LEHI Members Refute Comparison To Hamas

Back in February, Murray Richtel--a dual citizen of both the US and Israel, and a district court judge in Boulder, Colorado from 1977 to 1996--decided to resolve the comparison some made between the terrorist group Hamas and LEHI, which terrorized the British in Palestine prior to the establishment of Israel.

He looked up some of the surviving members, interviewed them, and wrote an article about them--using ficticious names.

All of them denied a comparison with Hamas--and explained why.

One of the main points they consistently made is that unlike Hamas--whose arbitrary targets are innocent civilians, including women and children--

we didn't want innocents to die. We never willingly killed the innocent

When asked about the notion that "one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist," one former member, 'Amos' notes

"I agree there is a subjective element in the way you look at these things." But he added with emphasis, "killing men and women drinking coffee, it is not possible to compare."

'Yasmine' notes the opportunities, and reasons, that LEHI had for killing innocents--but didn't:

"We didn't kill even one child," she told me. She opined that LEHI could have saved its members sent to the British gallows for carrying illegal weapons by kidnapping British women and children to use as hostages for prisoner exchanges. But harming children, "never, never, never-it is so brutal."

Another member, 'Irit' comments about the comparison:

"All along they compared us to suicide bombers. The most important thing to remember is that we never hit innocent people. We never touched the families of high officers and we knew exactly where they were. It simply never entered our minds. It was important to hit only those who continued British policies, stopping us from establishing our nation. We were acting against a foreign occupier." [emphasis added]

That last comment is similar to the claim made by the Palestinian terrorists in general and Hamas in particular.

But 'Shoshi' responds that there is a difference:

"Our longing was to build a Jewish state. We were fighting for land described in the Bible as being for the children of Israel. It was never any kind of independent country for the Palestinians. They never seriously claimed that before we got here. When we came here the Arabs didn't call themselves Palestinians."

I [Richtel] responded that It still seemed like a claim to land being made by the occupied to the occupier.

Her retort: "Even our enemies knew it was ours. I remember in Germany in 1933 the cries — 'Jews to Palestine' — all the Christian World knew it was our state. I heard it in Belgium too. The whole world said go to your own country."

She continued: "Yes we used terrorism. But our terrorism is far away from nowadays terrorism and we had a moral barrier. We planned an operation so as not to involve the innocent. There are always surprises, but if it happened, it was unplanned. I am lucky I didn't have to kill. I was sent to assassinate a soldier but he was with a friend and I didn't shoot. Unlike the Germans, our orders were that we had the authority not to follow orders if that was right thing to do. There is no comparison, what they do now is not human and it is cruel."

Another member, 'Yasmine,' was assigned to assassinate General Barker, the British Commanding General in Palestine. Suicide bombing was not an option:

And so Yasmine staked out Barker. On a daily basis, she walked back and forth in front of his residence dressed as a nurse pushing a baby carriage containing a blanket covered doll. The plan was to work out the timing so that Yasmine could escape after detonating a bomb, substituted for the doll, that would kill Barker. To Yasmine's disappointment, the plan was abandoned when she could not satisfy her handlers that she could carry out the operation without herself being killed. LEHI, she asserted, would never have engaged in an operation that put their fighters or civilians at risk, and the idea of a suicide mission was beyond their comprehension.

There is still alot of disagreement about LEHI. Innocents were killed by LEHI and another group at Deir Yassin in 1948--though many agree that it was a military operation that got out of control.

Of course, none of this will dissuade those intent to make comparisons between LEHI and Hamas--and Media Backspin notes that when it comes to Jews, The Independent drops the euphemisms and uses the T-word.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestine and LEHI and Hamas and Terrorism.