Local Jewish militias were being called “ Haganah” (or “Defense”) by about 1920.
It was all the British could do to keep control. That was problematic, as the British had promised the Arabs that they would be granted some degree of independence or at least autonomy if they fought against Turkey during the war, while promising the Jews in 1917 in the Balfour Declaration, “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”įighting between the Jews and Arabs only intensified as both sides begged, borrowed and stole small arms. They were given control of Palestine after World War 1 by the League of Nations. The British captured Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks in 1917. It was a motley assortment of weapons of the time, from Martinis Gewehr 88s Turkish Mausers the French Gras Remingtons and Russian Mosin-Nagants. They used whatever weapons they brought with them or could buy on the black market.
Therefore, the Zionists formed local militias for self-defense. Of course, there have always been Jews in the Middle East, but small groups of European Zionists began emigrating to Palestine and organizing into agricultural settlements under Ottoman rule long before World War 1. The effort to create a Jewish state in Palestine began before the turn of the 20th century. Thus, the Israeli K98 rifles didn’t come from Israel’s current allies. The French sent theirs to North Africa and Indochina for use in their post-war colonial conflicts. The British generally did the same or turned weapons back to police and border guard units. And actually, the Americans tended to destroy captured weapons en masse. As German troops surrendered in the closing days of World War II, the Allies had no intention of stockpiling German arms for future use.
On the surface, the easy assumption is that the victorious Western Allies supplied the new Jewish state with these arms.
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