The State of Israel came so close to collapsing before it even existed, not just from surrounding armies, but from within.
Rival Jewish militias clashed with such intensity that they came unbelievably close to all-out civil war, but one man stepped up to save the Jewish state from the brink of disaster. This man had an uncanny ability to navigate impossible choices and moral dilemmas and would eventually go on to become Israel’s prime minister.
Who was Menachem Begin, and how did he save Israel from the brink of civil war?
Begin’s beginnings
Menachem Begin was born into a dark world. His character was forged in the fires of tragedy and survival. He grew up in Poland, a place that would later become a mass grave for his family during the Holocaust. He was drawn to Zionism from a young age, inspired by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a visionary who believed that Jewish survival depended not on diplomacy but on raw strength and self-reliance, but the world had other plans.
In 1940, the Soviet secret police arrested Begin for his outspoken activism and exiled him to a Siberian labor camp. After enduring a year of brutal conditions, he was finally released. He enlisted in a Polish army unit deployed to British Mandate Palestine, where he reunited with his wife. That’s when he discovered devastating news: His parents and brother had been murdered by the Nazis.
With the Polish Jewish community decimated and his family gone, he deserted the Polish army to remain in Palestine, determined to fight for a Jewish state. At the time, no one would’ve predicted that this thin, reserved, bookish man with thick glasses would prove to be one of the most impactful leaders in Israeli history.
Joining the Irgun
When Begin landed in Palestine, he was plunged into the turbulent world of the Jewish underground – a collection of paramilitary groups struggling to free the Jewish homeland from British rule.
At the time, the Jewish underground was fractured into three competing factions. The Haganah was the mainstream defense force whose members believed that the best way to reach independence was to work with the British. They had a policy of restraint and fought back only when attacked and did not seek revenge.
The Irgun, which Begin would ultimately lead, was a more militant group that broke away from the mainstream Haganah. Its members thought it was necessary to bring the fight to the British by launching acts of terror and preemptive attacks against British military and administrative targets.
The most extreme faction was the Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, who were even more radical. They conducted assassinations and collaborated briefly with enemy powers in the belief that any alliance or action that advanced the cause of Jewish sovereignty was justified.
Rising quickly through the ranks, Begin eventually took charge of the Irgun. He was deeply troubled by the British blockade on Jewish immigration. To him, this wasn’t just bad policy; it was an unforgivable betrayal, trapping desperate Holocaust survivors in peril while denying them a safe passage to their homeland.
As commander of the Irgun, he decided to turn up the pressure. He declared war on the British, ordering bombings, assassinations, and sabotage to halt their anti-immigration policies and drive them out. He became notorious, and the British placed a $50,000 bounty on his head.
The Saison (the hunting season)
Begin’s aggression didn’t sit well with David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Haganah, who saw the Irgun’s violence as reckless. Ben-Gurion saw all militant underground activity as an existential threat to Zionism’s legitimacy and a danger to gaining international recognition for statehood.
The growing rift between the Irgun and the Haganah really escalated when the Lehi assassinated the British minister of state, Lord Moyne. This was a huge deal, and the British leaders were furious.
Even though the Irgun had nothing to do with the assassination, Ben-Gurion distanced the Haganah from the incident by scapegoating the other groups. Desperate to smooth things over with the British, he joined their fight against the Irgun and Lehi.
Ben-Gurion launched what became known as the Saison (short for the French “la saison de chasse” or “hunting season”), a campaign to hunt down the underground fighters to appease the British. Haganah agents kidnapped, interrogated, and handed over Irgun and Lehi fighters to British authorities. Some were tortured, others were deported, and some were even executed.
The Irgun wanted to fight back. They wanted revenge. They urged Begin to retaliate against their fellow Jews who betrayed them, but he refused. He was adamant that Jewish blood must not be spilled by Jewish hands. He believed it would spark a civil war if attacks were ordered on the Haganah, one that could destroy the Zionist cause before a Jewish state even came into existence.
Begin made a decision that few revolutionaries would’ve had the discipline to make. He told his men to stand down, and they obeyed, which is truly a testament to Begin’s leadership and the loyalty he had earned from his fighters. The Irgun endured beatings, arrests, and executions without ever striking back at their fellow Jews.
The Hebrew Resistance Movement
As British oppression intensified, Ben-Gurion eventually called off the Saison. The Haganah, the Irgun, and the Lehi called a truce and created an alliance to fight their common British enemy. By June 1946, the fight had escalated dramatically, with an attack on British police headquarters.
The British were determined to crush the Jewish underground. They launched a massive crackdown on a day that came to be known as Black Sabbath.
Thousands of Jews were arrested, and weapons were confiscated. British forces raided the Jewish Agency headquarters in Jerusalem. They seized a trove of secret documents that provided links between mainstream Zionist leaders and underground militant groups.
The documents were in Hebrew, which bought the Jewish leaders some time. However, as soon as they could be translated, the documents would likely lead to arrests, trials, and executions of top Zionist figures, destroying any chance of gaining international recognition of a Jewish state.
The British moved the files to their headquarters at the King David Hotel, setting up the perfect plot for a Hollywood heist movie. To save the Zionist movement, the secret files would have to be destroyed.
Begin and the other underground leaders hatched a plan to bomb the hotel and destroy the evidence. They developed time bombs that they hid in big milk jugs. Irgun members dressed as milkmen delivered the jugs to the kitchen in the hotel’s basement.
The King David Hotel wasn’t just a military headquarters, though. It was also a fully-functional hotel, where diplomats, journalists, and businessmen stayed. Clerks, waiters, and porters worked there. The place was filled with innocent civilians.
Begin was fine with targeting British officers and soldiers, but he reportedly insisted any attack on the hotel must avoid civilian casualties. They decided to warn the British ahead of time so the building could be evacuated before the bombs went off. They needed to give enough warning for people to escape, but not so much time that the British could remove the documents.
The resistance leaders debated. One hour would be too long, because the British could save their files. Fifteen minutes would be too short, because people might not escape. They settled on 30 minutes, just enough time to evacuate, but not enough time to clear the evidence.
Multiple warning systems were put in place. They would call the hotel to tell them about the bomb and urge them to evacuate. They would set off a warning bomb outside to keep people away from the building before the bigger blast. The milk jugs themselves were labeled in Hebrew, English, and Arabic with warnings that literally said there were bombs inside.
They had a solid plan, and Begin believed he had done everything he could to prevent civilian deaths. At the end of the day, though, they were targeting a hotel in the middle of the city.
A little after noon, everything was going according to plan. The milkmen placed the bombs and set the timers, but then something went wrong. A British officer spotted the Irgun team. They shot the British officer, but their cover was blown.
As they rushed out of the hotel, British military police arrived. They were trapped. They had no choice but to shoot their way out. Gunshots cut through the air. The British soldiers took cover. One Irgun fighter lost his life, and the others narrowly escaped.
Sometime between 12:20 and 12:27, the warning bomb detonated directly across the street. It was only supposed to keep people away from the hotel where the milk jug bombs were ticking, but the diversion bomb actually injured several unlucky bystanders whose bus had just pulled up nearby.
Then at 12:37, the bombs detonated. The southern wing of the King David Hotel collapsed. The documents were destroyed, but one crucial part of the plan completely failed. For some reason, the hotel was never evacuated. Concrete buried people alive, and 92 people were killed, including 28 British officials and soldiers, 42 Arabs, 17 Jews, and some foreign civilians.
When Begin heard the news, he was devastated. This was not the plan. As he later wrote, “We went through days of pain and nights of sorrow for the blood that need not have been shed.”
The British were enraged. They called it a terror attack. The Haganah distanced itself from the incident. The chief rabbis of Palestine condemned it. Ben-Gurion called the Irgun the enemy of the Jewish people. Menachem Begin accepted the responsibility.
The King David Hotel bombing shocked the world, stained the reputation of the Jewish resistance, and haunted Begin for the rest of his life. Despite the outrage, the operation achieved its goal. The British never recovered the documents, and the attack proved that no place was safe for the British, not even their own headquarters.
The Altalena Affair
Months later, the British announced they were leaving Palestine. Within two years, they were gone, allowing Ben-Gurion to declare independence and the establishment of the State of Israel, but the Jewish state was far from safe. Five Arab armies immediately invaded the new state.
Even though they fought a common enemy, tensions between the Irgun and the Haganah continued to simmer beneath the surface. Begin was about to face his greatest test yet. As soon as Israel declared independence, its militias needed to become something new, a real army.
The Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi had no choice but to unite under a single command. Begin officially dissolved the Irgun. His fighters were absorbed into the newly formed Israel Defense Forces, led by Ben-Gurion. But Begin wasn’t quite ready to relinquish complete control. He and the newly elected prime minister clashed over what to do about Jerusalem.
Jerusalem wasn’t part of the new State of Israel. Under the UN’s partition plan, it was supposed to be a neutral international zone belonging to neither the Jewish state nor its Arab neighbors, but the plan collapsed as soon as the war began. The city was under siege and its Jewish residents were cut off, fighting for survival. For Begin, Jerusalem was the heart of the Jewish people, and he was determined to keep fighting for it, even if the IDF couldn’t.
This was a problem for Ben-Gurion, who believed that Israel could only have one army under one government. To him, the idea of an independent Irgun force operating in Jerusalem was an existential threat to the unity of the state. He had even bigger threats to deal with, though, so he tolerated Begin’s independent actions for the time being.
The United Nations then brokered a ceasefire in which Israel and the Arab states agreed to pause the fighting for four weeks. Neither the Israelis nor the Arabs were allowed to bring in new weapons or soldiers during that time. However, Israel was desperately low on weapons, and it knew its enemies were secretly rearming.
On the same day the ceasefire took effect, Irgun fighters set sail from France on a ship called the Altalena. It carried 940 fighters, many of them Holocaust survivors. It was loaded with 5,000 rifles, 250 machine guns, 5 million bullets, and 50 bazookas.
Ben-Gurion issued a command that every weapon on the ship must be handed over to the IDF, with no exceptions. Begin pushed back. He agreed to hand over most of the weapons, but wanted to keep some for Irgun fighters defending Jerusalem, who desperately needed to be re-armed.
This was too far for Ben-Gurion. He decided it was time to stand firm against allowing a second armed force, fearing the new state would be torn apart. Neither man was willing to back down, and the rift between the two deepened. The distrust was so deep that Ben-Gurion actually feared Begin might be planning a military coup. He reportedly said, “There are not going to be two armies. There are not going to be two states. If Begin doesn’t give in, we shall open fire.”
With the fate of the Jewish state hanging in the balance, the Altalena sailed towards Israel on a collision course with disaster. When the ship finally arrived, Begin refused to unload all the cargo. Instead, he insisted on keeping his intended portion. Tensions rose, things quickly spun out of control, and shots were fired. We don’t know who fired first or why, but with Israel barely a month old, Jews were shooting at each other.
Begin and his Irgun fighters retreated onto the ship and set sail, hoping to de-escalate the situation. As the Altalena approached Tel Aviv, IDF cannons opened fire on a public beach with civilians watching from nearby balconies. In the middle of a war for the new state’s survival, Israeli warships shelled a fellow Israeli ship.
Standing on the deck of a ship under fire, Begin refused to fire back, and his men obeyed. The Altalena caught fire. Irgun fighters saved the wounded and evacuated the ship. In the chaos, 16 Irgun fighters and three IDF soldiers were killed. In the aftermath, Irgunists were rounded up, and IDF soldiers who refused to fire on fellow Jews were court-martialed.
The fate of the future state balanced on a needle’s edge, unbelievably close to an all-out civil war, but Begin never lost sight of what he was fighting for. He got on the radio and demanded that his followers not fight the IDF, declaring, “Do not raise a hand against a brother. Not even today. It is forbidden for a Hebrew weapon to be used against Hebrew fighters.”
Begin knew that the real enemy was outside Israel’s borders. If he fought back now, the Jewish state might tear itself apart before it had a chance to survive.
The political divide
The Altalena affair poisoned Israeli politics for decades. The divide between Ben-Gurion’s left
and Begin’s right never truly healed, but civil war was avoided. Begin spent decades in the political minority until he finally became Israel’s first right-wing prime minister. In that role, he secured Israel’s first-ever peace treaty with one of its Arab neighbors, Egypt. It was a monumental achievement that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Despite all his accomplishments, Begin considered one to be above the rest. He said, “After my death, I hope I’ll be remembered as someone who prevented civil war.” Over and over again, Begin chose to step back from that edge. He fought with conviction, but knew when to hold back. He stood firm in his beliefs but refused to let his pride destroy the nation for which he was fighting.
Some called him reckless, some called him stubborn, but when Israel stood on the brink of self-destruction, Begin put his people before his pride, unity over vengeance. He had many victories in his lifetime, but his greatest may have been the war he refused to fight.
