Palestine Underground

JEWISH Palestine is enveloped in the flames of revolt. There is a virtual state of war between Palestinian Jewry and Great Britain, the Mandatory Power. The Jerusalem correspondent of the London Observer (March 30, 1946) most clearly told the readers of that influential English weekly: "The tragic truth, which becomes clear here on the spot, is that what is now going on is mainly a British-Jewish conflict and not so much an Arab-Jewish quarrel which needs impartial arbitration."


The Jews did not enter this conflict light-heartedly; they do not defy the British unnecessarily. The Jews were never an aggressive, war loving nation, never a people seeking conflict. They do not seek it today. Nor does anyone suggest for a moment that the British Empire is not stronger by far than the Palestine Yishuv, which is now engaged in a desperate Resistance struggle. But history has proved that Resistance movements do not count the might of the adversary, nor the price to be paid. Neither does their own strength lie in their numbers. The war the Jewish Resistance forces are waging is a deliberate attempt to persuade the Mandatory Power—to persuade by deeds and not by words—that no military or police force can keep the gates of Palestine closed to the Jewish repatriates and crush the Jewish longing for freedom and statehood.


The epos of the Jewish Resistance Movement in Palestine will be written someday, after it has achieved its goal. This book, which was first published in 1947, is a very imperfect attempt to tell the story of Resistance in the light of the available material, published and unpublished. The publishers believe that even in its present incomplete form the story deserves public interest.