Palmach: Encyclopedia II - Palmach - The Palmach in Politics and Culture

Palmach - The Palmach in Politics and Culture

The Palmach was a left-wing organisation, associated with left-wing parties. Its members trained and lived in Kibbutzim, which were generally left-sympathetic. The political tendencies of its leaders such as Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Sadeh, was towards Mapam a left-wing party in opposition to David Ben-Gurion and the Mapai ruling party. Those tendencies caused Ben-Gurion to order the dissolving of Palmach in 1948.

Palmach members were not, however, a unified, homogenous collective with a single ideology. In the early years of the state of Israel they could be found in all political parties.

Yigal Allon, considered by many to be the representative of the Palmach generation, never properly reached a position of national leadership, although he was Prime Minister for a few days between Eshkol's death and Meir's appointment in 1969. He died in 1980.

The best known Palmachnik in Israeli politics was Yitzchak Rabin of the Israeli Labour party. Others included Moshe Dayan, Chaim Bar-Lev and Mordechay Gur.

Palmachniks can be found everywhere in Israeli politics. Besides left-wing activists such as Mati Peled, Yair Tsaban and Shulamit Aloni, Palmach veterans include right-wing extremists such as Rehavam Zeevi and Rafael Eitan.

Besides military contributions, the Palmach had great influence over the Israeli "Tzabar" culture. Palmach activists included "Kumzitz" (sitting around a fire at night, eating, talking and having fun), public singing and cross-country walking trips. These often took on mythical proportions and have become favorite activities for Israelis.

The Palmach also contributed many anecdotes, jokes, "chizbat" (short funny tales, often based on exaggerations), songs and even books and stories.

Notable Palmach cultural figures include:

• Netiva Ben Yehuda - journalist, writer, radio host
• Shoshana Damari - singer
• Haim Hefer - poet, writer
• Haim Guri - poet, writer
• Naomi Polani - singer, actor
• Moshe Shamir - writer, playwright
• Hannah Szenes (Senesh) - poet
• Dahn Ben Amotz - writer, journalist
• Shayke Ofir - actor
• Zohara Levitov - Diarist

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Palmach in Politics and Culture", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki