Patria disaster
Zionist organizations opposed the deportation, and the underground paramilitary Haganah group planted a bomb intended to disable the ship to prevent it from leaving Haifa.
Who was responsible and the true reason why Patria sank remained controversial until 1957, when Munya Mardor, the person who planted the bomb, published a book about his experiences.
[3] Jewish organizations, both mainstream and dissident, ran operations that tried to bring Jews from Europe to Palestine in violation of the immigration rules applied by the British government.
With the security situation in the region improving following British successes in the Western Desert Campaign, the Colonial Office decided it was less risky to provoke Jewish anger than to risk an Arab revolt, and that an example would be made to dissuade other potential immigrants from making the attempt.
[6] The Haganah also sought to disable Patria, with the intention of forcing her to stay in port for repairs and thus gaining time to press the British to rescind the deportation order.
The Haganah officer in charge of the operation was Yitzhak Sadeh, authorised by Moshe Sharett, who led the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in the temporary absence of David Ben-Gurion, who had left for the United States on 22 September and did not return until 13 February 1941.
[citation needed] In December 1945 Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir ("Young Worker") a Mapai party newspaper, commented "On one bitter and impetuous day, a malicious hand sank the ship".
The decision had been made by an activist faction, without consulting more moderate members according to normal procedure, and this caused serious internal divisions that persisted for many years.
[15] Some leaders of the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) argued that the loss of life had not been in vain, as Patria's survivors had been allowed to stay in the country.
Others declared that the Haganah had had no right to risk the lives of the immigrants, as they had not decided of their own free will to become participants in the underground Jewish conflict with the British authorities.
[16] The Haganah's role was not publicly revealed and a story was put out that the deportees, out of despair, had sunk the ship themselves (the version recounted, for example, by Arthur Koestler).
The Haganah's role was finally publicly disclosed in 1957 when Munya Mardor, the operative who had planted the bomb, wrote an account of his activities in the Jewish underground.
[18] The Haganah also put up an investigative body to find out why such a relatively small amount of explosives could create such a large hole in the ship.
