Natan Yellin-Mor, who served as the political leader of Leḥi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) once the movement recovered from Yair’s assassination, wrote the following to the movement’s ideological leader, Dr. Israel Eldad, in 1943:
We must stress with great emphasis that we are not a Zionist movement. Zionism is empty of all content and no longer compels us forward to accomplish anything more. We are not a Zionist option and it is not our duty to bring this or that party back to the proper path. We are the Hebrew liberation movement in the Land of Israel. For us, Zionism is dead and we no longer wish to busy ourselves trying to revive it or anything else of its kind.
The letter was eventually published in 2003 and found among the writings of Shabtai ben-Dov, another leading ideologue of the movement.
While many self-defined Zionists like to use the term “Zionism” as a synonym for Jewish liberation, the truth is that Zionism was at best one very successful stage of Jewish liberation. And despite its great success at reviving the Hebrew language and ingathering much of the Jewish people home, Zionism remained a very shallow ideology.
Zionism also possessed many colonialist features. Leḥi saw itself as an indigenous people’s liberation movement and was understandably uncomfortable with the rhetoric used by Zionist leaders, especially those who collaborated with the British occupation regime in Palestine.
Leḥi was a rejection of the Zionist left and right. It viewed the Jewish people as an indigenous Semitic people victimized by imperialism. The movement related to the other natives of the Middle East as the Jewish people’s most natural allies.
The clearest proof of Zionism’s ideological flaws can be seen in the fact that since its establishment, the State of Israel has sought to attach itself to the western powers, something that has kept Israel dependent on empire and in constant conflict with our neighbors. By seeking superpower patronage from the West, successive Israeli governments have sent the message that we don’t see ourselves as truly native to the Middle East.
Leḥi desired to see the newly established State of Israel become an organic part of the Middle East that would work with progressive elements within the neighboring countries to create a united anti-imperialist front that would remain neutral in the Cold War and keep the region free from the agendas of foreign powers. This they understood to stand in stark opposition to the Zionist approach, which constantly lobbied powerful nations to achieve protection and recognition for Jewish rights.
One of the fundamental teachings of Yair to his Leḥi comrades was that a freedom fighter doesn’t fight to become free. He is able to fight because he’s already free.
The Leḥi fighters related to Zionists as unable to fight the foreign regime (even the Etzel was only able to psychologically fight the oppressive regime but not the foreign regime) and therefore sought to make clear their own rejection of Zionism in favor of a true Hebrew liberation movement capable of aligning its interests not with the forces of empire but with the liberation of other indigenous and oppressed peoples.
