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Controversy
Over German Reparations
In 1951, Germany agreed to pay reparations to Israel
for the persecution of Jews during World War II. The agreement went
into effect in 1952, but there was a storm of controversy before
it was ratified. Some Holocaust survivors felt that accepting money
from Germany would signal forgiveness of Nazi crimes. Opposition
to the reparations agreement was led by future Prime Minister Menaøem
Begin, then head of the Øerut Party, whose protest was described
in this article from the Jerusalem Post of January 1952.
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The question of an approach to Bonn for reparations was debated
yesterday in the Knesset in an atmosphere of violence unprecedented
in Israel parliamentary life. The shouting of a mob not far
off, the intermittent wail of police cars and ambulance sirens,
sporadic explosions of gas grenades and the glow of flames
from a burning car came through the windows of the Knesset
building, and later the window panes were splintered by rocks,
and fumes of tear-gas bombs from the battle-scarred street
outside permeated the chamber. One member was hit in the head
by a stone.
Through
all this disturbance, the meeting went on. . . . But later
the proceedings were interrupted by obstruction within the
Knesset itself when Mr. Menahem Begin (Herut) called the
Prime Minister [David Ben-Gurion] "a hooligan" and refused
to recant. He also declined to leave the platform when ordered
to do so by the Deputy Speaker, saying, "If I don't speak,
no one will speak." The meeting was closed by the Deputy
Speaker amidst an uproar.
. .
. After the recess, Mr. Begin returned to the platform and
apologized. He added that he was waiving his Knesset immunity
and that this would be his last appearance in the Knesset,
and made what most listeners thought was a threat to go
underground if an attempt is made to negotiate with Germany:
"Some
things are dearer than life. Some things are worse than
death. We are willing to leave our families and die. . .
. People went to the barricades for lesser things. . . I
know that we will be dragged to concentration camps. . .
. We will die together."
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