Editing Ernest Bevin (section)

==Foreign Secretary==
[[File:Bevin Attlee H 42138.jpg|thumb|Ernest Bevin (left) with [[Clement Attlee]] in 1945]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R67561, Potsdamer Konferenz, Konferenztisch.jpg|thumb|[[Potsdam Conference]]: [[Clement Attlee]], Ernest Bevin, [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], [[Joseph Stalin]], [[William D. Leahy]], [[James F. Byrnes]] and [[Harry S. Truman]].]]
Following the 1945 general election, Attlee had it in mind to appoint Bevin as [[Chancellor of the Exchequer|Chancellor]] and [[Hugh Dalton]] as [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]], but ultimately changed his mind and swapped them round. One of the reasons may well have been the poor relations which existed between Bevin and [[Herbert Morrison]], who was scheduled to play a leading role in Labour domestic policy.<ref name="Charmley 1995, pp184-5">Charmley 1995, pp. 184–85</ref>
[[File:USA C-1860 (26246410746).jpg|thumb|Bevin at the Potsdam Conference]]
Diplomats were then recruited from [[public school (United Kingdom)|public schools]], and it was said of Bevin that it was hard to imagine him filling any other job in the Foreign Office except perhaps that of an old and truculent lift attendant. In praise of Bevin, his Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, [[Alexander Cadogan]], wrote, "He knows a great deal, is prepared to read any amount, seems to take in what he does read, and is capable of making up his own mind and sticking up for his (and our) point of view against anyone".<ref name=barr2011/> An alternative view is offered by Charmley, who writes that Bevin read and wrote with some difficulty and that examination of Foreign Office documents shows little sign of the frequent annotations made by Anthony Eden. That suggests that Bevin preferred to reach most of his decisions after oral discussion with his advisers.<ref name="Charmley 1995, pp184-5"/>

However, Charmley dismisses the concerns of contemporaries such as [[Charles Webster (historian)|Charles Webster]] and [[Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood|Lord Cecil of Chelwood]] that Bevin, a man of very strong personality, was "in the hands of his officials". Charmley argues that much of Bevin's success came because he shared the views of those officials. His earlier career had left him with an intense dislike of communists, whom he regarded as workshy intellectuals whose attempts to infiltrate trade unions were to be resisted. His former Private Secretary, [[Oliver Harvey, 1st Baron Harvey of Tasburgh|Oliver Harvey]], thought Bevin's staunchly anti-Soviet policy was what Eden's would have been had he not been hamstrung by the [[Potsdam Conference]] and Churchill's occasional susceptibility to Stalin's flattery, and Cadogan thought Bevin to be "pretty sound on the whole".<ref name="Charmley 1995, pp184-5"/>

According to Geoffrey Warner:
:Bevin's personality was a strange mixture of [[Jekyll and Hyde]]. He was adored by his officials, not only because there was never any doubt that foreign policy was made in the Foreign Office while he was its head, but also because he was as solicitous of their welfare and conditions of employment as he had been of those of his union members. His word was universally regarded as his bond and his loyalty once given was unstinting. At the same time, as even his admirers have conceded, he was long-winded, vain, vindictive, profoundly suspicious, and prejudiced against—among others and in no particular order—[[Jews]], [[Germans]], [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholics]], and [[intellectual]]s of all kinds, groups that, when taken together, comprised a large proportion of those with whom he had to deal.<ref>Geoffrey Warner, "Ernest Bevin and British Foreign Policy, 1945–1951" in  ''The Diplomats, 1939–1979'' ed. by Gordon A. Craig And Francis L. Loewenheim. (Princeton UP, 1994) p 104 [http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctv8pz9nc.9 online]</ref>

===United States===
The historian Martin H. Folly argues that Bevin was not automatically pro-American. Instead, he pushed his [[Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C.|embassy in Washington]] to project a view of Britain that neutralised American criticisms. He felt that Britain's problems were in part caused by American irresponsibility. He was frustrated with American attitudes. His strategy was to bring Washington around to support Britain's policies and argued that Britain had earned American support and ought to compensate it for its sacrifices against the Nazis. Folly considers that Bevin was not coldly pragmatic uncritically pro-American or a puppet manipulated by the British Foreign Office.<ref>Martin H. Folly, "'The impression is growing... that the United States is hard when dealing with us': Ernest Bevin and Anglo-American relations at the dawn of the cold war", ''Journal of Transatlantic Studies'' 10#2 (2012): 150–66.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

Bevin's complex position on the US is betrayed in the following quotation, which was given in response to an American visitor who asked Bevin why he had a portrait of [[George III]] behind his desk: "[He's] my hero. If he hadn't been so stupid, you wouldn't have been strong enough to come to our rescue in the [[Second World War|War]]."<ref>{{cite news|journal=[[The Globe and Mail]]|author = [[David Shribman]]|date=5 February 2022|title=A royal rethink of the much-maligned George III}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=George III: The Life and Reign of Britain's Most Misunderstood Monarch|author=[[Andrew Roberts (historian)|Andrew Roberts]]|year=2021|publisher=[[Random House UK]]}}</ref>

===Finances===
In 1945, Britain was virtually bankrupt as a result of the war but was still maintaining a huge air force and conscript army in an attempt to remain a global power. Bevin played a key role in securing the low-interest $3.75 billion [[Anglo-American loan]] as the only real alternative to national bankruptcy. He had asked originally for $5 billion.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Grant Jr|first1=Philip A.|year=1995|title=President Harry S. Truman and the British Loan Act of 1946|journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly|volume=25|issue=3|pages=489–96}}</ref>

The cost of rebuilding necessitated austerity at home to maximise export earnings while Britain's colonies and other client states were required to keep their [[foreign exchange reserves|reserves]] in [[pound sterling|pounds]] as "sterling balances". Additional funds, which did not have to be repaid, came from the [[Marshall Plan]] in 1948 to 1950, which also required Britain to modernise its business practices and to remove trade barriers.<ref name=saville>{{cite journal|last1=Saville|first1=John|title=Ernest Bevin and the Cold War 1945–1950|journal=The Socialist Register|date=1984|pages=68–100|url=http://socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/viewFile/5506/2404}}</ref>

===Europe===
Bevin looked for ways to bring [[Western Europe]] together in a military alliance at the beginning of the [[Cold War]]. One early attempt was the [[Dunkirk Treaty]] with France in 1947.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Baylis|first1=John|year=1982|title=Britain and the Dunkirk Treaty: The Origins of NATO|journal=Journal of Strategic Studies|volume=5|issue=2|pages=236–47|doi=10.1080/01402398208437111}}</ref> His commitment to the West European security system made him eager to sign the [[Treaty of Brussels]] in 1948. It drew Britain, [[French Fourth Republic|France]], [[Belgium]], the [[Netherlands]] and [[Luxembourg]] into an arrangement for [[collective security]] and opened the way for the formation of [[NATO]] in 1949. NATO was primarily aimed as a defensive measure against Soviet expansion, but it also helped bring its members closer together, enabled them to modernise their forces along parallel lines and encouraged arms purchases from Britain.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Baylis|first1=John|year=1984|title=Britain, the Brussels Pact and the continental commitment|journal=International Affairs|volume=60|issue=4|pages=615–29|doi=10.2307/2620045|jstor=2620045}}</ref> Bevin was also instrumental in the creation of the [[Council of Europe]], with the signature of its [[Statute of the Council of Europe|Statute]] on 5 May 1949, at [[St James's Palace]], London, by the Foreign Ministers of Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Britain was still closely allied to France, and both countries continued to be treated as major partners at international summits alongside the Americans and the Soviets until 1960. Broadly speaking, they remained Britain's foreign policy until the late 1950s, when the humiliation of the 1956 [[Suez Crisis]] and the economic revival of [[Continental Europe]], much of which was now united as the "[[Common Market]]", caused a reappraisal.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Smith|first1=Simon C.|title=Reassessing Suez 1956: New Perspectives on the Crisis and Its Aftermath|date=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-07069-6|pages=25–26|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wv7sCwAAQBAJ&q=Ernest+Bevin+1956+Suez+crisis&pg=PA25}}</ref>

===Empire===
[[File:British Empire and Commonwealth 1945.xcf|thumb|upright=1.5|The British Empire and Commonwealth in 1945]]
Bevin was unsentimental about the [[British Empire]] in places for which the growth of [[nationalism]] had made direct rule no longer practicable. He was part of the Cabinet that approved a speedy British withdrawal from [[British Raj|India]] in 1947 and neighbouring colonies. However, Britain still maintained a network of [[client state]]s in the [[Middle East]] ([[Kingdom of Egypt|Egypt]] until 1952, [[Kingdom of Iraq|Iraq]] and [[Emirate of Transjordan|Jordan]] until 1959) and major bases in such places as [[British Cyprus|Cyprus]] and [[Suez Canal|Suez]] (until 1956) and expected to remain in control of parts of Africa for many more years. Bevin approved the construction of a huge new base in [[Kenya Colony|East Africa]]. Bevin wrote that, "We have the material resources in the Colonial Empire, if we develop them, and by giving a spiritual lead now, we should be able to carry out our task in a way which will show clearly that we are not subservient to the United States of America or to the Soviet Union." Colonial exports then earned $150 million a year, mostly [[British Malaya|Malayan]] rubber, West African cocoa, and sugar and sisal from the [[British West Indies|West Indies]]. By the end of 1948, colonial exports were 50% higher than before the war, and in the first half of 1948, colonial exports accounted for 10.4% of Britain's imports. After the war, Britain helped France and the Netherlands recover their Far Eastern colonies in the [[French Indochina]] and [[Dutch East Indies]] in the hope that could lead towards the formation of a third superpower bloc. Bevin agreed with [[Duff Cooper]], the British Ambassador in Paris, that the Dunkirk Treaty would be a step in this direction and thought that Eden's objection in 1944, when Cooper first proposed it, that such moves might alienate the Soviets no longer applied.<ref>Charmley 1995 pp. 237–38</ref>

In December 1947, Bevin hoped (in vain) that the US would support Britain's "strategic, political and economic position in the Middle East". In May 1950 Bevin told the London meeting of foreign ministers that "the United States authorities had recently seemed disposed to press us to adopt a greater measure of economic integration with Europe than we thought wise." He was referring to the [[Schuman Plan]] to set up the [[European Coal and Steel Community]]. In May 1950, he said that because of links with the US and the Commonwealth, Britain was "different in character from other European nations and fundamentally incapable of wholehearted integration with them."<ref>Charmley 1995 pp. 246–48</ref>

===Cold War===
Bevin remained a determined [[anti-Communist]] and [[anti-Soviet]]. In 1946 during a conference, Soviet Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] repeatedly attacked British proposals and defended Soviet policies, and in total frustration, Bevin stood, lurched towards the minister and shouted, "I've had enough of this I 'ave!" He was then restrained by security.<ref>Walter LaFeber,  ''The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad'', New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

He strongly encouraged the United States to take a vigorously anti-Communist foreign policy in the early years of the Cold War. This included taking a robust stance during the [[Berlin Blockade|Berlin blockade and airlift]] of 1948-49,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Colman |first=Jonathan |url=https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526180964/ |title=Britain's 'Mr X': Sir Frank Roberts and the Making of British Foreign Policy, 1930-68 |publisher=Manchester University Press |year=2025 |location=Manchester |pages=93–110}}</ref> and he was a leading advocate for British combat operations in the [[Korean War]]. Two of the key institutions of the postwar world, NATO and the [[Marshall Plan]], for aid to postwar Europe, were in considerable part the result of Bevin's efforts during these years. The policy, which was little different from that of the Conservatives ("Hasn't [[Anthony Eden]] grown fat?" as wags had it), was a source of frustration to some backbench Labour MPs, who early in the 1945 Parliament formed a "[[Keep Left (pamphlet)|Keep Left]]" group to push for a more left-wing foreign policy.<ref name=saville/>

In 1945, Bevin advocated the creation of a [[United Nations Parliamentary Assembly]] and said in the House of Commons, "There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Shorten|first1=Andrew|title=Contemporary Political Theory|date=2015|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-29916-1|page=105|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8q9CgAAQBAJ&q=There+should+be+a+study+of+a+house+directly+elected+by+the+people+of+the+world+to+whom+the+nations+are+accountable&pg=PA105}}</ref>

In 1950, Bevin offered recognition to the [[People's Republic of China]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Ernest Bevin |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Bevin |work=Encyclopaedia Britannica}}</ref>

===Atomic bomb===
Attlee and Bevin worked together on the decision to produce a [[nuclear weapons of the United Kingdom|British atomic bomb]] despite intense opposition from pro-Soviet elements of the Labour Party, groups that Bevin detested. The decision was taken in secret by a small Cabinet committee. Bevin told the committee in October 1946, "We've got to have this thing over here whatever it costs.... We've got to have the bloody Union Jack flying on top of it". It was a matter of both prestige and national security. Those ministers who would have opposed the bomb on grounds of cost, [[Hugh Dalton]] and Sir [[Stafford Cripps]], were excluded from the meeting in January 1947 at which the final decision was taken.<ref>Graham Goodlad, "Attlee, Bevin and Britain's Cold War," ''History Review'' (2011) Issue 69, pp 1–6 for quote.</ref><ref>Kenneth O. Morgan, ''Labour in Power 1945–1951'' (1985) pp 280–4</ref><ref>Peter Hennessy, ''Cabinets and the Bomb'' (Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 48.</ref>

===Palestine and Israel===
[[File:Bevingrad.jpg|thumb|The security zone in [[Jerusalem]] was dubbed "Bevingrad" during Bevin's term in the Foreign Office.]]
Bevin was Foreign Secretary during the period when the [[Mandate for Palestine]] ended, and the State of [[Israel]] was created. In 1944, for the upcoming [[1945 United Kingdom general election]], the Labour Party had issued a statement pledging to revoke the [[White Paper of 1939]], permit free Jewish immigration to Palestine and turn Palestine into a Jewish state. It had even advocated the population transfers of Arabs and called for the expansion of a future Jewish state's borders into Transjordan, Egypt, and/or Syria.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wheatcroft |first=Geoffrey |date=2001-08-07 |title=It's not racism, it's colonialism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/aug/08/comment.geoffreywheatcroft |access-date=2024-06-15 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> However, in office, Bevin maintained the immigration restrictions. Wanting to protect British hegemony in the Middle East, he broke the party's promise and instead sought to follow through on the terms of White Paper. While acting mainly out of pragmatism, Bevin was an ideological anti-Zionist who believed that the [[Balfour Declaration]] had been a mistake and was concerned that a Jewish state would become a "racial state". His policies would spark a [[Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine|direct confrontation between British security forces and Zionist paramilitaries in Palestine]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=Dr. Weizmann Charges Bevin with Helping to Promote Unrest in Palestine |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/dr-weizmann-charges-bevin-with-helping-to-promote-unrest-in-palestine |access-date=2024-04-12 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}</ref> Bevin later told [[David Ben-Gurion]] that the Balfour Declaration had been the worst Western foreign policy blunder in the first half of the 20th-century.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Shlaim |first=Avi |date=2009-06-27 |title=The declaration that changed history for ever |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/28/balfour-and-weizmann-geoffrey-lewis |access-date=2025-01-21 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}</ref>

Bevin's stance on Palestine infuriated some members of his party. Party chairman [[Harold Laski]] denounced Bevin as "an outrageous blot on the whole Labour movement." [[Richard Crossman]], a pro-Zionist Labour MP who knew Bevin, said the war was fueled almost entirely by "one man's determination to teach the Jews a lesson."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fox |first=Jonathan |date=July 2021 |title=The British Example |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/39979/chapter/340296228 |access-date=2024-04-12 |website=academic.oup.com|pages=142–163 |doi=10.1093/oso/9780197580349.003.0006 |isbn=978-0-19-758034-9 }}</ref> However, Bevin's actions were backed by Attlee, who opposed the establishment of a Jewish state on the grounds it would jeopardise Britain's position as the dominant power in the Middle East.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vaughan |first=James |date=2023-11-08 |title=Israel, Palestine and the Labour party history that has made Keir Starmer's position so difficult |url=http://theconversation.com/israel-palestine-and-the-labour-party-history-that-has-made-keir-starmers-position-so-difficult-217021 |access-date=2024-06-15 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US}}</ref>

Bevin failed to secure the stated British objectives in that area of foreign policy, which included a peaceful settlement of the situation and the avoidance of involuntary [[population transfers]]. Regarding Bevin's handling of the Middle East situation, at least one commentator, David Leitch, has suggested that Bevin lacked diplomatic finesse.<ref>{{cite book|first=David|last=Leitch|editor-last=Sissons|editor-first=Michael|editor2-last=French|editor2-first=Philip|contribution=Explosion at the King David Hotel|title=Age of Austerity 1945–51|year=1963|page=81|place=Harmondsworth, UK|publisher=Penguin}}<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

Leitch argued that Bevin tended to make a bad situation worse by making ill-chosen abrasive remarks. Bevin, undeniably a plain-spoken man, made some remarks that struck some as insensitive. Critics have accused him of being [[antisemitic]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=U.S. Zionist Leaders Charge Bevin with Anti-semitism at Huge Protest Demonstration |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/u-s-zionist-leaders-charge-bevin-with-anti-semitism-at-huge-protest-demonstration |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress Assail Bevin's Palestine Statement |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/american-jewish-committee-american-jewish-congress-assail-bevins-palestine-statement |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}</ref> One remark which caused particular anger was made when U.S. President [[Harry Truman]] was pressing Britain to immediately admit 100,000 [[emigration of Jews from Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe|Jewish refugees]], [[Sh'erit ha-Pletah|survivors]] of the [[Holocaust]] who wanted to [[Aliyah|immigrate to Palestine]]. Bevin, who refused to accept this request unless Truman sent American troops to Palestine, told a Labour Party meeting the reasons that he thought were behind the American pressure: pressure was being applied because "There has been agitation in the United States, and particularly in New York, for 100,000 Jews to be put in Palestine. I hope I will not be misunderstood in America if I say that this was proposed by the purest of motives. They did not want too many Jews in New York."<ref>Text of speech by Ernest Bevin at the Labour Party Conference, Bournemouth, 12 June 1946, General Public Statements, FO 371, 52529/E5546</ref> He was merely restating what he said had been told to him by [[James F. Byrnes]], the [[US Secretary of State]].<ref name=barr2011/>

For refusing to remove limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine in the aftermath of the war, Bevin earned the hatred of [[Zionists]]. According to the historian [[Howard Sachar]], his political foe, Richard Crossman, a pro-Zionist member of the postwar [[Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry|Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry into the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine]], characterised his outlook during the dying days of the Mandate as "corresponding roughly with ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]''", a tsarist fabrication written to inflame antisemitic prejudice. In Sachar's account, Crossman intimated that "the main points of Bevin's discourse were... that the Jews had successfully organised a conspiracy against Britain and against him personally".<ref>{{cite book|last=Sachar|first=Howard|author-link=Howard Sachar|year=1996|title=A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofisraelf00sach|url-access=registration|edition=2|publisher=Knopf|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofisraelf00sach/page/296 296]|isbn=0-394-73679-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Crossman|first=Richard|author-link=Richard Crossman|title=A Nation Reborn|publisher=Hamish Hamilton|location=London|page=69|quote=he [Bevin] became convinced that the Jews were organising a world conspiracy against poor old Britain and, in particular, against poor old Ernie}}</ref> Bevin's biographer Alan Bullock rejected suggestions that Bevin was motivated by personal antisemitism.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Hitchens|first1=Christopher|title=Ernest Bevin: A Class Act|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1984/04/22/ernest-bevin-a-class-act/09702e94-8688-4f6d-89a5-7f0fb90d10e5/|access-date=17 March 2017|newspaper=Washington Post|date=22 April 1984}}</ref>

[[File:Bernadotte funeral.jpg|thumb|right|[[Count Folke Bernadotte]]'s funeral September 1948: From left: [[Sir Alexander Cadogan]], Ernest Bevin, [[George Marshall]], [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]].]]
Britain's economic weakness and its dependence on the financial support of the United States (Britain had received a large American loan in 1946, and the Marshall Plan began in mid-1947) left him little alternative but to yield to American pressure over Palestine policy. At the reconvened [[London 6-Power Conference|London Conference]] in January 1947, the Jewish negotiators were prepared to accept only partition and the Arab negotiators only a unitary state, which would automatically have had an Arab majority. Neither would accept limited autonomy under British rule. When no agreement could be reached, Bevin threatened to hand the problem over to the [[United Nations]]. The threat failed to move either side, the Jewish representatives because they believed that Bevin was bluffing and the Arab representatives because they believed that their cause would prevail before the [[UN General Assembly]]. Bevin accordingly announced that he would "ask the UN to take the Palestine question into consideration."<ref name=CesaraniMFH>{{cite book|last=Cesarani|first=David |author-link=David Cesarani|title=Major Farran's Hat: Murder, Scandal And Britain's War Against Jewish Terrorism 1945–1948|publisher= Vintage Books|location=London|year=2010}}</ref>

A week later, the strategic logic of Britain retaining a presence in Palestine was removed when the intention to withdraw from India in August that year was announced.<ref name=CesaraniMFH/> The decision to allow the [[United Nations]] to dictate the future of Palestine was formalised by the [[Attlee government]]'s public declaration in February 1947 that Britain's Mandate in Palestine had become "unworkable". Of the [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine]] which resulted, Bevin commented: "The majority proposal is so manifestly unjust to the Arabs that it is difficult to see how, in Sir Alexander Cadogan's words, 'we could reconcile it with our conscience.'"<ref>The National Archives (TNA): [https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D7655193 CAB 129/21/9], p 4</ref>

The [[1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine|fighting between the Jewish and Arab communities]] continued to escalate until the end of the Mandate. Britain's final withdrawal from Palestine was marked by the [[Israeli Declaration of Independence]] and the start of the [[1948 Arab-Israeli War]], when five Arab states intervened in the intercommunal fighting. The Arab armies were led by Jordan, the most effective state, whose [[Arab Legion |military forces]] were trained and led by British officers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/18th-june-1948/6/the-arab-legion |title=THE ARAB LEGION » 17 Jun 1948 » The Spectator Archive |website=Archive.spectator.co.uk |date=17 June 1948 |access-date=17 January 2017}}</ref> The war ended with Israel, in addition to the territory assigned by the UN for the creation of a Jewish state, also in control of much of the Mandate territory that had been assigned by the UN for the creation of an Arab state. The remainder was divided between Jordan and Egypt. Hundreds of thousands of overwhelmingly Arab civilians [[1948 Palestinian exodus|had been displaced]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Asser|first1=Martin|title=Obstacles to Arab-Israeli peace: Palestinian refugees|work=BBC News|date=2 September 2010|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11104284|access-date=17 March 2017}}</ref>

Bevin was infuriated by attacks on British troops carried out by the more extreme of the Jewish militant groups, the [[Irgun]] and [[Lehi (group)|Lehi]], commonly known as the Stern Gang. The [[Haganah]] carried out less direct attacks until the [[King David Hotel bombing]], when it restricted itself to [[illegal immigration]] activities.<ref name=CesaraniMFH/> According to declassified [[MI6]] files, the Irgun and the Lehi attempted to assassinate Bevin himself in 1946.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12205.htm|title=Jewish plot to kill Bevin in London|website=Informationclearinghouse.info|access-date=17 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025062553/http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12205.htm|archive-date=25 October 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Jamie Wilson|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/may/22/past.politics|title=Terrorists plotted death of Bevin &#124; UK news |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=17 January 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Tweedie|first1=Neil|last2=Day|first2=Peter|date=22 May 2003|title=Jewish groups plotted to kill Bevin|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1430766/Jewish-groups-plotted-to-kill-Bevin.html|newspaper=[[Telegraph Media Group|The Telegraph]]|location=London, UK|access-date=30 September 2015}}</ref>

Bevin negotiated the [[Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1948|Portsmouth Treaty]] with Iraq (signed on 15 January 1948), which, according to Iraqi Foreign Minister [[Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali]], was accompanied by a British undertaking to withdraw from Palestine in such a fashion as to provide for swift Arab occupation of all its territory.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Fadhel.html|title=Arab Struggle; Experiences of Mohammed Fadhel Jamali|author=Jamali, Mohammed Fadhel|publisher=Widener Library, Harvard University|access-date=2 May 2010|archive-date=17 July 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120717022602/http://www.physics.harvard.edu/%7Ewilson/Fadhel.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>