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It is reasonable to suppose that Shamir, who throughout that time was an active LEHI militant, must have approved the vicious pro-Nazism of his admired leader. Even in his present-day policymaking he relies, to all appearances, on the same or at least similar principles. In fact his policies are hardly intelligible except as applications of LEHI's original ideology. Under such an assumption, they can even appear consistent and logical. For those familiar with his past, which he himself reveres, there is no room for surprises over his present political activities.
Yet in his LEHI days, Shamir, although a true believer par excellence in Yair's ideology, was known as an organizer and a man of action rather than an ideologue. The real history of his "pragmatic" activities in LEHI can also serve as a key to understanding his present policies.
The central point in this history is the assassination of his commander, Eliyahu Gil'adi.
The story can only be understood in the light of LEHI's operational peculiarities, which were as different from the practices of other Jewish undergrounds of the same period as its ideology.
This aspect of LEHI's history is dealt with at great length in an article by a Haaretz expert on intelligence affairs, Yossi Melman ("Who was the first to draw?" September 27, 1991). The article reviews in detail the voluminous literature written by LEHI veterans and their opponents in the late 1940s. Melman interviewed various persons then politically active, most of whom preferred to remain anonymous. But he also discovered a previously unknown source: Shamir's testimony to the "Department of Documentation of Contemporary Judaism" of the Hebrew University. The date of this document is January 1973, an interim period after the termination of his Mossad service and before his entering politics as a Knesset member. But Melman also talked to a person who took Shamir's testimony -- Tzvi Tzameret, then a young student and now a distinguished historian -- acquainting himself with the latter' s notes and recollections.
Shamir's testimony is described by Melman as "very laconic and dry, sounding as if intended to fashion the currently prevailing image of the Prime Minister as an obstinate, suspicious individual resenting to give away any information." No wonder, therefore, that the testimony, whatever its importance in other respects, contains no description of the act of assassinating Gil'adi, who is referred to in the document under his underground alias of "Saul." Yet Shamir does justify the assassination. "The execution of Saul was indispensable, after I received complaints against him from many sources, all of them considering it indispensable. The decision to execute him was made by me alone, after some wordless consultations with some comrades. After the execution I assembled some of those who were of the same mind with me." Then he lists those LEHI members with whom he talked, to conclude this section of the testimony with an obvious lie: "I know of only two executions: those of Eliyahu Gil'adi and Shmuel Levy."
The case of Shmuel Levy (whose real name was Yehuda Arieh Levy) is discussed by Dr. Yosef Heller, the author of LEHI 1940-1949, the only book on the subject I would consider objective. The book's primary concern is the ideological development of LEHI, and the Levy assassination in January 1948 was strictly ideological. After the U.N. resolution establishing the Jewish state in a part of Palestine, which LEHI vehemently opposed, Levy informed his comrades of his intention to leave LEHI in order to join "Haganah," the largest Jewish underground of the time. In his testimony Shamir says: "Shmuel Levy's was the only instance when we convened a court [to try him]." Melman comments: "In other words, Shamir thus implies that in Gil'adi's case, unlike in that of Levy, there was not even a semblance of legality and adjudication. Gil'adi was murdered on Shamir's sole responsibility, without any decision by the organization's internal court."
These assassinations need to be put in their context. LEHI murdered Arabs, British and non-Jews in general (like Count Bernadotte), but it also murdered and plundered more Jews than any other Jewish organization of modern times -- and out of the flimsiest of rationales.
In addition to the Levy case, Melman recalls the case of Avraham Vilenchik, "assassinated in 1943 because he wanted to return to the IRGUN" (LEHI's parent organization, subsequently commanded by Begin). According to a SHAY (Haganah's intelligence service) report as quoted by Melman, "Gil'adi was the main performer in Vilenchik's execution." There were other cases as well, some documented. Jews suspected of "collaboration" were often assassinated on the basis of the flimsiest pretexts. Melman recalls a case of a 16-year-old boy, Michael Shenel, murdered "when he was vaguely suspected" of collaboration.
Lawbreaking was a way of life for LEHI. During several years it filled its treasury through holdups, first of British banks, then of Jewish banks and finally of casually selected individual Jews. (Only since 1946 could it rely on donations from some wealthy American and British Jews.) In fact Gil'adi had at first won Yair's favor on account of his skills as a bank robber. The above-mentioned book Unknown Soldiers, before recounting the "deterioration of Gil'adi's character," praises him "for robbing private apartments."
I still recall LEHI's robberies, which continued until the spring of 1948 in Tel Aviv neighborhoods not patrolled by the Haganah. My own stepfather was so robbed along with his friends one Friday afternoon in 1947 during a card game in a private Tel Aviv apartment. There were thousands of such robberies, which at the time aroused much indignation. But in 1950 Ben-Gurion found allies among LEHI veterans, and on his orders the subject became shrouded in silence, to be eventually forgotten. In any case, no Jewish underground pillaged Jews as routinely as did the LEHI.
To all appearances, the assassination of Eliyahu Gil'adi stemmed from a personal conflict with Shamir over who would have the authority to approve the robberies. According to Melman, who on this point relies also on Dr. Heller, "Gil'adi promised Shamir not to embark on any such exploit [a robbery] without first consulting with him. At the beginning Shamir trusted him." Shamir's trust may have stemmed from his long personal friendship and ideological agreement with Gil'adi. According to Melman, all LEHI survivors (except for Shamir, who just does not mention it) attest to the existence of a special affinity between the two. Both were among the first to join Yair after he founded LEHI. Both approved Yair's pro-Nazi line. However, other LEHI leaders, like Nathan Yelin-Mor (who subsequently professed leftist views but continued to be attached to LEHI principles), "warned Shamir that although Gil'adi might keep his promise, in the end he would try to free himself of Shamir's control." Such excuses can hardly be taken at their face value because, as Melman observes, "from the time of Gil'adi's murder until this very day, LEHI members have done their best to divulge next to nothing about the whole affair." According to the version they would all stick to under questioning, Gil'adi was detained and then executed collectively by them. But "all of them would stubbornly refuse to clarify when Gil'adi was detained, under what conditions, when the execution took place, who exactly carried it out, and in what manner." In other cases, including the already mentioned assassinations of other LEHI members or of Jews LEHI suspected of collaboration or of the murdered non-Jews, satisfactorily detailed versions of events have been published. In Gil'adi's case alone the conspiracy of silence is for some mysterious reasons still effective.
The voluminous LEHI literature, while it avoids clarifying the circumstances of Gil'adi's death, vilifies him mightily, in a manner resembling the Stalinist vilification of the "enemies of the people." With one single exception, LEHI members have justified his "execution," indulging in what Melman describes as Gil'adi's "demonization." A good example of such demonization, not backed by a shred of evidence, (since all personal papers of and about Gil'adi had "disappeared") is the story "that he wanted to order the female LEHI members to go into prostitution in order to thus raise funds for the organization." The single exception was Aryeh Kotzer, who after leaving politics in 1949, wrote a book of recollections under the title "Red Carpet" in which he defended Gil'adi's good name "while calling his murder a crime." Many years ago I held some talks with persons who, although hostile toward LEHI, were in a position to know the truth, however indirectly. On the basis of these talks, I am convinced that Kotzer's explanation of the murder is correct. The explanation is quoted by Melman. "It was Gil'adi's estranged mistress who succeeded in turning LEHI members against him, by telling stories which were but childish fantasies." Among the numerous versions of Gil'adi's assassination, collected by Melman from sources other than LEHI's own, only the version "circulated by SHAY" deserves some credence, in my opinion. In that version, "Gil'adi was lured to sand dunes in Rishon Le'Tzion [south of Tel Aviv] and murdered there." It seems that Melman is too awed by the office of the prime minister to say explicitly that according to that version the lurer and the murderer was Shamir. Gil'adi's family had reasons to think likewise. "A few years ago, Gil'adi's niece, Shoshana Gafner, turned to Shamir and then to other LEHI veterans with the request to be informed of the location of Gil'adi's body, so that she could rebury it in a Jewish cemetery under a tombstone. She was denied even that information. She commented that 'LEHI seems to still exist.'" Shamir's behavior confirms her assessment. As Melman says, "The only 'weakness' which could be noticed in Shamir's handling of the affair was his decision to name his daughter Gil'ada." Odd as it may sound, Melman informs us that "while LEHI members had never denied that they themselves executed Gil'adi, in the last few years they already recognize him as one of their martyrs. In Yair's house his name was added to the roll of the organization's fallen." Indeed, Gil 'adi' s name has been added to the list of LEHI martyrs, as published each year on the anniversary of Yair's death and as then solemnly recited in the presence of Shamir and other LEHI survivors. Curiously, however, "the martyr" continues to be vilified. The public has been kept in the dark about who exactly ordered the murder and for what reasons, if any. All such facts can only prove Shoshana Gafner right.
It is hard to find analogies for behavior so bizarre and grotesque. The only conclusion is that persons capable of such behavior must be capable of anything. Yet those people, far from being relegated to the fringe, have political influence. As Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir wields enormous power; through the medium of the Jewish lobby, his power extends to the United States. And the grotesque annual celebrations in which the man Shamir had murdered is venerated as a martyr can hardly avoid leaving some mark on his policy decisions.
I conclude with two observations: first, that in the enormous English-language literature on Israel and the Zionist movement it would be hard to find even a trace of information provided in this article, even though in Israel most of this information is not news. I do not know of any mainstream newspaper in the United States or Britain which would dare hint, let alone ask, about Shamir's role in the assassination of Gil'adi, for example, during one of his frequent official visits to either country. Yet in dealing with the murky biographies of some Arab leaders, even with those whose countries are allied with the West, the same newspapers are quite inquisitive. One cannot resist treating this fact as evidence of their consistent pro-Jewish and anti-Arab bias. I would attribute their double standard to the power of the "Jewish lobby" in both countries. This seems to explain why all public discussions of crimes committed by Israeli Jews tend to be at once branded as "abetting anti-Semitism" or the like, even when Jews are victims of those crimes. The same applies to discussions of Jewish racism or chauvinism or of Israeli discriminatory practices in favor of Jews. The English-language media do deal with the suffering of the Arabs under Israeli rule when it is caused by violence, but never when it is caused by racist discrimination. Yet Jewish extremism and its ideological roots as typified by the person of Yitzhak Shamir urgently need to be discussed. The failure to recognize and discuss them can have disastrous results indeed, and rather soon.
Secondly, any attempt to relate to Yitzhak Shamir's policies in rational terms as stemming from considerations of the security or welfare of Israel or the Jews can only be fallacious. (Of course, the lives of Arabs, who for him are "aliens" temporarily inhabiting the land destined for the "Kingdom of Israel" can be assumed to be of no concern to him.) The same applies to other ideological extremists in power. It is a fallacy to perceive them as motivated primarily by rational considerations.
Shamir should be perceived as a true believer in the [totalitarian fascist LEHI] ideology, to which he professes to remain faithful. He should also be perceived as an individual ready to murder his closest friends without any residual misgivings.
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