The Irgun

The Irgun Zvai Leumi, commonly known by the Hebrew acronym Etzel, was a Jewish underground military organization active in Mandatory Palestine from 1931 until 1948. It was founded in Jerusalem by commanders who broke away from the Haganah after the 1929 disturbances, dissatisfied with the policy of restraint and seeking a more independent, hierarchical Jewish military force. Most of its members came from the Betar youth movement and the Revisionist Zionist camp. In the final years of the Mandate, the Irgun became one of the principal organizations fighting British rule. After the establishment of Israel, its units joined the Israel Defense Forces, and the organization was dissolved in September 1948.

The Irgun occupies an important and contested place in the history of the Jewish community in Palestine. British authorities classified it as a terrorist organization, a judgment also shared at the time by some Jewish and international bodies. Historians continue to differ over how much influence the armed underground struggle had on Britain’s decision to end the Mandate. Its historical importance, however, is clear: the Irgun shaped debates about Jewish force, national authority, immigration, relations with the Arab population and the transformation of underground movements into state institutions.

Origins and ideological foundations

The organization emerged from a 1931 split in the Jerusalem branch of the Haganah. Abraham Tehomi and other commanders wanted a force that would respond more aggressively to attacks on Jewish communities and would operate as a national army rather than as a militia associated with one political sector. The Jerusalem group soon merged with armed Betar formations in Tel Aviv and later expanded to Haifa, Safed and many rural settlements.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, served as the Irgun’s supreme political leader until his death in 1940. He influenced its broad strategic principles, including the debate over restraint and retaliation. The organization’s emblem—a hand holding a rifle against a map of the Land of Israel on both sides of the Jordan, with the words “Only Thus”—expressed its belief in an independent Jewish military force. Its anthem was initially “Unknown Soldiers,” written by Avraham Stern, and later the third stanza of Jabotinsky’s “Song of Betar.”

From 1933, the Irgun operated under a supervisory committee that included representatives of several non-socialist Zionist parties. The organization’s 1937 split left it largely in the hands of Jabotinsky’s supporters and young Betar activists. Although it retained a formally broad national identity, it increasingly functioned as the military arm of Revisionist Zionism. Its membership nevertheless included immigrants and locally born Jews from varied social and ethnic backgrounds. Most members were between sixteen and twenty-five years old, and women made up roughly 15 percent of the estimated 6,200 activists and members.

Defense, retaliation and organization

Between 1931 and 1936 the Irgun concentrated mainly on guarding Jewish settlements and sometimes cooperated with the Haganah. The Arab Revolt of 1936–1939 brought the policy of restraint to the center of public debate. Irgun members began carrying out retaliatory attacks, and in November 1937 the organization formally moved toward what it called active defense. This policy distinguished the Irgun from the Haganah, but it also contributed to an escalation of violence and included attacks that harmed civilians. The resulting conflict with the established Jewish leadership was both strategic and political: the mainstream institutions viewed the Irgun as an independent and dangerous force, while Irgun activists argued that the official leadership was failing to protect Jewish lives.

The Irgun also fought a battle for public opinion. It distributed leaflets, published underground newspapers and operated “Kol Zion HaLochemet,” the first independent Hebrew underground radio station. These channels allowed the organization to present its own account of events and to challenge the authority of the elected institutions of the Jewish community. Its propaganda work helped create a political culture in which military action, public communication and ideological education were closely connected.

Internally, the Irgun developed a hierarchical structure of districts, branches, companies, units and headquarters. Most members held ordinary jobs, while only a small number worked full-time for the underground. The organization smuggled weapons from Europe, raided British stores and built workshops for producing mines, grenades and other equipment. By 1947 it had manufactured thousands of Sten submachine guns and 52-millimeter mortars. This combination of recruitment, training, clandestine logistics and local manufacturing gave the organization a durable military infrastructure despite repeated arrests.

Immigration, training and European networks

The Irgun and associated Revisionist organizations played a role in illegal Jewish immigration. Cells in Europe trained young Betar members in guerrilla warfare, tactics and mine-laying, in some cases with assistance from Polish officers. In Palestine, a flight school at Lydda trained two classes of pilots for the future Jewish military force.

Irgun activists helped bring immigrants ashore, distribute them among Jewish settlements and coordinate parts of the maritime operation. Between 1937 and 1940, Revisionist organizations arranged approximately thirty voyages carrying about 20,000 immigrants. The largest vessel in this framework was the Sakaria, which reached Palestine in February 1940 with approximately 2,300 people. This work acquired particular significance as the British White Paper restricted Jewish immigration while the danger to European Jewry grew.

World War II and the creation of Lehi

When World War II began, the Irgun suspended its attacks on Britain. Jabotinsky and senior commanders regarded Nazi Germany as the Jewish people’s principal enemy, and Irgun members cooperated with the British, joined Allied forces and supplied intelligence about German and Italian agents in Palestine. In 1941, a mission led by Irgun commander David Raziel went to Iraq to assist the British against pro-Nazi forces. Raziel was killed in a German air raid near Habbaniya, a severe blow to an organization already weakened by internal conflict.

The wartime truce deepened disagreements within the movement. Avraham Stern and his supporters demanded an immediate renewal of the struggle against Britain, while the official leadership favored cooperation for the duration of the war. In 1940 Stern’s group broke away and eventually became Lehi. The split revealed a fundamental tension between loyalty to a political movement, international wartime considerations and the demand for immediate Jewish independence.

Begin and the revolt against British rule

At the end of 1943, Menachem Begin assumed command of the Irgun. His arrival marked a decisive change. The organization moved from cooperation with Britain to an open revolt against the Mandate. On February 1, 1944, it issued its “Declaration of Revolt,” demanding that authority in Palestine be transferred to a provisional Hebrew government, that Jewish immigration be opened and that a Jewish state be established.

At the beginning of the revolt, the Irgun had fewer than 1,000 members, including approximately 200 fighters. It reorganized into divisions responsible for combat, intelligence, propaganda and planning, and adopted an even deeper underground structure. Its first attacks targeted immigration offices, tax offices and other symbols of British rule. Later operations struck intelligence headquarters, police stations, Tegart forts and communications facilities. One of the most notable actions was the seizure of the government broadcasting station in Ramallah in May 1944.

British authorities arrested hundreds of Irgun and Lehi members and deported many of them to detention camps in Africa. The detainees endured prolonged imprisonment, hunger strikes and repeated escape attempts. Their resistance became part of the public memory of the Mandate period and helped preserve the underground’s organizational continuity. In 1945–1946 the Irgun joined the Hebrew Resistance Movement, a temporary framework that coordinated the Haganah, Irgun and Lehi in armed opposition to British rule. After that framework collapsed, the Irgun continued independently.

The War of Independence and integration into the IDF

After the end of the Mandate and the outbreak of the 1948 War of Independence, Irgun units fought on several fronts. Their most prominent operation was the capture of the Manshiya neighborhood in Jaffa, which helped consolidate Jewish control around Tel Aviv. Following the establishment of the state, an agreement was reached for Irgun units to join the IDF, and the integration process began on June 1, 1948.

The transition from underground forces to a unified state army was difficult. On June 22, an armed confrontation erupted over the Altalena, a ship carrying weapons intended for Irgun members. The government demanded that all weapons be transferred to the IDF, and the confrontation ended when the ship was shelled. The episode demonstrated the danger of competing armed authorities, while also establishing the principle that military power in the new state was subordinate to the government. In September 1948, the Irgun was formally dissolved and its members were absorbed into the IDF.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

The Irgun merits inclusion in Moreshet because it was not merely a clandestine fighting force. It recruited and trained young Jews, built systems for intelligence, arms production, communications and immigration, challenged British rule and ultimately transferred its personnel into the state’s army. Its activities affected thousands of members, their families and Jewish communities in Palestine and Europe. The questions it raised about force, authority, national responsibility and the relationship between underground movements and democratic institutions remain central to the history of Israel.

The organization’s legacy also includes the development of the idea of an independent Jewish military force, the history of illegal immigration, the growth of Revisionist Zionism and the difficult process of building one national army from rival underground organizations. Responsible remembrance must also acknowledge that the struggle involved lethal operations and profound moral disputes. For that reason, the Irgun’s history offers readers of Moreshet.com a valuable way to understand how Israel’s institutions emerged, how divisions within Jewish society were formed and how a clandestine movement became part of the state’s official history.