ABSTRACT
In one sense, Lehi accepted the establishment of the state as a fact, its only regret being that independence had not been declared 20 years earlier: after all, the Mandate had always been 'one big lie', as was the international code of honour which had imposed it on a 'righteous' Britain. 1 Nevertheless, so ideological a movement as Lehi could hardly have been expected to change its position overnight merely because independence had been declared. More significant was the fact that it was Lehi's old domestic adversaries who now constituted the new state's leadership.
