ABSTRACT
The operations to confront, intercept and divert vessels suspected of being engaged in attempts to land illegal immigrants on the coast of Palestine, foundered on the contradiction between the two main British partners to the conflict: the Mandatory government of Palestine, controlled by the Colonial Office, and the Royal Navy under the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean, who was under the overall command of the Admiralty, but in whose opinion the entire problem should not have been allowed to become a matter to be handled by the Navy, but should have remained a question to be resolved by the Palestine police.
