Talk:Irgun/Archive 4

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Archive 4

Ralph Cairns: accusations of torture.

The "First Operations Against the British" section stated as a fact, citing two sources, that Ralph Cairns had tortured "underground members". However, one of those sources, "Terror Out of Zion" by John Bowyer Bell, states that Cairns had been accused of doing so, not that had actually done it (see page 48).
[EC] Wikipedia contains a detailed biography of Ralph Cairns. It states that Cairns was accused of torturing various Irgun members and that in the wake of one of the alleged incidents, involving Benjamin Zerony, the Irgun circulated a poster stating that Cairns would be assassinated. However, the issue is complicated by the evidence given in MI5 files that Zerony had actually been co-operating with the Palestine Police as a result of Avraham Stern having ordered the execution of Irgun members as a result of them "refusing to explode a device to kill Geoffrey Morton because there were Jewish children playing in the street." The Wikipedia article goes on to state: "MI5 files report that the real reason for Cairns assassination was his and his sergeant’s (Tom Wilkin) success in closing the net on Avraham Stern." A point of interest is that Ronald Barker wasn't a mere police officer but was head of the Arab Affairs section of the CID.
Online there is a non-reliable and biased website belonging to the British Palestine Police Association. Editors might like to note that the page devoted to the Assassination of Inspectors Ralph Cairns and Robert Barker states that Cairns was actually targeted in response to the arrest of David Raziel and that rumours that "Irgun members had been subjected to the most horrific torture while in police custody" were spread later by Avraham Stern as a result of the adverse reaction the murders of the police officers created in the Jewish population of Palestine.
    ←   ZScarpia   08:52, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Ben-Yehuda's book "Politicial Assassinations by Jews" gives several sources for Cairns being a torturer, but they seem to be Etzel sources. So maybe "accused" is the best option. Zero^talk 09:19, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

As it stands, one of the two cited sources, "Terror Out of Zion", cannot be used to support a statement of fact that Cairns had been responsible for torture.

"Politicial Assassinations by Jews" is cited in the Ralph Cairns article to justify the statement that MI5 files provide evidence that Benjamin Zerony, whose alleged torture led the Irgun to distribute a poster saying that Cairns would be assassinated, was actually co-operating with the Palestine Police.

Zev Golan's book, "Free Jerusalem: Heroes, Heroines and Rogues Who Created the State of Israel" (2003) is cited in support of the statement that MI5 believed that the real reason for Cairns' assassination was that he and a fellow police officer were successfully investigating Avraham Stern.

    ←   ZScarpia   09:49, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

If you don't have "Politicial Assassinations by Jews", send me email. Anyway, it does not say anything about MI5 files, nor does it say that Zerony was cooperating with police. It says that Etzel was suspicious of Zerony's escape and that Lehi decided to kill him but didn't. I don't have Golan's book but I have one of his other books and found it to be a sort of unreliable hagiography. Zero^talk 10:31, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I've dug out a copy of "Politicial Assassinations by Jews" and can see that what you wrote is true, that there are no references to MI5 and so the citation doesn't verify the content. As a result, I added a CN tag. The article cites the book twice, once for Case Number 18, the assassination of Cairns, and once for Case Number 28, the ordered, but never carried out, execution of Zerony himself. I also added a CN tag after the text stating that the order to assassinate Cairns was issued by Hanoch Kalai, which also is not verified by the cited source, "Terror Out of Zion". Overall, the article is a citational mess. Earlier this month, Iskandar323 also added a bunch of CN tags. Having had a look at one of Zev Golan's other books, I also very much doubt that "Free Jerusalem: Heroes, Heroines and Rogues Who Created the State of Israel" contains material verifying the text it's cited to verify.     ←   ZScarpia   11:51, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

While performing searches to try to find out where the MI5-related material in the Ralph Cairns article came from, I came across two other sources which expressed material associating Cairns with torture in the form of accusations made by the Irgun rather than straight statements of fact, a Jewish Chronicle article and a 2013 Baylor University MA postgraduate thesis by Robert B. DeBoard titled "Policing Palestine: British Security Strategy in Palestine, 1917-1948." I would recommend reading the latter to anyone interested, in particular, in the history of the Lehi.     ←   ZScarpia   14:32, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Timeline of absorption into the IDF

The first section states "Irgun members were absorbed into the Israel Defense Forces at the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war.". The IDF only accepted Irgun members after Ben Gurion agreed to dissolve the organization at the end of the Israeli War of Independence. The sources linked back this up. Yserbius (talk) 07:00, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 January 2024

Change "It was an offshoot of the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah"

To "It was created by commanders who quit the older and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah which demanded to respond with more aggression to the arab violence of that time."

The reason this change is important is that the word "offshoot" can hint that the Hagana created the Eztel while in fact, it is the opposite, the Hagana condemned and did not welcome the new organization. Kaovnkl (talk) 18:46, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. M.Bitton (talk) 12:41, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Bruce Hoffman sentence in lead

The following sentence should be removed from the lead:

However, academics such as Bruce Hoffman and Max Abrahms have written that the Irgun went to considerable lengths to avoid harming civilians, such as issuing pre-attack warnings; according to Hoffman, Irgun leadership urged "targeting the physical manifestations of British rule while avoiding the deliberate infliction of bloodshed."

Here, Max Abrahms is just citing Bruce Hoffman, whose understanding of the Irgun is fringe and false, contradicted by the rest of the information in this article as well as the page List of Irgun attacks.

Hoffman's expertise seems to be about terrorism in general and not specifically the Irgun or Israeli/Palestinian history.

He writes in Inside Terrorism: "Unlike many terrorist groups today, the Irgun’s strategy was not deliberately to target or wantonly harm civilians." This is false and this opinion shouldn't be included in the lead of this article.

As far as I know it is possible that the strategy of the Irgun against the British was "not deliberately to target or wantonly harm civilians", but their terrorism against Palestinin Arabs was certainly not like that.

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:21, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I removed it from the article. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)