Talk:Yigal Allon

Removing the Lod massacre comment

Although I see someone has already removed it, I'd like to clarify in case it is posted again. First, the commander of the operation was Dayan, not Allon. Secondly, the story of the massacre at the mosque is based on the speculations of one person, Guy Erlich. This should not be stated as fact. Even a Palestinian source questions this event: “Finally, according to Guy Erlich's article, some 20-50 Arabs were slaughtered after cleaning up the mosque. Note that this account and Palumbo's assertion that the bodies of the first group killed at the mosque lay decomposing for ten days in the July heat cannot both be true.” ( [1] ). I am not questioning the forced expulsion of Arabs that caused many unnecessary civilian deaths, but this was under Dayan. Jimmy1988 (talk) 22:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

When did Allon act as PM?

According to Wikipedia, Allon became interim PM in 1968 "following the death of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in 1969". I wasn't yet born but I have a strong suspicion that 1969 actually followed 1968. Was Eshkol effectively incapacitated but still officially in office when Allon took over, or is there another explanation? In any case, the article is awkward and requires clarification.

According to the Israeli PM's official site "On 26.2.69, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol passed away, and the Government ended its tenure. It served as a transitional Government for 41 days." This seems to imply Allon was interim PM from February 26 to March 17, 1969.S.Camus 20:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Mandate Palestine? Not!

The article currently lists Allon's birth on 10 October 1918 as occurring in British Mandate of Palestine. Since the British mandate from the League of Nations was proposed at the San Remo conference in April, 1920, and was only ratified by the League in June, 1922, this is patently incorrect. The League itself was only founded after the Treaty of Versailles the following year!

At the time, the Ottoman Empire was still formally at war with the Allies, and Great Britain was legally just militarily occupying the territory for another three weeks, until 30 October 1918, when the Armistice of Mudros was signed.

Since the whole acrimonious debate about the legal status of this territory continues to this day, including on the pages of our beloved WP, I refrain for now from choosing a term with which to correct this misstatement. My inclination, however, is to simply note "Palestine" and wikilink to Palestine (disambiguation). Let the reader sort it out based on his / her own preference! -- Eliyahu S ^Talk 13:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I just added "British occupied" to set the time in history. Jimmy1988 (talk) 14:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Fine. Since another editor agreed (and changed the main article) I also did the Infobox. -- Eliyahu S ^Talk 15:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

1948 and all that

Since there is room for Oren Dagan's views would there be space to put Benny Morris' comment: "Commanding Operation Yoav...Yigal Allon, who in all his previous campaigns had left no Arab civilian communities in his wake:...[Yiftah,Dani]...He issued no formal, written orders at the start of or during (the operation) ...but it is quite possible that he indicated his wishes in pre-battle tete-a-tetes with his officers. And, perhaps, even without the OC saying anything, Allon's officers knew what he wanted." Page 219 "The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem" (1987 edition). "Left no Arab civilian communities in his wake" always seemed to me to be another way of saying "ethnic cleansing". Padres Hana (talk) 16:29, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Improving the article

I think toobigtokale have done an overall good job of improving this article with all the editing they've done on it lately. I tried to access one of articles given as source in the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies (ref # 28), but I couldn't without paying. I wonder what exactly that source says about the change of his surname. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 23:06, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi warshy, thank you for the compliment :)

Between you and me, if you Google the title of the article, free PDFs are available. Specific info on page 17, says:

General Yigal Allon (1918–80), commander of the Palmah in 1948, government minister and acting prime minister of Israel, best known as the architect of the Allon Plan, was born in Palestine Yigal Paicovitch. His grandfather was one of the early east European settlers who immigrated to Palestine in the 1880s. After Israel was proclaimed in 1948 he changed his name to the Hebrew Allon (‘oak’ tree). toobigtokale (talk) 01:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you toobigtokale. It is interesting that here they give the spelling of his Russian/Yiddish name as Paicovitch, whereas the article gives a slightly different spelling for it (Peikowitz). I believe the former is closer to the real spoken pronunciation of the same name, but I would have to check the sources further on the slight discrepancy in the spelling. Here they also say that the Hebrew Alon means "oak tree," which seems to me a better idea. So I will also update the article on this accordingly. Regards, warshy ^(¥¥) 01:52, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Alternative spelling?

Scholarships | The Rector's Office | Tel Aviv University (tau.ac.il) https://en-rector.tau.ac.il/Scholarships names "Yigal Alon, who served as Minister of Education". Similar sources can easily be found by google search. And searching for the phrase "Alon Fellowship" in en wikipedia gives more than 100 results, whereas "Allon Fellowship" is a Hapax legomenon in en wikipedia articles (only in Emmanuel David Tannenbaum, even there accompanied by "Alon Fellowship" with single-l-Alon). --2003:6:330B:1C90:9DE:AD89:E874:EB1E (talk) 08:00, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

More arguments for alternative spelling: In its Hebrew original version, his family name is the same as Noga Alon's, and indeed they are near relatives, as the Hebrew Wikipedia articles on Yigal and on Noga explain. --2003:6:330B:1C34:8552:61F5:2C7:5D26 (talk) 12:25, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Whitewash / Nakba denial

This article is whitewashed, with almost no mention of Allon's role in the ethnic cleansing operations of the 1948 war, of which he was a leading figure/perpetrator. This whitewashing is a key component of the historical negationism of Nakba denial.

Some previous edits which constitute whitewashing:

"He was commander of the July 1948 attack on al-Lydd, a Palestinian village whose defenders were massacred by Allon's forces inside the village mosque after surrendering. Several hundred villagers were subsequently slaughtered in a rampage by Allon's forces, after which the village was ethnically cleansed." Removed April 2009 [2] - Edit summary: "Operation Danny is already mentioned"

"As a Palmach commander, Yigal Allon approved the 18 December 1947 attack on the village of al Khisas near the Lebanese border, in which houses were blown up and a dozen civilians were killed." Removed Aug 2014 [3] - No edit summary

Text stating that "several hundred died" removed from description of the conquest of Lydda - May 2009 [4]

A link to Exodus from Lydda removed [5] from page in May 2009 - There is currently no mention of what happened in Lydda on the page, nor any wikilinks thereto.

Historian Ilan Pappe's work "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" removed from page Apr 2009 [6]

IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:19, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Think accusing 10-15 year old edits that received no challenge in all the time since is a bit of a stretch to accuse of whitewashing.

That said, obviously some of the language from these removed edits would have to be ironed out for neutrality purposes (re: “massacred”), but if/when you are EC, so as long as items are properly cited and neutrally worded, nothing is stopping you from restoring these edits. Mistamystery (talk) 19:52, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The Nakba

I've added to the lead: "During the 1948 Palestine war, Yigal Allon was a leading perpetrator of the Nakba"

Special:MobileDiff/1196107793

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 10:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I understand that this will need to be worked on and rephrased but it is an improvement to the previous state of the article which was more or less completely whitewashed.

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 10:26, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I self-reverted out of respect for the caution one has to take regarding these sensitive matters.

However the page remains whitewashed.

I will look into other ways of improving the article.

- IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 10:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)