The Altalena Memorial marks one of the most fraught moments in Israel's early statehood. In 1948, David Ben-Gurion ordered an attack on the Altalena, a ship carrying arms for the Irgun militia; Irgun leader Menachem Begin told his fighters not to fire back, fearing civil war in the new state.
The memorial itself is small, but the story is large. It is worth a short stop while walking the Tel Aviv seafront, especially if you are interested in the political tensions that shaped the country's first weeks.