200 days of dread
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, ties were made between the Arab leadership in Palestine and the Nazi movement in Germany. These connections led to cooperation between the Palestinian national movement and the Axis powers later on during World War II. In May 1941 Amin al-Husseini issued a fatwa for a holy war against Britain. In 1941 during a meeting with Adolf Hitler Amin al-Husseini asked Germany to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. He received a promise from Hitler that Germany would eliminate the existing Jewish foundations in Palestine after the Germans had gained victory in the war. During the war Amin al-Husayni joined the Nazis, serving with the Waffen SS in Bosnia and Yugoslavia. In addition, during the war a joint Palestinian-Nazi military operation was held in the region of Palestine. These factors caused a deterioration in the relations between the Palestinian leadership and the British, which turned to collaborate with the Yeshuv during the period known as the 200 days of dread. |
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The 200 days of dread (Hebrew: מאתיים ימי חרדה) [matayim yamei kharada] was a period of 200 days in the history of the Yishuv, from the spring of 1942 to November 3, 1942, when the German Afrika Korps under the command of General Erwin Rommel was heading east toward the Suez Canal and Palestine.
The question of whether the Yishuv would need to defend itself against a possible German invasion rose twice during the Second World War. The first major threat was a German invasion from the north, from the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in control of Syria and Lebanon. This danger ended after Operation Exporter, the allied invasion of these countries on June 8, 1941, and their liberation from Vichy control.
In 1942 a more serious threat emerged as the Afrika Korps, under the command of Erwin Rommel, threatened to overrun British possessions in the Middle East. The "200 days of dread" ended with the Allied victory in the Second Battle of El Alamein.
In archival research in 2006, it emerged that the SS "Einsatzgruppe Ägypten" (Einsatzgruppe Egypt) was deployed to Athens for attachment to the Afrika Korps in the expected conquest of Mandatory Palestine. According to the historians Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cuppers, the word "Palestine" is not mentioned in the archival documents; however, the researchers state that that unit's objective was to continue in Palestine their systematic mass murder of Jews.
The Hebrew term "200 days of dread" was coined only later by the contemporary journalist Haviv Canaan, as taken from the title of his 1974 book on this period. In 1941–42 the Haganah was preparing a last stand in the event that the British would retreat from the German army as far as Syria and Iraq. The "Plan of the North" was also called "Masada on the Carmel", and "Haifa–Masada–Musah Dag". (The British plan was called Palestine Final Fortress.)
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