David Ben-Gurion’s 1948 order to attack and sink an armed Irgun ship marked a watershed, according to Abba Eban, “because you can’t be a government unless you have a monopoly of violence.”
More about: Abba Eban, Altalena, David Ben-Gurion, Haganah, Irgun, Israel, Menachem Begin, Revisionist Zionism, Yitzhak Shamir, Zionism