ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to illuminate the operations of the British intelligence services in Palestine, 1945–47, and to determine the extent to which those operations contributed to the outcome of the British counter-insurgency campaign. The Palestine Police Force was the principal intelligence producer, although the task involved only a fraction of force’s 20,000 regular and auxiliary personnel. While no ‘model’ ever fits reality perfectly, it is widely accepted that the ‘intelligence cycle’ concept does provide a useful intelligence framework for examining the intelligence process. The chapter explores a four-phase model: direction, collection, production and dissemination. It shows that the failure exerted a detrimental influence on the source of security force operations, and thus on the outcome of the campaign itself. The source of the failure lay principally in the complex of problems which beset the Political Branch of the Palestine Police Criminal Investigation Department.
