REMEMBERING GEULAH COHEN.
Lawmaker stood firm against ceding lands won
Geulah Cohen, the so-called “First Lady of the Israeli Right,” who died on Dec. 18 aged 93, was a lawmaker in the Israeli parliament, who vocally opposed any withdrawal from the lands Israel seized in the June 1967 Sixday War.
Before Israel’s independence in 1948, she was a member of the militant Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), dubbed the “Stern Gang,” which had been founded in Palestine to fight the British Mandate.
Under the nom de guerre Ilana, she was the gang’s radio announcer on their Voice of the Hebrew Underground station.
In 1946, she was sentenced by a British military court to several years in prison for possession of a wireless transmitter, four pistols, revolvers and ammunition. Imprisoned in Bethlehem, Cohen tried to escape but was shot and rearrested.
Her second escape attempt was more successful. She pretended to be ill, and was sent to a hospital in Jerusalem, where she was guarded by three British personnel who would not allow any Jew to approach her. But an Arab who worked with the Stern Gang and his “wife,” a Jewish Lehi member dressed as an Arab, went to the hospital, leaving an Arab dress in the women’s toilets. Cohen then went to the washroom, put on the dress and left through the window. The dark-haired Cohen became a blond, and was provided with glasses and a new identity card.
Cohen was born Dec. 25, 1925 in Tel Aviv. At 18, she joined Lehi, which she regarded as “revolutionary …. We would meet up in public parks … perhaps even to kiss … But under the benches we would have leaflets and glue, and as it would become darker, we would stick the (anti-british) leaflets on trees.”
She earned a master’s degree in Jewish Studies, Philosophy, Literature and the Bible at Hebrew University. In 1973 she joined the rightwing Likud Party and entered the Knesset.
Cohen founded the ultra right-wing party Tehiya (Revival) in 1979, which became a major proponent of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.
She was re-elected to the Knesset several times, but lost her seat in 1992. In 2003 she was awarded the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian honour.