by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Eighty years ago, on July 22, 1946, an explosion rocked one of Jerusalem's then-largest buildings, the King David Hotel. Ninety-one people died in the fire and rubble. The attack was the work of the underground Jewish organization Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization).
The Zionists claimed the target of the attack was the headquarters of the British administration,
| …that’s because that’s exactly what it was. They interrogated prisoners in the basement, as I recall… |
The subsequent careers of the bombing's organizers were successful, and one of the suspects took the highest post in the State of Israel.
FROM THE WHITE BOOK TO THE BLACK SABBATH
The Middle East conflict essentially began in 1917. That year, the British expelled the Turks from Jerusalem, and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, in a letter to Baron Lionel Rothschild, promised that London would support the creation of a "national home" for Jews—but with due regard for the interests of Arabs and other communities. In 1920, the Entente allies divided up the holdings of the Ottoman Empire, which had lost World War I.
| Not all by itself, of course. But the sultan had made the mistake of choosing the wrong side. |
Under the terms of the Mandate, London promised to facilitate Jewish immigration. With the support of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), Jews from Europe acquired land and founded settlements and kibbutzim. At the same time, since World War I, the British had been actively working with the Arab elites of the Middle East. They were categorically opposed to the growth of the Jewish community, let alone the Israel project.
In 1922, Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, prepared the White Paper. This document divided the Mandate into an Arab-Muslim portion, Transjordan (present-day Jordan), and Palestine, with a mixed population. While Jews accounted for no more than 11% of the Palestine population in 1922, by 1937, due to immigration, the proportion had grown to 28% (or 460,000 people).
In 1936, the "Arab street" revolted.
| Sure, but by that point there had been a series of murderous anti-Jewish riots by the local Arab population that went back decades. This wasn’t sudden, new behaviour. |
| Right as the Nazis started ramping up the first steps of what blossomed into their Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, as doors were slamming closed toJews all over the world. |
During World War II, most Zionist groups paused their anti-British war. But the Irgun splinter organization Lehi (Israel Freedom Fighters, nicknamed the "Avraham Stern Gang" by the British) continued its attacks. One of Lehi's field commanders was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister.
Stern explained that it was futile to hope that democratic England would grant independence to the Land of Israel; "only Jewish weapons could provide the answer." Moreover, the LEHI leader counted on contacts with Nazi Germany against a common enemy: "The Germans could 'cleanse' Europe of Jews by transporting them here." To be fair, the scale of Jewish persecution in Europe was unknown in Palestine.
On the other hand, Mufti al-Husseini met with Hitler, instructed Muslim SS units, and in March 1944, on Radio Berlin, called for a jihad against the Jews.
By 1946, despite the onset of the Cold War, the US and Soviet positions on the Palestine issue had converged. Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman advocated dividing the British Mandate into Jewish and Arab parts. The White House was influenced by the Jewish lobby.
| Utter and total nonsense. President Roosevelt despised Jews in common with the upper classes of America, Britain and Europe. Had he been influenced by them,America would not have almost completely closed its doors to Jewish immigration during that crucial period. |
By the summer of 1946, the British military had taken a firm grip on Jewish groups, including those considered "conditionally loyal" by local officials.
There were plenty of pretexts. By 1946, Zionists had blown up eight roads and railway bridges, kidnapped six British officials, and carried out several other attacks. Raids on British arms convoys and ammunition depots became more frequent.
London sanctioned a large-scale police operation, "Operation Agatha." On June 29, 1946, 25,000 British Army soldiers, police officers, and secret police officers surrounded kibbutzim suspected of harboring armed Zionists and launched a wholesale filtration of the local population. Arrests took place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.
In Israeli historiography, these events are referred to as "Black Saturday." Following the raids, the British seized or destroyed 60% of the Jewish arsenals. In Kibbutz Yagur alone, they found approximately 400 firearms (mostly rifles), about 100 mortars, 5,000 hand grenades, and over 400,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers.
The British arrested up to 3,000 people (while the underground movement consisted of around 10,000 activists). Ben-Gurion himself almost came under attack. He was saved only by the fact that he was in France at the time and managed to lie low before the British learned of his whereabouts. Future Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett was imprisoned.
Some of those arrested faced the death penalty. But High Commissioner for Palestine Alan Cunningham, by then about to retire, unexpectedly commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment. This was on the condition that the remaining Zionist coordinators cease shedding British blood.
Most people actually agreed with this proposal, but only in words.
OPERATION CHICKEN
A plan for revenge was quickly hatched: Irgun militants (by then led by another future prime minister, Menachem Begin) decided to attack the headquarters of the British administration, troops, and police in the King David Hotel. The telephone exchange and police archives were also located in the same building.
It was decided not to take responsibility for the “action”: the raid was disguised as a demonstration by Arab “irreconcilables”.
A team of bomb disposal experts was to arrive at the hotel disguised as Arab workers and plant explosives in the basements of the south wing, disguised as milk cans for the kitchen. The team leader, disguised as a Sudanese waiter, was to provide cover (and coordinate the operation).
He was supposed to signal the bomber in the hall at the right moment to close the circuit. But the plan proved too risky and put the lives of the underground workers themselves at risk. Therefore, it was decided to use timed explosives, which were smuggled into the hotel basements disguised as building materials.
Among themselves, the squad members referred to the target as "Malonchik," meaning "little hotel." But to prevent the British from guessing that underground Jewish fighters were behind the attack, they shortened the codename to "Chick."
The underground workers were only able to obtain the explosives on their second attempt—the first shipment was seized by British troops. An informant among the hotel staff came down with a fever. There was a long debate about how to warn innocent guests of the hotel (which also housed a restaurant and the French consulate).
Ultimately, it was decided to give the attackers a half-hour head start. At the appointed time, the attackers' "phone operators" did indeed call the hotel lobby, the local police station, the Palestine Post newspaper, and the French consulate, but the warnings were not taken seriously.
The hotel managers considered the call to be a hoax, the police thought it was a trap, and the French diplomats took too long to find a translator. Fortunately, the French had the foresight to begin an evacuation. There were 15 minutes left before the detonation.
There wasn't enough time to get everyone out: at 12:40 a powerful explosion rocked the hotel.
SCAPEGOATS
The attack's results caused panic in the Israeli underground—no one expected such a crude operation from the Irgun. The moderate Haganah called the incident a murder and expressed condolences to the victims. However, it tactfully omitted any mention of contacts with Irgun fighters, the transfer of intelligence to them, or assistance in procuring explosives. All of this would become clear much later from the memoirs of underground members.
The militants tried to shift the blame onto the British themselves. They allegedly failed to respond to warning calls, and therefore were to blame for the civilian deaths. Predictably, this argument proved weak.
And then what the "moderate" underground activists feared most happened. A week later, Britain launched Operation Shark, a counter-terrorism operation against the Zionists.
Troops blockaded Tel Aviv and arrested approximately 800 underground fighters (including virtually all the leaders and fighters of the Irgun and Lehi). Although public opinion at the time was overwhelmingly on the British side, the leaders of Mandatory Palestine (including Cunningham) chose not to launch repression against local settlers. London intensified behind-the-scenes dialogue with the Haganah, which over time began to play a role in stabilizing the regional situation, rallying around itself opponents of unnecessary terrorism.
However, the Zionists did not forget the Irgun fighters: most of them were able to return after the creation of Israel and built political and military careers.
In modern Israel, attitudes toward the raid on the King David Hotel are mixed. On the one hand, the attack didn't advance Israel's independence (and almost led to the collapse of the Zionist movement), but on the other, it clearly frightened the British and forced them to take the threats of the underground fighters seriously. A compromise view remains: it was a necessary (though not entirely justified) sacrifice in the struggle for Israeli statehood. The underground fighters are honored, but the date of the raid is not celebrated. This includes remembering the 17 Jewish civilians who perished.
The ruling Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, cherishes the memory of the "military exploits" of the Irgun underground (in part because the organization's leader, Menachem Begin, was the "grandfather" of the party). However, these positive assessments are conveyed only to a domestic audience and with extreme caution, so as not to damage relations with the British, for whom the Irgun remains synonymous with brutality.
And the further we get from 1946, the less desire the Israeli authorities have to stir up the dark pages of their own history.