested is embedded nine Guns N Roses references into the lecture. 16 00:01:48,740 --> 00:01:52,310 And just see if you can get them all. You should be giving this lecture and not me. 17 00:01:52,310 --> 00:01:58,730 So I'm gonna give a few minutes of context and then I'm going to go to the actual lecture itself. 18 00:01:58,730 --> 00:02:07,060 So the paper now examines the period from February 1944 when Menachem Begin in the Gun declared a revolt against British rule. 19 00:02:07,060 --> 00:02:11,420 And I'll speak about that in a second. Explain what that means. Two April 1947, 20 00:02:11,420 --> 00:02:15,830 when Britain appealed to the United Nations to be released from the mandate for Palestine in order 21 00:02:15,830 --> 00:02:21,350 to try to show the true extent of Jewish anti British insurgency in the final year of the mandate. 22 00:02:21,350 --> 00:02:25,760 But first, the context. So in April 1939, 23 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:29,360 in reaction to three years of Arab rebellion in Palestine and in the wake of an 24 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:34,280 unsuccessful conference in February 1939 that had hoped to resolve the issue, 25 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:40,400 the Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald authored a white paper that spelled out future British policy in the region. 26 00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:48,290 It foresaw, and I quote, the establishment within 10 years of an independent Palestine state, possibly of a federal nature. 27 00:02:48,290 --> 00:02:52,160 End of quote, in treaty with Britain, of course, who would ensure its commercial and political durability? 28 00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:58,070 Not a big surprise, right? A transition period would precede this during which Britain would continue to act as the mandatory power again, 29 00:02:58,070 --> 00:03:01,100 not a surprise, and thus remain responsible for governance. 30 00:03:01,100 --> 00:03:05,750 The intention was for Arabs and Jews to participate equally in the governance of the country. 31 00:03:05,750 --> 00:03:10,100 Most damning of all for the Jews, at least, was the paper's limitation of immigration. 32 00:03:10,100 --> 00:03:12,290 Over the next five years to ten thousand per year, 33 00:03:12,290 --> 00:03:18,170 with a contribution towards the solution of the Jewish refugee problem of twenty five thousand refugees, 34 00:03:18,170 --> 00:03:23,030 as soon as the High Commissioner could ensure that conditions were adequate for their absorption. 35 00:03:23,030 --> 00:03:28,640 After the five year period, there would be no further Jewish immigration unless sanctioned by the Palestinian Arabs. 36 00:03:28,640 --> 00:03:34,700 Furthermore, and I quote, His Majesty's government was determined to cheque illegal immigration against which, 37 00:03:34,700 --> 00:03:40,180 again, further preventive measures were being adopted and would be strictly enforced. 38 00:03:40,180 --> 00:03:49,610 Now, if we consider that by April 1939, half of Germany's Jewish population, over 300000 refugees, had already left the country in country. 39 00:03:49,610 --> 00:03:54,560 Britain's proposed contribution of twenty five thousand was a rather meagre one indeed. 40 00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:58,600 Likewise, MacDonald's assertion that now I hope the slide works. Yes. 41 00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:05,210 No. Next slide. Hold on. Hold on. 42 00:04:05,210 --> 00:04:08,570 I'm stuck. Sinister. Yeah. Hang on. 43 00:04:08,570 --> 00:04:12,290 It's because I've got something else. Shooting up. Good old. 44 00:04:12,290 --> 00:04:17,450 Good old. All right. Here we go. There we go. Technology. 45 00:04:17,450 --> 00:04:22,970 No, not yet. Oh, yes. OK. Yes. Likewise, McDonnell's assertion that Britain was satisfied that I quote, 46 00:04:22,970 --> 00:04:27,590 when the immigration over five years, which is now contemplated, has taken place. 47 00:04:27,590 --> 00:04:33,170 His Majesty's government will have no further obligation to facilitate the establishment of the Jewish national home. 48 00:04:33,170 --> 00:04:38,930 That's kind of left out when we talk about the white paper many times. Right. So in a way, Britain kind of did a bit of smoke and mirrors. 49 00:04:38,930 --> 00:04:41,600 Now, we've already established Jewish National Home. 50 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:47,330 So I would say this again in consideration of what was going on in Europe for European Jews at the time. 51 00:04:47,330 --> 00:04:50,150 This is kind of a rather hollow statement now. 52 00:04:50,150 --> 00:04:56,570 The Irgun, the revisionist underground resistance group under the various commands of David Rosio Ya'akov Meridor, 53 00:04:56,570 --> 00:05:04,780 had from March 1937 already begun a limited campaign of attacks on Arabs, which peaked between April and August 1938. 54 00:05:04,780 --> 00:05:11,860 It was. Wants to the Arab rebellion that had begun in 1936 and was ongoing. On twenty seventh of February, nineteen thirty nine. 55 00:05:11,860 --> 00:05:17,680 And as a protest against the London conference in which it was felt that the British were making undue concessions to the Arabs. 56 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:21,550 Right. So they convened a conference in London in February. 57 00:05:21,550 --> 00:05:27,160 Thirty nine of which the white paper was a product that they are going in protest of. 58 00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:34,360 This carried out a series of major bomb attacks in Haifa, Jerusalem, Jaffa, until of Eve, in which 33 Arabs were killed. 59 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:38,410 And it stepped up its game, really once the details of the paper, the white paper, were finalised. 60 00:05:38,410 --> 00:05:48,120 So from May to August, nineteen thirty nine, already, the airgun oversaw 15 attacks that killed 71 Arabs and two British policemen. 61 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:54,780 However, with Britain's and France's declaration of war against Germany on the 3rd of September, 62 00:05:54,780 --> 00:05:59,310 anti British violence that erupted in protest of the white paper ceased. 63 00:05:59,310 --> 00:06:04,230 The author of the white paper, Malcolm McDonald, who incidentally was not a member of Chamberlain's war cabinet, 64 00:06:04,230 --> 00:06:06,660 afterwards reported to the cabinet on the 19th of October. 65 00:06:06,660 --> 00:06:12,630 That, and I quote, The Jews had given their support unconditionally and violence had stopped. 66 00:06:12,630 --> 00:06:16,440 And this was to remain the case until the beginning of 1944. 67 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:22,560 Now, in December 1943, Menachem Begin became the de facto commander of the good in Palestine. 68 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:28,200 Bragan would, of course, go on to become prime minister of Israel 1977, but not yet. 69 00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:34,200 Now, once he was in places that you're going, commander, the airgun under Bagan resumed its crusade of anti British insurgency. 70 00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:39,840 In spite of the group's modest resources and Britain's ongoing campaign against Nazi Germany, 71 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:44,910 now with bacon in the good Lockton resources they made up for with vision, commitment. 72 00:06:44,910 --> 00:06:49,740 Perhaps a bit of delusion and certainly no small sense of desperation. 73 00:06:49,740 --> 00:06:54,450 Indeed, on the 1st of February 1944, just oops, sorry. 74 00:06:54,450 --> 00:07:02,040 Just two months after into Bacons commandeers ship, the Irgun declared a revolt against the British government in Palestine. 75 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:03,090 And on that same day, 76 00:07:03,090 --> 00:07:10,560 the group undertook a poster campaign to the issues addressed to the Hebrew nation in Zion and in particular the Hebrew youth Hebrew youth. 77 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:16,650 It demanded a bunch of things rule over Eretz Israel, National Hebrew Army, etc. 78 00:07:16,650 --> 00:07:24,810 You can read that yourselves while I continue to talk about other things. Now, after the Allied victory in May 1945, 79 00:07:24,810 --> 00:07:32,040 Winston Churchill supper suffered a surprise defeat in a national election that saw his deputy prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, 80 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:39,270 Klemens Atley, become prime minister. On the twenty sixth of July, he was only, by the way, the second Labour politician to hold the post. 81 00:07:39,270 --> 00:07:45,540 Now the app. The government proposed no change to the white paper in spite of what they had said at their conference earlier that year. 82 00:07:45,540 --> 00:07:48,330 The Labour conference and the Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, 83 00:07:48,330 --> 00:07:53,310 rather notably believed that there should be no special treatment to Europe's Jewish refugees. 84 00:07:53,310 --> 00:07:57,150 In other words, German and German Jewish refugees were all the same. 85 00:07:57,150 --> 00:08:02,100 He saw no reason why Jewish displaced persons should be treated as a special body as such. 86 00:08:02,100 --> 00:08:06,810 Nor why they could not be repatriated in their original home nations. 87 00:08:06,810 --> 00:08:13,420 So the gloves were now office. We say, or especially in the issue of. 88 00:08:13,420 --> 00:08:21,130 On the 10th of October, nineteen forty five, just after the end of the war, a group of armed Jews attacked the athlete immigration camp. 89 00:08:21,130 --> 00:08:26,950 This was the notable event because it marked the first synchronised operation between the Haganah, the Irgun and the left. 90 00:08:26,950 --> 00:08:31,960 Those were the three kind of paramilitary groups that were operating in Israel. 91 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:35,710 So the hugging up was kind of under the main issue of leadership, 92 00:08:35,710 --> 00:08:40,480 that your gun was really a revisionist underground paramilitary group, the lackey as well. 93 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:46,150 But they were much more to the right of even the good another, although they were much smaller and they're certainly more ruthless. 94 00:08:46,150 --> 00:08:49,270 The Stern Gang is lucky. It's always known, also known as here. 95 00:08:49,270 --> 00:08:53,890 The group's commanders had been negotiating since August with the aim of uniting the three issues parliament, 96 00:08:53,890 --> 00:08:58,630 military groups and coordinating their various campaigns of anti British resistance. 97 00:08:58,630 --> 00:09:05,350 The Jewish Agency, of which the huggin not represented the military wing took overall responsibility for the three groups cooperation, 98 00:09:05,350 --> 00:09:12,640 which would last until August nineteen forty six. The main impetus for the association was the eventual realisation on the part of the 99 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:17,830 Jewish Agency of the Atley government's refusal to discontinue the white paper policy. 100 00:09:17,830 --> 00:09:24,700 So it upheld it. In October, the four representatives signed an agreement to operate as the Hebrew Resistance Movement 101 00:09:24,700 --> 00:09:30,240 with the athletes operation as it just talked about their first joint manoeuvre. 102 00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:36,330 On the 13th of November, Ernest Bevin, who thought that Britain should give up its influence in the Middle East and under increasing pressure, 103 00:09:36,330 --> 00:09:42,300 especially from President Truman, to allow one hundred thousand European Jewish refugees into Palestine, 104 00:09:42,300 --> 00:09:46,260 formed the Anglo American Committee of Increase for Palestine. 105 00:09:46,260 --> 00:09:51,940 In so doing, he hoped to bring America into the administrative fold of the Palestine mandate. 106 00:09:51,940 --> 00:09:58,230 And as one of the Anglo American Kimmich Committee members noted, Richard Crossman upon arrival in Jerusalem, 107 00:09:58,230 --> 00:10:03,750 which at this point was certainly no paradise city, he said Palestine is an armed camp. 108 00:10:03,750 --> 00:10:11,850 We saw signs of this. Almost as soon as we crossed the frontier and we we became more and more aware of the tense atmosphere each day. 109 00:10:11,850 --> 00:10:19,290 Many buildings have barbed wire and other defences. We ourselves were closely guarded by armed police and often escorted by armoured cars. 110 00:10:19,290 --> 00:10:25,140 It is obvious that very considerable military forces and large numbers of police are kept in Palestine. 111 00:10:25,140 --> 00:10:29,490 The police are armed. They are conspicuous everywhere and throughout the country there obsessed. 112 00:10:29,490 --> 00:10:33,600 There are substantially built police barracks. This is a nineteen forty six. 113 00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:37,980 So they could have said. Welcome to the jungle. Right, OK. 114 00:10:37,980 --> 00:10:44,050 So that's the context. Now I'm going to begin kind of talk proper, if that makes any sense. 115 00:10:44,050 --> 00:10:50,970 On the 14th of May 1948, British soldiers lowered their flag for the last time in Palestine. 116 00:10:50,970 --> 00:10:57,800 The last high commissioner, Sir Allan Cunningham, had broadcast his final message to Palestine, to the country's Arab, 117 00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:07,280 Jewish and British communities all divided and now at war with each other in all but name over the Palestine Broadcasting Service today before. 118 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:12,340 With no small degree of occasion, Cunningham declared, and I quote, Tomorrow at midnight, 119 00:11:12,340 --> 00:11:17,560 the final page of history of the British mandate in Palestine is turned on the morrow. 120 00:11:17,560 --> 00:11:21,100 A new chapter opens and Palestine's history goes on. 121 00:11:21,100 --> 00:11:26,590 It is not my wish at this period of the British departure to turn back the pages and look at the past. 122 00:11:26,590 --> 00:11:33,490 It would be easy. In doing so to say sometimes here we did right and no doubt at other times that we did wrong. 123 00:11:33,490 --> 00:11:40,750 For in this complex botter of the government of Palestine, the way ahead has not always been clear and the feature has often been obscure. 124 00:11:40,750 --> 00:11:45,400 In this respect, we are more than content to accept the judgement of history. Rather, 125 00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:50,590 I would wish to say only if it if it so be that by our going we bring eventual 126 00:11:50,590 --> 00:11:54,680 good to the peoples of Palestine that none of us will carvell at our departure. 127 00:11:54,680 --> 00:12:00,460 The end of this quote. Now, a few hours ahead of midnight on 14th of May, David Ben-Gurion, 128 00:12:00,460 --> 00:12:06,190 the leader of the issue of would read aloud the Zionist declaration of establishment of the state of Israel, 129 00:12:06,190 --> 00:12:10,750 unilateral declaration which notably did not define the borders of the new state. 130 00:12:10,750 --> 00:12:12,430 Now, in so doing, Ben-Gurion, 131 00:12:12,430 --> 00:12:20,020 would power pour petrol over the flames of an already out of control conflagration between Palestine's Arab and Jewish populations? 132 00:12:20,020 --> 00:12:24,580 And their conflict continues to this day with no immediate hope for resolution. 133 00:12:24,580 --> 00:12:31,990 Now, while Cunningham was certainly correct in his wish that I just talked about, to not turn back the paper, the pages and look at the past. 134 00:12:31,990 --> 00:12:36,790 The historian cannot and this historian cannot by definition, avoid such a duty. 135 00:12:36,790 --> 00:12:41,590 And indeed, Cottingham himself recognised the necessity of such action. 136 00:12:41,590 --> 00:12:50,530 Only two months later, when he gave an address at Chatham House in London on the 22nd of July entitled Palestine The Last Days of the Mandate. 137 00:12:50,530 --> 00:12:59,500 Now, back in the relative quietude of England and estranged from the chaos of Palestine, Cunningham could recount more candidly that it had taken him, 138 00:12:59,500 --> 00:13:00,250 and I quote, 139 00:13:00,250 --> 00:13:07,660 only a day or two in Palestine to come face to face with the difficulties inherent in the dual obligation imposed by the Balfour Declaration. 140 00:13:07,660 --> 00:13:13,530 End of quote. By the time that Cunningham had assumed the high commissionership, and I quote again, 141 00:13:13,530 --> 00:13:18,930 Jewish terrorism was rapidly increasing and widespread sabotage had been carried out with the hugging. 142 00:13:18,930 --> 00:13:22,590 In addition to the murders of the airgun. So I may add the Stern Group. 143 00:13:22,590 --> 00:13:27,060 That's Cunningham. End of quote. And to further complicate matters, he says this is another quote, 144 00:13:27,060 --> 00:13:31,680 propaganda by American Jubouri was getting an increasing hold on the minds and the pockets. 145 00:13:31,680 --> 00:13:40,140 Interesting choice of words of the Americans, while the Arabs, although physically quiescent, were nonetheless vocally violent and bitter. 146 00:13:40,140 --> 00:13:49,620 Cunningham's immediate task then was, and I quote, to quiet in the country to enable the Anglo American Committee to sit now to this end. 147 00:13:49,620 --> 00:13:55,280 Cunningham noted that Jewish immigration is always was the key to the situation and didn't. 148 00:13:55,280 --> 00:14:01,440 In this respect. Cunningham's hands had been tied to the quotas imposed by the 1939 white paper 149 00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:05,070 on one hand and by other necessary corollary from the Jewish perspective, 150 00:14:05,070 --> 00:14:12,600 at least, illegal immigration to Palestine. On the other, however, Cunningham marked with French frustration and I quote, 151 00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:20,970 The place to stop illegal illegal immigration was in the countries from which these wretched people sailed illegally in leaky and unserviceable boats, 152 00:14:20,970 --> 00:14:28,580 crowded like cockroaches. But at no time did we get the cooperation from those countries which we had the right to expect. 153 00:14:28,580 --> 00:14:33,920 The spectacle of a world refusing themselves to make permanent provision for any of the unhappy people, 154 00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:37,730 yet allowing their laws to be broken with the result of furthering even more, 155 00:14:37,730 --> 00:14:43,710 the unrest in Palestine was yet another sign of the instability from which we were all suffering. 156 00:14:43,710 --> 00:14:50,960 End of quote. Now, equally frustrating for Cunningham was the fact that right up to the very end of the mandate, and I quote again, 157 00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:55,400 all decisions on policy when there were any decisions had to be made outside 158 00:14:55,400 --> 00:15:00,380 Palestine while we had to deal continually with the reactions to them inside 159 00:15:00,380 --> 00:15:04,190 the territory and which had created a singularly difficult situation for the 160 00:15:04,190 --> 00:15:08,430 administration and clearly during Cunningham's tenure as high commissioner, 161 00:15:08,430 --> 00:15:12,200 or at least the weight of these reactions upon the British administration had come 162 00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:17,470 from Britain's from Palestine's Jewish community and in the most impossible form. 163 00:15:17,470 --> 00:15:22,090 Cunningham explained to his audience that Chatham House and I quote, To deal with the terrorists, 164 00:15:22,090 --> 00:15:25,780 however, was an entirely different problem than dealing with hugging up. 165 00:15:25,780 --> 00:15:31,840 So dealing with you are good and lucky was different than dealing with Organon. I continue to quote these were true underground movements, 166 00:15:31,840 --> 00:15:38,680 which had learnt much and indeed had recruited members from the underground movements which had achieved success in Europe during the war. 167 00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:44,710 Their murderous attacks were of the tip and run variety carried out after much reconnaissance and preparation. 168 00:15:44,710 --> 00:15:50,620 After them, the perpetrators sank back into the population under whose cover they were dispersed. 169 00:15:50,620 --> 00:15:58,270 Here was no formulation for the soldiers to attack. But furtive individuals probably widely separated and unknown to each other. 170 00:15:58,270 --> 00:16:03,010 And the only sure method of stamping out this evil was in cooperation with the local population. 171 00:16:03,010 --> 00:16:08,770 End of quote. Such cooperation, however, had not been forthcoming. 172 00:16:08,770 --> 00:16:16,120 Although Cunningham claimed that his police and military had rather more success than was popularly supposed in combating Jewish terrorism, 173 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:21,040 he nonetheless recorded that and I quote neither from the Jewish Agency nor from the Jewish people. 174 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:24,310 Did we get the cooperation we required, end of quote. 175 00:16:24,310 --> 00:16:32,980 Thus, British forces had continually been forced to fight a losing battle and one which had only intensified as time went on. 176 00:16:32,980 --> 00:16:41,930 Indeed, he noted pointedly that the final stages were perhaps for the British in Palestine, the most trying time in the history of the mandate. 177 00:16:41,930 --> 00:16:48,020 Now, after the U.N. vote on the twenty ninth of November, which resulted in Resolution one eight one to partition Palestine, 178 00:16:48,020 --> 00:16:53,050 and once it became clear, and I quote, that the Arabs and Jews would undoubtedly become engaged in force. 179 00:16:53,050 --> 00:16:57,580 End of quote. The British set a date for the departure. As such. 180 00:16:57,580 --> 00:17:01,240 Cunningham continued. And I quote, the government of Palestine. 181 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:08,500 Therefore, during those final few months was committed to do nothing, which could be construed as as the enforcement of partition. 182 00:17:08,500 --> 00:17:13,810 In fact, to remain neutral between the two hotly contesting sides in the event. 183 00:17:13,810 --> 00:17:19,630 Practically everything the administration had to do was construed as either helping or preventing partition and 184 00:17:19,630 --> 00:17:25,810 the anomalous situation which we were thus placed greatly added to our difficulties in maintaining impartiality. 185 00:17:25,810 --> 00:17:33,550 End of quote. Cunningham further noted that he had suggested, and I quote, some six months before May 15th, 1948, 186 00:17:33,550 --> 00:17:41,320 that a five man U.N. partition commission should send an advance party of its secretariat to Palestine to take over essential services. 187 00:17:41,320 --> 00:17:48,760 As far as it could before the British left, end of quote. In point of fact, and I'm quoting against it, only four members of the U.N., 188 00:17:48,760 --> 00:17:52,930 the UN secretariat were sent and they were not authorised to take over anything. 189 00:17:52,930 --> 00:17:55,870 Consensus, frustration in this speech. 190 00:17:55,870 --> 00:18:01,970 The British administration that's departed on the 15th of money with no replacement administration in place, and I quote, 191 00:18:01,970 --> 00:18:08,300 The British were blamed for not having handed over to anyone, whereas in point of fact, there was nobody to whom to hand over. 192 00:18:08,300 --> 00:18:12,290 End of quote, as he explained. Sorry to keep quoting butt heads. 193 00:18:12,290 --> 00:18:18,020 It's interesting stuff. The British in Palestine who had for many years tried to do their best for the country, 194 00:18:18,020 --> 00:18:25,460 would be the last people who would want to see the country sink into chaos. And during the last six months of the UN, during the last six months, 195 00:18:25,460 --> 00:18:33,290 the UN Partition Commission was kept fully informed as to the steps steps necessary to prevent this end of quote. 196 00:18:33,290 --> 00:18:40,220 But sink into chaos, it had Jewish terrorism against the British governance in Palestine, against British governments. 197 00:18:40,220 --> 00:18:43,430 Governance in Palestine and it's called committed partner. 198 00:18:43,430 --> 00:18:51,290 Legal immigration had both continued relentlessly and indeed had increased in intensity during the last six months of the mandate. 199 00:18:51,290 --> 00:18:57,410 And this while a civil war now also waged between Palestine's Jewish and Arab populations. 200 00:18:57,410 --> 00:19:01,670 Illegal immigration, which had started with Hitler's chancellorship in 1933, 201 00:19:01,670 --> 00:19:06,890 began in earnest in the wake of the nineteen thirty nine white paper now rather pointedly in that year alone. 202 00:19:06,890 --> 00:19:11,420 Nineteen thirty nine. Seventeen thousand out of a total of twenty seven thousand immigrants, 203 00:19:11,420 --> 00:19:20,810 a staggering sixty three percent to Palestine were legal by comparison during the six years of war in the Jews hour of greatest need. 204 00:19:20,810 --> 00:19:28,400 Just over a third as many people were approximately seventy seven thousand two hundred managed to set sail for Palestine in the whole six years, 205 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:36,210 and in the vast majority and the vast majority of these refugees were either deported back to once they came or interned in militias. 206 00:19:36,210 --> 00:19:43,100 That is, of course, those boats that weren't bombed either perversely by the Haganah, such as the PATRICA or by the Soviets such as the Stroma, 207 00:19:43,100 --> 00:19:49,250 Mick, Mick, Mick FUTA, or shipwrecks such as the Salvador, there were the whole bunch of immigration boats. 208 00:19:49,250 --> 00:19:55,050 It just didn't make it from the end of the war in Europe until the day when the United Nations issued resolution one eight one. 209 00:19:55,050 --> 00:20:00,720 So in other words, from April 1945 to December nineteen forty seven, over forty four thousand illegal immigrants. 210 00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:07,770 The vast majority of the refugees from countries that had been occupied by the Nazis sailed for Palestine. 211 00:20:07,770 --> 00:20:11,700 Most of their ships were intercepted by the British and diverted to either Haifa 212 00:20:11,700 --> 00:20:17,180 or from the 12th of August nineteen forty six to detainment camps in Cyprus. 213 00:20:17,180 --> 00:20:20,680 Now, the last straw in this respect for both British nerves and more importantly, 214 00:20:20,680 --> 00:20:24,250 Britain's perception in the eyes of the international community came with the mandatory 215 00:20:24,250 --> 00:20:28,370 administration's mishandling of the SS Exodus immigrant ship on the 18th of July, 216 00:20:28,370 --> 00:20:34,460 1947. On that day, as it approached Palestinian waters, British officials boarded the ship, 217 00:20:34,460 --> 00:20:37,550 which was carrying four thousand five hundred and fifteen passengers. 218 00:20:37,550 --> 00:20:43,650 And in the ensuing focus, one crewman and two passengers died from British inflicted wounds. 219 00:20:43,650 --> 00:20:50,610 British officials told the ship to Haifa Harbour and with members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine watching. 220 00:20:50,610 --> 00:20:54,090 They were there on their own, their fact finding mission. 221 00:20:54,090 --> 00:21:00,400 It put its refugee, put the refugees onto three British ships, which were then deported back to France. 222 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:03,610 Upon arrival in the French harbour of Port to book near Marseilles, 223 00:21:03,610 --> 00:21:10,300 the three ships passengers refused to alight and the French government refused to coerce them to get off the ship. 224 00:21:10,300 --> 00:21:16,950 In the end, the British government sent the ships to Hamburg and their British crew forced them to finally disembark there. 225 00:21:16,950 --> 00:21:23,410 The refugees, the majority of whom had been former concentration camp inmates, now perversely returned to Germany, 226 00:21:23,410 --> 00:21:30,670 where they were housed in German displaced person camps, many of which were former concentration camps and which were staffed by Germans. 227 00:21:30,670 --> 00:21:30,900 Now, 228 00:21:30,900 --> 00:21:38,550 perhaps no other event in what was now a sea of bad public relations disasters for the British administration did more to turn world opinion decidedly 229 00:21:38,550 --> 00:21:45,300 in favour of the plight of European Jewish displaced persons who clearly wanted to emigrate to Palestine and against the British government, 230 00:21:45,300 --> 00:21:48,900 which would apparently go to such inhumane lengths to prevent their entry. 231 00:21:48,900 --> 00:21:56,930 There. Indeed, its response to the clear need once Hitler became chancellor for an increase in Jewish emigration 232 00:21:56,930 --> 00:22:01,040 and its further response to the consequential phenomenon of Jewish illegal immigration, 233 00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:02,660 which was it should be remembered. 234 00:22:02,660 --> 00:22:09,380 A direct effect of the stringent immigration quotas that the 1939 white paper had determined was the one area where the 235 00:22:09,380 --> 00:22:16,020 British government really seemed to misjudge its policy and actions during the administration of the Palestine mandate. 236 00:22:16,020 --> 00:22:19,620 Now hand in hand with Britain's dogged adherence to the white paper, 237 00:22:19,620 --> 00:22:28,050 immigration quotas and subsequent Jewish illegal immigration came the campaign of Jewish anti British resistance that in the eyes of its perpetrators, 238 00:22:28,050 --> 00:22:31,990 at least where it was its necessary corollary. 239 00:22:31,990 --> 00:22:37,960 An examination of Jewish outrages as the British term for these activities that the various underground groups, 240 00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:41,470 the Huggett now that are going to the levy committed against the British mandatory 241 00:22:41,470 --> 00:22:46,120 government from the 1st of February 1944 to the twenty ninth of November, 242 00:22:46,120 --> 00:22:49,090 nineteen forty seven that November rain, in other words, 243 00:22:49,090 --> 00:22:54,500 from Bagan and the goods declaration of revolt against the British in Palestine in February 1st, 244 00:22:54,500 --> 00:22:59,110 44 to the day that the United Nations passed Resolution one eight. So twenty ninth of November. 245 00:22:59,110 --> 00:23:06,770 Forty seven yield some rather chilling results. I'm going to break this trajectory down into two further periods. 246 00:23:06,770 --> 00:23:11,210 First, from the 1st of February, nineteen forty four until the end of April, nineteen forty seven. 247 00:23:11,210 --> 00:23:16,820 So in other words, from vegan's declaration of revolt into the British requested that the U.N. place, 248 00:23:16,820 --> 00:23:21,170 the Palestine question on the agenda of the UN General Assembly, second regular session. 249 00:23:21,170 --> 00:23:25,580 And that it further convene a special session to prepare the assembly as such. 250 00:23:25,580 --> 00:23:31,790 And the second period of many period from the 1st of May to the twenty ninth of November, nineteen forty seven. 251 00:23:31,790 --> 00:23:36,860 In other words, from the first U.N. special session on Palestine until the U.N. passed Resolution 181. 252 00:23:36,860 --> 00:23:39,870 It's a bit confusing. Don't worry, I'm British. Put up the slides in a minute. 253 00:23:39,870 --> 00:23:46,880 Now, before I do, I just want mention I'm deeply in debt it to my to to to my colleague, my Riccio's assistant, 254 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:52,130 Jack Edmands, who compiled a list of all of these Jewish and British terrorist outrages that I'd photographed. 255 00:23:52,130 --> 00:23:57,920 I'd photograph thousands of telegrams and reports between Cunningham and the 256 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:02,330 secretary of state and put them into an Excel spreadsheet and then a calendar, 257 00:24:02,330 --> 00:24:08,420 which is rather chilling to look at, I'd say. 258 00:24:08,420 --> 00:24:16,010 And let me just hold. OK. I'd like to maybe before I begin the presentation of some of this data. 259 00:24:16,010 --> 00:24:21,780 State three caveats. That are important for the subsequent presentation first. 260 00:24:21,780 --> 00:24:27,270 Some disparities were, in fact, will invariably have crept in over time between British contemporary reports of the incidents 261 00:24:27,270 --> 00:24:32,100 from which the data I'm going to talk about comes and their subsequent historical investigation. 262 00:24:32,100 --> 00:24:35,160 It's really impossible to achieve complete accuracy with the details, 263 00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:40,260 and thus they should not be understood to always represent the final word or the final number in the matter. 264 00:24:40,260 --> 00:24:48,540 But rather British contemporary reaction to the recurrences. Indeed, such actually accuracy from my study is of secondary importance. 265 00:24:48,540 --> 00:24:57,930 The intention, rather, is to give to give the listener or the reader an idea of the magnitude and nature of the attacks and not to catalogue them. 266 00:24:57,930 --> 00:25:05,850 Although this is a defect which eventually transpired, the second, whether a duplicate reports I have used, 267 00:25:05,850 --> 00:25:12,060 the more cautious figures I've always gone for the lower figures and more importantly, I've not tried to interpolate reports. 268 00:25:12,060 --> 00:25:16,740 So, for example, if a telegram, a report states bomb explosions in Tel Aviv, in Haifa, 269 00:25:16,740 --> 00:25:21,990 I count these as only two incidents, although it's clear that more than one bomb went off. 270 00:25:21,990 --> 00:25:26,400 And if the report states, and I quote, British and Jewish police shot at in Haifa, 271 00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:30,930 I count this is only one incident since no further more exact numbers are recorded. 272 00:25:30,930 --> 00:25:42,060 Likewise, reports such that this such as well, railway bridges blown out, which happens throughout the course of one evening and the 15th of July. 273 00:25:42,060 --> 00:25:48,180 I'm going to get it wrong anyway. Are counted as only one incident, in spite of the fact that it's clear that more than one bridge was blown out. 274 00:25:48,180 --> 00:25:55,170 Certainly a horrible experience for anyone travelling on a night train whose axles must have rose metres into the air upon detonation. 275 00:25:55,170 --> 00:25:59,910 In any case, what I'm trying to say is the figures that I'm going to quote to you now are all conservative. 276 00:25:59,910 --> 00:26:07,960 Conservative estimates. Finally, all incidents in this compilation are what I would call serious terrorist incidents, 277 00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:12,100 shootings, bombings, mine, explosions, abductions, bank heist. 278 00:26:12,100 --> 00:26:18,100 In other words, what was a force majeure? Right. They do not take into consideration instances of day to day petty crime. 279 00:26:18,100 --> 00:26:28,750 OK. So here we go. Fasten your seatbelts. So between the 1st of February 1944 and the 30th of April 1947, 280 00:26:28,750 --> 00:26:36,490 the British Administration of Palestine record reported a total of two hundred and fifty three terrorist outrages 281 00:26:36,490 --> 00:26:43,270 all carried out by Jewish underground perrottet military forces and all directed towards British infrastructure. 282 00:26:43,270 --> 00:26:51,190 Notably, however, and you'll see here, there were no instances of Jewish anti British terror at all from November. 283 00:26:51,190 --> 00:26:56,650 Where am I? There we are. November forty four until May nineteen forty five. So the final six months of the war. 284 00:26:56,650 --> 00:27:05,170 But with Hitler's suicide, the Nazi surrender and the allied victory in Europe began again and in earnest. 285 00:27:05,170 --> 00:27:11,710 Indeed, most of the reported incidents that I just talked about occurred between May forty five in April. 286 00:27:11,710 --> 00:27:13,780 Forty seven, right. 287 00:27:13,780 --> 00:27:22,930 Upwards of two hundred and fourteen and approximately seven hundred fifty days or one outrage, one report of an outrage every three and a half days. 288 00:27:22,930 --> 00:27:27,160 The vast majority of these outrages were due to bombs or mine explosions. 289 00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:32,140 The Jewish groups directed at trains, train stations, police stations, bridges, 290 00:27:32,140 --> 00:27:37,690 armoured cars and other military targets, British contemporary reports, sources report. 291 00:27:37,690 --> 00:27:45,750 Over one hundred and forty five such incidents. The next most frequent types of outrage reported were direct attacks on personnel, 292 00:27:45,750 --> 00:27:52,410 shootings, stabbings and assassinations of which there were 47 recorded incidents. 293 00:27:52,410 --> 00:27:57,980 Similar a number, but no less harrowing with the 13 reports of kidnapping and from the twenty sixth of December, 294 00:27:57,980 --> 00:28:03,340 nineteen forty six onwards floggings of British soldiers and police. 295 00:28:03,340 --> 00:28:09,430 Finally, bank heists and plunder, especially of British weapons caches, 296 00:28:09,430 --> 00:28:15,940 of which there are 17 reports made up the remainder of Jewish outrage as reported from the beginning of Bacon's revolt. 297 00:28:15,940 --> 00:28:20,320 Until Britain referred the Palestine mandate to the U.N. in April 1947, 298 00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:26,890 a total of three hundred and fifty nine people were killed and a further six hundred and fifty one injured during this first period. 299 00:28:26,890 --> 00:28:34,760 The big numbers, again, the bulk of these injuries were sustained in attacks that actually occurred after the war between May 1945 and April. 300 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:39,200 Nineteen forty seven. Thus, within less than two years of the war's end. 301 00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:43,790 Three hundred and twenty four people were killed. An average of one every two days. 302 00:28:43,790 --> 00:28:45,740 And six hundred and forty. 303 00:28:45,740 --> 00:28:55,620 An average of just one person just under one person per day, had been injured in Palestine as a result of Jewish anti British terrorism. 304 00:28:55,620 --> 00:29:03,330 And ninety one of these people who were all killed in one day, the day of July, July 15th, I'm sorry, I always get the date wrong. 305 00:29:03,330 --> 00:29:10,560 Forty six the day that King David Hotel was bombed. Just give me an idea of of just one month. 306 00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:18,130 This is the month before the King David Hotel bombing. I don't know how well you can read this, but I could put my glasses on for this. 307 00:29:18,130 --> 00:29:23,670 You know, you get on on June 4th, train blown up in Haifa, the next day, explosion at the railway station, 308 00:29:23,670 --> 00:29:27,600 the seventh attack on Jerusalem clinic, one wounded on the 10th attack on passenger trains. 309 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:32,010 Trains blown up next to explosions and houses in Tel Aviv. Soldiers out in Tel Aviv. 310 00:29:32,010 --> 00:29:40,220 Bombs thrown off roofs of the old city, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Indeed. 311 00:29:40,220 --> 00:29:46,700 All of these things would only get worse as nineteen forty seven were on. 312 00:29:46,700 --> 00:29:52,190 And in the months that paralleled the United Nations Special Committee of Palestine and the General Assembly deliberations, 313 00:29:52,190 --> 00:29:56,160 which resulted in the U.N. Resolution 181, which recommended the partition of Palestine. 314 00:29:56,160 --> 00:30:00,230 So in other words, from the first to May 1st of May to the twenty ninth of November, 315 00:30:00,230 --> 00:30:06,650 or approximately two hundred and forty days witnessed no fewer than where am I? 316 00:30:06,650 --> 00:30:10,730 So one hundred and seventy three terrorist outrages. 317 00:30:10,730 --> 00:30:16,640 One every one and one third days, as in the first period that I've talked about before, 318 00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:23,910 bombings and mind detonations form the bulk of these incidents over eighty four in total or one every three days. 319 00:30:23,910 --> 00:30:28,300 There were a further forty six reports of shootings or other personal attacks. 320 00:30:28,300 --> 00:30:32,210 Eight kidnappings in. We're sorry. 321 00:30:32,210 --> 00:30:37,400 Sorry. There we are. Eight bank heists or hold-ups and four reports of arsons. 322 00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:42,500 These kidnappings, by the way, the eight kidnappings included those of two soldiers named Pace and Martin, 323 00:30:42,500 --> 00:30:47,210 who were kidnapped by the good and whose bodies were eventually found hanging from two trees. 324 00:30:47,210 --> 00:30:53,750 When soldiers went to cut them down, they discovered all too late that the bodies had been booby trapped and exploded. 325 00:30:53,750 --> 00:31:01,760 Notably, British officials also recorded the first incidences of Arab attacks on Jews, which they put it only 10, 326 00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:06,830 which killed eight and wounded 20 compared to a comparatively inconsequential number, 327 00:31:06,830 --> 00:31:10,430 but one that is certainly important for indicating how intolerable the situation of 328 00:31:10,430 --> 00:31:15,200 continued terrorist violence had now also become for Palestine's Arab citizens, 329 00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,610 even if they, for the most part, had not been the direct target of such aggression. 330 00:31:19,610 --> 00:31:29,360 Certainly post white paper. So in total, during this final harrowing period of British of Britain's active administration of the mandate, 331 00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:39,350 upwards one hundred of one hundred and thirty four people were killed and 450, 58 injured as a result of Jewish anti British terrorism. 332 00:31:39,350 --> 00:31:44,930 And the total for the whole period that I've just talked about under for the first of February, nineteen forty four to December, 333 00:31:44,930 --> 00:31:56,600 nineteen forty five, forty seven adds up to more than four hundred and fifty six reported incidents of one in 56 reports of bombings, 334 00:31:56,600 --> 00:32:03,410 mine explosions, shootings, stabbings, kidnappings, grand larceny and arson, which killed approximately five hundred predominantly British, 335 00:32:03,410 --> 00:32:10,580 but also Jewish and Arab soldiers, policemen, civil servants and civilians and injured over 1100 more. 336 00:32:10,580 --> 00:32:12,290 Now, by comparison, 337 00:32:12,290 --> 00:32:19,040 the whole period of the IRS terrorist attacks in London from the provisional Irish Republican Army's 1st operation on the 8th of March, 338 00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:23,660 nineteen seventy three until the Good Friday Peace Agreement on the 10th of April, nineteen ninety eight. 339 00:32:23,660 --> 00:32:25,670 So over twenty five years, 340 00:32:25,670 --> 00:32:33,520 there were fewer than 300 reported incidents in which approximately eight hundred and fifty people were injured and fewer than 50 killed. 341 00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:37,770 And this in a city of almost seven million inhabitants. 342 00:32:37,770 --> 00:32:42,550 The campaign of Jewish anti British resistance in Palestine, which spanned less than four years, 343 00:32:42,550 --> 00:32:47,050 but which caused significantly more injuries and 10 times as many deaths than the 344 00:32:47,050 --> 00:32:51,760 IRA campaign in London to a population that was less than one third as large. 345 00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:56,770 Towers in comparison. Think about that. 346 00:32:56,770 --> 00:33:03,550 It's amazing. During the nineteen forty seven Commons debates on Palestine, which I discuss elsewhere in the research. 347 00:33:03,550 --> 00:33:08,500 Winston Churchill repeatedly referred to the one hundred thousand British soldiers stationed in Palestine. 348 00:33:08,500 --> 00:33:15,760 He wanted to get them home. The one hundred thousand was what was there is perhaps thus sobering to note that 349 00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:19,990 during the height of the British Army's campaign in Northern Ireland in 1974, 350 00:33:19,990 --> 00:33:25,950 and for a population that had just over one point five million inhabitants, was only slightly smaller than Palestine's. 351 00:33:25,950 --> 00:33:30,190 The total troop strength was fewer than 26000 soldiers. 352 00:33:30,190 --> 00:33:35,380 A quarter of that deployed in Palestine. 353 00:33:35,380 --> 00:33:41,090 Thus, it's clear I would be beyond all reasonable doubt, the Jewish anti British terrorism was not only effective, 354 00:33:41,090 --> 00:33:46,610 but was alongside the protracted campaign of Jewish illegal immigration and the loss of face the British. 355 00:33:46,610 --> 00:33:48,140 Britain suffered, as a result, 356 00:33:48,140 --> 00:33:55,880 the single greatest deterrent to the British Palestinian administration and had a direct bearing on Britain's continual inability to 357 00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:04,370 effect a solution for Palestine as per its mandatory obligations and thus its eventual referral of the Palestine mandate to the UN. 358 00:34:04,370 --> 00:34:06,660 In April 1947. 359 00:34:06,660 --> 00:34:13,050 Throughout the examination of thousands, I would say tens of thousands of pages of official British documents, meeting minutes, cabinet discussions, 360 00:34:13,050 --> 00:34:17,280 comments and Lords debates, confidential annexes, telegrams, letters, et cetera, 361 00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:21,360 that range from the beginning of nineteen forty four until the end of nineteen forty seven. 362 00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:29,690 The issues of Jewish illegal immigration and above all, Jewish anti British terrorism absolutely dominate throughout. 363 00:34:29,690 --> 00:34:34,880 Now, while there were certainly other major contributing factors to Britain's eventual decision to go to the U.N., 364 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:43,790 not least the frustration of decades of future policy and decision and the inability to strike a viable modus operandi for executing the mandate, 365 00:34:43,790 --> 00:34:49,390 and especially from nineteen forty five complications, when the international community, most notably the noted states, 366 00:34:49,390 --> 00:34:53,540 the dual phenomena of illegal immigration and anti British resistance prevented the 367 00:34:53,540 --> 00:34:58,190 British government both at home and in Palestine from reaching any effective decision. 368 00:34:58,190 --> 00:35:02,030 Visa V a feature durable solution there. 369 00:35:02,030 --> 00:35:09,980 Indeed, the sceptic might need only imagine a counterfactual situation that would see a four year campaign of terrorism in London, 370 00:35:09,980 --> 00:35:13,130 even with its current population of over eight point five million people. 371 00:35:13,130 --> 00:35:21,770 That would involve over 450 individual operations and result in the deaths of over 500 people, an injury to twice as many again. 372 00:35:21,770 --> 00:35:27,920 To understand how harrowing, harrowingly desperate the degree and magnitude of the situation must have been for the 373 00:35:27,920 --> 00:35:33,700 inhabitants of Palestine during the years nineteen forty four to nineteen forty seven. 374 00:35:33,700 --> 00:35:40,570 And, of course, fighting only increased once. Resolution 181 had been passed, but it took on a somewhat different form, more accurately, 375 00:35:40,570 --> 00:35:45,490 that it a civil war between Arab and Jew, which was discussed in many other works. 376 00:35:45,490 --> 00:35:53,440 But the British had, by Cunningham's own admission, which I which I talked about earlier, ceased to administer the mandate during the last six months, 377 00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,980 which is not to say that anti British violence stopped, 378 00:35:55,980 --> 00:36:02,700 but merely that it was now part of a much greater conflict, one that sadly continues to this day. 379 00:36:02,700 --> 00:36:05,560 Now, one wonders how much of this conflict could have been avoided had Britain managed 380 00:36:05,560 --> 00:36:12,670 its mandate for Palestine more effectively and indeed more altruistically, Zionist groups welcomed with jubilation. 381 00:36:12,670 --> 00:36:18,490 Lord Balfour, a letter to Arthur Balfours Balfour letter to Lord Rothschild in 1917. 382 00:36:18,490 --> 00:36:22,510 And such jubilation only increased when His Majesty's government was granted the 383 00:36:22,510 --> 00:36:28,090 execution and administration of the mandate at the San Remo conference in April 1929. 384 00:36:28,090 --> 00:36:33,190 And again when the League of Nations formally approved it in July 1922. 385 00:36:33,190 --> 00:36:43,000 Yet by nineteen thirty nine, feelings of jubilation and to those of despair, betrayal and indeed rage. 386 00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:46,390 Throughout the 1930s, the Zionist and Jewish groups in Europe, 387 00:36:46,390 --> 00:36:52,390 America and Palestine endeavoured to get as many Jews as possible out of the Nazi occupied lands and bring them, 388 00:36:52,390 --> 00:36:55,690 for the most part, to Palestine that the bitter British had. 389 00:36:55,690 --> 00:37:03,130 Mandatory administration did little to relax. Quota restrictions during this period is well documented, and I discuss it elsewhere in the research. 390 00:37:03,130 --> 00:37:09,130 Yet, in spite of such obstacles, a significant portion of European Jews, including almost half of German Jewry, 391 00:37:09,130 --> 00:37:14,710 did manage to escape, and many found their way to Palestine either legally or illegally. 392 00:37:14,710 --> 00:37:19,630 But with the McMichael 1939 White Paper, which I talked about at the beginning, and which, as you saw, 393 00:37:19,630 --> 00:37:24,310 as a violation of the terms of the mandate that Britain had accepted relations between 394 00:37:24,310 --> 00:37:28,990 Palestine's Jewish community and the British mandatory government were damaged irreparably. 395 00:37:28,990 --> 00:37:36,460 And the Irgun and eventually also the Stern Group in the height of the Haganah began their campaigns of anti British action. 396 00:37:36,460 --> 00:37:42,880 The resultant macabre tripartite symbiosis between the mandatory government's dogged adherence to the white paper, 397 00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:51,190 the need for further immigration, be it legal or legal, which it caused, and a. and end sorry at Jewish anti British terrorism, 398 00:37:51,190 --> 00:37:57,820 which sought to push through a more immediate solution for the Jews in Palestine in every way destroyed British infrastructure, 399 00:37:57,820 --> 00:38:02,650 equipment, lives, morale and not least support for the Zionist project. 400 00:38:02,650 --> 00:38:13,930 Even ultimately in those figures such as Churchill, who had been historically its most ardent supporters to British patients, had simply run out. 401 00:38:13,930 --> 00:38:18,830 A note on the nature of British policy and rule themselves is necessary. 402 00:38:18,830 --> 00:38:28,630 And again, this is kind of a short summary, but I feel the need to address it at times, and most notably, once the Atley government had taken over. 403 00:38:28,630 --> 00:38:35,470 It would appear that both the Palestine administration and certainly much more often its colleagues in Whitehall ruled with with a sense, 404 00:38:35,470 --> 00:38:38,900 with a sense of what might be described only as improvised chaos. 405 00:38:38,900 --> 00:38:42,790 And indeed, that's the working title I've got for this book, Improvised Chaos. 406 00:38:42,790 --> 00:38:48,010 One need only to consider the appointments of various committees and commissions, both in Palestine itself, 407 00:38:48,010 --> 00:38:50,470 but also in Britain and eventually also America, 408 00:38:50,470 --> 00:38:55,300 which issued various responses to the situation there and made various recommendations for its solution, 409 00:38:55,300 --> 00:39:01,270 but which all ultimately could not confront the naked truth that was inherent in all of their various missions, 410 00:39:01,270 --> 00:39:06,340 that Britain had created an impossible task for itself in accepting the Palestine mandate. 411 00:39:06,340 --> 00:39:14,710 Indeed, with regard to policy indecision, I would say and the continual appointment of every new committees to report on reports of reports in 412 00:39:14,710 --> 00:39:19,660 which almost all you always came up with recommendations that had been rehashed from the predecessors, 413 00:39:19,660 --> 00:39:26,470 the British government seemed more often than not to be locked in a game of tug of war with itself. 414 00:39:26,470 --> 00:39:35,050 Perhaps the most the single most important contributed contributor to this phenomenon was the even greater phenomenon of British self-interest. 415 00:39:35,050 --> 00:39:38,820 And it's noteworthy indeed to see that the same motivation of self-interest and the 416 00:39:38,820 --> 00:39:44,800 resultant indecision and ineptitude that it spawned continually informed or misinformed, 417 00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:50,590 I would say British policy in Palestine from the period of World War One to 15th of May 1948, 418 00:39:50,590 --> 00:39:55,450 when Britain retreated from Palestine with, on the surface at least, great pomp and dignity, 419 00:39:55,450 --> 00:40:01,870 but certainly internally a sense of overwhelming failure made even better by the huge loss of life and 420 00:40:01,870 --> 00:40:07,290 indeed face that the British is it the crumbling empire had suffered in the final years of the mandate. 421 00:40:07,290 --> 00:40:14,850 And I don't cry. Perhaps things might have gone different differently had Ernest Bevin not been foreign secretary in the wake of the Second World War. 422 00:40:14,850 --> 00:40:18,040 And I've talked about Bevan elektro just a couple of weeks ago. 423 00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:23,530 And I won't go into too much detail here, but I would just say that he stands out as perhaps one of the most curious and very enough, 424 00:40:23,530 --> 00:40:25,990 very often aggravating figures of the act. 425 00:40:25,990 --> 00:40:33,460 The administration is dogged refusal to understand the plight of European Jewish displaced persons and continued resistance to the 426 00:40:33,460 --> 00:40:41,080 question of the immediate emigration of 100000 displaced persons to Palestine in spite of great pressure first from Truman in the US, 427 00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:46,060 but eventually also the international community, especially in the wake of the exodus of Blair, 428 00:40:46,060 --> 00:40:51,190 indicates an inability or an unwillingness to place personal ideology below any 429 00:40:51,190 --> 00:40:55,910 sort of practical and political to say nothing of humanitarian utilitarianism. 430 00:40:55,910 --> 00:41:01,390 So no matter what one's political or personal position might be on these events that I've talked about. 431 00:41:01,390 --> 00:41:10,330 I suppose if if we put ourselves in a in the heads of the hugging of the lackey in the end that you're good, 432 00:41:10,330 --> 00:41:14,980 we might not be able to accept what would happen. We might be able understand what did happen. 433 00:41:14,980 --> 00:41:24,890 I think that's I'm trying to say. Nonetheless, I gather here now we're in the study itself. 434 00:41:24,890 --> 00:41:31,420 I make no no attempt to advocate or excuse terrorism, neither historically nor in the present day, 435 00:41:31,420 --> 00:41:35,610 but seek merely to understand what drove the British to all but flee from the Palestine mandate. 436 00:41:35,610 --> 00:41:41,080 1948. Like a dog with its tail between its legs and notably having burned all but only the 437 00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:49,520 most official of documents that it housed in its various administrative centres that. 438 00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:57,530 While on one hand, recognising the Jewish anti British terrorism was a key catalyst in Britain's eventual decision to give up the mandate. 439 00:41:57,530 --> 00:42:06,100 It is nonetheless incumbent upon me to draw a difference between, say, you're gun Haganah and Lecky tactics, if only superficially. 440 00:42:06,100 --> 00:42:12,230 I would say that they are good. And the Haganah always directed their attacks towards the British mandatory infrastructure 441 00:42:12,230 --> 00:42:18,630 and in the case of the good official representatives of the administration. That's not to say that there wasn't civilian collateral damage. 442 00:42:18,630 --> 00:42:23,060 But but. But but the attacks were always directed towards British administration. 443 00:42:23,060 --> 00:42:27,050 Now, not so the Stern Gang, who were much more indiscriminate in every way. 444 00:42:27,050 --> 00:42:34,060 They had a real appetite for destruction, these guys. And while it. 445 00:42:34,060 --> 00:42:38,320 Let me just tell you, I think to skip over this pit. 446 00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:46,360 I just want to say that kind of my role or my attention writing this book, as is the intention of most historians, is to explain and not excuse this. 447 00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:52,820 Right. And that that's what I want to roundoff this section by saying. 448 00:42:52,820 --> 00:42:57,380 And so we left. Concluded Cunningham at his Chatham House address. 449 00:42:57,380 --> 00:43:02,420 He continued, and I quote, It is a melancholy business presiding over such an occasion. 450 00:43:02,420 --> 00:43:08,930 But I sincerely trust that we left with dignity using all our efforts to the last for the good of Palestine. 451 00:43:08,930 --> 00:43:14,810 For three years we had been ruling for yes. For three years we had been ruling Palestine without a policy. 452 00:43:14,810 --> 00:43:18,920 Amid turbulence, vilification, assassination and kidnapping, 453 00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:22,820 that the British should have been able to stand the strain for so long without a goal 454 00:43:22,820 --> 00:43:27,620 to aim at was due to the superlative quality of the civil service whose integrity, 455 00:43:27,620 --> 00:43:35,480 impartiality and courage went beyond praise, the standard of which could have been reached by no other nation. 456 00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:42,890 End of quote. Now, Cunningham's words are notable for the poignancy and indeed honesty examination of his 457 00:43:42,890 --> 00:43:48,950 correspondence demonstrated over and over again how truly he embodied the spirit of noblesse oblige. 458 00:43:48,950 --> 00:43:53,780 His unwavering comments to and support of his staff and his documents is matched only 459 00:43:53,780 --> 00:43:58,310 by his frustration with the various groups that put them into situations of existence. 460 00:43:58,310 --> 00:44:00,960 Existential threat. And indeed, by Whitehall, 461 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:09,890 the administration that was content to prevent to prevaricate on its Palestine policy over and over again and to their detriment. 462 00:44:09,890 --> 00:44:14,030 Cunningham's claim that the level of such exemplary action could have been, and I quote, 463 00:44:14,030 --> 00:44:19,880 reached by no other nation lacks perhaps the Khairullah Ravelli requisite observation 464 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:24,740 that I would say no other nation could perhaps have so mismanaged the Palestine mandate. 465 00:44:24,740 --> 00:44:28,700 Indeed, it was a source of constant of a constant sense of, I would say, 466 00:44:28,700 --> 00:44:34,280 cynical irony to me to observe Britain's mishandling of the Brexit vote and subsequent 467 00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:40,160 negotiations throughout the whole period in which I researched and wrote this book. 468 00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:45,550 The fact that such similar devices continued to be employed by British politicians almost a century apart, 469 00:44:45,550 --> 00:44:50,600 the unwillingness to commit to apparently any proposed new plan that might drive policy forward, 470 00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:55,430 the need to play one's cards close to one's chest in the name of never once, never giving one's game away. 471 00:44:55,430 --> 00:45:01,500 And in the hope of gaining much more. By so doing. The desire to have one's cake and eat it, too. 472 00:45:01,500 --> 00:45:07,560 And not least the overriding need to preserve British interests, which informed all of these, 473 00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:18,060 suggest that the British long day of political improvised chaos is more strategy than it is happenstance. 474 00:45:18,060 --> 00:45:25,380 Cunningham concluded. I quote, Out of all the somewhat unhappy experiences of the last days, 475 00:45:25,380 --> 00:45:33,510 one thought at least can give us satisfaction not only in Palestine but in India, in the United States, Soviet Russia and elsewhere. 476 00:45:33,510 --> 00:45:41,220 Our rule in Palestine has too often been held up as an exploitation of dependent peoples, as an instrument of imperial policy. 477 00:45:41,220 --> 00:45:46,290 There can no longer be any doubt in the eyes of the world as to the true nature of the problem. 478 00:45:46,290 --> 00:45:52,830 A bitter contacts between Jews and Arabs, each fearing domination by the other in which the mandatory powers standing between has been 479 00:45:52,830 --> 00:45:58,980 continually denounced first by one community and then by the other showing favour to the other side. 480 00:45:58,980 --> 00:46:03,390 The true problem is now clear, and so history will judge it. 481 00:46:03,390 --> 00:46:11,580 I'm sure all of us who have had to work in Palestine during the term of the mandate are, well, content to accept that judgement. 482 00:46:11,580 --> 00:46:18,750 End of quote. Well, indeed. History has proven Cunningham correct in this final observation nonetheless. 483 00:46:18,750 --> 00:46:22,320 And over 70 years of Palestinian Israeli conflict notwithstanding, 484 00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:26,520 we should not forget the rather instrumental role that Britain played both in the creation of a Jewish 485 00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:31,980 national homeland in Palestine and in the perpetuation of a conflict that continues to this day. 486 00:46:31,980 --> 00:46:38,400 Thank you. Thank you. 487 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:46,050 Thank you, Peter, for a fascinating talk. The question and answer tab is open for questions. 488 00:46:46,050 --> 00:46:51,630 And what would you have a question for my tutor? The exercise would be that I will read the questions and you answer them. 489 00:46:51,630 --> 00:46:59,160 And to our audience, if you do not want your name to be mentioned and to ask the question anonymously, just no displeased. 490 00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:04,170 So the first question formatted to do Parfit, what do you think the British, 491 00:47:04,170 --> 00:47:10,110 in fact, could have done to bring the mandate to a harmonious conclusion to draw? 492 00:47:10,110 --> 00:47:16,530 Thanks for the question. Where I would say not have taken it up in the first place. 493 00:47:16,530 --> 00:47:25,110 I think that if it was so fraught with with double dealing, I can't think of a better word to say that right. 494 00:47:25,110 --> 00:47:29,340 To say right now he's right now. But really, it was clear from the beginning. 495 00:47:29,340 --> 00:47:35,850 I remember one of the very first files I looked at at at at the beginning when I was researching. 496 00:47:35,850 --> 00:47:39,960 This is something like the first or second week into the mandate. 497 00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:45,450 Kemba, who was writing it, it was kind of artificial kind of thing, saying there's no way we're going to be able to do this. 498 00:47:45,450 --> 00:47:52,500 But this is from like 19, 19, 20. So so I think in a way, I don't think there's anything they could have done, quite honestly. 499 00:47:52,500 --> 00:47:57,050 I think perhaps that they imposed partition and imposed it and thought about it sooner. 500 00:47:57,050 --> 00:48:02,490 But but, you know, by 1947, they had had the mandate for almost 30 years. 501 00:48:02,490 --> 00:48:08,660 They'd been certainly occupying the country for 30 years. So I think in a way, by that stage was almost nothing they could have done. 502 00:48:08,660 --> 00:48:13,770 There would have been harmonious. It would have been kind of similar to India, Pakistan, you know. 503 00:48:13,770 --> 00:48:21,170 But but it still would have been probably better than what's happening now. 504 00:48:21,170 --> 00:48:27,920 Thank you, Peter. We have two questions, one from an anonymous Canadian data from Danielle, 505 00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:37,850 who are basically the same questioning or asking you for some clarification on the terminology you use terms like terror and terrorism. 506 00:48:37,850 --> 00:48:44,570 Danielle is writing. Where are they use what other terms were deployed to describe the frequent violence? 507 00:48:44,570 --> 00:48:50,030 So this is the terminology of the reports from Danielle. Right question. And they are asking actually for your terminology. 508 00:48:50,030 --> 00:48:55,110 What do you call terrorism? If you could maybe it's not how I define it. 509 00:48:55,110 --> 00:49:01,130 It's about how they define it themselves. I'm using the terms that they themselves define or they themselves use to define what they're doing. 510 00:49:01,130 --> 00:49:05,060 Both the size of let's say that they are good. And the Lactaid themselves. I've said I probably huggin. 511 00:49:05,060 --> 00:49:10,840 I wouldn't call it that. They would call it, you know. But I also use the term that the British use. 512 00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:16,250 So so I mean, if you if you listen to what I was saying, quoting cutting him, he uses the words terrorism over and over again. 513 00:49:16,250 --> 00:49:20,300 So I think what I'm trying to do is understand how the British is trying to decrypt. 514 00:49:20,300 --> 00:49:25,700 What I'm trying to do is put myself in the heads of the British and try to understand what they understood, 515 00:49:25,700 --> 00:49:30,080 how they received information, how they processed information and how they reacted to it. 516 00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:35,180 If they could count this as terrorism, that that's how that's how I'm going to call it not what I call it is what they call it. 517 00:49:35,180 --> 00:49:44,330 And also, I would I would say someone who is that kind of you know, my whole research focuses on that, say, revisionist anti British resistance. 518 00:49:44,330 --> 00:49:51,360 I mean, these groups call themselves terrorist groups and proudly so. I mean, we you know, we kind of shudder from from this word in 2000, whatever. 519 00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:55,160 You were 20, 20 here. But they are quite, quite proud to call themselves. 520 00:49:55,160 --> 00:50:01,250 The whole point of why do I say terrorism, by the way, and here is maybe forget about what the Brits say, 521 00:50:01,250 --> 00:50:09,980 but why did the groups themselves call themselves terrorists? Because as Cunningham alludes to in his discussion, they did not make themselves known. 522 00:50:09,980 --> 00:50:14,830 So whenever they undertook an action, they went in very secretly. They they did. 523 00:50:14,830 --> 00:50:20,330 The whole terror was people did not know who was the terrorists when they would strike or how they would strike. 524 00:50:20,330 --> 00:50:24,860 That was the point. That was absolutely a goal. And that's why it's called terrorism. 525 00:50:24,860 --> 00:50:31,190 And not just I mean, I say anti British resistance a lot, but it was more than not the intention was to terrorise. 526 00:50:31,190 --> 00:50:37,520 And there's no getting away from that. So there's no point in mincing words or and that's that's that's how they themselves define themselves. 527 00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,930 That's also how the British saw them. So as it as kind of a responsible story and I think I like to say, you know, 528 00:50:41,930 --> 00:50:49,310 who doesn't have a trouble troubles so much confronting this kind of language. I think we should we should use the language they use. 529 00:50:49,310 --> 00:50:56,480 Peter, a sign of the huge interest that you talk is creating is the number of questions we have. 530 00:50:56,480 --> 00:51:00,920 I'm already have. I already have to apologise. I don't think we'll have a chance to cover all of them. 531 00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:05,630 Hopefully we will. But let's try and move a little bit faster. 532 00:51:05,630 --> 00:51:16,790 Marcus is asking, in your opinion, did Ben-Gurion give tacit approval to the actions of the good and me in order to advance the exit of the British? 533 00:51:16,790 --> 00:51:20,270 I'm assuming he must have given the Haganah approval. 534 00:51:20,270 --> 00:51:24,320 Right. So, Marcus. Yes. Tacit approval. 535 00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:30,140 Absolutely. There is an there is an account in Richard Crossman, his diary, if I'm not mistaken, 536 00:51:30,140 --> 00:51:33,650 who is one of the members, the Anglo American Committee, where they visited Ben Gurion. 537 00:51:33,650 --> 00:51:41,240 It's de Beaucaire. And they they mentioned that, you know, when they were leaving, they had to leave Under Armour with armoured cars and everything. 538 00:51:41,240 --> 00:51:45,590 And Bériot, Ben-Gurion, Winkelmann said, don't worry. We've spoken to that. You won't be terrorised tonight. 539 00:51:45,590 --> 00:51:51,000 I think with a wink in his eye. I mean, they were very complicit in all of this, without a doubt. 540 00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:57,230 OK. Thank you. Just a technical note. I've asked if I can unmuted attendees. 541 00:51:57,230 --> 00:52:07,580 I'm afraid not. I don't know if he's aware. That's the live event format that teams allow us. 542 00:52:07,580 --> 00:52:10,880 So the net question in line is from Anonymous. 543 00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:20,060 Many Syrians would agree that the mandate nurtured and supported design is to build up in Palestine in terms of institution building, 544 00:52:20,060 --> 00:52:23,270 economical resources and security structures. 545 00:52:23,270 --> 00:52:31,250 To what extent were British officials in the 40s conscious of the fact that we created this monster, quote unquote? 546 00:52:31,250 --> 00:52:36,020 OK. So. So I don't want to correct perhaps one thing. Many historians would agree that the mandate nurtured and supported. 547 00:52:36,020 --> 00:52:47,720 Yes. That design and that was there. That was the mandate. The mandate was to was to build up and nurture Zionist a Zionist settlement of Falak. 548 00:52:47,720 --> 00:52:54,350 I mean, it's kind of older version of our understanding of the word say. So that that was the international community, by the way, sanctioned this. 549 00:52:54,350 --> 00:52:58,630 The British Mandate for Palestine is a legal document issued by the League of Nations. 550 00:52:58,630 --> 00:53:03,230 So so absolutely. That was that that was their mandate. 551 00:53:03,230 --> 00:53:05,750 They were mandated to do this. But yes, I would agree. 552 00:53:05,750 --> 00:53:11,270 I think British officials in the 40s and even before that were conscious of the fact that they didn't if they created a monster, 553 00:53:11,270 --> 00:53:18,890 but we took on a role that we could not we could not fulfil. I think that's probably the more accurate way of saying it. 554 00:53:18,890 --> 00:53:27,320 Daniel Scharf is. King thanking you and asking, did your last sentence say something about continuing responsibility? 555 00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:30,830 If so, what is it? What is. No, no, no, no. Not so much that. 556 00:53:30,830 --> 00:53:35,400 But I think if we forget in the discussion between you, it kind of does it. 557 00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:38,840 The Palestinian Israeli conflict. 558 00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:50,420 We forget about the role of the British of Britain as a mandatory power in in in you know, in not finding not leaving with a with a solution in place. 559 00:53:50,420 --> 00:53:54,620 And then that's perpetuating what's going on to this day. Not, you know, not actively still. 560 00:53:54,620 --> 00:53:59,450 But certainly it wasn't just a question of the two communities not being able to get along. 561 00:53:59,450 --> 00:54:05,560 I mean, the fact was that the power that the country that took over the mandate and said we're going to, 562 00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:11,090 you know, affect this with the terms of this mandate, did not do so. 563 00:54:11,090 --> 00:54:15,230 So a question about technique me, which I also had in mind. 564 00:54:15,230 --> 00:54:21,050 So can you say something a little bit about flagging, flogging, this flogging you said, right? 565 00:54:21,050 --> 00:54:24,000 Yeah, like whipping. Whipping. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 566 00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:31,670 The the question says that this is a very unusual method as it must have been done in private, not in public. 567 00:54:31,670 --> 00:54:37,640 What was its intention and its effect affectless it since and also. 568 00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:42,350 Yeah. OK. So it was done to terrorise. Absolutely. 569 00:54:42,350 --> 00:54:47,690 It was done to scare it. If you promise that the whatever out of the soldiers because that, you know, 570 00:54:47,690 --> 00:54:51,770 it wasn't just a question that they could be, let's say, abducted or taken, they would be taken and whipped. 571 00:54:51,770 --> 00:54:55,610 And so I I'm not mistaken, and I don't don't quote me a hundred percent on this. 572 00:54:55,610 --> 00:55:02,390 I think it was both privately and not publicly, publicly, but that that was done in a public place, you know, and. 573 00:55:02,390 --> 00:55:10,160 But I have to I would have to I'd want to cheque that, too, before I say that with complete certainty. 574 00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:15,340 But some pushback on that. Terrorism is a term, again, your historical fact. 575 00:55:15,340 --> 00:55:17,960 It is like the British colonisers. 576 00:55:17,960 --> 00:55:26,700 If the British colonisers call it terrorism and you use the term terrorism, then you are legitimating a colonial interpretation of history. 577 00:55:26,700 --> 00:55:33,500 I mean, I know you've brought out a very important point is that the terror, the people who did it themselves call themselves terrorists. 578 00:55:33,500 --> 00:55:38,890 So I think that I've explained that already. Yeah. All right, Roman, vato. 579 00:55:38,890 --> 00:55:46,310 Hi, Roman. Is that Roma? How would you compare the Zionist campaign against the British to the IRA rebellion of 36 580 00:55:46,310 --> 00:55:51,900 to 39 in terms of their influence and the British decision to retreat from Palestine? 581 00:55:51,900 --> 00:55:57,560 Roman, it's a great question. You're absolutely right. I mean, there was an absolute parallel here. 582 00:55:57,560 --> 00:56:03,620 And the and the irony, of course, is that the airgun and the lucky and that led to the hugging, not learnt from the Arab rebellion. 583 00:56:03,620 --> 00:56:08,990 I mean, they'll Arab rebellion was directed against the British, not against the Jews. And so it's that there's absolutely parallel. 584 00:56:08,990 --> 00:56:19,040 I think that I guess where it went differently is that after 1939, this resulted in a white paper that was meant to kind of smooth over. 585 00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:22,970 So I'm getting e-mails at the centre, went to smooth over the whole world. 586 00:56:22,970 --> 00:56:29,120 And really, it's floating. Everything's exploded. They went to smooth over and kind of quashed the Arab rebellion. 587 00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:36,170 But in a way that was kind of amenable to both groups. By the by so 10 years later, that was impossible, I think. 588 00:56:36,170 --> 00:56:42,430 And so you're right. Roland is a really great comparison. And thanks for bringing it up, because I should have mentioned it. 589 00:56:42,430 --> 00:56:47,630 Joe Bergen is asking, first of all, thanking you for a fascinating talk. She's very. 590 00:56:47,630 --> 00:56:55,790 So she's looking forward to reading your book, given the size of the post Second World War displaced Jewish population and the seeming 591 00:56:55,790 --> 00:57:00,920 inevitability that the Balfour Declaration would have to be delivered against. 592 00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:08,240 In that context, why do you think the British politicians could not see this for themselves? 593 00:57:08,240 --> 00:57:16,250 There is only so much that self-interest can be accepted for something that caused so much death and harm. 594 00:57:16,250 --> 00:57:22,790 Yeah, I agree, Joe. That's a good question. I think the point is, of course, that the British didn't look far ahead into any of this. 595 00:57:22,790 --> 00:57:28,880 That's the point. So that the Balfour Declaration, they thought, oh, yeah, maybe we'll get a couple hundred thousand Jews and you know, it. 596 00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:35,000 Perception is was different on every side. So did the Zionists think, great, we run with this, we're going to have a state now, 597 00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:39,020 whereas the British were thinking, OK, we're going to we're going to you know, 598 00:57:39,020 --> 00:57:45,200 we're going to play chess, you know, with with two peoples and and kind of stay in the middle and trying to control the whole thing. 599 00:57:45,200 --> 00:57:50,360 And you see, I mean, when I talked about British self-interest, I wasn't just being a bit flippant. 600 00:57:50,360 --> 00:57:57,980 I mean, if you see the cabinet, not cabinet minister, there's a there's a there were minutes trying to remember. 601 00:57:57,980 --> 00:58:02,180 Exactly. Anyway, the point is they had kind of representatives from all of the Middle Eastern, 602 00:58:02,180 --> 00:58:06,920 you know, the Egypt office, the Iraq, the meeting together at the end of the war. 603 00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:10,600 And they were talking, you know, like they were still this amazing empire. 604 00:58:10,600 --> 00:58:15,860 They'd just taken out a three billion or three trillion dollar loan from America because they couldn't survive the empire. 605 00:58:15,860 --> 00:58:20,020 You know, if you think about what was going on in India and Pakistan, the empire was really crumbling. 606 00:58:20,020 --> 00:58:24,550 And and it is astounding to me that you would get these kind of old, you know, 607 00:58:24,550 --> 00:58:29,200 generals or, you know, guys talking about, you know, we must preserve British interests. 608 00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:35,770 They literally say these, you know, say it in as many words. We have what's most most important for us is British self-interest. 609 00:58:35,770 --> 00:58:40,840 And they wanted to maintain a hold in Palestine, Israel, whatever. 610 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,480 Even after there was some sort of solution from the UN. 611 00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:52,970 This is why they delayed even Ernest Bevin delayed so long in going to the U.N. because he didn't want to let go of the control. 612 00:58:52,970 --> 00:58:58,000 Queensland is asking many historians would agree that the mandate nurtured and 613 00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:04,150 supported design is build up in Palestine in terms of institution buildings, 614 00:59:04,150 --> 00:59:08,020 economical resources. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. 615 00:59:08,020 --> 00:59:12,430 So that was too good. So an anonymous question. 616 00:59:12,430 --> 00:59:17,070 We historians cannot simply claim that we used the terms that circus act was used. 617 00:59:17,070 --> 00:59:20,710 Oh, that's it. Going back to those that were responsible for the language we use, 618 00:59:20,710 --> 00:59:27,680 I guess we'll take it as a as a just as a note and continue because it is Apsley still stand behind my use of the word terrorism. 619 00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:31,200 I mean, I don't really know why we would. What's the point of going around. 620 00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:36,520 And I question it. Yeah. OK, Mark Sullivan is asking again. 621 00:59:36,520 --> 00:59:48,070 Thank you for quoting Sir Alan Cunningham's speech to the R, double A. in July 1948, which is never quoted in individual stories. 622 00:59:48,070 --> 00:59:55,870 How do you findings about Sir Alan Cunningham's role and approach compared with those of Matthew Guilani, 623 00:59:55,870 --> 01:00:01,060 who started Cunningham's time as high commissioner? He concluded that Cunninghams, in effect, 624 01:00:01,060 --> 01:00:06,130 allowed the petition to emerge by not cooperating with the U.N. petition commission and 625 01:00:06,130 --> 01:00:13,520 allowing the Jewish state to form itself in shadow and Transjordan to move into the West Bank. 626 01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:22,620 She also grabbed the Javins book on Pusha starting page 58, which confirms obvious. 627 01:00:22,620 --> 01:00:25,930 But I mean, I again, I mean, I read Multis book. 628 01:00:25,930 --> 01:00:31,870 I've got it. It's my focus was completely different. So, I mean, I'm not more interested in what drove the British out. 629 01:00:31,870 --> 01:00:40,300 So really, my story ends in April 1947, which is why I, I split up the data from from because April forty seven, 630 01:00:40,300 --> 01:00:43,690 it was when Britain makes the decision to go to the United Nations. 631 01:00:43,690 --> 01:00:50,010 So from that point, the point of the of the anti British resistance to terrorism, whatever you want to call it, was made. 632 01:00:50,010 --> 01:00:54,240 Right. That's what that was the catalyst for Britain to decide, OK, we can't do this anymore. 633 01:00:54,240 --> 01:01:01,050 The last the last six or eight months of that were just kind of in this purgatory, for lack of a better word, 634 01:01:01,050 --> 01:01:06,550 you know, of them waiting to find out what would happen with the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. 635 01:01:06,550 --> 01:01:13,270 But once the United Nations Special Committee in Palestine was was engaged, Britain really had no role except to sit and wait. 636 01:01:13,270 --> 01:01:18,790 So that's why I really stop. It's kind of a strange thing to say, but I'm not I mean, I'm interested, obviously. 637 01:01:18,790 --> 01:01:28,090 But but but what really happened or what the real movers and shakers for this whole period. 638 01:01:28,090 --> 01:01:33,160 It all occurred before April until April 47 and not afterwards, although the violence was much more in between. 639 01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:37,600 But that violence was just it was one issue. There was the British British had made their decision. 640 01:01:37,600 --> 01:01:43,480 I'm looking at this whole story from the point of view. The British, why they decided to leave. 641 01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:49,150 James Sunderland is asking, how has your research so far been greeted by researchers and scholars, 642 01:01:49,150 --> 01:01:53,200 especially in Israel, given the prevailing academic opinion, 643 01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:56,860 for example, by such people as good only Segev and Hoffman, 644 01:01:56,860 --> 01:02:02,440 that the goon left and the Ghana had little effect on the British decision to add the mandate? 645 01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:06,970 And have you encountered any pushback against your argument by such scholars? 646 01:02:06,970 --> 01:02:11,920 Maybe I can also add to this. Can you say something to the effect of. 647 01:02:11,920 --> 01:02:20,250 How would I call them success stories of those Urbani's organisations and how would they accept your terminologies of terrorist and so forth? 648 01:02:20,250 --> 01:02:28,480 All right. So you said there, James. Good question. The answer is they don't know yet because I so I presented this about a year ago at a conference, 649 01:02:28,480 --> 01:02:33,490 this cessation of European Association of Israel Studies. But the research has only been written up since March. 650 01:02:33,490 --> 01:02:38,290 We've got covered. It's out being peer reviewed at the moment. And that's all I'm wanting to say about that. 651 01:02:38,290 --> 01:02:46,870 So at the moment, nobody has had the chance to to kind of hear unless they've come to this this talk or, you know, the talk last year. 652 01:02:46,870 --> 01:02:51,520 I would say this and it's a Ya'akov I think I understand you're trying to say there's 653 01:02:51,520 --> 01:02:54,640 still a massive division between what we might call right and left in Israel. 654 01:02:54,640 --> 01:03:01,420 And and certainly a lot of the reason for what I do is to get to, you know, 655 01:03:01,420 --> 01:03:06,880 to perhaps portray a more accurate representation of what really happened without taking a political side. 656 01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:14,460 I do find it so. So what am I trying to say? 657 01:03:14,460 --> 01:03:20,640 I don't think you could speak to anybody who who's, you know, I hate to use the terms right and left and stuff as well in the first one. 658 01:03:20,640 --> 01:03:25,650 I find it quite problematic. But anyone who, as I say, supports the Ergin position itself. 659 01:03:25,650 --> 01:03:31,170 Who would have problems saying that they were to the point of the Erkan themselves to to be a terrorist organisation? 660 01:03:31,170 --> 01:03:36,600 So again, we're going. It's circular argument because it's not. It's you know, it's. 661 01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:44,910 Yeah. Anyway, I don't think I'm going to I'm going to step on your toes one more time and asking you about fascism. 662 01:03:44,910 --> 01:03:56,220 How comfortable are the inheritors of those people with you using fascist and pro fascist to describe those actors who are. 663 01:03:56,220 --> 01:04:06,010 Well, you know, you cover any previous. No, I've never used the term fascist or pro fascist to describe anyone who didn't describe themselves as such. 664 01:04:06,010 --> 01:04:11,210 Right. And again, this is you know, this is an intellectual terminal illness. 665 01:04:11,210 --> 01:04:16,750 It's not. There's no emotion involved when I use these terms. 666 01:04:16,750 --> 01:04:20,110 I mean, you know, I'm trying to understand it. 667 01:04:20,110 --> 01:04:23,650 I'm trying to analyse it as a story. And I'm not trying to advocate it. 668 01:04:23,650 --> 01:04:26,200 I'm not trying to step on it. I'm trying to explain. 669 01:04:26,200 --> 01:04:32,500 And then I think the reader then Armbrust or the listener, armed with such information, can make up her own mind. 670 01:04:32,500 --> 01:04:38,560 Eric did write the question. So far, the narrative has been Palestine centric. 671 01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:46,000 Have you found evidence of the Jewish revolt impacting British assets in other places in the Middle East, 672 01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:52,450 for example, the Foreign Office was terrified of the prospect of Zionist attack on the other than refinery. 673 01:04:52,450 --> 01:04:58,660 Right. But again, my point in writing this research was to understand why the British left a mandate for power. 674 01:04:58,660 --> 01:05:02,170 Well, not even why they left, why they went to the UN and then why they left. 675 01:05:02,170 --> 01:05:08,590 Right. So, yes, I mean, yes, sir. There's you know, there's there's the there's the Moine Association. 676 01:05:08,590 --> 01:05:12,180 There's Count Bernadotte assassination, which took place outside of Palestine. 677 01:05:12,180 --> 01:05:16,690 But an oh, my battery is running low. Hang on. I didn't turn on the PowerPoint. 678 01:05:16,690 --> 01:05:21,480 OK, we're good. Oh, my God. This country. Another British thing I can't deal with. 679 01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:26,200 You know, it is it's putting on the power points anyway. 680 01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:30,100 So it's a good question, but it's outside of the scope of what I'm trying to do, research. 681 01:05:30,100 --> 01:05:39,610 I can tell you, you know, in spite of the fact that I you know, I photographed probably by 15000 documents for this and looked at them all. 682 01:05:39,610 --> 01:05:44,680 But there's only so much you can write into a work that's already went on to be one hundred pages longer than it was supposed to be. 683 01:05:44,680 --> 01:05:51,060 And it's close to six hundred pages or 700 pages, I can't remember now. So it's that's the problem is knowing which included which to stop it. 684 01:05:51,060 --> 01:05:56,050 But yes, they're Apsley as Erica. Yeah, there absolutely is is evidence of all of this. 685 01:05:56,050 --> 01:05:59,840 But it wasn't the point of my my my research. 686 01:05:59,840 --> 01:06:08,290 Peter, this excitement surrounding the question and answer was just a great sign of how interesting and exciting and invigorating your research is, 687 01:06:08,290 --> 01:06:13,510 and I guess we all will join in in congratulating you on the talk and wishing 688 01:06:13,510 --> 01:06:17,380 for the fast publication of the book so we can also celebrate the publication. 689 01:06:17,380 --> 01:06:23,860 I'm just gonna close by reading Mark Sullivan's comment that Olivia Shakoor like to call 690 01:06:23,860 --> 01:06:29,440 me Nothing Big in the Terrorist as late as 1967 and is referencing Ivy Rice's book, 691 01:06:29,440 --> 01:06:36,730 Debriding and the Dowry. I think there's much so much more to discuss, but we obviously cannot thank you again for doing this. 692 01:06:36,730 --> 01:06:42,300 And thank you all for attending the talk. So, yeah, I'm just gonna say thank you for actually for idea. 693 01:06:42,300 --> 01:06:46,120 I'm just copying the copy and paste work, so I'm gonna make an announcement. I'm going to. 694 01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:50,680 There we go. Those are all the Guns N Roses references that went into that. 695 01:06:50,680 --> 01:06:56,510 I can see this. I put it up later. There you go. Now we see the PowerPoint right now. 696 01:06:56,510 --> 01:07:00,370 Okay. I didn't. Oh, really? Okay. So I don't know. I put it into the chart. 697 01:07:00,370 --> 01:07:04,260 The Q and A. Oh, okay. Okay. 698 01:07:04,260 --> 01:07:16,205 So anyway, guys, thanks very much. Ya'akov, as always, you.