The Word That Gives the Right to Kill
Róisín Gallagher — Liverpool, Royaume-Uni — 2026-10-11
There exists, in the archives of the British Parliament, a title worth all commentaries. On 23 July 1946, the day after the attack on the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem, the House of Commons does not debate an “incident” nor an “attack”. It entitles its debate: “TERRORIST OUTRAGE, JERUSALEM”.
It is not we who qualify. It is the official record of the Parliament of Westminster.
What follows is the story of that word — and of what it permits.
23 July 1946. The Prime Minister Clement Attlee speaks before the Commons. His words are preserved: he speaks of an “insane act of terrorism”. The tally he gives that day is provisional — 41 dead, 52 missing, 53 wounded — and the final toll will be 91 dead, including 41 Arabs, 28 Britons, 17 Jews, 2 Armenians, 1 Russian, 1 Greek and 1 Egyptian.
17 November 1944. Two years earlier, on 6 November, the Lehi group assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo, the British minister resident in the Middle East. Winston Churchill comes before the same House. He speaks of “terrorist activities”, of “this terrorism”, and describes the perpetrators as “gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany”.
1937. Ten years before these debates, the royal commission chaired by Lord Peel delivers its report on Palestine. One finds there “disturbances”, “rebellions” — and also “acts of sabotage and terrorism”, as well as ““terrorist” gangs”.
Look at the quotation marks. The British royal commission, which had at its disposal all the means of the empire, did not write the word without putting it in quotation marks. Even its authors hesitated to sign it in their own name.
1946. The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in turn delivers its report. On the Stern Group, it writes, without quotation marks this time: “The Stern Group engages in terrorism”.
31 July 1947. The affair of the sergeants: two British servicemen abducted by the Irgun, then hanged. The Secretary of State for the Colonies, Creech Jones, speaks of soldiers “murdered by Jewish terrorists”.
And the Irgun then does something that history little remembers: it turns the word around. In its communiqués, it designates the British army as “the British criminal terrorist organisation known as the Army of Occupation”. The same word, exactly, applied to the empire.
9 April 1948. Deir Yassin. The Irgun and the Lehi — in which two Palmach units took part — attack the village. The count of Kanaana and Zaytun gives 107 dead, of whom 11 combatants. And that day, the most important reaction does not come from London: the Jewish Agency cables to King Abdallah its “horror and disgust at the barbarous manner in which this action was carried out”.
17 September 1948. The United Nations mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, is assassinated in Jerusalem by the Lehi. The United States consul general drafts a dispatch: in it he designates “the terrorist group, L.H.Y., commonly known as Stern Gang”. It is an American diplomatic document, and it is not a newspaper.
1936-1939. Meanwhile, the Arab revolt in Palestine had already occupied the same columns. The British parliamentary record contains, on 29 June 1938, a heading entitled “Terrorism”. The 1939 White Paper speaks, for its part, of “Arab terrorists”.
And now, France.
It must be said precisely, because many assert it without having verified it — and we verified it before writing it.
No official French text qualifying the FLN or the ALN as a “terrorist organisation” has been found. What the official record employs are the words “rebels”, “outlaws”, “banditry”, and the word “terrorism” applied to acts — all within the legal framework of “law-and-order operations” and “pacification”, that is to say in a vocabulary that denies the state of war.
The law of 3 April 1955 institutes the state of emergency. That of 16 March 1956 grants the special powers. Official vocabulary organizes the unnameable: one does not say the war, therefore one does not say the enemy — one says the rebel.
Which yields the conclusion, and it is stronger than any symmetry.
Neither London nor Paris ever employed the legal formula. The word never served to qualify facts before a court: it served to decide who had the right to fight.
And the proof is in the Peel commission: in 1937, the quotation marks were still there.
📚 COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY (rule no. 19)
1. Hansard, House of Commons, 23 July 1946, debate entitled “TERRORIST OUTRAGE, JERUSALEM” (“TERRORIST OUTRAGE, JERUSALEM”) — speech by Clement Attlee, “insane act of terrorism” — https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1946/jul/23/terrorist-outrage-jerusalem
2. Hansard, 17 November 1944, “Palestine (Terrorist Activities)” — Winston Churchill: “terrorist activities”, “this terrorism”, “gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany” — https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1944/nov/17/palestine-terrorist-activities
3. Peel Royal Commission, report of 1937 (Cmd. 5479) — “acts of sabotage and terrorism”, ““terrorist” gangs” (quotation marks reproduced as they stand)
4. Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, report of 1946 — “The Stern Group engages in terrorism”
5. Hansard, 31 July 1947, “Palestine (Murdered British Sergeants)” — Creech Jones: “murdered by Jewish terrorists”; Irgun communiqué: “British criminal terrorist organisation known as the Army of Occupation” — https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/jul/31/palestine-murdered-british-sergeants
6. Irgun, communiqué claiming the attack on the British embassy in Rome, 31 October 1946 — retaliation for a “war of extermination”; Hansard describes the event as “the bomb outrage” — https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/jun/16/embassy-rome-rebuilding
7. Deir Yassin, 9 April 1948 — count Kanaana & Zaytun: 107 dead of whom 11 combatants; Pappé's count: 93; participation of two Palmach units; cable of the Jewish Agency to King Abdallah: “horror and disgust at the barbarous manner in which this action was carried out” — notice documented with its references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre
8. FRUS 1948, volume V, part 2, document 605 — dispatch of the United States consul general in Jerusalem designating “terrorist group, L.H.Y., commonly known as Stern Gang”, after the assassination of Folke Bernadotte on 17 September 1948 — https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v05p2/d605
9. Hansard, heading “Terrorism”, 29 June 1938 — Arab revolt of 1936-1939
10. British White Paper of 1939 (Cmd. 6019) — “Arab terrorists”
11. INA — Institut national de l'audiovisuel, notice by Pierre Tétart on the events of the Aurès, November 1954 — official French vocabulary: “rebels”, “outlaws”, “law-and-order operations” — https://fresques.ina.fr/independances/fiche-media/Indepe00209/les-evenements-de-l-aures-en-novembre-1954.html
12. French law no. 55-385 of 3 April 1955 instituting the state of emergency — https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000695350 (reference seen in indexation, the site having refused direct connection)
13. French law no. 56-258 of 16 March 1956 granting special powers — title and article 5 reproduced in bill National Assembly no. 3327 — https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/11/propositions/pion3327.asp
14. French laws 2012-1361 of 6 December 2012 and 2022-229 of 23 February 2022 — recognition of the prejudices suffered by the harkis and the other repatriated persons (to situate official vocabulary in the long term)
15. Benjamin Stora, report on memorial questions concerning colonization and the Algerian war, submitted on 20 January 2021
16. British executions in Palestine: Shlomo Ben-Yosef, 29 June 1938; four condemned men executed on 16 April 1947; operation Agatha, 29 June 1946
⚠️ Published reservations.
(1) Political organisations and named acts only. We qualify no people and no religion — and we reproduce the vocabulary employed, always attributing it.
(2) The count of Acre is irreconcilable according to the sources: we do not settle it and we do not advance it.
(3) Seven quotations were set aside as unverified by the research, including the one attributed to François Mitterrand on the negotiation, several quotations attributed to Chaim Weizmann, the text attributed to the Grand Rabbinate, and the sentence attributed to David Ben-Gurion on the Altalena. They appear nowhere in this article.
(4) The Peel commission and several archival documents are cited from identified reprises.
(5) Israeli archives were not consulted.
(6) The activities of Zionist organisations in the Levant, in Syria and in Lebanon, were not found, with the exception of the Palmach's cooperation with the British in the Levant in 1941. We have therefore written nothing on this point.
(7) Report Cmd. 6873, often cited, was drafted BEFORE the King David attack (announced to the Commons on 24 July 1946): it does not cover it. We do not use it for that purpose.