Bombing hotels - legitimate targets?

[Banquo's Ghost]

Sixty years ago, on the 22nd of July, 1946 the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was bombed, killing 91 people.

The mastermind was Menachem Begin, later Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Who incidentally made the first peace treaty with an Arab state on behalf of his country. Binyamin Netanyahu and other right wingers are celebrating the act with a plaque, despite the protests of the British whose people were killed and who are supporting the Israeli state in its actions in Lebanon.

Were he and his Irgun ever terrorists, and when did they stop being so and become statesmen? How did we know they had changed?

Link (wikipedia unfortunately, as most of the other sites are biased one way or another).

Celebration link.

[Husar]

Hmm, well, the Wikipedia link says they warned the british and tried to keep people away from the hotel with a small explosive outside. That sounds like they only wanted to destroy the building. My huge, neverending knowledge about the conflict tells me that, erm, well...bombing a hotel is always dangerous, even with warnings and so on. Putting people in danger is always bad, now whether that was a terrorist attack, I´m not sure, they aimed at british officials/a building and not directly at civilians.

And keep in mind, dear Banquo, governments are always right...

[Banquo's Ghost]

Hmm, well, the Wikipedia link says they warned the british and tried to keep people away from the hotel with a small explosive outside. That sounds like they only wanted to destroy the building. My huge, neverending knowledge about the conflict tells me that, erm, well...bombing a hotel is always dangerous, even with warnings and so on. Putting people in danger is always bad, now whether that was a terrorist attack, I´m not sure, they aimed at british officials/a building and not directly at civilians.

And keep in mind, dear Banquo, governments are always right...

The interesting point for the discussion is that the British maintain there was no such telephone call, and the Israelis maintain there was, at least twenty-five minutes beforehand.

Would the British authorities deliberately have left the hotel unwarned?

[Husar]

The interesting point for the discussion is that the British maintain there was no such telephone call, and the Israelis maintain there was, at least twenty-five minutes beforehand.

Would the British authorities deliberately have left the hotel unwarned?

What I find more intriguing is that wiki says there was a shooting because some guards were suspicious and then the Israelis gave the british 27 mins to leave. So those guards were suspicious enough to shoot but not suspicious enough to check the milk cans or evacuate the building?

But as I said, the government is always right, in this case, the British are right and the Israelis are. Governements never lie, you know, they are both right. If you don´t know why, 42 is the answer.

[Pannonian]

What I find more intriguing is that wiki says there was a shooting because some guards were suspicious and then the Israelis gave the british 27 mins to leave. So those guards were suspicious enough to shoot but not suspicious enough to check the milk cans or evacuate the building?

The British were given around 30 minutes to evacuate the building, but the warning call was made in a hurry and was not corroborated (the IRA were much slicker at such operations). After the threat was further assessed, the British carried out an evacuation, but the bombs went off 5-10 minutes early, while the evacuation was still taking place.

Reminds me of Omagh, where the Real IRA also gave a warning call, but the information given was similarly accurate, and similarly useful.

For more on this episode, watch the BBC series "Empire Warriors", which looks at British counter-insurgency in Aden, Palestine, Malaya and Kenya.

[Red Peasant]

Whatever the distasteful arguments about whyfores and wherefores, and who did what, where and when, it was still a terrorist act, and I find it abhorrent that they can actually celebrate such an act. It's like spitting on the graves of the dead.
Luckily for them, their 'God' is a jealous and vengeful deity so they can count on his forgiveness at least.

[Pannonian]

Sixty years ago, on the 22nd of July, 1946 the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was bombed, killing 91 people.

The mastermind was Menachem Begin, later Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Who incidentally made the first peace treaty with an Arab state on behalf of his country. Binyamin Netanyahu and other right wingers are celebrating the act with a plaque, despite the protests of the British whose people were killed and who are supporting the Israeli state in its actions in Lebanon.

Were he and his Irgun ever terrorists, and when did they stop being so and become statesmen? How did we know they had changed?

Ben Gurion knew about the hotel bombing, but withdrew his support when he realised the scale of civilian casualties it would involve (the KDH was a popular meeting place, and the bombs were placed beneath the extremely fashionable cafe). Not for the first time, the extremists ignored the advice or orders of the moderates and went ahead with the violence anyway.

He later declared Irgun and the Stern Gang (the killers of Folke Bernadotte) to be terrorist groups, and stopped shipments of arms destined for these groups. But these proclaimed terrorists were not prosecuted once they had been neutralised, but were integrated into the political mainstream.

On a topical note, Begin invaded Lebanon in 1982, pushed by the Defence Minister Ariel Sharon. The Haaretz newspaper accused Sharon of misleading Begin about the war's initial objectives, and of continuing to mislead him about the progress of the war. Sharon sued Haaretz for this slur. Sharon lost the court case.