The Altalena: when a 1948 wreck resurfaces in the Israeli countryside

The discovery of the wreck of the Altalena was announced on Monday, August 24, by the Israeli Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, and the Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, both from the religious supremacist party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Force), member of the ruling coalition.

“At 12:30 a.m., at a depth of 503 meters off the Israeli coast, the wreck of the Altalena was located intact, 78 years after this painful and founding event that shook the young State of Israel,” Amichai Eliyahu said. “We are closing the historical loop on one of the most painful and formative events in the history of Israeli society,” Itamar Ben Gvir reacted at the time of the discovery.

A few hours later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also welcomed the location of the wreckage. “For me, and I am sure that this is the case for you too, Israeli citizens, this is an emotional moment, a founding moment,” he explained.

A showdown

The Altalena was a smuggled weapons ship whose destruction by the Israeli army, shortly after the creation of the state in 1948, highlighted divisions that persist to this day. This boat had left France on June 11, 1948 loaded with weapons intended for the Irgun, a militant Zionist organization led by Menachem Begin and carrying out attacks against the British colonial authorities and the local Palestinian population with the aim of establishing the State of Israel.

“The initiative to charter a ship and load it with immigrants and weapons began in Paris, where the local committee of Irgun supporters undertook to organize it. This happened a few weeks before the proclamation of the state,” explains Israeli historian Yoav Gelber, professor emeritus at the University of Haifa. “The objective of the Irgun members in Paris was to reinforce their numbers in Palestine – both in arms and in men – to face the war that was coming against the Arabs.”

But with the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948, the situation was no longer the same. The provisional government of David Ben-Gurion decided to abolish separate underground armies and militias and create a single state army. The Haganah, the main clandestine army before the creation of the state, ceased to exist as an independent organization and became the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

“The 1^er In June 1948, Menachem Begin signed an agreement stating that the Irgun, the pre-state underground militia he led, would disband and be integrated into the new army. Despite this, Altalena left France with weapons and fighters on the orders of Parisian commanders of the Irgun, animated by a warlike spirit,” recalls the Haaretz newspaper.

Upon learning of this transport, David Ben-Gurion demanded that the ship and its cargo be handed over to the fledgling Israeli army, the Tsahal, while Menachem Begin requested that part of the weapons be allocated to Irgun units in Jerusalem. On June 20, 1948, when the ship reached Israeli shores, Israeli forces finally opened fire on the orders of the Prime Minister. The latter wanted to assert his authority and prevent the emergence of any paramilitary force rivaling the Israeli army within this young state, then in the midst of war against neighboring Arab countries.

The leader of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, then asked his fighters to surrender to the Israeli authorities, uttering these famous words: “There will be no civil war while the enemy is at our gates.”

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“One of the most controversial episodes in Israeli society and political life”

Sixteen members of the Irgun and three Israeli soldiers were killed during this standoff during which a shell hit the ship, causing a fire. The ship’s hulk remained visible off the coast for almost a year, before being towed offshore and sunk in 1949.

“There is no doubt that the Altalena affair remains one of the most controversial episodes in Israeli society and political life,” said historian Ofira Gruweis Kovalsky, also from the University of Haifa. “The incident could have degenerated into civil war, and it was Menachem Begin who prevented such an outcome,” she emphasizes.

This incident pitted the two political blocs that would shape Israel against each other. Menachem Begin became Prime Minister in 1977, marking the rise of the nationalist right and ending the era of the socialist movement initiated under David Ben-Gurion.

The reminder of this shipwreck “puts the confrontation between the Israeli right and left back at the heart of the public debate,” said Ofira Gruweis Kovalsky. “Ben-Gurion accused members of the right of violence and attempted putsch, while the right accused the left of wanting to physically eliminate its political opponents.”

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“A media stunt in the middle of summer”

Every year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who follows the political lineage of Menachem Begin – commemorates the victims of the Altalena at the site of its destruction. When announcing the location of the wreckage, he did not fail to salute the Irgun fighters thanks to whom, according to him, the fight did not give rise to a civil war and who continued to fight during the war of independence.

As the daily newspaper The Times of Israel points out, “while advocating unity, the prime minister did not hesitate to denigrate his political opponents. Netanyahu explained that, from his point of view, Ben-Gurion had made the ‘tragic decision to open fire’ on the ship even though it was ‘bringing essential weapons to our fighters in the war of independence’.”

For historian Yoav Gelber, this speech is far from trivial. “This is part of the electoral campaign: it is a media stunt in the middle of the summer period – traditionally slow – and a sign of the fragmentation of Israeli society,” he believes.

The Israeli legislative elections will take place on October 27 to renew the 120 members of the Knesset. According to the daily Haaretz, the Israeli Prime Minister thus found “the ideal moment” to revive the memory of Altalena. “As the elections approach, any means is good to make headlines, especially when it comes to a subject as sensitive as the Altalena, a ship transporting weapons to the Irgun, a militia which served as a vector for inciting hatred of the far right against the left for almost 80 years,” we can read in an editorial in the Israeli newspaper.

“The ‘discovery’ of Altalena shortly before the most crucial election in the country’s history perfectly fuels attacks on the ‘left’ and serves the false narrative cultivated by the right and enthusiastically promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” adds Haaretz.

“The memory of Altalena must not be used today as electoral propaganda”

One of the main witnesses to this shipwreck also protested against this political recovery. Historian Saul Friedländer, specialist in the Shoah, was 15 years old when he boarded the Altalena. The only survivor of his family after the Second World War and then a member of Habonim, the Zionist youth movement of Mapai – the first party in power in Israel, led by David Ben-Gurion – he left France on the ship to try to immigrate to Israel.

“It was the dispute over the distribution of weapons, and in particular the requirement that some of them remain in the hands of Irgun units in Jerusalem, that turned the Altalena, a supply ship, into a fateful test for the authority of the young state,” he recalls. “The memory of Altalena must not serve today as electoral propaganda for the most extremist fringe of the population – the descendants of these fiery men who, through their actions, defied the will of Menachem Begin,” he wrote in the columns of Haaretz. “They did not shy away from the danger of civil war, while Ben-Gurion and most of the leaders of the Yishuv – the Jewish community of Palestine – not only yearned for unity, but understood that it was vital at such a crucial moment in the life of the new state.”

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A possible bailout?

In addition to reviving this memory, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would give the order to refloat the ship and transform it into a monument. This announcement did not fail to provoke strong criticism. In the pages of Haaretz, Professor Ehud Galili of the University of Haifa estimated that “the refloating of the Altalena, which weighs approximately 18,000 tons and is apparently partially buried in the clay seabed, would be an extraordinarily complex and expensive operation that cannot be carried out with the means currently available in Israel.”

Jerusalem Post journalist Amotz Asa-El also mocked this decision which aims above all to “revive a political myth to divert the attention of the Israeli electorate”. “The discovery of the decomposed skeleton of the Altalena would not shed any light on the events of June 1948. It would, however, serve to fuel the myth according to which the civil war was started suddenly by Ben-Gurion and prevented by the man who, in reality, had provoked it,” he summarizes. “But for Bibi, the facts don’t matter. What matters to him is the possibility, however small, of distracting attention from the upcoming elections, namely his role in the worst disaster Israel has ever known,” he adds, referring to the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that followed.

The historian Yoav Gelber, for his part, sees it as nothing more than a simple announcement effect. “The current Israeli government is committing many senseless actions, and this is one of them, along with many others,” he said. “No one will recover the debris from the wreck, and Netanyahu will forget the matter once the elections are over.”