The Easter Rising, Jews and Zionist Undergrounds

I recently blogged on the difference in attitude and approach taken to the IRA and the Lechi undergrounds in respect to their alliances or attempted alliances with Germany, especially during World War II.

That the Irish underground revolutionary struggle served as an example for both the Irgun and Lechi is known.  Yitzhak Shamir's nom de guerre, Michael, was in deference to Michael Collins. Jabotinsky met with Dublin's Jewish Mayor Robert Briscoe who assisted then and later the Irgun.

I now have learned from this that

On the first day of the Easter Rising, 14th April 1914, a Jewish Volunteer, Mr A Weeks was killed outside the GPO in Dublin on the first day of action. Days before he had been laying the Foundation  stone of the Adelaide Road synagogue. This was the first Jewish Irish nationalist who died for the cause though he was far from being the acceptation that proved the rule.

In the main, Dublin and Cork Jews were nationalists and republicans whilst many of Belfast’s Jews were loyalist or pro-British. Notable amongst the revolutionaries were Robert Briscoe, an IRA Captain and the first Jewish member of the Dail Eirann (the Irish Parliament) and Michael Noyk who worked closely with the revolutionary leader Michael Collins. My own great-aunts, Fanny and Molly Goldberg joined the revolutionary Cumann na mBan  (Women’s IRA) and did everything but shoot: hiding IRA soldiers, nursing and marching. 

A bit more.  More than a bit more. And on Avraham Weeks.

And on Robert Briscoe.


^

Lechi, the IRA and Nazi Germany

I pointed out the 1916 German-Irish connection already and remind us of one of the more difficult episodes in the chronicles of Lechi: the outreach to Germany:

Even more controversial than the robberies and bombs was his decision to contact the Germans.  This was 1940 and 1941; the “Final Solution” had not yet been decided upon. Stern said the Germans wanted the Jews out of Europe and any Jews who stayed were doomed. He offered to cut a deal with the Germans to transfer the Jews to Eretz Israel. He was pilloried by the British and Jews, considered a traitor. In a private conversation with one of his deputies he agreed to accept the epithet, if he might save the Jews by doing so. Ultimately, of course, the Germans were not interested.

A more negative portrayal is here:

Stern sought alliance with the Nazis, both because they shared an enemy in Britain and because Lehi shared Hitler’s totalitarian ideology. During the war Sternists openly celebrated Nazi victories on the battlefield.

An infamous document called the “Ankara Document”

because it was found in the German Embassy in Ankara after the war, detailed Avraham Stern’s ideas “concerning the solution of the Jewish question in Europe.” It was dated Jan. 11, 1941. At the time, Stern was still a member of the Irgun, which he called by its initials, NMO. Wrote Stern: “The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish People, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries....The NMO...is well acquainted with the goodwill of the German Reich government and its authorities toward Zionist activity inside Germany and toward Zionist emigration plans....The NMO is closely related to the totalitarian movements in Europe in its ideology and structure.”

But history is also comparing persons, circumstances, developments and attitudes.

Consider this IRA history:

Claiming to be the legitimate government of the Irish Republic, in January 1939, the Army Council under [Sean] Russell's leadership declared war on the United Kingdom in alliance with Nazi Germany. The Sabotage Campaign commenced some days later with bombing attacks on a number of English cities. Russell was also involved in a meeting with German Intelligence (Abwehr) agent Oscar Pfaus...Once in Berlin [by May 1940], Russell was informed of Operation Mainau, the plan to parachute Hermann Görtz into Ireland. Russell was asked to brief Görtz on Ireland before his departure that night but missed his takeoff from the Kassel-Fritzlar airfield. Russell's liaison officer while in Nazi Germany was SS-Standartenfuhrer Edmund Veesenmayer.

...Russell had begun training with Abwehr in the use of the latest German explosive ordnance. This training was conducted at the Abwehr training school/lab at Quentzgut near Brandenburg which specialised in the design of explosives as everyday objects. Russell also visited the training area for the Brandenburg Regiment, the 'Quenzgut', where he observed trainees and instructors working with sabotage materials in a field environment. As he received explosives training, his return to Ireland with a definite sabotage objective was planned by German Army Intelligence. His total training time with German Intelligence was over 3 months.

More here:

Collaboration between the IRA and Abwehr during World War II ranged in intensity during the period 1937–1943 and ended permanently around 1944...Tom Barry, an IRA member who had fought during the Anglo-Irish War and was still active within the organisation. They met frequently with a view to fostering links between the IRA and Germany...In December 1938, the Abwehr II. Ast., located at Knochenhauerstraße, Hamburg, took an English-speaking agent on loan from the English section of the Fichte-Bund headquarters (HQ) in Hamburg. This agent was Oscar Pfaus...A meeting between Pfaus and IRA representatives took place on 13 February 1939...Seamus O'Donovan, a German speaker and former Director of Chemicals for the IRA, made three trips to Germany in 1939. The first meeting in February saw O'Donovan conduct discussions with the head of Office 1 West, Abwehr HQ – Friedrich Carl Marwede, codenamed "Dr. Pfalzgraf". O'Donovan and Marwede discussed the appropriate wartime role of the IRA as it concerned the German Government...By this stage of events, each IRA CS. from 1937 onwards had been involved in liaisons with the Germans to one degree or another. These liaisons were to continue into the tenure of Stephen Hayes and his overture to Nazi Germany via "Plan Kathleen" in 1940...

And here:  Mark M. Hull, Irish Secrets. German Espionage in Wartime Ireland 1939-1945, Dublin:Irish Academic Press, 2003.

And the point of all this?

What was with Lechi and its so-called German connection pales as regards what went on with the IRA but the Irish history is relatively unknown whereas any search of the Internet will bring you to raving anti-Lechi pages which attempt to negate the entire effort of Lechi to liberate Israel from the oppressive British Mandatory rule.

Another instance of a double-standard.

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Addition:

In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Casement and John Devoy arranged a meeting in New York with the western hemisphere's top-ranking German diplomat, Count Bernstorff, to propose a mutually beneficial plan: if Germany would sell guns to the Irish revolutionary and provide military leaders, the Irish would revolt against England, diverting troops and attention from the war on Germany. Bernstorff appeared sympathetic. Casement and Devoy sent an envoy, Clan na Gael president John Kenny, to present their plan personally. Kenny, unable to meet the German Emperor, received a warm reception from Flotow, the German ambassador to Italy, and from Prince von Bülow.

In October 1914 Casement sailed for Germany via Norway — traveling in disguise and seeing himself as an ambassador of the Irish nation. While the journey was his idea, Clan na Gael financed the expedition.

and this

...Casement was about to embark on a course of action which would cause him to be converted from hero to villain in the British mind. He joined the nationalist Irish Volunteers on their foundation in 1913, and on the outbreak of World War I in 1914 he supported Britain's enemy Germany, in the hope that it would assist the achievement of Irish independence. Casement travelled to Germany in 1914, where he endeavoured to secure significant military aid and to persuade Irish prisoners of war to desert the British Army for an Irish Brigade.

When You Think of Ireland, Do You Think IRA?

The revelation that a group of medical doctors based in the UK have been fomenting plans of destruction and death is unsettling, however amateurish they may be. But how could otherwise decent, compassionate people...Why generally is there such anger in the Islamic world about the Americans and the West?

They are not all crazy, not all devoured by irrational hatred, not all mindlessly angry. They are incensed by what we - the West - are doing to counties where Muslims are in a majority, by our unconditional support for a state (Israel) founded and maintained by the brutal denial of the rights of Palestinians; by the invasion and despoliation of Iraq on a pretext to do with weapons of mass destruction but, in reality, to do with oil; the support of despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; the continued threat to two other Islamic states, Iran and Syria...Does it not make sense to defuse that anger? All the more so when doing so also accords with the demands of justice? A familiar response is anticipated: that an amelioration of such anger "plays into the hands" of "terrorists", encourages them and others to threaten our "way of life" and our "freedoms" (all these parentheses do imply a scepticism of the underlying ideas - "terrorists", do they include those who drop bombs from the sky and order others to do so; "way of life" what way of life, one heedless of the rights and sufferings of others; "playing into the hands of terrorists" a linguistic cover for injustice; "freedoms", freedom to vote every five years, freedom of be poor and remain poor; "democracy" fine except when we don't like the outcome as in Palestine).

There is an example for dealing with "terrorists" which we know a little about here, which Britain should know about and which has worked rather well. Talking to them. Co-opting them. Meeting their demands for justice. It worked with the IRA, why not with the Islamic terrorists? All the tired arguments were deployed about not talking to the IRA. And those arguments seem a little silly now.

There is a way out of this awful mess the West has artfully devised: require Israel to disengage from all the lands it acquired in and since 1967; require Israel to disengage from Gaza and all the West Bank; establish and fund a new Palestinian state (the funding must be generous);

That was Vincet Browne writing (writing absolute dribble though).

Source

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I sent the paper this letter:

Victor Browne, among other reasons for his being rather upset with Western attitudes towards Muslims, includes the perceived thinking that, in his words, "'democracy' is fine except when we don't like the outcome as in Palestine" (July 4).

In other words, the fact that hundreds of millions of Euros have been embezzled by the Palestine Authority from the EU and other donor nations; that a coup d'etat has been done; that a civilian population is still under almost daily rocket attack; that the Gaza residents have accrued no benefit from their political leadership; that political opponents are tossed off high-risers; that there is no freedom of the press; and the litany goes on, should not influence in any way Western attitudes towards Muslim Arabs. Moreover, we should accept them totally as they are without making any attempt to help the suffering people from their oppressive regimes?

This orientation, no pun intended, seems to be woefully immoral, irrational and not helpful to anybody, the Muslims or the West.

Reflections on the Pre-state Resistance Violence

In another post today, I mentioned the "Saison", the operation of the Hagana and Palmach against the dissident undergrounds, mainly Irgun (the Lechi had but one person detained).

Although it's been out for a while, there is a new film that has just now made it to the States and I saw some critiques.

Let me quote from one, of The New Yorker, and then make my point:-

Ken Loach’s wonderful “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” (trailer) which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last May, is about a savage little corner of the Irish rebellion against the British in the years 1920 to 1922; that, more particularly, it’s about two brothers from County Cork who fight the vicious English counter-revolutionary force, the Black and Tans, but then part company over the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State but preserved its dependent status as a “dominion” within the British Empire. One brother, Damien (Cillian Murphy), wants complete separation from the United Kingdom and a socialist revolution in Ireland; the other, Teddy (Pádraic Delaney), is willing to accept the treaty as the best possible outcome for the moment. The British are gone (except from Northern Ireland), but revolutionary solidarity among the Irish collapses into civil war. There’s our theme: the revolution devours its children...

...The movie’s power derives from what can only be called under-staging. When the Black and Tans storm into the yard of a Republican family, they line the young men up against a wall; the English soldiers are contemptuous of the Irish—they think they know these people, these troublemakers, and they treat them with coarse intimacy. Yet the brutality has an oddly spasmodic, unpatterned feeling: one soldier may be nearly insane with rage while the others stand around blank-faced, not sure how they should behave.

...It’s an exciting film, but Laverty and Loach demonstrate again and again that revolutionary violence, with its demand for internal discipline and purity, is inherently tragic. In the end, Damien can’t accept the Anglo-Irish compromise because he’s committed acts, such as killing the boy, that would become meaningless if he lessened the absoluteness of his goals. That he’s wrong, or that his brother is wrong to threaten him with execution, isn’t really the issue: the inexorability of the revolutionary process has caught both of them in its spiralling steel coils. Revising my statement of what “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” is about, I would say that it’s a sombrely beautiful dream of the violent Irish past. Refusing the standard flourishes of Irish wildness or lyricism, Loach has made a film for our moment, a time of bewildering internecine warfare.

Indeed, the IRA struggle oddly paralleled that of the Irgun. As my dear late friend, J Bower Bell said, the Irgun picked up tactics and propaganda from the IRA and then the IRA of the 60s and 70s picked up the same from Begin, for he found a copy of The Revolt on the bookshelf of an IRA commander he visited.

But the point I had intended to make (on the background of Olmert's remark on 'the hunting season') is that the Irgun did not fall into that civil-war trap although it and the Lechi and the Hagana for that matter did eliminate traitors.

So it seems that not all revolutionary violence need follow the example of the IRA not, if we are to be current, the Hamas and the Fatah.

So, are we better even at resistance morality?