Assassination of Jacob Israel de Haan
Assassination of Jacob Israel de Haan (1924), a Dutch-Jewish diplomat, for seeking a peace deal with the Emir of Mecca. His plan was to create a Palestinian state within the Jordanian federation, for the Zionists to renounce the Balfour Declaration and all claims to a state in exchange for unrestricted immigration. He was assassinated on the orders of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who later became Israel's second president.
Jacob Israël de Haan (1881 - 1924) was a Dutch Jew, writer, lawyer and journalist who emigrated to Palestine in 1919. Here he worked as a political spokesman for the Haredim in Jerusalem. He worked for peace between Arabs and Jews. De Haan tried to work out an agreement with Arab leaders to allow unrestricted Jewish immigration to Palestine in return for the Zionists renouncing the Balfour Declaration.
De Haan wrote to British newspapers about the tyranny of the official Zionist movement. His critical reports on the conduct of the Zionists caused concern. Information from a Jew who lived and worked at the heart of the conflict, in Palestine, had the potential to cause much trouble. In some circles, de Haan was considered a traitor to his own people.
In 1923 De Haan met with the leader of independent Transjordan, Emir Hussein bin Ali and his son Emir Abdullah, seeking their support for [Old Yishuv]. He made it clear that his religious grouping was opposed to Zionist plans to establish the state of Israel. He proposed the establishment of an official Palestinian state within the Emirate of Transjordan as part of the federation (as the state of Palestine did not yet exist at the time).
De Haan planned to travel to London in 1924 with an anti-Zionist Haredi delegation to argue against Zionism. However, shortly before his departure he was assassinated in Jerusalem by the [Haganah]. The assassin shot him three times and fled the scene.
Initially, the Palestinian Jewish community, the Yishuv, readily accepted the theory that Arabs were to blame for the murder. They believed the Zionist authorities that this one had nothing to do with the assassination. Over time, however, doubts began to grow. There was widespread speculation about the identity of the assassin, with theories that it could have been a Zionist, or perhaps someone from de Haan's conservative circles enraged by the revelation of his homosexuality, or perhaps an Arab lover.
The assassination caused shock in Palestine and Europe. Senior Zionist leaders, including David Ben-Gurion, blamed each other. De Haan's murder is considered the first political murder in the Jewish community in Palestine. His activities were seen as undermining the struggle to establish a Jewish state, but the assassination caused controversy and was severely condemned even by Zionists.
Labour movement publicist Moshe Beilinson wrote: The flag of our movement must not be stained. Neither by the blood of the innocent nor by the blood of the guilty. Otherwise our movement will be bad because blood attracts other blood. Blood always takes revenge, and if you go down that path once, you don't know where it will take you.
It was only in the ‘80s that it came to light that the killer was Avrahama Tehomi, who confessed to journalists that he had carried out the order. He stated that he had acted on orders from the Haganah, specifically Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, later the second president of the State of Israel.
I have done what the Haganah decided had to be done. And nothing was done without the order of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Isra%C3%ABl_de_Haan
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-this-day-zionism-s-first-political-assassination-1.5288744
https://972mag.com/the-first-political-murder-in-jewish-palestine-lessons-of-intolerance/92686/