Yael Sharaz-Polkovski, 74, is the founder of a new organization of mothers and grandmothers, and has given it the name, "The Voice of Mother" - the same as a popular Army Radio program bringing regards from mothers to their soldier sons.
The group will be officially launced at the Feb. 13 ceremony at the beach-side site where the Altalena was sunk by Israeli cannon fire.
The Altalena was a ship of Jewish refugee/volunteers and weapons, organized by Menachem Begin's Irgun, that the fledgling IDF attacked with shells and gunfire on the shores of Tel Aviv in June 1948; 16 Jews aboard the ship, and three others, were killed. Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion explained that he could not allow a competing army in the new state. But former Knesset Speaker Dov Shilansky, who was on the ship at the time, said that the Altalena was bringing Holocaust survivors who wished to fight for the new Jewish state, and that "Ben-Gurion murdered them; there is no other word."
Polkovski herself participated in the attack. "I was a member of the Palmach [one of the main forerunners of the IDF in pre-State days]," she said, "and I fought in the War for Independence to free Jerusalem. I participated in the shooting on the Altalena, and that is one of the black marks on my life. We don't want to see this happen again. What is happening here turns the country back 50-60 years."
With the heating up of the struggle against the unilateral withdrawal from Jewish Gaza and northern Shomron, and the planned transfer of the homes of 8,500 Jews to the Arabs, Polkovski fears Jewish bloodshed now as well. She told Arutz-7's Ruti Avraham that the group of women she has organized has made it its goal to call upon PM Sharon to "wake up, prevent civil war, and save the State."
The organization comprises "Zionist, religious and secular mothers and grandmothers of all political stripes, residents of Israel from north to south, former Haganah, Etzel and Lechi fighters, Sabras [Israeli-born] and new immigrants, wives and mothers of soldiers." It calls on "every woman and mother who believes in national unity, attentiveness and dialogue, and who is disgusted with false promises and the lowering of national morale and honor, and who wishes to see national pride and unity restored, to join us. Together we will stop the dangerous plunge that is leading to a national split. There's no 'them' and 'us' – there's only 'all of us.'"
The organization's specific demand:
"Detach the IDF and security forces from the disengagement. The army's objective is to protect Israeli citizens throughout the Land of Israel and to wage war on our enemies. Let the army fulfill its mission. Only in totalitarian states is the army ordered to fight its own people in order to implement the rulers' policies. Keep the IDF as the army of the entire nation, and spare our children the trauma of having to fulfill orders of destruction and expulsion."
The group will be officially launced at the Feb. 13 ceremony at the beach-side site where the Altalena was sunk by Israeli cannon fire.
The Altalena was a ship of Jewish refugee/volunteers and weapons, organized by Menachem Begin's Irgun, that the fledgling IDF attacked with shells and gunfire on the shores of Tel Aviv in June 1948; 16 Jews aboard the ship, and three others, were killed. Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion explained that he could not allow a competing army in the new state. But former Knesset Speaker Dov Shilansky, who was on the ship at the time, said that the Altalena was bringing Holocaust survivors who wished to fight for the new Jewish state, and that "Ben-Gurion murdered them; there is no other word."
Polkovski herself participated in the attack. "I was a member of the Palmach [one of the main forerunners of the IDF in pre-State days]," she said, "and I fought in the War for Independence to free Jerusalem. I participated in the shooting on the Altalena, and that is one of the black marks on my life. We don't want to see this happen again. What is happening here turns the country back 50-60 years."
With the heating up of the struggle against the unilateral withdrawal from Jewish Gaza and northern Shomron, and the planned transfer of the homes of 8,500 Jews to the Arabs, Polkovski fears Jewish bloodshed now as well. She told Arutz-7's Ruti Avraham that the group of women she has organized has made it its goal to call upon PM Sharon to "wake up, prevent civil war, and save the State."
The organization comprises "Zionist, religious and secular mothers and grandmothers of all political stripes, residents of Israel from north to south, former Haganah, Etzel and Lechi fighters, Sabras [Israeli-born] and new immigrants, wives and mothers of soldiers." It calls on "every woman and mother who believes in national unity, attentiveness and dialogue, and who is disgusted with false promises and the lowering of national morale and honor, and who wishes to see national pride and unity restored, to join us. Together we will stop the dangerous plunge that is leading to a national split. There's no 'them' and 'us' – there's only 'all of us.'"
The organization's specific demand:
"Detach the IDF and security forces from the disengagement. The army's objective is to protect Israeli citizens throughout the Land of Israel and to wage war on our enemies. Let the army fulfill its mission. Only in totalitarian states is the army ordered to fight its own people in order to implement the rulers' policies. Keep the IDF as the army of the entire nation, and spare our children the trauma of having to fulfill orders of destruction and expulsion."