Haaretz and Anything to Do With Rightwing Zionism

First, Haaretz really did not like that an invitation described Deir Yassin

as 'abandoned Arab village'

The former Arab village of Deir Yassin whose residents engaged in gun-smuggling already in 1920, participated in murderous anti-Jewish riots in 1929 and 1936-39 and permitted irregular Arab forces to establish a base of operations in the village despite signing a peace arrangement with the nearby Givat Shaul Jewish neighborhood and in a battle on April 9, 1948 was conquered after sniping from the village was directed at Bayit VaGan and Bet HaKerem Jewish neighborhoods, with the approval of the Hagana and support of the Palmah, by the Irgun and Lechi joint operation with the loss of 5 Jewish combatants and over 40 injured was in the news recently.

So, Akiva Eldar complained that

Jewish paramilitary organizations' massacre of about 100 villagers is glossed over in case of selective memory

and the details:

In the invitation to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital, set up on the remains of the village of Deir Yassin, the Arab village is described as such: "In the outskirts of Jerusalem, hidden from sight, the abandoned Arab village of Deir Yassin stands in isolation; a veritable treasure for the health and welfare services seeking housing for the hundreds who require physical and mental healing."

For Eldar, who won't let historical facts cloud his ideological outlook,

Deir Yassin was the site where members of the Irgun and Lehi paramilitary organizations massacred about 100 villagers.

The event, "Kfar Shaul: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow" took place at the Begin Heritage Center.

And a second context is that by Tom Segev, in his column:

The Makings of History / White and blue, and named all over

He begins with this story

During the first half of 1950, a number of young Americans settled on the ruins of an abandoned Arab village, not far from Jerusalem. They belonged to the Betar youth movement and called themselves by the name Had-Nes, a name that had its origin in Ze'ev Jabotinsky's poem "Ha'neder" ("The Vow" ), which contains the words: "Had-nes - lavan-tachol ve'ein sheni" ("One flag - white and blue, and no other" ). The poet meant: Only one banner is worthy of being raised and that is the national flag, the blue and white one, not the red flag of the workers' movement. Yehuda Ziv, a Land of Israel geographer and chairman of the government committee for settlement names, wrote in the journal Et-Mol, published by Yad Ben Zvi, that the Had-Nes folks wanted their new moshav to receive that name as well, but the government naming committee turned them down. According to Ziv, this happened because Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion opposed the request, doubtless to avoid commemorating the doctrine of his rival, Jabotinsky.

One member of the Had-Nes group was Moshe Arens, who would go on to become an Israeli defense minister. According to Arens, this story isn't true. He and his friends wanted to call the moshav Mevo'ot Betar, not in honor of their movement, but because of the moshav's proximity to Betar, the center of the revolt against the Romans. The committee tried forcing on them the name Batir (the name of an adjacent Arab village that was evidently built on the ruins of Betar ). The settlers didn't want to forgo "Betar"; the committee wanted to protect its honor, and so they compromised on Mevo Betar.

The goes on in a disparaging way:

The acronym Betar - bet, yod, tav, resh - was conceived in sin. It would ostensibly also have been possible to include Joseph Trumpeldor's name in the acronym bet, yod, tet, resh. Switching the first letter of his name from a tet to a tav enabled two heroic symbols to be united into one myth: the heroism of the city Betar and the heroism of Tel Hai, where Trumpeldor was killed in march 1920. Ever since then, Trumpeldor's name has symbolized the principle that you do not abandon a settlement in the Land of Israel. Jabotinsky had special cause to nurture this myth, because shortly before the battle for Tel Hai he had suggested evacuating the settlement, because he did not believe it was defensible. The deaths of Trumpeldor and his friends gave rise to the Yizkor poem written by Berl Katznelson, and as on many an occasion in the past, it is once again at the center of a political and emotional dispute, over the question of whether to say "Yizkor am Israel" or "Yizkor Elohim" ("May the people of Israel remember," or "May God remember" ). This argument merged with a new argument surrounding the affair of the Altalena, the ship whose name commemorates Jabotinsky: It was his pen name.

Jabotinsky knew how to be more realistic and less militaristic than his rivals presented him as being. Alongside his poem "The Vow," he also wrote the Betar oath, to which the movement's members are held, which included the words: "I will ready my arm to defend my nation, but only to defend it." In 1935 these words were changed to: "I will lift my arm to defend my nation and conquer my homeland." The revision was made at the suggestion of one of the movement's young members, Menachem Begin.

Jabotinsky is well commemorated; throughout the country there are more streets bearing his name than ones named for Herzl. This happened possibly because many municipal governments in the Land of Israel were controlled by the right wing, not by Mapai (a precursor to today's Labor Party). A few cities have both a Betar Street named for the city Betar and one named for the movement, in acronym form. It is not always possible to tell which Betar is being referenced: In Jerusalem there is a Betar Street, without apostrophes, and also a Beitar Street with apostrophes, named after the soccer team.

We are reliving the pre-state intra-parties wars.

But it won't help our lefties. They lost then, they'll lose again.

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