The Doctrine of Beitar

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To every Jew and to every foreigner, if he is capable of reflecting on our national affairs, it is upon each one, without exception, to understand the matter, whether brute force finds favor in his eyes or whether it does not satisfy his will; whether he agrees to surrender to it, or to fight against it, everyone understands that in the conduct of a national revival, the art of shooting is the most important craft of all.

The stance of the British is a logical conclusion from a law that is an iron law in every public enterprise. An eternal rule in all conditions and in all generations: if a nation dedicates itself to settling a land, it is a necessity that it maintain an armed force; or that a powerful magnate or a philanthropist will maintain an armed force at his own expense, or that the settlement enterprise itself will furnish an authorized armed force, which will provide defense with its own private power against the natives of the land. There is no possibility of denial, this thing is not "difficult" or "complicated"; it is i m p o s s i b l e.

1. No settlement without an independent armed force.

Defense by a foreign power is not only dangerous in the political sense, it is also poor defense. The British soldier is an excellent, loyal soldier; it is possible to send him to every corner and for any matter to war and to death, but there is one rule that every junior officer in the British army learns to know, and this is its content: "One must strive by all means not to use the army for an action, if you know for certain that this action is organizationally unpleasant for it, because by doing so you are liable to undermine discipline, to destroy military tradition, even if you carry out your order precisely." And indeed, the task that was necessarily imposed on the British soldier to suppress the anti-Zionist riots—is organizationally unpleasant for him, and it will, of course, always remain unpleasant. The English soldier will attack the rioters if they are Sudanese, in Egypt, in Iraq, or in Ireland, because it is absolutely clear to him that he is defending England's interests directly. In such a case, the question of whether the rebels are right or not does not arise for him at all. But the Land of Israel is not a British province; it is not a member of the League of Nations; from a formal standpoint, the English kingdom's presence in the Land of Israel is a mission, and it has no connection with English sovereignty, the...