218 A Short History of the Middle East
King David disaster against the Haifa police compound, killing
five persons and injuring thirty-four. The Vaad Leumi passed a
resolution repudiating murder as a means of political resistance.
It condemned the intimidation of the Jewish community by the
terrorists, their impairing of 'national discipline' and their claim
6to decide when or where the struggle of the Jewish people should
be waged'. Asked, however, at a press-conference whether the com-
munity was called on to intervene if the terrorists attacked the
British, an Agency spokesman admitted that 'from the text of the
resolution that would not appear to be the case5,1 and subsequently
Mrs. Meyerson, head of the Agency Political Dept, and others
explained that the Yishuv could not be expected to act as In-
formers' against their kin.2 On 26 and 27 January the terrorists
kidnapped two British civilians, one a judge actually taken from
his court, as hostages for a terrorist under sentence of death for his
part in an outrage in which five persons were killed. They were
set free after the High Commissioner had given an ultimatum to
the Agency; but on 31 January, in consequence of a terrorist threat
to 'turn Palestine into a bloodbath' if the death-sentence were
carried out, the government issued an order for the evacuation of
all British women and children and other non-essential civilians,
and the concentration in guarded cantonments of those who re-
mained. On 3 February the Government called on the Agency and
the Vaad Leumi, in view of their 'open and continued refusals' to
co-operate against terrorism, 'to state categorically and at once
whether they were prepared publicly to call upon the Jewish com-
munity to lend their aid to the Government by co-operating with
the police and armed forces in locating and bringing to justice the
members of the terrorist groups'. They replied that 'the Yishuv
cannot be called upon to place itself at the disposal of the Govern-
ment for fighting the evil consequences of a policy which is of that
government's own making, and which the Yishuv regards as a
menace to its existence.
On 14 February the British Foreign Secretary announced that
the government would submit the question to U.N.O., as both
parties had rejected a new federal plan which would have ad-
mitted 96,000 Jewish immigrants in the next two years, subsequent
immigration being controlled by the High Commissioner after
1 Palestine Post, 22 January 1947.
8 ibid. 3 February 1947.