A 'Letter to the Editor' in the Salt Lake City Tribune

Begin no terrorist

William Hewitt compares the former terrorist that Barack Obama purportedly “pals around” with to the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who he says led a Jewish “terror” group (“Reagan's pal,” Forum, Oct. 25).

Begin fought a war of liberation against a British regime that shut the gates of the Jewish national home to Jews fleeing Hitler and his concentration camps. The Irgun's military operations were always forewarned. The attack on the King David Hotel that Hewitt mentions was directed against the building's southern wing, which was entirely a British headquarters and not a tourist center, as implied.

In that sense, Begin should be compared to George Washington, not to a former Weather Underground activist.


Yisrael Medad
Information Director
Menachem Begin Heritage Center
Jerusalem, Israel