Amichai Paglin

Amichai Paglin, code name "Gidi" (December 1, 1922 – February 25, 1978), was an Israeli businessman who served as Chief Operations Officer of the Irgun during the Mandate era. He planned and personally led numerous attacks against the British during the Jewish insurgency in Palestine, commanded the battle to conquer Jaffa in the 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, and participated in the Israeli War of Independence. Following independence, he ran an industrial oven factory together with his father, and was later appointed Prime Minister Menachem Begin's counter-terrorism adviser.

Paglin was born in Tel Aviv in 1922, the son of Gershon and Sima Paglin. His family had immigrated from Lithuania in 1920. Paglin studied in the elementary school Tel Nordau, and continued in the Balfour high school. He was in the same class as Lehi fighter Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and future IDF Chief of Staff Tzvi Tzur.

At a young age he joined the Haganah, and was appointed the signaller of Efraim Dekel, the commander of Shai (the Haganah intelligence unit.) He participated in a squad commander course, and expected to participate in significant operations against the British. However, to his disappointment, he was commanded to scrape posters off walls and to do other simple activities.

Paglin's family was associated with the Labor Movement. His older brother, Neriel, was a member of the Palyam, the naval commando unit of the Haganah's strike force, the Palmach, and was an assistant to Haganah commander Yisrael Galili. Neriel was one of the 23 Palyam soldiers who died on the ship Ari HaYam when it sank off of Vichy-controlled Lebanon in May 1941, during Operation Boatswain, a mission for the Allies. This frustrated Amichai greatly, who felt that his brother had given his life for the British, and yet the British did not open Palestine to Jewish immigration. This encouraged him to join the more anti-British Irgun.

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