Ted Moondust

In December 1948, Albert Einstein and other Jewish intellectuals warned Americans that Menachem Begin’s party was built on terrorism and fascism. On December 4, 1948, the New York Times published a letter signed by Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook, and more than two dozen others. It was written as Begin, former leader of the Irgun, toured the United States to raise support for his new Freedom Party (Tnuat Haherut / Herut). The letter said the party was “closely akin in its organisation, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” It described the Irgun as “a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organisation” and said the movement preached “an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.” Terrorism against Jews, Arabs, and the British, the signers wrote, was a means; a “leader state” was the goal. They specifically pointed to the April 1948 attack on Deir Yassin, where Irgun and Lehi forces killed large numbers of Palestinian villagers, as an example of the methods the party carried into politics. The letter urged Americans not to be misled by Begin’s visit or by post-independence talk of freedom and democracy. Begin’s party later became a core of Likud. The warning Einstein signed was not about some fringe faction. It was about the political lineage that still shapes Israeli policy toward Palestinians.