Originally posted by: IrateLeaf
Dari states-- What about the Irgun and its terrorist leader Ben-Gurion? He went on to become Prime Minister, right? What does that tell you?
I see no mention of Ben Gurion being a terrorist. Quite frankly in Israel he is not known as a terrorist.
here is what wikipdia says bout Ben Gurion--Ben-Gurion was at the political forefront of the Labor Zionist movement during the fifteen years leading to the creation of the State of Israel when Labor Zionism had become the dominant tendency in the World Zionist Organization.
An austere, ascetic idealist, he was marked by a commitment to the establishment of a Jewish state. In the Israeli declaration of independence, he stressed that the new nation would "uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex".
Ben-Gurion encouraged Jews to join the British military at the same time as he helped orchestrate the illegal immigration of thousands of European Jewish refugees to Palestine at a time when the British sought to bar new Jewish immigration. He is also considered the architect of both the Federation of Jewish Labor, the Histadrut which created a Jewish state within the British state and the Haganah, the paramilitary force of the Labor Zionist movement that facilitated underground immigration, defended kibbutzim and other Jewish settlements against attack and provided the backbone of the future Israeli Defense Forces. Both of these developments put pressure on the British to either grant the Jews a state in Palestine or quit the League of Nations Mandate - they did the latter in 1947 on the heels of a United Nations resolution partitioning the territory between the Jews and Arabs.
During the pre-statehood period in Palestine, Ben-Gurion represented the mainstream Jewish establishment and was known as a moderate, with whose Haganah organization the British dealt with frequently, sometimes in order to arrest more radical groups involved in resistance against them. He was strongly opposed to the Revisionist Zionist movement led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and his successor Menachem Begin.
He was also involved in occasional violent resistance during the short period of time his organization cooperated with Menachem Begin's Irgun, though he refused to be involved in terrorism of any kind, and insisted that violence only be used against military targets. Ben-Gurion initially agreed to Begin's plan to carry out the King David Hotel bombing, with the intent of humiliating (rather than killing) the British military stationed there. However, when the risks of mass killing became apparent, Ben-Gurion told Begin to call the operation off; Begin refused.[1]
He passed the resolution to declare the independence of Israel on May 14, 1948, by vote of 6 to 4, against strong opposition from both sides of the political spectrum of the Jewish community in Palestine, even in his own party.
During the first weeks of Israel's independence, he passed the decision to disband all resistance groups and replace them with a single formal army, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). To that end, Ben-Gurion gave the order to open fire upon and sink a ship named Altalena, which carried ammunition for the Irgun (also called Etzel) resistance group. That command remains controversial to this day.
Ben Gurion led Israel during its War of Independence. He became Prime Minister on February 25, 1949, the day after the first armistice with Egypt was signed to end hostilities. He would remain in that post until 1963, except for a period of nearly two years between 1954 and 1955. As Premier, he oversaw the establishment of the state's institutions. He presided over various national projects aimed at the rapid development of the country and its population: Operation Magic Carpet, the airlift of Jews from Arab countries, the construction of the National Water Carrier, rural development projects and the establishment of new towns and cities. In particular, he called for pioneering settlement in outlying areas, especially in the Negev.
In 1953 Ben-Gurion announced his intention to withdraw from government and settle in the Kibbutz Sde-Boker, in the Israeli Negev. He returned to office in 1955 assuming the post of Defense Minister and later prime-minister.
Returning to government, Ben Gurion collaborated with the British and French to plan the 1956 Sinai War in which Israel stormed the Sinai Peninsula in retaliation for raids by Egypt thus giving British and French forces a pretext to intervene in order to secure the Suez Canal after Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser had announced its nationalization. Intervention by the United States and the United Nations forced the British, French and Israelis to back down.
Ben-Gurion was among the founders of Mapai which governed Israel during the first three decades of its existence. He stepped down as Prime Minister, on personal grounds (as he explained) in 1963, and, in fact, nominated Levi Eshkol to be his successor. One year later a rivalry developed between the two on the issue of the Lavon Affair. Ben Gurion broke with the party in June 1965 over Eshkol's handling of the Lavon affair and formed a new party, Rafi which won ten seats in the Knesset. As tensions loomed before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967, Ben-Gurion strongly urged that Israel must have a Great Power on its side. After the war ended with large Israeli territorial gains, Ben-Gurion argued that other than keeping a united Jerusalem, Israel should not occupy more Arab land.
In 1968, when Rafi merged with Mapai to form the Labour Alignment, Ben Gurion refused to reconcile with his old party and formed another new party, The State List, which won four seats in the 1969 election. Ben Gurion retired from politics in 1970 and spent his last years on his kibbutz.
Just a footnote-- The Altalena Affair exposed deep rifts between the main political factions in Israel, and continued to be a major source of bitter controversy in the Israeli political discourse for decades. Proponents of Ben Gurion's actions praised them as essential to establishing the Government's authority and discouraging factionalism and formation of rival armies. Furthermore, Ben Gurion's supporters argue, a state must have a monopoly over the use of force (see Max Weber for a detailed discussion of this idea). Etzel, by attempting to import weapons to use as a private militia, was undermining the legitimacy of the fledgling State of Israel.
Opponents condemned the unnecessary violence and claimed that opportunities for a peaceful resolution were intentionally frustrated by Ben Gurion and top IDF officers. As events have faded into history, the debate on Altalena in Israel has become less intense, though it was reignited for a short time when a political party headed by Menachem Begin won the Israeli general elections in 1977. Opponents still hold a grudge against Labor for discriminating against them before and after the creation of the state and hold his leadership responsible for not doing enough to defend Jerusalem during the Israeli War of Independence. They believe that had Ben Gurion allowed the Altalena to resupply fighters in Jerusalem, the war would have ended with more territory for Israel.
Years later, on the eve of the Six-Day War, in June 1967 (after Ben-Gurion had retired from political activity and Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister), Menachem Begin joined a delegation which visited Sde Boker to ask David Ben-Gurion to return and accept the premiership again. After that meeting, Ben-Gurion said that if he had then known Begin as he did now, the face of history would have been different.
Yitzhak Rabin commanded over the sinking of Altalena, and allegedly took part in the shooting. His role in the Altalena affair became a central issue among right-wing critics during his second tenure as Prime Minister (1992-1995).
Facebook
Twitter