For the Zionists who dreamed of establishing the state of Israel, the 20th century turned out to be crucial. However, in order to achieve their goal, the Jewish fighters did not mince their measures and did not consider the number of possible victims. Even if their compatriots could be among those killed.
Each conversation about the creation of the state of Israel prompts a discussion about acceptable measures in the fight for independence. When is it necessary to recognize that a certain action is a manifestation of terrorism, and when will it be possible to define it as a fight for sovereignty? Often the line between these activities is extremely fine and where it takes place depends on the judgment of the evaluator. The history of the foundation of the State of Israel proves this best.
Bloody beginnings
From 1920, Palestine, previously within the Ottoman Empire, was under British control. At that time, Jews were already flocking to these areas. And more than once they resorted to terror to compel the authorities in London to submit. Looking at the actions taken by the nationalist organization Lechi (Hebrew abbreviation for Lochame Cherut Jisra'el - Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) it can be without any doubts that it was violence that was to determine the strength of the Jews living in Palestine.
Lechi is responsible for forty-three executions. She often hit high-ranking officials. Its victims on November 6, 1944 were, among others, the British resident minister in the Middle East, Walter Guinness, Lord Moyne. The murder of the Swedish diplomat Count Folk Bernadotte on September 17, 1948 is also famous. Both of these crimes had wide coverage in the world and had a clear impact on British-Jewish relations. How did the leaders of the organization justify their actions? A quote from one of them, Icchak Szamir, is quoted in the book "Jews 2. Politically incorrect stories" journalist Piotr Zychowicz:
They say our activity was terrorism (...). Is it better to drop an atomic bomb on the city than kill some guys? I do not think so. And somehow nobody says that President Truman was a terrorist.
Women also fought in Lechia. Photo from 1948.
Hotel King David
The bloodiest coup organized by Jewish political groups took place on July 22, 1946 in Jerusalem. The responsibility for planting the bomb at the King David Hotel is borne by Irgun Cwai Leumi (National Military Organization), led by ... the later Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, an Israeli nationalist . The choice of the object was not accidental. It housed the offices of the British authorities and the headquarters of His Majesty's army. The course of the action is reported by Piotr Zychowicz:
Disguised as waiters, Arab delivery men and bellboys, the terrorists arrived at the hotel around noon in vans. They then carried seven large tin milk cans through the side door. Each of them contained fifty kilograms of explosives and time detonators. […] At 12:37, Jerusalem was shaken by a powerful explosion. […] Half of the massive six-story King David Hotel has turned into a pile of rubble.
As a result of the action, 91 people died:41 Arabs, 28 British, 17 Jews and five people of other nationalities. No wonder the public in the UK and the authorities in London turned against the Jewish community. For Jewish nationalists, on the other hand, the coup is still an important part of national mythology. In 2006, the sixtieth anniversary was celebrated at the Menachem Begin Center in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu was present among the guests.
Bloody mess
In the 1940s, Jewish terrorist organizations did not mince their measures. Interestingly, a large part of their leaders had been trained by the Polish secret services before the war . As the reign of the British Empire in Palestine drew to an end, it began to be clear that an armed confrontation would take place on the land abandoned by London.
The Jews tried to intimidate the Arabs, and they did not owe them. The situation between neighboring nations worsened day by day. Finally, on April 9, 1948, the Irgun and Lechi operated jointly in the village of Dajr Jasin, where Jewish and Arab residents lived together. Unfortunately for them, the settlement was close to a strategic hill from which to control the main road to Palestine. As Piotr Zychowicz writes in the book "Żydzi 2. Politically incorrect stories" :
The enraged Jews, having taken over the village, threw grenades into their houses and flooded rooms full of civilians with machine guns, and after the fight they shot some of the survivors. […] When the attackers finished killing civilians, they ransacked the Arab village and robbed the corpses. […] Today, historians agree that there were Palestinian casualties over a hundred, of which only a dozen were killed in combat. Thirty infants were among those killed.
The Begin Doctrine
The influence of the nationalists who did not shy away from terror is also evident in some of the actions of the state that emerged thanks to them. The authorities in Tel-Aviv do not allow any threats to be created in the vicinity of their territory. The so-called Begin Doctrine presupposes taking all measures to prevent the enemy country in the Middle East from creating nuclear technology.
Sadam Hussein was painfully convinced of this. With the help of the French, from 1976 he built the first Iraqi nuclear installation near Baghdad. By the time. On June 7, 1981, as part of the Operation "Opera", Israeli planes destroyed the reactor. Carried out with absolute precision, the raid lasted only eighty seconds.
F-16 fighters took part in the "Opera" action.
Similarly, the nuclear plans of Bashar al-Assad, the leader of Syria, ended. Upon learning of his project, implemented with the support of North Korea and Iran, the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intervened with President George W. Bush. When the latter, despite repeated appeals, did not react, the operation "Arizona" was launched.
Ten F-15 planes dropped half-ton intelligent bombs on the installations. "The impact was precise and the reactor was completely destroyed" - say Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal in the book "There are no impossible tasks". Western countries protested against such actions, but there was little more they could and would do.
Israeli secret services also often use terrorist methods. The Mossad is consistently implementing the nationalist doctrine of eliminating the enemies of the state. An example is the perfectly organized action in Dubai in 2010, when employees of this intelligence agency "neutralized" the head of the 101st Hamas unit - Mahmoud Mabhuh. As Yvonnick Denoël writes in the text "Secret Wars of the Mossad":
Mabhuh's death was supposed to have seemed as natural as possible, otherwise the police would have combed Dubai before the Mossad crew had left the country. According to the police report, Mabhuh was given an injection of succinylcholine, a drug that paralyzed his muscles in less than a minute, and was then strangled with a pillow.
Mahmud Mabhuh was murdered in a hotel room in Dubai.
Idealism and nationalism
This one act of terror met with stiff opposition from European countries. Mainly because it seemed unacceptable ... to use EU passports to speed up the action.
Israel has proven more than once that it can use radical measures to protect the state from destruction. You can be sure that in the future Tel-Aviv will use more than one Mossad agency to defend its interests. As the authors of the book "Mossad. The most important missions of the Israeli secret services ”:
[…] Mossad agents share a deep and idealistic love for their country, a complete dedication to its existence and survival. They are ready to take the greatest risk and will not shy away from any danger. In the name of Israel.