Solomon2
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In 1947, the UN Special Commission on Palestine recommended Jaffa should be part of the Jewish state due to its strategic importance. Jaffa was only three miles from the largest Jewish city and designated government center, Tel Aviv. About 30% of Jaffa's population was Jewish. However, because of the Arab majority the 1947 U.N. partition plan assigned Jaffa to the proposed Arab state.
The partition plan was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs, thus rendering it null and void under the Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, which requires that modifications to the League of Nations' Mandate arrangements could not be undertaken by the U.N. without the agreement of the parties involved. Nonetheless, the rejected arrangement is what Great Britain used its troops to fight for, in direct opposition to its duty as Trustee of the Mandate.
This was in line with the British ten-year old White Paper, which had attempted to negate the Mandate by denying Jews' entry into their Mandate-designated National Home and thus frustrate the Zionist project. Because of the White Paper millions of European Jews had been murdered by Nazis who might otherwise have safely emigrated to Palestine. It thus became quite clear to Zionist leaders that to defend their lives and legal and legitimate rights they could not rely on their self-interested Trustee, but would have to undertake the task themselves.
Tel Aviv residents taking cover at the Carmel market from Arab snipers shooting from the Hassan Bek Mosque of Jaffa
For months - since the Arabs' rejection of the November 1947 partition plan - Jewish and Arab snipers had engaged each other in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area. On April 25th, Jewish forces launched Operation Hametz to secure Jaffa, an action which included a lengthy mortar bombardment of the town center. On April 27th, 1948, the British Army (including the RAF) was ordered to confront the Jews holding the area. The battle lasted about three days:
The Jews and British worked out a cease-fire: the Jews would evacuate their mortar base and the British remain confined to patrolling the southern areas, until the British evacuation on May 14th.
The result of this attack, as the General recalls, was -
So far from "defending" the Arabs of the area the bloody affair slew over 1,000 Jews and turned what had been a slow trickle of Arab refugees into a panicked flood.
(The British directed the refugees not to nearby Gaza but to the Ramle and Lydda - the Arab villages closest to the region's only international airport and thus another area of strategic importance to the Jewish State Their fate would be determined a few months later.)
The partition plan was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs, thus rendering it null and void under the Article 80 of the U.N. Charter, which requires that modifications to the League of Nations' Mandate arrangements could not be undertaken by the U.N. without the agreement of the parties involved. Nonetheless, the rejected arrangement is what Great Britain used its troops to fight for, in direct opposition to its duty as Trustee of the Mandate.
This was in line with the British ten-year old White Paper, which had attempted to negate the Mandate by denying Jews' entry into their Mandate-designated National Home and thus frustrate the Zionist project. Because of the White Paper millions of European Jews had been murdered by Nazis who might otherwise have safely emigrated to Palestine. It thus became quite clear to Zionist leaders that to defend their lives and legal and legitimate rights they could not rely on their self-interested Trustee, but would have to undertake the task themselves.
Tel Aviv residents taking cover at the Carmel market from Arab snipers shooting from the Hassan Bek Mosque of Jaffa
For months - since the Arabs' rejection of the November 1947 partition plan - Jewish and Arab snipers had engaged each other in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area. On April 25th, Jewish forces launched Operation Hametz to secure Jaffa, an action which included a lengthy mortar bombardment of the town center. On April 27th, 1948, the British Army (including the RAF) was ordered to confront the Jews holding the area. The battle lasted about three days:
I served as a junior officer under General Sir Horatius Murray in the Middle East in 1948 and it is the period of my army service of which I am least proud.
The General writes that he was "forced to shell Tel Aviv with 25-pounders and to attack with tanks" and that "this action proved successful".
So it should ! We found that to a large extent Tel Aviv was defended by women, children, and old men, and the sight of their sacrificed bodies sickened the most hardened British troops.
The Jews have always paid the full price in blood for their tiny promised portion of the Earth's surface.
H. MACKINNON
Torquay, Devon
The Times (30 October 1973)
The General writes that he was "forced to shell Tel Aviv with 25-pounders and to attack with tanks" and that "this action proved successful".
So it should ! We found that to a large extent Tel Aviv was defended by women, children, and old men, and the sight of their sacrificed bodies sickened the most hardened British troops.
The Jews have always paid the full price in blood for their tiny promised portion of the Earth's surface.
H. MACKINNON
Torquay, Devon
The Times (30 October 1973)
The Jews and British worked out a cease-fire: the Jews would evacuate their mortar base and the British remain confined to patrolling the southern areas, until the British evacuation on May 14th.
The result of this attack, as the General recalls, was -
Within 48 hours Jaffa, which then, I believe, had a population of 30,000 became a city of the dead, and we had to send in patrols to prevent looting. The scenes on the road south from Jaffa and elsewhere were heartrending. (The Times, 26 October 1973)
So far from "defending" the Arabs of the area the bloody affair slew over 1,000 Jews and turned what had been a slow trickle of Arab refugees into a panicked flood.
(The British directed the refugees not to nearby Gaza but to the Ramle and Lydda - the Arab villages closest to the region's only international airport and thus another area of strategic importance to the Jewish State Their fate would be determined a few months later.)
