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Lehi (group)

Lehi ('lɛxi, Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel", לח"י - לוחמי חירות ישראל), also known as the Stern Gang, a term coined by the British, was an armed underground Zionist faction in Mandatory Palestine whose goal was to evict, by force, the British authorities from Palestine, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state. Initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, the name of the group became Lehi only after the death of Avraham Stern, its founder.

Lehi was described as a terrorist organization by the British authorities and United Nations mediator Ralph Bunche. The Israeli government banned the organization under an anti-terrorism law passed three days after Lehi assassinated Folke Bernadotte. Lehi was also responsible for the assassination of Lord Moyne along with other attacks on the British authorities and Palestinian Arabs.

Israel granted a general amnesty to Lehi members on 14 February 1949 and in 1980 honored the group by instituting the Lehi ribbon, a military decoration which may be worn by the organization's former members.

Foundations and founding

Avraham ("Yair") Stern was an adherent of the Revisionist Zionist movement founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and a member of the Irgun (Irgun Tsvai Leumi, National Military Organization). In June 1940, when the Irgun decided to suspend its underground military activities against the British during the World War II, he left the Irgun to form his own group, which he called Irgun Tsvai Leumi B'Yisrael (National Military Organization in Israel).

Stern believed that the Jewish population of Palestine should fight, rather than support, the British in the War, and that militant methods were an effective means for achieving those goals. He was vigorously opposed to the White Paper of 1939, which sharply reduced both Jewish immigration and the ability of Jews to purchase land in Palestine. He believed that immigration to Palestine should be available to Jewish refugees fleeing from Europe, and that this was the most important issue of the day. It was over the issue of the British that Stern and his long-time friend David Raziel split. Raziel believed that the Yishuv should assist Britain in their fight against Nazi Germany; he was killed in Iraq in 1941 during a mission for the British forces. Stern believed that dying for the 'foreign occupier' who was obstructing the creation of the Jewish State was useless. He differentiated between 'enemies of the Jewish people' (e.g., the British) and 'Jew haters' (e.g. the Nazis), believing that the former needed to be defeated and the latter manipulated. To this end, he initiated contact with Nazi authorities, in order to enlist their aid in establishing the Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael, open to Jewish refugees from Nazism, in exchange for collaborating with Germany against the British Empire in the Second World War.

Goals and methods

Lehi had three main goals:

to bring together all those interested in liberation (that is, those willing to join in active fighting against the British)
to appear before the world as the only active Jewish military organization
to take over the Land of Israel by armed force

The group believed in its early years that its goals would be achieved by finding a strong international ally that would expel the British from Palestine in return for help from the Jewish military; this would in turn require the creation of a broad and organised military force "demonstrating its desire for freedom through military operations.

An article titled "Terror" in He Khazit (The Front, a Lehi underground newspaper) argued as follows: "Neither Jewish morality nor Jewish tradition can negate the use of terror as a means of battle... We are particularly far from this sort of hesitation in regard to an enemy whose moral perversion is admitted by all." The article described the goals of terror:

It demonstrates ... against the true terrorist who hides behind his piles of papers and the laws he has legislated.

It is not directed against people, it is directed against representatives. Therefore it is effective.

If it also shakes the Yishuv from their complacency, good and well.

Yitzhak Shamir, one of the trio of leaders of Lehi after Yair Stern's assassination, argued that Lehi never engaged in terrorism:

There are those who say that to kill Martin (a British sergeant) is terrorism, but to attack an army camp is guerrilla warfare and to bomb civilians is professional warfare. But I think it is the same from the moral point of view. Is it better to drop an atomic bomb on a city than to kill a handful of persons? I don’t think so. But nobody says that President Truman was a terrorist. All the men we went for individually — Wilkin, Martin, MacMichael and others — were personally interested in succeeding in the fight against us.
So it was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets. In any case, it was the only way we could operate, because we were so small. For us it was not a question of the professional honor of a soldier, it was the question of an idea, an aim that had to be achieved. We were aiming at a political goal. There are many examples of what we did to be found in the Bible — Gideon and Samson, for instance. This had an influence on our thinking. And we also learned from the history of other peoples who fought for their freedom — the Russian and Irish revolutionaries, Garibaldi and Tito.

18 Principles of Rebirth

Avraham Stern put forth the ideology of his organization in what was called the 18 Principles of Rebirth:

1 - The nation: The Jewish people is a covenanted people, the originator of monotheism, formulator of the prophetic teachings, standard bearer of human culture, guardian of glorious patrimony. The Jewish people is schooled in self-sacrifice and suffering; its vision, survivability and faith in redemption are indestructible.

2 - The homeland: The homeland in the Land of Israel within the borders delineated in the Bible ("To your descendants, I shall give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great Euphrates River." Genesis 15:18) This is the land of the living, where the entire nation shall live in safety.

3 - The nation and its land: Israel conquered the land with the sword. There it became a great nation and only there it will be reborn. Hence Israel alone has a right to that land. This is an absolute right. It has never expired and never will.

4 - The Goals

1 - Redemption of the land.

2 - Establishment of sovereignty.

3 - Revival of the nation.

There is no sovereignty without the redemption of the land, and there is no national revival without sovereignty.

These are the goals of the organization during the period of war and conquest:

5 - Education: Educate the nation to love freedom and zealously guard Israel's eternal patrimony. Inculcate the idea that the nation is master to its own fate. Revive the doctrine that "The sword and the book came bound together from heaven" (Midrash Vayikra Rabba 35:8)

6 - Unity: The unification of the entire nation around the banner of the Hebrew freedom movement. The use of the genius, status and resources of individuals and the channeling of the energy, devotion and revolutionary fervour of the masses for the war of liberation.

7 - Pacts: Make pacts with all those who are willing to help the struggle of the organization and provide direct support.

8 - Force: Consolidate and increase the fighting force in the homeland and in the Diaspora, in the underground and in the barracks, to become the Hebrew army of liberation with its flag, arms, and commanders.

9 - War: Constant war against those who stand in the way of fulfilling the goals.

10 - Conquest: The conquest of the homeland from foreign rule and its eternal possession.

These are the tasks of the movement during the period of sovereignty and redemption:

11 - Sovereignty: Renewal of Hebrew sovereignty over the redeemed land.

12 - Rule of justice: The establishment of a social order in the spirit of Jewish morality and prophetic justice. Under such an order no one will go hungry or unemployed. All will live in harmony, mutual respect and friendship as an example to the world.

13 - Reviving the wilderness: Build the ruins and revive the wilderness for mass immigration and population increase.

14 - Aliens: Solve the problem of alien population [i.e. the Arab inhabitants of Palestine] by exchange of population.

15 - Ingathering of the exiles: Total in-gathering of the exiles to their sovereign state.

16 - Power: The Hebrew nation shall become a first-rate military, political, cultural and economical entity in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean Sea.

17 - Revival: The revival of the Hebrew language as a spoken language by the entire nation, the renewal of the historical and spiritual might of Israel. The purification of the national character in the fire of revival.

18 - The temple: The building of the Third Temple as a symbol of the new era of total redemption.

Evolution and tactics of the organization

The group was initially unsuccessful. Early attempts to raise funds through criminal activities, including a bank robbery in Tel Aviv in 1940 and another robbery on 9 January 1942 in which Jewish passers-by were killed, brought about the temporary collapse of the group, and an attempt to assassinate the head of the British secret police in Lod in which three police personnel were killed, two Jewish and one British, elicited a severe response from the British and Jewish establishments who collaborated in an effort to eliminate the underground organisation.

Stern's group was seen as a terrorist organisation by the British authorities, who instructed the Defence Security Office (the colonial branch of MI5) to track down its leaders. In 1942, Stern, after he was arrested, was killed by Inspector Geoffrey Morton of the CID. The arrest of several other members led momentarily to the group's eclipse, until it was revived after the September 1942 escape of two of its leaders Yitzhak Shamir and Eliyahu Giladi (later killed by the group under circumstances that remain mysterious) aided by two other escapees Natan Yellin-Mor (Friedman) and Israel Eldad (Sheib). Shamir (who would later become Prime Minister of Israel), was known by the codename "Michael" which was a reference to one of Shamir's heroes, Michael Collins. Lehi was guided by spiritual and philosophical leaders such as Uri Zvi Greenberg and Israel Eldad. The smallest by far of any of the Jewish armed groups during the Mandatory era, it never attracted more than a few hundred followers, and was reviled by most other Jews. After the killing of Giladi, the organization was led by a triumvirate of Eldad, Shamir, and Yellin-Mor.

Lehi adopted a non-socialist platform of Anti-Imperialist ideology. It viewed the continued British rule of Palestine as a violation of the Mandate's provision generally, and its restrictions on Jewish immigration to be an intolerable breach of international law. However they also targeted Jews whom they regarded as traitors, and towards the end of the British Mandate they joined in operations with the Haganah and Irgun against Arab targets, for example Deir Yassin.

According to a compilation by Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Lehi was responsible for 42 assassinations altogether, more than twice as many as those of the Irgun and Haganah combined during the same period. Of those Lehi assassinations that Ben-Yehuda classified as political, more than half the victims were Jews.

Lehi also rejected the authority of the Jewish Agency and related organizations, operating entirely on its own throughout nearly all of its existence.

Lehi prisoners captured by the British generally refused to present a defence when brought to trial. They would only read out statements in which they declared that the court, representing an occupying force, had no jurisdiction over them and therefore was illegal. For the same reason, Lehi prisoners refused to plea for amnesty, even when it was clear that this would have spared them the death penalty. In one case Moshe Barazani, a Lehi man, and Meir Feinstein, an Irgun member, committed suicide in prison in order to deprive the British of the ability to hang them.

Contact with Nazi authorities

In 1940, Lehi proposed intervening in World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. It offered assistance in "evacuating" the Jews of Europe, in return for Germany's help in expelling Britain from Mandate Palestine. Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik was sent to Beirut where he met the German official Werner Otto von Hentig. Lubenchik told von Hentig that Lehi had not yet revealed its full power and that they were capable of organizing a whole range of anti-British operations.

On the assumption that the destruction of Britain was the Germans' top objective, the organization offered cooperation in the following terms: From the NMO side: full cooperation in sabotage, espionage and intelligence and up to wide military operations in the Middle East and in eastern Europe anywhere where the Irgun had Jewish cells, active and trained and in some places with weapons. From the German side, the following declarations and actions were demanded: (1) Full recognition of an independent Jewish state in Palestine/Eretz Israel (2) That the ability to emigrate to Palestine be conceded to all Jews, with no restriction of numbers, who, in leaving their homes in Europe, by their own will or because of government injunctions. For this purpose there was expressed a need to cancel any transfer plans of Jews to distant countries like Madagascar.

On January 11, 1941 a letter was sent from Vice Admiral Ralf von der Marwitz, the German Naval attaché in Ankara, depicting an offer to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for "the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich". There are three possibilities as to how the offer reached the German Naval attaché in Ankara. One is that en route to Germany, von Hentig was delayed in Ankara and delivered his version of the offer orally to von der Marwitz and von der Marwitz wrote the letter using his words. The second is that Colombani (a general in French intelligence) invented the offer because of personal rivalry between himself and other Vichy officials: this rivalry is known from a paragraph in von der Marwitz' letter, "Colombani is of the opinion that his return to France is a consequence of co-operation of Conti with Minister Pierroton", or, third, that Colombani wanted the offer to fail: he had co-operated with the Mufti of Jerusalem in Lebanon in 1938-1939 and was also the one who took him in his car through Syria to the Iraqi border in 1939.

In any case, von der Marwitz delivered the offer, classified as secret, to the German Ambassador in Turkey and on January 21, 1941 it was sent to Berlin. There was never any response. Von Hentig would later say that he believed it was important to help the Jews establish a country.

Later history

As a group that never had over a few hundred members, Lehi relied on audacious but small-scale operations to bring their message home, as such they adopted the tactics of groups such as the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party in Czarist Russia, and the Irish Republican Army, who had successfully used guerrilla warfare to force the British out of the Southern Republic of Ireland in the 1920s. To this end, Lehi conducted small-scale operations such as assassinations of British soldiers and police officers and Jewish "collaborators". Another strategy, (1947) was to send bombs in the mail to many British politicians. Other actions included sabotaging infrastructure targets: bridges, railroads, and oil refineries. Lehi financed their operations from private donations, extortion, and bank robbery.

Lehi was one of groups involved in massacres of Arabs according to Israeli historian Benny Morris, see List of massacres committed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Assassination of Lord Moyne

On 6 November 1944 Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo. Moyne was the highest ranking British government representative in the region. Yitzhak Shamir claimed later that Moyne was assassinated because of his support for a Middle Eastern Arab Federation and anti-Semitic lectures in which Arabs were held to be racially superior to Jews. The assassination rocked the British government, and outraged Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister. The two assassins, Eliahu Bet-Zouri and Eliahu Hakim were captured and used their trial as a platform to make public their political philosophy. They were executed. In 1975 their bodies were returned to Israel and given a state funeral. In 1982, postage stamps were issued for 20 Olei Hagardom, including Bet-Zouri and Hakim, in a souvenir sheet called "Martyrs of the struggle for Israel's independence".

British police station in Haifa

January 12, 1947, Lehi members drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station in Haifa killing four and injuring 140.

Cairo-Haifa train bombings

During the lead-up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war the Cairo-Haifa train was mined several times. On February 29, 1948, Lehi mined the train north of Rehovot, killing 28 soldiers and wounding 35. On March 31, the train was mined near Binyamina killing 40 civilians and wounding 60. The second attack was also attributed to Lehi but Lehi never took credit for this event.

Deir Yassin massacre

Deir Yassin is a village located 5 kilometres west of Jerusalem. On 9 April 1948, independently of the Nachshon operation but with the agreement of the Haganah, about 120 members of Lehi and Irgun attacked the village. They massacred between 100 and 120 inhabitants of the village, mostly civilians.

This massacre led to indignation from the international community, the more so since the press of the time reported that the death toll was 254. Ben-Gurion roundly condemned it, as did the principal Jewish authorities: Haganah, the Great Rabbinate and the Jewish Agency for Israel, who sent a letter of condemnation, apology and condolence to King Abdullah I.

According to Morris, "the most important immediate effect of the atrocity and the media campaign that followed it was how one started to report the fear felt in Palestinian towns and villages, and, later, the panicked fleeing from them."

Another important repercussion was within the Arab population of neighbouring Arab states, which, once again, increased its pressure on the representatives of these states to intervene and come to the aid of the Palestinians.

Dissolution

The conflict between Lehi and mainstream Jewish and subsequently Israeli organizations came to an end when Lehi was formally dissolved and integrated into the Israeli Defense Forces on May 31, 1948, its leaders getting amnesty from prosecution or reprisals as part of the integration.

Assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte

Although Lehi had stopped operating nationally after May 1948, the group continued to function in Jerusalem. On 17 September 1948, Lehi assassinated UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte who had been sent to broker a settlement in the dispute. The assassination was directed by Yehoshua Zetler and carried out by a four-man team led by Meshulam Makover. The fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen. Three days later the Government banned Lehi.

Lehi leaders Nathan Yellin-Mor and Matitiahu Schmulevitz were arrested two months later, with Yellin-Mor being sentenced to eight years in prison, though most of the other suspects involved were released immediately. The group was then forcefully broken up for good.

Into politics

Some left-wing members of the Lehi founded a political party called the Fighters' List with the jailed Yellin-Mor as its head. The party took part in the elections in January 1949 and won one seat. Thanks to a general amnesty for Lehi members granted on 14 February, 1949, Yellin-Mor was released from prison to take up his place in the Knesset. However, the party disbanded after failing to win a seat in the 1951 elections.

Lehi remembered

In 1980 Israel instituted the Lehi ribbon, red, black, grey, pale blue and white which is awarded to former members of the Lehi underground who wished to carry it.

Criticism

Some writers have claimed that Lehi's true goals were the creation of a totalitarian state. Others have asserted that the organisation's ideology placed "its world view in the quasi-fascist radical Right, which is characterised by xenophobia, a national egotism that completely subordinates the individual to the needs of the nation, anti-liberalism, total denial of democracy and a highly centralised government. Its leader, Avraham Stern, lost much support after seeking a modus vivendi with Nazi Germany. Perliger and Weinberg claim that most Lehi members were admirers of the Italian Fascist movement. However, authoritarianist principles do not appear in the Principles of Rebirth which is the organization's Charter. The founder of the group, "Yair" commented on the Principles saying that "We... want to establish the Kingdom of Israel and to rebuild it on the eternal foundations of Fraternity, Respect and Friendship to all the nation's sons whoever they are". While Avraham Stern ("Yair") studied in Italy he refused to join the Fascist student association called "Gruppo Universitario Fascista" that foreign students were invited to, in spite of the fact that those joined were given serious reductions in tuition. Moreover, during the time he spent in Russia, Stern was actually a member of the Pioneer movement which was the young pre-Komsomol layer of the communist Party in the USSR. He also created the Histadrut of the Hebrew Tzofim Hashomer Hatzair in Suwałki which derived its ideology from youth organizations Hatzofim and socialist movements like Hashomer Hatzair and Hehalutz.

The Lehi Anthem "Unknown Soldiers"

The lyrics of "Unknown Soldiers" were written by Avraham 'Yair' Stern, the founder of Lehi. This was one of the first songs written by 'Yair'. Yair composed the song together with his wife Roni. The song became the anthem of Etzel and remained so until 1940 when Lehi broke into a separate group. The song expresses an unlimited willingness to sacrifice. The anthem is used by veteran members of the group in gatherings as well as by some political groups from time to time, from both ends of the political map.

Full text of the song :

First stanza
חיילים אלמונים הננו, בלי מדים, וסביבנו אימה וצלמוות. כולנו גויסנו לכל החיים:. משורה משחרר רק המוות.,	Unknown Soldiers are we, without uniform And around us fear and the shadow of death We have all been drafted for life. Only death will discharge us from [our] ranks,
Refrain
בימים אדומים של פרעות ודמים, בלילות השחורים של ייאוש., בערים ובכפרים את דגלנו נרים,. ועליו: הגנה וכיבוש	On red days of riots and blood In the dark nights of despair In towns and villages shall we raise our banner On which are inscribed defence and conquest
Second Stanza
לא גויסנו בשוט כהמון עבדים, כדי לשפוך בנכר את דמנו., רצוננו להיות לעולם בני חורין,. חלומנו למות בעד ארצנו	We were not drafted by the whip, like a mob of slaves To shed our blood in foreign lands Our will is to be forever free Our dream - to die for our country
Third Stanza
ומכל עברים רבבות מכשולים , שם גורל אכזרי על דרכנו, אך אויבים, מרגלים ובתי אסורים,. לא יוכלו לעצור בעדנו	From all directions, tens of thousands of obstacles Cruel fate has placed on our path But enemies, spies and prison houses Will never be able to stop us
Fourth Stanza
ואם אנחנו ניפול ברחובות, בבתים , יקברונו בלילה בלאט, במקומנו יבואו אלפי אחרים להגן ולשמור עדי עד	And if we fall in the streets and homes We will be buried silently in the night Thousands of others will fill our places To protect and defend forever
Fifth Stanza
בדמעות אימהות שכולות מבנים , ובדם תינוקות טהורים , כמו במלט נדביק הגופות ללבנים את בניין המולדת נקים	With the tears of bereaved mothers And the blood of pure babies Like mortar shall we put together the cadaver building blocks The edifice of the homeland shall we raise

Prominent members of Lehi

Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli prime minister 1983-1984 and 1986-1992.
Natan Yellin-Mor, member of the Knesset 1949-1951,, leftist advocate of peace with Arabs.
Israel Eldad, leader in the Israeli national camp
Geula Cohen, member of the Knesset
Amos Keinan, writer

Notes

References

Amichal Yevin, Ada (1986). In purple: the life of Yair-Abraham Stern. Tel Aviv: Hadar Publishing House.
Bell, J. Bowyer (1977). Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, Lehi, and the Palestine Underground, 1929-1949. Avon. ISBN 0-380-39396-4
Ben-Yehuda, Nachman (1998). Political Violence. Political Assassinations as a Quest for Justice. In Robert R. Friedmann (Ed.). Crime and Criminal Justice in Israel: Assessing The Knowledge base Toward The Twenty-first Century (pp. 139-184). SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-3713-2.
Heller, J. (1995). The Stern Gang. Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-4558-3
Iviansky, Z. (1986) "Lechi's Share in the Struggle for Israel's Liberation", in: Ely Tavin and Yonah Alexander (Ed.).Terrorists or freedom fighters, Fairfax, Va.: HERO Books.
Lustick, Ian S. (1994). "Terrorism in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Targets and Audiences." In Crenshaw, Martha (ed). Terrorism in Context (pp. 514-552). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01015-0
Marton, K. (1994). A death in Jerusalem. Pantheon. ISBN 0-679-42083-5 — Bernadotte assassination
Shamir, Moshe, Yair Biography, 2001, Zmora-Bitan
Munson, Henry (2005). Religion and violence. Religion, 35: 223-246.
Perliger, Arie and Weinberg, Leonard (2003). Jewish Self-Defence and Terrorist Groups Prior to the Establishment of the State of Israel: Roots and Traditions. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Volume 4, Number 3, pp. 91-118.