Brother against Brother: Violence and Extremism in Israeli Politics from Altalena to the Rabin Assassination

Abstract

Against Brother takes the reader through the critical turning points of Israeli political history, and introduces us to the leaders whose careers were baptized by blood. In a masterful blending of narrative and historical analysis, Sprinzak begins with the Altalena incident of June 1948, the first armed dispute between David Ben-Gurion's Labor-led government and the right-wing paramilitary Irgun organization, led by future prime minister Menachem Begin. He then follows the legacy of conflict into the confrontations of the 1950s and the assassination of Dr. Rudolph Kastner, a World War II leader of the Hungarian Jews. Sprinzak shows how the 1967 Six-Day War - Israel's greatest victory ever - reopened, paradoxically, the great rift between the left and the right over the borders of Israel, inspiring such agitators as Meir Kahane, who founded the Jewish Defense League in the United States and the Kach party in Israel, and the Orthodox rabbis of Gush Emunim. Finally, Sprinzak reveals how the militancy of Israel's religious right has grown more fierce since the signing of the Oslo accords, reaching its peak in the 1994 Hebron massacre and the Rabin assassination the following year.

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