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Days Of Fire: the secret story of the making of Israel
This remains the best book on the Irgun. It was also the first book to expose the Allies' failure to bomb the Auschwitz death camp. Author Katz, who was born in South Africa, immigrated to British Mandatory Palestine in 1936. He became active in the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the underground militia fighting for Jewish statehood, eventually rising to become a member of the Irgun High Command and its primary spokesman to the world media.
317 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
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May 20, 2018
In this fascinating volume, published in the glorious aftermath of Israel's great victory over the Arab aggressors in the 1967 Six Day War, Samuel Katz takes us through the little known history of the Jewish freedom fighters , called the Irgun Zvai Leumi.
What follows is an invaluable account of the struggle for the rebirth of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, against the evil actions of the British and Arabs. He writes of the lives of the great heroes of the Zionist Movement and the Jewish people such as Vladimir Jabotinsky, Avraham Stern and Menachem Begin.
He begins his account in 1936, with the Nazi-inspired 'Arab Revolt' which began in 1936, a series of pogroms against Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, carried out by the Arab terrorist gangs of Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini.
He writes of the incitement in the Arab media, where Jews were already being passionately villified in 1936, and the campaign of violence being publicly advocated by Arab politicians.
He also details the incitement of Arabs against Jews, by the Palestine Mandate's British rulers, simultaneously refusing to lift a finger to halt attacks on Jewish communities, while acting resolutely to prevent Jewish retaliation against Arab attacks, even working to sabotage Jewish defence.
Katz is fiercely critical of the mainstream Jewish leadership of the Jewish Agency, making no bones about his low opinion of Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, who he accuses of being weak leaders and collaborating with the British against their own people.
The 1937 Peel Commission recommended a partition of Western Palestine in which only a miniscule micro-territory would be allowed for a Jewish homeland (78% of the Palestine Mandate had already been stripped away in 1922 to create an Arab State, in which Jews were banned from settling or living- the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan).
The author also details the British restrictions of Jewish entry into the Palestine Mandate beginning with the 1939 White Paper, thus condemning hundreds of thousands of Jews to Hitler's ovens.
The outbreak of war did not lessen the inensity of British efforts to prevent Jews fleeing the Nazis in Europe to enter 'Palestine'.
As Katz describes:'These manifestations by the British Government of utter indifference to the fate of Jewish refugees must have encouraged Hitler in the first steps of "proccessing" the Jews of Poland that first winter of the war. Jews were being herded into ghettos. There were forced marches, executions, arbitary collective murders.'
The book details the account of the Struma, the ship from Romania carring Jewish refugees to the Land of Israel, that was turned back by the British and sunk by a Soviet submarine.
The British had decided they did not want a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and hoped that if they could freeze the Jewish presence in 'Palestine', and achieve British dominance in the area under the banner of Arab independence.
In September 1944,the Charter of the Arab League was published in Alexandria, proclaming war against Zionism and unequivocally suporting the White Paper of 1939.
Another leader who played a perfidious role was Franklin D Roosevelt who promised Saudi King Ibn Saud that he had not and never would order or approve the immigration of Jews to 'Palestine'.
After the war, the British declared a draconian reign of martial law against the Jews of 'Palestine'. They arrested thousands of Jewish soldiers of the Irgun, Lechi and Hagannah and hung a large number of Jewish soldiers.
Much of the brutality and disregard for Jewish life could be traced to the vicious anti-semtism of the G.O.C of the British forces in 'Palestine', General Evelyn Barker.
British soldiers were ordered to shoot on site, anyone disobeying their draconian and opressive anti-Jewish regulations. One of those killed by British fire was a four year old Jewish girl. The objective of martial law was clear-the Jews were to be terrorized into betraying the Jewish underground.
Katz writes of the work of the Irgun to gather suport in Europe , where there was massive sympathy for the Jews of the Land of Israel, and their struggle against British opression and Arab agression.
It is strange to read of this in the current climate of irrational hostility to Israel and it's people in Europe and the world today.
In the book, Katz also outlines the justice of the Jewish claim to the Holy Land:
" To the Jewish people, however, Palestine was the unchanging and unchangeable homeland. We had ruled the country and been driven out of it by force, but had never relinquished our claim to it. Throughout the ages, moreover. Jewish life in Palestine had never been completely suspended: there was always a Jewish community in the country."
He points out that there were movements throughout the exile to facilitate a return of Jews to the Holy Land, in the 1930's and 40's a vast Jewish influx into the Land of Israel was prevented by British power.
He furthermore marvels how, out of a massive landmass under Arab control , and a number of Arab states (today they number 22) it is regarded as such an injustice that a number of Arabs should be a minority in a Jewish State, where they enjoy full civil and political rights.
Jewish statelessness had led to the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the holocaust.
He details how the War of Independence in 1948 was a war of both 7Arab armies and the British against the Jews.
The British massively armed the Arabs and did all they could to sabotage Jewish defence. They, in some cases, arrested Jewish defenders and handed them over to Arab mobs who then tore them apart.
Furthermore, Transjordan was in fact at the time, a British puppet kingdom, whose army, when it attacked Israel in '48 was under British command. As late as January 1949, five British fighter planes crossed from the Suez into fledgling Israel- where they were shot down by the planes of the infant Israel Air Force.
Katz also outlines the truth about the attack on the village of Deir Yassin, which has been used as a calumny against Israel to this day.
Deir Yassin was a terrorist base for attacks on Jews, and was also used as a base for Iraqi forces.
Before attacking, the Irgun warned the village to remove all women and children, . They were fired upon and then took the village. A number of Arab women and children were killed in the crossfire. There was no deliberate slaughter by the Jewish forces of any Arab women or children, no mutialtion, no rape,as alleged by anti-Zionist propagandists.
In a Jordan newspaper on the fifth anniversary of the battle at Deir Yassin, one of the refugees put the record straight:
"The Jews never intended to harm the population of the village, but were forced to do so after they encountered fire from the population, which killed the Irgun commander. The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews."
The Arabs fled from 'Palestine' on the orders of their own leaders to clear the way for the genocide of the Jews, and were told they could return after the Jews were liquidated-the truth about the so-called Arab refugees.
Katz also covers the assassination of Arabist 'mediator' Count Bernadotte by a splinter group from the Lechi freedom fighters,as well as the pressure from the world powers to end the fighting once Israel had beaten back the Arab attackers to prevent them from capturing Arab held parts of the Land of Israel.
For this the author blames Ben-Gurion for bowing to the pressure, which resulted in the half-achieved victory.
All in all this book is an invaluable account of the struggle for an independent Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel.
Merged review:
In this fascinating volume, published in the glorious aftermath of Israel's great victory over the Arab aggressors in the 1967 Six Day War, Samuel Katz takes us through the little known history of the Jewish freedom fighters , called the Irgun Zvai Leumi.
What follows is an invaluable account of the struggle for the rebirth of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, against the evil actions of the British and Arabs. He writes of the lives of the great heroes of the Zionist Movement and the Jewish people such as Vladimir Jabotinsky, Avraham Stern and Menachem Begin.
He begins his account in 1936, with the Nazi-inspired 'Arab Revolt' which began in 1936, a series of pogroms against Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, carried out by the Arab terrorist gangs of Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini.
He writes of the incitement in the Arab media, where Jews were already being passionately villified in 1936, and the campaign of violence being publicly advocated by Arab politicians.
He also details the incitement of Arabs against Jews, by the Palestine Mandate's British rulers, simultaneously refusing to lift a finger to halt attacks on Jewish communities, while acting resolutely to prevent Jewish retaliation against Arab attacks, even working to sabotage Jewish defence.
Katz is fiercely critical of the mainstream Jewish leadership of the Jewish Agency, making no bones about his low opinion of Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, who he accuses of being weak leaders and collaborating with the British against their own people.
The 1937 Peel Commission recommended a partition of Western Palestine in which only a miniscule micro-territory would be allowed for a Jewish homeland (78% of the Palestine Mandate had already been stripped away in 1922 to create an Arab State, in which Jews were banned from settling or living- the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan).
The author also details the British restrictions of Jewish entry into the Palestine Mandate beginning with the 1939 White Paper, thus condemning hundreds of thousands of Jews to Hitler's ovens.
The outbreak of war did not lessen the inensity of British efforts to prevent Jews fleeing the Nazis in Europe to enter 'Palestine'.
As Katz describes:'These manifestations by the British Government of utter indifference to the fate of Jewish refugees must have encouraged Hitler in the first steps of "proccessing" the Jews of Poland that first winter of the war. Jews were being herded into ghettos. There were forced marches, executions, arbitary collective murders.'
The book details the account of the Struma, the ship from Romania carring Jewish refugees to the Land of Israel, that was turned back by the British and sunk by a Soviet submarine.
The British had decided they did not want a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and hoped that if they could freeze the Jewish presence in 'Palestine', and achieve British dominance in the area under the banner of Arab independence.
In September 1944,the Charter of the Arab League was published in Alexandria, proclaming war against Zionism and unequivocally suporting the White Paper of 1939.
Another leader who played a perfidious role was Franklin D Roosevelt who promised Saudi King Ibn Saud that he had not and never would order or approve the immigration of Jews to 'Palestine'.
After the war, the British declared a draconian reign of martial law against the Jews of 'Palestine'. They arrested thousands of Jewish soldiers of the Irgun, Lechi and Hagannah and hung a large number of Jewish soldiers.
Much of the brutality and disregard for Jewish life could be traced to the vicious anti-semtism of the G.O.C of the British forces in 'Palestine', General Evelyn Barker.
British soldiers were ordered to shoot on site, anyone disobeying their draconian and opressive anti-Jewish regulations. One of those killed by British fire was a four year old Jewish girl. The objective of martial law was clear-the Jews were to be terrorized into betraying the Jewish underground.
Katz writes of the work of the Irgun to gather suport in Europe , where there was massive sympathy for the Jews of the Land of Israel, and their struggle against British opression and Arab agression.
It is strange to read of this in the current climate of irrational hostility to Israel and it's people in Europe and the world today.
In the book, Katz also outlines the justice of the Jewish claim to the Holy Land:
" To the Jewish people, however, Palestine was the unchanging and unchangeable homeland. We had ruled the country and been driven out of it by force, but had never relinquished our claim to it. Throughout the ages, moreover. Jewish life in Palestine had never been completely suspended: there was always a Jewish community in the country."
He points out that there were movements throughout the exile to facilitate a return of Jews to the Holy Land, in the 1930's and 40's a vast Jewish influx into the Land of Israel was prevented by British power.
He furthermore marvels how, out of a massive landmass under Arab control , and a number of Arab states (today they number 22) it is regarded as such an injustice that a number of Arabs should be a minority in a Jewish State, where they enjoy full civil and political rights.
Jewish statelessness had led to the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the holocaust.
He details how the War of Independence in 1948 was a war of both 7Arab armies and the British against the Jews.
The British massively armed the Arabs and did all they could to sabotage Jewish defence. They, in some cases, arrested Jewish defenders and handed them over to Arab mobs who then tore them apart.
Furthermore, Transjordan was in fact at the time, a British puppet kingdom, whose army, when it attacked Israel in '48 was under British command. As late as January 1949, five British fighter planes crossed from the Suez into fledgling Israel- where they were shot down by the planes of the infant Israel Air Force.
Katz also outlines the truth about the attack on the village of Deir Yassin, which has been used as a calumny against Israel to this day.
Deir Yassin was a terrorist base for attacks on Jews, and was also used as a base for Iraqi forces.
Before attacking, the Irgun warned the village to remove all women and children, . They were fired upon and then took the village. A number of Arab women and children were killed in the crossfire. There was no deliberate slaughter by the Jewish forces of any Arab women or children, no mutialtion, no rape,as alleged by anti-Zionist propagandists.
In a Jordan newspaper on the fifth anniversary of the battle at Deir Yassin, one of the refugees put the record straight:
"The Jews never intended to harm the population of the village, but were forced to do so after they encountered fire from the population, which killed the Irgun commander. The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews."
The Arabs fled from 'Palestine' on the orders of their own leaders to clear the way for the genocide of the Jews, and were told they could return after the Jews were liquidated-the truth about the so-called Arab refugees.
Katz also covers the assassination of Arabist 'mediator' Count Bernadotte by a splinter group from the Lechi freedom fighters,as well as the pressure from the world powers to end the fighting once Israel had beaten back the Arab attackers to prevent them from capturing Arab held parts of the Land of Israel.
For this the author blames Ben-Gurion for bowing to the pressure, which resulted in the half-achieved victory.
All in all this book is an invaluable account of the struggle for an independent Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel.
What follows is an invaluable account of the struggle for the rebirth of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, against the evil actions of the British and Arabs. He writes of the lives of the great heroes of the Zionist Movement and the Jewish people such as Vladimir Jabotinsky, Avraham Stern and Menachem Begin.
He begins his account in 1936, with the Nazi-inspired 'Arab Revolt' which began in 1936, a series of pogroms against Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, carried out by the Arab terrorist gangs of Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini.
He writes of the incitement in the Arab media, where Jews were already being passionately villified in 1936, and the campaign of violence being publicly advocated by Arab politicians.
He also details the incitement of Arabs against Jews, by the Palestine Mandate's British rulers, simultaneously refusing to lift a finger to halt attacks on Jewish communities, while acting resolutely to prevent Jewish retaliation against Arab attacks, even working to sabotage Jewish defence.
Katz is fiercely critical of the mainstream Jewish leadership of the Jewish Agency, making no bones about his low opinion of Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, who he accuses of being weak leaders and collaborating with the British against their own people.
The 1937 Peel Commission recommended a partition of Western Palestine in which only a miniscule micro-territory would be allowed for a Jewish homeland (78% of the Palestine Mandate had already been stripped away in 1922 to create an Arab State, in which Jews were banned from settling or living- the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan).
The author also details the British restrictions of Jewish entry into the Palestine Mandate beginning with the 1939 White Paper, thus condemning hundreds of thousands of Jews to Hitler's ovens.
The outbreak of war did not lessen the inensity of British efforts to prevent Jews fleeing the Nazis in Europe to enter 'Palestine'.
As Katz describes:'These manifestations by the British Government of utter indifference to the fate of Jewish refugees must have encouraged Hitler in the first steps of "proccessing" the Jews of Poland that first winter of the war. Jews were being herded into ghettos. There were forced marches, executions, arbitary collective murders.'
The book details the account of the Struma, the ship from Romania carring Jewish refugees to the Land of Israel, that was turned back by the British and sunk by a Soviet submarine.
The British had decided they did not want a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and hoped that if they could freeze the Jewish presence in 'Palestine', and achieve British dominance in the area under the banner of Arab independence.
In September 1944,the Charter of the Arab League was published in Alexandria, proclaming war against Zionism and unequivocally suporting the White Paper of 1939.
Another leader who played a perfidious role was Franklin D Roosevelt who promised Saudi King Ibn Saud that he had not and never would order or approve the immigration of Jews to 'Palestine'.
After the war, the British declared a draconian reign of martial law against the Jews of 'Palestine'. They arrested thousands of Jewish soldiers of the Irgun, Lechi and Hagannah and hung a large number of Jewish soldiers.
Much of the brutality and disregard for Jewish life could be traced to the vicious anti-semtism of the G.O.C of the British forces in 'Palestine', General Evelyn Barker.
British soldiers were ordered to shoot on site, anyone disobeying their draconian and opressive anti-Jewish regulations. One of those killed by British fire was a four year old Jewish girl. The objective of martial law was clear-the Jews were to be terrorized into betraying the Jewish underground.
Katz writes of the work of the Irgun to gather suport in Europe , where there was massive sympathy for the Jews of the Land of Israel, and their struggle against British opression and Arab agression.
It is strange to read of this in the current climate of irrational hostility to Israel and it's people in Europe and the world today.
In the book, Katz also outlines the justice of the Jewish claim to the Holy Land:
" To the Jewish people, however, Palestine was the unchanging and unchangeable homeland. We had ruled the country and been driven out of it by force, but had never relinquished our claim to it. Throughout the ages, moreover. Jewish life in Palestine had never been completely suspended: there was always a Jewish community in the country."
He points out that there were movements throughout the exile to facilitate a return of Jews to the Holy Land, in the 1930's and 40's a vast Jewish influx into the Land of Israel was prevented by British power.
He furthermore marvels how, out of a massive landmass under Arab control , and a number of Arab states (today they number 22) it is regarded as such an injustice that a number of Arabs should be a minority in a Jewish State, where they enjoy full civil and political rights.
Jewish statelessness had led to the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the holocaust.
He details how the War of Independence in 1948 was a war of both 7Arab armies and the British against the Jews.
The British massively armed the Arabs and did all they could to sabotage Jewish defence. They, in some cases, arrested Jewish defenders and handed them over to Arab mobs who then tore them apart.
Furthermore, Transjordan was in fact at the time, a British puppet kingdom, whose army, when it attacked Israel in '48 was under British command. As late as January 1949, five British fighter planes crossed from the Suez into fledgling Israel- where they were shot down by the planes of the infant Israel Air Force.
Katz also outlines the truth about the attack on the village of Deir Yassin, which has been used as a calumny against Israel to this day.
Deir Yassin was a terrorist base for attacks on Jews, and was also used as a base for Iraqi forces.
Before attacking, the Irgun warned the village to remove all women and children, . They were fired upon and then took the village. A number of Arab women and children were killed in the crossfire. There was no deliberate slaughter by the Jewish forces of any Arab women or children, no mutialtion, no rape,as alleged by anti-Zionist propagandists.
In a Jordan newspaper on the fifth anniversary of the battle at Deir Yassin, one of the refugees put the record straight:
"The Jews never intended to harm the population of the village, but were forced to do so after they encountered fire from the population, which killed the Irgun commander. The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews."
The Arabs fled from 'Palestine' on the orders of their own leaders to clear the way for the genocide of the Jews, and were told they could return after the Jews were liquidated-the truth about the so-called Arab refugees.
Katz also covers the assassination of Arabist 'mediator' Count Bernadotte by a splinter group from the Lechi freedom fighters,as well as the pressure from the world powers to end the fighting once Israel had beaten back the Arab attackers to prevent them from capturing Arab held parts of the Land of Israel.
For this the author blames Ben-Gurion for bowing to the pressure, which resulted in the half-achieved victory.
All in all this book is an invaluable account of the struggle for an independent Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel.
Merged review:
In this fascinating volume, published in the glorious aftermath of Israel's great victory over the Arab aggressors in the 1967 Six Day War, Samuel Katz takes us through the little known history of the Jewish freedom fighters , called the Irgun Zvai Leumi.
What follows is an invaluable account of the struggle for the rebirth of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, against the evil actions of the British and Arabs. He writes of the lives of the great heroes of the Zionist Movement and the Jewish people such as Vladimir Jabotinsky, Avraham Stern and Menachem Begin.
He begins his account in 1936, with the Nazi-inspired 'Arab Revolt' which began in 1936, a series of pogroms against Jewish communities in the Land of Israel, carried out by the Arab terrorist gangs of Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini.
He writes of the incitement in the Arab media, where Jews were already being passionately villified in 1936, and the campaign of violence being publicly advocated by Arab politicians.
He also details the incitement of Arabs against Jews, by the Palestine Mandate's British rulers, simultaneously refusing to lift a finger to halt attacks on Jewish communities, while acting resolutely to prevent Jewish retaliation against Arab attacks, even working to sabotage Jewish defence.
Katz is fiercely critical of the mainstream Jewish leadership of the Jewish Agency, making no bones about his low opinion of Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, who he accuses of being weak leaders and collaborating with the British against their own people.
The 1937 Peel Commission recommended a partition of Western Palestine in which only a miniscule micro-territory would be allowed for a Jewish homeland (78% of the Palestine Mandate had already been stripped away in 1922 to create an Arab State, in which Jews were banned from settling or living- the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan).
The author also details the British restrictions of Jewish entry into the Palestine Mandate beginning with the 1939 White Paper, thus condemning hundreds of thousands of Jews to Hitler's ovens.
The outbreak of war did not lessen the inensity of British efforts to prevent Jews fleeing the Nazis in Europe to enter 'Palestine'.
As Katz describes:'These manifestations by the British Government of utter indifference to the fate of Jewish refugees must have encouraged Hitler in the first steps of "proccessing" the Jews of Poland that first winter of the war. Jews were being herded into ghettos. There were forced marches, executions, arbitary collective murders.'
The book details the account of the Struma, the ship from Romania carring Jewish refugees to the Land of Israel, that was turned back by the British and sunk by a Soviet submarine.
The British had decided they did not want a Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and hoped that if they could freeze the Jewish presence in 'Palestine', and achieve British dominance in the area under the banner of Arab independence.
In September 1944,the Charter of the Arab League was published in Alexandria, proclaming war against Zionism and unequivocally suporting the White Paper of 1939.
Another leader who played a perfidious role was Franklin D Roosevelt who promised Saudi King Ibn Saud that he had not and never would order or approve the immigration of Jews to 'Palestine'.
After the war, the British declared a draconian reign of martial law against the Jews of 'Palestine'. They arrested thousands of Jewish soldiers of the Irgun, Lechi and Hagannah and hung a large number of Jewish soldiers.
Much of the brutality and disregard for Jewish life could be traced to the vicious anti-semtism of the G.O.C of the British forces in 'Palestine', General Evelyn Barker.
British soldiers were ordered to shoot on site, anyone disobeying their draconian and opressive anti-Jewish regulations. One of those killed by British fire was a four year old Jewish girl. The objective of martial law was clear-the Jews were to be terrorized into betraying the Jewish underground.
Katz writes of the work of the Irgun to gather suport in Europe , where there was massive sympathy for the Jews of the Land of Israel, and their struggle against British opression and Arab agression.
It is strange to read of this in the current climate of irrational hostility to Israel and it's people in Europe and the world today.
In the book, Katz also outlines the justice of the Jewish claim to the Holy Land:
" To the Jewish people, however, Palestine was the unchanging and unchangeable homeland. We had ruled the country and been driven out of it by force, but had never relinquished our claim to it. Throughout the ages, moreover. Jewish life in Palestine had never been completely suspended: there was always a Jewish community in the country."
He points out that there were movements throughout the exile to facilitate a return of Jews to the Holy Land, in the 1930's and 40's a vast Jewish influx into the Land of Israel was prevented by British power.
He furthermore marvels how, out of a massive landmass under Arab control , and a number of Arab states (today they number 22) it is regarded as such an injustice that a number of Arabs should be a minority in a Jewish State, where they enjoy full civil and political rights.
Jewish statelessness had led to the slaughter of 6 million Jews during the holocaust.
He details how the War of Independence in 1948 was a war of both 7Arab armies and the British against the Jews.
The British massively armed the Arabs and did all they could to sabotage Jewish defence. They, in some cases, arrested Jewish defenders and handed them over to Arab mobs who then tore them apart.
Furthermore, Transjordan was in fact at the time, a British puppet kingdom, whose army, when it attacked Israel in '48 was under British command. As late as January 1949, five British fighter planes crossed from the Suez into fledgling Israel- where they were shot down by the planes of the infant Israel Air Force.
Katz also outlines the truth about the attack on the village of Deir Yassin, which has been used as a calumny against Israel to this day.
Deir Yassin was a terrorist base for attacks on Jews, and was also used as a base for Iraqi forces.
Before attacking, the Irgun warned the village to remove all women and children, . They were fired upon and then took the village. A number of Arab women and children were killed in the crossfire. There was no deliberate slaughter by the Jewish forces of any Arab women or children, no mutialtion, no rape,as alleged by anti-Zionist propagandists.
In a Jordan newspaper on the fifth anniversary of the battle at Deir Yassin, one of the refugees put the record straight:
"The Jews never intended to harm the population of the village, but were forced to do so after they encountered fire from the population, which killed the Irgun commander. The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews."
The Arabs fled from 'Palestine' on the orders of their own leaders to clear the way for the genocide of the Jews, and were told they could return after the Jews were liquidated-the truth about the so-called Arab refugees.
Katz also covers the assassination of Arabist 'mediator' Count Bernadotte by a splinter group from the Lechi freedom fighters,as well as the pressure from the world powers to end the fighting once Israel had beaten back the Arab attackers to prevent them from capturing Arab held parts of the Land of Israel.
For this the author blames Ben-Gurion for bowing to the pressure, which resulted in the half-achieved victory.
All in all this book is an invaluable account of the struggle for an independent Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel.
May 23, 2018
picked up Days of Fire as part of my background reading for the Divided Land megagame last Saturday. Samuel Katz was a member of Irgun in the mid 40s, and Days of Fire is his story of how Irgun pushed Israel into being.
Days of Fire is aptly titled, Palestine from 1944 until the end of the British Mandate was a turbulent place. Thousands of people were killed or wounded in the violence and more were dispossessed. Even before the British withdrew there was a civil war.
Irgun were an extremist breakaway group of the Revisionist Zionists. A bit like PIRA three decades later. Mostly they tried to cause chaos and avoid killing people, although sometimes their warnings went unheeded, like the bombing of the King David Hotel.
Katz started as a secretary to the South African consulate in Palestine and closet supporter. He then worked as a journalist, spending most of the war in Britain before returning to Palestine in early 1945. Days of Fire is an easy to read first hand account of how Irgun started the counterinsurgency campaign against the British in November 1944 and prosecuted it to the end.
There’s a very strong anti-British feeling amongst the Zionists, and for good reason. From their perspective Britain failed to act to save Jews from the Holocaust. Before the war visas were hard to obtain and limited in number. When the Holocaust became known the British didn’t act to interdict it. Several plans to save Jews were delayed or blocked, mainly by the Foreign Office or the Colonial Office. So Irgun members saw the British as complicit in the murder of their people.
Days of Fire is unapologetic. Irgun did some terrible things to force the creation of a Jewish state. For those involved the context made these evils necessary. Never again could Jews rely on others to look after them, or to protect them. The British seemed only the appear during the mandate to prevent retaliation, but never early enough to stop the Arabs attacking. Even when the neighbouring Arab states invaded the British Army stayed in its barracks and let the nascent Israeli Defence Force do the fighting.
I’d strongly recommend Days of Fire to anyone interested in the last days of the Mandate and the partition of Palestine to form Israel. Although I would also recommend reading a few other books with different points of view, because this one is strongly partisan.
Days of Fire is aptly titled, Palestine from 1944 until the end of the British Mandate was a turbulent place. Thousands of people were killed or wounded in the violence and more were dispossessed. Even before the British withdrew there was a civil war.
Irgun were an extremist breakaway group of the Revisionist Zionists. A bit like PIRA three decades later. Mostly they tried to cause chaos and avoid killing people, although sometimes their warnings went unheeded, like the bombing of the King David Hotel.
Katz started as a secretary to the South African consulate in Palestine and closet supporter. He then worked as a journalist, spending most of the war in Britain before returning to Palestine in early 1945. Days of Fire is an easy to read first hand account of how Irgun started the counterinsurgency campaign against the British in November 1944 and prosecuted it to the end.
There’s a very strong anti-British feeling amongst the Zionists, and for good reason. From their perspective Britain failed to act to save Jews from the Holocaust. Before the war visas were hard to obtain and limited in number. When the Holocaust became known the British didn’t act to interdict it. Several plans to save Jews were delayed or blocked, mainly by the Foreign Office or the Colonial Office. So Irgun members saw the British as complicit in the murder of their people.
Days of Fire is unapologetic. Irgun did some terrible things to force the creation of a Jewish state. For those involved the context made these evils necessary. Never again could Jews rely on others to look after them, or to protect them. The British seemed only the appear during the mandate to prevent retaliation, but never early enough to stop the Arabs attacking. Even when the neighbouring Arab states invaded the British Army stayed in its barracks and let the nascent Israeli Defence Force do the fighting.
I’d strongly recommend Days of Fire to anyone interested in the last days of the Mandate and the partition of Palestine to form Israel. Although I would also recommend reading a few other books with different points of view, because this one is strongly partisan.
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