British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume II - Page 604

CHAPTER XV.

(iii) LOCHMEI HERUT ISRAEL (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel=otherwise known as the Stern Group).

50. This group of extremely dangerous fanatics originated within the Irgun in October, 1939, when a serious difference of opinion arose mainly out of the Irgun' s decision to cease activity for the duration of World War II. The dissident faction, inspired by one Abraham Stern, was bitterly opposed to any form of cooperation with the Mandatory Power, arguing that Jewish national aims should be furthered at any cost even to the extent of collaborating with foreign powers and that the decision of the Irgun then headed by the late David Raziel (killed in Iraq in 1942 whilst on an Allied mission) was a departure from the basic principles of the organization.

51. Upon the release of Abraham Stern from internment in June, 1040-he had been detained with four others for suspected complicity in the murder of two British Police Inspectors in 1939- the group decided to sever their connection with the Jrgnn and set about the overthrow of the existing leadership by entering the field themselves. Taking with them a quantity of arms and documents from the headquarters of the Irgun, Stern and some fifty of his adherents established what they claimed to be the true National Military Organization, calling it in almost identical terms the Irgun Zvai Leumi Be'Lsrael (National Military Organization in Israel). To achieve their object they concentrated on the seizure of money and arms. Their first act was to raid an illegal arms cache in Hertzlia. Then came a bank robbery in Tel Aviv, involving nearly £P.5,000, followed by a rapid succession of other robberies and attempts.

52. The ruthless methods adopted by the Group to eliminate serious obstruction to their activities are characteristic of the sort of Nietzschean principles they lay down in dissertations prepared for recruits, which have been found to contain such phrases as "The superman must be callous in achieving his aims". There is no doubt that "the end justifies the means" is their maxim.

53. A notable instance of the lengths to which the Group are prepared to go in achieving their designs was the assassination of three senior police officers and injury to three others in January, 1942. Having caused a minor explosion in a small roof apartment in Tel Aviv, the scene of which they knew would be visited by senior police officers, they kept observation from a nearby roof until the arrival of the police party; they then touched off a large mine concealed in the room which the police were about to enter. The room was completely demolished with consequent loss of life. The perpetrators had also buried under the garden path a similar

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