Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

3. The 
Season 
The Jewish Agency and the Haganah made an effort to maintain a diplomatic 
relationship with the British after the announcement of the MacDonald White Paper in 
1939. However, the Irgun and Stern Gang militias were always more inclined to oppose 
the British occupation. This inclination to resist was held in check until the outcome of 
World War II began to be clear. Then, on February 1, 1944, the Irgun and Stern Gang 
formally announced a revolt against British, calling upon the Jewish community to rise 
against the tyranny of the British occupation. The Haganah continued its policy of 
facilitating British defeat of Nazi Germany by standing down. It opposed resistance by 
the more radical groups on those grounds, as well as out of concern that the resistance 
would undermine important vestiges of support for the Jewish state from powerful British 
leaders, such as Winston Churchill. From February to September 1944 Irgun and the 
Stern Gang bombed immigration offices, British tax offices, intelligence and police 
buildings (which were highly fortified), seized a government broadcasting station, and 
assassinated a number of British policemen.
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Haganah threw its support behind British 
efforts to contain the more radical militias. In September 1944, Moshe Sneh, the 
commander of Haganah along with another Haganah leader, Eliyahu Golomb, 
participated in two meetings with Menahem Begin, the leader of the Irgun. The Haganah 
commanders told Begin that the actions of the Irgun and Stern Gang were not sanctioned 
by the Jewish community, Haganah or the Jewish Agency, and ordered him to cease the 
attacks immediately or face civil war and military elimination.
240
Begin attempted to 
dissuade the Haganah leaders for two months from attacking a fellow Jewish militia, but 
239
John and Hadawi, 
The Palestine Diary, 1914-1945
, 360. 
240
“The Irgun Site,” in The Jabotinsky Institute [database online]. [cited 2007]. Available from 
http://www.etzel.org.il/english/index.html (accessed August 14, 2007). 

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the assassination of Lord Moyne by members of the Stern Gang resulted in immediate 
offensive actions by Haganah against both the Stern Gang and the Irgun.
Moyne’s assassination in Cairo on November 6, 1944 dealt a major blow to 
ongoing negotiations between British and the Haganah over their possible integration as a 
legitimate security force in conjunction with the British occupation. Soon after the 
assassination, Winston Churchill proclaimed: “If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the 
smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labours for its future are to produce a new set of 
gangsters…many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so 
consistently and so long in the past.”
241
The Haganah also immediately condemned the 
assassination and produced a plan, which involved the collaboration with British police 
and military, to capture members of the Irgun and Stern Gang. The Haganah’s 
intelligence branch, the Shai, amassed over 250 names, and the Palmach was employed to 
kidnap suspects and turn them over to British authorities. The Jewish Agency also 
established a Department of Special Assignments designed to cooperate with the British 
Intelligence in collecting information on suspected Irgun members. The Season drew to a 
close in March 1945, when the Haganah abandoned the kidnapping of Irgun and Stern 
Gang members in response to condemnation by the Jewish community. Joint British-
Haganah operations of the Hunting Season resulted in the detention of over 1,000 
suspected members with hundreds deported to detention camps in Africa, while severely 
limiting offensive operations of the Irgun and Stern Gang. This resulted in seven months 
of increased security and stability.
242
However they did not eliminate the more radical 
militias.