The Lord Moyne | |
|---|---|
 First World War portrait, 1918 | |
| Leader of the House of Lords Secretary of State for the Colonies | |
| In office 8 February 1941 – 22 February 1942 | |
| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Sir Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | The Lord Lloyd |
| Succeeded by | Viscount Cranborne |
| Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries | |
| In office 10 May 1940 – 8 February 1941 Serving with Tom Williams | |
| Monarch | George VI |
| Prime Minister | Sir Winston Churchill |
| Preceded by | The Lord Denham |
| Succeeded by | The Duke of Norfolk |
| Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries | |
| In office 4 November 1925 – 4 June 1929 | |
| Monarch | George V |
| Prime Minister | Stanley Baldwin |
| Preceded by | E. F. L. Wood |
| Succeeded by | Noel Buxton |
| Financial Secretary to the Treasury | |
| In office 5 October 1923 – 23 January 1924 | |
| Monarch | George V |
| Prime Minister | Stanley Baldwin |
| Preceded by | Sir William Joynson-Hicks |
| Succeeded by | William Graham |
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for War | |
| In office 31 October 1922 – 5 October 1923 | |
| Monarch | George V |
| Prime Minister | Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin |
| Preceded by | Robert Sanders |
| Succeeded by | Wilfrid Ashley |
| Member of theHouse of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| In office 21 January 1932 – 6 November 1944 Hereditary peerage | |
| Preceded by | Peerage created |
| Succeeded by | The 2nd Baron Moyne |
| Member of Parliament forBury St Edmunds | |
| In office 24 August 1907 – 27 October 1931 | |
| Preceded by | Frederick Hervey |
| Succeeded by | Frank Heilgers |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Walter Edward Guinness (1880-03-29)29 March 1880 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 6 November 1944(1944-11-06) (aged 64) Cairo, Egypt |
| Nationality | British |
| Party | Conservative |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingBryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne |
| Parent(s) | Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh Adelaide Guinness |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Branch/service |  British Army |
| Years of service | 1899–1918 |
| Rank | Brigade major |
| Battles/wars | |
Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne,DSO& Bar,TD,PC (29 March 1880 – 6 November 1944), was a BritishConservative politician, soldier and businessman. He served as the British minister of state in theMiddle East until November 1944, when he was assassinated by theZionistterrorist groupLehi in Cairo. The assassination of Lord Moyne sent shock waves throughPalestine and the rest of the world.
Walter Guinness was born inDublin, Ireland, on 29 March 1880, into the prominentAnglo-IrishGuinness family. He was the third and youngest son ofEdward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh andAdelaide Maria Guinness; his brothers wereRupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh and Hon.Ernest Guinness. His family homes were atFarmleigh near Dublin, and atElveden Hall in Suffolk. AtEton, Guinness was elected head of 'Pop', a self-appointing group whose members have a status similar to school prefects, and was also appointed as Captain of Boats.[1]
On 24 June 1903, Guinness married Lady Evelyn Hilda Stuart Erskine (1883–1939), third daughter ofShipley Stuart Erskine, 14th Earl of Buchan.[2] They had three children:
Guinness joined the yeomanry regimentThe Loyal Suffolk Hussars as asecond lieutenant on 15 November 1899, and volunteered for service in theSecond Boer War, commissioned as alieutenant in the44th (Suffolk) Company of the 12th Battalion of theImperial Yeomanry on 7 February 1900.[5][6][7] The company left London on theSS Cornwall forSouth Africa in early March 1900,[8] and during the service he received the honorary rank ofcaptain in the army. According to Wilson, "they had a devil-may-care ethos and distaste for military discipline ... they made lightning raids onAfrikaner positions; they skirmished ahead of advancing columns." At the end of May 1900, led by Major-General Hamilton, they assaulted the ridge atDoornkop, though Guinness was wounded immediately after the battle atWitpoort.[9] For his war effort, he wasMentioned in Despatches and was awarded theQueen's South Africa Medal with four clasps. Following the war, he was promoted to the substantive rank oflieutenant in theSuffolk Imperial Yeomanry (the Duke of York's Own Loyal Suffolk Hussars) on 12 March 1902,[10] and promoted to the substantive rank ofcaptain the next month, on 5 April 1902.[11]
DuringWorld War I, he served with distinction in theSuffolk Yeomanry inEgypt, and atGallipoli. He was appointed abrigade major in the25th division in 1916. In the fighting aroundPasschendaele, he was awarded theDSO in 1917, and a bar to it in 1918 during theGerman spring offensive, for personal bravery, which was rare for an elected politician.[12][13] He ended the war as alieutenant-colonel attached to the66th division. His laconic war diaries were published in 1987, edited by ProfessorBrian Bond.[14]
In the1906 general election as aConservative candidate, he unsuccessfully contestedStowmarket, a constituency in which he had a family estate. A year later, in 1907, Guinness was elected to theLondon County Council on which he sat until 1910 and also, ata 1907 by-election,[15] tothe House of Commons as Conservative member forBury St Edmunds,[16] which he continued to represent until 1931. He took the conservative line onHome Rule for Ireland,[17] suffragism[18] and reform of the House of Lords.[19] In 1912, the editor of the magazine Guinness owned,The Outlook, broke theMarconi scandal, accusingLloyd George and other Liberal ministers of share frauds. Other publications developed the story, but it could not be proven even after lengthy debate. When his role was debated, Guinness explained that he was on safari in Africa at the start, and that his editor's target was inefficiency, not corruption.[20] He visited easternAnatolia in 1913 and reported thatArmenians were being armed secretly by Russia.[21][22]
World War I reduced Guinness's attendances and opponents accused him of cowardice for being in the House at all.[23] In a heatedArmistice speech, he insisted that Germany pay full war reparations, that no ties be made withRussian Bolshevism, and that "Since the days ofMahomet no prophet has been listened to with more superstitious respect than hasPresident Wilson" (of the USA).[24] Irish political developments after 1916 were a concern as theGuinness business was in Dublin. During theEaster Rebellion the brewery first-aid teams helped both sides. The Guinness family was opposed to the rebels, who hailed theCentral Powers as "gallant allies." This attitude had to change, and by the time of theTreaty debates in 1922 which established theIrish Free State, he said he preferred "a slippery slope to a precipice" and voted in favour.[25] Despite their politics, during theIrish War of Independence and theIrish Civil War his family was popular enough to escape loss or injury. In 1922, theChanak crisis caused the coalition Prime MinisterLloyd George to step down unexpectedly in favour ofBonar Law. Guinness's comments on Turkey were a part of the debate; he had come to admireAtatürk, despite serving atGallipoli and he was appointedUnder-Secretary of State for War underLord Derby. Thereafter, his pronouncements appear less dogmatic. He lost office when a Labour government came to power in January 1924, but the following month, Guinness was sworn of thePrivy Council.[citation needed]
Though they had generally been political opponents in 1907–21, Guinness's working political relationship withWinston Churchill started after the Conservative election victory in October 1924, when he was madeFinancial Secretary under Churchill, the newChancellor. His ties to Churchill were also strengthened through "The Other Club," an informal dining club for politicians in London that Churchill had founded in 1911 and that Moyne later joined. A rule was that members had to freely express their opinions.
A ministerial vacancy enabled him to join the Cabinet asMinister of Agriculture from November 1925 until June 1929, where his main success was in increasing thesugar beet area. The first beet processing factory was built in his constituency, partly on the advice of Martin Neumann (a grandfather ofStephen Fry), who became a manager there.[26]
After theConservative defeat in 1929, he had to retire from office. He did not stand for re-election in the1931 election and was createdBaron Moyne, ofBury St Edmunds in theCounty of Suffolk on 21 January 1932.[27]
In 1930, Moyne and Churchill agreed that the government policies of dropping thePound sterling off the gold standard and de-rating to cope with the Great Depression were inadequate, along with proposals for dominion status for India. Together, they put thePound sterling back on the gold standard; a point of pride, but not a policy that lasted for long. When the 1931 coalition government was formed, their criticisms meant that as former ministers they were now out in the political cold.
From 1934, they also warned aboutHitler's rise to power and German rearmament.[28] Moyne was in The Other Club on 29 September 1938 when the bad news came of Prime MinisterNeville Chamberlain's capitulation to Hitler atMunich. Also present wereBrendan Bracken,Lloyd George,Bob Boothby,Duff Cooper,J.L. Garvin, editor ofThe Observer, andWalter Elliot. "Winston ranted and raved, venting his spleen on the two government ministers present and demanding to know how they could support a policy that was 'sordid, squalid, sub-human and suicidal.'"[29] At that time, they still shared the minority view in parliament; the majority agreed with Moyne's cousin-in-law'Chips' Channon MP, who recorded about theMunich that "the whole world rejoices whilst only a few malcontents jeer."[30]
On 11 September 1938, just before the Munich crisis, Churchill wrote an oft-repeated comment in a letter to Moyne: "Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feeling is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later, on even more adverse terms than at present."[31]
Even though an elevation to the Lords ends many political lives, Moyne spent part of 1932 in the colony ofKenya overseeing its finances. In 1933, he chaired a parliamentary committee supervising English slum clearances, in light of his experience gained in his family's charitable trusts mentioned above. In 1934, he joined theRoyal Commission examiningDurham University, as well as a 1936 committee investigating the British film industry.[32]
In 1938, Moyne was appointed chairman of the West Indies Royal Commission, which was asked to investigate how best the British colonies in theCaribbean should be governed, afterlabour unrest. The Report and notes were published in 1939 and are held by thePRO at Kew, London.[33] Just before he returned from the Caribbean, his wife Evelyn died on 21 July 1939.[34]
From the outbreak of theSecond World War in 1939, Moyne sought the internment ofDiana Mosley, his former daughter-in-law, who had left his sonBryan in 1932. She had remarried in 1936 in Berlin to the British fascist leaderSir Oswald Mosley, withHitler andGoebbels as witnesses. File No KV 2/1363 at thePRO, Kew is part of a collection released in 2004 on British right-wing extremists. The PRO's on-line archivist notes that "Diana Mosley was not interned on the outbreak of war, and remained at liberty for some time. There is aHome Office letter of May 1940 explaining theHome Secretary's decision not to intern her at that time, and then correspondence from her former father-in-law, Lord Moyne, which seems to have resulted in her detention the following month." Moyne's friend Churchill had becomeprime minister on 10 May 1940. Moyne's last letter, dated 26 June 1940, is quoted inAnne de Courcy's book on Diana Mosley. Later that day her order of detention was signed by J.S. Hale, a principal Secretary of State.[35]
From September 1939, given Hitler'sInvasion of Poland (1939), Moyne chaired the Polish Relief Fund in London and gave over his London house at 11 Grosvenor Place, inBelgravia nearBuckingham Palace, for the use of Polish officers.[36] From the elevation of Churchill in May 1940, Moyne held several positions in theChurchill war ministry, starting with a Joint Secretaryship in theMinistry of Agriculture. In a cabinet reshuffle in February 1941, he took on his post in theColonial Office and led the Churchill government's business in theHouse of Lords, with the honorific title ofLeader of the House of Lords.[36]
Largely as a result of his travels and his work in theWest Indies, Lord Moyne was appointedSecretary of State for the Colonies by Churchill, serving from 8 February 1941 to 22 February 1942. Moyne was next appointed Deputy Resident Minister of State inCairo from August 1942 to January 1944 andMinister-Resident for the Middle East from then until his death. Within the British system at that time, this meant control overPersia, theMiddle East, includingMandatory Palestine, andAfrica. The main task was to ensure the defeat of theAxis forces inNorth Africa, principally theAfrika Korps led by GeneralRommel. Another concern was the influence on Arab opinion of theGrand Mufti, a leader of the1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, who had moved on to Nazi German sanctuary in Berlin in 1941.
During his adult life, Moyne was a director of the brewing firmGuinness, established at theSt. James's Gate Brewery by his great-great-grandfatherArthur Guinness in 1759.[37] The firm had been listed on theLondon Stock Exchange in 1886 by his father.[38]
Moyne also establishedBritish Pacific Properties inVancouver, British Columbia, Canada.[39] There he commissioned theLion's Gate Bridge, then the longest bridge in theBritish Empire, which was opened by KingGeorge VI in 1939.[40]
He was also a trustee of the two charitable housing trusts set up by his father, theGuinness Trust in London (established 1888)[41] and theIveagh Trust in Dublin (established 1890).[42] In 1927–28, he helped arrange the gift to the nation ofKenwood House which contains his father's art collection.
In 1926, Guinness bought thepassenger ferry SSCanterbury from theSouthern Railway. She was converted to asteam yacht and renamedArpha. She was sold to Sark Motorships Ltd in 1938.
In 1931, Guinness bought the passenger ferry SSBrighton from the Southern Railway. She was converted to diesel power and renamedRoussalka. On 25 August 1933,Roussalka was wrecked inKillary Bay but all on board were rescued.
In September 1933, Moyne purchased the passenger ferry SSDieppe from the Southern Railway. She was converted to diesel power and renamedRosaura. He used this boat for social cruises, including a voyage in September 1934 from Marseille on to Greece and Beirut with the Churchills as his guests of honour.[43] From December 1934, he ventured further to the Pacific, with Clementine Churchill as a guest, and brought the first livingKomodo dragon back to Britain. He wrote two books about the cultures that he had encountered in thousands of miles of travel around the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans.[44][45] They are now quite rare:Walkabout; a Journey between the Pacific and Indian oceans (1936)[44] andAtlantic Circle (1938).[45] The Rosaura explains Moyne's closer ties toWinston Churchill, which were to result in his untimely death.[28]
Moyne's views were partly outlined in a speech about the recruitment of Jews into the British Army in theHouse of Lords on 9 June 1942. Moyne said that:
The Government have already explained what has been done to arm the Jews for the legitimate purpose of self-defence, and we shall no doubt hear from the noble Lord,Lord Croft, to-day how that process has continued in the last few weeks; but is it not clear thatLord Melchett and the responsible leaders of the Jews in this country generally seek to be saved fromLord Wedgwood in his attempt to make political capital out of the natural desire of the Jews to do their utmost to defend the cause of freedom against Nazi tyranny?
However, he opposed the establishment of specifically Jewish army units in the Middle East, "partly to avoid offending Arab sensibilities."[46]
In regard to the problems of the settlement, Moyne said:
It must surely have a deplorable effect upon our Allies to be told by an ex-Cabinet Minister that the Palestine Administration do not like Jews, and that there are enough anti-Semites in Great Britain to back up the Hitler policy and spirit. This suggestion is a complete reversal of the truth. If a comparison is to be made with the Nazis, it is surely those who wish to force an imported régime upon the Arab population who are guilty of the spirit of aggression and domination. Lord Wedgwood's proposal that Arabs should be subjugated by force to a Jewish régime is inconsistent with theAtlantic Charter, and that ought to be told to America. The second principle of that Charter lays down that the United States and ourselves desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; and the third principle lays down that they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live.[47]
British policy in 1944 on immigration followed theWhite Paper of 1939. Charges against Moyne, amplified by Lehi propaganda,[48] included that Moyne was hostile to Jewish settlement in Palestine due to his support of an Arab federation in the Middle East and that he had made speeches containing antisemitic language, including one in the House of Lords where he suggested that Arabs should get sovereignty over Palestine as the Arab race was "purer" than the "mixed" Jewish race.[48][49][50] However, according to historianBernard Wasserstein, this charge is false.[48][50] Moyne believed in a federation of Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon, and Syria, but only conditional on the creation of a Jewish state.[48] Of racial purity, Wasserstein wrote, "In fact, Moyne's speech, when placed in the context of his known views on matters of race can be shown to contradict this interpretation totally."[48] Moyne, an amateur anthropologist, believed that racially intermixed groups were more advanced than the "primitive" racially pure groups like the natives of New Guinea.[48]
In November 1943, a committee of the British Cabinet had proposed a partition of Palestine after the war, based loosely on the 1937Peel Commission proposal. The plan included a Jewish state, a small residual mandatory area under British control, and an Arab state to be joined in a large Arab federation of Greater Syria. The Cabinet approved the plan in principle in January 1944, but it faced severe opposition from the Foreign SecretaryAnthony Eden among others. "Moyne's position differed from that of nearly all the British civil and military officials in the Middle East: the consensus of British official opinion in the area opposed partition and opposed a Jewish state; Moyne supported both."[51] The partition plan was before the Cabinet for final approval in the same week that Moyne was assassinated.
An anecdote, often cited by Lehi apologists in defense of Moyne's assassination, but dismissed byBruce Hoffman as a canard, holds that Moyne was personally responsible for the deaths of a million Hungarian Jews.[52]
Joel Brand, a member of the Jewish-HungarianAid and Rescue Committee, approached the British in April 1944 with a proposal fromAdolf Eichmann, theSS officer in charge of deportingHungary's Jews toAuschwitz. Eichmann's so-called "blood for trucks" (Blut Für Ware; literally "blood for goods") proposal was that the Nazis would release up to one million Jews in exchange for 10,000 trucks and other goods from the Western Allies.
Brand was arrested and taken to Cairo, where he was questioned for several months. Brand reported that during one of the interrogations, an Englishman he did not know had asked him about Eichmann's proposal, then replied "What can I do with a million Jews? Where can I put them?". On leaving the room, Brand reported, his military escort had told him that the man who had made that remark was Lord Moyne.[53] Brand then added: "I later learnt that Lord Moyne had often deplored the tragic fate of the Jews. The policy which he had to follow, however, was one dictated by a cold and impersonal administration in London. It may be that he paid with his life for the guilt of others."[52]
Brand told this story to theKastner libel trial in 1953,[54] but in his autobiography published in 1956, he added a caveat "I afterwards heard that the man with whom I spoke was not, in fact, Lord Moyne, but another British statesman. Unfortunately, I have no means of verifying this."[55] Brand later testified in theEichmann trial in 1961 that it was Moyne who said "What shall I do with those million Jews?"[56] The story of the remark, attributed to Moyne, is regularly quoted by historians. Historian Bernard Wasserstein believes that "the truth is that Brand almost certainly never met Moyne".[57] This is supported by Shlomo Aronson, who traces the remark to a comment made by the head of the Refugee Section of the Foreign Office,Alec Randall, which was later repeated byMoshe Shertok at a meeting which Brand attended.[58]
During Brand's incarceration, both Brand and Moyne were interviewed byIra Hirschmann, who had been appointed byRoosevelt as theWar Refugee Board delegate inTurkey. According to Hirschmann, Moyne suggested sending Brand back to Hungary with a noncommittal reply that would enable the Jews there to continue talks.[59] Moyne also supported a proposal to offer money to the Germans instead of trucks.[60] However, the British government did not adopt either proposal.
The Western Allies, while skeptical of the offer, at first seriously considered discussing the offer with the Germans, but changed their minds when their intelligence investigations concluded that it was a German trap to embarrass the US government and damage the alliance with the Soviets.[61] The British released Brand in October 1944, about one month before Moyne's assassination, after which he joined the groupLehi which would commit the assassination.[62]
Two months before his death in 1964, Brand commented: "I made a terrible mistake in passing this on to the British. It is now clear to me thatHimmler sought to sow suspicion among the Allies as a preparation for his much-desired Nazi-Western coalition against Moscow."[63]
In the early afternoon of 6 November 1944,Eliyahu Bet-Zuri andEliyahu Hakim of the Jewish terrorist groupLehi waited for Moyne near his home in Cairo following a well-planned and much practised plan of action to assassinate Moyne.[65][66]
Moyne arrived in his car with his driver, Lance Corporal Arthur Fuller, his secretary, Dorothy Osmond, and hisADC, Major Andrew Hughes-Onslow. The ADC went to open the front door of the residence and the driver got out to open the door for Moyne. They were suddenly told not to move, as Bet-Zuri emerged and shot Fuller in the chest, causing him to collapse in the driveway and bleed to death in minutes. Hakim then pulled the car door open and shot Moyne three times. The first bullet hit him in the neck on the right side, just above theclavicle, the second penetrated his abdomen, punctured his colon and large intestine, and became embedded to the right of the secondlumbar vertebrae, while the third shot, fired after Moyne raised his right hand, ripped across four of his fingers and went in and out of his chest, causing no serious injuries.[67]
Hakim and Bet-Zuri ran out of the yard, jumped on their rented bicycles, and began pedalling down the street away from the scene. Major Hughes-Onslow rushed to the sentry box and raised the alarm. Hearing it, Hakim and Bet-Zuri turned onto a side street. They had very nearly gotten away when an Egyptian motorcycle policeman, El-Amin Mahomed Abdullah, caught up to them. Bet-Zuri fired a volley of warning shots in his direction, which he ignored. Abdullah then dismounted and ordered him to drop his weapon. Bet-Zuri attempted to shoot out the motorcycle's tires but found that his pistol had run out of ammunition, and as he attempted to reload it, Abdullah fired, hitting Bet-Zuri in the chest. Hearing the commotion, Hakim turned back to help Bet-Zuri, and within minutes, another policeman appeared, and the two were placed under arrest.[67]
Meanwhile, Moyne regained consciousness, and in a few minutes, a doctor and ambulance arrived. Moyne was rushed to a British military hospital in Cairo and admitted at 1:40 p.m., in critical condition, having lost a great deal of blood through gross haemorrhaging and suffering from shock. Five minutes later, he was given the first of three blood transfusions, causing his condition to improve. After he complained of a burning sensation down his right leg and an inability to move it, X-rays revealed an injury to histhoracic vertebrae. Later, his right arm also became paralyzed as a result of the neck wound. Doctors were reluctant to operate until his condition improved, but at 5:30, alumbar puncture revealed a bloodstain, and it was decided to operate. He was given another blood transfusion, and in the operation that followed, surgeons removed the bullet lodged near the second lumbar vertebra and discovered the injuries to the colon and large intestine, while the neck wound and finger wounds were cleaned. Soon after the operation, his condition began to deteriorate, and he died at 8:40 pm, aged 64.[67]
As the principal witness at the trial, Major Hughes-Onslow became a marked man and was sent toAden and then toKhartoum for his safety. He subsequently said, "No doubt Lord Moyne could have been regarded as a target for political assassination, but the shooting of the chauffeur was pure murder."[68][69]
Moyne's body was flown home to England and cremated on 17 November atGolders Green Crematorium.[70] His will was proven on 2 December, with his estate valued at £2 million (equivalent to £111,267,606 in 2023).[71][72]
According to a member of the Lehi's three-man executive,Natan Yellin-Mor, the group's founderYa'ir Stern had considered the possibility of assassinating the British Minister Resident in the Middle East as early as 1941 before Moyne held the position.[73] Moyne's predecessorRichard Casey was deemed unsuitable because he wasAustralian.[74] When Moyne replaced Casey in 1944, planning for the operation began.
As well as being the highest British official withinLehi's reach, Moyne was regarded as personally responsible for Britain's Palestine policy. In particular, he was regarded as one of the architects of Britain's strict immigration policy, and to have been responsible for the British hand in theStruma disaster,[73] which followed a refusal to grantvisas to Palestine for its Jewish refugee passengers, decided during his time as Colonial Secretary.[70] According to Bell, Lord Moyne was believed by the underground to be anArabist, who had consistently followed ananti-Zionist line.[75]
However, according to Yellin-Mor:[76]
"Really these acts by Lord Moyne were without meaning for us. They were useful only as propaganda, because they allowed us to explain to the people why we had killed him. What was important to us was that he symbolized the British Empire in Cairo. We weren't yet in a position to try to hit Churchill in London, so the logical second best was to hit Lord Moyne in Cairo."
According toYaakov Banai (Mazal), who served as the commander of the fighting unit of Lehi, there were three purposes in the assassination:[77]
AuthorJames Barr suggests that aFrench intelligence initiative was behind Moyne's murder, because of his support for theGreater Syria plan.[78]
After the assassination,Lehi announced:
We accuse Lord Moyne and the government he represents, with murdering hundreds and thousands of our brethren; we accuse him of seizing our country and looting our possessions. We were forced to do justice and to fight.[79]
Bet-Zuri and Hakim initially gave false names, but their true identities were soon discovered. They were tried by an Egyptian military court. Both men were found guilty and, on 18 January 1945, sentenced to death. Their appeals for clemency were dismissed, probably partly in response to pressure from Winston Churchill, who had been Moyne's ally and close personal friend.[80] They were hanged on 23 March 1945.
Although the group had been targeting British Mandate personnel since 1940, Moyne was the first high-profile British official to be killed by them, though several failed attempts had been made to assassinate the British High Commissioner in Palestine, SirHarold MacMichael. This was therefore the opening shot in the newLehi campaign.
Jewish authorities in Palestine, fearful of British retribution, were quick to distance themselves fromLehi actions. On the news of Moyne's death,Chaim Weizmann, who later became the firstPresident of Israel, is reported to have said that the death was more painful to him than that of his own son.[81]
British prime ministerWinston Churchill, who once described himself as a "Zionist,"[82] taking the view that the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine would provide Britain with a more reliable and powerful ally,[76] for the time-being tempered his support for Zionism.[83][84] Moyne had been sent to Cairo because of their long personal and political friendship, and Churchill told the House of Commons:
He also added, "I can assure the House that the Jews in Palestine have rarely lost a better or more well-informed friend."[86]
Moyne's parliamentary friend and cousin in law,Henry 'Chips' Channon M.P. wrote in his diary:
The Times of London quotedHa'aretz's view that the assassins "have done more by this single reprehensible crime to demolish the edifice erected by three generations of Jewish pioneers than is imaginable."[88]The assassination caused the Palestine partition proposals that were awaiting final approval in Cabinet to be immediately shelved and never resurrected. Moyne's successor in Cairo, SirEdward Grigg, was opposed to partition.[89] Some historians, such as Wasserstein and Porath, have speculated that a Jewish state soon after the war had been a real possibility.[51][90]
The historian Brenner writes that the purpose of the attack on Moyne was also in order to show the efficacy of armed resistance and to demonstrate to the British that they were not safe in any place as long as they remained in Palestine. The assassination also seemed to affect the Arab side, particularly in stimulating Egyptian nationalism. Brenner makes a comparison between Moyne's death and the assassination of pro-BritishAhmad Mahir Pasha. There were Lehi members who advocated the formation of a "Semitic Bloc" opposing foreign domination, and this made it possible for Arabs to actually join Lehi.[91]
In 1975, Egypt returned the bodies of Ben Zuri and Hakim to Israel in exchange for 20 prisoners from Gaza and Sinai.[92] They were laid in state in the Jerusalem Hall of Heroism, where they were attended by many dignitaries, including Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin and PresidentEphraim Katzir.[93] Then they were buried in the military section ofMount Herzl in a state funeral with full military honours.[93][94] Britain lodged a formal protest, but Israel rejected the criticism, referring to Ben Zuri and Hakim as "heroic freedom fighters."[95][96] In 1982, postage stamps were issued in their honour.[97]
The two pistols used in the assassination were later found to have been used in eight previous murders.[98]
Lord Moyne's large collection of archeological and ethnographic artefacts was acquired by theBritish Museum in London[99] and theMuseum of Archeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Moyne...evidence from the time suggests that it was his support for Greater Syria that sealed his fate.
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| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member for Bury St Edmunds 1907–1931 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1923–1924 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1924–1925 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries 1925–1929 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for the Colonies 1941–1942 | Succeeded by |
| Leader of the House of Lords 1941–1942 | ||
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords 1941–1942 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New title | Baron Moyne 1932–1944 | Succeeded by |
