The Jewish Spies Who Helped the British Defeat the Ottoman Empire in World War I

One-hundred years ago this month, the Ottoman Turks, then in control of Palestine, rounded up and destroyed a Zionist intelligence network that made a decisively important contribution to the British invasion and liberation of Palestine. This is the group’s story.

The Great War of 1914-18—now called World War I—ended the Ottoman empire’s control of the Near East and allowed both Zionism and Arab nationalism to advance. After Britain invaded Palestine in 1917, its officials would run it for three decades and relinquish it only under pressure. Because they exerted themselves to hold on to the Holy Land, one might suppose they had jumped at the opportunity to conquer it.

In fact, they hadn’t.