Who Murdered Victor "Chaim" Arlosoroff?
In my recent article 'Did the Nazis murder Victor "Chaim" Arlosoroff?': (1) I demonstrated that the thesis - whose main exponent was the late Haaretz journalist Haviv Kanaan - that asserts that the 1933 murder of the prominent Labor Zionist leader Victor Arlosoroff was ordered and/or perpetrated by the agents of the Third Reich (and Joseph Goebbels more specifically) was at best incorrect and at worst simply ludicrous.
In this follow-up article I am going to discuss the issue of Arlosoroff's murder and also point to a few facts that I think are suggestive of the solution to that historical problem.
To begin with let us lay out the scene a bit: it is the night of 16th June 1933 and Arlosoroff and his wife Sima are strolling along the beach near Tel Aviv after dining at the Kate Dan Hotel. They are approached out of the darkness by two men who shine a torch light on Victor's face and the first asks in Hebrew: 'Are you Dr. Arlosoroff?'
When Victor had confirmed his identity this first man the follows up with: 'What time is it?'
While Victor was fumbling around looking for his watch the second man shot twice and mortally wounded him. The two men then ran off into the night leaving Sima screaming: 'They've shot Chaim. Jews have killed a Jew!' (2)
This is what we have to work with.
Now the first fact that I would like to draw your attention to is the fact that the murderers spoke to Victor in Hebrew not in English, German or Russian (all of which Victor spoke at varying levels of competency). The importance of this is central to ascertaining who was likely responsible in that Hebrew at that time was just in the process of being recreated as an operative (i.e., 'living') language. As such it was spoken almost exclusively by jews although some non-jews certainly had picked it up and could speak it as well as any jew.
This first fact immediately suggests that the murderers almost certainly had to be resident in Palestine in order to speak such fluent Hebrew without Victor or Sima noticing an accent or a hesitancy in their usage of words. It also directly implies that the two men were jewish, because most speakers of Hebrew were jews and certainly the number of non-jews who could speak Hebrew well enough not to show hesitancy or have a strong accent when doing so would have been very small indeed.
The second fact that I would like to draw your attention to is that the two men obviously had recent knowledge of what Victor looked like since they were able to locate and identify a likely suspect by torch light. This points to the murderers having a jewish source as to what Victor looked like: such a source could well have been recent photographs of Victor which would have been obtained easiest by jews and those who identified as Zionists in particular (and not by Arabs or German agents).
After all as a Zionist leader it would not have been difficult for a jewish fellow-traveller to plead for photographs to purchase as a memento or keep-sake to admire Victor's hook-nosed visage.
The third fact that I would like to draw your attention to is that the murderers clearly knew Victor's timetable rather well and were even able to quickly find out where he had gone when he had changed his plans at the last minute.
This all points to Victor's murderers being in all likelihood jewish as they were the only ones who could speak fluent Hebrew and know what Victor looked like and also find out his schedule and any amendments to it very quickly.
On the 18th June 1933 - some two days after Victor's murder - three jews associated with Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionist movement named Abba Ahimeir, Abraham Stavsky and Zevi Rosenblatt were arrested for the crime. Ahimeir and Rosenblatt were released due to insufficient evidence, while Stavsky was found guilty and condemned to death. After an appeal however Stavsky was also freed due to insufficient evidence. (3)
This has been often taken to mean that there isn't a good case that Revisionist Zionists didn't pull the trigger, but there is a strong if circumstantial case that they almost certainly did.
In the first instance Abba Ahimeir (nee Shaul Heisinovitch) (4) was the leader of the maximalist wing (i.e., the most radical among the already radical followers of Jabotinsky) of the Revisionist Zionist movement (5) and the newspaper he edited 'Hazit Ha-Am' (lit. 'The People's Front') had carried a strident personal attack on Victor a few days before and described him as a despicable traitor to the jewish people. (6)
The reason for this vicious attack was Arlosoroff's dealing with the Arabs as if they were reasonable political partners (something Revisionist Zionists saw and still see as treason) (7) and also his deal with the Third Reich which said Revisionist Zionists were extremely angry about. (8)
In the second two of Ahimeir's followers (Stavsky and Rosenblatt) had been recognized by Victor's wife Sima as the two men who had accosted them on the beach and then shot Victor. (9)
In the third political assassination of significant jewish leaders by Revisionist Zionists because they didn't share their extremist outlook was not uncommon in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. Klinger cites the case of the assassination of Jacob Israel de Haan who was assassinated by the Revisionist Zionist Avraham Tehomi, because he had sought support for the creation of a jewish state in Palestine from the Hashemite leader Hussein bin Ali as an example of this type of behaviour in relation to Victor's murder. (10) Weiss supports this point and gives several other instances of radical Zionists simply gunning down jewish leaders who oppose them. (11)
This is all rather damning in terms of a circumstantial case against Ahimeir, Stavsky and Rosenblatt for Victor's murder, but the problem is that this isn't direct evidence. The case was notable at the time for the lack of any direct evidence as to who the killers were since, as with the assassination of Jacob Israel de Haan by Avraham Tehomi, the perpetrators were prepared and carried out their deed at night in a relatively secluded open spot when it would be difficult to identify and arrest them.
Victor's murder has all the hallmarks of a Zionist hit: it took place at night, it was done in a relatively secluded spot and allowances in the planning of the murder were clearly made in order to facilitate the escape of the killers.
Now we should mention that the legal counsel of Ahimeir, Stavsky and Rosenblatt claimed that two Arabs had done the deed. This superficially seems plausible given that an imprisoned Arab hitman gave some detailed testimony about how they had tracked Victor down and one of them - as before stated - did speak good Hebrew. (12)
The problems with this testimony are several fold: the Arab in question was already being held in prison on murder charges and although he gave the story twice, he also twice retracted it and at the end simply refused to retract his second retraction. (13) The attempts to suggest he was 'pressured' to do so (14) are simply hearsay and wishful thinking.
The Arab also stated that the reason that he had given the testimony in the first place is because Stavksy and Rosenblatt offered him money to confess to the crime. (15) This seems a reasonable suggestion as to the origin of the Arab hit man's testimony for the simple reason that his 'confessed' version of events doesn't make any sense.
The Arab's version of events has himself and his accomplice wandering around jewish cafes in Tel Aviv all day looking for Victor. Then when they had finally located him the Arab stated that the other man had fired the gun (i.e., he wasn't actually confessing to murder merely being an accessory) so as to scare Victor into letting them have Sima so they could rape her. (16)
However this makes little sense of why the Arabs were looking for Victor: why try and find the husband if all you are trying to do is rape the wife? Moreover why shine a torch in the face of your target's husband and then establish his identity if all you are interested in is rape?
Perhaps more pointedly: why would you want to rape Sima as Victor's wife specifically? Why not any jewish woman?
No: the Arab hit men as culprits make absolutely no sense.
They are not right on specifics and also their motive is obviously suspect (since we have an allegation of bribery as well as the bribers being in the right place at the right time to do so), but they know enough about the crime (i.e., that it was done on a beach with a gun and who the target was) to have talked with the perpetrators who knew some of the specifics, but not a lot of detail about events after the fact (i.e., that it was done on a beach with a gun to Victor).
Since the murderers immediately ran off remember: this suggests that if Stavsky and Rosenblatt were the murderers then the fact that they ran off meant that they never ascertained any additional information.
It is just this sort of neat dovetail, which suggests that it was indeed Stavsky and Rosenblatt were Victor's murders and it was they who then bungled the attempt to get an Arab to confess to the killing (which would also provide a foil for their propaganda incidentally) by not counting on the fact that he would deliberately try to minimize the scope of the crime (i.e,. making it an accidental killing while attempting to rape Sima rather than a cold-blooded targeted murder).
This then tells us; as others have stated, (17) that the murderers of Victor "Chaim" Arlosoroff were not Nazis and not Arabs, but rather his fellow jewish Zionists.
No ifs, buts or maybes about it: Zionists is who the evidence suggests not anyone else.
References
(1) https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/did-the-nazis-murder-victor-chaim
(2) Anja Klabunde, 2003, 'Magda Goebbels', 1st Edition, Time Warner: London, p. 193; Guido Knopp, 2003, 'Hitler's Women', 1st Edition, Psychology Press: Hove, pp. 80-81
(3) http://whoisjews.enacademic.com/133/Arlosoroff,_Chaim_(Victor
(4) Martin Gilbert, 1999, 'Israel: A History', 1st Edition, Black Swan: London, p. 71
(5) https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/06/who-killed-haim-arlosoroff/
(6) Rafael Rosenzweig, 1989, 'The Economic Consequences of Zionism', 1st Edition, Brill: Leiden, p. 33, n. 5
(7) http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/this-day-in-jewish-history/.premium-1.530046 ; on Arlosoroff's views on the Arabs see Neil Caplan, 1988, 'Zionist Visions in the Early 1930s', pp. 256-261 in Jonathan Frankel, Peter Medding, Ezra Mendelsohn (Eds.), 1988, 'Studies in Contemporary Jewry: The Jews and the European Crisis, 1914-1921', 1st Edition, Oxford University Press: New York
(8) Knopp, Op. Cit., p. 81
(9) Gilbert, Op. Cit., p. 72
(10) https://www.jewishmag.com/149mag/arlosoroff/arlosoroff.htm
(11) http://mondoweiss.net/2006/09/bangbang_youre_.html
(12) Klabunde, Op. Cit., p. 195
(13) Ronald Eisenberg, 2006, 'The Streets of Jerusalem – Who, What, Why?', 1st Edition, Devora: New York, pp. 28-29; Gilbert, Op. Cit., p. 72
(14) Klabunde, Op. Cit., p. 195
(15) Eisenberg, Op. Cit., pp. 28-29; Gilbert, Op. Cit., p. 72
(16) Klabunde, Op. Cit., p. 195
(17) David Irving, 1996, 'Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich', 1st Edition, Focal Point: London, pp. 564-565, n. 21