Zionist political violence refers to acts of violence or terrorism committed by Zionists in support of establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. These actions have been carried out by individuals, paramilitary groups, and the Israeli government, from the early 20th century to the present day, as part of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
Haganah was the main Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the region, and was formally disbanded in 1948, when it became the core force integrated into the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
During the 1948 Palestine war, massacres and acts of terror were conducted by and against both sides. A campaign of massacres and violence against the Arab population, such as occurred at Lydda and Ramle and the Battle of Haifa, led to the expulsion and flight of over 700,000 Palestinians, with most of their urban areas being depopulated and destroyed. This violence and dispossession of the Palestinians is known today as the Nakba.
The Battle of Haifa, called by the Jewish forces Operation Bi'ur Hametz, was a Haganah operation carried out on 21–22 April 1948 and a major event in the final stages of the civil war in Palestine, leading up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The objective of the operation was the capture of the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa. The operation formed part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, with approximately 15,000 Arab residents being displaced between April 21–22, and with only 4,000 remaining in the city by mid-May from a pre-conflict population of approximately 65,000.
The Palmach was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach was established in May 1941. By the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it consisted of over 2,000 men and women in three fighting brigades and auxiliary aerial, naval and intelligence units. With the creation of Israel's army, the three Palmach Brigades were disbanded. This and political reasons compelled many of the senior Palmach officers to resign in 1950.
The Notrim were Jewish auxiliaries, mainly police, set up in 1936 by the British in Mandatory Palestine during the 1936–39 Arab revolt. The British authorities maintained, financed and armed the Notrim until the end of the Mandate in 1948. The Notrim were nominally answerable to the Palestine Police Force, but were in fact controlled by the Haganah.
The Palestinian Arab Party was a political party in Palestine established in May 1935 by the influential Husayni family. Jamal al-Husayni was the founder and chairman. Emil Ghuri was elected general secretary until the end of the British Mandate in 1948. Other leaders of the party included Saed al-dean Al-Aref, Rafiq al-Tamimi, Tawfiq al-Husayni, Anwar al-Khatib, Kamil al-Dajani, and Yusuf Sahyun.
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.
The Palestine Police Force was a British colonial police service established in Mandatory Palestine on 1 July 1920, when High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel's civil administration took over responsibility for security from General Allenby's Occupied Enemy Territory Administration (South). The police force was composed of Jewish, Arab and British officers. However, over the course of the Mandate, the police force became less representative of Palestinian populations and increasingly functioned to repress Palestinian political mobilization and to facilitate the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people.
al-Najjada was a Palestinian Arab paramilitary scout movement formed in Jaffa, British Mandate of Palestine on 8 December 1945. The organisation was headed by Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari as General Commander and Rashad al-Dabbagh as Secretary General. The al-Najjada HQ was on Railway Station Street Jaffa. Its officers were mainly Arabs who had served in the British Army. During the lead into the 1948 war its membership numbered 2,000 to 3,000 but the organisation lacked arms. The Palestinian Arab revolt of 1936–1939 led to an imbalance of power between the Jewish community and the Arab community, as the latter had been substantially disarmed. The British had estimated al-Najjada strength as 8,000 by mid-1946.
Ezra Danin was the head of the Arab section of the SHAI, the intelligence arm of the Haganah, Israeli politician and an orange grower. Danin specialized in Arab affairs.
In the 1948 Palestine war, more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of Mandatory Palestine's predominantly Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of Israel, by its military. The expulsion and flight was a central component of the fracturing, dispossession, and displacement of Palestinian society, known as the Nakba. Dozens of massacres targeting Arabs were conducted by Israeli military forces and between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were destroyed. Village wells were poisoned in a biological warfare programme codenamed Operation Cast Thy Bread and properties were looted to prevent Palestinian refugees from returning. Other sites were subject to Hebraization of Palestinian place names.
Ta'as, an abbreviation of the Hebrew for "Military Industry", was the clandestine arms industry of the Jewish settlement in Mandatory Palestine. In the 1930s, it was headed by Yisrael Amir. Ta'as was based on a number of small workshops and factories, the first one being hidden in a tannery on the north beach of Tel Aviv. "Aleph" had a professional staff of lathe operators, metalworkers, plane operators, milling machine operators and others.
The Galilee Squadron was an aerial unit established by the Yeshuv during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War to assist the Jewish war effort in northern Palestine. Initially a part of the Sherut Avir, the aerial arm of the Haganah, it was absorbed into the fledgling Israeli Air Force (IAF) upon the latter's formation on 28 May 1948. The unit served throughout the war, following which it was amalgamated with several other units to form the IAF's 100 Squadron.
The Arab Higher Committee or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans and political parties under the mufti's chairmanship. The committee was outlawed by the British Mandatory administration in September 1937 after the assassination of a British official.
Hasan Salama was a Palestinian Arab nationalist guerrilla leader and commander who led the Palestinian Holy War Army in the 1948 Palestine War along with Abdul Qadir al-Husseini.
The Army of the Holy War or Holy War Army was a Palestinian Arab irregular force in the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine led by Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni and Hasan Salama. The force has been described as Husayni's "personal" army. The Arab League set up the Arab Salvation Army as a counter to the Army of the Holy War while, in practice, the Arab governments prevented thousands of volunteers from joining either force.
The Arab Liberation Army, also translated as Arab Salvation Army or Arab Rescue Army (ARA), was an army of volunteers from Arab countries led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji. It fought on the Arab side in the 1948 Palestine war also known as the Israeli War of Independence and the Nakba. It was set up by the Arab League as a counter to the Arab High Committee's Holy War Army, but in fact, the League and Arab governments prevented thousands from joining either force.
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the State of Israel, and over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict.
