Monday, April 16, 2012

MI6's Shameful Holocaust Attack

by Andrew Roberts

A new history of British intelligence reveals that in 1946-'48 they used explosives to attack ships bearing Holocaust survivors from Europe to Israel. Andrew Roberts on these stunning revelations.

As Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the pitiful remnants of History’s greatest crime, tried to make their way across an often hostile Europe at the end of the Second World War, toward at least a semblance of safety in the Holy Land, they had no shortage of problems with which to contend, including disease and malnutrition, Polish anti-Semitism, Soviet indifference, Allied bureaucracy, and Arab nationalism. Now we discover that they faced yet another peril in the shape of bombs planted on their transport ships by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6.

A new book to be published next week entitled MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949, by the distinguished British historian Keith Jeffery, reveals the existence of Operation Embarrass, a plan to try to prevent Jews getting into Palestine in 1946-'48 using disinformation and propaganda but also explosive-devices placed on ships. Nor is this some speculative spy story that can be denied by the authorities: Dr. Jeffrey’s book is actually, in their own words: “Published with the permission of The Secret Intelligence Service and the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

The country that ought to be embarrassed by Operation Embarrass—indeed shamed—is Great Britain, which used explosives to try to stop truly humanitarian flotillas after the Holocaust, but now condemns embattled Israel for halting entirely politically-inspired flotillas to Gaza despite her rights of legitimate self-defense.
When on June 1 this year the British government denounced as “completely unacceptable” the way that the Israelis landed troops on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza we did not know that its predecessor had done much the same, actually blowing up one ship and damaging two more vessels of a genuinely humanitarian flotilla that was trying to bring Jewish survivors of the Nazi death camps to their people’s ancient homeland.

The Secret History of MI6. By Keith Jeffery. 832 pages. Penguin Press HC. $39.95 Of course, the hostility of the British establishment toward Jewish immigration into Palestine since long before the notorious 1939 White Paper on the subject is well-known—even King George VI wrote that year to say that he was “glad to think that steps are being taken to prevent these people leaving their country of origin”—nonetheless this is the first indication of the violent lengths to which post-war Britain was willing to go in order to appease the oil-rich Arab states of the region.

For it now emerges that in late 1946 the Labour government of Clement Attlee asked MI6 for “proposals for action to deter ships masters and crews from engaging in illegal Jewish immigration and traffic,” adding, “Action of the nature contemplated is, in fact, a form of intimidation and intimidation is only likely to be effective if some members of the group of people to be intimidated actually suffer unpleasant consequences.” Among the options contemplated were “the discovery of some sabotage device, which had ‘failed’ to function after the sailing of a ship,” “tampering with a ship’s fresh water supplies or the crew’s food,” and “fire on board ship in port.” Sir Stewart Menzies, the chief of the SIS, suggested these could be blamed on an invented Arab terrorist group called The Defenders of Arab Palestine.

Operation Embarrass was therefore launched after a meeting held on February 14, 1947 between officials from MI6, the armed services, the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office, the last represented by William Hayter, the head of Foreign Office Services Liaison Department, a high-flier who later became ambassador to Moscow. I knew Sir William Hayter in later life, but needless to say he never breathed a word about this operation. In his defense, it must be said that Hayter did order MI6 to ensure that arson “must be arranged, if at all, when the ship is empty.

The Operation Embarrass team was told that “the primary consideration was to be that no proof could ever be established between positive action against this traffic and His Majesty’s Government [HMG].” A special communications network, code-named Ocean, was set up with a budget of £30,000 ($47,000), a great deal of money in 1947. The operation had three aspects: direct action against refugee ships, a “black” propaganda campaign, and a deception scheme to disrupt immigration from Black Sea ports. A team of former Special Operations Executive agents—with the cover story of a yachting trip—was sent to France and Italy with limpet bombs and timers. If captured, “they were under no circumstances to admit their connection with HMG” but instead claim to have been recruited in New York “by an anti-Communist organization formed by a group of international industrialists, mainly in the oil and aircraft industries,” i.e., to lay the blame on rich, right-wing, unnamed Americans. They were told that this cover “was their final line of defense and, even in the event of a prison sentence, no help could be expected from HMG.

During the summer of 1947 and early 1948, five attacks were undertaken on ships in Italian ports, of which one was rendered “a total loss” and two others were damaged. Two other British-made limpet mines were discovered before they went off, but the Italian authorities did not find their country of origin suspicious, “as the Arabs would of course be using British stores.” Operation Embarrass even considered blowing up the Baltimore steamship President Warfield when in harbor in France, which later became famous in Israeli history as the “Exodus” ship that “launched a nation.”

The country that ought to be embarrassed by Operation Embarrass—indeed shamed—is Great Britain, which used explosives to try to stop truly humanitarian flotillas after the Holocaust, but now condemns embattled Israel for halting entirely politically-inspired flotillas to Gaza despite her rights of legitimate self-defense. The depth of the animosity that Establishment Britain, especially the Foreign Office, felt toward the Jews of Palestine clearly went even further than we had ever imagined, and even 70 years later is by no means extinguished.

12 comments:

  1. From May 1945 onwards the British carried on from where the Nazis had left off. In fact, even throughout the war anybody escaping from Europe who managed to make his/her way into Palestine was arrested as an "illegal immigrant" and sent to a prison on Madagascar and not released until 1948. The "Struma" is another example. Then why is Israel concerned with the "Quartet", every one of its members has Jewish blood on its hands and is pro-Arab?

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  2. Google: "cap Arcona"

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  3. I'm not particularly outraged or even surprised by this revelation. We forget that, in the period from the end of WWII till the end of the Mandate, Britain was at war with the Yishuv.

    Even as "puka" a figure as Chaim Hertzog, when meeting a former officer of his from the British army in Palestine after the war responded to his warm assertion that things would be "just like old times" by pointing out that, this time, they would not be on the same side.

    The fact that MI6 engaged in (relatively mild) dirty tricks against Jews in support of HMG's policies is not the reason the UK should be embarrassed; they should hang their heads in shame at the policy itself.

    As for the hypocrisy; those of us who grew up in Britain should not be shocked by that.

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    1. You certainly should not be suprised. The Brits have a long long history of anti semetism. Since when is blowing up ships a "relatvely mild" dirt trick. I sincerely hope that the Brits keep inviting the muslims in until they wake up one day and find that the sun has fianly set on the "emipre".

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  4. BRITAIN: Open these secret files.

    On May 3, 1945, three days after the death of Hitler, as the the German surrender was being typed, a Royal Air Force squadron took off from southern England to bomb and sink three stationary ships in Lubek Bay off the German coast. The largest was the Cap Arcona, an Italian luxury liner with no weapons. Its "cargo" and that of the other two ships was over 8,500 mostly Jewish survivors of concentration camps, crammed into the holds and onto the decks of these vessels. They were killed, drowned by in repeated, merciless bombing and machine-gunning. The files are sealed until 2045. Why?

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  5. As a former UK citizen I am so glad to be in living in Israel. All European countries are paying for their crimes now being overrun by 'another culture' from which they may never extricate themselves.

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  6. Instead of apologising for the Irish Potato Famine we owe the Jewish people a humble apology for this shameful episode and a full inquiry, even all these years later.

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    1. Words are nice for those who care for words. Changes in behavior are the true measure if change

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  7. This article should be published worldwide and the British Government asked for its comment.

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  8. I find this hard to believe.
    However, if it is indeed true, then HMG owes Israel a huge apology. The mind boggles.

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  9. The British have a long history of anti-semitic activities dating back to before the Middle Ages - bloody pogroms as in the York Massacre, expulsions, blood libels, economic sanctions, and other atrocities. Their evil behavior during the Mandate and the 1948 period is well-documented. Why are we surprised or they embarrassed that their behavior today is more blatantly hypocritical but no less vicious than before. The trick is to remember who they are and what they have done and to make sure to throw this in their faces whenever they revert to type.

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  10. Wake up! Resume the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

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