Having provided a general overview of the whole multi-pack in our first InsideGMT article, the rest of this series will focus on providing an overview of each of the individual games, starting with the earliest conflict in the pack. The British Way: Palestine depicts the struggle between Jewish insurgent groups and British forces in Mandatory Palestine between August 1945 and September 1947. This period reflects the height of the Jewish insurgency, and the game ends prior to the breakout of the civil war between Jewish and Arab armed groups following the British decision to leave Palestine. This article will highlight some of the major mechanics and themes covered in The British Way: Palestine.

British Political Will and Irgun’s Strategy

History and our observation persuaded us that if we could succeed in destroying the government’s prestige in Eretz Israel, the removal of its rule would follow automatically. Thenceforward we gave no peace to this weak spot. Throughout all the years of our uprising, we hit at the British government’s prestige, deliberately, tirelessly, unceasingly.

Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun insurgent group.

As with other games in The British Way, both factions’ progress towards victory is tracked by shifting a shared British Political Will marker in various ways. In Palestine and Cyprus, the insurgents are both pursuing a strategy of coercing the British government to leave their colony through terror and sabotage operations by clandestine cells, rather than by building a mass-based insurgency and attempting to directly challenge the state. Therefore, the British begin with Political Will at its maximum point and the insurgent faction will need to drag Political Will all the way to zero by the end of the game to force a British exit.

The player insurgent faction in The British Way: Palestine is Irgun. The Irgun faction represents both Menachem Begin’s Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), the largest insurgent group using terrorism in Palestine at the time, and also some actions by the smaller and more radical insurgent group Lehi (Lohamei Herut Israel – Fighters for the Freedom of Israel). Their main method of lowering Political Will is by carrying out Sabotage operations in the Districts, Cities, and Railways of Mandatory Palestine. Unlike insurgent groups in other COIN games, they do not track Resources but must manage their Arms Caches, which they can either use to continue to Recruit Cells, expend for a one-time additional action, or expend to boost the odds of success during Sabotage operations. Irgun can also lower Political Will through their Propaganda Special Activity, by drawing international attention to the British use of harsh measures such as Curfews.

Irgun has one other major tool for lowering Political Will, but it comes with a cost. Irgun may pair one of their Sabotage operations with the Terror Special Activity, representing the plotting of a high-profile terror operation that may result in mass civilian casualties. Their most infamous attack, the bombing of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in July 1946, killed 91 people, and a controversy over whether Irgun delivered a warning to reduce civilian casualties continues to the present day. The King David Bombing incident also illustrates the political cost of Terror for Irgun, as the bombing was condemned by the larger Jewish Agency and their armed wing, Haganah. Irgun’s actions helped contribute to the breakdown of cooperation between Haganah and the other insurgent groups that had cooperated under the United Resistance Movement since 1945. The level of Haganah’s cooperation with Irgun in the game is represented by the Haganah Track (pictured below). At the beginning of the game, Irgun has access to more Cells and an additional Arms Cache, and the ability to operate in an additional space representing Haganah’s active assistance. However, particularly heinous Terror attacks will shift Haganah away from cooperating with Irgun, costing them this support. Irgun players will have to carefully weigh the decision to use the Terror Special Activity early in the game, but might eventually find this decision easier if they have already lost Haganah support for other reasons.

Controlling Exit and British Strategy

The British player is trying to slow their loss of Political Will to end the game without hitting zero, representing the British goal of being able to control their exit from Palestine on their own terms. The British can block Sabotage by using their Police to Patrol spaces with Cells, potentially arresting them to Prison. They can also lock down Cities with Curfews, making it harder for Irgun to place Cells there, but at the risk of exposing them to Irgun’s Propaganda Special Activity. The British can also gain Intelligence Chits, allowing them to improve their ability to find Underground Irgun Cells and remove them before they can carry out Sabotage or Terror attacks. Besides Events, the British gain Intel by removing Irgun Arms Caches, and once Haganah rejects cooperation with Irgun they may even begin passing intelligence onto the British (when the Haganah Track pictured above reaches 0).

However, intelligence on Irgun is hard to come by, and the British are often forced to use blunt tools to try to defeat the insurgents. In areas locked down with Curfews, the British may carry out their Mass Detention Special Activity. This allows them to potentially arrest a large number of Cells to Prison, but risks capturing innocent civilians with a cost to Political Will. By placing more Cells in Prison, the British are able to gradually wear down Irgun, since only half the Cells in Prison are returned to Available at each Reset Phase. The British may also attempt to shift Haganah away from Irgun, to deny them even more Cells and Arms Caches, by directly Negotiating with the Jewish Agency. The twin tools of repression and negotiations give the British an opportunity to isolate Irgun, slowing their ability to drain Political Will.

A Note on the Absence of Arab Groups in the Game

The British Way: Palestine focuses closely on British counterinsurgency operations against Jewish insurgent groups between 1945-1947. The game does not focus on the activities of Arab political groups, as neither the British nor Irgun viewed these groups as their main opponents during this period. At this time, Arab political groups were not actively involved in armed struggle against Britain on a scale similar to the Jewish groups, and the significant violence between Jewish and Arab communities during the subsequent civil war did not occur until after the game has ended, even though British forces would remain in Palestine while being gradually withdrawn until 1948.

The lack of armed Arab activity between 1945-1947 is not a historical accident. From 1936 to 1939, the Arab Revolt in Palestine represented a serious challenge to British mandatory rule. The repression used to crush the revolt between 1937-1939 is one of the major factors explaining the divisions among Arab groups and the lack of armed activity in the mid 1940s. In addition, the British also granted several of the Arab insurgents’ demands, including a limit on Jewish immigration in the 1939 White Paper at the end of the revolt. These limits on immigration were one of the grievances motivating the Jewish insurgency covered in The British Way: Palestine. The game’s tight focus on counterinsurgency over a two-year period meant that we were not able to model the full political complexities of the end of British Mandatory Palestine, which would have required a much larger game using different kinds of systems. We would prefer to offer a hypothetical future game, The British Way: The Arab Revolt, that fully explores the earlier resistance by Arab groups, rather than exaggerate their role between 1945-1947 just to include them in the current game.

For those interested in reading more on the Arab Revolt, since I don’t cover suggestions in my BGG Sources thread, I would highly recommend two recent books, Mathew Hughes’ Britain’s Pacification of Palestine or Matthew Kelly’s The Crime of Nationalism.

In the next article, we’ll continue in chronological order and provide an overview of The British Way: Malaya.

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