In death, the U.S. media remembered the late Yitzhak Shamir as “a political hard-liner who served two terms as Israeli prime minster” (CNN, 6/30/12), “the hawkish Israeli leader who balked at the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians” (MSNBC, 6/30/12) and “a man of iron will and simple tastes” (Washington Post, 6/30/12) who
prided himself on his hard-line views, his relentless determination to hang onto every square inch of what he considered the Land of Israel, and his championing of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, defying the demands of Israel’s most important ally, the United States.
Neither CNN or MSNBC mentioned Shamir’s terrorist past, but the Post offered a taste of the bloody history with a couple of paragraphs on Shamir’s leadership of Lehi (AKA the Stern Gang), the most extreme Jewish militia in Palestine in the 1940s:
While mainstream Zionist groups forged a truce with the British to combat Nazism during World War II, Mr. Shamir and Lehi fought on, even offering to cooperate with the Germans to rid Palestine of British rule.
Mr. Shamir was the architect of Lehi’s most daring attack, the 1944 assassination in Cairo of Lord Moyne, Britain’s top Middle East official and a close friend of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.”
The New York Times (6/30/12) obituary, which described Shamir as “promoting a muscular Zionism,” included some reporting on his terrorist past, but when it came down to calling things what they are, the Times would only report that some Shamir opponents called him a terrorist:
Many of his friends and colleagues ascribed his character to his years in the underground in the 1940s, when he sent Jewish fighters out to kill British officers whom he saw as occupiers. He was a wanted man then; to the British rulers of the Palestine mandate he was a terrorist, an assassin. He appeared in public only at night, disguised as a Hasidic rabbi. But Mr. Shamir said he considered those “the best years of my life.”
The evidence that Shamir was a terrorist is conclusive. Shamir was one of three men leading Lehi as the group carried out dozens of assassinations, including those of the British diplomat Lord Moyne, in 1944, and the Swedish-born United Nations peace envoy, Count Folke Bernadotte, in 1948.
Lehi joined forces with the Irgun, another Jewish militia responsible for terrorist atrocities, in the 1948 killing of between 100 and 250 Palestinians, including many women and children, in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. According to the Nexis news database, no U.S. news story about Shamir’s death mentioned his r0le in what would come to be known as the Deir Yassin Massacre.
The U.S. press isn’t always so delicate in naming someone a terrorist. For instance, in the Times 2004 obituary for Yasser Arafat (11/11/04), reporter Judith Miller reported that the Palestinian leader “began his long political career with high-profile acts of anti-Israel terrorism.”
It’s a double standard based on whether the terrorist was considered a friend or foe by U.S. officialdom. From the outpouring of respect expressed by U.S. officials on Shamir’s passing, one could have predicted a whitewash of his terrorist history in the press.
History belongs to those who make it up.
Or bury it.
Remember Doug “Who controls the Present, Control the past; Who controls the past, controls the future.”
It’s the mini-true ways of saying “we are war with the Arabic people, we have always been at war with the Arabic people.” Which with our current history of toppling those who were our friends, might be better for them in the long run. I wouldn’t want to shake hands with Donald Rumsfield and be called a friend by him.
I am grateful that you mentioned these things. They must not be forgotten!
Check out Nima Shirazi’s “Death of a Proud, Self-Avowed Terrorist” article, posted June 30, 2012 on Wide Asleep in America, which calls out exactly the facts of Shamir’s terrorism that you note here.
History is so ironic too. While the ancient Christians were burning the Library at Alexandria, the Islamic religion and many Arabs were saving the ancient scrolls of knowledge from around the world , including those of ancient Greece. If not for these acts, the world would never have learned of democracy, science , math, medicine, or even atoms for a very long time, if ever. We are who we are because of those positive actions of those people of the past. Celebrate those named and unnamed enlightened ones…terrorists of any nation are a dime a dozen and leave nothing behind but a history of grief. I don’t think Anne Frank would have liked him.
This piece is substantially correct. The Jewish people in Palestine had their own fair share of Jewish terrorists.Pre dating the creation of Israel.And I would agree Shamir was one of those men.There are others …..though dying fast now.And have no doubt, the Brits were no angels.It was bare knuckle fights in a hard scrabble world of religious and political intrigue.Of racial and ethic divide.
barack obama is no less a terrorist like many other western leaders including george bush. lets call a spade a spade knowing that the racist mainstream media will never do so.
Thinking back to Mr. Nixon’s obit. one would have believed he was a perfect, benevolent public servant. Only one person was brave enough to challenge the rewritten history: Daniel Shoerr (sp. forgive me Dan, wherever you are). DS gave a statement, part of which was something to the effect of: “…now who is this Nixon of whom they speak?” Anyone remember the list of names Mr. Nixon so proudly kept?
So, I’m sort of proud of the press for bringing out the real history of Mr. Shamir. Not to excuse the Israelis, but so many revolutions are fought with horrors on both sides. No one wears a white hat, however, whoever “wins” gets to write the history and put one on. There’s irony there.
For truth to have an impact it must be timely. And as usual very few places give that timeliness. It didn’t matter to the USA who decide what a terrorist is and what is a successful revolutionary. The Corporate Main Stream Media is careful to anticipate when to use the truth and when to twist it or suppress it. Those who don’t could lose favors. The truth is out there but very hard to find. Those who find out and seek it get it but are then attacked for being “anti-American or anti-Semitic” by the rest of them who get it through the CMSM.
However stopping isn’t an option because there are plenty of people who want more information and have doubts about what is regurgitated to them from every avenue.
It is disgusting how terrorism is so easily in the eye of the beholder…