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.
In the pre-state period (1920s–1940s), Zionist paramilitaries like the Irgun, Lehi, Haganah and Palmach engaged in violent campaigns against British authorities, Palestinian Arabs, and internal Jewish dissenters to advance their political goals. Targets included security personnel, government figures, civilians, and infrastructure. After Israel's establishment in 1948, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and other state security forces continued to employ violence against Palestinian and neighboring Arab populations during the 1948 war, subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, and the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Later acts of Zionist violence have ranged from the government's use of force to suppress Palestinian unrest (such as during the intifadas from 1987-1993 and 2000-2005), to attacks perpetrated by Israeli settlers and right-wing extremists against Palestinian civilians, property and holy sites. In an act of intra-Jewish political violence, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by Yigal Amir who opposed Rabin's peace initiatives and territorial concessions to the Palestinians.The Israeli military has also conducted large-scale assaults in the occupied territories and neighbouring states including Lebanon, resulting in widespread destruction and civilian casualties.
Human and Palestinian rights organisations have accused Israel of state terrorism, war crimes, and disproportionate use of force against Palestinians. Israel defends its actions as necessary to preserve the security of the Jewish state and its citizens in the face of Palestinian political violence and regional threats.
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 Jews, British authorities, and Palestinian Arabs, regarding land, immigration, and control over Palestine. [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 have also been attacked.
During the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, the 1921 Jaffa riots and the 1929 Palestine riots, Palestinian Arabs manifested hostility against Zionist immigration, which provoked the reaction of Jewish militias. [2] In 1935, the Irgun, a Zionist underground military organization, split off from the Haganah. [3] 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 Arab and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state". [4]
During the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, Palestinian Arabs fought for the end of the Mandate and the creation of an Arab state based on the whole of Palestine. [5] They attacked both British and Jews as well as some Palestinian Arabs who supported a Pan-Arabism. Mainstream Zionists, represented by the Vaad Leumi and the Haganah, practiced the policy of Havlagah (restraint); Irgun militants did not follow this policy and called themselves "Havlagah breakers." [6] The Irgun began bombing Palestinian Arab civilian targets in 1938. [3] While the Palestinian Arabs were "carefully disarmed" by the British Mandatory authorities by 1939, the Zionists were not. [3] As a conciliation to the Arabs, the White Paper of 1939 was passed, imposing significant limits in Jewish immigration in the shadow of World War II.
After the British Declaration of War in September 1939, the head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine David Ben-Gurion declared: 'We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war, and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.'; [7] the Haganah and Irgun subsequently suspended their activity against the British in support of their war against Nazi Germany. [8] However, 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 the Yishuv which saw an opportunity to get trained units and soldiers for the planned Jewish state [9] and during 1944–1945, the most mainstream Jewish paramilitary organization, Haganah, cooperated with the British authorities against the Lehi and Etzel. [10]
After World War II, between 1945 and the 29 November 1947 Partition vote, British soldiers and policemen were targeted by Irgun and Lehi. The Haganah and Palmach at 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 continued their attacks against the British. [11]
The Haganah, Irgun and Lehi also executed dozens of Jews for alleged treason or collaboration with Britain or Arabs, often after irregular drumhead courts-martial. [12]
The Haganah also carried out violent attacks in Palestine, such as the liberation of interned immigrants from the Atlit detainee camp, the bombing of the country's railroad network, sabotage raids on radar installations and bases of the British Palestine police. It continued to organize illegal immigration throughout the entire war. [13]
In February 1947, the British announced that they would end the mandate and withdraw from Palestine and they asked for 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 two months. Arab volunteers entered Palestine to fight alongside the Palestinian Arabs. 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. [14] Many atrocities occurred during this time. The Arab population in the mixed cities of Tiberias, Safed, Haifa and Jaffa, as well as Beisan and Acre and in the neighbouring villages, fled or were expelled during this period. During the Battle for Jerusalem (1948) 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. [15]
At the beginning of the civil war, the Jewish militias organized several bombing attacks against civilians and military Arab targets. On 12 December, Irgun placed a car bomb opposite the Damascus Gate, killing 20 people. [16] On 4 January 1948, the Lehi detonated a lorry bomb against the headquarters of the paramilitary Najjada located in Jaffa's Town Hall, killing 15 Arabs and injuring 80. [16] [17] During the night between 5 and 6 January, the Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem that had been reported to hide Arab militiamen, killing 24 people. [18] The next day, Irgun members in a stolen police van rolled a barrel bomb [19] into a large group of civilians who were waiting for a bus by the Jaffa Gate, killing around 16. [20] [21] [22] Another Irgun bomb went off in the Ramla market on February 18, killing 7 residents and injuring 45. [23] On 28 February, the Palmah organised a bombing attack against a garage in Haifa, killing 30 people. [24]
In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was the Prime Minister of Israel who was assassinated by Yigal Amir after a peace rally. Amir had been opposed to Rabin's peace initiative, which included signing the Oslo Accords and withdrawing from the West Bank. He believed that Rabin was a rodef, meaning a "pursuer" who endangered Jewish lives, and that he was justified in removing Rabin as a threat to Jews in the territories according to the concept of din rodef ("law of the pursuer"), which is a part of traditional Jewish law. [25]
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, [26] [27] and by the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. [28] 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. [29]
Menachem 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: [30]
The letter warns American Jews against supporting Begin's request for funding of his political party Herut, and ends with the warning:
Lehi was described as a terrorist organization [31] by the British authorities and United Nations mediator Ralph Bunche. [32]
During the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine before the war, the criterion of "Purity of arms" was used to distinguish between the respective attitudes of the Irgun and Haganah towards Arabs, with the latter priding itself on its adherence to principle. [33] The Jewish society in the British Mandate Palestine generally disapproved and denounced violent attacks both on grounds of moral rejection and political disagreement, stressing that terrorism is counter-productive in the Zionist quest for Jewish self-determination. [10] Generally speaking, this precept requires that "weapons remain pure [and that] they are employed only in self-defence and [never] against innocent civilians and defenceless people". [34] But if it "remained a central value in education" it was "rather vague and intentionally blurred" at the practical level. [33]
In 1946, at a meeting held between the heads of the Haganah, David Ben-Gurion predicted a confrontation between the Arabs of Palestine and the Arab states. Concerning the "principle of purity of arms", he stressed that: "The end does not justify all means. Our war is based on moral grounds" [35] and during the 1948 War, the Mapam, the political party affiliated to Palmach, asked "a strict observance of the Jewish Purity of arms to secure the moral character of [the] war". [36] When he was later criticized by Mapam members for his attitude concerning the Arab refugee problem, Ben-Gurion reminded them of the Palestinian expulsion from Lydda and Ramle and the fact Palmah officers had been responsible for the "outrage that had encouraged the Arabs' flight made the party uncomfortable." [36]
According to Avi Shlaim, this condemnation of the use of violence is one of the key features of 'the conventional Zionist account or old history' whose 'popular-heroic-moralistic version' is 'taught in Israeli schools and used extensively in the quest for legitimacy abroad'. [34] Benny Morris adds that '[t]he Israelis' collective memory of fighters characterized by "purity of arms" is also undermined by the evidence of [the dozen cases] of rapes committed in conquered towns and villages.' According to him, 'after the 1948 war, the Israelis tended to hail the "purity of arms" of its militiamen and soldiers to contrast this with Arab barbarism, which on occasion expressed itself in the mutilation of captured Jewish corpses.' According to him, 'this reinforced the Israelis' positive self-image and helped them "sell" the new state abroad and (...) demonized the enemy'. [37]
Some Israelis justify acts of political violence. Sixty years after participating in the assassination of Swedish diplomat Folke Bernadotte, Geulah Cohen had no regrets. As a broadcaster on Lehi's radio, she recalled the threats against Bernadotte in advance of the assassination. "I told him if you are not going to leave Jerusalem and go to your Stockholm, you won't be any more." Asked if it was right to assassinate Bernadotte, she replied, "There is no question about it. We would not have Jerusalem any more." [38] In July 2006, the Menachem Begin Heritage Center organized a conference to mark the 60th anniversary of the King David Hotel bombing. The conference was attended by past and future Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former members of Irgun. [39] The British Ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Consul-General in Jerusalem protested that a plaque commemorating the bombing stated "For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated." [39] Netanyahu, then chairman of Likud and Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset, opined that the bombing was a legitimate act with a military target, distinguishing it from an act of terror intended to harm civilians since Irgun sent warnings to evacuate the building. [40] He said "Imagine that Hamas or Hizbullah would call the military headquarters in Tel Aviv and say, 'We have placed a bomb and we are asking you to evacuate the area.' They don't do that. That is the difference." [41] The British Ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Consul-General in Jerusalem protested, saying "We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated", and wrote to the Mayor of Jerusalem that such an "act of terror" could not be honored. The British government also demanded the removal of the plaque, pointing out that the statement on it accusing the British of failing to evacuate the hotel was untrue and "did not absolve those who planted the bomb." [42] To prevent a diplomatic incident, changes were made in the plaque's text. The final English version says "Warning phone calls have been made to the hotel, The Palestine Post and the French Consulate, urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. The hotel was not evacuated and after 25 minutes the bombs exploded. To the Irgun's regret, 92 persons were killed." [41]
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The Irgun, officially the National Military Organization in the Land of Israel, 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.
Lehi, officially the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel and often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang, was a Zionist paramilitary militant organization founded by Avraham ("Yair") Stern in Mandatory Palestine. Its avowed aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by use of violence, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state. It was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, but was renamed Lehi one month later. The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out acts of terrorism.
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.
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 22 July 1946, by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization Irgun during the Jewish insurgency. Ninety-one people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons and Jews, and 46 were injured.
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.
Havlagah was the strategic policy of the Yishuv during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. It called for Zionist militants to abstain from engaging in acts of retaliatory violence against Palestinian Arabs in the face of Arab attacks against Zionist Jews, and instead encouraged the Jewish community to respond to the attacks through non-violent means, such as by fortifying their settlements.
Olei Hagardom refers to members of the two Jewish Revisionist pre-state underground organisations Irgun and Lehi, most of whom were tried in British Mandate military courts and sentenced to death by hanging. Most of the executions were carried out at Acre Prison. There were 12 Olei Hagardom.
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.
A successful paramilitary campaign, sometimes referred to as the Palestine Emergency, 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 Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when Zionist paramilitaries attacked the village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, killing at least 107 Palestinian villagers, including women and children. The attack was conducted primarily by the Irgun and Lehi, who were supported by the Haganah and Palmach. The massacre was carried out despite the village having agreed to a non-aggression pact. It occurred during the 1947–1948 civil war and was a central component of the Nakba and the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight.
Yehoshua Zettler was an Israeli who served as the Jerusalem commander of the Jewish paramilitary group Lehi, often called the Stern Gang. He conceived and planned the September 17, 1948, assassination of Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte, who was representing the United Nations Security Council as a mediator in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Events in the year 1947 in the British Mandate of Palestine.
This is a timeline of intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine.
Avraham Stern, alias Yair, was one of the leaders of the Jewish paramilitary organization Irgun. In September 1940, he founded a breakaway militant Zionist group named Lehi, called the "Stern Gang" by the British authorities and by the mainstream in the Yishuv Jewish establishment. The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out terrorist attacks.
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.
Barrel bombs were used in Israel and Palestine during 1947–1948. They were first used by militant Zionist groups in Mandatory Palestine against the British. They were later used by Jews against Arabs, and also by Arabs against Jewish targets, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. The barrel bombs had multiple designs, including oil barrels rolled on attached truck tires, to unguided improvised bombs dropped from planes. Targets included crowds on the streets, cafes, police buildings, schools and homes. The barrel bombs were widely reported in the press and described by police as "a brand new method". The use of barrel bombs by Zionists has been described by historians as terrorism.
Black Sunday was a day of multiple terrorist attacks against Palestinians committed by the militant Revisionist Zionist organization the Irgun. The attacks took place on 14 November 1937 in Mandatory Palestine. It was among the first challenges to the Havlagah policy not to retaliate against Arab attacks on Jewish civilians.
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.
It killed fourteen Arabs and wounded forty others.
The woman, who is a Jewess, claims French nationality. Officers of the special branch of Scotland Yard who have been investigating Jewish terrorist activities are satisfied the man who made the bomb is also under arrest.
The bomb was of the same type as that used in the explosion at the i British Embassy in Rome last year! and in several other outrages by Jewish terrorists.
Jewish terrorists have raided Reuter's Tel Aviv office, where they forced the staff to lie on the floor.