MY SAY: AN APPRECIATION OF MENACHEM BEGIN ON THE CENTENNIAL OF HIS BIRTH- DECEMBER OUTPOST
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/menachem-begin-an-appreciation-on-the-centennial-of-his-birth-ruth-king.html
“Daniel Gordis, author of a forthcoming biography Menachem Begin: The Battle For Israel’s Soul, summed up Begin’s legacy in a Jerusalem Post article in August 2013, “Menachem Begin: His Legacy, a Century After his Birth” : “That is a legacy infinitely greater than most are able to bequeath. In an era in which many Jews are increasingly dubious about the legitimacy of love for a specific people or devotion to its ancestral homeland, the life and commitments of Begin urge us to look again at what he did and what he stood for, and to imagine – if we dare – the glory of a Jewish people recommitted to the principles that shaped his very being.”
In 1913, in Brest Litovsk, a town in the Russian empire, Menachem Begin was born. When coddling their son, could his parents have dreamed that one day their newborn would be Prime Minister of the State of Israel? Not likely–his parents were confronted with fear of persecution and the perpetual threat of relocation facing Eastern European Jewry.
As a young boy Begin was drawn to Zionism, classical literature and oratorical skills. In his teens he was inspired by Zeev Jabotinsky and joined the Betar movement and later became its head.
After being jailed in a Siberian labor camp, he was fortuitously freed in 1941 and joined the Free Polish Army; his unit was sent to Palestine in 1943. Once there he left the Polish army for the Irgun, becoming its head later in that year. In Europe his family was murdered, which both haunted and inspired him for the rest of his life.
In 1944 the Irgun declared war on the British mandatory government which persisted in keeping Palestine closed to the desperate Jews of Europe. The Irgun’s activities escalated after the war when the British occupiers still clamped the gates of freedom shut to the wretched survivors of the Shoah and fired on vessels bringing them to Palestine. It was the Irgun under Begin–emphatically not the Haganah with its policy of “havlagah” (restraint)–that made Palestine ungovernable for the British. Nor despite huge efforts aimed at capturing him were British intelligence services in Palestine able to do so. He eluded them disguised as a nondescript bearded rabbi in Tel Aviv. And so the British threw the Palestine question in the lap of the United Nations. It had become impossible to remain there without a degree of repression the British public was not prepared to accept in the post war period, especially against the tattered remnants of the Jewish people.
Begin made an additional huge contribution to Israel’s survival in its early days by the restraint he showed in the face of the Ben Gurion government’s unconscionable attack on the Irgun ship, the Altalena, bringing crucial arms to the nascent state as it struggled to throw back the armies of five neighboring Arab states. Begin himself, who was on the ship, narrowly escaped death during the attack. A lesser leader could easily have launched a civil war. Begin instead launched a career as an opposition politician.
As opposition leader Begin met harsh criticism, not only from Ben Gurion (who would not even address him by name in Knesset debates) but from some prominent Jews abroad, including Albert Einstein and Hanna Arendt who wrote ‘….the Irgun has ‘preached an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.’” Did anyone reflect on how General George Washington and our Revolutionary Army defeated the British? Time has rendered those battles heroic but the struggles of the Irgun even now have not been afforded the recognition they deserve.
Menachem Begin remained unbowed. He adhered to the principles of Zeev Jabotinsky. He believed in love for his people, in upholding their covenant with their ancient homeland, in defending the nation with a powerful army, and in offering safe have for persecuted Jews from every corner of the diaspora.
After the Yom Kippur War a dispirited Israeli public turned away from Labor and in 1977 Menachem Begin became Prime Minister.
As his biographer Zeev Chafetz once described him, he was a Jewish “ghostbuster” who saw every oppressed Jew in the world as a brother. He viewed his role as de facto guardian of the world’s haven for Jews. He was determined to heal the economic, social and cultural divisions in Israel between Eastern and Western Jews which Labor’s leaders had fostered. He spoke of Judea and Samaria and not the fictitious “West Bank.” He welcomed thousands of Ethiopian Jews, sought to liberalize Israel’s stagnant and socialist economy, and in 1981 in a daring raid destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.
Alas, he won a Nobel Peace Prize for his most disastrous policy–the Camp David Accords which set a precedent of “land for more war” and for surrender of Israel’s rights in Judea and Samaria which would eventually culminate in the Oslo Capitulation.
Following the death of his beloved and gentle wife Aliza he resigned in the winter of 1982 and spent the remainder of his noble life in seclusion.
Daniel Gordis, author of a forthcoming biography Menachem Begin: The Battle For Israel’s Soul, summed up Begin’s legacy in a Jerusalem Post article in August 2013, “Menachem Begin: His Legacy, a Century After his Birth” : “That is a legacy infinitely greater than most are able to bequeath. In an era in which many Jews are increasingly dubious about the legitimacy of love for a specific people or devotion to its ancestral homeland, the life and commitments of Begin urge us to look again at what he did and what he stood for, and to imagine – if we dare – the glory of a Jewish people recommitted to the principles that shaped his very being.”
Amen! rsk
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