Israel’s political Left — has long had a pattern stretching from the Mandate era to our turbulent present: when their ideological opponents succeed, when the Right gains ground, they slander, cheat, lie, suppress, and accuse. Ze’ev Jabotinsky saw it. Menachem Begin lived it. Benjamin Netanyahu is living it now.
The brutal campaign the Zionist Left once waged against Jabotinsky and the Revisionist movement was about ideological war — and that war never ended. Today, it simply wears different clothing: NGOs, media hit jobs, corrupt courts and academia, Diaspora boycotts, and cynical accusations of fascism and racism. What united the attacks then and now is one thing: a refusal to accept the legitimacy of Zionism that is unapologetically Jewish, strong, rooted in heritage, and grounded in the will of the Jewish people.
The Vilification of a Giant
Ze’ev Jabotinsky wasn’t a fringe ideologue. He was one of the most influential and visionary leaders of the Jewish and Zionist world. A world-class orator, journalist, author, soldier, and the founder of the Betar movement, he built a generation of Jews ready to fight for Jewish independence when the dominant Zionist institutions preferred caution and appeasement.
He foresaw the Holocaust. He screamed warnings to the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe. He organized Jewish self-defense against pogroms and created the Jewish Legion to fight alongside the British in World War I.
And when he proposed a Jewish state — with full rights for minorities, a strong army, and clear borders — he was mocked and demonized by the same Left that now calls themselves the guardians of liberal democracy.
David Ben-Gurion, the leading figure of Labor Zionism, repeatedly slandered Jabotinsky, referring to him in public as “Vladimir Hitler,” drawing comparisons between the man who wanted a Jewish army and the man who wanted to destroy the Jews. Pamphlets circulated with titles like “Jabotinsky in the Footsteps of Hitler.”
It wasn’t debate — it was character assassination.
And after Jabotinsky’s death in 1940? They wouldn’t even let his bones rest in Israel. Ben-Gurion and his comrades refused to repatriate his remains. “The land needs living Jews — not dead bones,” Ben-Gurion sneered, even as Israel’s founding was built on the legacy of men like Jabotinsky.
The message was clear: there is only one acceptable Zionism — ours. And everyone else is dangerous. Outside the pale.
The Saison: When Jews Hunted Jews
By the 1940s, Jabotinsky’s disciples had created the Irgun (Etzel) and Lehi — underground forces fighting for Jewish independence from British colonial rule. These fighters were driven by Jabotinsky’s doctrine: self-respect, self-defense, and no surrender of Jewish rights. But what did the Zionist Left — then in control of the Jewish Agency and the Haganah — do in response?
They unleashed the Saison — "The Hunting Season" — in 1944-45. The Haganah, under the direction of Labor Zionist leaders, turned Jews over to the British. They arrested Irgun members, sabotaged operations, betrayed arms caches, and blacklisted Betar youth from schools and institutions. Safe houses were exposed. Names were handed over. Some were even tortured. Jews hunting Jews over ideological rivalry.
And always, the justification was the same: “These Revisionists are extremists. Dangerous. Irresponsible. They’re harming the cause.”
That narrative — born in fear and arrogance — was then written into textbooks, museums, and the national memory by those who seized control of the country's institutions.
The Altalena: The Fire That Marked the Divide
Nothing symbolizes the brutal hostility toward the Revisionist camp more than the shelling of the Altalena in June 1948. The ship — loaded with weapons and fighters for the Irgun during the War of Independence — had arrived off the coast after a miscommunication with Ben-Gurion's provisional government. Begin pleaded for a compromise: allow 20% of the weapons to reach Irgun fighters still outside IDF command in besieged Jerusalem. Instead, Ben-Gurion gave the order to open fire.
Sixteen Irgun fighters were killed. The ship was shelled, burned, and eventually sunk. And still, Begin — in a moment of almost superhuman restraint — ordered his men not to retaliate. In truth, it was Begin’s refusal to return fire that saved the state from a civil war sparked not by the Right, but by the Left’s refusal to tolerate dissent.
To this day, that cannon — the so-called “holy cannon” — is viewed by many Israelis as a symbol of disgrace. As Israel now searches for the wreck of the Altalena, the government notes that the goal is “national unity” which notes that the Irgun were patriots — loyal Jews bringing arms to a Jewish war. They were Revisionists who died for Zion.
But the people never forgot. Jabotinsky’s ideas lived on through Begin, through Shamir, through the Likud, through today’s nationalist, religious, and right-leaning parties. The Zionist Right did not disappear — it became the dominant political force in Israel. The heirs of Betar and Irgun now lead the government. The bones of Jabotinsky were finally brought home — not by the Left, but by the Right.
Yet the same hatred remains. Only now it’s not Jabotinsky they’re targeting — it’s Netanyahu and his government.
Netanyahu and the Modern Saison
Benjamin Netanyahu is not Ze’ev Jabotinsky. But like Jabotinsky, he is demonized not for his policies but for his ideology — for daring to stand strong, to defend the Jewish character of the state, to reject submission to foreign moral frameworks, and to reflect the Jewish majority’s will. He is Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister. Under his leadership, Israel has become more secure, more prosperous, and more globally respected than ever before. Yet he is painted as a dictator, as corrupt, as dangerous — not because of what he’s done, but because of who he represents: the triumph of a nationalist Zionist vision.
The Diaspora Left has followed suit.
Groups like the radical woke ADL, Stand With Us and even the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations openly actually boycott ministers from Israel’s elected coalition — the most Jewish government in history. They label the Betar movement — which operates out of Metzudat Ze’ev, Jabotinsky’s own building — as a radical hate group. The ADL calls mainstream Zionism “extremists” while holding interfaith events with those who call Israel apartheid. Who gave them the authority to decide who is “acceptable” in the Zionist movement?
Enough of the Violence and Vandalism
And now, just like in the days of the Altalena and the Saison, violent protests are once again being used to try to suppress the nationalist camp which today, in contrast to those days, was elected in democratic elections— with the left using the oxymoronic banner of “saving democracy” to oppose the will of Israel's voters. Protesters block highways, besiege politicians’ homes, scream “fascist” at soldiers, set fires in residential areas, and deface symbols of the state.
To the left-wing elite: stop before it gets worse. Israel is a democracy — and the Right is winning. You may not like the result, but that does not give you license to wage war on the people, the state, or your fellow Jews. We’ve seen where that path leads — we saw it with the Altalena. Never again.
The Future Belongs to Jabotinsky’s Heirs
The Left has lost the argument. What was once “extreme” — the insistence on Jewish sovereignty, the defense of Jewish land, the pride in Jewish identity — is now mainstream. Jabotinsky’s movement is no longer in the margins. It leads the nation.
And it will continue to. Because Israel’s future depends on it.
The world is changing. The threats are growing. And the Jewish people are waking up. The old lies — that Jabotinsky was a fascist, that Netanyahu is a tyrant, that Zionism must bow to liberal approval — no longer hold.
We remember the Hunting Season. We remember the Altalena. We remember who stood up for Jewish dignity, Jewish strength, and Jewish destiny. Jabotinsky’s heirs are not in hiding. They are in charge. And it’s time the Left accepted that.
Ronn Torossian is an Israeli-American entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is Vice Chairman of Betar Worldwide and a Board Member of the Jabotinsky Institute, the Tel Aviv based historical site dedicated to the memory of the world’s leading Zionist.
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