are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the

headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British

from Palestine.

They have erected a plaque outside the restored building, and are holding a

two-day seminar with speeches and a tour of the hotel by one of the Jewish

resistance fighters involved in the attack.

Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv, and John Jenkins, the

Consul-General in Jerusalem, have written to the municipality, stating: “We do

not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of

many lives, to be commemorated.”

In particular they demanded the removal of the plaque that pays tribute to

the Irgun, the Jewish resistance branch headed by Menachem Begin, the future

Prime Minister, which carried out the attack on July 22, 1946.

The plaque presents as fact the Irgun’s claim that people died because the

British ignored warning calls. “For reasons known only to the British, the hotel

was not evacuated,” it states.

Mr McDonald and Dr Jenkins denied that the British had been warned, adding

that even if they had “this does not absolve those who planted the bomb from

responsibility for the deaths”. On Monday city officials agreed to remove the

language deemed offensive from the blue sign hanging on the hotel’s gates, though

that had not been done shortly before it was unveiled last night.

The controversy over the plaque and the two-day celebration of the bombing,

sponsored by Irgun veterans and the right-wing Menachem Begin Heritage Centre,

goes to the heart of the debate over the use of political violence in the

Middle East. Yesterday Mr Netanyahu argued in a speech celebrating the attack that

the Irgun were governed by morals, unlike fighters from groups such as Hamas.

“It’s very important to make the distinction between terror groups and

freedom fighters, and between terror action and legitimate military action,” he

said. “Imagine that Hamas or Hezbollah would call the military headquarters in

Tel Aviv and say, ‘We have placed a bomb and we are asking you to evacuate the

area’.”

But the view of the attack was very different in 1946 when The Times branded

the Irgun “terrorists in disguise”. Decades later, Irgun veterans are

unrepentant. Sarah Agassi, 80, remembers spying in the King David Hotel.

She and a fellow agent posed as a couple. They danced tangos and waltzes,

sipped whisky and wine while they cased out the hotel.

On the day her brother and his fellow fighters posed as Arabs delivering milk

and brought seven milk churns, each containing 50kg of explosives, into the

building. Ms Agassi waited across the street until her brother rushed out. She

said that she then made the warning call to the British command in the hotel.

Sitting in the luxurious hotel lobby, she expressed no regret. “We fought for

our independence. We thought it was the right way . . . If I had to fight for

Israel, I swear even now I would do anything.”

TWO VERSIONS

The original wording:

The Hotel housed the Mandate Secretariat as well as the Army Headquarters.

On July 1946 (sic) Irgun fighters at the order of the Hebrew Resistance

Movement planted explosives in the basement. Warning phone calls had been made

urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. For reasons known only to the

British the hotel was not evacuated and after 25 minutes the bombs exploded,

and to the Irgun's regret and dismay 91 persons were killed.

The amended version

. . .Warning phone calls had been made to the hotel, the Palestine Post and

the French Consulate, urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. The

hotel was not evacuated, and after 25 minutes the bombs exploded. The entire

western wing was destroyed, and to the Irgun's regret 92 persons were killed.

+++++++++++

The Story of Yaakov Markus

Quoted from Maxim Ghilan How Israel Lost Its Soul, Penguin Books (1974) p179:

'Yaakov Markus was born in Berlin on 22 November 1927 to a non-Jewish mother

named Mathilde Markus and to a Jewish father. He came to Israel and in the

fifties was drafted to serve in the 1956 Sinai campaign. He was killed there and

buried provisionally at the Shelah Military Cemetery. Later this cemetery was

abolished and the dead were transferred to other permanent graves. Yaakov

Markus's bones were to be interred - as Jewish custom stipulates for Gentile dead

- 'beyond the pale', that is, behind a small stone fence cordoning off a piece

of the Haifa cemetery.

'In this plot were buried other non-Jewish fighters, pilots and technicians

who lost their lives helping Israel win her independence in 1948 and preserving

it in the years that followed. Markus's parents did not accept the

Rabbinate's ruling. They wanted their son to be granted the same honor as the rest of

his fallen friends - burial in the Military Cemetery. General Goren, the Chief

Rabbi of the Israeli Army - a visionary racist who wanted the conquest of both

banks of the Jordan, advocated a religious state and tried to modernize

religion for that purpose - was not in the country. The bereaved parents appealed

directly to the Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, who had to make a special

ruling for them. Markus was finally buried in the same row as his fallen friends.

But so that 'his bones should not be mingled with theirs', as Meshulam

Schlesinger, Director of the Military Cemetery, put it, his grave was set somewhat

apart.

'Meshulam Schlesinger officially stated that the corpse of Yaakov Markus had

been circumcised after his death, to allow it to lie beside the Jewish

fighters. This was later denied no less officially by the Ministry of Defense. But

the grisly and macabre atmosphere surrounding the case has done much to deepen

public concern.'

++++++++++++++++

"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their

jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli

policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."

-- Rabbi Michael Lerner

April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times

======================

Confessions of a Philosopher:

It is not the case that a belief is worthy of respect, or is even interesting

merely because it is widely held, though that it is widely held may give one

food for thought. Of the religions I studied, the one I found least worthy of

intellectual respect was Judaism.

----British Scholar and Philosopher Bryan Magee in 1997