Forward: In view of the tragic assassination of
Count Folke Bernadotte by identified Jewish terrorists on September 17 of this year, the following
report has been prepared for the use of Dr. Bunche, Count Bernadotte’s
immediate replacement.
This report is a compilation of all identified
terrorist attacks on British, American and Arab individuals and entities in the
assassination of the British Resident Minister in the Middle East on November 6, 1944 by members of the terrorist Jewish Stern
gang to the assassination of Count Bernadotte on September 17, 1948 by members
of this same gang of fanatics.
This information is compiled from reports of the
US Department of State, the British Foreign Office and various American and
British press services.
New York, October 1, 1948
Chronology
1944
1
November 6,
1944, Cairo. Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister in the Middle East, and his
driver were assassinated outside the minister’s Cairo residence. Two
murderers were involved. One was injured, and both were immediately arrested.
1945
2
January 10, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military
court today put on trial Eliahu Bet-Tsours from Tel Aviv and Eliahu Hakim of
Haifa, both admitted members of the Jewish terrorist Stern gang.
3
January 18,
1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court sentenced the murderers of Lord
Moyne to death. Both killers admitted their act and also admitted their
membership in the Stem gang which they said ordered the killings as a warning to
the British not to interfere with future Jewish immigration to Jerusalem.
4
March 22, 1945,
Cairo. The two convicted Jewish Stern gang terrorists who murdered Lord Moyne
and his driver were hanged today in the Cairo prison British authorities
announced.
1946
5
January 12, 1946, Palestine. A train was derailed by Jewish terrorists at Hadera near Haifa by a bomb and robbed of £35,000 in cash. Two British police officials were injured.
6
January 18,
1946, Haifa. Over 900 illegal Jewish immigrants were captured off Haifa by the
British Royal Navy
7
January 19,1946,Jerusalem.Jewish terrorists destroyed a power station and a portion of the Central Jerusalem prison by explosives. Two persons were killed by the police.
8
January 20, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists launched an attack against the British-controlled Givat Olga Coast Guard Station located between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ten persons were injured and one was killed. Captured papers indicated that the purpose of this raid was to take revenge on the British for their seizure of the refugee ship on January 18. British military authorities in Jerusalem questioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody.
9
April 25, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists attacked a British military installation near Tel Aviv. This group, which contained a number of young girls, had as its goal the capture of British weapons. British authorities rounded up 1,200 suspects.
10
June 24, 1946, Palestine. The Irgun radio “Fighting Zion” warns that three kidnapped British officers are held as hostages for two Irgun members, Josef Simkohn and Issac Ashbel facing execution as well as 31 Irgun members facing trial.
11
June 27, 1946,
Palestine. Thirty Irgun members are sentenced by a British military court to
15 years imprison. One, Benjamin Kaplan was sentenced to life for carrying a
firearm.
12
June 29, 1946,
Palestine. British military units and police raided Jewish settlements
throughout Palestine searching for the leaders of Haganah, a leading Jewish
terrorist agency The Jewish Agency for Palestine was occupied and four top
official arrested. At the end of June, 1946 2,000 were arrested and four Jews
and one British soldier were killed.
13
July 1, 1946, Palestine. British officials announced the discovery of a large arms dump hidden underground at Meshek Yagur. 2,659 men and 59 women were detained for the three day operation in which 27 settlements were searched. For were killed and 80 were injured.
14
July 3, 1946,
Palestine. Palestine High Commissioner Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted
to life imprisonment the death sentences of Josef Simkhon and Issac Ashbel,
Irgun members.
15
July 4, 1946, Tel Aviv. British officers, Captains K. Spencer, C. Warburton and A. Taylor who had been kidnapped by the Irgun on June 18 and held as hostages for the lives of Simkohn and Ashbel, were released in Tel Aviv unharmed. At this time, Irgun issued a declaration of war against the British claiming that they had no alternative but to fight.
16
July 22, 1946, Jerusalem. The west wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which housed British Military Headquarters and other governmental offices was destroyed at 12:57 PM by explosives planted in the cellar by members of the Irgun terrorist gang. By the 26 of July, the casualties were 76 persons killed, 46 injured and 29 still missing in the rubble. The dead included many British, Arabs and Jews.
17
July 23, l946 Jerusalem. The Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group takes responsibility for the King David bombing but blames the British, calling them “tyrants.”
18
July 24, 1946,
London. The British government released a White Paper that accuses the Haganah,
Irgun and Stern gangs of “a planned movement of sabotage and violence” under
the direction of the Jewish Agency and asserts that the June 29 arrest of
Zionist leaders was the cause of the bombing.
19
July 28, 1946,
Jerusalem. The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker,
banned fraternization by British troops with Palestine Jews whom he stated
“cannot be absolved of responsibility for terroristic acts.” The order
states that this will punish “the race . . . by striking at their pockets and
showing our contempt for them”
20
July 29, 1946,
Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs.
21
July 30, 1946, Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is placed under a 22-hour-a-day curfew as 20,000 British troops began a house-to-house sweep for terrorists. The city is sealed off from the rest of Jerusalem and troops are ordered to shoot to kill any curfew violators.
22
July 31, 1946,
Tel Aviv. A large cache of weapons, extensive counterfeiting equipment and
$1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv’s
largest synagogue.
23
July 31, 1946,
Haifa. Two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish
immigrants.
24
August 2, 1946,
Tel Aviv. British military authorities ended the curfew in Tel Aviv after
detaining 500 persons for further questioning. A second arms dump was discovered
on July 1 in a school building.
25
August 2, 1946,
Jerusalem. The Palestine Government disclosed that 91 persons were killed and 45
injured in the King David bombing.
26
August 2, 1946,
Jerusalem. Jerusalem police announced the arrest of Itzhak Yestemitsky second
man in the Stern gang.
27
August 12, 1946,
London. The British Government announced that it will allow no more unscheduled
immigration into Palestine and that those seeking entry into that country will
be sent to Cyprus and other areas under detention. Declaring that such immigration
threatens a civil war with the Arab population, it charges a “minority of
Zionist extremists” with attempting to force an unacceptable solution of the
Palestine problem.
28
August 12, 1946,
Haifa. Two ships carrying a total of 1,300 Jewish refugees arrived at Haifa. The
port area was isolated on August 11 by British military and naval units. The
first deportation ship sailed for Cyprus with 500 Jews on board.
29
August 13, 1946, Haifa. Three Jews were killed and seven
wounded when British troops were compelled to fire on a crowd of about 1,000
persons frying to break into the port area of Haifa. Two Royal Navy ships with
1,300 illegal Jewish immigrants on board sailed for Cyprus. Another ship with
600 illegal immigrants was captured and confined in the Haifa harbor.
30
August 26, 1946, Palestine. British military units
searched the coastal villages of Casera and Sadoth Yam for three Jews who bombed
the transport “Empire Rival”
last week Eighty-five persons, including the entire male population of one of
the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center.
31
August 27, 1946, Palestine. During the searches conducted
on August 26, an explosive limpet mine similar to the one used on the “Empire
Rival” was found.
32
August 29, 1946, Jerusalem. the British Government
announced the commutation to life imprisonment of the death sentences imposed on
l8 Jewish youths convicted of bombing the Haifa railroad shops.
33
August 30, 1946, Palestine. British military units discovered
arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming villages of Dorot and Ruhama.
34
September 8, 1946, Palestine. Zionist terrorists cut the
Palestine railroad in 50 places.
35
September 9, 1946, Tel Aviv. two British officers were
killed in an explosion in a public building.
36
September 9, 1946, Haifa. An Arab constable was killed.
37
September 10, 1946, Palestine. British troops imposed a
curfew and arrested 101 Jews and wounded two in a search for saboteurs in Tel
Aviv and neighboring Ramat Gan. Irgun terrorist group took the action against
the railways on September 8, as a protest.
38
September 14, 1946, Jaffa. Jewish terrorists robbed three
banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested.
39
September 15, 1946, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorists attacked
a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire.
40
October 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military units and
police seized 5O Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe after a Jewish home was blown up. This home
belonged to a Jewish woman who had refused to pay extortion money to the Irgun
terrorist gang.
41
October 6, 1944 Jerusalem. An RAF man was killed by
gunfire
42
October 8, 1946, Jerusalem. Two British soldiers were
killed when their truck detonated a land mine outside Jerusalem. A leading Arab
figure was wounded in a similar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more road
mines were found near Government House.
43
October 31, 1946, Rome. The British Embassy in Rome was
damaged by a bomb, believed to have been planted by Jewish terrorists.
44
November 3, 1946, Palestine. Two Jews and two Arabs were
killed in clashes between Arabs and a group of Jews attempting to establish a
settlement at Lake Hula in northern Palestine.
45
November 4, 1946, Rome. Italian authorities released a
letter in which the Jewish terrorist gang, Irgun, took credit for the October 31
embassy bombing.
46
November 5, 1946, Palestine. British authorities released
the following eight Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun concentration camp
where they had been held since June 29: Moshe Shertok, Dr. Issac Greenbaum, Dr.
Bernard Joseph, David Remiz, David Hacohen, David Shingarevsky, Joseph Shoffman
and Mordecai Shatter. A total of 2,550 Haganah suspects have also been released
as well as 779 Jews arrested in the wake of the King David bombing.
47
November 7, 1946, Palestine. Railroad traffic was
suspended for 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on
railway facilities in two days.
48
November 9 through November 13, 1946, Palestine. Nineteen
persons, eleven British soldiers and policemen and eight Arab constables, were
killed in Palestine during this period as Jewish terrorists, using land mines
and suitcase bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and
even streetcars.
49
November 14,
1946, London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish terrorist
groups who threatened to export their terrorism to England.
50
November 18,
1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv attacked Jews, assaulting many and firing
into houses. Twenty Jews were injured in fights with British troops following
the
death on November 17 of three policemen and an
RAF sergeant in a land mine explosion.
51
Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in the
Jerusalem tax office.
52
December 2 through December 5,1946, Palestine. Ten
persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and land-mine
explosions.
53
December 3,1946, Jerusalem. A member of the Stern gang
was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt
54
December 26,1946, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists
raided two diamond factories in Nathanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with nearly
$107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. These raids signaled an end to a two- week
truce during the World Zionist Congress.
1947
55
January 1, 1947, Jerusalem. Dov Gruner was sentenced to
hang by a British military court for taking part in a raid on the Ramat Gan
police headquarters in April of 1946.
56
January 2, 1947, Palestine. A wave of terror swept
Palestine as Jewish terrorists staged bombings and machine gun attacks in five
cities. Casualties were low. Homemade flame-throwers were used in several cases.
Pamphlets seized warned that the Irgun had again declared war against the
British and Arabs of Palestine.
57
January 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British soldiers have been
ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or
restaurant
58
January 5, 1947, Egypt ,Eleven British troops were
injured in a hand grenade attack on a train carrying troops to Palestine. The
attack took place near Benha, 25 miles from Cairo.
59
January 8, 1947, Palestine. British police arrested 32
persons suspected of being members of the Irgun terrorist
gang’s “Black Squad” in raids on Rishon-el
Zion and Rehoboth.
60
January 12, 1947, Haifa. A single terrorist drove a truck
filled with high explosives into the central police station and exploded it,
killing two British policemen and two
Arab constables and injuring 140 others. The
terrorist
escaped. This action ended a 10-day lull in the
violence and the Stern gang took the credit for it
61
January 13, 1947, Haifa. British soldiers and police
screened 872 persons in Haifa and detained 10 for further questioning as Arabs
and Jews both condemned the bombing.
62
January 14, 1947, Jerusalem. Yehudi Katz is sentenced to
life in prison by a Jerusalem court for robbing a bank in Jaffa in September of
1946 to obtain funds for the terrorists.
63
January 21, 1947, London. Dr. Emmanuel Neumann, vice
president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared US. Zionists would
spend “millions” to finance illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. A
Haganah spokesman in Paris claimed that 211,878 Jews entered Palestine illegally
during the past 15 months.
64
January 22, 1947, Palestine. Sir Harry Gurney, Chief
Secretary, stated that the British administration was taxing Palestine
$2,400,000 to pay for sabotage by the terrorists.
65
January 22, 1947, London. Colonial Secretary Arthur
Creech Jones informed the House of Commons 73 British subjects were murdered by
Palestine terrorists in 1946 and
“no culprits have been convicted.”
66
January 27, 1947, London. Britain’s conference on
Palestine, boycotted by the Jews, reconvened. Jamal el Husseini, Palestine Arab
leader, declared that the Arab world was unalterably opposed to partition as a
solution to the problem. The session then adjourned.
67
January 29, 1947, London. It was officially announced
that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine.
68
January 29,
1947, Jerusalem. Irgun forces released former Maj. H. Collins, a British banker,
who they kidnapped on January 26 from his home. He had been badly beaten. On
January 28, the Irgun released Judge Ralph Windham who had been kidnapped in Tel
Aviv on January 27 while trying a case. These men had been taken as hostages for
Dov Bela Gruner, an Irgun member under death sentence for terrorism. The British
High Commissioner, Lt Gen.. Sir Alan Cunningham, had threatened martial law
unless the two men were returned unharmed.
69
January 31,
1947, Jerusalem. General Cunningham ordered the wives and children of all
British civilians to leave Palestine at once. About 2,000 are involved. This
order did not apply to the 5,000 Americans in Palestine.
70
February 3, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Jewish Agency demanding that it state “categorically and at once” whether it and the supreme Jewish Council in Palestine will call on the Jewish community by February 10 for “cooperation with the police and armed forces in bringing to justice the members of the terrorist groups.” This request was publicly rejected by Mrs. Goldie Meyerson, head of the Jewish Agency’s political department
71
February 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British District
Commissioner James Pollock disclosed a plan for military occupation of three
sectors of Jerusalem and orders nearly 1,000 Jews to evacuate the Rehavia,
Schneler and German quarters by noon, February 6.
72
February 5, 1947, Jerusalem. The Vaad Leumi rejected the
British ultimatum while the Irgun passed out leaflets that it was prepared to
fight to the death against the British authority. The first 700 of some 1,500
British women and children ordered to evacuate Palestine leave by plane and
train for Egypt. British authorities, preparing for military action, order other
families from sections of Tel Aviv and Haifa which will be turned into fortified
military areas.
73
February 9, 1947, Haifa. British troops removed 650
illegal Jewish immigrants from the schooner ‘Negev” at Haifa and after a
struggle forced them aboard the ferry ‘Emperor Haywood” for deportation to
Cyprus.
74
February 14, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration
revealed that Lt Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in
Palestine, had confirmed the death sentences of three Irgun members on
February 12 before leaving for England. The three men, Dov Ben Rosenbaum,
Eliezer Ben Kashani and Mordecai Ben Alhachi, had been
sentenced on February 10 to be hanged for
carrying firearms. A fourth, Haim Gorovetzky, received a life sentence because
of his youth. Lt Gen. G. MacMillian arrived in Jerusalem on February 13 to
succeed Gen. Barker.
75
February 15, 1947, Palestine. The Sabbath was the setting
for sporadic outbreaks of violence which included the murder of an Arab in Jaffa
and of a Jew in Bne Brok, the kidnapping of a Jew in Peta Tikvah and the burning
of a Jewish club in Haifa.
76
March 9, 1947, Hadera. A British army camp was attacked.
77
March 10, Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer,
was murdered by Jewish terrorists.
78
March 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Army pay corps was
dynamited in Jerusalem and one
soldier killed.
79
March 12, 1947,
Palestine. British military units captured most of the 800 Jews whose motor ship
“Susanna” ran the British blockade and was beached north of Gaza on this
date. A British naval escort brought the “Ben Hecht,”
the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation’s
first known immigrant ship, into Haifa, and its 599 passengers were shipped to
Cyprus. The British arrested the crew, which included 18 US. seamen.
80
March 13, 1947,
Jerusalem. British authorities announced 78 arrests as a result of unofficial
Jewish cooperation, but two railroads were attacked, resulting in two deaths,
and eight armed men robbed a Tel Aviv bank of $65,000.
81
March 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists blew up part
of an oil pipeline in Haifa and a section of the rail line at Beer Yakov.
82
March 16, 1947,
Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency building was bombed.
83
March 17, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities ended
martial law which had kept 300,000 Jews under house arrest for 16 days and tied
up most economic activity
84
March 17, 1947, Palestine. A military court sentenced
Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade.
85
March 18, 1947, Palestine. Terrorist leaflets admitted
the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer.
86
March 22, 1947,
Palestine. British officials announced the arrest of five known terrorists and
the discovery near Petah Tikvah of the body of Leon Meshiah, a Jew presumably
slain as a suspected informer
87
March 26, 1947, London. Britain’s Privy Council
rejected the appeal of the death sentence against Dov Bela Gruner.
88
March 28, 1947, Haifa. The Irgun blew up the Iraq
Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa.
89
March 29, 1947, Palestine. A British army officer was
murdered by Jewish terrorists when they ambushed a party of horsemen near the
Ramle camp. A raid by terrorists on a Tel Aviv bank yielded $109,000.
90
March 30, 1947,
Palestine. Units of the British Royal Navy, answering an SOS, took the disabled
“Moledeth” with 1,600 illegal Jewish refugees on board under tow
some 50 miles outside Palestinian waters.
91
March 30, 1947, Tel Aviv. The Stem gang killed the wife
of a British soldier.
92
March 31, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists dynamited the
British-owned Shell-Mex oil tanks in Haifa, starting a fire that destroyed a
quarter-mile of the waterfront The damage was set at more than $1,000,000, and
the British government in Palestine has stated that the Jewish community will
have to pay for it
93
April 2, 1947, Cyprus. The “Ocean Vigour’ was damaged
by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing.
94
April 3, 1947, Jerusalem. A court in Jerusalem sentenced
Daniel Azulai and Meyer Feinstein, members of the Irgun terrorist gang, to death
for the October 30 attack on the Jerusalem railroad station. The Palestine
Supreme Court admitted an appeal of Dov Bela Gruner’s death sentence.
95
April 3, 1947. The transport “Empire Rival” was damaged
by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt
96
April 7, 1947, Jerusalem. The High Court denied a new
appeal against the death sentence of Dov Bela Gruner, and a British patrol
killed Moshe Cohen.
97
April 8, 1947,
Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen
death.
98
April 9, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government
abandoned “statutory martial law” in the face of unfavorable publicity but
granted itself military dictatorship powers in “controlled areas” it May
impose.
99
April 10, 1947, London. The British Government requested
France and Italy to prevent Jews from embarking for Palestine.
100
April 11, 1947, Jerusalem. Asher Eskovitch, a Jew, was
beaten to death by Moslems when he entered the forbidden Mosque of Omar.
101
April 13, 1947, Jerusalem. Guella Cohen, Stern gang illegal
broadcaster, escaped from a British military hospital.
102
April 14, 1947, Tel Aviv. A British naval unit boarded
the refugee ship “Guardian” and seized it along with 2,700 passengers after
a gun battle in which two immigrants were killed and 14 wounded.
103
April 16, 1947, Haifa. In spite of threats of reprisal
from the Irgun, the British hanged Dov Bela Gruner and three other Irgun members
at Acre Prison on Haifa Bay. Jewish communities were kept under strict curfew
for several hours. Soon after the deaths were announced, a time bomb was found
in the Colonial Office in London but was defused.
104
April 17, 1947, Palestine. Lt Gen. C. Macmillan confirmed
death sentences for two more convicted terrorists, Meier Ben Feinstein and Moshe
Ben Barazani, but reduced Daniel Azulai’s sentence to life imprisonment
105
April 18, 1947, Palestine. Irgun’s reprisals for the
Gruner execution were an attack on a field dressing station near Nethanaya where
one sentry was killed, an attack on an armored car in Tel Aviv where one
bystander was killed and harmless shots at British troops in Haifa.
106
April 19,1947,
Haifa. British naval units exploded depth charges in Haifa harbor to prevent an
underwater assault by Jewish “frogmen” on three British deportation vessels
that took the “Guardian’s” passengers to Cyprus.
107
April 20, 1947, Tel Aviv. A series of bombings by Jewish
terrorists in retaliation for the hanging of convicted terrorist Gruner injured
12 British soldiers.
108
April 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Meir Feinstein and Moshe
Barazani, condemned terrorists, killed themselves in prison a few hours before
they were scheduled to be hanged. They blew themselves up with bombs smuggled to
them in hollowed-out oranges.
109
April 22, 1947, Palestine. A troop train arriving from
Cairo was bombed outside Rehovoth with five soldiers and three civilians killed
and 39 persons injured.
110
April 23, 1947, London. The British First Lord of the
Admiralty, Viscount Hall, defended the Labor Government’s policy in Palestine
and he acknowledged in the House of Lords that Britain would not “carry out a
policy of which it did not approve” despite any UN action. He blamed
contributions from American Jews to the Palestine terrorists as aiding terrorism
there and cited the toll since August 1, 1945: 113 killed, 249 wounded, 168 Jews
convicted, 28 sentenced to death, four executed, 33 terrorists slain in battles.
Viscount Samuel urged increased immigration.
111
April 23, 1947, Palestine. The Irgun proclaimed its own
“military courts” to “try” British troops and policemen who resisted
them.
112
April 24, 1947,
Palestine. Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham, Palestine High Commissioner flew to
Egypt and requested Lt General Sir Miles Dempsey, Middle-East land force
commander, for more troops to be sent to Palestine.
113
April 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Stern gang squad drove a
stolen post office truck loaded with explosives into the Sarona police compound
and detonated it, killing five British policemen.
114
April 26, 1947, Haifa. The murder of Deputy Police
Superintendent A. Conquest climaxed a week of bloodshed.
115
May 4,1947,
Acre. The walls of Acre prison were blasted open by an Irgun bomb squad and
251 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped after a gun battle in which 15 Jews and 1
Arab were killed, 32 (including six British guards) were injured and 23
escapists were recaptured. The Palestine Government promised no extra punishment
if the 189 escapees still at large will surrender.
116
May 6, 1947,
Jerusalem. former British Commando Sgt Dov Bernard Cohen, head of the Acre bomb
squad, was fatally wounded in the attack.
117
May 4, 1947, New York. The Political Action Committee for
Palestine ran a series of advertisements in New York newspapers seeking funds to
buy parachutes for young European Jews planning to crash the Palestine immigration
barrier by air.
118
May 8, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Jew was ambushed and shot to
death by an Arab group near Tel Aviv, and three Jewish-owned Tel Aviv shops
whose owners refused to contribute money to Jewish terrorist groups were burned
down.
119
May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed two
British policemen.
120
May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British authorities
announced that 3l2 Jewish political prisoners were held in Kenya, East Africa,
247 in Latrun and 34 in Bethlehem, Palestine.
121
May 15, 1947, The Stern gang killed two British
lieutenants and injured seven other persons with two derailments and three
bridge demolitions.
122
May 16, 1947, Palestine. On the fifth day of another terrorist
drive, Haifa Assistant Police Superintendent, Robert Schindler, a German Jew,
was murdered by the Stern gang, and a British constable was killed on the Mt.
Carmel-Haifa road near Jerusalem.
123
May 17, 1947, Haifa. The 1,200-ton Haganah freighter
“Trade Winds” was seized by the Royal Navy off the Lebanon coast and
escorted into Haifa, and over 1,000 illegal immigrants were disembarked
pending transfer to Cyprus.
124
May 19, 1947, London. The British government protested to
the United States government against American fund-raising drives for Palestine
terrorist groups. The complaint referred to a “Letter to the Terrorists of
Palestine” by playwright Ben Hecht, American League for a Free Palestine
co-chairman, first published in the New York ‘Post” on May 15. The ad said,
“We are out to raise millions for you.”
125
May 22, 1947,
Palestine. Arabs attacked a Jewish labor camp in southern Palestine, retaliating
for a Haganah raid on the Arabs near Tel Aviv, May 20. Some 40,000 Arab and
Jewish workers united the same day in a one-day strike against all
establishments operated by the British War Ministry
126
May 23, 1947,
Palestine. A British naval party boarded the immigrant ship “Mordei
Haghettoath” off South Palestine and took control of its 1,500 passengers. Two
British soldiers were convicted in Jerusalem of abandoning a jeep and army mail
under a terrorist attack.
127
May 27, 1947, Germany. Jewish underground migration
officials in Frankfort-am-Main declared they hoped to transport 1,000,000 Jews
from Europe to Palestine, 30,000 of them this summer. The Costa Rican ship
“Colony Trader” has been detained at Gibraltar under suspicion of its use
for smuggling illegal immigrants into Palestine. London is investigating reports
that non-Jewish Poles and Slavs in DP camps are being recruited for the
Palestine army. Other investigations are being conducted into persistent reports
that Soviet Russia has been supplying technical advisors to The Jewish terrorist
groups.
128
May 28, 1947, Syria. Fawzi el-Kawukji who spent the war
years in Germany after leading the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, told
reporters in Damascus that an unfavorable decision by the UN inquiry group would
be the signal for war against the Jews in Palestine. “We must prove that in
case” of an Anglo-American war with Russia, “we can be more dangerous or
useful to them than the Jews,” he added.
129
May 28, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists blew up a water
main and a shed in the Haifa oil dock areas and made three attacks on railway
lines in the Lydda and Haifa areas.
130
May 31, 1947, Haifa. The Haganah ship “Yehuda Halevy”
arrived under British naval escort with 399 illegal Jewish immigrants, the first
from Arab territories. They were immediately transshipped to Cyprus.
131
June 4, 1947,
London. The terrorist Jewish Stern gang sent letter bombs to high British
governmental officials. Eight letter bombs containing powdered gelignite explosive
were discovered in London. Recipients included Ernest Bevan, Anthony Eden, Prime
Minister Attlee and Winston Churchill.
132
June 5, 1947,
Washington. President Truman asked all persons in the US. to refrain from
helping Palestine terrorists. The American Jewish Committee and Jewish Labor
Committee condemned Ben Hecht’s campaign for Palestine terrorist funds.
133
June 5, 1947,
Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorist mines wrecked two trains near Tel Aviv and Haifa and
the Athlit railroad station but without casualties.
134
June 6, 1947, London. Scotland Yard official now
acknowledge that a total of 20 letter bombs have been found.
135
June 6, 1947, New York. Secretary General of the UN,
Trygve Lie has forwarded a request to all countries a request by the British
that they guard their frontiers against departure of illegal immigrants bound
for Palestine.
136
June 18, 1947, Tel Aviv. Haganah disclosed that one of
its men was killed by a booby trap which foiled an Irgun plot to blow up British
Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.
137
June 19, 1947, Jerusalem. Major Roy Farran, held in
connection with the disappearance of a 16-year-old Jew, escaped from custody in
the army barracks in Jerusalem.
138
June 28, 1947, Palestine. The terrorist Stern gang opened
fire on British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing
three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa
hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish terrorists to be in retaliation for
British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew,
Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6.
139
June 29, 1947, New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to
condemn the acts of terrorism as “flagrant disregard” of the UN appeal for
an interim truce as Stern terrorists wounded four more British soldiers on a
beach at Herzila. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his
escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection
with the Rubowitz case.
140
June 30, 1947,
Jerusalem. The Palestine government permitted oil companies to raise prices of
benzene nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish terrorists
blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31.
141
July 1, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Government rejected
the UN Commission’s move to halt the execution of three Irgun members
convicted of terrorism and also said that the UN Assembly truce resolution of
May 15 had no bearing on “the normal processes of the administration of
justice” in Palestine.
142
July 2, 1947, Haifa. Irgun members robbed a Haifa bank of
$3,200 while both the Stem gang and the Irgun warned the British that their
“provocative” acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The
Guatemalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in
Acre Prison. In Pretoria, South Africa, Prime Minister Smuts, who was a party to
the Balfour Declaration, said “the promise of a national home in Palestine
never meant the whole of Palestine.” He favored partition into Arab and Jewish
states.
143
July 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Dr. Ariem Altman, president of
the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the
Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish
state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two
British sergeants kidnapped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have
been sentenced to death by Irgun court-martial.
144
July 14, 1947, Nathanya. The British imposed martial law
and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Nathanya under house arrest. They made 68
arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp.
145
July 17, 1947, Nathanya. The Irgun in five mine
opera-lions against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and
injured 16.
146
July 17, 1947, Nethanya. Mines killed a second Briton and
injured seven.
147
July 18, 1947, Haifa. The American-manned Haganah refugee
ship “Exodus 1947” (formerly the ‘President Warfield”) was escorted into
Haifa by British naval units after a battle in which the American first mate,
William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured. The
blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers,
the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a single
ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American
captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France.
148
July 19, 1947, Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke
out among the passengers of the “Exodus 1947” when they learned they were to
be returned to France
149
July 19, 1947,
Jerusalem. The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish “campaign of
lawlessness, murder and sabotage” has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage
since 1940.
150
July 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Before officially admitting
that 4,529 passengers of the “Exodus 1947” who had been transferred to
three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the
Palestine Government took the precaution of first placing Jerusalem’s 90,000
Jews under nightly house arrest.
151
July 23, 1947, Haifa. Haganah sank the British transport
“Empire Lifeguard” in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish
immigrants who had officially been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five
immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the
ship.
152
July 24, 1947, Amman, Trans-Jordan. Seven members of the
UN Palestine Commission flew to Amman and were informed by Jordanian Premier
Samir Pasha el Rifai that: (1) Palestine belongs to the Arabs; (2) the Arabs
never accepted the Balfour Declaration; (3) the Jews are imperialistic invaders
whose immigration “must be stopped forthwith”; (5) Palestine should get
unpartitioned independence under the Arab majority; (6) the plight of European
refugees does not concern Palestine; (7) the Arabs will justly resist with force
any unfavorable decision.
153
July 26, 1947. Jewish terrorists blew up the Iraqi
Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar
station.
154
July 26, 1947, Palestine. Two British soldiers were
killed by a booby trap near Jerusalem, raising the week’s violence toll to 12
killed and 75 wounded.
155
July 26, 1947, Palestine. Menachem Begin, leader of the
Irgun, announced from his secret headquarters that Haganah had planned the King
David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 in which 91 persons were
killed.
156
July 27, 1947, Palestine. An ambush and mines cost the
British seven more casualties, all wounded.
157
July 28, 1947, Haifa. Two small Haganah ships loaded with
1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off
Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped
aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus.
158
July 29, 1947,
Palestine. The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite
appeals from Jewish
leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom
Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They
were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and
Jews.
159
July 29, 1947,
France. The 4,429 “Exodus 1947” illegal immigrants who sailed from Sate,
France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard
three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc,
France. Only a few who were ill went ashore. The French government informed the
refugees that
they do not have to debark but will be welcomed
if they do. The transports are the “Runnymede Park,” “Ocean Vigour” and
“Empire Valour”
160
July 30, 1947,
Palestine. Irgun terrorists
announced that they have hanged two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Jifford
Martin, whom they had held as hostages since July 12, for “crimes against the
Jewish community.” The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun
members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers
were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish
colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders.
161
July 31, 1947, Nathanya. The bodies of the two murdered
British sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half
miles from Nathanya about 530 AM. A booby trap blew Martin’s body to bits when
it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops,
attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men,
two women and a boy.
162
August 1, 1947, Tel Aviv. Thirty-three Jews are injured
in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five
civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish terrorist
attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker
killed and two captured.
163
August 2, 1947, Tel Aviv. The body of an unidentified Jew
was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men
in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July:
25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish
terrorists, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs
are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
Chicago and Los Angeles.
164
August 3, 1947,
Palestine. Haganah warned in Jerusalem that the Britons who killed five Jews in
Tel Aviv On July 31 will be found and punished.
165
August 4, 1947,
Paris. An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high
British military and civilian officials in Palestine to death “in absentia”
and will hang them upon capture.
166
August 4, 1947,
Palestine. British troops blew up a Jewish house in a Jerusalem suburb in which
arms were found. Jewish terrorists robbed Barclays’ Bank in Tel Aviv of $5200
and a Haganah member was killed.
167
August 5, 1947, Palestine. Striking at dawn, British security
forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp
in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership. In reprisal, Irgunists blew up
the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those
arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of
Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Krinitzki of Ramat Gan, Arieh Altman, president of the
radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth
organization, B’rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela
Gruner’s attorney, and David Stern, brother of the late founder of the Stem
gang.All those arrested except the three Mayors were Revisionists. Among many
papers confiscated was correspondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and
Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts
of Jerusalem with botulism, anthrax and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by
Soviet sources through Bulgaria.
168
August 5, 1947, England. Anti-Semitic outbreaks slackened
after five days of rock throwing, window-smashing and other incidents including
daubing Jewish businesses with swastikas and numerous assaults on British Jews.
These incidents occurred in Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff (Wales), Leeds,
London and Birmingham as retaliation for the murder of two British sergeants in
Palestine. Thirty-eight persons were arrested in Liverpool but in the main, the
British police ignored the rioters and permitted them to run their course.
169
August 8, 1947, Palestine. The Bank of Sharon in Ramat
Can was robbed by Jewish terrorists of $8,000.
170
August 14, 1947,
Geneva. The UN Special Subcommittee on Palestine returned to Geneva after a
seven-day tour of DP camps in Austria and Germany. The tour took
the group to Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg.
In Berlin it heard reports August 13 from General Lucius D. Clay, US. Military
Governor. Clay testified that anti-Semitism is growing very sharply among the
ranks of the
US. military units in the US. Zones of Austria
and Germany because of the violent, asocial and criminal behavior of the Eastern
European DPs, all of whom are Jewish. He recommended that these DPs be allowed
to
enter Palestine before some incident with
American soldiers, who have been beaten, robbed and killed by Jewish DPs,
leads to severe spontaneous reactions on the part of other soldiers. His views
were seconded very strongly by Sir Brian Robertson, Deputy British Military
Governor.
171
August 15, 1947,
Palestine. A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the
engineer, and Irgun terrorists claimed the incident was part of its campaign to
disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic.
172
August 16, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish clashes have
brought death to l2 Arabs and l3 Jews and heavy property destruction this week
in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Interracial strife was renewed
on August 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the
deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago. Haganah responded
to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv,
killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children. British military
curfews imposed on August 13 on slum districts between modern Tel Aviv and Jaffa
have failed to prevent mounting casualties. British military authorities, citing
captured intelligence and statements from Jewish defectors from terrorist
organizations, state that it now appears that the Jewish terrorists are
beginning to attack Arabs where ever they found them because Jews wish the Arabs
to be driven out of Palestine entirely.
173
August 18, 1947, Palestine. The shops of five Jewish
merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to
give money to that organization.
174
August 23, 1947,
Jerusalem. British authorities reported that five Arabs in one family; two men,
one woman and two children, were murdered by Jewish terrorists as retaliation
for the British arrest of two Irgun leaders on August15.
175
September 9,
1947. Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three-hour fight aboard the “Runnymede
Park,” 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300
“Exodus 1947” illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany.
First ashore yesterday were the “Ocean Vigour’s”1,406; a few put up token
resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the
“Empire Rival’s” 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made
bomb was found in the ship’s hold. Many of the “Runnymede Park’s” 1,485
passengers fiercely resisted the debarkation process and British military units
had to use fire hoses and truncheons to rout resisters below decks. The Jews
were taken ashore screaming “Nazis” to the British. “Runnymede Park”
casualties, officially, were 24 Jews and three Britons injured, with 50 leaders
of the resistance on that ship taken to jail. German police broke up a Hamburg
demonstration by 1,300 Jewish DPs from the Bergen-Belsen camp, where British
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was hanged in effigy on September 7. The debarked
“Exodus” passengers were interned in Poppendorf camp near Luebeck for
screening by nationalities and at first all of them refused to cooperate with
British authorities until the passengers were threatened with a diet of bread
and water.
176
September 10, 1947, Washington D.C. Secretary of State
George C. Marshall disclosed that the US. had urged
Britain to reconsider sending the “Exodus”
group to Germany, but Britain replied that there were no facilities for housing
them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of
vacant detention camps in Germany.
177
September 11, 1947, Paris. The French government has now
announced that it would admit the “Exodus” refugees if they were not
forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be
admitted eventually to Palestine.
178
September 7,
1947, Paris. French police state a Stern gang plot to attack London with
home-made fire extinguisher bombs from the air was thwarted through the
cooperation of Reginald Gilbert of St Louis, Missouri, a student and wartime
RCAF and AAF pilot He was taken into custody with Rabbi Baruch Korif, of New
York, co-chairman of the Political Action Committee for Palestine, and Judith
Rosenberger, Hungarian-born Stern gang member, as the three started to enter a
private plane last night at Toussus-le-Noble field near Versailles. Gilbert
informed French police that Korif had approached him in Paris a week ago with an
offer for flying a bombing mission over London the day of the“ Exodus”
illegal immigrant landings in Germany. Gilbert accepted for some other pilot who
would actually perform the mission. He at once notified Paris police, then
worked with them and Scotland Yard while pretending to go through with the Stern
gang’s plot. Korff was charged in Paris on September 9 with illegal possession
of bombs he was intending to drop on London. He began a hunger strike. Paris
police state that nine other conspirators
were in custody.
179
September 12,
1947, Palestine. Irgun has threatened to assassinate British representatives in
the US. Zone of Germany and all British delegations there are under 24-hour
guard, the US. command announced in Frankfurt-on-the Main. A probe of Irgun
thefts from US. army ammunition depots in Germany was reported on September 7.
180
September 20,
1947, Jerusalem. British raids September 16-19 uncovered several arms caches and
terrorist hideouts in the Jerusalem area. The home of David Ben-Gurion, Jewish
Agency executive chairman was robbed of important papers September 18. In Paris,
Rabbi Baruch Korff, leader of a Stern gang plot to bomb London, ended a hunger
strike in Sante prison on
September 15.
181
October 13, 1947. Jerusalem. A terrorist bomb damaged the
US. consulate general in Jerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar
bombings occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish
consulate on September 27.In Baghdad, the Iraq foreign office advised an
American House Foreign Affairs Committee group not to make a projected visit
there because of “high feeling”
over US. endorsement of partitioning of Palestine. The State Department in
Washington announced it will issue no passports to American citizens who want to
take part in terrorism in Palestine; Americans so involved will forfeit
protection normally due US. citizens abroad.
182
October 18, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government
states that Palestine Arab forces have been sent from the Trans-Jordan frontier
to the Syrian and Lebanon borders to replace a British brigade which recently
left Palestine. Zionists protested having Arab troops on the border of northern
Palestine.
183
November 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists killed
two British policemen in Jerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the
total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed
and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops
killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on
November 12. The terrorists retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and
firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem.
184
November 15,
1947, London. The British Foreign Office denied Jerusalem press reports that
Britain planned to take over any financial surplus left in Palestine’s
treasury to pay for the costs of evacuation and combating unauthorized Jewish
immigration.
185
November 16,
1947, Palestine. About 185 European Jews landed near Nahariya from a small
schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel,
the “Kadimah,” was seized and brought to Haifa
where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British
transport for Cyprus.
186
November 17,
1947, Jerusalem. The British administration disclosed that it will sell
state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to
make $8 million. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds
that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they
said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the
administration to these charges.
187
November 22,
1947, Haifa. Another Arab was murdered in Haifa by the Stern gang following
their execution of four Arabs near Raanana November 20 in retaliation for the
British shooting of five Stern gang members on November12. Arabs retaliated
against this killing at Raanana by wounding five Jews on a bus near Tel Aviv on
November 20.
188
November 30- December 6, 1947, Palestine. A week of
disorders brought on by Arab wrath over the UN’s decision to partition the
Holy Land ended with at least 159 killed in the Middle East, 66 in Palestine.
While Jews in Palestine, Europe and the US. celebrated and began planning their
new state and the UN moved to implement its plan, war talk was rife throughout
the Arab world. The Arab League announced on December 1 that premiers and
foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan
strategy against partition. In Palestine: Jerusalem and the Jaffa Tel Aviv
boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were
killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the Mayor of Nablus, Arab
nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner
Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain
was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped
Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem. But Jewish celebrations there
were stoned. Arabs looted and burned a three-block Jewish business district in
Jerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three-day Arab general strike during
which 20 Jews and l5 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene,
Haganah (unofficial Zionist militia) came into the open for the first time in
eight years to restrain large-scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish
districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day’s
strife caused $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 24-hour curfew being
applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to
outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural
Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency’s Trade and
Transfer Department was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near
Ramleh. On this day Jews stoned Arab buses in Jerusalem. On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv
boundary, which also is under around-the-clock curfew, the week’s heaviest
battle was a six-hour clash between Hagariah and Arabs on December 3 in which
seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. On December 2,
Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and
the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced
Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser
attacks in Haifa this week. It becomes clearly evident that the partition is not
going as planned and that although the Jews are pleased, the Arabs are not. There appears to be no way to control
the Jews or their determination to drive all of the Arabs out of Jerusalem by
force if necessary. The Arabs, initially living in peace with the Jewish
minority, have been increasingly victimized by the Jews who, now that the
British are leaving, are turning their savage behavior against them. The Jews
have redoubled their efforts to build a military force and arm them. They claim
that this force is to protect the Jewish population against attacks from the
Arab countries as well as the Arab population of Jerusalem but an even
stronger argument can be made that the Zionists are determined to drive out the
Arab population by armed force. The initial Arab response to Jewish harassment
over the past year has been very slow in coming but it seems to be quite
inevitable and a terrible civil war is foreseen. The United States Department of
State announced on December 5, 1947 that they were placing an embargo on all
American arms shipments to the Middle East It appears that the Soviets have been
sending weapons- mostly captured German pieces, to assist the Zionists and
accompanying these clandestine arms shipments the Soviets have also sent a very
sizable contingent of instructors and advisors to Palestine in months past As
many of the Zionists are Russian or Polish in origin, these Communist Russians
have been received gladly by the Jewish extremists and quickly blend in with the
local populations. Soviet interest in Middle East oil and an overriding interest
in obtaining warm-water ports are a prime factor in their interest in a Jewish
state in Palestine. The most violent reactions in the Arab world to the UN
partition idea are Syrian and Egyptian. However, it is noted that the worst
outbreak of anti-partition violence outside Palestine occurred in Aden, a
British colony at the entrance to the Red Sea. On December 5, British military
reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in
which 5O Jews and 25 Arabs were killed. In Syria, public demonstrations by the
Arab population paralyzed business in Damascus earlier this week. The Soviet
cultural center and Communist headquarters in Damascus were wrecked on November
30 with four persons killed. The Syrian Communist Party was officially disbanded
by the government and the US. and British Embassy flags were torn down. On
December 1, Syria introduced military training into all boys’ schools and on
December 2, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the
relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of
Aleppo. In Egypt the Chamber of Deputies resolved on December 1 to help keep
Palestine a totally Arab state and to support the Arab population of Palestine
against attacks by the Jewish minority. There were repeated anti-US. and
British demonstration in Egypt’s main cities,
and the British Institute in Zagazig was burned on December 2. All public
meetings were banned in Cairo after Egyptian police fought with 15,000 people on
December 4.In Lebanon, Arab students smashed the windows of the US. Legation in
Beirut on December 1 and Lebanese Communists demonstrated against the partition
of Palestine and all schools were closed to prevent student disorders. In Iraq,
students in Baghdad wrecked the US. Information offices on December 4. In Saudi
Arabia, anti-American demonstrations by Arabs in the oil fields were restrained
by the government
189
December 13, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists shifted
from defense to attack in the second week of conflict with the Arabs since the
UN voted for partition of Palestine. The death toll for the past 14 days was at
least 220 in Palestine and 336 in the Middle East, including 111 in Aden. Arab
retaliatory raids at Jaffa and Tel Aviv had killed 30 Jews and Arabs when local
businessmen on both sides arranged for a truce on December 10 to effect an
orange harvest On December 11, however, the Arabs renewed their assaults in the
Old City of Jerusalem, which was the worst day of the current strife with 41
fatalities throughout Palestine. On December 12, Haganah launched attacks on
both the Arabs and British with a death toll of 20 Arabs, five Jews and two
British soldiers killed. On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least
16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred
Arab houses in Jaffa. In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in retaliation for the
Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the
priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament
manuscripts.
190
December 14,
1947, Lydda. Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed
14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they
attacked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews
attacked them first
191
December 17,
1947, Cairo. Premiers of the seven Arab League states called on the Arabs to
“prepare for the struggle.” They promised to “prosecute the fight until
victorious” General Nuri as-Said Pasha, president of the Iraqi Senate,
accused the US. of breaking a promise of neutrality.
192
December 17, 1947, Nevatim. British troops came to the
aid of police standing off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of
Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba.
193
December 18, 1947, Khisas. Haganah killed 10 Arabs,
including five children in a reprisal raid on Khisas in Northern Palestine.
194
December 19, 1947, Damascus. Reliable reports from
Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to
launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year.
195
December 20, 1947, Palestine. Haganah carried out another
raid on Arabs by attacking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth. One Arab was killed and two were
wounded.
196
December 21, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency gave
official approval for Haganah to make reprisal raids on Arab villages and
“exterminate nests of brigands.”
197
December 25, 1941, Haifa. Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab
landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews.
198
December 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. Stern gang terrorists
machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe.
199
December 26, 1947, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists
raided two diamond factories in Nazthaanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with
$107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds.
The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting
that Israel Levin, a member, was murdered in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying
to betray a Stern gang member.
200
December 29, 1947, Palestine. Irgun members kidnapped and
flogged a British major and three sergeants in retaliation for the flogging of
Benjamin Kimkhim who was also
sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27
for robbing a bank The major, E Brett, was seized in Nathanya and the sergeants
in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lash-
es, the same number Kimkhim received.
201
December 29,
1947, Jerusalem. An Irgun terrorist bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem
killed 11 Arabs and two Britons.
202
December 30,
1947, London. The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred
scrolls were destroyed by angry British citizens who scrawled on the burned
edifice “You whip—we burn.”
203
December 21-31, 1947, Palestine. Arab- Jewish conflict in
the Holy Land increased the death toll to 489 from violence in Palestine in
the 33 days since the UN decided on partition.
1948
204
January 3-10,
1948, Palestine. Extensive Jewish Agency purchases of US. war surplus high
explosives with which to fight Arabs were disclosed in the New York City area.
While 191 tons of TNT and the more powerful M-3 were seized before shipment, 73
tons cleared New York for Palestine. The TNT shipment was accidentally
discovered when longshore men loading the American Export Lines freighter “Executor” in Jersey
City on January 3, dropped a box marked “industrial machinery” and while
attempting to repair the box, found cans of TNT bearing US. Army markings. The
“machinery” proved to be 32 1/2 tons of TNT, which the US. Customs impounded
as contraband because of the ban on American arms shipments to the Middle East
On January 10, the FBI was attempting to trace the source of the contraband. The
Jewish Agency for Palestine acknowledged on January 10 that it had purchased 199
tons of M-3 from theWar Assets Administration at the Army’s Seneca Ordnance
Depot near Romulous, New York Federal and state agents recovered 126 tons from a
farmhouse and trucks near Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Barclay Heights and
Saugerties, New York on January 8-9 but 73 tons were believed to be en route to
Palestine. The Jewish Agency called its transaction with the WAA legal, admitted
having set up “Foundry Associates, Inc.” in New York with a Haganah agent in
charge, to buy explosives for their war on the Arabs. The FBI said Leonard
Weisman, president of three New York firms (Pratt Steamship Line, Material
Redistribution Corporation and Paragon Design and Development Co.) gave the
Haganah agent office space but did nothing illegal.WAA stopped all deliveries on
unfulfilled orders on January 9 in the New York area. It said Foundry
Associates, Inc., had sworn that it was a normal trader in explosives, thereby
qualifying to buy the M-3, and that the export question was a US. Department of
State matter.
205
January 4, 1948, Jaffa. A series of Jewish terrorist bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties. 14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa.
206
January 5, 1948, Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after
Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel.
207
January 6, 1948,
Jerusalem. The British Government denounced the Semiramis attack as “wholesale
murder of innocent people” but the Jewish Agency alleged that “Arab gangs”
used the hotel and asked why attacks on Jews had not been equally denounced.
208
14 Arabs were
killed by two Irgun terrorist bombs at Jerusalem’s Jaffa gate.
209
January 10,
1948, Jerusalem. The official death toll in Palestine since November 29 (when
the UN voted for partition) had risen to 646.
210
January 12, 1948, Tel Aviv. Stern gang members looted
Barclays Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000.
211
January 13, 1948. Washington. The US. War Assets
Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its
sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency,
which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized.
212
January 14-15, 1948, New York The FBI arrested six Newark
men on charges of trying to ship Haganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized
in Jersey City after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance
Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
213
January 16-17, 1948, Haifa. Zionists claimed they had
murdered 82Arabs, mostly civilians, in a 24 hour period. In retaliation for the
massacres, Arabs machine-gunned 35 Haganah men who were en route to attack
another Arab farming settlement.
214
January 17,
1948, Jerusalem: The official death toll of Arabs killed by Jewish terrorists
since November 29 had risen to 831.
215
January 25,
1948, Jerusalem. Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a
battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews,
19 civil-
ins and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160)
had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians
and 37 British officers had been wounded.
216
January 26,
1948, Palestine. Mrs. Gold Meyerson, Jewish Agency political director in
Jerusalem, and Mote Sheraton, chief of all Agency political operations, told the
UN Palestine Commission that Jews must arm against possible Arab threats and
Sheraton demanded a UN policy that would compel the US. to lift its embargo on
arms destined
for Jewish groups in the Middle East
217
January 28, 1948, Jerusalem. Rabbi Hillel Silver, chief
of the Jewish Agency’s American division, cut short a trip to Jerusalem to
return to the US. and campaign for American public support of armed Jewish
backing for partition and eventual Zionist control of all Palestine. On January
27, his agency called upon 15,000 young men and women to join Haganah by
February 15. British intelligence reports indicate that Haganah had grown from
3,500 to 12,000 full-time members since December 1.
218
January 31, 1948, London. British Foreign Office
officials revealed that over 1,000 Soviets, all Russian-speaking Communist
military technicians, had been intercepted on the immigrant ships “Pan York”
and “Pan Crescent”
219
February 1, 1948, Jerusalem. Arab groups took credit for
a bombing that destroyed the “Palestine
Post” building. The newspaper had an extensive history of inciting the Jewish
inhabitants of Jerusalem to “destroy Arabs and force them out” of Palestine.
220
February 1, 1948, Milwaukee. Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency
political director, stated that statements that Communist agents were among the
intercepted “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent” immigrants from Bulgaria were
untrue. Shartok cited a statement from Cyprus refugee camp commissioner, Sir
Godfrey Collins, confirming his statement Collins subsequently denied making
such a statement .Shertok further said that the Jews of Palestine welcomed all
Jews into their country and that Jewish Communists were equally welcome. He
denied rumors of Soviet clandestine assistance to various Jewish terrorist
groups.
221
February 3,
1948, Jerusalem. Stern gang terrorists killed two British policemen because the
bombers of the “Post” had allegedly worn police uniforms. Arabs attacked the
Jerusalem Central Prison but were driven off by the guards.
222
The British
Foreign Office sent Bulgaria a note of rebuke for “deliberately conniving”
in the transshipment of illegal Soviet immigrants to Palestine.
223
February 10, 1948, Jerusalem. British military units prevented
Arabs from bringing dynamite and firebombs into Jerusalem’s Old City in an
attempt to blow up its Jewish Quarter.
224
February 10,
1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorist groups murdered ten Arabs near an RAF camp in
central Palestine A further 23 Arabs were murdered by Jewish groups throughout
Palestine.
225
February 11, 1948, Palestine. The British Royal Navy
intercepted the ship “Beleaguered Jerusalem” off Nahariya and its 679 Jewish
illegal immigrants were transshipped to Cyprus.
226
February 13, 1948, Palestine. A British Army sergeant was
arrested in a probe of the death of four Jewish terrorists who were arrested at
their sniper post and then released in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews were
immediately stoned to death by the Arabs.
227
February 15, 1948, Galilee. Jewish terrorists raided an
Arab settlement in upper Galilee, killing 30 Arabs, including 10 children, and
blew up bridges.
228
February 16, New York The UN Palestine Commission
reported to the Security Council that it would take a UN military force to save
the Palestine partition from “catastrophic” failure. The report criticized
“(c)ertain elements of the Jewish community,” for “irresponsible ads of
violence which worsen the security situation.” The Commission quoted official
British figures on Palestine casualties during November 30-February 1:869
killed, including 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, 46 British and 15 of other nationalities;
1,909 wounded, including 1,035 Arabs, 725 Jews, 135 British and 14 others.
229
February 20, 1948, Jerusalem. Twelve Jewish terrorists,
including Moshe Svorai, second in command of the Stern gang, escaped from the
Central Prison in Jerusalem.
230
February 22,
1948, Jerusalem. Two truckloads of high explosives were detonated in Ben Yehuda
Street in the Jewish section of Jerusalem. The blast leveled a three block
Jewish business center, killing at least 60 with 20 missing and 200 injured.
Jews blamed the British because armored trucks with police insignia had escorted
the truck bombs into the area.
231
February 23, 1948, Palestine. Northern Palestine Arabs
took credit for the BenYehuda bombing and said they had carried out the attack
as retaliation for a Jewish bombing
that had killed seven Arabs in Ramleh.
232
February 27,
1948, Jerusalem. Two anti-Communist Polish residents of Jerusalem were murdered
by Stem gang terrorists who claimed the Poles were “pro-Arab.”
233
February 29,
1948, Rehoveth. The British Mandate Government denounced the Jewish Agency after
28 British soldiers were killed and 35 seriously injured when a Haifa-bound
train from Cairo was blown up. Stern gang terrorists took credit for the bombing
of the British train as revenge for the Ben Yehuda Street bombing in Jerusalem.
234
March 1, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Mandate government
accused the Jewish Agency of circulating false charges that Britons had
committed the BenYehuda bombing and of tolerating Jewish terrorists “for
political reasons.” It warned that “continuance of indiscriminate murder”
would mean “forfeiture by the Jewish community of all right . . . to be
numbered among civilized peoples. ”Immediately after issuance of this
statement, the car of British Commander Lt
Gen. McMillan was bombed near Jerusalem but the general was not in the
car at the time.
235
March 2, 1948, Haifa. Stern gang terrorists detonated a
truckful of explosives at an Arab office building in Haifa, killing at least 14
Arabs.
236
March 4, 1948, Ramallah. In retaliation for the Haifa
bombing of March 2, Arabs ambushed and killed 17 Haganah youths near RamaIlah
237
March 5, 1948, Tel Aviv. Haganah killed 15 Arabs near Tel
Aviv in revenge for the March 4 ambush of their members
238
March 5, 1948,
Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency stated that large-scale Jewish arms shipments were
ready in various Mediterranean ports destined for the arming of Jewish partisans
in Palestine to “fight and drive out” the Arab population of what the Agency
stated “was eternal Jewish land” that could not be occupied by either the
British or the Arabs.
239
March 11, 1948,
Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency’s building in Jerusalem was bombed with 13
persons killed and 84 injured. An American car, believed to have been stolen
from the US. consulate by an Arab chauffeur, was driven through the agency’s
elaborate barricades with a load of explosives. The driver escaped.
240
March 11, 1948, New York. Communist and their left wing
labor unions turned out over 10,000 persons in a protest rally against US.
“betrayal” of partition.
241
March 12, 1948, New York Columnist Drew Pearson said in
his “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column that
President Harry Truman had given Democratic
party leaders the following reason for holding back on enforcement of Palestine
partition after having championed this in the
UN last year: Russia was after a US. Army-built
railroad north from the Persian Gulf, plus all Arab oil regions and the Eastern
Mediterranean. On March, Pearson had stated in the same forum that President
Truman had told a New York publisher that New York Jews were “disloyal” to
the United States.
242
March 12, 1948~ New York An Arab Higher Command paper was
issued that charged the Jewish Agency with massing Soviet trained and equipped
illegal immigrants in Eastern Europe for war service in Palestine and had “set
up laboratories for bacteriological warfare.”
243
March 30, 1948, Palestine. British authorities released
the latest casualty figures: In March, 566 persons, including 271 Jews 256Arabs,
39 British and others were killed.
244
March 30, 1948, New York Soviet and Jewish groups
informed the UN Security Council that they defended the UN’s previous decision
for a separate Jewish state. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko,
told the Security Council that partition was “a just solution,” that he was
not convinced that it could not be carried out peacefully and that by
“wrecking” it the US. would have to take the full blame for “a serious
blow upon the UN organization”
245
April 1, 1948,
New York The UN found that it had transversed a circle—from one special
General Assembly session to another—in its year-long effort to solve the
Palestine problem. Britain referred the Holy Land dispute to the UN April 2,
1947, and asked for a special Assembly session, Events since then: April 28-May
15, 1947. Assembly met, decided on special committee inquiry into the
Palestine situation. August 31. Special Palestine Committee (UNSCOP) recommended
partition, internationalized Jerusalem. November 29. Assembly approved
partition, 33-13 (10 abstentions): US. led the fight for a separate Jewish
state. Intensified Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine. December 11. Britain set
May 15 as the date for surrender of its mandate over Palestine. February 16,
1948. Assembly’s Palestine Commission asked for UN army to enforce partition
over Arab resistance. February 24. US. sidestepped endorsing forcible partition,
asked the Council to seek Arab-Jewish agreement March 19. After the Big Five
conciliation efforts failed, the US. abandoned its partition plan and proposed
UN trusteeship over Palestine. April 1. The Security Council agreed (Russia
abstaining) to US. proposal for a special Assembly session to reconsider the
Palestine problem and passed the US. resolution urging an Arab-Jewish truce.
246
April 4, 1948, New York A Zionist rally in New York’s
Madison Square Park was attended by 100,000 persons, including 40,000 Jewish war
veterans.
247
April 6, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorists invaded the
British Army’s largest Palestine camp near Pardes Hannan south of Haifa in a
raid for firearms and murdered seven British soldiers.
248
April 9, 1948, Washington The US. Department of State
refused to lift its embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East
249
April 9, 1948, Jerusalem. Irgun and Stern gang terrorists
stormed an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, Dir Yashin, killing 250 Arabs, half of them
women and children.
250
April 25, 1948, Jaffa. The Irgun launched an attack on
Arab Jaffa claiming that it was a stronghold for Arabs. They also attacked Tel
Aviv with 2,000 men, armored cars and mortars and captured the Arab district of
Mansielt. Their advance was halted when British fighter planes and light
artillery were used against the Irgun.
251
April 27, 1948,
Palestine. Initially condemning the Irgun for its attack on Jaffa, the Haganah
reached an agreement with Irgun and the latter agreed to operate under Haganah
control. Both groups then attacked, Haganah seizing Jaffa’s eastern and
southern suburbs. The Arab city was encircled by April 29, and all but 15,000 of
Jaffa’s Arab inhabitants had been driven from the city, although the town was
officially termed an Arab area. In Tel Aviv, the Stern gang robbed Barclays Bank
of $1 million.
252
April 30, 1948,
Jerusalem. Haganah scored victories against the Arab residents after fruitless
UN efforts to arrange a truce that would protect historical shrines in the
ancient Walled City. Jewish extremists threatened to dynamite the Arab Dome of
the Rock Mosque unless all Arabs immediately evacuated Jerusalem. The British
response was that if this happened, they would blow up the Wailing Wall, the
last remnant of the destroyed temple. The Haganah agreed to respect both Arab
and Christian monuments but insisted all Arabs and Christians must leave
Jerusalem. In a move they described as “defensive,” the Haganah overran the
Christian Arab Katamon quarter in southwestern modern Jerusalem and captured
most of the Moslem Mamilla cemetery. Jewish workers seized the general post
office in Jerusalem. In Katamon, Haganah captured St Simon’s Greek Orthodox
Monastery, drove out the monks and vandalized the building. British troops
stepped in to prevent further massacre of the Arabs.
253
May 2, 1948,
Jerusalem. The British finally halted wide-spread strife in Jerusalem by rushing
several thousand mechanized army units and Royal Marine commandos back to
Palestine. Their primary purpose was to protect Arab civilians who were being
slaughtered by rampaging Zionists.
254
May 5-8, 1948,
Palestine. The Haganah, now styling itself a “Jewish Army,” struck Upper
Galilee in northeastern Palestine and claimed to have crushed any Arab resistance
by the end of the week. Safad, capital of Upper Galilee and normally a city of
15,000 Arabs, was reported by the Jewish Agency as having been “cleansed” of
Arabs by May 6. The only remaining occupants of the town were 2,000 Jews.
Haganah announced that all Arab property had been confiscated from the owners
and would be given to Jewish settlers.
255
May 4, 1948, Tel Aviv. The 37-man Jewish Legislative
Council met in Tel Aviv and heard Premier-designate David Ben-Gurion declare
that 150,000 Arabs had been driven from their homes in the past five months but
that the Jews “haven’t lost a single settlement” The Stern gang resumed
“direct war” against the British for protecting the Arab population of
Jerusalem. Seven British soldiers were killed near Nethanya. At the same time,
the Stern gang took credit for a letter bomb which killed the young brother of a
British army officer in England.
256
May 6, 1948,
Jerusalem. Haganah was redesignated as the Jewish State Army and reported that
200 aircraft, later revealed by British authorities as having come from
Czechoslovakia, whose new communist government is almost entirely composed of
Zionists and who have been pouring weapons into Palestine, are slated to
reinforce the new army. The army will be increased to 85,000 immediately.
257
May 16, 1948, New York The number of states recognizing
Israel increased to eight this week, and the new country applied for admission
to the UN. Russia immediately granted recognition on May 17, implying that it
recognized Israel’s government as the de jure (legal) government while the
United States recognized Israel only as the de facto (in fact) government
258
May 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Thomas Wasson, US. Consul
General in Jerusalem and a member of the Council’s Truce Commission, was
fatally wounded by a Stern gang sniper near the US. Consulate. Two other
Consulate members were also assaulted, one dying the next day.
259
September 17, 1948, Jerusalem. Angered by his order to readmit 8,000 Arab refugees driven from three villages near Haifa by attacks of Jewish terrorists, the Stern gang assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, UN mediator for Palestine. Also killed in the attack was French Col. Andre Serot, chief of France’s 100-man contingent in the unarmed UN truce-observer team.