Brit HaBirionim

Part of a series on
Fascism
Core tenets Nationalism Totalitarianism Anti-democratic thought One-party state Personality cult Dictatorship Militarism Direct action Mixed economy Class collaboration Third Position New Man Imperialism Social order
Topics Definitions Economics Fascism and ideology Fascism worldwide Symbolism
Ideas Autarky Class collaboration Corporatism Totalitarianism
People Benito Mussolini Adolf Hitler Francisco Franco José Antonio Primo de Rivera Corneliu Zelea Codreanu Ante Pavelić Ikki Kita Wang Jingwei Plínio Salgado Konstantin Rodzaevsky Oswald Mosley William Dudley Pelley Aleksandr Dugin
Literature The Doctrine of Fascism Fascist Manifesto La Conquista del Estado Mein Kampf My Autobiography The Myth of the Twentieth Century The Last Will of a Russian Fascist
Organizations Axis powers 1934 Montreux Fascist conference
History World War I March on Rome Beer Hall Putsch Aventine Secession Pacification of Libya German election of 1932 Enabling Act Second Sino-Japanese War Second Italo-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War Anti-Comintern Pact Italian invasion of Albania World War II The Holocaust Downfall in Italy
Lists Fascists by country
Variants Austrofascism British Fascism Christofascism Clerical Fascism Falangism Francoism Italian Fascism Nazism Neo-fascism Proto-fascism Tropical fascism As an insult Crypto-fascism Feudal fascism Islamic fascism Left-wing fascism Red fascism Social fascism
Related topics Alt-right Anti-fascism Conservatism Fascist (epithet) Glossary of Fascist Italy Iron law of oligarchy Palingenetic ultranationalism Racism Syndicalism
Fascism portal Politics portal

Abba Ahimeir, Uri Zvi Greenberg, and Joshua Yeivin.

Brit HaBirionim (Hebrew: ברית הבריונים, The Strongmen Alliance (Alliance of Thugs^[1])) was a clandestine, self-declared fascist faction of the Revisionist Zionist Movement (ZRM) in Palestine, active between 1930 and 1933.^[2][3] It was founded by the trio of Abba Ahimeir, Uri Zvi Greenberg and Dr. Joshua Yeivin.

Background

The 1929 Arab riots and the Haganah's inability to successfully prevent the 1929 Hebron massacre and the Safed massacre led to the creation of the first militant organization characterized by its complete disassociation from the existing Zionist establishment dominated by the Labor Zionist movement.^[4]

Ideology

The organization's official ideology, was Revisionist Maximalism which was modeled upon Italian Fascism.^[2][3][5] It sought to create a fascist corporatist state.^[5] It is also influenced by the Canaanite ideology of Yonatan Ratosh and the theories of Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (1918).^[5] It called for the Zionist Revisionist Movement (ZRM) to adopt the fascist principles of the regime of Benito Mussolini in Italy to create an integralist "pure nationalism" amongst Jews.^[6] Revisionist Maximalism rejects communism, humanism, internationalism, liberalism, pacifism and socialism; condemned liberal Zionists for only working for middle-class Jews rather than the Jewish nation as a whole.^[7][8] Revisionist Maximalism's minimal goals were presented in 1932 where Ahimeir officially called for the leadership of the Zionist Revisionist Movement to be redesigned into the form of a dictatorship, called for the creation of an independent Zionist federation, called for a "war on funds" to end corruption in the Zionist movement, and called for a war on anti-Semitism.^[9] The movement's psychology was emphasized in its motto of "conquer or die".^[5]

Activities

Abba Ahimeir (the man in handcuffs) and other members of Brit HaBirionim, among them Haim Dviri, as being brought before a court of law by law enforcement in Jerusalem.

Members of Brit HaBirionim carried out several operations, including demonstrations against visiting British dignitaries, rallies against the British arrest and deportation to Europe of Jewish refugees who overstayed their tourist visas, attempts to interrupt a census conducted by the British, and other illegal activities intended as public provocations such as blowing the Shofar at the Western Wall (forbidden to Jews at that time), and removing the Nazi flags from two German consulates.^[10][11]

In 1933, the British Mandatory Authority arrested several members, including Ahimeir, and charged them with the murder of Chaim Arlosoroff. Though acquitted of the charges in 1934, the trial tarnished the group's reputation and led to its isolation by former political supporters among the Jewish populace, and eventually to its demise.

References

See also

• Assassination of Haim Arlosoroff