This article was downloaded by: [UQ Library]On: 02 November 2014, At: 00:51Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

National IdentitiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cnid20

Exile from national identity: memoryexclusion as politicalUdi Lebel aa Sapir College & Ariel University Centre , IsraelPublished online: 06 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Udi Lebel (2009) Exile from national identity: memory exclusion as political,National Identities, 11:3, 241-262, DOI: 10.1080/14608940903081150

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14608940903081150

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Exile from national identity: memory exclusion as political

Udi Lebel*

Sapir College & Ariel University Centre, Israel

Historiography and national memory are not social institutions that formedspontaneously, democratically or pluralistically, but rational projects featuringpower relationships, shaped by actors promoting political interests through it andlegitimizing their preferential social status and political dominance. The researchfollows the Israeli Labor Movement’s attempts to present the statehood projectand the war for independence as achievements owed solely to the Hagana (anunderground organization affiliated to the labor movement on the eve ofstatehood). Insistent efforts distanced from national memory any mention oftwo other underground movements, affiliated with the rival Revisionist Move-ment, that after statehood became political Party. The article indicates thememory-screening strategies applied, illuminating the ruling party’s consciousattempts to make the public memory and public historiography controllableresources and to exclude political rivals from the national pantheon. Alsodescribed is the establishment’s meticulousness supervision of national historio-graphy, including history textbooks and commemorative literature. The papertracks failed attempts by marginalized groups to enter the public memory, andtheir subsequent launch of an ‘alternative memory arena’ competing with theestablishment’s memory.

Keywords: memory; exclusion; bereavement; legitimacy; Israel

For my part I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past tohistory, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

(Winston Churchill)

To monitor and reflect upon history is a far from disinterested undertaking,

especially when its scribes are its most vigorous and involved participants. Israel’s

early leaders, David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin, wrote about political and

military events in which they had been deeply involved and had had a guiding hand.

Both wrote out of a deep moral imperative that they were privy to historical truths

that only their testimony could render. For many years, their writings and speeches

formed the ground for much Israeli historiography pertaining to the circumstances

and undertakings surrounding the founding of the state in 1948. It should be noted

that in Jewish culture, this phenomenon did not begin with Israel’s statehood. The

transformation of history-makers into history-writers inevitably ignites ethical

debates. It was said of Josephus Flavius’s Wars of the Jews that it was intended to

please the Romans among whom he lived; that he presented the Jewish opposition to

*Email: Ulebel@gmail.com

ISSN 1460-8944 print/ISSN 1469-9907 online

# 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14608940903081150

http://www.informaworld.com

National Identities

Vol. 11, No. 3, September 2009, 241�262

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Rome as pointless; treated the Jewish rebels tendentiously; and tried to refute the

argument that he had betrayed the Jewish people before becoming a historian

(Nachman, 1994).

Although Churchill’s witticism carries a grain of vanity, historical reviews by

those who were swept up in events or actively attempted to channel them tend to be

motivated by strong incentives of self-justification for a particular point of view or

praxis. Thucydides and Xenophon were participant observers in the Peloponnesian

War and the ‘March Up-Country’ [Anabasis] respectively, who introduced strong

justifications for their point of view into their historical narratives. Julius Caesar’s

Commentaries on the Gallic Wars and the Civil War are Latin-student classics replete

with self-promotion and self-justification. Some political activists such as Machia-

velli and Frederick the Great wrote military manuals, but they were intended, aside

from pedagogic objectives, to endear the authors to their mentors and acolytes.

‘Memory is not formed in a vacuum’, wrote James Young (1993) in the

introduction to his book, The Texture of Memory. ‘The motives of memory are never

pure’. While Young explores an individuated memory collected from fragmented

streams of recollection, others, such as Jan Assmann (1995) and Paul Ricoeur (2004),

refine and expand upon Maurice Halbwach’s (1992) original development of collective

memory through cultural and historical memorialization.

In Time and Narrative, Ricoeur (1995) illustrates how history and fiction are

inseparable, demonstrating that the narrative � which is understood through ventures

of perpetuation and historiography � is more important than the historical fact as

regards its capacity to shape historical and political consciousness. In his perception,

the ‘cycle of time’ is the ‘narrative cycle’: every era has its dominant narrative, used by

dominant entrepreneurs to frame facts and create subjective facts. It is they who

award interpretation to (objective) facts (Ricoeur, 1976). Drawing on Ricoeur’s

research, Assmann (2006) engages with the rival cultures of memory: it is not a case of

one era with a sole narrative replacing another era and its single narrative, but more of

narratives operating simultaneously to express differing notions of events.

In memorialization projects, the past does not emerge as a random object to be

revivified. It is constantly contested as a contemporary project. When Trotsky was

excised from the official Bolshevik version of the Russian Revolution, he undertook

his own rendering of events. ‘We will not conceal the fact’, he writes, ‘that for us the

question here is not only about the past. Just as the enemy in attacking a man’s

prestige is striking at his program, so his own struggle for a definite program obliges a

man to restore his actual position in the events’ (Trotsky, 1959). Trotsky’s remark

illustrates the polemical thrust common to history written by its activists, although

political activists by no means have a monopoly on rectifying accounts of the past.

‘We’ and ‘they’ language underscores their passion for presenting their version of the

truth. In the battleground of historiography, the Manichaean impulses of a world

composed only of good and evil leave little or no room for even a minimum of

alternatives. Tertium non datur: this is the ground for ideological thinking, where the

logic of the idea leaves only the choice of following or negating it. As Ricoeur (1986)

notes: ‘Ideology is always a polemical concept because it is their ideology confronting

our true perceptions of reality’. Those orientations are readily apparent in the internal

Zionist struggle for an independent Jewish state and the efforts to justify the struggle’s

course after the state’s consolidation.

242 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Polemical writing is part of the arsenal of political mobilization. Political players

go to great lengths to construct a ‘past’ which displays and highlights to the public

the correctness of their path and their contribution. Their purpose is to translate

them into concrete political support. Thus memory is no spontaneous grassroots

phenomenon, but rather the product of a political construct created by directly

involved individuals who marshal the past to advance present and future political

interests.

Politics, power, and memory

Statist memory is generated by scale-tipping resolutions: who is in? who is out?

Who will be recognised as heroes, as the nation’s founding fathers? Which battles enter

‘combat heritage’, which sites do schoolchildren visit? Which soldiers are featured in

memorial texts that are printed by major publishers and enter the official curriculum?

Whose graves become national symbols, saluted each Memorial Day? Which families

are chosen as official bereaved families, entitled to state support and a preferred

cultural status, and which parents cannot enter that inner circle?

Anthony Downs (1957) maintains that empowerment is politics’ supreme goal.

Accordingly, political rationality necessarily results in decisions bestowing maximum

power on an individual or group. Taking the idea further, Brams (1993) holds that

political rationality includes ‘profit and loss calculations made by rational actors’,calculations that ‘affect a substantial number of people and the operations of

governments. Following Foucault (1984), who believed that politics is present in

every cell and stratum of social life, this work explores the behaviour of a political elite

as it pertains to the shaping of commemoration policy and memory. It maintains that

the war dead commemorated by the state and in national historiography are not

necessarily those who took part in the hostilities. It is a political resolution, with

historical weight. The historian E.H. Carr (1986) defines the historian as a ‘burden’,

maintaining that ‘the facts speak only when the historian asks them to do so . . . the

historian decides which fact ascends the stage, in which order or context. Carr critically

expresses Nietzsche’s normative approach to writing history in his essay ‘On the Use

and Abuse of History for Life’ (ibid). Talcott Parsons seeks a similar, though broader,

perception for scientific research as a whole. Science, he asserts, is a ‘selective system of

society’s addressing of reality’ (Parsons & Shils, 1954). That perspective is adopted

here regarding the war dead who ‘ascended the stage’ of the state, winning state

recognition and commemoration. To understand the politics encapsulated in the

‘social nucleus’ explored, I have applied Carr’s maxim � ‘learn the historian before you

learn the facts’ (Carr, ibid).

On the examined case-study

This paper examines a polemical intercourse as it developed in the Zionist movement

in Palestine, focusing on exchanges between leaders of the Labour and Revisionist

movements. It explores an early conflict over Israeli memory, the start of the politics

of Israeli bereavement, initial attempts to shape the hierarchy of heroism and sacrifice,

and the beginning of commemoration negotiations. Many researchers engaging with

‘others’ in the Israeli memory, particularly as it concerns the early statehood period,

focus on the Palestinian narrative and stories of the Palestinians, who were sidelined

National Identities 243

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

from the Israeli memory and consciousness (Saji & Abu-Lughod, 2007). However, the

Israeli memory is not a uniform entirety and this paper shows that within the Jewish

Zionist ‘story’ of the 1948 War of Independence there were sub-groups whose

contribution to and experiences of the war were omitted from the official story.

Surprisingly, the first to be sidelined from the national memory were those who lost

their lives for the national idea, not those who took issue with it. In numerical terms,

out of the 6,000 Jewish dead in that war, 250 died in the ranks of the Etzel [the Hebrewacronym for National Military Organization] and 127 in those of Lehi [the Hebrew

acronym for Fighters for the Freedom of Israel] � dissident underground organisa-

tions (IDF, 1951). Thus, 377 combatants did not win a place in statist historiography.

The rest were killed in the IDF or Haganah and were institutionally commemorated.

This paper engages with those 337.

Historical introduction

The Labour movement was politically dominant during the pre-state period and for

the first 30 years following statehood. Since 1977, political forces representing

coalition blocs of voters on Left and Right have maintained approximate parity,

although most governments have been formed by the right with the support of

religious parties. In the pre-state and immediate post-state period, the strategy of the

left, led by the Mapai (Labour) party, was to oust its political competitors from thedecision-making process and to enforce political closure in order to restrict their

opportunities for re-entering it. The political sociologist Frank Parkin (1979) argues

that the dominant group’s strategy and tactics vis-a-vis its opponents should be

supplemented by an account and analysis of the strategic behaviour of the excluded

group. In the early pre-state period, rivalries produced disputative rhetoric focusing

on leadership capabilities. Discrediting the opponent for lack of programmatic

clarity, deviating from the path of Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl, exhibiting

weakness of will or over-aggressiveness, infused the language used to present the

opposing leadership as unsuitable for leading the tasks of national renewal.

Resistance against the colonial power intensified in the 1930s and 1940s, and the

struggle over tactics resulted in the excluded group becoming an underground

movement. In the state period, the ruling forces used a delegitimizing discourse

towards political opponents. The latter tended to depict the ruling order as bent on

amassing power for politically partisan interests, and emasculating the authentic

historical record of the struggle for independence. Thus, the political competition of

words and symbols in public space became more than a power struggle over access to

and control of the means of political rule: it also emerged as a political contest for

removal from and infiltrating state memory.On the eve of statehood, only the workers’ parties functioned as mass parties,

which won extensive political support in the model of European socialist parties, and

had a clear left-wing socialist orientation. Facing them was the revisionist camp,

headed by Jabotinsky, a market-economy believer; the party lacked resources and

was unskilled in political organizing (Goldstein & Shavit, 1979). Led by Ben-Gurion,

who aspired to head the future Jewish state, Mapai was nevertheless deeply engaged

in party rivalries. As Ben-Gurion’s biographer Meir Avi-Zohar notes, in its first

days more than at any other time, Mapai was preoccupied with the revisionists. From

late 1931 until the Spring of 1935, the party institutions seemed obsessed by them

244 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

(Avi-Zohar, 1990); the Mapai centre devoted 46 of 77 meetings, from March 1933

until March 1935, to battling the revisionists. Three out of four Mapai councils

convened at that time had similar agenda. At the Eighth Mapai council in August

1934, Berl Katzenelson complained that the movement had handed over all

settlement and Jewish labour affairs to two members (Avraham Harzfeld and

Heschel Frumkin) so that the rest could handle the Revisionists. With Hitler’s rise to

power in 1933, Ben-Gurion began implementing a policy for delegitimizing hispolitical competitors, and labelled them social ‘deviants’ (Mapai Centre, 1934).

Underlying the official political line of Mapai and the Histadrut labour federation

was the thesis that rivalry on the Jewish street was part of the global fight between

the enlightened forces of light and the fascist forces of darkness (Beilinson, 1929).

‘I seem to be reading Jabotinsky’, Ben-Gurion wrote from Berlin in 1932, after

reading a Nazi party magazine. He called the revisionists ‘National Socialists’ (Tevet,

1999) and continued doing so for years; he often called Jabotinsky Vladimir ‘Hitler’

(Jabotinsky, 1980), and his ideas ideological Hitlerism (Nakdimon, 1978).

In April 1936, the Arabs of the Yishuv [pre-state Jewish settlements] launched a

revolt: it included a strike protesting Jewish immigration, and attacks by Arab gangs

on Jewish settlements. The British government acceded to Arab pressure, due among

others, to the approaching world war. In 1939, it published the White Paper which

ended immigration to Palestine almost totally, and in 1940 the Land Laws �prohibiting Jews from purchasing land in various regions of the country. These

developments broadened the Jews’ battle against the British government, focusingand honing their national awareness. When the Haganah, under Ben-Gurion’s

command, collaborated with the British, some of its members defected, adopted

Jabotinsky’s ideology and in Spring 1931 founded the Etzel (Irgun Tzvai Leumi).

Their military goal was to force the British out of Eretz Yisrael (Niv, 1978). Another

defection came in 1940, when Avraham Stern (a senior Etzel figure) objected to

Jabotinsky’s order to temporarily halt the fight against the British because of World

War II; Stern defected with other Etzel members. Stern’s objective was clear � to fight

Britain and end imperial rule in Palestine. Ben-Gurion, whose Eastern European

approach emphasised the value of authority, saw their abandonment as dangerous

and launched efforts to delegitimize the defectors as sabotaging Zionism’s interests.

Etzel and Lehi members were seized by Haganah people, handed over to the British

and imprisoned (Niv, 1978). After the state of Israel was declared and the British

departed, Mapai adhered to its party political line of ignoring and minimising Etzel

and Lehi’s contribution to the state’s founding. Mapai thus avoided granting those

organizations legitimation for acquiring political power in the Israeli parliamentary-

democratic arena.The historiographical parameters of the political clash between the Labour and

Herut movements post-independence are respectively depicted in the writings of David

Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin. Creating a state requires ideological justification,

as well as ideological anchoring. Official state memory has always documented its

constitutional grounding � from Virgil’s dum urbs condita and Augustine’s civitatis Dei,

via the court chronicles and literary history of the Middle Ages, up to the modern era’s

court historians of European and Asiatic dynasties. It is a rare event when the political

leader of the state’s founding celebrates and commemorates in writing the deeds of his

own making, and rarer still when two contending leaders in the struggle for

independence provide separate accounts of what took place.

National Identities 245

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Both Menachem Begin and David Ben-Gurion considered historiography a

political resource, devoting considerable energy to writing accounts of the political

and military events they engaged in. Dedicated with unswerving passion to the Jewish

people’s political rebirth in their ancient homeland, they looked with apprehension

often mixed with contempt at rival Zionist movements: this included factions in their

own camps that deviated from their ideology and praxis. Contentions over the correct

path to political independence and nation-building generated substantial tension inthe Yishuv, expressed in various means of communication mobilised to attack and

defend outlooks and interests.

Because political parties were also movements, their worldviews equated party

interests with the general interests of the Jewish people in Palestine. Unity was an

overriding concern. Ben-Gurion (1973) noted that ‘the habits of disunity and

anarchy which grew wild among us over hundreds of years of exile and subservience

cannot easily be corrected’. Begin (1951) also geared his messages to the entire nation

and did not see a social vanguard such as the halutzim (agricultural pioneers),

advancing the revolution: ‘We never aimed at any particular class, we spoke to the

people as a whole’.

In an obvious effort to claim a legitimate role for his movement in the nation’s

birth and future development, Begin wrote The Revolt. For Begin, the dimensions of

the resistance embraced a struggle for liberation from colonial domination. He ends

his book with an acknowledgment that ‘the foundation has been laid . . . .’ (p. 373).

These words were written immediately after the British Mandate forces had left

Palestine and the Jewish state declared. Earlier he had stated his views on ‘shakingloose’ from oppressive fetters:

A legal, recognised, respectable body strives to remain legal, recognised and

respectable. An illegal, militant and persecuted body strives to achieve the aim for

which it is, indeed, militant and persecuted . . . This clash of purposes must inevitably

end in one of two ways: either the legal body forces the illegal body to stop the struggle

which threatens to undermine its legal status, or the militant organisation shakes loose

the bonds of its dependence on the legal body. There is no third way’ (Begin, ibid).

Although these words were directed at the Mandate regime, their publication

after the regime’s departure cannot disguise their implications for the animosities

between the two major Zionist camps. Begin’s historiography was consciously a part

of making history. ‘The voice of history is not mystic’, he wrote, ‘it is a mighty factor

in reality’ (Begin, ibid).

The stringent singularity of the driving idea also grips Ben-Gurion. ‘The real

danger . . . [comes] . . . from some of those . . . who � lacking any moral, ideological,or political qualification � do not adhere to the unique requirements and demands

of the Jewish revolution’. Again, although Ben-Gurion directed these remarks

towards his opponents on the Left, they had clear inferences for all ideological rivals

(Ben-Gurion, 1973).

At the heart of the Zionist idea was the recognition that the Jewish public could

be marshalled towards a singular goal, whose attainment would bring a solution to

the Jewish question. That required the means of communication to be mobilised

towards the designated goal, that is, a mobilization of collective memory. Indeed,

several of the most prominent Zionists were by profession feuilletonistes and orators

(Herzl, Nordau, Ginsberg, Jabotinsky, Klatzkin, Arlosoroff, Begin), a category of

men which the political economist Harold Innis (1951) termed part of the

246 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

‘newspaper civilisation . . . obsess[ed] with the immediate’. Thus, the prominence of

the retort, the critique, the innuendo, the rhetorical reliance on the ad hominem

characterized the style of writing and lent it its acerbic content. Weizmann (1966)

describes Arlosoroff as ‘merciless in his attacks’ on the opposition Right.

The struggle over collective memory took a different form in the post-state period,

especially when the two movements reached approximate political parity among the

electorate in the late 1970s. At that point, the long-term bearers of the nationalheritage � history books, representation at state remembrance ceremonies, and the

symbolic and historical content of monuments, museums and mausoleums � became

the focus of struggle for the formation of national identity.

The competition to control historical memory: Ben-Gurion and the War of

Independence

As soon as the Israeli state was established in May 1948, the government launched a

policy of distancing the fallen of Etzel [headed by Menachem Begin] and of Lehi

[headed by Yair Stern]. Both were identified with the Herut party which formed the

Opposition in the first and second Knessets [parliament]. In March 1950, Ben-Gurion

wrote in his diary, ‘I will not recognize Etzel. I must avoid discriminating between

members of the Haganah and others engaged in the same work during that same

period; however, the Etzel organization must not receive the same footing as theHaganah’. Israel’s new prime minister recognized that parliamentary legislation

governing honours and compensation for military contributions to independence

should be universally applied. The universal terms of reference would, however, have

to be formulated so that they would in effect exclude specific groups.

Ben-Gurion had the perspicacity to grasp the power of culture and historio-

graphy as a resource leading to and translating into political power: ‘The urgent

issues on our agenda, ‘he wrote,’ are . . . a large partisan publishing house for all

branches of literature, . . . [and] the organization of the Ministry of Defence and

recruitment of a staff of workers for cultural work in the army’ (Ben-Gurion, 1950).

This intent is embodied in Ben-Gurion’s decision to produce The Book of the

Haganah, published by the Ministry of Defence. It was the harbinger of what would

become a continuous historiographic onslaught against the political right. It

triggered deep emotions because the ministry planned to produce a book containing

no mention of the political opposition’s version and role in the war, and distribute it

as official state history.

Haganah members and supporters launched the Haganah book project just after

the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) was established in May 1948. Their horizons extendedbeyond the boundaries of this pre-state military organization. One of its architects,

Shaul Avigur � a Haganah member and a close associate of Ben-Gurion � planned the

book as a record of the history of Hebrew self-defence ‘from the days of Tel Hai

(March 1920) until the order establishing the IDF (31 May 1948)’. ‘The introduction

refers to the earliest defensive episodes, from the start of contemporary Jewish

settlement at the end of the last century [to] tell the story . . . and bequeath it to the IDF

and all its future generations, to the whole nation, and our youth’ (Shadmot, 1973).

A parallel initiative was proposed by a group of historians headed by Professor

Benzion Dinur. Both proposals won Ben-Gurion’s support. Ben-Gurion established a

staff headed by Dinur, with the participation of some of Dinur’s students, and

National Identities 247

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Haganah members, granting the enterprise an aura of academic respectability and

authenticity. The historiographic undertaking was officially announced on 17 July

1949:

The Zionist leadership and the Ministry of Defence of the Israeli government havedecided to publish the history of Jewish self-defence in the state of Israel, from theShivat Zion [the nineteenth century ‘Return to Zion’ group of pioneer settlers] . . . untilthe founding of the IDF.

(Davar, 1949)

A glance at the evolution of the Hebrew defence endeavour as described in the

three volumes is instructive as much for what it omits as to what it contains. The

Etzel and Lehi underground organizations are not mentioned in the volume dealing

with the period when they were active, leaving no doubts as to the narrative’s

exclusionary nature:

Volume 3 of The Book of the Haganah embraces the story . . . from May 1939 until theend of 1948. At first we thought our book would end on 29 November but . . . it becameclear that in fact the Haganah bore the lion’s share of the War of Independence until theIDF was formed at the end of May 1948.

(Avigur, Shadmot, op. cit.)

The three volumes contain accounts of the personal experiences of Haganah

members. Nothing was left to chance, and the texts were carefully scrutinized. Moshe

Dayan’s instructed that ‘The Minister of Defence or the Chief of Staff will determine

which delicate subjects will be included in the book and which removed from it’

(Lorch, 1997). The narrative presents reality as seen and experienced by the Haganah

people who initiated the project: ‘It is not a book of military history . . . . It is a

historical story’, Avigur asserted, continuing ‘We did our best to ensure that

comrades who were active or eye-witnesses in the range of endeavours of the

Haganah examine this document carefully and add their comments . . . ’ (Shadmot,

ibid). The text was aimed at positioning the Haganah and its worldview as the

progenitor of the IDF. According to Avigur:

It seems to me that anyone reading this volume . . . and the previous volumes . . . willfind that the IDF is the direct and legitimate son and heir of the Haganah. Nearly all thebeginnings and origins of the IDF’s institutions and frameworks were in the Haganah’.

(ibid)

Avigur stressed this point in the face of testimony presented as an alternative to this

view by former Etzel and Lehi members:

. . . . In the years following the War of Independence, there was a proliferation ofpublications by those who had been in organizations which we saw as breakawayorganizations. Their aim . . . was to blur the central position of the Haganah in thefounding of the state. What they attempt to convey in their writings and publications isthat there were three underground organizations . . . Haganah, Etzel, and Lehi, allenjoying equal historical rights. . . . I believe every intelligent reader cannot butacknowledge that it was the Haganah that ‘ran along the tracks’ of Jewish history . . .The other organizations were . . . marginal phenomena from an historical viewpoint.

(Avigur, ibid)

The official state texts suited more than just Ben-Gurion’s version of the war. The

official version filtered into other writings, some produced directly by publishers that

were an integral part of Mapai, such as Sifriat Hapoalim, and some as Ministry of

248 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Defence publications, like the MoD’s own publishing-house and others. The

internalization of the initial conception via state writings and messages is clearly

evident in them all. As early as December 1948, Sifriat Hapoalim had published In

the Footsteps of Fighters, comprising ‘selected reportage by IDF writers and reports

from the . . . battle’, an organized, adapted compilation of personal experiences and

reports. Despite the chronological proximity to the events, the published version had

clearly been doctored. Such editorializing was an initial stage in a cultural-socialprocess of generating a ‘collective war-experience’, uniform and common to the

whole community.

The entirety of the documentary writings appears to be intentionally close to

Ben-Gurion’s perception of the events. There is a strong reliance on the Ben-Gurion

narrative as it appeared in his writings, particularly his book The History of the War

of Independence (Ben-Gurion, 1954) which served as an exclusive historical source

for events on the eve of the war and in its early stages. This reliance extends to texts

in whose production Ben-Gurion was not involved. Ben-Gurion quoted extensively

from his personal diary in the introduction to The History of the War of

Independence (Ben-Gurion, ibid). The two volumes of The Book of the Palmach

(Gilad, 1953) published as a counterbalance to The Book of the Haganah published

by Ben-Gurion, apparently in competition with the official version, does not elicit a

different version of the past. Shapira (1985) has found that a very small number of

facts and claims in those texts diverge from the official historiography. The same is

true of later essays, such as those by Jon and David Kimche (1973), Yehuda Slutzky’s

history of the Haganah (1971), and a study by Michael Bar-Zohar (1977). All of

them appeared in the 1970s, after Ben-Gurion’s retirement from public life, were stillbased on the same primary sources that he drew on when writing his diaries and

books, and reinforce the dominance of his viewpoints. Except for Begin’s book, The

Revolt (Begin, 1954), the story of the War of Independence was related uniformly,

complying with its perception by Mapai leaders.

Commemorating the fallen

Beyond recording the general history of the War of Independence and those

responsible for waging it, Ben-Gurion supported a project in which general messages

and values would be embodied in a personal voice. It was an anthology of people’s

stories, to engrave in the public memory the names of the fallen in the War of

Independence. The project grew out of a private initiative by Anda Amir, awoman who

had belonged to the Haganah and later joined the formal defence establishment. Uponstatehood, Haganah headquarters came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence.

On 29 January 1959, it was decided to transfer the Fighters Section, where Amir

worked, to the Soldier Commemoration Section (IDF Archives, 1950), thereby

transforming it into an agent of official state memory. Her task was defined as

‘compiling exhaustive personal material on those who fell in the war, to produce a

collection . . . and a complete testimony to them in a special hall’ (ibid).

Ben-Gurion and Amir met on 15 June 1950, and agreed on the substance of

Amir’s activity. She was to survey ‘everything that could be collected about a person:

his biography, pictures . . . memoirs, testimony and articles . . . ’. As for the period

covered by the project, Amir maintained that the book should include anyone who

had played any role from the time of Hashomer [a Jewish self-defence organization

National Identities 249

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

founded in 1905], as well as the war-dead from the period of the Haganah, World

War II, illegal immigration, and the struggle against the British (ibid).

Questionnaires were distributed among the families and friends of the fallen, in

order to centralize all available information about them. The idea was that each

victim had characteristic ‘national values [that] should become a living legacy . . . ’.

Department employees accordingly sought any and all material expressing ‘the

victim’s worldview, his attitude toward the country and its problems, and so on’

(ibid).

Perusal of the questionnaire reveals those who embraced these ‘national personal

values’. The section ‘Details about his Military Service’ offers these options: abroad,

in Israel, in the Haganah, enlistment, training, soldiership, brigades, participation in

operations. Membership in the Etzel and Lehi organizations is not given as a

possible option. Other than branches of the IDF, the only alternative is the Haganah

(IDF Archives, undated).

This endeavour was aimed at helping in preparation of the book Yizkor [Book of

Remembrance], which was to feature short biographies and create a ‘library of

remembrance’ in the IDF archives. It was hoped that the archives would become an

educational site where students would learn about the contents and then prepare

assignments about ‘the legacy of the fallen’, where they would point out the

exceptional qualities and values ascribed to the fallen soldiers.

Amir approached every bereaved family, seeking material, correspondence, and

character sketches of the victim. Parents were asked to write their recollections of

their son’s military service, and to highlight anything they may have heard about his

‘ . . . relationship with a sister, wife, or girlfriend, or with a comrade from his unit . . . .

All of this was intended to elicit as many details as possible about the victims, for the

Yizkor book (IDF Archives, 1950).

The first Yizkor book was published in 1955. It was in the spirit of political

legislation that determined who among those who fell for the state would be

considered as having made the sacrifice. It is explicitly stated in the Introduction that

the book:

includes all those who fell in the War of Independence in Israel, from the day after theUN declaration of 29 November 1947 until 10 March 1949 . . . . The immediate aim ofthe book is to erect a memorial to our fighters who gave their lives to free our peopleand redeem the land.

(IDF Archives, 1955)

Thus, in everything pertaining to IDF and Haganah casualties, the Ministry of

Defence had established an institutionalized, smoothly running state organization

that worked diligently to fashion a national memory for the slain. Generous budgets,

manpower, and support from political leadership created a Fighters Section that was

well-staffed and budgeted, and worked tirelessly.

Work on the book was intensive and exhaustive. Parents submitted biographies,

the department ensured that nothing was missing, and the articles were edited

carefully. The list of names was published in newspapers and broadcast regularly

over Voice of Israel radio. Families of the fallen living abroad were contacted and

asked to provide information (IDF, ibid).

A parallel project was known as Scrolls of Fire. Ben-Gurion was convinced that

the community of the fallen had special educational value, and could inspire and

250 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

motivate citizens to join the national enterprise and enlist in the army. On 7

December 1949 a decision was taken to produce an anthology of the artistic

creations of fallen soldiers. On the same date, the first announcement to the printed

and broadcast media was made, appealing to:

the parents, relatives, and friends of the casualties of the War of Independence . . . todeliver the creations of the departed soldiers to the IDF Archives, Fighters Section . . .letters, journals, poems, stories, essays, academic and scientific papers, drawings,sculptures, and musical compositions’.

(IDF Archives, 1949)

Only victims who had fallen in the struggle against the Arabs would be considered.

Itzhak Ben-Zvi and the poet Reuven Avinoam, who were members of the editorial

board, wrote to Ben-Gurion, ‘The essence of the proposal: a collection of selected

works . . . of all who have fallen since 29 November’ (IDF Archives, undated). Upon

publication of Scrolls of Fire, Ben-Gurion delivered a speech at IDF headquarters.

Addressing all Hebrew youth, he made clear who, in his opinion, were moral souls

and who, as he saw it, were unworthy of inclusion in this group:

. . . young people who have been apprehended for acts of burglary and rape, Canaanitegangs . . . who place bombs in the homes of ministers and throw stones at the Knessetbuilding . . . . [On the other hand,] everyone knows how these [patriotic Zionist] boys and girlsstood up to the Arab gangs before the founding of the state and to the Arab armies after.

(Davar, 1952)

These words were aimed directly at Etzel and Lehi fighters, who were stunned that on

the day dedicated to memory and commemoration, Ben-Gurion exploited his

platform to attack political opponents.

Parents of Haganah casualties were privileged to see their sons commemorated in

the state books of memory. Some parents became symbolic representatives � the voice

of war-victims’ parents. One such representative was Rivka Guber, whose two sons fell

while serving in the Haganah and the Palmach. Ben-Gurion named and presented

Guber as ‘the state mother’, who for the rest of her days steadfastly served the state by

contributing to education, immigrant absorption, and settlement. Ben-Gurion granted

her special status, wrote introductions to her books, and placed her at his side at public

assemblies; she in turn granted him the image he wanted, calling him ‘Knight of the

Sovereignty of Israel’ (Institute for the Heritage of David Ben-Gurion, 1957).But the families of the fallen from ‘dissident’ organizations did not enjoy the

privilege of seeing their loved ones included in texts which defined and demarcated

the official state community of the bereaved. Shlomo and Menachem Gelbgisser

were Etzel members when they were killed in the war.

You will not find their names in the official memorial books of the government ofIsrael . . . You will not find their creations in the Scrolls of Fire. It is true that those . . .twins who fell in the War of Independence left no remarkable literary legacy: however,the editors of this important and sterling book of commemoration did not see anynecessity of asking for material on [them].

(Herut, 1954)

‘Shelah’ as counter historiographic agent

Lacking ‘entrance’ to state texts about the past, Etzel and Lehi veterans produced

their own private initiatives, where they could record developments of the past while

National Identities 251

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

emphasizing the place and contribution of their heroes and slain. The leading

organization in this endeavour was Shelah [LFF, Liberation of Freedom Fighters]:

Shelah is the institution which . . . combats historical distortion and conceals of thetruth. One of its objectives is to create a memorial to the heroes, to establish theirmemories in the nation’s chronicles.

(Jabotinsky Archives, 1958-Comemoration-decision making)

In 1958 the organization’s leaders summed up its central achievements during the

state’s first decade. As an agent of memory, the body would present its truth and its

story in the struggle for Jewish independence. ‘To all lovers of truth’ was the title of a

leaflet in praise of Shelah, on the eve of Independence Day 1957. Clearly this is what

Begin considered as the organization’s political role; indeed, Begin’s preoccupation

with revealing the historical truth permeates his writings and speeches. In the English

version of The Revolt, he comments on the underground’s underlying principle in

information dissemination: ‘We addressed the public in the simple language of

truth . . . Little by little they learned to trust us. For we told them only the truth.’

(Begin, 1954). Begin ends his autobiography of his early life and imprisonment by

the Communists in Vilna and Siberia with the historical testimony: ‘Happy is the

man who believes in the truth that repudiates tyranny’ (1979).

The mission of Shelah’s commemoration department was ‘to inscribe in the

hearts of the people the endeavours of the underground.’ At times its enthusiasm was

exceeded by its hyperbole, as it sought to rectify sins of commemorative omission.

Instances of heroism rarely matched in the history of mankind and the deeds of thosehung on the gallows � which in other nations would have been taught in schools andwhose stories mothers would have told their children � were deliberately omitted ordistorted here. That being the case, the work of the department for the commemorationof the historical truth . . . is of utmost importance.

(Begin, ibid)

Shelah initiated activities along similar lines to the state’s projects. An initiative

was launched to edit a publication, similar to the Yizkor project, that would honour

the dead from dissident organizations. On 5 December 1948, the Jabotinsky Institute

and the Herut movement’s bureau for fighters and soldiers announced their ‘Yizkor

Book in Memory of the Fighters of the Revolt’ project (Begin, ibid). Initially the

intention was to dedicate the book ‘to the memory of the heroes of the Hebrew revolt

in their fight against British rule . . . regardless of worldview or organizational

allegiance’. That is, the memorial book would also include Haganah casualties who

fell in operations against the British. The commemoration was not to be personal �the creation of personal memorials to the fallen of Etzel, but general � the recording

of the story of the struggle against the British, an episode omitted from the state

historiography, whose only interest was in the struggle against the invading Arab

armies.

Work on the book was complicated. The project lacked a budgetary and

organizational structure akin to state funding and the Ministry of Defence’s backing.

Nor did it have itemized lists of the fallen and their addresses, partly due to the

underground conditions in which Etzel and Lehi had operated. Through a

concentrated effort, a full list of the dead was finally prepared, and information

on each victim and pictures of the majority, were obtained. The material was

delivered to the Jabotinsky Institute, and the sections concerning underground

252 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

fighters who fell after 29 November 1947 were transferred to the MOD’s

Commemoration Department. The department promised to include the material

in the general Yizkor book of the fallen, which, it will be recalled, underscored those

who fell in the struggle against Arab enemies.

Ultimately, Shelah’s book included only the fallen of Etzel and Lehi. The slain of

the Haganah, including those killed fighting the British, were approved by Ben-

Gurion as ‘legitimate’ casualties because they fought on orders of the official Yishuv

leadership. What determined entitlement to military honours by the fledgling state

was not, therefore, the date when the soldier fell, nor the source for the authorization

of military activity during the battle for independence. It was rather the organiza-

tional allegiance of the soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice. The introduction to

the Etzel/Lehi book, In Eternal Memory, reads:

In the tempest of the revolt preceding the United Nations decision and the war againstthe invading armies, many fell. But when the state . . . was established, its heads andministers did not remember them. On the contrary � the government did much toobliterate their memory and deeds. Commemorating the underground, its fallen andoperatives, is one of the duties that Shelah has taken upon itself. The book is a collectionof biographies of all the heroes of the National Military Organization [Etzel], the bloodyevents of 1936, through the . . . great revolt against the foreign ruler, which was crownedwith victory in 1948, and ending with the war of 1948 against the Arab invaders.

(Shelah Publications, 1959)

The book was divided into six sections: the first was devoted to those executed by

hanging by the British; the second to those killed in the riots of 1936�1939; the third

recorded the Etzel soldiers who fell in World War II; the fourth addressed those who

fell ‘in the years of the revolt against the British enslaver’; and the sixth was

consecrated to Etzel casualties who ‘fell in the war against Arab gangs and the

invading Arab armies’. The fifth section is dedicated to those slain ‘by the hand of

Cain’, that is, by fellow-Jews, and memorializes people killed as a result of actions of

the Haganah, especially in the period of the ‘Season’ [November 1944�March 1945,

referring to actions taken by the Haganah, with the approval of Palestine’s governing

institutions, against Etzel and Lehi] and during the shelling of the Altalena.

The book was edited and designed in the same format as the official Yizkor

books. It opens with an ‘In Memoriam’ by Menachem Begin, paralleling the wording

of the state’s secular ‘Yizkor’ in the Yizkor books. There the text does not refer

specifically to the victims of the struggle with the British:

. . . The Hebrew fighter came before the Hebrew soldier.. just as the underground armyled the way to the army of the state; the volunteer fighters were anonymous in theirdeeds: their anonymity was preserved even after their deaths. Justice must accompanythe truth � this is the significance of the memorial book.

(Shelah Publications, ibid)

Shelah’s initiatives were in fact a subversive equivalent to the state’s endeavours.

Since the underground’s narrative was omitted from literature disseminated by

publishing houses under state or Mapai auspices, Shelah produced accounts of battles

and events involving the underground units: the conquest of Jaffa (Lazar-Litai, 1951);

an album of the history of the War of Independence; The Book of the Hanged,

commemorating Etzel and Lehi men executed by the British; In the Shadow of the Arch

of Titus; Fortress of Acre; 12 booklets about various Etzel operations; pamphlets about

the fallen; and Story of the Commander of the Altalena, a book by Eliahu Lankin.

National Identities 253

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Thus, for example, in tandem with History of the War of Independence � a text

published by the MOD in 1951 which became the leading school textbook on the War

of Independence, with an introduction by Ben-Gurion � it was decided to

‘immortalize the war of the Hebrew Underground and its missions’. The book paid

homage to the endeavours of Etzel and Lehi. Its stated objective was to ‘preserve the

historical truth for generations, prevent the counterfeiting of facts, and disseminate

the truth’. Its suggested title was The National Revolution. Again, the objective was to

give historical weight and significance to the project that Begin called ‘The Revolt’, a

strategic decision which ran counter to official Yishuv policy that sought a mediatory

path to ending British colonial rule in Palestine. The first chapter of the proposed and

approved table of contents begins with the unrest within the Haganah and the murder

of De Haan. The book closes with the Altalena affair and the merging of Etzel and

Lehi into the IDF. Among the proposed editors was A. Achimeir, commander of the

Society of Rebels [Brit Habiryonim in Hebrew, referring to an ultra-rightist society

that fought against the British], and M. Segal, commander of the Western Wall

(Jabotinsky Archives, 1951). The book’s emphasis on the effort being ‘national’ as

opposed to ‘state’, reflects the differing perspectives of the two ideological camps.

And in contrast to the state perspective which spotlights the players, defining the

project as ‘national’ means that every group is included.

This motif of national collaboration, and deviation from its path during the

independence struggle, is stressed in Shelah publications. It is discernible in

connection with the underground movements’ saga at junctures when the Haganah

was actively hostile and persecuted Etzel and Lehi fighters. In the introduction to the

pamphlet Background of the War for the Liberation of the Land of Israel � the Facts

about the Relations between the National Military Organization and the Haganah, the

author writes that publishing such a report would have been unnecessary ‘ . . . were it

not for the campaign of vilification and the strife fomented by Haganah leaders

against the Irgun’ (Jabotinsky Archives, November 1948).

Shelah also organized exhibitions at the Jabotinsky Institute, where activities of

the underground were presented to the general public in a concrete manner. Three

exhibitions were mounted, addressing the War of Independence in general, and

Etzel’s operations in particular. They were funded by Shelah and the displays were

later given to the Jabotinsky Institute for safekeeping. A letter from Professor Joseph

Klausner, publicised and distributed by Shelah on the Tenth day of Tevet (a day of

fasting, commemorating the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar) described the

essence of the Shelah organization for historiography as follows:

Over four years (1944�1948), a few hundred individuals . . . fighters of the Etzel and theLehi, gave their lives to liberate the land of Israel. . . . Yet the government of Israel hasgiven no support or assistance to these fighters. It is only Shelah that takes anyresponsibility . . . Shelah ensures that the history written about the Hebrew War ofIndependence is not distorted, whether maliciously or by oversight.

(Shelah Publications, 1949)

When Begin became a cabinet member in 1963, he started utilizing his standing

to introduce his personal heritage and the heritage of Etzel’s fallen combatants and

their battles, into memoirs, textbooks, and military legacy. Begin’s opponents and

supporters were aware of his excessive preoccupation with public memory, symbols,

rituals and historical writing and did not always understand it. Begin’s perspective

254 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

was sometimes regarded as archaic, irrelevant to current events. ‘I don’t recall an

Israeli government that talked so much about values and dealt so much in semantics

and rituals’, complained the civil-rights activist and Knesset member Shulamit Aloni

in 1977 following Begin’s accession to power as head of a Likud government. The

government, in contrast, considered it the rectification of historical injustice

(Knesset, 1977). Earlier, General Ezer Weizman had sarcastically claimed that while

the Palmach had been disbanded, Etzel apparently had not (Yediot Aharonot, 1972).

The first Begin government expended much effort in revising history, and defended

its undertaking:

Entire volumes of reminiscences from the period of the underground’s War ofIndependence activities have been written . . . by a hostile, distorting hand . . .. Nowa-days, in the 80s, we are able, thank God, not only to collect oral reminiscences, but alsoto rectify injustices . . .

(Gilad, 1983)

It is interesting that pari passu with Begin’s initiatives for correcting injustices,

Ben-Gurion, now outside political life, began responding in the same literary coin.

Announcing his intention to retire to Sdeh Boker, he explained that he was starting

‘the most important cycle [of his life], more important than when he was Secretary of

the Histadrut . . . Chairman of the Jewish Agency executive, or head of the

government of Israel’ (Tzahor, 1994, p. 189). He was referring to his intention to

write his memoirs, which he felt would be ‘key to understanding the process of the

nation’s establishment’ (Tzahor, ibid). Zeev Tzahor, who was Ben-Gurion’s personal

assistant, claims that the focus on writing came about because Ben-Gurion was

following Begin’s historiographical initiatives and starting ‘to exhibit anxiety

regarding his place in the history of Zionism’ (ibid). Ben-Gurion was defined as

someone who ‘not only made history, but sought to impose its written content . . .through the writing of history he could influence public consciousness and its political

sub-conscious’ (Mantz, 1982).

The Revisionist camp’s historiographic initiatives alarmed the Mapai establish-

ment. Following publication of Menachem Begin’s book The Revolt, in 1950, Shaul

Avigur wrote with concern to Ben-Gurion:

The book is written with great narrative and polemic skill and is extremely readable.Can it be that the public might learn the affair of the revolt from Menachem Begin andfrom him only? The general bias of the book is to idealize and glorify the affair. It isimperative that the true history be written.

(Boaz, 2001)

As a matter of fact, as Boaz (ibid.) remarks, the stories of Etzel and Lehi veterans

accelerated the publication of The Book of the Haganah, in which Avigur sought to

emphasize the deceitful nature of Etzel’s activities.

Etzel and Lehi veterans did not confine their efforts solely to publishing

literature. The establishment was furious to learn that they were engaged in erecting

monuments to symbolize the day the British left Israel, and were making

parliamentary efforts to establish investigative committees to throw light on their

version of the events of the past (Lebel, 2002). And just as the establishment, with

Ben-Gurion at its head, had dissociated itself from these efforts, it was equally

displeased with their other ventures and worked to thwart them. The Etzel/Lehi

veterans sought to subvert state efforts to identify and equate the hostilities that

National Identities 255

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

preceded the state and enabled its founding with Ben-Gurion’s personality, ignoring

everyone that did not do his bidding. The war was mentioned in a 1959 Mapai

election flyer dedicated to the activities of Ben-Gurion. In the background to his

sketched profile are the words: ‘In the War of Independence/in state education/in the

Sinai Campaign/in mass immigration/he spoke and acted.’

The official historiographic effort was just one component of a broader effort to

exclude the memory of Etzel and Lehi members and fallen from the chronicles of the

1948 War. During a parliamentary debate, Begin complained that Moshe Dayan, a

senior officer, had attended a Mapai party meeting and called upon young people to

join Mapai’s youth movement. Ben-Gurion rejected the legitimacy of criticism of

‘anyone who took part in the War of Independence by someone who did not take

part in it’ (Knesset, 1958). Effectively and zealously, Ben-Gurion took possession of

official state history, to make it clear to the public that he alone was responsible for

the founding of the state. Shaul Avigur described this well when he claimed that Ben-

Gurion’s strategy worked to disseminate and internalize the message ‘It was I who

redeemed you in the past and it is I who will redeem you in the future; therefore,

preserve my regime and support me’ (Knesset, 1963).

In due course, the Ministry of Defence’s publication of The Book of the Haganah

was suspended. Throughout all the years of its publication, the leaders of Herut

stated their opposition to its content and to its being state-published. From the

Knesset podium, Menachem Begin announced that the project recalled ‘ . . . the

1930s, when Stalin [published] a book on the history of the Communist party and the

revolution in the Soviet Union . . . .’. At issue, he said, was ‘ . . . a document [that

was] so misleading, so slanderous, so counterfeit, so malicious,’ and took exception

to the fact that the book was a state publication:

It has been said . . . ‘Do not bring up issues from the past in the Knesset; history willdecide.’ But who will decide what that history is? The government? The coalition?Mapai? . . .The Ministry of Defence’s official historian? The former Minister of Defence?The Ministry of Defence?. . I am speaking about a book which bears on its cover thewords ‘Israel Defence Forces’

(Knesset, 1963)

MK Moshe Sneh (Maki � Israel Communist Party) agreed, explaining that

. . . our views on the teachings of Jabotinsky and the history of Etzel are completelyopposed to the view . . . [of] MK Begin. Nevertheless, under no circumstances can weagree to the impropriety of government ministries or ministers maliciously exploitingtheir state authority by passing judgment on Israeli parties and movements opposed tothem (ibid).

In the summer of 1968, the issue caused a coalition crisis. Upon seeing the

contents of Volume 3 of the Book of the Haganah, Menachem Begin, then a minister

in the Eshkol government, threatened to resign if the book was published under the

MOD’s imprimatur. He would refrain from causing a coalition crisis on condition

that the state did not publish the book. Eshkol acceded, and the book’s final three

volumes were published by Am Oved (Begin, 1972).

Those were different times. Ben-Gurion, the man who single-handedly moulded

the ‘spirit of the period of Mapai’s dominance’ and ensured that Herut and its

supporters remained outsiders, was no longer serving in a state capacity; Herut was a

coalition partner; the remains of its leader, Zeev Jabotinsky, were buried next to

256 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

those of the visionary of the Zionist state, Dr. Herzl; and it seemed that the veterans

of Etzel and Lehi were starting to enter social memory, even if the establishment

remained ambivalent about it.

History and state commemoration began, extremely slowly, to include and

acknowledge the contribution by individuals, victims, and organizations other than

those exclusively promoted by the first prime minister. The cycle of historiographic

confrontation apparently ended in 1993 with the publication of the Yizkor book,

commemorating all who fell between 1860 and 29 November 1947. Work on this

book began in 1978, when Minister of Defence Ezer Weizman (Likud Party, Herut’s

political successor) appointed a public committee headed by Itzhak Avinoam, a

former Etzel member, assigning it the task which President Haim Herzog called, in

the book’s introduction, ‘a rectification’ (Ministry of Defence, 1993). In Israeli

society, the borders of national and state areas are demarcated by the ‘community of

the bereaved’. Such a rectification, therefore, has a broader national significance

extending beyond providing a resource for individuals to process their grief.

In the concluding chapter of his book, The Revolt, Menachem Begin makes a

case for micro-history. He emphasizes that ‘this is not a history of the Jewish revolt

against Mandatory rule in Eretz Israel . . . . not a history of the Irgun Tzvai

Leumi . . . The full history . . . has yet to be written’ (Begin, 1951). In his view, he

wrote the ‘true’ story. He wanted the book to be perceived as historical truth, not as a

uniquely Revisionist narrative. At the same time, he refers to Ecclesiastes 2.17,

implying that without documenting history all will be forgotten, and reminds his

readers that

History . . . records the names of a few who stood at its head. But the truth is that oftenthe main work is done by the craftsmen, the rank-and-file, the unknown soldiers. Wemust not reconcile ourselves to this historic injustice. The chronicles of the Jewishstruggle for liberation should be written in their entirety. Let not those who carried outthe undertaking, the unknown soldiers, be left to the fate of the poor/wise man ofKohelet.

(Ecclesiastes)

Epilogue: new ideological confrontations in the politics of Israeli memory

More than six decades after the War of Independence, young Israelis are not only

disinterested in the role of fallen Etzel and Lehi members in the war’s military

aspects; they are not particularly interested in that period’s events. Political ideology

has changed, too. After years of left/right divisions occupying the central political

stage, the new millennium has brought new camps to the fore. In 2001 the Minister of

Education announced her intention of rejecting a textbook on twentieth-century

history because it underplayed references to the legacy of the nationalist camp and

distorted Zionist history by addressing it from a critical perspective. This orientation

had been adopted by a new school of Zionist historiography, that started emerging in

the previous decade. The minister, like others in the Israeli establishment, saw it as a

post- (if not anti-) Zionist narrative. The minister, Limor Livnat � daughter of Lehi

activists who were staunch Revisionists � was from the hawkish right-wing of the

Likud movement. From a historical perspective, her decision was surprising. She

found the textbook discomforting not only because references to Etzel and Lehi were

shunted to the margins of history, but because in her view it contained deficiencies

National Identities 257

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

and distortions to the central Zionist enterprise upheld by both ideological camps.

Post-Zionist critique lumped together the Revisionist and the Labour camps, turning

the Revisionist-oriented minister into a defender of her camp’s bitterest enemies.

Limor Livnat and Meir Pa’il now fought the same ideological battle against the new

revisionists of Israeli history, who dominated Israeli academia, objecting to the

inclusion of that textbook in the state educational curriculum. Pa’il, who had

previously headed public efforts to remove the national contributions of Etzel andLehi from school textbooks, expressed his solidarity with Livnat in attempting to

preserve the historical legitimacy of the contributions of both their camps to the

Zionist enterprise. For the first time, in the framework of this historiographical

confrontation, the fallen, the fighters and heroic combatants of the past, formed a

united front devoid of political, party or ideological distinctions.

On leadership and memory

This essay may reinforce the one-man politics tradition, placing the behavioural,

cultural, and political explanation on the leadership of one individual who achieved his

total identification with political, diplomatic and public behaviour. When that

tradition began, it examined totalitarian policy or resistance movements that wereassociated with a single person. The tradition later developed into explanations for

democratic-political behaviour of a party, put forward by several scholars (Barb, 1935;

Friedman, 1990; Heiden, 1939; Singh, 1986). Observation through that prism appears

to be borne out through this study. For Ben-Gurion � Mapai’s unchallenged leader,

considered the organizer and leader of the party’s entire behaviour and decisions � the

value of authority meant prohibiting in the sphere of shaping memory and every other

sphere, any hint of objections, disagreement, or questioning of his opinions and

positions. The research elicits the accuracy of the distinction made by a follower, who

said that ‘Ben-Gurion not only made history, but also wanted to enforce how it was

written; he also exemplifies the cunning of history � which changed the results of his

endeavours to an extent rendering them unrecognisable’ (Ne’eman, 1982). As Shapira

(1985) found, a major part of historiography of the War of Independence was based on

Ben-Gurion’s writings, particularly on his diary, even after he left public life; she

concludes that not only was he ‘the leader of the War of Independence . . . he also

wrote its history’. She adds ‘Only a few took the trouble to put forward opposed

positions to those of the prophet, the lawmaker, the Leninist leader of the camp . . .when the years passed . . . when his failings \ even his weaknesses were presented asgood points � like his tendency for unrestricted authority, deriding his local opponents

and labelling them ‘haters of the Jewish people’ (Shapira, ibid). The era of the state’s

Genesis is highly significant for everything pertaining to the symbolic and cultural

array that over time would leave only actors with significant interests and those who,

with patience, could eventually have an impact on that array (Eliade, 1963). Indeed,

Ben-Gurion � because he was in power when the state was established �made haste to

create that array. He acted both in the formal, mundane, political framework and in the

symbolic-political sphere (which Gusfield calls the ‘politics of status’). It is where

politicians act in the cultural-symbolic sphere to influence the prestige and image that

imbues their status and decisions with symbolic legitimacy (Gusfield, 1963). Beyond

his unshakeable control of formal politics, Ben-Gurion worked determinedly in the

symbolic political sphere, which was in fact the scene where he ‘murdered memory’, as

258 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Vidal-Naquet (1991) phrases it, as part of a strategy to sideline political rivals from the

arena of memory and state symbols. It is there that Ben-Gurion took away legitimacy

from their aspirations, claiming they were not partners in the statehood project, and

that their families had not made sacrifices to enable Israel’s birth.

And indeed, in everything connected to the historiographic versions of the War

of Independence, as reflected in Israeli culture, memory, and commemoration, and in

Israel’s policy of bereavement, those who disseminate statism � and Ben-Gurion is

their definitive leader � created a Ministry of Truth which, as Orwell (1971) wrote,

tells its citizens which versions are the state’s and which are not (Rousseau, 1990) It

was only when Menachem Begin came to power that the ‘rectification period’ started

in which the Herut party’s head restored what Assmann calls ‘competing narratives’

to the Israeli awareness.

On identity, politics, and commemoration: the privatization of memory

In November 1952, Uri Avnery � editor of ‘Ha’Olam Ha ‘zeh’ a weekly magazine

with a radical left-wing line � wrote an article presented as a letter to David Ben-

Gurion, the prime minister. It was entitled: ‘Re.: Private Heroes’ (Ha ‘Olam Ha’zeh,

1952). Avnery’s letter was addressed to the man about to end his term of office as

prime minister and minister of defence, and requested him to perform ‘a great act of

justice’: ‘I ask you as prime minister, and as the defence minister, that you shatter all

the miserable divisions that still separate blood from blood, and battle from battle,

and generate uniformity and equivalence between my comrades, my generation, who

fell for the founding of the State of Israel under different flags and slogans’ (ibid).

It appears that, in continuation of the historiographical issues discussed here,

additional identities have tried over the years to filter into the state memory and to

acquire there social significance and recognition of their sacrifice. In the past few

years, the Israeli public has witnessed struggles by families for the names of their

loved ones to appear, finally, in the pantheon of state commemoration. It is a new

confrontation. These families were not distanced because of their political back-

ground, but due to a psychological-cultural one. Israel’s pantheon has historically

underscored heroes, not victims, and so those killed in the Holocaust and victims of

terror have no place in it. Only those killed actively and heroically could be

commemorated there. Now the conflict is between heroicization and victimization of

Israeli memory (Lebel, 2008). Several groups have apparently identified the fact that

presence in societal memory has long-term political significances: both as regards

symbolic status within society, and in their ability � once achieving a presence in it �to start shaping the opinion of the general public and the country’s leadership, an

opinion that has an inherently strong impact on crystallizing Israeli identity.

Notes on contributor

Dr Udi Lebel, Senior Lecturer in Political Psychology and Political Science at Sapir Collegeand Ariel University Center (Israel). Main research interests: Civil � Military Relations;Bereavement and Death Studies, Politics of Memory and Commemoration; Political Behaviorand Political Culture. Among his books: Lebel, Udi., 2009, Politics of Memory, Routledge,London; Lebel, Udi. (ed.), 2008, Communicating Security: Civil-Military Relations in Israel,Routledge, London.

National Identities 259

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

References

Assmann, J. (1995). Collective memory and cultural identity. New German Critique, 65,125�133.

Assmann, J. (2006). Religion and cultural memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Avigur, S., Shadmot, Kibutz Artzy Archives Publications.Avi-Zohar, M. (1990), In Broken Mirror. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, p. 89.Barb, H. (1935). A new world seen through one man. New York: Macmillan.Bar-Zohar, M. (1977). Ben-Gurion. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved. [Hebrew]Begin, M. (1951). The revolt. (S. Katz, Trans.). Jerusalem: Steimatzky, pp. 378�79.Begin, M. (1954). The revolt: memoirs of the commander of the Etzel. Jerusalem: Achiassaf.

[Hebrew]Begin, M. (1972, 29 August, 8 September). The publisher of the book of the Haganah.

Ma‘ariv. [Hebrew]Begin, M. (1979). White nights: the story of a prisoner in Russia. New York: Harper & Row, p.

240.Beilinson, M. (1929, 20 January). Swept by pure policy. Davar. [Hebrew]Ben-Gurion Archives, File Number 4896.Ben-Gurion, D. (1950, 26 March). Diary. [Hebrew]Ben-Gurion, D. (1954). The history of the War of Independence. Tel-Aviv: Ma’arachot.

[Hebrew]Ben-Gurion, D. (1973). The imperatives of the Jewish revolution. In A. Hertzberg (Ed.), The

Zionist idea (p. 14). New York: Athenaeum.Boaz, A. (2001). Incognito and omnipresent (pp. 307�308). Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defence.

[Hebrew]Brams, J.S. (1993). A study of rational politics. In E. Zisser (Ed.), Varieties of political science:

schools and approaches in studies of politics (p. 347). Tel-Aviv: Open University of Israel.[Hebrew]

Carr, E.H. (1986). What is History? (p. 25). Tel-Aviv: Modan. [Hebrew]Davar (1949, 17 July). [Hebrew]Davar (1952, 25 May). [Hebrew]Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper.Eliade, M. (1963). Myth and reality. New York: Harper & Row.Foucault, M. (1984). Truth and power. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault Reader (pp. 51�7).

New York: Pantheon Books.Friedman, T.L. (1990). One man’s Middle Eastern Odyssey. London: Fontana.Gilad, H. (1983). In the shadow of the gallows � the story of an Etzel commander. Tel-Aviv:

Ministry of Defence, pp. 7�8. [Hebrew]Gilad, Z. (Ed.). (1953). The book of the Palmach. Tel-Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad. [Hebrew]Goldstein, Y. & Shavit, Y. (1979). Without compromise: the Ben-Gurion�Jabotinsky agreement

and its failure, (p. 13). Tel-Aviv: Yariv Hadar. [Hebrew]Gusfield, J. (1963). Symbolic crusade: status politics and the American temperance movement.

Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Ha‘Olam Ha’zeh (1952, 26 November). [Hebrew]Heiden, K. (1939). One man against Europe. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Herut (1954, 8 July). [Hebrew]IDF Archives (1949). Sheet explaining the archives’ activities. [Hebrew]IDF Archives (1950). Commemoration and Memory files. [Hebrew]IDF Archives (1951). History Department Report: File 427-75/922. [Hebrew]IDF Archives (undated). Questionnaire sent to the family of a victim from Kibbutz Manara,

similar to those received by all families and settlements. [Hebrew]IDF Archives, undated. Commemoration and Memory Files. [Hebrew]IDF Archives (1955). Commemoration and Memory Files. [Hebrew]Innis, H. (1951). The bias of communication, p. 187. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Institute for the Heritage of David Ben-Gurion, 1957. [Hebrew]Jabotinsky Archives (1948). Commemoration Files.

260 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Jabotinsky Archives (1951, 13 September). Shelah report: The memorialization of the war of theHebrew underground and its missions. [Hebrew]

Jabotinsky, E. (1980). My father, Zeev Jabotinsky, p. 20. Tel-Aviv: Steimatsky. [Hebrew]Kimche, J. & Kimche, D. (1973). From both sides of the hill. Tel-Aviv. [Hebrew]Knesset Proceedings (1958, 18 June). Motion no. 2: standing-army officers participation at

party meetings. [Hebrew]Knesset Proceedings (1963, 25 December). Motion for the agenda: the history of the Haganah

published and distributed by the Ministry of Defence. [Hebrew]Knesset Proceedings (1977, 17 October). [Hebrew]Lazar-Litai, H. (Ed.) (1951). The conquest of Jaffa. Tel-Aviv: Shelah. Some publications were

edited by the Herut Movement. [Hebrew]Lebel, U. (2002). Private versus public heroes: the politics of commemoration in Israel,

1949�1963. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of London.Lebel, U. (2008). Civilian bereavement, a research-study in progress, Sapir College.Lorch, N. (1997). The day will pass: my first seventy years, p. 192. Tel-Aviv: Ministry of

Defence Press. Hebrew] Quoted in M. Bar-On (2001). Memory in a Book, p. 188. Tel-Aviv:Ministry of Defence. [Hebrew]

Mantz, S. (1982, Summer). The Chaim Arlozorov affair as fable or historical fiction.Zemanim, 10. [Hebrew]

Mapai Party Centre (1934, 31 January). Mapai Party Archives-Decision Making Files.Ministry of Defence (1993). Introduction to Yizkor. Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defence Press.

[Hebrew]Nachman, D. (1994). Jewish law in Yoseph Ben-Matityahu (Doctoral dissertation, Bar-Ilan

University, Israel. [Hebrew]Nakdimon, S. (1978). Altalena, p. 210. Tel-Aviv: Yediot Aharonot. [Hebrew]Ne’eman, S. (1982, Summer). The Haim Arlosoroff affair as a case of history’s cunning,

Zemanim, 10. [Hebrew]Nietzsche, F.W. (1968). On the use and abuse of history for life. Tel-Aviv: Schocken. [Hebrew]Niv, D. (1978). Battle for freedom: the Irgun Tzvai Leumi, Vol. III, pp. 276�81. Tel-Aviv:

Klausner Institution. [Hebrew]Niv, D. (1978). Battle for freedom: the Irgun Tzvai Leumi, Vol. V. Tel-Aviv: Klausner

Institution. [Hebrew]Orwell, G. (1971). 1984. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved. [Hebrew]Parkin, F. (1979). Marxism and class theory: a bourgeois critique. London: Tavistock.Parsons, T. & Shils, E. (1954). Towards a general theory of action, 3rd ed., p. 167. Cambridge,

USA: Harvard University Press.Ricoeur, P. (1976). Interpretation theory. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press.Ricoeur, P. (1986). Lectures on ideology and utopia. In G.H. Taylor (Ed.). New York: Columbia

University Press.Ricoeur, P. (1995). Time and narrative, Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Ricoeur, P. (2004). Memory, history, forgetting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1990). On the social contract. In B. Zisser and D. Vatzur (Eds.),

Political thought: a selection of texts, pp. 212�73. Tel-Aviv: Schocken. [Hebrew]Saji, A. & Abu-Lughod, L. (Eds). (2007). Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory.

Columbia: Columbia University Press.Shadmot (1973, Winter), 50, Yad Tabenkin Archives, Section 25, Container 6, File 3. [Hebrew]Shapira, A. (1985). From the dismissal of the chief of the Haganah to the dismantling of the

Palmach: issues in the struggle for security leadership � 1948. Tel-Aviv: HakibbutzHameuchad. [Hebrew]

Shelah Publications (1949). Zabotinsky Archives-Shelach Files. [Hebrew]Shelah Publications (1959). In eternal memory. [Hebrew]Singh, K. (Ed.) (1986). One man’s world. New Delhi: Allied Publications.Slutzky, Y. (1971). Tel Aviv, Vol. 3, Part 2, p. 1587 ff. [Hebrew]Tevet, T. (1999). The lost years and the black hole. p. 16. Tel-Aviv: Dvir. [Hebrew]Trotsky, L. (1959). The Russian Revolution, p. 252. New York: Doubleday Anchor.

National Identities 261

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014

Tzahor, Z. (1994). Vision and accountability. Tel Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim. [Hebrew]Vidal-Naquet, P. (1991). Murderers of Memory. Tel-Aviv: Am Oved. [Hebrew]Weizmann, C. (1966). Trial and Error, p. 400. New York: Schocken Books.Young, J.E. (1993). The texture of memory � Holocaust memorials and meaning, p. 2. New

Haven & London: Yale University Press.Yediot Aharonot (1972, 22 December). [Hebrew]

262 U. Lebel

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

UQ

Lib

rary

] at

00:

51 0

2 N

ovem

ber

2014