Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, AFSI, (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
Mere days after the Israeli election, in a TV program on i24NEWS called Meeting of Extremes, host Naveh Dromi interviewed former Labor Party Knesset Member Colette Avital and asked whether she agreed with the assertion that Yasser Arafat was a terrorist.
Avital responded, "Not that I'm aware of. Toward the end of his life, he was no longer a terrorist." Dromi followed up Avital's outrageous assertion with: "Arafat wasn't a terrorist?" Avital replied, "Toward the end of his life, he signed agreements with the State of Israel and recognized it. Begin was also a terrorist in his time and became prime minister."
This attempt to draw a moral equivalence between Menachem Begin, the underground commander who became Israel's sixth prime minister, and Yasser Arafat, the architect of modern Islamic terrorism, is an appalling distortion of history. To equate the two is to erase the profound moral boundary between a liberation movement fighting for independence while taking pains to spare innocent lives, and a movement built on the deliberate slaughter of civilians.
It should be recalled that Avital was often polarizing and controversial when she held various diplomatic positions in the U.S. It seems age has not diminished her penchant for maligning Zionists who hold beliefs opposite to her own.
Crucial to the argument is Begin's own account. In his 1951 book about his days leading the Irgun underground army, The Revolt, he takes pains to detail how civilians were not targeted in the King David Hotel attack or the battle at Deir Yassin. Unlike Arafat's PLO-which hijacked airplanes, murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, massacred Israeli school children in Ma'alot, and orchestrated suicide bombings against buses and cafes-the Irgun operated under strict ethical constraints. The King David Hotel housed the British Mandate's military and administrative headquarters, and advance warnings were issued to evacuate the building before the blast. Similarly, during the battle at Deir Yassin, loudspeakers were used to warn non-combatants to flee before fighting began.
The Irgun did not operate as a rogue terrorist militia in isolation from the mainstream Zionist movement. The United Resistance Movement (Tenuat HaMeri) was the joint effort in pre-state Israel formed in September 1945 by three major Zionist paramilitary groups-the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. They united to expel the British who were actively blocking Holocaust survivors from reaching the Land of Israel. Begin's forces targeted British military installations and infrastructure and did not seek the indiscriminate murder of innocents while he was in command.
Given Avital's willingness to smear one of Israel's founding fathers while whitewashing Arafat, one might expect pushback from those whose own families fought in the Irgun. Specifically, why hasn't J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami challenged his former colleague Avital?
The connection between Avital and Ben-Ami's organization is well-documented. Colette Avital held an official position with J Street, serving as its representative and senior adviser in Israel, particularly during the organization's early years. She was not merely a supporter or an outside Israeli politician endorsing J Street; she was an actual organizational consultant and Israel liaison. In August 2009, the JTA described her as J Street's senior adviser and Israel-based representative, and J Street's own press release archive contains an announcement titled "Colette Avital Joins J Street as Senior Advisor." A March 2010 Jerusalem Post profile likewise described her as a senior adviser to J Street's political arm.
Very few J Streeters may know that Yitshaq Ben-Ami-Jeremy's father-was high up in the Irgun's leadership and was a key organizer in the United States for support in the 1940s for Begin's Irgun. Does Jeremy Ben-Ami agree with his longtime ally Colette Avital that his own father Yitshaq was a terrorist?
Yitshaq Ben-Ami understood the very principle that his son's organization and Colette Avital seem to have forgotten: Jewish survival cannot be subordinated to international approval. In his foreword to the second (1983) edition of his memoirs, Years of Wrath, Days of Glory, Yitshaq Ben-Ami reflected on Begin's 1981 decision to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor and his 1982 decision to go to war in Lebanon against the PLO. He wrote: “Too often the credo of Diaspora Jews is ‘Keep a low profile, and anti-Semitism will disappear.' The phenomenon of a Jewish Prime Minister standing up to the gentile world and declaring boldly ‘Don't teach us about morality or how to fight for our survival in your midst!' was jarring. And it was anxiety-provoking … to see … Jewish military power used preventatively to destroy life-threatening targets sponsored by hostile political alliances."
Begin's willingness to act decisively in Israel's defense, regardless of global backlash, defined his time as prime minister. The raid on Iraq was part of a chain of bold actions taken by Begin, each causing an outcry from the United Nations and official condemnation-the exact kind of condemnations that J Street routinely warns will come should Israel assert its sovereignty.
Before the Iraq attack, on July 30, 1980, the Knesset ratified the “Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel," applying sovereignty to the city. U.N. Security Council Resolution 478 attacked Israel for the move. Then, after the Iraqi operation, on December 14, 1981, Israel's Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, applying Israeli law to the Golan Heights. U.N. Security Council Resolution 497 called the Israeli action “null and void and without international legal effect."
Thank G-d that the threat of UN resolutions did not stop Menachem Begin from doing what was in Israel's best interest and was needed to protect its very existence. Can one imagine what the Gulf War would have looked like had Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear-armed SCUD missiles, or what the Syrian Civil War would have meant for Israel if Syrian President Bashar Assad controlled the Golan?
In the end, what did the UN Security Council resolutions really mean for Israel? Was there any tangible impact? Any lasting effect at all? Surely, Jeremy Ben-Ami and J Street must know the answer is clearly no.
History has taught us that J Street's warnings are wrong: Israel is not hurt by U.N. criticism and threats. Nor is Menachem Begin's legacy tarnished by the historical revisionism of Colette Avital. Begin fought cleanly for Israel's freedom and governed courageously for its survival. Instead of hesitating out of fear of international censure, we must remind Israel's leaders and ourselves to look to the Begin Doctrine and gain the confidence required to take necessary action.
Bringing all of this back to today one other thing should be clear: hardly any Israelis support J Street and Avital's position. Last month's Israeli elections show how irrlevant J Street is in the Jewish State. Less than 6.5% of voters supported the party it is closest to, the HaDemokratim. This direct successor to Avital's Labor Party, The Democrats, was formed in July 2024 through a merger between Labor and the extreme left Meretz party and its low rating is a sign of just how much most Israelis want to relegate it to the dustbin of history.