Comment by oa335
16 days ago
> letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army
“Terrorist” groups Irgun, Haganah, Lehi all became part of Israeli government and army post 1948. Israel has mandatory military service for its citizens.
Haganah was a paramilitary organization formed after a few rather violent massacres of the Jewish population in the 1920s, climaxing with the Hebron massacre in 1929 which included horrors similar to October 7, hence why it's name in Hebrew is "Defense". Except for a short stint of a few months of something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks against the British, it was mainly a military organization foremost, tasked with defense of the Jewish population from Palestinian attacks until the 1948 war
Irgun and Lehi were both offshoots which can be categorized as terror organizations, however they were very small, with a few hundred members and never reached the size or level of support of any Palestinian organization
While the Haganah formed most of the IDF leadership, the new country civilian leadership was based on the Jewish Agency which predated the Haganah and had completely civilian leadership.
There are many other differences between Hamas and these organizations, but in general this is an invalid comparison
I believe the comparison is valid - I put "terrorist" in quotes for a reason.
All three groups at times participated in violent activities targeting the British, Arabs, and even at times other Jews.
Haganah was proscribed by the British mandate and was an unlawful, underground militia. Lehi had 100s of members but Irgun had 4000-8000.
You yourself admit that Lehi and Irgun could be categorized as "terrorist" and Haganah engaged in what you describe as "something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks".
The British certainly thought of all three as "terrorist" groups, which is why they targeted them with military and police action - https://israeled.org/british-round-up-resistance-fighters/
Hamas would also not describe themselves as "terrorist", they also describe themselves as a "resistance" movement.
Haganah both planned and executed the "Plan Dalet", which killed and forcibly expelled the vast majority of non-Jews from their lands - they actually did what people accuse Hamas of wanting to do.
The relations with the British was more complex than you think, including many years of cooperation, including British training of Haganah forces in the SNS and fighting together during the arab revolt. As common in this conflict I think your original comment was superficial in its resorting to labels rather than content.
Regarding Plan Dalet, saying that most of the non-jews were killed or forcibly expelled is simply not true, not chronologically or factually.
Fact is that most of the Palestinians in 1948 fled on their own accords, while forced expulsions happened they were rare and were done for military reasons, mostly preparing for the imminent attack of five regular armies, as happened by the other side as well (e.g. kfar etzion)
While Israel proper has a sizable Palestinian population that is larger than the population of the Gaza strip
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