Editing King David Hotel (section)

===British Mandate of Palestine===
In 1929, Palestine Hotels Ltd. purchased {{convert|4.5|acre|m2}} on Jerusalem's Julian's Way, today King David Street. Half the construction costs were paid by [[Ezra Mosseri]], an affluent [[History of the Jews in Egypt|Egyptian Jewish]] banker and director of the [[National Bank of Egypt]], and another 46% by the [[Goldschmidt family]] and other wealthy Cairo Jews. The approximately 4% remaining was paid by the National Bank of Egypt, which purchased 693 shares of the company between 1934 and 1943.<ref>[https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/egyptian-bank-sues-israel-for-dividends Egyptian bank sues Israel for dividends], by Etgar Lefkovits for The Jerusalem Post, 27 June 2007. Re-accessed September 2020.</ref>

From its earliest days, the King David Hotel hosted royalty: the dowager empress of [[Pahlavi dynasty]], [[Tadj ol-Molouk]], queen consort [[Nazli Sabri|Nazli of Egypt]], and [[King Abdullah I]] of Jordan stayed at the hotel, and three heads of state forced to flee their countries took up residence there: [[Alfonso XIII of Spain|King Alfonso XIII]] of [[Spain]], forced to abdicate in 1931, Emperor [[Haile Selassie]] of [[Ethiopia]], driven out by the [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War|Italians in 1936]], and [[George II of Greece|King George II]] of [[Greece]], who set up his government in exile at the hotel after the [[Nazi]] occupation of his country in 1942. During the [[Mandatory Palestine]], the southern wing of the hotel contained British administrative and military offices.

====Bombing====
{{Main|King David Hotel bombing}}
[[File:King David Hotel bombing, Jerusalem 1946.jpg|thumb|200px|King David Hotel after being targeted in the terrorist attack by the Zionist organization [[Irgun]], 1946]]
On July 22, 1946, the southwestern corner of the hotel was [[King David Hotel bombing|bombed]] during an attack by the Zionist paramilitary group [[Irgun]]. 91 people of various nationalities, including Britons, Arabs and Jews, were killed and 45 people were injured<ref name="Encyclopedia of World Terrorism">{{cite book|last=Chalk|first=Peter|title=Encyclopedia of World Terrorism|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofwo03cren/page/394|year=1996|publisher=[[Routledge]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofwo03cren/page/394 394]|isbn=978-1-56324-806-1}}</ref><ref name="International Encyclopedia of Terrorism">{{cite book |last1=Crenshaw|first1=Martha|last2=Pimlott|first2=John|title=International Encyclopedia of Terrorism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j4p4CAAAQBAJ&q=King+David+Hotel+terrorist&pg=PT287|year=1998|publisher=[[Routledge]]|page=287|isbn=978-1-57958-022-3}}</ref> by the militant right-wing group.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hardy |first=Roger |date=2017 |title=The Poisoned Well, Empire and its Legacy in the Middle East |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=10 |isbn=978-0-19-062322-7}}</ref> An earlier attempt by the Irgun to attack the hotel had been foiled when the [[Haganah]] learned of it, and warned the [[Mandatory Palestine]]'s British authorities.<ref name="tclarke81">Thurston Clarke, ''By Blood and Fire: the attack on the King David Hotel'', G. P. Puttnam's Sons, New York, 1981, {{ISBN|978-0-399-12605-5}}, {{ISBN|978-0-399-12605-5}}</ref>