A New Beginning
New life in Our Ancient Land New Life in Our Ancient Land
group were sent to convalescent homes in the mountains or near the sea, because of their extremely poor health, such as anemia, late development, depression, or severe problems of the throat and eyes. Soon after our arrival, the complicated political situation in Palestine caused a major event in the history of Kibbutz Yagur. By 1946, when we arrived, there were three distinct military groups in Israel. Some of the freedom fighters — the British called them ter - rorists — did not see eye to eye with the Haganah, which was the “official” underground army. Neither the Haganah nor the Palmach, which was like the Green Berets of the Haganah, carried out inde- pendent actions. They took the long-term perspective of shaping a moderate national policy. The other two groups, the larger being the Irgun (Etzel), headed by Menachem Begin, who later became Israel’s prime minister, and the smaller being Lechi, acted inde- pendently and were considered breakaway groups. At Yagur, we worked only with the “official” Jewish leadership and the Haganah. My feelings about the breakaway groups, the Irgun and Lechi, were mixed. The three groups did not always coordinate their actions, to say the least. The Irgun and Lechi made a number of daring moves on their own; they worked on their own and made their own decisions. Often, this caused problems because suddenly, while certain accommodations were being negotiated between the Haganah and the British, they would do something, such as kill British policemen, and the good will that the Haganah was trying to create would go down the drain. There were times when the Haganah was planning a major national action and a day before it was to take place, the breakaway underground would do something rash that alerted the British and brought out the patrols and police- men, so the national action could not be carried out. But many of us now feel that the Irgun and Lechi caused Great Britain so much misery that, in their own way, they probably ex- pedited its departure from Palestine. Great Britain had as many as
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