On Nov. 6, 1944 two young terrorists from Yitzhak Shamir’s Lehi (Stern Gang) assassinated Britain’s Minister for Middle East Affairs, Lord Moyne, in Cairo, Egypt. The assassins were caught, tried, and hanged on Mar. 23, 1945. Menachem Begin was upset with Shamir, not because of the act of terrorism, but because Shamir had not warned Begin beforehand, which would have allowed Begin to prepare for the British reaction and their crackdowns on terrorists. In his book, The Revolt, on pages 150, 151, Begin chided the Stern Gang, saying:

“As comrades in revolt and partners in danger, we should have been informed by the F. F. I. chiefs of what was going forward. But they had permitted us to be taken completely by surprise.”

The F.F.I. stood for the “Freedom Fighters of Israel,” which was Shamir’s Stern Gang.

The Jewish Agency, always playing politics, did not care about the assassination either, but they did care about their political position and about the British reprisals that would come. So Ben-Gurion went to the United States to raise money for arms to fight the British government. He met on July 1, 1945 with seventeen wealthy American Jews, who formed the secret Sonnenborn Institute to secure arms and smuggle them into Palestine. When all was ready, Ben-Gurion sent a letter to Moshe Sneh, the Haganah (“defense”) chief in Palestine, telling him to begin the terrorist uprising and to coordinate their operations with the Irgun and the Stern Gang.

This makes it clear that Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency itself believed in terrorism against the British. It was not for moral reasons that they refrained from terrorism most of the time. Their restraint was based upon political considerations, knowing that open terrorism would be detrimental to world opinion and support.

This was the basis of Ben-Gurion’s “statesmanship.” He both supported and perpetrated terrorism, but usually did so secretly, so as not to let the world know that he too was a terrorist. Once he had raised money for arms in the summer of 1945, the Jewish Agency openly joined with the Stern and Irgun terrorists for about nine months in a reign of terror throughout Palestine. This “United Resistance Movement” lasted from Nov. 1945 to July 1946, ending only with the most spectacular terrorist act: the blowing up of the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946.

The Jewish Agency’s shock troops, called the Palmach, was first organized in 1941 but remained relatively inactive for the duration of World War Two. But World War Two had ended in 1945. Twenty-three year old Yitzhak Rabin was appointed second-in-command of the First Battalion. During this time, they coordinated their attacks with the Irgun and with the Stern Gang, as Ben-Gurion had ordered.

The Palmach’s first action was to free about 200 Jews from the Atlith detention camp, who had been arrested for attempting to enter Palestine illegally. Rabin led his Palmach battalion on Oct. 10, 1945 and successfully broke them out of the camp and dispersed them throughout various Jewish settlements. The success of this operation encouraged them to engage in an all-out guerilla war against the British, beginning the night of Nov. 1, 1945. Menachem Begin writes on page 191 of The Revolt:

“On the ‘night of the railways’ the Haganah also sank three British patrol boats. Later they twice attacked the radar station at Haifa. . . One attack was made on the police Observation Post at Givat Olga, which was blown up. . . In February 1946 the Haganah carried out sabotage operations against installations of the Mobile Police. And in June the Haganah brought their armed resistance to a close with the comprehensive and successful attack on the frontier-bridges.”

This “night of the railways” was the first major joint operation, which occurred Nov. 1, 1945. Shamir tells us that in their part of the operation against the railway workshops, eleven Lehi members were killed. Toward the end of this united front came the “night of the bridges” in June 1946. On page 203 Begin writes of this:

“Great steel bridges in the north, the south, and the east, collapsed under the blows of the Haganah men. This was the last military operation of the Resistance Movement.”

This proved to be the final terrorist act that brought the British to strike back forcefully on the day known to Jewish historians as “The Black Sabbath.” On June 29, 1946 the British forces occupied the headquarters of the Jewish Agency and arrested nearly all of the leaders of their Haganah and Palmach.

The ranks of the Palmach (shock troops) were devastated. Yitzhak Rabin was arrested, although he was recovering from a badly broken leg suffered in a motorcycle accident. This turned out to be of benefit to him, because he was taken to a military hospital, where he received good treatment and physical therapy. Kurzman’s biography of Rabin, Soldier of Peace, pages 102, 103 says,

“Actually, the British treated their prisoners quite well. They gave Rabin good medical attention, sending him to the military hospital in Gaza.”

One might want to compare the British treatment of Jewish terrorists with today’s Jewish treatment of Arab terrorists.

The Jewish Agency loudly proclaimed that the Black Sabbath arrests were nothing short of a British declaration of war upon the Jews themselves. To them, the British had no right to defend themselves against Jewish terrorism. In fact, in their minds, it was the British government’s own fault for provoking them to commit terrorist acts by continuing to “occupy” Palestine. Menachem Begin writes on page 205 of his book, The Revolt:

“Throughout the day the Jewish Agency’s Kol Israel [“all Israel”—ed.] vociferated: “Britain has declared war on the Jewish people. The Jewish people will fight back. Out with the unclean sons of Titus from our Holy Land! Down with the Nazi-British regime in our country!”

In other words, any time the British defended themselves or attempted to arrest the terrorists who had blown up the bridges, police stations, etc., the British were always said to be the aggressors who had “declared war on the Jewish people.” But when Jews declared war, it was always justified in their eyes as a “fight for freedom.” Jewish casualties of the fight were the fault of the British “murderers,” and any British casualties were also the fault of the British just for being there.

Likewise, when Arabs were killed by these same Zionists, it was their own fault for just being there after they were warned to leave their farms and villages and flee to other Arab nations. The moral blind spot is beyond belief. The double standard has no rational explanation.

At any rate, the Jewish Agency was not nearly as committed to the cause as the Irgun or Lehi. They were too political to accept casualties as a fact of war, and in this way they differed greatly with the Irgun and Stern Gang. With close to half of their fighters in prison, they left the fighting to Begin and Shamir and returned to their official political status. They even issued a public denouncement of terrorism, although they continued to support it secretly. In fact, they decided to take revenge upon the British for arresting their members, and so at that point they approved the bombing of the King David Hotel.

Such was the political duplicity of the Jewish Agency.

Destroying the King David Hotel

A few months before the arrest of the Haganah and Palmach leaders, they had already begun to plan an attack on the King David Hotel, where the military headquarters for the British government was located. In the Spring of 1946 the Irgun submitted a plan to the Haganah, but the Haganah thought it was too ambitious.

Then on July 1, 1946, two days after the British had arrested many of their leaders, they approved the plan whereby the Irgun would blow up the hotel. In their way of thinking, this was an appropriate “reprisal” for the Black Sabbath occupation of the headquarters of the Jewish Agency. At least, that was how they justified it later.

In actuality, Begin makes it very clear that they had planned this action months before the British occupied the Jewish Agency headquarters. The arrests on Black Sabath caused the Haganah leaders to capitulate to the British and publicly renounce terrorism, but they continued to carry out a secret terrorist war against the British. The only difference was that they now remained in the background and let the Irgun do the dirty work. Begin relates the entire story in chapter 15 of his book.

The operation was led by “Gideon,” (Yisrael Levi). They brought milk cans loaded with explosives into the basement through the hotel’s Regence Café. When completed, one of them telephoned the hotel and told them to evacuate the building, because bombs had been placed. They were timed to go off in half an hour. However, according to Begin’s account, the hotel was not evacuated, because the British high command refused to “take orders from the Jews.” Whatever the reason, 91 people were killed in the explosion.

The explosion was more effective than any of them believed possible, both in its destruction and the high number of casualties. The Haganah panicked again, and asked the Irgun to take public responsibility for this terrorist act. Mr. Begin complied, saving the Haganah any further embarrassment and arrests.

Nonetheless, the Haganah once again became the public adversary of the Irgun, even helping the British arrest Irgun members! Mr. Begin seems largely justified in his contempt for the Haganah and their duplicity. Begin, who calls himself the “Number One Terrorist” on the first page of his book, at least had principles, for he was not a politician, but a military man.

The Haganah not only knew of the operation, but approved of it in advance. It was called “Operation Chick.” Begin writes on page 218,

“Operation ‘Chick’ was carried out exactly three weeks after we received the Haganah’s instructions to execute it. During that time a number of meetings took place between us and the leaders of the Resistance Movement. Once the F. F. I. called for a postponement as they were not yet ready for their task. Twice or thrice we postponed the attack at the request of the Haganah Command.”

The blow-up of the King David Hotel brought the “Big Curfew” in Tel Aviv, as Yitzhak Shamir calls it on page 63 of his book, Summing Up. In the British search for terrorists, an officer recognized Yitzhak Shamir in spite of his disguise and imprisoned him. Ultimately, the British court exiled him to the prison camp in Eritrea in Africa, and he was out of the fight until May 1948.

The Deir Yassin Village Massacre

This occurred nine months after the destruction of the King David Hotel, a time when the British government began to give up on keeping the peace in Palestine.

On April 9, 1947 for no good strategic reason Begin’s Irgun Gang teamed up with Shamir’s Stern Gang and massacred over 250 men, women, and children in Deir Yassin, a peaceful village outside of Jerusalem. Most of the men were absent, because they were working in Jerusalem. The people were quickly subdued, those who resisted were killed on the spot, and the rest were lined up against a wall in the town square and shot. Many of the women were raped before most of them, too, were killed.

Later apologists tell us that it was their own fault for not leaving when they were warned. Surely, such apologists must be a bit insane to think that a few minutes’ warning relieves terrorists and murders of all moral responsibility for the massacres! Begin writes on page 163, 164 of The Revolt,

“One of our tenders carrying a loud speaker was stationed at the entrance to the village and it exhorted in Arabic all women, children and aged to leave their houses and to take shelter on the slope of the hill. By giving this humane warning our fighters threw away the elements of complete surprise, and thus increased their own risk in the ensuing battle. A substantial number of the inhabitants obeyed the warning and they were unhurt. A few did not leave their stone houses—perhaps because of the confusion. The fire of the enemy was murderous—to which the number of our casualties [four Irgun fighters were killed—ed.] bears eloquent testimony. Our men were compelled to fight for every house; to overcome the enemy they used large numbers of hand grenades. And the civilians who had disregarded our warnings, suffered inevitable casualties.”

This “warning” given to the civilians is contradicted by Alfred Lilienthal, who wrote on page 154 of The Zionist Connection II,

“No warning had been given to the villagers, as was later claimed (Begin has stated that all victims of Irgun attacks had been warned beforehand), because the armored truck with its loudspeaker had tumbled into a ditch and been tossed on its side far short of the first houses of the village. Advised by a night watchman of the approaching Jewish raiders, some inhabitants, with only a robe thrown around them, managed to flee to the west.”

“Jon Kimche, the Zionist writer, calling the incident ‘the darkest stain on the Jewish record throughout the fighting,’ stated, ‘The terrorist justified the massacre of Deir Yassin because it led to the panic flight of the remaining Arabs in the Jewish state area.’ Jewish writer Don Peretz described the result of Deir Yassin as a ‘mass fear psychosis which grasped the whole Arab community.’ Arthur Koestler wrote, this ‘bloodbath . . . was the psychologically decisive factor in the spectacular exodus of Arab refugees’.” (p. 156)

Menachem Begin also claimed that the town was of strategic military value. He bases this on a letter from Mr. Shaltiel, the Haganah Regional Commander, who had written to Begin:

“I learn that you plan an attack on Dir Yassin. I wish to point out that the capture of Dir Yassin and holding it is one stage in our general plan. I have no objection to your carrying out the operation provided you are able to hold the village. If you are unable to do so I warn you against blowing up the village which will result in its inhabitants abandoning it and its ruins and deserted houses being occupied by foreign forces. This situation will increase our difficulties in the general struggle. A second conquest of the place will involve us in heavy sacrifices. Furthermore, if foreign forces enter the place this will upset the plan for establishing an airfield.”

So the strategic value of Dir Yassin (or Deir Yassin) was that the Haganah was planning to turn it into an airfield! Certainly that would justify the destruction of the village. And if the people object and fight back, this would certainly justify their massacre. After all, who are they to object to a Jewish airfield? Don’t Jews have rights?

The Haganah, as usual, had denied all knowledge of the Irgun’s plans to destroy Deir Yassin. But Begin makes it clear that they knew about it and even approved of its operation. Begin says he did the “humane” thing by telling the people to flee from their homes before his attack. It was the Arab villagers’ own fault, he think, because they did not all flee and leave everything to the Jewish settlers who were soon to occupy the village. When they fought back, then the Irgun invoked its right to “self-defense.”

Do Arabs lack the right to fire upon invading Irgun and Lehi attackers? It was not Deir Yassin that attacked a village of the Irgun.

The primary goal of this massacre was to terrorize the Arabs into fleeing from their land, for only by their leaving could Jews confiscate it for themselves. Once the Arabs had fled—even if they went to a nearby town to stay with relatives for a time—they would not be allowed to return.

This Zionist definition of self defense is still used today as they confiscate more land and destroy more Arab villages. They come in and tell everyone to leave town, then blow up the town and move Israeli settlers to the land, giving the new settlement an Israeli name. Deir Yassin was no exception. I beg to differ with them on their basic definitions of morality and justice.

This murder was so diabolical that even the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, to his credit, excommunicated those who participated in the massacre.

Jacques de Reynier was the Chief Representative of the International Red Cross at the time of the massacre. His report of his inspection of Deir Yassin the day after the massacre may be viewed on a web site on the internet under http://www.palestinehistory.com/mass01.htm: It makes grim reading:

“Suddenly the officer tells me . . . the story of this village populated by 400 Arabs, disarmed since always living on good terms with the Jews who surround them. According to him, the Irgun arrived 24 hours previously and ordered by loudspeaker the whole population to evacuate all the buildings and surrender. There is a 15 minute delay in the execution of the command. Some of the unhappy people came forward and would have been taken prisoners and then turned loose shortly afterwards toward the Arab lines. The rest did not obey the order and suffered the fate they deserved. . . .

“Former Haganah officer, Col. Meir Pa’el, upon his retirement from the Israeli army in 1972, made the following public statement about Deir Yassin that was published by Yediot Ahronot (April 4, 1972): ‘In the exchange that followed, four [Irgun] men were killed and a dozen were wounded. . . by noon time the battle was over and the shooting had ceased. Although there was calm, the village had not yet surrendered. The Irgun and LEHI men came out of hiding and began to “clean” the houses. They shot whoever they saw, women and children included, the commanders did not try to stop the massacre . . . I pleaded with the commander to order his men to cease fire, but to no avail. In the meantime, 25 Arabs had been loaded on a truck and driven through Mahne Yehuda and Zichron Yousef (like prisoners in a Roman “March of Triumph”). At the end of the drive, they were taken to the quarry between Deir Yassin and Giv’at Shaul, and murdered in cold blood. . . The commanders also declined when asked to take their men and bury the 254 Arab bodies. This unpleasant task was performed by two Gadna units brought to the village from Jerusalem.

“Zvi Ankori, who commanded the Haganah unit that occupied Deir Yassin after the massacre, gave this statement in 1982 about the massacre, published by Davar on April 9, 1982: ‘I went into 6 to 7 houses. I saw cut off genitals and women’s crushed stomachs. According to the shooting signs on the bodies, it was direct murder.”

Even today, there are Zionists who deplore this murder. Ami Isseroff, of the Peace Middle East Dialog Group, implores his fellow Zionists,

“It is long past time for Israeli Zionists, like myself, to apologize. The Israeli government has never apologized for the massacre of Deir Yassin . . . The perpetrators of the massacre at Deir Yassin were never punished.”

As you can see, the roots of the present-day conflict go back to the days of Jewish terrorism. It worked so well for them, the Arabs decided to try to same tactics. The Jewish state was founded on terrorism by terrorism. This is the true basis of their claim to “the right to exist.” This is part of God’s reason for prophesying its destruction.