Churchill's Connections

Zionist paramilitary groups

Home » Adversaries » Zionist paramilitary groups

1920s-1940s
Various

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

An early Zionist paramilitary group, the Haganah, was formed in 1920 to provide security for Jewish settlers in British-controlled Palestine after ethnic riots in Jerusalem. In 1931, the Irgun split off to form a more militant entity, becoming anti-British in 1939 in response to new immigration restrictions. It suspended anti-British activities on the outbreak of World War II, triggering the formation of Lehi in 1940, also known as the ‘Stern gang’. All three groups were merged into the Israel Defense Forces after the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. Churchill was in favour of a Jewish homeland in Palestine but was infuriated by Zionist paramilitary violence.

2. Stories

  • Zionist sentiment about Israel is often associated with memories of an ancient history.
  • Zionism has not always focussed on Palestine: Argentina, Kenya and other locations were also investigated as possible homelands.
  • The first main Zionist paramilitary organisation, the Haganah, was an amalgamation of small, private organisations that provided protection to Jewish settlers.
  • The Irgun group decided to split from the Haganah in 1931 over the latter’s policy of restraint.
  • Lehi split from the Irgun in 1940 to continue anti-British activities during World War II.
  • The Irgun and Lehi were merged with the Haganah into the Israel Defense Forces in 1948, but not without some early controversy.
  • Churchill’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine was opposed by anti-Zionists but was too moderate for some Zionists.

Zionist sentiment about Israel is often associated with memories of an ancient history.

Zion was the name of one of the hills in ancient Jerusalem which became synonymous with Jerusalem and Eretz Israel (‘the Land of Israel’). According to the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites were a people descended from Abraham (and ultimately from Adam and Eve) who settled in the Promised Land, given to them by divine pledge. Depending on biblical interpretation, it corresponded very approximately to the combined area of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories* today.

The Israelites formed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with capitals in Samaria and Jerusalem respectively. Israel was conquered in 720 BCE, resulting in the disappearance of the ‘ten lost tribes of Israel’. Judah was conquered in 586 BCE and its two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were exiled but returned around fifty years later.

Over the following 25 centuries, the area came under the control of various powers. Jewish emigration created a diaspora with two main strands: Ashkenazi in north and east Europe, and Sephardic in south-west Europe, north Africa and the Middle East.

The first Jewish temple on Temple Mount in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BCE and the second in 70 CE, leaving only part of its perimeter including the Western or ‘Wailing’ Wall, or the ‘Buraq Wall’ in Islamic tradition. Since the seventh century CE, Temple Mount – ‘Noble Sanctuary’ in Islamic tradition – has been the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque, third holiest place in Islam, and the now gold-covered Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine. The Mount is the holiest site in Judaism (not the Western Wall as commonly believed) but Jewish prayers cannot be said there due to regulations by its administrator, a Jordanian Islamic trust.

The name ‘Palestine’ is probably derived from the Hebrew Pelistim, the Philistines, a seafaring people who lived on the coast northeast of Egypt. The term was later used to describe more extensive areas. The name ‘Israel’ comes from Yisra’el (Hebrew for ‘contends with God’ or ‘God rules’), the new name given to Abraham’s grandson Jacob after wrestling all night with an angel of God. The term ‘Jew’ (Yehudi, plural Yehudim) comes from the same root word as Judah, meaning ‘praise’.

* The ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’ is a term used by the United Nations, incorporating the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but the UN still deems Israel to be occupying Gaza due to various forms of control. The ‘State of Palestine’ made a unilateral declaration of independence in 1988 and is recognised by the United Nations with non-member observer status. Nearly 140 countries recognise the State of Palestine, not including the USA, Canada, the UK, most EU countries, Japan, Australia or New Zealand.

Zionism has not always focussed on Palestine: Argentina, Kenya and other locations were also investigated as possible homelands.

The father of modern political Zionism was Theodor Hertzl, an Austro-Hungarian Jew who founded the Zionist Organization (‘ZO’) in 1897. The ZO’s first congress produced a resolution which began, ‘Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured homeland in Palestine’.1 However, in his subsequent influential booklet The Jewish State (1898), he wrote, ‘Shall we choose Palestine or Argentine? We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by Jewish public opinion.’2 There was already a settlement of over 7000 Jews in Argentina, nearly as many as had moved to Palestine.

In 1903 British colonial secretary Joseph Chamberlain offered 5000 square miles (13,000 square km) in the East Africa Protectorate, now Kenya (not in Uganda, as sometimes believed). The ZO sent a small delegation to inspect the land in 1905 and decided that there were too many unwelcoming Maasai warriors and lions.

Some in the ZO were disappointed at the exclusive focus by many on Palestine and formed the Jewish Territorial Organization with the informal slogan ‘Zionism without Zion’. They investigated opportunities in Angola, a Portuguese protectorate, supported in principle by Portugal, but financing was not available and the plan withered.

The Freeland League was formed in 1935 and investigated northern and southern Australia, as well as Ecuador and Suriname, to no avail. The French colony of Madagascar was considered but mainly by anti-Semites. Early in World War II, Madagascar sided with Vichy France, after which Nazi Germany developed a plan to use it for Jewish settlement. However, the British naval blockade of Germany stalled this and the plan was dropped after the Allies captured Madagascar in 1942.

Despite these and other investigations, Palestine remained the predominant focus, although ‘Zionisms’ differed. For some political Zionists, it was preferable to establish an autonomous homeland before mass migration. For Labour Zionists, the priority was Jewish self-sufficiency; migration could occur before or after political independence. Religious Zionists associated Zion primarily with observant Judaism. Various other versions have existed including Revisionist and Liberal Zionism. Most migrants, however, were less concerned about classifications than with the practicalities of relocating, unaware that they were consequently sometimes classified as ‘practical Zionists’.

The first main Zionist paramilitary organisation, the Haganah, was an amalgamation of small, private organisations that provided protection to Jewish settlers.

One of the initial protection groups, Bar-Goria, was established in 1907. Many Jewish settlers (the Yishuv) were using Arab guardsmen for their properties and Bar-Goria provided an alternative. Its successor was merged with other groups into the Haganah (‘the Defence’) after the 1920 Jerusalem riots (see Al-Husseini). Following the 1929 Buraq Uprising, it developed into a well-organised underground army, overseen by the Jewish Agency, a settlers’ institution.

Although the Haganah was not officially recognised, the British cooperated with it to try and quell the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. A key British figure was Colonel Orde Wingate, who would later command the Chindits (long range jungle penetration groups) in Burma. On the Haganah side was Moshe Dayan, who would later become an Israeli commander-in-chief and government minister. He joined the Haganah at age 14 and lost his left eye at age 25 when his binoculars were hit by a sniper bullet, becoming known for his black eyepatch.

In 1941 the Haganah set up the Palmach (‘strike force’) to counter possible Axis invasion and to oppose an anticipated increase in Arab attacks in the event of Britain leaving Palestine. After World War II, the Haganah merged with the Irgun and Lehi paramilitary organisations, forming the Jewish Resistance Movement (‘JRM’) to oppose British rule. The Palmach conducted the Night of the Trains operation in November 1945, sabotaging over 150 sections of railway and sinking three guard boats, and the Night of the Bridges in 1946, blowing up nine international crossing points.

The British responded with Operation Agatha, devised by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, arresting military and civilian leaders and confiscating arms. The Haganah reduced the level of its resistance, withdrew from the JRM and reorganised into a formal army under Jewish Agency chairman David Ben-Gurion, soon to be Israel’s first prime minister. After fighting in the 1948 Palestine War, the Haganah was merged into the newly formed Israel Defense Forces (‘IDF’). Its secret headquarters from 1935 to 1940 in Tel Aviv is now the Haganah Museum.

The Irgun group decided to split from the Haganah in 1931 over the latter’s policy of restraint.

The Haganah’s policy of havlaga (‘restraint’) allowed for limited force for self-protection but this was seen by some in the movement as being too passive and ineffective. A split occurred, led by Avraham Tehomi, creating the Irgun (Irgun Zvai Leumi, ‘National Military Organization’), also known as IZL or Etzel. The Irgun developed a policy of ‘active defence’, which included bombings in public places. On Black Sunday in 1937 it killed 10 Arabs and wounded many others across various locations.

One of its most notorious acts was the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 which was being used by the British for civilian and military administration. A bomb was smuggled into the basement and detonated at the busy time of 12.37 p.m., killing 91 people including 17 Jews, and injuring 46, mostly administrative and hotel staff.

The Irgun is also known for its part in the Deir Yassin massacre, killing over 100 Arabs in a Palestinian village near Jerusalem during an Arab blockade of Jerusalem in 1948. The Jewish Agency and the Haganah distanced themselves from this action.

Another well-known Irgun event was the Acre prison breakout. The Acre citadel on the northern Palestine coast was well fortified and survived a siege by Napoleon in 1799. The British used it as a prison and executed four Irgun members there in 1947. A month after the executions, the Irgun blew a hole in a perimeter wall and inmates destroyed internal gates with smuggled explosives. Forty-one Irgun and Lehi prisoners escaped, of which only 14 were tracked down, and 210 other inmates went free.

Three of the citadel attackers were caught, after which the Irgun kidnapped two British army intelligence sergeants. When the attackers were executed, the sergeants were hung from a tree, with the episode becoming known as the ‘Sergeants affair’.

Most of the Irgun’s anti-British operations were in Palestine but they also bombed the British embassy in Rome as well as British military clubs and trains in Germany and Austria. A planned assassination in the UK of General Evelyn Barker, a former commanding officer in Palestine, was cancelled after the police interviewed one of the plotters, Ezer Weizman, later president of Israel.

Lehi split from the Irgun in 1940 to continue anti-British activities during World War II.

When war broke out, the Irgun temporarily ceased their anti-British activities so as not to distract the British from fighting their common enemy, Nazi Germany. Avraham Stern disagreed with this approach and caused a split, forming Lehi (Loḥamei Ḥerut Israel, ‘Fighters for the Freedom of Israel’, or ‘FFI’), also known as the ‘Stern Gang’.

Lehi offered cooperation to Italy and Germany in exchange for recognition of a Jewish state and unrestricted immigration. However, its intermediary with Italy turned out to be an Irgun agent working with the British and its approach to Germany was ignored by Berlin.

Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness) was minister-resident in the Middle East, a war cabinet position based in Egypt. He was a good friend of Churchill for many years. One afternoon in 1944 he arrived back at his house in Cairo and was shot three times by a Lehi assassin, dying soon afterwards in hospital. Livid, Churchill threatened withdrawal of his support for a Jewish homeland.*

Lehi is also known for participating with the Irgun in the Deir Yassin attack and for its 1948 bomb attacks on two Cairo-Haifa trains, killing around 70 people, including 28 British soldiers and many Arabs. It supplemented its limited resources by means of bank robberies, diamond industry insurance scams and a raid on a British army unit.

Operations outside Palestine included bombing the British Colonial Club in London and a failed explosion attempt at the Colonial Office in London. Letter bombs were posted to senior British figures including Churchill and Anthony Eden but were intercepted.

In September 1948, a United Nations mediator, Swedish count Folke Bernadotte, was seeking to establish peace terms after British withdrawal. Three Lehi members intercepted his motorcade in Jerusalem and shot him dead. Three years earlier Bernadotte had negotiated the release of around 31,000 prisoners from Nazi concentration camps, including an estimated 11,000 Jews, one of whom was the wife of United Nations observer Colonel André Serot. Bernadotte and Serot became friends. Bernadotte’s aide was late for the motorcade in Jerusalem and at the last minute Bernadotte asked Serot to sit next to him instead. Lehi killed Serot too, thinking he was Bernadotte’s aide.

* ‘If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labours for its future to produce only a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past’.3

The Irgun and Lehi were merged with the Haganah into the Israel Defense Forces in 1948, but not without some early controversy.

The new State of Israel was declared in May 1948 and the IDF was formed primarily from the Haganah, but also included the Irgun and Lehi, in separate units. They agreed not to make any independent weapon purchases but the Irgun had a large undelivered shipment which its leader Menachem Begin wished to retain for Irgun use. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion agreed to 20 percent but no more, which Begin contested.

The Irgun vessel Altalena arrived with the shipment which was mostly unloaded, but then gunfire was exchanged with the IDF, followed by warning shells from the ID. One hit the vessel (perhaps in error) and set it on fire. The crew abandoned ship which was later towed to deep sea and sunk. Nineteen combatants were killed (16 Irgun and three IDF). Ben-Gurion soon ordered the Irgun units to be dispersed throughout the rest of the IDF to prevent an army within an army.

After the September 1948 Bernadotte assassination, the government classified Lehi as a terrorist organisation and dispersed its IDF units. No-one was charged with the assassination and Sweden initially suspected the Israeli government of arranging it.

Leaders in former Zionist paramilitary organisations played a significant role in post-independence politics, including a number who became prime minister or president.* Their political allegiances generally reflected their paramilitary organisations’ leanings: broadly speaking, the Haganah was left wing, the Irgun was right wing and Lehi was mixed, dabbling for a while in ‘National Bolshevism’.

Not all paramilitary leaders were able to play a role in post-independence Israel. Ze’ev Jabotinsky provided the Irgun’s ideological foundation and led it in absentia after being denied re-entry to Israel by the British in 1930. He died of a heart attack in New York state in 1940, aged 59, while seeking US support for the creation of a Jewish army to fight Hitler. David Raziel, an Irgun commander, was killed in 1941, aged 30, during a covert mission to Iraq (see Al-Gaylani). Lehi founder Avraham Stern was found by British police hiding in a Tel Aviv flat in 1942 and was shot dead, aged 34, in circumstances that remain disputed.

* Prime ministers and presidents from the former Haganah include David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann, Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon. Those from the former Irgun include Menachem Begin and Ezer Weizman. Yitzhak Shamir was in Lehi.

Churchill’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine was opposed by anti-Zionists but was too moderate for some Zionists.

Churchill was a supporter of the UK government’s Balfour Declaration of 1916 which viewed ‘with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people’.4 In a 1920 article,5 he speculated about a homeland in Palestine for three to four million* Jews within his generation. In 1922, while he was secretary of state for the colonies, he drew up a ‘White Paper’ (policy document) which did not specify figures but indicated that Jewish immigration would be based on ‘economic absorptive capacity’.6 At the time, the Jewish community in British mandate Palestine was around 84,000, 11 percent of the total population of 757,000.

Many Arabs opposed any Jewish immigration and many Zionists opposed any limitation. Tensions grew and an Arab revolt broke out in 1936 to 1939, opposing British policies and demanding independence. By then, the Jewish population of 450,000 was almost a third of the total. In 1939, Neville Chamberlain drew up another White Paper, introducing a limit of 10,000 Jewish immigrants per year over the next five years and a total of up to 25,000 refugees. Subsequent immigration was to be subject to Arab consent. Palestine was to be independent within 10 years, governed jointly by Arabs and Jews.

Churchill made a long speech in parliament attacking the new policy, particularly the introduction of Arab consent, which he said breached the Balfour Declaration. He voted against it, calling it a ‘mortal blow’7 to Jews, but it passed 281-181. It was rejected by Zionists as well as Al-Husseini of the Arab Higher Committee but was accepted by some moderate Arab leaders.

After Churchill replaced Chamberlain, he was obliged to implement the new policy, telling his war cabinet in 1943 that wartime emergencies precluded a review but that he anticipated one after the war. Meanwhile, he proposed an investigation into the possibility of Eritrea and Tripolitania (now Libya) as Jewish refuges, to no effect. After he was voted out in 1945, Labour maintained the 1939 policy, and by the time of Churchill’s return as prime minister in 1951, Israel was an independent country.

* The Jewish population of Israel was three to four million between 1980 and 1990. It is now about 7.2 million.

3. Biographical summary

Yitzhak Shamir

Shamir (photograph at top of page) was one of a triumvirate who took over leadership of Lehi after Stern was killed. He later became Israel’s third longest serving prime minister. Unlike his family, he survived the Holocaust, having moved to Palestine in 1935. In his autobiography, he said he authorised the plot for the assassination of Lord Moyne and followed its implementation closely.8 He also said that he did not oppose the assassination of Folke Bernadotte when asked for authorisation by a Lehi splinter group.9

OccupationZionist paramilitary leader, politician
CountryPalestine, Israel
CareerEmigrated from Poland to Palestine (1935). Joined the Irgun (1937). Joined Lehi (1940). Imprisoned but escaped (1941). Part of Lehi leadership triumvirate after Avraham Stern was killed, in charge of operations (1943-48). Imprisoned in Eritrea (1946). Escaped via Djibouti to Paris (1947), returning to the new state of Israel (1948). Served as Mossad agent in Europe (1955-65). Likud party representative to Knesset (parliament) (1973-96). Speaker of the Knesset (1977-80). Minister of Foreign Affairs (1980-86). Prime Minister of Israel (1983-84, 1986-90, 1990-92).
Born1915 in Ruzhany, Grodno governate, Poland, Russian Empire (now in Belarus) (40 years younger than Churchill)
FatherShlomo Yezernitzky, tanning factory owner; Shamir said he was killed by neighbours after escaping from a German train
MotherPerla, daughter of Hanoch Shavzin; died in Holocaust
SiblingsThird child; two daughters and one son:
1. Miriam; died in Holocaust
2. Rivka; died in Holocaust
3. Yitzhak (1915-2012)
EducationHebrew high school, Białystok, Poland. University of Warsaw (law, incomplete due to move to Palestine). Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
SpouseSarita ‘Shulamit’ Levy (1923-2011), m. 1944 until her death in 2011; born in Sofia, Bulgaria; met Shamir while both were interned; assigned to him as a Lehi courier; ‘Shulamit’ was her Lehi codename
Relationships 
Children1. Yair (1945-), in honour of Avraham Stern’s undercover name; pilot, military officer, businessman, politician
2. Gilada (1949-); married name Diamant; Mossad agent
Died2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel, aged 96; Alzheimer’s disease
BuriedMount Herzl National Cemetery, Jerusalem
NicknamesMichael (after Michael Collins, Irish republican: see Eamon de Valera); Rabbi Dov Shamir (alias while a fugitive in 1946, shamir meaning ‘flint’ to cut stones or ‘sharp thorn’; name retained thereafter).
Height5’5”
Time magazineFront cover: 1984 (with Shimon Peres)

4. See also

Arab nationalists

  • Al-Gaylani, Rashid Ali
  • Al-Husseini, Amin
  • Nasser, Gamal Abdel

Other characters

  • Moyne, Lord (Walter Guinness)

Allied capture of Madagascar

  • Pétain, Philippe

Churchill’s Jewish and Muslim friends

  • Jewish: Baruch, Bernard; Halle, Kay; Korda, Alexander; Reves, Emery; Sassoon, Philip
  • Muslim: Aga Khan III

Churchill controversies

  • Middle East borders
  • Religion
  • Zionism

5. Further reading

Zionism

  • Bunton, Martin, The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction (OUP Oxford, 2013)
  • Rovner, Adam, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel (NYU Press, 2014)
  • Stanislawski, Michael, Zionism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017)

Zionists

  • Golan, Zev, Free Jerusalem: Heroes, Heroines and Rogues Who Created the State of Israel (Simcha Media Group, 2003)
  • Golan, Zev, Stern: The Man and His Gang (Yair Publishing, 2011)
  • Hoffman, Bruce, Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016)
  • Mitchell, Thomas G., Likud Leaders: The Lives and Careers of Menahem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon (McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, 2015)
  • Van Tonder, Gerry, Irgun: Revisionist Zionism, 1931–1948 (Pen & Sword Books, 2019)

Churchill/Britain and Zionism

  • Cohen, Michael J., Churchill and the Jews, 1900-1948 (Taylor & Francis, 2013)
  • Gilbert, Martin, Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship (Henry Holt and Company, 2008)
  • Makovsky, David, and Michael Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft (Yale University Press, 2007)
  • Patterson, David, ‘Churchill and the Jews – Churchill, Zionism, & the Holocaust’, The International Churchill Society, 2015
  • Thompson, Gardner, Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel (Saqi, 2019)

6. References

1. Zionist Organisation, ‘The Jubilee of the First Zionist Congress, 1897-1947’, University of Florida Digital Collections, 1897, p.76.

2. Theodor Herzl, ‘The Jewish State’, trans. by Sylvie D’Avigdor, Project Gutenberg, 1896.

3. Winston S. Churchill, ‘Palestine (Terrorist Activities)’, Hansard, 1944.

4. Arthur Balfour, ‘Balfour Declaration’, Yale Law School: Avalon Project, 1917.

5. Winston S. Churchill, ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism: The Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People’, Illustrated Sunday Herald, 8 February 1920, p. 5.

6. UK Government, ‘British White Paper of June 1922’, Yale Law School: Avalon Project, 1922.

7. Winston S. Churchill, ‘Palestine’, Hansard, 1939.

8. Itzhak Shamir, Summing Up: An Autobiography (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994), p. 67.

9. Shamir, p. 91.