1946 in Mandatory Palestine

British authorities severely restricted Jewish immigration during the Mandate, including during World War II as Jews were persecuted and exterminated across Europe.[6] After the Holocaust, many survivors concluded that they had no future in Europe and sought to rebuild their lives in the Jewish homeland, while British policy continued to limit entry into Mandatory Palestine.[7]

Jewish resistance to those restrictions became increasingly organized. The Jewish Resistance Movement, formed in 1945, coordinated the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. Its operations included freeing more than 200 immigrants from the Atlit detention camp, attacking railways and police stations, and later carrying out the Night of the Bridges and the King David Hotel bombing.[3] British authorities also deducted unauthorized arrivals from the monthly allocation of 1,500 immigration permits, limiting the ability of clandestine immigration to increase the total number admitted.[5]

The resulting conflict combined a humanitarian crisis among Jewish displaced persons, Zionist demands for unrestricted immigration and statehood, Arab opposition to Jewish immigration, and mounting attacks on British rule. These pressures formed the background to the diplomatic and military confrontations of 1946.

The United States and United Kingdom established the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to examine political, economic, and social conditions in Palestine, the position of Jews displaced by Nazi and fascist persecution, and possible interim and permanent solutions. Its twelve members began public sessions in Washington in January, reached Jerusalem on March 6, left Palestine on March 28, and completed their deliberations in Switzerland.[8]

The committee unanimously recommended the immediate authorization of 100,000 immigration certificates for Jewish victims of persecution, with as many as possible issued during 1946. It also recommended that Palestine be neither a Jewish nor an Arab state, that neither community dominate the other, and that the Mandate continue pending a United Nations trusteeship agreement. It rejected partition as impracticable and called for reforms involving land policy, education, development, and the advancement of both communities.[1]

The Jewish Agency accepted the recommendations, Arab representatives rejected them, and President Harry Truman viewed them favorably.[9] Britain continued its White Paper policy and made implementation contingent on the disarmament of the Jewish underground; the 100,000 certificates were never issued.[9][2]

The subsequent Morrison-Grady proposal offered no clear prospect of an independent Jewish state. At an emergency Jewish Agency Executive meeting in Paris during the summer, Zionist leaders declared themselves prepared to discuss “a proposal for the establishment of a viable Jewish state in an adequate area of Palestine.”[5][10] This marked a significant willingness to seek statehood in part, rather than all, of Palestine.

Aliyah Bet vessels continued bringing Jewish survivors toward Palestine throughout 1946. Recorded voyages included the Enzo Sereni with 908 passengers, the Wingate with 248, the Tel Hai with 736, the Max Nordau with 1,754, and the Josiah Wedgwood with 1,259.[11] British forces intercepted these ships as part of the continuing enforcement of immigration restrictions.

A major confrontation occurred at La Spezia, Italy. In spring 1946, 1,014 Jewish displaced persons preparing to sail aboard the Fede were blockaded by British authorities. The passengers began a hunger strike, and Britain eventually agreed to provide immigration certificates for all of them. They departed on May 8 aboard two vessels renamed the Dov Hos and Eliahu Golomb.[12]

On August 12, Britain announced that unauthorized immigrants would be sent to Cyprus or other detention areas. A deportation ship carrying 500 immigrants sailed that day. On August 13, two more ships departed with 1,300 detainees, while British troops fired on a crowd attempting to enter the Haifa port area, killing three people and wounding seven.[11]

The first transport reached Famagusta on August 13 and was escorted to Camp Number 55. British officials hoped deportation would discourage clandestine immigration, but the number and size of refugee ships instead increased. The Jewish Agency refused to cooperate, arguing that the refugees were “coming home.” Twelve camps operated in Cyprus between August 1946 and January 1949 and held 53,510 Jews; beginning in November 1946, detainees were admitted to Palestine at a rate of 750 per month.[13]

Later voyages included the Amiram Shochat, whose passengers evaded the blockade; the Arba Cheruyot and Palmach, which were seized after resistance; the Knesset Israel, whose attempted transfer to Cyprus-bound ships resulted in two deaths and 46 injuries; and the Rafiah, which was wrecked near Syrina Island in December.[11]

On June 16–17, the Jewish Resistance Movement carried out the Night of the Bridges, striking transportation links between Palestine and neighboring countries. The Haganah blew up eleven border bridges, after which British forces searched Jewish settlements in the affected areas.[14][10]

Britain responded on June 29 with Operation Agatha, known in the Yishuv as Black Saturday. About 17,000 troops imposed curfews, searched homes and settlements, occupied the Jewish Agency building, seized files, and searched for weapons. More than 2,700 people were arrested and transferred to detention camps at Atlit and Latrun. Detainees included Moshe Sharett, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Dov Yosef, David Remez, and Yehuda Leib Maimon.[15]

British forces also searched the Central Zionist Archives. Archivist Georg Herlitz opened the archive safe, whose contents were removed in ten black boxes. The files were returned four weeks later with British markings; the end pages of all eighteen of Theodor Herzl's diaries had been separated and examined for concealed material.[16]

Documents seized from the Jewish Agency were taken to the British administrative headquarters in the southern wing of the King David Hotel. Their transfer helped accelerate the Irgun's decision to attack the building.[4]

On July 22, 1946, the Irgun bombed the southern wing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel, which housed the Palestine Government Secretariat, British military headquarters, and the Criminal Investigation Division.[4][17] Irgun members entered through the service area and placed seven milk churns in the basement, each containing about 100 pounds of explosives and labeled “Mines — Do not touch” in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. The bombs exploded at 12:37 p.m., collapsing the southern wing.[4]

The principal casualty count is 91 dead: 41 Arabs, 28 Britons, 17 Jews, and five people of other nationalities.[4] The attack's declared strategic purpose was to make British administration sufficiently costly to hasten withdrawal.[18]

Menachem Begin maintained that the Irgun intended to avoid civilian casualties and that warnings were telephoned to the hotel, the French Consulate, and The Palestine Post. One warning stated: “This is the Jewish Resistance Movement; we have planted bombs in the hotel. Please vacate it immediately. You have been warned.”[17] British officials disputed whether an effective warning had been received, while later testimony indicated that warnings reached at least some people in or connected with the hotel.[17]

The Washington Institute's account describes the bombing as a “symbolic showcase operation” whose planners failed to consider adequately what might go wrong. It reports that operations chief Amichai Paglin assured Begin that civilians would be warned and “no one would be hurt.”[19]

Jewish institutions condemned the bombing. The Central Zionist Archives records that the Haganah leadership withdrew from the Jewish Resistance Movement in August because of Operation Agatha and the deaths of civilians in the King David attack. The united movement then disbanded, and its constituent organizations resumed separate policies.[3] Contemporary film documented rescuers extracting victims from the rubble, funerals, and visits by senior Mandatory officials.[20]

The breakup of the Jewish Resistance Movement ended unified command but did not end armed opposition to British rule. After the Haganah leadership withdrew, the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi continued according to their separate policies.[3] The Irgun and Lehi retained independent armed strategies, while the Haganah increasingly concentrated on clandestine immigration and the protection of the Yishuv.

At the political level, the Jewish Agency continued demanding the admission of 100,000 refugees and rejected the Morrison-Grady cantonization proposal. Its Paris deliberations demonstrated a parallel institutional response: willingness to discuss a viable Jewish state in an adequate part of Palestine while continuing to oppose British immigration restrictions.[5][10]

On the night of October 5–6, immediately after Yom Kippur, the Zionist settlement movement established eleven settlements in the Negev. The operation was presented as an effort to help ensure that the region would be included in the future Jewish state. The settlements included Hatzerim, Mishmar HaNegev, and Nevatim.[21]

Conditions were difficult. Several settlements lacked wells and depended on water supplied through Beit Eshel; when a water tanker became stuck in the desert sand, residents had to ration drinking water. Arab neighbors visited Hatzerim and were received by the settlement's mukhtar, Jacob Sharettok.[21]

The settlers reflected the diversity of Jewish immigration. Mishmar HaNegev included eleven members from Belgium, including a recent immigrant who was still learning Hebrew. Nevatim included Jews born in Iraq who spoke Arabic at home but adopted Hebrew in the settlement.[21]

Population statistics for this period require care because the principal official survey published in 1946 used annual estimates only through December 31, 1944. It placed the settled population at 1,673,071: 994,724 Muslims, 528,702 Jews, 135,547 Christians, and 14,098 others. The survey also supplied a revised de facto Jewish estimate of 553,600.[22]

The Anglo-American Committee's spring 1946 figures were broader approximations rather than a census. They placed the Jewish population at about 600,000 and the Arab population at roughly twice that number.[5] The figures nevertheless show that Jews constituted a large and rapidly expanded minority, while Arabs remained the demographic majority.

In 1946, Transjordan declared independence, ending British rule in the territory east of the Jordan River.[23] Its independence underscored that Transjordan and the remaining British-administered territory west of the river had distinct political futures, even though both had originated within Britain's post–World War I mandate arrangements.

By the end of 1946, the principal elements of the Palestine crisis had sharpened. Britain had not implemented the Anglo-American Committee's recommendation for 100,000 immigration certificates, had carried out Operation Agatha, and had begun deporting unauthorized immigrants to Cyprus.[2][13] The King David Hotel bombing and the breakup of the Jewish Resistance Movement demonstrated both the reach of the underground and the widening divisions over tactics within the Yishuv.[3][4]

Zionist policy also shifted. At the Paris meeting, the Jewish Agency Executive expressed readiness to discuss a viable Jewish state in an adequate part of Palestine, reflecting a willingness to accept territorial partition in pursuit of sovereignty.[5]

British restrictions, the displaced-persons crisis, Arab-Jewish conflict, and attacks on British personnel continued to erode the viability of Mandatory rule. In spring 1947, Britain referred the question of sovereignty over Palestine to the United Nations.[6][2] The diplomatic initiatives and confrontations of 1946 therefore formed an immediate prelude to the United Nations debate of the following year.

The King David Hotel bombing remains the year's most contested episode. The commonly cited total is 91 deaths, but one source's listed subgroups—17 Jews, 41 Arabs, and 28 Britons—total only 86 because they omit five victims of other nationalities.[17] The warning calls are also disputed: the Irgun maintained that three warnings were issued, while British officials denied that an actionable warning reached the responsible authorities.[17]

Characterization of the bombing also differs. Historian Benny Morris described an attack that killed dozens of civilians as terrorism in one sense, while noting that the Irgun regarded its campaign as a struggle against a foreign ruling power.[4] The historical facts of the attack, its civilian toll, and its condemnation by Jewish institutions should therefore be distinguished from competing political interpretations.

The stated purpose of the eleven Negev settlements is another interpretive issue. Ynet presents the operation as intended to secure the Negev's inclusion in the future Jewish state.[21] That political motive is supported as the source's account, but it should not be expanded into an uncontested claim about every participant's individual intentions.