Great piece by BBC News on Natan Brun, a legal historian in Israel who is the son of Akiva Brun, a member of the Stern Gang who was arrested and charged in 1947 for plotting terror in London. Reporter Tim Franks asks if Brun's father's story suggests "that the Palestinian militants of today can become the pillars of the establishment of the future?"
Natan Brun laughs and shakes his head.
"Because Menachem Begin (the leader of a Jewish militant group, and
later Israel's first right-wing Prime Minister) on 14 May 1948 passed
through a transformation from a terrorist to a democrat. In one day.
"The Palestinians – I think – will never undergo this
transformation. They are still terrorists… How can we make peace with
Hamas?"
Begin's transformation could have been, I suggest, because he got what he wanted: a Jewish state.
Thanks to Anees of Jerusalem, who writes: "history does not enlighten the petrified mind."
