From: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au (Brendan McKay)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: Freedom fighter or Terrorist
Date: 24 Jan 1993 07:37:47 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
Reply-To: bdm@cs.anu.edu.au
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.23.70

In article <1993Jan23.235313.20213@midway.uchicago.edu> 
                                     rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (Naomi) writes:
>In article <1jdircINN5mv@manuel.anu.edu.au> bdm@cs.anu.edu.au writes:
>>In article 11857@midway.uchicago.edu, rivk@ellis.uchicago.edu (naomi) writes:

>>>First of all, the correct name is Lechi, Stern having been dead well
>>>before the group began. 

>>This is not true.  The group broke away from the Irgun in 1940 and
>>Stern was killed in 1942.  

>*A* group broke away from Irgun in 1940. The way I've heard it con-
>sistently from people involved, on all sides, was that it was largely
>a disorganized and inactive bunch of pseudorevolutionaries who sat about
>discussing politics until Stern's death and the imprisonment of many of
>their members coalesced them into an action unit. But this is hearsay on
>both sides;

No it isn't.  It is a known falsehood.  Why do you think that the 
British devoted so much effort to tracking down Stern and his gang?  
Because of the type of politics they discussed?  Rubbish.  It was
much more to do with the Lehi's (though it wasn't called that then)
campaign of theft, extortion, abduction, murder and bombings, and
probably not a little to do with Stern's attempts to form an alliance 
with the Nazis.

>             trying to assess when some individuals who spend a lot of
>time together on a given subject become an organization is a lost cause.
>I'll concede the point because it isn't relevant. I am willing to call the
>PLO and assorted other groups I have problems with by the names they chose
>for themselves, despite thinking they have very little to do with Liberation,
>not a whole lot to do with Palestine, and not as much Organization as I'd
>like to see. I expect the same courtesy. Lechi chose a name and used it;
>there is no reason not to take it as standard.

That's what I call them.

>>>Second of all, I at least see them as a bunch
>>>of fruitcakes who had one really rather neat idea (buzzing London and
>>>dropping leaflets) that never materialized because they couldn't get
>>>their act together, and who otherwise did nothing especially useful
>>>and very little of any noticeable effect whatsoever... they made a lot
>>>of noice and pulled off a prison break and a couple of semi-spectacular
>>>assassinations. I am inclined to condemn them more on grounds of idiocy,
>>>disorganization, and incompetence than I am on moral grounds, simply be-
>>>cause I don't think they were ever competent enough to pull off much of
>>>moral significance one way or the other. 

>>You are forgetting the Deir Yassin massacre.

>Deir Yassin was an indication of *competence*?!?!?! 

No, I meant it was an example of an action with moral significance.
I wasted too much time on Deir Yassin in the past, but since you have
raised the issue of Lehi's moral standards I will repost this testimony
from Yehuda Lapidot, who was the Irgun second in command at Deir Yassin
and assumed the leadership when Benzion Cohen was injured:

   "Apart from the military discussion, the Lehi put forward a proposal
   to liquidate the residents of the village after the conquest, in order
   to show the Arabs what happens when the IZL [Irgun -bdm] and the Lehi
   set out together on an operation, and for another main reason --- it
   would cause a great uproar throughout the land and would be an
   important turning-point in the course of the battles."

This is from the Irgun-Lehi planning meeting.  Cohen himself supports it:

   "When it comes to prisoners, women, old people and children, there
   were differences of opinion, but the majority was for the liquidation
   of all the men in the village and any other force that opposed us,
   whether it be old people, women or children."

  Source: The Irgun's own archives (Jabotinsky Archives, Tel Aviv) quoted 
  by Eric Silver, Begin - A Biography, Weiden and Nicolson, ca 1984.  
  (Also called "Begin, the Haunted Prophet".)   The Hebrew text of the 
  Irgun testimony can (according to Silver) be found in Koteret Rashit, 
  19 Jan 1983.  I have microfilm of the handwritten originals. 

>Deir Yassin was one
>of the stupidest, most messed-up pseudomilitary debacles I've ever heard
>of since the Charge of the Light Brigade!! ;-)

That depends on your point of view.  Menachem Begin (who denies it was
a massacre) writes in glowing terms of how the massacre "lie" helped
in the Irgun campaign of ethnic cleansing. 

>Seriously, how much of Deir Yassin was Lechi and how much was Irgun will
>never be known; more to the point, how much was deliberate massacre and
>how much was a complete bungling that led to chaos and disaster will never
>be known. Tragedy it certainly was -- and Israel's responsibility it cer-
>tainly was, and I'm not trying to evade it. We're as much to blame for
>the results of our mistakes as the results of our malice. But I don't think
>it's possible to draw much in the way of coonclusions regarding competence
>or intent from it, as there seems to have been precious little of either
>present at the time.

The Irgun version (which may be biased against Lehi) is that Lehi 
proposed a massacre but Begin overruled the idea.  The provision of
a loudspeaker truck by the Irgun is evidence in favour of that version,
though a massacre eventuated anyway.  Further evidence of the moral
standards of Lehi members came later, when a Palmach unit composed
largely of former Lehi members massacred 80-100 civilians at Ad Duweima.
(I could provide references.)

>>>From a purely moral perspective,
>>>though, I will note that even Lechi confined their attacks to the British
>>>and local Arab targets directly, 

>>A particular target of Lehi was the Jewish "collaborator".  Being a
>>member of the British police was enough to make one a target (something
>>to compare to recent events?) and in a few cases the grounds seem to
>>have been even less, such as leaving Lehi to work for the Haganah.
>>Also, the Lehi did conduct some overseas operations, such as the
>>posting from Europe of letter-bombs to British politicians.

>Yup. These were not a particularly nice group of people. But you'll
>notice in *every* case you mention, the target was an individual who
>had taken, personally, a particular action against Lechi or against
>Israel. I will agree that there is a legitimate comparison between the
>actions of Lechi with respect to British police and the actions of Hamas
>with regard to Nisin Toledano (which does not mean that I support either
>one), but there is no comparison between the random bombing of American
>and European ships and passenger planes and anything Lechi did.

I agree.  


>>>                                 even going so far as to hold kangaroo-
>>>court trials for those they assassinated, to judge whether the individual
>>>in question deserved it. 

>>I doubt you would give many points to Hamas if they held "trials"
>>for their victims.  In any case, I'm not sure it was a general
>>procedure but merely something known of a few special cases.

>If you can produce a case where you've evidence it (a) wasn't done and (b)
>was definitively a group-decided assassination rather than the action of
>an individual without the group's consent (Lechi was not terribly well-
>organized or good at keeping rein on their members), I'll listen. But my
>point was again, that Lechi targeted *individuals* who had *personally*
>done something against them, not three-year-olds from third countries
>altogether who happened to be visiting their grandparents in a fourth
>country altogether at the wrong moment.

All terrorist groups consider themselves competent to judge who is
fit to die and who isn't.  However, you are correct that the Lehi 
mostly targetted specific individuals; see below for a comparison 
with the Irgun. 

[...]

>>>I will also note that Lechi was the most extreme branch of the Jewish
>>>resistance, and the rest condemned them soundly for their acts of terror.

>>At the time support amongst the general population doesn't seem to have
>>been very great.  Certainly there wasn't enough money forthcoming from
>>private donors (plus that apparently from Italian intelligence) to eliminate 
>>the need for robbing banks.  On the other hand, there was enough support
>>to get Lehi leader Yellin-Mor elected to the first Knesset.  My impression
>>is that it wasn't until the revisionism of the Begin years that Lehi began
>>to be regarded as heros by a significant fraction of the population.

>I haven't seen Lechi as regarded particularly well among Israelis... mostly,
>they're forgotten and ignored, actually, as having had very little impact.
>The Haganah is revered, the Irgun is looked at with a mixture of pride and
>nervousness much the way it was at the time, 

I wonder how much this would change if the Irgun was seen behind all
the whitewash.  It seems like nobody knows or cares that the Irgun
did anything beyond blowing up the King David Hotel and organising
illegal immigration.  The large number of acts of pure indiscriminate
terror, such as setting off bombs in public places frequented by Arabs,
seem to have been largely forgotten.  The fact that such actions were
more the province of the Irgun rather than the Lehi should make one wonder 
who started the story that "Lechi was the most extreme branch of the Jewish resistance", and why.

>                                             but Lechi is generally not
>thought much about.  [...rest deleted by bdm...]

Brendan.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast