[pbiggar]

The Stern gang, who killed him, became the IDF (along with the Haganah and the Irgun). These groups performed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that allowed Israel to be built on Palestinian land (commonly known as the Nakba).

> One of the chief organisers of the assassination was Yitzhak Shamir, who became Israel’s prime minister in 1984.

Exactly.

[antonymoose]

This is the part that I never understood about US-Israeli relations, that they were going on doing terrible deeds from the beginning.

How exactly did they go from these constant attacks including on a close ally like the British to “Greatest Ally” status.

[FridayoLeary]

The UK is also historically a strong ally of Israel. Like other former colonies they looked to britain for help and guidance. After all the whole state was built on British foundations. After a while britain realised it was in their interests to help Israel and their relationship even today is one of mutual respect.

I think it goes to show the limits of the conflict between the British and the jews of palestine. It was never personal and therefore while there was much anger and resentment, there was never any hate.

The history of how the alliance came about is fascinating. It started with the suez war. Their relationship with the US came about at the same time as the breakdown with the French and was helped by the fact that the US saw Israel as a convenient proxy against the Soviets.

[kalberg6429]

That is one of the most grotesque whitewashes of Zionist terrorism I have ever read. You are trying to rewrite a story of Zionist terrorism and colonial succession into a heartwarming family drama.

The idea that Zionists were just a colony "looking to Britain for guidance" is an understatement. They were a de facto rival colonial project that used terror to expel the British, the Zionists even ironically described the British as occupiers of Palestine.[0] The Zionists weren't looking for "guidance," they were busy planting bombs[1]. Your claim that it was "never personal" and there was "no hate" is a disgusting lie. Tell that to the families of the British sergeants the Irgun hanged and booby-trapped. Tell that to the scores of British officials murdered in the King David Hotel bombing. It was a vicious Zionist terror campaign, and pretending otherwise is obscene.

Finally, your "convenient proxy" explanation sanitizes the ugly truth. The West didn't ally with Israel despite its history of terrorism, but they allied with it because of it. Israel's violent founding proved it could be a ruthless and effective enforcer for Western imperial interests. That is the real foundation of your "special relationship."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...

[breppp]

The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF, claiming dead and almost triggering a civil war.

Something the Palestinians could never muster, and one of the reasons they are still in this position, stateless under the control of Hamas

[jedimind]

The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena Affair, to paint a profoundly false picture. It's a self-serving myth designed to launder the history of the Irgun and create a clean break between the "respectable" new "state" of Israel and its terrorist antecedents, a break that never truly happened.

The Altalena incident was not a moral battle against terrorism, it was a cynical power struggle. Ben-Gurion needed to establish the state's monopoly on force and could not tolerate Menachem Begin's private terrorist gang. After the confrontation, Irgun fighters were not punished. They were absorbed into the IDF, where their terrorist skills became state assets.

This move whitewashes what the Irgun actually was. Long before "Israel" absorbed them, they were internationally recognized as terrorists (even by the US AND UK!) for terrorism e.g. like the King-David Hotel bombing. In a famous letter, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt called Begin's organization terrorists and "closely akin in its organization, methods, [and] political philosophy to the Nazi and Fascist parties." The ultimate proof that Israel never rejected its terrorist ideology is the career of the Irgun commander himself, Menachem Begin. He was never tried as a traitor or a terrorist. He founded the party that would become Likud and was later elected Prime Minister. Israel didn't purge its terrorist founders, it eventually put one in charge of Israel.

[FridayoLeary]

I agree with lots of that actually! The altalena affair is a shameful stain on ben gurions legacy although he might have been justified in distrusting Begin considering how much the irgun had been relentlessly persecuted. But Begins decision not to descend into civil war over it speaks volumes about his moral fortitude and clarity. For Begin violence and terrorism was a means to an end not a way of life. When peace was an option he took that path. It was Begin who made peace with Israels mortal enemies - Egypt and he did the unthinkable, gave back the sinai peninsula.

Shamir too, saw no further use for violence after 1948 and eventually took to politics and only in that theater did he engage with his mortal enemies on the left.

I can't help but contrast that with the actions of Yasser Arafat who unleashed the second intifada on Israel after signing the Oslo Accords or hamas who used the de facto palestinian state of gaza as a base to launch attacks and missiles at Israel.

[jedimind]

It is truly incredible to see those Zionist terrorist's pragmatic calculation rebranded as "moral fortitude." Begin avoided a civil war because he knew his extremist ideology would eventually conquer the state from within, and he was proven right.

The idea that violence for him and Shamir was just a "means to an end" that stopped in 1948 is a complete fantasy. They simply nationalized their terrorism. Begin didn't find peace. He swapped his Irgun uniform for a state uniform to launch the brutal 1982 invasion of Lebanon and to oversee a massive, violent expansion of illegal settlements. His "peace" with Egypt was a strategic masterstroke. It neutralized his biggest military threat, freeing him up to colonize Palestine with impunity.

This continuous, state-sanctioned violence was never just random. It was the implementation of an ideology that sees Palestinians as subhuman obstacles. And now, that project has reached its logical and horrifying conclusion. It has culminated in what leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International and hundreds of the world's foremost genocide scholars explicitly call it: the crime of genocide.[1][2]

So your attempt to contrast this with Palestinian leaders is a disgusting exercise in victim-blaming. You are defending the architects of a political project that resulted in genocide, while slandering its victims for resisting their own extermination. It is a morally bankrupt position that rests on a complete inversion of reality.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ...

[2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...

[FridayoLeary]

Who are they a victim of exactly? Hamas can't be a victim when they are still actively holding onto hostages and started this whole war. You can say it's the average gazan, so long as they don't support Hamas. Which makes them a victim of both Israel and Hamas which is a fair claim, but they have been horribly let down by their leaders while Israel hasn't, which was kind of my point?

[breppp]

The fact is that the extreme organizations in Israel were the absolute minority and when push came to shove, they were subdued and integrated. Hence the state has successfully enforced its monopoly on violence.

When the same thing could have happened in the 1990s with the Palestinians, the exact opposite result happened. A huge mistake from the Palestinian side which left them way worse off (and only getting worse)

[inigoalonso]

How are you subdued if you become the prime minister?

[breppp]

Subdued by having your organization dismantled and effectively disappears, becoming a political party, this did not even happen to the Fatah which is the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction among the Palestinians

In Israel 40 years passed before he was elected as prime minister, by the way

[jedimind]

You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708

[jedimind]

That's a complete misreading of history and a dishonest attempt to deflect from the point by invoking a false equivalence.

First you claim the Zionist extremists were an "absolute minority." The Revisionist Zionism of the Irgun was never a fringe belief, it was a powerful and central pillar of the Zionist movement. And in the end, their ideology won. They weren't just "integrated", they took over.

Furthermore, the idea that they were "subdued" is laughable. You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state". Finally, your comparison to the Palestinians in the 1990s is a disgusting and intellectually bankrupt false equivalence. You are comparing an internal power struggle between factions of a ruthless colonizing power with the struggle of an occupied people living under a brutal military occupation. There is no parallel. It's a classic victim-blaming tactic designed to absolve the occupier of its responsibility and guilt https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...

[breppp]

That's completely incorrect by the way, most of Israel of that time was socialist (or communist) and supported the left wing parties behind Haganah and the Palmach. You can easily see it in the size of the political parties and relevant militant organizations.

Regarding my comparison, I think it's very valid. The Palestinians had a huge leadership problem which led them here. Among many things such as rejecting peace offers, most stem from bowing down to extremists, lying to their own people and never being able to have their own version of Altalena

[kalberg6429]

The expected Zionist modus operandi, whitewash Zionist crimes, then blame the victim for responding.

Your "socialist" argument is a weak attempt to hide behind a political label. It doesn't matter what they called themselves. The "socialist"[1] Haganah and Palmach were the main engines of the Nakba. The distinction between them and the Irgun was a public relations strategy, a "good cop, bad cop" routine for the same unified colonial project of dispossessing Palestinians.

The Altalena was a colonizing force consolidating its monopoly on violence to better oppress and dispossess the Palestinians. You cannot compare that to a occupied population struggling under a foreign military boot. Palestinian "leadership problems" and disunity are a direct result of decades of Israeli assassinations, imprisonment, and engineered fragmentation.[2]

[1] 'The Dark History of "Left-Wing" Zionism' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp9PZo4UR0

[2] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-...

[FridayoLeary]

I disagree. The palestinians refuse to take any responsibility for any of the acts that takes place in their name. On the other hand they never condemn or disown them either. The target of their violence is often their fellow Arabs but usually it's Jews. But always the people who suffer the most from their actions are their own. Yet their behaviour is rarely condemned and often implictly and explicitly encouraged. With such a mindset how can there be a reasonable prospect for peace?

[kalberg6429]

That is a disgustingly cynical and dishonest argument, a masterclass in colonial propaganda.

You demand the people being crushed under a boot "take responsibility," while giving a pass to Zionists who have all the power and are the perpetrators responsible for it all. It's a sick moral inversion. You cry about a lack of peace while defending the Zionist entity that has demonstrated for a century that it is not interested in peace, only in surrender and domination. Also, the audacity to speak of a "prospect for peace" when Zionists has systematically sabotaged it at every turn, even murdering diplomats during negotiations.[0]

Another classic Zionist deflection is to make it about "Jews" so you can deflect from the racist[1], European colonial project that they are resisting. This is not a religious war. It is an anti-colonial struggle against Zionism. The only people who insist on making it about "Jews" are the Zionists themselves, because it's their most effective propaganda shield.

The violence you clutch your pearls over is the inevitable, desperate product of a hundred years of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. You are blaming the oppressed for the consequences of their own oppression. It is the oldest and most pathetic trick in the colonial playbook.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/12/israels-strike...

[1] "The British told us that there are some hundred thousand negroes [kushim in Hebrew] and for those there is no value." - Weizmann, quoted by Arthur Ruppin in: Yosef Heller, Bama'avak Lamedinah , Jerusalem, 1984, p.140.

[rdtsc]

> The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF, claiming dead and almost triggering a civil war.

So that means the terrorists, especially the leaders, were tried and punished for their crimes?

[breppp]

No, but it means twenty people died in the process of forcing them to disintegrate

[bjourne]

That proves nothing. 100 times as many Palestinians have been killed in Fatah-Hamas skirmishes. Yet you still think the PA supports terrorism.

[ylabidi]

The context from the Palestinian side is quite different and comparing the two is flawed for many reasons:

There was never a consensus on the Oslo accords from both sides. While the Israeli Labor pushed for the process, the Likud and the rest of right wingers worked thoroughly to undermine it. And on the Palestinian side, the OLP, essentially Fatah, went on to accept terms every other Palestinian faction refused to adhere to (demilitarized state, practically land-locked on a mozaic of patches that amounts to a fraction of the country's total area and surrounded everywhere with ever-increasing Israeli settlement projects.

That effectively weakened Fatah's position which essentially morphed into a caretaker on behalf of the Israelis for the day-to-day. And the resistance weight shifted from secular factions to the Hamas.

[breppp]

There was consensus in the Israeli public which fell apart gradually during Hamas suicide bombing campaign in the 1990s, while many Israelis naively believed in peace and refused to come to terms with Arafat actually leading the Second Intifada a few years into the Intifada.

Regarding a landlocked mosaic, that was the reality of the interim agreement but was far from the situation offered to the Palestinians in multiple subsequent peace plans, which were all rejected or effectively rejected through introducing terms that were untenable.

For example this map, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0dv7rxxvo.

The issue was a combination of lack of popular support in the Palestine side, refusal to explain the terms of reality to their population and preferring to lean on the ethos of "resistance" which is an easier sale and cowardice in their leadership.

This of course does not talk about the Israeli leadership issues which are also numerous, but the issues I mentioned above go back to the forties and before, and Israeli leadership did achieve statehood, while the Palestinian one had always tried the all-or-nothing approach and were left with nothing.

[bjourne]

Such ridiculous Hasbara. There was never an Israeli public consensus. That Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist tells you as much. Moreover, the Hebron mosque massacre preceded Hamas's suicide bombings. Jewish terrorism is as much to blame for derailing the peace process as Palestinian irredentism is. Then you have Benjamin Netanyahu, elected prime minister of Israel in 1997 who in 2001 boasted: "I de facto put an end to the Oslo Accords"

All while Israel was rapidly expanding its settlements on the West Bank. States generally don't build settlements on territory they intend to relinquish.