1947 Palestine And All The People Living There: Life Before Israel's Birth

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Last Days of the 30 Year Mandate of the British in Palestine

If you were born in 1947, you are 76 years old.  Most young people have no idea of what was going on in Palestine then.  

For the past 1,877 years, from 70 to 1947 CE, the Land was ruled by foreign governments and never by the people who lived in it. 

In a span of  400 years, from 1516 to 1917, the Land was ruled by the Ottoman Empire by dividing it into separately administered districts called Sanjaks or Vilayets.  The Ottomans had no name for the Land as a whole. 

In the past 29 years, from 1918 to 1947, the Land was ruled by the British who called the Land Palestine which had been called this after the Jewish General "Aluf" Bar Kokhba took back Jerusalem in 132 from the Romans, held it for 3 whole years at the embarrassment of the Romans, then died in 135 in the great battle.  Rome was so mad that they named the Land for the Jews' worst enemy, the Philistines.  

Originally, the 30 year British Mandate over Palestine extended to both sides of the River Jordan.  In 1922, Britain partitioned the Mandated territory into Palestine (west of the Jordan) and Transjordan (east of the Jordan.)  The Land in Hebrew is "Eretz Yisrael".  

                            Arab guerrillas

Hajj Mohammed Amin el-Husseini (1893-1974) in 1921 was a big Arab leader, called the Sherif of Jerusalem and the Grand Mufti, appointed by the British, the only Jew-Sir Herbert Samuel, who also chose Husseini for chairman of the Arab supreme Council.   (Oy gavolt!)  He was afraid of losing his high position if Jews entered the country.  So he organized the Arab riots (nicely called 'the Palestine disturbances by the Brits).  For these, he was sentenced to exile in 1937.  He fled to Lebanon, and during WWII, participated in Rashid Ali's pro-Axis coup in Iraq before going to Europe where he assisted Hitler and was largely responsible for the liquidation of the Jews in the Moslem areas of Bosnia.  In 1946 he escaped to Egypt.  After 1948's Israel birth, he set up a short-lived "Palestine Government " in Gaza-which moved later to Cairo, Egypt.  

During the 2nd half of the 19th century, both communities---Arabs and Jews---began to grow.  By 1914, the population of the Land (west of the Jordan) was estimated at 680,000 of whom 85,000 were Jews.  

In 1917, in order to win Jewish support for Britain's First World War effort, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine.  However, the British had also promised Arab nationalists that a united Arab country, covering most of the Arab Middle East, would result if the Ottoman Turks were defeated.

The United Nations (October 24, 1945)  was an outgrowth of the League of Nations(January 10, 1920) . On 15 November 1920, 41 members states gathered in Geneva for the opening of the first session of the Assembly. This represented a large portion of existing states and corresponded to more than 70% of the world's population. A UN Special committee on Palestine composed for statesmen and jurists from 11 member states, recommended the partitioning of Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab States, linked in an economic union, with Jerusalem under international control.  Both times, the Nations voted for Israel to be created.  

On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly approved this recommendation by more than the required 2/3 majority.  Both the USA and the Soviet Union supported the resolution. 

The decision of the United Nations was accepted by the Jewish Agency.  It was rejected by the Arab Governments and by Palestinian Arab leaders.  

The 6 months until the termination of the British 30 year Mandate were marked by Arab violence against the Jewish community.  The Arabs attacked to interrupt communications between Jewish towns and villages and, above all, to isolate and conquer Jerusalem.  

Prior to the entry of regular Arab armies into the Land in May 1948, not a single Jewish town or village was captured.  

The British authorities aided the Arabs by handing over to them military bases and equipment.  British officers led the Transjordan Arab Legion.  (The Brits were given the 30 year mandate with the command to help the Jews created their Jewish Homeland.)They saw it differently.  They kept Jews out and allowed Arabs in.                   

The main effort of the Jewish Haganah (meaning defense in Hebrew) was to maintain a corridor to Jerusalem and beat back the Arab assaults on the new western city. This was a secret organization kept from the British for Jewish self-defense because the Brits were not doing it.  It grew out of Ha-Shomer in 1920 and existed until 1948. 

Intensive efforts to strengthen the Haganah followed the 1929 Arab riots which resulted in a British policy of appeasement of the Arabs.  In 1931, the Haganah split and the minority, chiefly right-wing groups, formed a separate organization;  these reunited with the Haganah in 1936 but certain elements remained outside and formed the nucleus of the Irgun Tzevai Leumi. 

      Avraham Stern (December 23, 1907-February 12, 1942, born in Suwalki, Poland-or Lithuania where my Bubba was born. When 18 in 1925, he migrated alone to Palestine. He died at 35.    

Avraham Stern (1907-1942) left the Irgun in 1939-1940 of which he had been a leader, because of its refusal to continue anti-British activities in Palestine during World War II.  He formed an underground organization later known as Lohame Herut Israel.  The British called it the Stern Gang. My 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was the Chief of Intelligence for it.  They carried out acts of sabotage, etc. Stanley was a writer; wrote "A Letter to the World." Stern was killed by the British police while being arrested. 

Stern spent the rest of the 1930s traveling back and forth to Eastern Europe to organize revolutionary cells in Poland and promote immigration of Jews to Palestine in defiance of British restrictions (this was therefore known as "illegal immigration").

Stern developed a plan to train 40,000 young Jews to sail for Palestine and take over the country from the British colonial authorities. He succeeded in enlisting the Polish government in this effort. The Poles began training Irgun members and arms were set aside, but then Germany invaded Poland and began the Second World War in 1939. This ended the training, and immigration routes were cut off. Stern was in Palestine at the time and was arrested the same night the war began. He was incarcerated together with the entire High Command of the Irgun in the Jerusalem Central Prison and Sarafand Detention Camp.  

The Haganah wasn't idle;  and was strengthened during the 1936-1939 disturbances by the establishment of the Supernumerary Police Force which number 20,000 in 1939.  This force was recruited by the Haganah command and operated as far as possible under its instructions.  

Major General Charles Orde Windgate In September 1936, Wingate was assigned to a staff officer position in the British Mandate of Palestine, and became an intelligence officer. From his arrival he saw the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine as being a religious duty, and immediately put himself into absolute alliance with Jewish political leaders. Palestinian Arab guerrillas had at the time of his arrival begun a campaign of attacks against both British mandate officials and Jewish communities.  Too bad Britain didn't have his outlook.  

 Yitzhak Sadeh (Hebrew: יצחק שדה, born Izaak Landoberg, August 10, 1890 – August 20, 1952), was the commander of the Palmach and one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel.

At this period, the "special Field companies" were raised by Yitzhak Sadeh and the "Night Squads" established by Charles Orde Wingate (1903-1944). Wingate was a British soldier.  While serving during 1936-1939 in Palestine, he organized formations of Jewish volunteers, known as the Special Night Squads, to defeat Arab terrorist activity.  A keen bible student, Windgate remained an ardent supporter of Zionism to the end of his brilliant military career.  Sadeh (1890-1952) assisted Trumpeldor in founding the Russian He-Halutz movement in 1919 and the following year settled in Palestine.  He became an Israeli labor and military leader. I taught with one of his descendants-a teacher of English in Safed in 1981.

 Joseph Trumpeldor (1880-1920) was going to be a dentist, but volunteered for the Russian army and lost an arm during the fighting in 1904-1905 while a Japanese captive.  He was made an officer and settled in Palestine in 1912.  During WWI he was in Egypt working with Jabotinsky for the establishment of a Jewish unit to fight with the British against the Turks in Palestine.  He helped raise the Zion Mule Corps but this was dispatched to the Gallipoli.  As an ex-Russian officer, Trumpeldor was excluded from the Jewish Legion.  In 1917, he went to Russia to organize Jewish settlement groups for Palestine and from his activity the He-Halutz movement emerged.  In 1919, he returned to Palestine as leader of a pioneer group and unsuccessfully tried to reconcile the antagonisms between the various workers' political parties inside the country.  He organized volunteers to protect exposed Jewish settlements in Upper Galilee and was killed in defense of Tel Hai. 

      Haganah 1942  

The Haganah also executed settlement operations  (Stockade and Tower), organized "illegal" immigration, and even set up its own secret plant for manufacturing equipment. 

The ship, St. Louis, was refused landing in USA in 1939.  The more than 900 passengers of the M.S. St. Louis were denied entry by immigration authorities in multiple countries in the lead-up to the Holocaust.  As the M.S. St. Louis cruised off the coast of Miami in June 1939, its passengers could see the lights of the city glimmering. But the United States hadn’t been on the ship’s original itinerary, and its passengers didn’t have permission to disembark in Florida. As the more than 900 Jewish passengers looked longingly at the twinkling lights, they hoped against hope that they could land.

Most of the ship’s 937 passengers were Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany. Though World War II had not yet begun in the USA, the groundwork for the Holocaust was already being laid in Germany, where Jewish people faced harassment, discrimination and political persecution. But though the danger faced by the passengers was clear, they were turned down by immigration authorities, first by Cuba, then the United States and Canada. For many on the St. Louis, that rejection was a death sentence.

The world’s refusal of the St. Louis’ desperate refugees was a death sentence for 254 refugees—approximately half of the number who had returned to the European continent in 1939. Many who did not die were interned in concentration camps, like Max Korman, who built on lessons learned on the ship to help organize inmates of the Westerbork concentration camp in the Netherlands.

      Haganah 1946-1947:  The ship, Exodus 1947 was formerly the "President Warfield" which carried 4,554 Jewish refugees to Palestine under Haganah auspices.  It was seized by the British in the Mediterranean after a battle in which 3 Jews were killed in July 1947.  The refugees, returned forcibly from Haifa to Port de Bouc, France, refused to land there;  in spite of their resistance they were disembarked at Hamburg, Germany by British soldiers.  The incident did much to swing world opinion against Britain's Palestine policy. 

In 10 months, Israel was born-May 14, 1948.  They died short of 10 months more and then they would have been in Israel.                                                     

      Haganah 1947 

In these conditions, Britain withdrew its last forces from Palestine on May 15, 1948. This ended the spell of more than 1,800 years during which the Land had been governed by aliens.  

1947 was the last year under such dictatorship.   

   Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/british-soldiers-deport-exodus-1947-passengers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Sadeh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orde_Wingate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)

https://www.history.com/news/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-louis-1939

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/conflict-Palestine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Trumpeldor

How Jews Defended Themselves and What Caused Animosity Towards the British

Jewish immigrant in 1880s-1900s  farming in Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Members of Hashomer, a Jewish security organization dedicated to protecting pioneering Zionist settlements, pose with their rifles October 1, 1909
Land had first been guarded for the new Jewish pioneers by the Circassians, hotheaded Arab mercenaries from neighboring villages who were being paid to defend their homes.  David Ben Gurion insisted that Jewish land must be guarded by Jewish watchmen.  Others didn't want to do that because it could cause Circassian resentment and bring on more attacks and then they would join the others in attacking! (p. 103 in Genesis 48)

Jewish Shomrim or watchmen had been active since the 1870s for early Jewish settlers.
They rode horseback dressed as Arabs armed with gun, sword and spear, and learned Bedouin law and Arab customs, and were respected among the Arabs, especially after
one brave Watchman at the first Jewish colony of Petah Tikvah speared an invading Arab sheikh on his lance and then rode to the enemy camp to deliver the corpse.

They found out that it was only when they didn't defend themselves that the Arabs were
encouraged to attack again and again.  Ben Gurion noticed that sometimes the Circassians even divided the loot with the attackers.

 HA-SHOMER (The Watchman)  were made up of Jewish workers or laborers in Palestine  and commanded by Israel Shochat.

 They were a defense group for the aliyah of Eastern European Jews that had started coming from Russia and other places in 1882 and onwards.  Since they were being attacked by wandering Bedouin Arabs, they needed protection.  Ha-Shomer also worked on getting employment for their people (KIBBUSH AVODAH).  They helped to establish settlements of men who wanted to labor during World War I.  After the British won the war, they collaborated with the Upper Galilee police force and directed self-defense activities during the riots of 1920-1921.  They were replaced by the Haganah in defense.
                                                                                 
In 1920, we were finally making progress in taking steps to return to the land of our fathers in Palestine through the Europeans who were fighting WWI against the Ottoman Empire of which Palestine was part.  In 1918, the end of the war, the British were given a 30 year mandate to rule the land and then turn it over to the Jews.  It didn't always go that way.  On their own, the British decided to give 80% of the land to Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia so that he could be a king.  The Jews living in Palestine were being thwarted in not receiving the backing from the Brits they had promised to give.

The Jews formed a clandestine organization for Jewish self-defense in Palestine called HAGANAH (Defense),  in Hebrew.  They had replaced Ha-Shomer in 1920 and lasted until 1948.  It's members were then transferred to TZEVA HAGANAH LE-ISRAEL.  Finally,  after Israel was born  on May 14, 1948,  they  finally turned into the Israel Defense Force (IDF).  
                                                                         

1920 map shows the land mandated for Palestine
amounted to 46,512.1826 Sq miles or 120.466 Sq. Km. 
Israel finally got 8,000 Sq miles .Britain gave 80%  to Abdullah to make Jordan.. 

Defense was a formidable problem for the Jews in Palestine.
 Israel had long land frontiers that made her particularly vulnerable to assault-either by direct attack or by infiltration.  Sabotage and murder originating mainly from the Gaza Strip and from the TransJordan area were a constant nuisance, and didn't stop despite Israel reprisal raids.  Against direct attack, immense efforts were made to build up and equip the armed forces of TZEVA HAGANAH LE-ISRAEL.
                                                                   

Haganah Logo

Haganah was created because the group realized their inadequacy of the protection that was being given to the Jewish population under the British administration.  Jews  had the conscious determination to entrust security to a popular volunteer organization.  The Haganah combined an illegal organization with individual Jewish participation in the government's security forces and even had certain legal formations.

Much effort was put into strengthening the Haganah following the 1929 Arab riots that were so bad in Jerusalem.  The rioting resulted in a British policy of appeasement of the Arabs!  In 1931, the Haganah split and the minority, the right-wing groups, formed a separate organization, reuniting with the Haganah in 1936 with some elements remaining outside the group.  They were the ones who formed the nucleus of the IRGUN TZEVAI LEUMI, known as (ETZEL).
                                                                             

Haganah 1942

Haganah continued to be strengthened during the 1936-1939 disturbances by the establishment of the Supernumerary Police Force (Noterim) which numbered 20,000 in 1939.  This force was recruited by the Haganah command and operated as far as possible under its instructions.  During this period, the "Special Field Companies" were raised by Yitzhak Sadeh and the "Night Squads" established by Charles Orde Wingate, a British soldier who was at the riots of 1936-1939 and had organized formations of Jewish volunteers, to defeat the Arab terrorist activity.  He was a keen Bible student as well, and remained an ardent supporter of Zionism to the end of his brilliant military career.
                                                                         

  Haganah also were involved with settlement operations such as "Stockade and Tower". Haganah even set up their own secret plant for manufacturing equipment.    They also organized illegal immigrations to Palestine of Jews, for the Brits were allowing Arabs in while keeping Jews out, and their mandate was to help create a Jewish Homeland, not an Arab one.
                                                                           

October 16, 1886 in Plonsk, Poland- December 1, 1973 Israel
David Ben Gurion, 5'0" tall,  immigrated in 1906 to Palestine and worked as a field laborer and watchman.
Then in 1910 he moved to Jerusalem and became involved in politics.  He studied law in
Constantinople.  After being expelled by the Turks, he went to the USA, returning in 1918.  
First Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of Defense 1948-1953 and
Third Prime Minister of Israel 1955-1963

David Ben-Gurion ( Israel's 1st Prime Minister who read the proclamation of the establishment of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv over the radio),  was then the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive.  He ensured that the Haganah should operate as the security arm of the executive and act according to  its  instructions.
                                                                                 

During WWII, the Haganah had its members enroll in Jewish units within the British army and 30,000 men and women volunteered, something unknown to many people today.  In 1941, military commando units called the PALMAH  were set up, at first in collaboration with the British, but with the object of obtaining their withdrawal of the 1939 WHITE PAPER (see explanation end of article) that was putting an end to Jewish immigration!

By June 1946 after the war, the British administration undertook an extensive counter-operation which did not bring success to their objectives.  At this time, the Haganah didn't struggle against the British.  From the end of 1947, the Haganah concentrated on defense against the mounting Arab attacks.

Though other underground groups had been formed out of the Haganah, such as IRGUN TZEVAI LEUMI AND LOHAME HERUT ISRAEL, their relations with Haganah were strained at best.  However, they did cooperate from 1945-1946 and from 1947 to 1948.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
                                                                           

Menahem Begin (1913-1992) Born in Poland,
joined Betar as a teen, immigrated in 1942 with the Polish army and became commander of
IRGUN TZEVAI LEUMI.
1977 6th Prime Minister of Israel 

 The group, IRGUN TZEVAI LEUMI or ETZEL was formed by a Palestinian Jewish underground organization, founded in 1937 by members of other groups such as BETAR (youth organization of the Zionist Revisionist party) and also the REVISIONISTS in the Haganah.  They were different in that their aim was retaliation against Arab attacks, but after the 1939 WHITE PAPER was published, its target became the British authorities in Palestine because Haganah wasn't tough enough with them.  They attacked British administrative personnel and executed acts of sabotage.  They were tough enough to be outlawed by the Mandatory British government.  The Jewish Agency dissociated itself from their activities.  Irgun declared a truce on the outbreak of WWII in 1939 when its leader, David Raziel, was killed in Iraq in 1941 on a British mission.  He was replaced in 1943 by MENAHEM BEGIN (future Prime Minister).
                                                                           

In 1944, IRGUN renewed their anti-British activities because of the continuing ban on Jewish immigration, so they organized "illegal immigration" from Europe where they so badly needed to escape from certain death.  The cold-hearted British arrested and exiled many of  their members in response, determined not to let anymore Jews in the "Jewish Homeland!"  By 1946 Irgun numbered membership at 3,000 to 5,000.  After November 1947, the Irgun carried out a number of attacks on Arab villages that were attacking Jews.  They also announced their entry into the Haganah when statehood was proclaimed.  By September1948, their military framework was completely dismantled,  first continuing with a lot of tension with the new government.  Irgun turned politically to the Herut party.
                                                                             

Yitzhak Shamir b: 1915
Mossad (Israeli Secret Service) 1955-1965
1973-Herut Party in Knesset
1983 Prime Minister after Begin

Another fighting group besides Irgun was LOHAME HERUT YISRAEL (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) also known as LEHI and known by their opponents as THE STERN GANG. 

                                                                                 

Avraham Stern, called Yair, 1907-1942, Leader of Irgun,
and formed Lehi. (Stern Group)
killed by British police at age 35 while being arrested. 

 This is the group my 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, was in.  He was the Chief of Intelligence.  He told me not to call it the Stern Gang, but the Stern Group.  That's because they were founded by Avraham Stern.  They had split from IRGUN TZEVAI LEUMI in 1940, maintaining that Britain must be fought despite the WWII war effort against the Germans.  After Stern was killed, the group was led by ideologist Yisrael Scheib (Eldad).  Its tactician was Nathan Mor (Friedmann- Yellin) and its operational commander was Yitzhak Jazarnitsky (YITZHAK SHAMIR-future Prime Minister) He had joined the Irgun in 1937.
                                                                           

The Stern Group's membership was about 300.  They were the more violent of them, said to have murdered Lord Mayne, the British Minister in the Middle East in 1944, and of Count Bernadotte in 1948, before the announcement of statehood.  They thought that statehood would not come about unless they carried this out, as Bernadotte was the lynchpin, they felt.  The group was not needed anymore after statehood..  One member became a member, most likely being Shamir,  of the 1st Knesset from 1949 to 1951 and then the group disbanded.
                                                                             

Stanley Goldfoot with wife and 2 daughters in Tel Aviv
b: May 2, 1914 South Africa d: November 24, 2006 Jerusalem, Israel

From all my searches and talks with Stanley, he was not involved in the decision about Count Bernadotte.  That was up to the 3 leaders of the group.  He did wind up in Acco held as prisoner for some time when holding reporter credentials.  He's the man who has written the famous, "Letter to the World " that has also been put to video as well.  He went on to found 'The Times of Israel "of which "A Letter to the World." was in the 1st issue.

A year later, the PALMACH (Strike Forces)  split from Haganah on May 15, 1941. They were active from 1941 to 1948.  It was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. Its aim was to defend the Palestinian Jewish community against two potential threats. First,  the occupation of Palestine by the Axis in the event of their victory over the British in North Africa. Second, , if the British army were to retreat from Palestine,  Jewish settlements might come under attack from the Arab population. 
                                                                     

     
"Week of July 1, 1946 in Time Magazine
TIME's London bureau reports that "Britain is on the verge of an Anglo-Jewish war in Palestine." Angered by Britain's refusal to allow 100,000 Jews into Palestine, the Zionist underground Haganah army blew up several bridges into Syria and Trans-Jordan, warning the British that it was prepared to fight if necessary.
By the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War it consisted of over 2,000 men and women in 3  fighting brigades and auxiliary aerial, naval and intelligence units. With the creation of Israel's army, the 3  Palmach Brigades were disbanded. This and political reasons compelled many of the senior Palmach officers to resign in 1950.    Its members formed the backbone of the Israel Defense Forces high command for many years, and were prominent in Israeli politics, literature and culture.                                                            

       
I believe it was the 1960 movie, Exodus, that centered on an illegal ship with Paul Newman in the main role.  They also had scenes of being taken into Lehi with Sal Mineo.   "The film is based on events surrounding the ship Exodus in Cyprus in 1947 and then on events in Palestine during the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel,  Exodus by Leon Uris. Nurse Katherine "Kitty" Fremont (Eva Marie Saint) is an American volunteer at the Karaolos internment camp on Cyprus, where thousands of Jews -Holocaust survivors - are being held by the British, who will not let them go to Palestine. They anxiously wait for the day they will be liberated. Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman), a Haganah rebel who had been a captain in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army in the Second World War, obtains a cargo ship and smuggles 611 Jewish inmates out of the camp for an illegal voyage to Mandate Palestine before being discovered by military authorities. 
                                                                      

When the British find out that the refugees are in a ship in the harbor of Famagusta, they blockade it. The refugees stage a hunger strike, during which the camp's doctor dies, and Ari threatens to blow up the ship and the refugees. The British relent and allow the Exodus safe passage.  If you can't find the film, at least read the book.  I don't think the Brits were ever that nice in real life.  
                                                                                           

WHITE PAPER OF 1939: "Statement of Palestine policy submitted by the British colonial secretary Malcolm MacDonald after the failure of conversations by the British with Jewish and Arab delegations.  Declared the British intention of setting up after 10 years an independent Palestinian state in which Jews and Arabs would participate in the government proportionately to their numbers.  75,000 Jeews would be allowed to enter over 5 years to 1944 after which Jewish immigration would be dependent on Arab agreement.  Land sales to Jews would be restricted or forbidden in the majority of the country.  The document aroused the fierce opposition of the Zionist movement but guided British policy in ensuing years."  It must be remembered that this was a radical turn-around in what was decided upon in 1918 when the British accepted the Mandate from the League of Nations where all countries decided that Jews should have their Jewish Homeland out of Palestine.  

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt
http://www.timesofisrael.com/yitzhak-shamir-why-we-killed-lord-moyne/
Genesis 1948-the First Arab-Israeli War, by Dan Kurzman-1970, 750 pages*****
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Israel_Defense_Forces
https://www.google.com/search?q=Haganah,+pictures&biw=977&bih=590&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3hMHlk4HSAhVDgbwKHcXvBPgQ7AkINA&dpr=1#imgrc=tv78Dn42gEW1gM: