injured throughout the country. Irgun cells attacked rioters and defended Jewish neighborhoods mostly around the Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv areas. The Irgun attracted people who wanted to actively defend their right to the land. Irgun strongholds were established in Haifa, Safed, Metulla and Nahariya in the North; Hedera, Herzliya and Netanya in the Center of the country; and Rehovot, Nes Ziona and Rishon Le Tzion to the South; an Irgun cell in the Old City of Jerusalem later became known as “The Kotel Brigade”.
Although the Irgun began activities in 1929, it was not until the appointment of a Supervisory Committee in 1933 that it took on the semblance of an organization. It was not accepted as such by the entire Yishuv.
In April 1937, the Irgun underwent a radical split. Approximately half of the Irgun’s membership, including some key senior command staff and regional committee members, returned to the Haganah taking most of the Irgun’s weapons with them. They felt that there was no significant ideological differences between the Irgun and the Haganah. Those who remained in the Irgun were primarily young activists and laypeople, most of them original recruits from Jabotinsky’s Betar. Continued Arab terrorism and militant Irgun responses persuaded Jabotinsky to end the policy of restraint that November, before World War II.
The most active time of the Irgun before WW II was the period between 1936 and 1939, known as the Great Uprising of the Arabs in Palestine. Arab aggression included ambushes on main roads, bombing of settlements, property and fields. Also under attack were schools, orphanages and old-age homes. In these four years, the Irgun carried out more than sixty attacks.
The first operations began around April 1936 with specific activities to respond proportionally to Arab violence and to match the type of retaliation or its location to correspond to the attack that provoked it. Irgun members mainly defended settlements but began counter-attacks on the Arabs. These attacks were intended to instill fear in the Arabs, and encourage peaceful co-existence. Furthermore, the Irgun began, in early 1938 to increase its efforts to enable European Jews to immigrate “illegally” to Palestine to escape the Nazi regime.
In 1940, Ze’ev Jabotinsky died of a heart attack while visiting New York. Around this time, the Irgun underwent its second split with Avraham “Yair” Stern establishing the more radical LEHI. Menachem Begin officially took over the reins at the end of 1943.
Begin was determined to force the British government to remove its troops entirely from Palestine. The British had reneged on their original promise of the Balfour Declaration and since 1939 had blocked immigration of the desperate Jews in Europe with their White Paper. This was a death sentence for Jews trapped in Nazi controlled countries.
Begin issued a call to arms in February 1944. From 1944–48, the Irgun launched an all-out armed rebellion, perpetrating hundreds of attacks against British installations and posts. The Irgun attacked government offices, military installations and police stations. In November 1944 Lord Moyne, the Minister of State for Middle East Affairs was assassinated by two members of the Lehi in Cairo, the world was shocked. The Jewish Agency Executive issued a strong condemnation and decided on a series of measures against “terrorist organizations” in Palestine.