[14][15][16] Its avowed aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by use of violence, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state.

[22][23] After Stern's death in 1942, the new leadership of Lehi began to move towards support for Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union[17] and the ideology of National Bolshevism, which was considered an amalgam of both right and left.

[24][22] Regarding themselves as "revolutionary Socialists", the new Lehi developed a highly original ideology combining an "almost mystical" belief in Greater Israel with support for the Arab liberation struggle.

[25] In April 1948, Lehi and the Irgun were jointly responsible for the massacre in Deir Yassin of at least 107 Palestinian Arab villagers, including women and children.

[32] In 1940, the idea of the Final Solution was still "unthinkable", and Stern believed that Hitler wanted to make Germany judenrein through emigration, as opposed to extermination.

[31][33] In December 1940, Lehi contacted Germany with a proposal to aid German conquest in the Middle East in return for recognition of a Jewish state open to unlimited immigration.

[37]Unlike the left-wing Haganah and right-wing Irgun, Lehi members were not a homogeneous collective with a single political, religious, or economic ideology.

Most Lehi leaders defined their organization as an anti-imperialist movement and stated that their opposition to British colonial rule in Palestine was not based on a particular policy but rather on the presence of a foreign power over the homeland of the Jewish people.

[39] In a pamphlet entitled 18 Principles of Rebirth, Stern noted the need to "solve the problem" of the "alien population" and called for the 'conquest' of Palestine.

A number of Lehi veterans established the Semitic Action movement in 1956 which sought the creation of a regional federation encompassing Israel and its Arab neighbours[40][41] on the basis of an anti-colonialist alliance with other indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East.

They note that when Lehi founder Avraham Stern went to study in fascist Italy, he refused to join the Gruppo Universitario Fascista for foreign students, even though members got large reductions in tuition.

[49] In contrast, a number of Lehi veterans, including co-leader Nathan Yellin-Mor, went on to establish the Semitic Action movement which sought the creation of a regional federation encompassing Israel and its Arab neighbours[40][41] on the basis of an anti-colonialist alliance with other indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East.

[52] Stern's group was seen as a terrorist organisation by the British authorities, who instructed the Defence Security Office (the colonial branch of MI5) to track down its leaders.

[53] The arrest of several other members led momentarily to the group's eclipse, until it was revived after the September 1942 escape of two of its leaders, Yitzhak Shamir and Eliyahu Giladi, aided by two other escapees Natan Yellin-Mor (Friedman) and Israel Eldad (Sheib).

It viewed the continued British rule of Palestine as a violation of the Mandate's provision generally, and its restrictions on Jewish immigration to be an intolerable breach of international law.

[62] Secret British documents about the affair were uncovered by historian Eldad Harouvi (now director of the Palmach Archives) and confirmed by former Irgun intelligence officer Yitzhak Berman.

[59] Late in 1940, Lehi, having identified a common interest between the intentions of the new German order and Jewish national aspirations, proposed forming an alliance in World War II with Nazi Germany.

[22] The organization offered cooperation in the following terms: Lehi would rebel against the British, while Germany would recognize an independent Jewish state in Palestine/Eretz Israel, and all Jews leaving their homes in Europe, by their own will or because of government injunctions, could enter Palestine with no restriction of numbers.

[32] Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik went to Beirut to meet German official Werner Otto von Hentig.

[73] Even as the full scale of Nazi atrocities became more evident in 1943, Lehi refused to accept Hitler as the main foe (as opposed to Great Britain).

[76][77] In 1982, postage stamps were issued for 20 Olei Hagardom, including Bet-Zouri and Hakim, in a souvenir sheet called "Martyrs of the struggle for Israel's independence.

To this end, Lehi conducted small-scale operations such as individual assassinations of British officials (notable targets included Lord Moyne, CID detectives, and Jewish "collaborators"), and random shootings against soldiers and police officers.

[citation needed] On 25 April 1946, a Lehi unit attacked a car park in Tel Aviv occupied by the British 6th Airborne Division.

[81] On 12 January 1947, Lehi members drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station in Haifa, killing four and injuring 140, in what has been called 'the world's first true truck bomb'.

Five weeks later, on 22 May, five alleged Lehi members were arrested in Paris with bomb making material including explosives of the same type as found in London.

Levstein was travelling as Jacob Elias; his fingerprints connected him to the deaths of several Palestine Policemen as well as an attempt on the life of the British High Commissioner.

Lehi fighters in return abducted four adult villagers and youth from al-Sheikh Muwannis with no connection to Ibzov's capture and threatened to kill them.

[107] Senior officers of the IDF, including Yisrael Galili and David Shaltiel, told the court that Lehi had hindered, rather than assisted the fight against the British and the Arabs.

[107] While the trial was in progress, some of the Lehi leadership founded a USSR-leaning political party called the Fighters' List with Yellin-Mor as its leader.

[109] In 1956, some Lehi veterans established the Semitic Action movement, which sought the creation of a regional federation encompassing Israel and its Arab neighbours[40][41] on the basis of an anti-colonialist alliance with other indigenous inhabitants of the Middle East.