The more active could hunt jackals with the Ramle Vale Hunt, or tee off on the Sodom and Gomorrah Golf Course, about which there was much ribald wit.

From Small Wars, Faraway Places by Michael Burleigh. Page 93.

Initially, British life in the Mandate had differed little from that of colonists elsewhere, reflecting the way most of the British administrators and soldiers thought about a situation whose complexities generally eluded them – for Palestine was not a colony. There were official receptions at Government House, flower shows and tea parties. The more active could hunt jackals with the Ramle Vale Hunt, or tee off on the Sodom and Gomorrah Golf Course, about which there was much ribald wit. But this was not India or the Sudan; it was more a dead end than a chance to shine as part of an elite, among people too ‘clever’ to be patronized, and one with no real strategic significance until the British had to consider alternatives to a restive Egypt. In a word, Palestine was a boring backwater posting, except perhaps to those of a religious bent.

Zionist terrorism began in retaliation for Arab atrocities during the 1936–9 Arab Revolt, providing perplexing evidence for the British of peoples’ inability to ‘get along’, as if they were neighbours quarrelling over a suburban hedge or party wall. The military response was in line with a simple-minded speech Brigadier Bernard Montgomery had delivered in Haifa in 1937: ‘I do not care whether you are Jews or Gentiles. I care nothing for your political opinions. I am a soldier. My duty is to maintain law and order. I intend to do so.’ The countenance of the Mandate changed, with official buildings heavily sandbagged behind barriers of barbed wire, and police stations turned into imposing forts constructed from reinforced concrete. In November 1944 the Stern Gang excelled themselves when two of their operatives murdered Resident Minister of State Lord Moyne, Churchill’s friend and his wife Clementine’s exotic travel companion, in Cairo. The reaction among the British governing class was so negative that the Jewish Agency, Haganah and Irgun declared a ‘hunting season’ against Sternist sympathizers. The two young assassins were quickly caught, tried and hanged.