Death and intrigue in the promised land

This being the inappropriately jaunty subtitle of a book I have just skimmed about the Stern Gang in Palestine in the run up to and during the Second World War.

The author, one Patrick Bishop, once and possibly still a journalist who appears to have turned his hand to writing successful books about dirty wars. Which despite the publisher's puffs I found neither brisk nor engrossing, but nevertheless a profoundly depressing tale.

A tale of bloody terrorism, with plenty of innocent victims, Arabs, Jews and British, part of the mix which continues to brew hatred so many years later. It seems that Stern himself, a Jew from the messy borderlands between Poland and Russia, was shot dead in uncertain circumstances by a British policeman in Palestine and has since been elevated to the status of a national hero in Israel, along with various other former terrorists.

A tale of the British, trying to steer a reasonable course in Palestine between the Arabs on one hand and the Jews on the other, at a time when we were fighting for our national life against the Germans in Europe, and not doing very well, managing to make enemies of both sides. We were also desperate to keep the US, with its large Jewish population, onside. But I am rather guiltily aware that we British could and should have done more to take in the refugees.

I was struck by the parallel with Ireland, which while a mess which was more of our own making, has involved some of the same elements. A large expatriate population in the US, unsympathetic to British interests and difficulties. Half the population hating the other half. Terrorist outrage sparking official outrage. Subsequent rehabilitation if not honouring of said terrorists. Elements who thought that trying to do a deal with the Germans might be better than trying to do a deal with the British. But at least the Irish issue was largely confined to an island, without continental complications, not attracting mass immigration and most of which we were able to walk away from. We do seem to be edging into a time of peace & reconciliation, with the old passions fading away.

But I have no such rosy view of what is going on in what was Palestine.