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The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena

The claim that "The Irgun was forcibly integrated into the IDF" is a classic piece of Zionist propaganda because it uses a technically true event, the Altalena Affair, to paint a profoundly false picture. It's a self-serving myth designed to launder the history of the Irgun and create a clean break between the "respectable" new "state" of Israel and its terrorist antecedents, a break that never truly happened. The Altalena incident was not a moral battle against terrorism, it was a cynical power struggle. Ben-Gurion needed to establish the state's monopoly on force and could not tolerate Menachem Begin's private terrorist gang. After the confrontation, Irgun fighters were not punished. They were absorbed into the IDF, where their terrorist skills became state assets. This move whitewashes what the Irgun actually was. Long before "Israel" absorbed them, they were internationally recognized as terrorists (even by the US AND UK!) for terrorism e.g. like the King-David Hotel bombing. In a famous letter, Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt called Begin's organization terrorists and "closely akin in its organization, methods, [and] political philosophy to the Nazi and Fascist parties." The ultimate proof that Israel never rejected its terrorist ideology is the career of the Irgun commander himself, Menachem Begin. He was never tried as a traitor or a terrorist. He founded the party that would become Likud and was later elected Prime Minister. Israel didn't purge its terrorist founders, it eventually put one in charge of Israel.

breppp 1y ago
The fact is that the extreme organizations in Israel were the absolute minority and when push came to shove, they were subdued and integrated. Hence the state has successfully enforced its monopoly on violence. When the same thing could have happened in the 1990s with the Palestinians, the exact opposite result happened. A huge mistake from the Palestinian side which left them way worse off (and only getting worse)
- inigoalonso 1y ago
  How are you subdued if you become the prime minister?
  - breppp 1y ago
    Subdued by having your organization dismantled and effectively disappears, becoming a political party, this did not even happen to the Fatah which is the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction among the Palestinians In Israel 40 years passed before he was elected as prime minister, by the way
    - jedimind 1y ago
      You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708
      - breppp 1y ago
        If in the 70 years that passed there was no longer Lehi or Etzel, then these organizations disappeared. If they became part of a nation army, divided across the different units, and most of their men discharged after the war, then these organizations disappeared Had the IDF adopted the Etzel tactics of bombing the British as you suggest that would probably cause immense issues in the next desert tank war fought in 1956
        jedimind 1y ago
        You are deliberately playing a semantic game with the word "disappear" because you know the truth is damning. The Irgun didn't "vanish." Its violent, expansionist and terrorist ideology succeeded. It then took over the "state", making the old brand name redundant. Why would Menachem Begin need a private terrorist gang when he could one day command the entire military to achieve his goals? And your argument about tactics is a pathetic diversion. The state adopted the Irgun's core ethos, a readiness to use extreme, disproportionate violence and terrorism for political ends. This is the "state" whose military ruthlessly attacked[0] its own "greatest Ally", an American naval intelligence ship, the USS Liberty including its crew, and later formalized its terrorist strategy of collective punishment into an explicit military policy, the Dahiya Doctrine[1]. The violence wasn't abandoned. It was industrialized. Instead of a terrorist bombing a hotel, Prime Minister Begin used the full force of the air force to carpet-bomb Lebanon and Gaza. The Irgun didn't disappear. It just took over the "state" and evolved its terrorism by trading its primitive zionist bombs for high-tech fighter jets. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
- jedimind 1y ago
  That's a complete misreading of history and a dishonest attempt to deflect from the point by invoking a false equivalence. First you claim the Zionist extremists were an "absolute minority." The Revisionist Zionism of the Irgun was never a fringe belief, it was a powerful and central pillar of the Zionist movement. And in the end, their ideology won. They weren't just "integrated", they took over. Furthermore, the idea that they were "subdued" is laughable. You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state". Finally, your comparison to the Palestinians in the 1990s is a disgusting and intellectually bankrupt false equivalence. You are comparing an internal power struggle between factions of a ruthless colonizing power with the struggle of an occupied people living under a brutal military occupation. There is no parallel. It's a classic victim-blaming tactic designed to absolve the occupier of its responsibility and guilt https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jewish-zionist-terrorism-and-establishment-israel https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
  - breppp 1y ago
    That's completely incorrect by the way, most of Israel of that time was socialist (or communist) and supported the left wing parties behind Haganah and the Palmach. You can easily see it in the size of the political parties and relevant militant organizations. Regarding my comparison, I think it's very valid. The Palestinians had a huge leadership problem which led them here. Among many things such as rejecting peace offers, most stem from bowing down to extremists, lying to their own people and never being able to have their own version of Altalena
    - kalberg6429 1y ago
      The expected Zionist modus operandi, whitewash Zionist crimes, then blame the victim for responding. Your "socialist" argument is a weak attempt to hide behind a political label. It doesn't matter what they called themselves. The "socialist"[1] Haganah and Palmach were the main engines of the Nakba. The distinction between them and the Irgun was a public relations strategy, a "good cop, bad cop" routine for the same unified colonial project of dispossessing Palestinians. The Altalena was a colonizing force consolidating its monopoly on violence to better oppress and dispossess the Palestinians. You cannot compare that to a occupied population struggling under a foreign military boot. Palestinian "leadership problems" and disunity are a direct result of decades of Israeli assassinations, imprisonment, and engineered fragmentation.[2] [1] 'The Dark History of "Left-Wing" Zionism' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp9PZo4UR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp9PZo4UR0 [2] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-to-hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-palestinians-divided-583082 https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-...
FridayoLeary 1y ago
I agree with lots of that actually! The altalena affair is a shameful stain on ben gurions legacy although he might have been justified in distrusting Begin considering how much the irgun had been relentlessly persecuted. But Begins decision not to descend into civil war over it speaks volumes about his moral fortitude and clarity. For Begin violence and terrorism was a means to an end not a way of life. When peace was an option he took that path. It was Begin who made peace with Israels mortal enemies - Egypt and he did the unthinkable, gave back the sinai peninsula. Shamir too, saw no further use for violence after 1948 and eventually took to politics and only in that theater did he engage with his mortal enemies on the left. I can't help but contrast that with the actions of Yasser Arafat who unleashed the second intifada on Israel after signing the Oslo Accords or hamas who used the de facto palestinian state of gaza as a base to launch attacks and missiles at Israel.
- jedimind 1y ago
  It is truly incredible to see those Zionist terrorist's pragmatic calculation rebranded as "moral fortitude." Begin avoided a civil war because he knew his extremist ideology would eventually conquer the state from within, and he was proven right. The idea that violence for him and Shamir was just a "means to an end" that stopped in 1948 is a complete fantasy. They simply nationalized their terrorism. Begin didn't find peace. He swapped his Irgun uniform for a state uniform to launch the brutal 1982 invasion of Lebanon and to oversee a massive, violent expansion of illegal settlements. His "peace" with Egypt was a strategic masterstroke. It neutralized his biggest military threat, freeing him up to colonize Palestine with impunity. This continuous, state-sanctioned violence was never just random. It was the implementation of an ideology that sees Palestinians as subhuman obstacles. And now, that project has reached its logical and horrifying conclusion. It has culminated in what leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International and hundreds of the world's foremost genocide scholars explicitly call it: the crime of genocide.[1][2] So your attempt to contrast this with Palestinian leaders is a disgusting exercise in victim-blaming. You are defending the architects of a political project that resulted in genocide, while slandering its victims for resisting their own extermination. It is a morally bankrupt position that rests on a complete inversion of reality. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza-worlds-top-scholars-on-the-say https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ... [2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...

breppp 1y ago

The fact is that the extreme organizations in Israel were the absolute minority and when push came to shove, they were subdued and integrated. Hence the state has successfully enforced its monopoly on violence. When the same thing could have happened in the 1990s with the Palestinians, the exact opposite result happened. A huge mistake from the Palestinian side which left them way worse off (and only getting worse)

inigoalonso 1y ago
How are you subdued if you become the prime minister?
- breppp 1y ago
  Subdued by having your organization dismantled and effectively disappears, becoming a political party, this did not even happen to the Fatah which is the terror organization behind the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction among the Palestinians In Israel 40 years passed before he was elected as prime minister, by the way
  - jedimind 1y ago
    You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45300708
    - breppp 1y ago
      If in the 70 years that passed there was no longer Lehi or Etzel, then these organizations disappeared. If they became part of a nation army, divided across the different units, and most of their men discharged after the war, then these organizations disappeared Had the IDF adopted the Etzel tactics of bombing the British as you suggest that would probably cause immense issues in the next desert tank war fought in 1956
      - jedimind 1y ago
        You are deliberately playing a semantic game with the word "disappear" because you know the truth is damning. The Irgun didn't "vanish." Its violent, expansionist and terrorist ideology succeeded. It then took over the "state", making the old brand name redundant. Why would Menachem Begin need a private terrorist gang when he could one day command the entire military to achieve his goals? And your argument about tactics is a pathetic diversion. The state adopted the Irgun's core ethos, a readiness to use extreme, disproportionate violence and terrorism for political ends. This is the "state" whose military ruthlessly attacked[0] its own "greatest Ally", an American naval intelligence ship, the USS Liberty including its crew, and later formalized its terrorist strategy of collective punishment into an explicit military policy, the Dahiya Doctrine[1]. The violence wasn't abandoned. It was industrialized. Instead of a terrorist bombing a hotel, Prime Minister Begin used the full force of the air force to carpet-bomb Lebanon and Gaza. The Irgun didn't disappear. It just took over the "state" and evolved its terrorism by trading its primitive zionist bombs for high-tech fighter jets. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
jedimind 1y ago
That's a complete misreading of history and a dishonest attempt to deflect from the point by invoking a false equivalence. First you claim the Zionist extremists were an "absolute minority." The Revisionist Zionism of the Irgun was never a fringe belief, it was a powerful and central pillar of the Zionist movement. And in the end, their ideology won. They weren't just "integrated", they took over. Furthermore, the idea that they were "subdued" is laughable. You do not "subdue" a movement by absorbing its members into your army and then electing its terrorist commander as your Prime Minister. Menachem Begin was not defeated, he was promoted. The state didn't end the Irgun's terrorism, it nationalized it, making the Irgun's tactics and goals the official policy of the "state". Finally, your comparison to the Palestinians in the 1990s is a disgusting and intellectually bankrupt false equivalence. You are comparing an internal power struggle between factions of a ruthless colonizing power with the struggle of an occupied people living under a brutal military occupation. There is no parallel. It's a classic victim-blaming tactic designed to absolve the occupier of its responsibility and guilt https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jewish-zionist-terrorism-and-establishment-israel https://web.archive.org/web/20231029055310/ojp.gov/ncjrs/vir...
- breppp 1y ago
  That's completely incorrect by the way, most of Israel of that time was socialist (or communist) and supported the left wing parties behind Haganah and the Palmach. You can easily see it in the size of the political parties and relevant militant organizations. Regarding my comparison, I think it's very valid. The Palestinians had a huge leadership problem which led them here. Among many things such as rejecting peace offers, most stem from bowing down to extremists, lying to their own people and never being able to have their own version of Altalena
  - kalberg6429 1y ago
    The expected Zionist modus operandi, whitewash Zionist crimes, then blame the victim for responding. Your "socialist" argument is a weak attempt to hide behind a political label. It doesn't matter what they called themselves. The "socialist"[1] Haganah and Palmach were the main engines of the Nakba. The distinction between them and the Irgun was a public relations strategy, a "good cop, bad cop" routine for the same unified colonial project of dispossessing Palestinians. The Altalena was a colonizing force consolidating its monopoly on violence to better oppress and dispossess the Palestinians. You cannot compare that to a occupied population struggling under a foreign military boot. Palestinian "leadership problems" and disunity are a direct result of decades of Israeli assassinations, imprisonment, and engineered fragmentation.[2] [1] 'The Dark History of "Left-Wing" Zionism' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp9PZo4UR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehp9PZo4UR0 [2] https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-to-hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-palestinians-divided-583082 https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-...

FridayoLeary 1y ago

I agree with lots of that actually! The altalena affair is a shameful stain on ben gurions legacy although he might have been justified in distrusting Begin considering how much the irgun had been relentlessly persecuted. But Begins decision not to descend into civil war over it speaks volumes about his moral fortitude and clarity. For Begin violence and terrorism was a means to an end not a way of life. When peace was an option he took that path. It was Begin who made peace with Israels mortal enemies - Egypt and he did the unthinkable, gave back the sinai peninsula. Shamir too, saw no further use for violence after 1948 and eventually took to politics and only in that theater did he engage with his mortal enemies on the left. I can't help but contrast that with the actions of Yasser Arafat who unleashed the second intifada on Israel after signing the Oslo Accords or hamas who used the de facto palestinian state of gaza as a base to launch attacks and missiles at Israel.

jedimind 1y ago
It is truly incredible to see those Zionist terrorist's pragmatic calculation rebranded as "moral fortitude." Begin avoided a civil war because he knew his extremist ideology would eventually conquer the state from within, and he was proven right. The idea that violence for him and Shamir was just a "means to an end" that stopped in 1948 is a complete fantasy. They simply nationalized their terrorism. Begin didn't find peace. He swapped his Irgun uniform for a state uniform to launch the brutal 1982 invasion of Lebanon and to oversee a massive, violent expansion of illegal settlements. His "peace" with Egypt was a strategic masterstroke. It neutralized his biggest military threat, freeing him up to colonize Palestine with impunity. This continuous, state-sanctioned violence was never just random. It was the implementation of an ideology that sees Palestinians as subhuman obstacles. And now, that project has reached its logical and horrifying conclusion. It has culminated in what leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International and hundreds of the world's foremost genocide scholars explicitly call it: the crime of genocide.[1][2] So your attempt to contrast this with Palestinian leaders is a disgusting exercise in victim-blaming. You are defending the architects of a political project that resulted in genocide, while slandering its victims for resisting their own extermination. It is a morally bankrupt position that rests on a complete inversion of reality. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza-worlds-top-scholars-on-the-say https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ... [2] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-inter...