210 A Short History of the Middle East
especially the serious-minded, rather naive young men with a
secondary-school education who were numerous among the
junior officers and N.C.O.s of the British wartime army.
Consequently, the Zionists were greatly encouraged by the
coming to power in July 1945 of the Labour party, whose executive
had only six months before declared its support for unlimited
Jewish immigration, the Arabs being 'encouraged to move out as
the Jews move in'. But the new government, shocked by the
plunge into the responsibilities of office, was not stampeded into a
precipitate change of official policy. While three months passed
without any statement from London, Dr. Moshe Sneh, the
; 'security member* of the Agency Executive, proposed in Septem-
S her to its London office 'that we cause one serious incident. We
would then publish a declaration to the effect that it is only a warn-
ing and an indication of much more serious incidents that would
threaten the safety of all British residents in the country, should the
government decide against us. ... The Stern Group have ex-
pressed their willingness to join us completely on the basis of our
programme of activity. This time the intention seems serious. If
there is such a union, we may assume that we can prevent inde-
pendent action by the Irgun Zvai Leumi.'1 This revealing docu-
ment demonstrated collusion on a high level between the Agency
\Executive and the terrorist organizations whose activities they
always officially deplored and declared themselves powerless
to prevent. How long this collusion had been going on, it is at
present impossible to say, but the phrase 'this time' implies that it
was nothing new. The London office gave their approval to the
proposed operation, Weizmairn himself evidently being a party
to what was afoot.2 On the night of 31 October-i November,
the Palmach blew up the railways in 153 places, completely dis-
rupting the system, and destroyed three police launches used for
intercepting illegal immigrants. The Irgun Zvai Leumi attacked
the railway-yards atLydda, and the Stern Group attempted to blow
up the Haifa oil-refinery. The Agency signalled to its London
1 Palestinet Statement on Information relating to Acts of Violence (Cmd. 6873,
July 1946). On the publication of this White Paper the Jewish Agency made a
perfunctory denial of its authenticity; but there can be no doubt of the genuine-
ness of the intercepted Jewish Agency telegrams which it publishes in extenso.
2 Bernard Joseph, acting head of the Agency Political Dept, to London,
10 October 1945: 'If Hayyim meant us only to avoid a general conflict, not
isolated cases, send greetings to Chill for the birth of his daughter.' Shertok,
head of the Political Dept., duly replied with this code-phrase two days later.