As Israel devastates Palestinian territories, its so-called “most moral army in the world” faces charges of state-sponsored terrorism in its killing of innocent civilians in Gaza. 

But long before the spotlight swung to Gaza and the Israeli military, Zionist militancy had brought the first large-scale civilian carnage to Palestine – from the terror tactics pioneered in the King David Hotel bombing to the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, a United Nations mediator for Palestine. 

The first coordinated bombings, the first systematic targeting of civilians, the first political assassinations on foreign soil—all bear the imprint of armed Zionist factions like Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah.

But this legacy of “political violence” has not remained buried—it echoes powerfully in today’s devastation in Gaza.

In recent days, Israeli air strikes and gunfire have taken 23 lives, including children, in Gaza’s densely populated residential zones. Entire homes were destroyed in Zeitun, tents for the displaced were bombed in Khan Younis, and aid workers and civilians were struck even at distribution points.

The United Nations and rights groups condemn what they call the “weaponisation of food” and deliberate targeting of civilians. More than 410 people have been killed trying to get aid at distribution centres since late May. 

The UN Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights warns this may constitute war crimes, while Haaretz reports Israeli soldiers are being “ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians”.

The scale of civilian suffering is staggering: over 56,000 Palestinians have now been killed, with women and children making up the majority. 

Medical facilities have collapsed under relentless bombardment, and aid is blocked, delayed, or itself targeted—mirroring the same nature of violence that Zionist militants unleashed decades ago.

History repeats itself

As early as the 1930s, Zionist groups deployed terror not only against British authorities but also against Arab civilians, international diplomats, and even fellow Jews who opposed their militant agenda. 

Their goal was clear: to impose Zionist political aims by any means necessary—explosives, assassinations, massacres, and psychological warfare.

The King David Hotel bombing on July 22, 1946, was not the beginning, but it was the moment the world could no longer ignore what was unfolding in Palestine: a violent campaign for statehood waged with the tools of terror.

This is the story of that bombing—and the long shadow it cast over the region, through massacres like Deir Yassin, the assassination of Swedish UN mediator Count Bernadotte, and a legacy of violence often overlooked in Western accounts of the Israeli state’s founding.

In a daring and deadly operation, the Zionist paramilitary group Irgun—under the leadership of Menachem Begin—carried out what is often called the first major act of terrorism in Israeli history. 

Disguised as workmen, operatives smuggled explosives concealed in milk churns into the basement of the King David Hotel, the nerve centre of the British Mandate administration. 

Minutes later, at 12.37 pm, two massive explosions devastated the southern wing, collapsing floors and killing 91 people (41 Arabs, 28 British, 17 Jews, plus others), while injuring around 45 more.

According to Irgun, the intention was to damage British administrative capacity and destroy files.

The bombing triggered an intense outcry both locally and internationally.

“Few crimes worse… perpetrated by the Irgun Zvai Leumi on 22nd July”, General Sir Alan Cunningham, High Commissioner of Palestine, captured the horror in a dispatch.

General Sir Evelyn Barker, the British commander of Palestine, pledged a tough response; “We will be punishing the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any, by striking at their pockets”.

Condemnation also came from within the Jewish leadership. 

David Ben‑Gurion, future prime minister and head of the Jewish Agency, called the blast intolerable and argued the Jewish underground should not use such violence. He later severed ties with militant factions.

State-building over human cost

From King David to Deir Yassin and Bernadotte’s assassination, these incidents illuminate a facet of Zionist history often overshadowed: the willing deployment of terror as statecraft.

While some historians credit these tactics with hastening British withdrawal, others argue the cost was immense in blood and moral standing.

Zionist ideologues like Begin and Yitzhak Shamir argued that “terrorism is a means of combat”, devoid of moral scrutiny. Lehi publications from the era even invoked ideas of a “Jewish master race”—a disturbing sign of radicalisation.

Meanwhile, mainstream Jewish institutions—Haganah, the Jewish Agency, and leaders like Ben‑Gurion—publicly denounced such violence, fearing its consequences on Jewish legitimacy and international support.

But privately, Haganah cooperated with Irgun and Lehi during coordinated campaigns like the Jewish Resistance Movement from 1945 to 1946.

Nearly eight decades after Irgun militants detonated bombs under the King David Hotel, a new generation of Zionist extremists—this time, settlers—continues to deploy violence to assert political dominance. 

The tactics may have shifted, but the ideological undercurrent remains chillingly familiar.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, dozens of armed Israeli settlers—many aligned with far-right religious-nationalist groups—stormed an Israeli military base, vandalising vehicles, setting fires, and even attacking soldiers. Graffiti was sprayed across military property. 

The provocation followed the Israeli army’s arrest of five settlers following an earlier rampage that left three Palestinians dead in the town of Kfar Malik, where settlers opened fire and set homes ablaze.

Even Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right security minister and longtime apologist for settler violence, issued a rare rebuke: “Attacking IDF soldiers… is a red line.”

Yet critics point out his rhetoric has emboldened these “Jewish terrorist” groups, as opposition leader Yair Lapid told Army Radio: “These are Jewish terrorists, gangs of criminals, who feel backed by the governing coalition.”

The targets have changed—from British officials to Palestinians, and now even to the Israeli state itself—but the ideological violence rooted in the early Zionist movements remains unmistakably alive. 

Today’s radical settlers, many born out of the same Zionism that produced Irgun, act with a sense of messianic impunity—burning homes, terrorising villages, and clashing with their own army when it enforces the law.

Reclaiming memory

Today, a plaque at the King David Hotel commemorates the bombing—painting Irgun’s act as strategic, regrettably, leading to the loss of life. 

From the smouldering ruins of the King David Hotel to the flattened neighbourhoods of Gaza in 2025, and now to the lawless hills of the occupied West Bank, one thread weaves these violent episodes together: an ideology that embraces force when power is challenged, and one that too often escapes accountability.

What began with Irgun bombs and Lehi assassins, once dismissed as temporary wartime tactics, has evolved into a systemic culture of settler violence, military aggression, and political justification.

The early Zionist blueprint of terror, born in the shadows of the British Mandate, has metastasised into a normalised state policy—be it through the targeting of civilians in Gaza, the destruction of refugee camps, or the arming of radical settlers who now defy even Israeli soldiers.

And while the weapons have changed—from milk churns filled with explosives to American-supplied missiles—the victims remain tragically familiar: civilians, aid workers, children, and now, even Israeli soldiers caught in the crossfire of settler extremism.

The world may remember the King David Hotel bombing as a turning point in anti-colonial insurgency. 

But in truth, it was something else entirely: the prototype of a terror doctrine that, decades later, still dictates the terms of violence, occupation, and impunity in the land between the river and the sea.