JTA — The discovery this week of the sunken arms ship the Altalena, which almost sparked an Israeli civil war just one month after the fledgling state was created in 1948, has become a political battleground for right-wing politicians seeking support in advance of the October 27 elections.
“There is no more mobilizing ethos on the right than Altalena,” Udi Lebel, a leading scholar of the affair at Bar-Ilan University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The ship’s detection, he said, bolstered what he viewed as efforts by both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of the far-right Otzma Yehudit to campaign in this election on identity and victimhood rather than policy.
The Altalena had arrived from France in June 1948 carrying about 900 Jewish immigrants and a large shipment of weapons acquired by the Irgun, the more militant pre-state paramilitary group led by Menachem Begin. Its rival, the Haganah, was the largest military organization in pre-state Israel and formed the main foundation of the newly established IDF.
Begin wanted 20% of the weapons on board the Altalena for Irgun forces in Jerusalem, while then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion insisted that armed forces and weapons come under the authority of the newly established state. Sixteen Irgun members and three IDF soldiers were killed in the fighting, during which a shell hit the ship, setting it ablaze as it was moored off the Tel Aviv shore.
