What Was the Irgun, or IZL?
What Was the Irgun, or IZL?Answer: Irgun Zvai Leumi—Hebrew for “National Military Organization”—, usually referred to as the Irgun, was an underground militia, terrorist organization and illegal-immigration movement founded in British-Mandate Palestine in 1937. Its most famous commander was Menahem Begin, who was Israel’s prime minister from 1977 to 1983. British authorities and the Haganah of the Jewish Agency for Palestine considered Irgun illegal. The Irgun was an offshoot of the Haganah, the more defensive paramilitary force organized in 1920 to protect Jewish settlers. Irgun members disagreed with the Hanaga’s relatively less confrontational posture toward Palestinian Arabs and British authorities. Irgun’s activities in the late 1930s and 1940s included terrorist raids on civilian population centers such as markets, bus stations, hotels and pedestrian areas. The group’s most lethal fuse was lit when Britain’s Pee
