The Invention and Decline of Israeliness

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Baruch Kimmerling. The Invention and Decline of Israeliness

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As a result of the war, both sides were forced to reconsider their basic positions. Feeling vulnerable, the Palestinian Arabs turned to the patronage of the Arab countries, which had just established the Arab League. For their part, the Zionists changed from a British to an American orientation. As early as May 1942, David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Jewish community of Palestine since 1933, convened a meeting of Zionists in the United States to urge that after the war “Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth [code for “state”] integrated in the structure of the new [postwar] democratic world.” This declaration, commonly known as the “Biltmore [Hotel] Declaration,” also called for the financial and political mobilization of American Jewry on behalf of the Zionist cause.

In the meantime anti-British Jewish resistance increased. Alongside the semi-official Jewish militia, the Haganah, two additional underground organizations had gradually developed. The National Military Organization (known by its Hebrew acronym EZEL, or “Irgun”), which was affiliated with the Zionist Revisionist party, was established in 1931. The “Israel Freedom Fighters” (the LEHI, or “Stern Gang”), which espoused a more radical orientation, split from EZEL in 1940. Between 1944 and 1947, these two radical organizations conducted a full-scale guerrilla war against British and Arab targets, including the use of terror tactics aimed at individuals. For a short period, they cooperated with the Haganah. For the most part, however, the Haganah actively operated against these two underground groups, perceiving the intra-Jewish fight as a prelude to the upcoming battle for political dominance in the soon to be established Jewish state.

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