Jewish guerrillas told British: quit Palestine or die

[number6]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4360655.ece

July 19, 2008

Fighters were led by future Israeli premier / Marcus Leroux

The document does not hail from Basra or Baghdad, nor was it penned by the Islamists of al-Qaeda or the al-Mahdi Army. It was found in Haifa, about 60 years ago, and it was issued by the underground group led by Menachem Begin – the future Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The document, which surfaced at an auction house this week, is addressed to “the soldiers of the occupation army” and aimed at British soldiers serving in Palestine, then under the British Mandate, preceding the establishment of Israel in 1948. The print has faded and the paper has discoloured since it was unearthed from a grove of trees in Haifa in the summer of 1947. Yet the language and the concerns remain current.

//snip....

[aquart]

1. I'm shocked. Shocked that there is gambling in this establishment.

Begin and Arafat, two old-time terrorists gone upscale and respectable. Ain't life strange?

[Scurrilous]

2. Irgun pamphlet threatening British soldiers fetches 1,600 pounds at U.K. auction

<snip>

"A threatening pamphlet addressed to British troops written by the Irgun, a pre-state Jewish militia led by former prime minister Menachem Begin, fetched 1,600 pounds sterling at an auction held in London last week.

The English document written by the militia was sent "from the soldiers of the underground to the soldiers of the occupation army", referring to the United Kingdom forces who were deployed in the British Mandate of Palestine, before Israel's establishment.

The pamphlet was printed a few months after the Irgun (also known as the 'Etzel', an acronym for "Irgun Tzvai Leumi" meaning "national military organization") carried out a deadly bombing in 1946 of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the mandate authorities in Palestine at the time. The pamphlet was apparently meant to serve as a warning to British soldiers serving in Palestine to leave the Middle East."

<snip>

"The sale of the pamphlet, held at the Mullock's auction house, attracted wide media coverage in Britain, and drew the attention of the Arab media as well.

Nonetheless, according to book collector and dealer Eliasaf Robinson, the document was sold for an inordinately high price.

"In Israel, Irgun pamphlets are sold for hundreds of shekels, at most a thousand shekels. An auction house however, draws people with a personal interest in the item, and sometimes unexpected things happen."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010124.html