Yitzhak Shamir - Zionist Activism

Zionist Activism

Shamir joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a Zionist paramilitary group that opposed British control of Palestine. When the Irgun split in 1940, Shamir joined the more militant faction Lehi, also known as the Stern Gang, headed by Avraham Stern. In 1941 Shamir was imprisoned by British authorities. A few months after Stern was killed by the British in 1942, Shamir and Eliahu Giladi hid under a stack of mattresses in a warehouse of the detention camp at Mazra'a and at night they escaped through the barbed wire fences of the camp. Shamir, together with Giladi, Anshell Shpillman and Yehoshua Cohen, reorganised the movement into cells and trained its members. In 1943, he became one of the three leaders of the group, serving with Nathan Yellin-Mor and Israel Eldad. Shamir sought to emulate the anti-British struggle of the Irish Republicans and took the nickname "Michael" after Irish Republican leader Michael Collins. Shamir plotted the assassinations of both Lord Moyne, British minister for Middle East affairs, and of the UN negotiator Count Folke Bernadotte. In July 1946 he was caught, exiled and interned in Africa by British Mandatory authorities. In January 1947 he and four Irgun members escaped through a 200-foot tunnel they had dug. Shamir and some of the others hid in an oil truck for three days as it was driven over the border to French Somalia. They were arrested by the French but he was eventually allowed passage to France and granted political asylum. His underground sent him a forged passport, with which he returned to Israel after the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.

During the war, most of Lehi's members served in the army but the Lehi group in Jerusalem distanced itself from government control. Shamir, Eldad and Yellin-Mor authorised the murder of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, Count Folke Bernadotte during a truce. Lehi feared that Israel would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which they considered dangerous, unaware that the provisional Israeli government had already rejected a proposal by Bernadotte the day before. The Israeli provisional government drafted an ordinance for the prevention of terrorism and then invoked it to declare Lehi a terrorist organisation, consequently rounding up 200 of its members for administrative detention. They were amnestied some months later and given a state pardon. With the formation of the State of Israel, Lehi formally disbanded on May 29, 1948 and its forces joined the Israeli army.