Wampum

Israel historically is well-acquainted with so-called terrorism. On this day, 61 years ago, a violent Jewish right-wing underground movement in Palestine, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 soldiers and civilians.

Irgun (Hebrew; shorthand for Ha'Irgun Ha'Tsvai Ha'Leumi B'Eretz Yisrael, "National Military Organization in the Land of Israel") was a clandestine militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine from 1931 to 1948. In Israel, this group is commonly referred to as Etzel, an acronym of the Hebrew initials. For secrecy reasons, people often referred to the Irgun, in the time in which it operated, as Haganah Bet, Haganah Ha'leumit or Ha'ma'amad.

The group made retaliation against Arab attacks a central part of their initial efforts. It was armed expression of the nascent ideology of Revisionist Zionism, expressed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky as that "every Jew had the right to enter Palestine; only active retaliation would deter the Arabs and the British; only Jewish armed force would ensure the Jewish state". The organisation was a political predecessor movement to Israel's right-wing Herut (or "Freedom") party, which led to today's Likud party.

The most well-known attack by Irgun was the bombing of King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. British authorities condemned Irgun as terrorist already in the 1930s. The commander of Etzel/Irgun from 1943-1948 was Menachem Begin who later became Israel’s sixth prime minister.

Photo and text lifed from i-eclectica.org.