IRGUN DECLARATION, DECEMBER 1947 (sent abroad)

Moreover, early in December (1947) I prepared as declaration of our purpose and sent hundreds of copies to England – to the editors of newspapers throughout the country, from the major London dailies to the remote provincial weeklies, and to the municipal authorities throughout the country, so as to reach as nearly as possible to the actual homes of the hundred thousand soldiers who were being made the instruments and by our reactions, the victims, of their Government’s cold calculations.

          “Though your Government has announced its intention of evacuating our country, it is making plans for a bloody struggle between Jews and Arabs, out of which it means to gain renewed control of the country …

          Officially the British troops will be ‘looking on.’  They will not lift a finger – except to crush any military activity by the Jews …

          The long cherished dream of the British Foreign Office is thus to be achieved: an Arab-Jewish war in which (it is planned) the Arabs are to have the upper hand.  The Jews are thus to be crushed – or driven to beg for British aid.  British aid will then be offered, on condition – that the country remains effectively under British control …

          That is why instead of the British troops being out of Palestine in three months, they are talking of ten months and meaning years.

          We are fully aware of your Government’s intentions and plans … And we want to warn you that we shall act to counter and frustrate them … If there is bloodshed in our country it is not, as Mr. Bevin plans, going to be only Arab and Jewish blood that is shed.  It will be British as well.  We do not mean to let ourselves be sidetracked by your Government’s tactics of fighting us with Arab hirelings.

          We want you to know this because it is your sons and brothers, sent to risk their lives for your Government’s squalid policy, who will pay the price of that policy.  We want you to know this because we are not interested in killing them.  We want to be left in peace in our country and have no objection to their remaining in peace – in yours …