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Zionist political violence refers to acts ofpolitical violence committed byZionists in support of establishing and maintaining aJewish state inPalestine. These actions have been carried out by individuals, paramilitary groups, and theState of Israel and itsmilitary forces since the early 20th century as part of the ongoingIsraeli–Palestinian conflict.
In thepre-state period (1920s–1940s), Zionist paramilitaries such as theIrgun,Lehi,Haganah andPalmach engaged in violent campaigns againstBritish authorities,Palestinian Arabs, and more moderate Jews to advance their political goals. Targets included security personnel, government figures, civilians, and infrastructure. AfterIsrael's establishment in 1948, theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) and other state security forces continued to employ violence against Palestinian and neighboring Arab populations during the1948 war (known by Palestinians as theNakba, catastrophe), subsequentArab-Israeli wars, and the military occupation of theWest Bank andGaza Strip.
Later acts of Zionist violence have ranged from the government's use of force to suppress Palestinian unrest (such as during theintifadas from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005), to attacks perpetrated byIsraeli settlers and right-wing extremists against Palestinian civilians, property and holy sites. In an act of intra-Jewish political violence, former Israeli Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin wasassassinated in 1995 byYigal 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 includingLebanon, resulting in widespread destruction and civilian casualties.
Human and Palestinian rights organisations have accused Israel ofstate 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.
Bar-Giora (Hebrew:בר גיורא, fromSimon bar Giora; 1907–1909) was amilitia of primarily ofRussian Jewish immigrants founded to protectJewish settlements during thesecond wave of Zionist migration toPalestine.[1] It 1909, it expanded intoHaShomer (השומר 'the watchman'), an armed paramilitarycavalry that was active until the establishment of theBritish Mandate for Palestine (1920–1948).[2][3] After the1920 Nebi Musa riots, theHaganah (ההגנה 'the defense') was founded in June and drew forces from theZion Mule Corps andJewish Legion, both of which fought for the British inWorld War I.[4] IncreasingZionist migration to Palestine raised tensions andintercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine. TheIrgun (ארגון 'organization'; 1931–1948), associated withBetar andRevisionist Zionism, was founded as an offshoot of the Haganah.[5] The Irgun notablybombed the King David Hotel in 1946.[5]Lehi (לח״י; 1940–1948), also known as theStern Gang for its founderAvraham Stern, broke off from the Irgun in 1940 to keep fighting against the British.[6] It also sought to make alliances withfascist Italy and theNazi Germany.[6] ThePalmach (פלמ״ח; 1941–1948) was established in by the High Command of the Haganah in 1941 and served as the main paramilitary organization of theYishuv, or the Jewish community in Palestine before 1948.[7]
Attacks on Palestinian civilians increased after 1936, with groups such as the Irgun and Lehi rejecting the official Haganah policy ofHavlagah (הבלגה 'restraint').[2]
Zionist paramilitary organizations including theHaganah,Lehi, andIrgun participated inJewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, a campaign
TheJewish Agency organized theJewish Resistance Movement (JRM), which included the Haganah, Palmach, Lehi, and Irgun. Its first operation was October 1945, when the Palmach attacked theAtlit internment camp and to release Jews arrested by the British forillegal immigration into Palestine.[8] In November, the JRM targeted railroads throughout Palestine and sank a number of British coast guard patrollaunches.[8] It then attacked Britishpolice stations,aerodromes, coast guard stations, and radar infrastructure, and in June 1946, itblew up bridges connecting Palestine with neighboring countries.[8] InOperation Agatha, the British responded with arrests and searches of the bureaus of the Jewish Agency, theHistadrut, and 27 Jewishsettlements.[8] The Jewish Agency called for a halt to armed attacks on the British and their infrastructure, but Lehi and Irgun refused andbombed the King David Hotel, site of the central British administrative offices, July 1946.[8]
InPlan Dalet (1 April 1948 –14 May 1948), a military plan developed by the Haganah, Zionist forces depopulated and destroyedPalestinian villages to deliver thefait accompli of conquered territory for theestablishment of theState of Israel.[9][10] Zionist forces terrorized Palestinian communities to encourage flight.[2]
On April 9, Zionist forces killed 254 Palestinians in theDeir Yassin massacre[11]
Israeli settler violence has been committed by Zionist gangs such asLehava or theHilltop Youth.[12] This violence has included 'price tag attacks'.[13]
Actions were carried out by individuals and Jewish paramilitary groups such as theIrgun, theLehi, theHaganah and thePalmach as part of a conflict between Jews,British authorities, andPalestinian Arabs, regarding land, immigration, and control over Palestine.[14]
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 the1920 Nebi Musa riots, the 1921Jaffa riots and the1929 Palestine riots, Palestinian Arabs manifested hostility against Zionist immigration, which provoked the reaction of Jewish militias.[15] In 1935, theIrgun, a Zionist underground military organization, split off from theHaganah.[16] The Irgun were the armed expression of the nascent ideology ofRevisionist Zionism founded byZe'ev Jabotinsky. He expressed thisideology 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".[17]
During the1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, Palestinian Arabs fought for the end of theMandate and the creation of an Arab state based on the whole of Palestine.[18] They attacked both British and Jews as well as some Palestinian Arabs who supported aPan-Arabism. Mainstream Zionists, represented by theVaad Leumi and the Haganah, practiced the policy ofHavlagah (restraint); Irgun militants did not follow this policy and called themselves "Havlagah breakers."[19] The Irgun began bombing Palestinian Arab civilian targets in 1938.[16] While the Palestinian Arabs were "carefully disarmed" by the British Mandatory authorities by 1939, the Zionists were not.[16] As a conciliation to the Arabs, theWhite Paper of 1939 was passed, imposing significant limits in Jewish immigration in the shadow ofWorld War II.
After theBritish Declaration of War in September 1939, the head of theJewish Agency for PalestineDavid 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.';[20] the Haganah and Irgun subsequently suspended their activity against the British in support of their war againstNazi Germany.[21] However, the smallerLehi continued anti-British attacks anddirect action throughout the war. At that time, the British also supported the creation and the training ofPalmach, as a unit that could withstand a German offensive in the area, with the consent of theYishuv which saw an opportunity to get trained units and soldiers for the planned Jewish state[22] and during 1944–1945, the most mainstream Jewish paramilitary organization, Haganah, cooperated with the British authorities against the Lehi and Etzel.[23]
After World War II, between 1945 and the29 November 1947 Partition vote, British soldiers andpolicemen weretargeted by Irgun and Lehi. The Haganah and Palmach at first collaborated with the British against them, particularly duringthe Hunting Season, before actively joining them in theJewish Resistance Movement, then finally choosing an official neutral position after 1946 while the Irgun and the Lehi continued their attacks against the British.[24]
The Haganah, Irgun and Lehi also executed dozens of Jews for alleged treason or collaboration with Britain or Arabs, often after irregulardrumhead courts-martial.[25]
The Haganah also carried out violent attacks in Palestine, such as the liberation of interned immigrants from theAtlit 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 organizeillegal immigration throughout the entire war.[26]
In February 1947, the British announced that they would end the mandate and withdraw from Palestine and they asked for the arbitration of theUnited 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.[27]Many atrocities occurred during this time. The Arab population in themixed cities ofTiberias,Safed,Haifa andJaffa, as well asBeisan andAcre and in the neighbouring villages, fled or were expelled during this period. During theBattle for Jerusalem (1948) where the Jewish community of 100,000 people was besieged, most Arab villages of theTel Aviv – Jerusalem corridor were captured by Jewish militias and leveled.[28]
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.[29] On 4 January 1948, the Lehi detonated a lorry bomb against the headquarters of the paramilitaryNajjada located inJaffa's Town Hall, killing 15 Arabs and injuring 80.[29][30] During the night between 5 and 6 January, the Haganah bombed theSemiramis Hotel in Jerusalem that had been reported to hide Arab militiamen, killing 24 people.[31] The next day, Irgun members in a stolen police van rolled abarrel bomb[32] into a large group of civilians who were waiting for a bus by theJaffa Gate, killing around 16.[33][34][35] Another Irgun bomb went off in the Ramla market on February 18, killing 7 residents and injuring 45.[36] On 28 February, the Palmah organised a bombing attack against a garage in Haifa, killing 30 people.[37]
In 1995,Yitzhak Rabin was the Prime Minister of Israel who wasassassinated byYigal Amir after a peace rally. Amir had been opposed to Rabin's peace initiative, which included signing theOslo Accords and withdrawing from the West Bank. He believed that Rabin was arodef, 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 traditionalJewish law.[38]
Irgun was described as aterrorist organization by the United Nations, British, andUnited States governments, and in media such asThe New York Times newspaper,[39][40] and by theAnglo-American Committee of Inquiry.[41] 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.[42]
Menachem Begin was called aterrorist and afascist byAlbert 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 theDeir Yassin massacre:[43]
The letter warnsAmerican Jews against supporting Begin's request for funding of his political partyHerut, and ends with the warning:
Lehi was described as aterrorist organization[44] by the British authorities and United Nations mediatorRalph Bunche.[45]
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.[46] 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 Jewishself-determination.[23] 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".[47] But if it "remained a central value in education" it was "rather vague and intentionally blurred" at the practical level.[46]
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"[48] and during the 1948 War, theMapam, the political party affiliated to Palmach, asked "a strict observance of the Jewish Purity of arms to secure the moral character of [the] war".[49] When he was later criticized by Mapam members for his attitude concerning theArab refugee problem, Ben-Gurion reminded them of thePalestinian 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."[49]
According toAvi 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'.[47]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'.[50]
Some Israelis justify acts of political violence. Sixty years after participating in the assassination of Swedish diplomatFolke 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."[51] In July 2006, theMenachem Begin Heritage Center organized a conference to mark the 60th anniversary of theKing David Hotel bombing. The conference was attended by past and future Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu and former members of Irgun.[52] 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."[52] Netanyahu, then chairman ofLikud andLeader of the Opposition in theKnesset, 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.[53] 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."[54] 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 ofJerusalem 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."[55] 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."[54]
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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.
