In 1941 the Stern Gang Twice Proposed a Military Alliance to the Nazis – One of its Leaders, Yitzhak Shamir, Became Israel's Prime Minister

 In Stern: The Man, the Gang & the State We Learn About the Mentality Behind the Nazi-style Genocide in Gaza Today

Last summer I was contacted by Hossam Sarhan who asked if I would agree to be interviewed for a program on Yair Stern, the founder of the Stern Gang or Lehi, Loḥamei Ḥerut Yisrael (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel).

The Zionists have done their best since the Hitler era to suggest, on the basis of the undoubted collaboration of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj al-Amin Husseini with the Nazis, that whereas they supported the Allies the Palestinians supported Hitler.

In fact there is no truth in this. It was the ardent Zionist British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel who appointed Husseini as Mufti despite the fact that he came fourth in the elections to the post in 1921.

Stern did his best to form a pact with the above

The British and the Zionists always preferred reactionary, feudal leaders of the Palestinians to secular nationalists like the Istiqlal Party which was severely repressed.

Husseini was a minor war criminal compared to Walter Rauff, the inventor of the gas truck which was used at the first extermination camp Chelmno. Rauff became an Israeli agent after the war.

This did not stop the Mufti playing a ‘starring role’ in Yad Vashem's Encycolpedia of the Holocaust. The article on the Mufti is longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined and longer than the article on Eichmann. It is only slightly exceeded in length by the entry for Hitler. [Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life p. 158].

The Stern Gang was founded in 1940 from a split in another terrorist group, Irgun, which was commanded by former Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin. Lehi was a Blood and Fire Zionist group and its rehabilitation in Israel today says everything about the Zionist attitude to genuine terrorism.

Ilan Pappe

I had just written a book, Zionism During the Holocaust, which contains a section on The Zionist Group that was openly pro-Nazi. This was probably why I was interviewed. Also interviewed by the program makers were Ilan Pappe, the foremost historian of Zionism and its misdeeds and Tom Suarez who has written a couple of very interesting books on Zionism and its antecedents, including its  terroristic proclivities. Another person who was interviewed was Yair Stern, the son of Abraham Stern, the founder of the Stern Gang.

The Stern Gang distinguished itself in 1940 by its offer, not once but twice to Nazi Germany to form a military pact. The idea was for them to recruit 40,000 European Jews and thence, with help from Nazi Germany, to invade Palestine and set up a Jewish State under the auspices of Nazi Germany.  Stern was convinced at that point that Germany was going to win the war and he wanted to be on the winning side.

The Program Interviewed Yair Stern, the son of Abraham Stern

Naftali Lubenchik, from the Stern Gang met a senior representative of the German Foreign Ministry, Otto von Hentig and Alfred Roser, a Military Intelligence agent, in Beirut on 11 January 1941. Lebanon at that time was under the control of Vichy France. The Nazis however ignored the proposal. The Stern Gang had previously sought to work with Mussolini although they were not alone in this.

Covering letter attached to proposed agreement between Stern Gang and Mussolini

The Irgun’s youth wing, Betar, had trained at the Italian naval base of Civitavechia as a result of  an agreement with Mussolini, as had some of Lehi’s cadre. The President of the Zionist Organisation, Chaim Weizmann had made no less than 4 trips to see Mussolini. The Zionist Organisation made it clear, in the words of Weizmann’s predecessor Nahum Sokolow, who also visited Mussolini, that the Zionists had no problems with fascism, just anti-Semitism (or rather too much anti-Semitism!).

Tony Greenstein being interviewed

On 11 January 1941, Vice Admiral Ralf von der Marwitz, the German naval attaché in Turkey, filed a report (the "Ankara document") conveying the offer by Lehi to ‘actively take part in the war on Germany's side’ in return for German support for ‘the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich.’

Major Morton killed Stern

In December 1941 Nathan Yellin Mor was sent on another trip to Beirut to meet the Nazis but this time he was intercepted in Syria by the British and arrested. Thus ended the dreams of a greater Zionist and Nazi Reich. In February 1942 Stern was killed by the British Major Morton.

The Stern Gang became notorious for its bank robberies and assassinations. It had an eclectic political philosophy which combined extreme racism (Arabs were to become slaves under a Jewish master race) and yet an orientation to the Soviet Union at one time and what was termed ‘National Bolshevism’.

In November 1944 Lehi also assassinated the resident British Minister in Cairo, Lord Moyne, who was a personal friend of Churchill. The assassins were quickly caught and hanged.

A wanted poster for Stern

Churchill had been a long-term friend of the Zionists and he declared that:

If our dreams of Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labors for its future are to produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself would have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently.

In fact this is exactly what has happened. Zionism has indeed produced a new set of gangsters and they are led by the Al Capone of Zionism, Benjamin Netanyahu.  However this has not stopped British or American imperialism from supporting the Israeli state unconditionally.

Menachem Begin - Irgun leader

As I argued in the film Lehi was not a break with Zionism anymore than Begin’s Irgun had been. Their differences with the mainstream Labour Zionists were ones of tactics not principles. Indeed at times they were very useful for the Labour Zionists who could at one and the same time dissociate themselves from Lehi’s actions whilst at the same time supporting them.

This was true of the first and most famous massacre of Palestinians in the Nakba, in the village of Deir Yassin (now Givat Shaul) which lies literally a stone’s throw away from the Zionist holocaust propaganda museum, Yad Vashem.

Although Haganah dissociated itself from the massacre of over 100 Palestinians in a forerunner of what is happening in Gaza today, to the extent of David Ben-Gurion sending a letter of apology to Transjordan’s King Abdullah, they had in fact secretly agreed to the massacre, as Ilan Pappe explained in the program.

Supporter of the Stern Gang

Haganah had also agreed to the assassination of UN mediator Count Folk Bernadotte in 1948 although in public they had condemned it to the point of making Lehi a banned organisation, describing it as a terrorist group.

The Zionists today say that it was the Palestinians who had rejected the UN Partition Plan of November 29 1947 (UN Resolution 181). But this is one more Zionist lie. Not only did they expand beyond the boundaries of the Jewish State that the UN had agreed before May 1948 but they had also rejected the UN proposal that Jerusalem, being the home of all 3 religions, should be internationalised. 

After Stern's death, the Stern Gang was led by a triumvirate including Yitzhak Shamir

This was rejected by all wings of the Zionist movement, hence the assassination of Bernadotte. 

As Tom Suarez pointed out in the programme Bernadotte has personally saved 20,000 Jews from the concentration camps when he reached an agreement with Himmler that 100 white buses with Red Crosses on their roofs took Jews and other prisoners from the concentration camps in February 1945.

Bernadotte had single-handedly rescued more Jews than the Zionists (whose collaboration with the Nazis has since become notorious) yet that was no reason for them not to murder him. See Newsweek’s The Swedish Schindler: How Count Bernadotte Saved Thousands of Jews From Death

How you might ask has Israel remembered the Stern Gang and its founder Yair Stern. Bearing in mind that Israel considers itself at the forefront of the fight against ‘terrorism’ you would be forgiven for assuming that mention of his name would be verboten in Israel today.  Not a bit of it.

Abraham Stern Who Was Killed by the British

The street where Stern was killed by the British has been renamed Stern Street. "Avraham Stern” streets are ubiquitous across Israel. The town of Kochav Yair was established in his memory. Even the Israeli  Postal Service got in on the act issuing a stamp commemorating him with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu naming his firstborn son Yair.

In How should Avraham Stern be remembered?  Mark Regev, the former Israeli Ambassador to London, noted that the first Israeli Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion found some positive words with which to describe Lehi’s founding commander:

There is no doubt that Avraham Stern was one of the greatest and most admired people to emerge during the Mandate. I venerate… his steely courage and boundless dedication to Israel’s liberation.

Regev wrote ‘the once Zionist renegade is now Israeli mainstream’.

So when Zionists tell you that they oppose terrorism, it is worth remembering that they only oppose ‘terrorism’ when it comes to Palestinian violence. Terrorism committed by Zionists is fine because it serves their objectives, notably the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Yitzshak Shamir

The fact that Stern had tried to negotiate a military pact with Nazi Germany, of which Ben-Gurion was all too aware, was irrelevant. The fact that he was a racial supremacist was even more irrelevant. Regev asks innocently if Ben-Gurion was ‘

retrospectively whitewashing a Zionist terrorist merely because Stern was a committed Jewish patriot, seemingly confirming the dictum that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”? 

Regev’s conclusion was that

Stern’s attacks against the organs of British subjugation – officialdom, military and police – should be viewed as justified insurgency. Even in the politically questionable case of Lord Moyne, was not Lehi’s chosen victim the senior representative of British colonial rule?

Being a myopic Zionist Regev is unable to see why Palestinian ‘terrorism’ is equally justified if not more so since the Zionists were the catspaws and creation of the British state. Their fight against the British was not about a fight for freedom but about their right to expel and subjugate the Palestinians.

This is the hypocrisy that is now playing out in Gaza where Palestinian organisations like Hamas are deemed ‘terrorist’ but the actions of bombing schools and hospitals, cold-bloodedly killing civilians including children is seen as justified.

Zionism was born in blood and fire and it is likely to end that way too.

Tony Greenstein

See https://www.aljazeera.com/program/al-jazeera-world/2024/8/13/stern-the-man-the-gang-and-the-state

Postcript

As a result of reading this blog, a viewer sent me a copy of the latest issue of the British Palestine Police Association magazine. In it there are two interesting articles on Stern from the Palestine Police's perspective. You can access these articles here

Just when B’Tselem declares Israel to be an Apartheid State up springs another liberal Zionist group

 Na'amod decides that anti-Zionism, i.e. challenging Jewish supremacy is a step too far

Last Sunday I attended a webinar held by the latest kid on the block Na'amod, which styles itself as ‘British Jews against occupation’. Na'amod is not the first such group to confine itself to Israel’s ‘occupation’ i.e. Israel’s rule over the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

What declaring oneself against ‘the occupation’ means is making a distinction between the West Bank/ East Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. As B’Tselem’s statement made clear there is but one regime over the whole territory from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.

There are different rules and systems of administration for Palestinians, depending on where they live, but everywhere Jews have superior rights. Palestinians in pre-1967 Israel have an inferior version of Israeli citizenship but it is superior to the military regime governing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. That is why Israel has repeatedly tried to transfer Israeli Palestinians into the West Bank something that they fear is part of the Trump Plan.

Every part of Greater Israel is under one regime whose guiding principle is Jewish supremacy.  Another word for Jewish supremacy is Zionism.

I say this because there were some in the audience last Sunday who were clearly Zionists. One of them proclaimed in the chat that ‘this is biased’ to which I took objection. I explained the workings of the West Bank Mediterranean to the Jordan River Gaza Trump Plan Greater Israel 1950 Absentee Property Law, introduced by the Israeli Labor Party government, which enabled Palestinians to be dispossessed by treating them as the Orwellian ‘Present Absentees’. In other words even if they were present in the Israeli state and had not been expelled they were to be treated as absent even if they had only fled a mile or so from their village because of the fighting.

I explained that this law, which is being used to dispossess Palestinians in East Jerusalem has never been used against Jews. In other words it is a nakedly racist law. It would appear that this was too much for Naomi and her well meaning liberal Zionist friends.

Although no Zionist was removed after a short time. I found myself ‘bumped’. Thinking that maybe it was my computer I rejoined only to be thrown out again. The third time there was a notice that ‘the host has removed you’. Although Zionists of any stripe were welcome at the meeting, anti-Zionists who made their views known were not welcome.

To add insult to injury, ‘Naomi’ then wrote me a letter thanking me for my attendance at the webinar! It is clear from the letter, which mentions Yachad and Peace Now by name that Na’mod represents an affirmation of Zionism, not a break with this Jewish supremacy, by seeking to put create an artificial distinction between Israel pre-1967 and Israel post-1967.

As B’Tselem makes clear, there is no Green Line between Israel and the West Bank, neither physically nor on Israeli maps. It only exists in the minds of Zionists in the West who use the fiction of ‘two states’ in order to justify the present Occupation. If Na’amod are genuinely sincere about opposing the Occupation then they also need to abandon support for 2 states and Zionism.

2 states is supported by groups such as the Israeli Embassy front Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement, both of which refuse to condemn any aspect of military rule in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 2 states  exists solely in the minds of those who wish to perpetuate military rule over 5 million Palestinians.

As Palestinians reject the 2 states paradigm liberal Zionists cling to it ever more firmly. 2 States provides a smokescreen for continued military rule over the West Bank and the expansion of settlements.

It is of course welcome that a new group has sprung up amongst British Jews but it is not unique. Jews for Justice for Palestinians are the original 2 state group and they have made little impression as their politics have become rapidly outdated and irrelevant. JfJP have long sought, for reasons I’ve never understood, affiliation to the Board of Deputies.

Yachad actually did manage to achieve affiliation to the Board as it is an explicitly Zionist group unlike JfJP. Na’mod will have to decide where it stands on the Jewish supremacist nature of Israel, i.e. its Zionist nature.  The omens don’t seem good

Tony Greenstein

See Israel Democracy Institute uncovers shocking racism in 'apartheid state'

Letter to Na’omod

Dear Naomi,

You don't need to thank me for joining you at Sunday's webinar on Settlement Activity and Dispossession in East Jerusalem, just as I don't need to thank you for the fact that I was 'bumped' from the webinar for asking difficult questions and making certain observations about the causes of the repression that your speakers were explaining to us.

What the two speakers, Mohammed El-Kurd and Sami Ershied, were saying was very moving as was their description of their experiences which is why it is a pity that you moved to prevent any discussion of the causes of the demolitions, evictions and settler terrorism that they spoke about.

However without seeking to tackle the causes of their plight you will certainly not remedy the effects. I realise that you are too young to remember Apartheid in South Africa but it is as if you were to have condemned the brutal policies of the South Africa government in Soweto without calling into question Apartheid itself.

I should add that nothing in the history of South Africa Apartheid compares to the use by Israel of planes and missiles in bombing refugee camps and ordinary peoples’ housing in Gaza, Jenin and elsewhere. Nor is there any counterpart to the thousands of Palestinian homes which have been demolished.

However horrific South Africa Apartheid was it does not compare to the bloodshed and brutality of Zionism in Israel.

The dispossession and terror that the speakers experienced at the hands of the settlers and the Israeli state did not come out of nowhere. They are not an accident of god. They are the result of the Zionist Project which, from its very inception, sought to remove the Palestinians from first the land and then the country.

Zionism, unlike settler colonial movements in Southern Africa, dressed this up in the language of 'mutual recognition', 'self determination' and other euphemisms. Zionism was a Janus faced movement which spoke with two tongues. Out of one face it preached mutual respect, brotherhood of man and tolerance. Out of the other face it breathed transfer, expulsion, massacre and dispossession.

This tactic of Zionism, which deliberately said one thing and did another, was best summed up in the 1930 Hope-Simpson Report which the British Government commissioned as a result of the 1929 riots in Palestine.

The effect of the Zionist colonisation policy on the Arab.— Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialised. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and good will on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy which the Zionist Organisation deliberately adopted.

I understand that Na’amod is connected to If Not Now as opposed to Jewish Voice for Peace which is an explicitly anti-Zionist group. From what I understand Na'amod harbours illusions that it can persuade synagogues to break away from the Board of Deputies.

The Board represents the most reactionary section of British Jewry.  British Jews themselves have moved significantly to the right from the days, 80 years ago, when Jews formed the backbone of the left.  Ever since the 1960’s, with the temporary exception of the Blair years, British Jewry has voted overwhelmingly for the Conservatives in the past half a century.

We saw the results of this with the fake anti-Semitism attacks on Labour’s most left-wing leader ever, Jeremy Corbyn.

The question is whether you are going to following the path of Yachad and try to reconcile Zionism with Justice and Peace or whether you are going to follow B’Tselem which has concluded that the Israeli state is an Apartheid State.

It is a stark and binary choice but any other decision and you will be fooling yourself and others.  Zionism has always been a Jewish Supremacist movement and Labour Zionism, its ‘left-wing’ has been the most racist of all.

The choice is yours.

Tony Greenstein

Letter from Na’mod

Thank you for joining us at Sunday's webinar on Settlement Activity and Dispossession in East Jerusalem, co-hosted with Free Jerusalem.

Free Jerusalem have contributed to this document, which provides more detailed information about the dispossession of Palestinians and settlement activity ongoing in East Jerusalem.

If you were unable to attend the event live, would like to watch it back or wish to send it on, you can find the recording here.

We were extremely grateful for the chance to hear from Mohammed El-Kurd and Sami Ershied, J.D, and for the excellent questions asked by many of the attendees. One of the questions which came up several times was, 'How can I help?'

If you are in the UK, please write to your MP and ask them to raise this issue with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, and to attend the APPG Palestine parliamentary briefing on this issue. This is being held on Wednesday 3rd February 2-3pm, with Mohammed joined by Hagit Ofran from Peace Now's Settlement Watch. Yachad have prepared a template which you can use for this.

We have seen that international pressure can and does work: in 2011, an international campaign forced the Jewish National Fund (KKL) to delay the eviction of the Sumarin family from their home in Silwan. Under the latest evictions orders, the family are once again facing displacement from their own home and their community at the hands of the JNF.

If you are Jewish, please consider joining our movement. We are British Jews making our voices heard: the occupation must be opposed by our community with Actions not Words.

We are a grassroots movement and depend on donations from our supporters to cover our costs and continue our work. If you can support us with a donation we would be incredibly grateful.

Please look out for our next webinar, which will be held next month!

Na'amod