Zionist political violence
Zionist political violence refers to acts of political violence 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 State of Israel and its military forces since the early 20th century as part of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
In the pre-state period, Zionist paramilitaries such as the Irgun, Lehi, Haganah and Palmach engaged in violent campaigns against British authorities, Palestinian Arabs, and more moderate Jews to advance their political goals. Targets included security personnel, government figures, civilians, and infrastructure. After Israel's establishment in 1948, the Israel Defense Forces 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, 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.
History
Zionist militant groups
was a militia of primarily of Russian Jewish immigrants founded to protect Jewish settlements during the second wave of Zionist migration to Palestine. It 1909, it expanded into HaShomer, an armed paramilitary cavalry that was active until the establishment of the British Mandate for Palestine. After the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, the Haganah was founded in June and drew forces from the Zion Mule Corps and Jewish Legion, both of which fought for the British in World War I. Increasing Zionist migration to Palestine raised tensions and intercommunal conflict in Mandatory Palestine. The Irgun, associated with Betar and Revisionist Zionism, was founded as an offshoot of the Haganah. The Irgun notably bombed the King David Hotel in 1946. Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang for its founder Avraham Stern, broke off from the Irgun in 1940 to keep fighting against the British. It also sought to make alliances with fascist Italy and the Nazi Germany. The Palmach was established in by the High Command of the Haganah in 1941 and served as the main paramilitary organization of the Yishuv, or the Jewish community in Palestine before 1948.Attacks on Palestinian civilians increased after 1936, with groups such as the Irgun and Lehi rejecting the official Haganah policy of Havlagah.
Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine (1944–1948)
The Jewish Agency organized the Jewish Resistance Movement, which included the Haganah, Palmach, Lehi, and Irgun. Its first operation was October 1945, when the Palmach attacked the Atlit internment camp and to release Jews arrested by the British for illegal immigration into Palestine. In November, the JRM targeted railroads throughout Palestine and sank a number of British coast guard patrol launches. It then attacked British police stations, aerodromes, coast guard stations, and radar infrastructure, and in June 1946, it blew up bridges connecting Palestine with neighboring countries. In Operation Agatha, the British responded with arrests and searches of the bureaus of the Jewish Agency, the Histadrut, and 27 Jewish settlements. The Jewish Agency called for a halt to armed attacks on the British and their infrastructure, but Lehi and Irgun refused and bombed the King David Hotel, site of the central British administrative offices, July 1946.The Nakba and the 1948 Palestine War
In Plan Dalet, a military plan developed by the Haganah, Zionist forces depopulated and destroyed Palestinian villages to deliver the fait accompli of conquered territory for the establishment of the State of Israel. Zionist forces terrorized Palestinian communities to encourage flight.On April 9, Zionist forces killed 254 Palestinians in the Deir Yassin massacre
After 1948
has been committed by Zionist gangs such as Lehava or the Hilltop Youth. This violence has included 'price tag attacks'.Gaza genocide
Observers have described the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza as part of the ongoing Nakba.Impact
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.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.
Main occurrences
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. In 1935, the Irgun, a Zionist underground military organization, split off from the Haganah. 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".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. 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 ; Irgun militants did not follow this policy and called themselves "Havlagah breakers." The Irgun began bombing Palestinian Arab civilian targets in 1938. While the Palestinian Arabs were "carefully disarmed" by the British Mandatory authorities by 1939, the Zionists were not. 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.'; the Haganah and Irgun subsequently suspended their activity against the British in support of their war against Nazi Germany. 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 and during 1944–1945, the most mainstream Jewish paramilitary organization, Haganah, cooperated with the British authorities against the Lehi and Etzel.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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 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.
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. 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. 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. The next day, Irgun members in a stolen police van rolled a barrel bomb into a large group of civilians who were waiting for a bus by the Jaffa Gate, killing around 16. Another Irgun bomb went off in the Ramla market on February 18, killing 7 residents and injuring 45. On 28 February, the Palmah organised a bombing attack against a garage in Haifa, killing 30 people.
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, which is a part of traditional Jewish law.