The Farran Affair, 1947 Palestine

In 1947, as Zionist insurgents wreaked havoc, British special forces in Palestine adopted counterinsurgency tactics that attracted worldwide condemnation. David Cesarani discusses a Scandal whose ramifications persist to this day. In October 1945 the Zionist movement in Palestine launched an armed struggle against the continuation of British rule. Zionists were scandalised by what they saw as a betrayal of pledges that the Labour Party had previously made. The Jewish community in Palestine, the Yishuv, was aghast that survivors of the concentration camps would be denied succour in the Jewish national home. When diplomacy seemed to fail, the Yishuv overwhelmingly supported armed insurrection to pressure the British into a change of policy.