For the past four months, former members of the Palmah have been leading a campaign against naming the site after Rehavam Ze’evi.
By NATAN ODENHEIMERMaj.-Gen. Rehavam Ze’evi in 1967(photo credit: GPO)
The government’s decision in 2011 to name a major site on the main road to Jerusalem after slain cabinet minister and IDF reserve major general Rehavam Ze’evi rekindled a public debate on his legacy and invoked fierce resistance against naming the site after him.The site in question, Sha’ar Hagai in Hebrew and Bab el-Wad in Arabic – both mean gate of the valley – was the scene of brutal battles in 1948 between Palmah fighters and Arab forces.For the past four months, former members of the Palmah have been leading a campaign against naming the site after Ze’evi. Some of them were his close friends and brothers in arms, but Ze’evi, who served in the Palmah, didn’t fight at Sha’ar Hagai.They say it would be more appropriate to name the site after the men and women who lost their lives fighting there to keep the road to Jerusalem open.Haim Gouri, a pillar of Israeli poetry and a Palmah veteran himself, is one of the strongest opponents of the plan to name the site after Ze’evi.During the 1948 war, Gouri penned a poem commemorating those who died fighting at Sha’ar Hagai.Set to music and initially preformed by singer Yaffa Yarkoni in 1949, it is still popular and often played on the radio on Remembrance Day.He told Channel 10 in September that he was “shocked” when he heard the announcement, saying Ze’evi “didn’t fight there....Is this a political issue? This [decision] ridicules and is offensive to our heritage. It reeks of politics.”Members of Ze’evi’s family are the movers and shakers behind the efforts to establish a memorial. Curiously, his son, Palmah Ze’evi, agrees with Gouri in that the issue is political. Speaking at his father’s grave on the Hebrew anniversary of his death, he accused “leftists” of attempting to defile his father’s name for political reasons.REHAVAM ZE’EVI was born in 1926 in Jerusalem, and was educated among what later became the Zionist elite. In high school, he was nicknamed “Gandhi,” allegedly thanks to a physical resemblance to the Indian leader who advocated non-violence. The name absurdly stuck with him despite his gravitation toward a profession that involves the use of violence.In his youth he joined the Hagana, and then the Palmah, the Hagana’s elite strike force. During the 1948 war he enlisted in the IDF, where he swiftly assumed command positions, starting as a platoon leader. He retired in 1974 with the rank of major-general.During the next chapter of his life, Ze’evi went into politics. In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, he raised the flag of “transfer,” the forced removal of Palestinians from Israel to other countries. In 1988, he established the right wing party Moledet, Hebrew for homeland, and led it for the next decade and a half. In February 2001, he assumed a ministerial role in the cabinet of prime minister Ariel Sharon, but after only a few months he resigned over a security dispute. The next day, before the resignation took affect, he was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen at the door to his hotel room in Jerusalem.In 2005, the Knesset decided to commemorate Ze’evi, including by marking the anniversary of his death as a national day of mourning. Two settlements and a village in the Negev were named after him, as well as a bridge, parks, a boulevard and a military base.More than NIS 10 million has been invested in preserving his memory over the past seven years, but the decision to name the Sha’ar Hagai site after him seems to be too much for many among the public.Last April, the Channel 2 investigative program Uvda broadcast a long report revealing testimony about unethical, even criminal, behavior. Among the allegations were that Ze’evi had shot two unarmed Beduin for no apparent reason, killing one of them, and had asked a prominent crime figure to “deal” with a journalist who “gave him trouble,” and that the attempt on her life – a bomb planted at her apartment doorstep – failed.Moreover, five women claimed on the program that Ze’evi had sexually attacked them. Entertainer Rivka Michaeli claimed that he had aggressively forced himself on her and threatened her and her family.Ze’evi’s family denied the accusations and unsuccessfully tried to stop the program from being aired, saying it was driven by political motives.ON DECEMBER 1, a group of Palmah veterans convened with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gouri, who was present, told The Jerusalem Post Magazine that the veterans expressed their firm reservations about naming the site after Ze’evi.Yitzhak Sarig, son of a late Palmah commander and a member of the steering committee of the Palmah Society, told the Magazine: “We are still awaiting response from the prime minister. In the meantime, we are discussing options informally with decision-makers in the government. In any event, we stand strong in our opposition and will not let the site be named after Ze’evi, no matter what it takes.”
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