(File) Netanyahu at Begin Center, 2010
(File) Netanyahu at Begin Center, 2010Reuters

Israel Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino gave the sword of Ze'ev Jabotinsky to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in the course of a study day for the senior Israeli Police command at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The Israel Police Education Officer said that in 1920, Ze'ev Jabotinsky had been arrested by British police officers in the wake of his involvement in a Jewish defense organization in Jerusalem, following the riots which occurred that year.

His sword was taken from him during his arrest. The sword eventually passed to a British police officer. Several years later, the officer's daughter gave the sword to British historian Martin Higgins, who specialized in the mandatory police and whose father had been a police officer himself.

Higgins gave the sword to the Israel Police. The sword had previously belonged to a senior Ottoman officer and apparently came into Jabotinsky's possession during his service as an officer in the framework of the 38th Royal Fusiliers during World War I.