ABSTRACT
March 1944 marked two years since the death of Stern and also saw the IZL's declaration of its own 'revolt' under the leadership of Begin. For both reasons, that month ought to have witnessed the recommencement of Lehi's war. The anniversary of Yair's death did indeed occasion the celebration of a one-time myth of heroism and foresightedness. But that success was offset by the discovery of the bomb which was meant to hit the British High Commissioner at the entrance to StGeorge's Church, Jerusalem, on 3 February 1944. The truth of the matter was that Lehi was still a tiny movement which, although noticed by the British authorities, was hardly in a position to constitute a real threat. 1
Despite these disadvantages, Lehi had to formulate a response to the IZL's 'revolt'. Its initial reaction was disdainful: it pointed out that the IZL's operations-such as the attack on the immigration office on 12 February-were paltry and symbolic affairs. Surely the youth would not be deluded, but would flock to Lehi's ranks. 2 With the increase in IZL activities during the spring, however, this attitude was changed to one of grudging respect. 3 Temporarily despairing of its ability to persuade the public not to follow the policies pursued by Laval in France, Lehi now began to regard itself and the IZL as two wings of the same front. After all, both shared a common disdain for the official Zionist policy of negotiations with Britain for a handful of certificates or marginal changes in the boundaries of the 'Peel state'. Both, therefore, were in principle utterly opposed to the official policy of 'restraint'. What the public had to appreciate, Lehi maintained, was that England and Nazism were one and the same. 'Whilst Hitler conceived the idea of imprisoning Jews in compounds, it is England who has established just such a compound in our land.' The Jewish police in Tel Aviv were no different from those of the ghettos of Warsaw, Lodz and Cracow. England's ultimate objective was world domination, and to that end it sought to dominate Jewish industry and to impose a foreign culture on the entire Yishuv. 4
One testimony to the intensity of emotions aroused by Lehi's aggressive ideological assault on 'official' Zionism was provided on
12 February 1944 at the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsairin Tel Aviv, where Lehi members attempted to distribute their propaganda. In the melee which ensued, one of the club guides was shot in the arm. According to Yellin-Mor's later account, the Lehi members involved were the victims of their own innocence. Not realising how much they were regarded as 'class enemies' by Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsair, they were forced to defend themselves when threatened with being turned over to the police and had only fired into the air. The Lehi merkaz ('centre', which discussed the incident on 14 February) attempted to make much the same point. The manifesto which it subsequently published was at pains to emphasise that Lehi's only war was with the British rule; within the Yishuv it wished only to proclaim its ideology. Lehi also went on to express the hope that the public would repeat its right to promote its thinking and to defend its members against being turned over to the CID. 5
Lehi considered this principle to have been accepted at a meeting which Revisionist activists subsequently arranged between the Haganah leader, Eliyahu Golomb, and Friedman-Yellin. Although the latter did agree to suspend Lehi's propaganda activities within HaShomer Ha-Tsair youth clubs, he had gained Golomb's recognition of its right to do so elsewhere. The merkaz was satisfied with this arrangement, which it thought a recognition on the Haganah's part that Lehi was a responsible adversary which would not drag the community into civil war at the expense of its fight against the foreign foe. 6 Golomb's own report to the Mapai secretariat was entirely different. The attack on the club, he said, was a sign that Lehi 'intended to instil fear into the Yishuv and conquer its support by force of arms'. Convinced that 'they might bring upon us the greatest disaster' (and even 'attack people sitting at this very table'), Golomb insisted on the isolation of Lehi: 'the war has to be their disarmament wherever they appear in the Jewish public.' Golomb stopped short of suggesting that the Haganah co-operate with the British against Lehi, but Ben-Gurion was less restrained. Neither of them suggested placing a special unit at the disposal of the British police. 7
Lord Moyne was appointed Minister Resident in the Middle East on 28 January 1944. The new appointee had long joined MacMichael and Churchill in Lehi's rogues' gallery. In part, this was because of his role in the Struma incident and in part due to his support for the establishment of an Arab federation. Above all, however, there had been his speech in the House of Lords on 9 June 1942, when he had spoken of the 'purity' of the Arab race and had denigrated the attempts of the 'mixed' Jewish race to establish control over Palestine, Iraq and Syria. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Lehi immediately
regarded Moyne's new appointment as an omen that Britain was about to implement its anti-Zionist policy. Leaders of the movement had undoubtedly already hatched a plot to assassinate him. 8
The 'official' Zionist leadership was in Lehi's eyes clearly ill-fitted to meet the new challenge. Ben-Gurion's resignation from the chairmanship of the executive of the Jewish Agency in October 1943, together with his return to that office in January 1944, was considered to indicate the absence of any leadership worthy of the name. No replacements could be sought in the World Jewish Congress or the American Jewish Committee, nor even in the suggestion (voiced in circles close to the Revisionist movement) for the establishment of a 'Free Jewish Government'. 9
Today, we are the only [factor] in the Hebrew people which knows the objective ... We represent the unconscious will of the entire people ... We are just as entitled to declare ourselves to be the recognised and sovereign Hebrew government as were the band of Irish freedom-fighters who declared their sovereign rule in Easter 1916.
