page_title: Lehi (militant group)
section_title: Goals and methods
hierarchical_section_title: Lehi (militant group) / Goals and methods
caption_attribution_description: English: lehi (israel freedom fighters) memorial in petah tikva, israel אנדרטת לח"י בפתח תקווה
context_page_description: Lehi, often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang, was a Zionist paramilitary organization founded by Avraham Stern in Mandatory Palestine. Its avowed aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by resort to force, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state, a "new totalitarian Hebrew republic". It was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, but was renamed Lehi one month later. The group referred to its members as terrorists and admitted to having carried out terrorist attacks.
  Lehi split from the Irgun militant group in 1940 in order to continue fighting the British during World War II. Lehi initially sought an alliance with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, offering to fight alongside them against the British in return for the transfer of all Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine. Believing that Nazi Germany was a lesser enemy of the Jews than Britain, Lehi twice attempted to form an alliance with the Nazis. During World War II, it declared that it would establish a Jewish state based upon "nationalist and totalitarian principles".
context_section_description: Lehi had three main goals:
  To bring together all those interested in liberation (that is, those willing to join in active fighting against the British).
  To appear before the world as the only active Jewish military organization.
  To take over Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) by armed force.
  Lehi believed in its early years that its goals would be achieved by finding a strong international ally that would expel the British from Palestine, in return for Jewish military help; this would require the creation of a broad and organised military force "demonstrating its desire for freedom through military operations."
  Lehi also referred to themselves as 'terrorists' and may have been one of the last organizations to do so.
  An article titled "Terror" in the Lehi underground newspaper He Khazit (The Front) argued as follows:
  Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat. We are very far from having any moral qualms as far as our national war goes. We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world: "Ye shall blot them out to the last man."
  But first and foremost, terrorism is for us a part of the political battle being conducted under the present circumstances, and it has a great part to play: speaking in a clear voice to the whole world, as well as to our wretched brethren outside this land, it proclaims our war against the occupier.
  
  We are particularly far from this sort of hesitation in regard to an enemy whose moral perversion is admitted by all.
  The article described the goals of terror:
  It demonstrates ... against the true terrorist who hides behind his piles of papers and the laws he has legislated.
  It is not directed against people, it is directed against representatives. Therefore it is effective.
  If it also shakes the Yishuv from their complacency, good and well.
  Yitzhak Shamir, one of the three leaders of Lehi after Avraham Stern's assassination, argued for the legitimacy of Lehi's actions:
  There are those who say that to kill [T.G.] Martin [a CID sergeant who had recognised Shamir in a lineup] is terrorism, but to attack an army camp is guerrilla warfare and to bomb civilians is professional warfare. But I think it is the same from the moral point of view. Is it better to drop an atomic bomb on a city than to kill a handful of persons? I don’t think so. But nobody says that President Truman was a terrorist. All the men we went for individually – Wilkin, Martin, MacMichael and others – were personally interested in succeeding in the fight against us.
  
  So it was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets. In any case, it was the only way we could operate, because we were so small. For us it was not a question of the professional honor of a soldier, it was the question of an idea, an aim that had to be achieved. We were aiming at a political goal. There are many examples of what we did to be found in the Bible – Gideon and Samson, for instance. This had an influence on our thinking. And we also learned from the history of other peoples who fought for their freedom – the Russian and Irish revolutionaries, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Josip Broz Tito.
caption: Lehi Commemoration in Petah Tikva. Half-clenched fist, in reference to Psalms 137:5.[27]
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