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Extremism and Fundamentalism: Violence in the Mid-East

© lawhawk

While many people look at the Middle East today and think that the Arab population is primarily represented by either Fundamentalist Moslems or extremists who use terrorism to reach their goals, the same can be said of the early Zionist groups that led to the formation of the State of Israel. This is an often forgotten fact of the conflict.

Israel became an independent state in 1948 following years of "terrorist activities" by members of several Zionist organizations including the Irgun, Stern Gang and the Haganah. These three groups, led by influential and charismatic leaders including, Menachem Begin, David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Shamir utilized violent means to achieve the goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine while under British Mandate control much as Yasir Arafat is seen in the Arab World as seeking to create a Palestinian state in Palestine using violence in the past.

At numerous times, the Irgun and Stern Gang utilized intimidation and bombings of public places to rattle the British into leaving Palestine as well as terrorize the Palestinian Arab populations. One notorious event occured at Deir Yassin where an entire Arab village was killed - mostly women and children, by the Irgun and Stern Gang. This event was widely deplored and denounced by the Jewish Agency and Haganah, but should underline a basic premise that violence was committed against the Arab populations before the State of Israel came into existence and is a major source of animosity by Palestinian Arabs who were displaced by the present day Israelis.

Part of the reason for the relative short term memory of people regarding the early history of Israel and how it was founded has to do with the tremendous access Jewish leaders had to the Western governments. David Ben Gurion and the Jewish Agency were able to convince Western leaders to create Israel in the former Palestine by pointing to the violence ongoing in the region. He was able to play on the sympathies of the West for the plight of the Jews following World War II and the Holocaust.

Today, when we look at the early history of Israel, we look at the Jewish leaders as visionairies and heroic figures who sought to create an independent state against terrible odds. Perhaps we should similarly look at the work of Yasir Arafat in a similar light since he too is trying to create an independent state of Palestine against very long odds.

The goals of the founders of Zionism and the Palestinian Liberation Organization are primarily the same; to create a state which they could call their own. The problem remains that they have both sought