The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership (10 page)

Here, Begin paused, and when he continued his voice was grim. “It is difficult to set up a State; it is even more difficult to keep it alive. Scores of generations and millions of wanderers, from one land of massacre to another, were needed, it seems; there had to be exile, it seems; burnings at the stake and torture in dungeons. We had to suffer agonizing disillusionments. We needed the warnings
–
though they often went unheeded
–
of prophets and seers. We needed the sweat and toil of generations of pioneers and builders. We had to have an uprising to crush the enemy. We had to face the gallows, the banishments across the seas, the prisons and the cages in the deserts. All this, evidently, was necessary so that we might reach the present stage where six hundred thousand Jews now dwell in our Homeland, where the rule of oppression has been driven out and Jewish independence declared in a part of the country, the whole of which is ours.”

And then, forcefully, “We are surrounded by enemies who long for our destruction. And that same oppressor who has been defeated by us directly, is now trying indirectly to force us to surrender with the aid of mercenaries from the south, the north, and the east. Our one-day-old State has been established in the midst of the flames of battle. And the very first pillar of our State must, therefore, be victory, total victory, in the war which is raging all over the country. For this victory, without which we shall have neither freedom nor life, we need arms, weapons of all sorts, in order to strike our enemies, disperse the invaders, and free the entire length and breadth of the country from its would-be destroyers.

“But in addition to arms, each and every one of us has need of another weapon, a spiritual weapon, the weapon of unflinching endurance in the face of attacks, in the face of grievous casualties, in the face of disasters and temporary defeats
–
unflinching resistance to threats and cajolery. If, in the coming days and weeks, we can clad ourselves in this armor of an undying nation resurrected, we shall yet receive the blessed arms with which to drive off the enemy and bring freedom and peace to our nation and country.

“But even after emerging victorious from this campaign
–
and
victorious
we shall be
–
we shall still have to exert superhuman efforts in order to sustain our independence and liberty. First, it will be necessary to increase and strengthen the fighting arm of Israel without which there can be no freedom and no survival. Our Jewish army should and must be one of the best trained and equipped in the world. In modern warfare, it is not quantity that counts; the determining factors are brainpower and spirit. All our youth have proved that they possess this spirit…”

Begin’s voice suddenly broke up and was drowned in a storm of radio static, causing those crowding the receiver to groan in frustration. One fellow angrily banged the thing without effect, while another fiddled with the knob until, out of the quivering airwaves, the voice reemerged.
“…
Another primary pillar of our domestic policy is
Shivat Zion
–
the Return to Zion. Ships! For Heaven’s sake, let us have ships. Let us not mouth empty words questioning our capacity to absorb immigrants. Let us not impose restrictions on immigration for the sake of so-called ‘efficiency.’ Quickly! Quickly! Our nation has no time! Bring in hundreds of thousands of Jews now! If there won’t be enough houses for them let us put up tents, or even let the skies, the blue skies of our land, be their roof, if necessary. We are in the midst of a war of survival, and our tomorrow
–
and theirs
–
depends upon the quickest ingathering of our nation’s exiles.”

And then, in a more level tone, “And within our homeland, justice shall be the supreme ruler, the ruler over all our rulers. There must be no tyranny. Ministers and officials of government must be the servants of the nation, not their masters. There must be no exploitation. There must be no man
–
be he citizen or foreigner
–
who will go hungry. ‘Remember that you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ says our Book of Books. This supreme axiom must continually illuminate our path in our relations with the stranger within our gates. ‘Righteousness, righteousness shall you pursue’ says our Bible, and this must be the guiding principle in our relationships with each other.”

Here, again, Begin seemed to take a deep breath, and when he next spoke his voice was fired with passionate conviction. “The Irgun is now leaving the underground. We, the Jews, now rule over a part of our homeland ourselves, and in that part, the law of a Jewish government prevails. This law is the law of the land; it is the only law. Hence, there is no longer a need for an armed underground. From now on we are all soldiers and builders of the State of Israel. And we shall all respect the government of the day, for it is
our
government…”
6

Leopold Mahler jumped up and made for the door, antagonism written all over his face, “I’ve heard enough of this,” he spat. “Do you really believe he’s going to disarm his Irgun and knuckle under to a Ben-Gurion Government? Not a chance! I don’t believe a word he says, and neither will Ben-Gurion. Watch out, you’ll see.”

Leopold Mahler was right. David Ben-Gurion who, with independence, became the provisional prime minister of the fledgling State, did not believe a word Menachem Begin said. He distrusted him almost to the point of obsession, considering him capable of the most fiendish of deeds. All politics are riddled with frictions, but Ben-Gurion’s long feud with Menachem Begin seemed more ferocious than that of the Montagues and Capulets.

One reason had to do with the fighting units in Jerusalem. Despite the protestations of the Zionist leadership, the United Nations partition resolution of 1947 had determined that Jerusalem was to be internationalized as the city holy to the three monotheistic faiths. Neither Jew nor Arab would have suzerainty over it. Hence, while throughout the newly proclaimed Israel the Jewish underground organizations had voluntarily disbanded to form the Israel Defense Forces, in Jerusalem the Hagana and the Irgun still functioned under separate commands.

It was into this muddle, in mid-June, that a refitted Irgun arms ship called the
Altalena
arrived, carrying hundreds of volunteers and packed with desperately needed arms. Ben-Gurion demanded the weapons be handed over forthwith to the
IDF
, but Begin insisted that some be earmarked for his poorly equipped Irgun units in Jerusalem. From the outset Ben-Gurion credited Begin with fomenting a putsch, and no amount of mediation, explanation, and negotiation could persuade him otherwise. Besides, he charged that the
Altalena
was in violation of a
UN
-sponsored truce which he had brokered, and which banned the introduction of new arms and personnel into the country, be they for Arab or Jew. Hence, the
Altalena
was in violation of the truce. Due to bureaucratic bungling, the ship had been held up in a French port, and by the time it reached Tel Aviv it was long overdue. So
Ben-Gurion
ordered
IDF
units under his command to shell the ship. It caught fire, and in the blaze a score of innocent lives were lost, along with the invaluable cargo.

Embattled on every side by invading Arab armies, the fledgling Jewish State, hardly a month old, now stood at the brink of civil war
–
Jew against Jew. And it was on the very day
–
22 June
–
when the
Altalena
reached Tel Aviv, and was beached, crippled and in flames, within spitting distance from the central promenade, that I, along with other
Machon
students, finally managed to get out of the still-blockaded Jerusalem. Our departure from Jerusalem had been engineered by our youth director, Abe Harman (a future Ambassador to Washington and a longtime president of the Hebrew University), who, fibbing on our behalf, persuaded the Red Cross that we were overseas students, plain and simple, caught in the siege, and now homeward bound. (None of us were.) This was sufficient for the Red Cross to accommodate us on one of their convoys that made its way through the Arab Legion lines.

The usual hour-and-a-half bus journey took us a debilitating five hours, but who cared? After months of deprivation and hazard we were about to enjoy a taste of the high life in the boisterous metropolis by the sea, which had remained untouched by the war. So as we approached the heart of Tel Aviv, and the boarding house where we were to be lodged, it was weird, indeed sinister, to hear the all too familiar sounds of gunshots and mortar fire issuing, so it seemed, from the end of the road leading to the sea front.

What went through my mind as the Red Cross bus pulled out of Jerusalem, and how I reacted to the shooting and the news about the
Altalena
are recorded in my diary entry of that Wednesday, 22 June, 1948:

I write this on the bus going to Tel Aviv
–
the town of electricity, baths, showers, lavatories, cigarettes, crowded streets, and ice cream, if the Arab Legion will let us through. We have all been inspected and I am an innocent English student. It is 9:30
a.m.
and we are off. Good bye Yerushalayim. I’ll be back. We have just passed the Romema roadblock and the guard has shouted to us “Good luck.” (We’ll need it.) And so I travel along the road where all the blood of our boys was spilt. On both sides are the burned-out remains of trucks and armored cars…To my right is the height of Nebi Samuel from where we were bombarded more than once. We are now approaching Bab el Wad [Sha’ar Hagai] and I can see the dust of the lorries traveling over the Burma Road [a makeshift track carved out of the rocky terrain] bringing food to Jerusalem. It is a good feeling.

We have stopped and a military policeman has just got on the bus and informed us we are approaching Arab lines. One fool of a fellow has a revolver and bullets. He hides the revolver in his sleeping bag and we each take a few of the bullets and put them in matchboxes.

We are going on again and there before me by the battered police station of Latrun is a
UN
tent and Arab Legion guards. My fingers are crossed. Two of the Legion soldiers along with a
UN
observer have just got on our bus and I feel like using the bullets in my pocket. They look like sturdy swine. Their search is not too intensive
TG
. They seem to be satisfied and we are allowed to go on. We are passing through their lines now. Now we are out on the road to Hulda. We made it!

We have been travelling for 5 hours (journey should take one-and-a-half) and there I can see Tel Aviv. I feel crazy with excitement. A wash, a change, a clean room, people in the streets
–
it seems too heavenly to believe after so long. It is just like a dream. By the side of the road is a kiosk stacked with chocolate and cigarettes. Everybody is looking at us and giving us a cheery smile. These people did try to help us in Jerusalem during the hard days.

Abe Harman took us to a deluxe hotel. I have switched on every light, pulled every lavatory chain, turned on every tap, and said Shalom to everybody in the most beautifully crowded streets. What a sight it is to see so many people. We lined up for a shower of showers. The dust just flaked itself off my body. I’m going to send off a telegram to the folks back home telling them I’m still alive and kicking.

From the window I could see a massive pillar of smoke coming from the harbor. That seems to be the ship everyone is talking about.

Abe took us to a deluxe restaurant and ordered the choicest of foods. I guess I need a bit of fattening up. I ate a few mouths full and then went back to the hotel and felt sick. I guess the stomach just can’t take it. The rest of the group are in the same mess, so the doctor put us on a diet.

Photograph credit: Hans Pinn & Israel Government Press Office

The shelling and burning of the
Altalena,
22 June 1948

Outside the window there has been shooting over that ship and I feel like going back to Jerusalem. In spite of it all, I slept soundly through it between spotlessly clean sheets.

Nine months later I heard Menachem Begin talk about the
Altalena
at a public meeting. It was the first time I set eyes on the man and he had tears in his eyes. The meeting was being held in Tiberias, and I hitched a ride there together with a few other members of our Bnei Akiva pioneer contingent who had meanwhile arrived in the country from England. There were about forty of us, and we were initially housed in Yavne, a veteran kibbutz, to acclimatize ourselves to the tough conditions of working the land. A few months after that we moved to a primitive base camp called Sejera (now Ilaniya) in Galilee, to put together the paraphernalia needed to lay the foundations of our kibbutz. What followed was the most draining experience of my life
–
the backbreaking chore of clearing rocks and stones, which was why I was so anxious to travel to Tiberias to hear Menachem Begin speak: I desperately needed a break.