Yechiel Shapira's voice breaks and he wipes the tears from his eyes. "Excuse me, please," he says, "but when I remember this story and tell it to others, I can't help but cry. Jews shot at Jews - how can you not be horrified?"
It is not easy to see a man of seven days, soon to be 91, bursting into bitter tears. But such a shocking experience cannot compare to what young Yechiel went through on June 22, 1948, the bitter day the Altalena was sunk. It seems that even 75 years after the thunder of the cannon tore through the Tel Aviv quiet, the man sitting across from me still sees before his eyes the horror that took place after he boarded the Irgun ship, which brought immigrants and weapons to Israel's shores. He sees the brother raise his hand on his brother, and wishes that the terrible scene never be repeated. Sixteen Irgun members and three IDF fighters were killed that day, which symbolized one of the great fractures in Israeli society immediately after the establishment of the state.
Although Yechiel had not yet turned 1948 in June 16, he had managed to go through a thing or two that his peers could only imagine. "In my youth I was a member of Beitar in Tel Aviv," Shapira recalls, "At the age of 14 I was recruited together with my friends to the Irgun. We began to participate in secondary activities suitable for this age, mainly pasting leaflets of the underground and other things. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, the time came for real activity, and of course we showed up for it."
Begin at the ceremony on the anniversary of the sinking of Altalena, photo: GPO
The first operation in which he participated was the operation to conquer Jaffa from Arab gangs that threatened Tel Aviv. "We were called to the Alliance School on Shabazi Street, and from there we were supposed to cut Manshiya towards the beach," Shapira recounts the historic battle in such an everyday tone, as if describing a routine walk in the park, "They gave us grenades and stans, and we went into action. As we approached Jaffa's main street, we encountered gunfire from a British armored vehicle standing there. We had to change course and go through the houses, blowing up walls. We advanced to the sea, chased away groups of armed Arabs, and those who were in the Hassan Bek mosque surrendered."
A few weeks after the liberation of Jaffa, Irgun fighters were loaded onto vans and transferred to the Yehudiya sector, the Arab village located where the city of Yehud is today. In this battle, too, the Arabs had the lower hand, but in the next battle, in the Lod area, Yechiel was wounded in an attempt to blow up a water passage and block the armored vehicles of the Iraqi army. "I blew up the crossing," Shapira says, "but when I started to retreat, one of the armored vehicles started chasing me. I ran in zigzags, jumped, fell to avoid the bundles, and yet I was hit by one last burst. One bullet hit the hand, and two hit the leg."
The wounded Yehiel bandaged his wounds from the tears of his shirt, passed the satin with his teeth to the individual, and fired a bullet at the Iraqis each time so that they would not approach. He lay for hours in a field near the runway of Lod Airport until rescue came and took him to Beilinson Hospital.
When Yehiel's four older brothers, all Irgun members, learned of the injury, they flocked to the hospital to visit him. "After a week, their visits stopped," Shapira says, "I asked other family members where they were, and I was told that they had enlisted in the IDF because Irgun had joined the ranks of the army. There was a slip in the basement of our house with weapons, which they also handed over to the IDF."
Herzl Makov: "Begin understood that at stake is the fate of the nation, and not just the question of which side in the dispute will prevail. A civil war could lead to a situation in which the Israeli story ends, and there are enough enemies waiting for it all the time, regardless of what we do."
After two weeks of hospitalization, Yechiel was discharged and heard breaking news by word of mouth: "It was said that a weapons ship named Altalena arrived in Tel Aviv. As a young man, always looking to see what was happening up close, I immediately decided to take crutches (the leg injuries were still painful) and wander towards the sea. There I saw an acquaintance, a footballer from Maccabi Tel Aviv, who offered to take me in a boat to the ship. As we approached Altalena, I was recognized by one of the guys on board, Lonia Dvorin, also a football man, who coached me at Beitar Tel Aviv. He shouted to be put on board so I could describe what was going on the beach. I jumped into the water, the wounds burned horribly, and yet I grabbed the rope to be put on the ship."
Yechiel was taken to a man who appeared to him to be the ship's commander and asked to tell who was on shore. "I managed to say that there were only Palmach men on the beach, and he immediately suggested that his men start lowering weapons that were in the ship's belly. They didn't ask me, but I replied that it would be a shame to do so, because the weapons would be taken immediately by Palmach men. Lonia 'earned' me a fond slap and said: 'Do you know who you're talking to? It's Begin!' I heard the name Begin, and my excitement had no limit. For me, God was the first and Begin was the second, right after him."
"The Order: Eliminate Begin"
From that moment on, the Tel Aviv boy clung to the revered underground commander and followed him on the ship. "I went everywhere with him, even when the shooting began at Altalena from the Red House," Shapira recounts, "Begin ran aboard to see American guys, who saw the tower's minaret, Hassan Baq, thought we were opposite Jaffa and thought the shooters were Arabs. Naturally, they wanted to return fire. Begin shouted at them: 'These are Jews, and you don't fire a single bullet at them! Hide, but don't return fire!' I saw it with my own eyes, and I heard it with my own ears."
The shooting at Altalena continued, and Yehiel was wounded by one of them. "They aimed at the command post, at where Begin was," he says with complete confidence, "the command post was armored, but one of the bullets penetrated the armor and got stuck in my leg, as if the injuries from the battle in Lod weren't enough. The bullet didn't penetrate deeply, and I managed to get it out."
Despite the injury, the curious boy walked around the ship and wanted to investigate what was inside. He saw a lot of ammunition, bullets and shells, and six half-trackers downstairs. Although most of the weapons were removed from Altalena in the previous anchorage opposite Kfar Vitkin, a lot of equipment still remained there.
Shapira: "I played tennis with Rabin, and on one occasion I asked, 'Do you know you shot me in Altalena?' He apologized dryly, and only answered me honestly that as a soldier he should have followed the order to shoot."
"I heard that between David Ben-Gurion and Begin there was an agreement that the immigrants who arrived in Altalena and 80 percent of the weapons would be disembarked from the ship at Vitkin Beach, while the rest would be secretly transferred to the combat units in Jerusalem, in order to circumvent the UN embargo restrictions," Shapira claims. Ben-Gurion did not meet the terms of the agreement, and on the afternoon of June 22, Altalena was shelled from the shore.
"The first boat with the weapon was sent from the ship to the shore, and IDF soldiers shot at it and killed everyone in it," Shapira recalls. "The ship was also under fire, aimed at the command post. Apparently, they had an order to assassinate Begin. After about two hours, shells were already fired. One shell passed over the ship, a second landed next to it in the water, a third shell hit Altalena in the stomach, causing ammunition, secondary explosions and a fire.
"The ship's American captain ordered the sailors to open taps to flood the ship's belly with water. Even in this time of distress, when there were dead and wounded on board, the shooting on the ship from the Red House did not stop for a moment. The captain took the blue-and-white flag off the mast and replaced it with his white shirt to signal surrender, but from the shore they continued firing at the burning ship."
"The shame of the sacred cannon"
At this point, all the passengers were ordered to jump into the water. "Begin insisted on not leaving Altalena until the last of the wounded were removed from the ship's belly," Shapira recalls. "Then I had the honor of pushing him into the water, because the ship could explode at any moment. I jumped after him, and when we were in the water, we came under inferno fire from the shore."
These dramatic moments Shapiro cannot describe calmly. "Shame and disgrace," he says quietly, his voice breaking again. "Jews fired at their wounded and helpless brothers who only wanted to be saved. Having no choice, when the shooting did not stop, we were forced to hide behind the burning ship, which protected us from the fire from the shore. Luckily, one of the lifeguards from Tel Aviv Beach came to the area in a boat and took Begin on a big trip to Jaffa beach."
Despite the injury, Yechiel managed to swim to shore and was taken to hospital. Months later he enlisted in the IDF, managed to fight in the War of Independence and later in other Israeli wars. But the shock of the Altalena affair did not give him rest: "Even before Altalena arrived, Begin gave the Irgun men an order to enlist in the IDF, and this was done. Among the many recruits were my four older brothers, so there is no basis for the claim that the Irgun threatened Ben-Gurion or the unity of the ranks of the young state. IDF soldiers didn't just shoot at brothers, they fired at their brothers-in-arms."
Altalena off the coast of Tel Aviv, photo: courtesy of the Jabotinsky House Archive
Shapira is familiar with the claim that the engine behind the order to fire at Altalena was Israel Galili, not Ben-Gurion. However, imposing personal blame cannot forget the crossing of the principled red line of the sad decision to open fire.
"The shame doubled when they called the cannon that shelled Altalena 'the holy cannon' and took pride in it, instead of throwing it into the depths," Shapira sighs. "I had to swallow this story, restrain myself and shut up. But my pain has not disappeared to this day, and it must not be forgotten. Decades of trying to conceal the affair or blame the Irgun for it were adding insult to injury.
"I have no hatred or resentment towards those who shot at me. Look at the irony: many years later, I, Yechiel Shapira, the Beitri from Altalena, represented the Hapoel Association in tennis tournaments and brought it a gold medal. In the '80s, I played a lot with another tennis fan, Yitzhak Rabin. During one of the breaks, I showed courage and said to him: 'Yitzhak, do you know you shot me in Altalena?' He heard the question, apologized dryly, and only answered me honestly that as a soldier he should have followed the order to shoot."
"Disappear the memory"
Herzl Makov, director of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, is also convinced that the importance of the Altalena story to the Israeli ethos is very great. According to him, Israel was in a situation where there is no other way to describe it than on the verge of civil war, or in the language of other peoples - a civil war, which in practice has already begun: "Ben-Gurion's side has already started this war, and Begin prevented it with a very dramatic decision not to return fire and continue life. Since the State of Israel and the people of Israel occasionally face very difficult junctures in terms of internal disagreement, the lesson of preventing civil war remains relevant, and I assume that unfortunately it will also become relevant in the future. Therefore, it is important to learn how to conduct such an event and how it can be prevented.
"At the same time, dealing with the Altalena tragedy is also important in terms of historical justice and commitment to truth. For so many years, they tried to instill the myth that the Altalena affair revolved around a debate over statehood. According to this false perception, the story was presented as if Ben-Gurion, a man of pure statehood, stood determined to ensure the statehood of the new Israeli state, and as if the Irgun were rebels who sought to seize power by force. This, of course, is contrary to the truth."
Makov emphasizes that Begin himself thought that preventing civil war in the Altalena affair was the most important thing he did during his life full of action and achievements: "He said this twice. He once said that if there was anything he wanted to be remembered for, it was preventing civil war. And on another occasion he summed up his work as prime minister and claimed that even after he brought about the conclusion of the peace treaty with Egypt and carried out the operation to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq, the most important decision in his life was to prevent a civil war over the story of Altalena."
Doesn't Begin's order to his camp to prevent civil war at any cost actually free the other side in the internal dispute and make it easier for it to threaten such a war, knowing that the Israeli right will be deterred and give up?
"Begin answered this question already at the end of 1944, at the beginning of the Sazon, the operation during which the Haganah handed Irgun members over to the British and acted violently against them. Even then, Begin coined his famous statement, 'A civil war will never.' His friends at Irgun headquarters did not agree with his opinion, disagreed with him and basically referred your question to him. "What do you mean by civil war, never?" they asked him, "and the Haganah are waging a civil war against us, while we sit idly by and don't answer them." His answer was that as far as the nation is concerned, it is better for one side to be harmed, even if it is us, and not the entire nation.
"Begin understood that the fate of the nation is at stake, and not just the question of which side of the internal dispute will prevail. A civil war could lead to a situation in which the Israeli story ends, and there are enough enemies around waiting for it all the time, regardless of what we do. Therefore, his view required preventing civil war at all costs, even if it meant losing deterrence vis-à-vis Ben-Gurion's people."
Did Ben-Gurion also recognize this moral superiority of his great rival?
"Ben-Gurion made tremendous efforts to make the ship disappear and erase all traces of it. After all, the sunken Altalena stood off the coast of Tel Aviv, quite close to the prime minister's home in the city, on what was then KKL-JNF Boulevard. It stood there as a kind of silent monument to this sad story, and he couldn't stand it. Since at that time the Israeli navy and the navy of the young state did not have the technical means to tow it, on Ben-Gurion's orders, a company from Europe was invited and hundreds of thousands of dollars were invested, an enormous sum in terms of those days when the state did not have money for basic needs, in order to eradicate memory. As if that were not enough, they later forged the navy's operations logs, so that it would not be possible to locate the point where Altalena was sunk, and so that no one could find the ship's remains."
Do you still intend to pull Altalena out of water and oblivion?
"The Begin Heritage Center and other sources believe that in order to present the story of Altalena to future generations, it is appropriate to erect a monument that will include part of the ship. About a decade ago, we began searching for its remains, based on the assessment of experts that they were located in relatively shallow waters off the Tel Aviv coast, and in accordance with this assessment, the appropriate equipment was hired. Later it turned out that in front of the coast there is a sharp step at the bottom of the sea, and the water becomes deep. The marine robots in the possession of the search expedition made it impossible to determine with certainty the location of the sunken ship, and due to the high cost of the operation in the deep sea, we have not yet been able to implement the plan to locate Altalena and remove some of it."
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