In Disney’s live action Moana, which reached cinemas last month, the ocean parts its waves on a Polynesian shore and places a small green stone in the hands of a child. The stone is the Heart of Te Fiti, a goddess whose stolen heart has turned her into a creature of smoke and fire. The whole film turns on a single question: can the heart be returned, and can the monster remember what it was before the theft?

At half past midnight on 24 August 2026, a survey vessel equipped with sonar located the wreck of the Altalena at a depth of 503 metres, roughly twenty kilometres off the Israeli coast. The ship was found intact, 78 years after the confrontation that nearly tore the young state apart. Its discovery was announced by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, both of the Otzma Yehudit party. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office, by multiple accounts, was caught off guard.

The Altalena is one of those proper nouns that every Israeli recognises but few discuss willingly. The ship was named after the pen name of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, who had adopted the Italian word while working as a young journalist in........

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