Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies

CASE STUDIES IN INSURGENCY 

AND REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE—

PALESTINE SERIES

VOLUME I—THE ZIONIST INSURGENCY

(1890–1950)

United States Army Special Operations Command

Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies

CASE STUDIES IN INSURGENCY 

AND REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE—

PALESTINE SERIES

VOLUME I—THE ZIONIST INSURGENCY

(1890–1950)

Paul J. Tompkins Jr., USASOC Project Lead

Robert R. Leonhard, Editor

Erin N. Hahn, Robert R. Leohnard, Guillermo F. Pinczuk, Katharine 

Burnett Raley, and Craig A. Zecchin, Contributing Authors

United States Army Special Operations Command

and

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

National Security Analysis Department
This publication is a work of the United States Government in accordance with Title 17, United States Code, sections 101 and 105.

Published by:

The United States Army Special Operations Command

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Reproduction in whole or in part is permitted for any purpose of the 

United States government. Nonmateriel research on special warfare is 

performed in support of the requirements stated by the United States 

Army Special Operations Command, Department of the Army. This 

research is accomplished at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory by the National Security Analysis Department, a nongovernmental agency operating under the supervision of the USASOC 

Sensitive Activities Division, Department of the Army.

The analysis and the opinions expressed within this document 

are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the US Army or the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics 

Laboratory.

Comments correcting errors of fact and opinion, filling or indicating gaps of information, and suggesting other changes that may be 

appropriate should be addressed to:

United States Army Special Operations Command

G-3X, Sensitive Activities Division

2929 Desert Storm Drive

Fort Bragg, NC 28310

All ARIS products are available from USASOC at www.soc.mil

under the ARIS link.
ASSESSING REVOLUTIONARY AND 

INSURGENT STRATEGIES

The Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies (ARIS) series consists of a set of case studies and research conducted for the US Army Special 

Operations Command by the National Security Analysis Department of the 

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

The purpose of the ARIS series is to produce a collection of academically rigorous yet operationally relevant research materials to develop and 

illustrate a common understanding of insurgency and revolution. This 

research, intended to form a bedrock body of knowledge for members of 

the Special Forces, will allow users to distill vast amounts of material from a 

wide array of campaigns and extract relevant lessons, thereby enabling the 

development of future doctrine, professional education, and training.

From its inception, ARIS has been focused on exploring historical and 

current revolutions and insurgencies for the purpose of identifying emerging trends in operational designs and patterns. ARIS encompasses research 

and studies on the general characteristics of revolutionary movements and 

insurgencies and examines unique adaptations by specific organizations or 

groups to overcome various environmental and contextual challenges.

The ARIS series follows in the tradition of research conducted by the 

Special Operations Research Office (SORO) of American University in the 

1950s and 1960s, by adding new research to that body of work and in several 

instances releasing updated editions of original SORO studies.

VOLUMES IN THE ARIS SERIES

Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare, Volume I: 1927–1962 (Rev. Ed.)

Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare, Volume II: 1962–2009

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Colombia (1964–2009)

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: Cuba 1953–1959 (pub. 1963)

Case Study in Guerrilla War: Greece During World War II (pub. 1961)

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: Guatemala 1944–1954 (pub. 1964)

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Sri Lanka (1976–2009)

Unconventional Warfare Case Study: The Relationship between Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah

Unconventional Warfare Case Study: The Rhodesian Insurgency and the Role of External 

Support: 1961–1979

Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies (2nd Ed.)

Irregular Warfare Annotated Bibliography

Legal Implications of the Status of Persons in Resistance

Narratives and Competing Messages

Special Topics in Irregular Warfare: Understanding Resistance

Threshold of Violence

Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare (2nd Ed.)

SORO STUDIES

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: Vietnam 1941–1954 (pub. 1964)

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD .........................................................................................xi

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY ............................1

Background.........................................................................................3

Purpose of the Case Study .................................................................4

Organization of the Study..................................................................5

Summary of the Study ........................................................................6

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces...............................................8

Timeline ........................................................................................ 14

PART I. CONTEXT AND CATALYSTS OF THE INSURGENCY

CHAPTER 2. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT...................................... 19

Palestine’s Geography.......................................................................21

The Coastal Plain..........................................................................24

The Central Highlands.................................................................24

Rivers and Drainage .....................................................................27

Galilee............................................................................................27

The Jezreel Valley..........................................................................27

The Hula Valley.............................................................................29

The Negev .....................................................................................29

The West Bank ..............................................................................29

The Gaza Strip ..............................................................................30

CHAPTER 3. HISTORICAL CONTEXT...........................................33

Introduction......................................................................................35

Ancient History .............................................................................35

Mytho-History, Legitimation, and Exceptionalism.....................36

Historical Israel.................................................................................40

The Islamic Conquest of Palestine and the Crusades ................47

The Mongol Invasion....................................................................48

The Ottoman Empire ...................................................................48

The Jews and Palestine .................................................................49

The Jewish Diaspora and Anti-Semitism.....................................50

CHAPTER 4. SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS ...........................55

Ethnicity ............................................................................................57

Arabs .............................................................................................58

Demographics...................................................................................58

Economics .........................................................................................59
vi

CHAPTER 5. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS ..............................63

The Ottoman Period ........................................................................65

The Legal Context of the Ottoman Government and the 

Notion of a Legal Identity ..................................................65

Government Structure—Overview of the Millet System............66

Ottomanism, Citizenship, and the Tanzimat Movement............67

The Hamidian Era........................................................................69

PART II. STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE INSURGENCY

CHAPTER 6. THE ZIONIST INSURGENCY: FIRST ALIYAH 

(1882–1903)..........................................................................75

Timeline ............................................................................................77

Origins...............................................................................................77

Leadership, Organizational Structure, and Command 

and Control ...............................................................................85

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component...............86

Financial Support .........................................................................87

Armed Component.......................................................................89

Public Component........................................................................89

Ideology .............................................................................................90

Legitimacy .....................................................................................93

Motivation and Behavior ..................................................................95

Analysis..............................................................................................96

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces.............................................97

CHAPTER 7. THE CONQUEST OF LABOR: SECOND ALIYAH 

(1903–1914) ........................................................................ 101

Timeline ..........................................................................................103

Background.....................................................................................104

Leadership, Organizational Structure, and Command 

and Control .............................................................................106

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component.............109

Armed Component..................................................................... 110

Public Component...................................................................... 111

Ideology ...........................................................................................112

Legitimacy ....................................................................................... 114

Motivation and Behavior ................................................................ 115

Finances, Logistics, and Sustainment........................................ 116

Analysis............................................................................................ 117

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces........................................... 118
vii

CHAPTER 8. THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THIRD ALIYAH 

(1914–1923) ........................................................................ 121

Timeline ..........................................................................................123

Background.....................................................................................124

Leadership, Organizational Structure, and Command 

and Control .............................................................................129

Political Zionism .........................................................................130

Labor Zionism.............................................................................132

Revisionist Zionism.....................................................................134

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component.............136

Nili Group.................................................................................... 137

Armed Component.....................................................................138

HaShomer....................................................................................138

The Haganah ..............................................................................138

Public Component......................................................................139

Ideology ...........................................................................................140

Legitimacy .......................................................................................140

Motivation and Behavior ................................................................143

Operations.......................................................................................144

Paramilitary.................................................................................144

Battle of Tel Hai .......................................................................... 144

Nabi Musa Riots .......................................................................... 144

Jaffa Riots .................................................................................... 145

Administrative and Financial.....................................................146

Political........................................................................................ 147

Analysis............................................................................................149

CHAPTER 9. THE INTERWAR PERIOD AND FOURTH AND 

FIFTH ALIYAHS (1924–1939) ......................................... 153

Timeline ..........................................................................................155

Summary .........................................................................................156

Background.....................................................................................157

Leadership, Organizational Structure, and Command 

and Control .............................................................................164

Labor Zionists and the Jewish Agency.......................................164

Revisionist Zionists......................................................................167

Orthodox Resistance to Zionism and Religious Zionism.........168

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component............. 171

Armed Component..................................................................... 172

The Haganah .............................................................................. 172

The Irgun .................................................................................... 173

Public Component...................................................................... 176

Shadow Government................................................................... 177
viii

Ideology ........................................................................................... 177

Betar Youth.................................................................................. 178

Legitimacy ....................................................................................... 179

Motivation and Behavior ................................................................180

Operations....................................................................................... 181

Paramilitary................................................................................. 181

1929 Arab Riots........................................................................... 181

Tower-and-Stockade Settlements ...............................................186

1936–1939 Arab Revolt ...............................................................186

Administrative.............................................................................188

Analysis............................................................................................189

CHAPTER 10. THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND STATEHOOD 

(1940–1950) ....................................................................... 191

Timeline ..........................................................................................194

Overview..........................................................................................195

Leadership, Organizational Structure, and Command 

and Control .............................................................................203

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component.............204

Armed Component.....................................................................205

The Haganah ..............................................................................205

Palmach .......................................................................................207

The Irgun ....................................................................................208

Lehi ......................................................................................... 211

Public Component......................................................................213

Ideology ...........................................................................................213

Legitimacy .......................................................................................215

Motivation and Behavior ................................................................218

Operations.......................................................................................219

Paramilitary.................................................................................219

World War II................................................................................ 219

Postwar Operations..................................................................... 219

The War of Independence..........................................................220

Political........................................................................................225

Postindependence Diplomacy ....................................................225

Transition to Statehood..................................................................228

Concepts and Elements of Statehood........................................229

Solidifying the Idea of a Jewish State ........................................230

The League of Nations and the Mandatory System ................. 231

An Analysis of Statehood............................................................234

What Makes a State? ...................................................................236

CHAPTER 11. CONCLUSION.......................................................... 241
ix

TECHNICAL APPENDIX................................................................. 245

Methodology of the Study ..............................................................247

Physical Environment .....................................................................248

Historical Context...........................................................................249

Socioeconomic Conditions.............................................................250

Government and Politics ................................................................254

BIBLIOGR APHY ................................................................. 259

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS.............................................................. 267

INDEX ................................................................................................269
x

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1-1. Centripetal and centrifugal forces. ....................................8

Figure 2-1. Modern Palestine...............................................................23

Figure 2-2. Major geographical regions..............................................25

Figure 2-3. Topography of Palestine. ..................................................26

Figure 2-4. Map of Israel......................................................................28

Figure 2-5. Map of the West Bank.......................................................30

Figure 2-6. Map of Gaza Strip. ............................................................ 31

Figure 3-1. Tel Dan Stele, which mentions the House of David. .......41

Figure 3-2. The divided kingdoms......................................................42

Figure 3-3. Masada...............................................................................45

Figure 6-1. The First Aliyah (1882–1903)............................................82

Figure 6-2. Theodor Herzl. .................................................................83

Figure 6-3. Baron Edmund de Rothschild. ........................................88

Figure 6-4. Development of Zionist ideology...................................... 91

Figure 7-1. The Second Aliyah (1904–1914). .................................... 105

Figure 7-2. David Gruen (later, Ben-Gurion). .................................. 107

Figure 7-3. Arthur Ruppin................................................................. 108

Figure 7-4. Israel Shochat.................................................................. 111

Figure 8-1. Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann, 1921................. 130

Figure 8-2. David Ben-Gurion in the British Army, 1918. ............... 132

Figure 8-3. Ze'ev Jabotinsky. .............................................................. 135

Figure 9-1. Map of the Royal Commission’s Partition Plan. ............ 161

Figure 9-2. Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. .............................. 182

Figure 9-3. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. ..................................................... 185

Figure 10-1. Jewish enclaves in Palestine........................................... 196

Figure 10-2. Menachem Begin in 1949. ............................................209

Figure 10-3. Avraham Stern. ............................................................. 212
xi

FOREWORD

Try to count from one to six million.

If you do nothing else for twenty-four hours a day, it will take you 

nearly two and a half months.

For the first seventeen days of your counting exercise, each number represents a Jewish child killed during the Holocaust from 1941 

through 1945. In the middle of your third week, you will begin to count 

the Jewish women who were killed, and it will take you another three 

weeks to include them all. Finally, about forty days into your project, 

you will start numbering the Jewish men who were murdered by the 

Nazi regime.

The scale of the Holocaust is mind boggling, even for the most dispassionate observer or historian. But imagine what it feels like to know 

that your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters, grandparents, 

cousins, uncles and aunts had their lives taken from them because they 

were born Jewish. Imagine trying to understand your place in human 

history—trying to have a sense of self—bereft of your antecedents.

The generation of Jews who staggered out of the killing fields of 

Europe and found a home in the Ottoman, British, and Arab governance known as Palestine did not talk much about the experience. 

After escaping the most horrendous experience in modern history, 

they tried their best to forget about it. Instead of looking back toward 

the disaster, they looked forward. Having witnessed the failure of diplomacy, democracy, culture, education, and religion in preventing such 

a catastrophe, they looked to the only solution left to them: a state of 

their own.

Unfortunately, the land the Zionists set out to take was not empty 

as their early theorists thought. Palestinian Arabs had been there for 

over a millennium, and despite initial hopes that there would be room 

in Palestine for both peoples, many on both sides foresaw trouble. The 

conflict born from the Zionist enterprise is not racial, but national, 

political, and territorial. It is a struggle between two peoples for a small 

sliver of land. Both sides claim historical ties to the land. Both insist 

their rights to it are unalienable. Both sides have suffered and inflicted 

violence. Both sides have advocates and antagonists.

But only one side is still counting to six million.

There is nothing comparable to the scale of the Holocaust in Arab 

or Palestinian history. The loss of nearly an entire civilization propelled 

Zionism to a desperate act of statehood. The Zionist pioneers, financiers, engineers, leaders, and soldiers who carried on the work in Palestine for fifty years before the Holocaust were suddenly shocked into 
xii

the realization that their fight was the only hope left if Jews and Jewish 

culture were to survive.

This case study examines the development of Zionism from its origins through the founding of the State of Israel. As the authors have 

observed, anti-Semitism in general, and the Holocaust in particular, 

were key to binding together the various strands of the insurgency into 

common purpose. The deaths of so many led to a determination to succeed, for there was literally no place else to go.

Throughout the decades, this struggle has oscillated between fighting and negotiations. In the absence of a peace settlement, violence 

continues to frustrate both sides. But whether or not there is a peaceful 

solution in the offing, we must understand the conflict. This volume 

helps us along that path by describing the Zionist movement and looking at it in a unique way—as an insurgency that aimed at overturning 

the Ottoman, British, and Arab governance of Palestine and replacing 

it with a Jewish state of Israel.

All parties involved are obsessed with their interpretation of history. Over the last decades the Holocaust has continued to be a major 

factor in shaping Israeli identity and strategy. Concluding that their 

existence and survival depend solely on military power and economic 

strength rather than on faith in diplomatic agreements, the Zionists have acquired a reputation of being hard-nosed. But in part it is 

because they are still counting to six million and trying to make sense 

of that number.

The most fateful decisions in Israeli history—the mass immigration 

of the 1950s, the Six-Day War, and Israel’s nuclear project—were all 

conceived in the shadow of the Holocaust. The “Samson Option” is the 

worst-kept secret of Israel’s acquisition of a massive nuclear arsenal with 

long-range and second-strike capabilities. Israelis feel that their ability 

to cause a modern holocaust is the best way to guarantee never having 

to be subjected to one again.

Israel differs from other countries in its need to justify to the rest 

of the world, and to itself, its very right to exist. Most countries need 

no such justification. But Israel does because most of its Arab neighbors have not recognized it. As a justification for the State of Israel, 

the Holocaust underscored the divine promise contained in the bibles 

that even atheistic Zionists carried and quoted. In the end, the darkest 

episode of the 1940s birthed a new state and so replaced the Zionist 

insurgency with a Zionist government. This case study is the story of 

how that remarkable event occurred.

Sidney Shachnow

Major General, US Army (Retired)

A Holocaust Survivor
CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

Now the Lord said to Abram,

“Go forth from your country,

And from your relatives

And from your father’s house,

To the land which I will show you;

And I will make you a great nation,

And I will bless you,

And make your name great;

And so you shall be a blessing;

And I will bless those who bless you,

And the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Genesis 12:1–3, NASB

3

BACKGROUND

The purpose of the Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies (ARIS) series is to produce academically rigorous yet operationally 

relevant research to expand on and update the body of knowledge on 

insurgency and revolution for members of the US Special Forces. We 

began this work with a rigorous assessment of all known insurgent or 

revolutionary activities from 1962 through the present day. To conduct 

this assessment, we agreed on a basic definition of revolution or insurgency.a

 For the purpose of this research, a revolution is defined as:

An attempt to modify the existing political system at 

least partially through unconstitutional or illegal use 

of force or protest.2

Next we developed a taxonomy to establish a standard structure for 

analysis and to facilitate discussion of similarities and differences. We 

classified events and activities according to the most evident cause of 

the revolt. The causes or bases of revolution were categorized as follows:

• Those motivated by a desire to greatly modify the type of 

government

• Those motivated by identity or ethnic issues

• Those motivated by a desire to drive out a foreign power

• Those motivated by religious fundamentalism

• Those motivated by issues of modernization or reform

After applying this taxonomy, we selected twenty-three cases, across 

the five categories above, to be researched for inclusion in the Casebook 

on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare Volume II: 1962–2009.

3

 For each 

of the twenty-three revolutions or insurgencies, the casebook includes 

a summary case study that focuses on the organization and activities of 

the insurgent group.

Subsequently, we selected several of the cases for a more detailed 

treatment that would apply a broader and more holistic analytical perspective, considering factors such as the social, economic, historical, 

and political context. Within the ARIS research series, these studies are 

a The terms insurgency and revolution or revolutionary warfare are used interchangeably 

in the ARIS series. We adopted the term revolution to maintain consistency with the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) studies conducted during the 1960s, which also 

used the term. Many social scientists use an arbitrary threshold of battle deaths to delineate civil war from other acts of armed violence. Our definition relies on Charles Tilly and 

Sidney Tarrow’s definition of contentious politics, activity that “involves interactions in 

which actors make claims bearing on someone else’s interests or programs, in which governments are involved as targets, initiators of claims, or third parties.”1
4

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

referred to as “ARIS Tier 1 Insurgency Case Studies.” This case study 

on Israel–Palestine is one of these works.

PURPOSE OF THE CASE STUDY

In the mid-nineteenth century there were about ten thousand Jews 

living in Palestine. Most of the world’s Jews were dispersed among the 

nations of the world, especially in Eastern Europe, where many suffered repression, dispossession, suspicion, hostility, and sporadic violence. By 1950, the State of Israel had been established and had fought 

its first successful war. The Jewish population in Palestine was more 

than 1.2 million at that time. The force that created and sustained this 

tectonic shift in Middle Eastern demographics and politics and that 

touched off a sustained Arab–Israeli conflict was Zionism. Although 

most often thought of as a movement, this study will examine Zionism 

as an insurgency—a form of irregular, revolutionary warfare.

This case study presents a detailed account of revolutionary and 

insurgent activities in Palestine from 1890 through 2010. This first volume examines the conflict with a focus on the Zionist movement and 

insurgency through the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and 

the Zionists’ transition to governance through 1950. Our intent is to 

provide a foundation for special operations personnel to understand 

the circumstances, environment, and catalysts for revolution; the organization of resistance or insurgent organizations and their development, modes of operation, external support, and successes and failures; 

the counterinsurgents’ organization, modes of operation, and external 

support, as well as their effects on the resistance; and the outcomes 

and long-term ramifications of the revolutionary/insurgent activities. 

This foundation will allow readers to distill vast amounts of material 

from a wide array of campaigns and extract relevant lessons, thereby 

enabling the development of future doctrine, professional education, 

and training.

Like all products in the ARIS series, this study examines revolutions and insurgencies for the purpose of identifying emerging trends 

in operational designs and patterns, including elements that can serve 

as catalysts and indicators of success or failure. Building on an understanding of the general characteristics of revolutionary movements and 

insurgencies, this study examines ways that organizations or groups 

adapt to overcome various environmental and contextual challenges.
Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary

5

ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

ARIS Tier 1 Insurgency Case Studies are organized in five major 

sections:

1. Introduction and Summary

2. Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency

3. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

4. Government Countermeasures

5. Conclusion

This Introduction and Summary presents an introduction to the ARIS 

series and a brief description of how the content in each particular 

case is presented and ends with a synopsis of the case study on Israel–

Palestine. Refer to the Technical Appendix for a discussion of the types 

of sources and methods that were used to gather and analyze the data, 

as well as any methodological limitations encountered in the research.

The section Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency is divided into four 

chapters that address various aspects of the context within which the 

insurgency takes place. This section looks at the following elements:

1. Physical environment

2. Historical context

3. Socioeconomic conditions

4. Government and politics

The organization and inner workings of each of the primary insurgent groups are analyzed in the Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

section. Varying slightly from other ARIS case studies, this volume 

looks at the Zionist insurgency through five chronological chapters 

(6–10), each corresponding to a period of major Jewish immigration 

(called aliyahs in Hebrew) and the two world wars. This analysis considers various characteristics including the following:

• Leadership and organization

• Ideology

• Legitimacy

• Motivation and behavior

• Operations

• External actors and transnational influences

• Finances, logistics, and sustainment

We also varied from the standard format for the Government Countermeasures chapter. Rather than isolate this material in a distinct chapter, we included it in each chronological chapter so that the reader 

can better understand the interaction of the various actors during the 
6

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

insurgency. Sections on government countermeasures examine the 

political, military, informational, and/or economic actions taken by 

the government and by external forces in support of the government to 

counter the efforts of the insurgency.

This insurgency case study is somewhat unique in that we have 

examined in some detail the Zionist movement that eventually became 

an insurgency, with a view to demonstrating that gradual evolution. 

Throughout this study, the reader should ask (as we did), “To what 

degree was Zionism acting like an insurgency at this point in time?” At 

the end of each chronological chapter, the reader will find a summary 

analysis that addresses the Zionist movement through the lens of insurgency doctrine and concepts.

The final chapter, Conclusion, provides observations about the aftermath of the revolution, considering the Zionists’ transition from insurgency to governing body. It also analyzes key strategic decisions and 

milestones and how those nexuses had cascading effects down to the 

present. In this way the conclusion leads logically to Volume II, which 

will examine the Arab resistance and insurgency both before and after 

the establishment of the State of Israel. The conclusion also includes a 

discussion about which objectives or goals of the opposing sides were 

met and which were not and which compromises or concessions, if any, 

were made by either side.

SUMMARY OF THE STUDY

This volume examines the Zionist movement and its growth into an 

insurgency and eventual statehood from 1890 through 1950. The Zionist insurgency is instructive and unique, and by studying it the reader 

can grasp key concepts of how insurgencies can form, grow, and mutate 

into branches and factions. The late-nineteenth-century Zionists faced 

seemingly overwhelming odds in achieving their stated goal of a Jewish 

homeland in Palestine. Both internal dynamics and external friction 

threatened the movement from its inception, but the leaders overcame 

obstacles through their management of the circumstances of the Diaspora and the international situation.

Modern analyses often point to the inclusion of kinetic and nonkinetic factors in irregular warfare. This distinction is relevant to a 

study of Zionism because, as this case study illustrates, the nonkinetic 

factors of economics, finance, ethnicity, religion, history, cultural 

myth, language, and even archaeology all contributed vitally to the 

Zionists’ success. When required, the Jewish communities within Palestine could defend themselves and wage war. Zionists could perpetrate 

terror and equip desperate Jewish refugees to fight their way into the 
Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary

7

country when their hand was forced. But the real success of the Zionist movement came about because of the combination of nonkinetic 

or “soft” factors—chiefly economics, finance, diplomacy, and cultural 

integration.

The obstacles facing the Zionists included the existing political and 

socioeconomic order in Palestine in the years leading up to World War I. 

The indigenous population was overwhelmingly Arab and included a 

majority of Muslims, along with Arab Christians and a small Jewish 

Orthodox enclave. The Ottoman authorities viewed Zionist goals along 

a spectrum from indifference to hostility and never anything close to 

the friendly endorsement that Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, hoped for. The Ottomans’ waning strength, however, created an undergoverned space for the Zionist enterprise to play out—if 

it could find a way to deal with the Arabs.

One of the most contentious historiographical issues related to the 

Palestinian conflict is how the Zionists intended to deal with the indigenous population in their quest to create (or re-create) their homeland. 

Some polemics insist that the Zionists crafted a nefarious plan to dispossess the Arabs and either coerce them through violence or expel 

them from the start. Others attempt to paint a picture of naive Zionists 

being profoundly unaware of the Arab presence and only later confounded when the violence started. The reality is murky and nuanced, 

but in general, Zionist leaders embraced a perspective that included 

several assumptions. First, they believed that Palestine was underpopulated, so that mass Jewish immigration would not need to dispossess 

anyone. Second, they intended—and indeed accomplished—a plan to 

inhabit unproductive areas of the country and transform them into arable land. Thus, the Zionist pioneers drained malaria-ridden swamps, 

planted forests and citrus trees in rocky highlands, and tried to—in 

their words—“redeem the land.” Because no one was using these fallow 

lands, no dispossession was required. Finally, Zionist interpretation of 

the state of Palestine was conditioned by historical and geographical 

context. In short, the Arabs had many other lands they could move to 

or draw support from; the Jews had none.

As the Zionist movement played out from 1890 through 1950, various leaders and factions among the Jews followed different courses 

toward the Arabs. Some—most notably among the ultra-Orthodox 

Jews—detested Zionism and insisted on the Arabs’ right to rule Palestine. Others embraced Zionist goals but sought peace, friendship, and 

cooperation with the Arabs. Labor Zionists moved gradually from an 

idealistic optimism toward growing suspicion and hostility, but they 

still called for restraint even in the face of Arab terror. Revisionist Zionists were the first to harden in their attitudes toward the Arabs, and the 
8

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

most extreme among them adopted a policy of retribution and insistence that Jews rule all of Palestine. This spectrum of attitudes toward 

Palestinian Arabs has survived numerous wars and continues to express 

itself today in the various parties within the Knesset.

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces

Throughout this study we refer to centripetal and centrifugal forces 

within Zionism. Centripetal forces are those factors that tended to 

unify the Zionists. Centrifugal forces, on the other hand, are those 

factors that caused (or could have caused) division. An insurgency, like 

any social phenomenon, is constantly acted on by these forces. Successful groups are those for which the centripetal (unifying) forces remain 

stronger than the centrifugal (divisive) forces. The Jewish historical 

experience, and the Zionist insurgency in particular, featured strong 

centripetal and centrifugal forces. In each of the chronological chapters (chapters 6–10), we analyze these forces and how the Zionist leadership dealt with them. In this chapter we summarize the major forces.

Internal conict

Competition

Civil war

Zionism

Unity of

effort

Centripetal (unifying) forces:

• Anti-Semitism

• Hebrew language

• Economics/nancing

• The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)

Centrifugal (divisive) forces:

• Languages

• Diaspora cultures

• Ideology

• Religion

Figure 1-1. Centripetal and centrifugal forces.

It is impossible to grasp the essential nature of Zionism without 

an understanding of the historical force of anti-Semitism. From the 

Roman conquest of Palestine through the ensuing two millennia, 

ethnic Jews suffered almost unimaginable oppression, dispossession, 

hatred, and violence. At times Jewish communities in the Diaspora 

assimilated into Christian or Muslim societies to survive. At other times 

they found tolerance, kindness, and even promotion. But most of the 

Jewish experience in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa featured barbarous oppression, violence, insult, suspicion, and death. The 

nadirs included infamous episodes—the Crusades, the Reconquista, 
Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary

9

the East European pogroms, the Holocaust—that left indelible marks 

on the cultural history of a dispersed people. More than any other factor, historical anti-Semitism propelled Zionism to its success in 1948. 

In general anti-Semitism functioned as the primary centripetal force 

within Zionism.

But the widespread distribution of Jews throughout the world served 

as a potential centrifugal force—one that threatened the viability of the 

Zionist movement. The Diaspora included Jews of nearly every nationality in the Western world. Early Zionists emigrated primarily from 

Eastern Europe, but significant minorities also included German, British, Yemeni, and North African Jews. Even those from Eastern Europe 

emanated from different cultures—Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian 

primarily—but nearly every European country had Jews that eventually followed the Zionist banner. One could expect that an attempt to 

unify generations of Jews from vastly different nationalities and speaking a wide variety of languages would founder quickly. That Zionism 

overcame the multiethnicity of the Diaspora was one of the remarkable 

aspects of the movement’s evolution.

Religion also served to separate Jew from Jew. The early Orthodox 

immigrants, along with the small community of indigenous Jews, were 

split in their attitudes toward Zionism, with some embracing it (at least 

in part) but most distancing themselves from what they viewed as dangerous and provocative. The strictest among the Orthodox (chiefly in 

Jerusalem) deprecated Zionism as idolatrous, intruding on the prerogative of the coming Messiah, and so they refused to cooperate with 

what they viewed as a godless movement. Only much later in the 1930s 

did some Orthodox factions carve out a niche for themselves within the 

movement, and they created what would be called Religious Zionism—

an idea spurned by a shrinking community of the ultra-Orthodox. 

Most of the Zionists from the Second Aliyah onward viewed the old 

Orthodox traditions as effete (indeed, as part of the problem in that 

they kept Jews from modernity and vitality). Zionism thus took on a 

secular character.

It is an odd feature of Zionism, however, that a largely secular movement nevertheless found a strong centripetal force in its ancient sacred 

texts. Despite their general separation from religious motivation, Zionists were a decidedly biblical group. The Bible in view was the Hebrew 

Tanakh—an acronym that stands for Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim, or 

the Law, Prophets, and Writings. These books together compose the 

Hebrew Bible or what Christians referred to as the Old Testament. The 

Torah (Law or Teachings) included the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Torah remains the 

most important book among Orthodox Jews, and the mytho-history 
10

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

therein was likewise of fundamental importance to nonreligious Zionists because it described the Jews’ ancient connection to Palestine as 

well as their principles of social justice and governance. The Nevi'im 

(Prophets) included the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, 

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor Prophets—Hosea, Joel, Amos, 

Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These books were also important because they furthered the historical narrative of Israel and lent modern Jews a rich 

prophetic tradition that offered the promise of their return to Palestine 

and national redemption. Finally, the Ketuvim (Writings) included Job, 

Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Again, these books supplemented the history of ancient Israel, including the Babylonian Exile 

and the post-Exilic return to Palestine. They are also rich in poetry and 

wisdom literature. Almost without exception Zionists—both pioneers 

and leaders—drew from the Bible (Tanakh) for inspiration, often naming their newfound communities from biblical passages.

Ideology was and remains a potentially divisive and centrifugal 

force. Early Zionists had to contend with their fellow European Jews, 

most of whom rejected the whole notion of Jewish exclusivity and a 

mass return to Palestine, preferring instead to move toward assimilation into European culture. Likewise, many Jews looked toward socialism or communism (with their associated internationalism) as the key 

to future success, and they viewed Zionism as nationalistic and dangerously provocative. Among the Zionists themselves, ideological lines 

grew more distinct and divisive as the movement progressed. Political 

Zionism sought to create the Jewish homeland primarily through gaining international cooperation and sponsorship. The most prominent 

form of this approach was Labor Zionism, which included a spectrum 

of socialist (and communist) beliefs that looked to collectivist economic development as the center of gravity for the movement. Another 

form of Political Zionism was the Revisionist Zionism movement that 

emerged later to contend with Labor and inclined more toward nationalist goals, including demands for Jewish rule of all of Eretz Yisrael (i.e., 

the entirety of Israel as described in the Bible) as well as immediate 

statehood. Opposed to political strategy, Cultural or Spiritual Zionism 

looked to create a Jewish cultural homeland in Palestine without insisting on a political or state solution. Practical Zionism, which overlapped 

the other forms, focused on a gradual, self-sustaining buildup of the 

Jewish presence in Palestine. These forms of Zionism were the most 

prominent and decisive, but other ideological factions also formed, 

including General Zionism, Religious Zionism, and Synthetic Zionism. The evolution of the Zionist movement featured cycles of cooperation and competition among these ideas. The question remained 
Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary

11

as to whether competing ideologies would be able to work together 

or degenerate into a civil war, as they nearly did during the War of 

Independence.

Zionists also had to deal with strong centrifugal forces related to culture. Jews of the Diaspora included Sephardic Jews (i.e., North African 

and Iberian, sometimes including Middle Eastern Jews who descended 

from those fleeing Spain in the wake of the Reconquista) and Ashkenazi Jews (i.e., German or, more broadly, non-Iberian European Jews, 

including Lithuanians, Russians, and others). A third group within 

the Diaspora consisted of Mizrahi Jews—those from Middle Eastern 

countries—specifically those ruled by Muslim regimes. Each of these 

groups boasted vastly different cultures, including languages, religious 

traditions, and perspectives on daily life. Unifying these different 

groups would be a mammoth task, but the Zionists largely overcame 

the potential division through several key unifying factors—some they 

created and others inflicted on them. Of the latter, anti-Semitism was 

the most important and strongest. But early Zionist leaders also made 

strategic decisions that served as engines of unity among the Jews who 

made their way into Palestine, and these factors are most instructive for 

students of irregular warfare today.

First, Zionists eventually settled on the decision to resurrect the 

nearly dead Hebrew language and use it as the vernacular for the Jewish homeland. This was not a trivial undertaking. On the one hand 

Jewish pioneers, like anyone else, preferred their own native languages, 

whether Russian, German, Polish, or other tongue. On the other hand 

Orthodox Jews felt that Hebrew should be used strictly for religious 

purposes and not sullied by common usage. Indeed, nineteenthcentury Hebrew was used almost exclusively for that purpose, although 

elements of it had found its way into Yiddish (which used the Hebrew 

alphabet) and other hybrid languages. But Jewish leaders, including 

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Ezekiel Wortsmann, and Menachem Ussishkin, 

saw the need to modernize the language and create a Jewish community that used it as its primary tongue. This decision led to the early 

establishment of primary and secondary schools that taught immigrant 

communities in Hebrew, and it served as a powerful tool for unifying 

disparate Jewish groups.

Second, the Zionists realized that nothing of note would happen 

in Palestine without strong financial backing. They created the Jewish 

National Fund (JNF) and other funding vehicles to solicit and vector 

philanthropic donations from throughout the Diaspora to the embryonic Jewish communities in Palestine. In this they drew on the ancient 

tradition of the khalukah—collections taken among the Diaspora for 

Jews living in Palestine—but they replaced the haphazard management 
12

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

of the funds and repurposed the donations from the cause of poverty 

relief to land purchases and the financing of self-sufficient, economically viable communities. The JNF came under the direction of the 

Jewish Agency Executive. The leaders used the funds to establish widespread and diverse communities, thus making provision for disparate 

factions while simultaneously drawing as many communities as possible 

under the supervision of the Zionist leaders.

Third, the Zionists created a strong bond of unity among the Yishuv

(the Jewish community in Palestine) by reinforcing the fundamental 

storyline that the Jews were returning to their ancient homeland—the 

sole place on earth where they could be safe from the depredations of 

anti-Semitism. Zionists were largely secular in their ideology, yet almost 

all factions among the Jews—religious and nonreligious—drew on the 

historical mythology of the Tanakh. The stories of biblical heroes—

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Joshua, 

David, and Solomon—energized the Jews who faced opposition and the 

hard task of taming the land. Jewish communities were often named 

from biblical history and prophecies. Zionists were likewise keen to further the cause of biblical archaeology, because they saw the recovered 

artifacts as powerful tools for reinforcing the biblical narrative—which, 

in turn, provided one of the foundations of Zionist legitimacy.

Finally, Zionist leaders reinforced unity among the Yishuv indirectly through their policy of unrelenting settlement. Chaim Weizmann observed in 1946 that the growing number of Jewish settlements 

throughout Palestine “have . . . a far greater weight than a hundred 

speeches about resistance.” The student will observe and we will reiterate the sustained nature of Jewish settlements throughout the period 

leading to statehood. When the diplomatic situation was friendly to 

immigration, waves of pioneers and professionals arrived. When the 

international and regional forces turned against the influx, the Jews 

kept coming anyway—and doggedly settled farm after farm, village 

after village. Part of the strategy was simply to present the world with 

a fait accompli, but part of the drive to continual colonization was the 

Zionists’ desperate drive to achieve critical mass—enough population to be able to contend for political control, and if necessary, military control. This they achieved, as proven in 1948. But the miracle of 

the Jewish triumph on the battlefield relied as much or more on the 

generations of wretched immigrants from Europe struggling to learn 

Hebrew and scraping out a living from the soil as it did on the military 

improvisation of David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister) and 

his officers.

One of the salient features of this study is our analysis of when and 

how the Zionist movement morphed into a Zionist insurgency. The 
Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary

13

bounds between the two are necessarily vague, rely on conceptual definition and interpretation, and remain more of an issue for the observer 

than for the perpetrators. Likewise, the Zionist leaders crossed that 

boundary line back and forth over the years in question. The many 

thousands of Jews—young and old, Zionist and anti-Zionist, farmer 

and shopkeeper, soldier and peace activist, Orthodox and Marxist—

hardly thought of themselves as insurgents and indeed in many cases 

considered themselves opposed to other Jews who were also building 

up the Jewish presence in Palestine. Zionism was at times an anomalous historical current driven on and accelerated by the catalyst of 

vicious anti-Semitism in Europe and Palestine. But at various turns in 

this onrushing, multifaceted stream, Zionist leaders stepped forward, 

wrested control, and directed the course of things toward changing 

the political reality in Palestine. By the 1930s it became a full-fledged 

insurgency, easy to identify if somewhat harder to classify.b But when 

did the nation-building movement begin to take on the rudiments of 

insurgency? We make the case that the conceptual foundations were 

there from the start: the desire to overthrow or change the governance 

of Palestine. But the other elements of insurgency—subversion, violence, and clandestine operations—gradually manifested and at times 

disappeared altogether, only to reemerge. By studying the course of 

Zionism, the student of irregular warfare can watch an idea turn into 

an embryonic revolution, long before the participants came to recognize it as such.

Classic definitions of insurgency contemplate a movement in which 

leaders are attempting to influence the indigenous population—to win 

them over to the insurgent leaders’ goals. Zionism was unique in this 

respect, because it was an imported insurgency. Leaders did not concern themselves primarily with winning over the majority of the population, which was Arab, but instead focused on motivating, organizing, 

and supervising mass Jewish immigration into Palestine in order to create either a majority or a controlling minority therein. Immigration is 

the major characteristic of Zionism. There was virtually no indigenous 

Jewish population to work with. Indeed, the entire enterprise was about 

movement. Just as the biblical Moses and Joshua led the Jews into a 

land they believed was rightly their own, so Zionists led European (and 

other) Jewry back into what they insisted was their ancient homeland.

b By the 1930s the Zionist insurgency included features that identified it with the 

goal of changing the governance of Palestine, driving out a foreign power, protecting an 

exclusive ethnicity, and spearheading modernization and reform. It thus fell into four 

of the five major classifications of modern insurgencies. (The fifth focuses on religious 

fundamentalism.)
14

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

It would be hard to find a case study in irregular warfare that 

attracts more bias, passion, and polemic than the Israel–Palestine conflict. Everything is at issue, from the facts and myths of ancient history 

to the numbers on the latest casualty lists. The search for unbiased 

sources is somewhat quixotic, especially when searching for primary 

sources. But rather than finding lack of bias, we opted to create it. Even 

biased sources are useful in creating the conceptual dialectic from 

which the analyst can then examine and draw conclusions. Indeed, it 

can be helpful to consider biased sources because they tend to form 

the strongest arguments possible in favor of their respective positions. 

Then, by comparing and contrasting those arguments and researching 

the actual facts behind them, the analyst and student of irregular warfare can synthesize a clear and hopefully accurate thesis. In practice, 

this process is the bread and butter of both the insurgent and counterinsurgent even in the midst of conflict.

Timeline

1882–1903 First Aliyah (Hebrew “going up”; i.e., Jewish immigration 

to Palestine). Thirty-five thousand Jews arrive from Eastern 

Europe; nearly half depart Palestine after a few years.

1896 Theodor Herzl publishes The Jewish State.

1897 First Zionist Congress meets in Basel.

1904–1914 Second Aliyah. Forty thousand Jews immigrate to Palestine; 

about half leave later.

1914–1918 World War I. British armies conquer Palestine.

1919–1923 Third Aliyah. Forty thousand Jews immigrate to Palestine; 

most stay.

1920–1921 Arab–Jewish violent episodes commence with the Battle of 

Tel Hai (March 1920), the Nabi Musa Riot (April 1920), and 

the May Day Riot (1921).

1924–1929 Fourth Aliyah. Eighty-two thousand Jews immigrate, mostly 

from Poland and Eastern Europe; twenty-three thousand 

later leave.

1929 Arab riots underscore the growing Arab–Jewish rivalry and 

influence Britain to initiate anti-Zionist policies.

1929–1939 Fifth Aliyah. 250,000 Jews immigrate to Palestine, many 

from fear of the Nazi regime; twenty thousand later leave.

Aliyah Bet (i.e., illegal immigration) begins in 1933 and 

continues through Israel’s achievment of statehood in 1948.

1936–1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine.
Chapter 1. Introduction and Summary

15

1939–1945 World War II. The Holocaust kills six million Jews in 

Europe.

1947 The United Nations votes to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Jews accept and Arabs reject the 

proposal. The Israeli War of Independence begins as Palestinian Arabs, backed by Arab powers, attack the Yishuv.

1948 The civil war between Palestine’s Arabs and Jews continues, 

ending in May 1948 with the defeat of the Palestinians. The 

Jewish state—Israel—is established on May 14 and the last 

British troops and officials depart. The armies of surrounding Arab states invade Palestine and fight Israel.

1949 The 1948 war ends with Israeli victory and Israel signing armistice agreements between February and July with 

Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Between 1948 and 1951, 

some seven hundred thousand Jews immigrate to Israel, 

mostly from Europe, doubling Israel’s 1948 population.

NOTES

1 Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 

2007, 4.

2 Chuck Crossett, ed. Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare Volume II: 1962–2009

(Fort Bragg, NC: United States Army Special Operations Command, 2012), xvi.

3 Ibid., xii–xiii.

PART I.

CONTEXT AND CATALYSTS OF 

THE INSURGENCY

CHAPTER 2.

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram 

and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from 

the River of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—

the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, 

Girgashites and Jebusites.”

—Genesis 15:18–21, NKJV

21

PALESTINE’S GEOGRAPHY

This case study examines the Jewish–Arab conflict in Palestine from 

1890 through 1950. As with nearly every aspect of the struggles there, 

the exact definition of “Palestine” and its geographical boundaries is 

in contention. In the second millennium BC, the Hebrews referred to 

the region as Canaan (named for Noah’s grandson). Around 1200 BC 

a sea-faring people from the Greek islands arrived and became known 

as the Pleshet or Philistines. From 1000 BC on, the region’s chief political entity was the Kingdom of Israel, ruled first by Saul and then by 

David and his son Solomon. The Hebrews therefore called the region 

the Land of Israel.

During the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, the Kingdom of 

Israel split along tribal lines into a northern kingdom (called Israel) 

and a southern kingdom (called Judah). When the Romans arrived 

and dominated the area in the first century BC, they referred to it as 

Judea, but after the first Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD) they changed 

the name to Palestina—derived from Philistia (the land of the Philistines). This name (in various forms) continued to be used by non-Jews 

throughout history to the present. Jews, however, continued to call the 

region Judah or Israel, remembering their ancient ownership of the 

land. The Romans considered Palestina to include the area stretching 

from modern Gaza to the Dead Sea and from Beesheba northward to 

the Litani River (including both sides of the Jordan River). The Roman 

province did not include the Negev to the south.

The Muslim Arabs conquered the area in the seventh century, and 

they adopted the Roman name, calling it Filastin or Falastin. Under the 

Turks, from the fifteenth century, the area was broken up into administrative districts (sanjaks) and these were ruled by the provincial governors of Sham (Syria-Damascus) or Beirut. From late nineteenth century 

the Jerusalem-Jaffa-Bethlehem sanjak was ruled, because of its religious 

sensitivity (the core of the Holy Land), directly from Constantinople 

rather than by the vali (provincial governor) of Beirut or Damascus.

In 1917–1918 the British army conquered the land from the Turks 

and during 1920–1923, in negotiations with France (which ruled 

Lebanon-Syria), demarcated the borders of what became the Palestine Mandate: from the Mediterranean coast south along the RafahUm Rashrash (Eilat-Taba) line to the Jordan River-Dead Sea, Jordan 

Rift from Mount Hermon southward to Aqaba in the east, and from 

Metulla to Rosh Haniqra (Ras al Naqura) to the west (the present 

Lebanon–Israel border) in the north. These borders were accepted by 

the international community as Palestine and recognized by the Arab 

National movement, including the Palestine Liberation Organization 
22

Part I. Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency

(PLO), as the borders of the Palestine or Filastin it claimed as its own 

and by the bulk of the Zionist movement as the Land of Israel that it 

wanted to rule. The Jews insist that, according to the Bible, the Land of 

Israel (under David and Solomon, for instance) encompassed areas east 

of the Jordan River and north of the present Israel–Lebanon border, 

and sometimes less than that (as under Herod and the Romans), but 

more or less accepted the British Mandate definition of Palestine as 

the land they sought to govern. The borders with Egypt, Lebanon, and 

Syria were formalized as well in negotiations between the British and 

Ottomans (1906) and between the British and French (1923).

Today the region of Palestine includes the State of Israel, the selfproclaimed State of Palestine (whose precise legal status is in dispute 

and part of whose land on the West Bank has been occupied by Israeli 

forces since 1967), and the Gaza Strip (governed by Hamas and whose 

relationship to the State of Palestine is under continued negotiation). 

The term Palestinian Territories equates to Gaza and the West Bank, constituting what the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority would deem 

the State of Palestine. The term Occupied Territories refers to the land 

that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Jewish settlers have occupied 

since 1967, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan 

Heights. East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1980, remains in dispute, with the State of Palestine claiming it as well.

The PLO declared independence in 1988 and claimed sovereignty over the Palestinian Territories, with its capital in Jerusalem. 

In 2012, the State of Palestine was granted observer status within the 

United Nations.

One of the keys to understanding the Zionist insurgency is that 

under its hands, the physical geography of Palestine changed dramatically. The Zionist concept of “redeeming the land” included deliberate 

and sustained efforts to drain swamps; eradicate malaria; plant forests, 

citrus trees, and crops; and transform rocky, useless regions into arable, 

productive land. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss this issue further. The objective in this chapter is to describe the physical characteristics of Palestine before the Zionist movement and mass Jewish immigration began.

Modern Israel occupies much of Palestine. It lies at the southeastern 

edge of the Mediterranean Sea and extends southward to the Gulf of 

Aqaba on the Red Sea. It borders Lebanon to the north (79-kilometer 

border), Syria to the north and east (76-kilometer border), Jordan to the 

east (238-kilometer border), and Egypt to the southwest (266-kilometer 

border), as well as the Palestinian Territories (358-kilometer combined 

borders). Israel also has a 273-kilometer coastline to the west along the 

eastern Mediterranean Sea.1

 The total area of modern Israel (less the 

occupied territories) is about 20,770 square kilometers, which is slightly 
Chapter 2. Physical Environment

23

larger than the size of the state of New Jersey.2 The climate of Palestine 

is temperate overall but hot and dry in the Negev and Judean Deserts.

The terrain of Palestine encompasses a coastal plain in the west, 

central mountains, the Jordan River Valley in the east, and the Negev 

Desert in the south. Each of these areas figured prominently in the history of the Zionist insurgency.

UNIFIL UNDOF

Dead

Sea

Lake Tiberias

 Gulf

 of

Aqaba

MEDITERRANEAN

SEA

Jordan

Qiryat

Gat

Dimona

Zefa'

Zin

Mizpe

Ramon

Bethlehem

Hebron

Jericho

Ak Karak

Madaba

Ma'an

Ra's 

an Naqb

Elat

Yotvata

Al Jafr

Al Kuntillah

Bi'r Lahfan

Taba Al 'Aqabah

'Akko

Haifa

Herzliyya

Ashdod

Ashqelon

Gaza

Tiberias

'Afula

Al Mafraq

Jarash

Az Zarqa'

An Nakhl

Khan Yunis

Al Qatranah

Tulkarm

Bi'r Hasanah

Hadera

Netanya

Bat Yam

Dar'a

Irbid

Nabulus

Nahariyya

Tyre

Qiryat Shemona Al Qunaytirah

As Suwayda'

Busrá 

ash Sham

Ram

Allah

As Sa

Al Arish

Abu

'Ujaylah

'Ayn al

Qusaymah

Ramla

Tel Aviv-Yafo

Beersheba

Nazareth

Jerusalem

Damascus

Amman

NEGEV SINA I

NORTHERN

CENTRAL

HAIFA

TEL AVIV

JERUSALEM

SOUTHERN

JORDAN

EGYPT

LEBANON

SAUDI

ARABIA

SYRIAN

WEST BANK

GAZA

GOLAN

ISRAEL AND

THE OCCUPIED

TERRITORIES

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 km

0 10 20 30 40 mi

National capital

DISTRICT (mehoz) centre

City, town

Airport

International boundary

Boundary of former Palestine Mandate

Armistice Demarcation Line

District (mehoz) boundary

Main road

Secondary road

Railroad

Oil pipeline

36°

36°

Figure 2-1. Modern Palestine.
24

Part I. Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency

The Coastal Plain

The coastal plain stretches from the Lebanese border in the north 

to the Gaza Strip in the south. It has an average width of forty to fifty 

kilometers that narrows toward the north. The area is partially covered 

by sand dunes and fertile soil. The Yarqon and Qishon streams traverse 

the area and are the only year-round water flows of the coastal plain. 

The coastal plains include the Sharon plain, Mount Carmel plain, and 

the Acre plain.

Early Zionist immigration led to the establishment of numerous 

communities in the coastal plain, including Petah Tikvah, Rishon 

LeZion, Zikhron Ya'akov, and Gedera. The coastal plain also includes 

Tel Aviv, the first Jewish city that the Zionists built adjacent to Jaffa, 

as well as the important port of Haifa and the medieval fortress city 

of Acre.

The Central Highlands

The central highlands include the Galilee highlands in the north, 

the Judean and Samarian Hills in the center, and the Negev Hills in the 

south. These hills have eastern slopes that are generally steeper than 

the western slopes. To the north the hills of Upper and Lower Galilee 

range from five hundred to seven hundred meters in height, reaching a 

maximum height of 1,208 meters at Mount Meron. The Samarian Hills 

in the West Bank feature fertile valleys and heights up to eight hundred 

meters. Further south and within the West Bank are the Judean Hills, 

including Jerusalem and Mount Hebron. Several valleys cut across the 

highlands roughly from east to west, including the Jezreel Valley (see 

the section on the Jezreel Valley in this chapter).

Judea is the biblical name for the mountainous region in the southern area of the West Bank that includes the Hebron Hills, the Jerusalem saddle, the Bethel Hills, and the Judean Desert east of Jerusalem.3

The core of Judea are the Judean Hills that extend south from the 

region of Bethel to the Negev and include the surrounding area of 

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron.4 In biblical times the Judean Hills 

were forested and the land was used for sheep grazing and farming.5

The central highlands include the ancient city of Jerusalem, which 

both Israel and Palestine claim as their capital and which contains 

important religious sites for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Hebron, 

Ramallah (administrative center for the Palestinian Authority), Nablus, 

and Jenin are other prominent cities in the highlands, all within the 

West Bank.
Chapter 2. Physical Environment

25

UNDOF

Dead 

Sea

Lake Tiberias

 Gulf

 of

Aqaba

MEDITERRANEAN

SEA

Jorda

n

Dimona

Eilat

Haifa

Ashdod

Ashqelon

Hadera

Netanya

Bat Yam Holon

Nahariyya

Tel Aviv-Yafo

Beersheba

Nazareth

Jerusalem

NEGEV

SINAI

JORDAN

EGYPT

LEBANON

SYRIA

West 

Bank*

Gaza

Strip*

Golan 

Heights

(Israeli

Occupied)

34 35° 36°

33°

32°

31°

30°

33°

32°

31°

30°

34° 36°

Petah

Tiqva

1950

Armistice

Line

1 949 Armistice Line

*Israeli-occupied with 

current status subject to 

the Israeli-Palestinian 

Interim Agreement; 

permanent status to be 

determined through 

further negotiation.

1994

Treaty

Rishon LeZiyyon Line

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 km

0 10 20 30 40 mi

°

Har

Meron

Figure 2-2. Major geographical regions.
26

Part I. Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency

UNDOF

Dead 

Sea

Lake Tiberias

 Gulf

 of

Aqaba

MEDITERRANEAN

SEA

Jordan

Dimona

Elat

Haifa

Ashdod

Ashqelon

Hadera

Netanya

Bat Yam

Holon

Nahariyya

Tel Aviv-Yafo

Beersheba

Nazareth

Jerusalem

NEGEV

SINAI

JORDAN

EGYPT

LEBANON

SYRIA

West 

Bank

Gaza

Strip

Golan 

Heights

(Israeli

Occupied)

34 35° 36°

33°

32°

31°

30°

33°

32°

31°

30°

34° 36°

Petah

Tiqva

1950

Armistice

Line

1 949 Armistice Line

Har

Meron

1994

Treaty

Line

Rishon LeZiyyon

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 km

0 10 20 30 40 mi

°

Figure 2-3. Topography of Palestine.
Chapter 2. Physical Environment

27

Rivers and Drainage

East of the highlands is the Jordan River Valley that serves as the 

border between the West Bank and Jordan. The Jordan River flows 

251 kilometers from headwaters north of Lake Hula south to the freshwater Sea of Galilee, and from there southward along the Jordan Valley, where it empties into the highly saline Dead Sea. Most of the Jordan 

River Valley is below sea level, with the Dead Sea at 1,308 feet below 

sea level.

Other drainage in Palestine consists of a few streams: the Kishon, 

flowing into the Haifa area; the Yarkon, flowing north of Tel Aviv into 

the sea; and the Alexander stream near Hadera. Other smaller streams 

are intermittent, with water sometimes in the winter.

Galilee

Galilee is a large area in northern Palestine bordered by the ancient 

town of Dan at the foot of Mount Hermon (in the far northern finger 

of modern Israel) southward to the central highlands, and from the 

Jordan Valley westward through the Jezreel Valley to Mount Carmel. 

It includes the freshwater Sea of Galilee (also called Lake Tiberias). 

Much of the terrain includes rocky highlands with moderate to high 

rainfall and mild temperatures, making it suitable for flora and fauna. 

Prominent towns in Galilee include Acre, Nahariya, Nazareth, Safed, 

Karmiel, and Tiberias.

Galilee has been traditionally divided into Western Galilee, which 

includes the coastal plain from Haifa north to the Lebanese border, 

Upper Galilee (from the northern finger) south to the Sea of Galilee, 

and Lower Galilee (from Mount Carmel to the Jordan Valley, constituting the southern region of Galilee).

Important cities in Galilee include Tiberias (on the shores of the 

Sea of Galilee) and Nazareth.

The Jezreel Valley

The Jezreel Valley, also known as the Plain of Esdraelon, is a large 

fertile plain located east of Mount Carmel and west of the Jordan River 

Valley. It features a mixture of swamps, irrigation canals, springs, 

wadis, and watering holes. Seasonal and permanent swamps existed 

in the valley with the latter providing breeding grounds for mosquitos. The Jezreel Valley attracted the Zionists because the land offered 

the opportunity for agricultural settlement. In addition, it was easier to 

negotiate land purchases than in areas along the coastal plain, because 
28

Part I. Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency

landholders were typically absentee landlords and the region’s swamps 

prevented indigenous Arabs from farming the land. Afula is the major 

town in the valley.

UNDOF

Dead 

Sea

Lake Tiberias

 Gulf

 of

Aqaba

MEDITERRANEAN

SEA Jordan

Dimona

Eilat

Haifa

Ashdod

Ashqelon

Hadera

Netanya

Bat Yam

Holon

Nahariyya

Tel Aviv-Yafo

Beersheba

Nazareth

Jerusalem

NEGEV

SINAI

JORDAN

EGYPT

LEBANON

SYRIA

West

Bank

Gaza

Strip

Golan 

Heights

(Israeli

Occupied)

34 35° 36°

33°

32°

31°

30°

33°

32°

31°

30°

34° 36°

Petah

Tiqva

1950

Armistice

Line

1 949 Armistice Line

The West Bank is Israeli 

occupied with current status 

subject to the IsraeliPalestinian Interim Agreement; 

permanent status to be 

determined through further 

negotiation.

The status of the Gaza Strip 

is a nal status issue to be 

resolved though negotiations.

Israel proclaimed Jerusalem 

as its capital in 1950, but the 

United States, like nearly all 

the other countries, retains its 

embassy in Tel Aviv-Yafo.

Boundary representation is not 

necessarily authoritative.

1949

Armistice

Line

1949

Armistice

Line

Har

Meron

1994

Treaty

Line Rishon LeZiyyon

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 km

0 10 20 30 40 mi

°

Figure 2-4. Map of Israel.
Chapter 2. Physical Environment

29

The Hula Valley

The Hula Valley in Upper Galilee covers an area of 177 square kilometers. The area is twenty-five kilometers long and ranges from six to 

eight kilometers wide. The valley is surrounded by the Naftali ridge to 

the west and the Golan Heights to the east. Basaltic hills along the line 

Korazim-Rosh Pina-Gadot define the southern border of the valley. 

The hills intersect the Jordan River, and they restrict water drainage 

downstream into the Sea of Galilee, thereby forming the historic Lake 

Hula and its surrounding wetlands.

The Negev

The southern portion of Palestine includes the Negev Desert covering some 16,000 square kilometers (6,178 square miles), more than half 

of Israel’s total land area. Beersheba is the largest city and administrative center of the region. At the extreme southern end of the Negev 

is the resort city of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba. Dimona is also located 

in central Negev and contains the secretive Israeli nuclear research 

center. David Ben-Gurion, prominent Labor Zionist leader and Israel’s 

first prime minster, remained insistent that the Negev be included in 

the State of Israel, and under his supervision, several developmental 

towns were established there. The northeastern portion of the Negev is 

adjacent to the Judean Desert, which extends to the border with Jordan 

and includes the Dead Sea, the lowest elevation on earth.

The West Bank

The West Bank is located east of Israel and west of Jordan. Jordan 

claimed and annexed the area after the 1948 Israeli War of Independence but later (in 1988) relinquished its claim in favor of the Palestinian Authority. Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank during 

the 1967 Six-Day War. The total area of the West Bank is 5,860 square 

kilometers, which is slightly larger than the state of Delaware.6 The West 

Bank is composed of limestone hills called the Samarian Hills (north 

of Jerusalem) and the Judean Hills. They descend eastwardly toward 

the low-lying Great Rift Valley, which includes the Jordan River and the 

Dead Sea. The Jordan River drains much of the West Bank, but some 

of the elevated areas in the west have streams that flow westward to 

the Mediterranean Sea. Annual rainfall in the West Bank is more than 

twenty-seven inches in the highest areas of the northwest and declines 

to less than four inches in the southwest and southeast. The availability 

of water from rainfall and drainage conditions affect how much land is 

arable annually.7
30

Part I. Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

J

o r d

a n River

Jerusalem

JORDAN

West 

Bank

32°

1950

Armistice

Line

1 949 Armistice Line

The West Bank is Israeli-occupied with current 

status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim 

Agreement; permanent status to be determined 

through further negotiation.

ISRAEL

35°

Janīn

Tūlkarm

Qalqīlyah

Ramallah

Jericho

(Arī ̧h ̄a)

Bethlehem

(Bayt La ̧hm)

Hebron

(Al Khalīl)

Latrun

Salient

Mount

Scopus

Tall `Āşūr

N ̄ablus

No Mans’ Land

1994

Treaty

Line

Dead 

Sea

0 10 20 30 40 km

0 10 20 30 mi

Figure 2-5. Map of the West Bank.

The Gaza Strip

The Gaza Strip borders the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, and the 

southern part of Israel. The total area of the West Bank is 360 square 

kilometers, which is slightly more than twice the size of Washington, DC.8

 The Gaza Strip is situated on a coastal plain that is relatively 

flat. Average rainfall for the area is twelve inches.9
Chapter 2. Physical Environment

31

MEDITERRANEAN

SEA

1950 Armistice Line

The status of the Gaza Strip is a 

nal status issue to be resolved 

through further negotiation.

ISRAEL

EGYPT

Gaza

Dayr al

Bala ̧h

Kh ̄an

Yūnis

Rafa ̧h

Gaza International

Airport (unusable)

Ab ̄u `Awdah

(Joz Ab ̄u `Awdah)

0 3 6 mi

0 3 6 km 34°15’ 34°30’

34°30’

31°30’ 31°30’

31°15’

Figure 2-6. Map of Gaza Strip.

NOTES

1 “Israel,” The World Factbook (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency), accessed 

August 15, 2014, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/

is.html.

2 United States Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Israel Country Handbook (US Marine 

Corps, 1998), 6–7.

3 Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Zionism and Israel. s.v. “Judea” (Ami Isseroff and Zionism and 

Israel Information Center), accessed August 15, 2014, http://www.zionism-israel.com/

dic/Judea.htm.

4 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “Judaea,” accessed August 15, 2014, http://www.

britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/307117/Judaea.

5 Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Zionism and Israel, s.v. “Judea.”

6 “West Bank,” The World Factbook (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency), accessed 

August 15, 2014, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/

we.html.

7 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “West Bank,” accessed August 15, 2014, http://www.

britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/640076/West-Bank/271783/Geography.

8 “Gaza Strip,” The World Factbook (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency), accessed 

August 15, 2014, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/

gz.html.

9 Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s.v. “Gaza Strip,” accessed August 15, 2014, http://www.

britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/227456/Gaza-Strip.

CHAPTER 3.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will 

be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for 

your sins seven times over . . . I will scatter you among 

the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue 

you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie 

in ruins . . . As for those of you who are left, I will make 

their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that 

the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. 

They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and 

they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 

They will stumble over one another as though fleeing 

from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. 

So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 

You will perish among the nations; the land of your 

enemies will devour you. Those of you who are left will 

waste away in the lands of their enemies because of 

their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will 

waste away.

—Leviticus 26:27–39, NIV

35

INTRODUCTION

Ancient History

How old is the conflict in Palestine? Were the Zionist insurgency 

and Arab resistance to it a phenomenon that started in the nineteenth 

century, or were they merely episodes in a much older struggle? Does 

the Arab insurgency and conflict with the State of Israel have deep 

roots, thousands of years old, or are they of relatively recent provenance? Do the ancient, medieval, and modern histories of Palestine 

pertain, or should the student of irregular warfare in Palestine look no 

further back than Theodor Herzl? Are the mythologies of ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam worthy of consideration? Must the final 

resolution of the Arab–Israeli conflict await the end times, as some 

theologians on both sides insist, or can we safely lay aside eschatological teachings and confine our study of the issues to a strictly secular 

viewpoint? These questions illustrate some of the cultural dynamics 

that underlie the irregular warfare playing out in Palestine. The student of irregular warfare in Palestine must understand not only the 

history of the conflict but also the historiographical debate that underlies the history. Fundamental questions of legitimacy on all sides of the 

conflict appeal to history, and the historiography of the Palestinian 

conflict features various schools of thought about how we should think 

about history.

The relevance of the ancient history of Palestine is one of the major 

points in dispute. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions and religious 

beliefs tend to perceive ancient roots for the Middle Eastern conflicts of 

today. Bible-based interpretations suggest that Arabs and Jews were predisposed for conflict dating back to the time of Abraham (c. 2000 BC). 

His two sons, Ishmael (progenitor of the Arabs) and Isaac (father of 

Israel), were portrayed as competitors for the physical and spiritual heritage promised by God to Abraham and his seed.a

 Muslims look to Ishmael as the patriarch of the Arab people, a prophet in his own right and 

the ancestor of Muhammad. He is believed to have rebuilt the Kaaba in 

Mecca (along with Abraham). In the Hebrew Bible, Ishmael is predicted 

to be “a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone, and 

everyone’s hand will be against him; and he will live in hostility toward 

his brothers” (Genesis 16:12, NIV). He receives God’s blessing, but he 

does not enjoy the special relationship that Isaac and his descendants 

had with God. Thus, according to the biblical model, the ancient history of the Arabs and Jews was a thematic and determinative element 

in modern conflict. In addition to this ideological dimension of the 

a Compare, for example, Genesis chapters 16–21 and Hadith 4:583.
36

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

conflict, some of these religious schools of thought also predict that the 

conflict will ultimately be resolved as a part of the apocalyptic end of 

human history, based on scenarios found in ancient prophecies.1

Another school of thought suggests that the mythology of the Abrahamic religions has nothing to do with modern Palestinian conflict, 

which itself is less than a century in the making. Rather than tracing 

ethnic origins to the sons of Abraham, this interpretation considers the 

Jews of the ancient world to be of Canaanite origin. According to this 

model, by the time of the rise of Saul, David, and Solomon, the Jews had 

revolted and united previously Canaanite cities to establish their own 

kingdom. This viewpoint seeks to dismiss ancient provenance of Jewish–

Arab conflict and instead focuses on events in the modern period.2

Mytho-History, Legitimation, and Exceptionalism

Although there are no extra-biblical sources corroborating events 

during the time of the patriarchs,3

 the biblical accounts of Abraham, 

Isaac, and Jacob serve as a useful starting point in Israeli/Jewish history. 

It is in these biblical passages of the Old Testament (and in those following the patriarchal era) that notions of Jewish exceptionalism rooted 

in the concept of a chosen people covenanted with God and divinely 

endowed with the land of Canaanb originated and formed one of the 

bases for the legitimation of the Zionist project in the modern era.

The Bible presents Abraham as a descendent of Noah and as the 

progenitor of the Jewish people. He was originally from Ur in southern 

Mesopotamia, but he moved with his family to the town of Haran in 

northern Mesopotamia (in modern-day Turkey).c

 It is there that God 

first appeared to him and stated

Go from your country and your kindred and your 

father’s house to the land I will show you. And I will 

make you a great nation, and I will bless you and 

make your name great so that you will be a blessing. 

(Genesis 12:1-2, ESV)

Abraham is believed to have left for Canaan around 2100 BC,d leading one of many immigrant groups, known as Habiru, that moved into 

Canaan. Along the way Abraham built altars to God, and it is with Abraham and his descendants that God formed a special covenant entailing 

b The biblical land of Canaan encompassed modern-day Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and parts of Jordan and Syria.

c The origin of Abraham is described in chapters 11–25 of Genesis.

d Various scholars have noted a number of problems with this dating.4,5
Chapter 3. Historical Context

37

the endowment of the Holy Land to them. The relevant passage in the 

Bible (spoken by God to Abraham) is specific with regard to the contours of the designated territory:

To your descendants I give this land from the river 

of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the 

land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 

the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and Jebusites. 

(Genesis 15:18–21, NKJV)

The Jews believed their covenant with God was reaffirmed with 

Abraham’s grandson Jacob (who was divinely renamed Israel, which 

means “he who struggled with God”), the father of the twelve tribes 

of Israel:

I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and 

the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give 

to you and to your descendants; and your descendants 

shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread 

abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and 

to the south; and by you and your descendants shall 

all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, 

I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and 

will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you 

until I have done that of which I have spoken to you. 

(Genesis 28:13–15, NKJV)

Some scholars believe that the biblical accounts of Abraham, Isaac, 

and Jacob were composed at least one thousand years after the events 

associated with the patriarchs are believed to have occurred, with the 

earliest composed between the tenth and sixth centuries  BC during 

the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the latest after the destruction 

of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587  BC.6

 Other scholars hold to 

Mosaic authorship, making the texts much older, while allowing the 

possibility of later editing.7

Scholars who favor later composition of the Torah argue that the 

historical core of the Hebrew Bible was shaped primarily in the late 

eighth and seventh centuries BC, and in particular during the time of 

King Josiah of Judah, whose reign (639–609 BC) came after the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC but before the 

fall of Judah to the Babylonians in 586 BC.8 Hence, they argue that 

the patriarchal accounts are ideological in that they reflect the political and religious viewpoints of the Judean monarchy and priesthood,9

and in particular reflect the desire of Judah, as the surviving Israelite 

polity, to see its right to rule over all of the land of Israel as divinely 
38

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

ordained.10 Other scholars reject the theory of later authorship and 

believe textual evidence and archaeology point to Moses as the primary 

author of the Torah.11

The Exodus from Egypt and the return to the Promised Land 

would also play an important role in latter-day Zionist consciousness. 

According to the account in Genesis (chapters 42–50), a severe famine 

in Canaan brought Jacob and his sons to the Nile Delta in Egypt, where 

they benefited from the protection of Joseph, a son of Jacob whom his 

brothers had sold into slavery but who had risen to a position of prominence in the Egyptian administration. For more than four hundred 

years the descendants of the twelve brothers, known to the Egyptian 

population as Hebrews, proliferated and prospered. But the book of 

Exodus continues the narrative with a new pharaoh who did not know 

of Joseph. When he came to the throne he perceived the Israelites as 

threats and potential fifth columnists so he enslaved them and ordered 

that all Hebrew male infants be drowned in the Nile. One such child 

was instead set adrift on the Nile in a basket, which was discovered by 

the pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted the child and named him Moses.

According to Exodus, once Moses reached adulthood he slew an 

Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, and fearing retribution for his 

act he fled Egypt to the land of Midian to become a nomad. One day 

Moses caught site of a burning bush that was not consumed by the 

flame, and he approached it. God then revealed himself to Moses and 

informed Moses that the divine promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and 

Jacob was to be realized. He instructed Moses to lead the Israelites out 

of Egypt, and when the pharaoh was unyielding before Moses, a series 

of plagues were visited on the land and people of Egypt. The pharaoh 

eventually relented, and the Israelites, estimates of whose numbers vary 

widely from hundreds of thousands to perhaps as many as two to three 

million, departed Egypt and made their way toward the Sinai. The pharaoh soon reversed his decision and sent his forces in pursuit. Once the 

Israelites reached the Red Sea, God instructed them to advance into 

the sea, and the waters parted to allow the Israelites to pass through 

and reach the other shore safely. The waters then returned to their 

normal state, engulfing the Egyptians in pursuit (Exodus 15:1–18).

The Torah narrative relates that the Israelites arrived on the border 

of Canaan but shrank from invading because they were afraid. God 

punished them for their lack of faith by ordering them back into the 

wilderness. They wandered in the Sinai for forty years, during which 

time Moses received the Law from God at Mount Sinai. Eventually it 

became time for the Israelites to fulfill their divine destiny and reclaim 

the land of Canaan. The Bible states:
Chapter 3. Historical Context

39

The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb and said, “You 

have stayed on this mountain long enough; go now, 

make for the hill country of the Amorites, and pass on 

to all their neighbors in the Negeb, and on the coast, 

in short, all Canaan and the Lebanon as far as the 

great river, the Euphrates. I have laid the land open 

before you; the land which the Lord swore to give your 

forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to their 

descendants after them.” (Deuteronomy 1:6–8, ESV)

Additionally, God told the Israelites:

Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall 

be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to 

the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, 

to the western sea. (Deuteronomy 11:24, ESV)

The Israelites, now under the leadership of Joshua, proceeded to 

conquer the cities of Jericho, Ai, Gibeon, Lachish, Hazor, and other 

cities as part of a military campaign that lasted less than five years 

(Joshua 14:7, 10) and left the Israelites in possession of the Promised 

Land. With the Canaanites partially destroyed and defeated and the 

Israelites in possession of most of Palestine, the twelve tribes then 

divided the conquered territory into tribal regions.e

 The Israelite conquest of Canaan (or Palestine) attracts criticism on moral grounds, 

because it has the appearance in the Torah of divinely authorized 

genocide. But the account also makes clear that the Israelites in fact 

fell short of completing the destruction of the Canaanite tribes, thus 

disobeying God’s command and allowing the Canaanite survivors to 

trouble Israel thereafter.

As with earlier mytho-history related to Israel, scholars are divided 

on the historicity of the Exodus narrative—some suggesting it never 

happened, others believing it happened in the thirteenth century BC, 

and still others endorsing the biblical account, which places the episode 

in the fifteenth century BC. Scholars embracing each position point to 

evidence that supports their theories, but there is no solid consensus. 

Regardless of academic disagreement, the Exodus was written into the 

consciousness of the Zionists who set out to return to Palestine starting 

in the nineteenth century, and it remains today a compelling narrative 

for many Jews, both secular and religious.

e For instance, the tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh were 

allocated territories east of the Jordan River, and the tribes of Naphtali, Asher, Zebulun, 

and Issachar were given territory in the highlands and valleys of Galilee. See Joshua, chapters 13–22. See also Finkelstein and Silberman.12
40

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

One important theory about Israel’s history strikes to the heart of 

the legitimacy of Zionism and the Jewish cultural ethos. Rather than 

accept the biblical account that the Israelites were reclaiming their 

divine inheritance through a glorious (and brutal) campaign through 

Canaan that followed a heroic exit from slavery in Egypt, some scholars 

instead believe that the people that came to be known as the Israelites 

had a more prosaic origin, originating as pastoral nomads indigenous 

to Canaan who developed a more sedentary lifestyle around 1200 BC 

and subsequently developed an Israelite ethnic identity.13 Nonetheless, 

the mytho-historical narrative of the Bible and the divine endowment 

of the Promised Land captured the imagination of Zionists in the modern era. Ben-Gurion called the Bible the “sacrosanct title-deed to Palestine” for the Jewish people “with a genealogy of 3500 years.”14 Abba 

Eban, Israel’s foreign minister from 1966 to 1974, in a comment with 

obvious parallels to the modern day, noted:

The Bible does not represent the Israelite entry into 

Canaan as a conquest by an alien people. The process 

is described as the return of a tribe who, in the distant 

but unforgettable past, had dwelled in the land. The 

people who now returned had never seen the Promised Land but they had dreamed of it for generations. 

This home had been vivid in their memory as the only 

place in which their divine mission could be fulfilled.15

HISTORICAL ISRAEL

In summary, the Hebrew Bible presents a compelling mytho-history 

that serves to underscore the legitimacy of the Zionist enterprise. Some 

accept the biblical accounts in whole or in part, and others reject them 

as entirely (or mostly) mythical. Either case results in the Kingdom of 

Israel as the dominant entity in Palestine at around 1000 BC. Biblical 

Israel is portrayed as experiencing a golden age during the time of 

Kings David and Solomon (c. 1005–c. 930 BC), and indeed there are 

extra-biblical references attesting to the prominence of David and his 

line.f

 A fragmentary artifact discovered at the biblical site of Tel Dan 

in 1993 mentions a House of David, and the inscription of which it is a 

part is thought to be a boast by Hazael, king of Damascus, who attacked 

the northern kingdom of Israel in 835 BC:

[I killed Jeho]ram son of [Ahab] king of Israel, and [I] 

killed [Ahaz]iahu son of [Jehoram kin]g of the House 

f These include the Tel Dan Stele (discussed in text) and the Moabite or Mesha Stele, 

a ninth-century BC artifact that some scholars believe refers to the House of David.
Chapter 3. Historical Context

41

of David. And I set [their towns into ruins and turned] 

their land into [desolation].16

Figure 3-1. Tel Dan Stele, which mentions the House of David.

The Bible describes the origin, nature, and extent of the Davidic 

kingdom. Facing a military threat from the Philistines, the tribes of 

Israel opted for a monarchical form of government with Saul (from the 

tribe of Benjamin) as its leader and first king. But when Saul became 

unfaithful to the Lord, David was anointed king in his place. After 

Saul’s suicide in battle against the Philistines, David ascended to the 

throne and defeated the Philistines, Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, 

and Arameans. By doing so, he completed the job of conquering 

the territory from the Euphrates to Egypt that had been promised 

to Abraham.17

Solomon, David’s son by Bathsheba, succeeded to the throne after 

his father’s death, and his signature achievements according to the 

Bible consisted of the building of a magnificent temple (the First Temple; 1 Kings 5–6), the fortification of Jerusalem, and the building of 

fortified cities at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer (1 Kings 9:15). Yet the 

archeological evidence attesting to the exploits of David and Solomon 
42

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

is in dispute.18 Finkelstein and Silberman proposed that Jerusalem at 

this time was no more than a typical highland village,19 although by the 

seventh century BC, it had become a relatively large city. Additionally, 

they believe there is no evidence of a centrally administered state in 

Canaan at this time20 and that neither David nor Solomon is mentioned 

in Egyptian or Mesopotamian texts.21 Hence, they largely discount the 

existence of a prominent Israelite empire under David and Solomon. 

Other scholars disagree with their position and point to recent archaeological finds that seem to support the biblical narrative. As with the 

mytho-historical period, the story of David and Solomon was important 

to Zionists and their allies from the beginning of the movement in the 

nineteenth century. In his diaries, Herzl described a meeting with a 

Christian Zionist, Reverend Hechler, chaplain of the British Embassy 

in Vienna:

Hechler unfolded his Palestine map in our [train] 

compartment and instructed me by the hour. The 

northern frontier is to be the mountains facing Cappadocia, the southern, the Suez Canal. Our slogan shall 

be: “The Palestine of David and Solomon.”22

Figure 3-2. The divided kingdoms.
Chapter 3. Historical Context

43

The subsequent split between Israel in the north (with Samaria 

as capital) and Judah in the south (with Jerusalem as capital) during 

the reign of David’s grandson, Rehoboam, left two Jewish kingdoms 

that alternately cooperated and fought with each other and with their 

Canaanite neighbors. In 722 BC the Assyrians destroyed the northern 

kingdom of Israel and deported a large portion of the Jewish population. More than a century later, in 586  BC, the neo-Babylonians 

under Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah (which had been ruled by a 

line of kings descended from David) and carried a part of the Jewish 

population off into captivity. The Assyrian deportation of the northern Israelites and the Babylonian captivity of the southern kingdom 

were the opening episodes in the perpetual dispersion of Jews among 

the nations.

Cyrus the Great, the emperor of Persia (576–530 BC), conquered 

Babylon and permitted the Jews to return to their ancient homeland 

after roughly seventy years in captivity. The royal line was not authorized to reestablish the kingdom, but the temple was rebuilt (it was 

called the Second Temple and was later refurbished by Herod), and 

the Jews resumed their traditional religious practices. They continued 

in the land, now shared with other peoples, but no longer enjoyed sovereignty or national independence. After the death of Alexander in 

323 BC, Palestine became a battleground for two of the successor states 

from the old empire: Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria. When the 

Seleucids, under the rule of Antiochus IV, eventually gained control 

of the Jewish homeland, their attempts to suppress their new subjects’ 

religion and supplant it with worship of the Greek pantheon sparked 

a popular revolt led by Judah the Maccabee. The Maccabean Revolt 

(167–160 BC) resulted in a period of independence for the Jews in the 

second century BCE. The descendants of Mattathias (the father of 

Judah) ruled the Jews for nearly a century and became known as the 

Hasmonean Dynasty.g

The Maccabean Revolt and the historical descriptions of the heroic 

Mattathias and his son Judah, as with earlier Israelite history, were of 

supreme relevance to the Zionists. They drew inspiration from the 

account of Judah and his brothers defying Antiochus IV’s armies and 

winning freedom from tyranny and foreign occupation.h In 164 BC, 

the Maccabees captured Jerusalem and purified the temple—an episode celebrated in the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. There followed 

g Mattathias and the Hasmoneans were descended from the tribe of Levi, not the 

royal tribe of Judah, and thus did not rule as kings but rather as High Priests.

h Judah in fact won a remarkable series of battles against Antiochus’s armies, beating 

four of them in succession at Nahal el-Haramiah, Beth Horon, Emmaus, and Beth-Zur 

before entering Jerusalem.
44

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

almost one hundred years of Jewish independence, but the Hasmonean 

Dynasty degenerated into a series of dynastic struggles for the High 

Priesthood. This period saw the rise of political parties that figured 

prominently in the Christian New Testament: the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots among others.i

Roman rule of Palestine and the Jews was troubled from the start. 

When the two Hasmonean brothers Aristobulus and Hyrcanus contended against each other for the High Priesthood, they appealed to 

Pompey, the newly designated “conqueror of Asia” in 63 BC. Pompey 

decided to annex Judea into the empire, leading to a siege of Jerusalem. 

Pompey captured the city and entered the Holy of Holies in the temple. Threatened by Roman paganism and a succession of incompetent, 

corrupt, or harsh rulers, the Jews revolted against Rome several times. 

The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD) erupted over harsh Roman 

taxation and the encroachment of Hellenistic religion and exploded 

into a massive, bloody revolt against Rome. The Jews expelled the 

Romans from Jerusalem and Galilee and smashed the Syrian Legion 

at the Battle of Beth Horon, winning a brief but troubled respite from 

Roman rule. As Sadducees and Zealots fought each other within Jerusalem, Vespasian and his son Titus conquered Galilee and later moved 

to besiege the city. By this time Vespasian had ascended to the throne 

back in Rome, but Titus persisted in the siege, ultimately breaching 

the walls and destroying the temple in 70 AD. Three years later, the 

Romans cornered the remaining rebels in their mountain fortress of 

Masada, leading to an episode that would affect the Jewish ethos for 

the next two thousand years.

Flavius Josephus’s historical account, The Jewish War,

23 relates the 

story of the Jewish rebels’ epic last stand in a stronghold that Herod 

the Great had built for himself near the Dead Sea. Atop an inaccessible 

mountain, Masada was provisioned with food, water, weapons, and fortifications. Early in the revolt against Rome, Jewish patriots had defeated 

the garrison there and captured the fortress. After Jerusalem fell they 

were joined by Zealots and their families, and together the Jewish rebels 

held out and harassed the Romans for three years. The Roman Tenth 

Legion besieged the stronghold and eventually built siege works that 

threatened the garrison with defeat and capture. Elazar ben Yair, the 

Zealot commander, resolved never to be enslaved by the Romans again, 

and under his supervision, the entire garrison committed suicide after 

i The Pharisees, associated with the poorer classes, dominated the synagogues, 

believed in Oral Torah as well as Written Torah, and despised Hellenism. The Sadducees, 

associated with rich elites, dominated the temple and the priesthood, rejected Oral Torah, 

and compromised with Hellenism and the Romans. The Zealots remained fiercely antiRoman and urged violence against them.
Chapter 3. Historical Context

45

slaying their families. Only two women survived to tell the tale. Ben 

Yair’s last speech not only strengthened the garrison’s resolve for their 

grisly task, but it also reverberated throughout the history of the Jewish 

Diaspora, and it became a rallying cry for Revisionist Zionists and all 

Palestinian Jews determined to defend themselves to the death for their 

homeland:

It is known and written that tomorrow will come our 

demise, but the choice is to us to die the death of 

heroes, we and all those dear to us . . . Perhaps from 

the beginning, when we stood to assert our liberty . . . 

we should have grasped the spirit of God and realized 

that he has sealed the fate of the race of the Jews whom 

he had loved before. We cannot save our souls . . . So 

let our wives die before they are violated, let our sons 

die before they taste the taste of slavery. Then we shall 

bless one another with the blessing of heroes. How 

good and how great it will be when we carry our freedom to our grave.24

Figure 3-3. Masada.

The Kitos War (115–17 AD) featured a second major Jewish rebellion against Rome, this time in league with the Parthians. Jews of the 

Diaspora by this time lived throughout the eastern portions of the 

Roman Empire, and when Trajan marched east to deal with Parthian 

incursions into the empire’s sphere of influence in Armenia, Jewish 

groups in Cyprus, Cyrenaica, Egypt, and throughout the east began 

to rise against Roman garrisons, slaughtering them. After the death of 
46

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Trajan, Hadrian took over as emperor and eventually quelled the rebellions. The Jews, although subdued, still rankled under their Roman 

masters and awaited the day when some great leader—perhaps the 

Messiah—would lead them to freedom from hated Rome.

That leader appeared in 132 AD, and he led the final Jewish revolt 

that had catastrophic effects. Hadrian visited Judea in 130 AD, intending to commence the rebuilding of Jerusalem but renaming the city 

Aelia Capitolina. Word spread that the emperor purposed to “plough 

up” the remains of the Second Temple and replace it with a temple 

dedicated to Jupiter, enflaming Jews throughout the Diaspora and 

especially in Judea. As tensions rose, Hadrian outlawed circumcision, 

deepening the divide between imperial pretentions and Jewish religious feelings. Championed as the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva, Simon bar 

Kokhba led a carefully planned revolt that soon imperiled the Roman 

garrison. For the following two years Simon ruled an independent Jewish enclave, even minting coins and celebrating what many hoped was 

the eschatological redemption of Israel.

Hadrian was aghast and determined to defeat the Jews once and for 

all. To this end he gathered an enormous army and launched a threeyear campaign that crushed the Jews in a series of exceedingly bloody 

battles and sieges. The Roman XXII  Legion suffered so many casualties that it was disbanded, and in retribution the emperor ordered 

a wholesale slaughter of the Jewish population in Judea and Galilee. 

More than half a million Jews were killed, and the leaders of the revolt 

were slowly tortured to death. Hadrian outlawed Judaism, destroyed 

copies of the Torah, and forbid use of the Jewish calendar. By the end 

of the war in 136 AD, the Jews had lost everything but gained a lasting 

reputation as the number-one enemy of Rome.

As the new Christian faith began to spread, followers of Jesus were 

cast out of synagogues, beginning the rift between Jews and Christians. 

Christians also came to oppose the Jews in part because of the deaths 

they suffered at Jewish hands during the various rebellions. Christian 

leaders were determined to reassure Rome that although they worshiped the man they considered to be the Jewish Messiah, they had no 

sympathy for the Jews themselves, who, after all, had been implicated in 

the crucifixion of Jesus. The influence of Roman politics on the early 

Latin Church likewise led to a theological invention that became known 

as supercessionism (or replacement theology). The basic idea was that 

since the Jews crucified Christ, God had set them aside permanently 

and replaced them in his prophetic program with “the New Israel”—

the Church. Although not all Christian leaders and thinkers embraced 

this theology, it became dominant in the Latin Church. Thus, the seeds 

of Christian anti-Semitism had taken root by the second century.
Chapter 3. Historical Context

47

Constantine ruled Rome from 313–337 CE and moved the capital of 

the empire to Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople in his honor. 

After the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, he converted to Christianity 

(whether sincerely or as a political ploy is in dispute), which in turn led 

to the new religion becoming the dominant belief within the empire. 

The formerly pagan Roman Empire eventually promoted Christianity 

to the sole legal religion, and within one generation Christian bishops, in some cases still bearing the scars of torture, were promoted to 

positions of influence within the newly authorized imperial church. 

This remarkable turnaround in the history of the Latin Church did not 

benefit the Jews of the Diaspora, who continued to be treated as Christ 

killers and second-class citizens of the empire at best.

The Islamic Conquest of Palestine and the Crusades

By the mid-seventh century Muhammad’s successors had garnered 

enough military strength to move out of the Arabian Peninsula and 

into the weakly held gap between the Byzantine and Persian Empires. 

Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and Cyrenaica fell quickly, and over the course 

of the next century the Arab Empire grew to its zenith, stretching from 

Spain in the west to the borders of China in the east. Scholars continue 

to debate the details of early Muslim rule in Palestine—the relative 

numbers of Christians, Jews, and Muslims there; the conflicts and cooperation among the three ethnic groups; and culpability for the subsequent depopulation trends and economic downturn within Palestine.25

At the height of the so-called High Caliphates, made up of the 

Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphates, the Muslim conquests resulted 

in a synthesis of existing cultures with the new governance of Islam. 

The positive results included advances in philosophy, the arts, science, 

and mathematics, all of which would eventually help to fuel the Renaissance in Europe. But from the perspective of existing empires, the Muslim arrival was anything but welcome. The rise of the Seljuk Turks, 

their conversion to Islam, their settlement of Asia Minor, and the consequent perception of a Muslim threat against Constantinople motivated 

the Byzantine emperor to call for Christian Europe to counterattack 

the unbelievers. The resulting Crusades (1099–1291) featured desultory, fragmented, and violent military expeditions that landed along 

the Eastern Mediterranean coast from Constantinople to North Africa, 

focused—at least initially—on the Christian conquest of the Holy 

Land. The Christian Crusaders, although their declared enemy was 

Islam, lost no opportunity to abuse and murder Jews throughout their 

operations. By the disastrous end of the efforts, the Europeans had 

lost all of their temporary gains. The Crusades left the Arab Empire 
48

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

exhausted and created a legacy of resentment that continues in the 

Islamic world today.26

Throughout the course of Muslim rule, Jews were generally treated 

with contempt and repression. They suffered special taxation (as did 

Christians), and they were classified as dhimmis—technically, the term 

described a protected status, but the implication was a protected, 

despised inferior. Some educated Jews enjoyed elevated status, serving 

as ministers and advisers, but especially after 1250 AD, most Jews in 

Islamic lands suffered poverty, prejudice, and persecution. The pattern 

of Muslims’ ill treatment of Jews found justification in the Koran and 

hadith literature, which described Muhammad’s subjection and murder 

of Jews at Medina from 622 to 624 AD. Jews who submitted might suffer repression, taxation, and dispossession. Those who resisted would 

suffer expulsion or death. Muslim children were taught to throw stones 

and even spit on Jewish adults, who in turn were forced to endure the 

abuse without resistance.27

The Mongol Invasion

The rise and expansion of the Mongol Empire constituted a grave 

threat to both Europe and the Near East in the early and mid-thirteenth 

century. Genghis Khan’s superb cavalry armies, supplemented by an 

effective corps of engineers, swept through the Trans-Caucasus, conquering the Khwarezmian Empire and Persia, and then invaded Georgia. Under Khan’s grandson Hulagu, the Mongols launched from bases 

in Persia and attacked and destroyed the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad 

in 1258. From there Hulagu intended to take on the Mamluk sultanate 

in Egypt and resolved to march through Palestine. This led to one of 

the most decisive battles in history: Ain Jalut (September 3, 1260). As 

the Mongol army marched east of the Sea of Galilee and from there 

turned west, crossing the Jordan River, the Mamluks under Sultan 

Qutuz engaged them, drew them by a ruse into the highlands, and 

then defeated them. This reversal, combined with infighting among 

Mongol princes, saved Palestine and signaled the ascendancy of the 

Islamic Mamluks. The last of the Crusader states in the region fell 

to the new masters of Syria and Palestine, and the Mamluks were to 

remain in power until the sixteenth century.28

The Ottoman Empire

In the wake of the disasters that befell the empires in and around 

Asia Minor in the thirteenth century, the Ottoman Turks carved out 

a power base there from which emerged one of the greatest empires 
Chapter 3. Historical Context

49

of the Middle Ages. In the course of the next several centuries, the 

Ottomans expanded into the Balkans and took Constantinople (1453), 

along with Hungary, North Africa, Egypt, Syria (including Palestine), 

Mesopotamia, and western Arabia. Their tolerant and flexible administrative practices, typified by the millet system, facilitated their rule over 

many diverse nationalities and religious groups. A millet was a community of non-Muslims who were granted local autonomy and freedom 

to practice their religion under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire, 

to which they had to pay taxes. From the zenith of their power in the 

sixteenth century, the empire was to gradually decline to the status of 

“the sick man of Europe” by the eve of World War I. Economic competition from Europe, the disruptions birthed by the Industrial Revolution, 

and the onset of corruption and incompetence among Ottoman rulers 

combined to sap the empire’s strength and leave it ill suited for the military contests of the early twentieth century. The failure and recession 

of the Ottomans was to become the fundamental backdrop of the Palestinian conflict that persists today. It left the region poorly governed, 

underpopulated, and with widespread poverty.29

The Jews and Palestine

During the nearly two thousand years of the Diaspora, the land of 

Palestine remained at the center of Jewish consciousness. Three times a 

day religious Jews prayed that God would restore them to their ancient 

homeland. During the month of Tishri (which corresponds to the 

September–October time frame), Jews celebrated Shmini Atzeret—an 

annual prayer for rain timed to correspond with the agricultural needs 

of Palestine, not the lands in which they lived in the Diaspora. They 

celebrated the Passover Seder with the concluding line “Next year in 

Jerusalem.” For almost two thousand years religious Jews would recite 

Psalm 137 as a reminder to themselves not to forget their origins: “If I 

forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave 

to the roof of its mouth.”30

A small number of Jews continued to live in Palestine from the start of 

the Diaspora. Roman, and later Muslim, oppression continued, and the 

Christian Crusaders were notorious for their anti-Semitic brutality when 

they arrived. Still, impoverished Jews in Palestine benefited in a small 

way from the tradition of khalukah—charitable contributions donated 

from Jews throughout the world and given to the religious authorities 

in Jerusalem for distribution among the typically poor Orthodox community. In this way the world population of ethnic Jews maintained a 

tenuous, conceptual link to the lands of their ancient ancestors and 

dreamed—at least in theory—of a day when they could return.
50

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

The Jewish Diaspora and Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism has contributed four unique words to the vocabularies of the world: pogrom, ghetto, genocide, and Holocaust. The origins of 

anti-Semitism—both historical and mythical—have been alluded to in 

this study. The psychological and sociological analyses of the trend are 

beyond the scope of this work. But the phenomenon itself is central to 

the understanding of the Zionist insurgency.

Zionism drew its strength mostly from the wretched conditions 

inflicted on East European Jews. Christian anti-Semitism had plagued 

European Jewry since the beginning of the Diaspora, but it intensified in the eighteenth century. Catherine the Great, following the 

anti-Jewish practices of tsars before her, established the first Pale of 

Settlement in Russia—a portion of land corresponding to modern 

Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus—in which Jews 

were permitted to settle. The intent was to rid the rest of the country of 

the hated Jews. Within the Pale, life was hard and Jews were constantly 

subjected to laws designed to marginalize them or force them to relocate. Because Jewish populations were concentrated in the Pale, they 

were easy targets for pogroms.

Pogrom is a Russian word meaning to destroy, and the Jews of 

nineteenth-century Russia, including those in the Pale of Settlement 

(modern Ukraine), were frequent targets of that destruction. Pogroms 

were sudden popular uprisings against the Jews, leading to vandalism, 

rape, pillage, and murder on a large scale. Spontaneous mass attacks 

against Jews punctuated medieval European and Muslim history, 

including infamous episodes in Granada (1066), France and Germany 

(1096), and Lisbon (1506) in which hundreds of Jews were murdered 

over three days.

In 1871 Greeks and Russians in the city of Odessa fell on the Jewish 

population in response to rumors that Jewish vandals had attacked a 

Greek church. Similar outbreaks had occurred previously, and the trend 

of sudden anti-Jewish violence continued. In 1905, four hundred Jews 

were murdered at the hands of Russian, Greek, and Turkish assailants, 

allegedly with the aid of the municipal government. The key dynamic 

underlying the violence was that the Jewish population in the city was 

both expanding and prosperous. However, even the most successful 

Jewish businessmen and leaders remained unable to translate their 

economic strength into political power. Municipal and imperial governments excluded them from influential positions or otherwise marginalized them. Thus, when economic downturns arose, frustrated citizens 

vented their rage on the Jews while the government either looked on or 

joined the riots. Whatever the cause, the results were Jewish deaths and 
Chapter 3. Historical Context

51

the destruction of Jewish property. The 1905 pogrom started as liberals, including many Jews, celebrated the tsar’s recent publication of a 

manifesto guaranteeing greater rights. Conservatives felt threatened, 

and episodes of small-scale violence during demonstrations escalated 

into a full-scale assault against Jewish neighborhoods and businesses.

The assassination of Tsar Alexander  II in 1881 led to a series of 

pogroms in Warsaw and Russia over the ensuing three years. More 

followed in Kiev (1905, 1919), Bialystok (1906), and Lwow (1917). The 

Kishinev pogrom (April 6–7, 1903) was a formative episode in the development of Zionism. Centered in the city of Kishinev in modern Moldova, the anti-Jewish riots began when a racist newspaper attributed 

the deaths of two Christian youths to Jewish blood libel. The mythical 

blood libel involved Jews allegedly killing victims to use their blood in 

rituals. Although the claims were baseless, accusations of blood libel 

spurred the citizens into sudden violence targeting the Jews. The Russian Orthodox bishop likewise urged the crowd to strike against the 

Jews after the Easter service. Hundreds of Jewish homes and businesses 

were destroyed. Forty-nine Jews were murdered and hundreds more 

injured. The military and police stood by and refused to intervene until 

the third day of riots. Western newspapers expressed outrage at the violence in Kishinev, and the incident was one of the main catalysts for the 

Second Aliyah (i.e., mass Jewish immigration to Palestine). The young 

Jewish-Russian poet Vladimir Jabotinsky was horrified at the bloodshed 

and the government’s culpability in it and converted to Zionist ideology 

soon afterward. He emigrated to Palestine and became the leader of 

Revisionist Zionism, the most militant faction within the movement.

Anti-Semitism’s most notorious episode, however, remains the 

Nazi Holocaust. Hitler rose to power in 1933, and his regime’s policies became the stimulus for the Fifth Aliyah. The Nazis began by banning Jews and Communists from the civil service. In 1935 they followed 

with the Nuremberg Race Laws, which prevented Jews from becoming 

citizens of the Reich and forbade intermarriage with Germans. Soon 

the Jews were deprived of all civil rights. In 1937 the Nazis began to 

appropriate Jewish businesses, replacing the original owners with German management through forced sales at depressed prices. Jewish doctors were not permitted to practice medicine on non-Jews, and Jewish 

lawyers were forbidden from the legal profession. The Kristallnacht of 

November 1938 was an orchestrated series of anti-Jewish attacks, and 

the Nazis followed up with another series of anti-Jewish laws.

When World War II began, the Germans exported their anti-Semitic 

policies to the lands they conquered, some of which were already 

disposed to racist violence. Romanian officials and military units, 

assisted at times by German soldiers, killed at least eight thousand Jews 
52

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

during a pogrom in Iasi, in the Romanian province of Moldavia. On 

July 10, 1941, Polish residents of Jedwabne, a small town located in the 

Bialystok District of first Soviet-occupied and then German-occupied 

Poland, participated in the murder of hundreds of their Jewish neighbors. At first, the Nazis merely encouraged and tolerated pogroms in 

their conquered lands to the east.

In 1941, however, the Nazis began their program of systematically 

destroying European Jewry—a vile episode known as the Holocaust 

that killed two out of every three European Jews, a total of six million 

deaths. The victims were first separated from the general population 

by forced relocation into ghettoes or concentration camps. Many were 

subjected to forced labor and deprivation until they died. Others were 

put into gas chambers and murdered en masse. The deaths included 

more than one million Jewish children, two million Jewish women, 

and three million Jewish men. The scope of the disaster can hardly 

be overstated. Zionism’s most formative years in Palestine, from 1923 

to 1945, played out against the backdrop of extreme and lethal antiSemitism in Europe. In the view of the Zionists and their sympathizers, 

the unimaginable brutality of the Holocaust underscored the legitimacy and urgency of the Zionist enterprise.

NOTES

1 Robert R. Leonhard, Visions of Apocalypse: What Jews, Christians, and Muslims Believe about 

the End Times, and How Those Beliefs Affect Our World (Laurel, MD: The Johns Hopkins 

University Applied Physics Laboratory, 2010).

2 Mark Tessler, A History of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 2nd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana 

University Press, 2009), 5–13.

3 Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision 

of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: Free Press, 2001), 35; and Robert Alter, Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings: A Translation 

with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), 1–2.

4 Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 35.

5 Alter, Ancient Israel, 2–3.

6 Ibid., 3.

7 Eyal Rav-Noy and Gil Weinreich, Who Really Wrote the Bible? And Why It Should Be Taken 

Seriously Again, 1st ed. (Minneapolis: Richard Vigilante Books, 2010).

8 Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 14.

9 Alter, Ancient Israel, 3, 17.

10 Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 44.

11 Clayton H. Ford, Who Really Wrote the Bible? (Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing, 2010).

12 Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 98.

13 Ibid., 98, 114–115, 118.
Chapter 3. Historical Context

53

14 David Ben-Gurion, The Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (New York: Philosophical Library, 

1954), 100, quoted in H. S. Haddad, “The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism,” The 

Journal of Palestine Studies 3, no. 4 (1974): 98–99.

15 Abba Eban, My People, The Story of the Jews (New York: Random House, 1968), v, quoted in 

Haddad, “Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism,” 104.

16 Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 129.

17 Ibid., 144.

18 Ibid., 143; and Alter, Ancient Israel, 98.

19 Finkelstein and Silberman, Bible Unearthed, 142.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid., 128.

22 Theodor Herzl, The Dairies of Theodor Herzl, transl. Marvin Lowenthal (New York: Dial 

Press, 1956), 124, quoted in Haddad, “Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism,” 108.

23 Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War, rev. ed., trans. G. A. Williamson (London: Penguin 

Books, 1970).

24 Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 

2013), 90.

25 Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, rev. 10th ed. (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 

139–154.

26 Ibid., 633–658.

27 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: 

Vintage Books, 2001), 8–13.

28 James Chambers, The Devil’s Horsemen (New York: Atheneum, 1979), 154–155.

29 Gregory Harms and Todd M. Ferry, The Palestine-Israel Conflict (New York: Pluto Press, 

2008), 40–43.

30 Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know about the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History, rev. ed. (New York: William Morrow, 2008), 259–260.

CHAPTER 4.

SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS

I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out 

my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, 

and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will 

enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate 

and you are in the country of your enemies; then the 

land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it 

lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have 

during the sabbaths you lived in it.

—Leviticus 26:33–35, NIV

Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think 

Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren . . . 

The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble 

vegetation  .  .  . sorrowful and despondent  .  .  . It is a 

hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land . . . Palestine sits in 

sackcloth and ashes.

—Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

57

ETHNICITY

The two major groups of people that this study examines are the 

Jews and the Arabs in Palestine. Of the Jewish population, a small portion (about forty-five thousand in 1890) were long-time residents, while 

the vast majority immigrated there from the late 1800s through the 

1950s. The Arab inhabitants were primarily descendants of Semitic 

populations that had lived in Palestine since the Arabization that had 

occurred as a result of the Muslim conquest in the seventh century.

Ethnic differences among the world’s Jewish population during the 

period 1890–1950 resulted from historical forces that drove Jews out of 

Palestine and into various regions of the world. Thus, the different ethnicities found among Jews are primarily matters of geographical dispersion, during which Jewish communities became separated and fell 

under the influence of other cultures. The major ethnic groups among 

Jews considered in this study are summarized below.

Ashkenazim are Jews whose ancestors lived in Europe. They account 

for more than 70 percent of all Jews. Among the Ashkenazim there were 

major cultural and linguistic differences between those who settled in 

Western and Central Europe and those who settled in Eastern Europe. 

The early Zionist period featured mass migrations of East European 

Jews—mainly Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian. By the nineteenth century, Jews in the West had been liberated (although still subjected to 

anti-Semitic trends), while those in the East continued to suffer under 

anti-Jewish laws and pogroms.

Sephardim are Jews whose ancestors came from Iberia and North 

Africa. The term originally applied to Jews in Spain or Portugal, but 

after the Reconquista, Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism were 

expelled and fled to North Africa and elsewhere. North African and 

Middle Eastern Jews today are called Mizrahim, but their liturgies are 

often similar to Sephardic liturgy.

Yemenite, also called Teimanim, are Jews whose roots are in Yemen 

or Oman. Today, although not in the period this study examines, 

Yemenite Jews are often grouped into Mizrahim (i.e., Eastern) Jews.

Beyond these three major groupings there were smaller Jewish communities from throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. 

The ethnic diversity of the Jewish Diaspora was a significant factor in 

the course of the Zionist insurgency because leaders had to unify the 

immigrant population toward the goal of building the Jewish homeland. To do this they had to overcome linguistic, religious, and cultural differences without alienating the subject groups. Throughout 

the development of Zionism various leaders were accused of championing one or another group over the others. In general Ashkenazi Jews 
58

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

populated the Zionist leadership and indeed accounted for some ninety 

percent of the Jewish population in Palestine by 1947, while Sephardim 

were often looked down on as a sort of second-class Jews, most notably 

by prominent Zionist Arthur Ruppin.

Arabs

The Palestinian Arab population was made up of a Semitic population whose presence in Palestine dated back to the Muslim conquest 

of the seventh century. The majority of the population was Sunni Muslim, but there was a Christian minority (about 10 percent of the Arab 

population) embracing various denominations. This essential ethnicity is not in dispute, but the Arab population’s concept of a national 

identity is. The Zionist perspective is that the idea of a Palestinian Arab 

nation is an artificial construct motivated by anti-Semitism and hatred 

of Israel. As early as 1905, Zionist sociologist Ber Borochov suggested 

that the indigenous population of Palestine was likely descended from 

a mixture of Jewish, Canaanite, and Arab blood and that the people 

there would likely welcome Zionist immigration and the improvements 

it would bring. He foresaw a contented, docile population eager to be 

assimilated into the Jewish homeland. Modern Arab (or pro-Arab) 

scholars insist that Palestinian Arabs instead embraced strong feelings 

of nationalism and a Palestinian identity throughout modern history. 

They contend that the declared State of Palestine reflects a legitimate 

Arab nationalism long felt by the community.

Matters of ethnicity bear on the character of the Jewish–Arab conflict in Palestine, because years of violence have underscored what 

many on both sides believe are deep ethnic divisions between the two 

peoples. The study of ethnicity eventually leads back to biblical antiquity, where history merges with myth. The cultural myths of both sides 

reinforce the idea that Jews and Arabs are different peoples, destined 

for conflict with each other. But some modern scholars dispute these 

ideas and instead suggest that both Arabs and Jews both came from 

Canaanite ancestry.a

DEMOGRAPHICS

Early Zionist leaders justified their planned mass immigration to 

Palestine by suggesting that “the Jews are a people without a land, and 

Palestine is a land without a people.” In other words they believed (or 

claimed to believe) that the region was largely underpopulated and 

a See chapter 3 for a complete discussion.
Chapter 4. Socioeconomic Conditions

59

ripe for the absorption of thousands of Jews. The Palestinian Arab 

viewpoint insists that there was already a substantial population in Palestine and that the Jews dispossessed them, especially in the period 

1948–1967. Throughout the diplomatic history of the first half of the 

twentieth century, British ministers, Zionist leaders, and Arab leaders 

argued about the character and fate of the indigenous population.

Population statistics for the period in question are necessarily vague 

and are disputed. Because numbers impact issues of legitimacy, all sides 

of the conflict tend to inflate their own numbers and conflate others. 

Palestine under the Ottomans was undergoverned, so population statistics were not kept accurately or consistently. For these reasons we must 

consider, for each period, a range of demographics that includes all but 

the most extreme estimations. When the Zionist enterprise began in 

the late nineteenth century there were between 400,000 and 500,000 

Arabs and about 45,000 Jews living in Palestine, although some estimates lower the figure for Jews to between 15,000 and 25,000. By the 

eve of World War I, the Jewish population had grown to a total between 

60,000 and 94,000, while the Arab population was between 600,000 

and 730,000. At the start of the British Mandate there were just fewer 

than 84,000 Jews in Palestine and about 660,000 Arabs. By 1931 the 

Jewish population had climbed to 175,000—just less than 17 percent of 

the population, while the Arab population rose to between 850,000 to 

860,000. As the Israeli War of Independence began in 1947, the Jewish 

population had jumped to 631,000, and the Arab population was about 

1,300,000, with Jews nearing one-third of the population. In the years 

immediately following the establishment of the State of Israel, another 

650,000 Jews immigrated, more than doubling the population.1

ECONOMICS

Discussion of the economic conditions in Palestine before Zionist 

immigration is, like the historical debate, contentious. To understand 

the Zionist insurgency and Arab resistance, the student of irregular 

warfare must grasp the essential debate about what Palestine was like 

before the mass Jewish immigration began. To simplify, there are two 

schools of thought. The Zionist perspective is that Palestine was basically an empty, fallow land—unproductive, overrun with malaria and 

cholera, and full of swamps and rocky terrain. The Arab viewpoint 

counters that Palestine was economically viable and productive before 

the Jews arrived. The debate is important because it underlies arguments about legitimacy for both sides.

During the Ottoman period, Palestine’s economy was in the hands 

of the indigenous, largely Arab population, who were trying to survive, 
60

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

and the colonial powers of Europe, who were trying to boost their 

national economies. A succession of Ottoman sultans began granting 

special rights (called Capitulations) to European powers, giving them 

access to markets, labor, and raw materials in Palestine. By the time 

World War I broke out, much of the economic and financial infrastructure was already foreign owned and operated. The British conquest of 

Palestine during the war and the diplomatic organization of Mandatory 

borders were the political/military denouement to what was already an 

economic reality.2

Arab (or pro-Arab) sources contend that Palestinian Arabs had 

built a viable (if not prosperous) economy before the Zionists arrived. 

They propose that from the 1500s, European powers enjoyed exports 

of cotton and grains from Palestine. The region also produced olive 

oil, soap, grapes, citrus fruits, sesame, wheat, barley, and sugarcane. 

Silk and cloth manufacturing also contributed to exports. Cotton 

exports in particular became crucial to European industry, and the 

ports of Jaffa, Sidon, and Acre grew accordingly. The chief destinations for Palestinian commodities were England, France, and Italy. As 

the Industrial Revolution took hold in Europe, excess capital served as 

investments in the extraction, transportation, and exportation of Palestinian raw materials.3

One of the downsides from European interest was the decline 

of domestic industry. Europe needed markets as much as it needed 

raw materials, and the influx of cheap manufactured goods spelled 

doom for much of the cottage industry in Palestine. This decline had 

the effect of depressing the local Arab economy, creating consumer 

dependencies on imported goods, and increasing unemployment and 

underemployment.

The Zionist perception regarding Palestine’s economy was that the 

land was underpopulated and unproductive. In Leviticus 26:33–34 

(NIV), God threatened the ancient Israelites with national dispersion, 

with the result that their lands would lie fallow in their absence:

I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out 

my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, 

and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will 

enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate 

and you are in the country of your enemies; then the 

land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.

Even secular Jews came to believe that this ancient prophecy had indeed 

played out in the two thousand years of the Diaspora. Palestine was a 

wasteland that needed redemption. Zionist ideology insisted that the 

national redemption of the Jewish people would go hand in hand with 
Chapter 4. Socioeconomic Conditions

61

the physical redemption of the land. Jewish pioneers came to Palestine 

equipped to drain the swamps, remove the rocks, plant forests, and 

cultivate fallow lands. They viewed the indigenous Arab population as 

small, demoralized, and locked into subsistence farming on worn-out, 

ill-managed lands.

Their vision of pre-Zionist Palestine was at least in part true. Absentee landlords held title to much of Palestine. A great deal of the land 

was indeed fallow and unproductive. Even enthusiastic Jewish pioneers 

often failed to make the land productive. Some died in the attempt, and 

many gave it up and emigrated elsewhere. Farming methods throughout the land tended to follow a pattern of individual tenant farms. 

When the Zionist pioneers began to arrive, their European patrons 

insisted on more modern methods based on the latest agricultural science and geared for mass production.

From the 1920s Palestine featured a dual economy: a Jewish part 

that was growing in multiple and complementary sectors and an Arab 

part that languished. It is not surprising that causality of the phenomenon is also disputed, but the immigrating Jews, bolstered by needed 

foreign funding and disciplined, visionary leadership, rapidly built 

an economic foundation that made possible the remarkable achievements of the ensuing decades. The Arabs, plagued by factionalism and 

conflict among clans and between the elites and the rural poor, failed 

to keep pace, with the result that the Jewish achievements appeared 

miraculous by way of contrast.4

In the period this study examines, the Zionists, with substantial 

financial assistance, built up a Jewish presence in Palestine and organized the economy along socialist lines. That is, the Labor Zionist leaders did not champion individualism or capitalism but instead insisted 

on a socialist model in which the Jewish collectives—moshavim, kibbutzim, and urban industries—would become self-sufficient and then 

produce exportable goods to boost the national economy. The Zionists’ model produced the phenomenally rapid growth that undergirded 

their argument for the legitimacy of their movement. The resulting 

economic boom, they argued, benefited everyone, including the indigenous Arabs and the global economy. Arab leaders argued the reverse—

that Jewish businesses tended to favor Jewish labor and exclude Arabs 

from meaningful work.

The student of irregular warfare must understand not only the history of a region but also the historiographical debate that underlies 

the history. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Palestinian 

conflict. The economic “truth” about pre-Zionist Palestine remains an 

important part of the greater struggle for legitimacy. Zionists insist that 

they benefited the land and its Arab inhabitants by essentially fixing a 
62

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

broken land. They further argue that as the Jewish presence built up a 

viable economy, Arabs from neighboring lands flocked to Palestine to 

enjoy the fruits. Anti-Zionists insist this interpretation is biased and that 

Arab Palestine was economically viable before the Zionists—viewed as 

colonial interlopers—invaded and dispossessed the Arabs. As we analyze each major Zionist immigration, the debate over the ground truth 

in Palestine will sharpen.

NOTES

1 These statistical estimations were drawn from a wide variety of sources including ProCon.org, “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Pros and Cons,” last updated September 17, 2010, 

http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000636; 

Mitchell G. Bard, “Immigration to Israel: The First Aliyah (1882–1903),” Jewish Virtual 

Library, accessed August 15, 2014, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/First_Aliyah.html; and Wikipedia, s.v. “Demographics in the Ottoman Period” 

in “Demographics in Palestine,” last modified August 10, 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/Demographics_of_Palestine#Demographics_in_the_Ottoman_period.

2 Rashid Khalidi, British Policy towards Syria and Palestine, 1906–1914: A Study of the Antecedents of the Hussein—The McMahon Correspondence, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Balfour 

Declaration (London: St. Anthony’s College, 1980).

3 Marwan R. Buheiry, “The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885–1914,” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 4 (1981): 61.

4 Jacob Metzer, The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
CHAPTER 5.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

We naturally move to those places where we are not 

persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. This is the case in every country, and will remain 

so, even in those highly civilized . . . until the Jewish 

question finds a solution on a political basis.

—Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State

65

THE OTTOMAN PERIOD

The Legal Context of the Ottoman Government and the 

Notion of a Legal Identity

Jewish society is historically accustomed to being bound by law, 

whether the law of civil society or the universally binding collective 

body of Jewish law known as halacha. The latter body of law governed 

the internal Jewish order and helped Jews maintain their cohesive 

social identity despite having no sovereign government of their own 

during their exile. Within the societies in which they lived, the Jewish people were able to maintain a level of legal autonomy (although 

not equality). The resulting sense of ethnic distinctiveness spurred the 

development of Zionism and was influential in the eventual success in 

establishing the State of Israel. As subsequent chapters will detail, there 

was no formal transfer of power from British imperial rule to the State 

of Israel, and in fact the country was in such a condition of disorder 

immediately preceding statehood that world powers expected it to fail 

within months if not immediately. To understand how a functioning 

state emerged amid political turmoil and, perhaps more notably, after 

centuries of Jewish displacement, it is necessary to frame the legal context in which the circumstances were created, beginning with the Ottoman period.1

The notion of a Jewish legal identity within the Ottoman Empire 

is important in understanding Zionism because the government structures of a society influence how the identities of those living within that 

society develop. The persistence of certain structures shape a group’s 

recognition of itself as having equal or unequal power as compared to 

others. The internal identity reflected in Jewish law and custom helped 

Jews appear as a distinct and unified group to the larger community. 

The legal context restricted their ability to express their identity or 

improve their lives significantly. The Jews were able to work within 

the framework of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, however, to achieve a 

level of activism from which Zionism emerged. The Zionist insurgency 

aligned in time with an ideological shift in international law away 

from colonialism and toward the recognition of peoples’ right of selfdetermination,2

 which in combination with a number of key historical 

factors, helped lead to the creation of the Jewish state.a

a The notion of self-determination is critical to the emergence of the State of Israel 

and is discussed in detail in chapter 10. In short, at the end of World War I, international 

law would have permitted the allies to annex territories from the Ottoman Empire. 

Instead, they agreed to administer them according to The Council of the League of 

Nations’ 1922 Mandate, which incorporated the principle of establishing a Jewish home in 

Palestine, a concept previously introduced in the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
66

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

This chapter looks at how the Jews were situated within the government structures in the Ottoman Empire. A brief discussion is devoted 

to the reform movement, known as the Tanzimat, carried out between 

1839 and 1876 and completed during the autocratic rule of Sultan 

Abdulhamit II between 1876 and 1909 (the Hamidian era). The Tanzimat period leading up to 1876 was more secular, marked by expanded 

legal status and rights for non-Muslims. This period is the setting in 

which Zionism begins, and it stands in contrast (although scholars 

debate how starkly) to the subsequent Hamidian era, which, through 

its focus on the state’s connection to Islam, began to psychologically 

and socially exclude non-Muslims.3

 This chapter then looks at modernization efforts during the Young Turk period from 1908 to the end of 

World War I, during which the system was briefly democratized. The 

elements that contributed to the emergence of the concept of a Jewish 

home are also discussed, although the legal technicalities accompanying the road to statehood and their future significance to the development of the Arab insurgency are discussed in later chapters. Rather 

than provide a description of the government structures, this chapter 

seeks to highlight the legal context in which the government operated 

and, in turn, the Jewish identity within that context. The objective is to 

demonstrate how this identity is a key nonkinetic factor in the progression of the Zionist insurgency.

Government Structure—Overview of the Millet System

Ottoman sultans were interested in organizing non-Muslims and 

maintaining security and less concerned with converting or suppressing minority religious groups. The position of Jews in the Ottoman 

Empire was informed by Islamic law, which considered non-Muslims 

dhimmis, or members of a community that enjoyed a protected status. 

However, the individual members of the community did not have a 

recognized status.4 As dhimmis, they were represented to the Ottoman 

sultan by their religious patriarchs, rabbis. Rabbis appointed to represent the community to the sultan were part of the Ottoman ruling 

class. The Jews, like other dhimmis, were organized into millets. The 

millet system was a method for the sultan to categorize the subjects into 

ethnoreligious and tribal groups, where individual members of each 

group were governed by the legal and institutional authority of their 

religion.5

 Millets governed marriage, divorce, and other family law matters within the context of the religion’s communal norms. Jews, therefore, were governed by collective Jewish law (halacha). In this sense, 

millets allowed minorities to be recognized as nearly autonomous communities, and throughout the Ottoman period the Jews were able to 
Chapter 5. Government and Politics

67

successfully organize as a religious-ethnic minority. Still, the millet system was by its nature pluralistic, and it ensured there was no centralized 

legal structure that applied to all individuals. So, while millets served 

to homogenize recognized communities, they also distinguished them 

as distinctly non-Muslim (i.e., minority groups without equal membership in society). Although the millet system allowed religious groups to 

worship according to their beliefs and govern the individuals within 

their community according to their own laws, this system was in place 

first and foremost to keep order and security within the empire.b The 

millet leaders had a duty to the sultan to ensure that followers maintained order and paid taxes. If these obligations were met, millet leaders could govern without much interference and could even establish 

internal community governments. The separation guaranteed by the 

millet system may have provided certain freedoms within a community, 

but the isolation also deepened conflict, notably between Christians 

and Jews. Moreover, for the Jewish community, unity was not a natural 

outcome of the millet system because the Ottoman Jews were diverse, 

representing various cultures within the religion (e.g., Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and others). Because of these differences, in the early centuries 

of the empire, the Jews did not have a strong central authority within 

their community.6

Ottomanism, Citizenship, and the Tanzimat Movement

It is hard to imagine that a notion of unity or common citizenship 

could emerge amid the heterogeneous population within the Ottoman 

Empire. The millets were not all on equal footing, and in fact, the Jewish millet did not have representation within Ottoman governmental 

affairs equal to that of Armenians and Greeks, whose representatives 

had become more influential in Ottoman politics. As a way of extending his reforms, in 1835 Sultan Mahumud II reinstated the appointment of Grand Rabbis for the Ottoman Jewish community, which gave 

the Jews greater influence in governmental affairs. The Grand Rabbi 

was an Ottoman official, an administrative leader of the Jewish community, and a religious leader. With regard to religious courts, if an 

Ottoman rabbi was involved in a case concerning Muslims or Jews to be 

heard in Muslim religious courts, the rabbi had to be judged before the 

b To a large extent, this was an effective security measure. Compared to Jews in 

Europe in the sixteenth century, Ottoman Jews were subjected to far fewer ritual murder 

assaults and persecutions because the Ottoman ruling class acted quickly to suppress 

them, largely for economic reasons. There were, of course, notable and unfortunate 

attacks. However, the Ottoman government tended to intervene without hesitation, and 

for several centuries Ottoman Jews lived with greater security than Jews who remained 

in Europe.
68

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

courts in Istanbul, where the Grand Rabbi had the right to appoint a 

representative to defend the interests of the Jewish community. In addition, no property could be seized from a synagogue or school to settle 

a debt without the approval of the Grand Rabbi.7

These reforms improved the state of the Jewish millet, but they did 

not address a growing problem of decentralization within the empire. 

In the 1820s the empire faced a Greek separatist movement that eventually succeeded in establishing an independent kingdom in areas of 

what is now modern Greece.8

In response, and in an effort to prevent new nationalist movements, 

the government created the ideology known as Ottomanism to promote loyalty and equality for non-Muslims. The Tanzimat, or Auspicious Reform, began in 1839 with a sultanic decree known as the Noble 

Rescript of the Rose Garden (or Gulhane Rescript), which referred to a 

“love of the homeland” and introduced the idea of a state and subjects 

or, more broadly, “the people.” The decree promised to establish legal 

equality and universal obligations, regardless of religion. In 1856, the 

Imperial Rescript made dhimmis “subjects” on equal par with all others, 

and in 1869 the Ottoman Law of Nationality gave equal status to all 

Ottoman residents. From the ideology of Ottomanism came the notion 

of citizenship. The laws made residents in the Ottoman Empire eligible 

for citizenship, and their children were automatically citizens. The laws 

also established a path for naturalization. In addition, in 1858 the Ottoman land law was changed, which broadened the Jewish community’s 

ability to purchase land and expand its agricultural settlements.9

The Jewish community did not fully participate in the reform movement at first, with the exception of Jews in Ottoman Egypt. The modernization of the millet structure based on Tanzimat reforms brought 

the Jewish community more fully into the process. Ottoman citizenship 

created a new civic identity that was distinct from the religious and ethnic identities reinforced by the millet system. However, the state was not 

able to fully enforce the reforms right away, and Jews and other dhimmis

who shared a certain social equity as second-class nonsubjects within 

the millet system now had to rely on a broad notion of equality without 

the immediate structure of full enforcement of its terms, two characteristics they had known intimately under the old system. The declining importance of religious establishments gave Jews and others new 

social and political rights, but just as it worked to reshape their identities within the empire as recognized by the government structure, it 

also affected Arabs, who found themselves marginalized because their 

previously held governmental positions had been based on their Muslim identity. For the Jews, who historically maintained an internal order 

and cohesive identity based on their religious customs, this was the first 
Chapter 5. Government and Politics

69

time their external (i.e., civic) identity was no longer legally defined by 

their religion.10

The Hamidian Era

The idea of a collective identity grounded in common territory as 

established through Tanzimat reforms is significant not only because 

of the rights it bestowed on Ottoman inhabitants but also because of its 

fundamental contradiction to notions of Muslim community previously 

embodied by the government of the Islamic empire. In 1799 Napoleon 

issued propaganda leaflets ahead of the French Army’s arrival in Egypt 

appealing to the “Egyptian nation” (al-umma al-Masriyya) to welcome 

them. The sultan Selim III was enraged by the use of the term umma, 

which appears in the Koran and was understood at the time to refer 

solely to a religious notion of peoplehood, making secular claims of 

collective identity tied to common territory unimaginable. Yet within 

a short time the empire would see two territorially based initiatives 

unfold: (1) the suprareligious Tanzimat reforms ushered in by the Rose 

Garden Rescript; and (2) the idea of a Jewish homeland, a movement 

tied inescapably to the land, as it begins to emerge in the latter portion of the nineteenth century. Of course, the notion of a homeland 

is indeed tied to a collective religious identity, but it is also tied to the 

identity of a people as belonging to a particular place and not just to a 

particular group.11

Until this point, the Jewish community (which by this point was 

commonly called a Yishuv) in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire 

had been mainly traditional and religious and had limited legal standing. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the community was 

still traditional and religious, but it had an improved legal status thanks 

to Tanzimat reforms, with additional immigration from North Africa 

and attempts at agriculture and the establishment of settlements. The 

Hamidian era (1876–1909) aligns with a “New Yishuv,” characterized 

by a less conservative, more secular identity. The New Yishuv includes 

immigrants from the First and Second Aliyahs who came to establish 

settlements. With these settlements came increased productivity and 

new ideological concepts.12

The rule of sultan Abdulhamit II beginning in 1876 was seen as 

a departure from the era of Tanzimat reform, largely because he was 

considered an autocratic ruler who imposed censorship, made wide use 

of spies, and forbade public gatherings. He also employed a form of 

patriotism that used the symbolism of Islam, often emphasizing the 

sultan’s role as spiritual leader of Muslims around the world, which 

seemed to contradict the empire’s new identity as a suprareligious state 
70

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

based on secular notions of equality. In terms of the legal identity of 

the Jews, the “intertwining of state religion and political allegiance . . . 

had the potential to inhibit members of other faiths from claiming a 

place at the center of state-building projects,” but in reality, the guarantees afforded all Ottoman citizens in the Tanzimat reforms were not 

rescinded. While the reemergence of Islam may have alienated Jews 

and others psychologically, there were also significant transformations 

within the Jewish population particularly, and the shifts depended 

more on complicated relationships within the communities than on the 

state’s refocus on Islam. For example, Jews were gaining new positions 

in government and public life in the mid-1890s, against the backdrop 

of tension between the state and its Armenian population that culminated in widespread massacres of Armenian citizens. Indeed the Jews 

were gaining favor within the state as the loyalty of other communities 

became unclear, and they were able to position themselves auspiciously 

within the existing Islamic politics and publicly endorsed the universal 

concept of imperial belonging. Jewish-sponsored activities that had formerly been identified as supporting Jewish charities were reframed as 

benefiting the general community at large. This positioning indicates 

the Jews’ ability to find their political identity within a shifting framework that, while turning more Islamic, did not forestall their participation. If the legal identity guaranteed them under the Tanzimat reforms 

was intact at least in word, their political identity had to account for the 

new environment of the Hamidian era, and they were able to gain a 

foothold in the broader community by recognizing that fear of political 

violence was real and adapting to the tension within society.13

It is during this time that the Bilu Manifesto (1882) was issued and 

Theodor Herzl wrote The Jewish State, urging Jews to create a political 

state of their own. So it is amid the political tension of the Hamidian 

era that Zionism emerged, altering the notion of Jewish identity yet 

again. The following chapters examine the context of government and 

politics in more detail as they pertain to each of the Jewish aliyahs, the 

British Mandate, and the emergence of the State of Israel.

NOTES

1 Efraim Karsh, Israel: The First Hundred Years (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 

1999).

2 Robbie Sabel, “International Legal Issues of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: An Israeli Lawyer’s Position,” Journal of East Asia & International Law 3, no. 2 (2010): 410.

3 Julia Phillips Cohen, “Between Civic and Islamic Ottomanism: Jewish Imperial Citizenship in the Hamidian Era,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 44, no. 2 (2012): 237.
Chapter 5. Government and Politics

71

4 Robert W. Olson, “Jews in the Ottoman Empire in Light of New Documents,” Jewish Social 

Studies 41, no. 1 (1979): 75.

5 Yüksel Sezgin, “The Israeli Millet System: Examining Legal Pluralism through Lenses of 

Nation-Building and Human Rights,” Israel Law Review 43, no. 3 (2010): 631.

6 Stanford J. Shaw, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (New York: New 

York University Press, 1991), 380.

7 Ibid.

8 Michelle Campos, Ottoman Brothers (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2011), 358.

9 Ibid.; and Michael P. Hanagan and Charles Tilly, Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States

(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 287.

10 Hanagan and Tilly, Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States, 287; and Yuval Ben-Bassat 

and Eyal Ginio, Late Ottoman Palestine (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 320.

11 Campos, Ottoman Brothers.

12 Karsh, Israel: The First Hundred Years, 104–105.

13 Cohen, “Between Civic and Islamic Ottomanism,” 237; and Ben-Bassat and Ginio, Late 

Ottoman Palestine, 320.

PART II.

STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE 

INSURGENCY

CHAPTER 6.

THE ZIONIST INSURGENCY: 

FIRST ALIYAH (1882–1903)

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! 

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do 

not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my 

highest joy!

—Psalm 137:1–2, RSV

77

The era of Jewish immigration to Palestine, known as the First 

Ascent or Aliyah, built the foundations of the modern Zionist insurgency movement in Palestine. In its early years the First Aliyah included 

only a few loosely connected immigrants mainly from Russia, but by the 

turn of the century the number of Jewish settlers in Palestine grew to 

approximately twenty-five thousand immigrants. Although not as large 

as other epochs of massive migrations of Jews to Palestine, like the Second and Third Aliyahs, the First Aliyah gave Jewish insurgents a strong 

foothold to lay their claim to Palestine. The main populations of Jewish 

immigrants during this era were from Russia and Western Europe, in 

addition to a few immigrants from Yemen.

TIMELINE

1882–1884 The Bilu Group establishes Gedera. Baron Edmond James 

de Rothschild finances Hovevei Zion settlers who establish 

the farming villages of Rishon LeZion and Zikhron Ya'akov 

and resettle Petah Tikvah.

1890 The village of Rehovot becomes financially independent.

1894 Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew and captain in the French 

Army, is wrongfully convicted of treason. The resulting 

“Dreyfus Affair” sparks a French political crisis lasting 

through Dreyfus’s eventual exoneration in 1906. Theodor 

Herzl witnesses Dreyfus’s public humiliation and French 

anti-Semitism.

1896 Theodor Herzl publishes the widely popular book The Jewish 

State. He establishes the Zionist Organization.

1897 Herzl hosts the First Zionist Congress in Basel.

1901 The Fifth Zionist Congress establishes the Jewish National 

Fund.

1904 Theodor Herzl dies of heart disease.

ORIGINS

From the start of the Diaspora, Jews expressed a desire to return 

to Palestine, and over the centuries, a small number followed through 

and emigrated. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries featured a 

handful of such episodes in which groups of (usually) Orthodox European Jews journeyed to Palestine by land and by sea to settle there. 

Many died on the journey, but by the mid-1800s there were some ten 

thousand Jews living in Palestine, mostly in Jerusalem.1

 The anecdotal 
78

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

and desultory Jewish migrations lacked any central leadership or ideal: 

the families that made aliyah simply wanted to live in their ancestral 

home with no pretense of ruling it. The central idea of returning to 

Palestine emanated from a millenarian, quasi-religious impulse based 

on the history and mytho-history of Judaism. Such ideas were related 

to Orthodox Jews’ expectation of the arrival of the Messiah—a king in 

the line of David who would regather the Jews into their ancient homeland and bring them political and military deliverance. This ideology 

is sometimes referred to as Classical Zionism, as distinguished from the 

secular ideas of the modern era.2

But in the late nineteenth century all this changed. The Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the effects of modernity in Western 

Europe lent strength to developing ideas of self-determination and liberty, while at the same time failing to stem the tides of anti-Semitism 

that seemed never to dissipate. Jews in France, Germany, Britain, Spain, 

Italy, and the Low Countries had been emancipated from discriminatory laws, but the emancipation was structured toward the individual 

and not the Jews as an ethnic group. As one French legislator stated 

in the aftermath of the French Revolution, “To the Jews as individuals, all rights. To the Jews as a people, no rights.”3

 Thus, emancipation 

laws were aimed at stimulating Jewish assimilation rather than nationalism. With the rising tide of nationalism and the tensions brought on 

by revolution and the approach of war, many Europeans viewed liberated Jews with suspicion and contempt, worried that they might act as a 

fifth column in the event of invasion. This attitude led to the infamous 

Dreyfus Affair, during which a Jewish officer in the French Army was 

court-martialed and imprisoned on trumped-up charges of treason.a

Facing not only the threat of racial hatred but also the inviting potential of modernity, leading Jews in Western Europe began to envision 

a “New Jew”—Westernized, strong, and liberated both from legal discrimination and from the confines of anachronistic Orthodox religion. 

The haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) looked to Moses Mendelssohn, a 

noted eighteenth-century German Jewish philosopher and mathematician, as an example of a modern, influential, and integrated Jew. The 

notion that Jews could break free from religious and cultural isolation 

and enjoy the benefits of the present began to take hold among West 

a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew, was convicted of treason for allegedly communicating military secrets to Germany. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and 

served almost five years on Devil’s Island. When facts indicating he had been framed came 

to light, he was retried in 1899 and again convicted but pardoned and set free. In 1906, in 

the light of evidence that proved his innocence, he was exonerated and reinstated in the 

French Army. The affair cause a serious political upheaval in France, and Dreyfus’s initial 

conviction was attended by vicious cries of “Death to the Jews!,” which contributed to Theodor Herzl’s apprehensions about anti-Semitism and the need for a Jewish homeland.
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

79

European Jewry. This idea found expression in Reformed Judaism—a 

system of Jewish belief that worshiped the God of the Torah but taught 

that the adherent could live as a modern European without clinging to 

anachronistic rituals and racial identity.4

In Eastern Europe, autocracy continued to be the rule, and the 

Jews in Russia, Poland, and Lithuania came under enormous pressure. 

News of the liberalization of Western Europe stimulated anew the antiSemitism of many Eastern Europeans, who remained xenophobic and 

desired to rid themselves of the Jews. Anti-Jewish laws and occasional 

pogroms threatened not only individuals but the whole of East European Jewry. Far from enjoying the liberation that their brothers and sisters in the West had achieved, Jews in the East faced the constant threat 

of violence, dispossession, and economic marginalization. At the same 

time, Jews in Eastern Europe remained ethnically distinct, less likely 

to assimilate than those in the West. Thus, Western European Jews 

enjoyed individual liberation at the potential cost of their collective 

ethnic identity, while Eastern European Jews maintained their identity 

at the cost of personal freedom.

One cannot overstate the effects of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe 

on the development of Zionism. In March 1881, assassins from the Russian left-wing terrorist group Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) bombed 

the carriage convoy bearing Tsar Alexander II, killing him. Although 

only one Jew was actually involved in the plot, the tsar’s death cascaded 

into a wave of anti-Semitic violence throughout Russia. Tens of thousands of Jews were expelled from Moscow and other cities, and Jewish 

communities suffered looting, rape, and murder. Stricter anti-Jewish 

laws soon followed, and East European Jews continued to despair and 

wonder whether freedom and safety would ever arrive. While some 

clung to hopes for emancipation through liberal or socialist revolution 

and others sought refuge in assimilation, early Russian Zionists declared 

that “the Pogroms ha[d] awakened thee from thy charmed sleep.”5

 They 

reasoned that anti-Semitism would never go away, and they saw that the 

solution would be along the lines of national liberation movements that 

had been sweeping through Europe since mid-century. The confluence 

of the severe oppression (especially in the East) with Enlightenment 

thought of the West led to the emergence of Zionism.

Jews in the Middle East likewise suffered oppression and inequality 

before the law. In 1840 dozens of Jews were arrested in Syria when a 

Capuchin monk disappeared and the French consul accused them of 

murder. According to his story the Jews had abducted and killed the 

monk in order to drink his blood in a bizarre revival of the mythical 

blood libel charges. The international community rose up in protest, 

mainly on the strength of prominent Jewish citizens and statesmen, 
80

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

and the charges were dropped. The Jewish detainees had suffered torture, and two had died from it.6

Under such pressures some Jewish thinkers began to push for a 

grand solution: Jewish immigration to their ancient homeland. Rabbi 

Yehuda Alkalai (d.  1874) in Serbia and Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer 

(d.  1875) in Prussian Poland were two early advocates. Moses Hess 

(1812–1875), a secularized German socialist, wrote the largely ignored 

Rome and Jerusalem: The Last Nationality Question (1862), in which he 

reversed his earlier advocacy for assimilation. He foresaw the coming 

nationalist movements both in Europe and the Middle East, and he 

predicted that Germany’s reaction to Jewish nationalism would not be 

favorable. His solution was immigration to Palestine, where Jews would 

set up socialist communities, but a full generation would pass before 

the first Zionist pioneers would depart for Palestine.7

Leon Pinsker (1821–1891) penned his Auto-Emancipation: A Warning to His Kinfolk by a Russian Jew, in which he warned that assimilation and hope for emancipation was self-deception. Instead, Jews would 

find safety only by leaving Europe. Pinsker did not consider Palestine 

a viable destination but instead hinted that North America might yield 

a safe homeland for Jews. He insisted that to stay among Europe’s antiSemitic peoples and governments was to resign Jews to perpetual slavery and dispossession:

When we are ill-used, robbed, plundered . . . we dare 

not defend ourselves . . . Though you prove patriots a 

thousand times . . . you are reminded by the mob that 

you are, after all, nothing but vagrants and parasites, 

outside the protection of the law.8

As European Jews of the late nineteenth century struggled to find 

a solution, several ideological strands emerged. The majority of Jews 

in both Western and Eastern Europe continued to rely on the hope of 

eventual emancipation, trusting that political and social trends toward 

liberalization would sweep them along toward a general freedom for all 

mankind. Some among this group looked to socialist and communist 

solutions, while others foresaw relief in the forces of liberalized capitalism.b

 Others, especially in the West, looked to assimilation, believing 

b The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia (known simply 

as the Bund) represented the decidedly anti-Zionist position in Eastern Europe. Bundists 

rejected Orthodox Judaism as anachronistic and effete, but they also considered Zionism 

nothing more than escapism and urged Jews to instead look to labor unions, socialism, or 

communism for security. The Bund fought to achieve standing within the Russian Social 

Democratic Labor Party, but the forces of anti-Semitism and Russian nationalism continued to thwart its efforts. The Bund opposed Lenin’s Bolsheviks until they consolidated 

their power and took control in late 1917. Thereafter, the Bund waned in power, and members migrated into the Communist Party.
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

81

that if they shed cultural Judaism, their ethnic roots would be masked 

enough for them to duck out of the way of anti-Semitism. Many in the 

poorer classes stayed put and tried to survive.

French Jewish lawyer Adolphe Cremieux founded the Alliance 

Israélite Universelle (AIU) in 1860 as an educational and cultural 

consortium dedicated to protecting Jews throughout the Diaspora by 

equipping them for integration into modern society. The AIU wielded 

political influence as well and advocated among European nations for 

emancipation of the Jews. The organization’s greatest influence, however, was among the Sephardic Jews in North Africa, where it sought 

to provide modern, secular education within communities locked 

into primitive, backward, and anachronistic culture. By 1900 the AIU 

operated one hundred schools and oversaw the education of twentysix thousand pupils. Its backers hoped that through assimilation and 

emancipation, Jews could escape the historical trends of anti-Semitism.9

A small but growing number of European Jews—first in the East 

and later in the West—indulged no such illusions. While most East 

European Jews—more than two million between 1881 and 1914—emigrated to North America and the British dominions, others developed 

the conviction that the only hope lay in creating a Jewish homeland, and 

the most likely place to do so was the land of their ancient ancestors. 

Various Jewish communities began to organize into groups espousing 

the idea, and they became known as Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion). 

The movement was clandestine, loosely organized, and bereft of vigorous leadership. Hovevei Zion had the rudiments of an ideology but 

lacked funds, direction, and mass appeal. Advocates aspired to sponsor 

Jewish pioneers who would take up the arduous and dangerous task 

of immigrating to Palestine to found agricultural communities there, 

gradually building up a presence in the land. This idea became known 

as Practical Zionism because it eschewed any attempts to formalize the 

immigrations through political deals with international powers—a 

move judged by many Jews as provocative and unwise.10

Historians have come to pinpoint the beginning of Zionist immigration with the first pioneers of Bilu—a youth group founded in Kharkov 

in 1881. Its name was an acronym in Hebrew developed from a passage 

in the book of Isaiah (“Oh House of Jacob, come, and let us go”). It sent 

a small group of settlers from 1882 through 1884, only about twenty of 

whom remained in Palestine. It founded the community of Gedera in 

the coastal plain of Palestine, south of Rehovot. Although tiny in comparison with what was to come, the Bilu Group was viewed as the vanguard of the First Aliyah. The Bilu Manifesto proclaimed the group’s 

youthful determination, defiance of assimilation, and optimism in Jewish nationalism:
82

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

If I help not myself, who will help me?. . . We lost our 

country where dwelt our beloved sires . . . What hast 

thou been doing until 1882? Sleeping, and dreaming 

the false dream of Assimilation. Now, thank God, thou 

are awakened from thy slothful slumber . . . Hopeless is 

your state in the West; the star of your future is gleaming in the East.11

Jews of the first Hovevei Zion movements from 1882 to 1884 began 

developing small agricultural communities including Rishon LeZion, 

Rosh Pina, and Zikhron Ya'akov, and they resettled Petah Tikvah, which 

had been founded in 1878 by Jews from Jerusalem but subsequently 

abandoned.

Mikveh Israel

Nazareth

Tiberias Haifa

Nablus

Ramallah

Jericho

Jerusalem

Gaza

Bir Saba

Ramleh

Lydda

Bisan Jenin

Safed

Beer Tuvia

Gadera Hartuv

Kfar Saba

Mediterranean Sea

Yesod HaMa'ale

Mishmar HaYarden

Sejera

Atlit

Merkhavia

Zikhron Ya’akov

Kfar Tabor Degania

Menakhemia

Rishon LeZion

Nes Ziona

0 Miles 15

Jordan River

Sea of

Galilee

Lake Hula

G'vulot

Hebron

Hadera

Major Arab Towns and Jewish Settlements in Palestine, 1881–1941

Legend

Major Arab towns

Major Jewish settlements

Other Jewish settlements

Rosh

Pinah

Jaffa

Acre

Dead Sea

The First Aliyah (1884–1903) resulted from east European pogroms. 

Immigrants sought spiritual, 

national, and political redemption. 

They established several settlements, including Rishon LeZion 

and Rosh Pinah.

They faced harsh taxation, Arab 

resistance, and a difcult environment. Baron de Rothschild nanced 

much of the effort.

* Initially 35,000 Jews arrived, but later 

16,000 emigrated elsewhere.

35,000

 (–16,000)*

Figure 6-1. The First Aliyah (1882–1903).

More immigration followed in 1890–1891. These early settlers faced 

extremely harsh conditions, and their communities at first teetered on 

the brink of failure. Baron Edmund James de  Rothschild, a wealthy 

French Jew who descended from the family’s eighteenth-century patriarch, provided critically needed financing to keep the early communities afloat.
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

83

The Practical Zionism of Hovevei Zion sparked a small-scale initial 

effort toward Jewish settlement of Palestine by the mid-1890s, but without mass appeal among Jews, and lacking sufficient planning, funds, 

and leadership, the movement would not be able to achieve the greater 

goal of a secure Jewish homeland. Zionism needed a bigger vision and a 

strong leader who would convert ideological impulse into action. That 

man was Theodor Herzl.

Figure 6-2. Theodor Herzl.

Herzl (1860–1904) was an unlikely candidate for the role of founder 

of modern Zionism. Born in Budapest, he grew up as a cosmopolitan, 

secular, German-speaking Jew. He spoke neither Hebrew nor Yiddish, 

and he was on the path toward assimilation into modern West European culture until he came face to face with vicious anti-Semitism. 

Herzl had been working as the Paris correspondent of a major Austrian 

newspaper when the Dreyfus Affair occurred, and he was on hand as 

Captain Dreyfus was stripped of his French Army insignia as part of his 

punishment. While standing in a crowd in the very heart of European 

liberalism, socialism, and egalitarianism, Herzl heard the attendant 

crowds crying out in French, “Death to the Jews!” and realized that 

the persistent force of hatred against his people would not go away, 

despite political trends. He developed the conviction that the Jews of 

Europe had failed to gain acceptance in the world primarily because 

they lacked a homeland from which they could draw strength, respect, 

and security. Without such a base, Jews would never be safe.

In 1896 Herzl published The Jewish State, in which he proposed 

that European powers—the Ottoman Empire, Germany, or others—

authorize and sponsor a mass Jewish immigration to Palestine. Herzl 
84

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

and early Zionists reduced the problem to a simple formula: Palestine 

was a land without a people; the Jews were a people without a land. 

Thus, Europe should support the creation of a modern Jewish homeland in Palestine—a place for unwanted Jewry to live and an outpost 

for modern Europe in the barbarous Near East.

Herzl’s idea, which became known as Political Zionism because it 

sought cooperation with international powers, faced opposition from 

all sides. The Orthodox community opposed Zionism because the 

movement was secular and because religious Jews felt they should look 

only to the coming Messiah for national redemption. Secularized establishment Jews opposed Herzl because they felt that any talk of “national 

redemption” for the Jews would provoke suspicion, hostility, and a new 

round of anti-Semitic reaction. Herzl also faced the inertia of Jews who 

favored staying put and hoping for better times rather than facing the 

unknown in faraway Palestine. But he was persistent, and in 1897 he 

sponsored the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. More than 

two hundred delegates from twenty-four countries (25  percent from 

Russia) attended, many of them associated with Hovevei Zion. After 

stormy debate, the congress passed a resolution to work toward the 

establishment of a Jewish “homeland” in Palestine. For the moment the 

Zionists avoided the doubly provocative demand for a Jewish state.

Thus, early Zionism bifurcated into two major ideological trends—

Political Zionism and Practical Zionism. The former sought international cooperation and assistance, along with diplomatic agreements to 

move Jews en masse to Palestine. The latter deprecated this approach 

and instead sought to build up the Jewish presence in Palestine gradually—cow by cow, dunam by dunam.c

 The victory of 1947–1948 occurred 

because of the unique mixture of these two lines of effort. Political 

Zionism achieved the international framework in which the United 

Nations and major powers eventually came to recognize the state of 

Israel. Practical Zionism had established the sinews of the nation in 

Palestine and provided a solid economy and burgeoning population.

Herzl and his deputy, Max Nordau (1849–1923), set out to achieve 

diplomatic recognition and support for the Zionist enterprise. Herzl, 

through the good offices of Anglican minister William Hechler and 

Frederick  I, grand duke of Baden, obtained several audiences with 

Kaiser Wilhelm. The kaiser was inclined to lend his support to Herzl, 

but not if it would endanger Germany’s relations with the Ottomans. 

c A dunam was a measurement of land in the Ottoman Empire defined as the amount 

of land a man could plow in one day. Later it was formalized into one thousand square 

meters or just less than a quarter of an acre.
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

85

Herzl’s attempts to find favor with the sultan failed,d but his successes at 

gaining at least a respectful hearing both in Berlin and Constantinople 

granted him greater acceptance from within the Jewish community 

and among European diplomats. Finding the necessary cooperation 

from neither Germany nor the Ottoman Empire, Herzl turned to 

Great Britain.

In 1903 the British offered to give the Jews a homeland in (modernday) Tanzania—a proposal that became known as the Uganda Plan. 

Nothing came of the proposal, but it demonstrated the fractious nature 

of Zionism, because many Zionists wanted to accept the offer for the 

sake of achieving a homeland immediately. Others, including British 

Zionist Chaim Weizmann, insisted that only Palestine would suffice as 

the Jewish homeland because of the Jews’ ancient roots there. Herzl 

proposed that Africa might be a stepping-stone to later immigration to 

Palestine. The Zionist Congress agreed to look into the matter, but in 

1905, the plan was dropped in the wake of Herzl’s passing. Herzl died 

of heart disease in 1904. He had requested burial in his family’s vault 

until such time as “the Jewish people carry my remains to Palestine.” 

He was reinterred in Jerusalem in 1949.

The initial phase of Zionism set the stage for what followed. There 

were already divisions within: Practical Zionists focused on settlements 

within undergoverned Ottoman Palestine, while Political Zionists 

sought international cooperation with their goals. As would happen for 

the ensuing fifty years, ideological adversaries achieved a rough, problematic unity of effort. The political organization and financial underpinning for Zionism had begun in earnest. The tiny vanguard of Jewish 

settlers had reached the shores of the Promised Land. Estimates for 

the First Aliyah fall within a total of twenty-five thousand to thirty-five 

thousand immigrants, about half of whom remained in Palestine. During this period Jews purchased some two hundred thousand dunams of 

land. The process of redeeming the land had begun.12

LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, 

AND COMMAND AND CONTROL

Each of the various factions within the early Zionist movement 

(along with future factions that would form in Palestine) had its part to 

play in cultivating the vision of a Jewish homeland. But the leaders of 

Political Zionism were the best organized and the most suited for creating the organizational foundations on which the insurgency would 

d Herzl proposed a plan in which the Jews would take on the Ottoman foreign debt in 

exchange for access to Palestine, but the sultan refused.
86

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

thrive. Herzl and Nordau founded the Zionist Organization (later, the 

World Zionist Organization), and through its annual congresses, they 

guided key decisions into actions. Nordau wrote the Basel Program 

and shepherded it through the First Zionist Congress in 1897. “The 

task of Zionism is to secure for the Jewish people in Palestine a publicly 

recognized, legally secured homeland.” The words demonstrated the 

dominant position that Political Zionism had achieved. Max Nordau 

also worked successfully to establish the Zionist Congress as a democratic institution, marking out the movement as a product of modern 

political philosophy.

Herzl and Nordau succeeded in sustaining the Zionist Organization, and its annual congresses grew larger and more influential. The 

Second Congress (1898) had doubled the participation of the first. The 

decisive Fifth Congress (1901) established the Jewish National Fund 

(JNF)—a key strategic milestone because it provided a structured and 

disciplined vehicle for purchasing land and building self-sustaining 

Jewish communities.

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component

Modern irregular warfare doctrine characterizes an insurgency as 

a movement that uses violence and subversion to overthrow or change 

a government. It further describes the typical structure of an insurgency as including four components: the underground, the auxiliary, 

the guerrilla (or armed) component, and the public component.13 At 

various times in the evolution of an insurgency, these components grow 

and shrink in size and relevance. At the start of the Zionist enterprise, 

neither its leaders nor its constituent settlers or supporters would have 

thought of themselves as insurgents. During the period of the First Aliyah, the movement was more an experiment in nation building than it 

was an insurgency. Indeed, Political Zionism foreswore the use of violence and instead sought to obtain its goals through diplomatic agreements. But as we have observed, from its inception Zionism had the 

seeds of insurgency because it sought (explicitly or implicitly) a change 

of governance in Palestine, and it operated, at least in part, in secret.

The underground component of an insurgency typically operates in urban areas or other places where the guerrilla and auxiliary 

forces cannot. Early Zionist groups maintained clandestine societies 

and clubs throughout Eastern Europe as they planned and organized 

the first waves of settlers. Undergrounds typically engage in recruiting, financing, and training their operatives, and Zionists were heavily engaged in such operations as a prelude to sending their pioneers 

to Palestine. While not a full-fledged underground, the early Zionists 
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

87

were accustomed to working “beneath the radar” when necessary to 

avoid provoking unwanted attention from authorities.

Zionist auxiliaries, unlike typical modern insurgents, did not necessarily hide their efforts, but they collected, organized, and sent support 

to the vanguards that reached Palestine, offering logistical upkeep and 

finances that proved crucial to the success of early settlements. Because 

there was no strong, organized international opposition to the smallscale Jewish settlements yet, auxiliary operations did not have to operate in a clandestine manner.

Zionism was also unique among revolutionary movements, because 

it was an imported insurgency. There was virtually no indigenous Jewish 

population to work with or influence in the mid-1800s. Instead, Zionism was all about moving Jewish populations from Europe and other 

places into Palestine and, once there, to secure a homeland. Thus, as 

the enterprise matured during the second and subsequent aliyahs, its 

insurgent characteristics developed from within the Yishuv.

Financial Support

Traditional religious affections for the biblical land of Israel found 

expression in ritual, prayers, and the occasional charitable donations, 

called khalukah, for the relief of the small, poor Jewish population in 

Palestine. The collective Jewish concern for Palestine dated back to the 

beginning of the Diaspora, but the resulting charitable contributions 

aimed at poverty relief rather than at any presumed enterprise to reestablish a presence in the land. As a result, the khalukah did little more 

than accustom the mostly Orthodox Jews living in Palestine to dependence on outside assistance.

The onset of Zionist immigration, however, required an altogether 

different approach. The purpose of funding would, of necessity, look 

to creating self-sustaining Jewish communities—settlements that could 

then offer a viable return on investment. Philanthropy played a decisive 

role in the early years of Zionism and was a natural outgrowth of the 

Diaspora. Successful European Jews who prospered, particularly in the 

financial industry, were well equipped to lend their assistance to their 

brothers and sisters in Palestine. The Moses Montefiore Testimonial 

Fund, a Russian-based charity, provided funding for the settlement of 

Gedera. But the Rothschilds figure most prominently in the financial 

support of the early Zionists.

Baron Edmond James de  Rothschild (1845–1934) was a descendant of the wealthy Rothschild family that had gained financial and 

political power throughout Europe from the eighteenth century. Ethnically a Jew, he assimilated into French society and embraced Roman 
88

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Catholicism, but he was a staunch supporter of the new farming communities being established by emigrating Jews in Palestine. He helped 

to finance many of the first settlements, which were established on land 

he had purchased with the permission of both the French and Ottoman governments. His support and direction led many of the Jewish 

immigrants from Eastern Europe to choose tobacco and wine production in Palestine.14 Although his philanthropic support was crucial to 

the success of early settlements, his occasionally heavy-handed direction caused some to rankle, and the advocates of Political Zionism saw 

the need to widen their financial strategy so as not to become dependent on colonial patrons.

Figure 6-3. Baron Edmund de Rothschild.

Baron Maurice de Hirsch, scion of a wealthy Bavarian Jewish family, 

created the largest philanthropic fund in support of Jews in the nineteenth century. Hirsch founded the Jewish Colonization Association 

(JCA), supporting several colonies in Palestine, but he also supported 

Jewish emigration to Latin America and the United States, which 

angered Zionists intent on settling Palestine. He and his wife were also 

instrumental in keeping the AIU afloat.

The Zionist organization sought to formalize and control its own 

funding organization, and to that end, the Second Zionist Congress 

established the Jewish Colonial Trust in 1898. It served as a bank “to 

promote, develop, work, and carry on industries, undertakings, and 

colonization schemes . . . in particular of persons of the Jewish race 

into Palestine, Syria, and other countries in the East.” It also aimed to 

“acquire from any State or other authority in any part of the world any 

concessions, grants, decrees, rights and privileges whatsoever for the 

employment of capital in Palestine.” As Zionist communities began to 

grow in number and size in Palestine, it became clear that the Jewish 
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

89

Trust Fund and its subsidiary, the Anglo-Jewish Bank, were too small to 

sustain the enterprise.15

The Fifth Zionist Congress established the JNF in 1901. German 

Jewish mathematician Zvi Schapira first proposed the idea as a structure through which to purchase land in Palestine and fund critical 

infrastructure projects. The JNF remained an enduring legacy of early 

Zionism and continues to exist today. It served the dual functions of 

attracting investment from throughout the Diaspora and organizing 

efficient financial operations to the end of creating the Jewish homeland. In its first decade, the JNF built a worldwide fund-raising organization by selling stamps, encouraging collection boxes in homes and 

schools, and soliciting donations. Its first purchases were made in 1904 

and 1908 in Judea and Lower Galilee. By the time the Zionists proclaimed the State of Israel in 1948, the JNF owned 54 percent of the 

Jewish-controlled land in Palestine.16

Armed Component

Insurgencies typically have an armed component, often referred to 

as a guerrilla force. The Zionist insurgency eventually spawned several 

armed forces, but in the early years there was no perceived need for, 

nor any possibility of creating, such a force. Instead, the problem of 

security was confined to protection for local settlements. Bedouins and 

the occasional Arab raider were the primary threat, and their attacks 

were typically sporadic, desultory, and aimed at small-scale raiding 

and mayhem.

Although Zionist ideology called on the New Jew to be strong and 

ready to defend himself, the first Zionist pioneer settlers often looked 

to hiring local Arabs to guard their communities. Some Jewish immigrants were determined to provide their own security, and their embryonic militias—most often ill equipped and undermanned—were the 

roots of what would grow into the defense establishment of the State 

of Israel. Abraham Shapira, for example, was a Jewish immigrant from 

Russia who migrated in 1890 to the settlement of Petah Tikvah. Once 

there he formed a local militia to guard the community from Arab farmers who were illegally grazing on Jewish lands. But for the most part, 

early settlers paid local Arabs to keep their communities secure. The 

transition to Jewish self-defense occurred during the Second Aliyah.17

Public Component

Because an insurgency has in view a future transition to governance, it often forms a public component—the part of the movement 
90

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

that conducts political and diplomatic activity, as well as propaganda. 

By necessity the public component operates in the open, and Zionism 

from the start featured a strong public strategy. Herzl and Political 

Zionists based their aspirations on achieving international cooperation 

and made considerable headway in advocating for a Jewish homeland. 

Although Labor and Revisionist Zionism would later turn away from 

Political Zionism, the diplomatic strategy of the early Zionists remained 

a crucial underpinning that facilitated their eventual success in 1948.

Propagandist activities primarily addressed the Diaspora, both 

in Europe and the Americas. The JNF served not only to collect and 

distribute funds but also to communicate the goals and progress of 

Zionism to the world’s Jewish population. Throughout the course of 

Zionism, leaders dedicated themselves to maintaining the vital ideological, financial, and spiritual links between Palestine and the Diaspora.

IDEOLOGY

The Zionist movement began within the context of haskalah, the 

Jewish Enlightenment. Haskalah was an intellectual movement that 

sought to bring modernity and secularization to the Jews. The disciples 

of the new trend were called maskilim. In general the new thinking 

reached toward achieving emancipation and assimilation into European culture, in part rejecting Orthodox ritual and beliefs. The vehicle 

for advancement was to be education, and the maskilim were encouraged to open their minds to a secular definition of Jewish culture. 

Advocates urged students to learn Hebrew as well as acquire modern 

education. Influenced by haskalah, Reformed Judaism emerged as the 

main denominational challenger to Orthodox Judaism. The Reformed 

movement offered religious services in the vernacular, as well as music 

and other innovative approaches to the old faith.

The development of Reformed Judaism influenced the evolution 

of Zionist ideology in part because of its altered eschatology. Rather 

than continuing the millennia-long wait for a personal, literal Messiah, 

the Reformed movement instead looked for a future messianic age in 

which all the biblical prophecies of universal peace, prosperity, and 

security would come true without a personal, literal Messiah. In place 

of a deliverer, Zionists of the Reformed tradition contemplated the 

notion that God might use the Zionists themselves to bring about the 

golden age. This construct fit in well with Christian postmillennial philosophy and with Enlightenment ideas in general. Orthodox Judaism 

dismissed the new thinking as a blasphemous intrusion on the prerogatives of the Messiah, but the center of gravity of Judaism was shifting 

toward modern ideas.18
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

91

Still, Zionism was largely a secularized movement. An attempt to 

identify and precisely define Zionist ideology would founder on the 

competing factions and trends that framed the Jewish immigration to 

Palestine. A better approach would be to examine the ideas that influenced the early Zionist leaders and then see the specific, often competing ideologies that resulted.

Enlightenment and haskalah

Political liberalism

Socialism

Communism

Nationalism

Eugenics

Practical Zionism

Political Zionism

Labor Zionism

Revisionist Zionism

Religious Zionism

Anti-Semitism

and “The 

Jewish

Problem”

Figure 6-4. Development of Zionist ideology.

The Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and, in the nineteenth 

century, political liberalization were strong influences on the emergence of Zionism. Enlightenment philosophy and the Jewish haskalah

equipped modern Jews to break free of the staid religious dogmas that 

kept European Jews from effectively battling anti-Semitism. Once permitted by the new thinking to view the “Jewish Problem” from a secular standpoint, Zionists could contemplate taking the matter into their 

own hands and working on a viable solution rather than waiting for 

God to send a Messiah.

Zionism drew most of its adherents from the Jews of Eastern Europe 

at a time when socialism and communism were on the rise. Economicsbased philosophies challenged medieval feudalism and the capitalism 

and democracy that emerged from it in the West. Likewise, socialist 

theory often looked askance at nationalism, instead recategorizing 

the world into economic classes and viewing the hoped-for progress 

as a universal rather than national or racial goal. Hence, some Zionists placed less emphasis on their Jewishness and more on economic 
92

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

equality and socialist brotherhood. Later political leaders in Israel—

most notably Menachem Begin—would be distinguished from earlier 

leaders because they emphasized their Jewish heritage and culture 

rather than multiethnic Israeli statehood.

Nationalism remained a strong idea in nineteenth-century Europe, 

however, and since the Jewish Problem centered on ethnicity, Jewish 

nationalism persisted as a strong counterweight to the socialist ideal. 

The nationalist idea influenced all Zionist factions, but it would grow 

particularly strong within Revisionist Zionism (personified by Ze'ev 

Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin) and later find expression in the 

Likud party.

Eugenics and racial ideas were likewise widespread in Europe, and 

they influenced (or tainted) Zionism from the start. Some prominent 

Zionists, including Max Nordau and Arthur Ruppin, viewed the movement as a racial struggle. Jews were, according to their mytho-history, 

the genetic descendants of Abraham. Although they accepted converts to Judaism, their ancient culture was riveted on tribal bloodlines. 

Within some among the dominant Ashkenazi Jews, eugenics theories 

mixed with cultural chauvinism to produce a noxious bigotry against 

their Sephardic brethren, and the problematic relationship between 

the two continues to express itself politically in modern Israel. To the 

Jewish eugenicist, Zionism was a movement to redeem and renew the 

Jewish race in the land of its ancient ancestors.

These and other ideological trends were the fundamental “inputs” 

into the problem of anti-Semitism and the Jewish Problem. The “outputs” included the various factions that populated the Zionist enterprise. During the period of the First Aliyah, Practical Zionism and 

Political Zionism were the most prominent. The former saw the solution 

to Jewish repression in a pragmatic, gradual, and persistent buildup in 

Palestine. Self-sufficient, productive Jewish communities would establish an enclave that would grow and eventually achieve a homeland. 

The Jewish homeland, in turn, would serve as a cultural base, a potential refuge, and a source of strength for the world’s Jews.

Practical Zionism had at its root a key strategic idea—one that persists within Israel today: the strategy of the fait accompli. Rather than 

taking on a war of conquest or explicitly challenging the status quo 

through political debate, Practical Zionism looked to unrelenting, nonprovocative immigration to gradually build up a Jewish presence. Eventually, the world would come to realize that the Jews were in Palestine 

in numbers that could not be displaced or dispossessed. The same line 

of thinking led Jewish settlers into the West Bank after the 1967 SixDay War. Rather than present a legal case for annexation of the conquered territory, the settlers simply moved there—in small numbers 
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

93

at first—and then grew by gradual accretion. The strategy of the fait 

accompli, when combined with the efforts of other Zionist factions, 

contributed to the success of 1948. Indeed, even prominent Political 

Zionist Chaim Weizmann noted in 1946 that the Jewish settlements 

in Palestine “have . . . a far greater weight than a hundred speeches 

about resistance.”

Political Zionism, on the other hand, emerged from Western European ideals of liberalism and justice. Herzl and his disciples saw themselves as loyal members of a community of nations founded within the 

framework of diplomacy among reasonable men. Because the burgeoning world economy functioned according to internationally recognized laws and customs, the Zionist movement—if it ever aspired to 

a national state—would have to carve out a place within that structure. 

Political Zionism’s greatest strength and most conspicuous shortcoming was a belief in international politics. It was an essential component 

to the Zionist success, but an ideal that had no hope of achieving its 

goals alone.

Legitimacy

The struggle for legitimacy was central to Zionism from its inception. Defining legitimacy was a multifaceted effort. The Jews set out 

to prove their right to Palestine. The Zionists likewise had to establish 

themselves as the legitimate group to lead the effort. Once the pioneers 

began to settle the land and the inevitable conflicts with indigenous 

Arabs began, the Zionists had to justify their actions to an increasingly 

hostile and suspicious international community.

The historical experience of the Jewish Diaspora lay at the heart 

of Zionist legitimacy. It was an argument easy to win in some respects. 

There could be no doubt that the Jewish people had suffered disproportionate repression both in Europe and in the Muslim world. The 

Holocaust was still in the future, but the Russian pogroms—the latest expression of persistent anti-Semitism—convinced many Jews and 

much of Western Europe that the Jewish Problem was real and needed 

a solution.

But the contest for legitimacy was more about what that solution 

should be. Strong anti-Zionist ideas persisted in Europe and among the 

Jews themselves. For some, Zionism was nothing more than pusillanimous escapism. Instead, they argued, Jews should pull themselves out 

of anachronistic, medieval religious stagnation and seek assimilation as 

emancipated Europeans. Others agreed with Herzl that a general exodus was needed but thought Palestine a poor choice for a homeland. 

The ancient land of Israel lay in the barbarous, primitive East, and the 
94

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

promise of modernity pointed in the opposite direction. As the New 

World provided a haven for other discontented Europeans, so also it 

might produce a homeland for the Jews.

To fight against these trends the Zionist leadership had to draw 

from Jewish history and mytho-history to rivet the movement to the land 

of Palestine. Their arguments were bolstered in part by the fact that 

Christian Europe looked to sacred scriptures that included—indeed, 

were based on—the Hebrew Tanakh. Hence, Zionists addressing their 

European masters could point to the Bible as a solid justification for 

the Jewish connection to Palestine. It was, after all, the Islamic conquest 

of the early Middle Ages that had separated Christians from the Holy 

Land, and the history of the Crusades suggested a pattern of return 

that could hardly be ignored.

The Zionists also resorted to a sort of cultural flattery in their struggle for legitimacy by proposing that a Jewish homeland in Palestine 

would serve as a Western outpost for colonial interests and modern 

culture. The irony remained that it would be primarily East European 

Jews who would populate the first two Aliyahs, and most of them represented ideological impulses that were hostile to Western imperialism. 

Still, a major point of contention among Zionists would be that Jewish 

immigration would bring modern, liberal ideals and economic benefit 

to Palestine, as indeed it did, at least for most.

To surmount the problem of legitimacy, Zionist ideologues and 

leaders had to carefully handle the reality of the Arab indigenous population. They did this through a twofold line of reasoning. First, they 

insisted (in part accurately) that Palestine was underpopulated. During 

much of the fifty-year period that preceded statehood, the question 

of how underpopulated Palestine was constantly resurfaced. Potential 

gentile supporters were ready to allow Jewish immigration to the degree 

that empty spaces would be filled up or underutilized resources would 

be made more efficient for all. But they drew the line at any proposal 

that might end up dispossessing the indigenous inhabitants or sparking ethnic violence. Zionism, if it were to avoid being stillborn, must not 

look like an imperial invasion or a war of conquest. Joshua would not 

be welcome in Palestine a second time.

The second line of reasoning was related to the first: that immigration would benefit the Arabs. Nineteenth-century Palestine featured 

impoverished subsistence farmers and poorly administered lands. Jewish immigration, bolstered by capital investment and modern thinking, could redeem the land and bring prosperity to both the Jewish 

newcomers and the indigenous Arabs. Again, there was a measure of 

truth in all this. But there was also a measure of hypocrisy and disingenuous conniving. Theodor Herzl’s personal history illustrated the 
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

95

schizophrenic nature of Zionism. His novel The Old New Land, published in 1902, described a utopian Jewish state in which liberalism 

flourished in a multicultural state. The temple was rebuilt but without 

animal sacrifices, and the Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together. Yet 

in his personal correspondence, Herzl referred to the likely necessity of 

“gentle expropriation” of impoverished Arab farmers.19

In his thought-provoking book, My Promised Land, journalist Ari Shavit described the determined self-delusion that engulfed early colonial 

settlers. They seemed willing and able to ignore the presence of Arabs 

in the land—a necessary innovation if Zionism were to ever get off the 

ground and fly.20 Throughout the prestate period and beyond, the 

Arab problem in Palestine would be submerged in a mixture of truths, 

half-truths, and lies. Questions of regional demographics, absorptive 

capacity, and dispossession would plague the Zionist enterprise and 

cascade into prolonged Arab–Israeli conflict through today.

MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR

Zionist ideology provided the justification and direction for the 

waves of immigration that began in the nineteenth century, but to leave 

the land of their birth and face the unknowns and harshness of Palestine, settlers had to find motivation that would overcome inertia and 

lead them to aliyah. Fear of anti-Semitism provided the backdrop for 

most. But there was also a growing sense among European Jews that 

the time had come for them to emerge from the shadows and docility of the past and to become men again. Zionism found strength in 

the ideals of the New Jew—strong, honorable, and respected among 

the nations.

In 1903 famed Jewish poet Hayim Nahman Bialik penned a poem 

“The City of Slaughter,” recounting the horrors of the Kishinev pogrom. 

He had interviewed the survivors, and his poem struck a chord with 

many Jews as it described their pervasive feelings of helplessness and 

intimidation. At one point in the passionate and tragic poem, Bialik 

describes Jewish women being raped and murdered while their men 

watched passively from their hiding places:

Descend then, to the cellars of the town,

There where the virginal daughters of thy folk were fouled,

Where seven heathen flung a woman down,

The daughter in the presence of her mother,

The mother in the presence of her daughter,

Before slaughter, during slaughter, and after slaughter!
96

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Touch with thy hand the cushion stained; touch

The pillow incarnadined:

This is the place the wild ones of the wood, the beasts of the field

With bloody axes in their paws compelled thy daughters yield:

Beasted and swiped!

Note also do not fail to note,

In that dark corner, and behind that cask

Crouched husbands, bridegrooms, brothers, peering from the cracks,

Watching the sacred bodies struggling underneath

The bestial breath,

Stifled in filth, and swallowing their blood!

Watching from the darkness and its mesh

The lecherous rabble portioning for booty

Their kindred and their flesh!

His words burned in the Jewish consciousness, and many Zionists 

memorized the poem as a reminder to themselves never again to submit to anti-Semitism. Later on, Revisionist Zionists and members of the 

most militant group, Lehi, would recall the words as justification for 

their violence and retribution against attackers. But even among more 

moderate Jews who came to Palestine, Bialik’s poem symbolized what 

they viewed as historical dysfunction: Jews adrift in weak submission 

to their enemies. Zionism offered a cure for all this and beckoned the 

modern Jew to stand up, get strong, and reclaim his rightful place in 

the world. It was a motivation that would overcome rock-strewn fields, 

malaria-ridden swamps, hostile Arabs, and a suspicious international 

environment.

ANALYSIS

The First Aliyah was not a full-fledged insurgency, but the movement 

had the seeds of insurgency and revolutionary warfare deep within the 

ideologies that propelled it. Neither the leaders nor the pioneers who 

came to Palestine would have thought of themselves in terms of irregular warfare: revolutionary ideas were dangerous in the nineteenth century and doubly so for European Jews. But the goals of early Zionists, 

if not their means and methods, pointed to something more than just 

spiritual, economic, or even political renewal. Joint Publication 3-24, 

Counterinsurgency Operations, defines insurgency as “the organized use 

of subversion and violence by a group or movement that seeks to overthrow or force change of a governing authority.”21 The Zionists of this 
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

97

time did not yet seek to overthrow the Ottoman authorities of Palestine 

but rather to cooperate with them. They did not employ either violence 

or subversion. But they did embrace the vision of a Jewish community 

living in safety in Palestine. By implication, that community would have 

to alter the political situation there. Indeed, one of the overarching 

goals of Zionism was to provide safety for Jews, not only within their 

eventual homeland but also worldwide. Personal and ethnic security 

implies strength, organization, and, if necessary, coercion. Early Zionists avoided public declarations that might provoke fear, suspicion, 

or hostility, but from the start the movement was about throwing off 

the submissive defeatism of the Diaspora and replacing it with a vital, 

renewed nationalism. Such an end could not come about through the 

generosity of the nations. Ultimately, it would require Jewish strength. 

As the Bilu Group asked rhetorically: “If I help not myself, who will 

help me?” Their charter called for immigrants to arm themselves for 

self-defense. Zionists believed that only a Jewish homeland, where 

Jews exercised some degree of autonomy, would secure their future. 

Whether it would overthrow or merely change the governance within 

those boundaries was a question the First Aliyah left unanswered, but 

the search for the origins of what became a full-fledged insurgency in 

the years leading up to World War II must lead ultimately to the first 

Zionist pioneers and their leaders.

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces

Any social or political movement, once it begins to gather strength, 

must contend with internal dynamics that might threaten the organization. Zionism was no exception. From the start of the movement Jews 

had competing ideas concerning the proper course forward. Practical 

Zionists feared and rejected Herzl’s Political Zionism as too provocative 

and dangerous. Herzl in turn dismissed the minuscule efforts of Hovevei Zionists as lacking the international backing that would be required 

to secure the homeland. Likewise, Zionists had different ideas about 

the indigenous Arab population. Some believed (although avoided stating) that the Arabs (or at least the impoverished ones) would have to 

depart—willingly or otherwise. Others insisted that the Jews must partner with the Arabs and build a prosperous state together. Still others 

studiously ignored the issue, choosing to view Palestine as fundamentally empty, and others advocated a binational solution. These factional 

differences threatened the coherence of the overall movement and represented a potentially deadly centrifugal (i.e., divisive) force.

Language and culture also offered potential obstacles to progress and unity. Zionist settlers came to Palestine speaking a variety of 
98

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

languages they had grown up with in the Diaspora, and even Herzl 

hoped that German would be the Jews’ language in their new homeland. They brought with them their own particular traditions, diets, 

religious ideas, music, and literature. Ethnically, they were Jews; practically, they were Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Yemenis, and 

more. They were mostly Ashkenazim, along with small minorities of 

Sephardim and Mizrahim, and within each ethnicity lay countless geographical niceties that served to separate Jew from Jew. To overcome 

these differences would not be a trivial undertaking.

But Zionism survived the centrifugal forces because of effective 

leadership and the centripetal forces that created unity, at least in part. 

The strongest of these forces remained the anti-Semitism that bound 

all Jews together, even those who lived in relative safety. Not all Jews 

suffered dispossession or violence, but they all knew what the Pale of 

Settlement was, and they had all despaired when hearing of Captain 

Alfred Dreyfus. Fear and loathing of anti-Semitism and of the growing 

hostility of their Arab neighbors would bind together the generations 

that gave rise to the State of Israel.

One of the wisest decisions that early Zionists made was the decision to use Hebrew as the vernacular of the Jewish homeland. Eliezer 

Ben-Yehuda, a Jewish schoolteacher, formed an association aimed at 

replacing the Yiddish language with a more formal Hebrew in 1881. 

It set out to derive Hebrew words for modern terms and standardize 

pronunciation. To achieve the unification of a Jewish language, BenYehuda composed a Hebrew dictionary. Many established leaders supported Ben-Yehuda’s cause including Ezekiel Wortsmann, who, in 1901, 

wrote that it was essential to “revive [Israel’s] national tongue”—the 

Hebrew language.

Ben-Yehuda saw clearly that language would be central to the success of the Jewish homeland. “Suddenly it became clear to him how 

land, language, and people fit together.”22 He realized that for the 

Jews to find a true modern home in Israel, they needed their own distinct, unifying language to overcome the diversity of the Diaspora. 

Ben-Yehuda immigrated to Palestine and adopted an Orthodox lifestyle. His paper, Ha-Zvi, was critically important to the Zionists. “Readers wrote that they didn’t ‘just read Ha-Zvi; we learned it.’ ”23 Ha-Zvi

became the source of the new colloquial Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda scoured 

old Hebrew texts to find applicable words for modern contexts. “A doll 

became buba, a bicycle became offnayim, and ice cream became gelida, a 

word he had found in Talmudic commentaries of Rashi, a great medieval Biblical scholar.”24 As the First Aliyah gave way to later periods of 

immigration, the Hebrew language became the cornerstone of education in Palestine.
Chapter 6. First Aliyah (1882–1903)

99

Zionists also came to Palestine with strong economic ideas that in 

turn served to unify communities. Ideological trends included both 

capitalism and socialism, but the rough conditions in Palestine taught 

the Zionist pioneers that there was little room for individualism in the 

land. Communities could survive only through each person’s dedication to the good of the whole community. Bound together by the need 

to survive, the early pioneers were also dependent on the funding (and 

therefore, the good will) of the JNF and similar organizations. The 

financial underpinnings of Zionism were vectored toward the creation 

of a viable Jewish enclave in Palestine, not the championing of individualistic capitalism. Within a generation, Labor Zionism would emerge 

and provide the critically needed leadership in Palestine, and with it 

came a staunch dedication to the collective over the individual.

The First Aliyah laid the foundation for the growth and success of 

Zionism, and it produced the key centripetal forces that would unify 

the efforts of subsequent settlers. Although small in scale and threatened with failure, the Jewish immigration of the late nineteenth and 

early twentieth centuries took root. The Jews had returned to Palestine.

NOTES

1 Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: Harper, 2008), 3.

2 Mark Tessler, A History of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 2nd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana 

University Press, 2009), 16–17.

3 Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know about the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History, rev. ed. (New York: William Morrow, 2008), 227; and Tessler, Israel-Palestinian Conflict.

4 Tessler, Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 28–29.

5 Walter Laqueur and Barry M. Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the 

Middle East Conflict, updat. and expand. ed. (New York: Bantam, 1971), 511.

6 Telushkin, Jewish Literacy, 234–235.

7 Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem: The Last Nationality Question (Leipzig: Evergreen Books, 

1862).

8 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: 

Vintage Books, 2001), 16–17.

9 Tessler, Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 29.

10 Morris, Righteous Victims, 17-20.

11 Laqueur and Rubin, Israel-Arab Reader, 626.

12 Morris, Righteous Victims, 19.

13 Robert Leonhard, ed., Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare, 

2nd ed. (Ft. Bragg, NC: United States Army Special Operations Command, 2013).

14 Simon Schama, Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel (New York: Knopf, distributed by 

Random House, 1978).

15 Mitchell G. Bard, “Zionism: Jewish Colonial Trust,” Jewish Virtual Library, accessed 

August 15, 2014, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/jct.html.
100

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

16 Tessler, Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 54–61.

17 Howard Morley Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, 3, rev. and 

updat. ed. (New York: Knopf, 2007), 80–82.

18 Robert R. Leonhard, Visions of Apocalypse: What Jews, Christians, and Muslims Believe about 

the End Times, and How Those Beliefs Affect Our World (Laurel, MD: The Johns Hopkins 

University Applied Physics Laboratory, 2010).

19 Morris, Righteous Victims, 21–22.

20 Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 

2013), 3–24.

21 Ibid.

22 Malka Drucker, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the Father of Modern Hebrew, 1st ed. (New York: Lodestar 

Books, 1987), 19.

23 Ibid., 38.

24 Ibid., 61.
CHAPTER 7.

THE CONQUEST OF LABOR: 

SECOND ALIYAH (1903–1914)

The Jewish people has been completely cut off from 

nature and imprisoned within city walls for two thousand years. We have been accustomed to every form of 

life, except a life of labor—of labor done at our behalf 

and for its own sake. It will require the greatest effort 

of will for such a people to become normal again. We 

lack the principal ingredient for national life. We lack 

the habit of labor . . . for it is labor which binds a people to its soil and to its national culture.

—A. D. Gordon, “People and Labor,” 1911

The question was not whether group settlement was 

preferable to individual settlement; it was rather one 

of either group settlement or no settlement at all.

—Arthur Ruppin, 1909, cited in Paula Rayman, The 

Kibbutz Community and Nation Building (Princeton, NJ: 

Princeton University Press, 1981), 12

103

Renewed pogroms in tsarist Russia sparked the Second Aliyah. Pioneers during this period were typically young, hardworking socialists, 

most immigrating from Russia, Romania, and elsewhere in Eastern 

Europe. Zionists looking to create a self-sustaining economy built on 

agriculture set up national training farms to prepare settlers with the 

latest techniques for working the land. The first collective farm—the 

kibbutz—was founded at Degania in 1909. In that same year the growing need for defense against Arab attackers led to the establishment 

of HaShomer, the first Jewish self-defense organization in Palestine. 

The first all-Jewish city was created from a suburb of Jaffa and grew 

into Tel Aviv, also in 1909. The Second Aliyah saw the full revival of 

the Hebrew language in a growing number of Jewish newspapers and 

books. As Labor Zionism struggled to its feet and achieved a position 

of dominance within the Yishuv, political parties formed to compete 

for control.

Over a ten-year period approximately forty thousand Jews immigrated to Palestine, but harsh conditions and lack of economic opportunity saw about half depart. There were also high suicide rates during 

both the First and Second Aliyahs. But many of the Zionist leaders of 

later years came to Palestine as part of the Second Aliyah. By the end of 

the Second Aliyah, between sixty thousand and ninety thousand Jews 

lived in Palestine, including seventy-five thousand immigrants.1

TIMELINE

1904 Theodor Herzl dies. The Uganda Plan is shelved soon after. 

Political Zionism begins to give way to Labor Zionism.

1906 Gymnasia Herzlia, the first Jewish high school, is built, with 

seventeen students attending.

David Ben-Gurion, the future first prime minister of the 

State of Israel, immigrates to Ottoman Palestine.

1908 The Palestine Land Development Corporation and Kinneret 

training farm are established.

1909 The city of Tel Aviv, the first Jewish city in Ottoman Palestine, is founded; Degania becomes the first kibbutz.

1909 HaShomer, the first Jewish defense organization, is established in Palestine.

1913 The Eleventh Zionist Congress meets in Vienna and deals 

with settlement issues and the establishment of Hebrew as 

the official language.
104

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

BACKGROUND

In the early years of the twentieth century the Zionist movement 

gravitated decisively into the hands of Labor Zionists. During this 

period a new generation of leaders developed and honed their vision of 

what the Jewish homeland and eventual state should be. They began a 

momentous turn away from reliance on Political Zionism and the capitalistic roots of the movement toward a socialist vision (although both 

would have continuing influence on the course of Zionism). Labor 

Zionist leaders rose to positions of control among the Yishuv, but there 

were competing ideas, parties, and leaders as well.

With the Bund’s rejection of Zionism in 1901, Jewish Marxists in 

Eastern Europe founded the Poale Zion (Workers of Zion) movement. 

Their ideological forefathers included Karl Marx, but Ber Borochov 

(1881–1917), a Ukrainian Jewish leader, insisted that Jewish nationalism must also feature prominently in the Zionist struggle. Borochov 

viewed the Jewish Problem in economic terms and pointed out that 

in Europe, Jews populated an “inverted pyramid”—too many Jews in 

the professional class and not enough in the worker class. As a result, 

Jews were pushed out of jobs and regarded with hostility. The solution, 

he argued, was immigration to Palestine and the creation of a strong 

worker class there. Poale Zion embraced a wide following among early 

twentieth-century Jews throughout Europe and in the United States, 

and in 1905 the party was founded in Palestine. The movement represented a new and vigorous phase in Zionism. Advocates moved beyond 

Political Zionism and reliance on philanthropy, instead calling for the 

development of worker-based collective communities.

If the Zionist enterprise were to survive and prosper, it had to stimulate mass immigration. During this period, Zionists redoubled their 

efforts to reach out to Jews of the Diaspora (especially in Europe) and 

convince them to come to Palestine or at least support their Jewish 

brothers and sisters there. Joseph Vitkin, a Galilean colonist who had 

immigrated in 1897, wrote a pamphlet to his fellow Jews in Europe. 

Entitled “A Call to the Youth of Israel Whose Hearts Are with Their 

People and Zion,” it was to become a rallying cry that defined the Second Aliyah:

Awake, O youth of Israel! Come to the aid of your people. Your people lies in agony. Rush to its side. Band 

together; discipline yourselves for life or death; forget 

all the precious bonds of your childhood; leave them 

behind forever without a shadow of regret, and answer 

the call of your people.2
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

105

Mikveh Israel

Nazareth

Tiberias Haifa

Nablus

Ramallah

Jericho

Jerusalem

Gaza

Bir Saba

Ramleh

Lydda

Bisan Jenin

Safed

Beer Tuvia

Gadera Hartuv

Kfar Saba

Mediterranean Sea

Yesod HaMa'ale

Mishmar HaYarden

Sejera

Atlit

Merkhavia

Zikhron Ya’akov

Kfar Tabor Degania

Menakhemia

Rishon LeZion

Nes Ziona

0 Miles 15

Jordan River

Sea of

Galilee

Lake Hula

G'vulot

Hebron

Hadera

Major Arab Towns and Jewish Settlements in Palestine, 1881–1941

Legend

Major Arab towns

Major Jewish settlements

Other Jewish settlements

Rosh

Pinah

Jaffa

Acre

Dead Sea

35,000

 (–16,000)

The Second Aliyah (1904–1914) 

resulted from tsarist Russia’s 

pogroms. Mostly young socialist 

pioneers, these immigrants established national farms for training; the 

rst kibbutz, Degania; and 

Tel Aviv, the rst Jewish city.

Hebrew was revived as the national 

language. Political parties and labor 

unions formed. 

Under attacks from Arabs, Jews 

established HaShomer—The Watchmen—a collection of local militias.

* Initially 40,000 Jews arrived, but later 

20,000 emigrated elsewhere.

40,000

 (–20,000)*

Figure 7-1. The Second Aliyah (1904–1914).

Aharon D. Gordon, a Russian Jew, made aliyah when he was just shy 

of fifty years old. He immigrated to Palestine and worked as an agricultural laborer, and he wrote of the spiritual significance and dignity of 

working the soil. He saw his experience as purifying and fulfilling and 

he called for other Jews to join him. Gordon advocated for a utopian 

Jewish homeland in which Jews would treat each other and their Arab 

neighbors with civility and service. His writings were a major influence 

in the Second Aliyah.3

The pioneers faced a harsh reality upon arrival. Jews who immigrated during the Second Aliyah sought work on farms that had been 

settled earlier, but many immigrants were unacquainted with the skills 

necessary for farm labor. Arabs competed for jobs, threatening new 

arrivals with unemployment. The danger of disease, especially malaria, 

was ever present. As the Jewish population grew, Arab resentment 

grew with it, and Jewish settlers had to reckon with the possibility of 

sudden violence.

Older members of the Yishuv, including veterans of the First Aliyah, 

rejected the wholesale importation of socialist ideals, creating political 

tensions among the Jews. The newcomers’ troubles were exacerbated 
106

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

by widespread unemployment. Young men roaming about in tatters, 

hungry and looking for work, were a common scene. Many immigrants 

gave it up and left, either returning home or seeking their fortunes 

in America. Those who remained sought succor in visions of a socialist future. They unified under a banner of politics rather than faith. 

Poale Zion became their practical religion; “their notion of pioneering 

was a kind of secularized messianism.”4

 To help alleviate the shortage 

of farming skills, the Jews established a training farm at Sejera and 

another at Kinneret.

Aaron Aaronsohn, a Romanian Jew, immigrated in 1910 and set 

up the Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station at Athlit. His goal was 

to determine the best crops to grow in Palestine, so as to economize 

Zionist efforts. His efforts demonstrated the unique character of the 

Zionist movement—redemption of the land and people through an 

almost spiritualization of labor, combined with devotion to modern 

methods and economic ideas.

Under the supervision of the Zionist Organization and its executive office, based in Jaffa, agents of the Palestine Land Development 

Corporation, with finances from the Jewish National Fund (JNF), 

bought land at Kinneret, Hulda, and elsewhere. Leaders attempted to 

purchase lands that would foster contiguous areas of Jewish settlement, 

thus easing matters of defense, infrastructure development, and economic growth. The campaign of land purchases was central to Zionism, and Jewish holdings expanded in the coastal plain, the Jezreel 

Valley, and Galilee. But with each accretion to the Jewish enclave, Arab 

resistance grew.5

LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, 

AND COMMAND AND CONTROL

Most olima of the Second Aliyah were of Eastern European descent, 

raised amid strong socialist ideology, much of which venerated the 

peasant class as the counterpoint to modernization; “their obsession 

with the soil also expressed unconscious resentment at the creeping 

industrial revolution in Eastern Europe.”6

 These forces coalesced in the 

Second Aliyah to inspire and invigorate the olim and their commitment 

to redeeming the land of Zion.

One such immigrant was David Gruen, a Russian Jew who made Aliyah in 1906. At Petah Tikvah he tilled the soil but was soon struck with 

malaria. Against his doctor’s advice he remained in Palestine, and he 

came face to face with the growing dilemma of how to organize labor 

a Olim is a Hebrew term for Jewish immigrants on aliyah to Palestine.
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

107

throughout the Jewish settlements. He saw firsthand the competition 

between Jewish immigrants looking for work and the indigenous Arabs 

who resented bias against themselves in the labor market. Gruen and 

others saw that if farmers and businessmen hired Arabs, then the thousands of Jewish immigrants on which the success of Zionism depended 

would be unemployed and would likely flee Palestine. But if they instead 

preferred Jewish workers, the indigenous Arabs would quickly become 

alienated against the Zionists. Added to this growing resentment was 

the problem of land purchases, which put more and more acreage into 

Jewish hands but left a growing number of Arabs dispossessed—their 

land sold out from under them by absentee landlords—and forced to 

flee to cities in the search for a livelihood.

Figure 7-2. David Gruen (later, Ben-Gurion).

David Gruen decided to change his name to Ben-Gurion—a more 

Jewish appellation and one that drew from Jewish history. He joined 

the editorial board of the Labor Zionist journal Ahdut and began 

to rise within the ranks of Jewish socialists. He would come to lead 

Labor Zionism, and in 1948 he would become the State of Israel’s first 

prime minister.

If the Zionist insurgency were to grow into a viable entity within 

Palestine, it would require energetic and visionary leadership, but not 

glorious military leaders or fiery revolutionary politicians. During the 

Second Aliyah, the Yishuv needed businessmen and professionals who 

understood law, finance, and modern economics. One such man who 

would be crucial to the movement’s success was Arthur Ruppin.
108

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Figure 7-3. Arthur Ruppin.

Ruppin was a German-born Jew who took over the leadership of the 

Palestine Office of the Zionist Organization, which served as the operational branch of the Zionist Executive (elected by the Zionist Congress) 

in Berlin. Among other duties, the Palestine Executive conducted diplomatic relations with the Ottoman authorities and other international 

powers. It also oversaw land purchases and aid to immigrants. Ruppin 

completed degrees in law and economics in Germany, and in 1899 he 

penned a notable dissertation on Social Darwinism and its application 

in industry. He joined the Zionist Organization in 1905 and two years 

later journeyed through Palestine, reporting to the president of the 

Zionist Organization that conditions were poor. His proposed solutions 

included greater immigration from the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe, who 

would bring better education and “racial purity” and counteract what 

he saw as the deleterious influence of the backward Sephardic Jews.

Ottoman authorities continued to deny the Jews permission to create an official homeland in Palestine. Ruppin realized that the only way 

an autonomous existence within the empire could move forward would 

be through the expansion of population and land ownership. The 

plan, of which Ruppin would act as the chief executor, was to develop 

employment opportunities for thousands of new immigrants. To that 

end, Ruppin now proposed buying up to two million dunams of land to 

sell on easy terms to Jewish immigrants and training farm workers on 

auxiliary farms before settling them on the soil.7
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

109

In 1908 Ruppin led the Palestine Office, based in Jaffa, and began 

acquiring land with money from the JNF. His efforts led to the founding of Tel Aviv on the outskirts of Jaffa, and it grew, slowly at first, into 

the first Jewish city in Palestine. He also added to the growing Jewish 

enclaves lands in the Carmel region and eastward in the Jezreel Valley, as well as in Jerusalem. Under his direction the labor movement 

advanced as the governing paradigm, replacing the old emphasis on 

colonial enterprises, private ownership, and reliance on foreign philanthropy with a model of collective ownership and self-sufficiency. The 

old-style plantation gave way to the kibbutz and moshav.b

 In place of 

Jewish landowners employing Arab laborers in a capitalist venture, the 

new communities featured collective ownership among Jewish laborers 

working their own jointly held land.

In his early years as chief land agent in Palestine, Ruppin hoped 

for the eventual creation of a binational state including both Jews and 

Arabs, and he would later become a founding member of the Brit Shalom peace movement toward that end. This placed him at odds with 

fellow Zionists who aimed for a Jewish state, but after the 1929 Arab 

riots, Ruppin would change his position.

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component

As during the First Aliyah, the nascent Zionist insurgency in Palestine did not include an underground in the modern sense. Still, Ottoman Palestine remained an undergoverned region, and the resulting 

atmosphere reinforced the Jews’ readiness to operate clandestinely 

when required. Bereft of any official blessing for their goal of creating 

a homeland within the Turkish Empire, the Zionists proceeded anyway but refrained from flaunting their ultimate intentions among the 

Arabs or Ottoman authorities. For centuries before, during the oppression of the Diaspora, Jewish communities had been accustomed to acting in secret to protect themselves. While Zionist leaders desired to 

conduct themselves within the framework of law and international recognition of their efforts, they realized that the vicissitudes of Ottoman 

governance and European policies might drive them underground at 

any moment.

Likewise, it would be a stretch to suggest that the Zionists of the 

Second Aliyah had developed a formalized auxiliary. Rather, they 

b Kibbutzim and moshavim were two similar types of collective agricultural communities. They differed in that in the kibbutz there was no individual ownership, members ate meals in communal dining areas, and parents did not live with their children. 

Although moshavim were collectively managed, their members owned private farms and a 

share of the profits.
110

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

continued in the nation building that characterized the early movement, but the relationships, communications, and networks that they 

built and relied on could quickly convert to function as an insurgent 

auxiliary if the need arose.

Armed Component

The one aspect of Zionism that most resembled an insurgency was 

the armed component. The early Jewish settlements faced the threat of 

both bandits and populist Arab violence over matters of land and water 

rights. Attackers would typically launch their raids just before harvest, 

spoiling any opportunity for profit. Until this time the common practice had been to hire Arab guards: they were armed and had horses. 

But reliance on Arab security was risky, and to some Jews it seemed a 

dereliction among a people trying to build a national homeland. If a 

Jewish state were ever to emerge, the Jews would have to take on the 

burden of self-defense.

Social groups of Poale Zion in Europe had long been teaching Jews 

self-defense. The ideology of the “New Jew”—strong, honorable, and 

worthy of respect—called for a breed of settler willing and able to take 

up arms, but Zionist leaders considered the Jewish presence in Palestine too small to take on the burden of defense. Israel Shochat, a Russian Jewish socialist, traveled throughout Palestine, preaching to Jewish 

agricultural workers concerning the need to defend themselves. Not 

only did Jews have a birthright to protect themselves, but to do otherwise by employing Arabs undermined the future of the Jewish nation. 

Shochat and his nine cohorts, including Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Israel Giladi, 

and Alexander Zeid, formed a secret Jewish security society called BarGiora.c

 Typically, the “watchmen” would escort farm laborers to and 

from their fields, visibly armed atop horseback. They learned Arab customs and spoke Arabic in order to better anticipate attacks.

The secret society was a success, first at Sejera in 1907 and then at 

Mesha in 1908. The young watchmen were effective and grew to be well 

respected throughout the Jewish community, but their displacement of 

Arab guards also increased the friction between Jews and Arabs. This 

contributed to an outbreak of violence at Sejera in 1909. Soon the need 

to expand came, and that year Shochat and his colleagues renamed 

their band HaShomer—the Watchmen. They offered their services to 

Jewish communities in return for an annual fee. When the JNF bought 

lands in the Jezreel Valley, the Zionist leadership decided to employ 

c Bar-Giora was named for Simeon Bar-Giora, a Jewish military leader in the First 

Jewish–Roman War of 66–73 AD.
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

111

HaShomer to guard against possible Arab attacks or intrusions onto 

Jewish land.

Figure 7-4. Israel Shochat.

HaShomer remained a small organization of less than one hundred 

men who might call on other reserves in an emergency, but it was the 

ideological nucleus that would eventually lead to a national army. Zionist leaders felt, however, that the Yishuv could not afford to pay, train, 

and equip an army yet, so they decided to restructure the effort so 

that the watchmen would settle on and work the land in addition to 

providing defense. The first HaShomer settlement was Tel Adashim, 

established in 1913, followed by Kfar Giladi in 1916 and, two years later, 

by Tel Hai. In 1920, with the establishment of the Haganah, HaShomer 

was disbanded.8

HaShomer had made accessible the idea that Jews were not only 

capable of defending their own land but that they had a mandate 

to do so. This budding idea would continue to grow throughout the 

development of the Jewish insurgency in Palestine. HaShomer’s motto 

would live on even after the organization disbanded: “By blood and fire 

Judaea fell; by blood and fire Judaea shall rise.”9

Public Component

The Palestine Office of the Zionist Organization in Jaffa acted as 

the clearinghouse for political activity and diplomacy for the Zionists 

in the land. Overall the Zionist Organization and its annual congresses 

continued to debate and set the course for nation building. The delegates were active within their own countries in seeking European 
112

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

support for the growing enterprise, but prewar Europe was largely distracted by the prospect of the impending conflagration, and Palestine 

did not yet figure prominently in the strategic calculations of London, 

Paris, or Berlin.

Meanwhile the JNF continued its propaganda and outreach to the 

Diaspora. Seeking the support of both philanthropist and commoner, 

the JNF not only provided much-needed funding, but it also reinforced 

the Zionist ideology in the minds of Jews everywhere. Agents would lose 

no opportunity to trumpet the success of Jewish pioneers, buttressing 

the argument that the Jews were good for Palestine and Palestine was 

good for the Jews. It was a powerful message that would soon attract even 

greater attention in the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

IDEOLOGY

Two key ideologies developed during the Second Aliyah: dedication to a socialist, labor-oriented society and establishment of Hebrew 

as the national vernacular. Although on the surface these ideas seem 

unrelated, they in fact demonstrated the integration of two foundational principles of Zionism: socialism and nationalism. One would not 

supplant the other. Instead, both would survive and thrive, and their 

unique integration would come to define the future Jewish state.

The Second Aliyah saw the “conquest of labor” in Palestine (i.e., 

the political triumph of Labor Zionism as the major controlling idea).10

The spirit of the conquest of labor was best captured by Aaron David 

Gordon. Russian born and Orthodox educated, Gordon developed his 

own philosophy that “Zionism was an act of personal redemption.”11 In 

1903, at the age of forty-eight, Gordon made aliyah. After years of a life 

behind a desk, Gordon took only manual laboring positions on various farm settlements. His passion was well known and he was deeply 

respected; “the work of Gordon was a kind of worship, a pure prayer.”12

His activist writings were deeply inspiring to immigrants of the 

Second Aliyah. He embodied the passion of the Labor Zionists. His 

followers established Hapo'el Hatza'ir—The Young Worker—in 1905. 

It was less a political party and more an ideological society. It was a 

movement that built on the First Aliyah’s determination to tame the 

land and fused it with Gordon’s philosophy. They desired no charity, 

no handouts. Instead they insisted on earning their room and board. 

They lived Spartan lives, eschewing luxuries. Their common goal “was 

well expressed in a pioneer folk song of the time . . . ‘We’ve come to the 

Land of Israel to build, and to be rebuilt, here.’ ”13

Collective communities were the logical outgrowth of labor ideology in Palestine. In Russia Marxist philosophy gave rise to the Russian 
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

113

Social Democratic Labor Party, and the Jewish socialist Bund struggled 

to find a place within the failing socioeconomic framework of tsarist 

Russia’s final years. Distancing itself from backward Orthodox Jewish traditions, the Bund likewise rejected Zionism in 1901, describing 

the movement as escapist and nationalistic. Instead, it argued, Jewish 

socialists should look to the coming labor revolution and the emancipation and equality that it would surely bring. At odds with Lenin’s 

Bolsheviks, the Bund gravitated to the Mensheviks in the years leading 

up to the Russian Revolution. In brief, East European Jewish socialists 

seemed fated to pin their hopes on a series of losing propositions. Having turned away from Zionism’s brand of socialism, they would suffer 

continued repression at the hands of both tsarists and communists. 

Like their brethren who remained in Western and Central Europe, 

many would be consumed by the coming Holocaust.14

But in Palestine, the Jewish labor movement found creative expression and success, albeit in an extremely harsh physical environment. 

The Second Aliyah saw the triumph of the kibbutzim and moshavim 

over the older Jewish colonial plantations. Land purchased by the JNF 

and its subsidiaries came to be owned and managed by the workers 

themselves. The new paradigm was conditioned and necessitated by 

the threat of economic scarcity, lack of arable land, and the combined 

threat of disease and Arab hostility. There was, in short, no room for 

individualism. The community’s survival relied on collective ownership, 

management, and defense. In Arthur Ruppin’s words, “The question 

was not whether group settlement was preferable to individual settlement; it was rather one of either group settlement or no settlement at 

all.”15 The first kibbutz was set up in 1909 at Degania, near the training 

farm at Kinneret. By the end of the Second Aliyah, fourteen kibbutzim 

were in operation.

Women were of growing importance during this era and often 

achieved equality with Zionist men, especially on collective farms and 

in large metropolitan areas. This new freedom for women was often 

seen as a threat to the traditional culture of Palestinian Arabs who were 

skeptical of any revolutionary cultural changes.

Socialist ideals also found expression in the development of consumer collectivism. Consumer cooperatives sought to economize purchases of basic commodities in order to provide low, stable prices. 

Initial attempts faltered, but with the approach of war and its concomitant shortages, Zionists created a national consumers’ cooperative, Hamashbir. The venture thrived and grew into a chain of stores 

throughout the country.16

The struggle to unify the disparate Jews who populated the Yishuv 

continued in the years leading up to World War I. Earlier leaders and 
114

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

thinkers had laid the foundation for the revival of Hebrew as the 

national language for Jewish Palestine. In 1903 Menachem Ussishkin 

(1863–1941) convened a convention at Zikhron Ya'akov to push the 

idea. Ussishkin was an early Zionist leader, having founded a branch 

of Hovevei Zion in Moscow. He served as secretary to the First Zionist 

Congress and later made aliyah in 1920. To the delegates who gathered 

in 1903, he insisted that Hebrew be used as the vernacular of the Jewish 

homeland. He established the Hebrew Teachers’ Federation in Palestine and urged the members to faithfully teach their young students to 

love the land and the Hebrew language.17

Unification of the Palestinian Jews through the Hebrew language 

was crucial if Zionism was to succeed. The Eleventh Zionist Congress 

(1913) voted to establish Hebrew as the official language of Zionist Jews. 

Hebrew was chosen against the multiplicity of other languages spoken 

at the time including German, Yiddish, Russian, Arabic, and French. 

It was a controversial political move, especially for Orthodox Jews who 

believed Hebrew to be a sacred language only to be used in prayer and 

religious rituals. As late as 1919, after the end of the First World War, 

delegates at the Paris Peace Conference were shocked to hear Ussishkin 

speak in Hebrew on behalf of the Zionist cause.

LEGITIMACY

The contest over legitimacy continued during the Second Aliyah, 

and the conflict sharpened with each accretion to Jewish land. Menachem Ussishkin observed that there were three ways a nation obtained 

land: through military conquest, through legalized expropriation, and 

through purchase. Zionists in the early twentieth century had neither 

the military force nor the legal status to accomplish the first two. By 

default they would have to focus on the third. In this they found a 

plentiful supply of willing sellers—many of whom did not live in Palestine. But the land often supported Arab farmers and their families, 

and the resulting dispossession sparked a growing resistance to the 

Zionist insurgency.18

The great question of legitimacy was, who had the right to settle and 

rule Palestine? Islamic religious doctrine and tradition insisted that 

any land, once conquered by Muslims, remain Muslim. Further, the 

indigenous Arabs had on their side the palpable fact of their centurieslong presence. The only legitimate ruling authority in the land was the 

Ottoman regime in Constantinople, and it remained unfriendly to the 

Zionist goals. How then could Zionism achieve a sense of legitimacy in 

what it was doing in Palestine?
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

115

As during the First Aliyah, the answer was clear to the Jews themselves, if less so to the rest of the world, and certainly not to the indigenous Arabs. First, the Zionists insisted that they were returning to a 

land their ancestors once held. That particular point would not of itself 

lend legitimacy to the Jewish immigration, but when coupled with the 

horrendous record of depredations suffered in Europe, the argument 

strengthened. Still, the Arabs would argue in the years to come, why 

should they be made to suffer to right the wrongs in Europe? The Jews 

also appealed along racial and ethnic lines by pointing out that they 

had nowhere else to go. There was no Jewish homeland that could provide security for a Jewish community, whereas the Arabs held lands that 

stretched across North Africa and throughout the Middle East.

The arguments over legitimacy can scarcely be said to have persuaded anyone on either side to change their views. Instead, the key to 

the legitimacy question was the fact that Palestine under the Ottomans 

remained undergoverned. This created space and time in which the 

Zionists could build a sizable presence. Afterward, when the British 

would come to rule the land, the Jews could point to several generations of their own presence in Palestine. In essence, Practical Zionism’s 

strategy of the fait accompli would eventually take over the major burden of legitimacy. But to get to that point, the Zionists would have to 

achieve a much greater Jewish population.

MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR

The chief motivating factors that inspired the Second Aliyah 

remained the widespread discrimination and anti-Semitism throughout Eastern and Western Europe. In Russia the run-up to the revolutions in 1905 and 1917 repeatedly put Jews at risk. With no abatement of 

racial prejudice in sight, an increasing number of Jews looked favorably 

on following the path blazed by the First Aliyah.

The singular mixture of European socialism with Jewish nationalism during this period sparked the immigration of thousands of young, 

determined Jewish men and women. Inculcated from childhood with 

revolutionary dogmas that rejected the centuries-long docility of Orthodox Judaism, the new vision of Jewishness included vigor, energy, dignity, and determination. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how the young 

farmers of the Second Aliyah could otherwise have faced the hardship 

of daily life on the moshav or kibbutz. Where there were rocks and 

boulders in the soil, they removed them, often by hand. Where there 

were swamps infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes, they drained 

the land by digging ditches with shovels and picks. Where there were 

barren hills they planted forests. Daily life offered little diversion and 
116

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

only the promise of relentless toil and the occasional excitement of 

Arab violence.

The Jews of the First and Second Aliyahs had been conditioned 

by harsh experience and by revolutionary ideology to question the relevance or benefit of their European citizenship. What the nations of 

the world would not provide them they would have to work themselves. 

If they were to develop an affection for a country, then it would be their 

own country in Palestine. The generation that worked the soil with calloused hands grew to produce the hard-nosed, intractable leadership 

of the Zionist insurgency that would win a state in a mere forty years.

Finances, Logistics, and Sustainment

During the Second Aliyah there was a growing shift in emphasis 

from reliance on philanthropy to self-reliance and the JNF. The needs 

in Palestine were great, and philanthropic support was by no means 

rejected. Baron de  Rothschild’s Palestine Colonization Association 

(PICA) provided land and loans to the colonies. Many of these settlements relied on cheap Arab labor and became profitable, which was 

crucial because profit was a significant motivator for PICA. Rothschild 

remained a vocal proponent of the Zionist cause throughout his life 

until his death in 1934.

PICA and the baron were not the only land grantors. The Zionist 

Organization established a subsidiary of the Jewish Colonial Trust in 

Jaffa in 1903. The Anglo-Palestine Company (later the Anglo-Palestine 

Bank) became the major grantor of low-interest loans to Jewish settlers. 

Loans were given not just to farmers but also to merchants and manufacturers and for building societies.19

Otto Warburg, a notable German physicist who later won the Nobel 

Prize in 1931, joined a group of Germans dedicated to the cause of 

Zionism. Together they raised funds for Jewish artists in Palestine, 

which helped to spur the Bezalel school of artistic thought in Palestine.d Works of art helped to establish the dream of a Jewish national 

consciousness within the boundaries of Palestine.

Nathan Straus, an American philanthropist and prominent business owner, was a major supporter of the Zionist cause in Palestine. He 

funded the first medical center in the new city of Tel Aviv. On his death 

he donated all of his remaining money to organizations that helped 

support Zionism.

d The name Bezalel came from the biblical craftsman who, under Moses’s direction, 

constructed the furniture of the Tabernacle.
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

117

But European and American philanthropists often vectored their 

contributions through capitalist ventures according to a colonial 

framework, and the young socialists who flocked to Palestine in the 

Second Aliyah were not enamored of the old ways. The moshavim and 

plantations spawned by Rothschild and others had a colonial character, including the paradigm of white planters supervising local Arab 

peasants. This flew in the face of the new Zionism that strived for egalitarianism and the glorification of a Jewish working class. While philanthropists’ funds remained welcome, their Old-World mentality was not.

The JNF became the preferred funding vehicle among the Labor 

Zionists. The Zionist Organization established the Palestine Land 

Development Corporation in 1908, and Otto Warburg and Arthur Ruppin led the company in land purchases for the JNF.

Logistics and infrastructure were keys to the continuation of the 

Zionist enterprise, and the Second Aliyah period saw foundational 

developments for the future state. In 1909 Elias Auerbach, a GermanJewish doctor, immigrated to Palestine, and two years later he founded 

the first Jewish hospital in Haifa.e

 The first Jewish high school was 

founded in 1906. The first kindergarten followed in 1912. Industrial 

capacity was still all but nonexistent, but the framework for a thriving 

agricultural economy was in place.

ANALYSIS

By the end of the Second Aliyah, the Jewish population in Palestine had grown to some eighty-five thousand to ninety thousand. Fortythree new settlements had been established, and the foundations of 

infrastructure, education, finance, and self-defense had been well laid.

During the Second Aliyah the Zionist movement evolved further 

toward an insurgency. Zionist leaders and pioneers began to work 

around Ottoman authorities, engaging in quasi-legal and illegal 

operations, including the formation of self-defense militias. As war 

approached the Ottomans grew ever more suspicious of nationalistic impulses—both Arab and Jewish—within Palestine. The resulting 

clampdown forced leaders into clandestine activities and led to the formation of an embryonic underground.

During the Second Aliyah the Zionist enterprise did not evolve into 

a full-fledged insurgency, in part because the region remained undergoverned, which allowed for Jewish communities and institutions to 

e During World War I, Auerbach returned to Germany and fought in the German 

Army. Twenty years after the war he went on to establish the Organization of German 

Immigrants to help receive refugees from the Nazi regime.
118

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

operate in the open. Still, clandestine and quasi-legal organizations did 

come into being, most notably Bar-Giora and its successor, HaShomer. 

Overall, a culture of dogged determination to persist in building up 

the Yishuv despite official indifference and Arab hostility laid the foundation for later insurgency.

Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces

Zionist leaders took decisive steps to ensure the future unity of the 

Yishuv during the Second Aliyah period. The disparity of languages, 

cultures, ideologies, and religious traditions represented among the 

Yishuv threatened Jewish settlers’ integration into a regional community. Jews of the Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Persian, and other backgrounds 

might have been left to slip into their own isolated enclaves had the 

Zionist leadership not acted to reinforce Jewish unity. The centrifugal 

forces within the Zionist movement might well have created irreparable 

rifts, especially with the prospect of war breaking out.

Instead, the Eleventh Zionist Congress mandated that Hebrew 

would be the language of the Yishuv. Schools, newspapers, and books 

would serve as the touchstone of unity among the people, despite 

various ethnic communities’ stubborn desire to hang on to their own 

native languages. The JNF likewise served as a crucial centripetal force, 

because it benefited (or sought to benefit) all Jews in the land. The 

arrival of World War I thus found a weak but strengthening Jewish polity in Palestine, and in its wake, the situation would change dramatically and test Zionism’s resilience and flexibility to the utmost.

NOTES

1 Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: Harper, 2008).

2 Howard Morley Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, 3, rev. and 

updat. ed. (New York: Knopf, 2007), 72.

3 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 23.

4 Sachar, A History of Israel, 71-79.

5 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: 

Vintage Books, 2001).

6 Sachar, A History of Israel, 71–73.

7 Ibid., 77.

8 Mitchell G. Bard, “Jewish Defense Organizations: HaShomer,” Jewish Virtual Library, 

accessed August 15, 2014, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/

Ha-Shomer.html.

9 Gideon Shimoni, The Zionist Ideology (Hanover, NH: Brandeis Univ. Press, 1995), 224–225.
Chapter 7. Second Aliyah (1903–1914)

119

10 S. Levenberg, The Jews and Palestine: A Study in Labour Zionism (London: Poale Zion, Jewish Socialist Labour Party, 1945), l, 402.

11 Sachar, A History of Israel, 75.

12 Ibid., 76.

13 Ibid.

14 Zvi Y. Gitelman, The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern 

Europe (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), 275.

15 Paula Rayman, The Kibbutz Community and Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

1981), 12.

16 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 26.

17 Ibid.

18 Morris, Righteous Victims, 37–39.

19 Sachar, A History of Israel, 77.

CHAPTER 8.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR

AND THIRD ALIYAH (1914–1923)

We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with 

the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement . . . We 

will do our best . . . to help them through: we will wish 

the Jews a most hearty welcome home.

— Letter from Emir Faisal to Felix Frankfurter, 

March 3, 1919

We oppose the pretensions of the Zionists to create a 

Jewish commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, 

known as Palestine, and oppose Zionist migration to 

any part of our country.

—General Syrian Congress, July 1919

123

The First World War radically altered the course of the Zionist 

insurgency as the British Mandate supplanted the Ottoman Empire’s 

governance over Palestine. By 1914 there were from 60,000 to 90,000 

Jews and 500,000 to 738,000 Arabs in Palestine.1 Throughout this 

period Jewish immigrants continued to make their way into the region, 

and Jewish settlements grew in number and size. But the Ottomans’ 

suspicions toward Jewish collaboration with Allied powers led to forcible expulsion of some 18,000 Jews during the war. Other Jews suffered 

mistreatment at the hands of the Ottomans and their German partners until British armies liberated Palestine in two stages from 1917 to 

1918. Mass immigration from Russia made up the wartime losses to the 

Jewish population by 1923, with the ending balance sheet leaving the 

Jewish population throughout this period at roughly the same level—

about 90,000.2

The Third Aliyah included Jewish immigration into Palestine from 

1919 through 1923. The main catalysts of the movement were the Bolshevik Revolution, continued persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe, 

the British occupation of Palestine as a consequence of World War I, 

and the Balfour Declaration.

TIMELINE

October–

November 1914

The Ottoman Empire joins the Central Powers.

May 1916 The Sykes–Picot Agreement between Britain and 

France gives Lebanon and Syria to France and Palestine to Britain. The British later back away from it 

because their armies liberated territory north of the 

proposed boundary.

November 2, 1917 The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support 

for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

December 7, 1917 General Allenby drives the Turks out of Jerusalem, 

but the Palestine Front remains static for next nine 

months.

September 1918 At the Battle of Megiddo, Anglo-Indian forces break 

the Ottoman defensive line.

October 30, 1918 The Armistice of Moudros ends hostilities between 

British forces and the Ottomans.

June 1919–

March 1920

The Treaty of Versailles ends the war between the 

Allies and Germany and creates the League of 

Nations. In March 1920 Arab marauders attack and 

destroy Tel Hai and neighboring Jewish settlements.
124

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

April 1920 Arabs celebrating Nabi Musa riot in Jerusalem, 

targeting Jewish homes and businesses for looting, 

rape, and murder. Zionists establish the Haganah 

(Defense). At the San Remo Conference, Allied powers incorporate Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq into 

the British Mandate.

May 1921 Jewish and Arab rioting in Jaffa and elsewhere kills 

47 Jews and 46 Arabs and wounds 219.

1922 The League of Nations approves the British Mandate over Palestine and calls for a “Jewish Agency” 

to advise Mandatory authorities on development of a 

Jewish home.

BACKGROUND

The period of the First World War and Third Aliyah saw continued 

flow of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the beginning of organized 

Arab resistance. There were efforts by both Zionist and Arab leaders toward peaceful cooperation, but the forces impelling both sides 

toward conflict were ultimately more powerful. Arab leaders protested 

Jewish immigration and land purchases through the Ottoman Parliament and competed for political power among the Arab population 

by decrying against Zionism. On the Jewish side, continued depredations in Europe and the prospect of friendly English rule in Palestine 

gave Zionist leaders the confidence to press on, despite growing Arab 

antipathy. Because only about 10 percent of the land was cultivated, 

Zionist leaders continued to voice their position that by “redeeming 

the land” (i.e., draining swamps, planting forests, and making unused 

lands productive), Jewish pioneers would not be displacing Arabs but 

instead helping to fill up an empty land. Unfortunately for the Zionists, 

most Jewish immigrants during this period arrived in Palestine with 

few resources and even fewer prospects for employment. Only about 

four thousand of the new arrivals delved into productive agricultural 

work, with the rest largely unemployed.

In October 1914, the Ottomans made the fateful decision to throw 

in with the Central Powers. This decision led to war on multiple fronts: 

against the Russians to the east, the British and French along the 

Salonika Front, the British Gallipoli operation, the British-supported 

Arab Revolt, the Anglo-Indian campaign in Mesopotamia, and the Palestine Front when the British attacked from Egypt. The Ottomans grew 

suspicious of Russian-born Jewish immigrants in Palestine and brutally 

expelled some eighteen thousand of them. Under the supervision of 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

125

the vicious Ottoman governor, Jamal Pasha, the Turks viewed the Palestinian Jews as potential agents for their archenemy Russia, as well as 

infidels who threatened to take Muslim land.3

 Turkish soldiers cracked 

down on Palestinian communities, confiscating weapons and disallowing Jewish militias. Jews at Degania were abused and thrown out of 

homes expropriated to house German pilots seconded to the Turks 

during the war.

The war brought a complex and dangerous dilemma to Zionist 

communities and their supporters in Europe. Within Palestine, Jews 

generally favored the prospect of Allied victory, but they faced the real 

danger of Ottoman suspicion, repression, expulsion, arrest, or even 

massacre. Some took Ottoman citizenship and joined the Turkish 

Army. Others were expelled or chose to leave, and some wound up in 

Allied armies. Because Zionists lived throughout Europe, the organization allowed individuals and communities to support whichever side 

they inclined toward.

Pursuant to the successful conclusion of the war against the Central 

Powers, Britain and France settled into the matter of dividing up the 

former Ottoman Empire into various protectorates. The British interest lay mainly in the need to protect the Suez Canal and the vital link to 

British India. To that end the British cabinet worked with the Arabs during the war to stage an uprising in the vulnerable Ottoman rear, promising the Arabs, in return, British support for an independent Arab 

nation. At the same time the British had grown friendly toward Zionists 

through the good offices of Chaim Weizmann, Aaron Aaronsohn, Tory 

member of parliament (MP) Sir Mark Sykes, and others gave voice to a 

postwar British Palestine within which a Jewish homeland could thrive. 

By the war’s end, three key figures in the British government were solid 

supporters of Zionist goals: Prime Minister Lloyd George, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, and Minister of Munitions (formerly First Lord 

of the Admiralty) Winston Churchill. Sir Henry McMahon, the British 

high commissioner in Cairo, muddled through this seeming contradiction by simply leaving the postwar status of Palestine unmentioned in 

his correspondence with the sherif of Mecca, Hussein ibn ʿAli.4

A combination of factors led the British Empire to endorse Zionism decisively during the war. There was, no doubt, a genuine feeling 

among some that establishing a Jewish homeland was the right thing to 

do morally and ethically. But British thinking was likewise driven by a 

great deal of strategic calculation. Above all was Whitehall’s concern for 

protecting the Suez Canal against aggression from the north. Closely 

related to this was the need to maintain secure communications with 

India. The immediate military situation in 1917 also played a part in 

British sponsorship of Zionism, because some in the government felt 
126

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

that a clear and public statement in support of a Palestinian homeland 

for the Jews would appeal to influential American Jews and speed the 

United States’ entry into the war. A curious mixture of anti-Semitic suspicion and exaggerated respect for Jewish influence among the world’s 

governments motivated some Britons to support the Zionists lest Jewish agents work against the Allies. The British also found natural allies 

in the Zionists for their mutual desire to keep France out of Palestine. 

There was even a fear that the Germans might publicly support Zionism 

and swing Jewish (and world) support in their favor. The confluence of 

these trends led to a remarkable milestone in the Zionist insurgency: 

the Balfour Declaration of 1917.5

The declaration came in the form of a letter from the foreign secretary to Lord Lionel Rothschild on November  2,  1917. In it Arthur 

Balfour noted that Britain looked favorably on the establishment of 

a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It stipulated, however, that the civil 

and religious rights of non-Jewish communities would be respected. In 

this sense it left unanswered all the important questions concerning 

Palestine’s future, but it was enough for the Zionists to declare victory. 

Vagaries left space for action, and that was Zionism’s strong suit.

But the cascading effects of Balfour’s words were not so easily dispensed with. Anti-Zionists would forever insist that the declaration was 

not authorization for statehood but rather for a secure Jewish enclave 

within and under the authority of another sovereign power. Zionists, 

conversely, read the statement as synonymous (or nearly so) with a green 

light for statehood. They saw in Balfour’s words (and largely agreed 

with) his fundamental dismissal of the Palestinian Arabs as inconsequential, despite their numbers. The Jews were viewed as modern, European, friends of the Western powers and possessed of an indisputable 

historical right to Palestine. In future years, opponents would come 

to deprecate both the vagueness of the declaration and its imperial 

arrogance. The immediate reaction of the Arabs, including Hussein 

ibn ʿAli, was nuanced but conciliatory. ʿAli had no intention of giving 

Palestine away, but the full implications of Britain’s pro-Zionist stance 

were not yet understood. In any case, the Balfour Declaration voiced 

support for the Zionist cause, and its words would directly influence 

postwar diplomatic settlements, for the most part in the Jews’ favor.

The military movements that brought about the end of World War I 

were decisive in the course of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine. Aided 

by Jewish intelligence,a

 the British Army at long last launched its offensive from Egypt. The initial campaign in 1917 suffered several setbacks 

a Aaron Aaronsohn’s Nili Group provided intelligence on Turkish dispositions to British authorities in Cairo. See the Nili Group discussion in the Underground Component and 

Auxiliary Component section.
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

127

but culminated with General Allenby’s seizure of Jerusalem by the end 

of the year. The front stabilized thereafter, and it was almost a year 

later before British forces managed to defeat the Turks at Megiddo. 

The British Army also cooperated with Arab troops to the east, and 

through the combined pressure of the dual campaigns, Damascus fell. 

On October 30, 1918, the Turks signed an armistice, ending the war 

in the Middle East. The British controlled Palestine; the French and 

Arabs were both in Lebanon—the start of a coming conflict between 

them. Thus, the future of Palestine and the Zionist cause was firmly, if 

temporarily, in British hands.

Chaim Weizmann, then president of the British Zionist Organization, led a commission to Palestine as a preparatory step toward implementing the Balfour Declaration in early 1918. He toured the country 

and made his way eastward to meet with Faisal bin Hussein. Faisal 

had been persuaded by his British patrons to make peace with Zionism in service to the greater cause of Arab independence. He came to 

terms with Weizmann, and their formalized agreement in 1919 gave 

the appearance of solving potential future conflict between the Arabs 

and Jews in Palestine. But the agreement would have no real influence, because the Arab clans in Palestine deprecated any such arrangements, and Jewish control of Palestine would never find acceptance 

within Arab culture in general. Further, Faisal was crowned king of 

Syria and Palestine in March 1920, and in this role he opposed the 

goals of Zionism. His later ouster from Damascus at the hands of the 

French left him free to focus on Palestine and his growing antipathy 

toward the Zionists.

From the end of the war to the establishment of the British Mandate, the British Army ruled Palestine under General Allenby’s Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. The course of the occupation 

illuminated a key problem that would worsen with age: the distinction between the official policies emanating from Whitehall and the 

views of British officers and officials on the ground in Palestine. Many 

among the British, especially in the Army, held anti-Semitic views or 

were openly on the side of the Arabs. Throughout the period, policy 

and actual on-the-ground decisions vacillated between the ideals of the 

Balfour Declaration on the one hand and pro-Arabism on the other. 

The Occupied Enemy Territory Administration curbed Jewish immigration, which, for lack of funding, was drying up anyway. The situation was not changed much when the Mandate became official.

The international mood of the postwar world was against annexations and colonies, so the League of Nations instead created “Mandates” 

that the great powers would supervise with a view toward developing the 

indigenous populations for eventual autonomy. The British, by virtue of 
128

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

their military conquest of Palestine, secured recognition of the British 

Mandate, but its northern and eastern borders were a matter of dispute 

with Paris. Negotiations proceeded throughout the early 1920s, but neither the British nor the French were content with the various proposals that started with the Sykes–Picot Agreement of May 1916. Likewise, 

both the Zionists and the Arabs felt dissatisfied with the great powers, 

both sides having extracted promises that supported their ambitions 

for a Jewish homeland or state for the one side and a unified Arab state 

for the other.6

With the establishment of the Mandate, the British cabinet 

appointed Liberal Party politician Herbert Samuel, a Jew, as high commissioner in Palestine. His pro-Zionist convictions had not blinded him 

to the growing problem of Arab nationalism, and he crafted his policies in such a manner as to lend weight to Zionist self-reliance. In effect 

he endorsed the strategy of Practical Zionism by encouraging a gradual immigration that would strengthen the Jewish presence without the 

provocation of public policy declarations. At the same time he tried to 

woo the Arab elites by pointing to the Balfour Declaration’s insistence 

on defending the rights of indigenous populations. He tried to co-opt 

the leading Arab agitator, Haj Amin al-Husseini, by appointing him as 

the senior Muslim cleric in the country.

Winston Churchill, by this time the British colonial secretary, visited Palestine in 1921, where he met with Arab leaders and waved away 

their protests against the Zionist agenda. He insisted that the Jews had a 

right and a need to establish themselves in Palestine, and he continued 

to propagate the official line that Zionist success would bring benefits 

to the Arabs as well. In essence, British Zionists wanted the Palestinian 

Arabs to forgo their nationalist ambitions in return for promised individual and community benefits that would attend Jewish control of the 

region. It was a hopeless line of reasoning.

Churchill simultaneously gave Transjordan to Faisal’s brother, 

Abdullah, to fulfill wartime promises and as an economy-of-force 

measure—putting in place a British ally capable of defending the territory without the need of British troops. This move underscored the 

division between the Political and Labor Zionists on the one hand and 

the Revisionists on the other. Jabotinsky and the Revisionists felt deeply 

aggrieved by the decision to hand over to the Arabs a land they thought 

should be theirs. Left-wing Zionists did not relish the idea either, but 

their priority was establishing a viable homeland and eventually a 

state, and if Transjordan were to be the price of it, they were ready 

to acquiesce.

This period saw three major episodes of violence, described in 

detail in the Operations section of this chapter. In March 1920, Arabs 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

129

attacked several Jewish communities in northern Galilee, culminating 

in the Battle of Tel Hai. The Jewish settlers were forced out but later 

returned under British supervision. The following month, Arabs gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate Nabi Musa and, spurred on by Haj Amin 

al-Husseini, they rioted against the Jews there, killing five.

In May  1921, another wave of Arab violence engulfed Zionist 

enclaves, this time in the vicinity of Jaffa. A series of desultory marches 

and demonstrations gave way to Arab mob attacks on Jewish homes 

and businesses. A huge gathering of Arabs moved in to attack Petah 

Tikvah, but the settlers fought off the attackers until a British relief 

column arrived. Several other Jewish communities were attacked as 

well, and the resulting violence again shocked the Zionist leadership. 

The recurring themes included Arab policemen often joining the antiJewish mobs, British arriving late or not at all, and subsequent laxity in 

pursuing justice against the perpetrators. The riots, whether planned 

or spontaneous, also tended to push British policy toward further acts 

in favor of the Arabs. All this reinforced the notion among Zionists that 

if they did not defend themselves, the Yishuv would perish.7

Britain responded to the worsening violence with the 1922 White 

Paper, called the Churchill White Paper, which insisted that the Zionist 

home in Palestine would not come at the expense of the Arabs and that 

it would in no way rule the entire region. The White Paper pointed out, 

however, that the Jews were in Palestine “by right and not of sufferance” 

and that continued immigration would occur, restricted, however, by 

the region’s “absorptive capacity” (i.e., the degree to which Jews could 

arrive, find employment, and not encroach on Arab interests). Transjordan was officially detached from Palestine, and the Zionist hopes for 

immediate statehood seemed dashed. The League of Nations officially 

approved the British Mandate that year, and the following year saw its 

final ratification.

LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, 

AND COMMAND AND CONTROL

The men who rose to prominence during this period became the 

senior Zionist leaders who led the movement through two world wars, 

a war of independence, and the achievement of statehood. Unified by 

a desire for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the Zionist leadership was 

divided by its beliefs concerning the best way forward. The three main 

strategic ideas continued to be reflected in factions known by their 

main ideas: Political Zionism, Labor Zionism, and Revisionist Zionism. 

There were offshoots of these main three, but these factions constituted the decisive parts of the insurgency that culminated in 1948.
130

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Political Zionism

Chaim Weizmann was a Russian-born Jew who studied chemistry in 

Germany and Switzerland before settling in England in 1910. Dr. Weizmann lectured at the University of Manchester and during World 

War I supervised the British Admiralty’s laboratories. He invented a 

method for producing acetone, a key ingredient in explosives, which 

earned Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s sincere gratitude. Weizmann advised the British concerning a land campaign to wrest Palestine from Ottoman control, and in return for his services, he said that 

all he desired was a homeland for his people. Weizmann was friends 

with Lord Arthur Balfour, and he coordinated with the Conservative 

MP in crafting the policy that culminated in the Balfour Declaration 

of 1917.

Figure 8-1. Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann, 1921.

Weizmann represented a faction within Zionism alternately called 

Diplomatic, Political, or Synthetic Zionism. The synthesis in view was 

that between the older school of Theodor Herzl and Max Nordau, who 

favored a diplomatic strategy aimed at achieving a legally recognized 

Jewish homeland in Palestine through agreements with the controlling 

powers, and so-called Practical Zionism, which aimed at immediate 

and systematic Jewish settlement to establish a presence in the land. 

Weizmann’s view was characterized by unrelenting faith in diplomacy 

and cooperation, particularly with Great Britain.

Weizmann became president of the British Zionist Federation in 

1917 and president of the World Zionist Organization in 1920. He 

was instrumental in the creation of the Palestine Land Development 

Company in 1907, and the company reflected his view that, concurrent with diplomatic efforts, the Jews themselves must immigrate to 

Palestine, purchase land, and commence building communities and 

farms. He also pushed successfully for establishment of a science and 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

131

technology school, and in 1912 the idea came to fruition in the Israel 

Institute of Technology.

The First World War and its aftermath seemed to vindicate Weizmann’s views, as he scored a string of successes: the Balfour Declaration (1917), a diplomatic agreement of Jewish–Arab friendship that he 

signed with Prince Faisal bin Hussein bin al-Hashimi (1919), the provisions for a Mandate over Palestine at the Paris Peace Conference, the 

Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo that confirmed 

the British Mandate, and the Churchill White Paper of 1922 that codified and clarified the policy expressed in the Balfour Declaration. But 

ground truth in Palestine told a different story, and the seeds of the 

coming conflict with the Arabs and the British were well laid and germinating during the interwar years. The meeting between Weizmann 

and Faisal, a Hashemite prince, demonstrated the problem: the diplomacy deciding the fate of Palestinian Arabs was being conducted by 

prominent Arabs from outside of Palestine. The fundamental failure 

of the Arab clans in Palestine to find a common voice and press their 

claims for themselves would characterize the diplomatic situation 

through 1964. But Zionist diplomatic efforts would also fall short in the 

end. Weizmann’s preference for diplomacy and his willingness to rely 

on Great Britain’s good will would eventually eclipse his influence. The 

quintessential “European” Zionist, Weizmann would lose control of the 

Zionist insurgency to the leaders in Palestine who better understood 

the limitations of diplomacy.

During this period the various strains of the Zionist movement in 

Palestine continued to coalesce under two major groups that alternately opposed and cooperated with one another: Labor Zionism and 

Revisionist Zionism. Some Zionists tried to carve out a middle position, but the effective leadership of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine was 

in the hands of Ben-Gurion’s Labor Zionists, with a small but active 

minority in Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Zionists. Cooperation between the 

left and right was both crucial for the Zionists’ success and relatively 

easy to achieve during this period, because both factions were focused 

on the common challenge of establishing a viable Jewish homeland 

in Palestine.
132

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Figure 8-2. David Ben-Gurion in the British Army, 1918.

Labor Zionism

Labor Zionists continued to follow the teachings of Moses Hess and 

Ber Borochov—nineteenth-century European Jews who saw the lack 

of a Jewish working class as central to their vulnerability as a people. 

The solution, Hess insisted in an 1862 book, Rome and Jerusalem, was for 

the Jewish working class to return to Palestine and “redeem” the land 

through agriculture. Borochov agreed and explained that European 

Jews had been forced into an “inverted pyramid”—no working class 

and too many professionals—by gentile hostility. Emigration and a new 

start in Palestine would correct the pyramid as Jewish pioneers would 

establish socialist communities and build a society from the ground up.

David Ben-Gurion was the most prominent leader of Labor Zionism. At the outbreak of war, he helped form a platoon of Jewish militia, 

intending to fight for the Ottoman Empire. Despite his initial support 

for the Turkish regime, the Ottoman authorities arrested and deported 

him to Egypt. During the war he traveled to the United States to help 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

133

organize recruitment, at first with the intent of fighting for the Ottoman Empire. While in America, he settled in New York and married 

Paula Munweis, a Russian-born Jewish woman. In 1918 he enlisted in 

the British Army after the Balfour Declaration and joined the 38th 

Royal Fusiliers (Jewish Legion), which was part of Major General 

Edward Chaytor’s division in the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

With the death of Ber Borochov in 1919, Labor Zionism’s main 

political party, Poale Zion, split between left-wing Marxists and the 

more right-leaning nationalists. David Ben-Gurion and Berl Katznelson formed the anti-Marxist Ahdut HaAvoda party (which would in 

1930 become the Mapai party, leading mainstream Labor Zionism), 

with Ben-Gurion as party chief. Thus, from an early date Ben-Gurion 

was one of the key leaders working to establish the Jewish homeland. 

His ideology was socialist, anti-Marxist, and nationalist. In the wake of 

the Balfour Declaration, he and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi published a book entitled The Land of Israel, Past and Present in which he laid out his vision of 

the geographical extent of the future state: from the Litani River in the 

north to the Gulf of Aqaba in the south, and from El-Arish in the west 

to a line across the Jordan River in the east. In practice he would prove 

that he was more than ready to negotiate with the British and other 

international powers, but he entertained no illusions that the goals of 

Zionism would be summoned into being in Whitehall. Ben-Gurion saw 

that to pursue his objectives he would have to work through legal channels when possible and around them when not.

Zionist leaders during this period, including Ben-Gurion, were 

mainly immigrants from the Second Aliyah. Workers arriving from 

1904 to 1914, however, founded another party from within the labor 

movement—the pacifist and antimilitarist Hapo'el Hatza'ir (Young 

Worker) party. At first the party was in opposition to Poale Zion, but 

later years would see a key political marriage between Hapo'el Hatza'ir 

and Ben-Gurion’s Ahdut HaAvoda party, forming Mapai.

In 1920 newly arrived Third Aliyah immigrants pressed for a workers’ union, and the Histadrut (General Federation of Laborers in the 

Land of Israel) was founded. Ben-Gurion was central to organizing the 

effort, and he was elected secretary the following year. The Histadrut 

became the epicenter of economic development in Palestine, eventually owning factories and businesses, and it soon became the largest 

employer in the region. The organization sought to direct the course 

of settlement, employment, security, education, and culture for Jewish 

immigrants seeking a homeland in Palestine. Thus, Ben-Gurion and 

his allies in the Labor Zionist faction had a strong political party and a 

practical means for controlling the Yishuv (i.e., the Jewish population 

in prestate Palestine). Ben-Gurion’s strategy is instructive in the study 
134

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

of insurgency, because he used a strong labor organization to direct the 

flow and activities of Jewish immigrants toward the goal of establishing 

the Jewish nation in Palestine. His method was chiefly about building 

the nation through economics, political organization, and financial 

efficiency. Military and security matters were important, but they were 

secondary to the monumental task of importing and planting a Jewish population that would be viable and permanent. As the Histadrut 

grew in power and demonstrated its efficacy in absorbing immigrants, 

the Zionist Executive deferred to its accretion in political influence, 

largely because Ben-Gurion’s organization alone had the wherewithal 

to accomplish the task.

But even within the ranks of Labor Zionists, Ben-Gurion faced 

opposition. HaShomer Hatza'ir (The Youth Guard, founded 1913) was 

both a socialist movement among European Jews and the name of the 

political party that its advocates formed in Palestine in 1919. The movement and party focused on developing the kibbutz, a socialist, collective 

farming community. Its ideology favored secularism, psychoanalysis, 

and cultivation of youth to inculcate socialism, thus making the citizen a productive member of the community. The party endorsed a 

binational state in Palestine. Ahdut HaAvoda ultimately merged with 

HaShomer Hatza'ir, the urban Socialist League, and several smaller 

left-wing groups to become the Mapam party (1948), which in turn 

later joined with other parties to create Meretz (1992).

Revisionist Zionism

Labor Zionism’s chief ideological adversary was the Revisionist 

Zionist movement, founded in 1925 and led by Vladimir “Ze'ev” Jabotinsky (1880–1940). Representing the nonreligious right, the Revisionist movement would later give rise to the modern Likud party in Israel. 

The faction was so named because Jabotinsky called for a “revision” of 

the pragmatic Zionism of both Ben-Gurion and Weizmann. Revisionists desired, above all else, that Jews control the totality of Eretz Yisrael 

(i.e., the entire extent of biblical Israel, especially including both sides 

of the Jordan River). During this period the Revisionists saw all of the 

British Mandate as rightfully belonging to the Jews. When after the war 

London created Transjordan and the country came under Hashemite 

rule, it was a blow to Jabotinsky and his allies.
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

135

Figure 8-3. Ze'ev Jabotinsky.

Jabotinsky was born in Odessa into a family that had assimilated 

into Russian society. As a youngster he had little to do with Jewish faith 

and tradition, although he did learn Hebrew. As a teenager he became 

a journalist and traveled in that capacity throughout Western Europe. 

He eventually completed his education in law and became a lawyer in 

Russia. The Kishinev pogrom of 1903 convinced Jabotinsky to join the 

Zionist cause. But from the start he emphasized the need for Jewish 

self-defense as a necessary component for survival. He became infamous in Russia as the creator of Jewish self-defense organizations and 

responded to increased anti-Semitism with calls for strength, weapons 

training, and collective defense. He attended the Sixth Zionist Congress as a delegate and soon became the leader of right-wing Zionism.

Jabotinsky’s fiery rhetoric and skilled pen confronted Jewish assimilation and the Bund head on, insisting that European Jews had the 

right and duty to stand up and demand emancipation, equal treatment 

under the law, and full civil rights as Jews. Central to his philosophy 

was the concept of hadar—dignity. During the war he co-founded the 

Zion Mule Brigade that served in the Gallipoli campaign and later the 

Jewish Legion that fought in Palestine. Jabotinsky himself served during Allenby’s conquest of Palestine. He was eventually expelled from 

the Jewish Legion for political agitation, and he then concentrated on 

training and equipping Jews of the Yishuv for self-defense.

Close to the Revisionists’ chief goal, but never supplanting it, was 

their objective of creating a Jewish state, rather than just a homeland. 

Labor and Political Zionists shared this goal, but their unwillingness 

to press the issue with Britain stimulated Jabotinsky’s split from the 

Zionist Organization. During the First World War, Jabotinsky sought 
136

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

to cooperate with Britain and the Allies. But as British policy wavered 

and ultimately responded to Arab pressure, the Revisionists turned 

against Britain and began to evade and work around authorities. Later, 

the Revisionists would harden further against the British and fight to 

expel them. In 1921 Jabotinsky was elected to the Zionist Executive, 

but he resigned in 1923 because he felt that Weizmann was not acting 

strongly enough toward the British authorities in the Jewish interest. 

He also complained that Weizmann and the Executive were exclusively 

supportive of Labor Zionism.

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component

Modern definitions of an insurgency’s underground evoke clandestine groups that operate in areas—typically urban areas or other population centers—that are denied to the auxiliary and guerrilla forces. 

The Zionist Organization (founded in 1897 by the First Zionist Congress), its affiliates throughout Europe and the Diaspora, and the Palestine Office in Jaffa—absorbed into the Zionist Executive in 1921 and 

later (in 1929) designated as the Jewish Agency in Palestine—acted at 

times in an underground role. When possible, Zionists worked with the 

authorities—first the Ottomans and then the British. But when oppression, threat of arrest, or violence required it, they went underground. 

From the start of the movement in the late nineteenth century through 

this period, Zionist leaders organized grassroots movements throughout Europe and elsewhere to educate, motivate, and prepare people 

for emigration to Palestine. The Zionist Executive served to organize 

and supervise immigration and settlement. From an early date, this 

predecessor of the Jewish Agency worked when feasible through official channels, but when necessary it continued its work regardless of 

governmental permission.

Jewish villages, kibbutzim, and moshavim served as the auxiliary 

component during this period, because it was from within the population of Jewish communities that the guerrilla component emerged and 

enjoyed support. Because armed operations at this point mainly consisted in self-defense, the auxiliary actions were limited to situational 

awareness around the vulnerable enclaves and the training and equipping of the local militias. But in a larger sense, because the main thrust 

of Zionism at this stage was the building up of the Yishuv, auxiliary and 

support operations aimed less at military affairs and more at establishing and deepening the Jewish presence on the land.
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

137

Nili Group

In 1915 Ottoman authorities in Palestine called on prominent Jewish agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn to lend his expertise in dealing with 

a plague of locusts that had destroyed much of the region’s vegetation. 

Together with his sister Sarah and his associate Absalom Feinberg, 

Aaronsohn toured the country but also began to collect intelligence 

on the Turkish Army’s dispositions and strength. With much difficulty 

the group eventually convinced the British to cooperate with it from 

the base in Egypt. The Nili Groupb organized cells of spies and passed 

information to the British in Egypt, who in turn sent funds. The spy 

ring used personal messengers inserted by boat, homing pigeons, 

and other innovative methods, such as notes baked into bread loaves. 

The British Army under Allenby was able to exploit the intelligence 

Nili provided, but HaShomer and the Labor Zionists in general deprecated their actions. There was a general fear among the Jews that 

the Nili Group’s activities would bring Ottoman reprisals against the 

entire Yishuv. Some Zionists on the left also harbored suspicions off 

Aaronsohn’s right-wing politics.

The fate of Yosef Lishansky, an infamous Nili operative, illustrates 

the often troubled relationships among various Zionist groups. Lishansky, a Russian-born Jew, had immigrated with his family to Palestine 

in the late 1890s. He attempted to join HaShomer but was eventually 

rejected, in part because he led a raid that killed an Arab gang leader 

who was behind an attack on a Jewish village. HaShomer leadership 

wanted to avoid blood feuds with the Arabs and so expelled Lishansky. Disappointed but determined to serve in a paramilitary, Lishansky 

founded a rival militia he named HaMagen (The Shield), which operated in southern Palestine. In 1917 he turned his focus to working with 

the Nili Group and was valued for his knowledge of Arabic and the 

terrain in the south. He escorted Feinberg, who was attempting to get 

to Egypt, but the two were attacked by Ottoman guards. Feinberg was 

killed. Lishansky was left for dead, but he survived and completed the 

trip to Egypt. He returned to Palestine later that year to continue spying 

and eventually was forced to flee when Ottoman authorities intercepted 

a pigeon and deciphered the coded message, revealing the presence of 

a cell in Zikhron Ya'akov. Lishansky sought refuge with paramilitaries in HaShomer, but the group’s leaders decided to rid themselves of 

the troublesome spy and shot him twice, dumping his body. Lishansky, however, miraculously survived again and escaped. Later he was 

apprehended trying to steal a camel to escape to Egypt, and he was 

jailed in Damascus. Before he was hanged in December 1917, Lishansky 

b Nili is an acronym for the Hebrew phrase Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker, meaning 

"The Eternal One of Israel will not lie" (Samuel I 15:29), which served as its password.
138

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

revealed the identity of some members of both HaShomer and the Nili 

Group. Thus vilified by the Zionists, his reputation was rescued only 

after further investigation following the 1967 Six-Day War. Thereupon, 

Lishansky’s body was reinterred on Mount Herzl in 1979.8

Armed Component

Under British military occupation and, later, the British Mandate, it 

was illegal for Jews to maintain armed militias. The proscription was out 

of step with the reality of life among the Yishuv, however, and the Jews 

early on recognized that survival depended on their ability to defend 

themselves. Hence, during this period, the Labor Zionists, while promulgating their insistence on not provoking or overreacting to Arab 

violence, nevertheless conspired to maintain a capability for local selfdefense. As Arab resistance toward Zionism increased, Jewish leaders 

recognized the need for regional organization of the security effort.

HaShomer

HaShomer (The Watchmen) had been founded in 1909 with the 

aim of establishing a reliable, full-time self-defense capability to protect 

Jewish enclaves within Palestine. From the perspective of insurgency 

analysis, the institution is of interest because the Zionists had determined that they could not rely on official authorities for their defense: 

the Ottomans were not responsive to Jewish needs, and the Arab police 

frequently colluded with Arab attackers. The British Mandate brought 

increased order in Palestine, but British troops and police were too few 

to effectively defend Jewish communities even when they wanted to. 

The vision of founding members, including Israel Shochat, Alexander 

Zeid, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, was an organized defensive arm that would 

be responsible for defending all Jewish communities in Palestine. Thus, 

HaShomer was the first substantial step toward a national army. The 

organization cooperated with Labor Zionism and drew its members 

primarily from socialists. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire 

targeted the organization for expulsion. HaShomer survived the war, 

however, and was incorporated into the Haganah in 1920.

The Haganah

The 1920 Arab riots in Jerusalem during the Muslim festival of Nabi 

Musa convinced Zionist leaders that they could not rely on the British 

to protect the Yishuv. Instead, they established the Haganah (Defense), 

whose mission was to protect Jewish settlements, provide warning of 

impending Arab attacks, and repel any assailants. For the first nine 

years of its existence, the Haganah remained a loose association of 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

139

local militias and grew in numbers and organization only after the 1929 

Arab violence. The leadership of the Histadrut (i.e., Socialist Zionists) 

officially established the force and generally supervised it. The Haganah was an illegal entity under the British Mandate, but it was often 

effective in providing needed defense for Jewish communities as Arab 

violence grew.

Jabotinsky was active in helping to establish the Haganah, and his 

involvement was indicative concerning the degree to which the various 

factions and ideologies within the Zionist insurgency could find common cause. During the war and the postwar Arab violence, the entire 

Yishuv was threatened, perhaps with extinction. Both Ben-Gurion 

and Jabotinsky, as well as their allies, realized the need for Jewish selfdefense. The factionalism that deepened later occurred more over the 

matter of what to do with Jewish arms than with the need to have them. 

For the time being, the need was clear, and the Zionist leaders worked 

together to establish, train, and equip the embryonic Jewish army.

Public Component

The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine specified the creation 

of a “Jewish agency” and referred specifically to the Zionist Organization’s service as that agency:

An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised 

as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such 

economic, social and other matters as may affect the 

establishment of the Jewish national home and the 

interests of the Jewish population in Palestine, and, 

subject always to the control of the Administration, to 

assist and take part in the development of the country. 

The Zionist Organisation, so long as its organisation 

and constitution are in the opinion of the Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognised as such agency. 

It shall take steps in consultation with His Britannic 

Majesty’s Government to secure the co-operation of all 

Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of 

the Jewish national home.9

Chaim Weizmann, president of the British Zionist Organization, 

formed the Zionist Commission in 1918 as the First World War moved 

toward its conclusion. The Commission worked with the British, advising it how to administer the Jewish homeland. In 1921, the Zionist 

Commission was named as the Palestine Zionist Executive, to function 
140

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

as the Jewish Agency designated by the Mandate. From its inception 

the Jewish Agency (formally named in 1929) acted as the internal government of the Yishuv. It oversaw land purchases through the Jewish 

National Fund (JNF). It managed legal immigration. It also supervised 

schools, hospitals, and the Haganah.

The Jewish Agency was thus the most public of the Zionist institutions, and it was the locus for communicating the Zionist message to 

the world. The agency also maintained contact with Jews of the Diaspora and raised money through the World Zionist Organization. As the 

Zionist movement edged closer to becoming a full-fledged insurgency, 

the Jewish Agency and JNF continued to operate aboveboard as the 

public component.

IDEOLOGY

As discussed above there were many competing ideologies among 

the Yishuv and their Jewish supporters in the Diaspora—from hardline Marxists who wanted to replicate Soviet Russia in Palestine to the 

virulently anti-Marxist socialists and Revisionists. But the centripetal 

forces within the movement tended to be stronger because the entire 

community of Jews in Palestine (with the possible exception of the 

ultra-Orthodox who wanted nothing of a homeland or state) understood that their continued existence depended on cooperation. Future 

success at establishing a homeland or even a country would deepen 

the factional splits, but in the face of Ottoman oppression, growing 

Arab hostility, and the vicissitudes of British policy, the Jews needed 

each other.

Language continued to be a unifying influence among the Jews, 

and it is properly dealt with as an ideology because Zionist leaders 

deliberately cultivated the use of Hebrew as the vernacular for the purpose of reinforcing national integrity.

LEGITIMACY

The Zionist struggle for legitimacy intensified during the Third Aliyah, because the need for it grew proportionately with Arab hostility. 

The principal points of the conflict over legitimacy remained the Jews’ 

right to be in Palestine and to continue immigration there. During this 

period Zionists sharpened their arguments and aimed them primarily 

at Britain. Their chief points were that (1) the Jews needed a secure 

homeland as a bulwark against anti-Semitism; (2) the Jews’ redemption of the land was not overly burdensome for the Arabs and in fact 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

141

benefited them; (3) the Jews had ancient connections to Palestine and 

thus had a right to return there; and (4) the Jews had earned the gratitude of Great Britain by assisting it significantly during the war.

The Russian pogroms had continued to motivate Jewish immigration in the years leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. 

From 1903 to 1906, some two thousand Jews had died in Russian antiSemitic violence. But worse repression was to follow, despite the Jewish Bund movement’s hope for socialist revolution. Both the tsarists 

and Bolsheviks perpetrated violence on Russian Jews, leaving tens of 

thousands dead amid the turmoil of the revolution. Jews in Poland, 

one of the largest Jewish population centers in the world, continued to 

suffer under harsh laws and sporadic popular violence. Clearly, the liberal and socialist revolutions in Europe, despite their egalitarian rhetoric, were not going to provide succor to the Jewish people. Instead, 

argued the Zionists, only a Jewish homeland, where a Jewish working 

class could thrive in peace and safety, could secure the nation’s future. 

All other ethnicities, they argued, had a place of refuge. The Jews had 

only Palestine.

Regarding the problem of the indigenous Arab population, the 

Zionists continued to argue that only about 10 percent of the land was 

cultivated in Palestine, so the region could easily absorb more Jewish 

immigration. Hand in hand with this thesis was the palpable fact of the 

settlers’ progress. Citrus orchards, newly planted forests, and thriving 

collective farms demonstrated the Jews’ responsible management of the 

land. Further, the Zionists argued that immigration and redemption of 

the land was not a zero-sum proposition, but instead each step forward 

for the Jews produced benefits for the Arabs. The argument was in part 

disingenuous, but it was also partly true. Economic growth increased 

consumer demand, which in turn opened the door for further growth 

for both Jews and Arabs. How much of that potential was actually realized among the Arabs was, to the Zionists, a secondary matter and the 

responsibility of the Arab leadership.

The Jewish connection to the land of Palestine was also central to 

the Zionist arguments for legitimacy. The biblical narratives that composed the history and mytho-history of the Jews in Palestine were a wellspring of legitimacy for Zionists and their supporters. To underscore 

the point, Zionist leaders looked favorably on archaeological findings 

that might validate the stories in the Tanakh. Because Jewish pioneers 

were digging rocks from the soil, draining swamps, and otherwise taking root in the soil of Palestine, they occasionally overturned important 

artifacts dating back thousands of years. William F. Albright, a scholar 

in Near Eastern studies from the Johns Hopkins University, rose to 

prominence during this period and became the father of “biblical 
142

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

archaeology”—a field of study that sought to illuminate understanding 

of biblical narratives through archaeological findings in Palestine and 

elsewhere. Albright and the scholars who followed his lead contributed 

voluminous works on the archaeology of Palestine, most often concluding that the narratives in the Torah and the Writings were validated by 

recent finds. Later generations of archaeologists would dispute both 

his methods and conclusions, but Albright left a lasting legacy and one 

that Zionists favored.

Finally, the Zionists pressed on the British the point that they had 

well and faithfully served the crown during the war, and that their service, including the blood they shed to liberate Palestine, should engender British gratitude and cooperation toward Zionist goals. In 1914, 

with Britain committed to a war against the Ottoman Empire, Herbert 

Samuel published a memorandum entitled “The Future of Palestine.” 

In it he proposed that, after the war, Palestine be made a Jewish homeland within the British Empire. The Jewish state would afford strategic 

protection for British Egypt and would realize Zionist goals. His proposal and ideas helped influence the later Balfour Declaration. During 

the war, Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor had co-founded the Zion 

Mule Corps that served in the failed Gallipoli campaign and later the 

Jewish Legion that fought both in Italy and Palestine. For these and 

other contributions, the Zionists insisted that they had earned their 

coveted homeland in Palestine.

A new phase of the struggle for legitimacy emerged during this 

period, but the focus was internal to the Yishuv and in a wider sense to 

the Jews of the Diaspora, especially in Europe. The question was which 

Zionist faction should rightfully direct the course of the Jewish national 

development in Palestine. Labor Zionists of David Ben-Gurion’s faction 

remained in a dominant position, chiefly due to their control of the key 

institutions: the Histadrut, the Palestine Executive, the JNF, and the 

Haganah. But Revisionists attacked both Political Zionists (e.g., Chaim 

Weizmann) and Labor Zionists, arguing that they were too conciliatory 

toward the British. Jabotinsky and his followers feared that left-wing 

Zionists placed too much faith in diplomatic deals and promises and 

that they would sell out the two most important goals toward which all 

Jews should strive: Jewish control of all of Palestine and the expeditious 

establishment of a Jewish state.

Right- and left-wing Zionists fought for legitimacy by deprecating 

the others’ actions. The “establishment” Zionists of Labor and Political 

Zionism pointed to the string of impressive diplomatic successes they 

had scored through peaceful and determined cooperation with Britain 

and the international powers. The Revisionists countered that British 

policy was wavering, having made contradictory promises to both Arabs 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

143

and Jews. Although Jabotinsky was willing to work with the British, he 

grew increasingly disenchanted and fearful that they would sell out the 

Jews in favor of the more numerous Arabs. The growing importance 

of oil, and the British obsession with maintaining peace among Indian 

Muslims, underscored Britain’s need to placate Palestinian Arabs, and 

Jabotinsky was certain this would come at the Jews’ expense.

The long-term trend was that Labor Zionists in general, and David 

Ben-Gurion in particular, would win the legitimacy battle. Indeed, it 

was not until Menachem Begin’s political triumph in 1977 that rightwing Zionism would finally break Labor’s hold on power. The chief reason that Labor Zionists consistently won the battle for legitimacy was 

that they delivered jobs, international recognition, and relative security.

MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR

The outbreak of world war punctuated the course of Zionism with 

a largely unforeseen episode whose violence and upheaval forced the 

insurgency in Palestine into a struggle for survival. Ideological nuance 

gave way to a desperate desire to hang on and outlast the violence. 

Those not forcibly expelled were driven to a level of hardship barely 

imagined in the heady optimism of the early colonial period. Among 

the Yishuv, settlers and laborers bowed to the brutal repression of Jamal 

Pasha and looked to those Zionist leaders who remained for succor and 

direction. Surrounded by hostile Arabs, hateful Turks, and a dried-up 

economy, they hung on and hoped that the resolution of the war would 

bring better times.

During this period the Zionists won over the majority of the Palestinian Jews because they demonstrated their ability to influence the 

international powers who would decide Palestine’s fate and they were 

able to obtain and distribute needed supplies and money. The early 

years of the British Mandate seemed full of promise, and the Jews generally looked on the resulting governance with optimism and relief. 

Under British protection, the Jews who survived the war could again 

turn to the ideals of the Zionist cause and seek to build their lives with 

the hope of peace and security.

The episodes of Arab violence that plagued the postwar years demonstrated the Zionists’ willingness to defy authority and fight for themselves. Determined to stay in Palestine and disenchanted by wavering 

British support, the Zionists considered that they had no choice but to 

arm themselves and fight back against Arab attacks. Many faced arrest 

and prosecution for doing so, but their successes in defending their 

communities set a precedent—that even when outnumbered and outgunned, the Jews could prevail and defend their holdings.
144

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

OPERATIONS

During the war and the Third Aliyah, there were distinct episodes 

in the military, administrative, and political aspects of the Zionist insurgency that had lasting influence on the movement.

Paramilitary

Battle of Tel Hai

Tel Hai was an outpost in northern Galilee that, together with 

three other villages, became a key Jewish enclave that Zionists wanted 

to retain in order to control the headwaters of the Jordan River. First 

established in 1908, it was subjected to the postwar border disputes 

between British and French diplomats wrestling to define the border 

between their respective Mandates. From December  1919 through 

February  1920, Arabs had sporadically fired on Tel Hai, killing two 

defenders. Joseph Trumpeldor, a Russian-born Jew who had served as 

an officer in the tsar’s army, marched with ten militiamen from neighboring Kfar Giladi to defend the settlement. On March 1, 1920, Arabs 

from a nearby village approached Tel Hai and demanded access to the 

gated village under the pretext of wanting to search for French soldiers. 

Shots rang out, and a general firefight ensued in the confusion. An 

attempted cease-fire was wrecked when a Jewish defender, unaware of 

the negotiated truce, opened fire on retreating Arabs, which restarted 

the battle. In the end six Jews had been killed, including Trumpeldor. 

Zionist leaders, including Ben-Gurion, wanted to maintain the Jewish 

presence, because they saw it as necessary to mark the northern boundary of the future state. But under intense military pressure and with 

dwindling ammunition, the Jews eventually retreated from the area 

after Bedouins also attacked Kfar Giladi. Later that year, pursuant to 

an agreement between the British and French, the Jews returned.

The battle, although a small-scale affair, had lasting significance 

and scholars often point to it as the first skirmish of the Arab–Israeli 

conflict. Joseph Trumpeldor was mortally wounded in the fight, and 

his dying words have become an inspiration for defiant Zionists ever 

since: “No matter, it is good to die for our country.” The outpost of Tel 

Hai was eventually reoccupied when Kfar Giladi and the surrounding 

area officially became incorporated into the British Mandate.

Nabi Musa Riots

Arab leaders in Jerusalem sparked a riot in early April 1920 on the 

occasion of the festival of Nabi Musa. They had been stirred to violence by the Balfour Declaration three years prior (and the annual 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

145

celebrations of it since) and their general understanding that the British intended to set aside majority rule in Palestine in favor of the Jews. 

King Faisal’s accession to the Syrian crown excited nationalist fervor, 

and the news of the Battle of Tel Hai likewise stimulated intense antiJewish sentiment. Adding to Arab antipathy, Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Pinhas 

Rutenberg began openly training and equipping Jews to defend their 

communities, despite British authorities refusing them permission.

On Sunday, April 4, around sixty thousand Arabs had congregated 

in Old Jerusalem for Nabi Musa, the festival in honor of the prophet 

Moses. Amin al-Husseini and others spouted anti-Zionist rhetoric to 

the crowd, which responded by commencing attacks on Jews. For the 

next several hours, the Arabs ransacked the Jewish Quarter, destroying 

Torah scrolls and injuring many. Looting, rape, and murder continued 

through Wednesday, when British authorities finally reasserted control. 

In all, Arabs had murdered five Jews and injured more than two hundred. The British crackdown resulted in four Arab deaths.

In the aftermath of the riots the British commissioned the Palin 

Inquiry, which concluded that the underlying cause of the disturbance 

was a general Arab disappointment in the postwar betrayal of Arab 

independence, intense objection to the Balfour Declaration, and grave 

suspicion of the Zionists’ ambitions in Palestine. The new British civilian government that took over from the military occupation proceeded 

to arrest various instigators among both Jews and Arabs. Amin alHusseini fled to Syria after posting bail. Ze'ev Jabotinsky was arrested 

and imprisoned on arms possession charges, but he, along with most 

of those prosecuted in the wake of the riots, was given amnesty after 

a year.

The riots marked an important milestone because they reinforced 

in the Zionist leaders’ minds that the Jews would not be able to rely on 

the British for protection and that they would have to take on the task 

of defense themselves. This conclusion led to the establishment of the 

Haganah in June 1920. For most of the first decade of its existence, 

the Haganah remained a loose confederation of local militias, and its 

growth and efficient organization would happen only after the 1929 

Arab riots.

Jaffa Riots

On May 1, 1921, Marxist Jews in Jaffa organized an unauthorized 

march to celebrate May Day. The socialist party Ahdut HaAvoda had 

obtained permission to demonstrate, but the Marxists used the occasion to parade from Jaffa into Tel Aviv. This sparked a conflict between 

the two Jewish groups, and when police attempted to disperse the Marxists, a general disturbance grew. Arabs from Jaffa rose up, thinking 
146

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

that Jews had attacked Arabs, and rushed into the conflict, systematically attacking innocent Jews, breaking into homes and businesses, and 

murdering the unfortunate Jews who could not escape. Forty-seven 

Jews were murdered in the violence, including Yosef Haim Brenner, an 

influential Zionist writer and teacher.

The violence spilled into other communities and ran its course in 

about a week. During the episode, the Jewish communities were forced 

to defend themselves. British forces arrived to quell the violence at 

Petah Tikvah, but other communities had to rely on themselves. The 

riots demonstrated to the Zionists that the problem of Arab nationalism would not go away and that the Jews had to be ready to defend 

themselves against overwhelming numbers.

Administrative and Financial

The wartime economy in Palestine suffered gravely because crucial 

financial and economic links with Western Europe and Russia were 

terminated when the Ottomans joined the Central Powers. Famine, disease, unemployment, inflation, and misery beset both Arabs and Jews, 

along with outright hostility from the Turkish authorities. As a neutral power, the United States could still have access to the region, and 

the Jews in Palestine appealed to their brethren in America for help. 

The United States responded with some $1.25 million in aid, funneled 

through the Palestine Executive—an arrangement that buttressed 

Zionist legitimacy among the Yishuv.10

Financial organization and efficiency continued to underpin the 

Zionist success throughout this period. The JNF, founded in 1901, 

continued to buy land and provide funds for forestation and agriculture, which was foundational to continuing Jewish immigration. The 

JNF represented both a symbolic and pragmatic connection between 

the Zionist pioneers and the Jewish Diaspora. In many Jewish homes 

throughout the world, families maintained a small blue or white tin 

box, known as a pushke, used to collect money for the development 

of the Jews in Palestine. By the end of the British Mandate, Jews and 

Zionist institutions owned about 7 percent of the land mass of Palestine (approximately twenty-seven thousand square kilometers) and the 

Arabs owned about 25 percent; the rest was state lands of various types.

Philanthropy also benefited the Zionist enterprise as it had in previous periods. Yehezkel Sassoon, Iraqi finance minister and philanthropist, contributed funds necessary for the purchase of Jezreel Valley 

lands. Baron Edmund de  Rothschild likewise continued his support 

for Zionist settlements and institutions. The network of benefactors 

grew and included prominent American Jews and others friendly to 
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

147

the cause. Their support was crucial to the Jews’ survival during the 

war and to the success of their economy afterward.

Political

The political situation of the Zionist insurgency in Palestine was 

volatile with the outbreak of World War I, the product of a confluence 

of historical ironies. Many among the Yishuv were of Russian background, but for the most part they hated the Russian regime. Still, the 

Ottomans were suspicious and worried that Zionists in Palestine might 

operate as a fifth column and forthwith expelled leaders who ran afoul 

of the regime. In Germany and Austria-Hungary, Zionist Jews were 

initially loyal to their parent countries, with the result that the Zionist Organization proclaimed neutrality. Within Palestine, Zionist leaders had no choice but to voice their support for their Ottoman rulers. 

But as the war ground on toward its conclusion, British Zionists foresaw benefit in an Allied victory, and they gravitated in that direction. 

The Balfour Declaration in 1917 sealed the deal, and from that point 

on, Zionist aspirations were aligned with Allied—and especially with 

British—success.

During the First World War, Zionist leaders in Britain looked to 

Great Britain to represent their interests in what was to be postwar Palestine. Chaim Weizmann pressed the issue among his allies in the British cabinet, including fellow Zionist Herbert Samuel. In 1915, Samuel 

authored a proposal for a Jewish state in Palestine that would become 

part of the British Empire and whose sacred sites would be supervised 

by an international commission to allow free access to Christians and 

Muslims.11 Samuel’s proposal and its influence within the government 

of Prime Minister Lloyd George represented a high-water mark in 

Zionist–British cooperation. But postwar wrangling over the great powers’ areas of influence, along with growing hostility within the Arab 

world against perceived British favoritism toward the Jews, would contribute to a gradual but unrelenting dilution of British resolve to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

The Zionists and their allies in the British cabinet based their 

demands for control of the headwaters of the Jordan and Yarmuk Rivers on economic necessity. Chaim Weizmann, in his role as president 

of the British Zionist Federation, formed the Zionist Commission in 

March 1918 to investigate the situation in Palestine and make recommendations to the British cabinet, pursuant to the Balfour Declaration. 

Weizmann insisted that Jewish plans to plant forests and cultivate Galilee would founder without unfettered access to the critical water supply. 

In 1920 the British won over a French delegation toward a definition 
148

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

of Palestine as including the ancient lands “from Dan to Beersheba”—

which would include the important headwaters of the Jordan River. It 

is likely that the French enjoyed compensation for this new generosity 

in the form of oil rights in Mesopotamia. Despite this newfound flexibility among the French ministers, the premier himself—Alexandre 

Millerand—continued to resist any northward revision of the Sykes–

Picot boundary. In the end the boundary was fixed so that the Palestine 

Mandate would include territory from Dan (also known as Banias) in 

the north—thus including the headwaters of the Jordan—southward 

to include the mouth of the Yarmuk, but French Syria still retained part 

of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

The diplomatic conflict between the French and British concerning the boundaries between their two spheres of Mandatory control 

was colored by typical great power paranoia, nationalism, and a genuine concern for meeting the expectations of their subject populations. 

London’s chief interest in the Middle East was, of course, Egypt and the 

Suez Canal, but secondary and tertiary interests also pertained. These 

included the nation’s growing interest in oil and the cultivation of good 

relations with both Jews and Arabs. It was inevitable that the Zionists’ 

hopes for unadulterated devotion from Whitehall would not be realized, because Arab interests were trumpeted from many points on the 

compass. Herbert Samuel had chosen Haj Amin al-Husseini as grand 

mufti in Jerusalem in an effort to appease his Arab constituency, but 

the mufti was soon to become a virulently anti-Zionist agitator.

Likewise, Emir Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi, who cooperated with the Allies in World War I and led the Arab Revolt against the 

Ottomans, was initially viewed as a friend to Zionism. Proclaimed king 

of Syria in March 1920, he was quickly ousted by French forces fighting 

for control of Paris’s new Syrian Mandate. Later, as the installed king of 

Iraq, Faisal struggled to maintain good relations with the British while 

he pursued his dream of Arab unity. By the time of his death in 1933 he 

had lobbied London against further Jewish immigration into Palestine, 

because he observed the decline of Arab fortunes there and he had to 

placate his Arab allies.

The British cabinet also cooled in its advocacy for the Jews out of 

concern for the empire’s Muslim population, particularly in India. Radical Islamists insisted that Palestine—once absorbed into Islam—could 

never be given away. There was also the matter of the holy city of Jerusalem, the supposed site of Muhammad’s translation to heaven and 

home to the Dome of the Rock. British attempts to accommodate the 

Jews’ dreams of mass migration to Palestine were thus interpreted on 

the Arab streets as an affront to Islam and a deathblow to pan-Arabism.
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

149

But as had occurred since the earliest Zionist immigration in the 

nineteenth century, the Jewish pioneers throughout this period continued to make their way to Palestine and occupy lands at the direction of their leaders, despite the conventions of Whitehall. After the 

British liberation of Palestine, the chief limit on immigration was lack 

of finances. Even under Herbert Samuel’s friendly reign as high commissioner, Jewish immigration remained small in scale. But in the early 

years of the Mandate, immigration would pick up significantly.

ANALYSIS

As we examine the period of the First World War and Third Aliyah, 

it is instructive to again analyze whether the Zionist movement during this period was an insurgency, an ongoing nation-building enterprise, or something in between. Reflecting again on modern military 

doctrine, Joint Publication  3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations, defines 

insurgency as “the organized use of subversion and violence by a group 

or movement that seeks to overthrow or force change of a governing 

authority.”12 The Zionist leaders in the early twentieth century did not 

emphasize violence or subversion and, in fact, often urged restraint 

even when faced with bloody reprisals from the Arabs. But the definition also contemplates the overthrow or replacement of a government, 

and in this light Zionist activities were in concert with the practice of 

insurgency. Before World War I, Herzl, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, and 

others wanted to work with Ottoman authorities to establish a Jewish 

homeland in Palestine. When their diplomatic efforts were thwarted, 

however, they were determined to continue building up the Jewish 

presence despite official indifference or hostility. When the sudden 

outbreak of war and the Ottoman government’s decision to throw in 

with the Central Powers radically changed the situation in Palestine 

and birthed the potential for a very different postwar government, the 

Zionists eventually looked with hope on the prospect of an Allied victory. The question of Jewish autonomy and statehood lingered on the 

edges of official discussions, but the Zionists’ strategic goal of a Jewish 

homeland persisted. Obviously, if the Zionist dream of a substantial 

Jewish enclave in Palestine were realized, it would lead to a change of 

some sort in the governance of Palestine—a change that the Ottoman 

authorities would surely resist. Thus, Zionism’s objectives implied insurgency, even if the means during this period were not in accord with our 

modern definition.

Violence did play a part in Zionist activities during the Third Aliyah, but it was mainly aimed at defending embryonic Jewish communities from attack. Bedouins and other hostile Arabs would occasionally 
150

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

attack Jewish villages or ambush convoys. Although the Jewish Agency 

called for restraint, Zionist leaders realized that their enclaves would 

have to develop some capability to defend themselves and the larger 

community as a whole. Thus, this period saw the establishment of 

the Haganah—the clandestine Jewish defense organization—that 

would later culminate in the creation of the Israeli Defense Force. It 

was an illegal organization under the British Mandate, but it quickly 

became an effective and indispensable part of Jewish life in Palestine. Its existence brought the Zionist movement a major step closer to 

full-fledged insurgency.

Subversion describes actions designed to undermine the military, 

economic, psychological, or political strength or morale of a governing authority.13 It includes the use of propaganda both in the target 

country and abroad to publicize the insurgency’s ideology. The period 

of the Third Aliyah witnessed an indirect form of Zionist subversion 

aimed not at undermining the de facto British authorities but rather 

at forcing the realization of Zionist goals in British Palestine—with or 

without official permission or cooperation. Zionist leaders continued 

to highlight the depredations against Jews in Europe, the ancient Jewish connection to Palestine, and the accomplishments of hardworking Jewish pioneers in making Palestine more productive for all. At 

the same time Jewish leaders insisted that the problem of the Arab 

indigenous population was not really an issue, because Jews were settling on formerly unproductive land, and, according to Zionist propaganda, Jewish nation-building efforts were visibly improving the lives 

of the Arabs. Likewise the Jews were not above evading, lying to, and 

bribing Ottoman officials in order to continue the flow of immigrants 

into Palestine.14

Thus, Zionism during the First World War and Third Aliyah operated in a gray space—something more than nation building, something 

less than a full-scale insurgency. It is for this reason that it is instructive 

to examine the movement through the lens of insurgency to illustrate 

that modern insurgencies do not suddenly appear spontaneously but 

rather develop out of legitimate peaceful competition that is, for various reasons, driven underground.

NOTES

1 Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: Harper, 2008), 30; ProCon.org, s.v. “IsraeliPalestinian Conflict, Pros and Cons,” last updated September 17, 2010. http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000636; and MidEast Web, s.v. 

“Population of Palestine Prior to 1948,” accessed February 4, 2014, http://www.mrbrklyn.

com/resources/arab_population_before_israel.htm.
Chapter 8. WWI and Third Aliyah (1914–1923)

151

2 Ibid.

3 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: 

Vintage Books, 2001), 39–42.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 John J. McTague, “Anglo-French Negotiations Over the Boundaries of Palestine, 1919–

1920,” Journal of Palestine Studies 11, no. 2 (1982): 100–112.

7 Morris, Righteous Victims, 101–103.

8 Shmuel Katz, The Aaronsohn Saga (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2007).

9 “The Palestine Mandate,” Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon 

Project, accessed August 15, 2014, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.

asp.

10 Morris, Righteous Victims, 85.

11 Herbert Samuel, The Future of Palestine, memorandum presented to the British Cabinet in 

January 1915, via Wikisource, last modified on August 15, 2014, http://en.wikisource.org/

wiki/The_Future_of_Palestine.

12 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations

(Washington, DC: United States Government, 2009).

13 Ibid., II-1-2.

14 Morris, Righteous Victims, 39.

CHAPTER 9.

THE INTERWAR PERIOD AND

FOURTH AND FIFTH ALIYAHS (1924–1939)

O Arab! Remember that the Jew is your strongest 

enemy and the enemy of your ancestors since olden 

times. Do not be misled by his tricks, for it is he who 

tortured Christ (peace be upon him) and poisoned 

Muhammad (peace and worship be with him).

—Arab leaflet, Jerusalem, 1929

We shall rebuild what has been destroyed . . . I have 

a profound mystical belief that our work in Palestine 

cannot be destroyed.

—Arthur Ruppin, diary entry, October 25, 

1929, cited in Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History

(New York: Harper, 2008), 61–62

Before these [British] islands began their history, a 

thousand years before the Prophet Mohammed was 

born, the Jew, already exiled, sitting by the waters of 

Babylon, was singing: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 

may my right hand forget its cunning.”

—Alfred Duff Cooper, House of 

Commons debate, 1939

155

The Fourth Aliyah (1924–1929) saw rapid changes in immigration 

trends, as 82,000 Jews emigrated from Poland to Palestine to escape 

the economic downturn and harsh anti-Jewish laws. In 1927 twice as 

many Jews left Palestine as arrived, mostly due to economic downturn. 

During the Fifth Aliyah, from 1929 through 1939, Jewish net immigration exceeded 216,000. The United States and Great Britain indirectly 

added to the numbers flowing into the region because of their own 

restrictions against Jewish immigration at the moment that Jews most 

needed a safe haven. The Stalinist crackdown in Russia stemmed the 

flow of Jews to Palestine, but with the rise of Hitler in Germany, many 

Jews began to flee Central and Eastern Europe, with the result that 

by the outbreak of the Second World War, Jews accounted for nearly 

30 percent of the population of Palestine.1

With the dramatic increase in immigration, violence exploded 

throughout Palestine in the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939. By this time 

Zionism, although still a legitimate movement overall, had developed 

a complex and effective insurgency to deal with the British authorities 

and Arab resistance. As the conflict between Jews and Arabs deepened, 

world events conspired to sharpen the divide and complicate matters 

abroad. The oil reserves in Arab-held lands mesmerized Great Britain 

and the Western powers in favor of the Arabs. But the harsh regimes in 

Germany presented Western leaders with a growing moral imperative 

to help the Jews.

TIMELINE

1925 Hebrew University opens on Mount Scopus.

1927 The Fifteenth Zionist Congress strengthens the Histadrut 

and enhances urban development.

1929 Arab riots leave 133 Jews and 116 Arabs dead.

1936–1939 The Arab Revolt unleashes widespread violence against 

the Jews and the British. Great Britain responds with 

increased restrictions on immigration.

1937 The Peel Paper endorses the Jewish position, suggesting 

that immigration creates its own “absorptive capacity.” 

The Peel Commission recommends partition; the Zionists 

agree in principle, but the Arabs reject it.

1938 Revisionists host the World Conference in Prague, 

demanding a Jewish state on both sides of Jordan River 

and deprecating “Old Zionists” and the Jewish Agency 

as traitors.

March 1938 The British enforce severe restrictions on Jewish immigration as Hitler’s pressure on German Jews increases.
156

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Summer 1938 Arabs and the Irgun trade reprisal raids and terror, 

resulting in many deaths. Labor Zionists and the Jewish 

Agency condemn Irgun actions.

1939 The MacDonald White Paper codifies severe restrictions 

on Jewish immigration and promises eventual Arab control of Palestine. In response to illegal Jewish immigration, MacDonald temporarily stops all immigration and 

thereafter curbs it severely.

SUMMARY

This chapter describes the Fourth Aliyah (1924–1929) and Fifth 

Aliyah (1929–1939). The Fourth Aliyah resulted from the economic 

crisis and anti-Jewish policies in Poland, which stimulated thousands of 

Jews to flee. Because the United States and Great Britain were simultaneously cutting back on Jewish immigration into their countries, 

the flow from Poland brought eighty-two thousand Jews to Palestine 

(although some twenty-three thousand departed Palestine during this 

period). Unlike previous waves of immigrants, most of the Polish refugees belonged to the middle class and brought modest sums of capital 

with which they established small businesses and workshops. Tel Aviv—

Palestine’s first Jewish city—grew. Thus, the Fourth Aliyah served to 

strengthen urban development among the Yishuv and laid the foundation for Jewish industrial strength.

More immigration and more capital were needed. In terms of population percentages, the Jews were beginning to lose ground to the 

Arabs. Philanthropic support for the Yishuv began to dry up, in part 

because of the Depression, and unemployment among the Jews rose 

to 5 percent. Stalin’s crackdown in Russia brought immigration from 

that quarter to a standstill, but trends to the west were to change the 

numbers again.

The Nazi accession to power was the driving force behind the Fifth 

Aliyah. German Jews, finding the new regimes unbearable, fled—at 

first with the cooperation of the Nazis. Many of the immigrants from 

Germany were professionals, and they provided both expertise and 

leadership in the difficult years that followed. Within a four-year period 

(1933–1936), 174,000 Jews settled in the country. Jewish towns flourished as new industrial enterprises were founded and construction of 

the Haifa port and the oil refineries was completed. The idea of a modern, successful, and secure Jewish homeland began to attract greater 

attention among prominent Jews in the Diaspora, including in Iraq, 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

157

Persia, the United States, and, of course, Europe. At the same time, as 

anti-Semitic pressure grew in Europe, only Denmark, the Netherlands, 

and the Dominican Republic offered unrestricted immigration. By 

default, then, Palestine grew in importance for Jews needing to relocate.

Starting in 1937, Jewish pioneers began to employ “stockade and 

tower” tactics to rapidly establish defensible communities throughout 

Palestine. During this period—in 1929 and again in 1936–1939—

Arabs rioted against the Jewish presence and immigration. The British 

authorities, driven mainly by the empire’s desire to placate Indian Muslims and potential Arab allies, responded by severely restricting and 

then halting legal immigration. Determined to drive on toward their 

goals and desperate to save European Jewry, the Zionists resorted to 

Aliyah Bet—clandestine, illegal immigration. By 1940, Jews accounted 

for nearly 30 percent of the population of Palestine.

If the Zionist movement from the nineteenth century to the interwar 

period treaded the boundary between legitimate nation building and 

irregular warfare, this period saw the commencement of a full-fledged 

insurgency. London’s desultory but decisive turn against the Zionists 

forced the Zionists to look to their own resources—clandestine, illegal, 

subversive, and violent—to maintain their hold on Jewish territory in 

the face of Arab assaults. The British occasionally worked with Jewish 

paramilitaries, but both the Haganah and the Irgun operated clandestinely to defend Jewish communities. The deepening divide between 

Labor Zionists and Revisionist Zionists played out as the Irgun waged 

a campaign of terror and reprisals against the Arabs, while the Jewish 

Agency strove to maintain a legitimate enterprise.

BACKGROUND

Throughout the first six months of 1929, Arab hostility toward Jews 

praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem had intensified. In August, the 

anger touched off anti-Jewish violence, and it spread rapidly. A Jew was 

murdered in Hebron. On August 24 an Arab mob attacked the Jewish 

section of Hebron, killing more than sixty Jews, including women and 

children. The violence spread to Beit Alpha, Motza, and Safed, where 

forty-five Jews were wounded or killed. By the end of the uprising, 133 

Jews and 116 Arabs had died. Six Jewish communities were abandoned.

Arms were flowing into the Arab militias from Transjordan, the 

Hejaz, and Syria. Musa Kazim Pasha, president of the Arab Executive 

in Palestine, warned the British that an armed uprising was imminent if 

the Jewish national home program went forward. In an attempt to find 

a modus vivendi, a group of Jewish intellectuals and officials, including 

Arthur Ruppin, founded Brit Shalom (Alliance of Peace), whose policy 
158

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

was to advocate for a binational state with equal representation for both 

Jews and Arabs. The Zionist leadership did not approve of such measures.

The British responded to the riots with a Commission of Inquiry. 

In March 1930, the resulting report charged the Zionists with going 

far beyond the levels of immigration called for in the Churchill White 

Paper, exceeding the absorptive capacity of the country and thereby 

inflaming the Arabs. The Passfield White Paper of October 1930 froze 

land transfers and sought to curb immigration. The suggested policy 

enraged both Jews and Arabs. The former saw it for what it was: a change 

in British policy and a retreat from the Balfour Declaration. The Arabs 

insisted that all immigration be stopped completely. In anger Weizmann resigned as president of the Zionist Organization. He protested 

to the British that the Jewish situation in Eastern Europe was deteriorating quickly and that Jews there needed to immigrate. In response to 

his impassioned pleas, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald relented. In 

the “Black Letter” of February 1931, he revoked the former policy decisions and went so far as to compliment Weizmann on the progress the 

Jews had made. But the Zionists could foresee trouble ahead.2

The Arabs had the advantage of numbers, and this fact allowed 

them to insist on democratic rule (i.e., one man, one vote) in Palestine 

in accordance with the Wilsonian philosophy of the League of Nations. 

The Jews realized what democracy would mean for them (as a minority, 

they anticipated all such “democratic” decisions going against them) 

and so based their arguments on the historical plight of their race, 

insisting instead on a model of one people, one vote. In this they saw 

themselves as the vanguard of the millions of Jews they hoped would 

soon immigrate. The British remained firmly caught in the middle. 

Whitehall, with its mixture of pro-Zionists and anti-Zionists, did not 

want to offend either side. But if such offense were unavoidable, there 

was a growing consensus that it would be more dangerous to the empire 

to alienate the Arabs. They held the precious oil reserves, and their coreligionists in India might well revolt against the British if the Jews had 

their way in Palestine.

Despite opposition both in Europe and in Palestine, immigration 

continued. In 1925 the town of Afula was founded in the Jezreel Valley. Kfar Baruch moshav followed in 1926, and the following year saw 

the Beit Zera kibbutz founded in Galilee. Also in 1927, Dr. Siegfried 

Lehmann founded the Ben Shemen youth village near Lydda. Lehmann worked to establish good relations with local Arabs and led his 

students on tours designed to acquaint them with Arab culture and 

engender trust and cooperation. In 1932 the last group of pioneers to 

escape Stalin’s regime established Afikim kibbutz south of the Sea of 

Galilee. Also that year, moshavim Kfar Azar (east of Tel Aviv), Kfar Bilu 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

159

(near Rehovot), Kfar Yonah, and Avihail (halfway between Haifa and 

Tel Aviv) were founded. David Ben-Gurion also urged that Jews settle 

the Negev Desert region in the south of Palestine, in part to exploit 

the mineral wealth of the region and in part to secure access to Umm 

Rashrash, future site of the port of Eilat.

By 1932 the Jewish presence had grown to more than 190,000 and 

accounted for about 17 percent of Palestine’s population. But Jewish 

immigration was matched and exceeded at times by the influx of Arabs. 

British infrastructure improvements and the economic benefits of the 

Jewish growth attracted more and more Arabs. The crowds of often 

unemployed or underemployed Arabs were vulnerable to manipulation 

from Musa Kazim Husseini and Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler came to power, and the new Nazi regime would 

prove a stimulus for another wave of Jewish immigration, at first with 

German cooperation. The sudden influx of immigrants challenged 

the Zionist infrastructure, and Labor leaders, including Mapai leader 

Chaim Arlosoroff, director of the Jewish Agency Political Department, 

worked to smooth the absorption. As part of his efforts he opened negotiations with the Nazis in an attempt to achieve equitable disposition of 

Jewish property. His efforts resulted in the Transfer Agreement with 

the Nazis, in which Jews were permitted to immigrate to Palestine with 

some of their wealth. This benefited the immigrants and the Yishuv as 

a whole, and the Germans agreed to it so as to rid themselves of the 

Jews while obtaining some of their property. His negotiations with the 

Nazis attracted the ire and suspicion of right-wing Jews.

Arlosoroff was a Ukrainian-born Jew who lived in Germany, where 

he had earned a doctorate in economics before immigrating in 1924. 

After witnessing the 1929 riots, he took the position that the Zionists 

should seek better relations with the Arabs, and he criticized the Revisionists for their provocations of Muslims in Jerusalem. Arlosoroff was 

instrumental in achieving the union of the Ahdut HaAvoda faction of 

Poale Ziona

 and Hapo'el Hatza'ir,b which merged into the Mapai party. 

Mapai became the mainstream Labor Party that led the Yishuv through 

the 1940s and the State of Israel (with coalition partners) through 1977.

In his quest for better relations with the Arabs, Arlosoroff organized a meeting between Labor Zionist leaders and leading Arabs from 

Transjordan in April 1933. Revisionist and Religious Zionists from the 

Mizrachi party criticized Arlosoroff and demanded he resign from the 

Jewish Agency. His trip to Germany later that year further inflamed 

a Poale Zion was originally founded as a Marxist party, but Ahdut HaAvoda split off 

from it under David Ben-Gurion’s leadership. Ben-Gurion was anti-Marxist.

b Hapo'el Hatza'ir (Young Worker) was a pacifist party opposed to Poale Zion.
160

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

right-wing Zionists, who accused him of collaborating with the Jews’ 

enemies. Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Zionists insisted on no deals 

with the hated Nazi regime and instead pressed for a boycott on German goods. The antipathy between Revisionists and Labor grew.

On June  16,  1933, assailants murdered Arlosoroff while he was 

walking on the beach with his wife. Three suspects were named, 

including a prominent Revisionist Zionist, Abba Ahimeir, whose rightwing newspaper constantly attacked Labor leaders and policies and 

had vilified Arlosoroff as a traitor. All three were subsequently acquitted of the murder, and the crime remains unsolved. Most historians 

agree that Revisionists or Arabs assassinated Arlosoroff. In any event, 

the murder served to further inflame relations between Labor and 

Revisionist Zionists.3

Jabotinsky’s Revisionists continued to provoke both Labor and the 

British. In 1934 they began to arrange for ships to transport illegal 

immigrants to Palestine. The Royal Navy intercepted most of the traffic, but the Revisionists’ call for Jewish statehood and control of both 

sides of the Jordan were in contravention to the Jewish Agency’s policy 

of avoiding discussion of statehood and working with the British. The 

establishment Zionists had firm control of the major political institutions, but the Revisionists’ passionate arguments for Jewish nationalism, strength, dignity, and retribution were popular among Jews weary 

of Arab violence and British indifference.

The years 1935 and 1936 saw vastly increased immigration (in part 

because of the Nuremburg Laws and the repression that followed), 

which drew the attention of the British and the outrage of the Arabs. In 

1937, however, Lord Peel headed up a commission to look into the situation in Palestine and concluded that rather than overtaxing absorptive capacity, the increased immigration was stimulating the economy 

(especially housing and infrastructure construction), which in turn 

increased the capacity of the country to take in more immigrants. By 

the end of 1936, the Jewish population had grown to over 380,000, just 

under 30 percent of the population of Palestine.

Such numbers could not go unnoticed, and the Arab leadership in 

Palestine was outraged. In April 1936, Arabs murdered two Jews traveling 

near Nablus. The Revisionists’ illegal paramilitary, the Irgun, responded 

with reprisal killings near Tel Aviv. In May Arab leaders insisted on a 

halt to Jewish immigration and land purchases and the establishment of 

an Arab government. Arabs across the country began to attack Jewish 

farms and businesses. The violence continued through the summer into 

the fall, with 80 Jews killed by October, along with 140 Arabs and 33 British. The Arab Revolt lasted, in phases, until spring 1939.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

161

Figure 9-1. Map of the Royal Commission’s Partition Plan.
162

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

On July 7, 1937, the Peel Commission findings were published, recommending a partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab 

state. The paper stated that the Arabs were discontent and fearful that 

the Jews would soon dominate them and take over control of Palestine. 

They also objected to the “modern” character of Jewish developments 

in the land, which offended traditional Arab culture. They wanted 

national independence, just as had been granted in Iraq. The commission concluded that the British Mandate had become dysfunctional 

and should be abolished and replaced by a Jewish state and an Arab 

state. The Jews were to have Galilee (less the eastern shore of the Sea 

of Galilee), the Jezreel Valley, and a portion of the coastal plain that 

stretched from south of Tel Aviv to the Lebanese border. The Arabs 

would receive the remaining parts of Palestine, including the Negev 

but excluding Jerusalem and the corridor leading to it from the coast, 

which would be governed by the British.

The Arab leadership rejected any sort of partition and hardened 

its stance, insisting that the British had to choose between the Arabs 

and the Jews. The Twentieth Zionist Congress in Zurich took up the 

matter and formally rejected the proposed partition while at the same 

time encouraging further negotiation and accepting the notion of partition as a basis for a solution. Both Ben-Gurion and Weizmann felt 

that the proposal could be seen as a start, with the actual and permanent borders to be decided later. The leaders of the Zionist left were 

excited by the prospect of succeeding to a legal, recognized state much 

sooner than originally envisioned. Jabotinsky rejected partition completely, writing to Churchill that requiring the Jews to give up Jewish 

land would not be acceptable and would not leave adequate room for 

further settlement.4

The Arabs renewed the revolt in September 1937, and right-wing 

Jews struck back in retaliation each time the Arabs murdered Jews. 

With the murder of Galilee’s district commissioner Lewis Andrews on 

September 26, the British cabinet deliberated, searching for another 

answer to the conflict. The British outlawed the Arab Higher Committee, exiling its members or forcing them to flee the country (as did Haj 

Amin al-Husseini in October 1937). Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden 

issued a memorandum suggesting that to placate the Arabs, Britain 

should back away from giving the Zionists any sovereign territory at all.

By 1938 the lines of ideological conflict between the right-wing 

Revisionists and left-wing Labor were etched in the Jewish policy on 

ongoing Arab attacks. Labor, through the Jewish Agency, insisted on 

restraint. The Revisionists remained just as adamant that every act of 

terror would bring retribution in full. As the Arab Revolt entered its final 

year, each Arab attack was met almost immediately by a proportionate 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

163

act of terror by the Irgun. In June, the British government took the 

drastic step of executing Shlomo Ben Josef, who had fired shots at an 

Arab bus. For the Jews it was another dramatic step toward a break with 

Great Britain.

Throughout the summer right-wing Jews and Arabs engaged in 

escalating blood feuds. Bombings, stoning, and gunfire punctuated 

the tense standoff. Labor Zionists and those who followed their lead 

condemned the Jewish reprisals as dangerously provocative and morally bankrupt. But soon the different Arab factions were at each other’s 

throats, creating blood feuds and animosities that were to last for a 

generation, vastly weakening Palestinian society.

The final prewar blow to the Jews came in the form of the infamous 

1939 White Paper. The British decided to limit Jewish immigration to 

a mere seventy-five thousand over the next five years and thereafter to 

subject any further immigration to Arab approval—which meant zero. 

Within ten years the Arabs were to be granted majority rule and the 

right to legislate for themselves. The obvious product of the White Paper 

would be the end of Zionist aspirations for a state or even for a secure 

homeland. It demonstrated clearly that Great Britain had abandoned 

its support for Zionism and that the Jews were on their own. That the 

Yishuv did not rise up decisively against the Mandatory authorities was 

due in part to the onset of world war. David Ben-Gurion perceived the 

need to join with Great Britain to defeat the Nazi threat. Accordingly, 

he counseled that the Jews “fight with the British against Hitler as if 

there is no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there is no war.”

His statement encapsulated the Zionist wartime policy well. With 

no hope in legal immigration, the Jews turned to Aliyah Bet—illegal 

immigration. At the same time the Haganah (and later the Irgun) foreswore violence against the British for the time being, so as to concentrate efforts against Germany.

Despite the apparent success of the Arabs in moving British policy 

in their favor, the extended revolt had cascading effects that actually 

worked to the Jews’ advantage. Palestinian Arab leadership had been 

fractured and dispersed. For the duration of World War II, the vacuum 

left behind would not be apparent, but when the Arab–Jewish conflict 

resumed afterward and sprinted toward its culmination in 1947–1948, 

it became apparent that the Arabs had suffered paralyzing disruption 

that inhibited their ability to unify their efforts at the critical moment.
164

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, 

AND COMMAND AND CONTROL

As in previous years the Zionist insurgency remained bifurcated 

between Labor Zionism and Revisionist Zionism, with numerous 

smaller factions trying to carve out their positions as well. In 1930 BenGurion’s Ahdut HaAvoda party and Hapo'el Hatza'ir (Young Worker) 

fused into the Mapai party, which included all of mainstream Labor 

Zionism. Ze'ev Jabotinsky continued to lead Revisionist Zionism, and 

the ideological differences between the two deepened during this 

period. The main catalysts for the conflict between the two poles were 

growing British indifference toward the Jewish cause and the Peel 

Commission’s proposal to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an 

Arab state. Labor Zionists generally favored such a scheme, although it 

threatened to cut into the muscle of the Yishuv’s territory. Revisionist 

Zionists deprecated any suggestion of partition and instead insisted on 

Jewish control of the entire Eretz Yisrael, including both sides of the 

Jordan River. The outburst of Arab violence underscored the philosophical differences between right and left as well, with Labor Zionists 

insisting on restraint while Revisionists called for vigorous defense and 

retribution against Arab attacks.

Labor Zionists and the Jewish Agency

Within the Labor movement two main factions vied for control. The 

Marxist HaShomer Hatza'ir (Young Watchmen) called for a binational 

state. Mapai (Party of the Workers of the Land of Israel) remained 

staunchly socialist (and anti-Marxist). David Ben-Gurion led Mapai 

and remained steadfastly against a binational solution.

The Zionist Executive—the operational branch of the World Zionist Organization—continued to be the principal Jewish governmental 

structure in Palestine, but in 1929 it was renamed the Jewish Agency 

to bring it in line with the League of Nations Mandate, which called 

for “the recognition of an appropriate Jewish agency as a public body 

for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration 

of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect 

the establishment of the Jewish National Home and the interests of 

the Jewish population of Palestine.”5

 It was the primary organizer of 

Jewish immigration, which in turn was the engine of the growing Zionist insurgency. Technically a legitimate nonprofit organization, during 

the interwar period and beyond its leaders resorted to illegal immigration to rescue Jews fleeing from Europe and continue toward the Zionist goal of building up the Yishuv. It also acted as a public component 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

165

and a means for Zionists to maintain contact with the Jews of the Diaspora, inspiring them to either immigrate to Palestine or support the 

Zionist cause.

The Jewish Agency, drawing its finances from contributions and 

taxation on the Yishuv, purchased land and supervised the absorption 

of immigrant Jews, establishing moshavim and kibbutzim throughout Palestine. When authorized by British Mandatory officials, it carried out its duties legally and aboveboard. When the British withheld 

permission for immigration, the Jewish Agency acted clandestinely to 

continue the flow of refugees into the country. It established and ran 

schools and hospitals, and in the face of growing violence from the 

Arabs, it supervised the Haganah to defend the Yishuv.

In 1929 the Jewish Agency was enlarged and reorganized to include 

selected non-Zionists who had interests in the development of the Jewish economy and people in Palestine. Chaim Weizmann was the driving 

force behind the change, and his intent was to encourage teamwork 

among all Jews, including those who opposed the Zionists’ ambitions. 

Weizmann faced opposition within the World Zionist Organization, but 

his views prevailed—one of several key milestones in the effort to bind 

together disparate political views to achieve unity within the Yishuv. 

The new members of the Council of the Jewish Agency included prominent Jews such as writer H. N. Bialik and physicist Albert Einstein. It 

also included non-Zionists such as prime minister of France Léon Blum 

and Herbert Samuel, the first high commissioner of Palestine under 

the Mandate. The group also included more than forty American Jews. 

The British Board of Deputies served as a constituent body.6

 But the 

Jewish Agency Executive became the government of the Yishuv until 

1948, when it was replaced, in May, by the Provisional Government of 

the State of Israel.

Chaim Weizmann formally headed the Jewish Agency as president 

of the World Zionist Organization (1920–1931), with Nahum Sokolow 

as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive (1929–1931), and he was 

a champion of working with London toward the realization of Zionist goals in Palestine. But in the wake of the 1929 Arab riots, a British 

Commission of Inquiry—influenced in part by the cabinet’s desire to 

placate the Arabs and prevent a Muslim uprising in India—voiced concerns that Zionists were overreaching and encroaching on Arab lands 

and rights. The 1930 White Paper threatened to reduce Jewish immigration and signaled the beginning of a volte-face in London that would 

turn British policy against Jewish interests. Weizmann’s position in the 

Jewish Agency became untenable, and he resigned. Nahum Sokolow, a 

famous Hebrew journalist, author, and translator, served as chairman 

from 1931 to 1933 and was succeeded by Arthur Ruppin.
166

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Ruppin had worked tirelessly in the cause of Zionism, and he 

was instrumental in the transformation of Jewish Palestine from the 

nineteenth-century colonial model into the twentieth-century socialist 

model featuring moshavim and kibbutzim. He became infamous for 

his work in eugenics, and he favored settling Palestine with what he 

considered the more racially pure Ashkenazi Jews over the Sephardic 

and Oriental Jews. Until the 1929 riots, he had endorsed the notion of a 

binational state in cooperation with the Arabs. But the bloodshed and 

the apparent weakness of the British to defend the Jews convinced him 

that only a Jewish state would serve to protect the Jews. He served as 

chairman of the Executive Council from 1933 to 1935.

In 1935 David Ben-Gurion took over the leadership of the Jewish 

Agency. Socialist and anti-Marxist, Ben-Gurion remained hopeful 

that Zionism could advance through a combination of building up 

the Yishuv, in both numbers and economic strength, and diplomacy 

with the British authorities and other world powers. He strove to find 

common ground with Arab leaders, publishing We and Our Neighbors

in 1931. He met with Awn Abd al-Hadi, founder and general secretary 

of the Palestinian Istiqlal party, and the two initially tried to come to 

terms. Ben-Gurion’s philosophy was that both the Jews and the Arabs 

wanted independence but independence for the Jews, who had only 

Palestine, relied on their political control of the country. For the Arabs, 

on the other hand, their many lands and vast population would guarantee their independence without the need for autonomy in Palestine. 

He tried to assure al-Hadi that Arabs could remain in the land under 

benevolent Jewish rule. Al-Hadi, although considered a moderate, 

voiced hostility toward Zionists and later helped to instigate the Arab 

Revolt of 1936–1939. Ben-Gurion’s attitude toward Arabs would harden 

after the revolt, but throughout this period, Ben-Gurion was a voice for 

cooperation and restraint, even in the face of Arab violence.7

He was a realist nonetheless. After the 1929 riots Ben-Gurion reorganized the Haganah with the intent of creating a national Jewish 

militia that could coordinate the defense of all Jewish settlements. He 

was convinced of the need for arms, training, and resolute military 

leadership within the organization, but he likewise saw the wisdom of 

restraint in the face of Arab terror attacks. He feared that retaliation 

would lead to general war between Jews and Arabs and that widespread 

violence might prompt the British to curtail the Zionist enterprise. 

Thus, during the interwar period, Ben-Gurion sought to continue 

building Jewish settlements and to secure those settlements with sufficient defense capability, and he worked tirelessly to promote Zionism 

through diplomacy.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

167

Likewise, Ben-Gurion wanted to work with the British Mandatory 

authorities when possible. When the Arab Revolt of 1936 began, the 

Peel Commission investigated the causes and recommended partition 

as the solution for Jewish–Arab violence. Ben-Gurion accepted the 

notion of partition in principle, but the Zionists were skeptical of the 

actual plan, which gave the Jews only 17 percent of Mandate Palestine 

and would leave many Jewish settlements under Arab control. Labor 

Zionists’ acceptance of partition as a potential step toward statehood 

deepened the divide between them and the Revisionists. Later, when 

the British, in an attempt to mollify the Arabs, began to restrict Jewish 

immigration, Ben-Gurion came to the realization that the Jews could 

not rely on London and would have to sustain Zionism through their 

own devices.

Revisionist Zionists

Ze'ev Jabotinsky continued to lead Revisionist Zionism—so-called 

because he wanted to revise what he saw as pragmatic, colonial, antiquated policies that relied on compromises with the British and Arabs. 

His tough stance appealed to many disenchanted Jews. In 1931 he was 

elected to head the Betar youth movement—a wellspring of energetic 

young Jews and a potential reserve of immigrants willing to work and 

fight for Israel. Jabotinsky initially favored working with the British to 

establish a Jewish state as a loyal member of the British Empire. But 

London’s compromises with Arab leaders, their growing interest in 

Arab oil, and their paranoia toward inciting an uprising among Muslims in India soured him. The Peel Commission’s suggested partition 

struck right at the heart of Revisionist ideology and guaranteed that 

Jabotinsky and his allies would turn against the British. Frustrated 

with the conciliatory and compromising direction that Labor Zionists 

were following, Jabotinsky resigned from the Zionist Organization and 

founded his New Zionist Organization in 1935. He reasoned that the 

governments in Europe that wanted to be rid of the Jews might align 

with him diplomatically, because Palestine was the only viable outlet for 

Jewish emigration. Thus, Jabotinsky broke with the Zionist Organization to pursue an independent diplomacy with world powers.

During this period the Revisionists sought two goals: Jewish control of Eretz Yisrael (i.e., the entirety of Palestine, including both sides 

of the Jordan River) and Jewish statehood. Of the two goals, the first 

was more important, at least to Jabotinsky. Both objectives were to be 

delayed by British intransigence and Arab resistance, but the Revisionists responded by hardening their attitude. The Peel Commission made 

permanent the ideological split between Revisionists and Labor, and 
168

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

the Arab Revolt convinced Jabotinsky and others that the time had 

come for retributive violence as a means to protecting the Yishuv. While 

Ben-Gurion called for restraint and kept his hand on the Haganah, 

Jabotinsky unleashed the breakaway group the Irgun (The National 

Military Organization in the Land of Israel) and directed retaliatory 

terror attacks against the Arabs and, later, the British.

In 1930–1931, members of the Haganah, especially in its Jerusalem branch, led by Jerusalem branch commander Avraham Tehomi, 

became dissatisfied with the group’s overly defensive posture during 

the 1929 riots and broke away from the organization. They set up a 

new clandestine organization called Irgun Haganah Bet (or the Second Defense Organization). In 1937, against the backdrop of the 

Arab Revolt and the murder of dozens of Jews by Arabs, the Revisionists—using Betar youth movement cadres and Irgun Bet veterans—

established the Irgun. Tehomi and other ex-Haganah members soon 

returned to the Haganah.

It is notable that the radically different ideologies and practices of 

Labor and Revisionist Zionism did not irretrievably split and emasculate the Jewish insurgency. The centripetal forces of ethnicity, language, 

overall goals, and shared history proved to be stronger than the centrifugal forces that drove a wedge between the two factions—differences 

in diplomatic approaches to Britain, in policy toward Arab violence, 

and in reactions to the principle of partition. Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky were political rivals and embraced opposing philosophies, but both 

wanted essentially the same thing: a secure Jewish state. This common 

goal would necessitate and facilitate a measure of cooperation between 

the two factions, and it would ultimately prevent civil war. Labor Zionists far outnumbered the Revisionists and remained dominant.

Orthodox Resistance to Zionism and Religious Zionism

Both Labor and Revisionist Zionism were secular ideologies, but 

their schemes played out among a people whose culture had deep religious roots in a region of the world many deemed The Holy Land. 

European immigrants populated a spectrum of belief—from atheist to 

ultra-Orthodox. New generations of Jews in Europe tended to embrace 

Reform or Conservative Judaism, but some immigrants and many of 

Palestine’s indigenous Jews were of the old faith, and a large Orthodox 

community had resided in Jerusalem since long before the first Zionists 

arrived. Religious Jews continued to influence the historical development of Zionism, and the Orthodox community eventually split in how 

it viewed the movement.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

169

Orthodox Judaism from the start looked on the Zionist movement 

with suspicion. Religious Jews found offense in Theodor Herzl’s secularist approach, and many felt that the Zionists were attempting to intrude 

on the prerogative of the coming Messiah—the only one authorized 

by God to establish the Kingdom of Israel again. Indeed, there was a 

long tradition within Orthodox Judaism concerning the eschatological relevance of the Diaspora and how the faithful should respond to 

it. According to the doctrine of the Three Oaths, based on allegorical 

interpretation of the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible, Jews under 

gentile masters were to obey their governments and avoid any mass 

return to Palestine until the arrival of the Messiah. The gentiles, in 

turn, were not to overly oppress the Jews. This line of thinking among 

Orthodox Jews predisposed them to opposition against Zionism.8

Israel de Haan emerged as an example of how Judaism’s Orthodox 

roots might threaten the cause of the Zionists. De Haan was born in the 

Netherlands and became a writer and journalist. His novels included 

homoerotic detail that implied that he was homosexual. A later marriage 

that ended in separation seemed to confirm this, but de Haan became 

famous primarily because of his journalistic sympathy toward the fate 

of Russian prisoners, whom he visited during investigatory journeys. He 

worked to bring diplomatic pressure on Russia to alleviate prison conditions, and his efforts were later viewed as a precursor to that of Amnesty 

International. In 1919, pursuant to his work among Jewish prisoners in 

Russia, he immigrated to Palestine and arrived there as an ardent supporter of Zionism. But his sympathies soon began to change.

De Haan’s arrival deepened his interest in the Jewish religion, and 

he soon found himself at odds with Zionists over their widening conflict with Palestinian Arabs. Although at first he aligned himself with 

Religious Zionism, he eventually migrated politically to Agudat Yisrael, 

the Haredi political party founded in opposition to Zionism. He was 

soon appointed as the party’s foreign secretary, and in that role he met 

with British authorities in Egypt, where he expounded on alleged scandals and oppressive behavior of the Zionists. He likewise reached out 

to Arab leaders, appealing for them to support non-Zionist religious 

Jewry in Palestine and assuring them of the loyalties of the Orthodox 

Haredi community. His literary and journalistic credentials gave him a 

wide readership throughout the British Empire, and the Zionists began 

to fear and hate his influence.

On June 30, 1924, Avraham Tehomi, a Haganah agent, assassinated 

de  Haan. The perpetrator was not discovered until sixty years later, 

when journalists interviewed Tehomi and he admitted the crime. He 

explained that he had been ordered to the task by his superior in the 

Haganah, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, later president of Israel. Tehomi denied that 
170

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

the murder had anything to do with de Haan’s sexuality and instead 

insisted it was necessary because de Haan was threatening the legitimacy of the Zionists’ work. The assassination shocked the world and 

brought unwanted scrutiny of the Zionists.9

One extreme group that typifies Orthodox resistance to Zionism 

is the Neturei Karta—The Guardians of the City (of Jerusalem). Consisting of several hundred families, most living in the neighborhood 

of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, the Neturei Karta viewed Herzl, BenGurion, and the Zionists as heretics and idolaters, likewise condemning any Jew—including fellow Orthodox Jews—who cooperated with 

the Zionists and later with the State of Israel. The group became infamous after 1948 for refusing to accept any aid from the state and even 

met with Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and President Ahmadinejad of Iran. The group routinely 

expresses its desire to live in an Arab-controlled Palestinian state.10

On the other end of the spectrum of Orthodox Judaism was Abraham Isaac Kook (Rav Kook). A Russian-born Jew, Kook immigrated 

to Palestine in 1904, spent World War I in England and Switzerland, 

and then returned as the first Ashkenazi rabbi of Mandatory Palestine. Kook was a child prodigy and authored many religious works and 

philosophical commentaries on Jewish thought. He was noted for his 

outreach to secular Jews and his openness to new ideas, despite his 

thorough grounding in the Torah.

Rav Kook viewed Zionism as a good thing, despite its secular roots. 

He developed the theory that God was using secular Zionism and the 

international situation to bring about the arrival of the Messiah and 

that the Jewish movement into Palestine was religiously significant. 

This interpretation earned him the suspicion of other Orthodox rabbis, but it also sustained a wide audience for him among both secular 

and religious Jews. In 1924, Kook established Mercaz HaRav Kook, the 

first Religious Zionist yeshiva. Kook’s ideas slowly gained traction, but 

Hitler’s rise to power and the subsequent Holocaust sparked a mass 

conversion to his ideas among religious Jews. In the wake of the horrors 

that unfolded in Europe, nearly all Jews came to embrace the Zionist 

ideals to some degree.11

The relationship between political Zionism and the Jewish religious 

community would continue to be a troubled and nuanced one. Orthodox Judaism split over the issue, with Religious Zionists supporting the 

cause on the one hand and the anti-Zionist factions denouncing it as 

heretical on the other—even to the point of collaborating with Arabs 

and other Muslims against the Zionists. The Haredi community continued to try to carve out a space for itself within the growing Zionist 

enclave, and its struggle continues today.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

171

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component

The Jewish Agency remained a legitimate and very public governing body throughout the interwar period, but it also engaged in 

underground operations—chiefly regarding illegal immigration and 

paramilitary operations.

With Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and continued pressure 

in Eastern Europe, European Jews slowly awoke to the growing threat 

and sought refuge in other countries. The United States and Great 

Britain absorbed some of the fleeing Jews, but domestic constituencies became restive at the accretion of immigrant Jewish populations, 

and in response political leaders began to restrict the flow—at the very 

moment when the Jews most needed security. The crisis was not lost on 

the Zionists in Europe or Palestine, and leaders searched for the means 

to rescue European Jewry before the looming shadow fell. At the same 

time Britain came under pressure from the Arabs, who felt that their 

dream of a pan-Arab nation—including Palestine—had been betrayed. 

The violence escalated in Palestine with two notable episodes—the 

1929 Arab riots and the more sustained Arab Revolt of 1936–1939. The 

British cabinet, with one eye on the growing importance of oil and 

British economic interests throughout the Arab world and the other on 

potential Muslim uprisings in India, responded by calling for and then 

implementing severe restrictions on Jewish immigration.

Zionist leaders saw no alternative but to proceed with clandestine 

immigration. To acquiesce in the British policies would be tantamount 

to consigning their European brothers and sisters to whatever horrors 

Hitler and his cronies might have in store for them. They termed the 

secret operation Aliyah Bet after the name of the second letter of the 

Hebrew alphabet (and also an abbreviation of bilti ligalit, or illegal). 

The Haganah set up a special organization—Mossad le-Aliyah Bet—to 

handle the operations.

Shaul Meirov (later Shaul Avigur) was a Latvian Jew who emigrated 

to Palestine at age twelve and studied at the Gymnasia Herzlia high 

school. He founded SHAI (Sherut Yediot—Information Service), an 

intelligence wing of the Haganah, and also supervised prewar illegal 

immigration as the head of Mossad le-Aliyah Bet. To organize the 

mammoth task of bringing European Jews into Palestine illegally, he 

had ten agents in Europe working for him. In addition to forming 

SHAI, he also organized Jewish counterintelligence and supervised the 

clandestine Jewish defense industry.

Large-scale illegal immigration began in 1934 with the arrival of 

the chartered ship Vallos, bearing 350 Jews from Europe. The Jewish 

Agency had not authorized the movement for fear that the British 
172

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

might respond by closing down legal immigration, but when the refugees arrived, the Haganah assisted with their entry into Palestine. As 

the war in Europe approached, more ships followed and the Royal Navy 

was tasked with stopping them, in some cases actually firing on the 

ships. Some immigrants were stopped before they could escape Europe, 

and many whose flight was stopped later died in the hands of the Nazis. 

In 1938, the Poseidon was hired to fetch refugees from Europe, and it 

made it to Palestine without detection from the Royal Navy. Aliyah Bet 

was to continue throughout the war and beyond, and the operations 

became a touchstone of the growing enmity between Great Britain and 

the Zionists.

Armed Component

The Haganah

HaShomer had been the initial attempt to organize self-protection 

among the Yishuv in the early 1900s. Later, Jabotinsky and other Zionists had created the Jewish Legion to assist the British during World 

War I. Established in 1920, the Haganah was a loose confederation of 

militias, each responsible primarily to its own community. Haganah 

commanders voiced their desire to maintain a well-organized underground paramilitary so the group did not have to depend on the British, but some among the Zionist leadership, in their quest to work 

with London, wanted to subordinate the Haganah to the Mandatory 

authorities. Instead, the Haganah remained underground, under the 

control of the Histadrut, and lost its funding from the World Zionist 

Organization. Through 1929 the Haganah remained a small organization composed of a patchwork of local militias. The three largest—in 

Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa—composed the core of the outfit, but 

even Tel Aviv’s local militia reached only several hundred members.

In the wake of the Arab riots in 1929 the Haganah was reorganized into an effective national military instrument. The British had 

shown themselves unable or unwilling to provide adequate protection 

from Arab violence, so the burden of defense fell on the Haganah. 

The fledgling army had a mixed record during the 1929 Arab riots, 

but it was clear that the organization suffered from its decentralized 

disposition and lack of coordination. The Zionist leaders decided to 

remove the Haganah from the Histadrut’s control and instead supervise it directly. Despite gradual improvement in the organization’s 

efficiency, certain members of the Haganah were dissatisfied with the 

government’s defensive strategy and advocated for a more aggressive 

posture. In 1930–1931 they split off and created Irgun Haganah Bet, 

which became known as the Irgun.12
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

173

In the meantime the Haganah continued to procure arms abroad 

and smuggle them into the country in anticipation of eventual war. In 

October  1935, a cargo container from Belgium broke open in Jaffa, 

revealing illegal Jewish arms. The Arabs responded with a general 

strike and demonstrations in major cities. The incident was the first 

in what would lead to a large-scale uprising. The Haganah reacted to 

the upswing in Arab violence by setting up a series of officer training 

courses that concentrated on night tactics and attacking Arab villages. 

It also established permanent mobile patrols designed to maintain a 

military presence and deter attacks.

As the Arab Revolt unfolded from 1936 to 1939, the British turned 

to the Jews for cooperation in defense. They worked with the Jewish 

Agency to set up and equip Jewish Settlement Police who could rapidly 

respond to any outbreak of Arab violence. Britain’s military support to 

the Jews was somewhat ironic, given the political trend against Zionism 

within Whitehall. One episode in particular demonstrates the British 

occupiers’ wide spectrum of opinions—and how far those positions 

could migrate away from official policy.

Captain Orde Wingate was assigned to the British Mandate in 1936 

as an intelligence officer. Wingate’s family belonged to the Plymouth 

Brethren—an evangelical Protestant denomination that embraced a 

belief in premillennial eschatology.c

 Wingate saw the force of Zionism 

and the prospect of Israel becoming a state as a fulfillment of biblical 

prophecy, and he set out to assist Zionist efforts with his military prowess. 

He convinced both Zionist leaders and his army chain of command to 

allow him to train special commando squads to fight against Arabs who 

were attacking the Jews and British infrastructure. Based for the most 

part in Ein Harod, Wingate trained, equipped, and led Jewish guerrillas on preemptive and reprisal raids, and the “Special Night Squads” 

gained notoriety for their brutal methods, which were, nevertheless, 

effective. Wingate was later removed from his post as his pro-Zionist 

convictions became a potential embarrassment to British authorities. 

But he left behind devoted disciples, including Moshe Dayan, future 

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) general and defense minister.

The Irgun

Ha-Irgun Ha-Tzvai Ha-Leumi be-Eretz Yisrael (The National Military Organization in the Land of Israel) was alternately referred to as 

the Irgun, Etzel (an acronym), or the IZL. It was the paramilitary organization associated with Revisionist Zionism and remained active and a 

c Premillennialism is a Christian belief that emphasizes literal interpretation of 

prophecy and the imminent physical return of Jesus Christ to rule the world through the 

nation of Israel.
174

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

decisive determinant within the Zionist insurgency through 1948. The 

Irgun was the expression of Jabotinsky’s ideology that only military 

force would ensure the “liberation” of Palestine and the security of the 

Jewish people there. The organization’s motto—“only thus”—reflected 

this idea. The paramilitary’s numbers fluctuated from hundreds to several thousand, and most were only part-time operatives. Throughout its 

existence the Irgun was an illegal organization, hounded by the British 

authorities and occasionally by the Jewish Agency as well. It has often 

been branded a terrorist organization, but historians generally agree 

that it was a decisive element in the achievement of the Zionist goal 

of statehood.

Irgun leaders opposed the Jewish Agency and Labor Zionism in 

general, claiming that they were too conciliatory toward the British 

and Arabs and that Labor’s compromises would endanger the Jewish 

people. Irgun leaders deprecated the Jewish Agency’s willingness to 

work with the British in limiting immigration. Instead, they insisted 

that every Jew in the world had an inherent right to immigrate to Palestine. They believed (realistically as it turned out) that war with the 

Arabs and their British protectors was inevitable and that, if the Jews 

wanted to survive, they would have to be ready to fight. Violence was an 

essential element of the Irgun’s philosophy—“only thus” would the Jews 

achieve their goals in Palestine. Irgun members drew from a rich and 

compelling narrative of Jewish resistance to oppression. The words of 

its anthem, the “Betar Song,” express their worldview.

Betard

From the pit of decay and dust

With blood and sweat

Shall arise a race

Proud, generous, and fierce

Captured Betar, Yodefet,e

 Masadaf

Shall arise again in all their strength and glory

d Betar refers to the last Jewish fort that fell to the Romans during the Bar Kokhba 

Revolt in 135 AD.

e Yodefet (Yodfat), a hilltop fortified town, was the center of Jewish resistance against 

the Romans in the Galilee during the Great Revolt. The revolt’s commander in the Galilee 

was Yosef ben Matityahu—Flavius Josephus, later the historian of the revolt—who joined 

the Romans after Yodfat fell in 67 AD.

f Masada was a Jewish mountain stronghold near the Dead Sea that held out against 

the Romans until 73 AD. As the Romans prepared to breach the final defenses, the surviving nine hundred Jews committed mass suicide.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

175

Hadarg

Even in poverty a Jew is a prince

Whether slave or tramp

You have been created the son of kings

Crowned with the diadem of David

Whether in light or in darkness

Always remember the crown

The crown of pride and Tagarh

Tagar

Through all obstacles and enemies

Whether you go up or down

In the flames of revolt

Carry the flame to kindle

“Never mind”i

For silence is filth

Worthless is blood and soul

For the sake of the hidden glory

To die or conquer the hill

Yodefet, Masada, Betar

The Irgun’s leaders had to reconcile the fact that the Jewish Agency, 

the World Zionist Organization, and most of the rest of the world considered them to be irresponsible, violent terrorists. To counter that image, 

the Irgun employed a strong and consistent public diplomacy strategy, 

including pamphlets, newspapers, and radio, to convince the Yishuv of 

the rectitude of their actions. The results of the Irgun’s propaganda 

and actions remain instructive. While often deprecated during its existence, the organization has found its place in postindependence historiography as an essential component to the Zionist triumph. After the 

Likud (Revisionists) came to power in 1977, the IZL was trumpeted as 

a major contributor to the British evacuation of Palestine and the emergence of the State of Israel. Ze'ev Jabotinsky has more streets named 

after him in Israel than any other Zionist, including Theodor Herzl.

g Hadar is a Hebrew term for dignity or nobility. Jabotinsky insisted that Jews must 

respect themselves and live with dignity if they wanted the rest of the world to respect them.

h Tagar refers to activism, as opposed to acquiescence, in the face of repression.

i “Never mind” is a reference to the heroic death of Joseph Trumpeldor, the onearmed Jewish man who died defending Tel Hai during the 1929 Arab riots. He is alleged 

to have said as he died, “Never mind, it is good to die for our country.”
176

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Jabotinsky led the Irgun until his death in 1940 (in later years he 

led the group, with limited authority, from exile), but a supervisory 

committee composed of representatives from other political parties 

oversaw operations from 1933 through 1937. The committee included 

Religious Zionists and General Zionists, in addition to Jabotinsky’s own 

party, Hatzohar. After 1937 Jabotinsky continued to lead the Irgun 

when other parties split off in the wake of the Arab Revolt that began in 

1936. The actual operational commander was Avraham Tehomi, allegedly the assassin who killed Jacob Israel de Haan in 1924, although his 

confession to the crime came only in 1985. Tehomi was a Russian-born 

Zionist who had joined the Haganah but became disillusioned with the 

organization when it failed to respond aggressively to the 1929 Arab 

riots. He split from the organization and formed Irgun Haganah Bet. 

During the Arab Revolt, Tehomi tried to reunite the splinter organization with its parent organization, effectively splitting the embryonic 

paramilitary. Those who did not follow Tehomi evolved into the Irgun 

and continued to operate against both the British and the Arabs.

As the Irgun expanded its operations, the paramilitary established 

branches, brigades, and groups throughout Palestine. A system of 

military ranks organized the rank and file under the supervision of 

the operational commander and, ultimately, under the control of the 

supreme commander, Jabotinsky. Strict discipline and a militant nationalism characterized the organization. But the leaders also attended to 

a serious regimen of effective training in small arms and explosives. 

They published handbooks on weapons and tactics, some of which the 

Haganah used in training its militias.

Public Component

As discussed above, the Jewish Agency acted in the chief role of the 

Zionist insurgency’s public component. But other Zionists also exerted 

themselves to spread the Jews’ message to the authorities in Palestine and to the world. In 1932 Gershon Agron founded the Englishlanguage Palestinian Post (called The Jerusalem Post after independence) 

in an attempt to make the Zionist case to the British and to readers 

in America. The Jewish National Fund (JNF) likewise continued its 

outreach to the Diaspora through its solicitation of donations and by 

highlighting the Yishuv’s progress.

Cultural outreach also had a part to play in getting out the Zionist 

message. In 1936 Zionists sponsored international games (so-called Jewish Olympics), inviting Jewish athletes from throughout the Diaspora 

to compete. Some of the athletes elected to remain in Palestine after 

the games, effectively becoming illegal immigrants. The Palestine 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

177

Orchestra was established that same year, composed of German-Jewish 

refugees playing the works of Felix Mendelssohn, the German-Jewish 

composer whose works were banned by the Nazis. Jewish books, literature, and theater demonstrated the strength and riches of Jewish 

culture reborn in the ancient homeland. This was an important dimension to Zionism, because Jewish leaders wanted to reinforce the message that the Jews in Palestine were modern, peaceful, and progressive, 

in contrast with the alleged barbarity of the Near East.

Shadow Government

Insurgencies competing for political control of a region often resort 

to establishing “shadow government” institutions that challenge the 

official government and prepare the insurgent leadership for eventual transition to governance. In Palestine the Jewish Agency had long 

served as the touchstone of Jewish political authority. Ben-Gurion’s 

Labor Zionists had the Jewish Agency, the Histadrut, the Haganah, 

and other structures that were ready to assume governmental functions 

when statehood was achieved. One of the goals of shadow government 

is to coax the subject population toward relying on it instead of on the 

official government. The conspicuous failure of the British to properly 

defend the Jews during the 1929 riots and the Arab Revolt led many 

Jews to look to the Zionist leaders for direction and defense.

IDEOLOGY

Beyond the political ideologies already discussed, this period saw 

an intensification of the war of ideas among the Jews and between the 

Zionists and British. To submit to Arab wishes would have brought Jewish 

immigration and land acquisitions to a halt. Jews would, perforce, have 

to submit to an eventual political solution in which the Arab majority 

ruled and in which the Jews would be relegated to a protected minority 

status—exactly the situation that they were fleeing from in Europe and 

that existed throughout the Middle East. In the early years of Zionism, 

Jewish leaders, philosophers, and pundits could ignore the Arab problem and wave away questions of statehood. But as the conflict came to a 

head with the approach of World War II, this was no longer an option. 

The ideals of Zionism, it became clear, mandated Jewish autonomy in 

Palestine. When all three sides of the conflict—Jewish, Arab, and British—began to see this, armed conflict became inevitable.

Both the Arabs and the Jews realized that the future lay with the 

younger generation, and both took steps to inculcate the young in 

nationalist ideology. Arabic-speaking schools were breeding grounds 
178

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

for anti-Jewish propaganda, while Zionists sought to reinforce the Jews’ 

right to Palestine. All the main political parties had youth movements. 

One of the leading Zionist youth movements was the product of the 

right-wing ideologues—the Betar youth movement.

Betar Youth

In 1923 Aaron Propes invited Jabotinsky to address Jewish youth 

in Riga, Latvia. Jabotinsky related the recent history of Arab attacks 

against the Yishuv, including the now legendary account of the Battle 

of Tel Hai. He taught that the only way to defend against such attacks 

would be to establish a strong Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan 

River, and he proposed the creation of a youth movement to prepare 

young leaders for that enterprise. Betar—the name refers to the last 

fortress to fall during the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 135 AD—was a rightwing movement that recruited young people and inculcated them in 

the Revisionist ideology of Jewish nationalism and the need to prepare 

for self-defense. Betar youth members were organized in military style 

with uniforms and saluting, similar in some sense to other nationalist movements in Europe and America. In that sense, it was a fruitful 

recruiting ground for insurgent warfare against the British and Arab 

resistance in Palestine. Betar held the example of Josef Trumpeldor as 

its role model—the hero of Tel Hai who welcomed death in defense of 

his country.

Labor Zionists and other Jews were skeptical of the Betar movement—some referred to it as fascist—and worried that the movement 

would stimulate militarism and violence, but it grew strong throughout 

Eastern Europe and Germany, largely in reaction to the harsh antiSemitic policies there. In 1931, Jabotinsky was elected as rosh Betar 

(head of Betar) at the first world conference in Danzig. By 1934 the 

movement boasted seventy thousand members, with the majority residing in Poland. Meetings included military drills, instruction in Hebrew 

and English, and encouragement of national ideals.

Betar became a vital part of the Zionist cause, assisting in the illegal 

emigration of some forty thousand Jews to Palestine before the war. 

Betar members were also instrumental in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 

during the war, providing vital military leadership experience alongside HaShomer Hatza'ir operatives and other leftists. Lithuanian Betar 

members took up arms as partisans against the Nazis after Hitler’s 

armies overran the Baltic states and invaded the Soviet Union. But after 

May 1939, Betar and the Revisionists began small-scale raids against the 

British in Palestine. Their operations also targeted the Arab communities that were home to Arab raiders who had attacked Jewish villages.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

179

Betar members populated the Irgun, the illegal Revisionist paramilitary arm in Palestine. David Raziel became head of both Betar and the 

Irgun in 1938. When the war broke out, he and Jabotinsky declared a 

cease-fire in their guerrilla war against the British because they wanted 

to focus on the common enemy: Germany. This decision did not sit well 

with Abraham “Yair” Stern, who formed the infamous Stern Group, 

which renamed itself Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael, or Freedom Fighters for Israel) in 1943. The British authorities pejoratively referred to it 

as the Stern Gang. Some Betar youth members chose to join Lehi, but 

most remained with the Irgun. There were only a few Betar members 

in the Haganah.

Other youth organizations within Palestine also sought to inculcate young Jews and prepare them for the rough years ahead. Zion 

Ha-Shimshoni, a popular high school teacher, led a scout program that 

idolized, above all, the Maccabees and their defiance of the Seleucids. 

Shimshoni led youngsters through Palestine’s rough terrain both to 

condition the body and to gird the mind with stories of the Jewish connection to the land. (The Haganah and Palmach conducted similar 

hikes.) He also led annual trips to the Dead Sea and directed young 

members on epic marches to Masada as a sort of rite of passage. By 

connecting spiritually to the defiant Jews of two millennia past, young 

Jews were equipping themselves for the never-say-die struggles that 

lie ahead.

LEGITIMACY

The contest for legitimacy continued as in earlier periods as Zionists 

pressed their claims to Palestine and the need for a secure homeland. 

The growing repression in Germany and Eastern Europe illustrated 

the urgent need both for immigration and for a Jewish home.

In the wake of the 1929 Arab riots, David Ben-Gurion made the 

case for Jewish presence and growth in Palestine:

Our land is only a small district in the tremendous territory populated by Arabs . . . Only a fragment of the 

Arab people—perhaps 7 or 8 percent . . .—lives in Palestine. However, this is not the case with respect to the 

Jewish people. For the entire Jewish nation, this is the 

one and only country with which they are connected 

its fate and future as a nation. Only in this land can it 

renew and maintain its independent life, its national 

economy and its special culture, only here can it establish its national sovereignty and freedom.13
180

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

As in previous years, the Zionists reiterated the Jews’ ancient roots 

in Palestine, both to the world and to the younger generation of Jews. 

Samuel Klein, a Hungarian Jewish rabbi, obtained a position at the 

Hebrew University and taught Talmudic studies along with courses on 

topography that were rooted in biblical tradition. In his widely popular courses, students found motivation to love the land and appreciate 

the Jews’ ancient connections to the lands of their ancestors. In a similar vein, Eliezer Sukenik became chief archaeologist at Hebrew University and set out to foster Jewish archaeology. He traveled the land, 

encouraging Jewish settlers and farmers to find and report artifacts as 

a way of reinforcing the historical narrative. He later purchased some 

of the Dead Sea Scrolls for Israel. He was also the father of Yigael Sukenik, who later changed his name to Yigael Yadin (his Haganah code 

name). The younger Sukenik became the operations commander of 

the Haganah in 1948 (and for most of the war was the IDF’s de facto 

commander) and later became the IDF’s second chief of general staff. 

A renowned archaeologist in his own right, he excavated Masada and 

other sites.

MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR

Accounts of Jewish soldiers, guerrillas, and terrorists during this 

period reveal the mix of ideological and other influences that motivated 

them. Shimon Peres, who grew up on the Ben Shemen farm, wrote later 

of the benevolent, moderating influence of Dr. Siegfried Lehmann, 

founder and leader of the community. Lehmann was dedicated to pursuing peaceful relations with local Arabs, and he led frequent tours 

with his students, patronizing Arab businesses and visiting their communities. During the daily visits the Arabs were hospitable, partly out 

of respect for Lehmann. But at night the conflict would resume, and 

Jewish youth would stand guard against raids. Peres told of his joining 

the Haganah and being sworn in with a Bible and a pistol next to him. 

Later, he would read the works of Karl Marx to his sweetheart.14

The men and women of the Yishuv were ensconced in a desperate 

situation and adapted their behavior accordingly. Their British masters 

vacillated from friendly support to disinterest to outright repression. 

The Arabs, often friendly as individuals and communities, were fanned 

into nationalistic hatred by the anti-Zionist elites. Young Jews growing 

into adulthood under these circumstances drew equal inspiration from 

biblical heroes and Marxist philosophy, Labor Zionism’s championing 

of modernism and peace, and Revisionist Zionism’s nationalistic fervor 

and proclivity for retributive violence. Inculcated with all the philosophical justifications for peace and restraint, they found themselves 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

181

under siege with guns in their hands. Their stories paint a picture of 

a generation required to redeem in blood (their own and that of their 

adversaries) the contradictions, half-truths, and delusions of their forebears. Some emerged from the battle with a renewed determination to 

find peace. Others came away from it with a profound belief that they 

would achieve security only through prolonged fighting.

OPERATIONS

Paramilitary

The interwar years saw the founding of the Haganah and its growth 

from a loose confederation of local militias into a well-organized paramilitary. The period also gave rise to its counterpart, the Irgun, as an 

expression of Jewish nationalism and right-wing political philosophy. 

Both organizations imported arms, trained their soldiers, and contemplated the coming war.

1929 Arab Riots

By 1929 the Arab leaders in Palestine had realized that the growth 

of the Jewish population and economy represented an existential threat 

to their dreams of independence and an Arab state. Moreover, they saw 

British complicity in the Jewish takeover as a betrayal of promises made 

to them during the war, and they came to view themselves—as most 

Arabs of the Middle East saw themselves—as victims of Western imperialism. Their attempts at diplomacy and peaceful protest seemed to 

bear no fruit, leaving them with no alternative but violence and revolt.15

As would continue to be the case with the Palestinian Arabs, their 

leadership was diffused by rivalries among the various clans. Chief 

among these were the Husseinis and the Nashashibis. Both were notable leading families from Jerusalem. The former were wealthy landowners centered in southern Palestine who remained politically dominant, 

controlling the Palestinian Arab Executive (and later the Arab High 

Committee) as well as the Supreme Muslim Council, which they would 

use to incite religious tension among the Islamic faithful. The Nashashibis, relegated to permanent political opposition, followed a more moderate course that offered the potential for compromise with the Jews 

and cooperation with the British. But the Husseinis, intent on maintaining their leadership among the Arabs, built up their political base 

by appealing to fears of Jewish hegemony and British complicity. By 

demonstrating their willingness to rebel against Mandatory authority, 

the Husseinis gained the respect, fear, and cooperation of the British.
182

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Figure 9-2. Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini.

Haj Amin al-Husseini was the central figure among Palestinian Arabs. Born the same year as the First Zionist Congress, 1897, he 

descended from a long line of Arab mayors in Jerusalem. His upbringing included both religious and secular education, and he studied 

under Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish (non-Zionist) mentors. He had 

served in the Ottoman army in World War I and afterward supported 

the Hashemite kingdom in Syria until its collapse in the Franco–Syrian 

War of 1920. Thereafter he relocated to Jerusalem and took up the 

Palestinian Arab struggle against the Jews and their British sponsors. 

King Faisal I’s defeat in Damascus cascaded into a major change in the 

Husseini clan’s policy, because they abandoned the idea of Palestine as 

the southern extension of Syria and instead sought independence for 

Palestine as a separate Arab country.

In Jerusalem the British military governor, Colonel Storrs, 

responded to Zionist agitation by removing Musa Kazim Pasha alHusseini as mayor after he had been implicated in anti-Jewish violence. 

Storrs installed Raghib al-Nashashibi in his place, inflaming the Husseini clan and deepening the political rift among the two Arab families. 

On his return to Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini helped inflame antiZionist violence during a Jerusalem riot in 1920, and a British military 

court tried him in abstentia and sentenced him to prison for ten years. 

But the British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel (a British Zionist Jew) later pardoned him and appointed him as the grand mufti in 

Jerusalem in an effort to win over the Husseini clan and to keep the 

Nashashibis in check.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

183

In 1922 al-Husseini was appointed president of the Supreme Islamic 

Council, an organization that Herbert Samuel had created and which 

controlled regional courts and administered a substantial budget. As 

grand mufti, al-Husseini campaigned among Arab Muslims for funds 

to restore the Haram ash-Sharif (Temple Mount), the al-Aqsa Mosque, 

and the Dome of the Rock, in part as a cultural and religious rallying 

point against Zionism. The resulting construction brought noise, mule 

traffic (and droppings), and general interference into Jewish worship at 

the Western Wall. Right-wing Jews viewed the intrusions as an affront 

to Jewish dignity. They called for Jewish possession of the wall, and a 

few agitated for the right to rebuild the temple, which in turn enflamed 

the Muslims.

In late summer  1928, Jews and Arabs clashed over access to and 

management of the Western Wall, and British authorities stepped in 

to remove a partition that the Jews had erected to separate male and 

female worshippers. The resulting outcry from Diaspora Jews condemned British violence and alleged favoritism toward the Arabs. The 

following year the British high commissioner attempted delicate negotiations between al-Husseini and the Zionists, but both sides felt that 

their religious rights were being infringed by the other, and tensions 

continued to run high.

In August 1929, Jewish celebrations of Tisha B'Av (commemorating 

the destruction of the First and Second Temples) and Arab celebrations 

of Muhammad’s birth led to conflict. Arab rioters stabbed a Jewish 

boy who attempted to retrieve a football, and Jewish rioters responded 

by beating an Arab man. With the British authorities trying to maintain calm, more rioting broke out, and on August 23, three Arabs were 

killed. Arab riots broke out in Jerusalem, Haifa, Hebron, Jaffa, and 

Safed. In Hebron, Arabs set on Orthodox Jewish communities and 

murdered sixty-six Jews. Riots in Safed left eighteen Jews dead. The 

British, with a minuscule police force, were overwhelmed and called 

for military reinforcements. By the end of the violence, 116 Arabs and 

133 Jews had been killed and many more injured.j

 Throughout the episode, al-Husseini tried to walk a fine line between members of the Arab 

mobs who wanted him to espouse violence and the British authorities 

who insisted he maintain the peace. His political future relied on both. 

Historians then and today vary in their estimation of al-Husseini’s culpability in the 1929 Arab riots, with some believing he secretly organized them and others insisting he tried to suppress the violence. The 

riots had roots in religious tensions, the infighting between Palestinian 

j The numbers of dead and wounded on either side remain in dispute. Estimates of 

Arab deaths range from 116 to 136, and the estimates of Jewish deaths range from 133 

to 135.
184

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Arab clans, and the greater political context of the conflict between 

Zionists and the indigenous Arab population.

The Arab riots of 1929 were a key turning point in the Zionist insurgency. Some among the Zionists and throughout the Yishuv lost faith in 

the British to protect them. They came to view the entire Arab population as murderous, while Ben-Gurion’s faction insisted that the rioters 

were just a desperate minority. Accounts of the upheaval revealed the 

conflicting passions and trends among both Arabs and Jews. Hundreds 

of Jews had been saved by Arab neighbors and even by Arab policemen. 

But Arab mobs, at times allied with complicit policemen, burned and 

looted Jewish communities, killing men, women, children, and infants. 

Among the Jews, reactions to the violence varied. Some Orthodox 

communities foreswore armed resistance or assistance from the Haganah, preferring to trust their Arab neighbors (and many paid with 

their lives). Haganah officials attempted (with some success) to defend 

their communities and occasionally conducted retaliatory raids on the 

Arabs. Revisionist Zionists were appalled at David Ben-Gurion’s call for 

restraint, and as previously discussed, some within the Haganah split 

off to establish Irgun Haganah Bet, which later evolved into the Irgun, 

in order to pursue a more aggressive posture against the Arabs and 

the British. This bifurcation reflected the troubled synthesis between 

Labor’s preference for diplomacy, patience, and restraint and Revisionism’s preference for armed resistance, defense of Jewish dignity, and 

retaliation. In the end, the synthesis of these approaches was in itself 

an effective response.

The Arabs, whether through deliberate plotting or through impulse 

and chance, had achieved their goal of making the British backpedal 

on their commitments to the Zionists. From 1929, anti-Zionists within 

the various British cabinets voiced their dismissal of the Balfour Declaration as an unsustainable and foolish policy. The Shaw Commission, 

which was appointed to look into the episode, deprecated the Arab 

violence but exonerated Amin al-Husseini and called for reductions 

in Jewish immigration as the root cause of Arab hostility. Judicial proceedings against both Arab and Jewish rioters resulted mostly in commuted sentences, with only three Arabs eventually hanged for murder.

The British went on to publish the Passfield White Paper in 1930, 

which again sought to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine’s “absorptive capacity.” The anti-Zionists behind the paper insisted that the Arabs 

were justified in their resistance toward Jewish immigration and land 

sales, and they urged severe restrictions on the Zionist influx. Through 

appeals to the legal ramifications of the League of Nations Mandate 

and threats of greater Jewish militancy, the Zionists (principally Chaim 

Weizmann) prevailed on the British cabinet to restore its commitment 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

185

to Jewish aspirations. Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald reaffirmed 

his support for Weizmann and the Zionists despite the Passfield White 

Paper, but among Jewish leaders across the Yishuv, the seeds of suspicion toward the British had been sown.

Figure 9-3. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.

Haj Amin al-Husseini continued to find a position between satisfying radical anti-Zionists and cooperating with British authorities. The 

emergence of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a radical anti-Zionist Arab terrorist, underscored al-Husseini’s problem. Al-Qassam was a Syrian-born 

Sufi Islamic preacher who had opposed the Italians in Libya and the 

French in Syria during World War I. After the French victory in Syria, 

Qassam moved to Haifa, where he served as imam and attracted a large 

following, including many Arab farmers who had lost their lands in 

Galilee to purchases by the JNF. Qassam was part of the Istiqlal (Independence) political party and a member of the Young Men’s Muslim 

Association. He ministered to the poor and disadvantaged Arabs and 

preached on the need to organize militias to oppose the British and 

the Zionists. From the early to mid-1930s he led a group of followers 

known as the Black Hand in attacks against British and Zionist interests in Palestine. Some historians suggest Haj Amin al-Husseini secretly 

backed Qassam’s terrorist group, but in general Qassam’s activities represented a threat to upper-class urban Arab leadership. After the Black 

Hand conducted a series of infamous murders and bombings, al-Husseini distanced himself from the group.16 In 1935, after his implication 

in the murder of a British official, Qassam went underground to flee 

authorities. British police eventually surrounded him and a few of his 

followers in a cave and killed him in a gunfight. Among Arab radicals, 

Qassam’s last stand became a legendary source of inspiration.
186

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

In some ways the split between Husseini and Qassam mirrored the 

factionalism between Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky. Both the Arabs and 

the Jews had to deal with the implications of the British occupation. 

Ben-Gurion, Labor Zionists, and the Jewish Agency favored diplomacy, 

and Husseini and the Arab elites also tried to pursue their goals by 

working with the Mandatory authorities. But both sides also had more 

radical constituents who viewed the British with antipathy and advocated for violence. Thus, both Jewish and Arab leadership attempted 

to work within legal confines while underground factions waged their 

own wars against the British. The parallel struggles were magnified in 

the ensuing Arab Revolt.

Tower-and-Stockade Settlements

As the Zionists began to anticipate a possible partition plan in Palestine, they grew concerned that the Jewish presence was not widespread 

enough. In line with the age-old fait accompli strategy of Practical 

Zionism, they desired to rapidly build settlements in as many key areas 

as possible, so that when partition happened, they could argue for as 

great an area as possible. They also wanted their land to be contiguous 

and defensible.

To that end, in 1937 Jewish pioneers began to construct tower-andstockade settlements. The idea was to scout a suitable area for a settlement and then secretly prepare a convoy carrying needed construction 

materials and workers. During the night, the convoy would move expeditiously to the proposed site and, before sunrise, construct a tower, 

small bungalows, and a wooden fence enclosing the area of settlement. 

The Jews would man the tower with rifles and sometimes searchlights 

for protection at night. The effect was that new Jewish settlements 

began to appear literally overnight. The first such settlement was Beit 

Josef, near the Arab town of Beisan in the Jordan Valley. Many soon followed, including one as the result of a bold move to settle the eastern 

shore of the Sea of Galilee in advance of the anticipated partition ruling. The village of Ein Gev was established in one night in June 1937 to 

further the Jewish claim to the entirety of the Sea of Galilee.

The tactical idea behind tower-and-stockade settlements was sound, 

and they would prove able to stand up to Arab attacks.

1936–1939 Arab Revolt

On April 15, 1936, the Arab Revolt began. When word got out that 

Arabs had murdered two Jews near Nablus, the Irgun retaliated by killing Arab workers in Tel Aviv. Arab violence then spread into Jaffa, with 

gangs torching Jewish shops and attacking individuals unlucky enough 

to be spotted. Two weeks after the initial violence, Palestinian Arabs 
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

187

launched a general strike. Over the next month twenty-one more Jews 

died as Arabs attacked farms, orchards, shops, and homes. Angry Arab 

leaders demanded a cessation to all Jewish immigration and land purchases, as well as the formation of an Arab government.17

The Arab Revolt erupted primarily over anger at Jewish immigration. Catalysts leading to the revolt included the accidental discovery 

of a Jewish arms shipment in Haifa (October 1935), the death of Arab 

guerrilla leader Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam later that year, and the 

upswing in Jewish immigration mainly due to the threat of Hitler’s 

regime in Germany. Palestinian Arabs viewed the British as weak, citing their failure to deal effectively with Hitler’s reoccupation of the 

Rhineland and the Italians in Abyssinia. They also drew encouragement from Arab independence in Iraq and the political gains Arabs 

had made in Egypt and Syria. Arab leaders fanned the flame of rebellion by insisting that the Jews were poised to take over all of Palestine 

with British help—a move they viewed as betrayal of wartime promises 

of Arab independence. Land sales to the Zionists through the JNF left 

increasing numbers of Arabs dispossessed and crowded into slums and 

shantytowns. Zionist policies that favored Jewish workers over Arabs 

aggravated the situation. Starvation and poverty drove many desperate 

Arabs to heed Arab leaders’ calls for an uprising.

The revolt played out over the next three years. During the initial 

stage (summer 1936) Arab leaders used strikes, demonstrations, and 

desultory violence to force the British government to acquiesce to Arab 

demands for independence, control of Palestine, and a stop to Zionism. 

Anti-Jewish violence escalated in the summer of 1936, and thousands 

of acres of cultivated Jewish land—farms and orchards—were vandalized and destroyed. As murders increased, some Jewish settlements 

were abandoned in the name of security. Mandatory authorities and 

the British cabinet responded by conceding to the Arabs on the issue of 

immigration, and through diplomacy with Arab leaders in Iraq, Syria, 

Transjordan, and Yemen they fragmented Arab unity. A cease-fire 

followed from October 1936 through September 1937. In the face of 

British delaying tactics and Zionist resilience, the revolt mutated in late 

1937 into a more sustained populist campaign of violence against the 

British and Jews. Targeting British authorities had the effect of hardening the government against the Arab position, and a brutal crackdown 

ensued. More than three thousand Arabs died in combat, riots, and 

executions, in contrast with only several hundred Jews. The British lost 

control of much of Palestine during the revolt, and they committed 

unprecedented numbers of troops and police to quell it. As a consequence of the Arab violence, British authorities initially gave greater 

support to Jews in general, and to Labor Zionists and the Jewish Agency 
188

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

in particular, at least until they could reestablish control. Their support 

came in the form of paramilitary training and supplies and assistance 

in combating Arab attacks.18

The Arab Revolt clarified the ideological differences between the 

Jewish Agency and the Haganah on the one hand and Revisionist Zionists and the Irgun on the other. In the face of rising Arab anti-Jewish 

violence, the Jewish Agency called for havlagah—restraint aimed at 

achieving the diplomatic high ground. Its paramilitary instrument, 

the Haganah, responded by attempting to confine its operations to 

defense of the Yishuv. The Revisionists saw no hope in trying to negotiate with the Arabs or relying on the British for protection. In their view, 

they could achieve a viable and safe Jewish homeland in Palestine only 

through retributive violence, self-reliance, and war. Jabotinsky viewed 

havlagah as weakness and an invitation to the Arabs to expel the Jews 

from Palestine. He had a realistic appreciation of the Arab position 

and judged that the Arabs considered the Jews colonial invaders. The 

policy of restraint, he reasoned, would give the Arabs hope that they 

could eventually defeat the Jews and erase their presence from Palestine. David Raziel, commander of the Irgun, referred to havlagah as the 

“loyal friend” of Arab terror.

The revolt at first galvanized the Arab population and political 

leadership. Throughout the 1930s efforts to protect and promote Arab 

and Muslim culture gave rise to political organizations (e.g., the Youth 

Congress Party, Independence Party, National Bloc, Palestinian Arab 

Party, and the Arab-Palestinian Reform Party), youth movements (e.g., 

Palestinian Boy Scouts), religious clubs (e.g., the Young Men’s Muslim Association), women’s groups (e.g., the Palestinian Arab Women’s 

Association), and militant organizations. The dominant Husseini clan 

assumed leadership during the revolt, but the British crackdown led 

to Haj Amin al-Husseini fleeing Palestine. In the end the upheaval left 

the Arab leadership in Palestine dispersed and disrupted.

As the revolt unfolded it deepened feelings of nationalism, paranoia, 

and contempt among both Jews and Arabs. An analysis of political cartoons in the newspapers of both sides reveals the subtle use of degrading pictures to dehumanize opponents and fill the readers’ minds with 

images of animal-like enemies conspiring with foreign powers.19

Administrative

The worldwide depression that began in America in 1929 cascaded into a severe reduction in funding for the Jewish Agency. Other 

sources stepped in to bridge the gap between resources and needs, and 

throughout the interwar period, Jewish settlements grew.
Chapter 9. Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs (1924–1939)

189

A new trend in financial organization emerged during the 1930s. 

The JNF; its subsidiary, the Palestine Land Development Corporation; 

and the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA) continued 

operations. But new private sources of capital also made their way into 

Palestine. One such agency, the American Zion Commonwealth Company, bought the land in the Jezreel Valley on which Afula was founded. 

As a general rule, private capital flowed toward Jewish urban developments, while the JNF and like organizations supported agriculture.

In 1939 a collection of funding organizations in the United States 

came together to pool their resources and alleviate the problem of 

competition by forming the America Palestinian Fund. It became an 

important source of support for the Yishuv, providing needed finances 

for education and social services.

ANALYSIS

By the end of the interwar period, the Zionist insurgency was in full 

swing. Parts of the movement were actively using violence and subversion to overthrow or change the governance of Palestine. Clandestine 

organizations were well established, and the armed components were 

growing in numbers and experience.

Perhaps the most important insight gleaned from a study of the 

irregular warfare in this period is the integration of the two opposing factions within Zionism—Labor and Revisionist. Each strived for 

control and often deprecated the actions of the other. But it is hard to 

imagine how the Zionist insurgency—indeed, the entire Jewish presence in Palestine—would have survived without the efforts of both. 

Ben-Gurion’s Labor Zionists provided economic and financial structure, diplomatic weight, and a respectable public face to the world. 

Jabotinksy’s Revisionists—although small in numbers—provided muscle, coercion, defiance, and the threat of greater violence if the Jews 

were pushed too far. The British and the Arabs responded to both sides 

of the argument. The outcomes would suggest that the real direction 

of the Zionist insurgency was not in any one leader’s hands but rather 

remained the synthesis of two opposing trends.

For the practitioner of irregular warfare, this presents a complex 

and nuanced formulation. A third party operating in such an environment could easily choose sides in the Zionist factionalism but by doing 

so would fail to appreciate the keen balance between right and left. 

Both needed the other; both were essential to the favorable outcomes 

of 1948. The trick was to see the vital yin and yang of Zionist philosophies while it was happening, instead of in retrospect. The participants 

were too busy vying for control and fighting their daily battles to see 
190

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

the situation clearly. As World War II entered the stage, a temporary 

truce fell into place—between the Jews and the British and between 

the left- and right-wing Zionists.

NOTES

1 MidEast Web, s.v. “Population of Palestine Prior to 1948,” accessed February 4, 2014, 

http://www.mrbrklyn.com/resources/arab_population_before_israel.htm.

2 Mark Tessler, A History of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 2nd ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana 

University Press, 2009), 183; and Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: Harper, 

2008), 66.

3 Gilbert, Israel: A History.

4 Ibid.

5 “The Palestine Mandate,” Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, The Avalon 

Project, accessed August 15, 2014, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.

asp.

6 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 59.

7 Tessler, Israel-Palestinian Conflict, 252–253.

8 Robert R. Leonhard, Visions of Apocalypse: What Jews, Christians, and Muslims Believe about 

the End Times, and How Those Beliefs Affect Our World (Laurel, MD: The Johns Hopkins 

University Applied Physics Laboratory, 2010).

9 Menachem Friedman, “Haredim and Palestinians in Jerusalem,” in Jerusalem: A City and 

Its Future, eds. Marshall J. Berger and Ora Ahimeir (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 

2002), 235.

10 Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know about the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History, rev. ed. (New York: William Morrow, 2008), 335–336.

11 Ibid., 268–269.

12 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: 

Vintage Books, 2001).

13 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 62.

14 Ibid., 94–95.

15 Morris, Righteous Victims, 111–120.

16 Elie Kedourie and Sylvie G. Haim, Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and Israel (London: 

Frank Cass and Company, Ltd., 1982), 53–100.

17 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 80–81.

18 Matthew Hughes, “From Law and Order to Pacification: Britain’s Suppression of the 

Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39,” Journal of Palestine Studies 39, no. 2 (2010).

19 Sandy Sufian, “Anatomy of the 1936–39 Revolt: Images of the Body in Political Cartoons 

of Mandatory Palestine,” Journal of Palestine Studies XXXVII, no. 2 (2008): 23.
CHAPTER 10.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

AND STATEHOOD (1940–1950)

This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to 

be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in 

their own sovereign State. Accordingly we, members 

of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish 

community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by 

virtue of our natural and historic right and on the 

strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a 

Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State 

of Israel.

—Declaration of the Establishment of the State of 

Israel, May 14, 1948

193

Once again in 1939 world war intervened and changed the course 

of the Zionist insurgency in Palestine. At the start of World War  II 

Jews accounted for about 30  percent of the population of Palestine. 

From 1940 through 1942 Jews and their allies contemplated the potential disaster of German armies breaking through into Palestine from 

Egypt or through the Caucasus to join with their Arab supporters. In 

part to forestall that eventuality, the Zionists (with important exceptions) ceased their anti-British actions in favor of fighting the common enemy. Meanwhile, the greatest disaster of European Jewry was 

unfolding on a scale that defied belief. The Holocaust would kill two 

of every three European Jews before it was over, but it infused Zionists 

with an unyielding sense of urgency and purpose and thus contributed 

directly to the achievement of statehood. By the end of the war the 

Jews accounted for 32 percent of the population in Palestine: 608,000 

Jews and 1,221,000 Arabs.1 As the end of the war against the Axis powers came into view, Zionists across the ideological spectrum reevaluated their attitudes toward the British Mandate. With the exception of 

Chaim Weizmann, leaders realized that Britain was both unwilling and 

unable to help them achieve their goals—and, indeed, was palpably 

obstructing them. Right-wing Zionists resumed their war against the 

Mandatory authorities with the goal of driving them out of Palestine. 

Labor Zionists sought a more moderate approach, hoping to wait out 

the British until their departure and avoid any undue provocation that 

might turn the rest of the world against Zionist goals. When the British decided to quit Palestine and hand the problem over to the newly 

formed United Nations (UN), the Zionists under David Ben-Gurion’s 

strong hand saw their opportunity, girded for war with the Arabs, and 

prepared for statehood. The question remained whether Labor, Revisionist, and other factions within Zionism could coalesce under BenGurion’s leadership and fight for independence as a unified nation.

After the Zionists’ declaration of statehood in 1948 and the conclusion of the hard-fought War of Independence, Israel opened its doors 

to a huge influx of Jewish immigrants that doubled their population to 

more than 1,200,000. Jews flocked to Israel from throughout the Diaspora and included Holocaust survivors and Jews who had been forced 

out of Arab lands. The immigrants were mostly desperate and poor, 

and one of the government’s first challenges was to provide them food, 

shelter, and a means to assimilating into the new country.

With the declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948, the Zionists had 

achieved what appeared to be a miraculous outcome: from the First 

Zionist Congress in 1897 to statehood in just over fifty years. The events 

of the final years before statehood illustrate the complex, conflicting, 

and complementary trends and forces within the Zionist insurgency 

that produced the success.
194

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

TIMELINE

September 1, 1939 Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in 

Europe.

August 4, 1940 Ze'ev Jabotinsky dies in New York.

November 24, 1940 The Haganah sabotages the Patria during transshipment of Jewish refugees; 250 drown.

1941 Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini pursues cooperation 

with Nazi Germany to remove Jews from Palestine.

May 1942 Zionists agree on the Biltmore Program, which 

insists that a Jewish state in Palestine must supplant 

the British Mandate.

February 1, 1944 Menachem Begin assumes leadership of the Irgun 

and declares a revolt against the British Mandate.

September 1944 Churchill announces the formation of a Jewish Brigade Group.

November 6, 1944 Stern Gang operatives assassinate Lord Moyne, 

deepening the divide between Labor and Revisionist Zionists. The Haganah begins the Saison, 

in which it cooperates with the British against the 

Irgun. The Saison ends in February 1945.

March 22, 1945 Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, 

and Syria form the Arab League. Yemen joins in 

May.

May 8, 1945 Germany surrenders.

July 1945 Labour wins elections in Britain; the cabinet continues to oppose Jewish statehood.

October 1945–

August 1946

The Haganah, the Irgun, and Lehi form the 

Jewish Resistance Movement, temporarily working together to oppose the British Mandate 

government.

April 1946 The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommends ending the ban on Jewish land purchases 

and urges the British government to issue one 

hundred thousand passes to allow immigrants; 

the Labour government refuses and continues to 

enforce the 1939 White Paper restrictions.

June 1946 After Palmach destroys a series of lines of communications into Palestine, the British launch Operation Agatha, rounding up Zionist leaders.

July 22, 1946 The Irgun bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing ninety-one and wounding forty-six. 

This leads to the disbanding of the Jewish Resistance Movement.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

195

February 1947 The British government decides to refer the Palestinian situation to the UN.

July 1947 The British intercept the Exodus, carrying Jewish 

survivors from the Holocaust, and return the passengers to Germany.

November 29, 1947 The UN General Assembly passes Resolution 181 to 

partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab 

state. The Jews accept; the Arabs reject. The War of 

Independence begins.

May 14, 1948 David Ben-Gurion announces the establishment of 

the State of Israel. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon 

invade Palestine the next day.

December 11, 1948 The UN General Assembly passes Resolution 194, 

establishing the Conciliation Commission for Palestine, proposing international control of Jerusalem 

and holy sites and calling for the right of refugees 

to return to Palestine. Arab states vote against it, 

and Israel is not yet a member state.

February–

July 1949

Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon sign armistices 

with Israel that separate forces along the Green 

Line. Iraqi forces withdraw. Israeli forces occupy 

78 percent of Mandatory Palestine.

April–

September 1949

At the Lausanne Conference, the UN Conciliation 

Commission for Palestine brings Arab powers and 

Israel together to negotiate the problems of refugees, borders, Jerusalem, and reparations. Arab 

refusal to negotiate directly with Israel or recognize 

its right to exist minimizes the conference’s impact.

May 11, 1949 Israel is accepted as a member of the UN.

OVERVIEW

By the start of World War II Jews in Palestine had carved out enclaves 

along the Mediterranean coast and in the Galilee. The strongest areas 

included Tel Aviv, the coastal plain near Haifa, the headwaters of the 

Jordan River, the area surrounding the Sea of Galilee, and the Jezreel 

Valley. There was a substantial Jewish population in Jerusalem and surrounding areas. David Ben-Gurion had also pushed Zionists to establish a presence in the Negev.
196

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Figure 10-1. Jewish enclaves in Palestine.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

197

Ben-Gurion and the Zionist establishment in Palestine saw it as 

their clear duty to support the British against the Axis powers.2 But 

the Zionist leadership—both Labor and Revisionist—also foresaw the 

need to expand and strengthen the Jewish presence in anticipation of 

eventual statehood and war with the Arabs. The strictures of the British 1939 White Paper and the decision of the wartime cabinet not to 

assist in the flight of European Jewish refugees made legal immigration 

all but impossible. The Jews therefore resorted to illegal immigration, 

which sparked continued conflict between the Zionists and the British 

Mandatory authorities. Illegal immigrants captured by the British were 

taken to internment camps at Sarafand and Athlit in Palestine, and the 

cabinet announced that after the war the captured would be returned 

to their countries of origin. The Zionists found themselves in the ironic 

position of supporting the British war effort against Germany while at 

the same time conducting clandestine operations against the British to 

continue illegal immigration into Palestine.

The struggle to maintain immigration against the British blockade 

turned ugly in November 1940 when the Haganah, in an attempt to 

disable the ship Patria to prevent the British from using it to transport immigrants to Mauritius, detonated explosives that killed more 

than 250 of the refugees. Survivors were interned in Palestine and later 

released because of humanitarian considerations (at the insistence of 

Churchill), but further legal immigration was suspended through September  1941. Other detainees suffered deportment, and the cruelty 

and deprivations they experienced were in part deliberate, with the 

goal of deterring future illegal immigration.

Great Britain’s policy toward Palestine wavered between two strategic ideas. Pro-Zionist Winston Churchill, who reentered the cabinet 

as first lord of the admiralty, argued that the British should cooperate 

with and arm the Jews as an economy-of-force measure (thus allowing British occupation forces to be deployed elsewhere) and to appease 

American Jews, who could then influence the United States to enter the 

war on the Allied side. Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and Secretary 

of State for War Oliver Stanley argued against this position, instead 

wanting to avoid further provocations against the Arabs, which might 

inflame Muslims in India and Egypt against British interests. For the 

time being, the anti-Zionist faction triumphed, although the British 

Army did help set up, train, and equip a small, elite contingent of the 

Haganah that became known as Plugot Mahatz or Palmach.

With the onset of war, the Haganah began the transformation from 

a collection of local, defensive militias into a structured, embryonic 

national army. Chief of Staff Yaakov Dostrovsky and his assistant Yigael 

Yadin (Sukenik) worked tirelessly to build up the underground army, 
198

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

train its officers, maintain illegal arms caches, and acquire more arms, 

ammunition, and supplies abroad. Labor Zionist Dov Hos began collecting aircraft for the beginnings of an air force. The British authorities diligently opposed these efforts, conducting frequent raids to find 

and seize weapons. But the Haganah and the Irgun survived occasional 

setbacks and continued to build their strength.

World War II saw a change in the leadership of Revisionist Zionists 

and the Irgun. Ze'ev Jabotinsky collapsed and died in the summer of 

1940 while visiting the United States, and his loss was keenly felt, even 

by those who opposed Revisionist Zionism. His efforts in obtaining 

funding, organizing military recruitment, and arguing passionately in 

favor of a Jewish state marked him as one of the most influential Zionist leaders of the prestate era. Although David Ben-Gurion refused his 

reinterment in Israel after the war, his remains were brought to the 

country in 1964, and he was buried on Mount Herzl. Toward the end 

of World War II, Menachem Begin succeeded to the leadership of the 

Revisionists.

The war forced the Zionists in Palestine to temporarily subordinate their nationalist goals in favor of the military efforts against Germany. But in Europe the most infamous expression of anti-Semitism 

was unfolding. The Nazi Holocaust killed six million Jews in Europe, 

including more than a million children. The totals included two of 

every three European Jews—a devastating loss that left an indelible 

mark on the survivors. The almost unimaginable campaign of murder transpired at the same time that British politicians were exerting 

themselves to keep the Jews from fleeing Europe’s shores. The tragedy defied description, but it also reinforced the essential argument 

behind Zionist aspirations.

As the Holocaust began in Nazi-occupied Europe, word of it reached 

the United States at the same time that the World Zionist Organization 

held an Extraordinary Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in New York. 

Ben-Gurion dominated the proceedings, and the conference produced 

the Biltmore Program, which concluded that the Jews could no longer 

look to Great Britain to protect them or advance their interests and 

that the British Mandate would have to end and be replaced by a Jewish 

state. This was the first public declaration of mainstream Zionists that 

they intended statehood in Palestine. It was an important step that lent 

a measure of unity of effort between Labor and Revisionist Zionists.

Throughout the war, illegal immigration and settlement expansion continued in the coastal plain, the Jordan Valley, the Negev, and 

the Galilee. In addition to finding adequate places for immigrants to 

settle and contribute to the economy of the Yishuv, the Jewish Agency 

also had in mind any future partition plans that might emerge. To 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

199

reinforce Jewish claims and achieve the greatest possible extent of 

Jewish-controlled lands, the Zionists deliberately pushed settlements 

out to key areas in the Negev, the Judean Hills, the Jordan Valley, and 

throughout Galilee.

In 1943, with the news of the Holocaust and the severe plight of 

European Jews now indisputable, Churchill pushed the cabinet to ease 

restrictions against immigration and allow Jews who could escape the 

Nazis to enter Palestine. Handfuls of Jews trickled in under the new 

program, and the stories of the horror they left behind galvanized the 

Jews of the Yishuv toward a vision of future statehood. In 1944, as it 

became clear that the Allies would prevail against Hitler’s regime, the 

Irgun turned against Great Britain, terminated its truce, and commenced operations aimed at driving the British out of Palestine. Until 

the war’s actual end, Menachem Begin directed that attacks be confined to police and infrastructure that served the Mandate and not go 

against military installations.

In September 1944, Churchill announced his intention of commissioning a Jewish Brigade Group to be trained as a regular military unit 

for the war effort. By war’s end, thirty thousand Jews had served in 

the British Army in Europe and the Mediterranean theater.a

 The Zionists would later point to the Jewish contribution as part of their arguments for the legitimacy of their movement. In response, Haj Amin 

al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem (then in Berlin), reached out 

to the Nazis and sought support for an Arab-Islamic Army as a counter 

to British intentions. Al-Husseini remained in Germany for the duration of the war, met with Hitler, and worked in support of Nazi propaganda against the Jews.

In November Lehi terrorists assassinated Lord Moyne, who had 

previously expressed anti-Zionist (some would say anti-Semitic) views. 

Moyne was a close personal friend of Churchill, and the prime minister 

was taken aback by the news, even suggesting he might have to reconsider his own support for Zionism. Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, and the 

Jewish Agency reacted strongly, deprecating the assassination and urging all Jews to oppose both Lehi and the Irgun. This episode initiated 

the Hunting Season, or Saison—a period that marked the low point in 

relations between left-wing and right-wing Zionists. The Jewish Agency 

informed British Authorities of the identity of seven hundred members of the Irgun, many of whom were then arrested. The Haganah 

underground cooperated with the British in an effort to eliminate both 

the Irgun and Lehi. Eliahu Golomb, a Haganah leader, described the 

struggle as a conflict between “Zionist democracy and Jewish Nazism.”3

a In addition, five hundred thousand Jews served in the Soviet Army, some 40 percent 

of whom died during the war.
200

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

On March 22, 1945, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Transjordan established the Arab League, and Yemen joined soon after. A bid 

for Arab unity, the league was unanimous in its opposition to Zionism and the prospect of a Jewish state in Palestine. Egypt had finally 

declared war on the Axis powers the month before so it could have a 

place at the peace negotiations.

In July 1945 the Irgun and Lehi commenced attacks on British military targets. Back in London, both Conservatives and Labour Party 

members continued to back away from Zionism, with the sole exception 

of Churchill. But even his advocacy counted for nothing after Labour 

came to power in July. Clement Atlee, no friend to Zionism, was the new 

prime minister. David Ben-Gurion’s Labor Zionists realized that from 

that point Britain would offer only opposition to the Zionist enterprise.

The network of Zionist insurgency spread decisively to Europe and 

into the displaced persons camps where many of the wretched survivors of the Holocaust now lived. Many were angry and completely disenchanted with Europe and desired immediate immigration to Palestine. 

Their plight caught the attention of President Truman, who advocated 

in their favor, asking the Labour government to issue immigration 

passes. The British refused. Ben-Gurion worked with General Dwight 

Eisenhower to transfer displaced Jews to American-controlled territory, 

where it was found that more than 95 percent of them wanted to immigrate to Palestine.4

 In April 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of 

Inquiry also recommended that the ban on Jewish land purchases be 

lifted and that one hundred thousand immigration passes be issued. 

Again Britain refused.

As the British government clamped down against immigration with 

ever more vigor, the Irgun struck back, increasing its campaign of violence against British institutions in Palestine. Menachem Begin and the 

Revisionists insisted that only armed conflict would end the British tyranny and win freedom for European Jews who, according to right-wing 

Zionists, had an automatic right to immigrate. The British responded 

with more harsh reprisals, filling the prison at Acre with Zionist “terrorists.” But in the three years from the end of World War II to the 

declaration of the State of Israel, between forty thousand and eighty 

thousand Jews reached Palestine illegally.

With pressure mounting on the British government, the Zionists 

scored several notable successes. Two ships bearing refugees were, 

after delays, permitted to continue to Palestine. Meanwhile, Palmach 

operatives raided the internment camp at Athlit and freed hundreds 

of Jewish refugees threatened with deportation. The Zionists quickly 

absorbed the refugees into the population before the British could 

hunt them down.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

201

British intransigence also had the positive—albeit temporary—

effect of bringing Labor and Revisionist Zionists together. Ben-Gurion 

authorized the establishment of the Jewish Resistance Movement under 

which the Irgun and Lehi would work with the Haganah. In June 1946 

operatives launched a series of raids that destroyed British infrastructure around Palestine’s borders to isolate the region from any antiZionist traffic. The British responded by rounding up thousands of 

Zionists, including key leaders (except Ben-Gurion, who was in France, 

and Chaim Weizmann, whose reputation with the British precluded 

his arrest), in Operation Agatha. In the ongoing race to procure arms 

and ammunition, the Zionists suffered occasional setbacks when British troops found caches, but overall the Haganah was successful in 

its preparations.

The Jewish Resistance Movement came to a bloody end when Irgun 

operatives blew up the King David Hotel on July  22,  1946, killing 

ninety-one people, including British officials, Arabs, and Jews. The historiography of the incident, as in all episodes in the Zionist insurgency, 

reflects historians’ ongoing dispute over culpability. Irgun sympathizers insist that the Haganah was well aware of the operation and had 

approved it. They further argue that they had issued clear warnings 

ahead of time to give the British the chance to evacuate the building. Others paint a different picture—that Menachem Begin and the 

Irgun were reckless and bloodthirsty and alone were responsible for 

the bloodshed. The Jewish Agency deprecated the action, and the Jewish Resistance Movement was dead.

Meanwhile, from the end of the war through 1947 thousands of Jewish refugees flooded into internment camps on Cyprus and in Palestine. 

Conditions in the camps and the brutality that British soldiers and police 

had to resort to sapped the moral will of the British population. Whitehall grew weary of the sojourn in Palestine and determined to hand the 

matter over to the UN. At the same time, Labor Zionists, under pressure 

from Britain’s repressive policies, inclined in the direction of accepting 

a proposed partition, provided enough land were made available for a 

viable state. In December 1946, after rancorous debate and a near-fatal 

factional split, the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress voted in favor of 

Ben-Gurion’s viewpoint—that there must be a Jewish state established 

in Palestine, if necessary pursuant to a partition. Revisionists opposed 

the idea, insistent as ever on Jewish control of all of Palestine.

Menachem Begin and the Irgun continued a violent, retributive 

campaign against British authorities. In December  1946, the British 

captured and publicly flogged Zionist operatives found in possession 

of weapons. The Irgun responded by capturing a British major and 
202

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

flogging him. Begin declared that every indignity the British inflicted 

on Jews would be paid in kind back to them.

As the Mandate drew to a close, all parties searched for a workable 

solution. Notions of partition were accepted by left-wing Zionists but 

rejected by the right and by the Arabs. The British, with an eye on the 

Arabs’ massive oil reserves, shied away from alienating them, while their 

anger toward Jewish terror grew. Early in 1947, the cabinet made the 

decision to turn Palestine over to the UN, and the announcement to 

that effect came in February. The Irgun did not relent in its operations 

and blew up a British officers’ club in Jerusalem the following month.

In May 1947 the UN took up the debate concerning the future of 

Palestine. The UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) began 

its investigation of the matter. As UNSCOP members traveled to Palestine, thousands of illegal Jewish refugees continued to arrive on ships. 

The British boarded the vessels, often with bloodshed, commandeered 

ships, and pushed the wretched masses into displaced persons camps 

on Cyprus. When the Exodus arrived with 4,500 refugees, the cabinet 

decided to send them back, sometimes locked in cages, to Europe—a 

move publicized to the world and one that cast Whitehall in the role of 

desperate, cold-blooded tyrants.

As UNSCOP deliberated, the violence continued. When the British executed three Jews in Palestine, despite warning of retribution 

from the Irgun, Menachem Begin made the painful decision to follow 

through with his threats and executed two British sergeants (one of 

whom had been friendly to the Zionist cause) and booby-trapped their 

bodies. The resulting publicity redounded into more demands from 

the British public to get out of Palestine.

On September 1, UNSCOP recommended partition and the creation of an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem supervised by 

an international governing body. The Arab Higher Committee, dominated by Haj Amin al-Husseini, rejected the proposal outright. The 

Jewish Agency accepted it in theory but pushed for revised boundaries. 

Ben-Gurion, now with full political control of the Haganah, instructed 

his officers to gird for war and to expect the worst: the Jews would 

have to defend their holdings and fight for every inch of territory—

both against Palestinian Arabs and against invasion from surrounding 

Arab powers.

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. All 

Arab states voted against it. The United States and USSR voted in favor. 

Britain abstained, along with nine others. The measure passed with 

thirty-three in favor, and thirteen against. The Jews in Palestine broke 

into celebration. The Arabs rejected the resolution.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

203

The announcement of Resolution 181 led to the commencement of 

hostilities between the Yishuv and the Palestinian Arabs and eventually 

the surrounding Arab powers. The war lasted until a series of armistice 

agreements in 1949 ended hostilities. The conflict unfolded in four 

phases punctuated by two truces. From November 29, 1947, through 

May 14, 1948, the Jews fought to defend their holdings from Palestinian 

Arab militias. After the Israeli declaration of statehood, the Arab powers (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and some small contingents from other Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Sudan) 

invaded Palestine. From May 15 through June 11, the Israelis fought to 

defend their hard-pressed communities from the initial onslaught. The 

first UN-brokered truce went into effect for almost a month before the 

second phase broke out from July 8 through July 18. The Israeli Defense 

Forces (IDF) conducted successful counteroffensives in the south and 

in Galilee, but their efforts in Jerusalem and against the Syrians fell 

short of their objectives. The second UN truce stretched from July 18 

through October 15. The final phase of the war then commenced with 

the IDF conducting large-scale, generally successful offensives that left 

them in possession of Galilee, the Negev, and about three-quarters of 

the territory of the British Mandate in Palestine.

After the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Israel was accepted into the 

UN and settled into prolonged diplomatic conflict with the Arabs. In 

the first several years of its existence, Israel accepted about 650,000 

Jewish refugees from Europe and Middle Eastern countries, effectively 

doubling its population.

LEADERSHIP, ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE, 

AND COMMAND AND CONTROL

David Ben-Gurion remained firmly in control of Labor Zionists. 

After a dramatic debate at the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress in 1946, 

he cemented his position as head of the Mapai party and chairman of 

the Jewish Agency. After gaining independence, the Israelis held their 

first parliamentary elections in January  1949, and Ben-Gurion was 

elected as Israel’s first prime minister. The Jewish Agency continued 

to act as the official representative institution in Palestine, and the Histadrut strengthened Labor’s control of the Yishuv’s economy. During 

this period the Haganah grew in numbers and organization, with the 

Palmach as its lead organization. These instruments of shadow government under the British Mandate made a fairly smooth transition into 

official government organs after Israel gained independence.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky died in 1940. By 1944 Menachem Begin had risen 

to command the Irgun. When the end of World War II was in sight, 
204

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

he led the Irgun in a relentless campaign of terror with the goal of 

expelling the British from Palestine. His actions frequently brought the 

Irgun and Revisionists to the edge of civil war with the establishment 

Zionists. During the War of Independence, the Altalena Affair saw BenGurion order his Haganah troops to fire on the Irgun and Begin, but 

when Begin relented, civil war was averted. That the two factions could 

survive such episodes and still come together for a common purpose 

during the war is indicative of the strong unifying forces within the 

Zionist movement.

Underground Component and Auxiliary Component

Zionist underground organizations and activities expanded during 

and after World War II as British counterinsurgency measures intensified. The Haganah remained clandestine, except on those occasions 

when the British authorized and cooperated with their operations. 

The Irgun remained an illegal organization under the Mandate, as 

did Lehi. In addition, Aliyah Bet—the Jews’ operations to bring in 

illegal immigrants—continued through the war and beyond until 

the British departed in 1948. At times even the political organs of the 

shadow government had to operate underground as British authorities 

cracked down.

Despite the formidable task before them of defeating the Axis powers, British authorities elected to maintain their effort to prevent illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine. When viewed against the gradual 

realization of what was happening under Hitler’s regime, this policy 

bordered on outrageous and fomented strong antipathy among the 

Zionists. From Whitehall’s point of view, however, clamping down on 

Zionist progress in Palestine was necessary to avoid further inflaming 

the Arabs or exciting revolt among the empire’s Muslims, particularly 

in India. Whatever the rationale, British restrictions and seeming indifference to the depredations suffered under Hitler’s regime embittered 

Zionists against their British masters. Whether Mandatory authorities 

agreed to it or not, the Jews intended to continue bringing their brothers and sisters to Palestine.

On September 1, 1939, the Tiger Hill ran aground near Tel Aviv with 

1,400 illegal Jewish refugees on board. Mandatory authorities boarded 

the vessel and took the refugees to Sarafand and Athlit detention camps 

near Tel Aviv and Haifa, respectively. The British cabinet decided on a 

policy of returning illegal immigrants to Europe after the war.5

 The 

ban on immigration did not stop the flow, and in November 1940, the 

conflict between Zionists who insisted on continued immigration and 

British rulers who wanted it stopped came to a head in a tragic episode. 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

205

Two ships with a total of 1,771 illegal immigrants had arrived at Haifa, 

and the British had intercepted the ships, removed the Jews, and placed 

them aboard a French ocean liner, the Patria, bound for Mauritius, 

where the British intended to inter the illegals for the duration of the 

war. On November 24, Haganah operatives, intending to disable the 

ship to prevent it from leaving, detonated explosives that instead sank 

the vessel, drowning 250 refugees. Survivors were taken ashore and 

eventually allowed to remain in Palestine at Winston Churchill’s insistence. But the British suspended what remained of legal immigration 

through September 1941 to punish the Zionists, and they continued to 

deport other incoming Jews to Mauritius.

Aliyah Bet continued to operate both during the war to try to save 

Jews from the Holocaust and after the war to allow displaced Jews to 

leave Europe. The pivotal event in the Aliyah Bet program was the incident of the Exodus in 1947. The Exodus was intercepted, attacked, and 

boarded by the British patrol. Despite significant resistance from its 

passengers, Exodus was forcibly returned to Europe. Its passengers were 

eventually sent back to Germany and forced into an internment camp. 

The incident was publicized, to the great embarrassment of the British 

government.

From the end of World War  II until the establishment of Israel 

(1945–1948), illegal immigration was the major method of immigration, 

because the British, by setting the quota at a mere eighteen thousand 

per year, virtually terminated the option of legal immigration. Sixtysix illegal immigration sailings were organized during these years, but 

only a few managed to penetrate the British blockade and bring their 

passengers ashore. The British stopped the vessels carrying immigrants 

at sea and interned the captured immigrants in camps on Cyprus; most 

of these immigrants arrived in Israel only after the establishment of 

the state. Approximately eighty thousand illegal immigrants reached 

Palestine during 1945–1948. Underground activities also extended to 

the displaced persons camps in Europe after World War  II. Zionists 

undertook to educate, provide medical treatment, and otherwise care 

for Jewish refugees, all the while encouraging them to set their hearts 

on immigration to Palestine.

Armed Component

The Haganah

The Haganah, like other Zionist institutions, operated on the border 

between legal and illegal throughout the war. British military authorities chose to organize and employ specially trained Haganah shock 

troops in their war against the Vichy French in Syria. This group was 
206

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

designated Plugot Mahatz (Strike Force), known thereafter by the acronym Palmach. Its operations in Syria were small-scale guerrilla actions, 

and its record of success was uneven. Moshe Dayan, later famous as IDF 

chief of staff and minister of defense, lost his left eye during one combat operation in Lebanon. But beyond those operations authorized by 

the Mandatory authorities, the Haganah and the Irgun remained illegal, clandestine organizations.

At the start of World War  II, Yaakov Dostrovsky, a Russian-born 

Zionist, was appointed as the chief of staff for the Haganah in an 

effort to achieve better organization within the force. He and his chosen assistant, Yigael Yadin (Sukenik), worked tirelessly to integrate the 

dispersed and loosely organized detachments into a national army. 

Simultaneously they maintained the secretive nature of the force, using 

code names for the leadership and moving headquarters frequently to 

avoid detection. Labor Zionist Dov Hos took up the task of creating an 

embryonic air force built around small crop-dusting aircraft at first.6

As the Haganah developed slowly into what would become the basis for 

the IDF, leaders commenced formal training courses for officers.

In the final two years of the Mandate, the British were determined to 

find and confiscate illegal arms, and they enjoyed some success in their 

raids. But Zionist ingenuity in hiding weapons and ammunition kept 

up with the challenge. The Haganah suffered continued disruptions 

but never enough to derail its gradual buildup. Meanwhile, its agents 

continued to procure arms abroad—especially in Czechoslovakia—

and worked with sympathetic powers, including France, for shipment 

to Palestine when possible.

In the fall of 1947, Yigael Yadin was appointed operations officer 

for the Haganah, and four brigades were assigned their areas of operation: north, central, south, and Jerusalem. (By the end of the War of 

Independence, the Haganah had deployed twelve brigades.) For future 

military operations, the force was organized into two groups known by 

their acronyms HIM and HISH. The former included all the community garrisons, while the latter was the mobile field force. Both would 

prove crucial to Israel’s survival in the War of Independence. At BenGurion’s insistence, universal conscription was established, and all ablebodied men and women aged eighteen to twenty-five were called up. 

The age restriction was gradually increased to forty-five by war’s end.

As the British Mandate moved toward expiration and the troops 

began to pull out, Haganah agents acted feverishly to bring purchased 

military equipment into the country. Small arms, small-caliber artillery 

pieces, and antitank guns—and even bombers and fighters—were hastily taken by sea and air into Palestine. The Israeli Armored Corps had 

a colorful birth when two British soldiers sympathetic to the Zionists 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

207

stole two Cromwell tanks and joined the Haganah. Complementing 

these efforts, Jewish industry in Palestine had made headway in developing its own arms and ammunition manufacturing, although by 1948 

it was confined to small arms and ammunition.

On May  26,  1948, Ben-Gurion’s government established the IDF 

from the Haganah. Members of the other paramilitaries joined the 

IDF over the ensuing months, but friction continued among the Irgun, 

Lehi, and the IDF.

Palmach

With the outbreak of world war in 1939 the British Mandatory 

authorities had to wrestle with the problem of how to defend Palestine 

and prosecute the war against Germany and its allies on the one hand 

and maintain peace and the restrictions against Zionist immigration 

on the other. The resulting policies reflected the organizational schizophrenia of the cabinet’s diverse viewpoints and priorities. While the 

crackdown on immigration continued and British police pressed on in 

their campaign against illegal arms smuggling, they cooperated with 

the Jewish leaders to employ Palmach in the summer of 1941. Haganah 

leaders had established Palmach in May with a view to defending Palestine against possible Nazi incursion and to have a force ready to defend 

against the Arabs in the event the British quit the region.

Yitzhak Sadeh was appointed commander of Palmach. Sadeh was 

a Russian-born Jew who served with distinction in the Russian Army 

during World War I. He immigrated in 1920 and was a key figure in 

the Haganah from 1921 onward. He saw action in the 1929 riots and 

again in the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939, in which he led hand-picked 

commando raids against Arab villages implicated in attacks on Jews.

The British called on Palmach to assist with scouting and guerrilla 

operations over the border into Lebanon and Syria in 1941, where the 

Vichy French regime was in control. Early successes convinced the British to fund a training camp, and Palmach commandos worked with 

both British and Australian soldiers to disrupt Vichy infrastructure. 

But with the British victory over Rommel at El Alamein in 1942, the 

Mandatory authorities saw no further need for Palmach and ordered it 

disbanded. Instead, it went underground.

To subsist and train, Palmach members drew support from various kibbutzim, and in turn they committed to performing agricultural 

work and defending the Jewish communities. As part of the Haganah, 

Palmach leaders instituted a disciplined and rigorous training program for its soldiers, emphasizing basic skills—marksmanship, explosives, land navigation, first aid, etc.—and inculcated independence and 

self-reliance among junior and senior leaders. Other Haganah officials 
208

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

exploited the effectiveness of the force and sent many of their leaders 

to Palmach for training.

As the end of the world war was in sight, Palmach occasionally cooperated with the British against the Irgun and the splinter Stern Gang. 

But in October 1945, David Ben-Gurion made the fateful decision to 

oppose the British and commit the Haganah to fighting the Mandatory authorities in an effort to drive the British out of Palestine. Palmach thus became part of the loose confederation of irregular forces 

that included the Haganah, the Irgun, and Lehi operating against 

the British.

The Irgun

In response to the MacDonald White Paper of 1939, Jabotinsky submitted a plan to the Irgun high command aimed at staging a revolt 

against British rule in Palestine. The plan involved armed seizure of 

key public buildings, including the high commissioner’s residence in 

Jerusalem. The Irgun would then defend its holdings to the death 

while Zionists in Europe and the United States declared Israel’s independence. The unforeseen intrusion of World War  II led the Irgun 

to shelve the plan. Instead, when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Jabotinsky reluctantly followed the Haganah’s lead and 

agreed to a cease-fire for Britain so that the Jews could concentrate on 

defeating the Nazis. Eventually, the Irgun’s operational commander, 

David Raziel, was released from prison. He was later killed in Syria on 

a mission assisting the British.

In 1943, Menachem Begin arrived in Palestine as part of the Polish II Corps. Begin was a Russian-born Jew who had risen to prominence as the leader of Betar in Poland. He fled Poland when the Nazis 

invaded and was later arrested by the Russians, accused of being a 

British agent. He spent time in prison and was tortured. He was later 

released and joined the Polish Army in exile. When his unit reached 

Palestine, he was eventually permitted to take a leave of absence (which 

became permanent) to serve with the Irgun. He lost his father, mother, 

and brother to the Holocaust.

Before the end of the war Begin assumed the leadership of the 

Irgun. He was determined to get the British out of Palestine, and to that 

end he declared a revolt, ending the Irgun’s wartime policy of cooperation. He led the organization on a campaign aimed at destroying Mandatory infrastructure and instruments of government. During the war 

he restricted attacks to police stations and other nonmilitary targets, 

but when the war ended, he extended operations to include the British Army. Relations with the Haganah and the Labor Zionists reached 

a nadir with Lehi’s assassination of Lord Moyne in November  1944. 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

209

Responding to Britain’s sense of outrage at the murder, the Haganah 

commenced the Saison (Hunting Season) against the Irgun and Lehi, 

handing over lists of names to the British. The campaign ended in 

February 1945, in part because even the establishment Zionists were 

becoming disenchanted with the British.

Figure 10-2. Menachem Begin in 1949.

London’s dramatic turn against Zionists toward the end of the war, 

including its decision to continue the 1939 White Paper policies against 

immigration and land sales even after the full impact of the Holocaust 

became known, turned even Ben-Gurion and the Haganah against the 

British. From October 1945 through August 1946, the Haganah and 

the Irgun worked together under the Jewish Resistance Movement. But 

in the summer of 1946, a series of episodes tested the resilience of the 

cooperation.

In June Palmach operatives destroyed multiple infrastructure targets in a series of raids designed to cut lines of communication into 

and out of Palestine. The British responded with Operation Agatha, 

in which they rounded up many members of the Zionist leadership 

and held them in detention. In July, Menachem Begin moved forward 

with a plan to bomb the King David Hotel in Tel Aviv, which served 

as the British headquarters. The resulting explosion killed ninety-one 

people, including British, Jews, and Arabs. The public outcry, both 

in Palestine and abroad, led to Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency 
210

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

condemning the action, blaming Begin and the Irgun, and ended the 

Jewish Resistance Movement.

Begin continued in his defiance of both the British and the Jewish Agency. He directed the Irgun to continue the campaign against 

Mandatory authorities and the British Army despite being wanted and 

having to live constantly in hiding.b

 He was outraged when the British 

hanged four Jews in April 1947. In May, Irgun operatives broke into 

Acre Prison and freed twenty-eight prisoners. Three Irgun members 

caught during the raid were sentenced to death. Two British sergeants 

were apprehended on Begin’s orders, and he threatened the British 

that if the death sentences were carried out, he would likewise execute 

the sergeants. The British did not relent and hanged the three Jews, 

whereupon Begin ordered the sergeants killed and their bodies left 

to hang. When British police arrested and flogged a Jew, Begin apprehended a British major and had him flogged in retaliation.

After the British departure and UN Resolution  181, the Irgun 

fought alongside the Haganah in defense against Arab attacks. During the attempt to open up the Jerusalem corridor on April 9, 1948, 

the Irgun and Lehi attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin, and during and after the battle there were allegations of indiscriminate killing. The incident became infamous as a massacre, and Begin received 

much of the blame. The Jewish Agency and the Haganah condemned 

the action publicly, and controversy concerning the engagement continues to the present.

The following month Begin signed an agreement with David BenGurion to the effect that the Irgun would emerge from underground 

status and become part of the IDF. But Begin had arranged for an 

illegal shipment of arms that would arrive during the first UN truce—

technically a violation of the terms. When the impending arrival 

became known, Ben-Gurion and Begin began intense negotiations in 

which Ben-Gurion agreed to hand over 20 percent of the weapons to 

the Irgun soldiers fighting in Jerusalem, while the rest would go to 

the IDF. But the two could not agree on which soldiers should receive 

the other 80 percent. Begin wanted the former Irgun units to receive 

them, but Ben-Gurion worried that Begin was trying to maintain the 

Irgun within the IDF as an “army within an army”—a potential threat 

to the authority of the Israeli provisional government. The ship Altalena

arrived on June 20, and Menachem Begin and Irgun soldiers greeted 

the arrival on the shore. As the arms were being offloaded, Ben-Gurion 

ordered the Alexandroni Brigade, under the command of Dan Even, to 

surround the beach and deliver an ultimatum. Begin refused to hand 

b Begin assumed an alter ego during this period, disguising himself as a rabbi named 

Sassover.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

211

over the weapons, and a firefight ensued. A cease-fire was negotiated, 

but Begin had boarded the ship, which then sailed to Tel Aviv, where 

the provisional government was meeting. As it sailed near the shore in 

full view of politicians, diplomats, and the press, another showdown 

between the IDF and the Irgun began. Ben-Gurion ordered the IDF to 

surround the beach and bring in heavy weapons. After a standoff, the 

IDF opened fire on the ship, setting it ablaze. Begin stayed on board 

until the last wounded were evacuated. As Irgun soldiers left the ship 

under white flag, IDF soldiers continued firing at them, killing some. 

Survivors were arrested.

Begin decided that for the good of Israel, he would not press 

the issue. Suffering great personal humiliation, he subordinated the 

Irgun to the government so as to avoid a civil war in the midst of the 

War of Independence. In later years, he claimed this was his greatest 

achievement.

Lehi

Some members of the Irgun believed the organization did not 

reach far enough in its goals, timetable, and methods. Avraham Stern 

led a splinter group he named Lohamei Herut Israel (Fighters for the 

Freedom of Israel), but his organization became infamous as Lehi 

(the resulting acronym), or as simply the Stern Gang (founded in 

August 1940). Before the war Stern had worked with the Polish government to recruit and train thousands of Jewish men with the intent of 

illegally immigrating to Palestine and fighting the British authorities 

there for control of the region. The German invasion of 1939 put an 

end to that project, but Stern continued his campaign in Palestine even 

after his arrest at the outbreak of war. When Jabotinsky and the Irgun 

agreed to a truce with Britain for the duration of the war against Germany, Stern split from the Irgun, insisting that British policy was just as 

reprehensible as the Germans’ anti-Semitism.

Despite Germany’s anti-Semitic policies, Stern believed he could 

gain the cooperation of Germany or Italy to establish the Jewish state. 

He hoped that Germany would defeat Britain, which he viewed as the 

chief enemy. His efforts in 1941 to effect a deal with the Nazis stood in 

defiance to other Revisionists, including Jabotinsky, and earned Stern a 

bad reputation among most of the Yishuv.7

 Lehi’s ideology and policies 

differed from the Irgun’s in two key areas. First, Stern and his followers 

despised Great Britain and wanted to fight against the empire not just 

to expel the British from Palestine but also to see the eventual defeat 

of British imperialism. Second, Lehi aimed at imposing demographic 

changes in Jewish territory, replacing Arab populations with Jewish 
212

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

ones, whereas the Irgun’s policy was to accept peaceful Arabs within 

the Jewish state’s borders.

The Stern Gang targeted and killed the Tel Aviv police chief, and 

its operations sometimes led to street battles that claimed the lives of 

both Jews and British. Stern became a wanted man and tried to stay on 

the move from one safe house to another in Tel Aviv until he was finally 

arrested in February 1942. Controversy continues to the present as to 

how and why he was killed after the arrest.

Figure 10-3. Avraham Stern.

Lehi was a peculiar but inevitable dimension of the Zionist insurgency. It grew as a natural expression of Jewish militancy toward British 

policy, but it foundered because it could not find an ideological niche 

to fill within the Yishuv. Vacillating between national socialism on the 

one hand and Bolshevism on the other, Lehi lost its footing among 

fellow Jews who disliked both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. Still, 

Lehi’s actions contributed to the Zionist cause by demonstrating the 

depth and intractability of Jewish aspirations in Palestine. Lehi helped 

to make it clear to the British cabinet that the empire had two choices: 

commit to a long, bitter, and bloody enterprise in Palestine or quit the 

region. Although its methods were judged reprehensible and officially 

condemned by the Jewish Agency, Lehi thus contributed to the Zionist 

cause and in some ways its leaders had a clearer strategic vision than 

Ben-Gurion or even Jabotinsky. Their historic contribution trumped 

the general disdain they attracted in the 1940s, as evidenced by the 

organization’s amalgamation into the IDF in 1948 and its rehabilitation 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

213

in the 1980s, coordinate with the election of Yitzhak Shamir, a former 

Lehi member, as prime minister.

Public Component

The Jewish Agency continued to act as the touchstone of Zionist 

contact both with international powers and with the Jews of the Diaspora. Its role as the insurgency’s public component was crucial during 

World War II and afterward, because it gave the establishment Zionists 

a vehicle for expressing their policies, including their disapproval of 

the Irgun and Lehi. Thus, the Zionist insurgency had the means of 

perpetrating effective terror operations while simultaneously decrying 

them. Although this was not the intent of any single leader, the overall 

effect was beneficial for the movement because the terror operations 

sapped British moral strength, but the Jewish Agency was able to maintain the legitimacy of the Zionist movement by distancing itself publicly 

from indiscriminate violence.

IDEOLOGY

The ideological and political competition between Labor and Revisionist Zionism continued during the war and after. Labor strove to 

achieve legitimacy within the international community and constantly 

sought compromise with Britain. Revisionists maintained that the territorial integrity of Jewish Palestine was the primary goal, and they had 

long ago lost all faith in the British.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky monitored the deteriorating situation in Poland 

and Germany in the early months of the war, and his reflection on 

the Jewish conditions there persuaded him that only the establishment 

of a Jewish state in Palestine would enable the necessary large-scale 

immigration needed to rescue European Jewry from destruction. He 

continued to campaign along these lines until he died in 1940 while in 

the United States. Despite the antipathy between Labor and Revisionists, Jabotinsky’s death was viewed as a loss for all Zionists. He had been 

a key figure in the struggle, and many Jews who escaped in time to 

Palestine had him to thank.

Revisionists continued to insist that Jews control the totality of Palestine, but during the war and in response to the Holocaust, their call 

for immediate statehood grew more urgent. Jabotinsky, Raziel, and 

Begin still demanded that the Jewish state include both sides of the 

Jordan River, but they were realistic enough to understand that they 

had lost Transjordan. They maintained their intent to incorporate the 
214

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

West Bank—ancient Judea and Samaria—into the Jewish state, despite 

the area’s large Arab population.

A more extreme ideology took shape as Lehi split from the Irgun 

as described above. Its leader, Avraham Stern, cultivated a belief in the 

destiny of Jews to dissociate from any other nation and instead fight 

underground until they could establish their own state of Israel. He 

wrote poetry and songs glorifying martyrdom in this cause, and many 

of his followers invested in his vision. Lehi’s ideology focused on violence as the method for obtaining its goals, but the group's political ideology was vaguer, incorporating ideas from both the right and the left 

and championing first fascism and later Bolshevism. Stern developed 

an insurgency based on urban guerrilla warfare, strong propaganda 

(radio and print), and an international diplomacy aimed at gaining 

cooperation against Great Britain and the Mandate. To obtain funds, 

the Stern Gang would solicit support from like-minded Jews, or, if necessary, rob banks.

Meanwhile the business of building up the Yishuv in Palestine continued. The ideology of Practical Zionism continued as a feature of 

Zionist strategy—building up the Yishuv through continuous immigration (legal or otherwise) and settlement. In 1939 German immigrants 

established a kibbutz at Beit Ha-Aravah along the shores of the Dead 

Sea. They used the freshwater of the Jordan to desalinate the soil and 

soon made the land arable, raising fruit, vegetables, and fodder, even 

in winter. Settlements along the Mediterranean coastal plain and in 

north Galilee grew in the early years of the war. In 1941 German youths 

established a religious kibbutz named Yavneh east of Ashdod. Also in 

1941 Zionists founded a kibbutz in the Negev with the intent of enlarging the Jewish presence in the south in case the British were compelled 

to withdraw from German armies advancing into Egypt. It was named 

Dorot in honor of Dov Hos and his family, who had been killed in an 

automobile accident.

The Jewish Agency also oversaw the establishment of Jewish communities in the hills of Judea and Samaria, as well as in the Hulah 

Valley, by the headwaters of the Jordan River. It also reestablished Kfar 

Etzion in the Hebron Hills, along with three other settlements nearby. 

To push the Jewish presence southward along the Mediterranean coast, 

Zionists founded a kibbutz named Yad Mordecai (in honor of the leader 

of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) just north of Gaza. Another religious 

community sprang up south of the Gaza-Beersheba road in 1943.8

Labor Zionists evolved their ideology in the midst of World War II 

as news of the Holocaust escaped Europe. In May 1942 Zionists met 

in the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. Responding to the shocking 

news leaking out of Europe concerning the Nazi death camps and the 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

215

concurrent British decision to clamp down on immigration, David BenGurion, as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, led a majority of 

the six hundred delegates to a policy of replacing the British Mandate 

with a Jewish state in Palestine and ending all restrictions to immigration. Thus, the creation of a Jewish state became the official policy of 

the Zionists, as expressed in the Biltmore Program.

The Biltmore decision signaled a policy shift in which mainstream 

Labor Zionists moved more toward the Revisionist position and against 

Great Britain. Leaders began to cultivate a vision of the postwar world 

and foresaw the rise of the United States as a more important world 

power than Britain, and one from which they could find greater sympathy and support for a Jewish homeland. While the war continued Zionist 

leaders could hope for Britain and the Allies to defeat the Axis powers, 

but once the war was over, there would be little room for continued 

cooperation between the British Mandatory authorities and the Jews.

LEGITIMACY

The main pillar of Zionist legitimacy continued to be historical 

anti-Semitism, and Jewish leaders had only to point to the disaster of 

the Holocaust to make their point that Jews would never be safe without their own country. The catastrophe of six million deaths served 

both to undergird Zionist ideology and also to vilify the Zionists’ enemies, including Great Britain. In the spring of 1946, for example, 1,014 

Jewish survivors were aboard two ships trapped in the Italian port of 

La Spezia. The British had pressured the Italian government to prevent 

the ships from sailing and to remove the refugees. The Jews announced 

that they would conduct a hunger strike until they were allowed to leave, 

and that if anyone tried to board the ships by force, they would sink 

them and commit mass suicide. Golda Meir urged Zionist leaders in 

Palestine to join the strike as a show of solidarity, and she approached 

British Chief Secretary in Palestine Henry Gurney to announce her 

intentions. According to her memoirs, Gurney scoffed and asked her 

whether she believed that the British cabinet would change its policy 

because she refused to eat. “No,” she replied, “I have no such illusions. 

If the death of six million didn’t change your government policy, I don’t 

expect that my not eating will do so.” In the end the ships were granted 

permission to sail, and the refugees were given immigration passes.9

Richard Crossman, former member of the Anglo-American Commission, noted with dismay in 1946 that “it is impossible to crush a 

resistance movement which has the passive toleration of the mass of 

the population.”10 One of the triumphs of the Zionist insurgency was 

the leaders’ ability to cultivate a common vision within the diverse 
216

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

constituents of the Yishuv. A classic definition of a nation is “a group of 

people who have a common past and a common vision of the future.” 

In this sense the commanding majority of Jews in Palestine in the 1940s 

constituted a nation awaiting a state. Their common past included not 

only the historical narrative of anti-Semitism dating back two thousand 

years but also the devastating reality of the Holocaust and the seemingly outrageous policies of the British.

Nor did depredations against the Jews in Europe stop with the end 

of the Nazi regime. On the contrary, in the wake of the war’s devastation, anti-Semitism was again on the rise. In July 1946, Polish communist forces initiated a pogrom against Jews in Kielce, dredging up the 

old myths of blood libel and false allegations of the use of kidnapped 

children for ritual sacrifice. Forty-two Jews were murdered, and thousands fled in shock that just a year after the end of the Holocaust the 

violence continued. Subsequent inquiry led to a sustained debate as 

to whether the incident resulted solely from anti-Semitism or Soviet 

agents conspired to cause the event as a way of discrediting their Polish communist rivals. In any event, the Kielce pogrom reinforced the 

Jews’ belief that only a secure state in Palestine would put an end to 

the violence.

It would be difficult to overstate the psychological impact of the 

Holocaust and postwar anti-Semitism on the immigrants arriving in 

Palestine. As they made their way—legally or otherwise—into the ports 

and then into the Jewish-controlled cities, towns, and farms, European 

refugees were shocked and overjoyed by what they saw. Behind them, in 

Europe, Jews were held in contempt, threatened, hunted, dispossessed, 

and murdered. Here, in Palestine, Jews were strong, unapologetic, 

determined, and thriving. The generation that survived the Holocaust 

came into the land deprived of mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers 

butchered by Nazis and abused by unsympathetic British. But many of 

them saw in the burgeoning Jewish nation in Palestine a real hope for 

the future. Surely, they reasoned, this enterprise was worth working, 

sacrificing, and fighting for.11

The Zionists also argued for the legitimacy of the movement by 

pointing to Jewish contributions during both world wars. Some thirty 

thousand Jews had served in the British Army during World War II in 

both Europe and the Mediterranean basin. The Zionists reminded 

their audience that the grand mufti had collaborated with Hitler’s 

hated regime and that the Arabs in general had contributed but few 

forces to the Allied cause.

As UNSCOP met in 1947 to consider the question of Palestine’s 

future, Zionists made impassioned speeches describing the tragedy and 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

217

hopelessness of the Jewish people. Chaim Weizmann’s speech described 

the Zionists’ view of the legitimacy of their cause:

They are a people, and they lack the props of a people . . . We ask today: “What are the Poles? What are 

the French? What are the Swiss?” When that is asked, 

everyone points to a country . . . He has a passport. 

If you ask what a Jew is—well, he is a man who has to 

offer a long explanation for his existence, and any person who has to offer an explanation as to what he is, is 

always suspect—and from suspicion there is only one 

step to hatred or contempt.12

David Ben-Gurion added to the argument by pointing to a survey 

that year in Germany, in which some 60 percent of the German population claimed they had been in favor of the Holocaust. Whether true 

or not, the survey results suggested, he claimed, that the Jews were not 

welcome in Europe and did not want to stay there.

An important feature of the legitimacy argument was the notion of 

“the Arab nation.” Since the days of the Ottoman Empire, Arab leaders 

had argued for an independent, unified Arab state. But in a sense, the 

entire concept was suspect. Unity among the various Arab populations 

of North Africa and the Middle East was a scarce commodity. Indeed, 

the lack of integration between Palestinian Arabs and the surrounding Arab powers remained the fundamental weakness of their position. 

The greatest impediment to Arab unity was not European colonialism 

or Jewish imperialism, but in practice it was the Arab leaders themselves who could not make common cause.

But this observation also impacted indirectly on the Zionist pursuit of legitimacy. Zionists often claimed (and still claim) that the Arab 

nation holds millions of square miles of territory and a huge population, while the Jews have only Palestine. Their point would have been 

more convincing had there in fact been an integrated Arab polity of 

some kind. The implication of the Zionist claim was that any Arab dispossessed by Jews or otherwise in extremis could simply immigrate to 

other Arab lands. But the Arabs themselves remained hostile to this 

idea, in part because there simply was no Arab unity, nor any Arab 

nation that could act as one. Hence, reality would counsel that the Zionists had to deal with Palestinian Arabs alone—whether they accepted 

them as a people or just people.
218

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR

How could diverse Jewish groups with widely different ideologies 

overcome their differences and work together? The behavior of the 

Haganah, the Irgun, and Lehi demonstrate that the centripetal force 

of shared deprivation and threat overcame the centrifugal force of ideological conflict. Labor Zionism, the Jewish Agency, and the Haganah, 

with one eye constantly on Zionism’s international reputation, tried 

to walk a middle ground between militancy and self-defense on the 

one side and restraint and political compromise on the other. Revisionist Zionists, the Irgun, and Lehi focused on the overriding priority 

of controlling Palestine, pursuing a violent agenda against all powers 

and individuals that threatened that goal. What united the two sides 

and facilitated their cooperation was the hopelessness and fear brought 

on by British policy and Arab antipathy—all against the backdrop of 

the Holocaust. Great Britain struggled to maintain an empire with an 

anachronistic imperialist policy that had no hope of prevailing. The 

frustration of failure both with the Jews and with the Arabs led to 

increasingly desperate measures that aggravated the situation and created new enemies.

The motivation and behavior of Zionist insurgents and the population that supported them are closely related to matters of legitimacy 

described above. Reeling from the Arab Revolt of 1936–1939, the White 

Paper, the Holocaust, and the continued assaults on European Jews, 

Zionists convinced themselves and sought to convince the rest of the 

world that a Jewish state in Palestine was the only hope for the world’s 

Jews. To inculcate that point both Labor and Revisionist leaders strove 

to educate and indoctrinate the youth. Shmaryahu Gutman, a Scottish 

immigrant and kibbutz farmer, began a movement to lead young Jewish students to Masada, the famed ancient mountaintop fortress where 

Jewish holdouts committed mass suicide rather than submit to Rome 

in 73 AD. By traveling to the site overlooking the Dead Sea, completing the daunting ascent to the top, and sitting among the ruins and 

contemplating the desperate courage and defiance of ancient, beleaguered Jewish nationalists, Gutman sought to instill among the youth 

the never-say-die determination they would need to brave the opposition their generation would surely face in building the state of Israel. 

Although Gutman was a Labor Zionist, not all of the Jewish leadership adhered to the ideology associated with Masada. Ben-Gurion disliked the symbolic use of the story, because it had ended in death and 

defeat. Still, the imagery and iconographic significance of a body of 

Jews unwilling to submit even at the cost of their lives remained powerful. The “Masada complex,” as critics in the 1970s dubbed it, could 

be viewed alternately as a unifying ideology of toughness in adversity 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

219

or as a neurosis of national paranoia. But from the Zionist perspective, the history behind Masada and the ensuing two thousand years of 

anti-Semitism that followed reinforced and validated the narrative: for 

whatever reason, the Jews would always face deadly opposition, and the 

only alternatives were to submit to slavery and death or fight.13

OPERATIONS

Paramilitary

World War II

The Axis powers never achieved an invasion of Palestine, but the 

threat galvanized both the British and Jews. In early September 1939 

Italian aircraft bombed Tel Aviv, killing 107 Jews.14 The Nazis’ activities in Iraq and the potential threat of the Vichy regime in Syria acted 

as catalysts for the Jews to cooperate temporarily with the British in 

defense of the Mandate. As the war wound down toward its conclusion, 

the various factions among the Zionists ended their cooperation and 

moved toward a break with the British.

The Aliyah Bet operation and similar efforts by the Irgun continually pit Zionists against the Royal Navy and other British officials in an 

attempt to bring illegal immigrants into Palestine. The most infamous 

incidents have been discussed above. But in general, the Zionists’ wartime experience in alternately cooperating with and working around 

the British prepared them for full-fledged insurgency against British 

rule at the war’s conclusion.

Postwar Operations

The postwar period saw an initial bifurcation of effort, with the 

Haganah committed to breaking the British restrictions on immigration through both legal and illegal means, while the Irgun and Lehi 

aimed at removing the British presence altogether and establishing a 

state. By October  1945 events would push Ben-Gurion’s Labor Zionists to break with their British rule. When US President Harry Truman urged the British to grant emergency immigration passes to one 

hundred thousand Jewish refugees, the British cabinet refused, and 

Ben-Gurion concluded that there would be no secure Jewish homeland as long as the British remained in control of Palestine. The AngloAmerican Commission of Inquiry made a similar recommendation in 

1946, and it too was set aside.

As discussed above the postwar period saw relations among the 

Haganah, the Irgun, and Lehi alternate between outright opposition to 

effective cooperation. The catalyst for unity came from the seemingly 
220

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

bizarre and brutal policies of the British Mandate, which eventually left 

the Labor Zionists no further room for diplomacy or cooperation with 

London. Thus, the British government’s countermeasures against the 

Zionist insurgency had the effect of healing the rift between the key 

insurgent factions, driving them together in purpose.

But insurgencies—especially those that succeed—must resort to 

heinous acts to get their points across. Within the Zionist insurgency, 

the right-wing factions were able and willing to go that far, while the 

left was not. The Irgun’s retaliation against Arab violence, its attack on 

the King David Hotel, and its brutal retribution campaign against British punishments of Jews alienated the Jewish Agency and the Haganah.

The War of Independence

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition 

Palestine west of the Jordan River into a Jewish state and an Arab state 

with Jerusalem to be administered by an international body. The Jews 

accepted the decision; the Arabs rejected it. The next day, near Petah 

Tikvah, Arab attackers fired on a Jewish bus, killing five. The Israeli 

War of Independence had begun. The war pitted 650,000 Jews against 

1,200,000 Palestinian Arabs and their allies, which eventually included 

elements of seven Arab armies. The military history of the war is well 

documented and beyond the scope of this study. However, of critical 

importance for understanding the course and success of Zionism is an 

appreciation for how a beleaguered, largely underground, ill-equipped 

group of insurgents with potentially fatal ideological and political divisions within it was able to overcome the challenges, achieve unity of 

effort, and transition to a wartime footing featuring multi-brigadesized joint operations in conventional conflict.

The challenge to defend the Jewish enclaves in Palestine was daunting for the Zionist leadership. Some thirty thousand Jews had served 

with the British during World War  II, but the Haganah was still a 

small, if well-organized, national militia. The strike force, Palmach, 

had a strength of about 2,100 active soldiers. It also had another 1,000 

in reserve, many of whom lacked weapons. The Irgun and Lehi also 

intended to fight, but with a history of bad blood between Labor and 

Revisionist Zionists, the question remained as to whether the two sides 

would be able to cooperate. In addition to these forces, each Jewish 

community had small police forces for protection. During the course 

of the War of Independence, Israeli strength would grow through 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

221

continued immigration and greater conscription to roughly 110,000, 

with a fighting strength of about 60,000.c

Against this embryonic collection of forces were the Arab Legion, 

about ten thousand strong, and the Transjordan Frontier Force, with 

three thousand soldiers (disbanded at the end of 1947, with most of its 

soldiers joining the Arab Legion or other units), poised to destroy the 

Jewish presence in Palestine. Within Palestine the exiled Grand Mufti 

Haj Amin al-Husseini had nominal control of the Army of Salvation, 

consisting of two-thousand-man-strong militias, one commanded by 

Haj Amin’s cousin Abd el-Kadr and operating in the vicinity of Jerusalem and the other led by Hassan Salameh in the Lod-Ramle area. As a 

counterweight to Abdullah I’s Jordanian forces, the other Arab powers 

also created the Arab Liberation Army (ALA), commanded by Fauzi 

el-Kaukji. In addition the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt maintained 

an irregular force in the south. Each of these forces operated semiindependently, although King Abdullah of Transjordan was nominally 

in command of the confederation of Arab forces. Various contingents 

among the Arabs had armored vehicles, aircraft, and artillery. Palestinian Arab leaders were hopeful that their brothers in surrounding Arab 

lands would join the effort.15

The role of the British forces was peculiar and sometimes unpredictable, because as the clock wound down on the British Mandate, 

authorities attempted to maintain some semblance of order in a region 

fast falling into chaos. Consequently British forces sometimes came to 

the aid of Jewish communities (especially from November 1947 through 

March 1948 when the Arabs were attacking), sometimes tried to broker cease-fires, and occasionally supported the Arabs (as in Jaffa in 

April 1948). In general, Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency wanted to 

avoid provoking unnecessary and distracting conflict with their departing British rulers, but the Irgun and Lehi continued to target them. By 

this time the British cabinet, still smarting from the attack on the King 

David Hotel and the assassination of Lord Moyne, had no sympathy or 

support for a Jewish state. Their ongoing interest in oil and in avoiding provocation toward Arabs and Muslims in general inclined them 

against Jewish interests.

The war unfolded in four phases punctuated by two UN-brokered 

truces. The first phase of the war, from the announcement of the partition plan to the departure of the British and declaration of statehood 

on May 14, 1948, featured desultory and loosely coordinated attacks 

c The historiography of Israel’s strength in the War of Independence illustrates ongoing debate. Pro-Zionist apologists generally attempt to argue that Israel was outnumbered; 

other historians insist that Israel actually had numerical superiority, especially given the 

divided nature of the opposing Arab commands.
222

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

on Jewish communities from Arab forces in Palestine. Attacks and 

counterattacks in the vicinity of Tel Aviv left the Jews with solid control of their heartland along the coast, with Arab-held Jaffa largely 

surrounded. Arabs in cities and towns along the coastal plain left the 

war-torn region, partly in fear of Jewish attacks and partly in response 

to Arab propaganda promising that Arab armies would soon liberate 

the area, permitting return. Thus was born the intractable problem of 

Palestinian refugees—an unavoidable and fundamental feature of the 

State of Israel from its inception.

Aggravating the problem of refugees was the Jewish Plan Dalet (or 

“D,” the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet). In March 1948, Haganah 

planners foresaw the inevitable Arab invasions from Egypt, Lebanon, 

Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan. To defend the avenues of approach that 

these armies would have to take, the Zionists decided to secure them 

while they had the military advantage. This necessitated the seizure of 

selected Arab lands, towns, and villages sitting astride the key terrain. 

The Haganah’s orders were that if the subject Arab populace within 

these areas acquiesced, they could remain while Jewish forces garrisoned key areas. If not, they could be forcibly expelled at the discretion 

of the commanders. Historians and critics express a spectrum of opinions regarding this policy and its effects. On the one hand apologists 

for the Zionist cause point to military necessity and the subsequent fact 

of the actual Arab invasions. On the other hand, anti-Zionists vilify 

Plan D as nothing more than ethnic cleansing and the wholly illegal 

seizure by military conquest of lands that rightfully belonged to the 

Arabs.16 Critics of Zionism point to evidence that the Jewish leaders followed their conquests in 1948 and 1967 with deliberate destruction of 

Palestinian communities to erase historical evidence of Arab culture.17

As far back as the European Enlightenment, Western society has 

strived to regulate warfare through international law. The resulting 

policies, conventions, and laws, culminating in the Geneva/Hague 

Conventions and the UN Charter made some headway toward mitigating the brutality of war. But international law has never been able to 

deal effectively with two peoples wanting the same territory. The wars 

of conquest that grow from such conflicts defy regulation and the niceties of legal philosophy, and they inevitably give rise to violence against 

noncombatants, dispossession, refugees, and long-lived ethnic hatred. 

Given the situation in Palestine after World War II, it is hard to envision 

any workable solution that would have obviated Plan D and its consequences. Zionism thus came face to face with the harsh reality that its 

founding fathers hoped to avoid and studiously ignored.

In any case the first phase of the war saw the Jewish community 

hard-pressed on all fronts and with few mobile reserves to respond to 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

223

nearly simultaneous Arab attacks. Jerusalem was cut off from badly 

needed supplies. The vital road connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv was 

occupied by Abd el-Kadr’s troops. Kfar Etzion came under pressure as 

well but held out against the initial onslaughts. In the north, the British 

assisted the Haganah in defending against preliminary attacks from 

the ALA, but as the British were in the process of evacuating the country, the Israelis were destined to bear the full brunt of future attacks. In 

the south, the Jewish communities in the Negev were isolated and had 

to rely on sporadic resupply by air. The Arabs also resorted to terror 

bombings and other irregular attacks on noncombatants.

The Jews managed to break through the Jerusalem blockade temporarily and brought in resupply convoys that enabled the beleaguered 

Jews to hold out for the short term. The operation featured the Jews’ 

first brigade-sized mission, and the resulting battle led to the death of 

Abd el-Kadr, which demoralized his troops. But the operation also led 

to the infamous episode of the Deir Yassin massacre discussed previously in which 110 Arab villagers were killed.

In the face of the Arab onslaught, Ben-Gurion and the senior leadership of the Haganah and the Jewish Agency came face to face with the 

dilemma of what to do about outlying, vulnerable Jewish communities. 

The towns and cities of the coastal region were relatively secure, but 

Jewish settlements elsewhere were dispersed and connected by vulnerable roads that most often passed through Arab communities. About 

one hundred thousand Jewish people in Jerusalem and other Jewish 

settlements outside the coastal zone, such as kibbutz Kfar Etzion (halfway on the strategic road between Jerusalem and Hebron), the twentyseven settlements in the Southern region of Negev, and the settlements 

to the north of Galilee, were vulnerable to encirclement and piecemeal 

destruction. International power politics and ideology as well as the 

Zionist expectation of statehood argued for the Jews to hold on to every 

inch of territory possible in Palestine, so as to strengthen the Zionist 

hand when it came time to delineate borders. But military reality and 

the principle of economy of force argued for consolidating defenses 

and sacrificing untenable locations, so as not to waste Jewish blood and 

treasure trying to defend the indefensible.18

The Israelis’ declaration of independence and the establishment of 

the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, kicked off the second phase of the 

war. Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and small contingents 

from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen invaded Palestine. In the south, 

the Egyptian army moved in from the Sinai and launched attacks on 

isolated Jewish communities in the Negev. The Jewish defenders held 

off the attackers, giving the Givati Brigade time to deploy and reinforce 

the defense. From late May to early June, IDF forces supported by the 
224

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

embryonic Israeli Air Force fought Egyptian columns to a standstill, 

possibly preventing the Egyptians from attacking in the north toward 

Tel Aviv.

In the center the IDF attempted without success to seize and secure 

the corridor to Jerusalem. In desperation and unable to dislodge the 

Arabs from Latrun, the Jews constructed a concealed route around the 

Arab defenses and managed to push supply convoys through to the 

city. Meanwhile Jordan’s Arab Legion, led by British officer John Bagot 

Glubb, drove the Jews out of the Old City and attacked nearby communities. In the north of the country, the Iraqis, Syrians, and Lebanese 

(working with the ALA) attacked Jewish communities throughout Galilee while Jewish settlers fought desperately to maintain their defensive 

perimeters.

The UN meanwhile had busied itself seeking both a cease-fire and 

some basis for a peace plan. The first truce went into effect on June 11 

and lasted until July 18. Both sides rejected the proposed peace agreements that were based on partition plans. During the truce, the two 

sides were to cease operations and avoid importing additional arms 

and ammunition, but the restriction was violated by both (more successfully by Israel). During this period, the Altalena Affair (discussed 

previously) nearly drove the Jews into a civil war.

The third phase of the war commenced with Israeli offensives in the 

Negev and central corridor. The Egyptian army attempted to extend 

its attacks northward but was stopped by vigorous local militias. The 

IDF moved against the key towns of Lydda and Ramle as the prelude 

to clearing the strategic central corridor to Jerusalem. The Israeli seizure of Lydda led to a massacre in the town and the forced expulsion 

of the Arab population. The incident remained a black mark on Israel’s history, but feasible alternatives seem difficult to ascertain. Lydda 

was adjacent to an important airfield, and a large, potentially hostile 

Arab base there would have made the central corridor vulnerable.19

In Jerusalem, Irgun and Lehi forces launched abortive and unsuccessful attacks to retake the Old City. In the north the IDF seized eastern 

Galilee and Nazareth but failed to eject the Syrians or take the strategic 

Benot Yaakov Bridge.

A second truce went into effect from July 18 through October 15. 

During the cease-fire Lehi operatives assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, whose peace proposal recommended Arab control of territory 

already seized by the IDF in bloody battles. Meanwhile, the provisional 

government in Tel Aviv announced that in the future Israel would annex 

the Negev, along with all territory captured in military operations. This 

announcement had the intent of preempting future peace proposals 

that would give away lands won in battle. During the truce period, the 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

225

IDF engaged Arab forces south of Haifa, clearing several villages. The 

operation spawned claims that the Jews had massacred prisoners.

The final phase of the war featured strong Israeli offensives that 

defeated the Arab invaders and secured territory far in excess of Resolution 181’s partition proposal. The UN plan had designated six thousand 

square miles for the Jews, but Israel emerged from the war controlling 

eight thousand square miles. In the north, the IDF decisively defeated 

the ALA and Lebanese forces and launched a counterattack into Lebanese territory to the banks of the Litani River. IDF offensives in the 

south ejected the Egyptians from the Negev and invaded the Sinai, 

pocketing Egyptian forces in the area of Faluja. Israeli commandos 

blew up the Egyptian flagship Emir Farouk, while the tiny Israeli navy 

assisted the land operation as well.

The war ended in a series of armistice agreements through the first 

half of 1949. The War of Independence was over, and the Zionist insurgency had successfully declared statehood and defended the Jewish 

holdings in Palestine.

Political

Postindependence Diplomacy

The Lausanne Conference, April–September 1949: The UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine organized the Lausanne Conference 

in Switzerland, which ran from April through September 1949. Israel’s 

leadership carved out important diplomatic positions that would have 

cascading effects throughout the ensuing decades and that would lead 

to the Arab insurgencies that later grew. The Israeli delegation sought 

to maintain as de facto and de jure borders the territory captured during the war and currently defined in the 1949 Armistice Line (also 

known as the Green Line). The delegation insisted on negotiating with 

separate Arab states, rather than dealing with the Arabs as a bloc. It 

agreed to repatriate from sixty-five thousand to one hundred thousand 

Arab refugees, with the rest to be absorbed by Arab countries. It stated 

that the Arab invasions and their deliberate instructions to indigenous 

Arabs to abandon their homes in anticipation of the Arabs later reconquering the land led to the refugee problem and, therefore, the Arabs 

themselves would have to shoulder the burden.

The Arab powers, having lost land in the Israeli counteroffensives, 

argued that the 1947 Partition Plan should be the basis for borders with 

only minor adjustments if all parties agreed. They demanded that Palestinian Arabs displaced because of the war be allowed to return and 

recover their property or be fully compensated if it had been destroyed. 

Israel rejected the proposals out of hand. Continued disunity among 
226

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

the Arab leaders, along with their desire to appeal to the Arab streets, 

augured against them seeking or accepting peace with Israel.

The Truman administration communicated its dissatisfaction with 

Israeli intransigence and territorial ambitions. In a note to Ben-Gurion, 

Truman threatened a “revision” in the US attitude toward Israel if the 

latter did not cooperate with the UN proposals. Ben-Gurion responded 

that because neither the United States nor the UN nor any other international powers were able to enforce the 1947 Partition Plan or prevent 

the subsequent Arab aggression, Israel did not consider it authoritative. Instead, the current territorial and political situation resulted 

from a justly fought war of national defense. Because Arab refugees 

obviously remained hostile to Israel, they would be considered enemies and not allowed to return. Further, because Israel was encumbered by the massive influx of 650,000 Jewish refugees, some of whom 

came from Arab lands, taking on Arab refugees in addition would be 

logistically unfeasible.

Israel’s postwar diplomatic strategy had a decisive effect on the 

course of the state’s history since 1949 and represents a key milestone 

in the transition from insurgency to statehood. In retrospect it seems 

apparent that the Zionist leadership’s immovable position against refugee return and its assertive stance on borders embittered the Arab 

powers and sparked suspicion even among those international powers 

friendly to Zionist goals. But such a conclusion must include consideration of feasible options available to Israel’s embryonic government.

Was it reasonable for Israel to press for borders based on its military 

conquest instead of acquiescing in the 1947 Partition Plan? From the 

Jewish leaders’ perspective, the Arab powers were on unsteady ground. 

At Lausanne their position was that the borders should be based on the 

1947 Partition Plan—the very plan that the Zionists had accepted and 

that the Arabs had rejected. Indeed, the Arab–Israeli War of 1947–1948 

began on the heels of the Arabs’ rejection of the UN plan. Thus, Israel 

could justifiably argue that Arab aggression against Israel constituted 

the Arabs’ abandonment of UN authority—making their position at 

Lausanne indefensible.

From a practical standpoint Israel’s leaders sought to establish borders that were both defensible and that would facilitate development of 

a self-sufficient, economically viable state. Zionism from the start set out 

not to make Palestine merely a refuge for desperate Jews dependent on 

the good will and financial support of others. Instead, the movement 

was built on strong economic ideas of industrial and agricultural development. Postwar immigration brought hundreds of thousands of Jews 

into Palestine, and Israel faced the very real problem of where to put 

the new citizens. Acquiescence to the 1947 borders would have gravely 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

227

reduced the viability of the new state, and Israel’s leaders knew it. Thus, 

on the moral strength of their war in self-defense and its resulting conquests, they insisted on borders that would allow for national survival.

Regarding the Arab refugee problem, analysis of alternative 

approaches is likewise problematic. Israel was a small state surrounded 

by hostile powers with borders that defied any simple defense. Returning refugees would have strong racial, cultural, and religious ties to 

adjacent belligerent states and thus constitute a real national security 

threat to Israel. In the likely event of future Arab hostilities, the refugees could function as a fifth column or stage their own insurgency. 

There remained the demonstrable logical problem of how to sustain 

Jewish immigration that effectively doubled Israel’s population after 

the war, while at the same time absorbing Arab refugees. Zionist leaders reasoned that they could not do both and so opted to reject the 

right of refugee return.

With regard to the question of who was responsible for creating 

the refugee problem, the historiography of the Arab–Israeli conflict 

features polemics that point the finger in either direction. But a dispassionate evaluation of the conflict reveals shared responsibility. There 

can be little doubt that some Arab leaders did encourage indigenous 

populations to flee on the promise that Israel would be conquered and 

pillaged. (Israeli propaganda exaggerated these incidents, while the 

governments of the Arab states generally wanted the Palestinians to 

stay in place.) The Palestinian Arab leadership led its people to war 

against the newly declared Jewish state, and in the resulting conflict, 

noncombatants on both sides suffered death and dispossession. The 

Arab powers’ decisions to invade Israel led to full-scale war, which in 

turn exacerbated the refugee problem. On the other side, there is also 

no doubt that the IDF’s infamous Plan D reflected the Zionist leadership’s intention to remove Arab populations that might inhibit Jewish 

control of key areas. From its roots in the 1800s Zionism dealt with 

the problem of indigenous Arabs through self-delusion—wishing the 

problem away—and outright deception, seasoned occasionally with 

attempts to concoct a binational solution.

The inescapable fact is that Zionism as a solution for the problem 

of the Jewish Diaspora led inevitably to a war of conquest in Palestine 

between two peoples who both wanted the same land. Such wars cannot produce clean, easy outcomes. Historically they lead to genocides, 

bitter generational hatred, insurgency, futile diplomacy, and prolonged 

violence. Given the cultural, religious, and political realities in Palestine, Zionism was bound to go badly for indigenous Arabs. If the 

Zionist movement were judged a legitimate consequence of the Jewish 

historical experience, then the refugee problem could have been dealt 
228

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

with in a more peaceful and pragmatic way. It would have been conceivable to resettle refugees. Indeed, that is precisely what Israel did with 

Jewish refugees who had been brutalized and dispossessed in other 

lands. There are historical precedents for refugee resettlement—some 

that worked well and others that did not. But in this event, Arab leaders 

were not willing to endorse any such solutions. They argued that the 

indigenous Arab population should not be made to pay for Europe’s 

mistreatment of the Jews. Racial hatred, inter-Arab rivalry, religious 

passions, and personal ambitions likewise disallowed a resettlement 

strategy. Instead, the refugee problem became an institutionalized 

touchstone of continued Arab–Israeli conflict.

TRANSITION TO STATEHOOD

The purpose of this section is to discuss the legal processes involved 

in the creation of the state of Israel and the mechanisms the Zionist 

insurgency used to achieve this remarkable end. From the perspective 

of the study of irregular warfare, the Zionists’ transition from insurgency to statehood is particularly important because it is a unique 

example of how a nationalist movement became a highly organized 

insurgency that successfully secured territory and international support 

to build a parastate ahead of its transition. The organizations it created 

were predecessors to the political bodies that function today, and it has 

been said that Israel was “virtually a state at the threshold of birth.”20

In many ways this statement is true, but the legal mechanics involved 

can be complicated, and the story of Israel’s emergence as a state is a 

particularly interesting case through which to explore this complexity.

As discussed in chapter 5, the notion of a cohesive Jewish identity 

and legal autonomy was influential in the Jews’ ability to promote activism within the Ottoman Empire, even before they gained imperial citizenship during the Tanzimat reform period. With the emergence of 

Zionism in the late nineteenth century came the eventual call for the 

creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. But the concept of statehood is 

complicated, both practically and philosophically. After thousands of 

years in exile, the Jews were the archetype of a displaced, landless people. To now focus on the creation or reconstitution of a Jewish national 

home was not only politically ambitious, but it also represented a complex shift between seemingly opposite psychological paradigms, those 

of diaspora and homeland. One is characterized by displacement and 

the other by an irrevocable sense of belonging. On the one hand, the 

psychological shift in identity is not dramatic, as the memory of Israel 

and the yearning for Jerusalem were central to the Zionist narrative. 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

229

On the other hand, the realization of the political return of the Jewish 

people had a tremendous impact on their social and legal identities.

The draw to a homeland is an inherent characteristic of a diaspora, 

and arguably there is no greater personification of that characteristic than the Jewish people and Zionists in particular, who sought the 

“negation of exile.”21 This view was not universally shared among Jews. 

The Jewish Bund advocated for doikayt or “here-ness,” which opposed 

statehood in favor of the idea that Jews should build communities wherever they live. Professor Liebman Hersch, subscribing to the minority 

Bundist view that endorsed statehood while still arguing a Jewish state 

could not secure the future for Jews around the world, described the 

two positions as follows:

For them, the essence of all essences is the land. That 

is their pathos, their love . . . For us, the essence of all 

essences is the people. That is our pathos, our love. For 

them, the essence is the land of Israel [Eretz Yisroel]; for 

us—the people of Israel [dos Folk Yisroel]. [Emphasis in 

the original]22

The philosophical concepts that underpin these positions began to 

merge from the perspective of the legal personality of a state. A territory and its people are intertwined in the nation-state apparatus. For 

the Bundists, the point remained that a bounded area governing those 

inside its borders could not account (legally or otherwise) for those 

of a similar or shared identity outside of those borders. The extent to 

which a Jewish national homeland could become a “Jewish state” and 

how such a state would be defined was not only a question in the years 

preceding the 1948 declaration but remains a topic of current debate.

Concepts and Elements of Statehood

Several legal concepts are important to the discussion of the state 

of Israel. The first, the concept of self-determination, is both a political 

principle and a legal right. In simplest terms, self-determination refers 

to the ability of the people of a territorial unit to determine their own 

future political status without force or interference. As a political principle, self-determination has existed as a vague ideal since the 1700s. It 

did not gain momentum as a legal concept until Wilsonian ideas gained 

prominence after World War I and again with the colonial secessionist 

movements in the 1940s. It became a protected right through the UN 

Charter (1945) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights (1976) and is considered part of customary international law, 

meaning states are bound to comply with the principle even if they 
230

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

have not ratified the relevant international treaties in which it has its 

basis.

The Mandated territories, of which Palestine was one, are considered the “primary type of self-determination territory” as established 

in Article  22 of the League of Nations Charter, and the purpose of 

the trusteeship in the Mandate system was to ensure peoples’ right to 

self-determination.23 This notion has been upheld by subsequent international case law.24 However, it has also been asserted that Article 22 

violated the right of self-determination because it did not consider the 

desires of the existing inhabitants in Palestine. Self-determination was 

used as a justification for the creation of the State of Israel, but Arabs 

also used it as an argument against the Zionists, pointing out that the 

Jews were not the majority in Palestine.

The principle of sovereignty is another concept that is significant to 

statehood. Sovereignty is often used interchangeably with independence, 

but it is more accurate to view independence as a prerequisite to statehood and sovereignty as the legal competence to act and engage in 

internal and external affairs as a government with regard to the territory of which the state is composed.25 In general, the criteria for statehood were articulated in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention of 

1933 and include a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states.26 Many 

elements and facts on the ground (e.g., international recognition) are 

influential in the determination of whether the criteria have been met.

Solidifying the Idea of a Jewish State

Before the existence of Israel, several politically significant events 

occurred that influenced the idea of a Jewish state and how it would be 

governed. It is important to briefly recount these events before addressing the legal framework relevant to the state’s actual creation. In 1896, 

Theodor Herzl formally appealed for the restoration of a Jewish state. 

At the time, Palestine was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. By 

the end of World  I, Turkey relinquished its claim to Palestine. The 

Allies, rather than annex the territories ceded by Turkey, which would 

have been acceptable under international law, decided to administer 

them through a Mandate, a decision that represented a shift toward an 

emerging idea of a peoples’ right to self-determination. This notion of 

self-determination is a central part of the issue of statehood. As will be 

discussed further, the issue of self-determination persists, particularly 

as it relates to current-day contentions in the West Bank.27
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

231

The League of Nations and the Mandatory System

The League of Nations was created to oversee the ceded territories 

and ensure the protection of the local populations. Article 22 of the 

Covenant of the League of Nations established the Mandatory system, 

in which a “Mandatory” was an “advanced nation” designated to carry 

out this protection while working with local institutions. A “Mandate” 

or territory under supervision had a legal status per the terms determined by the Council of the League of Nations. Article 22, in relevant 

part, reads:

To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the 

sovereignty of the States which formerly governed 

them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able 

to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions 

of the modern world, there should be applied the 

principle that the well-being and development of such 

peoples form a sacred trust of civilization and that 

securities for the performance of this trust should be 

embodied in this Covenant.

The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be 

entrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their 

resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who 

are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should 

be exercised by them as Mandatories on behalf of 

the League.

The character of the mandate must differ according 

to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances.

Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where 

their existence as independent nations can be provisionally 

recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice 

and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are 

able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities 

must be a principal consideration in the selection of 

the Mandatory.28 [Emphasis added]

There was and remains confusion regarding whether “independent 

nations” referred to territories or peoples, but the general consensus is 
232

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

that the territorial entity was being recognized. This point of interpretation was debated before and after Israel became a state. In 1927, an 

Egyptian court referred to Article 22 to support the idea that as Class A 

Mandates, Syria and Lebanon were independent states under international law, and therefore inhabitants could be considered nationals. In 1950, a legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry interpreted 

Article 22 to mean that the statehood of the territory of Palestine was 

provisionally recognized but its independence was not; therefore it was 

not an independent nation with inhabitants recognized as nationals. 

Article 22 was again interpreted as recently as 2005, this time by the 

US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which acknowledged that 

Article 22 gave provisional independence to Palestine but noted that 

under the Mandate, Britain retained legislative and administrative 

powers over the territory. That fact, coupled with considerable subsequent history, led the court to conclude that members of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) could not 

avoid suit in US courts based on a claim of sovereign immunity because 

there is no sovereign state of Palestine.29 A difficulty with the concept 

of a Mandate is that Palestine did not have a clear legal status as a sovereign, but neither could the Mandatory, Britain, claim sovereignty over 

the territory.

The shift to the Mandatory system was a move toward recognizing 

the right of self-determination, yet the tone of the text of Article 22 did 

not elaborate this idea. In fact, the United States did not ratify the Covenant of the League of Nations in part because its provisions failed to 

properly incorporate the idea of self-determination. One notable Senate speech decried the league as attempting to subjugate the people 

of the world by force and questioned how a democratic society could 

deem adequate the dispatch of one representative to the council with 

“the stupendous power of representing the sentiments and convictions 

of 110 million people.”30

Before the Mandate for Palestine, the Balfour Declaration expressed 

support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the 

Jewish people” and the desire 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.”31 Britain assured the league it could protect the 

population while promoting the establishment of a Jewish national 

home. The declaration did not use the terms Jewish state or independent 

nation (the latter was used in Article 22), and neither did subsequent 

diplomatic statements until the Peel Report was issued in 1937. However, the idea that all of Palestine could become a Jewish state existed, 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

233

and a version of the declaration that was not made public had phrased 

it such that the Jewish people could “reconstitute Palestine as their 

national home.”32 The Balfour Declaration was acknowledged by the 

League of Nations and bestowed international legitimacy on the Zionist movement. It also created tension in the Arab population in Palestine, which opposed the Mandate system and interpreted it as a desire 

to impose a Jewish nationality on all inhabitants.

The Churchill White Paper was issued in 1922 to clarify British 

policy in Palestine and assuage mounting Arab concern. Again, the 

word state was not used. Rather, the White Paper asserted that a Jewish 

national home in Palestine “is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews 

in other parts of the world” and this home should be assured to the 

Jews “as of right and not on sufferance.”33 From a legal perspective, a 

national home, whether defined as a community, commonwealth, or 

other, was not the same legal entity as a state. Its legal status within a 

Mandate was not clear, and the sovereign status of the Mandate itself 

remained a point of debate. From a practical perspective, Britain had 

reason to avoid using the term state because of opposition to the idea 

within the British cabinet, where it was openly discussed that the ability 

to peacefully facilitate a Jewish national home (whatever that meant) 

and simultaneously protect the Arab population was unlikely.34 This 

fear was ultimately justified, but Britain proceeded with the agenda 

and was assigned the Mandate in April 1922, and it took formal effect 

in September 1923.

The British Mandate called for the establishment of a “Jewish 

agency” to advise and cooperate on related economic, social, and other 

matters, and the Zionist Organization was recognized in this role. 

For the Zionists, this was a logical but also crucial step. In this role, 

the organization was positioned to create government structures that 

would eventually become part of the state system, and it gained a strong 

voice for lobbying the broader international community. International 

support for a Jewish state was not a given, and at times the Zionists 

faced tremendous opposition. A key factor in the Zionists’ successful 

transition to statehood was the early system of government designed by 

Herzl and carried out in the years preceding the formal declaration of 

the state of Israel. The lineage tracing from these embryonic structures 

to the eventual government of the state is clear, and the Jewish Agency 

was the connection between the “the Zionist movement as it emerged 

in the Diaspora and the present Government of Israel.”35

Less than ten years into the Mandate, Arab riots and other difficulties led Britain to issue a new policy statement urging the restriction 
234

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

of immigration and land sales to Jews. This approach was denounced 

by Zionists, and subsequent attempts to explain the policy and clarify 

the government’s intent to fulfill the terms of the Mandate incensed 

the Arab population. By 1936, Britain faced the realization of its fear 

from twenty years earlier—Arab and Jewish interests could not be 

peacefully merged.

A royal commission known as the Peel Commission was established 

and in 1937 issued a report calling for the partition of Palestine. Unlike 

the previous documents, the Peel Report used the word state. It noted 

that to “foster Jewish immigration in the hope that it might ultimately 

lead to the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of a Jewish State with the consent or at least the acquiescence of the Arabs was 

one thing . . . it was quite another to contemplate . . . the forcible conversion of Palestine into a Jewish State against the will of the Arabs.”36

Assuming the report was referring back to the Balfour Declaration, 

and to Britain’s support of a Jewish homeland even before that, the use 

of state here was informative. While the Balfour Declaration noted that 

the rights of non-Jews in Palestine could not be impinged, it did not 

mention the intention to create a “state” once a majority Jewish population was reached. The Peel Report indicated that to convert Palestine 

into a Jewish state would violate the Mandatory system. However, under 

Article 22, Palestine was a Mandate that was ready for provisional recognition as an “independent nation.” Whether that independent nation 

was meant to be Arab or Jewish was not stated, but it was an implied 

reference to the Jewish national home.

On the topic of self-determination, the Peel Report specifically 

noted that the establishment of a Jewish state against the will of the 

Arabs would be a gross inequity. To establish a Jewish state “would 

mean that national self-determination had been withheld when the 

Arabs were a majority in Palestine. It would mean that the Arabs had 

been denied the opportunity of standing by themselves: that they had, 

in fact, after an interval of conflict, been bartered about from Turkish 

sovereignty to Jewish sovereignty.” It went on to note that the historical 

presence of the Jews in Palestine meant their rule would not be considered foreign, but that “international recognition of the right of the Jews 

to return to their old homeland” did not give them the right to govern 

the Arabs. At this point, “neither Arab nor Jew has any sense of service 

to a single State.”37

An Analysis of Statehood

Partition schemes failed, and in 1942 the Biltmore Program distinctly called for the creation of a “Jewish Commonwealth” and the 

right for Jews in Palestine to establish a Jewish military force under 
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

235

separate flag. In 1947 Britain referred the matter of Palestine to the 

UN with the objective of terminating the Mandate. The UN General 

Assembly, through Resolution 181, endorsed a partition plan by twothirds majority, which included the United States and the Soviet Union. 

The plan called for an Arab state and a Jewish state, each to be recognized upon the adoption of a constitution. The City of Jerusalem was a 

corpus separatum, falling under an international regime to administer, 

given its religious importance to Jews, Christians, and Arabs. Britain 

abstained from the vote, the Zionists did not have a vote as they were 

not yet a constituted state (a prerequisite for UN membership), and all 

Arab states rejected the plan. No party directly affected by the partition 

had in fact voted for it, meaning it would be nearly impossible to implement without conflict, and indeed Palestine immediately descended 

into violence and disorder.

To address the turmoil, the United States proposed a temporary 

trusteeship according to which the Arab and Jewish communities 

would withhold making any assertions of sovereignty and the UN 

would become the trustee until a plan of government between the two 

communities could be agreed on. In early May, the UN called for a 

subcommittee to determine the terms of the provisional government 

in Palestine. On May 14, 1948, in the course of the negotiations on the 

trusteeship proposal, the Zionists’ Provisional State Council declared 

the independent State of Israel.38

The declaration of independence recounted ancient and more 

recent political history to assert the Jewish people’s right to the land 

and was framed as a reclamation of the state the Jews had already 

established. It began, “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the 

Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was 

shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of 

national and universal significance and gave the Bible to the world.”39

It continued,

Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove 

throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their 

fathers and regain their statehood. . . . This right was 

acknowledged by the Balfour Declaration of November  2,  1917, and re-affirmed by the Mandate of the 

League of Nations, which gave explicit international 

recognition to the historic connection of the Jewish 

people with Palestine and their right to reconstitute 

their National Home.

It powerfully invoked the right of self-determination and sovereignty 

and stated, “It is the natural right of the Jewish people to lead, as do all 

other nations, an independent existence in its sovereign State.”
236

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

Within eleven minutes of the proclamation, the United States 

extended de facto recognition of the State of Israel.40 President Truman issued recognition without notifying the US delegation in the process of speaking to the UN General Assembly in favor of the trusteeship 

proposal, thereby undermining the proposal and causing shock in the 

assembly. Truman’s statement was read at the General Assembly and 

simply specified that “this Government has been informed that a Jewish State has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been 

requested by the Provisional Government thereof. The United States 

recognizes the Provisional Government as the de  facto authority of 

the new State of Israel.”41 Three days later, the Soviet Union extended 

de jure recognition to Israel as an independent state.d The two most 

powerful nations in the world now recognized the State of Israel.

By the end of May 1948, twelve countries recognized Israel, ten of 

which extended de  jure recognition.42 De  jure recognition serves to 

assign legal significance, extending beyond mere political considerations, to the interaction between the recognizing government and the 

new state, and this has foreign policy implications. While recognition 

is not strictly a requirement for statehood, it can help strengthen legal 

status for states in the early, precarious stages of existence. It can therefore serve a critical role in a state’s establishment, and in the case of 

Israel, the impact was considerable. Within a year, the Zionists transitioned from an ideological movement to an internationally recognized 

sovereign state. On May 11, 1949, Israel was admitted by majority vote 

as a member of the UN.

What Makes a State?

The day after the proclamation establishing the state of Israel, 

Arab League states entered Palestine on the claim that they needed 

to protect the majority-Arab population from atrocities. The UN Security Council was convened to address the situation. The Jewish Agency 

accused the Arab states of aggression. The Arab states, through the 

Arab Higher Committee, argued that under Article 22 of the Covenant 

of the League of Nations, Palestine was recognized as a provisionally 

independent nation and that upon the termination of the British Mandate at midnight the day before, the people of Palestine, the vast majority of whom were Arab, considered themselves an independent nation. 

They considered the act of declaring statehood by the Jewish minority 

a rebellion that justified a response of force.

d The United States extended de jure recognition seven months after extending 

de facto recognition.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

237

At the Security Council meeting, the Jewish Agency reaffirmed the 

proclamation from the day before and asserted that the State of Israel 

“has now been established within Palestine,” which has been interpreted as an acknowledgment that the territory of Palestine was being 

claimed by the Zionists to create a state within a state. Israel was not 

created within the boundaries outlined in Resolution 181, yet the resolution was not the basis of statehood as many countries regarded its 

call for both a Jewish state and an Arab state a recommendation only, 

meaning it lacked the force to establish either state as a matter of law.

Some argue that the creation of Israel occurred within the existing 

state of Palestine and that its creation came about as a secession initiated by force or threat of force without the consent of the former sovereign (Palestine). This argument views Palestine as a sovereign state, as 

opposed to territory over which the Jewish state asserted a claim. The 

legal difference is important. If Israel was considered a successor state 

to Palestine upon the termination of the Mandate and the proclamation of independence, then the argument that the Jewish minority were 

rebels within an existing state becomes more compelling. Still, it has 

been argued that upon termination of the Mandate, the land was terra 

nullius, meaning it was not a state but open to occupation by any state, 

whether the state existed or was created.43

It is interesting to analyze Israel against the criteria for statehood. 

The first requirement is a permanent population. While one may argue 

that the Jewish people were displaced and therefore not a permanent 

population, it can also be asserted that Israel is their homeland, they 

never really left, and they are therefore the quintessential permanent 

population. The distinction, however, is not necessary, as the only 

requirement for statehood is that a permanent population exist, not 

that the population be of a certain national or ethnic character.

With regard to two of the other criteria, Israel had a government 

capable of carrying out the affairs of the state. As previously mentioned, 

the preceding governing bodies created by the Zionists were sophisticated. Through these organizations the Zionists successfully lobbied 

foreign governments and acted as a parastate before Israel achieved 

actual statehood, and these organizations then became the governing 

bodies upon the proclamation of statehood.

Finally, the State of Israel had territory, but this is perhaps the most 

contentious component of its existence, both then and now. Israel’s 

admission into the UN was an act that bestowed legitimacy on the 

state, as statehood is a prerequisite to membership. The legality of that 

determination has been questioned, in part because Article 80 of the 

UN Charter requires states to respect the rights of peoples who had 

been under Mandates, and it has been argued that the Arabs’ right to 
238

Part II. Structure and Dynamics of the Insurgency

self-determination was violated, particularly when many fled in 1948. 

Israel created the Law of Return, which gives every Jew the automatic 

right to immigrate to Israel. The law stems from the idea that with a 

Jewish state, Jews will always have a safe haven and will not be shipped 

about from country to country in search of a home, as occurred repeatedly throughout their history.

NOTES

1 MidEast Web, s.v. “Population of Palestine Prior to 1948,” accessed February 4, 2014, 

http://www.mrbrklyn.com/resources/arab_population_before_israel.htm.

2 Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: 

Vintage Books, 2001), 161.

3 Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: Harper, 2008), 118.

4 Ibid., 124.

5 Ibid., 100.

6 Ibid., 101–102.

7 For a sympathetic perspective on Stern, see Zev Golan, Stern: The Man and His Gang (Tel 

Aviv: Yair Publishing, 2011).

8 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 114.

9 Ibid., 130.

10 Ibid., 133.

11 See, for example, chapter six in Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of 

Israel (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013).

12 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 147.

13 See chapter four in Shavit, My Promised Land; and The Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, 

s.v. “Masada,” accessed April 22, 2014, http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Massada.htm.

14 Gilbert, Israel: A History, 105.

15 Chaim Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East (New York: Vintage 

Books, 1984), 22–23.

16 Compare, for example, Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, 33–38, and Shavit, My Promised 

Land.

17 Ghazi Falah, “The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and Its Aftermath: The Transformation 

and De-Signification of Palestine’s Cultural Landscape,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86, no. 2 (1996): 256.

18 Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, 44.

19 Shavit, My Promised Land, 99–134.

20 Jørgen Jensehaugen, Marte Heian-Engdal, and Hilde Henriksen Waage, “Securing the 

State: From Zionist Ideology to Israeli Statehood,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 23, no. 2 (2012), 

280.

21 David Slucki, “Here-Ness, There-Ness, and Everywhere-Ness: The Jewish Labour Bund 

and the Question of Israel, 1944–1955,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 9, no. 3 (2010): 

349.

22 Ibid., citing Hersch, “Unzer historisher shtrayt [I],” 14.

23 James Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New 

York: 1979), 498.
Chapter 10. World War II and Statehood (1940–1950)

239

24 Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West 

Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970), Advisory Opinion, I. C. J. 

Reports 1971, 31; and Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I. C. J. Reports 2004, 136.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Robbie Sabel, “International Legal Issues of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: An Israeli Lawyer’s Position,” Journal of East Asia & International Law 3, no. 2 (2010): 407–411.

28 League of Nations, Covenant of the League of Nations, Art. 22, April 28, 1919.

29 John B. Quigley, The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East Conflict

(Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 326; and Unger v. Palestinian 

Liberation Organization, 402 F.3d 274 (1st Cir. 2005).

30 See the Speech of William E. Borrah, November 19, 1919, in Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 

1789–1989: Classic Speeches, 1830–1993 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 

1994), 569.

31 Lord Arthur James Balfour, The Balfour Declaration, November 2, 1917.

32 Quigley, The Statehood of Palestine, 326.

33 Sir Winston Churchill, The Churchill White Paper [1922]). See also Gilbert, Israel: A History, 

50.

34 John Quigley, “Britain’s Secret Re-Assessment of the Balfour Declaration. The Perfidy of 

Albion,” Journal of the History of International Law 13, no. 2 (2011): 249–283.

35 Efraim Karsh, Israel: The First Hundred Years (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 

1999).

36 Lord William Peel, The Palestine Royal Commission (Peel Commission) Report, 1937.

37 Ibid.

38 State of Israel Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948; and Walter Laqueur and 

Barry M. Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, 

7th rev. and updated ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), 81.

39 State of Israel Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948.

40 Jensehaugen et al., “Securing the State,” 295.

41 Quigley, The Statehood of Palestine, 326.

42 Jensehaugen et al., “Securing the State,” 280.

43 Quigley, The Statehood of Palestine, 326.

CHAPTER 11.

CONCLUSION

243

This first volume of the Israel–Palestine case study analyzes the 

growth of Zionism from an idea into an ideology, then into an insurgency, and, finally, into a state. Throughout the evolution there were 

forces driving Jews together and forces pulling them apart. The centripetal (unifying) forces included historical anti-Semitism, the antipathy 

of the Palestinian Arabs and neighboring Arab states, the history and 

mytho-history of the Hebrew Bible, the revival of the Hebrew language, 

and the strong economic and financial organization and investment 

that undergirded Jewish settlement in Palestine. Centrifugal (divisive) 

forces included the racial, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity 

of the Diaspora, the diversity of political ideologies embraced by various Zionists, and divergent attitudes toward international powers (especially Great Britain) and the Arabs. What made the Zionist insurgency 

successful was that for most of the period of development, centripetal 

forces were stronger than centrifugal forces.

A key feature of the Zionist insurgency was the interplay between 

left-wing and right-wing factions. Some revolutions feature factional 

infighting that results in one side or another dominating (even eliminating) its adversaries. The Bolsheviks seized Russia and eliminated 

their Menshevik foes. The Chinese Communists defeated the Nationalists and expelled them. But for the student or practitioner of irregular 

warfare, the Zionist insurgency is instructive because it demonstrates 

the need to integrate opposing ideas and factions such that the outcome is greater than the sum of its parts. Establishment Zionists (Labor 

and their allies) gave the insurgency a legitimate front, diplomatic 

engagement, governmental institutions, and a firm economic and 

financial foundation. Right-wing Zionists (Revisionists and their allies) 

gave the insurgency the punch necessary to achieve its goals through 

demonstrated strength and defiance. This bifurcation is in part artificial and an oversimplification, because at various times the opposing 

philosophies overlapped and agreed while at other times they brought 

the Yishuv to the edge of civil war. Individual Zionist leaders likewise 

engaged in activities that defied simple categorization. Jabotinsky—the 

consummate right-winger—was also a skilled fund-raiser and diplomat. Ben-Gurion and his left-wing companions were competent military strategists and defiant in their own right when the need arose. But 

overall the Zionist insurgency prevailed because of the combination of 

effects produced from differing and opposing ideologies.

The attack on the King David Hotel in July  1946 illustrates the 

point. Although it is apparent that the Haganah and the Labor Zionists were at least partially involved in the planning of the attack, the 

Jewish Agency responded to the death toll by decrying against the 

Irgun and Lehi, labeling their members as terrorists. But the attack, in 
244

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

combination with the ongoing campaign against the British authorities 

in Palestine, contributed to London’s decision to quit the region, which 

was exactly what all factions of Zionism wanted. The incident gave the 

left-wing factions the opportunity to make a public stance against the 

Jewish use of terrorism, all the while benefiting from it. Conversely, the 

Irgun and the Revisionists benefited from the generally sympathetic 

attitude the world had toward the Labor Zionists as the Yishuv moved 

toward legitimate statehood.

A principle of chess is that every move gains something and loses 

something. In other words, each move advances the player’s plan but 

only at the expense of creating potential problems later. This study is 

Volume  I of a two-volume case study. Volume  II will reveal many of 

the cascading effects from the Zionists’ decisions and actions as they 

marched toward statehood. From the early Zionist philosophers who 

studiously ignored the problem of the indigenous Arab population to 

the execution of Plan D during the War of Independence, both the 

Zionists and the Arabs chose courses of action that made future conflict inevitable. Whether they had reasonable and feasible alternatives 

must remain a matter of opinion, but the emergence of a sustained 

Palestinian Arab resistance came about in large part from the Zionists’ 

strategic moves and the Arab leaders’ refusal to deal effectively with the 

Jewish presence.

From another perspective, it is possible to view the Palestinian conflict in much simpler terms. It was ultimately about two separate peoples wanting the same land. Wars that result from such standoffs are 

called “liberations” by the winners and “conquests” by the losers. In a 

sense, the Palestinian conflict was a war of conquest—messy and inconclusive. The combination of modernism, international attention, and 

large populations each supporting their own proxies ensured that the 

war over who would control Palestine would not end cleanly. Instead, 

it would degenerate into a seemingly endless cycle of irregular warfare 

episodes. Volume II takes up the study of the conflict with a focus on 

the Arab resistance.
TECHNICAL APPENDIX

247

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

All ARIS Tier 1 Insurgency Case Studies are presented using the 

same framework. While not a strict template, it is a method used by the 

team to ensure a common treatment of the cases, which will aid readers 

in comparing one case with another.

All of the sources used in preparation of these case studies are 

unclassified and for the most part are secondary rather than primary 

sources. Where we could, we used primary sources to describe the 

objectives of the revolution and to give a sense of the perspective of 

the revolutionary or another participant or observer. This limitation to 

unclassified sources allows a much wider distribution of the case studies while hindering the inclusion of revealing or perhaps more accurate information. We selected sources that provide the most reliable 

and accurate research we could obtain, endeavoring to use sources we 

believe to be authoritative and unbiased.

These case studies are intended to be strictly neutral in terms of 

bias toward the revolution or those to whom the revolution was or is 

directed. We sought to balance any interpretive bias in our sources and 

in the presentation of information so that the case may be studied without any indication by the author of moral, ethical, or other judgment.

While we used a multi-methodological approach in our analysis, 

the analytical method that underpins these case studies can most accurately be described as “contextual social/political analysis.” Research 

in the social sciences is often done from one of two opposing perspectives. The first is a positivist perspective, which looks for universal laws 

to describe actions in the human domain and considers context to be 

background noise. The second is a postmodernist or constructivist 

perspective, which denies the existence of general laws and attributes 

of social and political structures and processes, and as a consequence 

focuses almost entirely on local factors. Contextual analysis is “something in between,” in which context is used to facilitate the discovery 

of regularities in social and political processes and thereby promote 

systematic knowledge.1

 In practice, contextual social/political analysis 

balances these two perspectives, combining a comparative understanding of the actors, events, activities, relationships, and interactions associated with the case of interest with an appreciation for the significant 

role context played in how and why things transpired.

“Context” includes factors, settings, or circumstances that in some 

way may act on or interact with actors, organizations, or other entities within the country being studied, often enabling or constraining 

actions. It is a construct or interpretation of the properties of a system, 
248

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

organization, or situation that are necessary to provide meaning beyond 

what is objectively observable.2

Although we have applied this methodology throughout these case 

studies, the section entitled Context and Catalysts of the Insurgency focuses 

heavily on contextual aspects. Examples of elements of context often 

used in this type of analysis include culture, history, place (location), 

population (demography), and technology. Within these studies, we 

present the primary discussion of context as follows:

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Social scientists often cite features of the physical environment as 

a risk factor for conflict—whether it is slope elevation, mountainous 

terrain, or rural countryside. Rough terraina

 is a typical topographical feature correlated with rebel activity, as it provides safe havens and 

resources for insurgents. Insurgent groups such as the Afghan Taliban 

have benefited from mountainous terrain, making pursuit and surveillance by countervailing forces difficult. Likewise, the Viet Cong in 

Vietnam benefited from dense forest cover despite American attempts 

at defoliation.3 Less clear are the reasons behind the correlation that 

researchers have found between rough terrain and conflict. Most theories for this relationship center on insurgent viability and a state’s capacity to govern. In short, rough terrain is correlated with conflict, but that 

does not mean it causes conflict or that rough terrain is necessary for a 

conflict to emerge.b

Other geographic features, such as location and distance, have an 

impact on conflict patterns and processes. Generally, regions farther 

from the capital are at higher risk for conflict, as are those closer to 

international borders. Another important consideration when analyzing the impact of geography on conflict patterns and processes is the 

expanse of the conflict. While it is common to speak of entire countries 

embroiled in conflict, actual conflicts generally occur only in a small 

percentage of a state’s territory, typically fifteen percent. Despite that 

low figure, however, internal conflicts can sometimes encompass nearly 

half of the territory of the host country.5

a Most researchers use mountains (or slope elevation) and forests as a proxy for 

“rough terrain.” Little attention has been paid to other topographical features, such as 

swamps, that impede government access or surveillance.

b The relationship between terrain and conflict can be described as follows: “rebels 

who seek refuge in the mountains are better able to withstand a militarily superior opposition . . . that rebel groups will take advantage of such terrain, whenever available. We do 

not believe that terrain in and of itself is a cause of conflict, nor does the rough terrain 

proposition anticipate such a relationship.”4
Technical Appendix

249

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Revolutions or insurgencies do not emerge from formless ether but, 

rather, take their shape from accumulated layers of historical experience. Not only are actors in insurgent movements important participants in history, but they are also its end users. That is, insurgent 

movements are not only shaped by historical experience, but they also 

actively seek to understand and manipulate the key components of 

those experiences—whether historical events, persons, or narratives—

to accomplish their objectives. Thus, sustained, organized political violence cannot be adequately explained without analyzing the historical 

context in which it developed. Some of the themes analyzed in this 

section are the legacies, whether organizational, political, or social, of 

conflict over time; the formation of group and organizational identity 

and its attendant narrative; the development of societal and political 

institutions; and the changing relationships, and perceptions thereof, 

that balance national, local, and/or group interests.6

Charles Tilly, a pioneering sociologist studying political conflict, 

made important observations about the relationship between social 

movements and historical context. Several of these are described below:

• Social movements incorporate locally available cultural materials 

such as language, social categories, and widely shared beliefs; 

they therefore vary as a function of historically determined local 

cultural accumulations.

• Path dependency prevails in social movements as in other political 

processes, such that events occurring at one stage in a sequence 

constrain the range of events that is possible at later stages.

• Once social movements have occurred and acquired names, both 

the name and competing representations of social movements 

became available as signals, models, threats, and/or aspirations 

for later actors.7

While Tilly’s observations address social movements, usually understood as nonviolent political movements, he and his collaborators 

argued that contentious political activity belonged on a continuum, 

not in separate categories.8

 Violent and nonviolent groups belonged 

to the same genus but used different “repertoires of contention.” Thus, 

the same methodologies used to explain nonviolent political activity 

could also be useful in explaining violent political activity. Our extensive research on nearly thirty insurgencies supports this theory. The 

insurgencies, but also the individual participants themselves, often 

began their careers by engaging in nonviolent political activity, transitioning to violence sometimes only after many years. To connect the 

observations described above more explicitly with revolutionary and 
250

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

insurgent activities, we examine each of these general observations of 

social movements and apply them to the specific activities associated 

with an insurgency or revolution. Revolutions and insurgencies typically begin as local or regional movements, and as such they include 

all of the aspects of local cultural material, which, as mentioned above, 

contributes to the ontology of a social movement.

Insurgent activities frequently cross borders and have an influence 

on the societies and movements in adjacent regions. Actions taken 

by an insurgent organization at one point in time can eliminate or 

enable possible future options for furthering the insurgency. Groups 

associated with revolutions and insurgencies usually seek recognition 

for their actions, so it is important for them to have names and symbols (emblems, flags, etc.) that can be easily associated with them and 

their causes. These representations then become the public branding 

of the organization and are used by supporters and detractors alike to 

further the narrative or counter-narrative of a movement. Given these 

factors, the historical context within which any insurgency, revolution, 

or other internal conflict takes place is a critical element in analyzing 

these events.

SOCIOECONOMIC CONDITIONS

How do socioeconomic conditions affect insurgencies? One important socioeconomic variable to consider is per-capita gross domestic 

product (GDP), and the high correlation of this variable with political 

stability is among one of the most robust findings in the analysis of 

conflict dynamics. In general, some of the relevant socioeconomic factors that impact political violence include poverty, relative deprivation, 

opportunity costs, and ethnic nationalism.

With respect to poverty, some political scientists argue that countries with lower levels of economic development are more likely to witness political violence.9

 Poverty describes the poor material wealth of 

individuals or societies, but it also tells researchers that the country 

is likely suffering from a host of other ills. Rather than just a simple 

measure of wealth, a country’s low GDP per capita is also a proxy measure for poor state capacity. States with poor capacity feature a central 

government with a limited ability to project power across their territory 

to enforce laws, policies, and regulations.10 Often, the governments in 

these states have weak institutions, poor governance, and widespread 

corruption, all factors that enable insurgents to more easily recruit 

and operate. For instance, in Colombia, a relatively wealthy developing 

country, limited resources made it difficult for the government to build 

road infrastructure in rural areas. As a result, the security forces found 
Technical Appendix

251

it difficult to access remote areas where insurgents found sanctuary. 

However, poverty by itself is not enough to predict an insurgency. It is 

best understood as a risk factor for political conflict.11

Researchers also look at additional factors that are closely related 

to poverty, such as the presence of a large landless population. In many 

countries, including Iran and Colombia, land reform was a prominent 

feature of the demands of resistance movements in the twentieth century.12 Poverty can also introduce “selective incentives” to participate in 

insurgencies. These incentives are the advantages that accrue to participants, whether economic gain or enhanced social status and political power, gained by participating in a successful rebellion.13 Other 

research has also indicated that countries with extensive patron–client 

networks, large agricultural sectors, and highly uneven patterns of land 

ownership are also at risk for political conflict.c

Another branch of research related to poverty looks at how a government’s efforts to modernize society and the economy can lead to 

increased tensions.15 More specifically, this perspective argues that 

the modernization process is inherently conflictual since in practice 

it is often uneven, as greater emphasis is usually placed on economic 

and social uplift of downtrodden groups without developing a political 

framework for adequately incorporating them in the political process. 

Elite members of the ancien régime may see their fortunes decline relative to newly empowered classes, yet the latter remain disenchanted as 

the former may still control the levers of political power. This dynamic 

was present in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in 

Sri Lanka, as rising members of the karavas caste in Sinhalese society 

attempted to challenge the political power of the govigama, the highest 

group within the Sinhalese constellation of castes.

Another proposed socioeconomic factor theorized to contribute to 

conflict is relative political, social, and economic grievances. In Why 

Men Rebel, Ted Gurr argued that political violence can be explained 

by relative deprivation, which occurs when individuals or groups feel 

deprived of resources or opportunities in comparison with others in 

society.16 If political allegiance is based on ethnicity and one ethnic 

c In such an environment, patron–client relations may suppress the desire of the 

peasantry to offer support to reformist parties that seek to reduce extreme levels of economic and land inequality. Specifically, a small oligarchic land-holding elite may use its 

economic power over the peasantry to compel the latter to vote for parties that oppose 

land redistribution (which would involve the breakup and sell-off of large estates). Joshi 

and Mason14 found that Maoist insurgents in Nepal who supported land reform were more 

successful in mobilizing peasants to support an insurgency than to support their candidates for parliament. They found that patron–client relationships prevented the peasantry 

from offering their political support, and that the insurgents had greater support in 

areas where they were able to disrupt clientelist dependency between the landed elite and 

the peasantry.
252

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

minority group experiences deprivation relative to the ethnic majority 

group (as happened with the Tamils in Sri Lanka vis-à-vis the Sinhalese in the early 1970s), then the minority may give up hope for satisfying its aspirations within a unitary state and seek to detach itself from 

the nation.

Other related important indicators for grievance are political exclusion and economic inequality. In Colombia, for example, following the 

country’s mid-century civil war, La Violencia, political elites established 

a closed political system that disenfranchised several groups, especially 

communist and socialist ones. This reinforced Colombia’s historical 

inability to include all its citizens in a political process, leading to political exclusion and the economic space and motivation for insurgency by 

both political and criminal groups.

Social scientists also link poor economic development to reduced 

opportunity costs for potential rebels. People mired in poverty have 

few opportunities for economic gain. For these individuals, joining an 

insurgency is not a sacrifice of resources in other, more lucrative fields. 

Instead, joining an insurgency may offer economic benefits, making recruitment easier for insurgent groups.17 Lowered opportunity 

costs are magnified in areas with “lootable” resources such as drugs 

or diamonds that can be used to finance an insurgency and enrich 

its participants.

The analysis of the socioeconomic factors underlying political conflict also includes examining the dynamics between different ethnic 

groups in a state. After the Cold War, the incidence of wars motivated by 

identity grievances proliferated. Social scientists refer to these conflicts 

as ethnic wars. Ethnic wars may also be influenced by additional factors, 

such as relative deprivation and political exclusion, but the fulcrum of 

these conflicts is identity. The clash of ethnic identities and fears of cultural extinction can be the animus motivating these conflicts. Political 

scientist Benedict Anderson defined a nation as “an imagined political community” in which “members of even the smallest nation will 

never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of 

them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”18

Anderson’s seminal concept highlights how groups, whether nations 

or ethnicities, together construct a common identity through shared 

linguistic, regional, or religious attributes, among others.

These dynamics are also present in ethnic groups. In Sri Lanka, 

the ethnic Tamil Tigers battled the Sinhalese government for decades 

to secure an independent state. The Tamils and Sinhalese communities constructed their identities based on both facts and distortions of 

the historical record. Thus, while separate south Indian and Sinhalese 

communities have resided on the island for several thousand years, 
Technical Appendix

253

during the recent conflict some participants may have “read history 

backwards.”19 The communities began to view past conflicts through 

the prism of an identity paradigm, irrespective of whether the participants of the conflicts in the distant past were motivated by ethnic 

grievances.

The social science research on ethnic identity and political conflict 

can be divided into three primary perspectives. Despite a burgeoning 

research program, social scientists do not agree on how ethnic identity 

impacts the dynamics of insurgency. Early research identified the extent 

of ethnic heterogeneity as a motivating factor for conflict. Ethnic heterogeneity refers to the diversity of different ethnic groups in a country. 

It was thought that the more ethnic groups resided in a country, the 

more likely it was to experience political conflict.20 Another school of 

thought argued that other risk factors, such as low levels of economic 

development and weak institutions, were more important contributors to political conflict than the ethnic makeup of a country.21 The 

third and final perspective developed more nuanced arguments. These 

scholars argued that ethnic groups which were excluded from political 

power were most likely to rebel. A widely used data set, the Minorities at Risk database, tracks disenfranchised ethnic groups all over the 

world.22 In the same vein, other research has added to arguments based 

on political exclusion. This research looks at how the distribution of 

power in the political system among competing groups affects conflict. 

Ethnic groups are more likely to rebel when the center of power in the 

country is segmented among competing groups and when a smaller 

ethnic majority rules over and excludes a larger ethnic majority.23

In addition to the long-running ethnic insurgency in Sri Lanka discussed above, numerous ARIS case studies were driven by ethnic politics. The decades-long conflict in Northern Ireland pitted Catholics and 

Protestants against one another. The conflict was fueled by the political 

exclusion of Catholics by the Protestant-dominated government. Protestants largely ruled the country even though the Catholic community 

comprised the majority of the population. Similarly, an ethnic Albanian 

insurgency erupted in Kosovo after Slobodan Milosevic gained control 

of the Serbian government in 1989. While in office, Milosevic dissolved 

the political autonomy of Kosovo, rendering it subordinate to the Serbian national government. Combined with his policies of exclusion targeted against ethnic Albanians, Kosovo declared its independence and 

mounted an armed insurgency against Milosevic’s government.
254

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

When considering government and politics in the contextual analysis of insurgency, it is helpful to begin by focusing on the impact of 

ideas and institutions on the decisions and actions of stakeholders in 

the conflict. An analysis of the impact of ideas requires understanding the political discourses within state and society and the dynamics 

between the state and challengers to its authority. When looking at how 

institutions influence decisions and actions, researchers consider the 

type of government and the capacity of the state to govern. Together, 

these factors help explain how insurgent groups are able to mobilize 

and operate in a state.

Civil society groups independent of the government contribute to 

the political context in which insurgencies emerge. Indeed, such groups 

may be among the main actors within a rebellion. More specifically, 

we have discussed insurgency or revolution as a specific instance of a 

social movement. Social movements have been defined as “networks 

of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups, or 

associations, engaged in a political or cultural conflict, on the basis of 

a shared collective identity.”24 Government and politics is one of the 

primary means through which ideas are enacted within society. Social 

movements (such as insurgencies) are another. The key difference 

between social movements and other means within society is that social 

movements (1) exhibit strong lines of conflict with political or social 

opponents, (2) involve dense interorganizational networks, and (3) are 

made up of individuals whose sense of collective identity exists beyond 

any specific campaign or engagement.25

Social scientists often look at how different regime types shape patterns of political violence in a country. Regime types are broad categories, such as democratic and autocratic, used to describe the political 

structure of a government. Currently, social scientists favor these institutional factors over the socioeconomic factors discussed above for 

their efficacy in explaining political violence in a country. Simply put, 

“most states have potential insurgents with grievances and resources, 

but almost always possess far greater military power than do insurgents.” With these advantages, competent regimes are usually capable 

of defeating armed challenges to their authority. Weak and divided 

regimes, however, are less capable of defending their authority.26

As a result, social scientists often look at a state’s regime type as 

a significant factor for explaining the emergence of political conflict. 

Many of the initial studies on this topic used a simple categorization 

of regimes as either democratic or autocratic, but researchers have 

also adopted a three-way categorization that includes democracy and 
Technical Appendix

255

autocracy as categories, as well as a middle category of “anocracy,” 

which characterizes a government that has both democratic and autocratic elements. Although the findings have recently been challenged, 

anocracies are thought to be at higher risk for insurgencies than fully 

democratic or autocratic regimes.27

Most researchers agree that developed, mature democratic states are 

the least vulnerable to political conflict. Secure democracies provide 

pressure valves for the release of societal discontent through well-trod 

legal-institutional channels. In the United States, for instance, citizens 

are able to vote leaders out of office, contribute to groups lobbying for 

their interests, or engage in civil resistance to voice their discontent. If 

radicalized resistance movements were to opt to use violent or illegal 

means to achieve their political objectives in the United States, they 

would have difficulty raising support. For the average citizen, the costs 

are simply too high and the expected payoff too low.

In highly repressive regimes, the situation is nearly a mirror opposite of the situation facing open democratic societies. Highly repressive 

regimes provide no legal channels for political opposition or dissent. In 

these authoritarian states, it is difficult for political dissenters to form 

an organized political opposition to the regime. These regimes usually 

have highly refined secret police and other intelligence-gathering capabilities. Before the Syrian civil war and the Arab Spring, for instance, 

the Assad regime kept dissent in check through its secret police, the 

Mukhabarat. The police had an extensive intelligence apparatus supplemented by ordinary civilians encouraged to inform on family, friends, 

and colleagues. As a result, most Syrians were highly suspicious of voicing dissent against the Assad regime.28 In such regimes, any attempts 

at opposition are usually met with arbitrary arrests, interrogations, and 

detentions. Political opposition is usually stillborn, crushed by the overwhelming force of the state’s security apparatus. For the average citizen 

in these repressive regimes, such as North Korea, the costs of resistance 

are simply too high.

However, in today’s world, many states fall somewhere in between 

these two extremes. Social scientists call these states, which combine 

democratic and authoritarian features, hybrid regimes, or anocracies. These states might, for instance, have nominally democratic elections but might rig or otherwise corrupt election results. As a result, 

the ruling party or political leaders never face serious challenges to 

their authority.

Researchers find that political conflict is more likely to arise in 

these anocracies than in truly democratic or repressive states.29 This 

finding is referred to as the “inverted U-curve” because the concentration of political conflict on the authoritarian–democratic scale falls in 
256

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

the middle. These states typically allow just enough political and civil 

liberties that political opposition is able to form. The inherent contradictions in these states, which claim to be democratic but engage in 

activities that do not support these claims, also fuel societal grievances. 

When the political opposition mounts a challenge to the state, security 

forces often violently suppress it, leading some resistance movements to 

adopt violence as a strategy to achieve their political objectives.30

In the preceding sections, we have already discussed how political exclusion fueled political conflict in Colombia. In many ways, the 

state resembled an anocracy. After its mid-century war, the government 

altered its constitution to rotate the presidency between the two major 

parties, the Liberals and Conservatives, in control of the government. 

The National Front government, as it was called, made it very difficult 

for the emerging middle and lower classes to be incorporated into the 

political process. Additionally, a small elite sector controlled both parties. In 1970, one outside contender for the Liberal presidential candidacy, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, ran for office but lost the election. Many 

believed that electoral fraud perpetrated by the political elite prevented 

Rojas’s victory.

This event was the trigger for the formation of an important insurgent group in Colombia, the M-19, which took its name from the date 

of the alleged fraudulent election, April 19. In its propaganda, the M-19 

disparaged the Colombian regime for failing to live up to its democratic 

ideals. The M-19 was instrumental in a 1991 constitutional reform process that eliminated some of these barriers to political participation.

Some researchers, however, consider these categorizations (democracy, anocracy, and autocracy) to be overly simplistic or ambiguous. 

Recent work has developed a more detailed set of parameters to determine what researchers call “the institutional character of the national 

political regime.” These parameters explain the degree to which elections for leaders of countries (i.e., presidents, prime ministers, etc.) are 

open, competitive, and institutionalized (i.e., rule based), and whether 

opposition and other political groups can compete for political power 

and influence. After considerable research, experts found these attributes to be the most significant indicators or predictors of conflict.31

NOTES

1 Charles Tilly and Robert E. Gordon, “It Depends,” in The Oxford Handbook of Contextual 

Political Analysis, eds. Robert E. Gordon and Charles Tilly (Oxford: Oxford University 

Press, 2006), 6, 9.
Technical Appendix

257

2 W. B. Max Crownover, “Complex System Contextual Framework (CSCF): A GroundedTheory Construction for the Articulation of System Context in Addressing Complex Systems Problems” (PhD diss., Old Dominion University, 2005).

3 Nathan Bos, “Underlying Causes of Violence,” in Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies, ed. Nathan Bos (Fort Bragg, NC: United States Army Special 

Operations Command, 2013), 27.

4 Halvard Buhaug and Jan Ketil Rød, “Local Determinants of African Civil Wars, 1970–

2001,” Political Geography 25, no. 3 (2006): 316.

5 Clionadh Raleigh, Andrew Linke, Håvard Hegre, and Joakim Karlsen, “Introducing 

ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset: Special Data Feature,” Journal 

of Peace Research 47, no. 5 (2010): 652.

6 Charles Tilly, “Why and How History Matters,” in The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, ed. Robert E. Gordon and Charles Tilly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 

2006), 423.

7 Ibid., 425.

8 Doug McAdam, Sidney G. Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, The Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

9 Bos, “Underlying Causes of Violence,” 15.

10 James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American 

Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75–90.

11 Bos, “Underlying Causes of Violence,” 15.

12 Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War,” Oxford Economic 

Papers 56, no. 4 (2004): 576-77.

13 Mark Lichbach, The Rebel’s Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).

14 Madhav Joshi and David Mason, “Between Democracy and Revolution: Peasant Support 

for Insurgency versus Democracy in Nepal,” Journal of Peace Research 45, no. 6 (2008): 

765–782.

15 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University 

Press), 1968.

16 Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 571.

17 Jeffery Paige, Agrarian Revolution (New York: The Free Press, 1975).

18 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 2006), 6.

19 Bryan Pfaffenberger, “Introduction: The Sri Lankan Tamils,” in The Sri Lankan Tamils: 

Ethnicity and Identity, eds. Chelvadurai Manogaran and Bryan Pfaffenberger (Boulder, 

CO: Westview Press, 1994), 20.

20 Tanja Ellingsen, “Colorful Community or Ethnic Witches’ Brew?: Multiethnicity and 

Domestic Conflict during and after the Cold War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44, no. 2 

(2000): 228–249.

21 Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.”

22 Minorities at Risk Project, “Minorities at Risk Dataset,” Center for International Development and Conflict Management (2009), http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/.

23 Andreas Wimmer, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Brian Min, “Ethnic Politics and Armed 

Conflict,” American Sociological Review 74, no. 2 (2009): 316–337.

24 Mario Diani, “The Concept of Social Movement,” Sociological Review 40, no.  1 (1992): 

1–25.

25 Mario Diani and Ivano Bison, “Organizations, Coalitions, and Movements,” Theory and 

Society 33, no. 3–4 (2004): 281–309.

26 Jack A. Goldstone et al., “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability,” American 

Journal of Political Science 54, no. 1 (2010): 190–208.

27 Edward N. Muller and Erich Weede, “Cross-National Variation in Political Violence: A 

Rational Action Approach,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 34, no. 4 (1990): 624–651; 
258

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

and James Vreeland, “The Effect of Political Regime on Civil War: Unpacking Anocracy,” 

The Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 3 (2008): 401–425.

28 Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).

29 Håvard Hegre, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992,” American 

Political Science Review 95, no. 1 (2001): 33-48.

30 Ibid.

31 Goldstone et al., “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability,” 190–208.
BIBLIOGR APHY

261

Alter, Robert. Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 

and Kings: A Translation with Commentary. New York: W. W. Norton, 

2014.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 2006.

Balfour, Arthur James. The Balfour Declaration. November 2, 1917.

Bard, Mitchell G. Jewish Virtual Library. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.

org/.

Ben-Bassat, Yuval, and Eyal Ginio. Late Ottoman Palestine. London: I. B. 

Tauris, 2011.

Bos, Nathan. “Underlying Causes of Violence.” In Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies, edited by Nathan Bos, 11–30. 

Fort Bragg, NC: United States Army Special Operations Command, 

2013.

Buhaug, Halvard, and Jan Ketil Rød. “Local Determinants of African 

Civil Wars, 1970–2001.” Political Geography 25, no. 3 (2006): 315–335.

Buheiry, Marwan R. “The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 

1885–1914.” Journal of Palestine Studies 10, no. 4 (1981): 61–81.

Byrd, Robert C. The Senate, 1789–1989: Classic Speeches, 1830–1993. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1994.

Campos, Michelle. Ottoman Brothers. Palo Alto: Stanford University 

Press, 2011.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations. Washington, DC: United States Government, 

2009.

Chambers, James. The Devil’s Horsemen. New York: Atheneum, 1979.

Churchill, Winston. The Churchill White Paper, 1922.

Cohen, Julia Phillips. “Between Civic and Islamic Ottomanism: Jewish 

Imperial Citizenship in the Hamidian Era.” International Journal of 

Middle East Studies 44, no. 2 (2012): 237–255.

Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. “Greed and Grievance in Civil War.” 

Oxford Economic Papers 56, no. 4 (2004): 563–595.

Crawford, James. The Creation of States in International Law. Oxford; New 

York: Clarendon Press, 1979.

Crossett, Chuck, ed. Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare 

Volume II: 1962–2009. Fort Bragg, NC: United States Army Special 

Operations Command, 2012.

Crownover, W. B. Max. “Complex System Contextual Framework 

(CSCF): A Grounded-Theory Construction for the Articulation of 

System Context in Addressing Complex Systems Problems.” PhD 

dissertation, Old Dominion University, 2005.
262

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Diani, Mario. “The Concept of Social Movement.” Sociological Review 40, 

no. 1 (1992).

Diani, Mario, and Ivano Bison. “Organizations, Coalitions, and Movements.” Theory and Society 33, no. 3–4 (2004): 281–309.

Drucker, Malka. Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the Father of Modern Hebrew. 1st ed. 

New York: Lodestar Books, 1987.

Ellingsen, Tanja. “Colorful Community or Ethnic Witches’ Brew?: Multiethnicity and Domestic Conflict during and after the Cold War.” 

Journal of Conflict Resolution 44, no. 2 (2000): 228–249.

Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Zionism and Israel. Ami Isseroff and Zionism and Israel Information Center. http://zionism-israel.com/dic/.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

http://www.britannica.com/.

Falah, Ghazi. “The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and Its Aftermath: 

The Transformation and De-Signification of Palestine’s Cultural 

Landscape.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86, no. 

2 (1996): 256–285.

Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin. “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil 

War.” American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003): 75–90.

Finkelstein, Israel, and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: 

Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred 

Texts. New York: Free Press, 2001.

Ford, Clayton H. Who Really Wrote the Bible? Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing, 2010.

Friedman, Menachem. “Haredim and Palestinians in Jerusalem.” In 

Jerusalem: A City and Its Future. Edited by Marshall J. Berger and Ora 

Ahimeir. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002.

Gilbert, Martin. Israel: A History. New York: Harper, 2008.

Gitelman, Zvi Y. The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and 

Zionism in Eastern Europe. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 

2003.

Golan, Zev. Stern: The Man and His Gang. Tel Aviv: Yair Publishing, 2011.

Goldstone, Jack A., Robert H. Bates, David L. Epstein, Ted Robert 

Gurr, Michael B. Lustik, Monty G. Marshall, Jay Ulfelder, and Mark 

Woodward. “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability.” 

American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 1 (2010): 190–208.

Gurr, Ted Robert. Why Men Rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 

1970.

Haddad, H. S. “The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism.” The Journal 

of Palestine Studies 3, no. 4 (1974): 97–113.
Bibliography

263

Hanagan, Michael P., and Charles Tilly. Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999.

Harms, Gregory, and Todd M. Ferry. The Palestine-Israel Conflict. New 

York: Pluto Press, 2008.

Hegre, Håvard, Tanja Ellingsen, Scott Gates, and Nils Petter Gleditsch. 

“Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, 

and Civil War, 1816–1992.” American Political Science Review 95, no. 1 

(2001): 33–48.

Herzog, Chaim. The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East. 

New York: Vintage Books, 1984.

Hess, Moses. Rome and Jerusalem: The Last Nationality Question. Leipzig: 

Evergreen Books, 1862.

Hitti, Philip K. History of the Arabs. Rev. 10th ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Hughes, Matthew. “From Law and Order to Pacification: Britain’s Suppression of the Arab Revolt in Palestine, 1936–39.” Journal of Palestine Studies 39, no. 2 (2010): 6–22.

Huntington, Samuel P. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 1968.

Jensehaugen, Jørgen, Marte Heian-Engdal, and Hilde Henriksen 

Waage. “Securing the State: From Zionist Ideology to Israeli Statehood.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 23, no. 2 (2012): 280–303.

Josephus, Flavius. The Jewish War. Rev. ed. Translated by G. A. Williamson. London: Penguin Books, 1970.

Joshi, Madhav, and David Mason. “Between Democracy and Revolution: Peasant Support for Insurgency versus Democracy in Nepal.” 

Journal of Peace Research 45, no. 6 (2008): 765–782.

Karsh, Efraim. Israel: The First Hundred Years. London and Portland, 

OR: Frank Cass, 1999.

Katz, Shmuel. The Aaronsohn Saga. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 

2007.

Kedourie, Elie, and Sylvie G. Haim. Zionism and Arabism in Palestine and 

Israel. London: Frank Cass and Company, Ltd., 1982.

Khalidi, Rashid. British Policy towards Syria and Palestine, 1906–1914: A 

Study of the Antecedents of the Hussein—The McMahon Correspondence, 

the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and the Balfour Declaration. London: St. 

Anthony’s College, 1980.

Laqueur, Walter, and Barry M. Rubin. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict. Updated and expanded ed. 

New York: Bantam, 1971.
264

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

———. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East 

Conflict. 7th rev. and updated ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2008.

League of Nations. Covenant of the League of Nations. Art. 22. April 28, 

1919.

Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in 

Namibia (South West Africa) notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 

276 (1970), Advisory Opinion, I. C. J. Reports 1971.

Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian 

Territory, Advisory Opinion, I. C. J. Reports 2004, 136.

Leonhard, Robert, ed. Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and 

Resistance Warfare. 2nd ed. Ft. Bragg, NC: United States Army Special Operations Command, 2013.

Leonhard, Robert R. Visions of Apocalypse: What Jews, Christians, and Muslims Believe about the End Times, and How Those Beliefs Affect Our World. 

Laurel, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 2010.

Levenberg, S. The Jews and Palestine: A Study in Labour Zionism. London: 

Poale Zion, Jewish Socialist Labour Party, 1945.

Lichbach, Mark. The Rebel’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

McAdam, Doug, Sidney G. Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. The Dynamics of 

Contention. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

McTague, John J. “Anglo-French Negotiations over the Boundaries of 

Palestine, 1919–1920.” Journal of Palestine Studies 11, no. 2 (1982): 

100–112.

Metzer, Jacob. The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine. Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 1998.

MidEast Web. http://www.mideastweb.org/.

Minorities at Risk Project. “Minorities at Risk Dataset.” Center for International Development and Conflict Management (2009). http://

www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/.

Morris, Benny. Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 

1881–2001. New York: Vintage Books, 2001.

Muller, Edward N., and Erich Weede. “Cross-National Variation in 

Political Violence: A Rational Action Approach.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 34, no. 4 (1990): 624–651.

Olson, Robert W. “Jews in the Ottoman Empire in Light of New Documents.” Jewish Social Studies 41, no. 1 (1979): 75–88.

Paige, Jeffery. Agrarian Revolution. New York: The Free Press, 1975.
Bibliography

265

“The Palestine Mandate.” Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law 

Library, The Avalon Project. Accessed August 15, 2014. http:// avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp.

Peel, William. The Palestine Royal Commission (Peel Commission) Report. 

1937.

Pfaffenberger, Bryan. “Introduction: The Sri Lankan Tamils.” In The Sri 

Lankan Tamils: Ethnicity and Identity. Edited by Chelvadurai Manogaran and Bryan Pfaffenberger. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.

ProCon.org. “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Pros and Cons.” Last updated 

September 17, 2010. http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/view. 

resource.php?resourceID=000636.

Quigley, John B. The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle 

East Conflict. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 

2010.

———. “Britain’s Secret Re-Assessment of the Balfour Declaration. The 

Perfidy of Albion.” Journal of the History of International Law 13, no. 2 

(2011): 249–283.

Raleigh, Clionadh, Andrew Linke, Håvard Hegre, and Joakim Karlsen, 

“Introducing ACLED: An Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset: Special Data Feature.” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 5 (2010): 

651–660.

Rav-Noy, Eyal, and Gil Weinreich. Who Really Wrote the Bible? And Why It 

Should Be Taken Seriously Again. 1st ed. Minneapolis: Richard Vigilante Books, 2010.

Rayman, Paula. The Kibbutz Community and Nation. Princeton: Princeton 

University Press, 1981.

Sabel, Robbie. “International Legal Issues of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: 

An Israeli Lawyer’s Position.” Journal of East Asia & International Law 

3, no. 2 (2010): 407–422.

Sachar, Howard Morley. A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our 

Time. 3, rev. and updated ed. New York: Knopf, 2007.

Samuel, Herbert. The Future of Palestine. Memorandum presented 

to the British Cabinet in January 1915, via Wikisource. Last 

modified on August 15, 2014. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/ 

The_Future_of_Palestine.

Schama, Simon. Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel. New York: Knopf, 

distributed by Random House, 1978.

Sezgin, Yüksel. “The Israeli Millet System: Examining Legal Pluralism 

through Lenses of Nation-Building and Human Rights.” Israel Law 

Review 43, no. 3 (2010): 631–654.
266

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Shavit, Ari. My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. New 

York: Spiegel & Grau, 2013.

Shaw, Stanford J. The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. 

New York: New York University Press, 1991.

Shimoni, Gideon. The Zionist Ideology. Hanover, NH: Brandeis Univ. 

Press, 1995.

Slucki, David. “Here-Ness, There-Ness, and Everywhere-Ness: The Jewish Labour Bund and the Question of Israel, 1944–1955.” Journal of 

Modern Jewish Studies 9, no. 3 (2010): 349–368.

State of Israel Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948.

Sufian, Sandy. “Anatomy of the 1936–39 Revolt: Images of the Body in 

Political Cartoons of Mandatory Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies XXXVII, no. 2 (2008): 23–42.

Telushkin, Joseph. Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know 

about the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History. Rev. ed. New York: 

William Morrow, 2008.

Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. 2nd ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009.

Tilly, Charles. “Why and How History Matters.” In The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis. Edited by Robert E. Gordon and 

Charles Tilly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Tilly, Charles, and Robert E. Gordon. “It Depends.” In The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis. Edited by Robert E. Gordon and 

Charles Tilly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Tilly, Charles, and Sidney Tarrow. Contentious Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007.

Unger v. Palestinian Liberation Organization. 402 F.3d 274 (1st Cir. 2005). 

United States Marine Corps Intelligence Activity. Israel Country 

Handbook. US Marine Corps, 1998.

Vreeland, James. “The Effect of Political Regime on Civil War: Unpacking Anocracy.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no. 3 (2008): 

401–425.

Wedeen, Lisa. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in 

Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. San Francisco: Wikimedia Foundation. http://en.wikipedia.org/.

Wimmer, Andreas, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Brian Min. “Ethnic Politics and Armed Conflict.” American Sociological Review 74, no. 2 

(2009): 316–337.

The World Factbook. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency.
267

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

The authors acknowledge the following sources of illustrations 

included in this study:

Figure 2-1. Modern Palestine. Derived from map by ChrisO [Public domain], 

via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIsrael_and_

occupied_territories_map.png. Globe from Map Resources © 2015, Map Resources, 

Lambertville, NJ 08530, www.mapresources.com.

Figure 2-2. Major geographical regions. Derived from map by CIA (CIA-WF) 

[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

File%3AIs-map.PNG.

Figure 2-3. Topography of Palestine. Derived from map by Sadalmelik (Own 

work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/

wiki/File%3AIsrael_Topography.png.

Figure 2-4. Map of Israel. Derived from The World Factbook, https://www.cia.

gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html.

Figure 2-5. Map of the West Bank. Derived from The World Factbook, https://

www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html.

Figure 2-6. Map of Gaza Strip. Derived from The World Factbook, https://www.

cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html.

Figure 3-1. Tel Dan Stele. By לעי י) Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons, http://

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIMJ_view_20130115_191738.jpg.

Figure 3-2. The divided kingdoms. By Oldtidens_Israel_&_Judea.svg: 

FinnWikiNo derivative work: Richardprins (Oldtidens_Israel_&_Judea.svg) [CC 

BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.

gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.

org/wiki/File%3AKingdoms_of_Israel_and_Judah_map_830.svg.

Figure 3-3. Masada. By Godot13 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons, http://

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAerial_view_of_Masada_(Israel)_01.jpg.

Figure 6-1. The First Aliyah. Globe from Map Resources © 2015, Map 

Resources, Lambertville, NJ 08530, www.mapresources.com.

Figure 6-2. Theodor Herzl. Carl Pietzner [Public domain], via Wikimedia 

Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATheodor_Herzl.jpg.

Figure 6-3. Baron Edmund de Rothschild. [Public domain], via Wikimedia 

Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AEdmond_James_de_

Rothschild.jpg.

Figure 7-1. The Second Aliyah. Globe from Map Resources © 2015, Map 

Resources, Lambertville, NJ 08530, www.mapresources.com.

Figure 7-2. David Gruen (later, Ben-Gurion). [Public domain], via Wikimedia 

Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADB_Yong.jpg.

Figure 7-3. Arthur Ruppin. By אל עודי. Aviados at he.wikipedia [Public domain], 

from Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARuppin_

Arthur.jpg.
268

Figure 7-4. Israel Shochat. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, http://

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7

%9C_%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%97%D7%98.jpg.

Figure 8-1. Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann, 1921. [Public domain], via 

Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Einstein_

WZO_photo_1921.jpg#file. Original source: Source: “Professor Einstein’s Visit to 

the United States,” Scientific Monthly 12, no. 5 (1921), 484.

Figure 8-2. David Ben-Gurion in the British Army, 1918. [Public domain], via 

Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A1918_Private_

BenGurion_volunteer_in_Jewish_Legion.jpg. Original source: Martin Gilbert, The 

Jews in the Twentieth Century. An Illustrated History (Schocken Books, 2001).

Figure 8-3. Ze'ev Jabotinsky. David95 [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or 

CC  BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via 

Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJab.jpg.

Figure 9-1. Map of the Royal Commission’s Partition Plan. By UK Government 

(Palestine Partition Committee report 1938) [Public domain], via Wikimedia 

Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APeelMap.png.

Figure 9-2. Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini. By American Colony 

(Jerusalem), Photo Dept., photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAl-Husayni1929head.jpg.

Figure 9-3. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIzz_ad-Din_al-Qassam.jpg.

Figure 10-1. Jewish enclaves in Palestine. By United Nations (United Nations 

UNISPAL website) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.

wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APalestine_Land_ownership_by_sub-district_(1945).

jpg.

Figure 10-2. Menachem Begin in 1949. [Public domain], via Wikimedia 

Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFlickr_-_Government_

Press_Office_-_Menahem_Begin_with_underground_fighters.jpg. Original 

source: Government Press Office.

Figure 10-3. Avraham Stern. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, http://

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Avraham_Stern.jpg.
INDEX

271

A

Aaronsohn, Aaron, 106, 125, 137

Aaronsohn, Sarah, 137

Abdulhamit II, 66, 69–70

Abdullah, King of Transjordan, 221

Abraham, 35–37

Administrative operations

in Third Aliyah, 146–147

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 188–

189

Afghanistan, 248

Afula, 158

Agriculture economy, 103, 117; See also

Farming

Agron, Gershon, 176

Agudat Yisrael, 169

Ahdut HaAvoda party, 133, 134, 145, 

159, 164

Ahimeir, Abba, 160

Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 170

Ain Jalut (September 3, 1260), 48

Air force, 198, 224

Al-Aqsa Mosque, 183

Albright, William F., 141–142

Alexander II, Tsar, 79

Al-Hadi, Awn Abd, 166

`Ali, Hussein ibn, 125, 126

Aliyah Bet, 157, 163, 171, 172, 204, 205, 

219

Aliyahs, 5; See also individual entries, e.g.:

First Aliyah

Alkalai, Yehuda, Rabbi, 80

Allenby, Edmund, 127, 137–138

Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU), 

81, 88

Al-Qassam, Izz ad-Din, 185, 187

Altalena Affair, 204, 210–211, 224

American Jews

and British Palestine policy, 197

in Jewish Agency, 165

American Zion Commonwealth 

Company, 189

America Palestinian Fund, 189

Anderson, Benedict, 252

Andrews, Lewis, 162

Anglo-American Committee of 

Inquiry, 200

Anglo-Jewish Bank, 89

Anglo-Palestine Company (Bank), 116

Antiochus IV, 43

Anti-Semitism, 50–51; See also

Holocaust

among the British, 127

Christian, 46

and development of Zionism, 79, 98

in Eastern Europe, 79

in late nineteenth century, 78

as motivation for emigration, 95–

96, 115

as pillar of legitimacy, 215

in Russia, 141

Anti-Zionist ideas, 93–94, 126

Arab Empire, 47–48

Arab Higher Committee, 162, 202, 236

Arab-Islamic Army, 199

Arab League, 200, 236

Arab Legion, 221, 224

Arab Liberation Army (ALA), 221, 

223–225

“The Arab nation” concept, 217

Arab refugees, 227

Arab Revolt (1936–1939), 155, 160, 

162–163, 166, 167, 173, 176, 

186–188

Arab riots (1929–1930), 157–158, 160, 

162–163, 181–186

Arabs

as early security for Jewish 

communities, 89

and Great Britain’s policies, 155, 

171, 204–205

in interwar period, 180

interwar period arms flow to, 

157–158

and Israeli declaration of 

statehood, 203 (See also War of 

Independence)
272

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

and Jaffa riots, 145–146

Jewish attitudes and policies 

toward, 7–8

lack of unity among, 217

Lausanne Conference, 225–228

in Lebanon, 127

in Nabi Musa riots, 144–145

oil reserves held by, 155, 158

Orthodox Jews’ collaboration with, 

170

in Palestine (See Palestinian Arabs)

and Peel Commission partitioning 

plan, 162

and Tanzimat reforms, 68

Arab state, 202, 217

Arafat, Yasser, 170

Archaeological findings, 141–142, 180

ARIS Tier 1 Insurgency Case Studies, 

4, 5, 247–248

Aristobulus, 44

Arlosoroff, Chaim, 159–160

Armed component

in First Aliyah, 89

in Second Aliyah, 110–111

in Third Aliyah, 138–139

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 172–

176

in World War II to statehood 

period, 205–213

Armistice Agreements (1949), 203

Armistice Line, 225

Arms

and Arab Revolt, 187

in interwar period, 157–158, 173

Army of Salvation, 221

Art and artists, funding for, 116

Ashkenazim, 57–58, 92, 98, 166

Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent 

Strategies (ARIS) series, 3–4; See 

also ARIS Tier 1 Insurgency Case 

Studies

Assimilation, 80

Assyrians, 43

Atlee, Clement, 200

Auerbach, Elias, 117

Auspicious Reform, 68

Austria-Hungary, 147

Auto-Emancipation (Pinsker), 80

Auxiliary component

in First Aliyah, 87

in Second Aliyah, 109–110

in Third Aliyah, 135–138

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 171–

172

in World War II to statehood 

period, 204–205

B

Babylonian captivity, 43

Balfour, Arthur, 125, 126, 130

Balfour Declaration (1917), 126, 127, 

130, 144–145, 232–233

Bar-Giora, 110, 118

Basel Program, 86

Begin, Menachem, 208, 209

and attacks on British in Palestine, 

199–204

and Jewish state, 213

and Labor’s hold on power, 143

as leader of Irgun, 208–211

as leader of Revisionists, 92, 198

Behavior; See Motivation and behavior

Beit Alpha, 157

Ben-Gurion, David, 107, 132

and Altalena Affair, 204, 210–211

and Arab riots of 1929, 184

and assassination of Moyne, 199

and Battle of Tel Hai, 144

and Begin’s arms shipment, 210

on the Bible, 40

and Biltmore Program, 215

goal of, 168

and internal governing of Yishuv, 

142, 143

and Jabotinsky’s reinternment, 198
Index

273

and Jewish Agency, 166–167

on Jewish presence/growth in 

Palestine, 179

and Jewish Resistance Movement, 

201, 209–210

as Labor Zionist leader, 132–134

and Lusanne Conference, 226

as Mapai leader, 164, 203

and Masada youth movement, 218

and Nazi threat, 163

and need for self-defense, 139

opposition to British, 208

and Peel Commission partitioning 

plan, 162

and preparation for statehood, 193

as prime minister, 203

and resettlement of Holocaust 

survivors, 200

on settlement of Negev Desert 

region, 159

split between Jabotinsky and, 186

support for British in World War II, 

197

and universal conscription, 206

and UNSCOP partitioning 

proposal, 202, 217

and War of Independence, 221, 223

at World Zionist Organization, 198

Ben Josef, Shlomo, 163

Ben Shemen youth village, 158

Ben Yair, Elazar, 44–45

Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer, 11, 98

Ben-Zvi, Yitzhak, 110, 133, 138, 169

Bernadotte, Count Folke, 224

“Betar Song,” 174–175

Betar youth movement, 167, 168, 

178–179

Beth Horon, Battle of, 44

Bezalal school of artistic thought, 116

Bialik, Hayim Nahman, 95–96, 165

Biblical archaeology, 141–142

Biltmore Program, 198, 214–215, 

234–235

Bilu Group, 81, 97

Bilu Manifesto (1882), 70, 81–82

Black Hand, 185

“Black Letter” (MacDonald, 1931), 158

Blood libel, 51

Blum, Léon, 165

Borochov, Ber, 58, 104, 132, 133

British Army, 127, 197, 199, 201

British conquest, 21–22, 60

British Empire, 125–126; See also Great 

Britain

British Mandate, 123, 127–129, 134, 

233–234

Biltmore Program on, 198, 214–215, 

235

Peel Commission on, 162

Zionists’ attitudes toward, 193

British Zionist Federation, 130

Brit Shalom (Alliance of Peace), 109, 

157–158

C

“A Call to the Youth of Israel Whose 

Hearts Are with Their People 

and Zion” (Vitkin), 104

Canaan, 36–40

Capitulations, 60

Catherine the Great, 50

Central highlands, 24

Centrifugal and centripetal forces, 

8–12

in First Aliyah, 96–99

in Second Aliyah, 118

in interwar period, 168

Charitable donations, 49, 87; See also

Philanthropy

Christians and Christianity

and ancient roots of modern 

Middle Eastern conflicts, 35–36

anti-Semitism of, 50

conflict between Jews and, 67

in Palestine in seventh century, 58

rift between Jews and, 46
274

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Roman Empire’s promotion of, 47

sacred scriptures of, 94

spread of, 46

Churchill, Winston, 125

and Jewish Brigade Group, 199

and Palestine policy, 197

and Patria explosion, 205

support for Zionism, 199, 200

visit in 1921 to Palestine, 128

Churchill White Paper (1922), 129, 

131, 233

Citizenship

European, 116

in First World War, 125

during Ottoman Empire, 67–68, 

125

“The City of Slaughter” (Bialik), 95–96

Classical Zionism, 78

Coastal plain, 24

Collective communities, 103, 104; See 

also Kibbutzim

as outgrowth of labor ideology, 

112–113

ownership of, 109, 113

in Second Aliyah, 113

Colombia, 250–252, 256

Command and control; See Leadership, 

organizational structure, and 

command and control

Communication of Zionism; See also

Public component

in interwar period, 176

through Jewish Agency, 140, 165, 

213

through Jewish National Fund, 90, 

176

Conference of the Principal Allied 

Powers, 131

Conquerors of Palestine, 21–22

Constantine, 47

Consumer collectivism, 113

Cooper, Alfred Duff, 153

Cremieux, Adolphe, 81

Crossman, Richard, 215

Crusades (1099–1291), 47–48

Cultural myths, 58

Cultural outreach, in interwar period, 

176–177

Cultural Zionism, 10

Culture(s)

among Yishuv, 118

as early obstacle for settlers, 97–98

and irregular warfare, 35

organizations protecting/

promoting, 188

Cyrus the Great, 43

D

David, King, 40–42

Dayan, Moshe, 173, 206

De Haan, Israel, 169–170

De jure recognition, 236

Demographics, 58–59

Denmark, 157

Depression, 188

Dhimmis, 66, 68

Diaspora, 9, 11, 50–51

consciousness of Palestine during, 

49

emigration in interwar period, 

156–157

ethnic diversity of, 57–58

importance of JNF to, 146

overcoming diversity of, 98

in Roman Empire, 45

and Zionist legitimacy, 93

Diplomatic Zionism, 130; See also

Political Zionism

Dome of the Rock, 183

Dominican Republic, 157

Dostrovsky, Yaakov, 197–198, 206

Drainage, 27

Dreyfus Affair, 78, 83, 98

E

East Jerusalem, 22

Eban, Abba, 40
Index

275

Economic benefit

of consumer collectivism, 113

as reason for immigration, 94–95

Economics, 59–62, 99

Economy (Israel), 203

Economy (Palestine)

in Second Aliyah, 103, 106, 117

in Third Aliyah, 133, 141

in Fourth Aliyah, 156

in Fifth Aliyah, 160

and Arab Revolt, 187

in World War I, 146

Eden, Anthony, 162

Education; See also Schools

foundations of, 117

language of, 118

Egypt

in Arab League establishment, 200

Exodus from, 38–39

Israelites in, 38

Napoleon in, 69

Ottoman Jews in, 68

in War of Independence, 223–225

Einstein, Albert, 130, 165

Eisenhower, Dwight, 200

Eleventh Zionist Congress (1913), 114, 

118

Emancipation, 80, 81, 113

Employment opportunities

in Second Aliyah, 107–109

in Third Aliyah, 124

in Fourth Aliyah, 156

in Fifth Aliyah, 159

Enlightenment, 91

Eretz Yisrael (biblical Israel), 134, 164, 

167

Eschatology, 90, 169

Ethnic groups, dynamics between, 

252–253

Ethnicity, 57–58, 98

Ethnoreligious groups, Ottoman law 

for, 66–67

Etzel, 173; See also Irgun

Eugenics, 92, 166

Europe; See also individual countries

anti-Semitism in, 115

emancipation laws in, 78

trade with Palestine, 60

European Jews, 50, 52, 57

emergent sense of strength among, 

95

financial assistance from, 87

and First Aliyah, 77–82

HaShomer Hatza’ir movement 

among, 134

Herzl’s proposal for emigration of, 

83–84

and Holocaust, 193

illegal immigration of, 171–172

in interwar period, 155, 158, 171

Jabotinsky on, 135

postwar depredations against, 216

pre-Russian Revolution repression 

of, 113

return of Exodus passengers to 

Germany, 204

spectrum of beliefs of, 168

Zionist adherents from, 91

Exodus from Egypt, 38–39

F

Faisal bin Hussein bin al-Hashimi, 121, 

127, 131, 145, 148

Fait accompli strategy, 92–93, 115, 186

Falastin, 21

Farming, 61, 103

in Second Aliyah, 105, 106, 115–116

in Third Aliyah, 124, 141

Rothschild’s support for, 88

Feinberg, Absalom, 137

Fifth Aliyah (1929–1939), 155–157; See 

also Interwar period (1924–1939)

and 1939 White Paper, 163

Arab riots in, 157, 160, 162–163

driving force behind, 156–157
276

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

and Hitler’s rise to power, 51

illegal immigration, 160, 163, 

171–172

Passfield White Paper, 158

timeline, 155–156

Fifth Zionist Congress (1901), 86, 89

Filastin, 21

Financial operations

foundations of, 117

in interwar period, 188–189

in Third Aliyah, 146–147

Financial support, 11–12; See also Jewish 

National Fund (JNF)

in First Aliyah, 87–89

for Jewish Agency, 165

in Second Aliyah, 116–117

during World War I, 146

Finkelstein, Israel, 42

First Aliyah (1882–1903), 75–99

analysis of, 96–99

armed component, 89

auxiliary component, 87

centrifugal and centripetal forces, 

96–99

financial support, 87–89

ideology, 90–95

leadership, organizational 

structure, and command and 

control, 85–90

legitimacy, 93–95

map, 82

motivation for and behavior, 95–96

New Yishuv immigrants from, 69

number of immigrants in, 85

origins of, 77–85

public component, 89–90

timeline, 77

underground component, 86–87

First Jewish–Roman War (66-73 AD), 

44

First Temple, 41

First Zionist Congress (1897), 84, 86

Flavius Josephus, 44–45

Fortified cities, 41

Fourth Aliyah (1924–1929), 155, 156; 

See also Interwar period (1924–

1939)

causes of, 156

settlements founded in, 158–159

timeline, 155

France

and boundaries of Palestine, 147–

148

and division of Ottoman Empire, 

125, 128

emancipation of Jews in, 78

in Lebanon, 127

mass attacks against Jews in, 50

Frederick I, grand duke of Baden, 84

Funding; See Financial support; 

Philanthropy

“The Future of Palestine” (Samuel), 

142

G

Galilee, 27, 44, 46, 162

Gaza Strip, 22, 30–31

Gender equality, 113

General Jewish Labour Bund (Bund), 

80, 113, 229

General Syrian Congress, 121

General Zionism, 10, 176

Genesis, 1, 19

Genghis Khan, 48

Genocide, 50

Geography, 248; See also Physical 

environment

Germany

emancipation of Jews in, 78

emigration in interwar period, 155, 

156, 159

in interwar period, 155

mass attacks against Jews in, 50

Stern’s attempt to cooperate with, 

211

in Third Aliyah, 123, 147
Index

277

Ghettos, 50, 52

Giladi, Israel, 110

Glubb, John Bagot, 224

Golan Heights, 22

Golomb, Eliahu, 199

Gordon, Aaron David, 101, 105, 112

Government and politics, 63–70, 254–

256; See also Public component

citizenship, 67–68

in Fifth Aliyah, 160

in Hamidian era, 69–70

in interwar period, 158, 177

Jewish Agency Executive, 165

Jewish legal identity, 65–69

millet system, 66–67

Ottomanism, 68

Provisional Government of the 

State of Israel, 165

shadow government, 177

Tanzimat reforms, 68–69

Granada, 50

Grand Rabbis, 67–68

Great Britain; See also British Army; 

British Mandate

and Arab-held oil reserves, 155

and Arab Revolt (1936–1939), 162, 

163, 173, 187

and Arab riots of 1929, 157–158, 

181–186

and boundaries of Palestine, 147–

148

division of Ottoman Empire, 125

emancipation of Jews in, 78

emigration to, 81

and Hunting Season, 199

and illegal immigration, 197, 202, 

204–205

and immigration for Holocaust 

survivors, 200

and immigration in Fifth Aliyah, 

155, 157, 163, 167, 171

and integration of Labor and 

Revisionist Zionists, 201

interwar emigration to, 171

in interwar period, 158, 167

Irgun’s opposition to, 199

and Nabi Musa riots, 145

opposition to build-up of Israeli 

defense, 198

Palestine policy in pre-World War II 

period, 197

Passfield White Paper, 165

Peel Commission partitioning plan, 

161, 162, 234

Revisionist split from, 135–136

and violence in World War II to 

statehood period, 199–202, 204–

213, 219–221

and violence of 1920-1921, 128–129

in War of Independence, 221, 223

Zionist leaders in, 147

Zionists’ arguments aimed at, 

140–142

Greece, 50

Green Line, 225

Grievances, relative, 251–252

Gruen, David, 106–107; See also BenGurion, David

Guerrilla force; See Armed component

Gulhane Rescript (1839), 68

Gurney, Henry, 215

Gurr, Ted, 251

Gutman, Shmaryahu, 218

H

Hadar, 135

Hadith literature, 48

Hadrian, 46

The Haganah (Defense), 138–139, 172

after statehood, 203

and Arab Revolt, 188

and Arab riots of 1929, 184

as clandestine organization, 204

establishment of, 145, 150

in Fifth Aliyah, 172–173

and formation of Irgun Haganah 

Bet, 168
278

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

HIM and HISH groups of, 206

and Hunting Season, 199, 208

and illegal immigration, 171, 172

in interwar period, 157, 163, 172

Jewish Agency supervision of, 165

and Jewish Resistance Movement, 

201

organization of, 166

and Patria explosion, 197, 205

and UNSCOP partitioning 

proposal, 202

and War of Independence, 220, 

222, 223

in World War II, 197–198

in World War II to statehood 

period, 205–207, 218–220

Haifa, 156, 184

Ha-Irgun Ha-Tzvai Ha-Leumi be-Eretz 

Yisrael (The National Military 

Organization in the Land of 

Israel), 173; See also Irgun

Halacha, 65, 66

Halifax, Lord, 197

HaMagen (The Shield), 137

Hamashbir, 113

Hamidian era (1876–1909), 66, 69–70

Hanukkah, 43

Hapo’el Hatza’ir (Young worker) party, 

112, 133, 159, 164

Haram ash-Sharif (Temple Mount), 

183

Haredi community, 170

HaShomer (the Watchmen), 103, 110–

111, 118, 137, 138

HaShomer Hatza’ir (The Youth 

Guard), 134, 164

Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), 

78–79, 90, 91

Hasmonean Dynasty, 43, 44

Hatzohar, 176

Havlagah (restraint), 188

Hazael, 40–41

Ha-Zvi, 98

Hebrew Bible, 36–40

Hebrew language, 11, 98, 112, 114

as official language of Yishuv, 118

revival of, 103

as vernacular, 140

Hebrew Teachers’ Federation, 114

Hebrew University, 180

Hebron, 157, 184

Hechler, William, 84

Hersch, Liebman, 229

Herzl, Theodor, 7, 42, 83–85

appeal for restoration of Jewish 

state, 230

on Bilu Manifest, 70

on Hovevei Zionists, 97

and nature of Zionism, 94–95

on places to move, 63

on preferred language, 98

Religious Jews’ view of, 169

self-perception of, 93

and Zionist Organization, 86

Hess, Moses, 80, 132

High Caliphates, 47

High Priesthood, 44

Hirsch, Maurice de, 88

Histadrut (General Federation of 

Laborers in the Land of Israel), 

133, 172, 203

Historical context, 33–52, 249–250

ancient history, 35–36

anti-Semitism, 50–51

Crusades, 47–48

Diaspora, 50–51

of First Aliyah, 77–85

historical Israel, 40–52

Islamic conquest of Palestine, 47–48

Jews’ consciousness of Palestine, 49

Jews living in Palestine, 49

Mongol invasion, 48

mytho-history, legitimation, and 

exceptionalism, 36–40

Ottoman Empire, 48–49

Hitler, Adolf, 51, 159, 171
Index

279

Holocaust, 50–52, 193

attitude of survivors of, 200

and conversion to Rav Kook’s ideas, 

170

deaths in, 198

as pillar of legitimacy, 215

psychological impact of, 216

and restrictions against 

immigration, 199

The Holy Land, 168

Hos, Dov, 198, 206, 214

Hospitals, 117, 165

Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion), 81–84, 

97, 114

Hulagu, 48

Hula Valley, 29

Hunting Season (Saison), 199, 208

Hussein, Abdullah bin, 128

Husseini, Amin al-, 159, 182–184

and Arab Revolt, 162

and Black Hand, 185

flight from Palestine, 188

and Nabi Musa riots, 145

and Nazi support for Arab-Islamic 

Army, 199

Samuel’s appointment of, 128, 148

and UNSCOP partitioning 

proposal, 202

and War of Independence, 221

Husseini, Musa Kazim al-, 159, 182

Husseini family, 181–183, 188

Hyrcanus, 44

I

Identity, Jewish; See Jewish identity

Ideology, 10–11, 60–61

in First Aliyah, 80–81, 90–95

in Second Aliyah, 112–114

in Third Aliyah, 140

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 177–

179

among Yishuv, 118

in World War II to statehood 

period, 213–215

Illegal (clandestine) immigration, 157

Betar assistance with, 178

in Fifth Aliyah, 160, 163, 171–172

Jewish Agency role in, 165

in pre-World War II period, 197

in World War II to statehood 

period, 198–200, 202, 204–205

Immigration, 5; See also individual 

entries, e.g.: First Aliyah

after statehood, 193

in pre-World War II period, 197

Imperial Rescript (1856), 68

India, 125, 171

Indigenous population of Palestine, 7; 

See also Palestinian Arabs

Industrial Revolution, 60

Infrastructure projects, 89, 106, 117

Insurgency, 96, 149; See Revolutions

Intelligence, 137–138

International law, 65, 222

International politics, 93

Internment camps, 201, 202

Interwar period (1924–1939), 153–190

administrative operations, 188–189

analysis, 189–190

armed component, 172–176

auxiliary component, 171–172

background, 157–163

ideology, 177–179

Labor Zionists and Jewish Agency 

in, 164–167

leadership, organizational 

structure, and command and 

control, 164–177

legitimacy, 179–180

motivation and behavior, 180–181

operations, 181–189

Orthodox resistance to Zionism and 

Religious Zionism in, 168–170

paramilitary operations, 181–188

public component, 176–177
280

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Revisionist Zionists in, 167–168

shadow government, 177

underground component, 171–172

Iran, 251

Iraq, 200, 223, 224

Irgun, 163

and Arab Revolt, 186, 188

attacks on British in Palestine, 

200–204

Betar members in, 179

Hunting Season on, 199, 208

as illegal organization, 204

image of, 175

in interwar period, 157, 173–176

in Jewish Resistance Movement, 201

leadership of, 198

opposition to Great Britain, 199

retaliatory terrorism by, 163, 168

Tel Aviv killings by, 160

and War of Independence, 220, 221, 

224

in World War II to statehood 

period, 208–211, 218–220

Irgun Haganah Bet (Second Defense 

Organization), 168, 172, 176, 184

Irregular warfare; See also Revolutions 

(insurgencies, revolutionary 

warfare)

cultural dynamics underlying, 35

in interwar period, 157

Isaac, 35, 37

Ishmael, 35

Islam

and ancient roots of modern 

Middle Eastern conflicts, 35–36

importance of Jerusalem to, 148

and Jewish identity, 70

and ownership of Palestine, 114

patriotic symbolism of, 69

and peoplehood, 69

protected status under law of, 66

Islamic conquest of Palestine, 47–48

Israel; See also Kingdom of Israel; State 

of Israel

Eretz Yisrael (biblical Israel), 134, 

164, 167

historical (See Historical context)

map, 28

occupied territories in Palestine, 

22–23

as part of Kingdom of Israel, 21, 43

Israeli Air Force, 224

Israeli Armored Corps, 206–207

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)

and Altalena Affair, 210–211

in conflict following UN 

partitioning, 203

establishment of, 207

Sukenik in, 180

in War of Independence, 223–225

Israel-occupied territories, 22–23

Italy, 78

IZL, 173; See also Irgun

J

Jabotinsky, Vladimir “Ze’ev”

as Betar head, 178, 179

conversion of, 51

and deals with Nazis, 160

death of, 198, 203, 213

on establishment of Jewish state, 

213

goal of, 168

and the havlagah, 188

and internal governing of Yishuv, 

142, 143

as Irgun leader, 176

and land for Arabs, 128

Latvian youth addressed by, 178

and Nabi Musa riots, 145

and nationalism, 92

and need for self-defense, 139, 145

and Peel Commission partitioning 

plan, 162
Index

281

as Revisionist leader, 134–136, 164, 

167

split between Ben-Gurion and, 186

streets named after, 175

in World War II to statehood 

period, 208

and Zion Mule Corps, 142

Jacob (Israel), 37, 38

Jaffa riots, 129, 145–146, 184

Jerusalem, 24

al-Husseini’s restoration in, 183

Allenby’s seizure of, 127

Arab riots in, 184

as capital of Judah, 43

clash over Western Wall, 183

Hadrian’s rebuilding of temple in, 

46

during Kingdom of Israel, 41, 42

Maccabees’ capture of, 43

Nabi Musa riots in, 144–145

and Neturei Karta, 170

Orthodox community in, 168

ownership of, 148

in Peel Commission partitioning 

plan, 162

Pompey’s siege of, 44

during Roman rule, 44

in UN Resolution 181, 235

UNSCOP recommendation for, 202

and violence in interwar period, 157

in War of Independence, 223, 224

Jesus, 46

Jewish Agency, 136, 140

after statehood, 203

and Arab entry into Palestine, 236

and Arab Revolt, 188

and assassination of Moyne, 199

Ben-Gurion as chairman of, 203

and British Mandate, 233

and depression, 188

and establishment of statehood, 160

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 157, 

164–167

Irgun opposition to, 174

and King David Hotel attack, 201, 

209–210

origin of, 164

and response to Arab attacks, 150

and settlement during World War II 

to statehood period, 198–199

and shadow government, 177

underground operations of, 171

and UNSCOP partitioning 

proposal, 202

and War of Independence, 221, 223

in World War II to statehood 

period, 213, 214, 218

Jewish Agency Executive, 165

Jewish Agricultural Experiment 

Station, 106

Jewish Brigade Group, 199

Jewish Colonial Trust, 88, 116

Jewish Colonization Association (JCA), 

88

Jewish Enlightenment; See Haskalah

Jewish homeland movement, 69; See 

also individual aliyahs, e.g.: First 

Aliyah (1882-1903)

Ben-Gurion in, 133

Britain’s support of, 125–126

and First Zionist Congress, 84

Herzl’s encouragement of, 70

and Jewish identity, 228–229

origin of, 81

and Uganda Plan, 85

and World War I, 149

Jewish identity

and European emancipation laws, 

78

legal context of, 65–69

and transition to statehood, 228–

229

Jewish independence; See also

Statehood

declaration of, 235

during Hasmonean Dynasty, 43–44

Jewish law, 65, 66
282

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

Jewish Legion, 135, 142

Jewish National Fund (JNF), 89

as centripetal force, 118

communication of Zionism 

through, 90, 176

establishment of, 86, 89

in interwar period, 189

Jewish Agency oversight of, 140

Labor Zionists’ preference for, 117

in Second Aliyah, 106, 112, 116

during World War I, 146

Jewishness, new vision of, 115; See also

New Jew

Jewish Olympics, 176–177

Jewish Problem, 91, 92, 104

Jewish Resistance Movement, 201, 

209–210

Jewish Settlement Police, 173

The Jewish State (Herzl), 70, 83–84

Jewish Trust Fund, 88–89

The Jewish War (Flavius Josephus), 

44–45

Jews, 57–58; See also specific groups of 

Jews and specific topics, e.g.: AntiSemitism

attitudes and policies toward Arabs, 

7–8

conflict between Christians and, 46, 

47, 67

consciousness of Palestine during 

Diaspora, 49

ethnic differences among, 57–58

living in Palestine (See Palestinian 

Jews)

under Muslim rule, 48

Jezreel Valley, 27–28, 162

Jordan, 29

Jordan River headwaters, 147, 148

Joseph, 38

Josiah, King of Judah, 37

Judah, 21, 37, 43

Judah the Maccabee, 43

Judaism

after return from Babylonian 

captivity, 43

and ancient roots of modern 

Middle Eastern conflicts, 35–36

Hadrian’s outlawing of, 46

Reformed, 79

Judea, 21, 24, 44, 46

K

Kadr, Abd el-, 221, 223

Kalischer, Zvi Hirsch, Rabbi, 80

Katznelson, Berl, 133

Kaukji, Fauzi el-, 221

Ketuvim, 9

Khalukah (charitable donations), 49, 87

Kibbutzim, 103, 113, 166; See also

Collective communities

as auxiliary component in Third 

Aliyah, 136

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 158

and HaShomer Hatza’ir movement, 

134

Jewish Agency establishment of, 165

in War of Independence, 223

in World War II to statehood 

period, 214

King David Hotel attack, 201, 209–210, 

243–244

Kingdom of Israel, 21, 37, 40–43, 169

Kishinev pogrom (April 6-7, 1903), 51

Kitos War (115–17 AD), 45–46

Klein, Samuel, 180

Kook, Abraham Isaac (Rav Kook), 170

Koran, 48

Kosovo, 253

L

Labor movement

in Second Aliyah, 113

in Third Aliyah, 133

under Ruppin, 109

Labor (Labour) Party, 159, 200

Labor Zionists, 10, 168, 243
Index

283

in Second Aliyah, 104, 112

in Third Aliyah, 132–134

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 164–

167

after statehood, 203

and Arab Revolt, 163

Arlosoroff meeting between Arabs 

and, 159–160

Ben-Gurion as, 107

and Betar movement, 178

and Biltmore Program, 214–215

division between Revisionist 

Zionists and, 157, 160, 162–164, 

213

emergence of, 99

at end of World War II, 193

and internal governing of Yishuv, 

142–143

Irgun opposition to, 174

in Mapai party, 164

on Nili Group, 137

and partitioning, 167, 201

preference for JNF funding among, 

117

and public component, 90

and shadow government, 177

uniting of Revisionist Zionists and, 

189, 201, 218

Land

1930 freeze on transfer of, 158

disputes over ownership of, 114–115

Israeli control at end of War of 

Independence, 225

ownership of, at end of British 

Mandate, 146

unproductive, 61

Land grants

by Anglo-Palestine Company, 116

by Rothschild, 116

Land law, in Ottoman Empire, 68

Land of Israel, 22

The Land of Israel, Past and Present (BenZvi), 133

Land purchases

by American Zion Commonwealth 

Company, 189

Anglo-American Committee of 

Inquiry removal of ban on, 200

Arab leaders’ protest against, 124

and Arab Revolt, 187

during First Aliyah, 85

funding for, 88, 89

by Jewish Agency, 165

Jewish Agency oversight of, 140

by JNF, 89

in Second Aliyah, 106–109, 113, 117

Language(s)

among Yishuv, 118

as early obstacle for settlers, 97–98

Hebrew, 11, 98, 103, 112, 114, 118, 

140

as unifying influence, 140

Yiddish, 98

Latin America, emigration to, 88

Latin Church, 46, 47

Lausanne Conference (1949), 225–228

Law of Return, 238

Leadership, organizational structure, 

and command and control

in First Aliyah, 85–90

in Second Aliyah, 103, 106–112

in Third Aliyah, 129–140

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 164–

177

in World War II to statehood 

period, 203–213

League of Nations, 127, 129, 231

League of Nations Mandate, 139, 164, 

231–234

Lebanon, 127, 223, 224, 232

Legal context; See Government and 

politics

Legitimacy, 35

in First Aliyah, 93–95

in Second Aliyah, 114–115

in Third Aliyah, 140–143
284

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 179–

180

and admission into UN, 237

biblical foundation of, 39–40

defining, 93

and population statistics, 59

in World War II to statehood 

period, 215–217

of Zionist immigration, 61–62

Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael; Freedom 

Fighters for Israel), 179

attacks on British military targets, 

200

Hunting Season on, 199, 208

ideology of, 214

as illegal organization, 204

in Jewish Resistance Movement, 201

justification for violence of, 96

Moyne assassinated b y, 199

and War of Independence, 220, 221, 

224

in World War II to statehood 

period, 211–213, 218–220

Lehmann, Siegfried, 158, 180

Leviticus, 33

Likud party, 92, 134

Lisbon, 50

Lishansky, Yosef, 137–138

Lithuania, 79, 80, 178

Lloyd George, David, 125, 130, 147

Loans, for Jewish settlers, 116

Logistics, in Second Aliyah, 117

Lohamei Herus Israel (Fighters for the 

Freedom of Israel), 211

Low Countries, emancipation of Jews 

in, 78

M

Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BC), 43

MacDonald, Ramsay, 158, 185

MacDonald White Paper (1939), 163, 

208, 209

Mahumud II, Sultan, 67

Mamluks, 48

Mandatory system, 231–234

Mansheviks, 113

Mapai (Party of the Workers of the 

Land of Israel), 133, 159, 164, 

203

Mapam party, 134

Marx, Karl, 104

Marxism, 104

Masada, 44, 45

Masada youth movement, 218–219

Maskilim, 90

Mattathias, 43

McMahon, Sir Henry, 125

Media, language of, 118

Medical center funding, 116; See also

Hospitals

Meir, Golda, 215

Meirov, Shaul (Shaul Avigur), 171

Mendelssohn, Felix, 177

Mendelssohn, Moses, 78

Mercaz HaRav Kook, 170

Merretz party, 134

Messiah, 46, 78, 90, 91, 169, 170

Methodology of study, 247–248

Middle Eastern Jews, 57, 79–80

Militias; See also Armed component

in Third Aliyah, 138–139

in Fifth Aliyah, 166

in the Haganah, 172

Millet system, 49, 66–68

Milosevic, Slobodan, 253

Mizrachi party, 159

Mizrahim, 57, 98

Mongol Empire, 48

Moses, 38–39

Moses Montefiore Testimonial Fund, 

87

Moshavim, 136, 158–159, 165, 166

Mossad le-Aliyah Bet, 171

Motivation and behavior

in First Aliyah, 95–96
Index

285

in Second Aliyah, 115–116

in Third Aliyah, 143

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 180–

181

in World War II to statehood 

period, 218–219

Motza, 157

Moyne, Lord, 199, 208

Muhammad, 48

Munweis, Paula, 133

Muslims, 170, 171, 204

My Promised Land (Shavit), 95

Mytho-history, 36–40, 78, 94

N

Nabi Musa riots (1921), 129, 138, 

144–145

Napoleon, 69

Narodnaya volya (People’s Will), 79

Nashashibi, Raghib al-, 182

Nashashibi family, 181–183

Nationalism

Arab, 146

in Europe, 78

and First Aliyah, 80

in interwar period, 177–178, 180

in nineteenth-century Europe, 92

Ottomans’ suspicion of, 117

renewed, as goal of Zionism, 97

in Second Aliyah, 104, 112, 115

Nazis, 51–52, 156, 159, 199

Negev Desert, 29, 162, 214, 224

The Netherlands, 157

Neturei Karta–The Guardians of the 

City (Jerusalem), 170

Nevi’im, 9

New Jew, 78, 95, 110

New Yishuv, 69

New Zionist Organization, 167

Nili Group, 137–138

Noble Rescript of the Rose Garden 

(1839), 68

Nordau, Max, 84, 86, 92

North African Jews, 57, 81

North America, emigration to, 80, 81

Northern Ireland, 253

Nuremberg Laws, 160

Nuremberg Race Laws, 51

O

Occupied Enemy Territory 

Administration, 127

Occupied Territories, 22, 23

Oil industry, construction of, 156

Oil reserves, Arab-held, 155, 158

The Old New Land (Herzl), 95

Olim, 106

Omani Jews, 57

Operation Agatha, 201, 209–210

Operations

in Third Aliyah, 144–149

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 181–

189

in World War II to statehood 

period, 219–228

Organizational structure; See

Leadership, organizational 

structure, and command and 

control

Orthodox Jews and Judaism

attitudes toward Zionism among 

early immigrants, 9, 168

Bund’s rejection of, 113

and expected arrival of Messiah, 

78, 90

haskalah rejection of, 90

and Hebrew as sacred language, 114

in interwar period, 168–170

and opposition to Zionism, 84, 

168–170

Ottoman Empire, 7, 48–49, 59–60

in First World War, 124–125

government and politics in, 65–70, 

109, 115

Greek separatist movement in, 68
286

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

post-war division of, 125

in Second Aliyah, 117

in Third Aliyah, 123

Ottomanism, 68

Ottoman Law of Nationality (1869), 68

P

Pale of Settlement (Russia), 50, 98

Palestina, 21

Palestine; See also specific topics

archaeological evidence for Jewish 

connection to, 141–142

Balfour Declaration, 126

British control of, 127

British Mandate for, 123, 172–128

current region of, 22

defining, 21, 147–148

dual economy of, 61

independence for, 232

Israel-occupied territory in, 22–23

Lausanne Conference, 225–228

Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria 

in battle for, 43

Zionists’ perception of 

underpopulation in, 58–59

Palestine Jewish Colonization 

Association (PICA), 116, 189

Palestine Land Development 

Corporation, 106, 130, 189

Palestine Liberation Organization 

(PLO), 22, 232

Palestine Mandate, 21–22, 60

Palestine Orchestra, 176–177

Palestine Zionist Executive, 139–140

Palestinian Arabs, 57, 58

in Second Aliyah, 105–107

in Fourth Aliyah, 156

in Fifth Aliyah, 158, 159

by 1914, 123

and 1939 White Paper, 163

and Balfour Declaration, 126

and British Mandate, 128

as cheap labor, 116

differing Zionist ideas about, 97

dispossession of, 114–115 (See also

Legitimacy)

economic conditions for, 59–62

effects of Arab Revolt on, 163

interwar period leadership of, 

181–183

in late nineteenth and early 

twentieth centuries, 59

outside voices deciding fate of, 131

perception of being dispossessed by 

Jews, 59

and UN Resolution 181, 202–203

and violence in Fifth Aliyah, 160

and Weizmann agreement of 1919, 

127

during World War II, 193

Zionists’ arguments concerning, 

141

Zionists’ reasoning about effects on, 

94–95

Palestinian Authority, 232

Palestinian Jews, 45, 49

in Second Aliyah, 103, 117

in Third Aliyah, 123, 143

in Fourth Aliyah, 155, 156

in Fifth Aliyah, 155–157, 159, 160

by 1914, 123

Ashkenazim, 58

and centripetal forces in Zionism, 

140

charitable donations to, 87

in eighteenth and nineteenth 

centuries, 77

enclaves by start of World War II, 

195, 196

expulsion of, during First World 

War, 123

during First World War, 124–125

in late nineteenth and early 

twentieth century, 59

non-Zionist, support for, 169

unification of, 114

in World War II period, 193
Index

287

Palestinian Post, 176

Palestinian Territories, 22

Palin Inquiry, 145

Palmach (Plugot Mahatz), 197, 200, 

203, 206–210, 220

Paramilitary operations; See also

individual paramilitary groups, e.g.:

Irgun

in Third Aliyah, 144–146

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 181–

188

in World War II to statehood 

period, 219–225

Parish Peace Conference, 114

Parthians, 45

Partitioning, 202, 220

Labor Zionists’ view of, 201

Lusanne Conference, 225–228

Peel Commission plan, 161, 162, 

164, 167

and settlement during World War II 

to statehood period, 198–199

UN Resolution 181, 202–203

UNSCOP recommendation for, 202

Pasha, Jamal, 125, 143

Pasha, Musa Kazim, 157

Passfield White Paper (1930), 158, 165, 

184–185

Peel Commission, 160, 162, 164, 167, 

232, 234

Per-capita gross domestic product 

(GDP), 250

Peres, Shimon, 180

Petah Tikvah, 129

Pharisees, 44

Philanthropy, 49, 87

in Second Aliyah, 116–117

in Third Aliyah, 146–147

in interwar period, 156

Philistines, 21, 41

Physical environment, 19–31, 248

central highlands, 24

coastal plain, 24

and conquerors of Palestine, 21–22

and establishment of farms, 115–

116

Galilee, 27

Gaza Strip, 30–31

Hula Valley, 29

Israel-occupied territories, 22–23

Jezreel Valley, 27–28

major geographical regions, 25

Negev Desert, 29

rivers and drainage, 27

terrain, 23

topography, 26

West Bank, 29–30

Zionist changes to, 22

Pinsker, Leon, 80

Plain of Esdraelon, 27

Plan Dalet (Plan D), 222

Poale Zion (Workers of Zion), 104, 106, 

110, 133

Pogroms, 50–52, 79, 141, 216

Poland

Betar members in, 178

emigration in Fourth Aliyah, 155, 

156

General Jewish Labour Bund in, 80

pogrom in, 216

treatment of Jews in, 79, 141

Political operations

in Third Aliyah, 147–149

in World War II to statehood 

period, 225–228

Political parties, 103; See also individual 

parties

historical, 44

youth movements of, 178

Political violence, 254–256

Political Zionism, 10

in First Aliyah, 92, 93

in Second Aliyah, 104

in Third Aliyah, 130–131

division between Revisionists and, 

128
288

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

and establishment of the state, 84, 

85

and internal governing of Yishuv, 

142–143

and international politics, 93

and Jewish religious community, 

170

opposition to, 84

organizational foundations created 

by, 85–86

and public component, 90

violence foresworn by, 86

Politics; See Government and politics; 

Public component

Pompey, 44

Poverty, 250–252

Practical Zionism, 10, 81, 83

and establishment of the state, 84, 

85

fait accompli strategy of, 92–93, 115

in First Aliyah, 92–93

Samuel’s endorsement of, 128

strategy of, 214

viewpoint of, 97

Promised Land, biblical account of 

return to, 38–41

Propaganda, in First Aliyah, 90

Propes, Aaron, 178

Provisional Government of the State of 

Israel, 165

Psalms, 75

Public component

in First Aliyah, 89–90

in Second Aliyah, 111–112

in Third Aliyah, 139–140

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 176–

177

Jewish Agency as, 164–165

in World War II to statehood 

period, 213

Pushke, 146

Q

Qutuz, Sultan, 48

R

Rabbis, in Ottoman Empire, 66–68

Rashi, 98

Raziel, David, 179, 188, 213

Recognition, of State of Israel, 236

Redeeming the land, 22, 61

as justification for immigration, 124

need for working class for, 132

in Second Aliyah, 106

in Third Aliyah, 141

Reformed Judaism, 79, 90

Regime types, political violence and, 

254–256

Rehoboam, 43

Relative grievances, 251–252

Religious beliefs and traditions

about arrival of Messiah, 78

among Yishuv, 118

and attitudes toward Zionism, 9

of European Jews, 168

of Reformed Jews, 79

and roots of Middle Eastern 

conflicts, 35

Religious groups, Ottoman law for, 

66–67

Religious Zionists, 10

criticism of Arlosoroff by, 159–160

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 168–

170

and Herzl’s approach, 169

in Irgun leadership, 176

Replacement theology, 46

Resolution 181 (UN), 202–203, 235

Revisionist Zionists, 10, 45, 243

and Arab Revolt, 188

and Arab riots of 1929, 184

Betar raids with, 178–179

criticism of Arlosoroff by, 159–160
Index

289

division between Labor Zionists 

and, 128, 157, 160, 162–164, 213

division between Political Zionists 

and, 128, 131

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 167–

168

and internal governing of Yishuv, 

142–143

and the Irgun, 173–174

justification for violence of, 96

leadership of, 51, 198

nationalism among, 92

and public component, 90

in Third Aliyah, 134–135

uniting of Labor Zionists and, 189, 

201, 218

Revolutions (insurgencies, 

revolutionary warfare)

causes/bases of, 3

defined, 3

historical context of, 249–250

morphing of Zionism into, 12–13

summary of, 6–14

timeline, 14–15

typical structure of, 86

Rivers, 27

Rojas Pinilla, Gustavo, 256

Roman Empire, 21, 44–46

Roman XXII Legion, 46

Rome and Jerusalem (Hess), 80, 132

Rothschild, Edmund James de, 82, 

87–88, 116, 146

Rothschild, Lord Lionel, 126

Royal Commission Partition Plan, 161, 

162, 164

Royal Navy, 172, 219

Ruppin, Arthur, 58, 92, 108–109, 117

and Brit shalom, 157

on group settlements, 101, 113

and Jewish Agency, 165–166

on rebuilding, 153

Russia

anti-Semitic violence in, 79

de Haan’s diplomatic pressure on, 

169

emigration in interwar period, 155, 

156

First World War mass immigration 

from, 123

General Jewish Labour Bund in, 80

pressure on Jews in, 79

Social Democratic Labor Party in, 

113

treatment of Jews in, 50–51, 115, 141

Rutenberg, Pinhas, 145

S

Sadducees, 44

Sadeh, Yitzhak, 207

Safed, 157, 184

Safety, 97; See also Security

Salameh, Hassan, 221

Samuel, Herbert, 128, 142, 147, 149, 

165, 182

Sassoon, Yehezkel, 146

Saudi Arabia, 200, 223

Saul, King, 41

Schapira, Zvi, 89

Schools; See also Education

Arabic-speaking, 177–178

Jewish Agency establishment of, 165

science and technology, 130–131

Sea of Galilee, 186

Second Aliyah (1903–1914), 101–118

analysis, 117–118

armed component, 110–111

auxiliary component, 109–110

background, 104–106

centripetal and centrifugal forces, 

118

finances, logistics and sustainment, 

116–117

ideology, 112–114

and Kishinev pogrom, 51
290

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

leadership, organizational 

structure, and command and 

control, 106–112

legitimacy, 114–115

map, 105

motivation and behavior, 115–116

New Yishuv immigrants from, 69

public component, 111–112

timeline, 103

underground component, 109

Second Temple, 43, 44

Second Zionist Congress (1898), 86, 88

Security

Arabs as guards for Jewish 

communities, 89, 110

as overarching Zionist goal, 97

in Second Aliyah, 110–111

Seleucids, 43

Self-defense; See also Armed 

component; Paramilitary 

operations

foundations of, 117

Jabotinsky and, 135

Jewish Agency role in, 165

in Second Aliyah, 110–111, 117

in Third Aliyah, 136

Self-determination, 229–230, 234

Selim III, Sultan, 69

Seljuk Turks, 47

Sephardim, 57, 58, 81, 92, 98

Settlements

Arabs as early security for, 89

by Ashkenazi Jews, 98

in Fourth Aliyah, 158–159

in Negev Desert region, 159, 214

Ruppin on, 113

tower-and-stockade, 157, 186

in War of Independence, 223

in West Bank, 92–93

in World War II to statehood 

period, 198–199, 214

Shadow government, 177

SHAI (Sherut Yediot—Information 

Service), 171

Shamir, Yitzhak, 213

Shapira, Abraham, 89

Shavit, Ari, 95

Shaw Commission, 184

Shimshoni, Zion Ha-, 179

Shochat, Israel, 110, 111, 138

Silberman, Neil Asher, 42

Simon bar Kokhba, 46

Social Democratic Labor Party, 113

Socialism, 104–106, 112, 113

Social movements, 254

Socioeconomic conditions, 55–62, 

250–253

demographics, 58–59

economics, 59–62

ethnicity, 57–58

Sokolow, Nahum, 165

Solomon, King, 41–42

Sovereignty, 230

Soviet Union, 236

Spain, 78

Special Night Squads, 173

Spiritual Zionism, 10

Sri Lanka, 251–253

Stanley, Oliver, 197

Statehood

Biltmore Program’s intention for, 

198, 214–215, 234–235

concepts and elements of, 229–230

declaration of, 191, 193, 203, 235

solidifying the idea of, 230–238

transition to, 228–238 (See also

World War II to statehood 

period [1940–1950])

Twenty-Second Zionist Congress 

on, 201

UN Resolution 181 for, 202

and War of Independence, 223

State of Israel, 22; See also Statehood

Arab conflict with, 35

chaotic origin of, 65
Index

291

declaration of, 235

first prime minister of, 107

as goal of Revisionists, 135–136, 167

influx of immigrants to, 193

and Labor Party, 159

Lausanne Conference, 225–228

population of, 59, 203

recognition of, 236

and sense of ethnic distinctiveness, 

65

territory of, 237–238

in the United Nations, 203

and War of Independence, 223

State of Palestine, 22, 58

Stern, Avraham (Abraham) “Yair,” 179, 

211, 212, 214

Stern Gang (Group), 179, 208, 211, 214

“Stockade and tower” tactics, 157

Straus, Nathan, 116

Subversion, 150

and First Aliyah, 97

in interwar period, 157

in Third Aliyah, 150

Sudan, 223

Suez Canal, 125

Suicide rates, 103

Sukenik, Eliezer, 180

Sukenik, Yigael, 180; See also Yadin 

(Sukenik), Yigael

Supercessionism, 46

Supreme Islamic Council, 183

Sykes, Sir Mark, 125

Sykes–Picot Agreement (May 1916), 

128

Synthetic Zionism, 10, 130; See also

Political Zionism

Syria, 223, 224, 232, 255

Syrian Legion, 44, 79–80, 200

T

Tanakh, 9–10, 94, 141–142

Tanzania, 85

Tanzimat, 66, 68–69

Tehomi, Avraham, 168–170, 176

Teimanim, 57

Tel Aviv, 103, 109, 156, 219

Tel Dan stele, 40–41

Tel Hai, Battle of (1920), 129, 144

Terrain, 23, 248

Terrorism; See also Violence

by Begin, 203–204

in interwar period, 157, 168

by Irgun, 163

Third Aliyah (1914–1923), 121–150

administrative and financial 

operations, 146–147

analysis, 149–150

armed component, 138–139

auxiliary component, 135–138

background, 124–129

ideology, 140

Labor Zionism in, 132–134

leadership, organizational 

structure, and command and 

control, 129–140

legitimacy, 140–143

motivation and behavior, 143

operations, 144–149

paramilitary operations, 144–146

political operations, 147–149

Political Zionism in, 130–131

public component, 139–140

Revisionist Zionism in, 134–135

timeline, 123

underground component, 135–138

Three Oaths, 169

Tilly, Charles, 249

Timeline, 14–15

First Aliyah, 77

Second Aliyah, 103

Third Aliyah (1914–1923), 123

Fourth Aliyah, 155

Fifth Aliyah, 155–156
292

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

World War II to statehood period, 

194–195

Titus, 44

Topography, 26

Torah, 9, 37–40, 46

Tower-and-stockade settlements, 157, 

186

Trajan, 45

Transfer Agreement, 159

Transjordan, 128, 129, 134, 200, 223, 

224

Tribal groups, Ottoman law for, 66–67

Truman, Harry, 200, 226, 236

Trumpeldor, Joseph, 142, 144

Turkey, 230

Turks, 21, 47, 50; See also Ottoman 

Empire

Twain, Mark, 33

Twentieth Zionist Congress, 162

Twenty-Second Zionist Congress, 201, 

203

U

Uganda Plan, 85

Umma, 69

Underground component

in First Aliyah, 86–87

in Second Aliyah, 109

in Third Aliyah, 135–138

in Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs, 171–

172

early formation of, 117

in World War II to statehood 

period, 197–198, 204–205

Unemployment; See also Employment 

opportunities

in Fourth Aliyah, 156

in Fifth Aliyah, 159

United Nations (UN)

and Arab entry into Palestine, 

236–237

Palestine turned over to, 202

Resolution 181 partitioning, 202–

203, 220, 235

State of Palestine observer status 

in, 22

and War of Independence, 224

United States

aid from, 146

Ben-Gurion in, 132–133

and British Palestine policy, 197

funding organizations in, 189

interwar emigration to, 171

Jewish immigration restrictions in, 

155, 171

and Mandatory system, 232

political conflict in, 255

postwar status of, 215

State of Israel recognized by, 236

support for emigration to, 88

and UN Resolution 181, 235

Universal conscription, 206

UN Special Committee on Palestine 

(UNSCOP), 202, 216–217

Urban development, in Fourth Aliyah, 

156

Ussishkin, Menachem, 11, 114

V

Vespasian, 44

Vietnam, 248

Violence

and First Aliyah, 97

in Third Aliyah, 128–129, 144–146, 

149–150

in Fifth Aliyah, 160, 162–163, 173

in interwar period, 157–158, 171, 

181–188

in Irgun philosophy, 174

Jabotinsky’s call for, 168

and regime type, 254–256

in Russia and Poland, 141

in World War I, 143

in World War II to statehood 

period, 199–213

Vitkin, Joseph, 104
Index

293

W

Warburg, Otto, 116, 117

War of Independence, 203, 220–225

Altalena Affair in, 204, 210–211

Haganah groups in, 206

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 178

We and Our Neighbors (Ben-Gurion), 

166

Weizmann, Chaim, 12, 85, 93, 125, 130

and assassination of Moyne, 199

and Balfour Declaration, 127

and British Mandate, 193

and British representation of 

Zionist interests, 147

formation of Zionist Commission 

by, 147

and internal governing of Yishuv, 

142

Jabotinsky on, 136

and Jewish Agency, 165

on legitimacy of Zionist cause, 217

and Passfield White Paper, 158, 

184–185

and Peel Commission partitioning 

plan, 162

as Political Zionism leader, 130–131

reputation with the British, 201

and Zionist Commission, 139

West Bank, 22, 29–30, 92–93, 214

Western Wall, 183

Western world

and Arab-held oil reserves, 155

and Arabs as victims of imperialism, 

181

international law in, 222

Jewish homeland as outpost for, 94

Why Men Rebel (Gurr), 251

Wilhelm, Kaiser, 84–85

Wingate, Orde, 173

Women, during Second Aliyah, 113

World War I, 123–125; See also Third 

Aliyah (1914–1923)

and course of Zionist insurgency, 

123

military movements ending, 126–

127

Ottoman Empire in, 124

World War II, 197–199

anti-Semitism spread during, 51–52

Egypt in, 200

Jews serving in, 216

paramilitary operations in, 219

population of Palestine during, 193

World War II to statehood period 

(1940–1950), 191–238

armed component, 205–213

auxiliary component, 204–205

ideology, 213–215

leadership, organizational 

structure, and command and 

control, 203–213

legitimacy, 215–217

motivation and behavior, 218–219

operations, 219–228

overview, 195–203

paramilitary operations, 219–225

political operations, 225–228

public component, 213

timeline, 194–195

transition to statehood, 228–238

underground component, 204–205

World Zionist Organization, 86, 130, 

140, 165, 198

Wortsmann, Ezekiel, 11, 98

Y

Yadin (Sukenik), Yigael, 180, 197–198, 

206

Yarmuk River headwaters, 147

Yemen, 200, 223

Yemenite, 57

Yeshiva, 170

Yiddish language, 98

Yishuv

and Arab riots of 1929, 184
294

Case Studies in Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare—Palestine Series

difficulty of unifying, 113–114

financial support for, 189

government of, 165

Hebrew as language of, 118

in interwar period, 180–181

Jewish Agency governing, 140

New, 69

philanthropic support in interwar 

period, 156

and question of factions’ right to 

direct development, 142–143

in Second Aliyah, 104–107, 118

in Third Aliyah, 131

unity among, 12

and UN Resolution 181, 203

vision of statehood among, 199

Young Turk period (1908–end of 

WWI), 66

Youth movements, 178, 218

Z

Zealots, 44

Zeid, Alexander, 110, 138

Zionism, 6–8; See also Zionists; specific 

aliyahs; specific topics

and anti-Semitism in Europe, 50, 

52, 79

and Arab Revolt, 155

British endorsement of, 125–126, 

163

Bund’s rejection of, 113

centripetal and centrifugal forces 

within, 8–12

and conditions of East European 

Jews, 50

early ideological trends in, 84

and ethnic diversity of Jewish 

Diaspora, 57–58

factions of, 92, 131, 142–143, 164, 

193 (See also specific factions, e.g.:

Political Zionism)

goals of, 97

Herzl’s founding of, 83–84

and Kishinev pogrom, 51

legitimacy of, 40

new egalitarianism in, 117

origin of, 66

and Palestinian Arabs, 58

during Second Aliyah, 117

secular nature of, 91

seeds of insurgency in, 86

and sense of ethnic distinctiveness, 

65

Third Aliyah leaders of, 133

wartime policy of, 163

Zionist Commission, 139–140, 147

Zionist Congresses, 86; See also

individual congresses

Zionist Executive, 108, 136, 164

Zionist insurgency; See also individual 

aliyahs

and Arab riots of 1929, 184

common vision of, 215–216

factions in, 243

as imported insurgency, 87

in interwar period, 157, 164

morphing of Zionist movement 

into, 12–13

network of, 200

Second Aliyah evolution toward, 

117–118

and shift in international law, 65

as synthesis of opposing trends, 189

transition to statehood from, 228–

238

Zionist Organization, 86, 106

and British Mandate, 233

Jabotinsky’s resignation from, 167

and land grants, 116

under League of Nations Mandate 

for Palestine, 139

Palestine Land Development 

Corporation of, 117

Ruppin in, 108

in Second Aliyah, 111–112

underground role of, 136

Zionists; See also Zionism
Index

295

changes to physical environment 

by, 22

early goals of, 96–97

importance of David and Solomon 

story to, 42

perception of Palestinian economy, 

60–61

in Third Aliyah, 147

Zion Mule Brigade/Corps, 135, 142