First, they had no army and no other means of fighting the british.
That is true for almost all terrorist groups. That is no excuse for methods.
They were fighting for their homeland that the league of nations had granted and to which the british had agreed as custodian of the land, not occupying power
Well I've had enough of this BS from CS. The Jews were not fighting for their homeland as they did not have a homeland at that time, though there was a movement and wishes for such a thing. Let's have a history lesson...
The British Mandate of Palestine from the League of Nations (from Wiki)...
British interest in Zionism dates to the rise in importance of the British Empire's South Asian enterprises in the early 19th century, concurrent with the Great Game and the planning for the Suez Canal. As early as 1840, Viscount Palmerston (later to become Prime Minister) wrote to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire:
"There exists at the present time among the Jews dispersed over Europe a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine. It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and settle in Palestine because the wealth that they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan's dominions, and the Jewish people if returning under the sanction and protection at the invitation of the Sultan would be a check upon any future evil designs of Egypt or its neighbours. I wish to instruct your Excellency strongly to recommend to the Turkish government to hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine."
Later, in 1907, a commission convened by Prime Minister Campbell-Bannerman issued a report declaring:
"There are people who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language, one history and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate these people from one another ... if, per chance, this nation were to be unified into one state, it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and would separate Europe from the rest of the world. Taking these considerations seriously, a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a springboard for the West to gain its coveted objects."
Mmmmhmmm, and...
The United Kingdom was granted control of Palestine by the Versailles Peace Conference which established the League of Nations in 1919 and appointed Herbert Samuel, a former Postmaster General in the British cabinet who was instrumental in drafting the Balfour Declaration, as its first High Commissioner in Palestine. During World War I, the British had made two promises regarding territory in the Middle East. Britain had promised the local Arabs, through Lawrence of Arabia, independence for a united Arab country covering most of the Arab Middle East, in exchange for their supporting the British and Britain had promised to create and foster a Jewish national home as laid out in the Balfour Declaration, 1917.
Which promise came first, which held power, which was based on purely racial and religious motivations? Note at this time Jews in that area were less than 11% of the population. Whose home was it?
The British had, in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence previously promised the Hashemite family lordship over most land in the region in return for their support in the Great Arab Revolt during World War I. In 1920 at the Conference of San Remo held at San Remo, Italy, the League of Nations mandate over Palestine was assigned to Britain. This territory at this time included all of what would later become the State of Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, a part of the Golan Heights, and the Kingdom of Jordan. The population of this area was approx. 750,000 (11% Jewish). It was multi-ethnic but spoke mainly Arabic and was largely Muslim in faith
More British promises to Arabs, the overwhelming resident population. Then Britain gets handed control of this land by the League of Nations. This organization would eventually go down as a failure and indeed there are legitimate questions on what authority it had in granting anyone control over lands. This is similar to European heads divvying up lands in the New World, and Asia, though there were already people living there.
In June 1922 the League of Nations passed the Palestine Mandate. The Palestine Mandate was an explicit document regarding Britain's responsibilities and powers of administration in Palestine including: "secur[ing] the establishment of the Jewish national home", and "safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine".
The document defining Britain's obligations as Mandate power copied the text of the Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of a Jewish homeland:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Many articles of the document specified actions in support of Jewish immigration and political status. However, it was also stated that in the large, mostly arid, territory to the east of the Jordan River, then called Transjordan, Britain could 'postpone or withhold' application of the provisions dealing with the 'Jewish National Home'.
For a majority population to have a foreign body impose a new state upon them according to that foreign body's own religious and political designs, and for the benefit of the minority population is horrific. It is an intolerable practice we would not accept today.
And though as bad as it was, it did not grant anyone anything. It gave the British the right to do something, that's what a mandate is, while restricting to what extent it could do things and even allowed them to choose not to.
In fact, it was the arabs who were launching the terrorist attacks against the jews, even then. And even then, defense against such attacks was construed as aggression by the Jews.
More BS from CS. Let's look at violence there from Arabs. And remember they were a majority population facing a FORCED INFLUX of foreigners with a suspected agenda of setting up a whole new state just for themselves... you know Steve, that thing you think is horrible to have happen and we need to fight?...
Initially, Jewish immigration to Palestine met little opposition from the Palestinian Arabs. However, as anti-Semitism grew in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish immigration (mostly from Europe) to Palestine began to increase markedly, creating much Arab resentment.
There was violent incitement from the Palestine Muslim leadership that led to violent attacks against the Jewish population. In some cases, land purchases by the Jewish agencies from absentee landlords led to the eviction of the Palestinian Arab tenants, who were replaced by the Jews of the kibbutzim. The Arabic speakers before World War I had the status of peasants (felaheen), and did not own their land although they might own the trees that grew on that land. When Jews, who grew up with European laws, purchased land they did not always realise that the villagers on that land owned the trees. This was often a source of misunderstanding and conflict.
Interesting. So new influx of foreigners into ones land causes conflict. Whose land was that again?
In 1936-1939 the mandate experienced an upsurge in militant Arab nationalism that became known as the Great Uprising and, "The Arab Revolt." The revolt was triggered by increased Jewish immigration, primarily Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany as well as rising antisemitism in Eastern Europe. The revolt was led or coopted by the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Husseini and his Husseini family, and is strongly suspected to have been financed by the Fascist government of Italy. The Arabs felt they were being marginalized in their own country, but in addition to non-violent strikes, they resorted to terrorism, leaving hundreds of Jews dead. Husseini's men killed more Arabs than Jews, using the revolt as an excuse to settle accounts with rival clans. The Jewish organization Etzel replied with its own terrorist campaign, with marketplace bombings and other violent acts that also killed hundreds.
Yes, let's blame Islam, rather than the rather obvious tensions growing due to political power games being playing by Britain and other European powers, reneging on deal to arabs in order to resurrect a 3000 year dead nation for a minority population which required redlining (an illegal practice) and forced immigration tactics against the majority population, as well as other historical and regional affairs like WW2 and clan rivalry.
Further Jews continued an illegal immigration campaign (sure you'd love that in Canada huh steve?). The British tried to control and supress that activity. The response?
Members of the Jewish Lehi underground, Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo on 6 November 1944. Moyne was the British Minister of State for the Middle East, responsible for implementing the ban on Jewish immigration to Palestine. The assassination is said to have turned Winston Churchill against the Zionist cause. Fighting Jewish terrorists on one hand and the Germans in North Africa on the other did not endear the British to the Jews in Palestine at this critical stage of the war.
What country were they fighting for? The League of Nations was long dead (1939) and with that the force of the Mandate, at which time there could not possibly have been a "homeland". They did not have all the properties and so borders and majority required. It simply did not exist except as an idea in a vastly minority population, based on their religious desires. This is not to mention that the Mandate allowed the British to hold up progress according to their desires.
the British announced their desire to terminate their mandate and to withdraw by May 1948.
They then terminated the mandate in 1948. Still no nation Steve. Well wait a sec, what about the UN partition plan of 1947? Surely that foreign body's decision regarding the residents of a territory must have been valid and decided once and for all that Israel was in fact a state?
The United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations, attempted to solve the dispute between the Palestinian Jews and Arabs. The UN appointed a committee, the UNSCOP, composed of representatives from several states. None of the Great Powers were represented, in order to make the committee more neutral. UNSCOP considered two main proposals. The first called for the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration. The second called for the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. A majority of UNSCOP favoured the first option, although several members supported the second option instead and one member (Australia) said it was unable to decide between them. As a result the first option was adopted and the UN General Assembly largely accepted UNSCOP's proposals, though they made some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal.
Huh, so well past the King David Hotel bombing there was still no recognized homeland of jews, and in fact could have been rejected entirely for a single nation with both Jews and Arabs (gods damn them for not trying that). It was an arbitrary decision by foreigners which made that quite undemocratic decision for a two nation solution which they themselves had invented.
Again, well after the bombing you claim was covered because Jews were fighting for a legal homeland.
Oh yes, and what exactly was the geodemographics at this time toward having a complete state anyway?
much of the land reserved for the Jewish state had already been acquired by Jews, had a Jewish majority, or was under state control.
In other words, though perhaps close, was still not actually complete on the ground.
Intringuingly you'll note above that the two state solution had jerusalem as neutral. Of course the Arabs were furious as this was foreign nations redlining them into minority status where they were still dominant (60% of the population), but not even all Jews accepted this deal.
Menachem Begin, Irgun's leader, announced: "The partition of the homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. The signature by institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. The Land of Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever". His views were publicly rejected by the majority of the nascent Jewish state. Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, claim that this publicly expressed acceptance was mainly propaganda for the consumption of Western nations, and that Begin's statement more accurately reflected the real intentions of the founders of the State of Israel.
Uh huh. Now earlier Steve you had this guy as a valid war hero. So what does this nonaceptance of the first validation of a state of Israel, after the even in question mean? Also, it is interesting how arab fears have panned out.
And what was it like to have borders set around them in their own territory and told who to be?
On the date of British withdrawal the Jewish provisional government declared the formation of the State of Israel, and the provisional government said that it would grant full civil rights to all within its borders, whether Arab, Jew, Bedouin or Druze. The declaration stated:
We appeal ... to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.
Thus, upon creating the state - any inhabitants inside the newly formed State of Israel, whether Palestinian Jews or Palestinian Arabs, became Israeli.
Palestinians consider a far more accurate statement of the intention of the founders of Israel to be that of Chaim Weizmann, who reportedly said:
[Our intention is to] finally establish such a society in Palestine that Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English, or America is American.
Again, note the recognition of its formation is after the events you defended.
jewish body of the time condemned such acts,
While true, does a denial and condemnation really make it so?...
The Jewish leadership publicly condemned these attacks. The Jewish agency expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals".
In fact, the Irgun was acting in response to direct instructions from the United Resistance, as described in the letter from Moshe Sneh cited above.
The Irgun issued an initial statement accepting responsibility for the attack, blaming the British for the deaths due to failure to respond to the warning, and mourning the Jewish victims.
A year later, on July 22, 1947, they issued a new statement saying that they were acting on instructions from "a letter from the headquarters of the United Resistance, demanding that we carry out an attack on the center of government at the King David Hotel as soon as possible".
Condemnation not exactly convincing anymore huh?
Attacks on british military sites - as the king david was - and on british soldiers were justified.
You never did answer my question about if just having military in a place makes a civilian location a military site. That was reasoning rejected in the US after the Oklahoma City bombing, and by Israelis in many different attacks.
In any case, justification I believe has been thoroughly discredited at this point.
This message has been edited by holmes, 10-11-2005 03:15 PM
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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