#irgun

The crematoria were burning.

Jews were being starved, shot, and gassed across Europe as Nazi Germany worked to erase us from the earth.

At the same time, Britain was enforcing the White Paper.

Jews fleeing annihilation were barred from entering their ancestral homeland.

On this day, Irgun, the Jewish underground resistance, made it official.

They declared armed revolt against British rule in Mandatory Palestine.

The objective was explicit.

End the British Mandate.

Reclaim Jewish sovereignty.

Four years later, the Mandate collapsed.

Israel was liberated.

Remember the heroes of the Irgun.

(Irgun’s February 1, 1944 proclamation of revolt, plastered on walls across the Mandate.)

Translation:

TO THE HEBREW NATION IN ZION!

We are in the final phase of the world war.

We stand before a historic decision on our future destiny.

Each and every nation is now conducting its national reckoning:

What are its triumphs and what were its losses?

What road must it take to achieve its goal and fulfill its mission?

Who are its friends and who are its enemies?

Who is the true ally and who is the traitor?

And who is proceeding toward the decisive battle?

Sons of Israel, Hebrew youth!

We stand at the final stage of the war. We face a historic decision on our future destiny.

The truce proclaimed when war broke out has been violated by the British authorities.

The rulers of the country have taken into account neither loyalty, nor concessions, nor sacrifice. They have continued to implement their aim: the liquidation of sovereign Zionism.

We must draw the necessary conclusions without wavering.

There can no longer be a truce between the Hebrew nation and youth and the British administration of Eretz Israel, which is abandoning our brethren to destruction.

Our nation will fight this regime. Fight to the end.

And this is our demand:

Rule over Eretz Israel must immediately be handed over to a provisional Hebrew government.

The Hebrew government of Eretz Israel, the sole legal representative of the Jewish people, must immediately, upon its establishment, begin the implementation of the following principles:

a. Establish a national Hebrew army.

b. Conduct negotiations with all authorized bodies on the organization of the mass transfer of European Jewry to Eretz Israel.

Jews!

The establishment of a Hebrew government and the implementation of its plans is the sole way to rescue our people and salvage our existence and our honor.

We will follow this path, for there is no other.

We will fight.

Every Jew in our homeland will fight.

Jews!

Our fighting youth will not be deterred by pain and suffering.

They will not surrender.

They will not rest until they restore the splendor of the past.

Until they secure for our people a homeland, freedom, dignity, bread, justice, and law.

And if you help them, your own eyes will soon behold the return to Zion and the rebirth of Israel.

May God be with us and help us!

THE IRGUN ZVAI LE’UMI IN ERETZ ISRAEL

I hope it's fine for me to ask, but some time ago I came across a meme about the Irgun and the Lehi, which as far as I know were Zionist groups operating in British Palestine. Are they actually terrorists, or freedom fighters for the Jews? What are their backgrounds, actually?

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/s/iBsWe8tcQV.

I submitted it once to spot-the-antisemitism but they dont have a clear answer for me: https://spot-the-antisemitism.tumblr.com/post/765787943892926464/i-just-came-across-a-history-meme-about-the

Ohhh, I got you! Yeah, I agree that the initial response you got is both informative and antisemitic. This is a long post incoming! For clarity, I will be referring to the Irgun as "Etzel," which is the common Hebrew name.

Israeli followers- feel free to add information or correct any mistakes I might have made :)

TLDR- yes, the Etzel / Irgun were an extreme and violent resistance group that was considered a terrorist organization by the British during the British mandate. However, they were *not* the majority of people and were heavily criticized both then and now. Unfortunately, many people use them to claim that Israelis were always violent.

---

Background -The land of Israel was under Ottoman rule (16th-20th century) and, later, British mandatory rule (1917-1945). Up until the first mass "Aliyah" (immigration) to Israel, the Jewish population was made up of descendants of Jews from the 2nd Temple period (516 BCE—70 CE) and Jewish families who came back independently from exile all over the globe. There were 5 Aliyahs overall until 1948, and many later- they continue to this day!

The Irgun is mostly known in Hebrew as Etzel - the acronym for "Irgun Tzva'ai Leumi", National Military Organization:

Sorry for using Wikipedia, it’s the best English source I could find for this.

Their later actions and ideologies are known to be extreme and violent. That is why the other resistance groups at the time criticized them & refused to collaborate; Their most known actions are blowing up British assets, HQs, bridges, etc, and kidnapping British officers (in response to the death penalty that was placed on members).

They believed that was the only way to free Israel from centuries of occupation- hence their slogan... The main takeaway is that they represented a minority. Here are some examples:

1.The Altelena affair- a confrontation between the then newly formed IDF and the members of Etzel. At the time, there were many arguments about implementing former members of Etzel in the IDF in general.

"....The process of absorbing all military organizations into the IDF proved complicated, and several paramilitary groups continued to be active outside the IDF. One of the largest groups, the Irgun, planned to ship weapons and fighters to the newly formed state. The plans included a ship renamed Altalena (a nom de plume of Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky)".

Overall, Nineteen Israelis, three of them IDF soldiers and 16 of them Etzel members, were killed in the confrontation. The confrontation almost turned into a civil war! It was stopped by Etzel leader Menachem Begin (future president), who told his forces that they should not retaliate.

The Wikipedia article about the confrontation is surprisingly accurate! Read about it to further understand the extent of criticism the Etzel faced, and the tension between the different resistance groups and the newly formed IDF back then. ---- 2. Another important thing to note is that there were many Jewish underground organizations against the Ottomans and, later on, the British: Nili*, Hashomer, Lehi, Hahagana, the Jewish Resistance Movement, Hamagen, Bar-Giora, and many more. *Unfortunately,(and maybe deliberately) Etzel is the only example used by Anti-Zionists to claim that Jews and Israelis "were always violent"...

Many of these organizations were made up of young Zionists who made Aliyah (some without their families!). Their main focuses, besides fighting for an independent Israel and equality for Jews, were farming, building new Jewish cities, and helping other diaspora Jews make an Aliyah and start a home in Israel. Some were based on socialist or revisionist ideals.

In High school, I literally had a test on the comparison of the ideologies of each group... Let's just say the Etzel are indeed the most extreme. Nilli is my personal favorite, I'll add some reading recs about it below.

—

Recommend sites for further reading:

Hebrew: The official Etzel website and This Wikipedia-like page. *I'm hoping you could use some automatic translation for these.

English:

This is my favorite visual timeline & explanation of who ruled over Israel across history. **Nili - iconic resistance group against the Ottomans, operated between 1915-1917. Unlike most of the Yishuv back then, they sided with the British. Nili is an acronym that stands for the Hebrew phrase: "Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker" (1 Samuel 15:29), which translates as "the Eternal One of Israel will not lie".

You can read about their leader, Sarah Aaronson, here. There's also a great book about her and the movement by Dvorah Omer. I wish it was translated to English so I could link it...

Remember how the Zionist Terrorists dressed up as Arabs to bomb the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946.

This is a recent photo from the terrorists killing three teenagers in Palestinian hospital.

Killing people inside a hospital is a crime against humanity.

Alexander Stein è un ebreo tedesco nato il 20 aprile 1889 a Berlino e ha partecipato alla Prima guerra mondiale come soldato. Nel 1933, Alexander fu costretto a lasciare la Germania e ottenne un passaporto dal governo nazista tedesco in cambio dell'adesione all'Accordo di Haavara e di non tornare mai più in Germania.

Nel 1934, Alexander iniziò a unirsi alla milizia Irgun nella Palestina britannica e negli anni successivi si incontrò segretamente con i fascisti italiani per avviare operazioni violente contro le forze britanniche, arrivando a torturare alcune autorità britanniche. Alexander compie crimini come attaccare gli inglesi nella Palestina britannica per avere un futuro Stato ebraico, rimuovere alcuni territori arabi e uccidere alcuni civili arabi che avevano cercato di protestare contro l'Irgun.

Durante la Seconda guerra mondiale, Alexander si schiera contro la Germania nazista a causa del suo sostegno agli arabi in Iraq contro gli ebrei iracheni, ma rimane ostile verso la fine della Seconda guerra mondiale nei confronti degli inglesi e cessa la sua ostilità verso la Gran Bretagna solo quando viene fondato lo Stato di Israele dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale.

Rivendicazione del volto:

Wilhelm Frankl

I conquistatori facevano parte di coloro che avevano subito il più grande genocidio della storia. E di questo genocidio i sionisti avevano fatto un male assoluto. Ma trasformare il più grande genocidio della storia in male assoluto è una visione religiosa e mistica, non è una visione storica. Non ferma il male; lo propaga, invece, lo fa ricadere su altri innocenti, esige una riparazione che fa subire a questi altri una parte di ciò che gli ebrei hanno subito (l’espulsione, la ghettizzazione, la scomparsa come popolo). Con mezzi più “freddi” del genocidio si vuole ottenere lo stesso risultato.

It is difficult at times to counter Arab falsification of history.  Other times, a bit of research will solve the difficulty.

For example,

here,

where it is claimed:

The Deir Yassin massacre followed in 1948. A join contingent, containing the Tsel, Irgun, and Haganah, assaulted the 600-person village near Jerusalem. A cistern alone was found to contain 150 mutilating bodies and the full death toll remains unknown. Irgun leader Menachem Begin falsified the Red Cross’s reports, ironically labelling it the fabrication by anti-Semites. [3]

Well, I went to

the source quoted

.

There, on page 297, I found this:

How could he falsify the reports of the Red Cross? Did the writer mean he misrepresented them? Or that he quoted from them what they did not contain? So I went to Begin's memoir as Commander of the Irgun, The Revolt, and on page 164 I found this footnote: