Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] Tell the truth about Yitzhak Shamir
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View original article here:
http://socialistworker.org/2012/07/23/tell-the-truth-about-shamir
Comment: Stanley Heller
======== TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT YITZHAK SHAMIR =================================
July 23, 2012
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Stanley Heller, host of the Internet television show /The Struggle [1]/ and
chair of the Middle East Crisis Committee, examines the too-generous obituary
for former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir written by liberal writer
Uri Avnery--and documents the truth about Shamir.
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I READ and reread a piece about the death of former Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir by Uri Avnery [2] and was more unsatisfied each time I looked
it over.
Avnery is the venerable leader of Israeli group Gush Shalom, the Peace Bloc.
Yes, Avnery calls Shamir a "terrorist," but in the article, there's a kind of
grudging respect for the man. In the last lines of the piece, he compares
Shamir to two more recent prime ministers, Ehud Olmert and Benjamin
Netanyahu, in this way:
>Shamir, the dead honest fanatic, has many followers. Olmert, the living
>corrupt pragmatist, has very few. Netanyahu, their current successor, has
>the vices of both and the virtues of neither.
>
What virtues? Shamir was a leader of a Second World War pro-Nazi gang. Decade
later, his cruelties brought on the first Intifada. Olmert savaged Lebanon in
2006 and Gaza in 2008. Virtues?
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SOME BACKGROUND. In 1938, as a teenager, Uri Avnery joined the Zionist
military group in Palestine called the Irgun. So did Shamir, who was eight
years older. The Irgun launched terrorist attacks on the British and on Arab
Palestinians, but when the Second World War started, the Irgun suspended its
violent actions on the British.
Uri Avnery left the Irgun in 1942 and moved to the left. After Israel was
established, he became a magazine editor, led Zionist peace parties and
served several terms in the Knesset. In 1982, he was the first Israeli
politician to meet with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir
Arafat.
Yitzhak Shamir's stay in the Irgun was even shorter, but he moved even
further right. In 1940, the Irgun split, and a faction left to start a group
that called itself "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel," or Lehi, according
to its Hebrew initials. The Lehi broke off because it was opposed to stopping
military action against the British.
The reader may be dumbfounded by my calling Shamir part of a pro-Nazi gang,
but it's literally true. Lehi was fascist in form and practice, admired Nazi
Germany right into 1942, and attempted to make a military alliance with
Adolph Hitler.
Lehi was commonly referred to by Palestinian Jews as "the Stern Gang" after
its top leader Avraham Stern. Lenni Brenner has written extensively about its
attempt to link with the Nazis [3]. Documents found after the Second World
War showed that in January and again in December of 1941, the group sent
representatives to meet with Nazi officials to establish a military alliance.
The Nazis weren't interested.
Now, the full dimensions of the Holocaust were not known in 1941, but the
atrocities had certainly begun. After all, on "Kristallnacht" back in 1938,
the Nazis murdered a hundred German Jews and put 30,000 in concentration
camps. How in blazes could a Jewish group in 1941 want to ally with Nazi
Germany?
Avnery explains things this way: "Stern was a logical person. The aim was to
set up a Jewish state in all of Palestine. The enemy was the British empire.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Therefore, we must cooperate with the
Nazis." Avnery writes that in 1940, he himself was "tempted," but in the end,
he rejected Stern's "atrocious logic."
As Stern explained it at the time, there were "persecutors" and there were
"enemies." The Nazis, he said, were "persecutors," just like many others
through the ages. Worse, though, were the "enemies" who ruled over the land
that belonged to the Jews, the British. So according to this mad logic, the
British were worse than the Nazis.
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BUT THERE was more to it. I rely on a 1992 article about Shamir and Lehi by
the esteemed human rights advocate, the late Israel Shahak [4]. He himself
quotes from a book about the Lehi written by an Israeli named Dr. Yosef
Heller [5] (no relation), written in Hebrew in 1988.
Heller explains that Avraham Stern admired the Nazi and Italian fascists. In
1940, Mussolini's air force bombed Tel Aviv, killing 100 people and injuring
hundreds more. No doubt most Palestinians, Jews and Arabs alike, were
horrified. Stern had a different reaction. According to the Heller book, the
attack "impressed him deeply," and Stern became convinced that Italy would be
victorious.
Stern "expressly stated his wish to be like Quisling, already known then as
the ruler of Norway on Hitler's behalf. He wanted to perform the same role in
the 'kingdom of Israel' allied with the Nazis." And the borders of this
kingdom? From the Nile to the Euphrates!
Stern was serious about creating a monarchy. He detested democracy. According
to Yosef Heller, Stern wrote, "Democracy as a goal in itself is something we
should have nothing to do with." In conformity with this notion, Lehi under
Stern's inspiration praised the Nazis extravagantly for locking the Polish
Jews into the ghettos, contrasting this favorably with the conditions of
Jewish life in Poland before the Nazi invasion.
The Stern Gang killed a growing number of Jewish and British colonial police.
The British caught up with Avraham Stern in Tel Aviv in February 1942 and,
according to a witness, tied him up and murdered him. Shamir and others were
arrested, but later escaped.
No more was said about linking up with Hitler, but Lehi continued to fight
against the British during the war. In 1944, they assassinated Lord Moyne,
the highest British official in the Middle East. One of the killers was
Eliyahu Bet-Zuri, who was later hanged. In 2011, the /London Telegraph/
newspaper reported [6] that MI5 files included a report saying that in 1944,
Bet-Zuri suggested the group assassinate Winston Churchill.
Obviously, they never did that, but they killed. They killed Arabs, they
killed the UN's first mediator (and Second World War rescuer of Jews) Count
Folke Bernadotte [7], and they took part in the infamous Deir Yassin
massacre. And they killed Jews--many Jews. In fact, most of their 42
assassinations were of Jews--some for supposedly collaborating, some for
trying to leaving Lehi.
There was one special killing. Yitzhak Shamir killed his boss. The man's name
was Eliyahu Giladi. Uri Avnery says Giladi was killed for "excessive
zeal"--for drawing up plans for all kinds of killing of Zionist leaders,
including David Ben-Gurion.
Israel Shahak has a different explanation. He bases it on an article by a
Haaretz expert on intelligence affairs Yossi Melman ("Who was the first to
draw?" September 27, 1991).
First, it has to be understood that in the 1940s, the Lehi was financing
itself by robberies, thousands of robberies. They robbed British banks and
Zionist banks, and then casually selected Jewish apartments and robbed the
tenants. Shahak writes, "To all appearances, the assassination of Eliyahu
Giladi stemmed from a personal conflict with Shamir over who would have the
authority to approve the robberies." Giladi was lured to a Tel Aviv beach and
shot. Lehi collectively admitted responsibility, but to this day has not
revealed where the body was buried.
So how can Avnery talk about Shamir's "honesty"? He stole and killed for his
gang of madmen. So he didn't live high on the hog himself. Does that make him
an honest man?
So twisted is Zionist thinking that Avraham Stern is memorialized as a hero
in Israel. In 1978, an Israeli postage stamp was issued in his honor. In
1986, Shamir opened a new West Bank settlement called Yair. "Yair" was the
underground name Avraham Stern gave to himself--it means "Illuminator."
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IN HIS piece, Avnery praises Shamir for, during his time as prime minister,
not attacking Iraq when Saddam Hussein shot missiles at Israel and forcing a
million Russian Jews who were leaving Russia to come to Israel instead of
their first choice, the U.S. (That was good? Wouldn't the world have been
better off if they came to Brooklyn?) He doesn't talk at all about Shamir's
policies towards Palestinians in his two stints as prime minister.
1986 was the first year of Shamir's second term as Israeli prime minister. He
continued the Israeli government practices of seizing land, building
settlements, detention without charges, blowing up houses to punish families
for acts of violence and routinely torturing Palestinians in prisons. The
catchphrase of the day was that this was the policy of the "iron fist."
Finally, in December 1987, there was a popular explosion. An Israeli truck
killed a number of Palestinians in Gaza, and angry demonstrations took place.
It was the beginning of the popular uprising called the Intifada. Tens of
thousands of people took part. There were massive demonstrations, strikes,
boycotts, tax strikes and violence, primarily rock throwing, slingshots and
Molotov cocktails.
Shamir's response was endless violence. He didn't use police to control
demonstrations. He sent the army, which used its sharpshooters to pick off
supposed leaders. In the first year and a half, 60 people were killed by tear
gas. Curfews went on for days and weeks. People were shot for looking out of
their windows.
Shamir's defense minister Yitzhak Rabin said his policy to put down the
Intifada was "force, might, beatings." Palestinians alleged that captured
youths would have their hands or arms broken so they couldn't throw
stones--and lo and behold, a journalist caught one such beating on film. All
schools were closed for years. Teacher who taught reading and writing to
children in their homes were arrested.
It went on for six years, and Yitzhak Shamir was at the helm for four and a
half of those years. Over a thousand Palestinians were killed. President
George Bush Sr. forced Shamir to go to Madrid for negotiations, but as he
himself later admitted, all he did was drag things out.
Shamir's party lost votes heavily in the 1992 election, and Yitzhak Rabin
took over as prime minister.
Shamir's parting shot? In May 1992, a Palestinian from Gaza murdered a
15-year-old girl in a city near Tel Aviv. Israeli Jews started five days of
rioting which only ended when the murdered girl's father asked it to end. The
rioters beat any Arab they could find. Shamir words to the nation? He egged
the rioters on. On the third day, he made this statement: "Any terrorist who
comes to kill must know that he is a marked man, and will not come out
alive...Terrorists should be killed at the time that they are attacking their
victims, and anyone who kills them should know that no evil will befall him."
There is no reason to pretty up Shamir's image. Thug, terrorist, fanatic,
pro-Nazi, oppressor--this is what needs to be remembered about Yitzhak
Shamir.
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[1] http://TheStruggle.org
[2] http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=19408
[3] http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/15-shamir.htm
[4] http://student.cs.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/yitzhakShamir-ThenAndNow.htm
[5] http://books.google.com/books?id=0-WsDRJQCO4C&printsec=frontcover
[6] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/8425271/MI5-files-Zionist-terrorist-plotted-to-kill-Winston-Churchill.html
[7] http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/some-israelis-celebrate-what-bernadottes-murder-achieved.html
