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Revision as of 14:35, 18 June 2011

The hanged and booby trapped bodies of two British army sergeants, executed by the Irgun – see The Sergeants affair
Aftermath of the King David Hotel bombing, 1946
Aftermath of an explosion, 1945

Zionist political violence refers to acts of violence committed by Zionists for political reasons, mainly to advance the creation of a Jewish state in British Mandate of Palestine.

Actions were carried out by individuals and Jewish paramilitary groups such as the Irgun, the Lehi, the Haganah and the Palmach as part of a conflict between Zionists, British authorities, and resident Arabs, regarding land, immigration, and Jewish national aspirations.[1]

British soldiers and officials, United Nations personnel, Palestinian Arab fighters and civilians, and Jewish fighters and civilians were targets or victims of these actions. Domestic, commercial, and government property, infrastructure, and material were also attacked.

Main occurrences

Zionism was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in the late 19th century following the publication of "Der Judenstaat".[2] seeking to encourage Jewish migration, or immigration, to the Promised Land. The percentage of world Jewry living in area of the former Palestinian Mandate has steadily grown from around 25,000 since the movement came into existence. Today roughly 40% of the world's Jews live in Israel.[3][4]

During World War I, Zionist volunteers fought in the Jewish Legion of the British Army against the Ottomans because they expected the British would be less opposed to the Zionist project than the Ottoman authorities.

During the 1920 Jerusalem riots, the 1921 Palestine riots and the 1929 Palestine riots, Palestinian Arabs manifested hostility against Zionist immigration and Jewish communities, which provoked the reaction of Jewish militias, sometimes supported by British troops. In 1935, the Irgun, a Zionist underground military organization, split off from the Haganah.[5] The Irgun were the armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He expressed this ideology as "every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state".[6]

During the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, Palestinian Arabs oppositionists fought for the end of the Mandate and the creation of an Arab state based on the whole of Palestine. They attacked both British and Jews as well as some Palestinian Arabs who supported a Pan-Arab option. Mainstream Zionists, represented by the Vaad Leumi and the Haganah, practiced the policy of Havlagah (restraint), while Irgun militants did not follow this policy and called themselves "Havlagah breakers."[citation needed] The Irgun began bombing Palestinian civilian targets in 1938.[5] While the Palestinians were "carefully disarmed" by the British Mandatory authorities by 1939, the Zionists were not.[5]

After the beginning of World War II, the Haganah and Irgun suspended their activity against the British in support of their war against Nazi Germany.[7] The smaller Lehi continued anti-British attacks and direct action throughout the war. At that time, the British also supported the creation and the training of Palmach, as a unit that could withstand a German offensive in the area, with the consent of Yishuv which saw an opportunity to get trained units and soldiers for the planned Jewish state.[citation needed]

After World War II, between 1945 and the 29 November 1947 Partition vote, British soldiers and policemen were targeted by Irgun and Lehi. Haganah and Palmah first collaborated with the British against them, particularly during the Hunting Season, before actively joining them in the Jewish Resistance Movement, then finally choosing an official neutral position after 1946 while the Irgun and the Lehi went on their attacks against the British.[citation needed]

The Haganah carried out violent attacks in Palestine, such as the liberation of interned immigrants from the Atlit camp, the bombing of the country's railroad network, sabotage raids on radar installations and bases of the British Palestine police. It also continued to organize illegal immigration.[citation needed]

In February 1947, the British announced that they would end the mandate and withdraw from Palestine and they asked the arbitration of the United Nations. After the vote of the Partition Plan for Palestine on 30 November 1947, civil war broke out in Palestine. Jewish and Arab communities fought each other violently in campaigns of attacks, retaliations and counter-retaliations which provoked around 800 deaths after 2 months. Foreign Arab volunteers entered Palestine to fight alongside the Palestinians. In April, 6 weeks before the termination of the Mandate, the Jewish militias launched wide operations to control the territory dedicated to them by the Partition Plan.[citation needed] Many atrocities occurred during this time. The Arab population in the mixed cities of Tiberias, Safed, Haifa, Jaffa, Beisan and Acre and in the neighbouring villages fled or were expelled during this period. During the battle for Jerusalem where the Jewish community of 100,000 people was besieged, most Arab villages of the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem corridor were captured by Jewish militias and leveled. Those members of the Arab population who had not fled were expelled or killed.[citation needed]

Consequences

Colonel Archer-Cust, Chief Secretary of the British Government in Palestine, said in a lecture to the Royal Empire Society that "The hanging of the two British Sergeants did more than anything to get us out of Palestine".[8]

Condemnation as terrorism

Irgun was described as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, British, and United States governments, and in media such as The New York Times newspaper,[9][10] and by the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry.[11] In 1946 The World Zionist Congress strongly condemned terrorist activities in Palestine and "the shedding of innocent blood as a means of political warfare". Irgun was specifically condemned.[12]

Menachen Begin was called a terrorist and a fascist by Albert Einstein and 27 other prominent Jewish intellectuals in a letter to the New York Times which was published on December 4, 1948. Specifically condemned was the participation of the Irgun in the Deir Yassin massacre:

  • "terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants – 240 men, women and children – and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem."

The letter warns US Jews against supporting Begin's request for funding of his political party, and ends with the warning:

  • "The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a "Leader State" is the goal."

[13]

Lehi was described as a terrorist organization[14] by the British authorities and United Nations mediator Ralph Bunche.[15]

Selected Irgun, Haganah and Lehi attacks

Main articles: List of Irgun attacks during the 1930s and Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
  • June 30, 1924. According to Israeli journalists Shlomo Nakdimon and Shaul Mayzlish, Dutch Jew Jacob Israël de Haan was assassinated by Avraham Tehomi on the orders of Haganah leader Yitzhak Ben-Zvi[16] for his anti-Zionist political activities and contacts with Arab leaders.[17]
  • 1937–1939 The Irgun conducted a campaign of violence against Palestinian Arab civilians resulting in the deaths of at least 250. [citation needed]
  • November 6, 1944 Lehi assassinated British minister Lord Moyne in Cairo. The action is condemned by the Yishuv at the time, but the bodies of the assassins are brought home from Egypt in 1975 to a state funeral and burial on Mount Herzl. [citation needed]
  • 1944–1945 The killings of several suspected collaborators with the Haganah and the British mandate government during the Hunting Season.
  • July 26, 1946 The bombing of British administrative headquarters at the King David Hotel, killing 91 people — 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 others. Around 45 people were injured.
  • 1946 Railways and British military airfields were attacked several times.
  • October 31, 1946 The bombing by the Irgun of the British Embassy in Rome. Nearly half the building was destroyed and 3 people were injured.[18]
  • July 25, 1947 The Sergeants affair: When death sentences were passed on two Irgun members, the Irgun kidnapped two British sergeants and threatened to kill them in retaliation if the sentences were carried out. When the threat was ignored, the hostages were murdered. Afterwards, their bodies were taken to an orange grove and left hanging by the neck from trees. An Improvised Explosive Device was set. This went off when one of the bodies was cut down, seriously wounding a British officer.[19]
  • December 1947 – March 1948 Numerous attacks on Palestinian Arabs in the context of Civil War after the vote of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
  • January 5–6, 1948 The Semiramis Hotel bombing, carried out by the Haganah (or, according to some sources, Irgun) resulted in the deaths of 24 to 26 people
  • April 1948 the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by the Irgun and Lehi, killed between 107 and 120 Palestinian villagers,[20] the estimate generally accepted by scholars.[21][22]
  • September 17, 1948, Lehi assassination of the United Nations mediator Count Bernadotte, negotiator of the release of about 31,000 prisoners including thousands of Jews from German concentration camps during World War II,[23][24] whom Lehi accused of a pro-Arab stance during the cease-fire negotiations.

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Beleaguered Christians of the Palestinian-Controlled Areas, by David Raab". Jcpa.org. Retrieved 2010-02-21.
  2. ^ Walter Laqueur (2003) The History of Zionism Tauris Parke Paperbacks, ISBN 1860649327 p 40
  3. ^ accessed Feb 2009
  4. ^ accessed Feb 2009
  5. ^ a b c Welty, Gordon (1995). Palestinian Nationalism and the Struggle for National Self-Determination. Philadelphia: Temple University. p. 21. ISBN 1-56639-342-6.
  6. ^ Howard Sachar: ''A History of the State of Israel, pps 265–266
  7. ^ "Avraham Stern". Retrieved 2007-11-19.
  8. ^ The United Empire Journal, November–December 1949, taken from The Revolt, by Menachem Begin)
  9. ^ Pope Brewer, Sam. Irgun Bomb Kills 11 Arabs, 2 Britons. New York Times. December 30, 1947.
  10. ^ Irgun's Hand Seen in Alps Rail Blast. New York Times. August 16, 1947.
  11. ^ W. Khalidi, 1971, 'From Haven to Conquest', p. 598
  12. ^ ZIONISTS CONDEMN PALESTINE TERROR New York Times. December 24, 1946.
  13. ^ New Palestine Party – Visit of Menachen Begin and Aims of Political Movement DiscussedNew York Times. December 4, 1948.
  14. ^ "Stern Gang" A Dictionary of World History. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press [1].
  15. ^ Ralph Bunche report on assassination of UN mediator 27th Sept 1948, "notorious terrorists long known as the Stern group"
  16. ^ Shlomo Nakdimon (1985). Deh Han : ha-retsah ha-politi ha-rishon be-Erets Yisraʼel / De Haan: The first political assassination in Palestine (in Hebrew) (1st ed.). Tel Aviv: Modan Press. OCLC 21528172. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ Marijke T.C.Stapert-Eggen. "The Rosenthaliana's Jacob Israel de Haan Archive". University of Amsterdam Library.
  18. ^ "Jewish Terrorists Admit Bombing Embassy in Rome". St Petersburg Times. 1946-11-05. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
  19. ^ Britain Since 1945, David Childs P.34 para 1
  20. ^ Kana'ana, Sharif and Zeitawi, Nihad (1987), "The Village of Deir Yassin," Bir Zeit, Bir Zeit University Press
  21. ^ Morris, Benny (2003). The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81120-1; ISBN 0-521-00967-7 (pbk.). {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help): Chapter 4: The second wave: the mass exodus, April—June 1948, Section: Operation Nahshon, page 238
  22. ^ Milstein, Uri (1998) [1987]. History of the War of Independence IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision (in Hebrew and English version translated and edited by Alan Sacks). Lanhan, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc. ISBN 0-7618-1489-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link): Chapter 16: Deir Yassin, Section 12: The Massacre, page 377
  23. ^ Macintyre, Donald (2008-09-18). "Israel's forgotten hero: The assassination of Count Bernadotte – and the death of peace". The Independent. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
  24. ^ Sune Persson, Folke Bernadotte and the White Buses, Journal of Holocaust Education, Vol 9, Iss 2–3, 2000, 237–268. Also published in David Cesarani and Paul A. Levine (eds.), Bystanders to the Holocaust: A Re-evaluation (Routledge, 2002). The precise number is nowhere officially recorded. A count of the first 21,000 included 8,000 Danes and Norwegians, 5,911 Poles, 2,629 French, 1,615 stateless Jews and 1,124 Germans. The total number of Jews was 6,500 to 11,000 depending on definitions. Also see A. Ilan, Bernadotte in Palestine, 1948 (Macmillan, 1989), p37.

Sources

  • Berberoglu, Berch (2006). Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict: Class, State, and Nation in the Age of Globalization. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0742535444, 9780742535442. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Childs, David. Britain since 1945 (5th Edition). {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)online version at Google Books
  • J. Bowyer Bell (1977). Terror out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, LEHI, and the Palestine underground, 1929–1949. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-79205-0.
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