State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel by Thomas Suarez

Author:Thomas Suarez [Suarez, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf, mobi
ISBN: 9781566560689
Amazon: 1566560683
Publisher: Skyscraper Publications
Published: 2016-12-02T02:00:00+00:00

Nov 1947

Jewish sex workers continued to be exploited as an espionage network, but in November, at great risk, one testified to the British. She and her colleagues did not cooperate willingly. They would be confronted by men identifying themselves as ‘Stern Gang Intelligence’, though the British believed they were not Lehi, but were using the Lehi brand because it was even more frightening than ‘Hagana’ or ‘Irgun’. The Jewish state, the women were assured, was imminent. Upon its founding they would be tried for ‘sleeping with the enemy’, convicted, and executed—if not simply assassinated, “shot out of hand for collaboration with the enemy”. ‘Stern Gang Intelligence’ was however giving them the opportunity to save their necks by cooperating now, since they “have continual access to a large number of slightly inebriated and highly repressed officers and men”, and thus to their information and their thoughts.

“As can be imagined”, the British realised, “the average night club hostess, cafe girl or prostitute falls readily and is able to furnish the organisation with an astonishing amount of personal and official information concerning the activities of British army personnel”. Any one woman would mingle among different cliques of men, since they “work at one place or another according to the amount of custom they bring to the management”. The operation was so large and well organised that they were supplied with copies of a printed questionnaire to be filled out after each patron.

The form pressed the indentured spies to extract the expected military and personal information, and to use their conversation to identify any British who betrayed any sympathy with the cause and might be recruitable. The women were instructed to “exploit your activities to the full” to garner all information possible, and to “comply strictly with instructions”. This information was to be clear, concise, and clinical. They were also encouraged to offer any comments and opinions that might prove insightful, but these were to be strictly separated into the “special remarks column”. Every ten days, ‘Stern Gang Intelligence’ would visit the women and collect their forms.465

November also brought a bold announcement from the Jewish Agency: it was forming an elite ‘Mishmar Force’ to stamp out terrorism. However suspect the opportunistic timing, just as the UN was about to decide Palestine’s future, the British nonetheless removed police and troops from the area in order not to interfere with this anti-terror ‘Force’, which the Agency said would be established within ten days. No such force was ever established.466

Police remained targets even in the lead-up to the United Nations vote. A Jewish police corporal was assassinated at his home in Jerusalem on the 3rd of November, and a constable was seriously wounded at the city’s Northern Police Station. In Tel Aviv, two police were shot from behind, left on the ground and ignored by the passing Tel Aviv public until the arrival of a British patrol twenty-five minutes later. Both died. After two suspects in a separate incident were brought to the Apak Police Station, “about

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