IN MENACHEM Begin’s memoir of Soviet captivity, White Nights, the late prime
minister described his struggle to remove the word “guilty” from a declaration
of Zionist activities which his interrogators demanded he sign. From that
episode, one can learn almost all one needs to know about Menachem Begin and
what made him great.
The declaration was actually an accurate
transcription of an interrogation conducted of Begin by agents of the NKVD, the
precursor to the KGB. It concluded with the following statement: “I admit I am
guilty of having been the chairman of the Betar organization in Poland and being
responsible for the Betar work and calling upon the Jewish youth to join the
ranks of Betar.”
When, in the middle of the night, after months of
interrogation and sleep deprivation, Begin was asked to “please sign” with
promises of a real trial and perhaps freedom, Begin refused.
course, was the Zionist youth movement of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Begin’s “teacher and
rabbi.” The first organization to evacuate European Jews and illegally smuggle
them into then-Palestine, Betar believed all of Palestine was the Jewish
homeland and in the need for Jewish self-defense/military training. It was Betar
alumni, those who escaped Europe, who filled the Irgun’s ranks and whom Begin
would later lead to force the British out of then-Palestine enabling the rise of
the State of Israel.
Like many young Polish Jews, when Begin heard
Jabotinsky speak for the first time, he immediately joined Betar. Eventually
Begin rose to head the Polish chapter of Betar, representing tens of thousands.
It was for his role in Betar that Begin had been arrested.
admitted that the interrogator “wrote everything down very exactly and of course
I will sign it.”
But Begin added, “I would ask that you make one
change... instead of ‘I admit my guilt in being...,’ would you please write ‘I
admit that I was....’” This request triggered demands and threats from the
interrogator. But the interrogator did in fact change the wording to “I confess
to being” instead of “I am guilty of having been.”
That may not have been
exactly what Begin requested, but at that point, given the dangers, any normal
person would have signed.
Begin, however, was not a normal person, and
rejected that too. Miraculously, the interrogators changed the statement to “I
admit I was chairman of Betar.” Finally, a “confession” Menachem Begin could put
his name to.
Why did Begin risk so much over a semantic dispute?
Practically, the wording could not affect Begin’s fortune.
interrogators admitted there would be no trial where the confession might be
used. Until the publication of White Nights, the transcript was probably never
Still, Begin considered it “the hour of trial... [m]aybe the
decisive test.” “If I do not pass it,” he thought, “there will be no point in
living. Confess my guilt in having been head of the Betar? No, no under no
circumstances! Let him do what he likes, I will not sign.” He prayed to God for
strength, for in that declaration Begin saw the assault on the Jewish People
which continues until today.
The interrogator called Begin a traitor to
the revolution – an agent of British imperialism. He rejected Zionism as the
stealing of Arab land and the siphoning of the Jewish youth away from the true
Communist solution to minority problems.
A confession of guilt here meant
the Jewish People were guilty for merely existing as a distinct people and not
as another mass of workers or humanity. It meant guilt for fighting for Eretz
Yisrael, the homeland of the Jewish People, and not for the Revolution, the
homeland of the workers. It meant guilt for stealing someone else’s
In that interrogation room, it was Herzl against Marx.
even imprisoned by Communist interrogators, who specialized in breaking their
prisoners psychologically, in social isolation, where no one would hear of his
stand and where it was safest to just obey, Begin could not put his name to such
a lie. He could not betray all he believed by stating that fighting for the
Jewish People and the reclamation of Eretz Yisrael was a crime.
MANY of Begin’s deeds, there is much here that we as a nation can learn and draw
lessons from even today.
In that prison, Begin faced immense pressure to
admit his guilt for Zionism. Similarly, the State of Israel and its prime
ministers are pressured daily by an angry Arab world, an anti-Semitic Europe, an
Arabist US State Department and even president, to admit our guilt for having
stolen Arab land – whether in 1967 or 1948. They are willing to admit that the
Jews deserve a state, but not necessarily here, not in Palestine.
demand Israel rectify the crime of Zionism by signing away Jewish rights to
disputed territories such as Judea, Samaria, Gaza and even Jerusalem, by
creating a Palestinian state. But the reclamation of this country, including
those parts of it, were immense acts of historic justice.
So many prime
ministers, including Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and
Binyamin Netanyahu, have publicly warned of the dangers posed by a Palestinian
state and withdrawals from the disputed territories. Yet they each wound up
endorsing a Palestinian state (though in fairness, Rabin actually did not go
It was not that the dangers or our rights had
In fact, the threat from Hamas in Gaza since the Disengagement,
the general exponential growth in Palestinian terrorism since the signing of the
Oslo Accords, popular Islamic takeovers in Arab states – all of these continue
to prove the dangers inherent in creating a Palestinian state.
presence in Judea and Samaria has grown. Clearly, the immense pressure placed on
these leaders and on Israel itself took its toll.
In contrast, Menachem
Begin, like the prophets of old, found greatness in his commitment to truth
despite great pressure to endorse lies or merely remain silent. That truth was
that the Jewish People have a right to the Land of Israel. It is not a gift from
the West or stolen Arab land.
It is simply our country.
is director of Likud Anglos.