Dov Shilansky was President of the Knesset when I became aware of him. His son was building a large tophill villa and he complained that the lights of the plant I was managing didnt let him sleep at night. He demanded the plant to be closed down. Israel was poor and equalitarian them, and it was highly suspicious that a young man had the means to build such a palace and thought himself so important. After the Hirschensohn affair, another top Likud politician (but one that got cought), there is less to wonder.
Dov Shilansky was born in 1924 in Lituania and was among the few camp survivors. He once described the iron solidarity of the movement in the death camps. After liberation he continued leading the movement in Europe and in 1948 he made "aliyah" on the weapon smuggling ship Altalena (pic). He was high in the Likud hierarchy headed by Menachem Begin. His first son was killed in action in 1974 and he asked to be laid next to his tomb.
5 comments:
In the early 50's , Shilansky tried to plant a bomb with 3 kilos of dynamite in the Foreign Ministry to protest the willingness of the State to accept German blood money. Today we would call him a terrorist and we would lock him up and throw away the key (at least in the US - those caught attempting to plant bombs, even unsuccessfully, such as the Times Square bomber, have received life sentences) but in those days he was sentenced to less than 2 years in prison and later allowed to have a political career. So it is true that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter after all.
K
Shilansky represented a wide spectrum of political opinion at that time, and it didnt want to create chaos but change policy. He was not a foreign terrorist.
I was taught that one who tries to change policy with explosives is called a terrorist.
K
Well, yes. But those were times of small bombs, while today's terrorists may have plutonium and kill hundreds of thousands and contaminate entire cities. Shilansky was not a real menace to the Israeli public, he didnt want to kill innocents.
I don't know the details - where the bomb was supposed to be hidden, when it was supposed to go off, but 3 kilos of dynamite could have killed a lot of people - even if set to go off at night or to be discovered it could have killed a cleaning lady or the bomb disposal officer. As I said before, planting 6 lbs. of dynamite in the US would get you a life sentence in post 9/11 US even if no one was hurt.
I don't care how pure his motives are - you cannot have a democracy where "debate" is conducted with sticks of dynamite. My father was a KZnik also and although he had strong feelings about Nazis , it never occurred to him to influence a policy debate with dynamite. In my book this is never excusable, especially not in a democracy where there are peaceful means to make your views known.
K
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