THE PLANS OF THE BRITISH ARMY
“Two Hundred Days of Terror” is the name given to a period in the history of the Jews who lived in the Land of Israel during World War II—this period lasted from the spring of 1942 until November 3 of that same year, when units of the German army under the command of General Erwin Rommel advanced eastwards toward the Suez Canal from North Africa. If the German invasion succeeded, the British were prepared to evacuate the Land of Israel and retreat east to Iraq and India. However, these evacuation plans did not include the evacuation of Jews from the Land of Israel. If the Germans invaded Israel, the Jews would have to face them alone without the help of the British Army. The Yishub (or Yishuv), as the Jewish settlement was called before Israel’s independence was declared in 1948, had approximately 500,000 Jews. Yitzchak Tabenkin, who later became a member of Israel’s Knesset, declared:
“We have no choice but to fight this war with all the forces we have. We must defend this Yishub and our flag with or without uniform… If our spirit is in us, we will lean on it with all our might or fall on it with all our might. We are ready to stand tall and make sacrifices. We will not be defeated by the enemy’s forces with fatalism but with great responsibility. There is no alternative…”
THE PLANS OF THE NAZIS
In April 1942, the German army unit Afrika Korps, under the command of General Erwin Rommel, began advancing across North Africa toward the Suez Canal. Terror seized the Yishub. It seemed that after the great victories of the Nazis in Africa, no force could stop them. If they reached the Suez Canal, the road to the Land of Israel would be open to them. At that time, the extermination of European Jews was in full swing, and news of it began to infiltrate the Yishub leadership. There was a certainty that if the Germans invaded, they would exterminate the Jews of the Land of Israel: men, women, and children, as they had done in Europe. And they were not wrong. The Germans established a special unit in Egypt, the Einsatzgruppe Egypt, consisting of 24 SS soldiers under the command of Walter Rauf. Rauf was the infamous inventor of death trucks, which had their exhaust gases connected to the truck’s sealed cabins, in which the victims, who entered the truck thinking they were going to be transported, died from inhaling toxic gases. The trucks of death were already waiting in Egypt. The extermination of the 500,000 Jews in the Land of Israel was supposed to be carried out by the same means and methods used for the murder of European Jews. The Germans planned to use the help of the local Arab population to carry out the systematic murder of Jews under the guidance and command of that small German team. This plan corresponded to the promise the Germans made to the leader of the Palestinian Arabs, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was in exile in Berlin. Many Arabs awaited the arrival of the armies of Hitler, whom they called “Abu Ali,” hoping he would defeat the British so they could exterminate the Jews.
THE PLANS OF THE JEWS
On April 17, 1942, Moshe Sharet, the head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, addressed General Claude Auchinleck, commander of the Eighth Army of the British Army, with the following words: “There is no doubt that if the Nazis invade the Land of Israel, all the Jews of this land will be destroyed. The extermination of the Jewish race is a basic clause in Nazi ideology. The recently released official news indicates this policy is being implemented with cruelty beyond words. Hundreds of thousands of Jews perished in Poland, the Balkans, Romania, and German-invaded districts in the Soviet Union due to wholesale executions, forced deportations, and the spread of starvation and disease in ghettos and concentration camps. There is reason to fear that the Jews of Israel will be destroyed seven times faster if they fall into the hands of the Nazis.”
SURRENDERING
Some Jewish leaders proposed surrendering to the Nazis and negotiating with them, following the example of other European-occupied nations. The rationale behind this naive belief was that the Nazis would not see them as a threat and treat them as cruelly as they did Jews in Europe. They also hoped a reconciliation effort might be more successful than resistance and fighting, which could only fuel German hatred towards Jews. These views were heavily criticized for promoting defeatism and demoralization among the population. Other political leaders thought to persuade the British, who were in command of Israel then, to grant them the status of ‘English prisoners of war.’ This status would provide Jews with the rights of prisoners associated with it. Moreover, they planned to urge the British to threaten the Nazis that if they allowed the extermination of Jews, the British would retaliate by killing the German prisoners in their possession. Though altruistic, these ideas were not practical and never fully developed.
HIDING
Many Jews were planning to go into hiding and primarily to hide their children in European and even German monasteries and hospices located in the country. Others sought to make contact with friendly Arabs who were willing to accept a material reward in exchange for hiding Jewish children until the end of the war. However, opinions varied on what to do if the country were to fall into the hands of the Germans. David Ben-Gurion, a prominent Jewish community leader, took a pragmatic approach. He believed that the makeshift soldiers of the Yishub, the Jewish community in Palestine, could not defeat Hitler’s army and that they would be unable to achieve what the French, the Dutch, and other European countries had failed to succeed against the Nazis. In Ben-Gurion’s view, if a German invasion occurred and the British withdrew, the fighting forces of the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary organization, and the Yishub leadership should withdraw together with the British army to India. They could then return to Israel when the tide of war had turned in their favor.
FIGHT TO THE DEATH
On the other hand, a more nationalist position was expressed by Yitzhak Tabenkin, who believed that they should “stay here until the end, for our future, for respect for ourselves and for loyalty to our history.” This proposal suggested that the entire Jewish population concentrate in the Haifa and Galilee area and fight to the death. The plan was named “Masada of the Carmel.” This area in the Carmel mountain range provided an opportunity to resist and repel the invader, who would have difficulty moving heavy armored forces in the mountainous terrain. According to the plan, the civilian Jewish population would take refuge in these enclaves while commandos and guerrilla units would go out to attack and contain the enemy’s advance. The members of the military organization “Etzel” also conceived a similar plan, but with a different symbolism: in the event of a German invasion, Jews would take refuge in the Old City of Jerusalem, fortifying themselves inside the walls and fighting the battle from there. This would declare Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount or Har-HaBayit in Jerusalem with great pride and patriotism. For the leaders of these plans, it was clear that if the Germans arrived, they could perhaps delay the invader’s advance. Still, the terrible end of the defenders and the civilian population was inevitable. The very name, “Masada of the Carmel” (Masada or Metsada, is the name of one of the last refuges of the Jews who resisted the Roman army in the 1st century and proceeded to collective suicide when they saw that the enemy could not be stopped), expressed the belief that the Jewish settlement would not be able to survive if the Germans invaded Israel.
PROVIDENTIAL VICTORY
On July 1, 1942, the British halted Rommel’s advance 180 kilometers from the Suez Canal and established a new line of defense. General Bernard Montgomery was appointed as the new commander and ordered the cancellation of all British withdrawal plans from Israel, preparing to engage the Germans in Egypt. Both sides knew that this battle would be decisive for the fate of the Middle East. On November 3, 1942, with the help of God Almighty, Montgomery’s forces launched the final attack and defeated Rommel’s forces at the Battle of El-Alamein in Egypt. This triumph was a crucial turning point in the Allies’ victory in World War II.
