Zeev Vladimir Jabotinsky ( Evgenevich Jabotinsky ) (October 18th 1880 - August 4th 1940), born in Ukraine, was a leader of the right wing of the movement Zionist and the founder of the Jewish Légion during the First World War.

He creates in 1925 the Parti Revisionist, the principal party of the nationalist right Zionist, which claims a Jewish State on two banks of the river the Jordan, also integrating the " Transjordanie" , current the Jordan.

In opposition with the left which dominates the movement Zionist then, him and its party leaves the world Organization Zionist in 1935.

He will be the principal political inspirer of the clandestine armed organization Zionist, the Irgoun.

Youth

Jabotinsky was born with Odessa, in Ukraine. It received a religious teaching during its childhood, but quickly moved away from the orthodoxe Judaïsme.

After studies of right in Swiss Italy and , he becomes journalist under the name of feather of " Altalena ", working for newspapers in Russian language, then in Hebrew Yiddish and later in .

It joined the movement Zionist shortly after the Pogrom of Kichinev in 1903. The same year, he is elected with the 6th congress Zionist. He quickly acquires the reputation of a brilliance speaker, and is essential like one of the leaders of the movement. He puts at the Hebrew modern, and organizes units of self-defense intended to answer the many pogroms which still prevail in Russia.

Of its studies in Italy, Jabotinsky will keep a strong admiration for the Italian nationalism of the Risorgimento (Italian unit). Among his heroes, one thus finds Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Giusti and the poet Giacomo Leopardi.

The First World War and the Jewish legion

During the First World War, Jabotinsky then considers that the Jews must help the British to seize the Palestine, Othoman territory, in the hope that the the United Kingdom will support the establishment of a " National hearth Juif" in this area. It then conceives the idea of a Jewish military force, the Jewish Légion.

This one will never exist officially. At the beginning of 1915, Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor manage to convince the British to create the " body of the muleteers of Sion". This unit of 562 men will be distinguished at the time of the Bataille of Gallipoli, under the orders of the Pattesrson lieutenant-colonel, before being dissolved end 1915.

After an intense activity of Jabotinsky, the British accept in 1917 the formation of several Jewish units: 38e, 39e and 40e battalions (in which David Ben Gourion will also fight). Jabotinsky obtains the rank of lieutenant.

The Jewish units will be committed only a few months before the end of the war, starting from the end 1917. On this date, a good part of Palestine already fell to the hands from the British.

Jabotinsky itself fights against the Turks in the Vallée of the Jordan in 1918.

Between December 1918 and December 1919, the British dissolve these units (5 000 men on this date), with the great fury of Jabotinsky, which wanted to make the embryo of a Jewish army of it. In 1920, Jabotinsky receives a decoration for its role during the war, decoration which it will return shortly after.

Formation of the party Zionist revisionist

In 1921, Jabotinsky is elected member of the direction of the world Organization Zionist (OSM), direction which it will leave in 1923, following major differences in opinion with Chaim Weizmann, another father of the Zionism, and with the left Zionist.

The divergence relates in particular to acceptance by the OSM of the independence of the emirate of Transjordanie (current Jordan), in 1922. Transjordanie was indeed to belong to the " National hearth Juif" bench in Palestine by the British in 1920. The left like the line had protested against this independence, but the majority had ended up accepting it.

It is however not directly on this question that was made the rupture of 1923, but on the Petlioura business.

The Petlioura business - (1921-1923)

See also: Simon Petlioura

The otaman Simon Petlioura was the chief of the Ukrainian independence government between 1918 and 1920, during the Russian civil war. Under the war cry “died to the Jews and the Bolsheviks”, its troops (which were not only) made many massacres of Jews, which some evaluate with 40.000 victims. But beyond these divergences on its exact role, Petlioura was perceived in the Juifs middle of the time like an enemy of the Jews, and this perception explains the extent of the polemic against Jabotinsky.

In August 1921, the Ukrainian government in exile contacted this last indeed, knowing that it had sympathies to the Ukrainian independence cause. Petlioura announced a forthcoming offensive against the Soviet mode to him (predecessor of the the USSR) which finally will not take place. Petlioura proposed in Jabotinsky the creation of a “Jewish gendarmerie” charged to make safe the Jewish zones during the reconquest of the Ukraine (without mixing with the engagements), in order to avoid new pogroms.

In September 1921, Jabotinsky signed an agreement without referring about it to the direction of the OSM, of which he was member. It justified it by the will to protect the Jews against new massacres.

The rejection of the agreement was very broad within the diaspora. The left, but not only it, showed Jabotinsky to bind to a massacror of Jews by anticommunism.

January 17th, 1923, the Committee of action Zionist (the widened executive of the OSM) decided on a board of inquiry, and asked to audition Jabotinsky. This one refused and resigned of the executive, showing the left to have sought to destroy it.

Until its death, Jabotinsky will defend with strength this agreement.

“Steel Wall”

In November 1923, Jabotinsky publishes a fundamental text in the structuring of its thought: “steel Wall”. In this text, Jabotinsky criticizes the step of the majority current Zionist, and intends to promote an alternative policy in Palestine.

The heart of its reflection is Arab resistance to the Zionism, which for him will be able to only develop with Jewish colonization. Which answer the Zionism does it have to bring there?

“On the emotional level, I test with regard to Arabic the same feelings as towards the other people: a polished indifference. On a political plan, I consider that it is absolutely impossible to expel some manner that they are the Arabs of Palestine, where two people will always live”.

But illusion should not be made: “the Arabs of Palestine will never accept the transformation of Arab Palestine into a country with Jewish majority. That the reader reviews all the examples of colonization in other regions. He will not find any only one where it was done with the agreement of the natives”. He fustigates on December 2nd, 1928 “the morbid tendency which exists in our rows to exaggerate the importance of the personal capacity”.

The political objective revisionist is with final on both sides the establishment of a Jewish State of the the Jordan, on the political and economic model of the the United Kingdom.

Expulsion of Palestine

In 1928-1929, Jabotinsky is fixed in Palestine.

During a displacement in 1929, Jabotinsky leaves the Palestine, and cannot return there because of a prohibition of return promulgated by the British authorities. Those thus grant Arab requests against a man perceived like particularly radical.

The scission of the world Organization Zionist

In 1933, the left takes the control of the OSM, and the relations with the latter are degraded quickly. Jabotinsky hates the left and David Ben Gourion. This last will treat it besides " Vladimir Hitler" , by showing it of fascistic sympathy , which Jabotinsky will always deny.

In fact, proclaimed fascistic sympathizers of course operate the right wing of the party revisionist (Brit Ha' birionim under the authority of Abba Ahiméir, or the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg). While refusing to follow them, Jabotinsky will also refuse to break with them. In 1933, one will see even Abba Ahiméir approving certain aspects of the Nazism (in particular “ pulp anti-Marxist ”, according to its expression), by anticommunism. This exit will on the other hand cause the fury of Jabotinsky, very anxious in front of the rise of the Nazism.

In 1935, the revisionists of Jabotinsky leave the OSM, because of the refusal of the latter to assert a Jewish State in Palestine (it was well the objective of the left parties and the center, members of the OSM, but at the time, those considered that the good relationships with the British implied not to require more than one Jewish autonomous zone in Palestine: the " National hearth Juif"). The scission is in fact the logical consequence of the degradation of the relationships to the left which controls the OSM.

After this scission, Jabotinsky creates in 1935 the " New Sioniste" Organization; , which wants to be the rival of the OSM. She will have only one very reduced capacity to attract organizations beyond the circles revisionists.

Jabotinsky and violence anti-Arabic

At the end of 1935, it is the beginning of the Grande Arab revolt in Palestine, which will last until in 1939. This one is marked by attacks against the British and the Juifs civilians.

Jabotinsky accepts gradually, sometimes with reserves, the decision of the Jewish militia of right-hand side, near of the party revisionist, the Irgoun, to devote itself to blind reprisals against the Arab population. He becomes the official person in charge of Irgoun (he will have only one remote command and very general).

April 16th, 1936, in answer to the assassination of two Jews the day before, the Irgoun kills two farm laborers in an orange grove. The generalization of the attacks against the civilians goes back however to 1937, after the departure towards the Haganah of the person in charge of Irgoun, Avraham Tehomi, and of its partisans, more moderate. Besides in 1936, Jabotinsky plays still a moderating part, entreating “its partisans to show reserve, as a long time as there will exist a chance to reconstitute a Jewish Légion with the support of the Great Britain”.

But after the scission, moderation is called into question. Jabotinsky written with the direction of the IZL “if the disorders begin again and accompany by attacks against Jews, you do not retain”. To Alexandria, in July 1937, it however indicates to its troops that it prefers to avoid terrorism plugs “I do not see no heroism to be drawn on a fellah come to sell its vegetables with Tel-Aviv, nor the political benefit which we could draw”.

The question of violence agitates the organization all 1937. Robert Bitker (an ex-officer of the white armies of the Russian civil war) becomes the new person in charge of the Irgoun according to the scission, to which 1.700 combatants remained faithful. Little appreciated of its men, it is replaced with the autumn 1937 by Moshe Rosenberg. Hostile with terrorism, this one is quickly replaced by David Ratziel. It is the latter which organizes the reprisals of “black Sunday”, on November 14th, 1937, or 8 passers by (6 men and 2 women) are cut down.

Proof of the remote influence of Jabotinsky, however semi-official political leader of the organization, Irgoun launched out in violence against the Palestinian civilians without his authorization. These attacks are worth in Irgoun the reprobation of the official authorities of Yishouv and Haganah, as well as the qualification of terrorist organization by the British. “Of tens of frameworks of the party revisionist and the Betar are placed in administrative detention. Military tribunals are founded, the illegal possession of weapons becomes liable to the capital punishment. The Irgoun must stop its attacks at the end of 1937”.

But on June 29th, 1938, a militant of the Irgoun, Ben Yosef, stopped during the preparation of an attack in 1937 is hung by the British. The reaction of Irgoun will be violent. It is decided not to aim at the British, not to push too much far the showdown. Whereas the great Arab revolt was calmed, it is decided to target the Palestinian population. “It is necessary to create a situation or the life of Arabic will not be worth more than that of a rat. Like that, everyone will understand that the Arabs are shit, that we are us and not them them true Masters of the country”. Jabotinsky approves the new orientation. See also Irgoun and the question of violence.

February 27th, 1939, 27 Arabs are killed randomly in the streets of Haïfa, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, which involves the congratulations of Jabotinsky (“your answer to the demonstrations of victory of the enemies of the Jewish State produced an enormous and positive effect”).

The political assessment of these actions for the revisionism seems with final rather negative. The use of blind violence against the civilians on the model of the Arab activists is largely condemned by the Yichouv and isolates the nationalist right, Irgoun and Jabotinsky.

At the end of 1939, the Second world war causes the stop of the actions of Irgoun, which decides to support the United Kingdom against the Nazi S.

The “plan of evacuation”

In the years 1930, Jabotinsky was marked by an increasing concern for the fate of the Jews in Europe.

In 1936, it presents a “plan of evacuation”. This plan proposes the evacuation of the very whole Jewish population of Poland towards Palestine. The “plan of evacuation” because much of polemic within the Polish Judaism, some applauding it while the majority rejected it, estimating that it made the play of the Polish anti-semites who wished the departure of the Jews. The fact that the Polish government (often taxed with Antisémitisme) gave a certain support for this plan played besides against this one.

In any event, the British were not ready to accept 3,5 million Jews in Palestine, not more than those did not want mainly to leave.

Two years after, in 1938, Jabotinsky indicated in a speech that the Polish Jews “lived above a volcano” and informed that a wave of bloody super-pogroms would occur in Poland in the near future.

Death

Vladimir Jabotinsky will die in August 1940 of an heart attack, at the time of a visit in a camp of summer of the Betar, with the the United States.

Its wish to be buried in the future Jewish State will be carried out thanks to the efforts of Labor the Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol, which succeeded David Ben Gourion, which was an sworn enemy of Jabotinsky. Ashes of Jabotinsky and his wife were thus transferred to the Mont Herzl in 1964.

Literary work

Especially known to be the Israeli line founder, Jabotinsky has also an important literary work: poetry, articles of newspapers, novels and news.

Political heritage

Many Israeli line political personalities will claim heritage of Jabotinsky. Among them, one can quote Menahem Begin, which directed the Irgoun as from 1943, before becoming, at the evening of his life, the Prime Minister for the State of Israel which will sign the first peace treaty with an Arab country, the Egypt, in 1977.

Hérout (freedom) formed by Menahem Begin after the independence of Israel is the heir to the party revisionist. Created in 1973, the Likoud, the great Israeli line party, formed around Hérout, is the current prolongation.

The fastening of the Jordan to the Jewish territory, which had been the reason of the creation of the Sionisme revisionist by Jabotinsky in 1925 is on the other hand for a long time abandoned by the heirs to the revisionism. It is noted nevertheless that on certain badges of the Betar, one always finds a chart of Eretz Israel (ground of Israel) which includes Jordan.

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