Timeline of British Rule in Palestine (1918-1947)
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1918 | Treaty of Versailles formally ends Word War I. Out of an estimated 1.5 million Jewish soldiers in all the armies, approximately 170,000 were killed and over 100,000 cited for valor. |
1918 | Damascus taken by T.E. Lawrence and Arabs. |
1918 | American Jewish Congress is founded. |
Nov. 1918 | Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm abdicates. |
1918 | Nahum Zemach founds the Moscow-based Habimah Theater which receives acclaim for “The Dybbuk.” |
Jan. 5, 1919 | The German Workers' Party (DAP) is founded in Munich; Adolf Hitler joins the Party nine months later. |
1919 | Jewish educational summer camping is launched in the United States with what came to be known as the Cejwin Camps.= |
1919 | Versailles Peace Conference decides that the conquered Arab provinces will not be restored to Ottoman rule. |
1919 | First Palestinian National Congress meeting in Jerusalem sends two memoranda to Versailles rejecting Balfour Declaration and demanding independence. |
1919-1923 | Romania grants citizenship to Jews. |
1919 | Egyptian revolution. |
1919 | Chaim Weizmann heads Zionist delegation at Versailles Peace Conference. |
1919-1923 | Third Aliyah, mainly from Russia. |
1919 | Emir Faisel wrote a letter to Felix Frankfurter supporting Zionism, “We Arabs...wish the Jews a most hearty welcome.” |
1919-1943 | Commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Mordechai Anilewicz. |
1919 | League of Nations established in an effort to prevent further wars. |
1920 | Histadrut (Jewish labor federation) and Haganah (Jewish defense organization) founded. |
1920 | Vaad Leumi (National Council) set up by Jewish community (The Yishuv)to conduct its affairs. |
1920 | Keren Hayesod created for education, absorbtion and the development of rural settlements in Eretz-Israel. |
1920 | Chaim Weizmann is elected president of the World Zionist Organization. |
1920 | Fall of Tel Hai to Arab attackers; Joseph Trumpeldor and five men under his command killed. |
1920 | Mandate for the Land of Israel given over to Britain on the condition that the Balfour Declaration be implemented, San Remo Conference. |
1920 | British statesman Sir Herbert Samuel is appointed High Commissioner of Palestine. |
1920 | Henry Ford's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, begins publishing its anti-Semitic propaganda, including the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. |
Feb. 24, 1920 | The first mass meeting of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP) takes place at Munich's Hofbräuhaus. |
April 1, 1920 | Adolf Hitler is honorably discharged from the German Army. |
1920 | The San Remo Conference awards administration of the former Turkish territories of Syria and Lebanon to France, and Palestine, Transjordan, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) to Britain. |
1920 | Second and third Palestinan National Congress' held. |
1921 | The Times of London pronounces the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a forgery. |
1921 | U.S. immigration laws “reformed” to effectively exclude Eastern European Jews and other immigrants. Further restrictions imposed in 1924. |
1921 | Fourth Palestinian National Congress convenes in Jerusalem, decides to send delegation to London to explain case against Balfour. |
1921 | The Allied Reparations Committee assesses German liability for World War I at 132 billion gold marks (about $31 billion). |
1921 | The NSDAP, also known as the Nazi Party, establishes the Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Troopers; Brown Shirts). |
1921 | |
1921 | Völkischer Beobachter (People's Observer), the official National Socialist newspaper, begins publication. |
July 29, 1921 | Adolf Hitler becomes the Nazi Party's first chairman with dictatorial powers. |
1921 | Kingdom of Iraq is established. |
1921 | First moshav, Nahalal, founded in the Jezreel Valley. |
1921 | Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Ya'akov Meir are elected the first two chief Rabbis of Eretz-Israel. |
1921-1944 | Famous Hungarian Jewish poet and paratrooper who fought in WWII, Hannah Szenes (Senesh). |
1922 | Britain granted Mandate for Palestine (Land of Israel) by League of Nations. |
1922 | Transjordan set up on three-fourths of the British mandate area, forbidding Jewish immigration, leaving one-fourth for the Jewish national home. |
1922 | Jewish Agency representing Jewish community vis-à-vis Mandate authorities set up. |
1922 | Mordecai M. Kaplan founds the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the cradle of the Reconstructionist movement. |
1922 | The United States Congress and President Harding approve the Balfour Declaration. |
1922 | Supreme Muslim Council created under the jurisdiction of the British government to centralize religious affairs and institutions, but is corrupted by the overzealous Husseini family who used it as an anti-Jewish platform. |
1922 | Lenin creates the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. |
1922 | Benito Mussolini establishes a Fascist government in Italy. |
1922 | Harvard's president proposes a quota on the number of Jews admitted. After a contentious debate, he withdrew the recommendation. |
1922 | League of Nations Council approves Mandate for Palestine. |
1922 | First British census of Palestine shows total population 757,182 (11% Jewish). |
1922 | Fifth Palestinian National Congress in Nablus, agrees to economic boycott of Zionists. |
1922 | Jungsturm Adolf Hitler (Adolf Hitler Boys Storm Troop) and Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler (Shock Troop Adolf Hitler) are established. The latter will form the nucleus of the Schutzstaffel (SS). |
June 24, 1922 | Walther Rathenau, Jewish foreign minister of Germany, is assassinated by members of Organisation Consul, a clandestine, right-wing political organization led by Captain Hermann Ehrhardt. |
Jan.1923 | France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr after an economically broken Germany is unable to meet the annual installment of its war-reparations payments designed to pay off Germany's $31 billion war debt. |
March 1923 | The Schutzstaffel (SS; Protection Squad) is established. It is initially a bodyguard for Hitler but will later become an elite armed guard of the Third Reich. |
1923 | Palestine constitution suspended by British because of Arab refusal to cooperate. |
1923 | Overthrow of Ottoman Muslim rule by “young Turks” (Kemal Ataturk) and establishment of secular state. |
1923 | Sixth Palestinian national Congress held in Jaffa. |
1923 | The first issue of the pro-Nazi, antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker) is published in Nuremberg, Germany. Its slogan is "Die Juden sind unser Unglück" ("The Jews are our misfortune"), a phrase picked up from Heinrich von Treitschke. |
Nov. 8-11, 1923 | Hitler's so-called “Beer Hall Putsch” takeover attempt at Munich fails, temporarily rattling the National Socialist Party and leading to Hitler's arrest in Bavaria, Germany. |
1923 | |
1924-1932 | Fourth Aliyah, mainly from Poland. |
1924 | Benjamin Frankel starts Hillel Foundation. The first Hillel House opens at the University of Illinois, offers religious and social services. |
1924 | Caliphate officially abolished. |
May 11, 1924 | The first conference of the General Zionist movement is held in Jerusalem. |
May 14, 1924 | Ultra-Orthodox Jews found an agricultural settlement between Ramat Gan and Petah Tikva: Bnei- Brak. |
1924 | The United States Congress passes the Immigration Restriction Act, which effectively bans immigration to the U.S. from Asia and Eastern Europe. |
July 1924 | While in prison, Hitler begins work on Mein Kampf. |
1925-1979 | Pahlevi dynasty in Persia (“Iran”: 1935). |
1925 | Revisionist Movement founded by Zeev Jabotinsky. |
1925 | Hebrew University of Jerusalem opened on Mt. Scopus. |
1925 | Edna Ferber is the first American Jew to win Pulitzer Prize in fiction. |
1925 | Palestinian National Congress meets in Jaffa. |
March 24, 1925 | Publication of the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer resumes after being banned by the Weimar government in November 1923. |
April 26, 1925 | Paul von Hindenburg is elected president of Germany. |
1926 | France proclaims Republic of Lebanon. |
1927 | Warner Brothers produces drama of Jewish assimilation, "The Jazz Singer," the first film with sound. |
1928 | Britain recognizes independence of Transjordan. |
1928 | Seventh Palestinian National Congress convened in Jerusalem; established a new forty-eight member executive committee. |
1928 | Yeshiva College is dedicated in New York. |
1929 | 2,000 Arabs attack Jews praying at the Kotel on the 9th of Av. Arabs view British refusal to condemn the attacks as support. |
1929 | Hebron Jews massacred by Arab militants. |
1929-1945 | Anne Frank, Holocaust victim whose diary, written during the Nazi Occupation became famous. |
1929-1939 | Fifth Aliyah, from Germany. |
1930 | Hope-Simpson report, predecessor to Passfield White Paper, recommends and end to all Jewish immigration to Eretz-Israel. |
1930 | Lord Passfield issues his White Paper banning further land acquisition by Jews and slowing Jewish immigration. |
1930 | Salo Wittmayer Baron joins the faculty of Columbia University, his is the first chair in Jewish history at a secular university in the United States. |
1931 | Etzel (the Irgun), Jewish underground organization, founded. |
1930 | Second British census of Palestine shows total population of 1,035,154 (16.9% Jewish). |
1931 | The Nahum Zemach-founded Moscow-based Habimah Theater which received acclaim for "The Dybbuk" moves to Eretz-Israel. |
1932 | 'Abd al-Aziz Al Saud proclaims the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. |
1932 | British Mandate over Iraq terminated, Iraq gains independence. |
1932 | Discovery of oil in Bahrain. |
1932 | Herbert Lehman was elected New York's first Jewish governor; from that time on, Jews formed a pact with the Democratic Party. |
1932 | First Maccabia athletic games take place with representatives from 14 countries. |
1932 | German Chancellor von Papen persuaded President von Hindenburg to offer Hitler the chancellorship. |
1932 | Formation of Istiqlal Party as first constituted Palestinian-Arab political party; Awni Abdul-Hadi elected president. |
1933 | Concession agreement signed between Saudi government and Standard Oil of California (SOCAL). Prospecting begins. SOCAL assigns concession to California Arabian Standard Oil Co. (CASOC). |
1933 | The American Jewish Congress declares a boycott on German goods to protest the Nazi persecution of Jews. |
1933 | Assassination of Chaim Arlozorov. |
1933 | Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. |
1933 | Germany begins anti-Jewish boycott. |
1933 | Cardinal Pacelli, who later became Pope Pius XII, signed the Hitler Concordat; whereby the Vatican accepted National Socialism. |
1933 | Albert Einstein, upon visiting the United States, learns that Hitler had been elected and decided not to return to Germany, takes up position at Princeton. |
1933 | Riots in Jaffa and Jerusalem to protest British "pro-Zionist" policies. |
1934 | In Afghanistan, two thousand Jews are expelled from towns and forced to live in the wilderness. |
1934 | American Jews cheer Detroit Tigers' Hank Greenberg when he refuses to play ball on Yom Kippur. In 1938, with five games left to the season, Greenberg's 58 home runs are two shy of Babe Ruth's record. When several pitchers walk him rather than giving him a shot at the record, many believe major league baseball did not want a Jew to claim that place in America's national sport. |
1935 | Jewish rights in Germany rescinded by Nuremberg laws. |
1935 | Hakibbutz Hadati, the religious kibbutz movement is founded. |
1935 | Regina Jonas was ordained by Liberal (Reform) Rabbi Max Dienemann in Germany, becoming the first woman rabbi. |
1935 | Ze'ev Jabotinsky founds the New Zionist Organization. |
1935 | Official establishment of the Palestine Arab Party in Jerusalem; Jamal al-Husseini elected president. |
1936-1939 | Anti-Jewish riots instigated by Arab militants. |
1936 | Supported by the Axis powers, the Arab Higher Committee encourages raids on Jewish communities in Eretz-Israel. |
1936 | Texaco buys 50% interest in California Arabian Standard Oil Co.'s concession. |
1936 | Leon Blum becomes the first Jew elected premier of France, enacts many social reforms. |
1936 | The first of the Tower and Stockade Settlements (Tel Amel) Nir David is erected. |
1936 | Syria ratifies the Franco-Syrian treaty; France grants Syria and Lebanon independence. |
1936 | World Jewish Congress convened in Geneva. |
1936 | Peel Commission investigated Arab riots, concluded Arab claims were "baseless". |
1937 | Reform Jewish Columbus Platform. |
1937 | British declare Arab Higher Committee in Palestine illegal and Mufti of Jerusalem escapes to Syria. |
1937 | The Peel Commission recommends the partition of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. |
1937 | Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion accept partition plan, despite fierce opposition at the 20th Zionist Congress. |
1937 | John Woodhead declares partition unworkable after Arab riots. |
1937 | Central conference of American Rabbis reaffirm basic reform philosophies in the Colombus Platform. |
1938 | Dammam Well No. 7 discovers commercial quantities of oil. Barge exports to Bahrain. |
1938 | Oil discovered in Kuwait. |
Nov. 9, 1938 | Kristallnacht — German Jewish synagogues burned down. |
1938 | Charles E. Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest, launches media campaign in America against Jews. |
1938 | The Dominican Republic is the only country out of 32 at the Evian Conference willing to help Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany. |
Sept. 29, 1938 | Chamberlain declares "peace in our time" after allowing Hitler to annex the Sudetenland in the Munich Agreement. |
1938 | Catholic churches ring bells and fly Nazi flags to welcom Hitler's troops in Austria. |
1938 | Hershel Grynszpan, 17, a German refugee, assassinates Ernst von Rath, the third secretary to the German embassy in Paris. |
1938 | More than 100,000 Jews march in an anti-Hitler parade in New York's Madison Square Garden. |
1939 | First tanker-load of oil is exported aboard D.G. Scofield. |
1939 | President Roosevelt appoints Zionist and Jewish activist Felix Frankfurter to the Supreme Court. |
1939 | Jewish immigration severely limited by British White Paper. |
1939 | S.S. St. Louis, carrying 907 Jewish refugees from Germany, is turned back by Cuba and the United States. |
1939 | Jewish songwriter Irving Berlin introduces his song "God Bless America." He also wrote "White Christmas". |
1940 | Nazis establish ghettos in Poland. |
1940 | British government authorizes the Jewish Agency to recruit 10,000 Jews to form Jewish units in the British army. |
1940 | British refuse illegal immigrant ship, the Patria, permission to dock in Palestine. |
1941 | British and France guarantee Syrian independence. |
1941 | Lohamei Herut Yisrael (Lehi) or Stern Gang underground movement formed. |
May 15, 1941 | |
1942 | Rabbi Stephen S. Wise publicizes Riegner report confirming mass murder of European Jews. |
1942 | |
1942 | Nazi leaders refine the "Final Solution" -- genocide of the Jewish people -- at Wannsee Conference. |
1943 | Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. |
1943 | Palmach parachutes into enemy lines in Europe. |
1943 | British deport illegal immigrants to Cyprus. |
1943 | Raphael Lemkin, an international lawyer who escaped from Poland to the U.S. in 1941, coins the term genocide to describe the Nazi extermination of European Jews. |
1943 | Zionist Biltmore Conference, held at Biltmore Hotel in New York, formulates new policy of creating a "Jewish Commonwealth" in Palestine and organizing a Jewish army. |
1944 | CASOC renamed Arabian American Oil Co.(Aramco). |
1944 | Jewish Brigade formed as part of British forces. |
1944 | FDR establishes War Refugee Board. For most victims of Nazism, it comes too late. |
1944 | Camp for Jewish war refugees is opened at Oswego, New York. |
1939/1942-1945 | |
1945 | International tribunal for war crimes is established at Nuremberg. |
1945 | Bess Myerson becomes the first Jewish woman to win the Miss America Pageant. |
1945 | Covenant of League of Arab States, emphasizing Arab character of Palestine, signed in Cairo by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan, and Yemen. |
1945 | United Nations established. |
1945 | President Truman asks Britain to allow 100,000 Jews into Palestine. |
1945 | Arab League Council decides to boycott goods produced by Zionist firms in Palestine. |
March 22, 1945 | Two convicted members of the Stern Gang hanged for Murder of Lord Moyne in Cairo prison. |
January 19, 1946 | Member of Jewish underground destroyed a power station and a portion of the Central Jerusalem prison by explosives. Two persons were killed by the police.. |
January 20, 1946 | Jewish underground members launched an attack against the British-controlled Givat Olga Coast Guard Station located between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ten persons were injured and one was killed. Captured papers indicated that the purpose of this raid was to take revenge on the British for their seizure of the refugee ship on January 18. British military authorities in Jerusalem questioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody.. |
April 25, 1946 | Jewish underground attacked a British military installation near Tel Aviv. This group which contained a number of young girls, had as its goal the capture of British weapons. British authorities rounded up 1,200 suspects.. |
June 24, 1946 | The Irgun radio "Fighting Zion" wams that three kidnapped British officers are held as hostages for two Irgun members, Josef Simkohn and Issac Ashbel facing execution as well as 31 Irgun members facing trial.. |
June 27, 1946 | Thirty Irgun members are sentenced by a British military court to 15 years in prison. One, Benjamin Kaplan, was sentenced to life for carrying a firearm.. |
June 29, 1946 | British military units and police raided Jewish settlements throughout Palestine searching for the leaders of Haganah. The Jewish Agency for Palestine was occupied and four top official arrested. . |
July 1, 1946 | British officials announced the discovery of a large arms dump hidden underground at Meshek Yagur. 2659 men and 59 women were detained fo the three day operation in which 27 settlements were searched. Four were killed and 80 were injured.. |
July 3, 1946 | Palestine High Commissioner, Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences of Josef Simkhon and lssac Ashbel, Irgun members. |
July 4, 1946 | Tel Aviv. British officers, Captains K Spencer, C. Warburton and A. Taylor who had been kidnapped by Irgun on June 18 and held as hostages for the lives of Simkohn and Ashbel, were released in Tel Aviv unharmed. At this time, Irgun issued a declaration of war against the British claiming that they had no alternative but to fight. . |
July 22, 1946 | The west wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which housed British Military Headquarters and other governmental offices was destroyed at 12:57 PM by explosives planted in the cellar by members of the Irgun terrorist gang. By the 26 of July, the casualties were 76 persons killed, 46 injured and 29 still missing in the rubble. The dead included many British, Arabs and Jews. . |
July 24, 1946 | London. The British government released a White Paper that accuses the Haganah, Irgun and Stern gangs of "a planned movement of sabotage and violence" under the direction of the Jewish Agency and asserts that the June 29 arrest of Zionist leaders was the cause of the bombing. |
July 28, 1946 | The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker, banned fraternization by British troops with Palestine Jews whom he stated "cannot be absolved of responsibility for terroristic acts." The order states that this will punish "the race . . . by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt for them." . |
July 29, 1946 | Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs.. |
July 30, 1946 | Tel Aviv is placed under a 22hour-a-day curfew as 20,000 British troops began a house-to-house sweep for members of the Jewish underground. The city is sealed off and troops are ordered to shoot to kill any curfew violators. |
July 31, 1946 | A large cache of weapons, extensive counterfeiting equipment and $1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv's largest synagogue. Also, two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish immigrants. . |
August 2, 1946 | British military authorities ended the curfew in Tel Aviv after detaining 500 persons for further questioning.. |
August 12, 1946 | The British Government announced that it will allow no more unscheduled immigration into Palestine and that those seeking entry into that country will be sent to Cyprus and other areas under detention. Declaring that such immigration threatens a civil war with the Arab population, it charges a "minority of Zionist extremists" with attempting to force an unacceptable solution of the Palestine problem.. |
August 12, 1946 | Two ships carrying a total of 1,300 Jewish refugees arrived at Haifa. The port area was isolated on August 11 by British military and naval units. The first deportation ship sailed for Cyprus with 500 Jews on board. |
August 13, 1946 | Three Jews were killed and seven wounded when British troops were compelled to fire on a crowd of about 1,000 persons trying to break into the port area of Haifa. Two Royal Navy ships with 1,300 illegal Jewish immigrants on board sailed for Cyprus. Another ship with 600 illegal immigrants was captured and confined in the Haifa harbor. . |
August 26, 1946 | British military units searched the coastal villages of Casera and Sadoth Yarn for three Jews who bombed the transport "Empire Rival" last week. Eighty-five persons, including the entire male population of one of the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center.. |
August 29, 1946 | Jerusalem. the British Government announced the commutation to life imprisonment of the death sentences imposed on 18 Jewish youths convicted of bombing the Haifa railroad shops.. |
August 30, 1946 | British military units discovered arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming villages of Dorot and Ruhama. |
Sept. 8, 1946 | Jewish underground members cut the Palestine railroad in 50 places.. |
Sept. 9, 1946 | Tel Aviv. two British officers were killed in an explosion in a public building.. |
Sept. 10, 1946 | British troops imposed a curfew and arrested 101 Jews and wounded two in a search for saboteurs in Tel Aviv and neighboring Ramat Gan. Irgun took the action against the railways on September 8, as a protest.. |
Sept. 14, 1946 | Jewish underground members robbed three banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested.. |
Sept. 15, 1946 | Jewish underground attacks a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire. . |
October 2, 1946 | British military units and police seized 50 Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe after a Jewish home was blown up. This home belonged to a Jewish woman who had refused to pay extortion money to the Irgun. . |
October 6, 1946 | An R.A.F member is killed by gunfire in Jerusalem |
October 8, 1946 | Two British soldiers are killed when their truck detonated a kind mine outside Jerusalem. A leading Arab figure was wounded in a similar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more mines were found near Government House. |
October 31, 1946 | The British Embassy in Rome was damaged by a bomb, believed to have been placed by Jewish underground members. Irgun took responsibility for the bombing on November 4.. |
November 3, 1946 | Two Jews and two Arabs are killed in clashes between Arabs and a group of Jews attempting to establish a settlement at Lake Hula in northern Palestine. |
November 5, 1946 | British authorities released the following eight Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun concentration camp where they had been held since June 29: Moshe Shertok, Dr. Issac Greenbaum, Dr. Bernard Joseph, David Remiz, David Hacohen, David Shingarevsky, Joseph Shoffman and Mordecai Shatter. A total of 2,550 Haganah suspects have been released as well as 779 Jews arrested in the wake of the King David bombing. |
November 7, 1946 | Railroad traffic was suspended hr 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on railway facilities in two days. |
November 9-13, 1946 | Nineteen persons, eleven British soldiers and policemen and eight Arab constables, were killed in Palestine during this period as Jewish underground members, using land mines and suitcase bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and even streetcars. |
Nov. 14, 1946 | London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish underground groups who threatened to export their attacks to England. |
Nov. 18, 1946 | Police in Tel Aviv attacked Jews, assaulting many and firing into houses. Twenty Jews were injured in fights with British troops following the death on November 17 of three policemen and an RAF sergeant in a land mine explosion. |
Nov. 20, 1946 | Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in the Jerusalem tax office. |
Dec. 2-5, 1946 | Ten persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and landmine explosions. |
Dec. 3, 1946 | A member of the Stern Gang was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt. |
Dec. 26, 1946 | Armed Jewish underground members raided two diamond factories in Nathanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with nearly $107,000 in diamonds, monies and bonds. These raids signaled an end to a two-week truce during the World Zionist Congress. |
1947 | |
January 1, 1947 | Dov Gruner was sentenced to hang by a British military court for taking part in a raid on the Ramat Gan police headquarters in April of 1946. . |
January 2, 1947 | Jewish underground staged bombings and machine gun attacks in five cities. Casualties were low. Pamphlets seized warned that the Irgun had again declared war against the British. |
January 4, 1947 | Jerusalem. British soldiers have been ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or restaurant. |
January 5, 1947 | Eleven British troops were injured in a hand grenade attack on a train carrying troops to Palestine. The attack took place near Benha, 25 miles from Cairo.. |
January 8, 1947 | British police arrested 32 persons suspected of being members of the Irgun's "Black Squad" in raids on Rishomel Zion and Rehoboth. |
January 12, 1947 | One underground member drove a truck filled with high explosives into the central police station and exploded it, killing two British policemen and two Arab constables and injuring 140 others, and escaped. This action ended a 10-day lull in the violence and the Stern Gang took the credit for it. |
January 14, 1947 | Yehudi Katz is sentenced to life in prison by a Jerusalem court for robbing a bank in Jaffa in September of 1946 to obtain funds for the underground. |
January 22, 1947 | Sir Harry Gumey, Chief Secretary, stated that the British administration was taxing Palestine $2,400,000 to pay for sabotage by the Jewish underground groups. . |
January 22, 1947 | Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones informed the House of Commons 73 British subjects were murdered by underground members in 1946 and "no culprits have been convicted." |
January 27, 1947 | London. Britain's conference on Palestine, boycotted by the Jews, reconvened. Jamal el Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, declared that the Arab world was unalterably opposed to partition as a solution to the problem. The session then adjourned. |
January 29, 1947 | London. It was officially announced that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine. |
January 29, 1947 | Irgun forces released former Maj. H. Collins, a British banker, who they kidnaped on January 26 from his home. He had been badly beaten. On January 28, the Irgun released Judge Ralph Windham, who had been kidnapped in Tel Aviv on January 27 while trying a case. These men had been taken as hostages for Dov Bela Gruner, an Irgun member under death sentence. The British High Commissioner, Lt. Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham, had threatened martial law unless the two men were returned unharmed. |
January 31, 1947 | General Cunningham ordered the wives and children of all British civilians to leave Palestine at once. About 2,000 are involved. This order did not apply to the 5,000 Americans in the country. |
February 3, 1947 | The Palestine Govemment issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Jewish Agency demanding that it state "categorically and at once" whether it and the supreme Jewish Council in Palestine will call on the Jewish community by February 10 for "cooperation with the police and armed forces in bringing to justice the members of the terrorist groups." This request was publicly rejected by Mrs. Goldie Meyerson, head of the Jewish Agency's political department. |
February 4, 1947 | British District Commissioner James Pollock disclosed a plan for military occupation of three sectors of Jerusalem and orders nearly 1,000 Jews to evacuate the Rehavia, Schneler and German quarters by noon, February 6. |
February 5, 1947 | The Vaad Leumi rejected the British ultimatum while the Irgun passed out leaflets that it was prepared to fight to the death against the British authority. The first 700 of some 1,500 British women and children ordered to evacuate Palestine leave by plane and train for Egypt. British authorities, preparing for military action, order other families from sections of Tel Aviv and Haifa which will be turned into fortified military areas. |
February 9, 1947 | British troops removed 650 illegal Jewish immigranS from the schooner "Negev" at Haifa and after a struggle forced them aboard the ferry "Emperor Haywood" for deportation to Cyprus. |
February 14, 1947 | The British administration revealed that Lt. Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, had confirmed the death sentences of three Irgun members on February 12 before leaving for England. The three men, Dov Ben Rosenbaum, Eliezer Ben Kashani and Mordecai Ben Alhachi, had been sentenced on February 10 to be hanged for carrying firearms. A fourth, Haim Gorovetzky, received a life sentence because of his youth. Lt. Gen. G. MacMillian arrived in Jerusalem on February 13 to succeed Gen. Barker. |
February 15, 1947 | The Sabbath was the setting for sporadic outbreaks of violence which included the murder of an Arab in Jaffa and of a Jew in B'nai B'rak, the kidnapping of a Jew in Petah Tikvah and the burning of a Jewish club in Haifa. |
March 9, 1947 | Hadera. A British army camp was attacked. |
March 10, 1947 | Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer, was murdered by Jewish underground members. |
March 12, 1947 | The British Army pay corps was dynamited in Jerusalem and one soldier killed. |
March 12, 1947 | British military units captured most of the 800 Jews whose motor ship "Susanne" ran the British blockade and was beached north of Gaza on this date. A British naval escort brought the "Ben Hecht," the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation's first known immigrant ship, into Haifa, and its 599 passengers were shipped to Cyprus. The British arrested the crew, which included 18 US. seamen.. |
March 13, 1947 | British authorities announced 78 arrests as a result of unofficial Jewish cooperation, but two railroads were attacked, resulting in two deaths, and eight armed men robbed a Tel Aviv bank of $65,000. . |
March 14, 1947 | Jewish underground members blew up part of an oil pipeline in Haifa and a section of the rail line near Beer Yakou . |
March 17, 1947 | British authorities ended marshal law which had kept 300,000 Jews under house arrest for 16 days and tied up most economic activity.. |
March 17, 1947 | A military court sentenced Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade. . |
March 18, 1947 | Underground leaflets admitted the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer. . |
March 22, 1947 | British officials announced the arrest of five known underground members, and the discovery near Petah Tikvah of the body of Leon Meshiah, a Jew presumably slain as a suspected informer. . |
March 28, 1947 | The Irgun blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa.. |
March 29, 1947 | A British army officer was killed by Jewish underground membesr when they ambushed a party of horsemen near the Ramle camp. A raid on a Tel Aviv bank yielded $109,000. |
March 30, 1947 | Units of the British Royal Navy, answering an SOS, took the disabled " Moledeth" with 1,600 illegal Jewish refugees on board under tow some 50 miles outside Palestinian waters. |
March 31, 1947 | Jewish underground members dynamited the British-owned Shell-Mex oil tanks in Haifa, starting a fire that destroyed a quarter-mile of the waterfront. The damage was set at more than $1,000,000, and the British government in Palestine has stated that the Jewish community will have to pay for it. |
April 2, 1947 | The "Ocean Vigour" was damaged by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing. |
April 3, 1947 | A court in Jerusalem sentenced Daniel Azulai and Meyer Feinstein, members of the Irgun, to death for the October 30 attack on the Jerusalem railroad station. The Palestine Supreme Court admitted an appeal of Dov Bela Gruner's death sentence. |
April 3, 1947 | The transport "Empire Rival" was damaged by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt. . |
April 7, 1947 | The High Court denied a new appeal against the death sentence of Dov Bela Gruner, and a British patrol killed Moshe Cohen. |
April 8, 1947 | Jewish undergroud members killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen death. |
April 10, 1947 | London. The British Government requested France and Italy to prevent Jews from embarking for Palestine. |
April 11, 1947 | Jerusalem. Asher Eskovitch, a Jew, was beaten to death by Muslims when he entered the forbidden Mosque of Omar. |
April 13, 1947 | Guela Cohen, Stern Gang illegal broadcaster, escaped from a British military hospital. |
April 14, 1947 | A British naval unit boarded the refugee ship "Guardian" and seized it along with 2,700 passengers after a gun battle in which two immigrants were killed and 14 wounded. |
April 16, 1947 | In spite of threats of reprisal from the Irgun, the British hanged Dov Bela Gruner and three other Irgun members at Acre Prison on Haifa Bay. Jewish communities were kept under strict curfew for several hours. Soon after the deaths were announced, a time bomb was found in the Colonial Office in London but was defused. |
April 17, 1947 | Lt. Gen. G. Macmillan confirmed death sentences for two more convicted underground members, Meier Ben Feinstein and Moshe Ben Barazani, but reduced Daniel Azulai's sentence to life imprisonment. |
April 18, 1947 | Irgun's reprisals for the Gruner execution were an attack on a field dressing station near Nethanaya where one sentry was killed, an attack on an armored car in Tel Aviv where one bystander was killed and harmless shots at British troops in Haifa. |
April 20, 1947 | A series of bombings by Jewish underground members in retaliation for the hanging of Gruner injured 12 British soldiers. |
April 21, 1947 | Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani killed themselves in prison a few hours before they were scheduled to be hanged. They blew themselves up with bombs smuggled to them in hollowed-out oranges. |
April 22, 1947 | A troop train arriving from Cairo was bombed outside Rehovoth with five soldiers and three civilians killed and 39 persons injured. |
April 23, 1947 | The British First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Hall, defended the Labor Government's policy in Palestine and he acknowledged in the House of Lords that Britain would not "carry out a policy of which it did not approve" despite any UN action. He blamed contributions from American Jews to the Jewish Palestinians as aiding the underground groups there and cited the toll since August 1, 1945: 113 killed, 249 wounded, 168 Jews convicted, 28 sentenced to death, four executed, 33 slain in battles. Viscount Samuel urged increased immigration. |
April 23, 1947 | The Irgun proclaimed its own "military courts" to "try" British troops and policemen who resisted them. |
April 25, 1947 | A Stern Gang squad drove a stolen post office truck loaded with explosives into the Sarona police compound and detonated it, killing five British policemen. |
April 26, 1947 | Haifa. The murder of Deputy Police Superintendent A. Conquest climaxed a week of bloodshed. |
May 4, 1947 | The walls of Acre prison were blasted open by an Irgun bomb squad and 251 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped after a gun battle in which 15 Jews and 1 Arab were killed, 32 (including six British guards) were injured and 23 escapists were recaptured. The Palestine Government promised no extra punishment if the 189 escapees still at large will surrender. |
May 4, 1947 | The Political Action Committee for Palestine ran a series of advertisements in New York newspapers seeking funds to buy parachutes for young European Jews planning to crash the Palestine immigration barrier by air. |
May 8, 1947 | A Jew was ambushed and shot to death by an Arab group near Tel Aviv, and three Jewish-owned Tel Aviv shops whose owners refused to contribute money to Jewish underground groups were burned down. |
May 12, 1947 | Jewish underground members killed two British policemen. |
May 12, 1947 | The British authorities announced that 312 Jewish political prisoners were held in Kenya, East Africa, 20 in Latrun and 34 in Bethlehem. |
May 15, 1947 | The Stern Gang killed two British lieutenants and injured seven other persons with two derailments and three badge demolitions. |
May 16, 1947 | Haifa Assistant Police Superintendent, Robert Schindler, a German Jew, was killed by the Stern gang, and a British constable was killed on the Mt Carmel-Haifa road near Jerusalem. |
May 17, 1947 | The 1,200 ton Haganah freighter "Trade Winds" was seized by the Royal Navy off the Lebanon coast and escorted into Haifa, and over 1,000 illegal immigrants were disembarked pending transfer to Cyprus. |
May 19, 1947 | The British government protested to the United States government against American fund-raising drives for Jewish underground groups. The complaint referred to a "Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine" by playwright Ben Hecht, American League for a Free Palestine co chairman, first published in the New York "Post" on May 15. The ad said, "We are out to raise millions for you.". |
May 22, 1947 | Arabs attacked a Jewish labor camp in the south, retaliating for a Haganah raid on the Arabs near Tel Aviv May 20. Some 40,000 Arab and Jewish workers united the same day in a one day strike against all establishments operated by the British War Ministry.. |
May 23, 1947 | A British naval party boarded the immigrant ship "Mordei Haghettoath" off South Palestine and took control of its 1,500 passengers. Two British soldiers were convicted in Jerusalem of abandoning a jeep and army mail under attack. |
May 28, 1947 | Syria. Fawzi el-Kawukji who spent the war years in Germany after leading the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, told reporters in Damascus that an unfavorable decision by the UN inquiry group would be the signal for war against the Jews in Palestine. "We must prove that in case" of an Anglo-American war with Russia, "we can be more dangerous or useful to them than the Jews," he added. |
May 28, 1947 | Jewish underground members blew up a water main and a shed in the Haifa oil dock areas and made three attacks on railway lines in the Lydda and Haifa areas. |
May 31, 1947 | The Haganah ship "Yehuda Halevy" arrived under British naval escort with 399 illegal Jewish immigrants; they were immediately transferred to Cyprus. |
June 4, 1947 | The Stern Gang sent letter bombs to high British governmental officials. Eight letter bombs containing powdered explosives were discovered in London. Recipients included Ernest Bevin, Anthony Eden, Prime Minister Attlee and Winston Churchill. |
June 5, 1947 | Washington. President Truman asked all persons in the US to refrain from helping Jewish underground groups. The American Jewish Committee and Jewish Labor Committee condemned Ben Hecht's campaign. |
June 6, 1947 | New York Secretary General of the UN, Trygve Lie has forwarded a request to all countries a request by the British that they guard their fronties against departure of illegal immigrants bound for Palestine. |
June 18, 1947 | Haganah disclosed that one of its men was killed by a booby trap which foiled an Irgun plot to blow up British Military Headquartes in Tel Aviv. |
June 28, 1947 | The Stern Gang opened fire on British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish underground members to be in retaliation for British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew, Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6. |
June 29, 1947 | New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to condemn the acts as "flagrant disregard" of the UN appeal for an interim truce as Stern Gang wounded four more Bdtish soldiers on a beach at Herzlia. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection with the Rubowitz case. |
June 30, 1947 | The Palestine goverrunent permitted oil companies to raise paces of benzine nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish underground members blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31. |
July 2, 1947 | lrgun members robbed a Haifa bank of $3,200 while both the Stem gang and the Irgun warned the British that their provocative acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The Guaternalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in Acre Prison. |
July 12, 1947 | Dr. Adem Altman, president of the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two British sergeants kidnaped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have been sentenced to death by Irgun courtmartial. |
July 14, 1947 | Netanya. The British imposed mastial law and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Netanya under house arrest. They made 68 arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp. |
July 17, 1947 | Netanya. The Irgun in five mine operations against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and injured 16. |
July 18, 1947 | Steamer Exodus repelled by forces from shores of Palestine, (formerly the "President Warfield") was escorted into Haifa by British naval units after a battle, William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured. The blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers, the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a sister ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France. |
July 19, 1947 | Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke out among the passengers of the "Exodus 1947" when they learned they were to be resumed to France. |
July 19, 1947 | The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish "campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage" has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage since 1940. |
July 21, 1947 | Before officially admitting that 4,529 passengers of the "Exodus 1947" who had been transferred to three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the Palestine Government took the precaution of first placing Jesusalem's 90,000 Jews under nightly house arrest. |
July 23, 1947 | Haganah sank the British transport "Empire Lifeguard" in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish immigrants who had officially been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the ship. |
July 26, 1947 | Jewish underground members blew up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar station. |
July 27, 1947 | An ambush and mines cost the British seven more casualties, all wounded. |
July 28, 1947 | Two small Haganah ships loaded with 1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus. |
July 29, 1947 | The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite appeals from Jewish leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and Jews. |
July 29, 1947 | The 4,429 Exodus 1947 illegal immigrants who sailed from Sete, France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc, France. Only a few who were aboard went ashore. The French government informed the refugees that they do not have to debark but will be welcomed if they do. The transports are the "Runnymede Park," "Ocean Vigour" and "Empire Valour.". |
July 30, 1947 | Irgun members announced that they have handed two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Clifford Martin, whom they had held as hostages since duly 12, for "crimes against the Jewish community." The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders. |
July 31, 1947 | The bodies of the two murdered Bdtish sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half miles from Netanya about 5:30 AM. A booby trap blew Martin's body to bits when it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops, attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men, two women and a boy. |
August 1, 1947 | Thirty-three Jews are injured in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish underground attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker killed and two captured. |
August 2, 1947 | The body of an unidentified Jew was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July: 25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish underground membmers, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles. |
August 3, 1947 | The Bank of Sharon in Ramat Gan was robbed by Jewish underground, $8,000 stolen. |
August 4, 1947 | An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high British military and civilian officials in Palestine to death "in absentia" and will hang them upon capture. |
August 5, 1947 | Striking at dawn, British security forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership.In reprisal, Irgunists blew up the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Kdnitzki of Ramat Gan; Adeh Altman, president of the radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth organization, B'rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela Gruner's attomey, and David Stem, brother of the late founder of the Stern Gang. All those arrested except the three mayors were Revisionists. Among many papers confiscated was correspondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalem with botulism and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by Soviet sources through Bulgaria. |
August 15, 1947 | A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the engineer, and Irgunist claimed the incident was part of its campaign to disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic. |
August 16, 1947 | Arab-Jewish clashes have brought death to 12 Arabs and 13 Jews and heavy property destruction this week in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Strife was renewed on august 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago. Haganah responded to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv, killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children. |
August 18, 1947 | The shops of five Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to give money to that organization. |
Sept. 9, 1947 | Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three hour fight aboard the "Runnymede Park," 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300 "Exodus 1947" illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany. First ashore yesterday were the "Ocean Vigour's" 1,406; a few put up token resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the "Empire Rival's" 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made bomb was found in the ship's hold. |
Sept. 10, 1947 | Washington D.C. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed that the US had urged Britain to reconsider sending the "Exodus" group to Germany, but Britain replied tht there were no facilities for housing them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of vacant detention camps in Germany. |
Sept. 11, 1947 | Paris. The French government has now announced tht it would admit the '`Exodus" refugees if they were not forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be admitted eventually to Palestine. |
October 13, 1947 | A terrorist bomb damaged the US. consulate general in Jerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar bombings occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish consulate on September 27. |
Nov. 14, 1947 | Jewish underground members killed two British policemen in Jerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed, and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on November 12. The underground retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem. |
Nov. 16, 1947 | About 185 European Jews landed near Netanya from a small schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel, the "Kadimah," was seized and brought to Haifa where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British transport for Cyprus. |
Nov. 17, 1947 | The British administration disclosed that it will sell state owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 million. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the administration to these charges. |
Nov. 22, 1947 | An Arab was killed in Haifa by the Stern Gang following the killings of four other Arabs near Raanana on November 20. |
Dec. 1, 1947 | The Arab League announced on December 1 that premiers and foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan strategy against partition. In Palestine: Jerusalem and the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the mayor of Nablus, Arab nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem. |
Dec. 2, 1947 | Arabs looted and burned a three block Jewish business district in Jerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three day Arab general strike during which 20 Jews and 15 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene, Haganah came into the open for the first time in eight years to restrain large scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day's strife caused $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 21 hour curfew being applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency's Trade and Transfer Deparunent was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near Ramleh On this day dews stoned Arab buses in Jerusalem. On December 2, Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser attacks in Haifa this week. Also, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of Aleppo. |
Dec. 3, 1947 | On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary, which also is under around-the clock curfew, the week's heaviest battle was a six-hour clash between Haganah and Arabs on December 3 in which seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. |
Dec. 5, 1947 | The United States Department of State announced on December 5,1947 that they were placing an embargo on all American arms shipments to the Middle East. On December 5, British military reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in which 50 Jews and 25 Arabs were killed. |
Dec. 13, 1947 | On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least 16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred Arab houses in Jaffa. In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in rebaliation for the Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament manuscripts. |
Dec. 14, 1947 | Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed 14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they atbcked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews attacked them first. |
Dec. 17, 1947 | British troops came to the aid of police sending off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba. |
Dec. 18, 1947 | Haganah killed 10 Arabs in a reprisal raid on Khisas in the north of the country. |
Dec. 19, 1947 | Reliable reports from Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year. |
Dec. 20, 1947 | Haganah carried out another said on Arabs by atbcking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth. One Arab was killed and two were wounded. |
Dec. 25, 1947 | Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews. Stern gang members machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe. |
Dec. 26, 1947 | Armed Jewish underground members raided two diamond factories in Netanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting that Israel Levin, a member, was killed in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying to betray a Stern Gang member. |
Dec. 29, 1947 | Irgun members kidnaped and flogged a Briitish major and these sergeants in retaliation for the flogging of Benjamin Kimkhim who was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27 for robbing a bank. The major, E. Brett, was seized in Netanya and the sergeants in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lashes, the same number Kimkhim received. An Irgun bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jesusalem killed 11 Arabs and two Britons. |
Dec. 30, 1947 | The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred scrolls were destroyed by angry British citizens. |
1947 | UN proposes the establishment of Arab and Jewish states in the Land. |
1947 | Arab Higher Committee for Palestine rejects UN Partition Plan. |
1947 | Three Jews are hanged for involvement in Acre Prison break and two British sergeants are executed in reprisal. |
1947 | Scrolls dating from approximately 22 B.C.E. are discovered at Qumran, near the Dead Sea. |
1947 | Construction begins on Tapline for Saudi oil. |
January 4, 1948 | A series of bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties.14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa. |
January 5, 1948 | Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after Haganah bombed the Semirarnis Hotel. |
January 7, 1948 | 14 Arabs were killed by two Irgun bombs at Jerusalem's Jaffa gate. |
January 12, 1948 | Stem gang members looted Barclay's Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000. |
January 13, 1948 | The U.S. War Assets Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency, which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized |
Jan. 14-15, 1948 | The FBI arrested six New York men on charges of trying to ship Haganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized in Jersey Gty after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. |
January 25, 1948 | Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews, 19 civilians and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160) had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians and 37 British officers had been wounded. |
1948 | Standard Oil of New Jersey and Socony-Vacuum (both now ExxonMobil) buy interest in Aramco; company headquarters moved from San Francisco to New York. |
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