Revisionist Zionism is a faction within the
Zionist movement.
It is the founding ideology of the non-religious
political right wing in Israel, and was the
chief ideological competitor to the dominant
socialist Labor Zionism.
Revisionism led to the development of the
Likud Party.The ideology was developed originally
by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who advocated a "revision"
of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion
and Chaim Weizmann, which was focused on independent
individuals' settling of Eretz Yisrael.
In 1935, after the Zionist Executive rejected
Jabotinsky's political program and refused
to state that "the aim of Zionism was the
establishment of a Jewish state", Jabotinsky
resigned from the World Zionist Organization.
He founded the New Zionist Organization (NZO)
to conduct independent political activity
for free immigration and the establishment
of a Jewish State.
Revisionist Zionism was based on a vision
of "political Zionism", which Jabotinsky regarded
as following the legacy of Theodor Herzl,
the founder of modern political Zionism.
In its early years, and under Jabotinsky's
leadership, Revisionist Zionism was focused
on gaining the aid of Britain as a major power
for settlement.
Later, Revisionist groups independent of Jabotinsky's
leadership conducted campaigns of violence
against the British authorities in the British
Mandate of Palestine to drive them out and
establish a Jewish state.
== Ideology ==
Revisionism differed from other ideologies
within Zionism primarily in its territorial
maximalism.
Revisionists had a vision of occupying the
full territory, and insisted upon the Jewish
right to sovereignty over the whole territory
of Eretz Yisrael (originally encompassing
all of Mandatory Palestine).
The 1921 British establishment of Transjordan
(the modern-day state of Jordan) adversely
affected this goal and was a great set-back
for the movement.
Before Israel achieved statehood in 1948,
Revisionist Zionism became known for its advocacy
of more belligerent, assertive posture and
actions against both British and Arab control
of the region.
Revisionism's foremost political objective
was to establish and maintain the territorial
integrity of the historical land of Israel;
its representatives wanted to establish a
Jewish state with a Jewish majority on both
sides of the River Jordan.
Jewish statehood was always a major ideological
goal for Revisionism, but it was not to be
gained at the price of partitioning Eretz
Yisrael.
Jabotinsky and his followers in Betar, the
New Zionist Organization (NZO) and Hatzohar
consistently rejected proposals to partition
Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish
state.
Menachem Begin, who came to embody Revisionist
Zionism after the 1940 death of Jabotinsky,
opposed the 1947 United Nations partition
plan.
Revisionists regarded the subsequent partition
of Palestine following the 1949 Armistice
Agreements as illegitimate.During the first
two decades after the declaration of independence
of the State of Israel in May 1948, the main
revisionist party, Herut (founded in June
1948), remained in opposition.
The party slowly began to revise its ideology
in an effort to change this situation and
to gain political power.
While Begin maintained the Revisionist claim
to Jewish sovereignty over all of Eretz Israel,
by the late 1950s, control over the East Bank
of the Jordan ceased to be integral to Revisionist
ideology.
Following Herut's merger with the Liberal
Party in 1965, references to the ideal of
Jewish sovereignty over "both banks of the
Jordan" appeared less and less frequently.
By the 1970s, the legitimacy of the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan was no longer questioned.
In 1994 the complete practical abandonment
of the "both banks" principle was apparent
when an overwhelming majority of Likud Knesset
Members (MKs) voted in favour of the peace
treaty with Jordan.On the day the Six-Day
War started in June 1967, the Revisionists,
as part of the Gahal faction, joined the national
unity government under Prime Minister Levi
Eshkol.
Begin served in the cabinet for the first
time.
Ben-Gurion's Rafi party also joined.
The war brought to an end Labour's previous
efforts to undercut Revisionism because on
the eve of the war, the dominant party, Mapai,
believed it had to include the Revisionist
opposition in an emergency national-unity
government.
This action helped legitimize the views of
the opposition.
It also showed that the dominant party no
longer felt that it could monopolize power.
This unity arrangement lasted until August
1970, when Begin and Gahal left Golda Meir's
government.
Some sources indicate the resignation was
due to disagreements over the Rogers Plan
and its "in-place" cease-fire with Egypt along
the Suez Canal; other sources, including William
B. Quandt, note that Begin left the unity
government because the Labour Party, by formally
accepting UN 242 in mid-1970, had accepted
"peace for withdrawal" on all fronts.
On August 5, 1970, Begin himself explained
his resignation before the Knesset, saying:
"As far as we are concerned, what do the words
'withdrawal from territories administered
since 1967 by Israel' mean other than Judea
and Samaria.[sic] Not all the territories;
but by all opinion, most of them."
Following Israel's capture of the West Bank
and Gaza in the 1967 Six-Day War, Revisionism's
territorial aspirations concentrated on these
territories.
These areas were far more central to ancient
Jewish history than the East Bank of the Jordan
and most of the areas within Israel's post-1949
borders.
In 1968 Begin defined the "eternal patrimony
of our ancestors" as "Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem,
Judea, [and] Shechem [Nablus]" in the West
Bank.
In 1973 Herut's election platform called for
the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.
When Menachem Begin became leader of the broad
Likud coalition (1973) and soon afterwards
Prime Minister (in office: 1977–1983), he
considerably modified Herut's expansive territorial
aims.
The party's aspiration to unite all of mandatory
Palestine under Jewish rule was scaled down.
Instead, Begin spoke of the historic unity
of Israel in the West Bank, even hinting that
he would make territorial concessions in the
Sinai as part of a complete peace settlement.
When Begin finally came to power in the 1977
election, his overriding concern as Prime
Minister (1977–1983) was to maintain Israeli
control over the West Bank and Gaza.
In 1981 he declared to a group of Jewish settlers:
"I, Menachem, the son of Ze'ev and Hasia Begin,
do solemnly swear that as long as I serve
the nation as Prime Minister we will not leave
any part of Judea, Samaria, [or] the Gaza
Strip."
One of the main mechanisms for accomplishing
this objective was the establishment of Jewish
settlements.
Under Labour governments, between 1967 and
1977, the Jewish population of the territories
reached 3,200; Labour's limited settlement
activity was predicated upon making a future
territorial compromise when the majority of
the territory would be returned to Arab control.
By contrast, the Likud's settlement plan aimed
to settle 750,000 Jews all over the territories
in order to prevent a territorial compromise.
As a result, by 1984, there were about 44,000
settlers outside East Jerusalem.
=== Begin's foreign policy ===
In the diplomatic arena, Begin pursued his
core ideological objective in a relatively
pragmatic manner.
He held back from annexing the West Bank and
Gaza, recognizing that this was not feasible
in the short term, due to international opposition.
He signed the Camp David Accords (1978) with
Egypt that referred to the "legitimate rights
of the Palestinians" (although Begin insisted
that the Hebrew version referred only to "the
Arabs of Eretz Yisrael" and not to "Palestinians").
Begin also promoted the idea of autonomy for
the Palestinians, albeit only a "personal"
autonomy that would not give them control
over any territory.
But his uncompromising stance in the negotiations
over Palestinian autonomy from 1979 to 1981
led to the resignations of the more moderate
Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman, Foreign and
Defense Ministers, respectively, both of whom
left the Likud government.
According to Weizman, the significant concessions
Begin made to the Egyptians in the Camp David
Accords and the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty
of the following year were motivated, in part,
by his ideological commitment to the eventual
annexation of the territories.
By removing the most powerful Arab state from
the conflict, reducing international (mainly
American) pressure for Israeli concessions
on the issue of the territories, and prolonging
inconclusive talks on Palestinian autonomy,
Begin was buying time for his government's
settlement activities in the territories.
Begin continued to vow that territory which
was part of historic Eretz Israel in the West
Bank and Gaza would never be returned.
His adamant stand on the territory became
an obstacle to extending the 1979 peace treaty.The
Revisionist ideological stand concerning the
territories has continued, although it has
moderated somewhat and become more "pragmatic"
in the years since, as discussed below.
== Jabotinsky and Revisionist Zionism ==
After World War I, Jabotinsky was elected
to the first legislative assembly in the Yishuv,
and in 1921 he was elected to the Executive
Council of the Zionist Organization (known
as the World Zionist Organization after 1960).
He quit the latter group in 1923, thanks mainly
to differences of opinion with its chairman,
Chaim Weizmann.
In 1925, Jabotinsky formed the Revisionist
Zionist Alliance, in the World Zionist Congress
to advocate his views, which included increased
cooperation with Britain on transforming the
entire Mandate for Palestine territory, including
Palestine itself and Transjordan, on opposite
sides of the Jordan River, into a sovereign
Jewish state, loyal to the British Empire.
To this end, Jabotinsky advocated for mass
Jewish immigration from Europe and the creation
of a second Jewish Legion to guard a nascent
Jewish state at inception.
A staunch anglophile, Jabotinsky wished to
convince Britain that a Jewish state would
be in the best interest of the British Empire,
perhaps even an autonomous extension of it
in the Middle East.
When, in 1935, the Zionist Organization failed
to accept Jabotinsky's program, he and his
followers seceded to form the New Zionist
Organization.
The NZO rejoined the ZO in 1946.
The Zionist Organization was roughly composed
of General Zionists, who were in the majority,
followers of Jabotinsky, who came in a close
second, and Labour Zionists, led by David
Ben-Gurion, who comprised a minority yet had
much influence where it mattered, in the Yishuv.
Despite its strong representation in the Zionist
Organization, Revisionist Zionism had a small
presence in the Yishuv, in contrast to Labour
Zionism, which was dominant among kibbutzim
and workers, and hence the settlement enterprise.
General Zionism was dominant among the middle
class, which later aligned itself with the
Revisionists.
In the Jewish Diaspora, Revisionism was most
established in Poland, where its base of operations
was organized in various political parties
and Zionist Youth groups, such as Betar.
By the late 1930s, Revisionist Zionism was
divided into three distinct ideological streams:
the "Centrists", the Irgun, and the "Messianists".
Jabotinsky later argued for a need to establish
a base in the Yishuv, and developed a vision
to guide the Revisionist movement and the
new Jewish society on the economic and social
policy centered around the ideal of the Jewish
middle class in Europe.
Jabotinsky believed that basing the movement
on a philosophy contrasting with the socialist-oriented
Labour Zionists would attract the support
of the General Zionists.
In line with this thinking, the Revisionists
transplanted into the Yishuv their own youth
movement, Betar.
They also set up a paramilitary group, Irgun,
a labour union, the National Labor Federation
in Eretz-Israel, and their own health services.
The latter were intended to counteract the
increasing hegemony of Labour Zionism over
community services via the Histadrut and address
the refusal of the Histadrut to make its services
available to Revisionist Party members.
== Irgun: Origin and activities ==
The Irgun (shorthand for Irgun Tsvai Leumi,
Hebrew for "National Military Organization"
ארגון צבאי לאומי) had its roots
initially in the Betar youth movement in Poland,
which Jabotinsky founded.
By the 1940s, they had transplanted many of
its members from Europe and the United States
to Palestine.
The movement, now acting autonomously from
the Hatzohar leadership in Poland, decided
to organize locally, as its small membership
was increasingly overshadowed by Labour Zionists,
who were predominantly focused on settling
the land.
While Jabotinsky continued to lobby the British
Empire, the Irgun, under the leadership of
people such as David Raziel and later Menachem
Begin, fought politically against the Labour
Zionists and militarily against the British
for the establishment of a Jewish state, independent
of any orders from Jabotinsky.
Acting often in conflict (but at times, also
in coordination) with rival clandestine militias
such as the Haganah and the Lehi (or Stern
Group), the Irgun 's efforts would feature
prominently in the armed struggles against
British and Arab forces alike in the 1930s
and 1940s, and ultimately become decisive
in the closing events of the 1948 Arab–Israeli
War.
After 1948, members of the Irgun were variously
demobilised, or incorporated directly into
the nascent Israeli Defense Forces; and on
the political front, Irgunist ideology found
a new vehicle of expression in the Herut (or
"Freedom") Party.
== Lehi: Origin and activities ==
The movement called Lehi and nicknamed the
"Stern Gang" by the British, was led by Avraham
"Yair" Stern, until his death.
Stern did not join the Revisionist Zionist
party in university but instead joined another
group called Hulda.
He formed Lehi in 1940 as an offshoot from
Irgun, which was initially named Irgun Zvai
Leumi be-Yisrael (National Military Organization
in Israel or NMO).
Following Stern's death in 1942—shot by
a British police officer—and the arrest
of many of its members, the group went into
eclipse until it was reformed as "Lehi" under
a triumvirate of Israel Eldad, Natan Yellin-Mor,
and Yitzhak Shamir.
Lehi was guided also by spiritual leader Uri
Zvi Greenberg.
The Lehi, in particular their members in prison,
were encouraged in their struggle by Rabbi
Aryeh Levin a greatly respected Jewish sage
of the time.
Shamir became the Prime Minister of Israel
forty years later.
Irgun—and, to a lesser extent, Lehi—were
influenced by the romantic nationalism of
Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi.
The movement's activities were independent
of any diaspora leadership, but were backed
by several figures in the diaspora.
While the Irgun stopped its activities against
the British during World War II, at least
until 1944, Lehi continued guerrilla warfare
against the British authorities.
It considered the British rule of Mandatory
Palestine to be an illegal occupation, and
concentrated its attacks mainly against British
targets (unlike the other underground movements,
which were also involved in fighting against
Arab paramilitary groups).
In 1940, Lehi proposed intervening in the
Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany
to attain their help in expelling Britain
from Mandate Palestine and to offer their
assistance in "evacuating" the Jews of Europe.
Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali
Lubenchik was sent to Beirut where he met
the German official Werner Otto von Hentig
(see Lehi (group)#Contact with Nazi Germany).
Lehi prisoners captured by the British generally
refused to present a defence when brought
to trial in British courts.
They would only read out statements in which
they declared that the court, representing
an occupying force, had no jurisdiction over
them.
For the same reason, Lehi prisoners refused
to plead for amnesty, even when it was clear
that this would have spared them from the
death penalty.
In two cases, Lehi men killed themselves in
prison to deprive the British of the ability
to hang them.Tensions between the Irgun and
Lehi simmered until the two groups forged
an alliance during the Israeli War of Independence.
== Revisionist Zionism: Ideology ==
Ideologically, Revisionism advocated the creation
of a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan
River, that is, a state which would include
the present-day Israel, as well as West Bank,
Gaza and all or part of the modern state of
Jordan.
Nevertheless, the terms of the Mandate allowed
the mandatory authority, Britain, to restrict
Jewish settlement in parts of the mandate
territory.
In 1922, before the Mandate officially came
into effect in 1923, Transjordan was excluded
from the terms regarding Jewish settlement.
In the Churchill White Paper of 1922, the
British Government had made clear that the
intent expressed by the Balfour Declaration
was that a Jewish National Home should be
created 'in' Palestine, not that the whole
of Palestine would become a Jewish National
Home.
All three Revisionist streams, including Centrists
who advocated a British-style liberal democracy,
and the two more militant streams, which would
become Irgun and Lehi, supported Jewish settlement
on both sides of the Jordan River; in most
cases, they differed only on how this should
be achieved.
(Some supporters within Labor Zionism, such
as Mapai's Ben-Gurion also accepted this interpretation
for the Jewish homeland.)
Jabotinsky wanted to gain the help of Britain
in this endeavour, while Lehi and the Irgun,
following Jabotinsky's death, wanted to conquer
both sides of the river independently of the
British.
The Irgun stream of Revisionism opposed power-sharing
with Arabs.
On the topic of "transfer" (expulsion of the
Arabs), Jabotinsky's statements were ambiguous.
In some writings he supported the notion,
but only as an act of self-defense, in others
he argued that Arabs should be included in
the liberal democratic society that he was
advocating, and in others still, he completely
disregarded the potency of Arab resistance
to Jewish settlement, and stated that settlement
should continue, and the Arabs be ignored.
=== Fascism vs. Jewish nationalism ===
Up to 1933, a number of members from the national-messianist
wing of Revisionism were inspired by the fascist
movement of Benito Mussolini.
Abba Ahimeir was attracted to fascism for
its staunch anti-communism and its focus on
rebuilding the glory of the past, which national-messianists
such as Uri Zvi Greenberg felt had much connection
to their view of what the Revisionist movement
should be.Abba Ahimeir's ideology was based
in Oswald Spengler's monumental study on the
decline of the West, but his Zionist orientation
caused him to adapt its ultimate conclusions.
Achimeir's basic assumption was that liberal
bourgeois European culture was degenerate,
and deeply eroded from within by an excess
of liberalism and individualism.
Socialism and communism were portrayed as
"overcivilized" ideologies.
Fascism on the other hand, like Zionism, was
a return to the roots of the national culture
and the historical past.
According to Achimeir, Italian Fascism was
not anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist, whereas
communist ideology and praxis were intrinsically
so.He also developed a favourable attitude
toward fascist praxis and its psycho-politics,
such as the principle of the all-powerful
leader, the use of propaganda to generate
a spirit of heroism and duty to the homeland,
and the cultivation of youthful vitality (as
manifested in the fascist youth movements).
Ahimeir joined the Revisionist movement in
1930, but before joining he wrote a regular
column entitled "From the Notebook of a Fascist"
in the unaffiliated but pro-Revisionist magazine
Doar Hayom.
He crafted his pro-fascistic views in these
columns, and also wrote an article in 1928
titled "On the Arrival of Our Duce" to celebrate
Jabotinsky's visit to Palestine, and propose
a new direction for the Revisionist movement,
more in line with Achimeir's views.When Ahimeir
was on trial in 1932 for having disrupted
a public lecture at Hebrew University, his
lawyer, Zvi Eliahu Cohen, argued "Were it
not for Hitler's anti-Semitism, we would not
oppose his ideology.
Hitler saved Germany."
Tom Segev has remarked, "This was not an unconsidered
outburst."
An editorial in the Revisionist newspaper
Hazit Haam praised Cohen's "brilliant speech."
It continued, that "Social Democrats of all
stripes believe that Hitler's movement is
an empty shell (but) we believe that there
is both a shell and a kernel.
The anti-Semitic shell is to be discarded,
but not the anti-Marxist kernel.
The Revisionists would fight the Nazis only
to the extent that they were anti-Semites."In
1933, when Hitler came to power, the newspaper,
whose editors were Revisionist Party members,
praised Nazism as a German national liberation
movement and said that Hitler had saved Germany
from Communism.
Jabotinsky responded by threatening to have
the newspaper's editors expelled if they repeated
such "kow-towing" to Hitler.The national messianist
wing differed from the ideological vision
of Jabotinsky to the extent that on August
9, 1932, Jabotinsky wrote to tell Abba Ahimeir
that his romantic ideas and the zeal of his
followers were considered excessive.
Hatzohar, he wrote, was a democratic political
movement of a patrician rather than populist
or Romantic kind.
As a consequence, he argued, the behavior
of Ahimeir and his friends threatened Jabotinsky's
own movement.
He also argued that if Achimeir's views were
indeed similar to those which he expressed
in his articles and letters, there was no
room for the two of them in the same political
camp.Despite his flirt with fascism, Ahimeir
was also known for his fight against Nazism,
with the most visible example being his climb
on the German embassy roof in Jerusalem taking
off the swastika flag.
In later years, Ahimeir said he was sorry
for calling himself a "fascistan" (fascist
sympathizer).
=== Irgun to Likud ===
The Irgun largely followed the Centrists'
ideals but with a much more hawkish outlook
toward Britain's involvement in the Mandate,
and an ardently nationalist vision of society
and government.
After the establishment of the State of Israel,
it was the Irgun wing of the Revisionist Party
that formed Herut, which in turn eventually
formed the Gahal party when the Herut and
Liberal parties formed a united list called
Gush Herut Liberalim (or the Herut-Liberal
Bloc).
In 1973 the new Likud Party was formed by
a group of parties dominated by the Revisionist
Herut/Gahal.
After the 1977 Knesset elections it became
the dominant party in a governing coalition,
and remains an important force in Israeli
politics until today.
In the 2006 elections, the Likud lost many
of its seats to the Kadima party.
The Likud bounced back in Israel's 2009 Knesset
elections, garnering 27 seats, although still
less than Kadima's 28 seats.
In spite of this right-of-center parties who
favored a Likud-led coalition, comprised the
majority; Likud was chosen to form the coalition.
The party re-emerged as the strongest party
in the Knesset in the 2012 elections and leads
the government today.
In the years since the 1977 election, particularly
in the last decade, Likud has undergone a
number of splits to its right, including the
1998 departure of Benny Begin, son of Herut
founder Menachem Begin (he rejoined Likud
in 2008), and in 2005 experienced a split
to its left with the departure of Ariel Sharon
and his followers to form Kadima.
While the initial core group of Likud leaders
such as Israeli Prime Ministers Begin and
Yitzhak Shamir came from Likud's Herut faction,
later leaders, such as Benjamin Netanyahu,
and Ariel Sharon have come from or moved to
the "pragmatic" Revisionist wing.
== See also ==
Betar
Hatzohar
Herut
History of Zionism
Jewish State
Labour Zionism
Likud
List of notable Irgun members
Magshimey Herut
Zionist Freedom Alliance
== 
References ==
=== 
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Shlaim, Avi (2014).
The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.
Penguin.
Jabotinsky, Ze'ev (1939).
Writings: On the Road to Statehood (in Hebrew).
Jerusalem.
Goldberg, David J. (Spring 1996).
To the Promised Land Built By Israel and the
Hidden Logic of the Iron Wall.
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