King David Hotel bombing Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
On July 22, 1946, members of the Jewish underground military organization Irgun Tsvai-Leumi in the British Mandate of Palestine planted and exploded a bomb at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel was the base for the British Secretariat, the military command and a branch of the Criminal Investigation Division (police). 91 people were killed, most of them civilians: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured.The attack was initially ordered by David Ben Gurion, who was in the United States, but he later changed his mind and ordered the bombing to be cancelled. But Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, went ahead anyway. Both Ben Gurion and Begin would later become Israeli Prime Ministers. The attack was commanded by Yosef Avni and Yisrael Levi.
The attack on the hotel was the largest attack against the British in the history of the Mandate. Some claim this act should be considered in light of the escalating violence in the region, and the continuing conflict between the three main forces in the region: British, Israeli, and Palestinian. In particular, the attack was made in retaliation for the British Operation Agatha.
The bombing occured in the same month as the Kielce Pogrom in Poland.
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2 Responses to the attack 3 Today's King David Hotel 4 External links 5 Further reading |
Moshe Sneh, the chief of the Haganah General Headquarters, sent a letter to Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun, with instructions. Text in (bracketed italics) has been inserted to clarify some of the references. The original letter can be found in the Jabotinsky Institute Archives (k-4 1/11/5).
The commander of the attack Yisrael Levi (Gidon) (1926-1990) ordered that the following message be delivered to the telephone operator of the King David Hotel before the attack: "I am speaking on behalf of the Hebrew underground. We have placed an explosive device in the hotel. Evacuate it at once - you have been warned." This message was also given to the French consulate, which was next door, in order to prevent loss of life there as well.
The nature of the warning, and especially its timing, have been a matter of debate ever since. According to a secret British police report quoted by Bethel, a warning was received by the hotel operator but was only just being delivered to the British officer in charge as the bomb went off.
The British House of Commons responded:
The Irgun issued an initial statement accepting responsibility for the attack, blaming the British for the deaths due to failure to respond to the warning, and mourning the Jewish victims. A year later, on July 22 1947, they issued a new statement saying that they were acting on instructions from "a letter from the headquarters of the United Resistance, demanding that we carry out an attack on the center of government at the King David Hotel as soon as possible".
The British army commander in Palestine, General Sir Evelyn Barker, in an order written only a few minutes after the bombing, commanded that Jewish property be "out of bounds for all British officers and soldiers". He stated that: "The aim of these orders are to punish the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any, namely by striking at their pockets." The order was rescinded two weeks later after much outrage at its anti-semitic nature.
see also: Israeli terrorism, Terrorism against Israelis, Terrorism
The King David Hotel, built with locally quarried pink sandstone, was opened in 1931. It once hosted three European royal heads who fled their countries: King Alfonso VIII of Spain (1931), Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1936) and King George II of Greece (1942).
After the bombing, this hotel became a British fortress until May 4, 1948, when the Union Jack flag was lowered. It then became an Israeli fortress. At the end of the War of Independence, the hotel found itself on the border that separated Israel and Jordan. This hotel was reopened in 1967, after the Six-Day War, when Israel regained Jerusalem. Today it is a well-known 5-star hotel.
This is an Article on King David Hotel bombing. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About King David Hotel bombing The Attack
Despite its initial approval, repeated delays of the operation were requested by the Haganah in response to the changing political situation. Finally, the Irgun went ahead on its own without approval.Responses to the attack
The Chief Secretary for the Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw, declared in a broadcast:
The Jewish leadership publicly condemned these attacks. The Jewish agency expressed "their feelings of horror at the base and unparalleled act perpetrated today by a gang of criminals". In fact, the Irgun were acting in response to direct instructions from the United Resistance, as described in the letter from Moshe Sneh cited above.Today's King David Hotel
External links
Further reading