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The Special Night Squads (SNS) were a joint British-Jewish force consisting of British soldiers and Jewish Settlement Police
Jewish Settlement Police

The Jewish Settlement Police were a division of the Notrim established in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. They were developed by the Haganah into an ?lite force....
, established by Orde Wingate in Palestine
Palestine

Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coastal region....
 in 1936, during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt.

Wingate hand-picked his men, among them Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon

Yigal Allon was an Israeli politician, a commander of the Palmach, and a general in the Israel Defense Forces. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda and the Labor Party ), acting Prime Minister of Israel, as well as being a member of Knesset and government minister from the tenth through the seventeenth Knessets....
 and Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan, was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Ramatkal of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new Israel....
, from the ranks of the Notrim
Notrim

The Notrim were a Jewish Police Force set up by the British in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. The force was divided into Jewish Supernumerary Police and highly mobile Jewish Settlement Police....
 and trained them to form mobile ambushes. As practical support from the British was minimal Wingate collaborated illegally with the Haganah
Haganah

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces....
, reinforcing his unit with FOSH
Fosh

Fosh can refer to:* The List of Star Wars races #Fosh, an avian race in the fictional Star Wars universe* FOSH, an elite Jewish strike force in the British Mandate of Palestine...
 regulars.

The force was highly successful in bringing attacks by Arab guerillas on the pipeline of the Iraqi Petroleum Company to a halt.






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The Special Night Squads (SNS) were a joint British-Jewish force consisting of British soldiers and Jewish Settlement Police
Jewish Settlement Police

The Jewish Settlement Police were a division of the Notrim established in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. They were developed by the Haganah into an ?lite force....
, established by Orde Wingate in Palestine
Palestine

Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coastal region....
 in 1936, during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt.

Wingate hand-picked his men, among them Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon

Yigal Allon was an Israeli politician, a commander of the Palmach, and a general in the Israel Defense Forces. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda and the Labor Party ), acting Prime Minister of Israel, as well as being a member of Knesset and government minister from the tenth through the seventeenth Knessets....
 and Moshe Dayan
Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan, was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Ramatkal of the Israel Defense Forces , he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new Israel....
, from the ranks of the Notrim
Notrim

The Notrim were a Jewish Police Force set up by the British in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. The force was divided into Jewish Supernumerary Police and highly mobile Jewish Settlement Police....
 and trained them to form mobile ambushes. As practical support from the British was minimal Wingate collaborated illegally with the Haganah
Haganah

Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces....
, reinforcing his unit with FOSH
Fosh

Fosh can refer to:* The List of Star Wars races #Fosh, an avian race in the fictional Star Wars universe* FOSH, an elite Jewish strike force in the British Mandate of Palestine...
 regulars.

The force was highly successful in bringing attacks by Arab guerillas on the pipeline of the Iraqi Petroleum Company to a halt. However, the squads were known for their ruthless efficiency and brutal methods. According to Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld their training included "... how to kill without compunction, how to interrogate prisoners by shooting every tenth man to make the rest talk; and how to deter future terrorists by pushing the heads of captured ones into pools of oil and then freeing them to tell the story".

Yoram Kaniuk
Yoram Kaniuk

Yoram Kaniuk is an Israelis writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic....
 writes:
The operations came more frequently and became more ruthless. The Arabs complained to the British about Wingate's brutality and harsh punitive methods. Even members of the field squads
Notrim

The Notrim were a Jewish Police Force set up by the British in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1936. The force was divided into Jewish Supernumerary Police and highly mobile Jewish Settlement Police....
 complained... that during the raids on Bedouin
Bedouin

The Bedouin, , are predominantly Muslim, desert-dwelling Arab nomadic pastoralist, or previously nomadic group, found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert , Sinai Peninsula, and Negev to the Arabian Desert....
 encampments Wingate would behave with extreme viciousness and fire mercilessly. Wingate believed in the principle of surprise in punishment, which was designed to confine the gangs to their villages. More than once he had lined rioters up in a row and shot them in cold blood. Wingate did not try to justify himself; weapons and war cannot be pure.


The British viewed Wingate as a security risk and the SNS were disbanded in 1938. Wingate was posted out of the country and his passport was stamped "NOT ALLOWED TO ENTER PALESTINE".

Field Marshall Montgomery, who as commander of northern Palestine had authorised the SNS, told Dayan in 1966 that he considered Wingate to have "been mentally unbalanced and that the best thing he ever did was to get killed in a plane crash in 1944".

The Special Night Squads came to be viewed as the British army's first special forces and the forerunners of the Special Air Service
Special Air Service

The Special Air Service is a special forces regiment within the British Army which has served as a model for the special forces of other countries....
 regiments.

Footnotes