Altalena wreck fuels Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir rivalry, with each claiming to be heir of Irgun militia.
(Al Jazeera) – A race has emerged in right-wing Israeli politics over who can more closely associate themselves with Irgun, a militia implicated in the killing and torture of dozens of Palestinians during the 1948 war that led to the Nakba, the forced displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the formation of the state of Israel.
On Monday, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced the discovery of the wreck of the Irgun’s cargo vessel, the Altalena. The ship carried weapons from France to the paramilitary group before being sunk on the orders of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, in June 1948.
Alerted to news of the vessel’s discovery, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party claims descent from the paramilitary group, was reported to have rushed to the Etzel Museum – named for the Irgun’s Hebrew acronym – near Jaffa. At the site on Monday, Netanyahu released a rival video address from the same building as Ben-Gvir, trying to reclaim the wreck’s symbolism for his own right-wing base.
Netanyahu has been struggling in the polls ahead of October elections described by many as critical both to Israel and Netanyahu’s own future. Facing a potential prison sentence on corruption charges dating back to 2019, as well as an official reckoning for his government’s own failures ahead of the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the stakes for the Israeli premier could hardly be higher.
