Lovely Tie In

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Ok, so I'm looking for the *other* nutjob faction over in Yisrael (the Yisrael Beiteinu party).

These guys are what are called 'revisionist' Zionists.  The Likud want only the land west of the Jordan, so they are 'moderate' in this. The YB's want this:


The British Mandate of Palestine comprised Palestine(today's Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza strip) andTransjordan (today's Kingdom of Jordan). Revisionist Zionists claimed this entire territory as part of the Jewish state. Therefore, for many decades after the creation ofIsrael they did not recognise the existence of Jordan, a claim formally dropped only in the 1990s.
Now, it's unlikely that they will manage to keep Jordan.
That said, the interesting thing is that this group produces a number of 'great' Yisraelis, specifically, the ones who came to light for their work with Irgun (Jewish death squads), like Menachem Begin, who (as an Irgun leader) shares responsibility for the Deir Yassin massacre, which brings us to Albert Einstein's letter:

The Einstein Letter

Albert Einstein and 27 other prominent Jewish intellectuals (including Hannah Arendt and Sidney Hook wrote a letter attacking Menachen Begin's fundraising visit to the United States which was published in the New York Times on December 4, 1948.[38] Specifically condemned was the participation of Begin's group Irgun in the attack on Deir Yassin:

"Attack on Arab Village: A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (The New York Times), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants - 240 men, women and children - and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin."

The letter ends with the warning:

"The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misprepresentation are means, and a "Leader State" is the goal."

Altalena and the War of Independence

Altalena on fire after being shelled near Tel-Aviv

As the Israeli War of Independence broke, Irgun fighters joined forces with the Haganah and Lehimilitia in fighting the Arab forces. Notable operations in which they took part were the battles ofJaffa and the Jordanian siege on the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. One such operation was the Deir Yassin massacre of Palestinian villagers in April 1948. The day after the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948, Begin broadcast a speech on radio declaring that the Irgun was finally moving out of its underground status[13]. On June 1 Begin signed an agreement with the provisional government headed by David Ben Gurion, where the Irgun agreed to formally disband and to integrate its force with the newly formed Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

However, tensions with the IDF persisted, culminating in the confrontation over the Altalenacargo ship, which secretly delivered weapons to the Irgun in June 1948. The government demanded that all the weapons be handed over to it unconditionally, in accordance with the agreement regarding the integration of the Irgun into the IDF. However Begin refused to comply. Rather than negotiating, Ben-Gurion was determined to exercise the state's authority over military affairs. A violent confrontation between the IDF and members of the Irgun occurred and Ben Gurion eventually ordered the IDF to take the ship by gunfire, and it burnt off the shore of Tel Aviv. Begin was on board as the ship was being shelled. In a speech later he ordered his men not to retaliate in an attempt to prevent the crisis from spiraling into a civil war. For years later Begin saw the Altalena Affair as a defining moment and viewed the government actions against the Irgun as a great injustice [14].

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This page contains a single entry by writch published on April 18, 2009 7:41 AM.

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