The Jewish Underground ( HaMakhteret HaYehudit), or in abbreviated form, simply Makhteret,David S. New, Holy War: The Rise of Militant Christian, Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalism, McFarland, 2001, p. 143. was a radical right-wing fundamentalist organizationEhud Sprinzak, 'The Emergence of the Israeli Radical Right,' Comparative Politics, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Jan., 1989), pp. 171-192.pp.171-172. considered terrorist by Israel,Kim Cragin, Sara A. Daly Women as Terrorists: Mothers, Recruiters, and Martyrs, Praeger International ABC-CLIO, 2009, p. 18.Clive Jones, Ami Pedahzur (eds.) Between Terrorism and Civil War: The Al-Aqsa Intifada, Routledge, 2013, p. 11. formed by prominent members of the Israeli political movement Gush Emunim that existed from 1979 to 1984.Ian S. Lustick, For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, chapter 3, par. The Gush Emunim Underground. 1988, the Council on Foreign Relations Two issues catalyzed the establishment of the underground. One was the signing of the Camp David Accords, which led to the Egypt–Israel peace treaty in 1979, and which the movement, opposed to the peace process, wished to block, viewing it as the first step in the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank. A second element was the settlement project, which, in bringing two distinct ethnic communities into closer proximity, led to an uptick in hostilities that brought about a growing emphasis on the existential threat in both communities.Shmuel Sandler, ‘Religious Zionism and the State:Political Accommodation and Religious Radicalism in Israel,’ in Bruce Maddy-Waitzman, Efraim Inbar, (eds.) Religious Radicalism in the Greater Middle East, Besa Studies in International Security, Routledge 1997, pp. 133-153 p. 144. The Jewish Underground developed two operational objectives: One consisted of a plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock, while the other branch concentrated on both avenging acts of Palestinian violence against settlers and of establishing a punitive deterrence. Some understood the terrorist acts as a means of inducing Palestinians to flee their homeland, based on the 1948 and 1967 experience,Nur Masalha, Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion, Pluto Press, 2000, pp. 123-126. Haggai Segal, who was involved in car bombings of Palestinian mayors and served a prison sentence, stated some years after his release: "You can't make a big roundup and put them on buses, but you must make conditions bad for the Arabs - and if they continue the war (the intifada), you must make them leave. I drove by the American consulate in East Jerusalem yesterday and saw a long line of Arabs waiting to get visas. The situation is very hard for them now, and must get harder" (p. 124, also p. 125. and parallels are drawn to the Terror Against Terror movement, which had a similar aim. Robert Friedman stated that the Makhteret was "the most violent anti-Arab terrorist organization since the birth of Israel".
Members of the Jewish Underground were eventually rounded up and brought to trial on charges that included violating the 1948 Prevention of Terrorism Decree. The charge of membership in a terrorist organization was dropped against 10 out of the 27 in a plea bargain.Gal-Or, Noemi. "Tolerating terrorism in Israel", in Noemi Gal-Or, ed. (2015), Terrorism in the West: An International Survey. Routledge, pp. 72ff. Most served short terms, and the ringleaders were pardoned and released in 1990.
History The Jewish Underground was an activist vigilante group formed in the early 1980s out of militants in the Gush Emunim movement, and consisted at its height of 25-27 militants, the majority holding key positions in Gush Emunim and settler organizations. Three men created the cell, Menachem Livni, Yehoshua Ben-Shoshan, and Yehuda Etzion,Motti Inbari, Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple?, SUNY 2009, p. 51 and were soon joined by Yitzhak Ganiram ("Akale"), Shaul Nir, his brother Barak Nir, and Uzi(ahu) Shar(a)baf (Sharback), rabbi Moshe Levinger's son-in-law. Menachem Livni, an engineering graduate of the Haifa Technion and commander of a reserve battalion of combat engineers, had moved to the Jewish settlement in Hebron in 1970, and in 1977, he had been elected chairman of the Kiryat Arba Council. Yehuda Etzion, a co-founder of the Ofra settlement, had been student of two rabbis, Zvi Yehuda Kook and Yehuda Amital, but was deeply influenced by the writings of Shabtai Ben-Dov, and was dedicated to organizing the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, whilst Livni, a student of Moshe Levinger from Kiryat Arba, was opposed to an attack on the Temple Mount and was primarily concerned with mounting actions against Arabs in the Palestinian territories.
The group that crystallized around them as an activist vigilante group adopted the symbol of the Stern Gang as their emblem. The main function of their attacks on Arabs was revenge, and the attacks were designed to inspire fear in Arabs.Dror Moreh, The Gatekeepers:Inside Israel’s Internal Security Agency, Skyhorse Publishing 2015, p. 171.Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice State, University Press of New York (1993) 2012, p. 294 American Jews spearheaded fund-raising for the group’s underground activities, justifying their backing of such terrorism in terms of personal friendships.Steven Bayme, Jewish Arguments and Counter Arguments, KTAV Publishers 2002, p. 379. The organization also had assistance from two senior figures in the Military Administration that oversees the occupied territories, together with help from several reserve officers, and one career officer. Their activities ranged from placing incendiary bombs in vehicles owned by members of the Palestinian National Guidance Committee, an assault on Palestinian students at a college in Hebron, and an operation that nearly succeeded in blowing up the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. An attempt to booby-trap a bus that transported Palestinian workers in East Jerusalem was discovered by the Shin Bet in 1984, and the exposure of the Jerusalem bus bombing operation led to a crackdown and trials which effectively ended the group's operations. The idea also circulated that acts of terror against Palestinians would hasten their exit from their homeland. The movement rejected the democratic foundations of Israel.Nachman Ben-Yehuda Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism , Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 90ff.
Operations
Car-bombings of the mayors
Menachem Livni built many of the bombs used in the attacks. On June 2, 1980, the group carried out a series of terror attacks, including car bomb attacks against Palestinian officials. As a result of these attacks, two senior Palestinian figures were maimed for life: Bassam Shakaa, the mayor of Nablus, lost both of his legs, and Karim Khalaf, the mayor of Ramallah, lost one of his legs.Associated Press,"3 Israeli Terrorists Are Released In 4th Reduction of Their Terms," New York Times, 27 December 1990James Kelly,'What's Next For Israel?,' Time Magazine, July 9, 1984, A third victim targeted, El Bireh mayor Ibrahim Tawil, was saved when the device planted in his car was discovered. Spokesmen for Gush Emunim were variously reported as reacting with comments like, "Well organized, very good work", and, "I hope that the Jews did it". On hearing the news, co-founder of Gush Emunim rabbi Haim Drukman is said to have exclaimed, citing the Song of Deborah, "Thus, may all Israel's enemies perish!"Ian Lustick, p. 131. Lustick cites:'Book of Deborah', an evident lapsus calami.
Attack on students at the Islamic College in Hebron
In retaliation for the murder of Aharon Gross, a student in a Hebron satellite yeshivah of Mercaz HaRav Kook,Eliezar Don-Yehiya, ‘The Book and the Sword: The Nationalist Yeshivot and Political Radicalism in Israel’ in Martin E. Marty, R. Scott Appleby (eds.,) Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp. 264-301, pp. 278-279. in an operation planned by Livni, three operatives of the group, Shaul Nir, Barak Nir, and Uzi Sharbaf, wearing ski masks,Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, University of Michigan Press, 2009, p. 257. launched an attack on the Islamic College in Hebron on July 26, 1983. On arriving at the target, off a crowded Hebron street, Nir fired two bursts from his Kalashnikov in the air to signal that the area was clear. Uzi Sharbaf drove up to join him in a Peugeot 504 which stopped in front of the college. Both then entered the courtyard and fired into the students. Barak Nir, Shaul's brother, stood by the car and sprayed shots at students on the second floor who had been drawn to the windows to find out what the tumult was about. His brother Shaul and Sharbaf then entered the college, and tossed a grenade into a corridor where a student council had been convened.Ami Pedazhur, Arie Perliger, Jewish Terrorism in Israel, Columbia university Press 2011, p. 64 They then withdrew, burnt the evidence, and hid out at Gariam's home in the Golan Heights.
Three people were killed—Saad Adin Hassan Sabri, Jamal Saad El Adin Nayal and Samir Fatih Daoud, each 30 years old—and 33 wounded.Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. Oxford University Press, 2000 128–137, p. 136Motti Imbari, Messianic Religious Zionism Confronts Israeli Territorial Compromises, Cambridge University Press 2012, p. 147 Israel's President and Deputy Foreign Minister condemned the attack. Israeli authorities immediately began a manhunt and also imposed a curfew to prevent Palestinian demonstrations in response. Soldiers fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse Hebron residents who had gathered at the hospital where the wounded were being treated.
Israeli President Chaim Herzog commuted the sentences of the attackers in 1988 as part of the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Israel's founding. They were released in 1990.
Plot to blow up the Dome of the Rock The purpose of obliterating the Muslim shrine on the Temple Mount, considered together with the Al-Aqsa Mosque to be an "abomination", was to "awaken" Jews, and lay the groundwork for the creation of the Third Temple. The Jewish underground had two different ideas about how to destroy the Dome of the Rock. One proposal was to crash a plane packed with explosives into the building. One member of the group was an IDF expert in explosives who had access to sufficient ammunition and material stolen from the Israeli army to carry out the plan.
Jerusalem bus bombing plot Early in the morning of 27 April 1984, following a plan devised by Livni, three operatives went into East Jerusalem and fixed five powerful explosive devices to the bottoms of five Arab buses. The bombs were timed to explode that afternoon, during Friday, one of the busiest days of the week, when the buses would have been packed with Palestinian worshippers returned home from celebrating Isra and Mi'raj. The Shin Bet arrested them at 4:30, just after they had completed the installation of the bombs.
Arrests and trial It was only during the interrogations that followed that Israeli Security officers stumbled onto evidence that the cell intended to blow up the Dome of the Rock, a mission which, many observed, had it been achieved, would have risked, a catastrophe of major proportions, if not a world conflagration. A week later, security forces raided the settlement of Kiryat Arba, finding a cache of stolen regional defense program weapons and explosives linked to the bomb plot.