The Israeli Civil War of June 1948
It is not widely known but on June 21st to June 22nd 1948 Israel’s forces engaged in what amounted to a civil war which is often referred to as the ‘Altalena Affair’.
Summarizing the event is fairly easy – the story has been told admirably well by Shmuel Rosner at the ‘Jewish Journal’ – (1) with a former US navy landing craft that was World War Two surplus being bought and re-named by followers of Ze’ev Jabotinsky to transport one thousand of their supporters and a large shipment of small arms to Palestine to provide reinforcements to the jews murdering British civilians and Arabs for the ‘crime’ of not being jewish during the so-called ‘Israeli War of Independence’.
The particular group concerned was Menachem Begin’s Irgun – who were notoriously violent and haters of anything and anyone that couldn’t be labelled jewish – and as a nod to the group’s ideological founder. The former US navy landing craft was rechristened the ‘Altalena’ in honour of Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s pen name.
The problem was that as the ‘Altalena’ was setting sail on its voyage from France to Tel Aviv; a UN-negotiated cease fire came into effect and there was a fierce debate within the Irgun as to whether the ‘Altalena’ should sail at all.
Despite this ferocious bickering the ‘Altalena’ did sail – with the support of the French government – (2) but when it got to the beach north of Tel Aviv. A massive argument once again broke out about who would get the shipment of small arms that the 'Altalena' carried.
The leader of the Haganah David Ben-Gurion wanted the weapons to arm his forces within the fledgling IDF, while the leaders of the Irgun – including its head Menachem Begin – wanted the arms to be distributed to the Irgun’s units that had just been absorbed into the Haganah to create the IDF. (3)
To be fair to the Irgun however they were willing to be reasonable and have only twenty percent of the weapons they had transported to Palestine distributed to their units within the IDF, but Ben-Gurion – who hated the Irgun – (4) was intractable and absolutely refused. (5)
Even worse Ben-Gurion immediately issued an ultimatum to the 1,000 Irgun personnel on the ‘Altalena’ off the coast at Kfar Vitkin to the north of Tel Aviv, which the Irgun commanders were given a mere ten minutes to decide on. (6)
The text of the ultimatum is telling:
‘I was authorized to demand that you hand over the weapons for safekeeping, and also to ask you to contact the supreme command. You are required to carry out this order immediately. If you decline to carry out the order, I shall use all the means at my disposal and implement the order.’ (7)
It is therefore easy to understand why Begin did not accept Ben-Gurion’s violent demand to give him the weapons and predictably this ridiculous petty argument based upon personal dislike and political rivalry led to firing between the Irgun and the Haganah forces.
The result was several hours of combat in which seventy of the recruits on the ‘Altalena’ were killed along with twelve members of the jewish crew. (8) The most notable of which was Avraham Stavsky who was the likeliest candidate for being the assassin of left-wing Zionist leader - and former lover of Magda Goebbels – Chaim Arlosoroff. (9)
The ‘Altalena’ was also on fire at his point and lost a good portion of its cargo of 5,000 rifles, 450 machine guns and millions of rounds to the fighting and the fire. (10)
Ben-Gurion’s reaction to the fighting he had triggered with his ultimatum?
Blame the Irgun, arrest all their officers and disband all their units within the fledgling IDF. (11)
This incident in Israeli history is largely unknown outside of Israel itself, but is extremely important as it is the original ‘blood libel’ – as declared by Menachem Begin himself – (12) between the nationalist Israeli right and the more secular Israeli left.(13)
Yet it also demonstrates the nasty vicious nature of jewish in-group infighting which typifies jews themselves in that they are not a brave bunch per se in actual combat, but do suddenly get brave when they think their enemies cannot fight back and they can hurt and/or torture them with impunity.
References
(1) http://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/235374/sinking-the-altalena/
(2) Howard Sachar, 1991, ‘A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time’, 1st Edition, Alfred A Knopf: New York, p. 329(
3) http://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/235374/sinking-the-altalena/
(4) Ibid.
(5) Sachar, Op. Cit., p. 329
(6) http://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/235374/sinking-the-altalena/
(7) Ibid.
(8) Sachar, Op. Cit., p. 329
(9) Ibid.; for a discussion of Arlosoroff’s assassination see my articles: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/did-the-nazis-murder-victor-chaim and https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/who-murdered-victor-chaim-arlosoroff
(10) Sachar, Op. Cit., p. 329
(11) Ibid., p. 330
(12) http://jewishjournal.com/cover_story/235374/sinking-the-altalena/
(13) Ibid.; Sachar, Op. Cit., p. 330