214 A Short History of the Middle East
ended with the publication of the Committee's report, were em-
barrassed by the challenge that they should share the burden of
imposing the proposed new policy on the country. In June the
President was advised by his cabinet to accept an invitation from
London to send representatives to discuss the new problems it
raised.
On the night of 16-17 June the Palmach attacked the frontier
communications of Palestine, destroying five road- and four rail-
bridges, and doing damage estimated at .£250,000. The illicit
Zionist broadcasting-station accepted full responsibility on behalf
of the 'Resistance Movement' for the renewal of its activity 'as
a result of the delaying policy of the British government'.1 It was
clearly time to put an end to the campaign of Vilification, incite-
ment, and violence' pursued by the Zionist leaders. On 29 June
the military occupied the Jewish Agency building and arrested
prominent Zionist leaders, including Shertok and the Canadian-
Jewish lawyer Bernard Joseph who was his political second-in-
command; Ben Gurion was away in Europe. Many Palmach
commanders were interned, and a whole series of well-furnished
arms-caches discovered in the settlement of Yagur, a Palmach
headquarters.
While conversations between the American cabinet mission and
the British experts were in progress, shortly after mid-day on
22 July the Irgun blew up a corner of the Bang David Hotel, killing
ninety-one persons, mainly Arab and Jewish civil-servants.2
The horror of this outrage had not passed away when the British
government announced on 31 July that the Anglo-American
, Experts had produced a Federal Plan for dividing Palestine into
' two main autonomous provinces, Arab and Jewish, broadly
managing their own affairs, including the control of immigration
'so long as the economic absorptive capacity of a province was not
exceeded'.
1 Action had already been threatened a month previously in a broadcast
'delivered at the request of Shertok'. (The July 1946 White Paper, quoting a
Jewish Agency telegram.)
2 On 25 July 1947, the Irgun issued a statement declaring that the Hagana
had been consulted and informed in the preparations to blow up the King
David, and after several hesitations agreed to the attack after the arrest of the
Jewish Agency leaders in the previous month. The Irgun had kept silence for a
year but was now making this disclosure because the Hagana were now colla-
borating with the British. (Times Correspondent in Jerusalem, 27 July 1947;
the Hagana at that time were helping the British to search for two British
N.C.O's kidnapped as hostages by the Irgun.)