wasteful. I was going to teach myself the things one must know to be effective in politics-history, military science, psychology, economics, social affairs. I also knew that I did not agree with the Irgun on many points. I did not agree with its reactionary stand, its anti-socialism, its contempt for the kibbutzim and the workers' movement. I did not agree with the concept of the Chosen Few. Few there may be at the beginning of any movement, but the job of the few is to influence, to educate, to win over the many.

* * *

The next few years, while the Irgun broke up, reformed and resumed the attack, and the Stern group set the tempo of armed struggle against the British, I tried to formulate these rough ideas into a system. After much trial and error, I succeeded in forming a small political group. It created an uproar which lasted until the 1948 Israeli-Arab war.

We called ourselves the Young Palestinians. But because our publication, which appeared irregularly whenever we made enough money, was called Bama'avak, meaning Struggle, we were generally called the Bama'avak group. Our message was quite simple and quite heretical: In Palestine a new Hebrew nation is born. This nation belongs to the Middle East. While throwing off the British yoke, it must help the other nations in this part of the world to throw out their imperialist masters. Our national movement, together with the Arab national movement, must form an integrated, coordinated Semitic front. A unified Semitic Region (for which we invented a new Hebrew word, Ha-Merkhav Ha-Shemi, which became our trademark) must become the common aim of all our struggles. The struggles themselves must become a unifying process, melting all our differences into one great movement toward national liberation, social reform, and planned regional progress.

We were accused of many things-of trying to cut our¬

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