Correcting a Misleading Assertion

This Letter-to-the-Editor was sent to the UK's Jewish Chronicle:

In Lawrence Joffee's review ("The Rise of the Israeli Right", March 31) of Colin Shindler's most recent book, we read that on June 20, 1948, Menachem Begin "defied the state of Israel's month-old provisional government by smuggling forbidden weapons aboard a requisitioned ship, the Altalena". That assertion is misleading.
The arms ship Altalena had docked near Moshav Kfar Vitkin in accordance with the agreement with Israel's Defence Ministry officials. The government was informed of the ship's existence on June 1 whereas the Hagana had been contacted about the ship while it was in France months earlier.
On June 15, Begin and members of his staff met with government representatives and reported the ship's imminent arrival.  As even Wikipedia notes, David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary entry for June 16: "Yisrael [Galili] and Skolnik [Levi Eshkol] met yesterday with Begin. Tomorrow or the next day their ship is due to arrive…I believe we should not endanger Tel Aviv port. They should not be sent back. They should be disembarked at an unknown shore."  At a second meeting, the Mapai-dominated Kfar Vitkin moshav was selected.
At the beach, the IDF demanded a different distribution of the weapons and ammunition than that had been originally agreed upon which was 20% would go to Irgun units enlisted in the IDF.  Seeking to settle that issue, Begin refused to submit to the 10-minute ultimatum handed to him and, given the lack of communication facilities, ordered the ship, which had been fired upon resulting in the deaths of both Irgun members and IDF soldiers, to sail to Tel Aviv. There, on June 22, it was fired upon and eventually shelled and abandoned.
The real question for historians is why did Ben-Gurion defy his own agreement.

It was published in this week's edition (no online link available) and so I do not know if, or how much, it was edited.


However, I had to send this letter of complaint:

I understand my letter appeared today in The JC.
I have not as yet seen it but I received this note from a friend:
Have just read your letter to the JC. Surely the subeditor's heading for the letter: "Begin's action is still begging an explanation" is completely wrong? Your final para makes clear it is Ben Gurion's actions which require explanation. (I think the sub ed got carried away with his attempted pun of Begin and begging.) You should ask for a correction! 
If my correspondent is right, I do think a correction is warranted, something along the lines of:
"In a letter published last week by Yisrael Medad on the Altalena Affair, the heading gave a misleading impression that Medad considered Menachem Begin's actions as "begging an explanation" whereas, as his letter makes clear, David Ben-Gurion's actions still require an explanation."
Thank you.

________________

UPDATE

The letter:

^

Book Review on J Auerbach's Altalena Book

From Altalena story revisited by Rabbi Jack Riemer in the Florida Jewish Journal on BROTHERS AT WAR by Jerold S. Auerbach:-

The past has been present lately, especially among right-wing Zionists. First, Moshe Arens of the Likud wrote a book arguing that the members of Betar fought as bravely as the left-wing Zionists in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And now, Jerold Auerbach has written a book reexaming the story of the Altalena...In this version of what happened, Menachem Begin comes out as the hero, and Ben Gurion comes out as the villain. Auerbach claims that Begin sincerely believed that some compromise could be worked out, and that he was stunned by Ben Gurion's decision to destroy the boat. To his eternal credit, Begin refused to permit his followers to fire back, because he would not allow Jews to fight against Jews, especially at a time when six Arab armies were fighting against Israel. And this book is an effort to set the historical record straight and to place the blame where Auerbach believes it belongs — on Ben Gurion and on the young officer, Yitzchak Rabin, who carried out the order to fire on the Altalena.

Why is the story of the Altalena so topical today? Because it raises the issue that Israel may have to confront once again in our time. Are there limits to what a government can do to its own people? Are there limits to what protesters can do against a government policy? What happens when the fabric of society is split apart by drastic actions and counter actions?

...What is the legitimacy of a government that uses brutal tactics against those who challenge it? How can you tell when a government is defending its legitimate powers and when it is using excessive force in order to crush its opposition and maintain itself in power?

...These are the kinds of questions that the sinking of the Altalena raised in Israel for the first time and that are now on the minds and hearts of Israelis. For the left, the Altalena established the principle that there can only be one government and one army in Israel.

For the right, the Altalena was a model of self restraint by a group that naively believed that the government was negotiating with them in good faith and was betrayed.

Who knows where the truth lies? Auerbach makes a very good case in this book for the right wing version of what happened. Many in Israel believe the left wing version of what happened. But everyone in Israel agrees that nothing like the Altalena must ever be allowed to happen again. Whoever is right on what happened that day, the Altalena remains as a warning to the settlers and to the soldiers and to the haredim that there are limits to what a country can allow from dissidents and it remains as a warning to the government and to the army that there is a limit to what a government can impose upon people who disagree.

^

Shimon Peres on the Altalena Affair

Excerpted from his new autobiography at Tablet, Ben-Gurion: A Political Life by Shimon Peres in conversation with David Landau:

It was a reinvigorated IDF that took to the field when the battle was rejoined on July 8. This was the case in more than just the logistical sense. For while the Arab guns had been silent, Ben-Gurion faced his sternest test—from within his own side.

The Provisional Government had issued an ordinance on May 26 establishing the Israel Defense Forces and prohibiting “the establishment or maintenance of any other armed force.” On June 1, Menachem Begin, the Etzel (also known as the Irgun) leader, signed an agreement with the government whereby Etzel units would join the IDF in battalion formations and take an oath of loyalty. The Etzel’s separate command structure would be disbanded within a month, and the organization would cease buying arms abroad.

Nevertheless, on June 11, the Altalena, a ship that the Etzel had purchased, set sail from southern France with a large quantity of arms and explosives on board as well as some 850 immigrants. As it approached the shores of Israel, Begin informed the government that 20 percent of the arms would be sent to Etzel units in Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem was not yet formally under Israel’s jurisdiction, Yisraeli Galili, negotiating for the IDF, agreed. Begin then proposed that the remaining weaponry go first to equip Etzel units within the IDF. Whatever was left could then be allocated to other units. Galili balked. He reported to Ben-Gurion on June 19 that the danger of a “private army” was evolving. Ben-Gurion convened the cabinet. “There are not going to be two states,” he declared, “and there are not going to be two armies. And Mr. Begin will not do what he feels like. … If he does not give in we shall open fire!” The cabinet resolved unanimously to “authorize the defense minister to take action in accordance with the law of the land.”

Ben-Gurion feared that Begin might use the arms aboard the Altalena to equip Etzel units outside the sovereign jurisdiction of the state—thus ostensibly not violating his commitment—in order to extend the war with the Arabs into the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), thereby defying government policy.

The Altalena anchored off Kfar Vitkin, a moshav, or settlement, between Tel Aviv and Haifa, and hopefully far from the prying eyes of U.N. observers, and began off-loading the weapons with the help of hundreds of supporters who had gathered at the site.

Galili and Yigael Yadin, chief of operations for the IDF, deployed troops to surround the beach and ordered Begin to surrender. Some of the troops with Etzel sympathies crossed the lines and lined up with the Altalena crew and its enthusiastic sympathizers. The ship, with Begin and other Revisionist leaders now on board, weighed anchor and put out to sea, chased by IDF craft. It sailed south toward Tel Aviv and eventually ran aground close to the shore. At army headquarters in Ramat Gan, I spent that night with a rifle in my hand in Ben-Gurion’s office, in case the headquarters compound was stormed by demonstrators.
Off the Tel Aviv boardwalk, a traumatic scenario unfolded the next day. Etzel soldiers and civilian sympathizers streamed to the site. Some waded into the sea and swam out to the ship. At military headquarters, Ben-Gurion paced back and forth, fuming.

Eventually he issued written orders to Yadin to concentrate “troops, fire-power, flame-throwers, and all the other means at our disposal in order to secure the ship’s unconditional surrender.” Yadin was then to await the government’s instructions.

Ben-Gurion then convened the cabinet again. Some colleagues suggested possible compromises, but he was of no mind for any such weakness. “This is an attempt to destroy the army,” he thundered. “This is an attempt to murder the state. In these two matters there can be no compromise.” The cabinet backed him. Small-arms fire broke out between shore and ship. The government evacuated homes and shops in the line of fire. The Palmach commander Yigal Allon, now a senior IDF general, was put in charge of the operation. He ordered a cannon deployed. Yitzhak Rabin was in command of it. The first shell fell wide, but the second struck the vessel. Fire broke out in the hold. Those on board began to abandon ship. (It stood barely one hundred yards from the beach.) But before they could all do so, an explosion tore through the ship, destroying it. Sixteen Etzel men and three IDF soldiers died in the episode; dozens more were wounded.

Begin delivered a two-hour broadcast live on Etzel radio that night, roundly cursing Ben-Gurion who, he claimed, had been out to kill him. For his part, Begin said, he would continue to restrain his men and thus prevent the outbreak of civil war: “We will not open fire. There will be no fraternal strife when the enemy is at the gate.” Ben-Gurion spoke at the People’s Assembly, the transitional parliament. He said that since the arms had not been destined for the IDF, he was glad they had been destroyed. He added a line praising “the blessed cannon” that had fired at the Altalena—a phrase the Revisionist stalwarts never forgot nor forgave.

On nRemembering the Altalena

The Altalena Remembered


By Jerold S. Auerbach


Ever since 1836 Texans were taught to "Remember the Alamo," the San Antonio siege where two hundred fighters for freedom and independence from Mexico (the legendary Davy Crockett among them) defended their mission fortress to the last man.

Now Israelis of a certain persuasion are remembering the Altalena, the ship packed with more than nine hundred fighters and tons of desperately needed munitions that arrived six weeks into the Independence War in 1948. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, hallucinating a putsch to overthrow the government by his despised Irgun political enemies, ordered the ship destroyed. In two days of fighting nineteen Jews were killed by fellow Jews, bringing the fledgling nation to the brink of civil war.

One year later, after a memorial commemoration on the beach, in full view of the burned hulk 150 meters off shore, Ben-Gurion ordered the ship towed out to sea and sunk. It disappeared from sight and, for decades, from Israeli memory. But at a recent annual memorial ceremony, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared his intention to raise and display the Altalena wreckage. A memorial to the slain Jewish fighters, it would also celebrate the firm command from Irgun leader Menachem Begin (who would become prime minister in 1977) not to return fire. Jews must not kill Jews.

Researching this tragic story for the first history of the Altalena to be published in more than thirty years (and the first to be written by a historian), I encountered poignant testimony from fighters on both sides of the political divide expressing the acute pain of Jewish brothers at war.

With Ben-Gurion's approval, the Altalena arrived at Kfar Vitkin, north of Tel Aviv, on June 20th. The fighters disembarked for transportation to a nearby village to prepare for their induction into the Israel Defense Forces.

One of them, Dov Shilansky, was halted by an Israeli soldier. "I spoke to him in Hebrew," he recalled. "It was my first speech in Israel." Shilansky (who would become Speaker of the Knesset forty years later) said: "We've just arrived. We survived the Holocaust. We've come here to fight by your side. The homeland is in danger. We will join the army."

But Shilansky was instructed to go no further. He replied: "We have no other way. I won't go back to Dachau." If we can't come to Israel, we'll go back to the sea." The soldier bluntly responded: "I don't care. Go back to the sea."

When Israeli soldiers opened fire on the Altalena fighters, the ship pulled away, with Irgun leaders on board. It sailed down the coast to Tel Aviv, where Begin hoped for negotiations with Ben-Gurion's representatives to deter further tragedy. At an urgent 4 a.m. meeting, Ben-Gurion's navy commander assured him that the Altalena could be disabled without gunfire. But Ben-Gurion, "upset and angry," paced back and forth, "talking and yelling." He would not relent.

Twelve hours later came the order to open fire on the ship. Hilary Dilesky, the cannon crew commander, had arrived in Israel from South Africa only two months earlier. "I suddenly was struck with a heavy, deep feeling that I didn't want to shoot." He told his corps commander -- in English, for he could not yet speak Hebrew -- that he had not come to Israel "to shoot Jews." The commander shouted back that his job was to obey orders. Dilesky realized that "following orders was the right thing to do."

Three cannon shells passed harmlessly over the ship. The fourth slammed into the Altalena, igniting a blazing fire as tons of munitions exploded. Passengers and crew abandoned ship to swim ashore, while some Israeli soldiers on the beach shot at them. A young soldier long remembered: "Before my eyes was waged a war between brothers, Jews are shooting Jews -- in order to kill!" Nearly fifty years later Dilesky, in evident anguish, recalled: "My heart was broken when we began firing. This has been a burden all my life, and still is." To Ben-Gurion, however, it was a "holy cannon."

Soon after the battle, 21-year-old Altalena fighter Rafael Khirs, a Zionist Orthodox refugee from Transylvania, expressed his anguish and rage: "We brought you revolutionary courage and an arms-ship to liberate you. . . Of brothers-in-arms we dreamt but encountered the cannon blast." Less than four months later, Khirs (along with sixteen other Altalena fighters) was killed in battle defending the State of Israel.

As the recollections of Shilansky, Dilesky and Khirs reveal, Altalena memories were irrepressibly painful. To be sure, there are Israelis - largely on the political left - who prefer forgetfulness. But that would obliterate memory of Ben-Gurion's ruthless determination to suppress his political opposition by any means necessary and Begin's unrelenting insistence that his fighters not shoot other Jews.

Sprinkled throughout the biblical text is the injunction to remember (zachor). In its Proclamation of Independence, the new Jewish state remembered: "The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious, and national identity was formed." Since 1948 Israel has been the community of Jewish memory. It is appropriate for the Altalena to be remembered as a warning against sinat hinam, the ancient Jewish admonition against brothers at war with each other.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of Brothers at War: Israel and the Tragedy of the Altalena (Quid Pro Books), published in June.

The Enduring Power of The Altalena

The Altalena’s Enduring Power

Matthew Ackerman

The Forward reported today the Israeli government has set in motion plans to raise the Altalena, an armed Jewish ship sunk by Palmach troops in the early days of Israel’s independence. The incident has long been recalled as the moment of potential civil war for the new state, when a challenge to its authority by the independent-minded (and terrorist to boot) Irgun led by Menachem Begin​ was forcibly put down by David Ben-Gurion​, who understood that to function properly a state must have a monopoly on arms.

The current fight, though, has less to do with the Altalena itself than the more potent battle over historical memory.

That may sound like a fight about the past, but it is really a fight about the future. In that Forward article, the Israeli left-wing writer Gershom Gorenberg is quoted comparing arguments Ben-Gurion (and not Begin) was to blame for the 19 deaths in the incident to attempts to cast the American Civil War as the South’s effort to preserve the Union. That’s really just his way of saying he doesn’t want the issue reopened, because the narrative that suits his politics has won the day. Any aspersions at hand (raising the wreck is a waste of money, the matter is settled and there’s nothing new to know) will do, for Gorenberg and those who think like him are dedicated most to defending their political camp’s continued monopoly over history.

Interestingly enough, something similar has been happening of late in the United States in the efforts of a school board in Texas to dramatically revise many sections of public school American history texts. As repeatedly reported by the New York Times, the board has particular weight because the size of Texas’ population means the textbook publishers generally use the edition they make for that state for the entire country. Just as the Israeli left will likely be upset by the effort to revisit “settled” history, so too has the American left become upset about the efforts of that Texas school board to inject into the text less secular interpretations of the ideas of the Founding Fathers and more sympathetic interpretations of conservative philosophers.

The truly interesting story then is–in America and elsewhere–the political right has in recent years woken up to the tremendous victory the left won in recent generations over education and history and come to understand the incredible power this has handed to their political opponents. Though the left today may still see itself as a revolutionary force, it really is mostly made up of partisans to the established order and its 80-year dominance over the assumptions of government and public debate.

For Israel, it may all add up to only one more sign of the entrenchment of the right’s political dominance. It would be foolish, though, to believe the question of the rights and wrongs of the Altalena is an unimportant one.

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NY Sun Editorial On The Altalena

Raising the Altalena
The New York Sun Editorial
August 4, 2011

Just when one wonders what sort of teaching moment is available for Israel and, for that matter, for those betting on the so-called Arab awakening comes news that Israel plans to raise the Altalena. That is the hulk of a World War II-era transport ship that has lain at the bottom of the Mediterranean just off the coast of Tel Aviv ever since it was sunk in June 1948 in a conflict between two Jewish armies.

The combat lasted only hours, but the event looms large in the tale of how Israel, even though its factions were bitterly divided, turned away from civil war and toward long-lasting democracy. Though parallels are dangerously inexact, it holds lessons for those participants in the Arab spring who also have their eye on democracy. Its most important lessons obtain for the Israelis themselves, which is no doubt why the plan is underway to raise the vessel.

The Altalena, once an American Navy landing craft, was purchased by backers of the Irgun, the fighting organization that had led the revolt against the British. Its leader was the young Menachem Begin. The vessel was given the pen name used by one of Zionism’s most visionary figures, Vladimir Jabotinsky. The boat was loaded at the port of Marseille with some 940 refugees and volunteers and, with the help of the French government, tons of arms and explosives. Then it sailed for Israel to help in the defense of the newly formed Jewish state.

According to a new book about the Altalena, “Brothers at War,” by Jerold Auerbach, Begin tried to get word to the Altalena not to come ashore at Israel, which was still under a British blockade. Begin’s secretary sent a message warning the vessel to stay away. In the event, the vessel did come ashore, following negotiations between Begin’s followers and the provisional government of Israel led by Ben-Gurion.

The landing spot was north of Tel Aviv, at Kfar Vitkin. The vessel deposited its passengers. It took on several members of the Irgun, including, Begin. An already nigh-mythic figure, Begin had only recently emerged from underground and had already placed the Irgun under the command of Israel’s Defense Force. Yet Begin, a rightist, was despised by Ben-Gurion and the Labor-oriented leadership of the new state.

So with hindsight it is not surprising that the Altalena’s passengers were, when they came ashore, arrested, and those unloading the vessel discovered they were surrounded by Israeli soldiers. It turns out that while the vessel was being unloaded, Ben-Gurion’s government had decided to demand that Begin surrender the vessels, its arms, and its passengers. When the ultimatum was sent, Begin was given 10 minutes to decide whether to obey.

Begin, seeking to avoid a clash between Jewish factions, ordered the vessel to move away from shore and proceed to Tel Aviv, where, according to an account by a former defense minister of Israel, Moshe Arens, he reckoned Ben-Gurion would be reluctant to attack. He turned out to have misjudged. The fight that ensued involved not only Ben-Gurion and Begin but two other future prime ministers. One, Levi Eshkol, was an aide to Ben-Gurion; another, Yitzhak Rabin, led the military attack on the Altalena.

[Here is a short clip with Rabin and with a Palmachnik admitting shooting at unarmed Irgunists:



One of weapons that fired on the Altalena was dubbed, by Ben-Gurion, the “holy cannon.” Within minutes the vessel was engulfed in flames, and there is a famous photo of the thick plumes of black smoke pouring into a breeze that carried them up the coast as a knot of gawkers watched from the beach. Those on board the boat plunged into the Mediterranean, though it is said that in Begin’s case the future premier was so reluctant to abandon ship that he had to be manhandled into the sea by his own supporters.

Begin had ordered his forces not to return fire. Ben-Gurion showed no such restraint; his forces fired even at those who were swimming for their lives. It was a ghastly slaughter. At the end of the day, the fight cost the lives of 16 men, and even to this day there are those who reckon that they had been “murdered” by their own government. The following day, in remarks in the Knesset, Ben-Gurion made it sound as if he’d averted a coup against the new state.

Others reckon Ben-Gurion’s real aim had been to destroy what might have been his opposition. If so, he failed. Begin did go into the opposition. In the Knesset, Ben-Gurion refused to acknowledge him by name. A generation and a half later, the man who had to be wrestled off the burning Altalena acceded to the leadership of the country and won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Only later would the same prize be awarded the man who’d commanded the forces that fired the “holy cannon,” Yitzhak Rabin.

* * *

No wonder the scramble is on now to raise the Altalena. The remains of the vessel were long since been towed out to sea and sunk, possibly, according to a dispatch in Haaretz, having been cut into pieces. In Brothers at War, Jerold Auerbach, a former Wellesley professor who is a scholar of both American and Israeli history, contrasts the brutality of Ben-Gurion with the restraint shown by George Washington in the most important challenge to the new American republic, the Whiskey Rebellion. The story reminds that sometimes those who appear to be the losers in the short term, as Menachem Begin appeared to be in the sinking of the Altalena, turn out to be the winners in the long run. By refusing to fire at the new Jewish state, he placed a bet on democracy that, for his own career, took him decades to redeem. It’s an example to inspire that is needed now more than ever.

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Criticism in The Forward on Raising the Altalena

Here:

...Today, the Israeli right is politically stronger than ever, and it is determined to put this narrative to rest once and for all...Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a recent memorial ceremony for the 19 passengers who were killed...“It was a rash order, a mistaken order.”  His plan is to present the nation with the ultimate monument to his historical narrative — and in doing so, challenge not only Ben-Gurion’s attack, but also what the former prime minister did next...
...so central is the Begin legacy to the project that it is actually being carried out by the Jerusalem-based Menachem Begin Heritage Center...With the wreck, “we will have a monument that will tell the important story of how Israel was almost on the brink of civil war and how this was prevented,” said Moshe Fuksman-Sha’al, deputy director of the Begin Center.

This logic leaves [Gershom] Gorenberg incredulous. “The idea that Begin is the hero of this story is a total rewrite,” he said. Gorenberg likened the Israeli government adopting this narrative to the American government “endorsing Confederate History Month as a celebration of the South’s role in preserving the Union.”

The Begin Center is spending $60,000 — which is being subsidized by the government — on the initial exploration to locate the wreck, which it hopes to achieve by mid-August. It then expects additional government cash to raise the wreck from the seabed.

Fuksman-Sha’altold the Forward that the issue is deserving of public funds. “The general public knows about [the Altalena] and cares about it,” he said, adding that the incident “just doesn’t leave the public discourse.”

But Hebrew University historian Israel Bartal, chair of the Historical Society of Israel, believes that there is little public consciousness of the Altalena and that there is nothing in the plan “beyond a political intention to strengthen today’s right in the eyes of potential voters.”  He said, “For an Israeli who is 40 today, Begin and Ben-Gurion are the same person — people don’t know the difference.”

...He considers the plan “like a bad joke,” saying that it will fall flat even with those it is aimed to impress. “The message of this raising will be that the government is wasting millions on something that’s irrelevant to today’s problems,” he said, “Many will say, ‘Why not pay for more doctors?’ Even the right will say: ‘What do we need that for? Use the money to build another settlement.’”

Arye Naor, Cabinet secretary to Begin during the latter’s premiership, and an emeritus Ben Gurion University professor whose research focuses on the Israeli right, disagrees. While not passing judgment on the plan to raise the ship, Naor said: “I think that right now, there’s a serious message [from the Altalena] of unity looking backwards, because a lot of problems are still ahead of us. There is the issue of settlements, and the issue of withdrawal or evacuation will come sooner or later, so it’s important to remember the message of unity and saying no to civil war.”

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Read more:

On The Altalena

From Makom Blog: Complex lessons from the Altalena

A few weeks ago we marked the 63rd anniversary of the sinking of the Altalena . A complicated event, which culminated in the newly formed IDF receiving a direct order from Ben-Gurion to open fire on a ship of armaments arriving from Europe and into the hands of the supposedly disbanded Etzel (the revisionist Irgun fighters).

In Israel at her most incestuous, Moshe Dayan opened fire on the ship carrying Menahem Begin at Kfar Vitkin… Dayan would, thirty years later, be the loyal Foreign Minister to Begin in the role of Prime Minister.

The Altalena provides for endless analysis and soul-searching, and this year provided even more rich pickings as the announcement came that there would be an effort to locate and maybe even surface the sunken wreck. A great piece of analysis came from Dr. David Dery in Haaretz: He asked the question if we were to raise the Altalena how would we ritualize its wreckage and what morals would we learn from its remembrance?

He gave the poetic example of the Quebec bridge, which collapsed at the cost of many lives, twice, once in 1907 and again 1916. Instead of shying away from a moment (or even two) of great failure, the organization of Professional Engineers ritualized this disaster by building around it a secret initiation ceremony and bestowing on each new Professional Engineer a ring made from the steel of the ill- fated bridge, so that they should never forget the responsibility of their profession.

Impressive stuff. This led me to thinking of answers to Dery’s question, what are the lessons we need to be carrying from the Altalena?

An answer began to crystallize while reading another, and equally impressive, analysis of the Altalena affair, by Shlomo Nakdimon – who has authored a book on the subject. Nakdimon revealed the role of Yisrael Galili, chief of staff of the Hagana and the official government representative in dealings with the Etzel, who twisted facts and exaggerated circumstances to make the Etzel seem worse and more of threat than they actually were.

It is possible that the Altalena affair might not have reached its tragic conclusion had Galili not sent it in that direction. The Etzel had long been hated by the Hagana and the Israeli establishment, and there was already a precedent of exaggerating the Etzel’s fanatical elements in order to disenfranchise them from power. But Galili wanted to paint them black as black.

There have been several incidents of similar exaggerations of intent in Israel in the last month. Politically minded entities who play to a certain agenda by tarring organizations and groups in society as threats or fanatics; and it's happened on both sides of the spectrum.

Only a few days prior to the Boycott Law, there was a storm brewing over a complicated story surrounding a fanatical text known as Torat HaMelech (The Torah of the King) and Rabbis who have been summoned by the police to discuss their endorsement of it. So far, two prominent Rabbis – Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba’a (settler figurehead) and Yaakov Yitzchak (the most powerful Sefardi Rabbi: Rav Ovadia Yosef’s son) – have been summoned, refused to appear and arrested.

The Rabbis claim that in order to endorse a new religious book and add a letter of support, they do not read the book, merely accept what others have said. This line of defence for the Rabbis who have added a letter of support in Torat HaMelech is consensual with everyone up to the Chief Rabbi of Israel, agreeing that this is the accepted wisdom.

Since Torat HaMelech rationalizes Jewish civilians committing acts of violence against Arabs, the Rabbis may be best advised to rethink their peer review system. However the fact that there is a plague in the Israeli rabbinate of turning a blind eye to statements that incite violence and hatred, does not mean that they are all actively doing it. We can agree that something needs to be done about a population which is drifting, rather speeding, apart from the mainstream of Israeli society.

Torat HaMelech was hijacked in order to expose top Rabbis as the fanatical threats they are to the State of Israel, and when the Rabbis did not appear to the Police station (as we knew they wouldn’t) the Police (and media) seized the opportunity to arrest them and create a publicity circus. This lead to demonstrations by their followers, public outcry and debate about who is above the law.

This is a highly nuanced fault-line in Israeli society. There is no doubt that there are powerful tensions between these Rabbis and their communities’ support of the State and their lack of respect for the primacy of the state’s institutions. But there is someone, somewhere who is looking to aggravate this festering sore, to demonize the orthodox and gain political mileage. Someone is pulling a Galili.

The more we demonize threats to our society, the more we delegitimize the valid criticism they have to bring.

As Gidon Levi pointed out in a typically isolating piece, not everyone on the flotilla is a terrorist. There are serious people with impressive credentials onboard. However, we can’t deal with this analysis and will explain it away by delegitimizing Gidon Levi as a self- hating apologist.

Similarly, Gidon Levi and his colleagues will continue to paint the Orthodox Settler movement as a Jewish Jihad.

We need to acknowledge the complexity of our challenges and challengers.

At the very least we owe it to those who died on the Altalena.

The Altalena and the Founder of J Street

In a story on J. Street's founder, Jeremy Ben-Ami:

...His father served as a commander for Betar, the youth arm affiliated with Irgun, the fervent nationalist movement that fought the British to gain Israel’s independence. Ben-Ami’s father [Yitzhaq "Mike" Ben-Ami] was tasked with purchasing the Altalena, a naval vessel left over from World War II that was then filled with arms and was on its way to Palestine when David Ben-Gurion declared the independent state of Israel and ordered all fighters to accept the authority of the state. After Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, refused to turn back the Altalena, it was sunk by Ben-Gurion’s forces, led by Yitzhak Rabin. Ben-Ami, who was born in New York, says, “I grew up with my father spending his entire life arguing with his friends about the Altalena and Ben-Gurion and what a schmuck he was and how could Begin give back the Sinai.”

^

Altalena - Unity

National unity, democracy and the heritage of the Altalena


By SUSAN HATTIS ROLEF

Faith in democracy prevented civil war 63 years ago. Will it do the same in the future?

For the 63rd anniversary of the sinking of the Altalena on David Ben-Gurion’s order, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Menachem Begin Heritage Center have announced plans to initiate a search for the remains of the ship, which might be used to construct a memorial for those killed during the event.

The Altalena still evokes strong emotions in Israeli society. Until the 1977 upheaval, when Begin’s Herut Party beat out the long ruling Mapai, it was the Labor Movement’s narrative about the event that dominated.

This narrative presented the IZL as an organization having difficulty accepting the reality of an independent Jewish state led by its enemy of old – Labor – and the principle that in a sovereign state, it is the state, by means of its democratically elected government, that monopolizes all military forces and all decisions concerning national issues. The right-wing narrative claimed that this description was misleading, and that the event was the result of blind hatred.

It was inevitable that following Menachem Begin’s assumption of power, the official narrative would undergo change.

Within a year, two books about the Altalena affair appeared – one presenting the position of the Right, and the other the position of the Left. Nevertheless, Begin himself refrained from officially reopening the Altalena issue. Magnanimity and political wisdom undoubtedly guided his decision.

The Prime Minister’s Office stated last week that “we wish to preserve the heritage and story of the Altalena, and especially the values around it. It is especially important to thus preserve the value of preventing civil war, and preserving unity among the people.” This is indeed a noble cause, but the question is whether the Prime Minister’s Office and the Menachem Begin Heritage Center have the will and power to ensure that this intention is in fact realized, and that a reopening of the issue will be used to foster national unity and – more importantly – strengthen democracy.

How can this be done, especially when one is dealing with an issue that is still the basis of deep disagreement? The Altalena affair ended without civil war because Menachem Begin bowed to the superior power of the then-majority, accepted the rules that it laid down (largely because he was a true democrat), and abhorred the thought of civil war. For the following 29 years, he worked tirelessly worked toward a change in the political balance of power in the country, and was finally victorious.

IS THIS still a message that is acceptable to some of the disaffected Jewish minority groups in Israel, who pose a threat to national unity and democracy today? I’m not so sure. For example, Rabbi Dov Lior and his followers reject a basic principle accepted by the majority to the effect that everyone is equal before the law, including a revered (and controversial) rabbi, and that anyone summoned for a police investigation must turn up.

Whether or not the police acted wisely on Monday when it set an ambush for the rabbi and detained him is debatable. However, no police act forcing Lior to attend the investigation would have been considered legitimate by him and his followers. They simply do not accept the rules of democracy, and no matter how the heritage of the Altalena is presented, that will not change.

The same applies to the prospect of Israel voluntarily relinquishing parts of Judea and Samaria within the framework of an Israeli-Palestinian political settlement.

Should a majority finally approve such a move (and the right wing in the Knesset is doing its best to place as many legal obstacles as possible on the road), the hard core of ideological settlers and their supporters will not accept this lying down. Once again, the Altalena heritage concerning national unity and democracy will have no effect on their views and actions. As Harold Auerbach stated in his article last week, for the settlers, the part of the Altalena heritage that is relevant is that there were some soldiers who refused to cooperate with the attack – the forefathers of today’s soldiers who have been permitted by their rabbis to disobey orders on ideological grounds.

In other words, “heritage” is in the eyes of the beholder, and it is questionable whether the Altalena affair can be mobilized to promote national unity and democracy among those who pose a threat to them.

Altalena Search Project To Begin

Undersea search for 'Altalena' to begin this week

Menachem Begin Heritage Center says remains expected to be found within two weeks; Katz: "A Jew will never lift a hand against his brother."

An attempt to lift the remains of the Altalena from the Mediterranean Sea will begin this week, the Knesset House Committee was told on Monday.

The Altalena was a ship carrying Irgun weapons and fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, to Israel in June 1948. Former prime minister Menachem Begin, then the Irgun's commander, boarded the ship as it approached Israel, and the Altalena was fired upon by Yitzhak Rabin's Palmach unit near Tel Aviv's shore and later sunk on a command from David Ben-Gurion.

The ship is seen by many Israelis as a symbol of the dangers of violence between Jews in Israel.

A representative of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center said that the search for the ship would begin this week, and that remains are expected to be found within two weeks.

MK Ya'acov Katz (National Union), who attended the meeting said that "lifting the ship and making it a memorial is important in order to perpetuate the national consensus that a Jew will never lift a hand against his brother."

"There will never be a civil war," Katz exclaimed, repeating a well-known Begin quote from after the Altalena affair.

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More Concern in Haaretz Over the Altalena

The latest thorny legacy of 1948

Israel's battle against wayward right-wing rabbis summons up a recollection of the fledgling Israeli government's handling of the Altalena affair.

By Amir Oren

The Altalena's heavy burden

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also toadying to the extreme right on the issue of the Altalena, the right-wing Irgun militia's weapons ship that was sunk by the new Israeli government in 1948. The Prime Minister's Office and the Menachem Begin Heritage Center are expected to carry out an underwater search for remnants of the vessel in the coming weeks. The context is encouragement from above of rebels against the state, with the aim to thwart a diplomatic solution that would involve the evacuation of settlements.

Netanyahu has yet to evacuate a single settler. In 1997 he fulfilled his predecessor's commitment to evacuate Hebron in the sense that he divided the city. But he did not remove the settlers. In 2005 he resigned from Ariel Sharon's government so as not to be a partner to evacuation of settlements in Gaza and the northern West Bank.

When there is peace, there is no sign that he will have the courage to carry out what he has undertaken - uprooting settlers who refuse to leave of their own free will. In Netanyahu's world, in the choice between a quarrel with the world and a struggle with the extreme right, which influences Likud's internal elections, U.S. President Barack Obama doesn't stand a chance against Lior and right-wing Likud firebrand Moshe Feiglin.

It's worth recalling what David Ben-Gurion said about the Altalena. On the day of the battle, Ben-Gurion was absolutely determined to overpower the ship. "All those who fell in Kfar Vitkin and its surroundings [the site of an earlier clash between the army and the Irgun] will be buried in that area," he ordered Yigael Yadin, who would become the Israel Defense Forces' second chief of staff. "By no means is the Irgun to be allowed to have its dead buried in Tel Aviv."

Ben-Gurion had no compunctions about making clear the means to be employed in Tel Aviv. "You must," he wrote to Yadin, "take every step: concentrating an army, firepower (cannons, machine guns ), flame-throwers and all the other means at our disposal to make the ship surrender unconditionally. All these forces will be put into action - if the government gives an order."

The following day, June 23, 1948, at the fifth meeting of the Provisional State Council, he spoke about "the attempted attack by the organization known as the Irgun on the unity and sovereignty of the state, the State of Israel's military capability and its international status." He used terms such as "the bitterest test of blood the state has faced" and "a gang of terrorists."

"Had the weapons fallen into their hands, the terrorists would have been able to do away with the state all at once .... The burning of this ship [is] a tremendous thing because this is a ship that carried a danger of destruction for Israel .... The army acted intelligently. It could have destroyed those gangs, and did not do this because it knew that destroying them was not the aim but rather the prevention of a crime. I am very afraid of an armed minority," he added.

"To what end is it armed? Weaponry - this is a means for killing people. When there is an armed minority, it is inevitable that blood will be spilled, and Jewish blood has been spilled by them - more than once! And there is a danger that non-Jewish blood will be spilled by them - and non-Jewish blood must also not be spilled. We must prevent this danger, and it is impossible to prevent it with kid gloves, but rather only by force."

Ben-Gurion continued: "Alas, we must use force against Jews, but 70 times alas, Jews are compelling us to use force against them. In keeping the arms ship from the Irgun, a terrible disaster looming over us has been prevented, and never has the burning of a ship been such a devoted mission for the peace of the Yishuv [Jewish community] as the burning of this Irgun ship.

The Irgun people are in the army, but at the same time they have special weapons. For what? Against Arabs? After all, they have weapons from the government, clearly then, for continuing the internal terror. When there is not a sole authority, a sole army ... a sole discipline, when every terrorist gang can openly do what the Irgun people have done, the war effort is endangered ....

"The government did not succumb to erroneous pity, which might have led to far more horrendous bloodshed than what there was now. It's better that the ship was burned than for it to have supplied private arms to the separatists. In the government's hands the arms could have been a blessing, but they refused to hand them over to the government, so it's better the arms drowned in the sea or were burned."

And in a foreshadowing of future events, Ben-Gurion added, "We do not want to go around the country accompanied by bodyguards. I am embarrassed by bodyguards, and I know that a bodyguard will not help. If someone wants to assassinate you, he will assassinate you."

The intelligence service of the Haganah - the pre-state underground militia associated with the labor movement - had moles in the Irgun leadership. According to reliable testimonies, at least one became a top man in the right-wing Herut party and reported to the Shin Bet security service until the mid-1950s.

Three weeks after the Altalena affair, Ben-Gurion wrote to Interior Minister Yitzhak Greenboim: "According to the reports I have received, the Irgun was planning, with the help of wealthy people in the Yishuv, to establish 'an army of 5,000 people.' The aims: 1. Occupation of part of the land (Jerusalem or some other place ) under its total authority, and to defend this occupation against both aliens and Jews. 2. Preparations for achieving rule in the entire State of Israel by force. The loss of the ship the Altalena thwarted its plans, but after hesitations and wavering it now intends to continue with its previous plan, though by other means. It is now planning: 1. The occupation of Jerusalem, or at least separate occupations of Jerusalem. 2. The establishment of a large front abroad. To this end it is sending its most gifted commanders there, who will set up an army there to operate at the opportune moment here. 3. The acquisition of arms aboard and arrangement of hidden storehouses here."

Israel has witnessed the Jewish underground in the territories, Baruch Goldstein - who committed the Hebron massacre in 1994 - and Yigal Amir - who assassinated Rabin the following year. All of them were graduates of select units in the IDF. We must not take lightly the ability of national religious leaders to deploy their people at the next major evacuation.

Affairs like those of rabbis Dov Lior and Ya'akov Yosef test the determination of both sides. The politicians, headed by Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak (who dozens of times promised in vain, in the name of law and order, to evacuate rogue outposts ), have been deterred. The Israel Police, with the support of the State Prosecutor's Office, finds itself fighting alone.

JPost Article on the Altalena

This Week in History: The sinking of the ‘Altalena’

Decision to send Jewish soldiers against fellow Jews has never been forgiven by some who view it as betrayal of the purpose of a Jewish army.

On June 20, 1948, just over a month after the State of Israel was established and shortly after the first cease fire in the War of Independence, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave one of the country's most controversial orders ever - to take the Altalena by force.

Prior to the establishment of the state, several armed Jewish militias protected early Jewish settlers and fought against the British and hostile Arab forces. The largest of these groups were the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’I Leumi (Irgun or IZL). The Hagana, led by Ben-Gurion, became the Israeli Defense Forces once the state was declared in May 1948 and the Irgun was under the command of Menahem Begin.

In mid-May 1948, during the War of Independence, Ben-Gurion ordered the various militias disbanded and integrated into the IDF in order to create one army under a unified command. While some of the militias willingly sent their fighters and weaponry to the IDF, others were unwilling to relinquish the established paramilitary organizations they had built. Notably, the Irgun, for both ideological and political reasons, was unwilling to put itself under Ben-Gurion’s command.

Begin and other Irgun commanders were still attempting to ship significant amounts of weaponry and fresh immigrant fighters into Israel in the last days of the British Mandate. The Irgun organized a large ship carrying weaponry and fighters from France, scheduled to arrive on Israel’s shores in mid-May. Due to logistical and operational factors, however, the departure of the Altalena was delayed.

By the time the ship was ready to sail, loaded with nearly 1,000 immigrant fighters and thousands of tons of materiel, the first ceasefire in the War of Independence had already been reached and importing weaponry would have constituted a violation of it. The Jewish state, however, was in need of weaponry and ammunition, so when Begin approached Ben-Gurion to inform him of the shipment, the two attempted to negotiate a deal that would see the ship’s cargo safely unloaded.

In order to evade detection by United Nations observers overseeing the ceasefire, the Irgun and the newly anointed leaders of the state and its army decided that the Altalena should be offloaded at Kfar Vitkin, near Netanya.

Negotiations between the Irgun and Ben-Gurion were complicated by Begin’s insistence on transferring most of the ship’s cargo to Irgun units operating within the newly established IDF, a condition to which Ben-Gurion could not agree. The new leader of Israel was already wary of having non-state controlled armed forces operating independently of the army and believed that directing the weaponry to IDF units from the Irgun would lead to an “army within an army.”

The fighting begins

As the ship began its final approach to Kfar Vitkin, IDF forces were ordered to surround the area in order to seize the payload. Following failed negotiations, the government decided to issue an ultimatum. The military commander on scene sent Begin a clear message: “I shall use all the means at my disposal in order to implement the order and to requisition the weapons which have reached shore and transfer them from private possession into the possession of the Israel government… You have ten minutes to give me your answer.”

Small-scale fighting between the two sides broke out at Kfar Vitkin, but Begin and the Irgun, aware of their numerical and tactical disadvantage, decided to send the Altalena south to Tel Aviv where more fighters could be assembled and the army was not yet situated to intercept the ship. Irgun fighters who had already joined the IDF began defecting from their commands and headed to Tel Aviv to fight for their weaponry.

As the two forces descended on Tel Aviv, fighting erupted along the shore and throughout the city, “mainly in the center and the south,” The Palestine Post reported in the aftermath of the clashes. The Israeli navy and artillery pieces on shore fired warning shots at the ship in a last-ditched attempt to force a surrender, but eventually hit the ship, setting it ablaze. Ultimately, over 20 Irgun fighters and more than a handful of IDF soldiers were killed in the fighting between the two Jewish forces. The Altalena was eventually brought out to sea and sunk.

Ben-Gurion has been both praised and disdained for his decision to take the Altalena by force. Fearing a civil war and a lack of government legitimacy based on the concept of a monopoly of force, Ben-Gurion ultimately decided that he could not tolerate Begin’s brazen refusal to put himself, his fighters and weaponry under the state’s command. Following the Altalena incident, however, Irgun and other militia forces were integrated into the IDF and the non-democratic challenges to the state’s legitimacy came to an end.

Nonetheless, the decision to order Jewish soldiers to act against fellow Jews – who too were fighting for the infant state’s survival – has never been forgiven by some who view it as a betrayal of the very purpose of a Jewish army. Until this day, the Altalena is invoked at times when state security forces are pitted against Jews, albeit not with the deadly consequences of June 1948.

Haaretz Op-ed On Altalena Search

Motti Golani, professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa, writes in Haaretz that the operation to recover the remains of the Irgun-controlled ship the Altalena represents a golden opportunity to refine the dispute over the dangers currently lurking for Israeli democracy.


Raising the Altalena

It can be assumed that those seeking to recover the remains of (Irgun-controlled ship ) the Altalena, which was sunk off Israel's coast in June 1948, would be followers - at least in this instance - of the heritage of Revisionist Zionism, which holds that speaking about something is an act in and of itself. Whether advocates of the operation are successful or not, this represents a golden opportunity to refine the dispute over the dangers currently lurking for Israeli democracy. This includes the growth in power of those who view democracy as a burden, and an Education Ministry that is openly hostile to dealing with democracy.

It is essential today that we show support for then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's decision to sink the ship in the most central location possible, off the coast of Tel Aviv, so that it served as an example. Whom and from what was Ben-Gurion seeking deterrence? Bloody civil warfare has been the fate of many nation states that have been established over the past 150 years. It did not happen, however, in Israel. Why? Was there no such danger from the military forces beyond the new Israeli army, notably the Irgun?

Truth be told, Ben-Gurion was not afraid of the Irgun, whose power was limited and where, at the time, interest in integrating into the new state had taken preeminence over refusal to recognize Israel's sovereignty. In any event, the outbreak of a civil war was not dependent on a decision by the Irgun. That's a baseless story that Irgun leader and later prime minister Menachem Begin and his followers have cultivated. The Irgun's refusal to turn its arms over to the new Israel Defense Forces, i.e. to the state, was a rebellion that was suppressed by force within a matter of hours, even though the Irgun fought back.

It is not hard to predict what would have happened if the Irgun members had expanded their revolt after the ship was sunk. Begin understood this well. He even managed to turn his weakness into a positive force to attract followers and as a means to subdue those within the Irgun who opposed integration. This incident is to his credit.

Ben-Gurion had a different reason to shell the Altalena. Precedents were being set in the newly-born State of Israel that would last for generations. The superior authority of the civilian government over those in arms and in uniform was not at all clear. The prime minister was actually concerned about trends that were widespread at the time among activist leftists, particularly the two factions of the Mapam party, Ahdut Haavoda and Hashomer Hatzair. In addition to its hostility to Ben-Gurion's Mapai party and to Ben-Gurion himself, Mapam had extraordinary influence over the Palmach (the central fighting force of the IDF at the time ). In addition, many senior IDF commanders came from these circles or had sympathy for them.

There was a high level of awareness within Mapam about the political significance of the apparent high-quality military power at the party's disposal. They never used it and their discipline was exemplary, but Ben-Gurion couldn't have known this in June 1948. During that period, he had to solidify his standing and the standing of his government opposite the IDF General Staff. The controversy over which party the commanders of each front would come from disturbed him and his government a great deal more than what the Irgun would do.

The mortar shell fired on the Altalena was therefore of the highest fundamental importance. It decided the question, once and for all, of who commanded the army in Israel, who had the authority to bring arms into the country, who gave orders to open fire, and when and where. The Palmach command was dismantled a matter of months after the Altalena incident, and the two developments were not unconnected.

There is no doubt that the deaths from the ranks of the IDF and of the Irgun in the Altalena incident were senseless. It is difficult for their families and friends to come to grips with their losses, particularly under such circumstances.

It is some consolation, however, for us to understand that the mortar shell fired on orders from Israel's sovereign, civilian government headed off other future civil wars, the cost of which we can only imagine.

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Searching for the Altalena

Reported:

Underwater search for sunken Altalena ship set to begin


Altalena was a ship belonging to the Irgun, a prestate Jewish militia, which was shelled and sunk by Israeli government forces when it tried to land an arms cargo shortly after the state's establishment.


The Prime Minister's Office and the Menachem Begin Heritage Center are expected to carry out an underwater search for the remnants of the Altalena in the coming weeks.

The Altalena was a ship belonging to the Irgun, a prestate Jewish militia, which was shelled and sunk by Israeli government forces when it tried to land an arms cargo shortly after the state's establishment.

At Sunday's annual memorial service for those who died on the Altalena, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a commemoration of its story will be included in the government's national heritage sites program.

A source in the Prime Minister's Bureau said the proposal to try to locate the remains of the ship came from the Begin Center. Reuven Pinsky, who heads the government office in charge of the heritage sites program, and Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser were thrilled with the idea and brought it to the prime minister, who embraced it.

The initial funding for the project will be NIS 200,000, to cover the underwater search team and the equipment needed to locate wrecks underwater. The initial aim is to determine where the ship is lying.

At a later stage, various possibilities for commemorating the Altalena, its crew and the story will be considered. Currently, there is a small memorial for the Altalena on the Tel Aviv promenade.

"We want to preserve the Altalena's heritage and story, and especially the values it represents," said a source in Netanyahu's bureau. "It is especially important to preserve the value of preventing a civil war and preserving the unity of the nation."

In June 1948, the Irgun tried to smuggle a large quantity of arms for its own use into Israel aboard the Altalena. Since the Irgun would not agree to surrender the weapons to the newly formed Israel Defense Forces, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the ship shelled and sunk when it tried to dock near Tel Aviv.

In the ensuing exchange of fire, 16 Irgun members and three IDF soldiers were killed. The ship went up in flames. But Begin, the Irgun's leader, refused to let Irgun members retaliate, saying he didn't want a civil war.

The Altalena lay on its side in shallow water off the coast of Tel Aviv for several months, but then Ben-Gurion ordered the navy to drag it out to sea and sink it. Some say he ordered the ship broken into pieces before it was sunk.

People involved in searching for the ship believe it lies some 10 kilometers from the coast at a depth of 60 to 70 meters.

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Book Review of "Brothers At War"

A book researched, in part, at the Begin Center, has been published and here are exceprts from a book review:

EXCLUSIVE: BROTHERS AT WAR: JEROLD AUERBACH, A REVIEW BY RAEL JEAN ISAAC

Brothers at War: Israel and the Tragedy of the Altalena by Jerold S. Auerbach (Quid Pro Books, 2011)

...The Altalena was a ship bringing nine hundred young fighters (most of them survivors of Nazi camps) and a large arsenal of weapons (most of them supplied by France) to newly-established Israel, attacked by five Arab states and desperate for arms to defend itself. The entire project was the work of the Irgun, the underground organization whose attacks on British forces in Palestine had a major role in Britain’s decision to throw in the towel. Ben-Gurion’s then provisional government gave orders to destroy the ship and its armaments. Sixteen Irgun members were killed as the ship went down, its munitions ablaze, with Irgun leader Menachem Begin himself narrowly escaping the fire aimed at fleeing survivors. (Most of the passengers had disembarked earlier in the two-day showdown.)

Begin was the hero in this squalid story. As Auerbach writes: “Begin commanded his loyal fighters not to return fire. His insistence upon restraint demonstrated his unyielding determination to prevent civil war from once again dividing the Jewish people and shattering Jewish sovereignty, as it had done nineteen centuries earlier.”


...If the hatred that destroyed the Altalena lacked a cause (in the sense of a justifiable ground for the action against the ship), it was not without background, and this Auerbach recounts. The first deep fissure in the Yishuv (as the Jewish community of Palestine was known) grew out of the 1933 murder of Labor leader Chaim Arlosoroff, as he strolled with his wife on a Tel Aviv beach. Arlosoroff had been harshly attacked by the rival Revisionists for making a “transfer agreement” with the Nazi government that brought money and Jews to Palestine, but at the cost of undermining a global anti-Nazi boycott. The Labor movement was convinced at the time (wrongly as subsequent investigations have concluded) that the Revisionists were responsible for his murder.
Hostility was fanned by divergent approaches between Labor and Revisionist factions on how to deal with the violence and terror accompanying the Arab revolt of 1936 and how to react to British betrayal of the Mandate, even as the need for a Jewish refuge from the Nazis became stark...by 1944, when it was clear the Allies would win, the Irgun, now commanded by Menachem Begin, returned to its policy of resisting British rule.

...Ben-Gurion would insist (as Auerbach notes, without a scintilla of evidence) that the Irgun planned to use the weapons for a military putsch. On the contrary, writes Auerbach, Begin was confident that “the arrival of desperately needed weapons and munitions would be recognized as an exemplary demonstration of patriotism. Here, after all, was a significant Irgun military contribution to the struggle for statehood–anything but an attempt to overthrow the government.”
In fact the only genuine disagreement concerned the distribution of arms. Ben-Gurion insisted all the arms should be turned over to him unconditionally. Begin wanted 20% of the arms to go to Irgun forces in Jerusalem. While “what ifs” can never be certainties, it is likely the Altalena’s arms would have made it possible to unite the city under Jewish sovereignty in 1948, greatly strengthening Israel’s negotiating position in the years ahead.

...Nonetheless, ugly episode though it was, what was most important was that the Altalena did not serve as prelude to more fratricidal strife...in the wake of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, there began a new growth of sinat hinam, this time a groundless hatred by secular Israelis directed against religious Jews, especially the religious nationalists who settled outside the ceasefire lines of 1949. Auerbach’s subject is the Altalena so he does not go into the same detail on the growth of this new manifestation...

...In 1975, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking to young people at seminary Efal, declared: “There is no more dangerous organization in this country than Gush Emunim.” (There were multiple ironies here. Efal was a project of the Hameuchad movement which had been dedicated to settlement throughout the land of Israel. And it was Rabin, as a young officer in the Palmach, who had been in charge of the destruction of the Altalena.) Less than a year later the famous writer A.B. Yehoshua sent a letter to Haaretz: “One should encourage them [the people of Gush Emunim] to settle more and more beyond the Green Line. Thus, when the hoped-for peace comes, and we shall be freed of the territories, we shall also be freed from them.”...

...“The Altalena episode, and the killing of Jews by Jews that accompanied it, remains a lingering self-inflicted wound from Israel’s heroic struggle for independence. If wisely used as historical memory, the Altalena might serve Israelis as a reminder of the ominous possibility that civil war could destroy Jewish national sovereignty. If not, Altalena memories may finally–and disastrously–be erased by an even more devastating tragedy.”

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The Movie "Altalena" reviewed

Here:-

Although lacking production quality, acting expertise and mise-en-scene, the story of this confused and deadly struggle between loyal Israeli forces is still a vital and important part of the history of Israeli independence

Known for his award winning documentaries, “Richochets” (Official Selection at Cannes), “The Summer of Aviya” (winner of the Silver Bear at Berlin) and others, director Eli Cohen focuses on one of the most fascinating and painful stories of Israel. This is the story of the ill-fated steamer Altalena and its cargo of some 1000 Jewish volunteers and fighters and tons of guns, ammunition and light artillery.

Prior to the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the region had seen a string of civil wars between Arabs and Israelis over the creation of the new Israeli homeland. On the Israeli side these wars had been fought by militias lead by Menachem Begin using weapons scavenged from wherever they could be found. When independence was declared the second phase of the Arab-Israeli war (or the War of Independence) began and Premier David Ben Gurion worked to consolidate the militias into the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF.

Predictably in the chaos of the newly formed state and under the influence of severe Arab threat many of the militias were reluctant to lay down their arms and declare loyalty to a new chain of command. The Altalena sailed from France with arms and volunteers to support these militias but were unwilling or unable to immediately concede their command to the IDF. On another level, new premier Ben Gurion was now pitted against militia leader Begin. Ben Gurion demanded a sovereign fighting force reporting ultimately to him.

This rivalry on both a personal level and a military level set the stage for the landing of the Altalena on Israeli soil. It was met by IDF forces and pinned down on the beach in mid-June, 1948. The fighters would not be allowed to land their weapons without a complete surrender to the new Israeli state. The story of the following battle between the two Israeli forces is surreal, even in the unbelievable confusion of war. Eventually the ship was shelled at great risk to the population in the area and all hands surrendered.

The debate still goes on as to whom was to blame with one side claiming Ben Gurion failed to negotiate effectively and the other claiming Begin started the battle to establish his own power base.

This film is a dramatization of these events, combined with archival footage of the incident. The storyline tells of the extreme mixed feelings of the loyal and brave forces firing at their comrades. In fact, some soldiers from the IDF joined the forces pinned down on the beach. Upon the surrender of the pinned down forces, all were imprisoned but released months later to joint he IDF.

Having stated the importance and drama of the story, the film itself is shot in what appears to be low definition video and the production quality is extremely poor. The acting and costumes appear to be the products of a low-budget/no-budget film school. There is little preparation for the audience to appreciate the drama of the story and if they have not studied the history before seeing the film their appreciation will be extremely limited.

But even in this first cut format, the story is there. Without this film most people in the world never have learned the tale of the Altalena and the tragedy and excitement of the first days of Israeli independence. If you get a chance to see this film, don’t miss it. But be sure and study the mesmerizing and fateful events that led up to it before you set foot in the theatre.

A Unique Altalena Picture

The lady in the above picture, taken on June 22, 1948 on Tel Aviv's beach, is Miriam Tzur. Like almost all of Tel Aviv's population that day, she also rushed to the beach to see what all the commotion was about.

She was 16 at the time and she requested a photographer to take her picture.

It appeared in a special Independence Day supplement of Haaretz.

On the Altalena - From Ireland

We received this email from friends in the UK:-

From Dublin to Tel Aviv - the role of an Irish veteran & politician in averting Israel's Civil War

At the Ireland-Israel Friendship League meeting tonight, Joe Briscoe [himself a 48-year veteran reserve officer of the Irish Defence Forces - enlisted under age at 15] recalled that his late father, Fianna Fail TD and Dublin Lord Mayor, Bob, 1894-1969, had probably positively influenced what I had just called in my talk on Irish-Israeli historical parallels, - the One-day Jewish Civil War.

In June, 1948, at a Tel Aviv beach, the new Israeli Defence Forces, in an echo of the new Irish Free State Army 26 years earlier, on June 28, 1922 at the Four Courts, had shelled the MV Altalena, loaded with arms for the dissident Irgun/Etzel, and commanded by the Irgun leader, Menchem Begin. 5,000 rifles, 5m rounds, 250 Bren Light Machine Guns, 50 bazookas, and over 900 Irgun Volunteers were on board. Begin choose the democratic, political path, did not retaliate, and so, unlike the similar Irish situation, did not precipitate a disastrous Civil War in the newly independent state, but bowed to the determination of Ben Gurion that there be one Army, accountable to one Government, in the new Jewish state.

Joe revealed that in 1947, or possibly early 1948, his father, Bob Briscoe, a veteran of the Irish Volunteers in the Irish War of Independence, and involved in weapons procurement for Collins, and a friend of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, had met Begin in Paris, reminded him of the savage Irish Civil War, of 1922-1923, and strongly advised him to avoid any such outcome in Israel. Begin, who it is known was very aware of the role of Mick Colllins in the Irish struggle, took this warning seriously.

Bob also told Begin that it might take 30 years to get into government - which is exactly what happened - in 1977, but Bob himself, who had died in 1969, did not live to see that. He did see his other son, Ben, 1934-, succeed him in parliament in 1965 where Ben served until 2002 - a remarkable combined father-son service in the one Dublin City constituency totalling 75 years. Ben was also Lord Mayor in 1988 as Bob had been in 1956 and again in 1962 - Dublin's first Jewish Lord Mayor. Ben was also a City Councilllor for 32 years - from 1967 to 1999, and Bob had become a City Councillor in 1930. It only took Bob and his Fianna Fail comrades under De Valera, 5 years from finally taking their seats in 1927, to become the Irish government in 1932, initially with Labour Party support, holding office to 1948, and also become [and remain] the largest political party on the Island.

If only the Arab world today, and not least Palestinian Arabs, especially Fatah, would also listen to the Irish story and its lessons, turn their swords into ploughshares, also remember how Sean Lemass broke the Irish stalemate by visiting the Northern Ireland Stormont Parliament in Jan 1965, and at last recognise the simple and unconditional right to existence of their democratic neighbour, Israel, and engage constructively with it on that basis, to their mutual enrichment and security.

Tom

A New Op-ed Article on nthe Altalena Docudrama

Take liberties with history, and you can fool millions

YISRAEL MEDAD , THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 19, 2007

At the Venice Film Festival early this month, British director Peter Greenaway spoke of his latest effort, Nightwatching, a movie about Rembrandt van Rijn. The film, in the style of docudrama, zeros in on three women in the painter's life.

"I can't prove every single fact, but you can't disprove it either," Greenaway told a press conference.

Maybe you can get away with that kind of approach on a Rembrandt docudrama and just hope for the best, but what if elements of Israel's history were portrayed on the basis of the "but you can't disprove it either" school of thought?

Israeli playwright Motti Lerner has shown he has no problem with taking just that line.

Lerner, the grandson of one of two woman presumed to have revealed to the Turkish authorities the spying activities of Sarah Aharonson in Zichron Ya'acov in 1917, leading to her arrest, torture and eventual suicide, is a theater personage of note. He has previously staged Messianic Pangs, The Murder of Isaac - with its infamous urination scene - and Bus 300, as well as Kastner's Trial among others.

In A Battle in Jerusalem, a television drama shown over Channel 1, IDF soldiers during the 1948 war are assigned to take an Arab position near Jerusalem. After a day of difficult fighting they retreat, but blow up the position with their wounded in it.

IN DESCRIBING the plot of The Murder of Isaac, Lerner explained that he sought to inculcate into his art the idea "that religious fanaticism was and is grounds for innumerable wars; and the fact that nationalistic and racist fanaticism still constitute[s] a central component of our culture."

The play was refused a stage in Israel, so Lerner took it to Germany for production. But it was the Kastner play that attained for him a place in all Israeli law schools - and no small amount of notoriety - when the subject of "freedom of expression" is taught.

In its script, produced for Channel 2 television more than a decade ago, Lerner takes liberal license with his Hannah Szenes character and suggests she handed two Palestinian Jewish parachutists over to the Hungarian police.

The incident not only didn't take place; it couldn't have. Szenes was already imprisoned when the parachutists arrived in the Hungarian capital. The scene was a figment of Lerner's imagination.

High Court president Aharon Barak decided, in the majority opinion, that an artist's right to freely express himself even if he actually falsifies what happened is protected from libel action. Justice Mishael Cheshin passionately dissented, arguing that the historical truth must take precedence.

LERNER, as he's written in a paper presented at Brandeis University, believes that Israeli society suffers from a "disease" - "that most Israelis do not recognize the simple and clear truth that there is a Palestinian people… [this] disease is the total denial of the Palestinian narrative… we, Israelis, must admit that this disease, which I've just described, is not very different from the same old racism that we suffered from for more than 20 centuries."

Now Lerner has a fresh project. Channel 2 will soon be showing a Lerner docudrama that purportedly portrays what happened when the Altalena arrived in Israel in June 1948.

Already, evidence is mounting that Lerner will be taking liberties with history. Yoske Nachmias learned that his character in the series will be firing a submachine gun at IDF soldiers at the Kfar Vitkin beach, a clash that occurred a day prior to the shooting that took place off Tel Aviv's beachfront; and that Menachem Begin will be hiding behind the Nachmias character, trying to protect himself.

The real Nachmias observes that this scene is completely fabricated. But neither the producer nor scriptwriter, as far as we know, appear to be interested in correcting the distortion.

WHATEVER the distortions of the past, Lerner's future crimes against history can still be corrected. In the first instance, the series should contain a prominent and explicit disclaimer stating that this is a work of fiction, and that any similarity with actual events is purely coincidental. If Law and Order can do it, Channel 2's Keshet franchise surely can.

Secondly, instead of calling the ship the Altalena, why not call the boat Shimshon?
Haim Hazaz published a book entitled In One Chain about the Irgun's Meir Feinstein and the Lehi's Moshe Barazani who, sentenced to be hanged, preferred to blow themselves up with a smuggled primitive hand grenade. All the names of the characters, major and minor, were changed. It did not detract from the story, and made it clear that Hazaz was interpreting a historical reality in a fictitious manner.

He could not have known what conversations transpired between the two heroes. But his approach emphasized that history and theatrical interpretation are two different things.

Only about 100 people who were involved in the Altalena incident are still alive. But millions may eventually accept the Motti Lerner docudrama take on the Altalena incident as genuine history. Very few will likely go on to read a genuine history book that would present an alternative to Lerner's narrative.

The medium of docudrama is subtle and facile and prone to convincing an unwitting audience that what they see is real and true.

Given Lerner's propensity for ideological antipathy to many of his subjects, as well as his record of playing fast and loose with history for (questionable) dramatic worth, the playwright should be forced to make these small alterations before his latest work airs on Israeli television.
The writer comments on political, cultural and media themes and blogs at www.myrightword.blogspot.com