Originally Posted By BigBallsMcgee⏩

Originally Posted By AmericaHardcore⏩

Originally Posted By BigBallsMcgee⏩

Originally Posted By Procta⏩

Originally Posted By Islandboyo⏩

Originally Posted By AmericaHardcore⏩

Originally Posted By AmericaHardcore⏩

Originally Posted By XterraRob⏩

The Jewish underground groups launched their insurgency against the British on 31 October 1945 with a series of coordinated attacks against the railways, oil refineries, and police boats. The anti-British insurgency continued for nearly two years, in two phases. The first, often referred to as the "United Resistance" phase, lasted from October 1945 to August 1946. During this period, the three groups attempted to coordinate their actions against the British, but political and strategic disagreements precluded a wholly united front. The Haganah used violence as a pressure tactic to persuade the British to change their policy on Jewish immigration into Palestine. So, it limited its attacks mostly to targets related to anti-immigration efforts, such as coastal radar stations and police boats. But it also sabotaged the railway as a way of imposing economic pressure on the British. The Irgun and Stern groups, however, were committed to all-out "national liberation" wars. They did not believe that the British would give Palestine to the Jews and thus were determined to force them out. They tried to increase the human and political costs to Britain of remaining in Palestine by attacking British troops and police, military bases and police stations, oil refineries, trains, bridges, and banks. Between them, the three groups carried out 78 attacks in the nine months after October 1945. However, the united resistance dissolved after the Irgun blew up the British administration headquarters in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July 1946, killing 92 people. Following that disaster, which was a grave embarrassment to the moderate Zionists, the Haganah effectively withdrew from armed operations. Unrestrained by the need for a united front, the Irgun and the Stern Gang rapidly escalated the levels of violence nearly four-fold in this second phase, carrying out 286 attacks over the next twelve months. Casualties exceeded 1,000 over the whole two-year period.6

7 But numbers don"t tell the whole story. The insurgents confounded the British by conducting a "two-front war": a tactical paramilitary battle for control – the ability to rule; and a strategic, political, and psychological battle for legitimacy – the right to rule.7 On the tactical front, they used innovative terrorism techniques to reduce the country to chaos, thereby making Palestine ungovernable. At the strategic level they expanded the armed struggle to Europe and Britain, and conducted an imaginative propaganda war against Britain in the United States that frustrated British policy efforts. Together, these two fronts undermined the British will to remain in Palestine.

8 Irgun leader Menachem Begin believed that once the revolt began Palestine would resemble a "glass house." The world"s attention would be focused on events there and that would protect the insurgents, because the British would not be "free to suppress the rebellion in a sea of blood."8 So the Irgun pursued a strategy that would simultaneously undermine British rule in Palestine while promoting the Irgun"s image and message. Every Irgun attack the British failed to prevent would be a blow to its prestige, while the act itself would enhance the reputation of the Irgun. It was a classic application of the anarchist strategy "propaganda of the deed."9 The Irgun"s strategy was designed to defeat Britain on both the tactical/control and strategic/political fronts. Since the British position in Palestine was already controversial at home and abroad, the legitimacy battle was all but won. So, the Irgun concentrated on undermining the means of British control.

9 The LHI"s grand strategic vision had died with founder Abraham Stern, leaving a legacy of commitment to individual terrorism, which the group turned into an obsession with revenge for his death. His successors fused this with their Marxist doctrine, arguing that Britain"s position in Palestine was determined solely by economic interests. Therefore, the Stern Gang"s strategy consisted of a combination of economic warfare and anarchist-style "direct action" against senior government officials and especially the police. Like the Irgun, the LHI"s leaders believed that their attacks would show that the Mandatory regime was "weak and ineffectual" and unable to maintain order except at an unacceptable cost.10

10 The attack on the King David Hotel in July 1946 was a devastating blow to the British administration in Palestine. The bomb had blown up the Secretariat, which was responsible for much of the day-to-day work that kept the government – and the country – functioning. It took the lives of twenty-one senior civil servants and of many junior staff, such as clerks, typists, and messengers. Administrative files and records were destroyed. Neither the people nor the records could be replaced easily, and the administration of the mandate suffered as a consequence.11

11 While the insurgents relied on "tried and true" terrorist tactics, such as bombings, assassinations, and sabotage, they offset British military advantages with tactical innovations of their own. The road network and the British Army"s vast pool of motor transport gave them freedom of movement throughout the country. The insurgents reduced British mobility with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED"s) disguised as mile-stone markers that blew vehicles off the road and killed or injured their occupants. The insurgents regarded these as their most cost-effective weapon. They also placed bombs in abandoned vehicles. British police stations were heavily fortified, protected by high thick walls, so in at least one attack the insurgents blew up a station with a massive truck bomb (vehicle-borne IED).12

12 When the British passed death sentences on convicted terrorists, British military personnel and civilians were abducted and held for ransom. Two Intelligence Corps sergeants were executed by the Irgun after a mock trial. Their booby-trapped bodies were hung in an orange grove. Facing the death penalty, two imprisoned Irgun members sacrificed themselves in a "martyrdom operation": they blew themselves up in prison with a smuggled grenade. Others were freed in an attack on Acre prison.13 In short, they skilfully neutralized Britain"s ability to exert control of the security situation.

13 The insurgents carried out more than 90 attacks against economic targets. Mines damaged or derailed more than 20 trains, and five railway stations were attacked. These incidents disrupted and delayed railway traffic over a period of nine months from October 1946 to August 1947, with a resulting loss of commercial revenue. In addition, the insurgents attacked the petroleum industry a dozen times; most of these involved sabotage of the pipeline, but in March 1947, the Stern Gang destroyed 16,000 tons of petroleum products at the Shell Oil refinery in Haifa.14 The damage inflicted in these attacks cost Britain nearly two million pounds, but the real damage was to its ability to govern the mandate. During the winter of 1947, Britain was forced to evacuate non-essential personnel and concentrate the remainder in heavily guarded security sectors (known as "Bevingrads"). By August 1947, the rising insurgency had spilled over into large-scale Arab-Jewish communal violence.15 At that point the High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, told the Colonial Secretary, Arthur Creech-Jones, I cannot guarantee that the situation will not deteriorate to such a degree that the Civil Government will not break down . . . it is by no means clear how much longer I can keep the Civil Service working under conditions such as exist at present.16

14 The combined application of the Irgun"s and Stern Gang"s strategies of chaos worked; they had eroded British control of Palestine to the point where it was ungovernable. This was one of the major factors that influenced the British decision in September 1947 to abandon the Palestine Mandate.

Originally Posted By Islandboyo⏩

Originally Posted By XterraRob⏩