Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- 18 Istanbul, Geneva, and Jerusalem
- 19 How the Holocaust in Slovakia Was Suspended: The “Europa Plan”
- 20 The Significance of the British Decrypts
- 21 The “Small Season”: Begin's Rebellion
- 22 The Origins of the Budapest “Rescue Committee”
- 23 The War Refugee Board and the Extension of the Trap: The “Dogwood” Chain
- 24 The Double Hungarian Debacle
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
21 - The “Small Season”: Begin's Rebellion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART I THE MAKING OF THE MULTIPLE TRAP
- PART II THE RESCUE DEBATE, THE MACRO PICTURE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
- PART III THE SELF-DEFEATING MECHANISM OF THE RESCUE EFFORTS
- 18 Istanbul, Geneva, and Jerusalem
- 19 How the Holocaust in Slovakia Was Suspended: The “Europa Plan”
- 20 The Significance of the British Decrypts
- 21 The “Small Season”: Begin's Rebellion
- 22 The Origins of the Budapest “Rescue Committee”
- 23 The War Refugee Board and the Extension of the Trap: The “Dogwood” Chain
- 24 The Double Hungarian Debacle
- PART IV THE BRAND–GROSZ MISSIONS WITHIN THE LARGER PICTURE OF THE WAR AND THEIR RAMIFICATIONS
- PART V THE END OF THE FINAL SOLUTION: BACK TO HOSTAGE-TAKING TACTICS
- Epilogue: Self-Traps: The OSS and Kasztner at Nuremberg
- Notes on Sources
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
While in and around occupied Europe there were rescue efforts requiring passive or active support by the Allies should some hole or holes be punched one way or another in the German wall, in Palestine in early 1944 a “rebellion” was declared by Menachem Begin against the British as those who were preventing rescue. Here the revival of Jewish terrorism by a dissident group seemed to endanger the majority's politics and even its rescue schemes.
In a long memorandum submitted early in 1945 to OSS, its author, on behalf of the Jewish Agency (the thirteen-page document remained unsigned), started the history of Jewish terrorism in Palestine. As such, the document explains milestones in the history of relations between Left and Right in Israel until this very day and the birth of a still-existing argument that Labor Zionists, led by Ben-Gurion, were in fact “collaborators” with the British while allegedly doing nothing for rescue.
Having described the history of the National Military Organization, or Irgun (abbreviated IZL for the Hebrew “Irgun Zvai Leumi”) until the outbreak of World War II and the emergence of Avraham Stern's terrorist group afterward, the writer or writers continued: “Stern propagated the continuation of activities against the British … and the establishment of contact with Germany and Italy,” which he indeed did, while IZL commander David Raziel was able to win support among most Revisionists (e.g., Jabotinsky's followers organized in the “New Zionist Organization”), “who accused the Stern group of being supported by Germany.”
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- Information
- Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews , pp. 185 - 187Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004