A terrorist state through time:

from Ben Gurion to Netanyahu

From its founding to the present day, Israel has been shaped by the mentality of a “gang state,” characterized by rampant violence and oppression that only deepens the cycle of instability — a history from which the country shows no desire to escape.

Khalil Harb

THE CRADLE

On May 31, 1948, a Polish-born man named David Ben Gurion transformed the Zionist terrorist groups – Haganah, Stern, Irgun, and Palmach – into what would be called the “Israeli Defense Forces” (IDF). This man would later become Israel’s first Prime Minister, and his actions laid the foundation for what many describe as a colonial state in Palestine.

This fact encapsulates the essence of the occupying state today and provides a stark illustration of the indiscriminate violent roots on which the state and its army are built. Today, Israeli military operations continue in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where tanks crush the bodies of the dead and wounded and residents are thrown from roofs or shot in their homes.

“Causing death or serious bodily harm to civilians with the aim of intimidating the population” is the definition of terrorism according to the United Nations General Assembly.

Entire residential buildings are reduced to rubble in the name of “killing” resistance fighters, whether in Gaza, the West Bank or even Beirut. The Israeli government has normalized bloody attacks on hospitals, churches and mosques, and weaponized communications technology to mass-destroy people in homes, offices and streets – to terrify civilians into submission.

The Gang State

If there is one word that best describes Israel’s modus operandi, it is: terrorismFrom its inception as a political entity, through its first campaigns of ethnic cleansing, to its ongoing military impositions on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen – not to mention its earlier actions in Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia and Sudan – Israel’s history has been marked by a blatant disregard for international law and moral principles.

Terrorism is the most powerful weapon for Israel, the “gang state” now nicknamed “Netanyahu’s gang,” and its security and military apparatuses. This gang mentality has long been part of Zionist ideology, which cloaks its goals in lofty religious rhetoric while unleashing depraved acts of violence and domination.

Nearly a century later, Israel continues to struggle to establish a legitimate status, its existence continually marked by the violent birth and continued oppression of Palestinians.

Forget all the Western deception used to convince the public that the occupying state is the “only democracy in the Middle East.” As the Arab proverb says, “What is built on lies is lies.”

The Polish “founding father” of this state, Ben Gurion, was himself involved in campaigns of criminal ethnic cleansing and expulsion, as were the Zionist terrorist gangs who founded the occupation state based on the ideas of the Ukrainian Ze’ev Jabotinsky. The latter was the first to call for the militarization of Zionism to confront the indigenous Palestinians and establish the colonial project in the Levant.

A legacy of terrorism

The early Zionists who fought alongside British forces in World War I in what was known as the Jewish Legion, which Jabotinsky helped found, contributed greatly to the gradual formation of the Zionist state. Many historians believe that in return for the legion’s services, these Western Jews were given Britain’s Balfour Declaration, which promised to establish a state for them in Palestine.

Israel is therefore the product of an illegitimate marriage between a declining colonial power and a rising occupying power. It is natural that the illegitimate “bad boy” born of this dubious marriage should display many of the characteristics of settlers, occupiers, villains and terrorist gangs.

Take, for example, an incident that occurred before the establishment of the occupation state. In July 1938, the Irgun terrorist gang detonated two car bombs in the Haifa market, torturing and wounding 70 Palestinians.

The Irgun’s violent influence extended beyond Palestine. In 1946, Jewish terrorists bombed the British embassy in Rome, seeing this as British hesitation to accelerate Jewish immigration to Palestine.

This attack fueled anti-Jewish sentiment in Britain and encouraged further Jewish immigration to Palestine. This tactic is reminiscent of Zionist plans in Egypt, Iraq and Syria to terrorize Jewish minorities and provoke violence and civil unrest, eventually forcing them to flee to Palestine.

The term “Zionist terrorism” was common in official British discourse, including in the rhetoric and correspondence of the Mandate authority in Palestine. This was especially the case in the 1930s, before the Second World War, and after the outbreak of the Great Palestine Revolt of 1936–39, when the indigenous Arab population rose up against the British occupation authorities and the uncontrolled influx of foreign Jewish settlers.

Take, for example, the Zionist Lehi gang, also known as Stern, who assassinated British minister Lord Moyne in Cairo in 1944. The Irgun gang, led by the militant Menachem Begin – another future Israeli prime minister – blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, when it housed the headquarters of the British Mandate government, killing and wounding some 150 people, including dozens of Britons, Palestinians and even Jews.

After the British exodus from Palestine, Zionist terrorist gangs turned their attention to the United Nations. In September 1948, the Lehi Gang assassinated UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, accusing him of supporting the Arabs.

But the primary focus of Zionist terrorists remained the indigenous Arab population of Palestine, which consisted of Muslims, Christians and Jews. Their violent campaigns targeted markets, mosques, public spaces and entire villages, including horrific attacks in places like Haifa, Deir Yassin and Tantura, where locals were brutally murdered, raped and tortured.

From terrorist gang to ‘conventional’ army

The creation of Israel in 1948 did little to end this gang mentality. Instead, it was institutionalized within the newly formed “IDF,” which Ben Gurion helped shape. The massacres and repression continued, now on a larger, more systematic scale.

In Qibya in 1953, 200 Palestinians were killed, in Qalqilya in 1956, 70 people lost their lives, and in Kafr Qasim in the same year, another 49 deaths were counted. These are just a few examples of the atrocities that have continued to increase over time.

The gang state operated in West Asia under international immunity and quickly transitioned from British mentorship to American. The British paved the way with the promise of establishing the Zionist state and facilitated Jewish immigration, while the US was the first to recognize Israel as an “independent state” on May 14, 1948.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties agreed not to address relations with the state since the early days. In 1972, Washington first used its veto power at the UN Security Council in favor of Israel to block a Lebanese complaint, a veto Washington has used more than 50 times since then.

According to data from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid. Between 1948 and 2023, the amount amounted to more than $260 billion, rising to $310 billion in March 2024. Two-thirds of this aid was of a military nature, simply to enable the country to kill at will.

But the Zionist war machine has been running amok since the 1930s to this day. They attempt to kill 4,000 people in one minute by bombing wireless and pagers in Beirut and sending Palestinians to their deaths in areas deemed “safe zones.” If brutality was a tactic to demonstrate Israel’s power and superiority, it has brought neither peace nor stability to the state.

Today, a growing sense of helplessness is creeping into Israeli discourse. The launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the subsequent clashes with all parts of the West Asian Axis of Resistance have shaken the Israeli state. When Hezbollah bombed northern occupied Palestine, all the way to Haifa, Israeli media reported that more than a million civilians were now within range of Hezbollah’s rockets.

Israel’s instability and regional resistance

Even Israeli generals and analysts have acknowledged the precarious situation in Tel Aviv. Reserve General Itzhak Brik says, “Israel’s tactical achievements are unprecedented capabilities, but they do not change the dangerous reality around it.”

Uri Misgav writes in the Israeli Haaretz that “this is an endless war, with no goals, plan or benefit. The only goal, plan and benefit is to continue the war to maintain Netanyahu’s rule. We must not go like a herd to the slaughter.”

Israeli military and security expert Yossi Melman writes about the “frightening scenario,” saying:

The war against Hezbollah is not just an attack, but we need a broad military presence in Lebanon. This means a war of attrition like the army in the south suffered until the withdrawal in 2000. If we assume that the army and the home front will endure a two-front war, there is no guarantee that the war will not move to the boiling West Bank. A multi-front war also means firing missiles from the fronts of Yemen, the Golan Heights and Iraq.

Israel’s recent raids on Palestinian villages and refugee camps in Jenin, Qabatiya, Tulkarem and Gaza have been marked by shocking brutality. There are reports of soldiers mistreating wounded civilians, desecrating the bodies of martyrs and attacking aid workers.

These actions, caught on camera, reveal the same terror gang mentality that has existed since Israel’s founding. From executing wounded prisoners and raping detainees to destroying roads, homes and shops for no reason, the behavior of Israeli forces reflects that of criminal syndicates rather than a modern state.

Palestinian journalist Hilmi Musa writes from the ruins of Gaza after the Lebanese resistance responded by bombing Haifa:

It is clear that the enemy’s joy at what has been achieved in recent days has not lasted long, and there is great hope that he will see his disappointment much sooner than expected. The aggression will be defeated and the occupation will end.

But despite all the warning signs, Israel, like the terrorist gangs that built it, seems incapable of understanding the lessons of history. The cycle of violence continues, blind to the inevitable consequences of its actions.

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