Lehi

The Lehi (acronym Hebrew for “Lohamei Herut Israel”, “Combatants for the freedom of Israel”, לח " י - לוחמיחירותישראל) was a radical armed group created in September 1940 and not hesitating to describe itself like Terroriste, which set in particular for goal the ousting by the force of the British Mandat on the Palestine in order to allow a Immigration without restriction of the Jews in Palestine and the formation of a Jewish State on all Palestine and current the Jordan.

In its combat against the British, the group will try without success of the contacts in 1941 with the Italians and the authorities Nazis. On this date, the group declared itself in particular “closely related to the European totalitarian movements, by its design of the world and its structures”.

The organization will make many attacks against the British, of 1941 to 1948, then against the Arabs of Palestine, in 1947-1948.

The British authorities named this group Stern gang (the Stern gang), in reference in the name of its first leader Avraham Stern. The term Stern group , in French group Stern , was also employed in the Années 1940, and remains a denomination frequently used.

After the death of Stern in February 1942, the organization was directed by a Triumvirat to which Yitzhak Shamir belongbelonged, until its dissolution in September 1948. The new direction reorientated the ideology of the organization in a direction wanting to be “anti-impéraliste”.

Ideologies

One distinguishes two periods in the definition by Lehi from sound Idéologie.

Ideology: creation of Lehi (1940) with died of Stern (1942)

Under the direction of Avraham Stern, Lehi was clearly a group of Extrême right-hand side, of which a good part of the members (but not all) was influenced by the Fascisme Italy N. The original political influence of Stern is within the group of Birionim, a group of fascistic sympathizers acting as margin of the party of the right-hand side Zionist, the left revisionist, at the beginning of the Années 1930. See on this subject the chapter fascistic temptation and Birionim (1928-1933).

In November 1940, the very young organization publishes its theses, in the form of 18 “principles of the rebirth ( Ikarei ha' Tehiya )”. One states to it in particular that:

the borders of a Jewish State must go from the the Nile to the Euphrate (of the Egypt to the Iraq). This ground “will be conquered on the foreigners by the sword”. The claim of a State on a strong part of the the Middle East is done in reference to the Bible (Genèse 15-18). However, in practice, the claim of Lehi will relate then primarily to the Palestine and Transjordanie (current Jordan).
the “Third kingdom of Israel” will be restored there (this sentence will be modified in February 1941).
the exiled Jewish ones will gather in the new State.
the Temple of Jerusalem will be rebuilt (Stern gathers primarily the laic ones. The temple is here more one national symbol that religious. The majority of the Haredim (ultra orthodoxe) is hostile besides with such a rebuilding, considering that it is the prerogative of the Messiah).
the Arab populations must leave the new State: “the problem from abroad will be solved by an exchange of population”.

In another of its texts, Lehi indicates that the world is divided “between fighting and dominating races on the one hand, and races weak and degenerated of the other”. The Hebrews must find their “warlike and colonizing” virtues of Antiquity.

A few weeks after the publication of the “principles of the rebirth”, in January 1941, the direction of Lehi addresses (via its representative, Naftali Loubentchik) a new text to the German representatives with the Lebanon, proposing a collaboration against England, and exposing the ideological orientation of Lehi. Lehi is presented here under the name of NMO or Irgoun, which it had just left. Lehi, contrary to Irgoun, was indeed a still unknown armed organization. The text was given to Werner Otto von Hentig, specialist in the East to the German ministry of the foreign affairs, and the captain of reserve Rudolf Rözer, of the German information, which was the two interlocutors of Stern.

It arises from the speeches of the leaders of the State German national-Socialist that pre-necessary of the new Order in Europe requires a radical solution of the Jewish question through an evacuation ( Judenreines Europa ).

The evacuation of the Jewish masses of Europe is the pre-condition to solve the Jewish question; but that could be made possible and total only thanks to the installation of these masses in the hearth of the Jewish people, to Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish State in its historical borders.

The final resolution by this means of the Jewish problem and the release of the Jewish people, it is the objective of the political activity and the long years of fight of the movement for the freedom of Israel, the national military Organization ( Irgoun Tzvaï Leumi ) in Palestine.

The NMO, knowing the benevolent position of the government of Reich towards the Zionist activity inside Germany, and the Zionists plans of emigration estimates that:

It could exist shared interests between the introduction of a new order in Europe in conformity with the German design, and the true aspirations of the Jewish people such as they are incarnated by the NMO.

the co-operation between the new Germany and a renovated Hebraic nation ( Völkisch Nationalen Hebraertum ) would be possible and,

the establishment of the historical Jewish State on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty to German Reich, could contribute to maintain and to reinforce the future position of being able of Germany to the the Middle East.

Because of these considerations, the NMO in Palestine, under the condition which are recognized the above-mentioned national aspirations of the movement for the freedom of Israel by German Reich, offers to take an active share with the war at the sides of Germany.

The co-operation of the movement for the freedom of Israel would go in the direction of the one of the recent speeches of the Chancellor of German Reich, in which Mr Hitler stressed that it would use any form of coalitions with an aim of insulating England and to beat it.

The pro-British attitude of the organization revisionist in Palestine led to the autumn of this year to a complete cut between it and the NMO, as with the scission within the movement revisionist which followed.

The NMO is closely dependant with the European totalitarian movements by its structure and its design of the world.

A point did not change, however: the positive reference to the Terrorism. Without being permanent, the terrorist professions of time are not rare in Lehi: “the NMO, whose terrorist activities started as of the autumn of the year 1936, became, after the publication of British white paper, particularly influential at the summer 1939 thanks to the successful intensification of its terrorist activity and with the sabotage of the British interests”. By these claims, Lehi falls under a certain revolutionary tradition Russian, like that of the narodnaya volya (will of the people) and of the nihilist , at which the term of “terrorism”, included/understood like “terror against the enemies of the people”, is positive. One can as note as one of the inspirers of Avraham Stern, Abba Ahiméir, had written in 1926 a “book of the sicaires”, where it was devoted to an apology for individual terrorism.

See other quotations, in English, on.

At the origins of Lehi

If it creates for itself in September 1941, Lehi does not appear by chance. It is the product of the political situation of the years 1930.

Fascistic temptation and Birionim

In 1928, three men enter to the party revisionist (right Zionist). They come from the left Zionist but were turned over against it and post fascistic sympathies now. It is the journalist Abba Ahiméir, the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg and the doctor and writer Yehoshua Yevin. The three men dream of an organization of “chiefs and soldiers”, and organize themselves in 1931 within an association secret and independent of the direction of the party, “Brit ha' Birionim”. Stern, itself writer and poet, began a intellectual collaboration with Birionim in Metzouda (fortress) , the bulletin of the Haganah main road (future Irgoun), with the beginning of the year 1930. It crossed there the representatives of various political tendencies, of which Dr. Yehoshua Yevin itself.

Ahiméir has the soon appearance of an ideologist marking of the party in the Palestine (which is only one section of the party, and not most important), and strongly influences the Betar. Officially, it supports Vladimir Jabotinsky, the historical leader of the revisionists. More discreetly, he criticizes it, considering that there is no more hardly of difference between him and left. In secrecy, Birionim recover weapons and prepare attacks, which finally did not take place.

In 1932, with the fifth congress of the party revisionist, Ahiméir proposes to transform this one into an authoritative party on the fascistic model. Jabotinsky declares: “I regard as harmful any movement which denies the principle of equality between the citizens it is well why I consider you, Ahiméir, like a political adversary”. Jabotinsky however refuses to break with its extreme line, and rests on the occasion on it.

The June 16th 1933, the director of the political department of the Jewish Agency, the Socialist Haïm Arlozorov, is assassinated. The morning even, Hazit ha' amndt had launched a very violent attack against him. Ahiméir is shown, considered, and discharged murder. The left Zionist however conducted violent attacks against the tendency “extremist” of the revisionism and this one was not concerned any. But if the fascistic sympathizers seem marginalized after the business Arlozoroff, they did not disappear. Avraham Stern and some other members of the party revisionist discreetly continues to defend their ideas throughout the years 1930.

See also: Contenu=Pour more, to see the chapter ''' [[fascistic Zionism révisionniste#La temptation and Birionim (1928-1933)]], [[Zionism revisionist: Fascistic temptation and Birionim (1928-1933)]]

Irgoun and the choice of violence

In 1936 begins the Grande Arab revolt in Palestine.

The Irgoun, movement armed very near with the revisionism, decides to react by attacks targeting the Palestinian civil population. Vladimir Jabotinsky is reticent. To Alexandria, in July 1937, it still indicates “I do not see no heroism to be drawn on a fellah come to sell its vegetables with Tel-Aviv, nor the political benefit which we could draw”. The question of violence agitates the organization all 1937. Moshe Rosenberg, person in charge of Irgoun to the autumn 1937 is thus hostile with blind violence. But it is quickly replaced by David Ratziel, supported by Avraham Stern, which takes importance in the organization. End 1937 at the end of 1939, Irgoun makes several tens of attacks, which make approximately 250 Arab civilian victims.

Stern, in particular, develops an extreme justification of violence. Eri Jabotinsky, the chief of the Betar of Palestine and wire of Vladimir Jabotinsky, will write years later: “Its logic always influenced me” because “it was the only one namely by what it spoke”, “but I could not support the cold cruelty which it released, and which I perceived through some of his poems”.

During this period, Yitzhak Shamir (in 1937) and many militants revisionists enter in Irgoun. By doing this, they develop a moral and political acceptance of the violence, which will be one of the characteristics of Lehi.

The “plan of evacuation”

In 1936, the Polish government launches a anti-Jewish scale campaign great, and encourages the departure of the Jews. Party in power (OZON) prohibited the adhesion of the Jewish S in 1937. The government indicates in 1938 that it wishes the departure of more Jews possible of the Poland (10% of the population) in a few years.

In September 1936, Vladimir Jabotinsky undertakes a lecture tour in Poland, to convince the government and the Jewish opinion that it is towards the Palestine that the Jews must be directed. The Prime Minister, the Slawo-Sladowski general, receives it, and the two parts are posted readily together thereafter. The objective of Jabotinsky is to find an ally to make pressure on the Great Britain, with an aim of increasing the number of the visas of immigration that the power agent limit clearly since the beginning of the years 1930. The “love match” (the term is of Marius Schattner) with a mode anti-semite is very badly accepted in the movement Zionist and at the Polish Jews. The party revisionist left there durably weakened.

But beyond the policy, the collaboration of the revisionists with the Poland also has a military shutter. Following the talks of October 1937 between Jabotinsky and the chief of the armies, the Rydz-Smigly marshal and the Foreign Minister, colonel Beck, a concrete support is brought to the Irgoun. Avraham Stern is in load of the file of with dimensions of Irgoun, as a special correspondent. To spring 1939, the Polish army gives to 25 officers of Irgoun “a training course of military training and sabotage”. Money is versed in 1939. Five miles rifles are delivered the same year.

Of this experiment, Stern and its close relations retained that profitable relations could be installation with a government anti-semite, for little that the two parts have an advantage there.

See also: Contenu=Pour more, to see the chapter ''' [[plane Zionism révisionniste#Le of evacuation (1936-1937)]], [[Zionism revisionist: The plan of evacuation (1936-1937)]] '''

The white paper of 1939

In May 1939, the British publish a third “white paper” on Palestine, answer political to the “Grande Arab revolt in Palestine”. They put almost fine at Jewish immigration, and consider (in a vague way) a unit State in Palestine for 1949, State inevitably with Arab majority. In addition, known as “white paper”, “the government of Its Majesty declare unambiguous today that it is by no means in its intentions to transform Palestine into a Jewish State”. It is potentially the end of the hopes Zionists.

Hitherto, the movement revisionist had criticized the mandate Britannique, not favorable enough to the Jews. But there remained an ally of the the United Kingdom. The “white paper” of May 17th changes the situation completely. The Irgoun starts to widen its actions with the fight against the British. David Ratziel, his commander, has just been stopped. “Under the impulse of Stern which took a dominating influence on the organization”, of the telephone centres are attacked, of the bombs explode at the post office of Jerusalem and the national radio. “Three British police officers and two Jews, shown to be used as auxiliaries, are assassinated”.

But in September 1939, the Second world war bursts. Stern is in its stopped turn. Jabotinsky, whose influence on Irgoun became very theoretical, pushes to stop the armed operations, in the name of the priority with the fight against the Nazisme. Ratziel supports it, “Stern and the majority of the command opposes it”. An agreement is finally signed by Ratziel at the end of 1939. “The June 18th 1940, after much of hesitations, Britanniques slacken Stern and the four other commanders of the Irgoun. They will regret it”.

Origins: synthesis

Under the influence of the authoritative movements of Europe, the Années 1930 saw the development of a political, small but active current, with the Extrême right-hand side of the Sionisme.

This current was accustomed to political violence within the framework (ideologically broader) of Irgoun.

Some of its members developed profitable contacts with the mode anti-semite Polish. For them, the Germany anti-semite is thus not inevitably the obliged adversary which the other currents Zionists see, including within the Irgoun.

The British “white paper” of 1939 completed to convince them that they do not have anything any more to await collaboration with the Great Britain.

Lastly, Anglo-French defeats of 1939 - 1940 persuade them that the Démocratie S Western are condemned. Stern, in particular, believes in the victory of the forces of the Axis.

The Cessez-le-feu of Irgoun will be the release of the rupture.

The scission of Irgoun

The opposition to the truce had been majority within the command of Irgoun. Avraham Stern, like good number of officers and militants thus makes scission in September 1940, and creates Lehi. In the first months, the new organization takes in fact the name of “Irgoun Zvaï Leumi Be Israel”: “National military Organization in Israel”. The name of “Lohamei Herut Israel” (Lehi) will come in 1942.

The scission of with Irgoun in practice will take several months, unquestionable militant hesitating between Irgoun (and its policy of cease-fire) and the partisans of Stern. The course of Yitzhak Shamir is thus revealing. In contact with the Stern group as of the beginning, it “does not manage to take its party. During months, it will oscillate between the two rival camps, without engaging neither in one nor in the other. It is only in spring 1941 that Shamir joined the Stern group, after the failure of the first attempts at contact with the Axis”. Hostile with the British, not moving back in front of violence (it directed the 8th company of the Irgoun of Tel-Aviv, and thus was very implied in the attacks anti-Arabic), but pragmatic and not very interested by the great ideological debates, it would have been rejected a long time by the exaltation of Stern. Marius Schattner notes that “the extremism of Yaïr rejects it”.

The first countryside anti-British: 1940 - 1942

Starting from the end 1940, Stern starts to organize the war of Lehi against the British, and for this reason tries to be allies.

“Stern will turn initially to the Italy, that the extreme line Zionist courted a long time”. A so-called Italian agent already in contact with Irgoun, in fact an agent of the British services, thus signs the September 18th 1940 an agreement with Lehi, in which this last proclaims “Hebrew Provisional government”. In exchange of the recognition by Rome of this “provisional government”, Lehi is committed to establish a State “supporter of corporatism”, based on the principles of Italian Fascism, and granting a military base to the Italian fleet. This fictitious agreement did not have obviously a continuation.

After this failure, Stern decides to turn to the Germany, and sends in December 1940 a representative to the Lebanon, at the time under domination of the France of Vichy, and where the Germans operate at the great day. In January 1941, its envoy forwards a text, in which Lehi declares: “the installation of the Hebrew State historical, based on nationalism and totalitarianism and dependant on a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of the reinforcement of the future German power struggle in the Middle East the NMO in Palestine proposes to take an active share in the war at the sides of Germany. The NMO, whose terrorist activities started as of the autumn of the year 1936, became, after the publication of British white paper, particularly influential at the summer 1939 thanks to the successful intensification of its terrorist activity and with the sabotage of the British interests”. Its principal German contact, “Von Hentig, do not hide with its interlocutor that this strange offer is not likely any to be accepted by Berlin, would be this only because of the promises of Reich to the Arabs”.

From January to June 1941, the emissary of Lehi, Naftali Loubentchik, will in vain await an official answer of the Germans. The contacts will undergo a final adoption when Loubentchik “is stopped in June 1941 by the authorities of free France, after the defeat of the Vichyist troops”. For this period, the clandestine press of Lehi tries to reassure the Jewish population of Palestine as for the German policy, undoubtedly in order to justify a possible alliance. Stern writes thus in the N°6 bulletin of the organization, in March 1941: “Let us not exaggerate anything! It is necessary to take the ghetto like a less evil”. For him, the 500.000 residents of the Ghetto of Warsaw “enjoy a mode of autonomy which is certainly not lower than that of the Vaad Leumi” (Jewish autonomous mode in British Palestine). “To live separately of Goyim (not Jews) is not a tragedy”. Within the Yichouv, the organization “seems more and more a Fifth German column”, and its popularity which was already not very high breaks down.

The absence of answer of the Germans and the lack of international support do not stop Lehi, which organizes holdups intended for the financing and attacks anti-British throughout the year 1941. The actions however pain to spread. Tracked by the British, very unpopular in the Yichouv, the organization suffers from important losses, but also from many defections: “the group counts nothing any more but one member hundred at the end of the summer 1941, against several hundreds in 1940. Almost all the executives, the ones after the others, gave up a chief who was the proof of an obvious incapacity in the field of the direct action, and whose strategy of alliance with the Axis failed on all the line”. The mission failed because of interception of Yalin Mor in Syria, before even as it could cross the Turkish border.

The December 2nd 1941, Yitzhak Shamir is stopped in the apartment which it divides with Yehoshua Zettler (responsible for Lehi with Jerusalem, and future organizer of the assassination of Folke Bernadotte).

At the end of 1941, to react to the crisis which it passes through, Lehi starts an offensive against the police force. It is in January and February 1942 that the armed actions with the “group Stern” are most numerous. A Jewish police officer of Rehovot, shown to be an adviser, is killed. “On January 20th, 1942, the chief of the police force of Tel-Aviv, another Jewish police officer and a British police officer are killed”. Holdups are made which cause civilians deaths. The British react while imprisoning or by killing the last chiefs. They “can count this time on the co-operation of Yichouv whose authorities condemn with vehemence the " gang of assassins" , and the calls to the denouncement multiply”, take the direction of the organization, recruit novel members, restructure the networks, divide the structure into partitioned cells.

Considering that the armed actions are premature for an clandestine organization convalescent, it prohibits any action against the British. One of the executives of the organization (Eliahou Guiladi) refusing this “realistic” orientation is besides assassinated in 1943. “Three settlings of score punctuate the reconstitution of the Stern group”. In addition to Guiladi, another framework, former chief of the Intelligence service of the Irgoun, turned over by the British, and a member of Lehi having made defection are also carried out.

November 1st, 1943, Nathan Yalin Mor (captured in Syria fine 1941 while trying to contact the Germans) and 19 companions, including one certain numbers of frameworks, escape and come to reinforce Lehi. A new direction is created, called “the center”. It is made up of three Poles, all old of the Betar: Nathan Yalin Mor (political official), Yitzhak Shamir (responsible for the operations) and Israel Eldad (responsible for the Propaganda).

The second countryside anti-British: 1944 - 1947

At the beginning of 1944, Lehi takes again its fight against the the United Kingdom.

A new context

The frame of mind of the Yichouv had changed. The refusal of the British to let return the Jews which fled Europe, the distance of the threat Nazi, the fear of an independent Palestinian State (under consideration by the British for 1949) contributed to tightening the situation between the British and the Jewish opinion in Palestine.

In February 1944, the Irgoun breaks its cease-fire, and launches a series of attacks against the British to Palestine, thus joining the position defended by Lehi since 1940.

The new actions of Lehi thus develop in a very different context, and much more favorable. The Jewish public opinion remains hostile with the violence of Lehi and Irgoun, but a substantial minority now regards it as acceptable, even necessary. Whereas the actions and the political positions of Stern in 1941 had not ceased weakening it, those which it will carry out of 1944 to 1948 will not cease reinforcing it. With semi-1948, Lehi will have 500 to 1.000 combatants (without counting the sympathizers). It had of them only 20 or 30 in 1942.

One of the reasons of this relative success is the new ideological positioning of Lehi. The “center” gave up any reference to Fascism or alliance with the Nazism. These is now a new “anti-impérialiste” speech which are developed under the influence of Yalin Mor, speech more in phase with the time and the weight growing of the Soviet Union.

The search for external alliances is not given up, but in fact any more the countries of the Axis are courted. In 1944-1945, the free France is approximate. Lehi wishes to exploit the traditional competition of the France and the Great Britain to the the Middle East. But free France is hardly interested. On the one hand, it remains very dependant on Great Britain. In addition, it has just granted independence to the Syria and the Lebanon (even if troops remain stationed until 1946 there), and thus expresses less ambitions in the area.

Lehi thus explores a bringing together with the Soviet Union. In the ideological plan, without never being defined as communist (the base of the organization is clearly not it), Lehi insists on the fight against the “British imperialism”, and proclaims that “the Hebrew people in his fatherland are people of workmen and peasants”. The 18 “principles of the rebirth” of Avraham Stern are forgotten (but the claim of a Jewish State on all Palestine and Transjordanie remains firm). In 1946, Lehi proposes a “plan of neutralization of the Middle East”, and makes the point that the withdrawal of the “imperialists” of the area would remove a threat on the southern side of the the USSR. The USSR takes care not to maintain the bonds with an armed organization anti-British (the cold war starts only in 1947-1948, after the stop of the operations of Stern against the British), but the Soviet support for the Plan of division of Palestine of 1947 (and at the beginning of the British of Palestine) in spite of its traditional hostility with the Sionisme, watch that the the USSR included/understood well positioning anti-British of the armed organizations Zionists of which the Stern group.

First operations

At the same time as the Irgoun, but on a less scale because of its size, Lehi proceeds to sabotages and armed attacks against objectives military, political or police British.

The August 8th 1944, the British high commissioner for Palestine (governor), to sir Harold Mac Michael, very unpopular in Yichouv, escapes an attempted murder from Lehi.

The most spectacular operation was however the assassination on order of the “center” of Lord Moyne, Secretary of State British to the Cairo. This one had declared the June 9th 1942 in front of the House of Lords that the Jews were not the descendants of the ancient Hebrews, and that they did not have any “legitimate complaint” on the Holy Land. In favor of a limitation of immigration in Palestine, it was shown to be “a pitiless enemy of Hebrew independence”.

The November 6th 1944, Lord Moyne is assassinated in Cairo by two young members of Lehi, Eliahou Beit Tsouri and Eliahou Hakim, pertaining to the current “Cananéen” of the organization. The two men were considered in Egypt, and were carried out the March 22nd 1945. In 1975, the bodies of the two assassins, buried in Egypt, will be exchanged against 20 prisoners Arab, and buried with the Mont Herzl, in a sector reserved to the eminent citizens of the nation. The British government will deplore that Israel honors with the assassins like heroes. “The irony of the history is that Moyne, which had been opposed a long time to the creation of a Jewish State, had suddenly thought that there was not an other solution”.

After the assassination of Lord Moyne, the British pressure on the movement official Zionist and the Jewish Agence (the Jewish autonomous executive in Palestine) became very strong. The Agency had to promise to take a given action against Lehi (but also against Irgoun).

“The season”: 1944-1945

As of April 1944, shortly after the resumption of their armed operations, David Ben Gourion, president of the Jewish Agency, had threatened to repress the Irgoun and Lehi with the assistance of the Haganah. Three weeks after the assassination of Lord Moyne, and under pressure of the British, it launches finally on November 26th, 1944 “the season of hunting to the terrorists”, remained in the history under the name of “the season”. This day there, it makes adopt by the Histadrout a program in 4 points, which envisages collaboration with the British in the tracking of the “terrorists” (Irgoun and Lehi).

“The countryside will almost exclusively aim Irgoun, strongest of the two dissenting organizations, and most dangerous like political rival”. Lehi undergoes a certain pressure however. The Jewish Agency provides to the British 700 names suspects of Lehi and especially of Irgoun. “From tens will be removed by the teams special of Haganah, and subjected to severe interrogations, accompanied sometimes by maltreatment. Menahem Begin, chief of the Irgoun, interdict with its men to devote itself to reprisals. Lehi makes in the same way.

The “season” is a success for the Haganah. Many frameworks of Irgoun, and to a lesser extent of Lehi, are in prison, even if the chiefs succeed in passing between the meshs of the net. But the British attitude remains inflexible with respect to the Jewish refugees that the allied armies release from the occupation Nazi. Very entered to Palestine their remainder prohibited, and the anger grown in the Yichouv. Collaboration with the British thus becomes increasingly unpopular, “including among those in charge of its execution”. In front of the rise of dissatisfaction, the “season” is stopped at the beginning of the summer 1945. Irgoun and Lehi can blow and reorganize.

The “movement of the Hebraic Revolt”: 1945-1946

“On October 1st 1945, Ben Gourion addresses Paris a secret ultra telegram to the command of the Haganah in Palestine, enjoignant to him to engage the fight against the capacity agent. The Haganah is seen entrusting a double mission: to ensure manu militari the unloading of the clandestine immigrants in Palestine agent, to perpetrate acts of sabotage calculated to produce the maximum of effect by causing a minimum of loss”.

Of October 1945 with July 1946, the Haganah, Lehi and the Irgoun create a “Movement of the Hebraic Revolt”, directed by a “committee X” controlled by the Haganah.

The entry of the Haganah and its thousands of combatants (in particular 2.000 combatants of elite of the Palmach) gives a new broadth to the fight. Sabotages multiply. November 1st, Haganah thus makes jump the railway line in 153 different points.

London reacts while carrying manpower of the army to 80.000 men in December 1945 (they will be 100.000 in 1947, that is to say more than 1 soldier by 20 inhabitants, children included/understood).

The December 27th 1945, 10 police officers and soldiers are killed in a series of raid of Lehi and Irgoun. The April 25th 1946, Lehi kills 7 British parachutists (attack condemned by the Haganah).

The June 12th, the government refuses the entry of 100.000 Jewish refugees (a recommendation of the Anglo-American commission on the refugees). In the days which follow, the armed groups multiply the attacks. The July 22nd 1946, Irgoun makes jump the hotel King David which shelters the secretariat of the British Government of Palestine. One counts 91 victims (28 British, 17 Jews and 41 Arabic), the majority civil. The attack was planned by “committee X”, but the Haganah finally required to cancel the operation vis-a-vis the possibility of civilian victims. The Irgoun maintained the operation.

The moderate ones of the Jewish Agency and the world Organization Zionist, in particular Haïm Weizmann, had made pressure for a few weeks to stop the armed actions. The British had stopped many persons in charge of the Histadrout, Jewish Agence (of which Moshe Sharett, the chief of his political department) and Haganah.

The attack of King David with his tens of deaths rings the knell of the “sacred union” between the three paramilitary organizations. The Haganah condemns the attack and leaves the MRH as of July 1946 but the Irgoun and Lehi continue their collaboration.

Even the Parti revisionist, which however shares the same nationalist ideology as Irgoun, and in which many members of Lehi are originating, took sometimes his distances from with certain actions of Irgoun and Stern.

Last combat against the British - autumn 1946-be 1947

With the end of the MRH at the summer 1946, Lehi and Irgoun are again insulated vis-a-vis the British. Yitzhak Shamir, the chief of the operations of Lehi, was stopped on August 2nd during the raids which followed the attack against King David. The Martin sergeant, who recognized Shamir in spite of his disguise of Rabbin, will be assassinated by Lehi some time later. Shamir is off-set in Érythrée by the British. He escapes some in January 1947 with a companion, and takes refuge with Djibouti, then French territory. After nearly 4 months of prison for illegal penetration on the territory, it obtains the political asylum in France. It unloads with Toulon on May 1st, 1947, and could return out of Holy Land only after the independence of Israel, in May 1948. Its long absence (almost 2 years) did not prevent the actions of Lehi.

After the end of the MRH, British repression and the capture of Shamir, Lehi and Irgoun respect one period of preparation, with few actions. Those are started again in October 1946. “Removed from the constraints that alliance with Haganah imposed to them, the dissidents will only strike any more extremely”. Many British are killed. Thus, on January 12th, 1947, with Haïfa, a trapped truck of Lehi explodes against a police station. Five police officers are killed (two British and three Arabs). There are a hundred and forty wounded. April 25th, 1947, with Sarona, another truck trapped keep silent five British police officers.

Beginning 1947, Lehi starts to organize operations of sabotage apart from the Palestine, while trying without success “to make jump the Colonial Office to London”, and while exploding “a machine in the Colonial Club ”. June 4th, of the bombs are sent by mail to an about sixty “high British persons in charge”, among whom the Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, or Anthony Eden. The former chief of the operations of Lehi in Europe, Yaakov Eliav, revealed in his memories to have projected to spread the bacillus of the Choléra in the drinking water drains of London. The suspension of the hostilities at summer 1947 occurred before a possible passage to the act.

In February 1947, the British government of Clement Attlee, not managing more to maintain the order in Palestine, decides to give its mandate to the the United Nations. The May 13rd, UNO constitutes a committee, UNSCOP, charged to discuss the possible creation of a Jewish State. The following day, the Soviets declare themselves in favor of an independent Jewish State.

The armed organizations (especially Lehi and the Irgoun, because the Haganah stopped practically its attacks against the British since the summer 1946 and especially concentrates on clandestine immigration), announce officially the end of their operations at the summer 1947, conscious that violence for this period of debates was likely to make rock those in their discredit. Attacks however are still made on the ground.

The second wave of the operations of Stern and Irgoun, between the summer 1946 (makes of it especially the autumn) and the summer 1947, will have cost the life 141 British, without counting the Jewish or Arab victims.

Last combat: December 1947 - September 1948

Attacks against the Palestinian Arabs

See also: Civil war of 1947-1948 in Palestine agent

The shortly after the vote of division, attacks and anti-Jewish riots burst in Palestine and in the Middle East. “Palestinian does not agree to lose half of their fatherland so that the occident discharges its moral debt towards the Jews”. Many Jews are killed.

As of December 1947, Lehi and Irgoun take again the weapons, and counteract by bloody murders against the Palestinian civil population or combatants. Over the only period going of December 1947 and January 1948, the confrontations between armed communities and groups make 869 dead (46 British, 427 Arabs, 381 Jews and 15 others).

Lehi, but it is not only, does not seek the appeasing. “On December 9th, 1947, an agreement of cease-fire is signed between the mayors of Jaffa and Tel-Aviv. Irgoun and the Stern group refused to deposit the weapons. The Arab Army of release continued the combat”. The January 4th 1948, Lehi organizes an car bomb attack close to the general headquarter of the Najada , a Palestinian paramilitary organization (in fact, close to the communal house, or Saraya ) with Jaffa, killing 15 Arabs and by wounding 80 including 20 seriously. There will be even still some attacks against the British in 1948, those being shown to lean towards the Arab part of the conflict. February 3rd, 1948, for example, two British police officers are assassinated by Stern. February 29th, the train Haïfa it Cairo is mined close to Rehovot, and twenty-eight British soldiers are killed, in reprisals with an Arab attack street Ben-Yéouda (Jerusalem) which had killed 52 Jewish civilians, attacks or were implied two British deserters.

Innovation compared to their history, Lehi and Irgoun start to be tested with traditional combat of infantry. Thus, around Jerusalem, Lifta and Romema are the theater of daily combat between Arab and Jewish militiamans. At the end of December, they are the subject of many raids on behalf of Haganah, Irgoun and Lehi, and are completely evacuated by their inhabitants. The December 31st, following an attack of Lehi which makes 2 dead and 8 wounded, the 1.000 inhabitants of Qisarya (Césarée) in the south of Haïfa flee their village.

But the most known operation is that carried out against the village of Deir Yassin.

Massacre of Deir Yassin

The integration of Lehi in the Israeli army

The May 14th 1948, the State of Israel is proclaimed, and the Jewish Agence is transformed into provisional government. Several quotas of regular troops of the close Arab countries (Transjordanie, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, as well as small quotas Sudanese, Saoudi, Yemeni and Libyan) penetrate in Palestine. The engagements become traditional combat of infantry where the old practices of urban guerilla warfare and attacks do not have any more course. The May 26th 1948, the Israeli army (Tsahal) is thus created, and immediately integrates Haganah. The May 29th 1948, the members of Lehi unite with the Israeli army (on June 1st for the Irgoun, under the terms of an agreement signed the April 9th with the Jewish Agence).

In spite of these integrations, the Irgoun and Lehi continue to exist until September with Jerusalem, city envisaged by UNO to become a “international zone” but where clash the Arab Légion and Jewish forces. The national agreements of integration of these organizations with Tsahal thus do not apply to it, even if to the ground, the groups of combat of the Irgoun and of Stern coordinate with the army. Yitzhak Shamir, which has just returned of exile, takes again its post of head of the operations of the organization.

At the time of “the 10 day old War” (July 9th - July 18th, 1948), after the first truce, Lehi knows its last combat, but without success. The Israeli command indeed launches the Kedem operation, which aim at taking all the town of Jerusalem, and especially the old city. Envisaged initially to be carried out by Irgoun and Lehi the July 8th, just after the end of the first truce, the Kedem operation is deferred by David Shaltiel, commander de Jérusalem. Indeed, this one questions their chances of success. April 9th, these groups would have indeed failed to capture the badly defended village of Deir Yassin without the assistance of Haganah.

The forces of Irgoun, ordered by Yehuda Lapidot (Nimrod), must enter by the door of Bab Al Jedid, Lehi passing by the wall on the basis of Bab Al Jedid and by the door of Jaffa, finally the battalion Beit Hiron passing by the Mont Sion. The battle is finally designed to begin with the Shabbat, Friday July 16th with 20:00, one day before the second cease-fire. However, the organization occurs badly and the operation is deferred to 23:00 then at midnight, for in the final analysis starting with 2:30 of the morning. Irgoun succeeds in cutting through a path by the door Bab Al Jedid, but the other sections, of which those of Lehi, fail in their objectives. The 17 with 5:45, David Shaltiel is constrained to order the suspension of the hostilities and to fold up his troops. A new truce between in force on July 18th, and the engagements cease.

The assassination of Bernadotte

If he lived his last “traditional” combat, Lehi did not undertake its last Attentat. It was the Assassinat of the mediator of the the United Nations.

The May 20th 1948, one week after the declaration of independence of Israel, the count Folke Bernadotte is named by UNO, “mediator for the Palestine”.

Very quickly, the tension with the Israeli part grows. The June 27th, the count proposes a foreground, with an Israeli State on 20% of the Palestine. This plan is rejected by all the parts, including Arabic. Bernadotte becomes the target, in Israel, of a press campaign denouncing it like pro-British. , Israel Eldad declares, at the time of a public assembly in Jerusalem: “The combatants for the freedom of Israel send a warning statement to the observers of the United Nations to the generals of Bernadotte. We will employ against the representatives of a foreign capacity the same methods that we employed against the British”. According to Israel Eldad, the decision to kill Bernadotte is made in August by the three leaders of the “center”.

The September 16th, Folke Bernadotte proposes a new plan of division of Palestine and the repatriation (or compensation) of the refugees. This second plan is again refused by the Arab Israelis and countries.

September 17th, the count is assassinated with Jerusalem with colonel Serot by a commando of four men.

It is known today that “the murder was planned by Zettler, the commander of the section of Jerusalem (the last in the hardest activity and), that it was decided in August with the more high level by the three persons in charge of the center and that the execution was entrusted by it to a veteran of Lehi, Yéhochua Cohen”. The two other gunners were Yitzhak Ben-Moshe and “Gingi” Zinger, and the driver of the jeep was called Meshulam Makover.

The assassination of Bernadotte causes a universal judgment. Lehi is immediately suspecté. “Of 24 hours, more than 250 members of Lehi are challenged in all the country. The government benefits from it to dissolve the units of the IZL in Jerusalem, although it knows that they were not frays with the crime. Two days later Lehi is officially dissolves under a law " for the prevention of the terrorisme" ”. The company of integration of Lehi and Irgoun with Tsahal, largely started during the first truce, is thus completed with the second. “Zettler will affirm to have received an explicit promise of the Minister of Interior Department Yitzhak Grünbaum: " you will be condemned to satisfy the world opinion. After which you will be amnistiés" ”. In fact, “Yalin Mor and its Shmulovitz assistant, condemned the February 2nd 1949 to several years of Prison, not for murder but for membership of an terrorist organization, will be slackened two weeks after all the other prisoners of Lehi will profit from a general amnesty”.

From the three leaders of the Stern group who had sent the killers on mission, namely Israel Eldad, Nathan Yalin Mor and Yitzhak Shamir, only Nathan Yalin Mor thus passed in judgment.

Epilog

End 1948, of the former members of Lehi create transitory “a party of the combatants”. With 5.300 votes, this one obtains 1 seat with the Knesset of January 1949, whose Nathan Yalin Mor was the holder.

A first and single congress of the party are held of the 20 with the March 27th 1949. Three tendencies are identified, partly recovering sympathies of the three historic leaders: a tendency of “Extreme right-hand side” around Israel Eldad, a “center” tendency around Yitzhak Shamir and Nathan Yalin Mor (which in spite of its Soviet standpoint pro still hesitates to rock frankly on the left) and a small left Soviet pro .

Especially linked by its ultra Nationalism, but very divided on the other subjects, the party bursts quickly. They are Eldad and its partisans who, put in minority, are the first to make scission. The party condemns the Israeli-Arab Accords of armistice of 1949, which allot to the Egypt and the Jordan 23% of the Palestine agent, claiming still and always a Jewish State unified on all Palestine, even on the Jordan.

Many old Lehi, except however for Yalin Mor and Eldad, joined after the dissolution of the “party of the combatants” the new party Herout of the nationalist right.

Shamir joined the Mossad after independence, then adhered to Herout in 1969. It succeeded Menahem Begin at the station of Prime Minister in 1983, without its old role in the assassinations of Lord Moyne or Bernadotte not harming to him.

Nathan Yalin Mor, faithful to its orientation pro-Soviet, evolved to the pacifist movements Israeli, and became a fellow traveller of the Communist party of Israel after 1967. Israel Eldad became the intellectual guide of the Extrême right-hand side of the Années 1950 and 1960. Contrary to Shamir, one and the other had nothing any more but one marginal influence.

The gunner of the commando having assassinated Bernadotte, Yehoshua Cohen, became the personal Bodyguard of Ben Gourion, after the withdrawal of this one with the Kibboutz of Sde-Boker.

Although its memory always is very discussed in Israel, a stamp will be published in 1978 (for the thirtieth birthday of independence) with the memory of Avraham Stern, under the government of Menahem Begin.

The same government will institute in 1980 the ribbon of old of Lehi, which can be allotted officially at all the former members who wish to carry it.

References

See too

History of the Israeli-Arab Zionism
War of 1948
Irgoun
Massacre of Deir Yassin

External bonds

Presentation of Lehi on Jewishvirtuallibrary
Presentation of Lehi on the site zionisme-Israel
bibliographical Resources on Lehi (anonymous site)

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