Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 36

36 could be opened only in the event of a direct attack on the settlement, and even then the arms might be used only within its precincts. The requests of the Jewish Agency for the arming of Jews were at first granted most reluctantly and even then only on a very small scale and with much delay. By the end of April all that had been conceded was the issue of additional licences for shotguns, for which Jews themselves had to pay, and an arrangement whereby some of the Jewish watchmen were authorised to act as guides to police patrols scouring the neighbourhood of the settlement at night. The request for military arms was turned down, and no permission was given to the Jews to form their own armed posts for guarding their fields. The result was that the destruction of agricultural property continued on an ever-growing scale and gradually assumed an epidemic character throughout the country. Apart from the wholesale destruction of crops and fruit trees, hundreds of dunams of forests were burnt down. 46. At the beginning of May, Government agreed to enlist 100 Jewish supernumerary policemen for the towns of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, and to arm them with rifles. The pressure "for the issue of military arms to Jews in the countryside continued unabated, and enlistment of Jewish supernumerary policemen in the rural settlements began on a small scale and in a decentralised form during the month of May. Those, however, were "private" supernumeraries enlisted in accordance with the regulations previously in force at the expense of orange growers and other property owners, for whom the full amount of three months' salary and the cost of uniform had to be deposited in advance. The only item of expenditure borne by Government were the rifles. Gradually the supernumerary policemen so enlisted increased to a few hundred. In the middle of May the Jewish Agency approached Government with the request to enlist 500 supernumerary policemen as a general security measure, in the cost of which the Government would have to share. By the end of May, the Executive had to increase the figure to 1,500. Early in June the Jewish Agency's Liaison Officer for security purposes made a detailed survey of the security requirements in every Jewish settlement and town quarter throughout the country, on the basis of which the Jewish Agency applied for the enlistment of 2,500 Jewish supernumerary policemen. Government agreed to authorise the enlistment of only 200