Zionist political violence

Zionist terrorism refers here to acts of political violence committed by Zionists, generally against British military, Arab, and Israeli targets, both before and after the establishment of the state of Israel.

Mainstream historians occasionally use the term "Zionist terrorism" to refer to acts committed by the Jewish underground during the British Mandate of Palestine. Outside that context, the term has fallen into disrepute and is now used largely by Islamist and neo-Nazi sources to deprecate Israel.

Pre-statehood Zionist militancy

In the 1930s and 1940s, during their campaign for a Jewish National Homeland, two Jewish underground organizations, the Irgun and Lehi (also known as The Stern Gang), were responsible for a number of violent acts against the British and Arab inhabitants of the British Mandate of Palestine

The Haganah and Irgun underground organizations suspended their activity against the British from the beginning of World War II so as not to distract the British from the fight against the Axis Powers and many members of the underground volunteered to the Jewish Brigade to fight the Nazis.

The Irgun resumed attacks in 1944. The smaller Lehi continued anti-British attacks throughout the war.

• During the period 1937-1939, the Irgun conducted a campaign of bombings and other acts of violence against Arab civilians and Arab raiders, in reprisal for Arab attacks on Jewish communities.
• Lehi assassinated British minister Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944.
• The killings of several suspected collaborators with the Haganah and the British mandate government during The Hunting Season (1944-1945).
• The King David Hotel bombing on July 26, 1946, killing 91 people. The Irgun delivered a warning to the hotel switchboard but there is disagreement over whether it was sufficiently in advance of the explosion or whether the hotel management responded effectively.
• Attacked British military airfields and railways several times in 1946.
• The bombing by the Irgun of the British Embassy in Rome, also in 1946.
• The 1947 reprisal killing of two British sergeants who had been taken prisoner in response to British execution of two Irgun members in Akko prison.
• Lehi assassinated the UN mediator Count Bernadotte in September 1948 for his allegedly pro-Arab conduct during the cease-fire negotiations.

A fuller list of incidents can be found at List of Irgun attacks during the 1930's.

Actions during the 1948 War of Independence

• Deir Yassin massacre

Post-Statehood militant incidents

Since the establishment of Israel, there have been isolated incidents of killings of Israelis and Palestinians by Israelis for political reasons. These actions are not connected to the organized activities of the Jewish underground in the pre-state period. These acts of lone wolf terrorism are conducted without the assistance of an organised group or ideology.

All these incidents have been strongly condemned by the government of Israel and the Israeli public. It is widely believed by the Israeli public that perpetrators of many of these incidents, (e.g. Baruch Goldstein, Eden Natan-Zada, and Asher Weisgan), were mentally unstable.

• On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a Kach supporter, killed 29 Muslim worshipers in a mosque, injuring approximately 100. Kach is categorized as a terrorist group by the US State Department, the Canadian government,[1] the Israeli government, and the Anti-Defamation League[2]. Kach was originally disqualified as a political party by the Knesset before the 1988 elections for racism. Although Goldstein acted alone, in response to his affiliation, the outspoken support for his action by some Kach members, and verbal attacks against the Israeli government, the Israeli government outlawed the group under the 1948 Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance [3], prohibiting any financial or verbal support, and branding it a "terrorist organization."
• On November 4, 1995, Yigal Amir assassinated Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin and injured a security guard at a rally held in support of the Oslo Accords in Tel Aviv. For his crime he was sentenced to life plus 14 years in prison. Amir was a law student at Bar-Ilan University and a right-wing activist who had strenuously opposed Rabin's signing of the Accords.Yigal Amir was possibly inspired by the political philosophy of Meir Kahane.
• On August 4, 2005, Eden Natan-Zada, 19, an Israeli soldier who had been AWOL for weeks, boarded a bus and began shooting at passerby from the busses windows. He killed four Israeli Arabs and wounded 12. An Arab crowd then lynched him, while he was in police custody onboard the bus.

Prior to the incident, Natan-Zada had deserted his IDF unit after he refused to remove settlers from the Gaza Strip as part of the disengagement plan. Natan-Zada had previously been been recomended for psychiatric observation by the IDF Medical Corps.

Prime minister Ariel Sharon described the incident as "a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist who sought to attack innocent Israeli citizens." [4]

• On Wednesday, August 17 2005, in an attempt to disrupt Israel's planned disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Asher Weisgan, a 40-year old Israeli bus-driver, shot and killed four Palestinians and injured two others in the West Bank settlement of Shiloh. The Palestinians worked in the settlement's aluminum factory and two of them had been driven there by Weisgan. He had snatched the rifle used in the slayings from a settlement guard, after threatening him with a knife. The Haaretz newspaper quoted Weisgan as saying before entering a courthouse outside of Tel Aviv, "I'm not sorry for what I did." Ariel Sharon said of the attack, "I view this act of Jewish terror, which was aimed at innocent Palestinians with the twisted thinking that it would stop the disengagement plan, very gravely." [5]

See also

• British Mandate of Palestine
• Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

References

• . ISBN 0312792050. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Title= ignored (|title= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |Year= ignored (|year= suggested) (help)