Haganah: Difference between revisions

{{Distinguish|Agana|Agunah}}

{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}

The Jewish paramilitary organizations in the [[Yishuv|New Yishuv]] (the Zionist enterprise in Palestine) started with the [[Second Aliyah]] (1904 to 1914).<ref>{{cite web |author=Speedy |url=http://thespeedymedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/idfs-history.html#.U4ei6F4ZffM |title=The Speedy Media: IDF's History |publisher=Thespeedymedia.blogspot.com |date=2011-09-12 |access-date=2014-08-03 |archive-date=2019-03-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190327205050/http://thespeedymedia.blogspot.com/2011/09/idfs-history.html#.U4ei6F4ZffM |url-status=dead }}</ref> The first such organization was [[Bar-Giora (organization)|Bar-Giora]], founded in September 1907. It consisted of a small group of Jewish immigrants who guarded settlements for an annual fee. It was converted to Hashomer ({{lang-he|השומר}}; "The Watchman") in April 1909, which operated until the British Mandate of Palestine came into being in 1920. Hashomer was an elitist organization which never had more than 100 members.<ref>[[Tom Segev|Segev, Tom]] (2018 - 2019 translation [[Haim Watzman]]) ''A State at Any Cost. The Life of David Ben-Gurion.'' Apollo. {{ISBN|9-781789-544633}} p.96</ref> During [[World War I]], the forerunners of the Haganah/IDF were the [[Zion Mule Corps]] and the [[Jewish Legion]], both of which were part of the British Army. After the [[1920 Palestine riots|Arab riots]] against Jews in April 1920, the Yishuv's leadership saw the need to create a nationwide underground defense organization, and the Haganah was founded in June of the same year. The Haganah became a full-scale defense force after the [[1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine]] with an organized structure, consisting of three main units—the [[Hish (Haganah corps)|Field Corps]], [[Guard Corps (Haganah)|Guard Corps]], and the [[Palmach]] strike force. During World War II the successor to the Jewish Legion of World War I was the [[Jewish Brigade]], which was joined by many Haganah fighters. During the 1947–48 civil war between the Arab and Jewish communities in what was still Mandatory Palestine, a reorganized Haganah managed to defend or wrestle most of the territory it was ordered to hold or capture. At the beginning of the ensuing 1948–49 full-scale conventional war against regular Arab armies, the Haganah was reorganized to become the core of the new Israel Defense Forces.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

After the [[1920 Nebi Musa riots]] and 1921 [[Jaffa riots]] by [[Palestinians]], the Jewish leadership in Palestine believed that the British, to whom the [[League of Nations]] had given a mandate over Palestine in 1920, had no desire to confront local Arab groups that frequently attacked Palestinian Jews.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/defense.html|title=The Role of Jewish Defense Organizations in Palestine (1903–1948)|encyclopedia=Jewish Virtual Library}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.idf.il/1283-19078-EN/Dover.aspx|title=Defending the nation for 65 years|date=30 May 2013|last1=Freund|first1=Gabriel|last2=Sahar|first2=Raz|publisher=IDF Spokesperson}}</ref> Believing that they could not rely on the British administration for protection from these gangs, the Jewish leadership created the Haganah to protect Jewish farms and [[kibbutz]]im. The first head of the Haganah was a 28-year-old named Yosef Hecht, a veteran of the [[Jewish Legion]].<ref name="vanCreveld">{{cite book|title= The Sword And The Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defence Force|last= Van Creveld|first= Martin|isbn= 978-1586481551|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FW8SAQAAMAAJ|publisher=Public Affairs|page= 21|year= 1998}}</ref>

By 1939, the British had issued the [[White Paper of 1939|White Paper]], which severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, deeply angering the Zionist leadership. [[David Ben-Gurion]], then chairman of the [[Jewish Agency]], set the policy for the Zionist relationship with the British: "We shall fight the war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gelvin |first=James L. |title=The Israel-Palestine conflict: one hundred years of war |date=2014 |publisher=Cambridge UniversiryUniversity Press |isbn=978-1-107-03718-2 |edition=3rd |location=New York, NY |pages=120}}</ref>

The Haganah was less active in the [[Jewish insurgency in Palestine|Jewish Rebellion]] than the other two groups, but the Palmach did carry out anti-British operations, including a raid on the [[Atlit detainee camp]] that released 208 illegal immigrants, the [[Night of the Trains]], the [[Night of the Bridges]], and attacks on [[Palestine Police Force|Palestine Police]] bases.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://info.palmach.org.il/show_item.asp?levelId=42858&itemId=8697&itemType=0 |title title= דף הבית | access-date=2015-05-13 | archive-date=2015-05-18 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518090415/http://info.palmach.org.il/show_item.asp?levelId=42858&itemId=8697&itemType=0 | url-status=dead }}</ref> The Haganah withdrew on 1 July 1946, but "remained permanently unco-operative" with the British authorities.<ref>Horne, Edward (1982). ''A Job Well Done (Being a History of The Palestine Police Force 1920–1948)''. The Anchor Press. {{ISBN|978-0-9508367-0-6}}. pp. 272, 288, 289</ref> It continued to organize illegal Jewish immigration as part of the [[Aliyah Bet]] program, in which ships carrying illegal immigrants attempted to breach the British blockade of Palestine and land illegal immigrants on the shore (most were intercepted by the [[Royal Navy]]), and the Palmach performed operations against the British to support the illegal immigration program. The Palmach repeatedly bombed British radar stations being used to track illegal immigrant ships, and sabotaged British ships being used to deport illegal immigrants, as well as two British landing and patrol craft.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.palyam.org/English/Palyam_overview_en|title=The Palyam|website=www.palyam.org|access-date=2015-05-13|archive-date=2011-08-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110817085312/http://www.palyam.org/English/Palyam_overview_en|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Palmach performed a single assassination operation in which a British official who had been judged to be excessively cruel to Jewish prisoners was shot dead.<ref>Ben-Yehuda, Nachman: ''Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice'', pages 227–229</ref> The Haganah also organized the [[Birya affair]]. Following the expulsion of the residents of the Jewish settlement of Birya for illegal weapons possession, thousands of Jewish youth organized by the Haganah marched to the site and rebuilt the settlement. They were expelled by British shortly afterward while showing [[passive resistance]], but after they returned a third time, the British backed off and allowed them to remain.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://info.palmach.org.il/show_item.asp?levelId=42858&itemId=8724&itemType=0 |title title= דף הבית | access-date=2015-05-13 | archive-date=2015-05-18 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518090323/http://info.palmach.org.il/show_item.asp?levelId=42858&itemId=8724&itemType=0 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Some [[Bedouin]]s had longstanding ties with nearby [[Jews|Jewish]] communities. They helped defend these communities in the [[1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine]]. During the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]], some Bedouins of [[Tuba-Zangariyye|Tuba]] formed an alliance with the Haganah defending Jewish communities in the [[Upper Galilee]] against [[First Syrian Republic (1930-58)|Syria]]. Some were part of a Pal-Heib unit of the Haganah. Sheik Hussein Mohammed Ali Abu Yussef of Tuba was quoted in 1948 as saying, "Is it not written in the [[Koran]] that the ties of neighbors are as dear as those of relations? Our friendship with the Jews goes back for many years. We felt we could trust them and they learned from us too".<ref>''Palestine Post'', "Israel's Bedouin Warriors", Gene Dison, August 12, 1948</ref>