Altalena Shipwreck Discovery Sparks Political Race in Israel's Right Wing

A race is underway in Israel's right-wing politics as politicians seek to align themselves with the Irgun militia – a group accused of killing and torturing dozens of Palestinians during the 1948 war that led to the Nakba, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes during the establishment 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 cargo ship Altalena. The vessel had transported arms from France for the paramilitary group before being sunk on the orders of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, in June 1948.

Immediately upon learning the news, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – whose Likud party claims descent from the paramilitary group – was reported to have rushed to the Etzel Museum (the Hebrew acronym for Irgun) near Jaffa. There, Netanyahu released a video response from the very building where Ben-Gvir had spoken, aiming to reclaim the symbolic significance of the shipwreck for his right-wing faction.

Netanyahu is struggling in opinion polls ahead of October elections widely seen as pivotal for both Israel and his own future. Facing potential imprisonment over corruption charges since 2019, and scrutiny over his government's failures before the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the stakes for the Israeli leader have never been higher.

The sinking of the Altalena – stemming from a dispute over who should control the ship's weapons between Irgun and the Israeli military – once raised fears of a civil war among Israelis.

Recalling the event, Netanyahu reminisced about how Irgun commander Menachem Begin (later an Israeli prime minister) ordered his fighters not to return fire after being shot at by Israeli forces. Netanyahu seemed to draw a parallel between Begin and himself by criticizing what he called the "unreasonable attacks" against him and the Likud party.

"In the annual memorial for the Altalena sinking, I hear incitement against us from political opponents standing outside and seeking to insult the ceremony," he said. "Haven't they learned their lesson? We are brothers – political rivals, but still brothers, children of the same people with a shared future and a common destiny."

Massacre

In the eyes of many historians, the rift between Irgun and the mainstream of the Israeli military reflects a fault line in Israeli politics that remains visible to this day.

Along with another right-wing militia group, Lehi, Irgun was responsible for some of the most horrific violence of the Nakba period.

In April 1948, Irgun and Lehi fighters massacred more than 100 villagers, including women and children, at Deir Yassin near Jerusalem, despite the village having reached a non-aggression agreement with the nascent Israeli forces. A few weeks later, Irgun turned its guns on Jaffa, shelling the city's outskirts and contributing to a campaign that drove most of the Palestinian population there to flee, both by sea and by land as fighting closed in.

Even before the state of Israel was established, Irgun waged an insurgency against the British forces in the League of Nations mandate territory, hanging captured soldiers and, in 1946, killing more than 90 people in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

"Irgun was a fascist, anti-Arab organization, and it also used violence against the British Empire, causing the deaths of many Arabs and Britons," Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani told Al Jazeera, referencing the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre.

However, he argued that placing full responsibility for the worst atrocities of the Nakba solely on Irgun misses the point.

"The main forces responsible for carrying out the Nakba were the Labor-affiliated Zionist paramilitary organizations," he said. "This is why I have always argued that there is no true left in Zionism. The so-called 'left' of Zionism has continuously served as a fig leaf for a settler-colonial movement organized on the basis of Jewish supremacy."

Politics

According to the latest polls, Netanyahu's Likud party consistently trails behind Yashar, led by his main rival, former Israeli military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. Voters on the far right – including those who previously supported Ben-Gvir – could be the deciding factor in the election.

But "the story of finding the Altalena wreck only matters for the rivalry between Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir," said Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University. "It holds no significance for the majority of voters."

Bar-Tal added that Ben-Gvir appeared to have caught Netanyahu off guard by seizing control of the announcement, then intensified the competition by publicly stating that the prime minister had refused to pose for a joint photograph.

Ben-Gvir – who has played a central role in the military campaign causing heavy civilian casualties in Gaza – has compared himself to Begin. "He [Begin] knew very well what it feels like to be refused a joint photo on the same stage."

"Ben-Gvir is outshining Netanyahu on Netanyahu's own turf," noted Yossi Mekelberg, a senior research fellow at Chatham House. "Like populist politicians everywhere, both need to be seen as the biggest victims to rally their support base."

Mekelberg suggested that references to the risk of civil war – amid rising political violence in Israel – are largely rhetorical and crafted to draw attention. But he warned that this does not make such rhetoric any less dangerous.

"Netanyahu has been in this situation before," Mekelberg said, referring to long-standing allegations that Netanyahu contributed to the incitement that preceded the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. "He likes to throw such grenades into Israeli society, to maintain a sense of crisis, and then present himself as the savior."