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Zionist terrorism refers here to acts of political violence committed by Zionists, generally against British military and Arab civillian targets, before and after Israel's establishment.

Pre-statehood Zionist violence

In the 1930s and 1940s, two Jewish underground organizations, the Irgun and Lehi, were responsible for a number of violent acts in their campaign against the British, and Arab inhabitants of the British Mandate of Palestine for a Jewish national homeland.

The Jewish underground suspended its activities for the duration of World War II so as not to distract the British from the fight against the Axis Powers. Many members of the underground enlisted in the Jewish Brigade.

• During the period 1937-1939, the Irgun conducted a campaign of bombings and other acts of violence against Arab civilians.
• The King David Hotel bombing on July 26, 1946, killing 91. Prior to the bombing, the Irgun attempted to warn the British authorities and hotel management of the bombing.
• The bombing by the Irgun of the British Embassy in Rome, also in 1946.
• Lehi assassinated British minister Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944.
• Lehi assassinated the UN mediator Count Bernadotte in September 1948 for his allegedly pro-Arab conduct during the cease-fire negotiations.
• The killings of several suspected collaborators with the Haganah and the British mandate government during The Hunting Season.
• The 1947 reprisal killing of two British sergeants who had been taken prisoner in response to British execution of two Irgun members in Akko prison.
• Attacked British military airfields and railways several times in 1946.

A fuller list of incidents can be found at List of Irgun attacks during the 1930's.

Actions during the 1948 War of Independence

• Deir Yassin massacre

Post-Statehood Zionist militancy

• Kach and Kahane Chai are categorized as terrorist groups by the US State Department, the Canadian government, and the Israeli government. Kach was originally disqualified as a political party by Israel before the 1988 elections for racism. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein (who was a Kach member) killed 29 Muslim civilians, injuring approximately 100. Though it was found that Goldstein acted alone, in response to his affiliation, and some outspoken support for his action by different Kach members and for their verbal attacks on the Israeli government, Israel outlawed the two groups completely, prohibiting any financial or verbal support, and branding them "terrorist organizations."
• On Thursday, August 4 2005, Eden Natan-Zada, 19, an armed Israeli soldier who was AWOL for weeks and a member of the illegal Kach party, shot dead four Arab Israeli civilians on a bus and wounded 12. A crowd then lynched him. Prime minister Ariel Sharon described the incident as "a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist who sought to attack innocent Israeli citizens"

Controversy

The use of the term "terrorism" when referring to militant Zionists is bitterly contested, with members of the Jewish and Zionist communities portraying it as anti-Semitic revisionism of the Israeli independence movement. At the time, Lehi described itself as a terrorist organization.

See also

• British Mandate of Palestine
• Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

References

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• Arab-Israeli conflict
• History of Israel
• Terrorism