In May 1941 a string of German victories, a pro-Nazi revolt in Iraq and a hostile Vichy-led collaborationist government in Syria suddenly left Palestine, with its half a million strong Jewish community, facing the possibility of German invasion from both north and south. Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union provided some respite for hard-pressed British forces, but the overwhelming initial success of that attack, together with Rommel’s advances in North Africa, meant a return of the pincer threat a year later when the period from April to November 1942 was named as the ‘200 days of anxiety’ by the Jews of Palestine (known as the Yishuv).

This book examines why, despite the close Anglo-Jewish relationship in Palestine between the wars, there was only very limited co-operation in 1941 when an enemy invasion seemed imminent. Chronologically, the book begins with an overview of the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine under British rule, the Arab Revolt 1936–39, the change in British policy towards Palestine immediately prior to the Second World War and the Anglo-Jewish relationship in Palestine during the first twenty months of the war.

In 1941 the British continually rebuffed Jewish pleas for the Yishuv to be given a better defensive capability within the Yishuv itself. More widely, plans to create a Jewish Division fighting the Germans as part of the British Army were also quashed. This book shows that this opposition stemmed from doubts about Arab loyalty throughout the Middle East, particularly an exaggerated fear by General Wavell of an imminent Arab uprising should the Jews be given such visible support. The result was widespread hostility in the Yishuv towards Britain

By 1941 mutual mistrust had grown to the extent that the Yishuv was not provided with the weapons and training to defend itself that year and nor were any plans put in place to develop a defensive capability so that when, in 1942, the new German pincer movement threatened and the British contemplated evacuating Palestine and retreating to Iraq, their plans failed to take any account of the Yishuv’s available manpower. In fact, by 1942, there was a new fear of growing Jewish strength and organisation within the Yishuv. In this regard, ‘official’ steps to prevent the training and arming of organised Jewish units in the British Army, were contradicted and undermined by ‘unofficial’ co-operation and training of elite Yishuv forces by the Special Forces Executive (SOE). Even this training, however, was to set up resistance cells after a German occupation and was not to help the Yishuv defend itself from invasion.

More than two years later, in a volte face, a Jewish Brigade was established within the British Army and fought against the Germans in Italy. The book ends with a look at the formation of the Jewish Brigade to test the extent to which fears of creating a Jewish armed force in 1941 and 1942 were justified. It analyses the Haganah’s attack on 11 bridges on the night of 16/17 June 1946 to gauge the extent to which SOE training had become a threat to British policy, and considers the extent to which prejudice lay behind British decision-making during this period.

What becomes clear is that British and Yishuv decisions taken during these two years not only prepared the Yishuv for a post-war fight against Britain, something which before 1939 would have been unthinkable, but also helped determine the outcome of the Jewish State’s war of independence in 1948. That the Jews would be successful in that war was not a foregone conclusion even in 1948. The events of 1941 and 1942 built the foundations on which the State of Israel would be established.