Saturday, May 03, 2014

Gerry Adams, Menachem Begin, Mordechai Berger

Mr. Gerry Adams is in his third day of detention, assisting police with their investigations regarding a killing back in 1972 during a period of IRA activity.

We learn this evening, that

Mr Adams was arrested on Wednesday over allegations that he ordered the 1972 murder of Jean McConville, who was snatched from her home in front of her children by a secret IRA unit. On Friday night, police were granted another 48 hours to question him.Mr McGuinness, Mr Adams’s colleague in Sinn Fein, said the arrest represented a “negative and destructive” agenda in relation to the peace process. He warned that Sinn Fein could withdraw support for the police in Northern Ireland if Mr Adams is charged.Mr McGuinness contrasted the treatment of Mr Adams with cases involving the security forces, such as the Bloody Sunday killings of 1972, in which he said no criminal action had been taken.“There is clear evidence of political policing and of a different approach taken with those who are members or former members of British state Forces and those who are republican and nationalist,” he claimed.
If I had to think about any similarity between the Irish struggle for independence from Great Britian's rule and that of the period of the Revolt against British Mandatory rule in the Land of Israel prior to 1948, one that comes to mind is that of Mordechai Berger.

Berger, a Jewish member of the Palestine Police Force (PPF) 



was attacked by a gang of Hagana members on March 29, 1947.  They beat him with metal pipes and killed him, and then spread rumors that it was the work of the Irgun.  As the March 30, 1947 Palestine Post reported:



Eventually, an internal disciplimary tribunal of the Hagana found the Tel Aviv Commander guilty of impropriety in ordering the attack without senior level confirmation.  He was removed from his position.

As for Berger, 


he is not even mentioned at the official Yizkor site.

I do not know if Beger's widow or children ever received compensation for the incident.

Luckily, it was Menachem Begin who earlier and later, prevented the development of an internal war within the Yishuv, the Saison period, as written, p. 118:

In the December 3, 1944 issue of the Irgun newspaper, Herut, Begin published his article “There will be no civil war!” explaining at the beginning his deepest reason for his restraint: 
Against the eyes of every son of the nation appear and reappear the carriages of death. The images come as if of their own volition – even during daytime diversions; and most of all, maybe, in the nights: The Black Nights when the sound of an infernal screeching of wheels and the sighs of the condemned press in from afar and interrupt one’s slumber; to remind one of what happened to mother, father, brothers, to a son, a daughter, a People. In these inescapable moments every Jew in the country feels unwell because he is well. He asks himself: Is there not something treasonous in his existence. He asks: Can he sit by and allow the terrible contradiction between the march of death there and the flow of life here… And there is no way to run from these questions…

 ^

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