Editing Irgun (section)

===The first split===
In April 1937 the Irgun split after the referendum. Approximately 1,500–2,000 people, about half of the Irgun's membership, including the senior command staff, regional committee members, along with most of the Irgun's weapons, returned to the Haganah, which at that time was under the Jewish Agency's leadership. The Supervisory Committee's control over the Irgun ended, and Jabotinsky assumed command. In their opinion, the removal of the Haganah from the Jewish Agency's leadership to the national institutions necessitated their return. Furthermore, they no longer saw significant ideological differences between the movements. Those who remained in the Irgun were primarily young activists, mostly laypeople, who sided with the independent existence of the Irgun. In fact, most of those who remained were originally Betar people. [[Moshe Rosenberg]] estimated that approximately 1,800 members remained. In theory, the Irgun remained an organization not aligned with a political party, but in reality the supervisory committee was disbanded and the Irgun's continued ideological path was outlined according to Ze'ev Jabotinsky's school of thought and his decisions, until the movement eventually became Revisionist Zionism's military arm. One of the major changes in policy by Jabotinsky was the end of the policy of [[Havlagah|restraint]].

On April 27, 1937, the Irgun founded a new headquarters, staffed by Moshe Rosenberg at the head, [[Avraham Stern|Avraham (Yair) Stern]] as secretary, [[David Raziel]] as head of the Jerusalem branch, [[Hanoch Kalai]] as commander of Haifa and [[Aharon Haichman]] as commander of Tel Aviv. On 20 [[Tammuz (Hebrew month)|Tammuz]], (June 29) the day of [[Theodor Herzl]]'s death, a ceremony was held in honor of the reorganization of the underground movement. For security purposes this ceremony was held at a construction site in Tel Aviv.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky placed Col. [[Robert Bitker]] at the head of the Irgun. Bitker had previously served as Betar commissioner in China and had military experience. A few months later, probably due to total incompatibility with the position, Jabotinsky replaced Bitker with Moshe Rosenberg. When the [[Peel Commission]] report was published a few months later, the Revisionist camp decided not to accept the commission's recommendations.<ref name=":0" /> Moreover, the organizations of Betar, [[Hatzohar]] and the Irgun began to increase their efforts to bring Jews to ''[[Eretz Israel]]'' (the Land of Israel), illegally. This [[Aliyah]] was known as the עליית אף על פי "Af Al Pi (Nevertheless) Aliyah". As opposed to this position, the Jewish Agency began acting on behalf of the Zionist interest on the political front, and continued the policy of restraint. From this point onwards the differences between the Haganah and the Irgun were much more obvious.