ABSTRACT
With the end of the Second World War in the summer of 1945, the fate of Palestine had clearly reached a decisive stage. Lehi, however, saw no reason to change its basic tenets. As before, Britain remained the prime enemy. Its behaviour towards the Jews during the war-and especially the refusal to open the gates of Palestine to Jewish victims of Nazism-proved the folly of placing any hopes in a change in British policies. Moreover, Britain's attitude towards the Soviet Union-and especially the refusal to open a 'second front' in 1942 and 1943-proved its cynicism. Fearful that an armed Anglo-American crusade against 'infidel Jewish communism' was imminent/ Lehi supported Stalin's policy of a division of the world into spheres of influence. Opposing what it considered to be British attempts to attain universal hegemony, it also supported communist gains in Eastern Europe and China. Within Palestine itself, the British had to be opposed by an all-out partisan war, on the lines of that so successfully waged in Europe against the Nazis.
