I just started reading 6 Officers, 2 Lions and 750 Mules, by Yanky Fachler. This excerpt is from the Introduction:
.... In the decades leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish leaders both inside and outside Palestine debated the role of a Jewish military force. The debate centered on the nature of this force. Many believed that the force should be essentially defensive in nature. A minority believed that the force should be more proactive.
In the period between 1915 and 1940, six soldiers participated in the debate, and spearheaded the re-emergence of a Jewish military ethos after a gap of almost 2,000 years.
All six soldiers were officers in the British army.
All six soldiers were Zionists.
All six soldiers believed that Jews had to organize themselves into a coherent and proactive military force.
All six soldiers fought courageously against the widespread institutionalized anti-Semitism of the British army authorities.
But only three of these Zionist soldiers were Jewish Zionists....
I was going to stop there, because it makes the point and yet the reader doubtless wants to know more, but since not everyone will read the book, I'll go a little further so that we all learn these six important names... at the very least.
The other three were Christian Zionists: Irish-born John Henry Patterson, commander of the Zion Mule Corps and the Jewish Legion; Richard Meinertzhagen, an Intelligence Officer who served under General Allenby, liberator of Jerusalem; and Orde Wingate, who created the Special Night Squads during the Arab Revolt.
The three Jewish Zionist officers were all Russian-born. Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky was a journalist and Zionist activist who arrived in Alexandria just after the start of the First World War. In Alexandria, he met Captain Joseph Trumpeldor, a highly decorated hero of the Russo-Japanese War. Eliezer Margolin was an Australian officer who also arrived in Alexandria, and who later became a commander of the Jewish Legion.
From the time that young Zionist pioneers first started settling in Palestine in large numbers in the late nineteenth century, security was an urgent priority. Many of these young Jewish newcomers had left Russia because of the deterioration of personal liberties and security. Yet when they arrived in Palestine, they discovered that Jews were once again under attack, this time from Bedouin gangs and fedayeen [Arabic: literally, "those who redeem themselves by sacrificing themselves]....
Posted by: uncut dvds | Tuesday, 03 January 2012 at 02:55 PM
Posted by: scp | Wednesday, 04 January 2012 at 01:58 AM