‘There are two documented incidents that form the foundation of modern-day terrorism: the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem perpetrated by Zionist Irgun militants on July 22nd 1946 and the massacre of the inhabitants of the Arab village of Deir Yassin by Zionist paramilitaries on April 9th, 1948. Tragically, 91 men women and children were killed in the former incident and 107 in the latter.
The terrorists claimed they were justified in killing civilians in order to achieve their political aim of an independent Zionist state. These acts by paramilitaries, however, were never officially approved by anyone.
However, that which was officially approved by a subsequent Israeli government in a secret pact with France and Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, in 1956, was an abortive attack on the Egyptian-owned Suez Canal. Under dire threats from the United States as to the consequences, Israel and its conspirators were forced to withdraw from that specific act of state-sponsored terrorism, chastened in the realisation that the world of colonial land grabs and subjugation of native indigenous populations, had then changed. That is, apart from in Israel.’