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THE BRITISH MANDATE

How the British sought to strangle
the Jewish National Home

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Introduction
This is part of the story of how the British sought to strangle the Jewish National Home, incredible as it may seem, but true. The British
placed heavy restrictions on Jewish arrivals in Israel while allowing
Arabs to enter the country freely, which came in the wake of the rioting by Arab mobs. In handling each riot, the British did everything in
their power to prevent Jews from protecting themselves, but made
little or no effort to prevent the Arabs from attacking Jews.
In 1947 Milord Ivan Rand explained in his public letter at the UN why
the mandate over Palestine could not in good conscience be returned
to a bigoted and malicious British administration and why partition was
the only reasonable means to dealing with the two conflicting communities. He said:
Britain has betrayed their own solemn commitments, even
their own laws to use administrative processes with malice
aforethought. We cannot assist or acquiesce in this persecutory
discrimination of a people who have just barely survived
exterminatory persecution inflicted by Germany and her helpers.
It is a travesty that His Majestys Government have abused their
trust to such a degree of betrayal and corruption. If the Jewish
people are denied self determination in their contiguously held
ancestral homeland, then no other nation on earth has any rights
under international law to their own home other than through the
application of the force of arms.
By the way, Milord Ivan Rand was a Justice of the Supreme Court of
Canada from 1943 until 59. In 1947, he was Canadas representative
on the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).
The British policy of accommodating the militant Arabs to the detriment of the Jewish settlers in Palestine intensified after the important
United Nations resolution of establishing the partition of Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, with Jerusalem having an international
status. The two parts were bound together by means of an economic
union, Jordan already having been separated in 1922. The transition
period was to end in May 1948, the official date of the foundation of
the State of Israel. All the while, clandestine arms shipments continued, in the knowledge that they would be used for Arab aggression.
The British chose to sabotage the plan and made the Arabs believe
that partition would be substituted by a federal state, where in view of
their numbers the Arabs would call the tune. The British also insisted
with the Arabs to chase the Jews out of the country, at least to make
their life miserable. The UN resolution for partition was therefore rejected by all the Arab states. Ironically this rejection was instrumental
in the creation of the State of Israel, the very institution it sought to
prevent.

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1 - The repartition of the Middle East region

In the course of World War I the fall of the Ottoman Empire was consummated, thereby
paving the way for the creation of the modern Middle East in a setting hitherto unknown.
Part of the deal, in April 1920, was that the territory now comprising Israel, Jordan, the
West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem was awarded to the United Kingdom as its mandatary. In 1922 it was agreed to create within this mandate the semi-autonomous Arab
Emirate of Transjordan, to be situated east of the river Jordan, that comprised three quarters of the mandate, in its entirety originally called Palestine. Henceforth Palestine was
going to be used only to denote the remainder. This secession has remained a grievance
within Zionist circles, who refer to their proposals at the time and like to cite Biblical texts
to prove their point, but the issue is not that easy. Maps drawn by the Zionists and presented for consideration during the deliberations regarding the mandate included only a part
of Transjordan. In the aftermath of World War I the name Palestine had but a vague meaning: there were no Palestinians, only Arabs - and that is how they felt, and the name did
not elicit political aspirations. It was a name, based on a Roman practice, applied in different circumstances and in a different age. The linking of both areas for the mandate, to the
east and west of the River Jordan, was an administrative convenience and there was no
suggestion that it was meant to indicate recognition of Zionist claims to parts of Transjordan. Under the League Mandate of 1922, the mandate which concerns us most, England
retained some control over Transjordan via the High Commissioner appointed for the area
west of the River Jordan, called Palestine. The span of control ended in 1946 when the
Arab Emirate became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, simply called Jordan after the annexation of the West Bank in 1950.

2 To the detriment of Jewish settlers

Thus, in 1922 the League of Nations ratified the British Mandate for Palestine. The document covering the Mandate defined Britains responsibilities and powers of administration
in the area. It copied and amplified the text of the Balfour Declaration, originally drawn up
in 1917, concerning the establishment of a Jewish homeland: The Government of His Britannic Majesty is in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the
rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. Adding to it that recognition was given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the
grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country. Article 6 stated: The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the
population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish Agency, close settlement by
Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.
From this text we might infer that there would be a tendency to prejudice the rights of the
non-Jewish communities in Palestine. The fear proved groundless. The Peel Commission
reported in 1937 that the shortfall of land is due less to the amount of land acquired by
Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. As time went by, the rights of the Arab
residents and immigrants were increasingly favoured to the detriment of Jewish settlers.
Contradicting the provisions of the Mandate the British placed restrictions on Jewish land
purchases. During the Mandate, that lasted until 1948, the British allotted 87,500 acres of
the 187,500 of cultivable land to Arabs and only 4,250 acres of it to Jews. At the inception
of the State of Israel, Jewish holdings amounted to about 463,000 acres, of which at the

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time of acquisition most were lying waste and judged unfit for cultivation. These malariainfested swamps and arid and semi-arid fields had to be developed at great cost and by
strenuous effort. What is more, they commonly had to be purchased at exorbitant prices
from absentee landlords who were often living abroad, in places like Cairo, Damascus and
Beirut. (1) Tenfold prices paid for rich black soil in the United States were not uncommon.

3 - Al-Husseinis only passion

The first High Commissioner under the Mandate was Herbert Samuel, who was ready to
appease the fanatical faction of the Arabs, for he did not perceive their trickery. Induced by
anti-Jewish officials on his staff he pardoned Haj Amin al-Husseini for inciting the 1920
riots in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. (see article: The 1920 Riots) In 1922 the High
Commissioner appointed him Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (who fled the country in 1937).
Simultaneously, he was made President of the newly created Supreme Muslim Council,
despite opposition from the Muslim High Council, who regarded him as a hoodlum (cf.
William Ziffs classic: The Rape of Palestine - 1937, p. 22). He thereby became the de
facto religious and political leader of the Arabs. This proved to be a very unfortunate
development. Al-Husseini was a hard-liner. By the application of brute force he quenched
all the cooperative efforts between Arabs and Jews, some of which looked very promising.
Indeed, there were many Muslims who did not believe that to be a good Muslim one must
necessarily be anti-Zionist. However, al-Husseinis only passion - in the tradition of an
Edomite - was to drive the Jews out and butcher them. In the Talmudic interpretation of the
prophecy of Genesis 25:23 the two - Edom and Israel - could never be mighty simultaneously: the rise of one would be contingent on the fall of the other. The agitation would
continue until the coming of the Messiah, for it is believed that in the end the younger
will prevail and that is Israel; all commentators agree that the prophetic reference is not to
the two individuals, but to the two powers they represent. It is fully consistent with the
foregoing that the 1929 riots, to be characterized as a small civil war, were orchestrated by
al-Husseini, who issued the call Itbach el-Yahud! Slaughter the Jews! After the murdering of 67 Jews in Hebron, in one day, he disseminated photographs with the claim that
the corpses were Arabs killed by Jews. This gloomy figure became the special protg of
Adolf Hitler who liked to treat him as an honorary Aryan because of the red beard and blue
eyes he had inherited from his Circassian mother (incidentally, Edom means red).

4 An ugly stain on the history of England

As regards immigration, the British placed heavy restrictions on Jewish arrivals while allowing Arabs to enter the country freely. In 1930 the Hope Simpson Commission, sent from
London to investigate the 1929 riots, said the British practice of ignoring the illegal Arab
immigration had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants. In 1939 Churchill challenged the common notion that Jewish immigration into Palestine had uprooted its
Arab residents. During the parliamentary debate following the issuing of the White Paper,
Churchill said near the end of his speech: So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have
crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even
all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population. (Gilbert, Vol. V, p. 1072) This view
was demonstrated to be essentially true thanks to Joan Peters research, presented in her
book published in 1984: From Time Immemorial (the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict
over Palestine). The author used an array of statistics to argue that the Zionists, as modern
Europeans, brought with them resources and skills that created wealth and economic opportunity, which in turn attracted large numbers of Arabs to the Palestinian lands situated

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west of the river Jordan. The British governor of the Sinai from 1922 to 1936 had already
observed: This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from
Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out of the misery of the Arabs
if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in
to share that misery. During World War II the immigration of Jews came practically to a
halt, due to the inconsiderate British policy of banning all Jewish immigration, which left
them at odds with Hitlers final solution. After the war the British confined the Jews who
had escaped the nightmare of the extermination camps to displaced persons camps in
Europe. The Jewish resistance used to smuggle them into Palestine. When caught on the
way they were transferred, fifty thousand in all, to concentration camps on Cyprus. More
than half of them were still imprisoned at the time of the foundation of the New State. This
remains an ugly stain on the history of England.
The restrictions on Jewish emigration came in the wake of the rioting by Arab mobs. In
handling each riot, the British did everything in their power to prevent Jews from protecting themselves, but made little or no effort to prevent the Arabs from attacking Jews. William Ziff documents that Arab murderers of Jews were given six months because the judge
said that the death was unintentional, the goal being merely rape. On the other hand, Jewish
security guards were given twenty years hard labour for killing an Arab terrorist attacker.
After each riot, a British commission of inquiry would always conclude the same: The
Arabs are afraid of being displaced by the Jews and the proper way to establish peace is to
place restrictions on Jewish immigration. But instead of tranquillity, the policy of appeasement incited further rioting, as the perpetrators understood that rioting paid off.

5 Ernest Bevins disgraceful policy

The British policy of accommodating the
militant Arabs to the detriment of the Jewish
settlers in Palestine intensified after the important United Nations resolution of November 29th 1947 establishing the partition of
Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, with
Jerusalem having an international status. The
two parts were bound together by means of
an economic union, Jordan already having
been separated in 1922. The transition period
was to end on May 14th 1948, the official
date of the foundation of the State of Israel.
All the while, clandestine arms shipments
continued, in the knowledge that they would
be used for Arab aggression. A little more
than two weeks before partition came into
effect, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin still refused to halt the arms supplies.
From the highly confidential Fortnightly InLord Ernest Bevin
telligence Newsletters that were made available to reporters from The Nation - New
York, it is abundantly clear that the British Government knew of every single Arab troop
movement in Palestine and could have halted them if she had wanted to. Besides, relations
with them were such that Britain could have asked Arab leaders to request the terrorists to

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show restraint. The British chose to sabotage the plan and made the Arabs believe that partition would be substituted by a federal state, where in view of their numbers the Arabs
would call the tune. The UN resolution was therefore rejected by all the Arab states. Ironically this rejection was instrumental in the creation of the State of Israel, the very institution it sought to prevent. Their rejection obstructed the partition plan in favour of true
nationhood and made 80% of the Arabs flee the country, having been urged to do so by
their Arab leaders living in luxury mansions abroad, where they had fled immediately after
the acceptation of the UN resolution. A small number of the refugees were driven out by
the Israeli forces from regions of strategic military importance, but they were not forced to
leave the country - and yet they did. Ever since, the world has known the refugee problem. (See my article: The Palestinian Refugee Problem)
Freda Kirchwey, the president of The Nation Associates, wrote on May 8th 1948 in a memorandum submitted to the special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations:
The British prejudice against the Jews has been clearly indicated in their refusal to
allow the Jews to arm for defense against Arab attack, and their blowing up of Jewish
defense posts; in their turning over to the Arabs - and to certain death - members of
the Haganah (the Jewish paramilitary self-defense organization in Palestine); in their
confiscation of Haganah arms; in their treatment of Jewish defense personnel as criminals. The British have connived at the starving of the Jewish population of Jerusalem
by their failure to keep the highways open. They have refused armed escorts to the
Jews. Their attitude to the Arab community is quite different. By British admission,
the Arab community has been armed by the British. Arab train robberies, which have
been frequent, have been met with shooting over the heads of the robbers. Arab
desertions from the police, for the purpose of joining the attackers, accompanied by
the stealing of arms, have never been prevented, and Arab violators of the peace go
unpunished. To this record can be added the detailed facts concerning the fashion in
which the British have destroyed central authority, and, under the guise of establishing
greater local authority, turned over in largest part to the Arabs the various services of
the Palestine government created and maintained chiefly by taxation of the Jewish
community. Simultaneously, assets have been dissipated and vital communications
disposed of to foreign agencies. The effect of this has been to seal the Jewish community in a limited area, cut off its access to the outside world by land and sea, and
surround it by Arabs in order to create such a state of siege as would cause the Jews to
send up a white flag.
The Janus-faced policy of Britannia, pretending one set of convictions and treacherously
acting under the influence of another, was prominent again. On December 12th 1947 Ernest
Bevin told the House of Commons:
I am not going and His Majestys Government is not going to oppose the United
Nations decision. () There that decision is of the world organism whether we agree
with it or not. It is on the statute book of that great organization. May it be possible to
implement it! If it is, and if my colleagues or I can render any assistance, with advice,
with help, with our officials, with our administrative ability, with our historical knowledge, to smooth out the transition, to try to prevent the divisions from being widened
- in other words to do anything possible to promote concord, friendship and amity
between these peoples - we shall do it.

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A day earlier Colonial Secretary Creech Jones, asserted to the House of Commons:
So long as the British remained in any part of Palestine, (the Mandatory Government) would maintain law and order in the area of which it was still in occupation.
() and it will do its duty in protecting the life and property of citizens irrespective of
race. (As later developments would show these pledges were null and void.)

6 The Arab Liberation Army

The Arab revolt was openly projected in the autumn of 1947 at the very time the United
Nations were meeting in regular sessions to discuss the implementation of the Jewish national home. The decision to create havoc was made at a meeting of the Council of the Arab
League in Sofar, Lebanon. This meeting was attended not only by the heads of the Arab
governments taking part in the League, but also by the British representative in Egypt, Brigadier P. A. Clayton, together with a number of his associates from Cairo and Jerusalem. It
was at this meeting that the formation of an undercover volunteer force for the liberation
of Palestine was decided upon, as against the use of regular Arab troops, a decision that
was adopted under the influence of Clayton. The Arab League itself was the intellectual
child of Clayton who put forward the idea to Anthony Eden, then Foreign Secretary, who
was favourably inclined. This resulted in its formation in 1945.
Richard Crossman, a Member of Parliament, said in his address to the House of Commons
in the meeting on December 11th already referred to:
British diplomacy has, alas, concentrated Arab attention to the Zionist issue. At
meetings of the Arab League, British representatives have been in attendance
regularly even when the most violent anti-Jewish actions were approved. We are now
suffering the consequences of creating the Arab League on the basis of a single
programme of denying a Jewish state to the Jews.
The Fortnightly Newsletter No. 62, dated February 27, 1848 (quoted from the memorandum of The Nation), has an interesting observation:
The Arab leaders are anxious not to aggravate the British in any way but the
question is whether so many men, possibly ten thousand of them at present in this
country (the Arab Liberation Army in Palestine), with their bitter hatred of the Jews
and their excitable character, whose sole raison detre is the killing of Jews, can hold
themselves in check until the British forces have quitted.
A United Nations report counted over a four month period about an equal number of dead
Arabs and Jews, in total more than 1,800, and a small number of British casualties. A disgusting detail, as told in the next Fortnightly Newsletter, is the training of the Arab Liberation Army by former German officers of the Nazi regime and some Yugoslav Moslems,
who had had wartime experience in guerilla warfare, the training taking place in the Ras el
Ain area and Jaffa. Despite this, Foreign Secretary Bevin maintained he had no knowledge
of non-Arab fighters in Palestine. As concerns the withdrawal from Palestine of a few thousands belonging to the Arab Legion, which owed allegiance to the king of Transjordan,
Bevin promised in December that these forces would be withdrawn. But on April 16th
these forces were still engaged in a series of unprovoked aggressions on peaceful Jewish
residents and passersby. The following day, King Abdullah of Transjordan announced that
he would send his Arab Legion into Palestine to help his Arab brothers. Could the king
have carried out his threat without British knowledge and consent? The fact is that Trans-

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jordan was a military appendage of the British at the time, and he could not have acted in
this way without their knowledge and consent. The Arab Legion was under command of a
British officer and was organised, trained, officered, and paid for by the British government. Nonetheless, Bevin told the House of Commons on April 28th: I am not going to be
drawn into promises and commitments about the Transjordan Force until I know the final
decision of the U.N. on Palestine.

7 - England forsakes its duty

The duty of England, according to the UN resolution of November 29th, was to cooperate
with the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations in establishing Jerusalem as an international city, but the notion of cooperation was dropped. I quote from the memorandum of
The Nation:
Under the guise of spurious neutrality the British Government made possible a
series of events initiated by the Arabs which have splattered the sanctity of the Holy
City with blood. Thus, thanks to British neutrality Ben Yahuda Street, the chief commercial centre of Jewish Jerusalem, was bombed; the Arabs could bomb the offices of
the Jewish Agency, killing thirteen and wounding forty-five; within full sight of a
British army post, the Arabs could attack a medical convoy in the course of which 76
persons were killed of the medical staff of the Hadassah Hospital and when the Haganah tried to intervene, they were blocked by the British. Despite the fact that the Mufti
of Jerusalem was directing the whole operation, no arrests had been made, but on the
contrary Jewish defense posts were blown up and food supplies to the city were prohibited.
This is part of the story of how the British sought to strangle the Jewish National Home,
incredible as it may seem, but true.
Hubert Luns
See also: The British Record on Partition - The Nation, May 8, 1948
(photocopy or plain text)

Land purchases by Jewish settlers

(1) At the end of 1947, Jewish holdings in Palestine amounted to about 463,000 acres (or
43.5 km x 43.5 km) of which 80% had become arable land. This was less than 50% of the
aggregate arable land in the new state of Israel. Approximately 45,000 of these acres were
acquired from the Mandatory Government, 30,000 from various churches and 387,500, or
5/6 of the total, were purchased from Arabs. Records of land purchases from 1880 to 1948
show that three-quarters of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not from
poor fellahin as the Jews have been accused of doing. Those who sold land included the
mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa. Asad el-Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and
father of PLO chairman Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land. In fact, many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, including members of the Muslim Supreme Council, sold land to Jews.

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September 30, 2014

Hi Barry (Chamish),
The following article (U.K. encouraged Arab armies to invade
Israel in 1948 is an echo of Ivan Rands UNSCOP findings (United
Nations Special Committee on Palestine), but this one comes from
French Intel archives, while the British claim that all their records
have been burnt! Yeah. By the way, this does give me a bit of a smile.
When I first found Rands UNSCOP dossier in the Dunn Library, at first
I wondered how this could be so completely overlooked, how this
history could have been omitted by our own people. When I took this
info to the CIJA people (The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs),
they thought I was making it all up, and pressed Jon not to allow me
access to the media as an AJC representative (Global Jewish Advocacy). At the time Jon and I were in contact with the news people over
stuff I found about the Jewish Legion and Ben Gurion in Windsor,
Nova Scotia. They were irritated at me for that too.
All the historical facts, the treaties and laws, that led to the nation
state of Israel were summarized by a Canadian Supreme Court Justice,
Milord Ivan Cleveland Rand in 1947. Ivan Rand, born in Moncton, New
Brunswick, became a leading legal mind of the British Empire in the
famous 1936 case Rex vs the Dominion Coal Company, where he found
a fair resolution for workers and owners in what is now taught in
advanced economics as the Rand formula. Rand was appointed to the
Supreme Court of Canada in 1942. In 1946 Earnest Bevin, Englands
foreign minister was at first happy to see Rand appointed to be the
secretary of the UNSCOP and thought he would give Britain what it
wanted on Palestine. Bevin, in a telegram to Rand, outlined the official
British policy on Palestine. He wanted Rand to steer the committee
into telling the UN that the mandate should be returned to British
control with the abolishment of the Balfour letter and extended in
order to create an Arab state, as according to the British, Arabs made
up more than 60% of the mandates population.
Rand responded to Bevin: Palestines legal status was internationally recognized by the Ottoman Moslim rulers at the Treaty of
Malta in 1535 between Suleiman the Magnificent and Francis I of
France as a land sacred to Christians and Jews. This treaty was
acknowledged by all other European powers at the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The Americans confirmed the Malta treaty in 1913
with the USA/France Arbitrations & Extensions treaty. So it was not
Jews alone who had legal rights here. The French nation and its
Christian charges also had legal interests here, ipso facto thus all
Christian nations; the Jewish people held prior legal rights to whoever
was claiming them now. And this was upheld by the previous high
contracting party, the Ottoman Empire.

Shabbat shalom,

Meir

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THE REASON BEHIND ENGLANDS DUPLICITY

Uncovered: U.K. intel encouraged Arab armies to invade Israel in 1948
Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East
sheds new light on Britains role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence.
By Meir Zamir | The Telegraph | Sep. 14, 2014
The writer works for the Haaretz newspaper

Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin (left) and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee

Some highlights
Without the knowledge of their cabinet, from June 1947 until May 1948, British secret
agents conducted their own covert policy. While officially seeking to convince the Arab
governments of the importance of concluding defense agreements with Britain to counter
the escalating Soviet threat, they secretly instigated an Arab-Jewish confrontation in Palestine to advance Britains strategic ends.
They sought to use a war in Palestine to deflect the Arab publics attention from the controversial treaty negotiations; as an incentive for the Arab governments to conclude defense
treaties with Britain; to demonstrate to the Arab rulers their countries need for military
collaboration; to reinforce the Arab states military dependence on Britain, while at the
same time preventing the establishment of a Jewish state or limiting its size. An ArabJewish conflict would also validate Britains long-held position regarding the solution to
the Palestinian problem and demonstrate that, despite its good intentions, it was caught in
the middle. Moreover, it would help Britain secure its strategic assets in Palestine: Haifa,
with its port and refineries, and the Negev region in the south.

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In this brief article, it is impossible to detail all the maneuvers and intrigues of the British
Arabists in Cairo, Amman and Baghdad to instigate an Arab attack on the Jewish state. The
British secret agents used almost all the dirty tricks in their arsenal fear, jealousy, greed,
false promises, misleading information and playing on inter-Arab rivalries to provoke the
Arab rulers into a war in Palestine. Nuri al-Said (until the failure of the Portsmouth Treaty); King Abdullah (between June 1947 and May 1948); and Azzam, Mardam Bey and
Sulh, and other co-opted agents of influence all allowed the British secret services to
operate behind-the-scenes to implement their schemes. King Ibn Saud aptly described the
British agents as master puppeteers.
The Arab leaders were trapped between their reluctance to go to war and pressure from
their public that they themselves had incited with inflammatory rhetoric on destroying the
Jewish state. Azzam admitted to a Jewish Agency representative that we have no choice
but to go to war, even if we will be defeated.

(1) Alarming developments

September 11, 1947 On the eve of the Arab Leagues political committee meeting to
decide on the Arab response to UNSCOP [the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] report [supporting the end of the British mandate and partitioning the land between
Jews and Arabs], the Lebanese newspaper LOrient published an article. Bloc Oriental et
extension de la Ligue argued that, like the Greater Syria plan [that aimed to unite Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine], the Oriental Bloc a French term for Britains planned
regional defense pact hung over the independence of Arab countries and the Arab League
like the Sword of Damocles, and that its authors were one and the same: [Iraqi Prime
Minister] Nuri al-Said and [Jordanian] King Abdullah.
On September 20, the Lebanese newspaper Le Jour reported that after the Arab League
meeting in Saoufar, Lebanon, Brig. Iltyd Nicolas Clayton whom it defined as head of
the British intelligence in the Middle East had left for Damascus. It quoted a Syrian
newspaper speculating on whether his visit was connected to the Greater Syria scheme and
the tense relations between the Syrian and Lebanese presidents [Shukri al-Quwatli and
Bishara al-Khuri] and Jordans King Abdullah, or to events in Palestine.
On February 19, 1948, the Lebanese newspaper Le Soir published an article titled Clayton
made. Based on Zionist sources, it reported that Brig. Clayton architect of the Greater Syria plan, the Oriental Bloc and the bilateral defense treaties with the Arab states
was now advocating a new scheme for the partition of Palestine. The plan proposed that:
Imperialist Lebanon will annex the Western Galilee up to Shavei Zion; Syria the northeastern part of the Galilee and part of its southern region; Egypt will have part of the
cake; and Transjordan will swallow up the rest. In fact, these and other reports in the Lebanese press on the activities of British secret agents were part of a secret war being waged
by French intelligence against the British.
Information conveyed by the French intelligence services to the Haganah [the prestate
underground Jewish army] in the fall of 1947 indicated that Brig. Clayton and his assistants
were involved in a new initiative to secure Britains strategic position in the Middle East,
and linked Clayton to the escalating Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. The sources also
referred to a new partition plan proposed by Clayton, which, contradicting that of the Uni-

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ted Nations, aimed to split Palestine between the neighbouring Arab states and limit the designated territory of the Jewish state to the coastal area between Atlit [just south of Haifa]
and Tel Aviv.
The French tied this initiative to renewed British efforts to implement the 1946 MorrisonGrady Plan [aka the Cantonization Plan] and warned of the danger of an attack on the Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine] by irregular forces organized by the Arab League.
They also warned that an invasion by the regular Arab armies to prevent the establishment
of a Jewish state could not be ruled out.
Information passed on by the French, after the UN partition vote on November 29, 1947,
was even more alarming. On January 13, 1948, Maurice Fischer the SHAI [Haganah intelligence service] liaison officer to French intelligence reported from Paris that, based on
totally reliable information from French sources, Brig. Clayton had, on December 17,
1947, reached an understanding with Lebanese Prime Minister Riyad al-Sulh, according to
which the British forces would evacuate northern Palestine and give free rein to the irregular forces of the Arab Liberation Army, headed by Fawzi al-Qawuqji, to attack Jewish
settlements.

David Ben-Gurion

The next day, January 14, two French intelligence officers from Beirut arrived in Haifa and
informed the French military attach that the Syrian prime minister, Jamil Mardam Bey,
was mobilizing an irregular force of 20,000 volunteers to invade Palestine, with tacit British agreement. Previously, at the end of August 1947, Eliyahu Sasson David Ben-Gurions chief Arabist adviser had been called urgently to Paris. He remained until mid-September, sending information and instructions to warn Jordans King Abdullah and the
Egyptian government that British agents were planning to provoke their countries into a
war against the Jews in Palestine. Reports in the Haganah archives from those months
where Claytons name figures frequently tie the escalation in the Arab-Jewish conflict to
Britains efforts to secure its strategic position in the Middle East. They, too, alluded to a
new scheme, promoted by the British secret services in Cairo, to divide Palestine between
the neighboring Arab states. In the early months of 1948, information continued to reach
SHAI on secret British attempts, orchestrated by Brig. Claytons clique in Cairo, to reconcile the Arab leaders and convince them to join forces to prevent the establishment of a
Jewish state.

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(2) Interviewing Clayton

Ben-Gurions concern regarding the undercover activities of Brig. Clayton and Arabist
experts in the Foreign Office and the Middle East intensified after August 1947. On November 11, 1947, he sent a British-Jewish former officer to interview Clayton, who was
unaware that Ben-Gurion had drafted the questions. The urgency to uncover the British
secret services intentions prompted Ben-Gurion to approve the Acre Operation in which
the Haganah seized the files of the British Legation in Beirut, on December 25, 1947, as
they were being transferred from Beirut to Haifa, en route to Britain.
On January 11, 1948, Sasson sent King Abdullah a letter warning him of a plot being hatched in London and Cairo promoted by Clayton, Nuri al-Said and officials in the Foreign Office and Colonial Office against the UN Partition Plan that aimed to provoke
Transjordan into a war against the Yishuv, contrary to Abdullahs understanding with the
Jewish Agency.
In February, Ben-Gurions chief intelligence officer, Reuven Zaslani [Shiloah], arrived in
London to establish whether Britains failure to ratify its defense treaty with Iraq in
January 1948 [the Portsmouth Treaty] had influenced its stand on Palestine, and if there
was indeed a British plot to thwart the establishment of a Jewish state. He reported back
that although the British cabinet did not intend to oppose partition, the experts who
argued that it could not be implemented were working against it. Zaslani counted the following against them: Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevins adviser, Harold Bailey; Brig. Clayton; and Gerald de Gaury, a Foreign Office Arabist and liaison officer. Zaslani noted that
these experts, who advocated a collective military agreement with the Arab countries,
believed that a future Jewish state could not be relied upon. He added that they were reinforcing the Arab side without the cabinets agreement.
Nevertheless, he assessed that they would not be able to influence the cabinets decision to
end the mandate and withdraw British forces from Palestine, as it was supported by the two
highest-ranking British officials High Commissioner of Palestine Alan Cunningham and
the commander of the British forces in Palestine, Gen. Gordon MacMillan. A similar
assessment was made by Ben-Gurion in a conversation with a French diplomat in early
March. In a March 7 entry in his diary, Ben-Gurion notes: Clayton went to Syria; the
British want to make Syria their base after failing in Iraq and Egypt. The situation in the
Arab world is difficult riots in Iraq and Britain is trying to concentrate Arab thought on
Palestine. The above examples from the Arab press and French and Zionist sources raise
intriguing questions. Was there indeed a connection between Britains efforts to conclude
bilateral military treaties with Iraq, Egypt and other Arab states to form a collective
regional defence organization, and the alleged attempts by its secret services in Cairo to
provoke a Jewish-Arab war in Palestine? Why was Clayton associated with a scheme to
split Palestine between its neighbouring Arab states? Why was he implicated in provoking
Arab attacks, initially on the Yishuv by irregular forces and, later, on the newly established
Jewish state by the regular Arab armies? Like Charles de Gaulle, who blamed Britain for
conspiring to evict France from the Levant, Ben-Gurion accused it of trying to sabotage the
establishment of a Jewish state and secretly provoking an armed invasion by Arab states.
Syrian and British documents uncovered in French archives confirm de Gaulles accusations and those of Ben-Gurion. These documents and French intelligence reports reveal
that the British-Arabist secret agents, who engineered Frances eviction from the Levant in
1945, took similar steps to prevent the formation of a Jewish state in 1947- 48.

- 14 -

(3) The Missing Dimension

The question of Britains role in the war between Israel and the Arab states in 1948 is one
of the most studied issues in the historiography of the War of Independence. And yet, despite the considerable efforts of historians, they found no evidence of Ben-Gurions allegations that Britain had instigated the Arab leaders to invade Israel a day after its establishment. In fact, confirmation of Ben-Gurions allegations can be found in French archives,
especially in the files of French intelligence, whose officers closely followed the activities
of the British secret services in the Middle East in the 1940s. A major hurdle when studying the 1948 war is the lack of access to Arab archives. The Syrian documents, obtained by
French intelligence which contain uncensored private correspondence and secret agreements between the Arab leaders, as well as diplomatic exchanges give scholars a closer
look at the Arab stand toward a Jewish state in Palestine without having to rely solely on
Israeli and Western archives, Arab rulers inflammatory public rhetoric and memoirs, or
newspaper articles.

Syrian President Shukri Al-Kouatly with Saudi King Ibn Saud

and Iraqi PM Al Said, at the pan-Arab meeting in 1946

The Syrian documents reveal that the Arab leaders attitudes toward the Zionists aspirations derived not only from their hostility toward a Jewish state, but were far more complex. This emphasizes the need for scholars to study the Arab-Zionist conflict in the context of Anglo-Arab and inter-Arab rivalries, rather than merely Anglo-Jewish or ArabJewish relations. The thousands of Syrian and other Arab documents found in the French
archives, together with British intelligence reports obtained by French intelligence, confirm
that the role of the British secret services in the Middle East during and after World War II
comprises the missing dimension in the historiography of the region in the 1940s.
Two conclusions can be drawn from research into these documents, which are relevant to
the role of British intelligence in the war in Palestine:

The first is that, in the 1940s, Britain conducted a two-track policy in the Middle East:
one, a well-documented, official policy defined by Whitehall under both the Conservative
and Labour parties; the second was informal and secretive, which can be termed regional,
implemented by agents in the field, which left few traces in British archives. It was
perpetrated by a small, influential group of Arabist secret agents who manipulated the cabi-

- 15 -

net in London and implemented their own policies, which deviated from the official position. These agents enjoyed a unique status as intermediaries between Whitehall and local
Arab leaders. Either intentionally, or because of deep-seated personal beliefs, they provided biased assessments. They did not merely gather and interpret information and recommend policy, but controlled the flow of information and implemented their own policies
while keeping the London decision makers in the dark. They joined forces with Arab rulers, whom they portrayed as voicing the Arab view, in order to mislead their government.
Their tactics, which were backed by senior military officers in Cairo, gathered momentum
under the post-WWII Labour government and during the crisis in Palestine in 1947- 48.
The second conclusion is that the British secret agents succeeded in implementing their
policies due largely to their use of indirect control over local agents of influence. They
employed undercover political operations, clandestine diplomacy and covert propaganda to
manipulate Arab leaders and public opinion methods widely used in the Middle East
during World War II. The Syrian and British documents provide a unique insight into the
modus operandi of the British secret services in co-opting prominent Arab leaders, and helping them to positions of power in return for their collaboration. President Quwatli and
Prime Minister Mardam Bey in Syria; President Khuri and Prime Minister Sulh in Lebanon; Arab League Secretary-General Abd al-Rahman al-Azzam these are prime examples, but there were many others. This is not to say, however, that the British intelligence
officers entirely controlled those leaders. Relations were complex and entailed various
means of coercion. Apart from political and financial bribery and, when necessary, pressure and extortion an effective tactic was to convince them that collaborating with Britain
was in their own and their countrys interests. But such manoeuvres, as was the case with
President Quwatli, did not always succeed. After World War II, as Britains prestige waned
and its military and economic standing diminished, undercover political operations were
stepped up, becoming an essential tool for the Arabist secret agents to safeguard their
countrys strategic and economic interests in the Middle East.
(4) The Secret British Scheme
On May 28, 1947, Najib al-Armanazi, the Syrian ambassador to London, informed his foreign minister of an incident involving Brig. Clayton a confrontation between the Foreign
Office and the secret services, who had categorically refused to remove him from Egypt.
Armanazi noted that support for Clayton surpasses the imagination, adding that he had
been given carte blanche to direct the vast program he aims to complete, which
consisted of advancing the Greater Syria plan and securing British control over Libya. The
same day, Mardam Bey instructed Armanazi to alert officials in Britains Foreign Office
that the Syrian government would forcibly oppose any intervention by King Abdullah in
Syrian affairs. He had previously notified Armanazi that British agents were inciting the
Druze and Bedouin tribes against the Syrian government. In early June, Mardam Bey wrote
directly to Bevin, complaining of the intrigues of British officers in the Arab Legion against
Syria, adding: What makes the situation even more delicate is that the plot organized
against Syria is welcomed by all the British officials in the Near East. He warned that if
Syria had no other way to safeguard its independence, it would seek foreign assistance,
including from the Soviet Union. Reports on increasing subversion by British agents in
Syria came during the Syrian parliamentary elections, and the escalating tension along the
border between Syria and Jordan in the summer of 1947. An Arab intelligence report reveals that British secret agents were also provoking members of the Muslim Brotherhood
in Syria to act against its republican regime. It also reveals that British agents in Egypt
were collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood there, against the growing Communist
propaganda. The deterioration in Syro-Jordanian relations coincided with the Anglo-Iraqi

- 16 -

negotiations on a new military agreement to replace the 1930 treaty as relations between
the Iraqi government and King Abdullah were improving. These were the initial steps of
the scheme devised by the British secret services in Cairo, Amman and Baghdad that were
implemented between July 1947 and May 1948.
In the summer of 1947, British policy in the Middle East reached an impasse. Egyptian
Prime Minister Mahmud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi backed by King Faruk insisted that Britain
undertake to evacuate its forces before the Egyptian government would agree to proceed
with negotiations on an Anglo-Egyptian treaty and the future of Sudan. In July, the Egyptian government went further when it brought its case before the United Nations. British
policy in Palestine reached a deadlock as well. After the failure of negotiations with Arab
and Zionist representatives in London in early 1947, the British cabinet had declared its
intention to return the Mandate over Palestine to the United Nations. Britain was losing
ground in the propaganda war, especially in the United States, as the Zionists successfully
portrayed the conflict in Palestine not as Arab-Jewish, but an Anglo-Jewish one between a
Zionist liberation movement and a colonial power. Also, its harsh measures against the
illegal immigration of Holocaust survivors from the European refugee camps to Palestine
drew international criticism, which culminated with the Exodus ship affair in July 1947.
Continued reports of Zionist attacks on British soldiers stirred up intense public resentment
and hardened the resolve of the cabinet to evacuate Palestine. As the U.K.s economic crisis deepened, Prime Minister Clement Attlee was compelled to cut the costs of retaining
large armed forces overseas to defend an empire that Britain was no longer capable of sustaining, either militarily or economically. In early 1947, the cabinet dramatically announced Britains intention to withdraw unilaterally from India. Arab rulers closely followed
the dramatic events unfolding in London, indicating that Britains imperial order in the
Middle East was beginning to crumble. They saw Britain failing to suppress the Zionist
insurgency, gradually losing its grip over the Middle East and being relegated to an inferior
position vis--vis the United States. President Harry Trumans March 1947 declaration that
the United States would defend Turkey and Greece against the Soviet Union reinforced
these beliefs. Britains plan for a regional security pact was perceived as being less likely;
Turkish and Arab leaders were less inclined to be part of it. But President Quwatli believed
that Britain would not give up the Middle East without a struggle, while King Faruk told
Mardam Bey: Great Britain played us all and exploited us in its own interest, and won on
all fronts simultaneously. The French intelligence service estimated that Britain was far
from losing its grip over the Middle East and still had many cards to play.
Note on the Exodus affair: The ship Exodus became a symbol of Aliya Bet illegal
immigration of those who did not conform to the British unjustifiable restrictions to
Jewish immigration to Palestine. After World War II, the so-called illegal immigration
increased and the British authorities decided to stop it by sending the ships back to the
ports of embarkation in Europe. The first ship to which this policy was applied was the
Exodus in July 1947. After having failed to disembark in Marseille, the British decided
to return the immigrants to Germany, and so the ship left for the port of Hamburg, then
in the British occupation zone. The immigrants were forcibly taken off and transported
to two camps near Lubeck. Journalists who covered the dramatic struggle described to
the entire world the heartlessness and cruelty of the British. World public opinion was
outraged and the British changed their policy. Illegal immigrants were not sent back to
Europe anymore; they, including those of the Exodus, were henceforth brought to
detention camps in Cyprus.

- 17 -

In the summer of 1947, a shift took place in the British Arabists stand especially those in
the secret services toward the Labour cabinets Middle East policy. Unable to influence
Prime Minister Attlee, who was resolved to withdraw a substantial part of the British
forces from the region, they hijacked Britains Middle East policy, taking matters into
their own hands. They were determined to act against what they perceived as a policy that
was endangering their countrys vital strategic interests in the face of the Soviet thrust into
the region. From June 1947 until May 1948, Britain thus conducted two contradictory
policies in the Middle East one official, carried out by the cabinet and foreign secretary;
the other, unauthorized and secretive, devised by Arabist secret agents in Cairo, Amman
and Baghdad. Brig. Clayton played a key role in coordinating and implementing this covert
policy. This brief analysis examines only whether the Arabist secret agents intentionally
instigated Arab armed attacks against the Jewish community in Palestine, and later against
the State of Israel, without their cabinets knowledge or sanction. It does not address the
inter-Arab balance of power [which was closely tied to the war in Palestine; the military
and diplomatic counterstrategy adopted by Ben-Gurion and his close advisers after learning
of the secret British scheme], nor the French or Soviet counteraction in undermining
British designs in the Middle East.
On September 23, 1947, shortly after the Arab League meeting in Saoufar, the French
attach in Baghdad reported a secret British scheme to instigate an Arab-Jewish war in
Palestine, in order to facilitate the implementation of the Greater Syria plan. The report, reproduced in part here, disclosed that the Iraqi prime ministers militant stand in Saoufar
had been coordinated with British agents and marked a turning point in Britain's Middle
East policy: It seems, in effect, that the British government, urged on by the young elements in the Foreign Office and the Intelligence Service, has decided, after months of
hesitation, to undertake a large-scale manoeuvre that will enable it to consolidate, at little
cost, its present wavering position in this part of the world. The British believe that the UN
will no doubt ratify the UNSCOP decisions. Disturbances will thus begin in Palestine. The
English will benefit from the situation to build new positions as advantageous as those they
have lost in Egypt. According to information from an English source, the British plan will
be as follows: England will give up its mandate over Palestine as soon as possible and
return it to the UN, which will oversee, if necessary, an international force to re-establish
order in this country. A retreat from Palestine of most of the British troops can already be
envisaged. In the event of open conflict between Jews and Arabs, the English, under the
pretext of not wanting to be attacked from both sides in these hostilities, where it maintains
an officially neutral position, will retreat to Transjordan, from where one or two British
divisions will be able to immediately intervene if necessary. British agents will now push
the Arab countries to intervene to help their brethren in Palestine if they are attacked by
the Jews.
(5) All-out Arab-Jewish War
While many British politicians and officials shared this belief, neither Bevin nor other
cabinet ministers were aware that their secret services in Cairo and Arabist diplomats in
London and the Middle East, supported by the senior military authorities, were determined,
contrary to cabinet decisions, to hold on to the Middle East even if it led to an all-out
Arab-Jewish war. While the attachs report from Baghdad focuses on a secret scheme by
British agents to provoke an Arab-Jewish war to further Greater Syria and its union with
Iraq, other French reports disclose that its immediate goal was to safeguard Britains
strategic position in the Middle East. Another goal was to prevent the establishment of a
Jewish state or an Arab-Palestinian state based on the UN partition. There were also emer-

- 18 -

gency safety measures both military and diplomatic to prevent the Jewish state from
expanding its territory if the Arab armies were defeated. In this event, British forces stationed in Transjordan and Egypt would intervene, while British diplomats in the UN Security Council would act to impose a cease-fire.

A report filed by a French intelligence officer regarding

his conversation with Eliyahu Sasson,
who was responsible for contacts with the French

French intelligence sources present the scheme as an attempt by Britain to shuffle its cards
in the Middle East and inflame Arab hostility toward a Jewish state in order to secure its
dominance in the region. Whether the Arabs won or were defeated, its instigators assumed

- 19 -

that Britain would be in a better position than it had been in the summer of 1947. Indeed,
the attach's report concluded: The British position, which for some time has appeared
precarious, will thus find itself again dominant, all the more so as Egypts termination of
the Anglo-Egyptian treaty will enable the British forces to maintain their position on the
Suez Canal.
During deliberations in London and Cairo in 1947 on a defence strategy in the Middle East,
it was decided that Britain would seek bilateral military treaties with each Arab state
rather than a collective agreement brokered through the Arab League to replace existing
treaties. It was assumed that Britain would be in a better position to initially conclude bilateral treaties with friendly Hashemite Iraq and Transjordan, and later with other Arab governments, especially Syria. A treaty with Egypt remained a high priority for the British
High Command. The Foreign Office expected that after failing at the UN that July, Egypt
would be more amenable to renewing negotiations, thus ensuring Britains military use of
its territory and solving the Sudan question. But King Faruk and his prime minister, as well
as Syrias President Quwatli, were reluctant to conclude treaties with Britain, a declining
colonial power. They faced an upsurge of nationalist passion among the younger generation, who were demonstrating in the streets for independence and social and economic reforms, and refused to be drawn into a war between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. As the communist threat became less convincing, British agents believed that they had
to come up with more effective leverage to persuade the Arab governments and public that
their countries needed Britains assistance.
Without the knowledge of their cabinet, from June 1947 until May 1948, British secret
agents conducted their own covert policy. While officially seeking to convince the Arab
governments of the importance of concluding defence agreements with Britain to counter
the escalating Soviet threat, they secretly instigated an Arab-Jewish confrontation in Palestine to advance Britains strategic ends. They sought to use a war in Palestine to deflect the
Arab publics attention from the controversial treaty negotiations; as an incentive for the
Arab governments to conclude defence treaties with Britain; to demonstrate to the Arab
rulers their countries need for military collaboration; to reinforce the Arab states military
dependence on Britain, while preventing the establishment of a Jewish state or limiting its
size. A war in Palestine would pressure the United States to revise its position on partition.
No longer would Zionist propaganda be able to portray the struggle against Britain as that
of a national movement fighting to liberate itself from colonial rule. An Arab-Jewish conflict would also validate Britains long-held position regarding the solution to the Palestinian problem and demonstrate that, despite its good intentions, it was caught in the middle. Moreover, it would help Britain secure its strategic assets in Palestine: Haifa, with its
port and refineries, and the Negev region in the south.
Brig. Claytons frequent visits to the Arab capitals in the last months of 1947, and his behind-the-scenes involvement in the Arab Leagues meetings in Saoufar, Aley and Cairo,
were part of the scheme hatched by the secret agents in Cairo, Baghdad and Amman. Nuri
al-Said, the Arab Leagues Azzam, Mardam Bey and Sulh were used to implement it.
King Abdullah was essential for its success, as he and his Arab Legion were to serve as a
means to pressure Quwatli, Saudi King Ibn Saud and Egypts Faruk, while forcing the
Zionist leaders to acquiesce on Britains proposals. Also part of the ploy were attempts by
British agents in Transjordan to intimidate the Syrian president; the Iraqi governments
militant stand in Saoufar and Aley, and its insistence that the Arab League take action in
Palestine; and Claytons proposal to split Palestine between the Arab states.

- 20 -

Lebanese President El Khoury (left) with

Arab League Secretary General Abd al-Rahman al-Azzam
Arab leaders found themselves trapped between fears
of embarking on a war - and public pressure

In mid-January 1948, the Arabists scheme seemed on the verge of success. With the Arab
publics attention turned to events in Palestine, Britain concluded a defence treaty with
Iraq. A similar agreement with Transjordan was to be signed without any hindrance. After
failing to persuade kings Ibn Saud and Faruk to conclude an agreement with Syria against
Abdullah, President Quwatli was more predisposed to give in to British pressure, particularly as British agents had undertaken to restrain the Jordanian monarch. He was also anxious to prevent them from jeopardizing his efforts to be elected president for a second term.
Prime Minister Sulh, who opposed a Jewish state on Lebanons border that might reinforce
Maronite separatism, secretly collaborated with Clayton and publicly endorsed a treaty
with Britain. But when Ronald Campbell, the British ambassador to Egypt, and Brig.
Clayton proposed to Egyptian Prime Minister Nuqrashi that Britain foil the establishment
of a Jewish state or limit its territory in return for a treaty, Nuqrashi rejected any attempt to
link the conflict in Palestine with Egypts demands for the evacuation of British forces and
unity of the Nile Valley. Alongside negotiations with the Arab governments on defence
treaties, the British secret agents stepped up their efforts to fuel violent Arab-Jewish
clashes, urging the Arab leaders to close ranks against the Zionist threat.
Between September and December 1947, Brig. Clayton and other secret agents tacitly collaborated with Azzam, Mardam Bey and Sulh to organize an irregular force the Arab
Liberation Army, under Qawuqjis command to be activated before Britain formally
withdrew from Palestine. While Azzam regarded this force as a means for the Arab League
to intervene in Palestine, Mardam and Sulh and President Quwatli in particular saw it
more as a means to pre-empt an attempt by Abdullahs Arab Legion to take over the
northern part of Palestine than to help their Palestinian brethren against the Jews. A British
military mission under Col. Fox, an unofficial adviser to the Syrian High Command since
1946, tried to obtain arms and ammunition from British army stocks in Palestine to arm
Arab volunteers in the Katana camp south of Damascus. French intelligence sources re-

- 21 -

ported that British army and police deserters, disguised as Arabs, were to be seen in the
streets of Damascus. Scores of British employees of the Iraq Petroleum Company arrived
in the city, leading to Syrian press speculation on why the Syrian capital had suddenly
become an attraction for British tourists. British agents also negotiated with the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem initially indirectly through Sulh and later with his envoy, following
his demand to command his own armed forces in Palestine. The Arab Liberation Army
entered Palestine in the first half of January 1948; Qawuqji later wrote that the British
army had hardly hindered the advance of his forces on northern Palestine.

King Abdullah the first

An emissary sent by Ben Gurion warned him and the Egyptians
that British agents are pushing their nations to wage war on the Jews

The collapse of the Portsmouth Treaty marked the failure of the bilateral treaty approach.
Although Bevin signed a new treaty in London with Jordanian Prime Minister Tawfiq Abd
al-Huda, other Arab leaders, including Azzam, Mardam Bey and Sulh, openly opposed
treaties with foreign powers. British military planners and Arabists in the Foreign Office
and the Middle East now came up with a new strategy a collective defence agreement
with the Arab states through the Arab League. In March 1948, Azzam and Mardam Bey
began a campaign to revise the Arab League pact in order to consolidate ties between its
member-states against the Zionist threat an initiative tacitly coordinated with the British
secret agents. After consulting with King Ibn Saud, King Faruk declared that before any
negotiations could take place on a collective defence agreement, Britain had to abrogate its
existing bilateral treaties with the Arab states. In their reports to London, the Arabists
linked the collapse of the Portsmouth Treaty directly to events in Palestine. Their failure in
Iraq increased the likelihood of war in Palestine, as British secret agents became even more
determined to provoke an Arab-Jewish conflict. The defeat in April of the Arab Liberation
Army irregular forces and of those commanded by Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini the Muftis
nephew reinforced their conviction that only the regular Arab armies could prevent the
establishment of a Jewish state.

- 22 -

(6) Conclusion
In this brief article, it is impossible to detail all the manoeuvres and intrigues of the British
Arabists in Cairo, Amman and Baghdad, to instigate an Arab attack on the Jewish state.
The British secret agents used almost all the dirty tricks in their arsenal fear, jealousy,
greed, false promises, misleading information and playing on inter-Arab rivalries to provoke the Arab rulers into a war in Palestine. Nuri al-Said [until the failure of the Portsmouth Treaty]; King Abdullah [between June 1947 and May 1948]; and Azzam, Mardam
Bey and Sulh, and other co-opted agents of influence all allowed the British secret
services to operate behind-the-scenes to implement their schemes. King Ibn Saud aptly
described the British agents as master puppeteers. The Arab leaders were trapped between their reluctance to go to war and pressure from their public that they themselves had
incited with inflammatory rhetoric on destroying the Jewish state. Azzam admitted to a
Jewish Agency representative that we have no choice but to go to war, even if we will be
defeated.
Provoking Egypt to join the war in Palestine was central to the British secret strategy.
French sources give details of the British agents tactics teaming up with Azzam to press
King Faruk to instruct his army to join the war, despite the opposition of his prime minister. They also included an undertaking to supply the Egyptian army with weapons and
ammunition from British stocks in the Canal Zone, and a deliberate underrepresentation of
the military strength of the Jewish forces. Like other Arab rulers, King Faruk under public pressure to take action was vulnerable to British machinations. He could not remain
on the sidelines while his rival, King Abdullah, was sending forces to Palestine. The May
11 report from the French military attach in Beirut, on the secret discussions of the Arab
Leagues political committee in Damascus, reveals that, apart from King Abdullah, the
other Arab leaders were hesitant, seeking a way to delay an invasion of Palestine. It also
exposes the British agents direct intervention in their decisions. At the last minute, King
Faruk overruled his reluctant prime minister and commanded his army to go to war. The
1948 war swept away the anciens rgimes and opened the road to power for a young generation of radical Arab-nationalist officers, determined to avenge their countries defeat and
bring an end to Britains dominance in the region.
The old Arab rulers, victims of British machinations and their own ambitions, were to pay
dearly. King Abdullah, Iraqi Prince-Regent Abd al-Ilah, Nuri al-Said, Sulh and Nuqrashi
all lost their lives. King Faruk and President Quwatli were more fortunate, losing only
power. The British secret agents, diplomats, military officers and civil servants returned
home, leaving behind their legacy of a divided, violent Middle East, in which the states
formed by two colonial powers in the aftermath of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement failed
to withstand the test of time.

- 23 -

RANDS FINDINGS AND THE PARTITION PROPOSAL

(a) More findings by Milord Ivan Rand
In May 1916 at the Sykes Picot agreement, France traded Palestine to Great Britains care
providing Britain keep its promises to the Jews. Then comes the Balfour letter in November 1917, two days after the remarkable Battle of Beer Sheba and the start of Allenby's
conquest of Palestine. The Balfour letter did not create the Jewish national home, the
Yishuv already existed and had been growing for at least 50 years before, but what the
letter accomplished was to acknowledge that place as a homeland for Jews, which came
by a major power, and it committed the mandates function to facilitating its growth.
Britain went to Versailles with an obligation to France, Italy, Belgium, Japan and the
United States that in their practice as the proctor of the mandatory they were to facilitate a
Jewish National Home. Article 22 of the Versailles treaty dealt with the mandates in ex
Ottoman territories and the Balfour letter was appended to it. Then came the Allied powers
Conference of San Remo in April 1920. Yet, the same week British agents fomented a
pogrom in Jerusalem. The Conference of San Remo charged Britain, through its mandate,
with the duty to facilitate unrestricted Jewish immigration anywhere in Palestine and close
settlement by Jews in the territory which then included Transjordan. In June, Britain lops
off from Palestine 35,000 square miles for the Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan. Four
months later Turkey signs the Treaty of Severs with a clear statement that Palestine west of
the Jordan is for the sole purpose of a Jewish National Home. This was ratified by the United States through the Fish amendment brought forward by a representative named Hamilton Fish and signed into law as L622 by President Harding, which was never repealed or
superseded. Italy France, Belgium, and Japan also held England to those same terms.
But Britain used the notion to facilitate Jewish immigration as the pretext to scrutinize,
discriminate, regulate, constrict and limit Jewish immigration, while they turned a blind
eye to Arab immigration. Indeed they treated Arabs from all over the Arab world as though
they were the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. The British also created a leadership
for the Arabs to counteract the Jewish communitys form of self government, embodied by
the Jewish Agency, in rigging the Moslem election for the Mufti of Jerusalem and installing the unprecedented and very young Haj Amin el Husseini as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. They also gave an annual stipend of 250,000 for his Moslem Supreme Council,
which today would be about $8 million. The mandatory's secretariat further appointed one
of its officials Earnest Richmond to ensure that Arab sensitivities on developments
were always to be brought to the High Commissioners ruling council. The Jewish Agency
received no stipends from the government. All their funds came solely from the Jewish
community. They had no official from the secretariat sensitive to Jewish interests to attend
ruling council meetings. The mandatory, who was supposed to build the structures and institutions of a modern nation state, was unable to provide the Arabs any of those structures
and institutions needed, while the Yishuv quickly outstripped and out-performed all of the
League of Nation mandatorys in internal services. That mandatory taxed the Yishuv for
its public works. It must be said that during the 1930s and the Great Depression,
Palestine was the only British possession to bring into London millions of pounds per year,
while every other British Empire outpost drained London of cash!
Rand uncovered in the immigration branch of the secretariat that immigrants were categorized. One of the categories was a group called persons of moral turpitude and/or feeble
mindedness. They had to be barred from entry, all in the name for the protection of the

- 24 -

Jewish people they claimed. It looked as if it had been approved by Dr. Weizmann.
Rand asked for a clarification about the so-called approval, but the secretariat never displayed if they had it. Rand found out that Weizmann lived in Manchester and approached
him. He knew nothing about it until he was informed by Rand himself. Rand found that
over 262,000 certificates had been issued in the period between 1922 and 1942 to bar Jews
from future entry into Palestine, which included the Ger Rebbe, who was the successor
rabbi of the Vilna Gaon, one of the natural intellectual leaders of the Jewish people. Included was also Zeev Jabotinsky, the creator of the Jewish Legion. Meanwhile, between 1930
to 1946, 686,000 Arabs entered Palestine. And there were no such certificates with any
Arabs whatsoever.
A certificate meant they identified you for the official record, should you turn up at any
gate, or anywhere on the boundary. It wasnt for you, it was for the mandatorys border
control officials. If such a person was identified, he was immediately taken to be fractious
and he was denied entrance, and subsequently removed. In the Newfoundlander colloquial
they say: Thems the facts my son. What British administrators did, was carry on a war of
discrimination, barring the exclusion of Jewish people who wished immigration to their
ancestral land. The Arabs got the message that Jews should never live without submission
and persecution. The British empire was more slippery and evil than imagined, and so it is
that the same Nazi-war continues even today. Only the colours have changed. Its just the
American government and the Arabs that continue it. Of course, the American governments cant admit they are continuing Hitlers war. But I would say that the Jonathan Pollard case is a proof that persecutory discrimination is deeply embedded into American administrators psychic sediments. The British and Arab propaganda was so effective that
even today, despite their own historical records, American administrators and many others
sincerely believe that Jews are living on stolen Arab land.
Note: Jonathan Jay Pollard, born in 1954, pleaded guilty in 1987 to selling classified
information from the United States to Israel while working as a civilian intelligence
analyst. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. Pollard is the only American ever to
receive a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally of the U.S. Israeli
officials, American and Israeli activist groups, and American politicians, have lobbied
continuously for reduction or commutation of his sentence. The Israeli government has
made repeated but unsuccessful attempts to negotiate his release. Israel granted Pollard
citizenship in 1995, but did not publicly admit buying classified information from him
until 1998. Pollard has never been charged with treason, because that is only applicable
in cases that involve an enemy state.
After the 1929 Arab disturbances the mandatory claimed that the cause of Arab grievances
was Jews displacing peasants by their ability to outbid on any land purchases. Despite the
fact that it was found to be without any basis of truth in both The Royal Commissions on
Palestine [1929, Lord Passfields White Paper and the 1930 Hope-Simpson White Paper],
the High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor introduced an order in council in 1932 that
compelled all land developers, like the JNF [Jewish National Fund] and others, upon completing their agricultural restoration of a granted state land parcel, to hand over 50% of the
concession for non-Jewish purchasers exclusively. Rand called it backdoor socialism, enticing investors to make the expenditures and then systematically debilitating their market.
As the market was rigged, it didnt take long for the Arab effendis to purchase restored
land for 10 cents on the dollar and then resell the land to Jews at $5. While an anti Jewish
myopia focused and regulated to increasing interference with those Jewish buyers, the Jews
never sued over this in court. They were so intimidated by the mandatory, they feared that

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such steps would only make it worse. However, Rand did find out from internal papers that
a Scottish land development company did sue and won over this order in council. [Milord
Wilkens called Chancellors OIC a sleigh of hand undoing due process.]
The more Rand delved into the administration of the mandate, the more he grew incensed,
but the piece that took the cake was the McMichael 1940 Land Transfers order in Council [by High Commissioner Sir Harold McMichael], which forbade any purchases of state
land by Jews exclusively. It divided the mandate into 14 districts where it classed certain
districts of the mandatory where the Jews made the clear majority "A". It imposed on
Jewish landowners in those "A" districts that they were no longer allowed to pass on land
ownership through their wills to their lawful heirs, and that land was to be sequestered to
become the property of the mandatory. Rand could come to no other conclusion than that
the mandatory was even willing to upend the British Properties Act and that its policies
were persecutory with malice aforethought.
In May 1939 Britain passed through parliament the white paper and tried to make the
mandate fit into their own ambitions of sticking the Jews into a tiny enclave and forming
an Arab state superimposed over their land. At that point the League of Nations on the
instruction of its members Italy, France and Turkey started legal proceeding to remove
Great Britain as the mandate protector. Then World War II started and the League went on
hold. In 1946, the League set a date for the international court in the Hague, but before the
date for legal discovery Great Britain handed the mandate over to the UN. Rand further
found that during the period from September 1939 to May 1945 the mandatory exercised
an excessive and punitive policy on what they classed as illegal Jewish immigration. At
the time it happened that the Royal Navy used to bar even legal Jewish immigrants; also
the Jordanian Legion effected a blockade of Jews from Asia, and it was paid for its services
by the mandatory. The Oxford historian Ephraim Karsh estimates that Britain intercepted
at least 180,000 Jewish refugees, who escaped Europe on boats, and were then returned to
the Nazi empire.
(b) The partition proposal by Milord Ivan Rand
While Rand was digging into the facts, the American State Department informs Rand via
telegram that it would be best if the mandate was returned to Britains care without the core
Balfour letter and that the areas south of Beer Sheba be separated from the mandate to
allow the physical unification of the Arab World. Rands response was that without the
Balfour letter Britain had no right to any part of Palestine. He told that it was that letter in
the first place that gave Britain any legal authority as a trustee to the land and that if it were
removed, then Frances earlier treaties must be reinstated. It would then be Frances role to
meet the Leagues objectives for that mandate. Further, without the Balfour letter, the
mandates of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq would all suffer serious repercussions.
Rand taught law here at Dalhousie in the 1950s before leaving to found a Law school at
Western University in London Ontario. We have here at Dal in the Dunn Library [Weldon
Law Bldg.] most of the primary documents and communications to UNSCOP. Rand was
disgusted with both the British and the American diplomats for their insolence, their utter
lack of empathy, and their treachery. Rand concluded that to return to the mandate would
be nothing less than embracing persecutory discrimination on a people whod just been
subjected to exterminatory persecution. Rand had a quick answer to any of the Pro-Arab
assertions that Jews with a third the population were going to be getting only 56% of the
already partitioned mandate. Rands partition proposal was an attempt to redress past British breaches of trust, like the so called Jewish illegal immigration and the other discri-

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minations in land regulations and its civil abuses. The best he could do was to offer the
Jews what amounted to 1/7th of the original mandate (which included Transjordania), that
once had been promised and which was not put into effect because of the duplicitous and
devious British policy. They now had to settle for the territory west of the river Jordan.
Ivan Rand explained in his public letter to all the nations at the UN why the UNSCOP
could not in good conscience return the mandate to a bigoted and malicious British administration and why partition was the only reasonable means to dealing with the two conflicting communities. He said: Britain has betrayed their own solemn commitments, even
their own laws to use administrative processes with malice aforethought. We cannot assist
or acquiesce in this persecutory discrimination of a people who have just barely survived
exterminatory persecution inflicted by Germany and her helpers. It is a travesty that His
Majestys Government have abused their trust to such a degree of betrayal and corruption.
If the Jewish people are denied self determination in their contiguously held ancestral
homeland, then no other nation on earth has any rights under international law to their
own home other than through the application of the force of arms. We must remind you
there is already a two state system in the original mandate which the mandatory did its
utmost to undo and subvert their obligations towards. You are not voting to impose a
people on another people, you are voting for a forlorn and lost people, who are the remnant of a vindictive persecution, to have their dignity moderately restored on 1/7th of what
they were solemnly promised by the unanimous will of the League of Nations. [the partition proposal UN 181 passed on 29 November 1947 by a clear 2/3rds majority]
We all forget that UNSCOP was not originally there to make a partition. That thinking is
post hoc ergo propter hoc. Its purpose was really first an administrative & management
audit of the mandatorys secretariat itself. So yes, there is a lot about the structure that
emerged from policy goals and how the management strived for those goals. This, Rand
systematically showed, as he wrote it was not the right of a League appointed custodian
government to reassign its functional objectives even to a supposed majority, more especially to a majority that they contrived without the explicit permission of the High Contracting Party [the League] prior to embarking on this deceitful breach of trust. The role
of UNSCOP was at first to see if the Leagues mandatory system was functioning in the
right way. Could it be part of the solution or was it part of the problem? What nobody
seems to notice today is how different the current UNs Trusteeship system is now, and
quite different to the Leagues mandatory system.
British governments even today have not yet declassified their mandatorys secretariat administrative and management documents, which, like all other government records, should
have been done in 1998. Even the Verona in which the classified status was extended,
should have opened its files in 2007. The Foreign office vigorously fought for their closure
in cabinet last year (2013) and want them kept closed indefinitely, or until its policy
objectives are obtained [Israel to be undone and an Arab jurisdiction overprinting it, known
as the 1980 Venice Declaration]. But Rand, as the UN investigator went through all of
them; he doesnt have copies of it all, but we have here quite a bit to illustrate points of law
and procedures and why his conclusions to the UN were such a searing indictment to the
whole mandatory system. Rand called some of those shifts of policy goals inexplicable to
administrators unless they were motivated by a malice.
In 2012 a number of academic historians went to court to get the government to open the
secretariats files. About a month ago (August 2014) the Foreign Office claimed to the
court they were all destroyed in a fire sometime in 2006 !!!