Underground Zionist Military Movements

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The Haganah, the Irgun, and the Lehi were different Zionist military underground movements that were active during the duration of the British mandate. Their goal was to establish an independent Jewish state in Palestine. These movements fought hard and used particular strategies in order to reach their goal. However, many of the strategies they used to deal with the British and the Arabs during the period of the mandate are frowned upon by some and even viewed as acts of terror. In my opinion, the movements were definitely effective in attaining their goal of establishing an independent Jewish state as Israel currently exists; the methods the movements used to reach their goal can be viewed as immoral at first, but some of the movements' actions were justified whereas others were not.

The Haganah was created to protect Palestinian Jews from local Arab gangs since the British did not seem to be making any effort in order to protect the Jews. Another purpose of the Haganah was to warn the occupants of and beat back onslaughts by the Arabs. At first, the Haganah missed a powerful main authority as they were very decentralized and lacked the weapons that were necessary. After 1929,the Haganah's duty transformed impressively. It became a much bigger system that included almost all of the people in the Jewish communities, and many members from the cities. The Haganah was also able to get foreign weaponry and started to create workplaces to make bombs and uncomplicated military equipment, changing from an primitive military unit to a competent underground army. At first, the leaders of the movement decided to have a policy of “havgalah”- the fighters were told to just defend communities and not perform counterattacks against th...

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...gun and the Lehi were both groups that were highly effective, however I think their methods were quite immoral.

If I had to choose a Zionist movement to be a part of, I would be part of Haganah. It is true that Haganah did have its faults, of course, but it seemed like it was the most moral out of the Zionist movements. If I got to choose the way we established the Jewish independent state, I would have taken Gandhi's approach- civil disobedience- because it is the most moral. Also, I am a pacifist and hate to see blood being shed. However, I cannot deny that the Zionist movements' methods were efficacious. It is probably true that if they wouldn't have used those particular tactics, we wouldn't have attained Israel. Though the Zionist movements' actions were quite immoral at times, they were still highly effective since we currently have the land of Israel.

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