Page 486 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

486 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

as soon as illegal immigrants began to enter Palestine, the above mentioned British Army
personnel endeavoured to bring it to an end. The solutions they proposed were extreme.
Among them were suggestions to tranship the illegal immigrant from Palestine and return
them to the counties they had left. The politicians, on the other hand, who had to decide on a
policy as regards the war on illegal immigration, were very cautious. Thus, as long as illegal
Immigration was on a small scale and there was hope, with the aid of the United States, of
finding a comprehensive solution to the question of Palestine, there was no hurry to adopt the
recommendations of the top military echelon. As far as the politicians were concerned it was
preferable to intercept the boats of illegal Immigrant, confiscate them and release the passen-
gers in return for including them in the monthly quota of Jews allowed into the country. This
was the policy followed during the first year after the WWII. It caused great financial losses
to those organizing illegal immigration without, in fact, succeeding in bringing more immi-
grant into the country than was allowed by the British official quota. This situation changed
in the summer of 1946 when the Jewish Organization, Aliya Beth, learned to cope with the
problem and due to the fact that the small stream turned into an ever-increasing flow. Follow-
ing the attack by a Jewish underground organization, (the National Military Organization)
on the King David Hotel in Jerusalem (22 July, 1945) which was the seat of the Mandate
government secretariat and the British HQ for Palestine, heavy pressure by the British com-
manders and the High Commissioner for Palatine was again brought to bear on the govern-
ment in London. They wanted Whitehall to adopt a strong-arm policy against the Jewish
community in Palestine in order to break the power of the latter and, at the same time, put an
end to illegal immigration by transhipping the immigrants from Palestine. This demand was
accompanied by the caution that if the government did not show sufficient strength and did
not halt illegal immigration, there was a danger that the arabs in Palestine would react with
such violence that the British army would not be able to regain control over the situation. In
the end, British interests in the whole region would be damaged. this pressure placed the
British government on the horns of a dilemma due to the special political circumstances of
the time. At the end of July 1946 the US president Truman dashed the hope that he would be
prepared to support a political solution to the Palestinian question before the immigration of
100.000 Jewish refugees from Europe had been assured by the British. There was no room
in Palestine to accommodate and guard the thousands of illegal immigrants who began to
arrive from May 1946 onwards while in the background there was the danger that if the flow
was not stemmed in time, the unstable security situation in Palatine could deteriorate even
further. At the beginning of August 1946, the British cabinet decided to tranship the illegal
immigrants they caught to Cyprus as a means of halting the flow. The decision was taken
without giving a great deal of thought to what was to happen subsequently to the thousands
of stateless refugees after they had been transhipped to Cyprus and when the British authori-
ties would, finally, have to concern themselves with their fate.
When the Jewish Community in Palatine found out at the beginning of August - 1946
that they could expect illegal immigrants to be transhipped from Palatine, many were afraid
that the immigrants would resist and that there would be hundreds of casualties. The Jewish
Agency took diplomatic steps in London and Washington in an attempt to persuade the Brit-
ish government not to tranship Immigrants from Palestine, but to no avail. With the capture