Prior to 1948 the modern state of Israel did not exist. The last time the world heard anything about Israel was in
70 A.D. when Roman legions under General Titus brutally squashed a Jewish revolt, dispersed the majority of the Jewish population throughout the Roman Empire, and vengefully renamed the nation to Palestina (the Latin word for Israel’s ancient enemy Philistine), which is today the Gaza strip and Tel-Aviv area.
Although there has always been a remnant of Jews living in the Holy Land for the past 1,932 years, they have been under constant subjugation by foreign powers:
the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Crusaders, again the Arabs, and the Ottomans (the Turks). The Ottoman Empire
(1300 – 1918) ruled over both the indigenous Jews and Arabs in the region until their defeat in World War I
(1914 – 1918), and the implementation of the British Mandate of
1919. In this same year the Jews formed an underground army, known as the Haganah (the Hebrew word for defense) to deal with the ongoing conflict with Arab gangs, and in anticipation of the creation of a Jewish state promised to them by the British in the Balfour Declaration.
Yet, despite the popularity of the
Zionist movement and increased Jewish immigration, statehood was slow in the making. Instead the colonial powers allowed the local police to form an elite unit called the Notrim (guards) to defend isolated Jewish agricultural settlements against marauding Arabs, and to quell ongoing racial riots steadily growing in the urban centers.
Although the Notrim was successful at protecting the small outposts, they were not as effective in handling the deadly riots, or pursuing the enemy back behind his own lines. A Haganah officer named Yitzhak Sadeh (considered the father of the Israeli Special Forces), understood the police unit’s shortcomings and formed a new army unit called the Nodedot (wanderers).
When World War II (1939 – 1945) brought British forces once again into global conflict (against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy) the need for oil was paramount. However, this rare commodity was threatened by German troops advancing eastward in North Africa and many Arab tribes openly siding with the Nazis. Reluctant at first, the British turned once again to Jewish fighters
and formed the first official Israeli Special Forces unit on May 14, 1941 known as Pal’mach (a Hebrew acronym for Plugot Machatz, which means strike platoon).
The original numbers of personnel sanctioned for Pal’mach training under British supervision was only suppose to be 1,000 fighters, but the Haganah overstepped their bounds and trained roughly 3,000 men in preparation for a future Jewish army to be used after the war.
The training that the Pal’mach commandos received was called Krav Maga Face-to-face combat).
The word “krav” is also translated commonly as “fight.” This was not one system, but a mixture of rigorous physical conditioning, firearms and explosives training, radio communications, wilderness survival training, combat first aid and foreign language courses (the enemy languages of German and Arabic). The empty hand combat training was a combination of Western fighting systems such as boxing (London Prize Ring Rules), Greco-Roman wrestling, and standard British military knife and baton training. At this time there was no one single vocabulary word or term used for the self-defense techniques in the program, Krav Maga was an all inclusive term.
Today The Israeli science of Military Self Defense Krav-Maga is taught all over the world to Military, Paramilitary, Police, & Security Agencies as well as civilians ,Mr.Mehul Vora has trained extensively in Israel and is the Foremost authority of the NKMF , he has been instrumental for its world wide popularity, The Israeli Science of Military Self Defense Krav-Maga , has been successfully taught in India since 2002 ,to thousands of civilians, corporates, several film stars as well as to the Special operations squad Mumbai police and the demolition Squad & security force of the Brihanmumbai municipal corporation.
