Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography PDF
Preview Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography
Yigal Allon, Native Son JEWISH CULTURE AND CONTEXTS PublishedinassociationwiththeCenterforAdvancedJudaicStudiesof theUniversityofPennsylvania DavidB.Ruderman,SeriesEditor AdvisoryBoard RichardI.Cohen MosheIdel AlanMintz DeborahDashMoore AdaRapoport-Albert MichaelD.Swartz Acompletelistofbooksintheseriesisavailablefromthepublisher. Yigal Allon, Native Son A Biography ANITA SHAPIRA TranslatedbyEvelyn Abel UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia ThepublicationofthisvolumewasassistedbyagrantfromtheLuciusN.Littauer Foundation. Copyright!2008UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedforpurposesofrevieworscholarly citation,noneofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithoutwritten permissionfromthepublisher. Publishedby UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104–4112 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ACataloging-in-PublicationrecordisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress ISBN-13:978-0-8122-4028-3 ISBN-10:0-8122-4028-6 Contents ListofAbbreviations vii Preface:LastRites ix 1. Mes’ha:TheBeginning 1 2. KadoorieAgriculturalSchool 35 3. Ginossar 53 4. TheStartofSecurityWork 79 5. British-Jewish‘‘Cooperation’’ 109 6. ThePalmah:Beginnings 126 7. ThePalmah,1943–47 141 8. CountdowntoStatehoodandtheOnsetofWar 178 9. TheTen-DayCampaigns 209 10. CommandingOfficeroftheSouthernFront 238 11. TriumphandTragedy 282 Epilogue:TheEndofThings 298 Notes 323 Bibliography 363 Index 369 Acknowledgments 385 Abbreviations AHC ArabHigherCommittee BGA Ben-GurionArchive BGD Ben-Gurion’sDiaries BGWD Ben-Gurion’sWarDiary BZI Ben-ZviInstitute CGS ChiefofGeneralStaff CZA CentralZionistArchives GAR GinossarArchives GHA GivatHavivaArchives HA HaganahArchive HGS HaganahGeneralStaff;after15May1948,IsraelDefense ForcesHighGeneralStaff HNHO Ha-NoarHa-Oved HSHT Ha-ShomerHa-Tza’ir ICA JewishColonizationAssociation IDF IsraelDefenseForces IDFA IsraelDefenseForcesArchive IZL RevisionistNationalMilitaryOrganization JA JewishAgency JA-PD JewishAgency’sPoliticalDepartment JSP JewishSettlementPolice KA KadoorieArchive KM KibbutzMe’uhadmovement KMA KibbutzMe’uhadArchive KMC KibbutzMe’uhadCouncil KMP KibbutzMe’uhadPublishingHouse KTA KefarTavorArchive LA LaborArchive LAHA Le-AhdutHa-Avodah LA-HE LaborArchive,HistadrutExecutive LA-LI LaborArchive,LavonInstitute LeHI LohameiHerutIsrael(IsraelFreedomFighters)orthe SternGang LPA LaborPartyArchive viii Abbreviations LPA-BB LaborPartyArchive,BetBerl PICA PalestineJewishColonizationAssociation S.N.S SpecialNightSquads(Wingate’s) SHAY HaganahIntelligenceService UNSCOP UnitedNationsSpecialCommitteeonPalestine UNRRA UnitedNationsReliefandRehabilitationAdministration Preface Last Rites YigalAllonwasthemanandmarkofageneration:thegenerationbred inEretzIsraelduringthestruggleforJewishstatehood.Thisbookisded- icated to him and his era, when he and his peers in the elite Palmah fashioned the country’s first youth culture, setting the tone for those whocameafter. ‘‘Palmahniks’’ wereneither highbrow norcultivated but ayoung bri- gade of daring volunteers. Apart from a handful of writers and poets whosprangupfromwithin,mosthadlittleuseforthetrappingsofcul- ture or social graces. And yet their defining experience, which was to staywiththemthroughouttheirlives,becametheculturalinspirationof the young. The typeof person spawned by the Palmah was not without fault.Therewasaboutthemacallowrawness,anupstart’sbrashness,the shallownessofmenofaction,theintoleranceoftheself-absorbed.They judgedboththemselvesandothersmercilessly,knowingnocompassion. Yettheywerealsocapableofopennessandhigh-flyingidealism,extraor- dinary acts of friendship and comradeship, reticence and loftiness, humility and dedication. They had a measure of pride that in their youth took the form of arrogance and over the years was widely trans- latedintoindependenceandself-sufficiency,apersonalautonomy,soto speak. Many of the Palmah veterans flowed with the times, changed their lifestyles, forgot the ideals of their youth. All, however, retained thatcoresenseofbelongingandfellowshipformedonthoseheady,far- away nights of campfires, coffee, and song. Those who detached them- selvesfromthepastweresparedtheanguishofrecentdecadeswhenthe oldkibbutzordercollapsed,takingwithitvaluesthathadbeenthebed- rockoftheirlives. Others,suchasthePalmah’serstwhileintelligenceofficer,Zerubavel Arbel, never resigned themselves to the change. In an interview I had with him at Kibbutz Maoz Haim in order to write Yigal biography, he described, with wonder and wistfulness, the yawning gulf between him- self and his father, whom he held in affection. The intellectual parent, a teacher at the historic Herzliya High School, and the son, who had built the IDF’s field intelligence, were separated by an unbridgeable x Preface chasm of lost Jewish culture. The father was vastly more educated; the sonwasfarhandierinphysicalwisdomandtheloreofaction.Theirs,in microcosm,isthestoryofthegenerationgapbetweenfoundingfathers and native sons in the land of Israel. It was the native sons and their devoteeswhoshoulderedthetaskofestablishingthestateoftheJews. Arbel, like many Palmahniks, loved the land of Israel with his very fiber, knew its every wadi, its every groove. The Bible occupied a place ofhonor,andhereaditlikeaguidebookforitshistoryandgeography. He led me to a lookout over the Jordan Valley to point out the route taken by the Jabesh-gileads on their way to Beisan (Beit She’an). The biblicalstoryisbrief:thePhilistinescameuponthebodiesofKingSaul and his sons, slain in the battle on Mount Gilboa. They cut off Saul’s head, stripped him, and hung him and his dead sons on the walls of Beisan. When the news reached the men of Gilead across the Jordan River,theywalkedallnightlongtoBeisan,tookdownthebodies,buried them in their own land, and fasted for seven days. They had never for- gottentheyoungSaul’sgoodwillwhenhesavedthemfromNahashthe Ammonite. For Arbel, this final kindness, the last rites the Gileads per- formedforSaul,wasafoundingmyth:againandagainhewouldgazeat the routethe Gileadstookthatnight,cherishingtheirnoblegestureto adefeatedkingfallenonthesword.ForAllon,too,thestoryofSaulwas acentralmotif.Helovedthe biblicalcharacterwhohadbegunlifelike CinderellaandhadendeditliketheheroofaGreektragedy.Itwasthe taleofaladtoweringheadandshouldersabovehispeople,worndown by political squabbles, by a savagery and chicanery he could not deal with. Was Arbel intimating that Allon’s fate was a modern version of Saul’s tragedy? Perhaps he was underlining the importance he himself attributedtoabiographyofAllon—thelastritesforadeadcommander whoinhisyouthhaddeliveredthepeopleofIsraelandwonthehardest ofIsrael’swars. I chose not to tell Allon’s whole life story but only his story until the endoftheWarofIndependence,the‘‘WarofLiberation’’asthatgener- ationcalledit.ThewarwasawatershedbetweenYishuvsocietyandstate- hood. Whatever the continuity between them, the Yishuv and the state represented totally different human, social, and cultural entities. The mainaccountthusstopsin1950 withtheconclusion ofAllon’smilitary career. It was the end of an era both in his personal life and in Israeli realities.Itwastheendofoneera,andthestartofanother. Allon’sstoryisnotaboutthevictorsofahistoricalnarrativebutabout thoseconsignedtooblivioninIsrael’spublicdiscourse.Thosewhoper- ished on the upward climb without making it to the top also deserve a voice in collective memory. For without the story of the forgotten, his- torywouldbeincomplete.Thisbookstandsasthelastritestothem,the fallenofthefirstgenerationofnativesons.
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