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The Saison

The Saison, or "Hunting Season," was a covert campaign launched by the Haganah—the mainstream Zionist defense organization—against the dissident paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi in Mandatory Palestine, running from October 1944 to March 1945 and entailing the abduction, interrogation, and handover of approximately 1,000 suspected members to British authorities for detention.^[1]^[2] Authorized by David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency leadership, the operation stemmed from ideological clashes over resistance strategies: the Haganah adhered to a policy of selective restraint (havlagah) to preserve diplomatic leverage with the British, while viewing Irgun and Lehi's unrestrained attacks as provocative and detrimental to broader Zionist goals amid fears of retaliatory crackdowns following Lehi's assassination of British Minister Lord Moyne on November 6, 1944.^[1]^[2] The Saison unfolded amid escalating tensions in the Yishuv—the Jewish community in Palestine—where the Haganah, backed by labor Zionist institutions, sought to monopolize armed activity and avert internecine strife that could fracture unity against British immigration restrictions imposed by the 1939 White Paper.^[1] Methods included Palmach units conducting raids on kibbutzim harboring dissidents, seizing arms caches such as three tons of explosives in Petah Tikva, and employing SHAI intelligence for targeted arrests, resulting in over 300 Irgun fighters interned in camps like Latrun or exiled to Africa.^[2] Though it temporarily crippled Irgun operations—led by Menachem Begin—and inflicted setbacks on Lehi, the campaign provoked backlash within the Yishuv, fostering sympathy for the "dissidents" and highlighting deep rifts between restraint-oriented diplomacy and militant revisionism.^[1]^[2] By early 1945, mounting public opposition and the Irgun's evasion of total dismantlement compelled the Haganah to curtail the Saison, paving the way for a fragile truce and eventual collaboration in the short-lived Hebrew Resistance Movement against British rule.^[1] The episode remains a defining controversy in pre-state Zionist history, emblematic of internal power struggles that prioritized institutional control over unified revolt, with long-term ramifications including bolstered legitimacy for the Irgun despite its maiming without elimination.^[2]

Historical Context

Zionist Paramilitary Organizations

The Haganah, established on June 12, 1920, in Tel Aviv following Arab riots that killed dozens of Jews, served as the primary defensive militia for the Jewish Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine, organized under the Jewish Agency to safeguard settlements against Arab attacks without offensive aggression.^[3] Aligned with Labor Zionism, it emphasized havlagah (self-restraint), prioritizing defense and selective cooperation with British authorities to build state-like institutions, evolving into a structured force with elite Palmach units by the 1930s.^[3] This pragmatic stance reflected moderate Zionism's focus on gradual state-building amid British oversight, contrasting with emerging hardline factions that deemed restraint a betrayal of Jewish sovereignty. The Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), formed in 1931 by Revisionist Zionists under Vladimir Jabotinsky's influence, broke from the Haganah's defensive posture, advocating proactive armed struggle to reclaim all of historic Eretz Israel and directly challenge British immigration curbs and land policies as existential threats.^[4]^[5] Numbering a few thousand members by the 1940s, the Irgun adopted an offensive ideology post-1939 White Paper, resuming attacks like the March 1944 bombings of British police headquarters in Jerusalem—coordinated with Lehi—viewing the Mandate as the chief impediment to Jewish independence rather than a potential ally.^[5] In June 1940, Avraham Stern splintered from the Irgun to create Lohamei Herut Israel (Lehi, Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), rejecting any wartime truce with Britain and pursuing unrelenting anti-imperialist warfare to expel the Mandate, even seeking tactical Axis alliances against the common foe.^[6]^[7] With membership limited to a few hundred dedicated operatives, Lehi's maximalist ideology envisioned a Hebrew kingdom across biblical borders, manifesting in extreme actions like the November 6, 1944, assassination of British Minister Walter Guinness (Lord Moyne) in Cairo, which underscored its prioritization of eradicating British rule over broader wartime considerations.^[6]^[7] These structural and ideological rifts—Haganah's institutional moderation versus Irgun and Lehi's insurgent confrontationism—fostered intra-Zionist tensions, as the latter groups' portrayal of Britain as the paramount enemy clashed with the former's strategic accommodations, setting the stage for operational divergences in the pre-state era.^[4]^[5]

Pre-Saison Tensions with British Mandate

The 1939 White Paper, issued by the British government on May 17, 1939, restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine to a total of 75,000 over five years, with no further entry permitted after March 31, 1944, without Arab consent, despite the escalating persecution of Jews in Europe.^[8] ^[9] This policy was perceived by Zionist leaders, particularly revisionists within the Irgun, as a profound betrayal of the 1917 Balfour Declaration's commitment to a Jewish national home, especially as reports of Nazi extermination camps emerged by 1942.^[10] The White Paper prioritized appeasing Arab opposition amid rising tensions, leading to immediate Zionist protests and a shift toward clandestine immigration efforts organized by the Haganah's Aliyah Bet department, which British forces frequently intercepted and detained.^[11] British enforcement of immigration quotas intensified frictions, with mandatory authorities detaining thousands of Jewish refugees in camps such as Atlit, where arrivals were processed harshly before limited releases or deportations to Mauritius or elsewhere. Revisionist Zionists, viewing the restrictions as complicit in the Holocaust—during which over six million Jews perished—abandoned restraint, while the mainstream Jewish Agency initially maintained wartime cooperation with Britain against Axis threats but grew resentful of policies blocking Jewish rescue.^[10] By 1943, as the immigration cap loomed, British searches uncovered Haganah arms caches, prompting arrests of Jewish Agency officials and paramilitary members, eroding the fragile alliance and highlighting the Mandate's indiscriminate crackdowns on Zionist activities.^[12] The Irgun's declaration of revolt on February 1, 1944, marked a decisive fracture in the prior policy of unity among Zionist groups against attacking British targets during World War II, citing the White Paper's implementation and ongoing immigration blockades as justification for renewed armed resistance.^[13] Irgun operations in 1944 included bombings of government offices and police stations, resulting in British casualties and prompting reprisals that blurred lines between dissident and mainstream Zionists in official eyes.^[14] The Jewish Agency publicly condemned these "dissident" actions as irresponsible and detrimental to the broader Zionist cause, signaling an emerging strategy to differentiate "loyal" elements from radicals to preserve operational space under British scrutiny.^[15] This polarization, amid British threats to dismantle all underground networks, laid the groundwork for considerations of tactical collaboration against extremists.

Decision-Making Process

Strategic Pressures and Jewish Agency Calculations

The assassination of British Minister Resident Lord Moyne by Lehi members on November 6, 1944, in Cairo prompted immediate British demands on the Jewish Agency to suppress dissident Zionist groups, with threats of broader punitive measures against the Yishuv, including restrictions on immigration and potential disarmament of Haganah forces.^[16]^[1] British officials conveyed that unchecked attacks by Irgun and Lehi would forfeit the Agency's prior intelligence-sharing efforts under the Haganah's SHAI network, which had aligned with Allied war objectives since 1941.^[17] Amid World War II, the Haganah's policy of collaboration had yielded tangible assets, including the enlistment of approximately 30,000 Palestinian Jews in British forces, providing combat experience and access to equipment that bolstered the underground's capabilities.^[18] This included the formation of the Jewish Brigade in September 1944, comprising about 5,000 troops deployed in Italy, which Agency leaders viewed as leverage for post-war statehood claims but vulnerable to sabotage by rival factions' operations.^[19] Continuation of dissident violence risked British retaliation that could dismantle these gains, such as dissolving Haganah units or halting selective immigration allowances negotiated during the war.^[1] Agency calculations prioritized averting an existential crackdown, weighing short-term concessions against long-term survival: declassified British records indicate offers of continued Agency cooperation in exchange for curbing extremists, reflecting a pragmatic assessment that unchecked internecine militancy would unify British efforts to neutralize all Jewish paramilitaries.^[17] This tradeoff stemmed from the Yishuv's outnumbered position under Mandate rule, where preserving Haganah's semi-legitimacy—through wartime enlistments and restrained posture—outweighed immediate ideological unity with Irgun and Lehi.^[1]

Internal Haganah Debates and Resolutions

Within the Haganah command structure, debates intensified after the Lehi assassination of Lord Moyne on November 6, 1944, which threatened the Yishuv's fragile standing with British authorities amid ongoing immigration restrictions and wartime alliances.^[1] Leaders like Moshe Sneh, head of the Haganah general staff, argued for decisive action against the Irgun and Lehi to reassert centralized authority and avert collective punishment, emphasizing that dissident groups undermined democratically elected Jewish institutions.^[1] However, field commanders and Palmach elements voiced strong opposition, decrying the policy as a moral betrayal of fellow Jews fighting the same Mandate oppression, with some invoking kinship among underground fighters against external threats.^[20] These divisions highlighted tensions between strategic pragmatism—prioritizing Yishuv survival—and ideological resistance to aiding British suppression, foreshadowing operational inefficiencies.^[2] Despite dissent, the Haganah national command under Sneh formalized the suppression policy in late October 1944, establishing specialized "hunter" units drawn from the Palmach elite and Shai intelligence branch to conduct surveillance, sabotage, and arrests.^[1] Training commenced on October 20 for approximately 170 volunteers, expanding to around 250 Palmach operatives tasked with targeting active Irgun and Lehi personnel, with initial plans focusing on roughly 500 identified members to dismantle their networks.^[1] Eliyahu Golomb, a key Haganah architect, had long opposed parallel radical groups like the Irgun, viewing them as fractious to unified defense efforts, and his influence bolstered the leadership's resolve prior to his death in 1945.^[21] Verifiable instances of internal friction emerged during implementation, as some Haganah officers expressed unease with the ethical and strategic costs, leading to passive resistance such as delayed executions or informal warnings to targets, which enabled escapes and diluted effectiveness.^[22] This unease, particularly among leftist-leaning Palmach ranks wary of British collaboration, contributed to mounting pressure that curtailed operations by February-March 1945, underscoring how factional rifts limited the policy's scope and fueled later recriminations over divided Zionist resources.^[2]^[20]

Main Implementation Phase

Coordination Mechanisms with British Authorities

The coordination between the Haganah and British authorities relied on informal yet structured liaison networks, primarily facilitated by Jewish Agency officials and Haganah intelligence operatives who maintained direct contacts with MI5 and military intelligence units. Teddy Kollek, a prominent Haganah figure, served as a key intermediary, providing British handlers with lists of Irgun and Lehi personnel, safe houses, and operational details during the Saison period from November 1944 to early 1945.^[23]^[24] These channels extended to diplomatic ties, including those of Jewish Agency president Chaim Weizmann, who leveraged longstanding relationships with British officials to enable tip-offs without formal treaties.^[25] Operational alerts were transmitted via secure methods, such as coded telegrams and personal couriers, alerting British forces to imminent dissident actions or hideouts for immediate raids. In return, British authorities occasionally shared tactical support, while benefiting from Haganah-supplied intelligence on rival Zionist arms caches and smuggling routes, which aided in disrupting Irgun and Lehi logistics.^[17] This exchange produced numerous intelligence reports from Haganah sources, enabling coordinated handovers and arrests, though British decryption of Haganah ciphers—due to the group's use of rudimentary codes—allowed authorities to cross-verify and occasionally target Haganah elements themselves.^[26] Mutual distrust permeated the arrangement, as British intelligence viewed Haganah cooperation pragmatically but exploited shared data to bolster surveillance of the broader Yishuv, leading to intermittent tensions despite short-term tactical gains. Haganah leaders, aware of this duplicity, limited disclosures to rival groups' specifics, avoiding comprehensive revelations about their own structures.^[25] The absence of a rigid protocol underscored the ad hoc nature of the collaboration, rooted in Haganah's strategic calculus to neutralize immediate threats from the dissidents amid British Mandate enforcement.^[17]

Key Operations, Arrests, and Handovers

Special units of the Palmach and Haganah, in coordination with British authorities, conducted widespread arrests targeting Irgun and Lehi members starting immediately after the Lehi assassination of British Minister Resident Lord Moyne on November 6, 1944.^[27] These operations involved abductions, interrogations, and the handover of suspects, with Haganah intelligence units providing names and locations to British police, leading to the detention of approximately 1,000 individuals suspected of affiliation with the dissident groups.^[1] Of these, around 241 were held under emergency regulations, while others were released after questioning; arms caches belonging to the Irgun were also seized during raids in urban centers like Tel Aviv.^[1] High-profile captures included Irgun deputy commander Yaakov Meridor, operations chief Eliyahu Lankin, and intelligence head Yaakov Tavin, who were detained by Haganah forces and transferred to British custody, with Tavin subjected to torture and held for six months following his kidnapping on February 27, 1945.^[28] Lehi suffered fewer direct seizures, with only two members briefly detained and released, though the group faced disruptions to recruitment and operations.^[28] Irgun attempts at counter-raids and resistance against Haganah operatives largely failed, as the organization prioritized avoiding intra-Zionist civil war per orders from commander Menachem Begin, resulting in temporary operational paralysis.^[28] The campaign inflicted significant short-term damage on the Irgun, including the arrest of five out of seven central command members within three months and a reduction in active membership through detentions and disruptions to logistics.^[2] By March 1945, as World War II neared its conclusion, the Saison operations ceased amid mounting internal Haganah opposition and public pressure within the Yishuv, with British focus shifting toward post-war Mandate challenges.^[27] Some detainees escaped or were reinstated after release, allowing partial recovery, though the Irgun remained subdued until later in 1945.^[1]

The Little Saison

Triggers in the Post-War Period

In the aftermath of World War II, the British Mandate's announcement on February 14, 1947, to refer Palestine's future to the United Nations amid mounting insurgent violence and refugee pressures set the stage for heightened Zionist strategic maneuvering. The arrival of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) in May 1947 further intensified efforts by the Jewish Agency and Haganah leadership to project a unified, moderate image, distancing themselves from the more aggressive tactics of the Irgun and Lehi to influence partition recommendations favorably.^[29] A key catalyst occurred with the interception of the Exodus 1947 on July 18, 1947, carrying over 4,500 Jewish refugees—mostly Holocaust survivors—by British forces off Haifa, followed by their forcible deportation to internment camps in Germany.^[30] This Haganah-organized aliyah bet operation, while galvanizing global sympathy for Zionist claims, underscored British resolve and drew international attention to Mandate instability, prompting Haganah leaders like David Ben-Gurion to prioritize operations that avoided perceptions of uncontrolled militancy. The event exacerbated Zionist infighting, as Irgun and Lehi's independent actions risked overshadowing the Jewish Agency's diplomatic positioning before UNSCOP. The Irgun's Sergeants affair provided the immediate trigger for escalation. On July 12, 1947, Irgun militants kidnapped two British sergeants near Netanya as hostages against the impending execution of three Irgun members convicted of bombings; following the hangings on July 29, Irgun forces executed the sergeants by hanging and booby-trapping their bodies, igniting British reprisals including anti-Jewish riots in London and threats of martial law in Palestine.^[31] Ben-Gurion, viewing the retaliation as excessively provocative and likely to alienate UNSCOP observers still active in the region, directed Haganah units to sabotage Irgun and Lehi activities, initiating the Little Saison to demonstrate "responsible" resistance and internal discipline.^[32] This directive aligned with broader pressures, including U.S. diplomatic insistence on British withdrawal and war-weary Yishuv fatigue from sustained clandestine immigration efforts, though Haganah's Palmach units showed reluctance in fully engaging against fellow Zionists. Internal calculations emphasized curbing "extremist" elements to bolster credibility for statehood claims, reflecting Ben-Gurion's pragmatic assessment that uncontrolled dissident operations could jeopardize partition prospects amid Britain's phased evacuation.^[29]

Operations and Comparative Scale

The Little Saison encompassed Haganah-directed abductions, beatings of suspected dissidents, and selective intelligence sharing with British forces to disrupt Irgun and Lehi activities during spring and summer 1947. These measures included physical assaults on identified Irgun personnel and tips that thwarted specific arms acquisitions by the group, but avoided expansive raids owing to Haganah's stretched resources, as elite Palmach units prioritized clandestine immigration efforts over intra-Zionist enforcement.^[29]^[32] In total, around 30 Irgun members and 4 Lehi fighters were seized for interrogation, with roughly 40-50 dissidents overall handed to authorities, yielding temporary operational halts for Lehi but no lasting dismantlement as groups rapidly reconstituted.^[32] Compared to the 1944-1945 Saison, which involved systematic collaboration yielding hundreds of arrests and near-elimination of dissident networks amid World War II imperatives, the 1947 iteration operated on a diminished scale without equivalent mobilization or existential pressure, hampered further by Irgun's retaliatory labeling of Haganah tactics as betrayal, which sowed discord within Zionist ranks and undermined enforcement efficacy.^[32]

Legacy and Assessments

Immediate Aftermath and Repercussions

Following the Saison, which concluded in March 1945 amid internal opposition within the Haganah and public condemnation from rabbinical and communal figures, British authorities released many of the approximately 1,000 detained Irgun and Lehi members, enabling the dissident groups to regroup with new recruits and leadership appointments.^[1]^[33] The Irgun, under Menachem Begin's continued evasion of capture, resumed sabotage operations by May 1945, targeting telephone poles, oil pipelines, and government infrastructure with mortar attacks.^[1] A joint Irgun-Lehi action on July 23, 1945, destroyed a railway bridge near Yibne, signaling a tactical rebound that escalated dissident activities despite the prior suppression.^[1] British officials exploited the Haganah's collaboration by retaining 241 detainees under Emergency Regulations and deporting others to internment camps in Africa, while leveraging intelligence gathered during the Saison to impose wider restrictions on the Yishuv, including heightened scrutiny of Jewish Agency activities.^[1] This eroded trust between the Agency and the Mandate authorities, as the British shifted toward enforcing immigration quotas and collective punishments, viewing the temporary cooperation as a means to undermine Zionist cohesion rather than a basis for partnership.^[33] The policy undermined the Saison's strategic goal of curbing violence, as post-release resurgence in Irgun and Lehi operations demonstrated the dissidents' resilience and recruitment gains.^[1] Within the Haganah, the Saison provoked internal dissent, including resignations by two Jewish Agency executive members and moral outrage over tactics such as interrogations and beatings, which fractured unity and contributed to the operation's lapse.^[1]^[33] By late 1945, escalating dissident attacks—intensifying from sporadic sabotage to coordinated infrastructure strikes—highlighted the collaboration's failure to neutralize the radicals, paving the way for broader Zionist militancy.^[1]

Long-Term Effects on Zionist Unity and Strategy

The Saison deepened longstanding divisions within the Zionist movement between the Haganah-led mainstream factions, emphasizing pragmatic cooperation with British authorities to secure statehood, and the Revisionist-aligned Irgun, which prioritized uncompromising resistance. This rift persisted beyond 1945, manifesting in the Revisionists' rejection of Labor Zionism's dominance and their pivot to political organization. On December 13, 1948, Irgun veterans under Menachem Begin established the Herut party, explicitly opposing David Ben-Gurion's monopoly on military and political power, thereby institutionalizing a right-wing alternative that challenged the unitary strategy of the Jewish Agency.^[34] Herut's platform drew on grievances from the Saison, framing it as a betrayal that prioritized short-term diplomacy over militant liberation, fostering a narrative of "forgotten fighters" excluded from the state's foundational myths.^[2] Post-independence, the Saison's legacy influenced Ben-Gurion's enforcement of a single defense force, with cabinet orders on May 28, 1948, mandating the absorption of Irgun and Lehi into the nascent Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent fragmented command during the War of Independence. However, mutual distrust rooted in the Haganah's prior handovers of dissidents to British custody fueled non-compliance, culminating in the Altalena affair from June 20–22, 1948, when IDF forces shelled an Irgun arms ship off Tel Aviv, killing 16 (mostly Irgun members) and wounding dozens in what Begin decried as fratricide.^[35] This clash echoed Saison-era tensions, delaying full integration until July 1948 and entrenching Revisionist resentment toward Mapai's centralism, as evidenced by Irgun refusals to disarm fully until after the incident.^[36] Strategically, the Haganah's restraint during the Saison facilitated Zionist focus on UN diplomacy and the 1948 war, enabling state formation under unified command, but at the expense of cohesive ideology. Revisionist exclusion bred parallel narratives of heroism, with Herut securing 14 Knesset seats in January 1949 elections as the primary opposition, critiquing Ben-Gurion's policies in debates over amnesty for "dissident" prisoners held from pre-state operations.^[34] These divisions persisted into the 1950s, with Knesset motions on recognizing Irgun contributions highlighting unresolved fractures, ultimately shaping a bifurcated Zionist polity where pragmatic statism coexisted with maximalist revisionism until Herut's evolution into Likud challenged Labor hegemony in 1977.^[37]

Historiographical Controversies and Viewpoints

Historiographical debates over the Saison reflect deep ideological fissures in Zionist scholarship, with mainstream narratives emphasizing pragmatic necessity amid wartime perils. Labor Zionist-aligned historians justify the Haganah's collaboration with British authorities as a calculated effort to shield the Yishuv from collective reprisals following high-profile Irgun and Lehi operations, such as the November 6, 1944, assassination of Lord Moyne, which they argue imperiled broader Jewish immigration and defense capabilities during the Holocaust's aftermath.^[2] This perspective posits the Saison as a temporary restraint to preserve institutional credibility with the Mandate power, aligning with David Ben-Gurion's doctrine of disciplined state-in-embryo building over uncoordinated militancy.^[38] Revisionist and right-wing critiques, rooted in Jabotinskyite traditions and articulated in Menachem Begin's 1951 memoirs The Revolt, frame the Saison as moral and strategic treason, wherein Haganah leaders prioritized appeasing imperial forces over solidarity against colonial rule, thereby aiding the internment and deportation of over 1,000 Irgun members to Africa and eroding the anti-British insurgency's momentum. Modern Likud historiography echoes this, portraying the campaign as a leftist power consolidation that stigmatized legitimate resistance as "terrorism" while ignoring British violations of the Mandate's pro-Jewish intent, thus betraying Revisionist Zionism's maximalist territorial and anti-imperial ethos.^[39] Empirical assessments underscore the Saison's counterproductive outcomes, as it failed to eradicate dissident organizations; instead, the Irgun gained public sympathy and legitimacy, rebounding to expand operations and force a subsequent Haganah-led unification in the Jewish Resistance Movement by October 1945, demonstrating deterrence's illusion.^[12] Declassified British intelligence records highlight Haganah's role in bolstering Mandate security through rival suppression, indirectly equipping authorities with intelligence and manpower redirection that prolonged imperial control, at the opportunity cost of preemptive Zionist cohesion against escalating Arab threats and post-war British immigration restrictions.^[17] These critiques, often sidelined in institutionally dominant accounts due to prevailing left-Zionist influence in Israeli academia, prioritize causal analysis of internal divisions' exacerbation of external vulnerabilities over sanitized portrayals of unified resolve.

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