Abba Ahimeir (Hebrew: אב"א אחימאיר‎, November 2, 1897 - June 6, 1962) was a Jewish journalist, writer and historian. One of the ideologues of Revisionist Zionism, he was the founder of the self-declared fascist Revisionist Maximalist faction of the Zionist Revisionist Movement (ZRM).^[1][2]

[edit] Biography

Abba Ahimeir (Abba Shaul Geisinovich) was born in Dolgoein in the Russian Empire (today in Belarus). He studied philosophy in Vienna and Liege, and wrote his Ph.D thesis on Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West.

In 1924, he immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine, and became a supporter of active resistance to British Mandate authorities. In the Hebrew newspaper Doar HaYom ("Daily Mail") he wrote a column titled "From the Notebook of a Fascist."^[3]

In 1930, Ahimeir founded the Revisionist Maximalist faction of the Zionist Revisionist Movement. He was a fierce critic of the Haavara Agreement and its chief negotiator, Haim Arlosoroff. In 1935 he was arrested and imprisoned for organizing the illegal clandestine organization Brit HaBirionim, and charged with plotting the assassination of Arlosoroff.^[4]

[edit] Ideology

Of all the Zionist Revisionist leaders, the views of Ahimeir were closest to fascism. Brit HaBirionim was the only Zionist faction to adopt a fascist-inspired platform, upholding the supremacy of race, the principle of the leader, violent revolution and hatred of the left. ^[5] Abba Ahimeir's views had a profound influence on the ideology of the Irgun and Lehi undergrounds.^[6]

[edit] References