The Strategic Information Campaign: Lessons from the British Experience in Palestine 1945–1948

Abstract

The strategic information campaign – that is, a government's efforts to communicate various messages to key audiences, at home, in the theatre of operations and internationally – is an integral part of countering insurgency effectively. This article provides an examination of current British military doctrine and assesses this against a historical example: the British experience in Palestine, 1945–1948. It argues that, while essential, a well-crafted strategic information campaign is not a substitute for a viable political settlement, the bedrock of successful counter-insurgency (COIN). A lack of an appropriate political settlement and competing strategic priorities make it difficult to produce a coherent message for target audiences. In Palestine, this was further compounded by problems centred on the legitimacy of the aim of the COIN campaign, which parallels the challenge faced by the Coalition in Iraq today. Neither the need for an effective information campaign nor the difficulty of conducting one is new, and much can be learnt from this Palestine example.

Notes

1. Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, ‘Power and Interdependence in the Information Age’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 5 (September–October 1998), p.86. Keohane and Nye define hard power as ‘the ability to get others to do what they otherwise would not do through threats or rewards’.

2. Ibid., p.86.

3. Joseph S. Nye, ‘The Decline of America's Soft Power’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.83, No.3 (May–June 2004), pp.16–7.

4. Nicholas Hopkinson, ‘War and the Media’, Wilton Park Paper 55 (London: HMSO, 1992), p.10.

5. Mark Laity, ‘The Media, the Military and Policy-Making – Who's Calling the Shots?’, RUSI Journal, Vol.145, No.6 (December 2000), p.16.

6. Frank Webster, ‘Information warfare in an Age of Globalization’, Daya Kishan Thussu and Des Freedman (eds.), War and the Media: Reporting Conflict 24/7 (London: Sage, 2003), p.64.

7. Charles Krulak, ‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War’, Marines Magazine, January 1999.

8. Kate Nicholas, ‘NATO Must Advance PR Further Says Shea’, PR Week, 18 February 2000.

9. Bard E. O'Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare (New York: Brassey's, 1990), p.13.

10. UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), Counter Insurgency Operations, Army Field Manual (London: MoD, 2001), Vol. 1, Part 10, p. B-10-1, paragraph 1.

11. Thomas Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, 1919-60 (New York: St Martins Press, 1990), p.63.

12. Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre (JDCC), Countering Terrorism: The UK Approach to the Military Contribution (2003), p.10.

13. Ibid., p.12.

14. Ibid., p.6.

15. For a discussion of the Comprehensive Approach, the multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approach to ‘ensure that the most appropriate overall strategy and measures are applied’ to achieve the most effective resolution to crisis, see JDCC, The UK Military Effects-Based Approach, Joint Doctrine Note, 1/05 (2005), pp.1–2.

16. JDCC, Joint Warfare Publication, 3-80, Information Operations, pp.1–2.

17. Ibid., pp.7–8.

18. Propaganda is used here in a non-pejorative sense as the calculated intent on the part of government to persuade target audiences to behave or think in a certain way in pursuit of policy aims.

19. David Charters, ‘British Intelligence and the Palestine Campaign, 1945–47’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol.6, No.1 (1991), p.116.

20. Mockaitis, British Counterinsurgency, p.111.

21. Ibid.; and Tim Jones, ‘The British Army and Counter-Guerrilla Warfare in Transition, 1944–1952’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol.7, No.3 (Winter 1996).

22. Ian Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and their Opponents since 1750 (London: Routledge, 2005), p.89.

23. Ibid., pp.89, 92–3.

24. David Charters, The British Army and Jewish Insurgency in Palestine, 1945-47 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p.131.

25. Ibid.

26. See Kirsten Schulze, The Arab-Israeli Conflict (London: Longman, 1999), pp.4, 97; Ritchie Ovendale, The Origins of the Arab–Israeli Wars (London: Longman, 1992), pp.26, 43; Ilan Pappe, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two People (Cambridge: CUP, 2004), p.68.

27. Ovendale, Origins, pp.51–3; Schulze, The Arab-Israeli Conflict, p.5.

28. Ovendale, Origins, p.73. Jewish immigration rose from 9,553 in 1932 to 61,844 in 1935.

29. The Jews would receive one fifth of the territory, the Arabs would receive the remainder, an exchange of population between the two states would take place, and the British would continue to administer areas of religious and strategic importance under a British mandate.

30. Pappe, History of Modern Palestine, p.107.

31. For a discussion of Jewish illegal immigration see Aviva Halamish, The Exodus Affair: Holocaust Survivors and the Struggle for Palestine (Canada: Syracuse University Press, 1998) and Ze'ev Venia Hadari, Second Exodus: The Full Story of Jewish Illegal Immigration to Palestine, 1945–1948 (London: Valentine Mitchell, 1991).

32. Jones, ‘The British Army and Counter-Guerrilla Warfare in Transition’, p.269.

33. Labour Party Conference Report, 1944, p.9.

34. W. R. Louis, The British Empire and the Middle East, 1945–51 (Oxford: OUP, 1984), p.26; Ritchie Ovendale, ‘The Palestine Policy of the British Labour Government’, International Affairs, Vol.55, No.3 (July 1979) p.411. See also, Michael Thornhill, ‘Britain and the politics of the Arab League, 1943–50’, in Michael J. Cohen and Martin Kolinsky (eds)., Demise of the British Empire in the Middle East: Britain's Responses to Nationalist Movements, 1943–55 (London: Frank Cass, 1998).

35. John Kent, British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–49 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993), Chapters 2 and 3.

36. TNA, INF12/61, Foreign Office memorandum, for the ‘Projection of Britain’, interdepartmental meeting, July 1946.

37. TNA, FO800/480/MIS/471/52.

38. TNA, CAB129/2, CP(45)168, 13 September 1945.

39. Susan L. Carruthers, Wining Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency, 1944–1960 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1995), p.43.

40. Kate Utting, Propaganda and the End of British Rule in Palestine, 1945–1948 (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2007), passim.

41. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds, pp.43–4.

42. Utting, Propaganda and the End of British Rule in Palestine, passim.

43. TNA, FO371/56885/N6092/5169/38, memorandum by Kirkpatrick, 15 May 1946.

44. Allon Gal, ‘David Ben-Gurion's Zionist Foreign Policy, 1938-48: the Democratic Factor’, Israel Affairs, Vol.10, Nos.1 and 2 (Autumn/Winter 2004), p.16.

45. As Tim Jones has demonstrated, this kind of complication was also apparent in the wider political context of the development of the Cold War and Anglo-American relations, which influenced clandestine British COIN support to the Greek government between 1945 and 1949. See Jones, ‘The British Army, and Counter-Guerrilla Warfare in Transition’.

46. Gurney quoted in Naomi Sheperd, Ploughing Sand: British Rule in Palestine (London: John Murray, 1999), p.223.

47. TNA, FO371/61931, E6119, Government of Palestine, ‘Memorandum on the Administration of Palestine Under the Mandate’, Jerusalem 1947; Sheperd, Ploughing Sand, p.16. The Jewish Agency, the international body of Zionist and non-Zionist Jews, was founded in 1929 as the informal government of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine.

48. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies, p.88. Estimates vary, for example, Bruce Hoffman, The Failure of British Military Strategy within Palestine 1939–1947 (Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983), p.9, puts a figure of 4,500 on the combined membership of the Lehi and the Irgun.

49. Richard Crossman, Palestine Mission (London: Hamilton, 1946), p.59.

50. Leonard Dinnerstein, ‘America, Britain and the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry and the Displaced persons, 1945–6’, Diplomatic History, Vol.4, No.3 (1980).

51. TNA, CAB128/1 CM(45)40, 4 October 1945.

52. TNA, FO371/45380/E7479, Foreign Office minute, October 1945.

53. See Utting, Propaganda and the End of British Rule in Palestine, Chapters 1 and 2.

54. TNA, FO371/45382/E8055/15/31, Foreign Office to Cairo, 20 October 1945; FO371/52509/E1185, minute by Wikeley, 9 February 1946; Fo371/52510/E1462, minutes by Morgan and Wikeley, 19 February 1946.

55. TNA, FO371/45383/E8450 and E8593; FO371/45389/E9828, Foreign Office to Cairo, 20 December 1945.

56. TNA, FO371/45382/E8144, Foreign Office to Washington, 26 October 1945; FO800/498/PRS/45/7, Washington to Foreign Office, 1 November 1945; FO800/498/PRS/45/10, Bevin to Attlee, 2 November 1945.; FO800/498/PRS/45/13, Attlee to Bevin, 5 November 1945; FO371/45382/E8144, Foreign Office to Washington, 30 October 1945.

57. TNA, FO371/45384/E8742/15/31, transcript of Bevin interview with American correspondents, 13 November 1945; Nicholas Bethell, Palestine Triangle: the Struggle Between the British, the Jews and the Arabs, 1935–1948 (London: Futura, 1980), p.218.

58. TNA, FO371/45381/E7865, Gort to Hall, 12 October 1945; FO371/45383/E8256, Hall to Gort, 18 October 1945 and Gort to Hall, 26 October 1945; Bethell, Palestine Triangle, p.227; TNA, CAB128/5, CM(46)17, 21 February 1946.

59. A summary of the recommendations can be found in TNA, CAB129/11, CP(46)258, 8 July 1946.

60. Shmuel Dothan, A Land in the Balance: the Struggle for Palestine, 1918–1948 (Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1993), p.478; A.J. Sherman, Mandate Days: British Lives in Palestine, 1918–1948 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), p.182; TNA, CAB/128, CM(46)72, 23 July 1946; CO537/2291, text of Barker's order, 30 July 1946; Abba Eban, An Autobiography (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1977), pp.62–3.

61. TNA, CAB128/6, CM(46)67, 11 July 1946; CAB128/6, CM(46)73, 26 July 1946; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946, Volume VII, p. 644–9, 652–667 and 682; TNA, FO371, 52546/E7316, Washington to Foreign Office, 30 July 1946.

62. TNA, FO371/52517/E3757, Cairo to Foreign Office, 25 April 1946.

63. See Utting, Propaganda and the End of British Rule in Palestine, Chapters 5 and 6; TNA, FO800/485/PA/46/77, Attlee to Bevin, 28 August 1946.

64. TNA, FO371/52553/E8106; FO371/52551/E7868; Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp.73-–7; FO371/52551/E7868, minute by Howe, 17 August 1946; FO371/52643/E9119, Attlee's speech to the Conference, 10 September 1946; FO371/52558/E9165, declaration of Lebanese delegation, 11 September 1946; FO371/52558/E9220, Furlonge record of conversation with Lebanese Prime Minister, 14 September 1946.

65. TNA, PREM8/627/Part 4, Paris to Foreign Office, 30 August 1946; FO371/52642/E8914, Foreign Office to Paris, 5 September 1946; FO371/52642/E8915, Paris to Foreign Office, 5 September 1946; PREM8/627/Part 5, Bevin-Hall-Goldmann meeting, 14 September 1946; FO371/52645/E9692, Palestine to Colonial Office, 25 September 1946; FO371/52560E10030, transcript of a meeting 1 October 1946;; FO371/52560E9948, Colonial Office to Palestine, 1 October 1946.

66. FRUS, Volume VII, 1946, pp.685–6; TNA, FO371/52643/E9025, Norman Brook to Hamilton, 2 September 1946 and subsequent minutes.

67. TNA, FO371/52644/E9391, transcript of the sixth meeting of the London Conference, 20 September 1946; FO371/52644-5; FO371/52562/E10668, Howe memorandum on Clayton and partition, 23 October 1946.

68. FRUS, Vol VII, 1946, pp. 700–1; TNA, FO371/52653/E10911, Beeley to Dixon, 13 November 1946; PREM8/627/Part 5, Colonial Office to Palestine, 10 October 1946; CAB128/6, CM(46)91, 25 October 1946.

69. Utting, Propaganda and the End of British Rule in Palestine, Chapters 7 and 8.

70. Hansard, vol. 443, col.2007, 25 February 1947.

71. TNA, CAB128/9, CM(47)22, 13 February 1947.

72. TNA, FO371/61773/E3272, minutes by Henniker and Dixon, 14 April 1947; FO371/61772/E3092, minute by Beeley, 15 April 1947 and FO to New York, 16 April 1947; FO371/61773/E3263, draft of Sargent to Attlee, 26 April 1947.

73. TNA, FO371/61882/E9666, text of Creech Jones's statement to the UN, 16 October 1947; FO371/67191/E9566, FO to Cairo et al, 17 October 1947.

74. TNA, CO537/2336, New York to FO, 29 April 1947; FO371/61776/E3760, minute by Mason, 5 May 1947; FO371/61776/E3898, New York to FO, 9 May 1947.

75. TNA, FO371/61774/E3486, Butler to UN Department and Kirkpatrick, 19 April 1947; Brief on Palestine for the UK Delegation to Special Assembly, undated; CO537/2336, CO to Palestine, 28 April 1947; FO371/61810/E4906, Washington to FO, 5 June 1947.

76. TNA, FO371/61806/E3863, IIP(47) 2nd Meeting, 7 May 1947; FO371/61806/E3875, IIP(47)9, report by Evershed, 8 May 1947; CO537/2337, Beeley's Report one Special Session of UN General Assembly, April-May 1947, 7 June 1947; FO371/61805, Rome to FO, 19 April 1947; FO371, 61810/E4879, article in The People, 18 May 1947; Price to Beith, 20 May 1947 and minute by Beith, 2 June 1947; FO371/61811/E5001, Luke to Bevin, 7 June 1947 and minutes of the Ministerial Committee on Illegal Immigration, 10 June 1947; FO371/61844/E5135, minute by Beith, 17 June 1947; FO371/61846/E6330, Daily Mail 8 July 1947, minute by Wilson, 5 August 1947 and London Press Service, 14 July 1947; FO371/61799/E207, Washington to FO, 4 January 1947; FO371/61807/E4105, Washington to FO, 9 May 1947.

77. TNA, FO371/61776/E3760, minute by Butler, 4 May 1947; FO371/61789/E8917, New York to FO, 25 September 1947 and New York to FO, 25 September 1947.

78. The British government was later successful. On 17 November, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution inviting ‘Member States not to accord aid and protection to individuals or organisations which are engaged in promoting or operating of illegal immigration or any activities designed to promote illegal immigration’. For Britain this came too late to have an appreciable effect on the situation on the ground in Palestine or to lead to an alteration of their decision to withdraw. TNA, FO371/61832/E10760, Cable to Higham, 25 November 1947.

79. Martin Jones, p. 272; TNA, FO371/61811/E5001, minutes of the Ministerial Committee on Illegal Immigration, 10 June 1947; FO371/61816/E6648, FO cable, 19 July 1947.; FO371/61815/E6278, CO to Palestine, 14 July 1947; FO371/61846/E6687, FO to New York, 28 July 1947; FO371/61876/E6848, MacGillivray to Martin, 21 July 1947; CO537/2280, District Commissioner's Office, Haifa District, Haifa: report – 16–31 July 1947, 5 August1947; FO371/61819/E6831, Paris to FO, 28 July 1947; Halamish, The Exodus Affair, pp.40–1, 55; Hadari, Second Exodus, chapter 14; TNA, FO371/61819/E6867, Paris to FO, 30 July 1947; FO371/61822/E7490, Washington to FO, 14 August 1947; FO371/61822/E7490, minute by Rundall, 15 August 1947; FO371/61822/E7490, minute by Beith, 15 August 1947; FO371/61822/E7488, FO cable, 19 August 1947; FO371/61822/E7488, CO to Palestine, 20 August 1947; FO371/61822/E7744, Palestine to CO, 22 August 1947; FO371/61826/E8439, Paris to FO, 27 August 1947; The Times, 22 August 1947.

80. TNA, FO371/61782/E6338, CO to Palestine, 16 July 1947 and Palestine to CO, 17 July 1947; Daily Herald, 1 August 1947.

81. TNA, FO371/68528/E416, Memorandum by Harold Beeley, ‘The Palestine Question at the Second Annual Session of the General Assembly (September–November 1947)’, 9 January 1947; FO371/61882/E 9549, minute by Beith, 14 October 1947; FO371/61792/E9782, Palestine to CO, 18 October 1947.

82. Utting, Propaganda and the End of British Rule in Palestine, Chapter 9; TNA, FO371/68534/E2678, New York to FO, 25 February 1948; FO 371/68534/E2619, text of a speech delivered by Creech Jones, to the UN Security Council, 25 February 1948.

83. TNA, FO371/67197/E1184, Palestine to CO, 10 December 1947; FO371/68542/E4632, FO to New York, 14 April 1948; FO371/68544/E5118, New York to FO, 23 April 1948; FO371/68545/E5270, New York to FO, 24 April 1948; FO371/68548/E5846, FO to New York, 3 May 1948; FO371/61833, minute by Beith, 17 December 1947; CO537/2273, CO to Palestine, 24 December 1947.

84. TNA, FO371/68613/E929, CO to Palestine, 27 January 1948; FO371/68509/E7664, speech by Creech Jones at the UN, 3 May 1948.

85. TNA, CO537/2363, note by Trafford Smith, 17 December 1947.

86. TNA, FO371/68544/E4708, brief dated 13 April 1948; FO371/68645/E526, OCP(48)3, the Official Committee on Palestine: the Future of Arab Palestine – memorandum by the FO, 10 January 1948; FO371/68548/E5816, FO to Damascus et al, 6 May 1948.

87. John Newsinger, British Counterinsurgency: from Palestine to Northern Ireland (London: Palgrave, 2002), p.3.

88. TNA, FO371/61114/AN3997, record by Wright, of informal political and strategic talks on the Middle East, 16 October–7 November 1947 in Washington.

89. Adam Roberts, Written Evidence to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, ‘The War on Terror in Historical Perspective’, December 2004, paras.17, 19, online at: <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmfaff/36/36we23.htm>

90. Farah Stockman, ‘US Image a Tough Sell in Mideast: Effort Fraught With Setbacks’, Boston Globe, 23 October 2005.

91. JDCC, Countering Terrorism, p.3.

92. Glenn Starnes, ‘Leveraging the Media: the Embedded Media Program in Operation Iraqi Freedom’, Student Issue Paper, Center for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College, Vol. S04–06, July 2004, pp.1, 4.

93. The 1954 Drogheda report on the Overseas Information Services in the UK quoted in Philip Taylor, ‘The projection of Britain abroad, 1945–51’, in Michael Dockrill and John W. Young (eds.), British Foreign Policy, 1945–56 (London: Macmillan, 1989), p.9.

94. Stephen Badsey, ‘Modern Military Operations and the Media’, Strategic and Combat Studies Institute, No. 8, 1994.

95. Nye, ‘The Decline of America's Soft Power’, p.19.