Ally Abandoned: Facing the Axis Invasion Threats to Palestine

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). We examine 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. We begin with aoverview 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 War and the Anglo-Jewish relationship in Palestine during the first twenty months of the war.