Irgun by Gerry van Tonder

Author:Gerry van Tonder [Tonder, Gerry van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526728692
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2019-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

At the same time, Jabotinsky declared full NZO—and therefore the Revisionists’— support for Britain’s war against Nazi Germany. Shortly afterwards, Yaakov Meridor returned from Poland to take over command of the Irgun from Zeroni. Meridor’s first priority was to break Raziel and the Irgun leadership out of prison. While succeeding in making his way into Sarafand dressed as a labourer, the escape plan was however aborted.

Meanwhile, Meridor had discovered that a divergence of opinion had developed between the Irgun HQ staff and Raziel over the latter’s failure to secure favourable conditions in exchange for collaboration with the British. On the outside, NZO leader Dr Aryeh Altman, who himself was under house arrest, lobbied the administration for the release of the prisoners now that the Revisionists had declared their loyalty to Britain’s war effort.

Despite the Nazis swift subjugation of Poland, and with the nightmare of the Holocaust yet to materialize, the resourcefulness and good fortune of many Revisionists and other militant Zionist activists in Poland saw them flee the Nazis and sneak their way into Palestine. But in October 1939, the Irgun was rudderless, with its leadership in captivity at each other’s throats over disparate Irgun policies toward the British administration in Palestine.

Towards the end of the month, a manacled Raziel was brought to the King David Hotel in Jerusalem to meet with the mandate’s deputy inspector general and head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Arthur Giles, the deputy government secretary and a respected leader of the Yishuv, Pinhas Rutenberg. The next day, Raziel was released conditionally, but despite his demands for the release of all Irgun members incarcerated by the British, it would be eight months before Raziel’s comrades were released.

Soon after their release, a heated meeting took place at the Irgun’s general HQ in Tel Aviv, highlighted by an acrimonious confrontation between David Raziel and Avraham Stern. Stern argued that the Irgun was being hamstrung by the Revisionist Party and should be allowed to independently determine its own agenda and political destiny. Raziel, however, was adamant that the Irgun would not survive without the Revisionists, as the party not only secured its funding, but was also the Irgun’s main pool for recruits.

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