#haganah

[unsolicited-opinions]

my grandfather fought in in 48, 67 and 73 in Israel. he always told us that the americans sent them lipstick containers to fill with gunpowder to use as bullets. he usually mentioned this in relation to the war of independence (48) but he was never too specific about which war this happened during. I also haven't really been able to find much historical proof of this but idk, I believe my grandfather?

just thought it'd be a fun thing to share !

Thanks, @muppetrock - that sent me down a research rabbit hole looking for bullets and lipstick.

The US definitely didn't send lipstick bullets in 1948 - at that time, the US had an active embargo against selling arms to Israel.

The Kennedy administration didn't break that embargo until 1962 with Hawk missile sales.

Official American military supply didn't really get going until after 1968 (as the US saw Israel as a cold war counterbalance to Arab Soviet client states) and didn't become anything like the relationship we know today until after 1973.

So whatever your grandfather handled in 1948 almost certainly wasn't coming from Washington - the main weapons source for the War of Independence was Czechoslovakia. Haganah operatives moved guns from Eastern Europe to Israel through various creative smuggling operations.

I don't know a lot about firearms, but a lipstick container filled with gunpowder could not be used as a bullet - bullets aren't filled with gunpowder - so I'm guessing some part of the story got changed in the telling and the hearing.

There is, though, a lipstick/bullets connection!

There was a secret Haganah bullet factory called the Ayalon Institute, built 26 feet beneath a kibbutz near Rehovot, disguised above ground as a laundry.

To manufacture 9mm bullets you need copper. When the operators applied to the British authorities for import licenses for large quantities of copper, they said it was for making lipstick cases.

The British approved it and Ayalon gifted lipstick to British soldiers' wives to sell the cover.

The factory produced 2.5 million bullets between 1946 and 1948 and was the only ammunition supply that never ran short during the war.

It's a museum now.

Is it possible that this is what your saba was talking about?

https://blog.nli.org.il/en/ayalon-institute/

https://www.jnf.org/jnf-blog/post/blog/how-a-fake-kibbutz-was-built-to-hide-a-bullet-factory

[twitterexile]

According to declassified Israeli military archives and research by historians Benny Morris and Benjamin Z. Kedar (2022-2023), Haganah forces conducted "Operation Cast Thy Bread" starting April 1948. They contaminated wells in several Palestinian villages and Acre with typhoid and dysentery bacteria to hinder Arab forces and deter refugee returns. This violated the 1925 Geneva Protocol. An attempt was also made near Gaza. The bacteria caused illness but were not intended as mass killers. Israel long denied it.

[mounadiloun]

Un ancien ministre britannique regrette publiquement d'avoir servi la propagande sioniste

En Grande Bretagne comme dans d’autres pays occidentaux, quand un crime sioniste a un certain retentissement médiatique, le gouvernement, par la voix du ministère des affaires étrangères, appelle les autorités sionistes à enqêter sur les circonstances du drame afin d’établir les responsabilités. Que l’enquête soit menée ou pas ne change rien à l’affaire car dans le meilleur des cas le pouvoir…

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[eretzyisrael]

Remembering Motta (Mordechai) Gur – the IDF's 10th Chief of Staff

Motta Gur was born in Jerusalem in 1930. He volunteered to join the Haganah at the age of 13 and five years later during the War of Independence was put in charge of a battalion despite his young age. In 1950, he again volunteered to join the army in order serve as a company commander under the command of Ariel Sharon. During an operation, Motta was wounded and received Israel's second highest military decoration for his bravery. After taking time off to study abroad, Motta came back to command the Golani Brigade, and later the 55th Paratrooper's Reserve Brigade. It was in this position that Gur led the campaign that liberated the Western Wall, uttering the famous words, “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” In 1969 he was appointed Commander of the Northern Command, and in 1974, the 10th Chief of Staff.  In 1978 he retired from the military and entered politics – holding many positions including Minister of Health, and Deputy Minister of Defense.  Motta Gur passed away on July 16, 1995. 

Im Tirtzu

[spookyabuki]

Another clause of [Tochnit Dalet, Haganah’s plan for the expulsion of the Palestinians,] provided for the “encirclement of the central Arab municipal area and its isolation from external transportation routes, as well as the termination of its vital services (water, electricity, fuel, etc.), as far as possible.”

—Nur Masalha, from Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948

[historicalfirearms]

Haganah with PIAT

In this photograph a former British soldier, Hersh (Harry) Makowski, instructs his fellow Haganah members on how to use the British Projector, Infantry Anti-Tank or PIAT. The PIAT was one of the few weapons the Haganah had which could counter the threat of Arab tanks during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 

Makowski joined the British Army’s Jewish Infantry Brigade Group in 1945, at the age of 23, and found himself in Holland by 1946. The Jewish Brigade was disbanded in the summer of 1946, and Makowski travelled to Palestine and joined the Jewish paramilitary organization, the Haganah. 

As one of the few people with training in how to use the PIAT Makowski trained other members of the Haganah, serving in the Alexandroni and Golani Brigades. A small number of PIATs and possibly some American Bazookas were the main anti-tank weapons used by the Haganah against Transjordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraqi armoured vehicles. The PIAT is known to be responsible for the destruction of a fair number of Syrian R35 tanks. After the 1948 war Makowski settled in Israel before emigrating to America in the late 50s, he died in 2015.

Sources: 

Image Source

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[yugoslavfub]

Original Description: THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. IN THE PHOTO, ABBA KOVNER (R) BRIEFING "HAGANA" MEMBERS AT KIBBUTZ YAD MORDECHAI.

National Photo Collection of Israel

[pattern-53-enfield]

Haganah fighters near the no-man’s-land of Katamon, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem. Behind them is the remains of Hotel Semiramis, bombed by the Haganah due to it being partially used as an Arab Legion forward command center. May 6th, 1948.