Prime Minister Netanyahu's intellectual pioneer: Who is Ze'ev Jabotinsky?

Ze'ev Jabotinsky or Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky was born in Odessa, Russia, on October 17, 1880; He died of a heart attack in New York, USA, on August 3, 1940.

He is known to the world public as a Russian-American Zionist leader of Jewish origin.

He is also known as a writer, poet, orator, journalist, and soldier.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky (17 October 1880  – 3 August 1940) was a Revisionist Zionist leader, author, poet, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. With Joseph Trumpeldor, he co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I. Later he established several Jewish organizations, including the paramilitary group Betar in Latvia, the youth movement Hatzohar and the militant organization Irgun in Mandatory Palestine.

Jabotinsky is also the founder of the militant Zionist-Revisionist movement, which played an important role in the establishment of the State of Israel.

His political life adventure can be summarized as follows:

After 1898, he studied law at Sapienza University in Rome and started reporting in foreign countries.

When he gained great fame in journalism, he was called to Odessa as editor-in-chief in 1901.

In 1903, he began to advocate Zionist views for the establishment of a Jewish national state in Palestine, both through his writings and his impressive speeches.

Jabotinsky, who joined the Zionist movement just before the pogrom (Jewish Massacre) incident in Kishniev in 1903, founded an organization called the League for Equal Rights of the Jewish People in Russia in 1905 and became the main speaker of the All-Russian Zionists Conference.

After the dethronement of Abdulhamid II in 1909, the Executive Bureau of the Zionist Organization in Berlin sent Jabotinsky to the capital Istanbul to contact the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).

There, he became the editor-in-chief of the newspaper named Jön Türk, which sided with the CUP.

This newspaper was financially supported by the Zionist Organization (whose President was David Wolffsohn's representative in Istanbul, Victor Jacobson).

The newspaper was closed in 1915 by the pro-German Unionist administration.

At this time, Richard Lichtheim, who was residing in Istanbul as a Zionist Organization official, focused on the construction of Jewish Settlements (Yishuv) in Palestine.

Jabotinsky, one of the Zionist intellectuals, put forward the idea that it would be easier to return to their ancient homeland, that is, Palestine, with a military unit formed from volunteer Jews.

Jabotinsky is on the side of England,1. He thought that the participation of a Jewish unit in World War II would create great sympathy for the Jews in Europe and the USA and allow the Zionist movement to strengthen.

He put this idea into practice and took action together with Zionist activist Joseph Volfovic Trumpeldor.

He founded the Zion Mule League, consisting mostly of the Russian Jewish community deported to Egypt by Djemal Pasha.

The Zion Mule Corps was the first modern Jewish military unit.

Under the command of the Kingdom of Great Britain, it was used in rear service duty on the Dardanelles Front.

When this union was disbanded, Jabotinsky went to London and concentrated on propaganda activities for the establishment of a Jewish state there.

Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the Zion Mule Union, was influenced by racist ideas and adopted the idea that a Jewish state in Palestine would be established through war and bloodshed.

That's why he joined the British army to fight against the Ottomans and the Palestinians.

In 1917, Trumpeldor, the founder of the Zion Mule Union, and 120 other members of the same unit entered the service of the 16th Detachment of the British Army.

Jabotinsky commanded the Jewish Legion as a lieutenant. The Jewish Legion, consisting of three battalions, became the first British unit to arrive in what is now Palestine in 1918.

It should be reminded: The legendary "daughter of Zion" appearing in the middle of the famous Star of David, which is the symbol of the recruitment call of the Jewish Legion, also known as the Levi Troops, says the following in Hebrew:

Your Old-New Land should be yours! Join the Jewish Regiment!

Jabotinsky, who took important positions in many international Zionist organizations in the 1920s, founded and led the illegal Zionist military organization called Haganah (Defense) to fight against Palestinian Arabs.

Thereupon, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard imprisonment by the British mandate administration in Palestine.

His sentence was postponed as a result of the protests sparked by his conviction.

In 1923, after a disagreement with Chaim Weizmann (the first president of the State of Israel, founded in 1948), he founded the Revisionist Zionist Party.

The party was calling for an alliance of those with Zionist-Revisionist views.

Meanwhile, Betar, a Zionist paramilitary youth organization, was established.

In his article titled "Iron Wall", which he wrote in 1923, Jabotinsky argued that it would not be possible to reach an agreement with the Arabs. He even included today's Jordanian territory in his ideal of Zionism. Working as his right-hand man throughout this struggle was a historian named Benzion Netanyahu...

He worked in the World Zionist Revisionists Union in 1925 and in the New Zionist Organization in 1935.

Jabotinsky pondered over the "Great Evacuation" plan in the 1930s; It was envisaged that approximately 1 million 500 thousand Jews living in Poland, the Baltic countries, Nazi-ruled Germany, Hungary, and Romania would leave their countries and come or be brought to Palestinian territory.

A conference was convened on this matter. According to the plan; It would take approximately 10 years for the Jews to be gradually moved from the mentioned countries.

750 thousand people would be brought from Poland, but at least 75 thousand of them would be between the ages of 20-39.

All of those brought would be settled in Palestinian lands that were somehow usurped and occupied, or purchased or owned through Jewish fraudulent means.

Therefore, some of the participants at the conference applauded this plan with excitement, while a certain group found it very dangerous and opposed it.

As a result of the Palestinians' uprising against the waves of Jewish immigration organized under the auspices of the British administration, when Britain reduced the immigration rate to a total of 75 thousand in the following five years in 1939, Jabotinsky established an illegal strike organization called Irgun and put into action the plan of armed rebellion in Palestine and the use of weapons against the British administration when necessary.

Meanwhile, Avraham Stern, one of the leaders of Irgun, was proposing to send a Jewish militia of 40 thousand people to Palestinian lands and launch an armed uprising against the British administration and the Palestinians.

When the Second World War broke out, this terrible plan could not be implemented.

While giving evidence to the British Royal Commission on Palestine, Jabotinsky gave less tactical emphasis to cultural Zionism.

He advocated the establishment of Palestine on one side and the establishment of a Jewish state on the other side of the Jordan River, which forms the current Jordan-Israel border.

During this process, he worked with Benzion Netanyahu (Benzion Mileikowsky).

Polish-born Israeli historian and Zionist activist Netanyahu is the father of Benjamin Netanyahu, who did not recognize the right to life for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza after establishing the most racist and Zionist war coalition government in Israeli history today.

Father Benzion long defended Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the leading figure of the uncompromising Revisionist Zionist movement in the struggle for the Jewish state.

Vladimir Jabotinsky proposed creating a Jewish majority in the region through immigration.

For this reason, he wanted Jews to be conscripted for legitimate defense as part of the permanent army.

He died of a heart attack in August 1940 in the USA, where he went to visit Betar, the youth organization of the Zionist Revisionist Party.

Its supporters, who formed the Jewish organization called Irgun Zvai Leumi, which was active in Palestine in the 1940s, later founded the Herut (Freedom) Party.