British Intelligence and the ‘Fifth’ Occupying Power: The Secret Struggle to Prevent Jewish Illegal Immigration to Palestine

What is it about?

This explains how Britain used its intelligence services to understand illegal Jewish immigraiton to Palestine. Britain had imposed strict limits on immigration since 1939, and during 1945-48, continued to impose these restrictions despite the refugee crisis in Europe. Intelligence monitored the illegal traffic of the Jewish refugee population across European borders, toward port cities, and the shipping traffic to Palestine. It also sought to disrupt those lines of communication through subterfuge. Britain sought to convince American military and political authorities to help seal European borders, so to prevent Holocaust survivors from reaching zones where they could be prepared for their journey to Palestine. To do so, British intelligence promoted rumours that soviet agents were penetrating Europe and the middle east by joining the refugee populations. The plan backfired, and caused US intelligence to cooperate with the Zionist secret services which organized the refugee traffic, and gave them effective cover for their operations during a critical period. This resulted in the flooding of hundreds of thousands of refugees to the US zones of occupation in Germany and Austria, and tens of thousands of would-be illegal immigrants into British detention camps in Palestine and Cyprus. The bad press, and the unmanageable policy problems contributed to the collapse of Britain's Mandate over Palestine.

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Why is it important?

This offers a new and improved explanation of how Britain sought to combat illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine, and how they failed to achieve their aims using underhanded means alone. One attempt at deception and denial backfired. The other, known as operation EMBARRASS, achieved little, and was a transparent British attempt to pin their sabotage of refugee ships upon a notional Arab group. This is also a new and improved explanation for the collapse of the Mandate. Britain's inability to manage this problem is demonstrated in new ways, using declassified records. The link between those problems, and Britain's decision to quit Palestine in 1947, becomes much clearer. The case also provides an important study in policy & strategy. The process never contained a sober assessment of British policy on Palestine or Jewish immigration. Decision makers never examined their ability to enforce restrictions or the consequences of their chosen strategies. This case also highlights a unique exception to the norms of Anglo-American intelligence cooperation. Palestine and Jewish refugees was an issue which deeply divided the "special relationship" and let to both sides undermining the other's intelligence activities in central Europe. Americans arrested British agents, and British agents drew soviet attention to the smugglers involved in refugee traffic, upon whom the Americans relied to facilitate their work. Once the damage was realized by both sides, the competition came to a halt along with American facilitation of illegal border crossings. So, the special relationship might be said to depend more upon common interests than the common values, language, and culture which often headline Anglo-American intelligence sharing.

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