Resistance Tiyul

A room honoring many people who helped to create Israel.

In the late 1880s and early 1900s, there were a series of massive aliyah to Israel. This influx of Jews took over much of the land that the Palestinians claimed as their own, which led to riots. It was a cycle. An aliyah would take place, riots would ensue, the British would create a commission to investigate, and then white papers would be released to solve the problem. This, unfortunately for the British, did not work, which led to the repetition of the cycle. The white papers released increasingly put harsh restrictions upon the Jews, eventually limiting aliyah to Israel to 75,000 Jews in five years. That’s less aliyah, and more aliyawwwww! 

           White papers were the British solution to the riots that occurred to protest the massive aliyot that occurred in the early 1900s. The earlier white papers just confirmed British commitment to a Jewish state, talked about peace, and about opening Jewish immigration. The later white papers limited aliyah and the amount of land Jews could purchase in Palestine. The Jews’ solution to this was the creation of different groups in order to either protect Jews in Palestine or to get around British law that they deemed unfair.

       David Ben Gurion was the leader of one of those groups. That group was the Haganah (הגנה), the very first resistance group, which worked to protect Jews by defending them against Arab terrorists. The Haganah also worked to change or evade many of the British laws that were making it difficult, if not impossible, for many Jewish refugees of the Holocaust to enter Israel. What’s your favorite color? Reply; I want to see who is actually reading my blog. Include it with your answer to the later question. However, The Great DBG (David Ben Gurion) believed that Jews had to cooperate with the British because they were some of our closest allies in fighting the Nazis. “We are going to fight in the war as if there are no white papers, and we are going to fight the white papers as if there is no war.” This view was not shared by other resistance groups such as Etzel and Lehi. This was perhaps the most divisive issue among these groups. 

One of the "nicer" cells

Etzel stands for “לאומי צבאי ארגון,” which means National Military Organization. Zev Jabotinsky, who did not agree with DBG about peace, formed this group. (He’d probably say, “Haganah? HagaNAH, man.”) He wanted a more active resistance against the British, which is his main reason for the split from Haganah. Etzel was overall more extreme than Haganah. The group was much more militaristic in it’s actions. They also had differing ideals for Israel. Haganah was satisfied with borders of Israel as defined by the UN partition plan, whereas Etzel believed in the so-called “biblical borders” of Israel, spanning from the Mediterranean to the other side of                                                              the Jordan river.

Prison Yard

        The third group was Lehi, which in Hebrew stands for “ישראל חרות לוחמי,” meaning Freedom Fighters of Israel. This group was the most extreme, and sometimes it was even referred to as a terrorist group due to many controversial actions it took in the name of the Jewish State. It was a splinter group of Etzel, run by Yair Stern.

   Out of these three groups, I personally connected most with Haganah. I think David Ben Gurion job did a good job of keeping the group as a moral and Jewish group, well still fighting and protecting the people. The other two groups, Etzel and Lehi, felt to me like they were not just protecting the people but also hurting other people, which may or may not have been the intention, but it just does not sit right with me. One thing that I loved was that all of the groups participated in was Aliyah Bet, an underground aliyah, because of the limit on Jewish immigration. Of the people who aided in smuggling Jews into Israel, some were caught, and they were sent to British prisons like the one we saw in Jerusalem. 

Fellow classmate, Max Wallach,
playfully pretending to enter the trapdoor.

       In fact, Zev Jabotinsky himself was incarcerated there. It was not a very good life for those who were imprisoned there. Although, what can you expect? It’s prison. It was very difficult for the captured resistance fighters, knowing that they were unable to help the resistance from inside the prison. Near the end of the British occupation, 12 people were able to escape the prison through the sewers, by means of a trap door that they created from their cell. (Seems like a pretty stinky escape plan to me.)

      Others, however, were not as lucky. Two Jewish Men, Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein, were on death row in the prison. They, as their final act of rebellion, were able to get a grenade 

Where Barazani and Meir would have
been hanged

hidden inside an orange peel, and they blew themselves up before they would have been hanged.

      At the end of our Tiyul, we learned about the King David Hotel. On July 22^nd, 1946, Etzel members blew up the hotel, leading to 91 deaths and 45 people wounded. Etzel claimed they attempted to call the hotel to get people to leave first, but this tragedy, often referred to as a terrorist attack, forever split Etzel and Haganah. Even until David Ben Gurion’s death, he refused to speak ever again to Menahem Begin, Etzel’s leader. However, as terrible an event this was, it impacted Israel’s statehood, at least shortening the time it took. 

So what do you say? Which group, Haganah, Etzel, or Lehi, do you think had the biggest impact on the creation of Israel?