the outwardly 'peaceful' rhetoric¶

In 1930, fed up with the outwardly "peaceful" rhetoric of the existing Zionist movement, and demanding a more explicitly ethnonationalist line, a small group began work toward the formation of a fascist sect. By October 1931, they had formally organized as Brit HaBirionim. Brit HaBirionim drew as its inspiration the Fascist Party of Italy. They upheld the ideology of Revisionist Maximalism, which aimed to create a synthesis of Jewish religious law and secular statehood, with complete dominion over the entire territorial extent of Biblical Israel. They opposed communism, social democracy, liberalism, humanism, pluralism, pan-Arabism, and any other challenge to their theocratic, fascist vision for Mandatory Palestine. They employed political violence against the British, other Jewish factions, and especially Arabs. They wanted to "extract Revisionism [the broader anti-Labor strain of Zionism] from its liberal entrapment," and sought to install Ze'ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionism as "Duce" of a fascist dictatorship. For the short period they operated in, they quickly gathered support. Eventually, the mounting violence wrought by Brit HaBirionim was cracked down on by the British. Support among the Jewish populace started to wane, and by 1934, the group had formally dissolved. However, its member continued their mobilization efforts. Many alumni of Brit HaBirionim brought their fascist ideology with them as they flooded Irgun, a far-right paramilitary that carried out numerous anti-Arab pogroms throughout the 30s and 40s. Later, they would help form Lehi, an even more hardline fascist paramilitary. Although Irgun and Lehi engaged in some minor skirmishes with the British and Haganah, their primary targets were Palestinian political leaders, militias, and civilians. Together, they engaged in a brutal terrorist campaign, including the infamous Deir Yassin massacre. As late as December 1940, Lehi maintained contact with the Nazis, promising help in the conquest of the middle east, in exchange for the creation of a Jewish state that would accept all Jewish refugees. 6 months later, the Nazis' systematic extermination of Jews began in earnest. In 1948, Irgun and Lehi were formally disbanded, with their members absorbed into the newly unified Israeli Defense Forces. Together with former members of Haganah, they perpetrated the Nakba, slaughtering and forcibly dispossessing over 700,000 Palestinians. The fascist roots of the Israeli occupation run deep: deeper even than Brit HaBirionim. From the very foundation of Zionist political thought, up until today, ethnonationalism has been the raison d'etre of the Zionist project.