The Irgun, or Etzel, was a Zionist paramilitary organization that operated in Mandatory Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. The Irgun has been viewed as a terrorist organization or organization which carried out terrorist acts.
Zionist political violence refers to politically motivated violence or terrorism perpetrated by Zionists. The term is used to describe violence committed by those who support the political movement of Zionism, and violence committed against opponents of Zionism. The violence often takes the form of terrorist attacks and has been directed against both Jewish and Arab targets. The most active period of most notable Zionist political violence began on June 30, 1924, through the 1940s, and continues to the present day, usually for the purpose of expanding Zionist settlements in Mandatory Palestine.
Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.
The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack on July 22, 1946, by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization Irgun during the Jewish insurgency. 91 people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons and Jews, and 46 were injured.
Operation Agatha, sometimes called Black Sabbath or Black Saturday because it began on the Jewish sabbath, was a police and military operation conducted by the British authorities in Mandatory Palestine. Soldiers and police searched for arms and made arrests in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and several dozen settlements; the Jewish Agency was raided. The total number of British security forces involved is variously reported as 10,000, 17,000, and 25,000. About 2,700 individuals were arrested, among them future Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett. The officially given purpose of the operation was to end "the state of anarchy" then existing in Palestine. Other objectives included obtaining documentary proof of Jewish Agency approval of sabotage operations by the Palmach and of an alliance between the Haganah and the more violent Lehi and Irgun, destroying the Haganah's military power, boosting army morale and preventing a coup d'état being mounted by the Lehi and Irgun.
The Altalena Affair was a violent confrontation that took place in June 1948 between the newly created Israel Defense Forces and the Irgun, one of the Jewish paramilitary groups that were in the process of merging to form the IDF. The confrontation involved a cargo ship, the Altalena, captained by ex-US Navy lieutenant Monroe Fein and led by senior Etzel commander Eliyahu Lankin, which had been loaded with weapons and fighters by the independent Irgun, but arrived during the murky period of the Irgun's absorption into the IDF.
The Jewish Resistance Movement, also called the United Resistance Movement (URM), was an alliance of the Zionist paramilitary organizations Haganah, Irgun and Lehi in the British Mandate of Palestine. It was established in October 1945 by the Jewish Agency and operated for some ten months, until August 1946. The alliance coordinated acts of sabotage to undermine the British authority in Mandatory Palestine.
General Sir Evelyn Hugh Barker, was a British Army officer who saw service in both the First World War and the Second World War. During the latter, he commanded the 10th Brigade during the Battle of France in 1940, the 49th Infantry Division and the VIII Corps in the Western Europe Campaign from 1944 to 1945.
Esther Raziel-Naor was a Revisionist Zionist, Irgun leader and Israeli politician. She was the sister of fellow Irgun leader David Raziel.
The Sergeants affair was an incident that took place in Mandate Palestine in July 1947 during Jewish insurgency in Palestine, in which the Jewish underground group Irgun kidnapped two British Army Intelligence Corps NCOs, Sergeant Clifford Martin and Sergeant Mervyn Paice, and threatened to hang them if the death sentences passed on three Irgun militants—Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, and Yaakov Weiss—were carried out. The three had been captured by the British during the Acre Prison break, tried, and convicted on charges of illegal possession of arms, and with 'intent to kill or cause other harm to a large number of people'. When the three men were executed by hanging, the Irgun killed the two sergeants and hung their booby-trapped bodies in a eucalyptus grove near Netanya.
A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.
The Night of the Beating refers to an Irgun operation carried out on December 29, 1946, in the British Mandate of Palestine, in which several British soldiers were kidnapped and flogged in retribution for a corporal punishment handed down to an Irgun member.
The Night of the Bridges was a Haganah venture on the night of 16 to 17 June 1946 in the British Mandate of Palestine, as part of the Jewish insurgency in Palestine (1944–7). Its aim was to destroy eleven bridges linking Mandatory Palestine to the neighboring countries Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan and Egypt, in order to suspend the transportation routes used by the British Army. Attacks on a further three bridges had been considered, but were not executed.
The 6th Airborne Division in Palestine was initially posted to the region as the Imperial Strategic Reserve. It was envisioned as a mobile peace keeping force, positioned to be able to respond quickly to any area of the British Empire. In fact the division became involved in an internal security role between 1945 and 1948.
Operation Hametz was a Zionist operation towards the end of Mandatory Palestine, as part of the 1948 Palestine war. It was launched at the end of April 1948 with the objective of capturing villages inland from Jaffa and establishing a blockade around the town. The operation, which led to the first direct battle between the British and the Irgun, was seen as a great victory for the latter, and enabled the Irgun to take credit for the complete conquest of Jaffa that happened on May 13.
Amichai Paglin, codename "Gidi" was an Israeli businessman who served as Chief Operations Officer of the Irgun during the Mandate era. He planned and personally led numerous attacks against the British during the Jewish insurgency in Palestine, commanded the battle to conquer Jaffa in the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, and participated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Following independence, he ran an industrial oven factory together with his father, and was later appointed Prime Minister Menachem Begin's counter-terrorism adviser. Only a few months after his appointment, however, Paglin died in a car crash.
Events in the year 1946 in Mandatory Palestine.
Yehiel Dov Dresner was an Irgun member in pre-state Mandatory Palestine and one of 12 Olei Hagardom.
Martial law in Mandatory Palestine refers to the period when martial law was imposed by the British military on Jewish areas of Palestine during the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine. Statutory martial law was imposed on 2 March 1947 and enforced for 15 days in Jewish sectors of Mandatory Palestine. The crackdown was known as Operation Hippo in the greater Tel Aviv region and as Operation Elephant in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
