Word: irgun
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...occupied West Bank, cheered and sang as their distinguished guest presented a Torah scroll for the settlement's new synagogue. For others, though, these were chilling words in a chilling context. The speaker was Menachem Begin, 63, onetime leader of the anti-British, anti-Arab terrorist group known as Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), who almost certainly will be Israel's next Premier. In a stunning upset victory, Begin's Likud (Unity) coalition last week became the dominant bloc in Israel's parliament, replacing a shattered, scandal-ridden Labor alignment that had governed the Jewish state since its founding...
...fleeing the Nazis in 1940 (his parents and a brother were killed), he escaped to Lithuania but was arrested by the Russians for Zionist activities and briefly imprisoned. After his release, he joined the Polish army and was sent to Palestine where, in 1943, he deserted and joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi...
Begin soon became commander of Irgun, which was diametrically opposed to the methods of the Jewish Agency, headed by Ben-Gurion and other Zionist socialists. The agency sought a Jewish homeland through negotiation with the British and was willing to settle for a Jewish state coexisting with an Arab one in Palestine. The Irgun demanded all of Palestine and Transjordan; its motto: "Judea collapsed in fire and blood...
...Arabs. The fates of two villages, as reported in both books, Deir Yasin and Kfar Kassim, demonstrate the extremes to which this policy could be carried. Deir Yasin has become the well-known rallying cry of the Palestinian resistance; on April 9, 1948, the terrorist bands Lehi and Irgun Zvai Leumi--the latter under Menahim Begin's leadership--massacred some 250 Arabs. But Deir Yasin is merely the most remembered of several massacres that summer which were intended to drive the Arab population from Israel, and that not so surprisingly often succeeded...
...Successor. Likud, a union of hawkish groups that insists on retaining the occupied territories, is led by a right-wing former Irgun terrorist, Menachem Begin. Hospitalized last month by a heart attack, Begin, 63, will miss the campaigning. Ironically, many voters who detest Begin might be drawn to Likud if he were to resign as the leader. But since he has no logical successor, the coalition could fall apart...