Page 488 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

488 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

to the British government in the war on illegal immigration. This policy’s only achievement
was in preventing Palestine being flooded with thousands of illegal immigrants but it did not
manage to put an end to the waves of immigration. This war, which became pointless, cost
the British government large sums of money as well as loss of prestige in the international
arena. It caused the British in Palestine to be despised and had a cumulative influence on her
decision to return the Mandate to the UN and remove her forces from the area. The British
authorities who were responsible for the camps in Cyprus were aware that their war on il-
legal immigrants was unpopular. Thus, they decided to show sensitivity to public criticism
and allowed the detained refugees to manage their lives within the detention camps as they
wished. By so doing they avoided any unnecessary difficulties. At the same time the Brit-
ish government was concerned that the financial burden of maintaining the immigrants in
Cyprus should not fail on the British taxpayer and, therefore, this obliged the Mandate gov-
ernment in Palestine to bear the costs from its own budget which derived mainly from the
Jewish taxpayer.
As regards the attitude of the Jewish Community in Palestine to the detained immigrants
in Cyprus it should be said that the political leadership saw illegal immigration first and
foremost as a political means of attaining the political objective of free immigration. For this
reason the Jewish Agency tried to make it as difficult as possible for the British authorities to
implement the transhipment policy even when this sometimes had a somewhat adverse effect
on the immigrants themselves. The political leadership of the Yishuv adhered to this policy
throughout the whole transhipment period and this placed them in a moral dilemma - how
far could they use these refugee immigrants as political pawns even after they had been tran-
shipped to Cyprus? When the practical policy ofthe Yishuv’s political leadership is examined
in relation to transhipment to Cyprus, one can clearly see that, within the sphere of political
activity, everything possible was done to eliminate the camps and shorten the period of time
spent there by the immigrants Nevertheless, the participation of the Ylshuv in providing
material aid to the immigrants was quite modest. This was mainly because they did not wish
to relieve the British authorities of their obligation to deal with the needs of the immigrant
detainees, for whom they were responsible, and, by taking this line, the Ylshuv made it more
difficult for them to implement the transhipment policy. In as far as the issue involved the
Yishuv institutions in providing assistance, helping to ease the living conditions of the de-
tainees and in exploiting the period they spent in detention to train them for life in Palatine,
the activities of these institutions remained no more than routine. Indeed, the conduct of
the senior political leadership is conspicuous for its very lack of initiative. It is difficult to
shake off the impression that, apart from the political consideration not to relieve the British
authorities of their duties as regards the needs of the detainees, the general approach of the
leadership bodies was that assistance requiring great financial expense should be provided
mainly by American Jewish organizations while the Jewish Community of Palestine had only
minimal obligations in this respect.
Because the Jewish Agency did not recognize the legitimacy of the transhipment policy
and because it had no official status in the Cyprus camps, it was politically and economically
convenient for it to place all responsibility for the detainees welfare on the AJDC which,
as an American welfare organization, had the backing of the American government and en-