The Origins of the Israel Defense Forces

1887 - Zionism

The end of the 19th century marked the start of a new movement––Zionism. Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, called for Jews across the globe to come together and form a national home for the Jewish people.

Back then, the Land of Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was populated mainly by Arabs from throughout the Middle East and Jewish communities in holy cities such as Jerusalem and Safed that had existed for centuries.

Inspired by Zionism and facing violent pogroms in eastern Europe, more and more Jews felt the need to escape to a place they could call their own. They came to Israel and established the first "Moshavot"––Jewish agricultural communities and towns.

As Jewish communities bloomed throughout the Land of Israel, the concept of "Hebrew Labor" became the cornerstone of Israel's national revival process. By shaping a new society and building a country with their own hands, the Zionist movement was brought to life. At the time, the Jewish communities in the country would hire local Arabs to guard their homes, fields and plantations. However, Jewish pioneers aspired to take their security into their own hands.

1907 - Bar Giora and HaShomer

A secret order called Bar Giora was formed in order to lead Hebrew Labor, train Jews in combat, build Jewish communities and secure Jewish towns. The ultimate goal was to create a defensive Jewish force. Bar Giora set up a farm in Sejera (modern-day Ilaniya) and then spread out to guard the entire town as well as their neighboring town, Mas'ha (Modern day Kfar Tavor). Following their success in Sejera and Mas'ha, the demand for Jewish security increased. The members of Bar Giora decided to focus their efforts solely on securing Jewish communities. Therefore, they founded a legal organization––as opposed to Bar Giora, which was underground––called HaShomer. Soon, HaShomer guarded Jewish communities all throughout the Land of Israel.

Members of HaShomer, 1909

World War I

In 1917, in the midst of World War I, Jews volunteered to join the British Army to fight against the Ottoman Empire. They formed the Jewish Legion––the 38th to 42nd Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers in the British Army––and hoped that in exchange for their contribution, they would be credited in favor of establishing the State of Israel as the country of the Jewish people once a new world order was set at the end of the war. The Jewish Legion was the first Jewish military force of the modern era, with Jewish symbols and names and Hebrew as its spoken language. The existence of the five Jewish battalions gave proof of the potential power of the Jews as a nation. The military experience its soldiers gained, as well as their spirit, became the foundation of the Jewish underground resistances which would later operate across the Land of Israel.

Once World War I came to an end, the British gained control over the Land of Israel as part of the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which divided the Middle East between the British and French.

In 1917, The British Government published the Balfour Declaration, solidifying its support and recognizing the Land of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people. The number of Jews immigrating to the British Mandate of Palestine continued to grow. These new Jewish immigrants formed a new way of living––the Kibbutz.

Triggered by the fall of the Ottoman Empire, in 1919, Arabs increased their attacks on Jewish communities in the Galilee region. The most well-known event is the Battle of Tel Hai, when a Small Arab squad attacked the small Jewish community living there, resulting in the death of eight Jews. One of the fallen was Joseph Trumpeldor, a Zionist role model and national hero.

1920 - Haganah

Meanwhile, HaShomer had been gaining members, including Eliyahu Golomb, David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Tabenkin, who argued that the guard should become a countrywide body. This caused controversy amongst HaShomer veterans, who aspired to maintain the selective and elitist tradition of the organization.

This led to HaShomer voluntarily disbanding, and the Haganah, a defensive organization open to all, was established. Based upon the principles of HaShomer and under the authority of the World Zionist Organization, the Haganah's mission was to protect the Hebrew Yeshuv (the Jews who lived in the Land of Israel) from Arab attacks.

Women in the Haganah, 1924

Almost immediately after the establishment of the Haganah began the Nabi Musa riots. Jewish homes were raided and attacked by Arabs. As the British Army stood to the side, the Haganah managed to evacuate around 300 Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem. The violence continued for four days. Once the situation deescalated, the British accused the Haganah of causing the riots and sent the Jewish soldiers to the Acre Prison.

Just a few months later, in May, 1921, the Jaffa riots occurred. Arabs attacked Jewish communities in Jaffa and throughout central Israel, killing 47 Jews. In 1929, a series of violent Arab massacres of Jewish communities took place. 133 Jews were brutally murdered as Arab mobs targeted ancient Jewish communities in holy cities such as Jerusalem, Safed, Hebron, and Nablus. Jewish families who had lived there for centuries were wiped out while British forces stood idly by.

1931 - Etzel

Following these horrific events, a group of Haganah commanders split and formed an organization called the Etzel. The Etzel abandoned the Haganah’s defensive approach and advocated for a more offensive and deterrent one, demanding decisive action against Arab aggression and British indifference.

1936 - The Arab Revolt

Meanwhile, in Europe, the Nazi party was rising to power. More and more Jews frantically fled Europe and immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. This resulted in the Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine, during which Arabs committed acts of terror against British forces and their representatives as well as attacks on Jews and their property. These events were more brutal than the previous riots both in scope and intensity.

The Haganah's policy was "Havlagah – Restraint". 
"Havlagah means our weapon will be pure. We learn the weapon, we carry the weapon, we resist those who come to attack us, but we do not want our weapon to be stained with the blood of innocents... If we were not loyal to ourselves and adopted a different strategy, we would have lost the fight a long time ago”, wrote Berl Katznelson, a prominent Zionist leader.

The Haganah headquarters received real-time reports from various agents in the Yeshuv, using an underground radio system and Morse code in order to gather intelligence and thwart Arab attacks. However, as the attacks increased, the Haganah decided to expand their fighting front. They established POSH (Field Companies), the elite commando unit of the Haganah. Its commander, Yitzhak Sadeh, developed offensive combat techniques: not to "stay behind the fence" but to operate at nighttime, conduct squad ambushes, all the while familiarizing themselves with the terrain.

Concurrently, the Haganah began to collaborate with the British Mandate and formed the PALAM, the "Special Night Squads", an elite unit under the command of Cpt. Orde Wingate, a British officer. Cpt. Wingate selected his recruits personally. He developed a unique combat method for the unit, specializing in guerrilla warfare, memorizing the land's topography while forming small, mobile striking units capable of taking down Arab terror squads. 

When the Arab revolt ended in 1939, the Yeshuv and the Haganah had only grown stronger. With new, fortified Jewish communities and kibbutzim, the organizations were able to expand their combat capabilities via their special units, PALAM and POSH. The POSH was later turned into HISH (Field Corps), a young guard who trained to protect the Yeshuv and its people, and HIM (Guard Corps) a guard who defended Jewish communities and towns.

World War II, Lehi and Palmach

Several months later, the British government issued the White Paper of 1939, limiting Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel almost entirely. The Holocaust was just beginning, and more than ever, the Jewish people needed a safe place to go.  Thousands of Jews who managed to escape the Nazis came by boat to Mandatory Palestine for survival––only to be turned back at its shores. While the Jewish people supported British efforts to fight against the Nazis, they could not stand by while desperate Jewish refugees were denied entry into the country.

“We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war against Hitler,” declared David Ben Gurion, prominent Haganah leader and Israel's first prime minister, “and we will fight Hitler as if there is no White Paper.”

More than 40,000 Jews enlisted into the British Army during World War II to fight against the Nazis. Throughout the war, Jews served in various positions, including the famous Jewish Parachutists, made up of 37 brave men and women who volunteered to parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe in order to gather intelligence, rescue Allied forces who had fallen into enemy territory, and try to save Jews in Europe.

Meanwhile, the Etzel had internal disagreements over whether or not they should cease fire with the British and assist them during the war or continue to act in defiance of the White Paper. Eventually, those who opposed the British split and formed a new organization—the Lehi. It was a small organization, but it carried out daring missions against British rule.

Poster calling for Jews to enlist into the British Army

News of the Nazis' plan to conquer the Middle East spread rapidly as France, which controlled Lebanon and Syria, came under pro-Nazi Vichy's rule, and German Gen. Rommel made his way through north Africa's shores to the Suez Canal.

This resulted in the establishment of the Palmach, the Haganah's official military branch, to supplement the HISH and HIM. The Palmach was created as a force to protect and defend the Jewish people in Israel in the event of a Nazi invasion. It was an integral part of the Haganah. Every Palmach member was loyal to the Haganah as well. 

The British initially sponsored the Palmach and provided its members with weapons as well as military training. The Palmach operated using methods of guerrilla warfare, combat patrols, reconnaissance, strike and sabotage. They even had a "German Platoon", in which German-speaking soldiers impersonated Nazi military officers, trained to operate German weapons, completed intensive exercises, and studied German military history and strategy.

However, after the British victory over Gen. Rommel in Africa in the Second Battle of El Alamein, the British no longer saw the need for the Palmach's existence and cut off all funding and assistance.

The organization was forced to go underground and support itself through work in the kibbutzim—each Palmach platoon was assigned a kibbutz to live on, where they were provided with food, housing and other resources. In return, the platoons worked on the kibbutz for half of the month and trained for combat during the other half. This combination of agricultural work and training created a combat-ready, self-sufficient force.

The Palmach managed to establish the "Palyam" (naval companies) and the "Sha" (air force service), as well as special units such as the "Sachar", known as the Arab Platoon, which trained Arabic-speaking Jews to gather intelligence and secret information in the Middle East. Known for conducting informal social activities apart from training, its free spirit and high morale was the Palmach's essence and source of strength.

At the time, most Yeshuv members wanted to join the Allies in the fight against the Nazis and be a part of an established, respected military rather than a newly formed paramilitary with limited resources. In order to convince Jews to join the Palmach, Yitzhak Sadeh, the Palmach's first commander, insisted: “The Russian gun is carried by the Russian soldier, the English gun is carried by the English soldier, but friends, who will carry the Hebrew gun?”

The Jews and the British had a common enemy: the Nazis. Therefore, as long as Europe was occupied by the Nazis, the World Zionist Organization decided to refrain from using weapons against the British. However, the Etzel dismissed this decision in the last few months of the war; as news about the horrors of the Holocaust made its way overseas, the White Paper's policy still kept Jews seeking refuge from immigrating to Mandatory Palestine. The Etzel announced their resumption of the armed struggle against British rule with the aim of expelling the British from the country and establishing an independent Jewish state instead.

That started "The Saison"––The Haganah and the Palmach's fight against the Etzel in order to stop them from operating against the British Mandate. The Haganah began to track Etzel members and gather information to pass on to the British, sometimes even handing over Etzel members themselves. Despite rising tensions, all three organizations remained careful not to spark infighting, for they all had the same mission––to establish the State of Israel.

1945 - Jewish Resistance Movement

Immediately after World War II, the Etzel, the Lehi, the Haganah and the Palmach all came together to form a united "Hebrew Resistance Movement". Together, they organized wide-scale operations in order to bring Jewish immigrants safely to the Land of Israel. They broke into the Atlit internment camps and released all 200 Jewish immigrants and Holocaust survivors who were imprisoned there, and sabotaged British railways, ships, jets, airports and radar stations with which the British Army used to detect Jewish immigration ships.

One of their most well-known operations is "Night of the Bridges". On the night of June 16th, 1946, the Jewish Resistance Movement destroyed ten bridges linking Mandatory Palestine to its neighboring countries––Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt––in order to sever the British Army's strategic and economic ties.

In response, on June 29, 1946, the British implemented their plan to eliminate the Jewish resistance: Operation Agatha, also known as the "Black Shabbat". The British seized Jewish cities, kibbutzim and towns, confiscated important documents, arrested thousands of members, and raided homes to find guns and weapons. The "Black Shabbat" constituted a significant blow to the Yeshuv. They swiftly planned to retaliate.

At the time, the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was known to be the headquarters of the British government in Israel. The Jewish Resistance Movement's original plan was to plant explosives and destroy the hotel as a warning sign to the British, but after consulting with the World Zionist Organization, they cancelled the mission. However, the Etzel carried on with the mission on their own. Even though they called for the hotel to be evacuated, the British dismissed their warning. 91 people died in the attack—Jews, Arabs and British. The disaster sent a massive shock through the Hebrew Resistance Movement and led to its dissolution.

The Haganah’s weapons, found by the British in Kibbutz Yagur during the “Black Shabbat”, 1947

1947 - The Fight for Israel’s Independence 

And so, each organization resumed their previous mission––the Etzel and the Lehi continued to openly fight against the British while the Haganah and the Palmach focused on rescuing Jewish refugees and bringing them to Mandatory Palestine.

A turning point in the Haganah's effort to save Jewish immigrants was when the British seized the Exodus 1947 illegal immigration ship, forcing thousands of Holocaust survivors seeking refuge in the Land of Israel to go back to Europe. This incident was covered heavily in the media. Members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) who were visiting Israel at the time witnessed the event, influencing them to recognize the necessity of a state for the Jewish People.

Exodus 1947 in Haifa’s harbor, after it was seized by the British

On the 29th of November, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 181, marking the end of the British Mandate of Palestine. This was a historic moment for the Jewish people. The Arab population within Mandatory Palestine immediately rejected the resolution and declared war on the Jews.

The Haganah, Etzel and Lehi joined together to fight for the existence of an independent Jewish state in their ancestral homeland.

The Haganah's six brigades of HISH and three brigades of Palmach were the main entities acting as the backbone of the Yeshuv's military force and played a key role in Israel's War of Independence. Half of the fighting forces were also made up of "Gahal soldiers"––Jews recruited from Europe, most of them Holocaust survivors.

After six months of war, the Haganah decided to shift from their typical defensive approach to an increasingly offensive one that led them to a series of small victories, bringing the Yeshuv enough stability to arrive at this historic moment: On the 15th of May, 1948, David Ben Gurion declared Israel's independence from the British Empire, based on Resolution 181 and the Partition Plan. Immediately after, Israel was attacked by six foreign Arab armies.

On the 26th of May, 1948, Ben Gurion ordered to disassemble all the underground resistance movements and form a new, united army called the Israel Defense Forces. 

Despite being drastically outnumbered, the newly-formed IDF worked together to win the war. Israel emerged victorious, and, once and for all, the Jewish people began to build their nation, the State of Israel.

Since then, the IDF has transformed from a small, newly-formed army to one of the most respected and powerful militaries in the world. For over 73 years, the IDF has protected the Israeli people, and this was made possible because of the Haganah, the Palmach, and all the resistance movements who built the foundation for the IDF we know today. We owe it to them to continue their legacy and fight for Israel's future.