From: davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: Lehi and nazies
Date: 17 Aug 92 14:06:48 GMT
Organization: Technion, Israel Inst. of Technology

In article <22219@venera.isi.edu> arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) writes:
>In article <1992Aug16.113052.17236@discus.technion.ac.il> davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami) writes:
>>
>> In article <24859@castle.ed.ac.uk> egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>> >In article <4663@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> rdtst+@pitt.edu (Richard D Thorne) writes:
>> >=>| The allies did many things during WWII which I beleive were unnecessary
>> >=>| and wrong. However the only scenario in which you can justify an alleged
>> >=>| Jewish nationalist offering to make a pact with the NAZIs is if the
>> >=>| British were worse.
>> >=>|
>> >=>| Phill Hallam-Baker
>> >=>
>> >=>    With the aid of hindsight it is clear that the Yishuv's
>> >=>    decision to not fight the British during WWII was a wise one,
>> >=>    but that only makes LEHI wrong not evil.
>> >
>> >Just remind us again where and when Krystallnacht took place. How perceptive
>> >do you have to be to figure out in 1941 that the  Nazis were Baddies? How
>> >much of a hypocrite do you have to be to defend LEHI?
>>
>> C'mon Mr. Henderson, the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto didn't beleive the
>> stories from Treblinka, nobody in Palestine was aware to the atrocities
>> in the treu extent till 1945. sure there were News but most of them
>> were viwed as sensationalistic. I remember that a Jew woman told the
>> Tel-Aviv puvlic who queued in front of a cinema: "How could you see
>> movies when your brothers are slaughtered" - they only waved her as a
>> "Meshigine" - mad woman.
>
>You seem to be cutting off the branch you're sitting on.

No. I am not.
>
>If it was so unclear in 1941 how bad the Nazis really were -- what
                              ^^^^^^^
>exactly was the rationale for LEHI's dealings with them?  It couldn't
>have been to save the Jews from certain death, since you just explained
>to us that nobody thought that was going to happen...  Some of your
>friends here in tpm earlier justified contact with the Nazis as the only
>way to save Jews from certain death...
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Nobody knew how bas they really were but everyone clearly knew they are
bad. The lesser evil argument is the one that was mistakenly taken.

Nobody beleived that everything was OK in Europe, but none dreamt of
the actual horror. This perfectly logical if you think about it without
utilizing HINDSIGHT.


>
>With your intense desire to defend anything connected with Israel (or so
>it seems) you're getting yourself into a logical bind here.
>
>In fact, the Revisionist movement (which spawned LEHI and ETZEL) had a
>strong fascist element in it.  Read material by Abba Ahimeir sometime.

Well, the accusation of Fascism by the Labor etc. is all too common, I
remember that Ben-Gurion once called Jabotinsky "Valdimir Hitler".

They had communists and anarchist elements there too, Lehi itself was
trying to get closer to the USSR near the end of WWII. I think that the
those times were really confusing and judging from today is simply not
appropriate.

>Yigal Arens   "He seems like an average type of man.  He's not, like, smart.

David Ben-Ami.
-- 
=============================================================================
  David Ben-Ami (irc: bigdav)      |   "I can resist anything but Temptation"
  s2780369@Techst02.Technion.Ac.Il |       Oscar Wilde
  davidba@Carmel.Technion.Ac.Il  davidba@Moav.Techniona.Ac.Il