Likud leader Menachem Begin has sworn that the 900 Irgun volunteers who tried to land a shipload of arms on the Tel Aviv beach 29 years ago today were not planning a putsch to overthrow the fledgling government of Premier David Ben Gurion. Begin made that statement at a memorial service Friday for the 16 volunteers who lost their lives when Israeli forces shelled the vessel, the Altelena, setting the former American landing craft afire.
At the gravesite, Begin, who headed the underground fighting group Irgun Zvai Leumi during the pre-State period, said, “Standing her among the graves of 16 that fell at the hands of Cain, I swear to the nation here and to the diaspora, to the older generation and to the young, that the hands of these fallen men were clean and their souls were clean. There was never any intention to take over the country.”
Begin said that he was told by a leading Labor Party figure some years ago that Ben Gurion had been misled into believing that the Irgun was planning a putsch and therefore had ordered the shelling of the Altelena.
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