"Historical insight" from a Jewish self-loather

An excerpt from the excellent, must-read essay by Seth Frantzman, currently in the doctoral program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and whose master's thesis was on the 1948 war, in a counterpoint rebuttal of Ilan Pappe, a communist anti-Zionist self-loathing Jewish historian at Haifa University who has defended a student, Teddy Katz, for written essays documenting a fictitious Israeli massacre at the village of Tantura in 1948, and presenting it as truth. Via JPost:

It has become fashionable in recent decades to frame the 1948 war as one in which the Arabs were victims of Zionist aggression. Anti-Zionist scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi and Ilan Pappe have presented the war as if the only important events were Deir Yassin and the flight or expulsion of Arabs from Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, west Jerusalem, Jaffa and numerous villages.

These views are those of the "new historians" - leftist scholars who in the 1980s began to reinterpret Israeli and Palestinian history. He is the author of six works on the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Middle East. In his recently released book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe claims that Israel prepared a special plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arab population known as Plan D for dalet. Pappe's "evidence" is derived from his interpretations of files found in the Hagana and Israel state archives.

But Pappe makes one egregious mistake. He never bothers to ask the same question of the Arabs he does of the Jews: What about their lists, their intelligence reports and their ethnic-cleansing plans? What were Arab intentions in the five months between the passage of the UN partition plan on November 29, 1947, and the birth of Israel?

The archives of The Palestine Post, now The Jerusalem Post and then the newspaper of record of Mandatory Palestine, provide some of the answers and tell a very different story from the one presented by Pappe.

-- Sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs in the first week after the UN partition plan was passed, and by May 15, 1948, a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine.

The attacks succeeded in placing Jerusalem under siege and eventually cutting off its water supply. All Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa's Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem's Old City.

Massacres were not uncommon.

-- Thirty-nine Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa's oil refinery on December 30, 1947. On January 16, 1948, 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion. On February 22, 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda. And on February 29, 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.

-- Thirty-five Jews were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre on April 13. And 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion on May 15, 1948, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.

-- In Arab countries more than 100 Jews were also massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.

Back in Palestine many small kibbutzim were subjected to attacks, including Gvulot, Ben-Shemen, Holon, Safed, Bat Yam and Kfar Yavetz - all in December. In January and February, it was the turn of Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma'anit.

In March and April these attacks culminated with an assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Arab attackers also bombed The Palestine Post in February. In March, the Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were also bombed.

Some of today's scholars prefer to present every massacre of Jews as a "response" to some Jewish deed, and to portray as a "myth" the very idea that Israel struggled desperately for existence in 1948.

But it was no myth.

The fact is 1,256 Jews were killed in five months. Even before the first Arab villages were captured in April, 924 Jews had already been killed.

Ilan Pappe should have pondered what might have been if those Jews had not been slaughtered.

For more on the scourge known as Illan Pappe, see this, this and this.

Click here to read the full essay, Ethnic cleansing in Palestine?

Tales from the underground

From Tales from the underground:

With the green lawns of the Charles Clore Park on three sides and the azure waters of the Mediterranean on the fourth, the stone and black glass Etzel Museum building on the Tel Aviv shoreline is certainly impressive. A blue cloudless sky and attractive layered Jaffa skyline in the near distance are additional factors making the museum building stand out - while at the same time somehow blending in with its surroundings.

An enormous Israeli flag flaps high in the sea breeze above the museum, built over the ruins of a former Ottoman-period building. The museum is dedicated to the memory of operations officer Amihai (Gidi) Paglin and 41 fighters of the pre-state paramilitary Etzel (an acronym for Irgun Zvai Leumi, or National Military Organization) who fell in the campaign to conquer the nearby Arab town of Jaffa, and also documents other battles that Etzel members fought in during the 1947-8 War of Independence.

Active in Palestine from 1931 to 1948, the Jewish underground organization retaliated against attacks by Arabs on the Jewish population and rebelled against the British government's "White Paper" policy that imposed restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.

The integration of the Etzel fighters into the newly-formed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was brokered in an agreement signed between then-I.Z.L. Commander-in- Chief Menachem Begin and Israel Galili on behalf of the government of Israel. But even after the agreement was signed, there remained a great deal of bitterness between Begin and Ben-Gurion and their supporters, much of which centered around the June 1948 Altalena affair when Palmah soldiers attacked an arms-carrying Etzel ship close to the Tel Aviv shore.

The Etzel Museum on the Tel Aviv beachfront belongs to the Museums Unit of the Ministry of Defense, which explains the four girl soldier-guides manning the reception desk. The day Metro visited, the museum was empty, apart from the soldiers and a young security guard - which on the one hand was useful as nobody got in the way of photographs or obliterated the prolific texts alongside exhibits, but on the other was a little eerie.

On the beach immediately across the promenade from the museum a few dozen mostly young Israelis sunbathed or rode surfboards close to the shore. A foreign television crew was busy setting up equipment in the shade at the side of the building, as a municipal worker attempted to clean the pathway around them.

The first portion of the museum deals with the organizational structure of the Etzel. A map of Israel according to the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947 is displayed on one wall, alongside another map with the boundaries of Israel following the armistice agreements of July 1949.

The map is accompanied by explanations and documents of the Etzel's response to the partition plan and the hostilities that broke out after the plan was announced.

A model of steel helmeted soldiers defending their post, surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire, greets the visitor on the first corner turned in the museum, set out in serpentine fashion. An electronic map serves as an introduction to the entire exhibit showing Etzel positions, attacks and raids and the capture of Arab villages during 1947 and 1948, including the infamous attack on the village of Deir Yassin in the Jerusalem corridor. Maps, documents and photographs are on display as well as a diorama presenting the heroism of two Etzel women fighters, who chose death over
surrender, in the battle for Yehudiya.

Up on the next floor one finds a description of the attack on Ramle. Fifty-one Etzel fighters died in the battle and many were wounded. On the same floor an area focuses on the fighters' training and purchase of arms, as well as somewhat tongue-in-cheek details of the "requisitions" of British ammunitions, which included 20,000 81mm mortar bombs swiped from a British train transporting ammunition to Arab fighters in Gaza.

Following the infiltration of a British army camp near Pardess Hanna, Etzel fighters also "requisitioned" weapons, ammunition and an armored vehicle from the British paratroopers stationed at what is today a large IDF training base known as Mahane 80 on the main Wadi Ara highway.

A large exhibition is dedicated to battles waged in the liberation of Jerusalem, and operations with the pre-state Haganah and Lehi militias. Two interesting dioramas deal with a stronghold of the British in the city, Zion Gate and in the background, the Old City of Jerusalem.

Another section concentrates on operations in the north such as the battle at Mishmar Hayarden, cooperation between forces of the Haganah and Etzel in the defense of Safed, and the taking of the Wadi Nisnas Arab neighborhood in Haifa - in present times the venue for an annual co-existence festival of art, music and culinary delights held during the month of the Hannuka, Christmas and Ramadan holidays.

The last section of the museum deals with the Altalena incident. The Etzel's armaments-carrying ship had embarked from the port of Marseilles. Upon arrival at the shore of the newly-founded State of Israel opposite Kfar Vitkin, Ben-Gurion's demands that the armaments be handed over to the unified Jewish forces were refused. An attack on the ship was ordered, and a massive explosion set off by a shell destroyed the ship and cargo.

The exhibit dealing with the Altalena is the last section of the museum. A large encased flag of Israel, flown on the deck of the Altalena, hangs on the wall. In the accompanying text one reads that the flag was saved minutes before the ship blew up, an Etzel fighter risking life and limb in an effort to rescue it.

Under a model of the ship, photographs and additional text, a large white lifebelt from the ship is propped up against the wall, the name ALTALENA silently shrieking of the tragic circumstances that brought Jews to battle Jews in the State of Israel -appropriately memorialized in a museum just meters from the sea.

New immigrants shape their identity around the Altalena story

It is hard to fathom, hard to comprehend, hard to accept. I still don't understand why this happened. From Ha'aretz:

On June 22, about 100 people climbed aboard the ship Sababa in Jaffa port, and sailed toward Tel Aviv. On board were veterans of the prestate Etzel underground and Russian-speaking new immigrants. They were sailing to the point where the arms-laden Altalena sank 59 years ago after being fired on by order of prime minister David Ben-Gurion. Etzel (the Irgun Zvai Leumi) had bought the arms and was led by Menachem Begin.

While Etzel veterans have learned to keep to their stories circulating among the their few thousand still-living members, the initiative for the voyage this June came from the Russian-speaking contingent: The new immigrants took upon themselves to widen the circle and even to create their identity as Israelis around the story.

The shipboard ceremony was beautiful, albeit a bit strange. In a heavy Russian accent, a member of the group invited his friends to cast a wreath of sunflowers into the water where the Altalena had sunk. Another proclaimed: "This is a memorial wreath to our brethren who were butchered by Cain."

The state is almost 60 years old, and still it is Cain and Abel.

Red, heart-shaped balloons were released. There was the sense of an elite unit not only preserving a memory of the past, but also seeking to shape the future.

A few days later, we met at the Etzel Museum on the Tel Aviv beach. Representing the veterans was Yoske Nahmias, 82, a sixth-generation Israeli and an Etzel company commander who was on board the Altalena; representing the immigrants was Dr. Mark Radotzky, 50, who came to Israel 17 years ago and thought up the idea of the commemoration voyages.

They explained the surprising alliance, filling both with new energies.The Etzel people say their new immigrant supporters are the fresh Zionists who have sprung from roots that have withered. The new immigrants say that like in a family, when one member is tired or busy, another straightens things out for him.

"My heart is still bleeding," Nahmias said as he remembered every second, every bullet fired, every order Menachem Begin gave not to return fire. "Sixteen of my friends were killed. The hate has gone down, but the wound has not healed. Then, I hated very much. If I would have met Ben-Gurion I would have strangled him with my bare hands. Today I am angry, but I don't hate."

Radotzky sees that day as the beginning of the destruction of civil society in Israel. He learned about it after he came to Israel. "History defined which political side I would take here," he said, explaining his rightist tendencies. "It I were looking for the brotherhood of nations, I would have stayed in Tashkent," he added. "I came to live in a Jewish state, and in the ideological search I came to [Ze'ev] Jabotinsky," he said, referring to the right-wing prestate leader.

When Radotzky went to buy the wreath for the Altalena ceremony, he said the florist challenged him: "But you weren't there." Radotzky answered: "Were you at the Exodus? But you mark that event every year."

It all began when Rabin was assassinated, Radotzky said, and he was put off by the collective response to the murder, which he said reminded him of the Former Soviet Union. Then he heard for the first time about the Altalena and Rabin's role in giving the order to open fire on the ship.

He experienced a moment of truth when he came across the monument on the Tel Aviv beach to those killed and it bothered Radotzky that the place was so neglected and forgotten.

"On the Altalena, not only people were killed, so was the Israeli democracy; Israeli civil society ended." Radotzky said. "We have not come to rebuild it again," he added.

They Went to the Gallows Singing "Hatikva"

From They Went to the Gallows Singing "Hatikva":

The 12th day of the Hebrew month of Av, which falls this year on Friday July 27, marks the 60th anniversary of the execution by the British authorities in Palestine of three members of the Irgun underground - Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, and Meir Nakar. This column is dedicated to their everlasting memory.

As 1947 dawned, the British governing authorities, driven by an irresistible hubris of self-interest and colonial blindness, and embracing the delusion of decaying imperialists in every age that punitive brutality will cow the rebels into giving up their resistance, began sentencing captured Irgun fighters to the most severe forms of capital punishment: flogging for relatively minor offenses, and hanging for relatively major ones. The executions were frequently carried out in the Acre fortress, a Crusader citadel restored by the Turks and considered impregnable. In May 1947, in what was probably the Irgun's most daring exploit, a wall of this great bastion was breached, allowing for a mass escape. Three of the attacking party - Haviv, Weiss, and Nakar - were captured, tried and condemned to death. The writer served on the personal staff of five Israeli prime ministers.

Today in Jewish History - Adar 4

Sponsored by Aish.com:

Yahrtzeit of Menachem Begin (1913-1992), prime minister of Israel. Prior to the creation of the state, Begin became leader of the Irgun and used militant means to force the British government to withdraw from Palestine. In the Knesset, Begin led the opposition party for decades, before being elected prime minister in 1977. Begin negotiated the Camp David Accords with Anwar Sadat of Egypt, for which he was awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. Begin is also remembered for his conviction to Jewish tradition (he was known to consult with great rabbis and to walk to meetings on Shabbat), and his resolve to defend the Jewish people from another Holocaust (Begin had lost his parents and a brother to the Nazis), which factored greatly in his decision to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.

Lechi: Vision. Valor.

Within this web site, Lechi, you will find the historical, legal, Biblical, governmental and military foundation of the defense of the one and only Hebrew nation in all of its Holy Land Inheritance. The Scriptures teach us who our role models should be:

PHINEHAS, the son of Eleazar, who defended the honor of God. (1 Chronicles 9:19-20)

NOAH … who stood in the midst of ridicule and disbelief and obeyed God.

JOSHUA … who faced the rebellion and wickedness of the entire Israelite camp, and drew a line to divide those who choose to obey God from the rest.

CALEB … a man with a different spirit … whose eyes never left sight of the powerful arm of God. (Numbers 13:30)

JONATHAN … a man who kept his vows, even when it cost him.

SAMUEL … a man who stayed in God's wing, unto death.

NATHAN … who would not be silent when men disobeyed his Lord.

RUTH … who did not leave her duty, even when the time was over.

ESTHER … who did the right thing even when it meant her death.

THE WOMAN OF SHUMEN (1 Kings) … who knew the power of God in Elijah to bring her dead child back to life.
JUDAH … who sinned greatly, confessed his iniquity before his family, took responsibility upon himself.

ELEAZAR, THE WARRIOR … who held his ground in battle even when the army ran, and so the Lord gave him the victory.

When the KINGS OF ISRAEL consulted God, God provided.

JOAB as a warrior … "Be courageous and act like men to save our people and the cities of our God. And may the Lord do what is best." (1 Chron 19:13)

ISAIAH … who warned the people to depend on God and to defend their nation by their own hands in fear of the Lord without going into political or military alignments with other nations or kings. In front of the Temple built by King Solomon were two brass pillars - one named

"Jachin" and the other "Boaz". Jachin meant "sustainer", Boaz meant "smiter" …

God provides for His righteous ones, and punishes His enemies.

ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB, NOAH, DAVID, SOLOMON … all first sacrificed on the Altar of God, then waited for God's voice and instruction.

ABRAHAM interceded for Lot. MOSES interceded for the Israelites. ISAIAH interceded for the Israelites. DAVID and SOLOMON interceded for their people. Godly leaders intercede in prayer daily over their people. Godly leaders defend justice and the oppressed.

KING ABIJAH stood with God and was victorious in battle.

KING ASA had peace in Judah when he completely obeyed God, tearing down all idols in Judah, calling on God alone to defend them.

1 and 2 Chronicles demonstrate God's order, discipline, and blessing in military affairs. (1 Chronicles 15) (2 Chronicles 16)

MICAIAH the Prophet said, "I vow by God that whatever God says is what I will say." (2 Chron 18)

JEHOSHAPHAT: 1 and 2 Kings

JEHOSHAPHAT and KING AHAB in battle against the Syrians: God controls.

JEHU's rebuke to Jehoshaphat for aligning with heathen King Ahab. (do not go into ungodly alignments) (do not turn to other nations for your defense)

JEHOSHAPHAT's leadership of his officials and personally to the people (2 Chron 19) … Judges and courts … courts of final appeal … public prayers … fasting and intercession … declaring dependence on God (Irgun structure)

JEHOSHAPHAT called on the promises of God while walking in obedience to Him, humbling himself before God … encouraging people to believe.

JEHOSHAPHAT gave honor to God.

When JEHOSHAPHAT went into alignment with an "ungodly" ruler, God left him.

The coup to put Prince JOASH on the throne was achieved step by step in accordance with Scripture.

HEZEKIAH prayed in intercession for his people for God to forgive them since their hearts turned back to God. (2 Chron 30:17-19)

HEZEKIAH organized the priests and Levites, he personally provided sacrifices daily for the people at the Temple, he required the people to tithe, he publicly blessed and praised the Lord for all He had done for His People, he organized provisions for the priests and Levites, … (2 Chron 31:20) … "working very hard to do what was just and fair in the sight of the Lord, encouraging respect for the Temple, the Law, and godly living."

EHUD who assassinated the evil King.

KING UZZIAH ... gave in to pride and lost God's favor

Folks, who are your role models?

Jerusalem Remembers Pre-State Underground Fighters

The Jerusalem Municipality has finally completed a project that began more than 15 years ago to mark the activities of the pre-State underground fighters in what was to become Israel's capital city. The last 16 of a series of memorial signs immortalizing the fighters of the pre-State underground movements - the Haganah, Etzel (the Irgun) and Lechi - during the War of Independence were placed in various sites around the Jerusalem this week.

The genesis of the municipality's project to commemorate the pre-State underground in Jerusalem began at the end of the 1980s, in collaboration with veterans of the underground groups. Over the course of the next decade, the 1990s, seven signs were putup in honor of the Haganah fighters, six in honor of Etzel and four in honor of Lechi.

The project was suspended for some time since 1997, until this week, when the final 16 signs went up around the capital.

Spreading Torah Truth to Hasten the Redemption

HaMeir L'David
HaMeir L'David is a non-profit organization headed by David Ha'ivri and dedicated to raising awareness of national and Jewish issues in Israel and the Diaspora to hasten the Redemption.

Ha'Meir L'David undertakings include printing books by Rabbi Meir David Kahane and his son, Binyamin Ze'ev; printing booklets on various Halachic subjects; raising awareness of Zionist history such as the actions of the Irgun and Lechi and printing T-shirts and bumper stickers to publicise its message.