Israel’s new P.M. was terrorist

Press, 10 June 1977, Page 13

Israel’s new P.M. was terrorist

Menachem Begin, the man who will be Israel’s next Prime Minister, was once considered by the British to be Palestine’s Public Enemy No. 1. He carried a $30,000 price on his head. As commander of a terrorist group which sought to drive the British out of Palestine during the 19405, he organised the blowing up of part of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which was then the British government headquarters, killing 90 people. Also, in retaliation for the hanging of Jewish guerrillas, he ordered two British soldiers be tortured to death, and then had their boob y-trapped bodies strung up.

From 1943, Begin commanded the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organisation) which was opposed to the policy of the Jewish Agency headed by David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist socialists. They sought a Jewish

homeland through negotiation with the British and were prepared to settle for a Jewish state co-existing with an Arab one in Palestine.

The Irgun demanded all of Palestine and Transjordan: its motto: “Judea collapsed in fire and blood. Judea will rise in fire and blood.”

While he was being hunted by the British, until the end of their mandate in 1948, Begin evaded his pursuers in secret hide-outs and by disguising himself as an orthodox rabbi.

Another bloody episode from his past was an attack by the Irgun on an Arab village during 1948, in which more than 200 villagers, most of them old men, women, and children, were massacred. Many of them were mutilated and the women raped. ■

In his autobiography, “The Revolt,” written in 1951, Begin wrote: “The

life of every man who fights in a just cause is a paradox. He makes war so that there should be peace. He sheds blood so that there should be no more bloodshed. That is the way of the world. A very tragic way beset with terrors. There is no other.”

Later, in 1948, an Irgunowned freighter loaded with 900 men, and arms and ammunition, steamed into Tel Aviv. The leader of the newly created Israel, David Ben-Gurion, thought that the Irgun had come to overthrow his government. He ordered his front-line commander, Yigal Allon (now Israel’s Foreign Minister), to prevent the arms being unloaded.

In the ensuing battle the ship was sunk and a number of Irgun members killed. Begin, screaming defiance at the “mad dictatorship” of Ben-Gurion, ordered his forces underground. “If we go down,

we will see to it that the state of Israel sinks with us,” he said. Israel’s founding father. Ben-Gurion. denounced him as an “outlaw.” Begin later changed his mind and. after disbanding the Irgun. he founded the u 1 t r a-nationalist Herut (Freedom) Party, and wi n a seat in the Knesset. Nine times in the last 29 years he has tried to wrest power from the ruling Labour Party. When polling began in this year's election he was confident that Israeli voters would at last choose his Right-wing Likud Alliance as an alter native to the Labour Party which, he declared, "had fallen asleep at the wheel.” Within the Knesset. Begin is regarded by both political foes and friends as a brilliant orator Slightly built, mild-man-nered, and bespectacled, he scarcely looks the part of a former guerilla leader. Begin was born in August. 1913, in Poland and took a law degree at Warsaw University in the early thirties. While at the university he joined the Zionist-Revisionists, a group of Right-wing militants who condemned the regular Zionist leaders as misguided and soft. He fled from the Nazis tn 1940 — his parents and a brother were killed — and escaped to Lithuania where he was arrested by the Russians for Zionist activities and was briefly imprisoned. After his release he joined the Polish Army and was sent to Pa lestine where, in 1943, he deserted and joined the Irgun.

Begin’s Herut Party joined with two other Right-wing splinter groups in September, 1973, to form the Likud Alliance. It became the second largest Parliamentry group and proved a constant threat to the fragile Labour-led coalition.

Mr Begin, using his oratorical powers to some effect, has lashed out in the Knesset against what he calls the Government’s "dovish” policies.

Aged 63, Begin likes to read history, political biographies, and the Bible. He speaks and writes fluently in five languages. He and his wife, Aliza, aged 57 still live in the three-room apartment they have occupied in Tel Aviv since 1946. He insists that he will continue to live there even as Premier. They have three children.