How Zionist party divisions hindered Israel's progress in the 1940s

By the end of the summer of 1944, the British were beginning to reel from the resistance actions of the Irgun. On February 1, Menachem Begin announced that a revolt had been declared against British rule with the 1939 White Paper. A series of armed actions ensued.

More than a dozen raids on administrative offices and police stations were successfully undertaken over the next few months. The British lost lives, property, and prestige, and their rule was being undermined.

The Lehi underground (Stern Group) had also reorganized, and they began their own operations, notably a series of assassination attempts against high commissioner Harold MacMichael. A targeting of CID officer Thomas Wilkin, who had found Yair Stern in his hiding place, succeeded.

To suppress the revolt, one of the first steps by the British was to fly out 241 Irgun members held in administrative detention to exile in Africa on October 19. Over the next four years, more than 400 members of the Irgun, Lehi, and even Hagana were held in Eritrea, Kenya, and Sudan.

The official Zionist leadership was also worried. A February 15 editorial in the Histadrut daily Davar had warned that unauthorized armed attacks on the British would undermine the authority of the Yishuv’s leadership and harm its political and diplomatic interests.

At the end of March, Golda Meir and Berl Katznelson spoke at a Mapai political committee meeting at Givat Brenner. Meir’s tone was chilling: “They [Irgunists] need to be eliminated, in all ways.” David Ben-Gurion queried, “Does ‘to eliminate’ mean ‘to terminate’ persons?”

Meir answered: “Well, also to wipe out people… I have no moral compunction as regards this group.” Katznelson objected vigorously to handing any Irgunist or Lehi member to the British, as did Ahdut HaAvoda leader Yitzhak Tabenkin at a later meeting in November.

Efforts at isolation proved unsuccessful, although four planned Irgun attacks on June 20 in Jerusalem were passed on to the British by the Hagana and had to be called off. In late August, the British were demanding that the Jewish Agency inform on the dissidents or the planned Jewish Brigade to fight in Europe would not be authorized.

On October 8, 1944, Moshe Sneh, national commander of the Hagana, met with Begin. Sneh attempted to convince Begin that armed attacks were premature and were causing damage to the Yishuv’s preferred options. A second meeting between Sneh and Eliyahu Golomb with Begin and Eliyahu Lankin was also unsuccessful. Even though Begin declared that David Ben-Gurion was the recognized leader, he insisted that the only tactic was one of armed military operations.

On October 29, the Hagana issued an internal directive entitled “Action against the terror.” It informed that the National Institutions (the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Executive) had given the “terrorists” (the Irgun and Lehi) a warning to halt their attacks. If not, volunteers would be recruited to halt them. The operation became known as the Saison, the Hunting Season.

According to Yehuda Bauer’s 1963 book From Diplomacy to Resistance, already in 1942 two Lehi members and one from the Irgun had been abducted by the Hagana, held in kibbutzim, and interrogated using force. One of these was then handed over to the British. Another was Eliyahu Levy, whose two sons produced the fictional Carthago television series shown on Channel 11 about the African exile period.

The hiding place of two Lehi fighters, Shabtai Drucker and Menachem Luntz, in Yavne’el was passed on to the British by the Hagana, and they were besieged on April 6, 1944. They committed suicide rather than be arrested.

On April 2, 1944, following British pressure, Ben-Gurion succeeded in passing a decision to launch a widespread information campaign to isolate the underground movements, as well as enacting measures to interfere with their recruitment of funds from the Jewish public.

Opposing any cooperation with the British, Yitzhak Gruenbaum resigned in protest from the Jewish Agency Executive that month. The Mizrahi representatives also expressed dissatisfaction with the policy.

During the first three weeks of October, the Zionist leadership came to the conclusion to initiate a vigorous anti-dissident policy. The goal was to disband the Irgun, even at the price of civil strife. Eliyahu Golomb, the Yishuv’s “defense minister,” hoped that pro-socialist elements in Lehi could be convinced to accept a pause in their armed anti-British struggle.

In September, the Hagana’s national command was making plans for the Saison but decided to employ Palmah volunteers. Approximately 170 people were recruited. The preparatory courses began on October 20. The main problem turned out to be an internal opposition to cooperating with the CID, the British anti-terrorist unit.

Lehi’s assassination of Lord Moyne in Cairo on November 6, 1944, provided a clear and reasonable justification for the internal anti-dissident campaign, though waged mostly against the Irgun.

A matter of life or death

As Moshe Sharett explained, “Terror in this country can stifle the prospects of our political struggle and destroy our inner peace. The Yishuv is exhorted to cast out of its midst all members of this destructive and ruinous gang, not to succumb to their threats… and to eradicate its organization, since this is a matter of life and death for us.”

The sixth conference of the Histadrut would be the venue for David Ben-Gurion’s own public anti-Irgun speech. On November 21, 1944, he outlined the program. Irgun members would be expelled from places of employment and schools. They would be deprived of refuge or assistance. All threats would be met with active opposition. Lastly, Irgunists would be handed over to the British police. This last element of collaboration with the British authorities was met with much opposition.

Within three months, five of the seven members of the Irgun central command had been arrested. Those who were still at large were Menachem Begin and the operations officer, Yeruham (Eitan) Livni.

Large amounts of weapons were seized from the Irgun armories. For example, Petah Tikva’s main arms cache, containing three tons of explosives, revolvers, and ammunition, was found in an orange grove. In Haifa, all the Irgun’s arsenals were emptied. No Hagana arms caches, needless to say, were compromised to the British.

The names of 830 suspected Irgun members were passed on to the British, and more than 330 were arrested. Dozens were fired from their employment. Over 30 pupils and students were expelled from their studies. Geulah Cohen, for example, was dismissed from the teachers’ seminary where she had been studying. The last to be kidnapped was Eli Tavin. Snatched in Tel Aviv on Purim, February 27, 1945, he was released only on Rosh Hashanah, September 9.

The main political liaison between the Hagana and the CID was Teddy Kollek, later Jerusalem’s longtime mayor.Both undergrounds – the Irgun and Lehi – were not broken, however. Begin’s reaction was published in the December 3, 1944, edition of the Herut wall broadside poster: “There will be no civil war.”

There was a slow reduction of volunteers from the Palmah. By May, only the Hagana intelligence unit, the Shai, was involved. The end came at a conclave in Kibbutz Yagur in March 1945.

Half a year later, faced with a Labour government that refused to alter the 1939 White Paper policy and allow free Jewish immigration, the United Resistance Movement was established. It coordinated armed military raids on the British with the involvement of the Irgun and Lehi, as well as the Hagana and the Palmah.

A year had been lost to internal political Zionist party differences.