On the night between Sunday and Monday last week, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliahu (both from Otzma Yehudit) announced that the remains of the Altalena – an Irgun ship which had brought weapons and immigrants from France to Israel, and on June 22, 1948, had been shelled by the IDF off the shore of Tel Aviv – had been found complete at a depth of 503 meters, 27 kilometers from the shore.
In July 1949, the Israeli Navy had towed what remained of the damaged ship 24 km. off the coast of Jaffa.
The Altalena was originally a 4,500-ton American World War II tank landing craft, converted by the Irgun to carry around 930 immigrants (most of them holocaust survivors) and Irgun personnel, and 4,500 tons of armaments, originally meant for Irgun fighters, and after the establishment of the state on May 15, 1948, to be shared with the newly founded IDF.
The Altalena departed from Marseilles in France on June 11 – 10 days after Irgun leader Menachem Begin signed an agreement with one of prime minister David Ben-Gurion’s assistants, Yisrael Galili, to disband the Irgun and integrate its fighters into the newly founded IDF.
At the time, Begin claimed that he had tried to put off the departure of the Altalena from France, but was ignored by the Irgun people there, and that after it had been sunk (at Ben-Gurion’s order), had done everything in his power to prevent civil war from breaking out, especially after it became known that 16 Irgun members and three IDF soldiers had been killed during the event.
The Altalena reached the shore of Kfar Vitkin, north of Tel Aviv, on the evening of June 20. The immigrants were all taken off the ship, and local members of Irgun managed to unload around 40% of the arms on board.
But then, due to disagreements with the IDF that deteriorated into mutual shooting, the ship departed for Tel Aviv on June 21 – with Begin on board.
On June 22, after the disagreements were not resolved, Ben-Gurion ordered the shelling of the ship. When the ship began to burn, and after everyone else was evacuated, Begin agreed to jump into the water.
From Ben-Gurion’s point of view, the whole affair happened because now that the State of Israel had been officially declared, there was to be only one sovereign power in it, which was to hold a complete monopoly over the holding and use of arms. There were to be no militias in Israel.
This assertion had practical ramifications for both the Irgun and the Palmah (the separately run, elite combined strike forces established several years earlier within the Hagana), both of which were finally obliged to give up their arms and separate command systems, and integrate fully into the IDF.
Ben-Gurion and Begin's relationship
In addition, Ben-Gurion did not trust Begin, and feared that he might instigate a revolt against his newly formed government. The order to shell the Altalena came after all other efforts to get the Irgun to surrender failed.
Begin believed that Ben-Gurion’s goal was to kill him, and that this was the main reason he had decided to shell the Altalena with him on board.
Though Begin accepted the sovereignty of Ben-Gurion’s government, he was divided with him over most policy issues, and suspected that the members of the Irgun and Lehi would continue to be discriminated against in the Mapai-governed state (as they were, to a certain extent).
And what does all this have to do with the approaching elections?
Though it is unclear what exactly is meant by “heritage” in the name of the Heritage Ministry, established as a separate ministry after the 2022 elections – whether it has to do with the heritage of the State of Israel as a whole, including its Arab citizens, only with the heritage of its Jewish population, or only with the heritage of specific sections of the Jewish population – Ben-Gvir and Eliyahu had no qualms about getting the Heritage Ministry to deal with this particular issue.
Most likely, Ben-Gvir did not have the elections in mind when he instructed Eliyahu to start searching for the exact location of the Altalena about a year after Israel’s 37th government was formed.
However, he did believe that the whole affair was part of the heritage of the Israeli Right, and that pulling the Altalena out of the sea and putting it on display on land would help give this feeling a concrete dimension, while pointing a scolding finger at the Left.
This issue has already been picked up by right-wing circles and Channel 14, and hurled in the direction of the “just not Bibi” camp, in connection with the approaching elections.
Furthermore, Ben-Gvir and Eliyahu had no qualms about embracing an issue with which the Likud is more directly connected historically than the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit.
Their decision to announce the finding of the Altalena by means of the Otzma Yehudit spokesperson around two months before the elections, and later on to hold a press conference at the Irgun Museum in Tel-Aviv, without involving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in advance, was undoubtedly connected to the growing tensions between Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu.
These tensions are primarily over the latter’s statements that his goal is to form a “wide Zionist government” after the elections, and his efforts to get Otzma Yehudit to run again together with Religious Zionism’s leader, Bezalel Smotrich, in the coming elections.
Netanyahu managed to delay Otzma Yehudit’s press conference by half an hour by giving a separate photographed statement on the finding of the Altalena outside the hall where the press conference was to be held. His statement was directed at the voters, from a different perspective than that of Ben-Gvir and Eliyahu.
He stated that, “I undertake to extract [the Altalena] from the bottom of the sea so that it will serve as a concrete symbol for our generation and also for future generations: a concrete symbol to one simple command – never to a fraternal war!”
Netanyahu was obviously alluding to Begin’s efforts back in June 1948 to prevent his followers from instigating a civil war in reaction to the sinking of the Altalena.
However, it is doubtful whether the Altalena will ever be lifted from the bottom of the sea; first of all, because such a project cannot be performed by Israel on its own, and will cost tens or even hundreds of millions of shekels.
The Heritage Ministry required the services of a special Italian vessel equipped with specialized sensors and advanced survey systems for a single day, at the cost of one million shekels, just to find the Altalena. Furthermore, marine experts believe that the Altalena is likely to fall apart if moved due to corrosion.
Given the many real and urgent issues in almost all spheres of Israel’s existence and its citizens’ lives that ought to be dealt with in the election campaign, the Altalena affair is little more than a red herring within this context.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994 to 2010, she worked at the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.