Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947

Terrorism In The Establishment Of Israel

Bruce Hoffman's book, "Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917 -- 1947" (2015) examines the role of terrorism during the British Mandate for Palestine and explores how terrorism contributed to Britain's decision to abandon the mandate and to the subsequent formation of the State of Israel. The book's title derives from a song composed by the terrorist Abraham Stern which became the anthem of Jewish terrorist groups in Palestine. Here is the refrain of the song:

"In the red days of riots and blood,
In the dark nights of despair,
In the cities and villages our flag we will raise,
And on it: defense and conquest!

We are not conscripted by the whip like multitudes of slaves,
In order to spill our blood in foreign lands.
Our desire: to be forever free men!
Our dream: to die for our nation."

Hoffman is the director of the Center for Security Studies and director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and he works with the United States military in advising how to combat terrorism. "Anonymous Soldiers" examines the circumstances in which terrorism is effective in achieving its goals and in influencing the policy of a larger state. There are wide-ranging views on this complex question. The focus of Hoffman's book is on Jewish terrorist activities primarily during the latter part of Britain's Mandate following WW II and on how these activities played a role in convincing Britain to leave Palestine. Hoffman's concludes that terrorism has frequently proved to be an effective instrument. His book is a study of history and, perhaps, includes some lessons for decision makers on how terrorism may be most effectively fought in specific instances.

Hoffman's book relies in part on many documents from Britain, Israel, and elsewhere that have only recently been made public. The book begins with the Balfour Declaration, Britain's 1918 conquest of Palestine, and the mandate the League of Nation gave to Britain in 1922. The book explores a complex multi-faceted history while focusing on terrorism. As Hoffman summarizes his study, the early chapters of the book cover the years 1917 through the early years of WW II. It discusses the fighting almost from the outset between Jews and Arabs, early Arab terrorist outbreaks such as the Arab Rebellion of the late 1930s, and the beginning of Jewish terrorist organizations.

The second part of the book discusses the WW II years. During this time, one of the two primary Jewish terrorist organizations suspended its activities in order to support Britain while the other group continued its efforts at isolated terrorist acts, often directed at individual figures. Hoffman discusses the split between these two groups and the reaction of the mainstream Jewish governing authority in Palestine.

The third and most detailed part of the book examines Jewish terrorist activities post WW II as the press to end Britain's mandate intensified. The ultimate result of the terrorism during this period was to make the continuation of the mandate untenable. The book discusses the terrorists and their techniques at length. Many incidents large and small are discussed closely. The book discusses the assassination of British Lord Moyne, the Minister of State for the Middle East, the bombing of the King David Hotel and many other incidents. The book concludes with an excellent extensive epilogue which summarizes the results of the lengthy study and places the discussion of terrorism in a broader perspective.

Much of the book studies Britain's response to terrorism and the reasons why its varied responses failed. Hoffman points to factors such as the lack of an effective police force, the tendency to rely too heavily on military as opposed to political solutions, conflict between the police, the military, and the British Government over the administration of the mandate and the proper response to terrorism, inflexibility and misunderstanding the situation on the ground, the support rendered by the United States, Britain's increasingly perilous financial situation following WW II and more. Hoffman sensibly identifies the primary problems with Britain's response: its lack of a sense of what it was to do in Palestine and why and its inability to address the seemingly intractable conflict between Arabs and Jews that still persists and shows little signs of abating.

The book is well-written, thoroughly researched and thoughtful. It tends to get bogged down in detail in places. Hoffman carefully points out that his book is not a broad history of Palestine under the British Mandate but focuses instead on the specific subject of terrorism. Thus the book should not be read as a full history of the British mandate, or of the Arab-Jewish conflict in the years predating the establishment of Israel. The book has much to say about its limited subject even for readers without a strong background in the Arab-Jewish-British conflict as long as the specific issue the book addresses is kept in mind. Within its subject, Hoffman's book focuses much more on Jewish terrorism rather than on the earlier Arab terrorism, presumably because it played a large role in the abandonment of the mandate and, hence, was more successful in achieving its aims. Besides the study of terrorism, I learned a great deal from this book. I had never focused entirely on the broad conflict between Arabs and Jews from the outset -- beginning no later than 1922. It made it harder to take a strong, moralizing stance in this matter for one side or the other. The conflict has long historical roots and, unfortunately, remains to be resolved. This book allows the reader to get one aspect of the conflict through its focus on terrorism during the years of the British mandate.

Robin Friedman