Palestine between Politics and Terror, 1945–1947

7. Martial Law

186 7 Martial Law On January 17, 1947, the day after his return from London and another ephemeral victory, Cunningham summoned Ben-Gurion and told him he was disappointed that the Jewish Agency’s promises to fight terrorism were not being translated into action. The Yishuv leader, of course, could not have known what had prompted the high commissioner to raise this long-standing complaint again now.1 In any event, even before Cunningham could bask in the sun of his political success in London—encapsulated in the approval of his plan for cooperation with the Jewish Agency in combating terrorism—reality stepped in. Etzel and Lehi, enraged by the caning, at the end of December, of a Jewish youth who took part in a bank robbery, by the possibility of a political settlement arising from the British-Jewish-Arab conference in London on January 18, and by the confirmation of the death sentence imposed on Etzel activist Dov Gruner on January 24, launched a new wave of terrorism. Soldiers, policemen, and civilians were targeted indiscriminately. Worse, the breakaway groups viewed the families of administration and army personnel as “legitimate” targets. On January 26, Etzel kidnapped a British intelligence officer, Major H. A. Collins, in Jerusalem, followed the next day by the kidnapping of a judge, Ralph Windham, from Tel Aviv District Court. The perpetrators threatened to kill both men if Gruner—who had been arrested on April 23, 1946, following an Etzel raid on the Ramat Gan police station to steal weapons—were executed.2 On the afternoon of January 29, Cunningham sent an urgent cable to the colonial secretary. He asked for a reply by the next morning: “[The] terrorist organizations have now proved that they will not stop short of reprisals on British Civil Community in Palestine. The Police and Army have informed me that they are unable to protect civilian [sic] under conditions of normal civil life which obtain at the present.”3 Cunningham hoped that the condemned would appeal to the Crown for clemency, a move that would abate passions, but this was not the style of the breakaways. Unlike other Yishuv prisoners, those from Etzel did not request clemency and thereby bring about the revocation of the death sen- 187 Martial Law tence. Gruner had actually asked for a pardon but was compelled to retract his request in the face of Etzel’s argument that this constituted legitimization of British rule in the Land of Israel.4 The high commissioner did not intervene in the judicial process, although as the caning episode showed, doing so was his prerogative. It was clear to him that the operation of the civilian government would be severely hampered under conditions of rampant terrorism. He presented two alternative courses of action and indicated his preference. One would place the army in charge and dismantle the civilian component of the Mandatory administration; the other would organize the work of the civilian authorities so that they could continue to function under the new conditions. The first option was both undesirable and untimely, argued Cunningham, whereas civil government could operate under different conditions. Whatever the decision, Cunningham wrote, women, children, and nonessential personnel should be sent home to Britain so that the security forces could act freely to restore law and order. The high commissioner, then, was ready to pay a steep price to ensure the administration’s continued functioning. A passive posture made more sense than a more activist approach, he maintained. The latter would make life in Palestine intolerable for both the administration and the Yishuv, cause irreversible damage, and make British rule dependent on military coercion. Even though the removal of families and nonessentials would be a victory for the terrorists and a setback to Britain, the administration, and not least to Cunningham personally, the high commissioner wasted no time in promoting such a course. He ordered the immediate preparation of a plan to remove the families and nonessentials, and reported to the minister that it could be implemented within fortyeight hours. Leaving no doubt about his mood and intentions, he added that after the families and others had left he would be able to carry out Gruner’s sentence.5 As will be recalled, the idea to send home the families and nonessentials was not new. It first arose during the period of uncertainty in the Second World War, 1940–1942, and again at the start of the Yishuv-wide resistance struggle toward the end of 1945, during...