Netanyahu Hails Finding of Sunken Jewish Terrorist Arms Ship, Denounces Ben-Gurion and IDF For Attacking It in 1948

 

Netanyahu Hails Finding of Sunken Jewish Terrorist Arms Ship, Denounces Ben-Gurion and IDF For Attacking It in 1948

 

Israeli officials say they have located the wreck of the Altalena, the Irgun arms ship sunk off Tel Aviv during a deadly confrontation with Israel’s newly formed military in June 1948. The ship was carrying hundreds of immigrants along with rifles, machine guns and ammunition for the Irgun, the Zionist paramilitary organization led by future prime minister Menachem Begin. Sixteen Irgun members and three IDF soldiers were killed in the confrontation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the discovery and condemned founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s decision to use force against the ship, saying there was “no justification for firing on our brothers.” The episode remains politically charged because Ben-Gurion viewed an independently armed Irgun as a threat to the new state’s monopoly on military force, while Begin and his supporters maintained they were bringing badly needed weapons for Israel’s war effort.

Netanyahu invoked the episode as a warning against civil war and pledged to try to raise the wreck from the Mediterranean.

GhostofBasedPatrickHenry: Now this is an interesting development.

The story of the Altalena is the story of the near-civil-war that almost destroyed Israel before it really began.

First, some background:

The first large-scale Jewish defense force to operate in British Mandate Palestine in the 1930’s was the Haganah. In addition to planning operations and training fighters, the Haganah and its partner groups would import weapons for the Jewish radicals to use.

However, there were disagreements among the leadership in who they should target and with who they should align.

Two young leaders, Menachem Begin and Ze’ev Jabotinsky, believed that the British government in Palestine was the true enemy, and that grotesque acts of violence were a modern and legitimate form of political action.

So the Irgun broke away from the Haganah, and made a name for itself as a hyper-violent and ruthless group, known for using grenades and car bombs to target bus depots and marketplaces, where they would kill hundreds of victims.

The Irgun is most notoriously remembered for the massacre at Deir Yassin, where hundreds of women and children were marched out of their homes, shot in the head, and tossed into a mass grace.

The Irgun were so extreme and so violent that they were designated a terrorist organization by the UN, the British government, and even the newly created Israeli government. They even fought the Haganah militia at times.

In 1948, after the UN created the State of Israel with the Palestine Partition Plan, the newly established government was eager to get its military up and running. The Haganah reached out to the other three main militia groups (there were four total, including Haganah) citing plans to create an Israeli Defense Force, and asked them all to join.

The Irgun agreed, but there was still plenty of diplomacy needed to resolve their disputes. The two groups still had issues, and would sometimes fight.

With the help of the Sicilian Mafia and the Zionist network, the Irgun was shipping in weapons to be used by its soldiers. The Altalena was one of these ships.

With the young IDF only a weeks old and at that point comprised only of the Haganah, the old rivalry between Menachem (who would later serve as PM) and then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

Ben-Gurion demanded that the weapons aboard the Altalena be turned over to the IDF. When Begin refused, Ben-Gurion ordered Haganah General Yitzhak Rabin (who would also later serve as PM) to fire artillery rounds at the Altalena, sinking it.

The sinking of the Altalena led to a massive backlash that nearly started a civil war in Israel.

The fact that Netanyahu is applauding the widely recognized/designated terrorist organization, while denouncing the early IDF and the Founding Father of Israel (Ben-Gurion), is indicative of a similar dynamic we are now witnessing take place in present-day Israel. The country is at its own throat, and who knows how many factions of violent thugs are roaming the streets just looking for trouble.

What happens when Israel’s political infighting is left unchecked and civil war is being discussed by specific leaders? (many of who have grown disillusioned and indifferent)

It seems like perhaps the plan is to trick Ukraine and Israel into destroying themselves, lest they cause any more harm to their neighbors.