The Lesson the Palestinians Learned from Israelis (To the Israelis' Everlasting Regret)

Following the Second World War, the campaign of Jewish terror reached its peak on July 22, 1946, when the Irgun--commanded by future Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin--blew up an entire wing of the famously beautiful King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ninety people died: and once again, the vic- tims were Arabs, Britons, and Jews alike. Given such behavior, and given that they had long planned to leave anyway, the British informed the new United Nations that they intended to relinquish administration of Palestine to international control in 1947; and the UN--unable, as was much of the world, to separate what had happened to the Jews in Europe from what the Jews had long been doing in Palestine--subsequently came up with a new partition plan that gave even more prime territory to Jewish settlers.

During the months following the British departure, the Jews fought a war for the establishment of the State of Israel that saw many heroic deeds achieved by an enormous cross-section of their people. The Irgun and the Stern Gang, however, continued the murderous ways that had turned the British--once the Jews' most powerful protectors in the region--against them. Menahem Begin still believed that murdering civilians and hurling bombs into crowds of Arab shoppers would somehow break the Arabs' spirits and provoke sympathy for the Jews among the world community. He continued to be mistaken, and the global reaction grew particularly bad when Begin ordered his followers to focus their attention once again on targets in Jerusalem, hoping to create enough terror in that triply holy city to force the United Nations to drop its plans to place it under international supervision. So negative was the press created by the Irgun that even David Ben-Gurion, head of the Israeli cause, privately condemned their killing of civilians. But Begin ignored the censure, and later, after an armistice was declared, he denounced the agreement and kept fighting, this time instigating an armed showdown among Jews and posing a threat to the new Israeli government. The government won, but the strain of vicious terrorism that the Irgun had bred into the Israeli character would never be removed. Worst of all, it would inspire vengeful imitation among the Palestinian Arabs.

When the Palestinians formed those groups whose names were in time to become so familiar--the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, al-Fatah (or the Palestinian Liberation Movement), and its close but less openly military associate, the Palestine Liberation Organization--they took as one of their organizational and operational models the Irgun. The Palestinians also
received training in the Soviet Union, from which the Irgun had borrowed so many techniques. Had they not witnessed over many years the murderous efficiency of the Irgun, the Palestinians might have been tempted to choose a different path; but anger, desperation, and impatience took them down the same road, and inevitably, the results of their decision were also similar.

This article is excerpted from Mr. Carr's book and is reprinted with permission of the publisher, Random House. All rights reserved.