Tears of  Zion: Divided We Stand  by Ya'acov Liberman, University Press of America (Lanham, Md.:2006), 134 pages, $23.95

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Ya'acov Liberman's thoughtful and often controversial columns ran in the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage when I was the editor of that now defunct newspaper, partly because I wanted to balance the liberal outlook of myself and other writers on the newspaper.  I am pleased to say that Liberman, a one-time general secretary of what was Menachem Begin's Herut party of Israel, continues to write from time to time on this website.

When he asked me to read his manuscript, I agreed gladly, and later penned a comment which appears on the back cover of this new paperback book.  It reads: "Ya'acov Liberman has been both a participant and an observer of Israel's turbulent politics...His book, Tears of Zion is both a condemnation of Israel's Left and a plea for Jewish unity.  Readers of liberal persuasion, such as myself, will bridle at many things Liberman has to say, yet in the end, will respect him for his sincerity, scholarship, and commitment to the Jewish People."  I was identified on the book jacket as affiliated with the San Diego Jewish Times for which I write a column each issue.

The book squib accurately reflects my feelings about Liberman's work, but inasmuch as there is lots more space here, I'd like to add a few thoughts.  In essence, Liberman casts the Revisionist movement of Ze'ev Jabotinsky as the true patriot of global Zionism and portrays the Zionist Left as so concerned with consolidating its own power and implementing its socialist visions that it was willing to turn its back on Jewish unity.  In so doing, Liberman suggests, the Israeli Left forsake many Jews both during the Holocaust and during Israel's subsequent War of Independence.

People sometimes say "what's past is past," but we all know that not to be the truth.  The Holocaust still shapes our thinking today, and from its unforgettable images, we draw lessons about the consequences of weakness.  Surprise attacks by Israel in 1967 and by Egypt in 1973 have persuaded both Middle Eastern nations of the need not only for peace but also for constant vigilance. So when we think about how often Jew fought Jew when there were far greater enemies to be dealt with, we must admit the logic of Liberman's plea for unity, even if we dispute some of his facts. 

Although he quotes extensively from secondary, rather than primary sources, Liberman's long association with Herut party leader and later Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin makes his account compelling reading.  It is not the story that Jews in the United States are used to hearing, so conditioned are we to thinking in terms of Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Abba Eban, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and other leaders on the Israeli Left as heroes and demi-gods. Against such popular conceptions, Liberman cites instance after instance when he says the Left for reasons of partisan benefit betrayed the Right, causing untold suffering for Jews.

My guess is that every one of Liberman's assertions will be challenged by someone, as the pictures he paints of the Israeli Left are devastating. 

He takes us back to 1933 when a ranking Mapai official, Chaim Arlozoff, was murdered by two men on a Tev Aviv beach as his wife watched in horror.  Immediately, Jabotinsky's Revisionists were blamed, even thought two Arabs later confessed.  In Liberman's telling of the chapter, the Left was willing to use the death of one of its comrades for pure partisan political advantage.

Later, as the curtains of World War II parted, Jabotinsky sought to negotiate for one million Polish Jews to be expelled to Palestine—a plan which the Left and the Jewish Agency opposed.  Trying to awaken the Jews in the United States to the urgency of the situation in Europe, a Jabotinsky affiliate known as the Bergson group (Peter Bergson being a pseudonym for Hillel Kook) organized a "We Will Never Die" pageant, written by Ben Hecht. It was  to be shown in major American cities with the participation of such film industry giants as Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, Billy Rose and Moss Hart.  But the Jewish Agency, working through Rabbi Stephen Wise, opposed the pageant, getting it canceled in various cities. Jabotinsky and other Revisionists were vilified as right-wing rabble rousers whose efforts were harmful to the war effort..

Liberman heaps scorn on American Jews like Samuel Rosenman, who was a speech writer and special adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for buying into the theory that the only way to rescue Jews was to defeat Hitler first on the battlefields—that no actions against the concentration camps or the railroads leading to them was warranted. 

When 400 rabbis attempted to meet with President Roosevelt to urge him to do more to save European Jewry, Rosenman successfully blocked the meeting, according to Liberman.  He hurls at Rosenman what I consider to be an unfair epithet, that of  "self-hating Jew."  Even as  I give my friend Liberman credit for his sincerity, I would suggest to him that the overall Jewish cause is better served without resort to such personal attacks. There's no reason why Rosenman can't be assumed to have been sincere in his beliefs—however wrong they might have been— without casting aspersions on his character.

Before the end of World War II, in Palestine, the Irgun forces of Menachem Begin began a policy of active resistance against the British  government's decision to severely limit the number of Jews who could enter Palestine, at a time when they desperately needed a place of refuge from the murderous Nazis. The response of the Left was to capture and turn over  to the British many of the Irgunists.

The indictment continues with Liberman saying that Ben Gurion and his lieutenants had given their full approval for Irgun's bombing of the King David Hotel, where British troops were stationed and to which the Irgun telephoned ignored evacuations before the deadly explosion. But in the aftermath, the Left sidestepped its own responsibility in the affair in order to paint the Irgun as terrorists.

Similarly, says Liberman, the attack on the Arab village of Dir Yassin—which today is such a staple in Arab propaganda—was coordinated by the Irgun with the Haganah.  Both forces believed the village had to be taken in order to secure the vital road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Liberman wrote. Irgun forces called to the villagers to surrender, or failing that, to send the women and children to a hillside which would be considered neutral ground.  The Arabs answered with rifle fire and hand grenades, and 200 of them, including women and children, were killed in the exchange, Liberman writes.  The fierceness of the fighting, according to Liberman, was demonstrated by the fact that the Jews also suffered some 40 casualties.  Rather than this being the massacre as it is so often portrayed, it was a military battle, in his estimate.

Instead of choosing unity, the  Left distanced itself from the Dir Yassin operation—opting again to paint Irgun as terrorists rather than as military compatriots.

On Liberman's litany goes, but I shall stop with his fascinating account of the Altalena, the former 45,000-ton, 100-foot wide, 300-foot-long LST purchased by the Irgun to bring 940 military  recruits to Israel along with supplies including 5,000 rifles, 30 Bren guns, 150 Spandau machine guns, 5 caterpillar track armored cars, 4 million rounds of ammunition, and several thousand air combat bombs.

According to Liberman, the arms ship sailed from France to Israel with the full knowledge, and backing, of the new Israeli government of Ben-Gurion, notwithstanding the fact that a tentative Arab-Israeli "truce" was in force, during which both sides were to refrain from resupplying militarily.

The ship first landed at Kfar Vitkin, a Haganah stronghold, to be unloaded, and then after encountering resistance from Haganah forces, sailed to Tel Aviv, where, despite hoisting a white flag of surrender, it was blown to smithereens, with loss of some Jewish lives aboard the vessel. Although he might have ordered resistance, Menachem Begin would not permit the Irgun forces to fight back—so opposed was he to fratricide, according to Liberman.

Liberman offers us a different view than the one we normally hear in American Jewish circles, one that makes me, as an admirer of the pioneers who built Israel, extremely uncomfortable.  Nothing would delight me more than to see my friend Liberman's book rebutted and for him to change his frustrated and disappointed assessment of politics in the Jewish world.  I hope people will read Liberman's book, and enter into the debate.  From such an exchange, all of us may well draw important lessons.