Palmach
The Palmach פלמ״ח ( acronym of the Hebrew Plugot Machatz פלוגות מחץ Einsatztruppen ) was founded on May 19, 1941 by the Jewish underground organization Hagana . It was a paramilitary organization focused on training teenagers. The Palmach was comparatively small - until 1947 it consisted of only five battalions (approx. 2,000 men), but played an important role as its members were trained in basic military skills that qualified them for leadership positions in the later Israeli armed forces .
Palmach units also fought (as opposed to by Yitzhak Shamir led Lehi that their guerrilla war against the British continued) on the side of the Allies in World War II in the Jewish Brigade . Among other things, they were involved in the Syrian-Lebanese campaign together with Free French and Australian units in the summer of 1941 . Moshe Dayan was honored by the English for his participation in this campaign in which he lost his left eye.
On October 10, 1945, members of the Palyam , the Palmach's naval unit, liberated around two hundred Jewish immigrants under Yitzhak Rabin , who had been interned in the refugee camp in Atlit by the British Mandate Government .
“In October 1945, Yitzchak took part in an extremely risky military action to defend the rights of these immigrants. It was a commando operation in Atlit, a small town on the Mediterranean south of Haifa. Two hundred immigrants were interned there in a camp - according to the British view they were 'illegal'. The British planned their deportation soon. A contingent of around 250 Palmach fighters was supposed to free the refugees and then transport them to a nearby kibbutz; from there they were to be smuggled underground ... When the British were preparing to search the kibbutz, which was intended as a stopover, thousands of Jews from Haifa poured in to erect human barricades and join the Holocaust survivors to mix so that the British were unable to weed the liberated refugees from the crowd. The operation was a resounding success because the British finally gave up in frustration. "
The Palmach was also involved in the attack against the village of Deir Yassin, but not in the Deir Yasin massacre that followed.
Well-known members of the Palmach included Jitzchak Rabin , Mosche Dajan , Rolf Eden , Matti Peled , Raful Eitan , Leah Rabin and Yoram Kaniuk . Some former members of the Palmach founded the Kibbutz Palmachim .
The first commander in chief of the Palmach was Yitzchak Sadeh . He was deposed during the Palestine War in April 1948.
Web links
- The Palmach Museum is located in the Ramat Aviv district of Tel Aviv , on the premises of Tel Aviv University . Its website provides extensive information about the Palmach.
literature
- Yoram Kaniuk : 1948. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-351-03523-5 .
Individual evidence
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^ Noam Chomsky: The fateful triangle. The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Pluto 1999, ISBN 0-7453-1530-5 , pp. 166, 170.
Meron Benvenisti: Sacred Landscape. The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press 2000, ISBN 0-520-23422-7 , p. 115. - ↑ Leah Rabin: I continue on his way. Memories of Yitzchak Rabin. Droemer Knaur, 1997, ISBN 3-426-26975-9 , especially the 4th chapter King David and the Palmach .
- ↑ In his book 1948 , Yoram Kaniuk describes his experiences as a Palmachnik. In 1947, when he was seventeen and a half, he had voluntarily joined the Palyam.
- ^ Martin van Crefeld: The Sword and the Olive. A critical history of the Israeli Defense Force. New York 2002, p. 65.