- Jewish Resistance Movement
:"This article is about Jewish resistance in Mandatory Palestine. For other uses, see
Jewish resistance during the Holocaust ."The Jewish Resistance Movement ( _he. תנועת המרי העברי, "Tnu'at HaMeri HaIvri", literally "Hebrew Rebellion Movement"), sometimes called "United Resistance Movement" (URM), was an umbrella group for Jewish Resistance movements in the
British Mandate of Palestine . The group existed between the years1945 and1946 , and coordinated attacks against theBritish military .The group was founded after the
end of World War II in Europe by those disappointed in British policies towards the movement. TheZionist Movement had high hopes for the new Labour administration in Britain, newly elected after war. Labour members had promisedZionist activist s that if elected they would support aJewish state inPalestine .Fact|date=October 2007 However, despite their success, they did not change British policy towards theJews in Palestine and continued to abide by the edicts put forth in theWhite Paper of 1939 . The disasters the Jews suffered during theHolocaust made the disputes between the movements seem petty, and pushed them to unite their struggles. It had also hardened the Jews and made them more willing to stand up for themselves despite the cost. The leadership of theYishuv understood that cooperation of all of the different streams would be have a more powerful impact on the British andinternational opinion .Negotiations began for the formation of the movement in
August 1945 at the behest of theHaganah leaders,Moshe Sneh andIsrael Galili . At the end of October of the same year, an agreement was signed forming the "Jewish Resistance Movement". The leadership of the new movement included four representatives: Two from the Haganah (Sneh and Galili), a representative from theIrgun (Menachem Begin ) and a representative from Lehi (Nathan Yellin Mor ).In order to coordinate the activities of the groups, a civilian committee known as "
Committee X " was made up of six members, representatives of the various political stream, (includingLevi Eshkol ). The operations board, who approved operations plans, was made up ofYitzhak Sadeh (of the Haganah),Eitan Livni (of the Irgun) and Ya'akov Eliav (of the Lehi).During the movement's existence, eleven major operations were carried out, eight of them by the
Palmach and Haganah, and three by the Irgun and Lehi, as well as many smaller operations. Notable among these were the release of 200 members ofAliyah Bet from thedetention camp inAtlit , bombing of railroads and train stations on theNight of the Trains , attacks on British police stations, bombing of dozens of bridges around the country in thenight of the bridges and the bombing of the King David Hotel inJerusalem .In
August 1946 , because ofOperation Agatha and theKing David Hotel bombing (which shocked the public because of the deaths of many innocent civilians),Chaim Weizmann , president of theWZO appealed to the movement to cease all further military activity until a decision would be reached by theJewish Agency . The Jewish Agency backed Weizmann's recommendation to cease activities, a decision reluctantly accepted by the Haganah, but not by the Irgun and the Lehi. The JRM was dismantled and each of the founding groups continued operating according to their own policy.
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