Echoes Of A Shofar (video)

Not new, but worth another look, an echo of the Mandate period when the British authorities forbade Jews to blow the shofar at the Kotel on Yom Kippur for fear of offending Arabs.  It's the story of several individuals who defied the ban, and were imprisoned for their efforts.  Of course, shortly after that the Kotel fell into Jordanian hands, and was inaccessible to Jews until liberated by Israeli troops in 1967.
All of which suggests that Jews should never agree to entrust their holy places to the control of others.

Hat tip: David Singer

“The Palestine Government did its best to play down the Jewish effort”: More awkward truths that Britain’s Mandate Administration concealed

This is the third in a trilogy of posts concerning Britain’s suppression of information pertaining to the Jews of Palestine during the 1940s, especially news that reflected well on them in contrast to the Arabs. My earlier posts in this trilogy were “The Whole Thing Has a Nazi Smell About It” (23 December) and ‘Obliterating That Terrible Word “Jewish”’ (6 January).

“The maintenance of the censorship in Palestine during the period of the war produced many curiosities in the way of prohibited material”, the London-based Jewish Chronicle’s Jerusalem Correspondent observed in its issues of 19 October 1945.

It was only in the Spring of 1943 that the system of returning marked copies of cables were returned to him and other press correspondents; hitherto, they had no idea that their material had been expurgated. The file he’d kept from then onwards of material he’d sent to the paper but which the Censor had blue-pencilled “makes amazing reading”, he wrote.

“It shows the lengths to which local bureaucracy was prepared to go, not in protecting the interests of local security, but in justifying the White Paper policy, in white-washing the blunders of meddling departments, in concealing official incompetence, and in pursuing that course which a friend of mine here aptly described as trying to keep the dilapidated old ship of state afloat by taking the patch off one leak and putting it over another.”

He went on, with a more than touch of bitterness:

‘The weekly issues of the Jewish Chronicle arrived in Palestine as regularly as the dislocated wartime mails permitted, but only occasional, presumably innocuous copes trickled through to subscribers. The others were piled up and burnt: a waste of postage to the newspaper publishers, a waste of shipping to the war effort. But then, why should the bureaucrats in Palestine worry overmuch about waste? Had they not wasted so much Jewish manpower in Europe by keeping the gates of the country locked, bolted, and barred, and what did a few thousand copies of overseas Jewish newspapers matter? ....

Early in the war, when the British military authorities announced recruiting of Palestinians, the Palestine Government did its best to play down the Jewish effort. The Arabs were then reaching the top of their bent in disloyalty, the pro-Axis elements in Iraq and Syria were simmering (with what results we know), the British thought they were caught in the cleft stick of the Middle East between the powerful Axis forces to the west and north and the Arabs all around them. The Arabs of Palestine were scornful of the attempts to raise a local force of Palestinians to defend the country. Only the Jews cooperated.

So the publicity given abroad for a Jewish Army was put under a censorship ban. Obviously the Arabs would be peevish if they knew that the Jews wanted to raise a fighting force to help Britain in her predicament and stress, and the appeasement wallahs in Cairo would have nothing of that. Oh, no! Better that the Jews do their enlisting and their fighting and their effort for the Empire anonymously, secretly, without fuss or pother [sic], than that the noble son of the desert be enraged at this challenge to his own lagging loyalty.

So these things happened:

A Jewish news agency sent a cabled account abroad of a wartime exhibition in Tel-Aviv, around the summer of 1943... the exhibition was a Palestinian Jewish tribute to the Soviet war effort. The cable stated: “Zionist, British and Russian flags flew over the entrance to the exhibition.” The word “Zionist” was deleted by the Censor.

When the Palestine Regiment was formed out of the three Jewish battalions of the Buffs (to which the Jewish infantry regiments were originally attached), it was necessary to take account of the three or four companies of Arab infantry. So the badge devised was the same emblem as appears on a Palestinian 100-mil (two-shilling) coin: the olive branch. The Jewish soldiers wanted a national design of their own and refused to wear these two-bob badges. Courts martial ensued.

The P.B.S. Orchestra, an ensemble composed wholly of Jewish musicians, although organised by the Broadcasting Service, gave a concert at an army camp in Palestine, but had been ordered not to play “Hatikvah” at its conclusion. When the orchestra was packing its instruments at the end of the recital, a young Jewish subaltern in the A.T.S. [Auxiliary Territorial Service] rose and began singing the [Jewish] national anthem in a high clear voice. The audience joined in. So did the musicians. An emotional scene was witnessed at this remarkable demonstration of national pride.

When the Palestinian Regiment went out into the desert, and the Jewish transport companies of the R.A.S.C. [Royal Army Service Corps] did such yeoman work in servicing the Eighth Army from El Alamein to the Po, they had no flag of their own. At one place near Benghazi a Jewish company mounted its own blue and white colours and refused to strike them when ordered by the British Area Commander. “That is the flag we are fighting for,” they said. They were all charged with mutiny, and the matter would have ended disasterously for both officers and men, who had enlisted primarily as Jews, had not wiser counsels prevailed.’

And then came this unpleasant revelation:

'Pro-Fascist elements in the Polish Army in the Middle East about which a chapter of itself could be written – were protected by military censorship because it was an Allied Army. It is now no secret that Jews were put in gaol as “deserters”, that anti-semitism assumed a militant and active form among both the higher-ups and subordinate ranks in General Anders’ forces, and that there were numerous cases of the humiliation of Jews. I have it on good authority that a Polish colonel used to parade his battalion every morning, give the order “Jews to the front!” and when the Jewish soldiers stepped forward, he would say contemptuously, “You Jews cost us our country and are responsible for our exile. When we get you back to Poland we will murder you.” This, I am told, was part of the parade ritual and was not excepted even on the Sabbath. The story could not be printed – that Polish colonel was the ally of Britain.'

The Jerusalem Correspondent continued:

'Space would not permit the publication of the many incidents which occurred in the war years as part of the supreme contribution by the Palestine Government to winning the war by hiding the Jewish share. The Jewish Agency Executive’s files must contain more of the accounts of this debasing and shameful treatment than the memory of the ordinary mortal can encompass. It would be interesting in due course to read the history of the war against the Jews of Palestine which the protracted negotiations between the Jewish Agency and the Government and the archives of the Agency’s political Department would disclose. Perhaps that history will one day be written.’

In the Jewish Chronicle of 2 November the Jerusalem Correspondent returned to his theme, to complete it.

‘There is no doubt that the appeasement-minded circles in British officialdom in Palestine, who took their cue from the man at the top, Sir Harold MacMichael, were definitely hostile to to the manifestations of Jewish loyalty in the early days of the war and subsequently. The Arabs, as everyone but these sanguine souls had expected, were not “playing the game”. They had no aversion to taking British money in the form of war contacts and purchase of farm produce for the Army commissariats, but they showed a pronounced opposition to being roped into fight the Axis. After all, was not the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Hussein, an honoured guest of first the Italian Fascists and then the German Nazis? What was good enough for him was good enough for them.

Today there is no move to secure the custody of the Mufti, who, as a Palestinian citizen, and subject of His Majesty’s Mandatory rule, was as much a traitor as William Joyce to Britain and Vidkun Quisling to Norway.

Nor did those Arabs who joined the Palestinian units of the British Army behave any better. After a little while they began deserting in large numbers, with, of course, their rifles and ammunition. There were frequent outbreaks of mutiny; I can cite three which came to my knowledge:

One was at the Wadi Sarar ordnance depot, when Arab infantrymen attacked Jewish soldiers and had to be confined to barracks by force of arms, and subsequently transferred; another was during the troubles in the Lebanon this year, when Palestinian Arab troops joined a VE Day procession in Beirut without authority, carried a picture of the Mufti of Jerusalem at the head, and engaged in hooliganism and shop-window breaking, and, I am told, tried to attack a French convent because it showed only French flags and no Arab banners; again during this summer there was a similar outbreak.

As a result of the third demonstration, the Arab infantrymen were discharged out of their regular release groups on the ground that “their services were no longer required”. Today, few if any Arabs are left in the Palestinian units, but 15,000 Jewish men and women are still serving.”

A document in the Jerusalem Correspondent’s possession showed that, following a

‘long period of frustration of their effort, the Jewish Agency Executive was informed ... that its Liaison Officer at the Sarafand Recruiting Depot, who had been active in that capacity for over two years (... since the early part of 1941) was notified by the officer in charge to leave the Recruit Training Depot by May 1. On April 29, the premises of the Recruiting Office of the Jewish Agency in Tel- Aviv were entered by the police, a search was carried out, officials and members of the public who were present were interrogated, and the official in charge of the office was “detained for further examination”. The Jewish Agency was not advised of the action taken nor was it informed of any complaints or charges against the officials concerned.

The Jewish Agency Executive registered on April 29, in a letter to the Chief Secretary, its “most emphatic protest against the action.” It was added: “A police search in an institution of the Jewish Agency of the Mandate regime of which the Agency forms an integral part. The incident is all the more grave as the search and the detentions occurred in an office which is engaged in the recruiting of men and women for His Majesty’s Forces.”

The letter concluded:

“The Jewish Agency is driven to the conclusion that by the demonstrative action now taken the authorities have broken off their cooperation with the Jewish Agency in the organisation of Jewish recruiting. The Jewish Agency can obviously expect its officials and the numerous volunteers assisting them to engage in the tasks of recruiting under conditions which expose them to police searches, interrogations, and detention. It, therefore, begs to inform the Government that the procedure they have authorised has compelled the discontinuance of the activity of the Jewish Agency’s recruiting offices.”

That was the position in April 1943. The letter from which I have quoted was sent to foreign press correspondents by the Jewish Agency, but the correspondents (myself among them) could not get it through censorship. Subsequent efforts succeeded in overcoming the formidable obstacles which this letter indicated, and the Jewish Brigade Group finally emerged as a fighting force. It was not for several months, however, that Jewish recruiting was resumed.’

Obliterating ‘that terrible word “Jewish”’: More “Absurd and Damaging Antics” of Britain’s Palestine Censor

Remember my post last month, in which I showed how, in 1940, Britain’s Palestine Censor mutilated a Christmas message written for the Palestine Post by the Scottish clergyman Dr Norman Maclean to rid it of all references to Christianity’s debt to Jews?

Well, being too pro-Jewish for the liking of the British authorities, Dr Maclean was silenced by the Censor again. To quote Professor Elliott Horowitz:

‘The connection between the world’s soul and the Jewish people had concerned Rev. Maclean ... well before his arrival in Jerusalem, which he first visited in 1934. During the First World War, while still serving at St. Cuthbert’s [Edinburgh] he contributed a foreword to Leon Levison’s The Jew in History (1916) which opened with the words: “The world owes its soul to the Jews.” In consonance with that position Maclean shared the hope of Levison, his Safed-born brother in Christ, that the war’s end “may be the resoration of the Jews to Palestine,” which Maclean saw as “the only lasting reparation that Christendom can make for centuries of wrong,” adding that “it was a disgrace that the holy places of Christianity should be in the hands of the Mohammedans.”

Not surprisingly, Rev. Maclean, whose views were not quite in consonance with those of Britain’s Mandatory representatives, did not last very long at St. Andrews in Jerusalem. Early in January of 1941 the Palestine Post laconically reported that “Dr. Norman and the Hon. Mrs. Maclean are planning to return to Britain shortly.” Several months later he completed his tenth book, His Terrible Swift Sword: On the Problem of Jewish Immigration to Palestine (1942), which he had begun writing “on the summit of one of the hills of Judah looking down on Ain Kerem,” but completed in Portree on the Isle of Skye. As the Palestine Post reported, it was prohibited for importation into Palestine by the High Commissioner [Sir Harold MacMichael] who may not have approved of such passages as “Nine months after we declared war on Hitlerism, victims of Hitlerism are still in Athlit [p. 16].” Shortly after the book’s publication Maclean spoke at an event sponsored by the Jewish National Fund at London’s Dorchester Hotel.’ (http://seforim.blogspot.com/2009/08/elliott-horowitz-modern-amalekites-from.html)

The fervently and forthrightly philosemitic Baron Wedgwood (whose speech denouncing British policy, along with a similar one of Baron Davies, I quoted in the same post) was similarly treated. On 9 June 1942, in an address laden with “deep emotion” (to quote the Jewish Chronicle of 12 June) in the House of Lords, he demanded that Palestinian Jewry be permitted to recruit and arm home guards, that a specifically Jewish force be raised there, into which any Jew who had escaped Hitler’s clutches could enlist, and that all Jews presently serving in the Pioneer Corps be armed and trained to fight.

In the course of his address he revealed that it had been “years” since any speech of his had been reported in Palestine – and that a recent broadcast of his to America had been censored despite assurances to the contrary, and an official Mandate administration broadcast to the Arabs had explained that he and Davies were not genuine bluebloods, but were social upstarts created peers for political reasons.

The distinguished Polish-born nominally Roman Catholic Professor of Modern History at Manchester University, Lewis Namier (né Bernstein; pictured), in a letter to the staunchly pro-Zionist Manchester Guardian early in April 1942, complained that the Censor had deleted the following concluding paragraph from a leading article in the Palestine Post (27 February 1942) about the Struma tragedy: “It is yet too early and the shock too fresh for responsibility to be allotted and the guilt to be established. But that there must be an inquiry goes without saying. That is one of the most established traditions of the Empire under whose protection we live. Catastrophes such as these have led more than once in British history to far-reaching decisions. But whatever investigation is conducted, whatever action taken, one thing is certain: This must never happen again.”

Wrote Namier: “Surely this is legitimate comment and, indeed, remarkably restrained in the circumstances.” He wondered whether Colonial Secretary Lord Cranborne’s similar sentiments had been cut by the Censor.

And in a leader about that incident, the Manchester Guardian observed that the Palestine Censor appeared to be invading virgin territory, and was motivated by a desire not to offend the Arabs: “This particular exercise, if it is confirmed, would mean that the censorship was protecting the Administration not only from criticising but even from possible or implied criticism, for the passage does not impute responsibility from anyone.”

In another leader quoted in the Jewish Chronicle (10 April 1942) , the Manchester Guardian stated that the Palestine Censor had thickly obscured the political situation in the Middle East, and “presumably we have been suffered to hear so little because there is so little good we could have heard. Except in one point there is no enthusiasm for the Allied cause anywhere in the Middle East.... Only in Palestine is there a compact, resolute, tough people anxious to place all its resources of men and talent at the disposal of the Allies because their cause is the cause of the Allies. But we have discouraged the Jews and chosen to believe, against all the facts, that we can win the phantasmal cooperation of the Arabs by sacrificing the real cooperation of the Jews. We may reasonably hope to have a space of time ahead of us to review our policy and correct our errors. Shall we be resolute and imaginative enough to do it in that vital region?”

The Jewish Chronicle realised, when angry letters from Palestine-based subscribers asking where their copies were began to mount up, that issues were not getting through. In March 1943 the paper wrote to the Colonial Office seeking an explanation, and in its issue of 20 August that year reported that department’s response, freshly made following enquiries by the CO to the High Commission for Palestine:

“The general policy of the Palestine Censorship in dealing with periodicals is to ban only those issues which contain articles deemed likely to excite public opinion in a way which might lead to disturbance. Latent ill-feelings between the two main communities in the country are apt to be aroused, and indeed exacerbated, when claims are made over-emphatically by or on behalf of the other community. The policy of the censorship is based on the consideration that articles likely to arouse such feelingsmight cause disturbance and therefore prejudice the war effort. Certain issues of the Jewish Chronicle included articles containing allusions to such matters as the establishment of a Jewish State and the formation of a Jewish Army, which appeared to the competent authorities to be of a tendentious nature, and it was on this account that it was found necessary to stop these issues.”

Holding no illusions as to the Administration’s practice of appeasing Arab opinion at the expense of Jewish interests, the Jewish Chronicle’s Jerusalem Correspondent noted (23 April 1943):

“Apart from the absurd and damaging antics of censorship in [Palestine] – responsibility for which is passed from one to another à la Spenlow and Jorkins [business partners in Dickens’s David Copperfield] – there have been other priceless examples of how not to run an administration. At least one of the wartime orange crops was allowed to rot on the ground because the available outlet to Egypt was blocked – not by the enemy but by the interal enemy, Messrs. Dilly, Dally, Prejudice, and Red-Tape. The British Embassy authorities in Cairo and the Palestine Government between them were so busy running round finding out everybody – except Jews, of course, who might have corns that might be trodden on, that while thousands of British troops in Egypt and Libya yearned for oranges, millions of oranges rotted in the Palestine orchards.”

On 15 October 1943 the Jewish Chronicle carried a long editorial headed “More Light!” regarding the Palestine Censor. It deplored “the kind of censorship practised in Palestine, where, on the flimsiest and most artificial pretexts, papers and periodicals are eviscerated or barred, reputable British newspapers from outside are confiscated – often merely for referring to a particular point of view which the Palestine Government officials do not like – news going into the country is ruthlessly controlled in the interests of the Administration’s policy of the moment, and a heavy hand clamps down on correspondents’ outgoing messages if they should venture to deviate from the opinions of, or reveal facts inconvenient for, the officials at Government House.”

'The persistence with which the censorship in Palestine tries to obliterate that terrible word “Jewish” from references to the Palestinian Jewish volunteers in the British forces is amazing!” observed a report in the Jewish Chronicle (23 June 1944).

 ‘A friend has shown me a communication he recently received from Jerusalem, in which a friend of his wrote of some comrades who had given their lives in the United Nations’ [i.e. Allies’] cause, while serving in the British Army. A word in a certain phrase, however, has been thoroughly blacked out by the censor in Palestine. “Reasons of military security”, you may sapiently observe, but I should be willing to wager quite a large sum that the only reason for the censorship is political. The phrase in each case now reads: “He enlisted in a Palestinian ------ unit of the British Army”; my guess is that the “------ ” represents the obliteration of the word “Jewish”’. (In the original each gap has a thick continuous black line, not the six dashes I have here.)

According to Moshe Braver, a correspondent for the religious Zionist newspaper Hatzofeh (The Observer, founded in Palestine in 1937) addressing a London audience in 1945, the suppression of news about Jewish achievements in Palestine and the contribution of the Yishuv to the war effort eased with the appointment as Censor in the Summer of 1944 of Edwin Samuel (who eventually succeeded his father, the former High Commissioner, as Viscount Samuel).

There was still plenty of censorship, however, as when in 1945 the South African Jewish Times was banned from Palestine owing to its inclusion of a speech made by a Dr L. Altman at a Revisionist meeting in Tel Aviv, under the headline “Revisionists’ Feelings towards Britain are the same as those of the Jews towards the Czar”. An editorial in the affected paper commented:

“the Palestine censor allowed the report in the first place to be transmitted to the United States. The ban, therefore, is Gilbertian, with the censor rebuking himself. If the censor holds the view that insistence on just Jewish demands is anti-British, if the denunciation of the iniquitous White Paper and the sufferings of children are subversive – then he can go ahead and ban us.” (Quoted in JC, 27 July 1945).

And in 1946 political notes (“Reshimot Mediniot”) in the Zionist Organisation’s official organ Haolam (The World), written by A. Reubeni, whose brother Yitzhak Ben-Zvi headed the Vaad Leumi (and was Israel's President, 1952-63), showed – said a writer in the Jewish Chronicle – “the aggressive clamp that the Palestine Censor seeks to impose on the press of that country ... the sorry lengths to which such censorship goes”. The expunged passage went (in English translation):

“The Arab Boycott and the Mandate for Palestine [heading]. Why does Great Britain not protect the Jewish population of Palestine against the boycott proclaimed by a number of foreign States? There seem to be only three possible explanations: (a) Great Britain wishes to protest but cannot; (b) She can protest but is unwilling to do so; (c) She neither can nor wishes to protest. Whichever of these is the true explanation there can be only one conclusion, to wit, that great Britain is no longer fitted or entitled to retain the Mandate for Palestine.”

(Towards the close of 1945, over two issues of his newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle’s Jerusalem Correspondent – convinced that the Administration was placating Arab opinion at the expense of Jewish interests – spilled the beans on what the Censor had hidden from the public gaze. It makes very interesting reading, but since including it would make this post too long, I’ll reveal in a subsequent post what it contained.)

“The Whole Thing Has a Nazi Smell About It”: How Britain’s Palestine Censor de-judaised a Christmas Message

Just before Christmas in 1940 Dr Norman Maclean, a chaplain to King George V and an ex-moderator of the Church of Scotland, who happened to be visiting Jerusalem, was invited to write a Christmas message for inclusion in the Palestine Post (since 1950 the Jerusalem Post) at the invitation of its editor, Gershon Agron.
Doing his utmost to raise morale during that dark period, when, since France had fallen and America had not yet entered the conflict, Britain and its Commonwealth faced the Nazi barbarians alone, the good clergyman entitled his message “Sursum Corda” (“Lift Up Your Hearts”).

Mindful that Chanukah and Christmas coincided that year, he referred in his message to the “world of wonder and mystery, in which the threads of life are so closely interwoven that were it not for the Jewish festival there would never have been a Christian festival, for the one is the child of the other”.

Inexplicably, that passage never made it to Agron’s newspaper – it was cut by the Palestine Censor employed by the British government during the Second World War.

Dr Maclean also wrote: “it is totalitarians today who must be changed from instruments of torture and tyranny into men of goodwill ‘ere peace can come”. For some reason the Palestine Censor disapproved, and through that passage too went his blue pencil.

The Censor also struck this through: “the Angels did not proclaim peace to gangsters, robbers, and mass murderers”.

And this:

“Bethlehem will conquer Berchtesgaden. In that great hope Christians and Jews can rejoice together. The Jews no less than the Christians. For it is the Jews who have given the world a universal religion. They gave the world the priceless gift of monotheism that through Bethlehem has gone until the ends of the earth. It is no exaggeration to say that there is nobody in the world today for whom life is not different because of Jerusalem or Bethlehem.”

That’s right. Blue-pencilled as well.

In fact, 61 lines of Dr Maclean’s 100-line text were deleted by the Palestine Censor, so that only 39 remained.

As Time and Tide (a British literary and current affairs journal of liberal bent, founded in 1920 by Lady Rhondda) indignantly noted when it broke the story at the beginning of 1942 – over a year after the event – that official even reworked the translation from the Latin “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis” to excise the words “to men of goodwill”.

Time and Tide maintained that the Censor’s changes constituted a “British version of the Index Expurgatorius”.

And it concluded, not unreasonably:

“If any underlying idea can be traced in the Censor’s excisions, it seems to suppress the connection between Christianity and Judaism. This connection is asserted by all the Christian Churches, while the Nazis deny it by suppression and perversion of evidence. Is Bethlehem not to conquer Berchtesgaden?”

Following Time and Tide’s exposure of the story, a leading article in the Manchester Guardian (as pro-Zionist as its egregious successor, the London-based Guardian, is anti- ) called for an explanation of the Censor’s “eccentricities”, adding:

 “There seems to be no reason for the fantastic exercise except that the Palestine censorship must have wanted to hide the origins of Christianity in the Jewish race and religion. But why? The Colonial Office, which is the Ministry responsible to Parliament, should be made to explain.”

On 10 March 1942, in the House of Lords, a Welsh peer and former Liberal MP, Baron Davies of Llandinam (pictured; 1880-1944), who took a keen interest in international affairs, made a stinging indictment of British policy in Palestine.  He cited the Censor's behaviour (italicised passage, below) as yet another example of Britain's "policy of appeasement" towards the Arabs. 

'I always imagined that when the war started the policy of appeasement was dead, but now I do not believe it is, at any rate so far as Palestine is concerned. It will be remembered that on the very first day of the war a Jewish Congress was sitting in Geneva and they dispatched Dr Weizmann post-haste to the Prime Minister, Mr [Neville] Chamberlain, in order to assure our Government that the manpower and the material resources of the Jews were at our disposal in carrying on this war. There were two ways in which Jewish man-power could have been used to assist our war effort – first of all, recruitment in Palestine itself, and secondly, recruitment of Jews from abroad. Unfortunately these offers have never been accepted and given effect to. I believe at the outset, when Mr Malcolm MacDonald was Colonial Secretary, he turned them down, and he of course, was one of the arch-appeasers, who was not only prepared to sacrifice other people in a policy of appeasement but even to make a present of our ports on the West coast of Ireland which has caused us intense embarrassment ever since.

After him came Lord Lloyd. He was always regarded as a friend of the Arabs, but he realized the importance of accepting with both hands the offers which had come from the Jewish Agency of help in order to prosecute the war. He, I believe, did away with the stupid regulation of parity between the Jews and the Arabs in the matter of recruitment. Up to that time, I believe, only a certain number of Jews were allowed to be recruited, and that number could not exceed the number of Arabs who volunteered. Another thing which he did was to abolish the distinction between the combatant and the non-combatant categories in which Jews could be enlisted. At the outset they were allowed only to enlist in the Pioneers, but subsequently they were also allowed to enlist in the combatant units of the British Army, and many of them did so. The third thing which he did was to agree, in principle at any rate, to the formation of a Jewish Division, which would be recruited overseas, recruited in what are now – but were not then – enemy-occupied countries and in South America and other places. This Division was to be prepared to fight anywhere – not only in the Middle East but in any theatre of war. Unfortunately, Lord Lloyd passed away, and as your Lordships are aware he was succeeded by my noble friend Lord Moyne, and, regrettably, this proposal for the Jewish Division, as he explained to us here a few weeks ago, did not come to fruition. It was postponed, and more or less rejected. Now, of course, all these Jews who could have been mobilized at that time in what are now enemy-occupied countries have become, in effect, slaves of Hitler, and they are entirely lost to us.

I cannot help feeling that we have been guilty of pouring cold water upon the enthusiasm of the Jews to assist us and to aid our cause. In fact, there has been a succession of snubs. First of all, as I have said, we insisted upon the stupid rule of parity of enlistment. Then we said the Jews must only enlist in Pioneer units – they must not be allowed to join combatant units. Then we refused to allow them to have their own badges, or to form distinctively Jewish units. I cannot understand why, because that concession has been made to the Druzes. Fifty thousand Druzes in Syria have been allowed to form a Druze Legion alongside the British Forces in Syria, and each of the allied nations gets credit for whatever it contributes to the common cause. If it could be done in the case of the Druzes, why not in the case of the Jews? Then, I believe, we have a Division in Egypt which has been recruited from the Senussi tribe. They are called the Senussi Division. May I ask why is it that the same privilege, or, at any rate, the same treatment, should not have been accorded to the Jews? After all, any person who is prepared to wear a badge knowing that if he is caught by the enemy he will be put up against a wall and shot simply because he is wearing that badge, shows an offensive spirit and also that he has taken his courage in both hands.

Lastly, we have never recognized, so far as I am aware, the services which Jews have already rendered on all fronts in the Middle East. If you go to their commanders you will hear lots of praise of the Jews, but when it comes to reporting it in the Press or to extending any official recognition, not a word has been said or published. And so I cannot help feeling that this is a stupid and a wrong policy....

I must apologize to the House for continuing for so long, but I wish to bring to the notice of your Lordships two more instances which illustrate the kind of atmosphere which has prevailed in Palestine, and the attitude of our Administration there. Twelve months ago – it took a long time before it was published in this country – Dr Norman Maclean, an ex-Moderator of the Church of Scotland and a King's Chaplain, chanced to be in Jerusalem. He was asked by the editor of the Palestine Post to write an article for publication in that paper because it so happened that the celebration of Christmas by the Christians and the celebration of the Jewish Feast of Lights coincided that year. He was invited, as I say, to send an article for publication in this newspaper. What was the result? The result was in the publication which I hold in my hand. When this article appeared, the Censor had got hold of it and out of 139 lines he had struck out 100 lines. If your Lordships will read the article you will find that there is not a single word about any political subject at all. It is simply an endeavour to put the case from the standpoint of the Christians and from the standpoint of the Jews. I cannot help feeling that it was not only an affront to the Jews but an affront also to the Christians that this article should be dealt with in the way that it was. I wonder whether the censor has been reprimanded. The whole thing has a Nazi smell about it, and I cannot help feeling that it does show the extraordinary way in which our Administration carries on affairs in Palestine.

There is a second instance to which I must draw the attention of the House, and which happened quite recently. Dr Weizmann, who, as your Lordships are aware, is the head of the Jewish Agency, sent a cable to Palestine on the occasion of a great recruiting campaign, in order to encourage people there to join not Jewish regiments but the British Army. He said: "My heartiest greetings to the Palestine Auxiliary Territorial Service at the outset of its recruiting campaign. I know how eagerly our women will welcome this opportunity to share with the ten thousand of their men already serving in defence of their lives, homes and of all that Palestine means to them. That was the message, but the censor refused to allow it to be published in the Jewish papers in Palestine. I cannot help wondering how we can ever hope to win this war if this is the way in which we treat our friends and their efforts to help us in fighting the enemy. It is a stupid policy. It brings us into contempt with the Arabs, and it brings us into disrepute with our friends".

Let me recall to you the view expressed by the present Prime Minister as recently as May, 1939. This is what he said: "To whom was the pledge of the Balfour Declaration made? It was not made to the Jews in Palestine, it was not made to those who were actually living in Palestine. It was made to World Jewry and in particular to the Zionist associations. It was in consequence, and on the basis, of this pledge that we received important help in the war, and that after the war we received from the Allied and Associated Powers the Mandate for Palestine. This pledge of a home of refuge, of an asylum, was not made to the Jews in Palestine but to the Jews outside Palestine, to that vast, unhappy mass of scattered, persecuted, wandering Jews whose intense, unchanging, unconquerable desire has been for a National Home.... It is not with the Jews in Palestine that we have now or at any future time to deal, but with World Jewry, with Jews all over the world." Does not that apply to these unfortunate refugees who sought refuge in Palestine, who journeyed there on the Patria and on the Struma, who were refused admission, and so many of whom were sent to their doom? I cannot help feeling, therefore, that this policy is not really the Prime Minister's policy; I cannot believe that he has joined the ranks of the appeasers.

I come now to another declaration, which was made in November of last year, when General Smuts said: "The case for the Balfour Declaration has become overwhelmingly stronger. Instead of the horror of new ghettos in the twentieth century, let us carry out the promise and open up the National Home. The case has become one not merely of promises and International Law, but for the conscience of mankind. We dare not fold our hands without insulting the human spirit itself." That, I think, goes to the root of the matter. This is not merely a question of expediency; this is really a moral question. Since Hitler has for years past made the Jews the target of his persecution and of his outbursts of hate, I feel that anyone who refuses to accept the challenge is playing a double-faced game and is injuring the cause for which we are fighting. I do not believe that there can be any neutrality in this matter, and I believe that the whole attitude of the administration in Palestine has been in complete contradiction of our declared war aims, the rescue from oppression of all the oppressed peoples of the world.

.... I am sure that we shall not make a real effort to win this war if we go on in this way, and indeed if we continue on these lines it is doubtful whether we shall win it. I ask myself whether we shall deserve to win it if we treat in this way people who are prepared to help us to the limit of their capacity, and who arc willing to pour out their blood and their treasure for our cause. I am not a pro-Jew or a pro-Arab, and I hope that most of us, at any rate, take that line and will welcome assistance from both Jews and Arabs. If the Arabs want to have their own Division and their own units, why cannot they have them, and why cannot the Jews have them as well?

I know that the Jews are not popular in this country, for reasons which we all know, at this moment, but I should like to point out that there are good Jews and bad Jews, just as there are good Christians and bad Christians. Although we see in the Law Courts every day "black-market" prosecutions, and so on, obviously the thing to do with people who are guilty of these offences is to put them up against a wall and shoot them, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. That would soon put a stop to this sort of thing. That, however, does not mean that the Jews in Palestine are of this type. They, as I have said, have helped us, and are helping us even now; they are exhorting their people to join our Forces and to fight against their arch enemies. I think that it is only reasonable, just, fair and wise, therefore, to give them every encouragement and ever recognition.'

Baron Wedgwood (pictured), that genuine and stalwart philosemite about whom I blogged in October ("We Who Have Urged Patience on the Jews..."), followed Davies in addressing the House, and was characteristically blunt and forthright in his condemnation of British policy:

'I think that the whole gist of the speech of my noble friend Lord Davies points to one self-evident truth, which is that the Administration in Palestine is anti-semitic. I think that all our troubles in connexion with that country have come from this constant anti-semitic bias of the Palestine Administration. The evidence of that anti-semitism has been given in the speech of my noble friend, and, in addition to the things which he mentioned, I should like to refer to certain other facts. I will quote as evidence the toleration shown by the Administration to the Arab side in the riots of four years ago, and the escape of El Fawzi and the Mufti from that country when the riots were suppressed and their capture could have been effected. Then there was the question of the imprisonment of those Jews who dared to drill. They attempted to drill with the rifles that had been issued to them. It was against the law. They were all sent to prison, with sentences which range up to seven years' imprisonment for merely drilling in order to learn how to defend themselves. Some of them are still in prison. That, I think, is evidence of anti-semitism.

Then there was the prohibition of the right to buy land in Palestine. You do not find any other part of the British Empire where a certain number of British citizens are denied the right to buy land, except in the Punjab where it is denied to the Hindus. I think they may buy land which was not previously owned by Moslems. But the Jews in their home land are refused permission to buy or lease land. Another piece of evidence was the case of the partition of Palestine. You will remember that the first partition included Galilee in the Jews' part of Palestine. The Administration there objected very strongly. A fresh Commission was appointed which acceded to their point of view that Galilee should be excluded from the Jewish area. In all these cases there may be two sides to the question, but I am merely citing them as evidence of the consistently anti-semitic attitude of the British Administration in Palestine.

I pass to the case which has just been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the case of the Patria. The Patria had about 1,300 Jews on board. It got into Haifa harbour and they were not allowed to land—they were to be sent on to Mauritius. The Jews blew a hole in the bottom of the ship and those who managed to get ashore were allowed to land: the rest were drowned. The Patria case was a pretty bad one, but at any rate those Jews were allowed to go to Mauritius; they were not to be sent back to Hitler. But what I would draw your Lordships' attention to, because it is such evidence of anti-semitism, is the fact that [High Commissioner] Sir Harold MacMichael on that occasion went to the microphone and broadcast messages to the Jews in which he specially pointed out that even at the end of the war these people whom he was sending to Mauritius would not be allowed to land in Palestine. It was not necessary to say that at all: there was no reason for it; besides, who knows what will happen at the end of the war? It was simply that he wanted to show that he did not want these people to have a chance of feeling safe or coming to Palestine. I think it was a particularly brutal thing, when you remember that the sons and other relations of those people on the Patria were actually waiting on the shore ready to receive them.

Next I come to the consequences of the Patria, which everybody realizes, except the Administration there – the case of the Struma. The Struma was not allowed to get as far as Haifa, because after the Patria trouble the Government arranged with the Turkish Government not to allow ships to sail for Palestine. Therefore the Struma never reached Haifa and remained in the Bosporus. It remained there for three months – 760 people on a ship of 200 tons, with no food and no medical appliances. Nothing more nearly approaching the Black Hole of Calcutta can be imagined. Meanwhile the Colonial Office were pestered with telegrams from America and all over the world, begging them to allow these people to proceed to Palestine. I do not know who it was that refused, but, moved by some feeling of humanity, they said, "Oh well, if we must have any Jews, take the children between eleven and sixteen." I do not know whether that offer ever reached the Struma, but I can imagine that the parents of the Jews on board the Struma would not have accepted the offer – I doubt whether the children would. They could not take the little children, but they could take the children between eleven and sixteen.

Your Lordships know that when garrisons surrender they sometimes pick out by lot the people who will be shot: here the Palestine Administration were more humane, they picked out those who might be saved. But they were not saved. Whether they had the chance or not I do not know. They went back, or rather the ship went back – back to Hitler. You must remember what had happened to Jews in Rumania already. They had had thousands murdered. There were tales of people being roasted alive in bakers' ovens. Every atrocity and inhumanity had been perpetrated on that unfortunate people. The Rumanians are almost worse than Hitler. We sent the Jews back there. It is no wonder they did not go. But when the sinking did take place we got the final, beautiful comment of The Times correspondent in Palestine. I am told that this gentleman is a clergyman of the Church of England. This is what he said, as quoted from The Times: "It is not fully appreciated by outsiders, or even by the Jews, that Hitler's policy would be doubly served if Great Britain were jockeyed into the position of having to accept in Palestine any Jewish refugees forced out of countries under Hitler's rule, for this would reduce the number of Jews in those countries and would arouse disquiet among the Palestinian Arabs." That, I think, is typical of the frame of mind not only of this Times correspondent, but of the whole Palestine Administration, and it is on such evidence as that that I base my first charge that the Administration there is anti-semitic.

The argument that has been used to me, and I think is going to be used here this afternoon, is that it would have been dangerous to allow these refugees to come into Palestine because they might contain among their numbers some who were in Hitler's pay. That was said at the time of the sinking of the Patria. That is why most of the people who managed to swim ashore then are still interned, though some have been allowed out to do work of national importance. It has been the argument used in this country. It has been used by my noble friend Lord Croft [a right-wing peer who was Under-Secretary of State for War] – we ought not to allow refugees into this country because some of them might be in Hitler's pay. That is the argument on which we based the internment of all refugees a year and a half ago—some of them might be in Hitler's pay. There has never been a particle of evidence which would convince anybody that any of the refugees have been in Hitler's pay. It is manifestly improbable that Hitler would employ a Jew in any circumstances. It is ridiculous to suppose that even our own Intelligence system would employ in Germany a person who spoke German imperfectly. There is the further reason that the Jews have certainly more cause to hate Hitler than anybody else in this world. In Palestine you have the additional argument that Hitler can get Arab agents more easily and cheaply than anybody else.

That allegation regarding the Jews is a bare-faced excuse which supplies fresh evidence of anti-semitism on the part of people who admit quite openly, "We do not like Jews" What is the excuse given by the Colonial Office? I am sorry it will be given by my noble friend opposite [Colonial Secretary Viscount Cranborne, the prominent Tory politician who eventually succeeded as 5th Marquess of Salisbury]. The need to appease the Arabs! The Arabs have rebelled. They have never fought for us, and they never will fight for us. The probability is, if the Germans get there, they will fight against us. Hitler's propaganda continues to advertise and jeer at our weakness in Palestine. It keeps on telling the Arabs in Palestine that this is a Jewish war. Mussolini, I believe, avers that he is the protector of the Mahomedans, and indeed we have seen in Iraq how successful this propaganda was. The rebellion in Iraq was due principally, I believe, to the weakness we showed in Palestine – a weakness that indicated fear. Iraq rebelled, and we repressed the rebellion with the most perfect kid-glove diplomacy. Egypt will not fight. By this sort of appeasement we only give Orientals the impression that we fear them. Are we afraid of them? If we are afraid of them, arm the Jews, and then we shall not need to fear the Arabs. If we are not afraid of the Arabs, then we really ought not to continue conciliating our enemies at the expense of our friends.

The last example I shall give of this policy of appeasing our enemies and injuring our friends is the refusal of the Colonial Office to allow Home Guards to be formed in Palestine. It is four months since some of us went to see Lord Moyne on this question. We thought it was going to go all right, but nothing has been done. The danger has certainly become more obvious—danger not only from Germany, but also from Japan. Why has nothing been done? For the same reason - because we must not annoy the Arabs, because of this continual passion for appeasing at the expense, in this case, not merely of the Jews, but of our honour. If we abandoned the Jews in Palestine as we abandoned the unfortunate Chinese in Malaya and Hong Kong, we should blacken our history beyond repair. To refuse people the power to defend themselves, to refuse them the right to carry a rifle, own a rifle, and to drill when their most deadly enemy is on the borders, with a knife at their throats, is neither the act of a sane man nor of a gentleman. That is the crime we are committing in Palestine to-day. I have said that the real reason of all our troubles in Palestine is that the Administration does not like Jews. All other reasons they may give are excuses on the part of a pro-Arab, pro-Italian clique who are the enemies of this country and the abettors of Fascism.

What is the Secretary of State going to do about it? Is the policy going to change? We have had twenty-two years of this policy – this attempt to appease the Arabs, this continual bias against the Jews. Now we are in the middle of a desperate war fighting for our own lives. Cannot we, even now, revise that policy and provide ourselves with friends who can fight and die - friends who dare not surrender. If we had that support, our morale in this country would be better than it is. We might get as good an example from these people in Palestine as we are getting from the Russian morale. We are throwing it all away through a stupid prejudice carried to excess in Palestine and, believe me, my Lords, carried to excess in this country also.'

British Plans for the Resettlement of Palestinian Arabs

Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis will know that from time to time I delve into historical archives, and it’s something I’ll continue to do. The article below isn’t by me, however – it was written 30 years ago by Professor Joseph Nedava, a political scientist at the University of Haifa (citation details at the end).

Let me, as a prelude, explain who some of the people mentioned in the article are, since they may not be familiar to non-British or younger readers. Robert Boothby (1900-86) was a long-serving, very colourful Conservative MP who was given a life peerage as Baron Boothby in 1958. During the 1930s he was strongly anti-Appeasement. Richard Crossman (1907-74) was a Labour MP and Cabinet Minister well-known for his support of Israel. Like Boothby, he was familiar to television viewers , often appearing in political discussion programmes. William Ormsby-Gore (1885-1964) was a Conservative MP from 1910-38, when he succeeded his father as Baron Harlech. During 1921-22 he was British representative to the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission, and from 1922-29 – except briefly in 1924, when Labour was in power – was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. From 1936-38 he was Colonial Secretary. Sir Alec Kirkbride (1897-1978), who served as an officer under General Allenby from 1916-21, was Governor of Acre (1922-27 and 1937-39). One of Britain’s principal advisors to King Abdullah, he was Deputy Resident in Transjordan (1927-1937), Resident (1939-46), and then Ambassador to Jordan. Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was an army officer who served under General Allenby, attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and was involved in the creation of the Mandate; he came of a non-Jewish merchant banking family and was, incidentally, the nephew of Beatrice Webb. Hugh Dalton (1885-1962) was a Labour politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1945-47. St John Philby (1885-1960), father of Soviet spy Kim Philby, was an Arabist explorer and intelligence officer.


Many a historian is responsible for the injection of a myth into recent Jewish history; they claim that the underlying causes of the present Israeli-Arab conflict are to be ascribed to the error of omission of the Zionist leaders in not perceiving the existence of a latent Arab problem – a problem which wide expansion of the Zionist settlement could only exacerbate.

This, however, is clearly a misconception. Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, was not blind to realities. When he visited Palestine in 1898 he found an almost empty country with a relatively small Arab population (estimated by some reliable authorities at 250,000). He saw no reason to regard them as a potentially hostile element, and he sincerely believed that they would easily be integrated into a sovereign Jewish State, reaping all the prospective benefits due to a loyal minority. In his Utopian novel Altneuland Herzl paints in most idyllic terms a multi-racial society in a prosperous Holy Land.

Israel Zangwill

Of the “Founding Fathers” of modern Zionism, Israel Zangwill was the only one to deny the possibility of peaceful Jewish-Arab co-existence in the future Jewish State. In his mind there was no room for both peoples in this small country, and as “we cannot allow the Arabs to block so valuable a piece of historic reconstruction ... therefore we must gently persuade them [the Arabs] to ‘trek’. After all, they have all Arabia with its millions of square miles ... and Israel has not a square inch.” (The Voice of Jerusalem, London, 1920, p. 93.)

Zangwill’s original view caused quite a furor [sic] in official Zionist circles in 1919, and Max Nordau expressed a well-established consensus when he wrote to him from Madrid (15 January 1919):

“...The stand you have taken in the Arab question seems to me regrettable. It’s no use qualifying your scheme as your own individual idea – we have not to count on the good faith of our eternal enemies, and henceforward they will quote you as their authority for the accusation that, not you Israel Zangwill, but ‘the’ Jews, all the Jews, are an intolerant lot dreaming only violence and high-handed dealings and expulsion of non-Jews and longing for the continuation of Joshua’s methods after an enforced interruption of 3400 years or so.” (Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.)

Zangwill’s views, though unusual, had an impact on various British statesmen, and their effect was particularly felt on the eve of the Balfour Declaration (1917). Intimation of a possible transfer of the Palestinian Arab population to the neighbouring states can be seen in the early drafts of the Declaration. This was brought out as late as 1963 in Lord Boothby’s contribution to the BBC Third Programme’s tribute to Dr Weizmann. He stated that “the original Balfour Declaration made provision for the Arabs to be moved elsewhere, more or less”. (Jewish Chronicle, London, 3 January 1964, p. 7)

Richard Crossman

A lively controversy in the British-Jewish press followed Lord Boothby’s broadcast. The Jewish Chronicle categorically disclaimed the allegation, contending that all the versions of the Declaration were on record, and “the displacement of the Arabs was never considered or thought of, either on the British or the Zionist side”. (Ibid.) Lord Boothby stood his ground, reiterating in his rejoinder that “at the time of the original Balfour Declaration, some resettlement of the Arabs in Palestine east of the Jordan was envisaged following the establishment of the National Home”. (Ibid., 17 Jan., p. 7)  He based himself on an essay written by Richard Crossman on Weizmann, as well as on Sir Alec Kirkbride’s memoirs. (Sir Alec Kirkbride, as a British civil servant, was closely associated with the Hashemite family in Transjordan for many years. In his book A Crackle of Thorns, London, 1956, pp. 19-20, he writes: “... the remote and undeveloped areas which lay to the east of the [Jordan] river... were intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine ... became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming an independent Arab state.”)

Moreover, Lord Boothby, who proclaimed himself a life-long Zionist, was absolutely convinced that a massive immigration of Jews to their small historic homeland, “without great natural resources, was quite unrealistic unless accompanied by some resettlement of the Arab population.” (JC, 17 Jan. 1964, p. 7)

Lord Boothby

In the wake of the Jewish Chronicle's rebuttal, Lord Boothby finally admitted his error in implying the existence of a written substantiation of his allegation, but he still insisted on the validity of his argument quoting Mrs Weizmann’s letter to him (The Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, London, 28 Feb. 1964) by way of support and having his contention confirmed by Mr Boris Guriel, senior staff officer of the Weizmann Archives. In a letter to the London Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, Mr Guriel writes:

”Serious substantiation can be found for Lord Boothby’s contention as to the original meaning of the Balfour Declaration prior to the final version... The Arabs were never mentioned in the original draft, and, by way of omission, the possibility of a transfer became plausible... Regardless of whether or not the actual draft contained the “transfer” point in letter, it is the spirit and the logical consequence which count.” (The Weizmann Archives, Rehovoth, Israel)

Further confirmation of Lord Boothby’s contention is found in some remarks made by Churchill concerning the prospects for a Jewish Palestine in years to come. Presumably having Zangwill’s views in mind, Churchill is quoted as having said that “there are the Jews, hom we are pledged to introduce into Palestine, and who take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience.” (Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, London, 1975, vol. IV (1916-1922), p. 484)

The prospect of an Arab transfer also occupied Emir Abdullah’s mind when the Churchill-Abdulla  [sic] “settlement” was discussed in March 1921. The Hashemite prince wanted to know whether “His Majesty’s Government mean to establish a Jewish kingdom west of the Jordan and to turn out the non-Jewish population? If so, it would be better to tell the Arabs at once and not keep them in suspense.”  Churchill may have been somewhat unhappy about a decision of the Allies to that effect, for he remarked sarcastically: “The Allies appear to think that men could be cut down and transplanted in the same way as trees.” (ibid., p. 561)

Even when the bitter experiences and cruelties of the Arab riots of 1929 clearly demonstrated that Jewish-Arab co-existence was nothing but an empty vision, Zionist leaders consistently refrained from airing suggestions of a possible Arab transfer. It was a British Royal Commission, set up to investigate the 1936 disturbances, that dared to bring up such a proposal openly. In its Report (1937), proposing the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State, it dealt, inter alia, with the problems involving exchange of land and population, and suggested the transfer of about 225,000 Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab State. It cited as an example the precedent which saw some 1,300,000 Greeks and some 400,000 Turks exchanged following an agreement reached by Greece and Turkey in the wake of the Greco-Turkish War of 1922. (Palestine Royal Commission Report, London, 1937, cmd. 5479, ch. xxii, p.390)

The Partition proposal was hotly debated in the Zionist camp, and the provision for the Arab transfer no doubt greatly helped in strengthening its supporters. (See, for instance, the reasoning which led David Ben-Gurion to his final acceptance of the Partition Plan. Zichronot (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, 1974, vol. 4, pp. 297-299)

The British Government was determined to implement the Partition Plan, fully subscribing to the Arab transfer provision. Appearing before the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, the British Colonial Secretary, Mr W. Ormsby-Gore, although emphasising that the Mandatory Power would not accept the proposal for compulsory transfer contained in the Report of the Royal Commission, pointed to the possibility of a voluntary transfer of Palestinian Arabs to the neighbouring states. “These people”, he said,

“had not hitherto regarded themselves as ‘Palestinian’ but as part of Syria as a whole, as part of the Arab world. They would be going only a comparatively few miles away to a people with the same language, the same civilization, the same religion; and therefore the problem of transfer geographically and practically was easier even than the interchanges of Greeks and Turks between Asia Minor and the Balkans ... if homesteads were provided and land was prepared for their reception not too far from their existing homes, he was confident that many would make use of that opportunity.” (Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes, 13 August 1937, pp. 179-181)

In a conversation Dr Weizmann had with Mr Ormsby-Gore, the latter reassured the Zionist leader that the British Government was proposing to set up a Committee for the purpose of finding land for the Arab transfer (in Transjordan, and, possibly, also within the borders of the Arab State, in the Negev), and for arranging the actual terms of the transfer. Mr Ormsby-Gore mentioned the name of Sir John Campbell, who had much relevant experience in the field. (JC, 13 August 1937, pp. 22-25)

The recommendations of the Royal Commission became Dr Weizmann’s political platform for the following years up to the establishment of the State of Israel. In his article in Foreign Affairs (on the eve of the Biltmore Conference), he outlined the position of the Arabs in the prospective Jewish State: “In that state there will be complete civil and political equality of rights for all citizens, without distinction of race or religion, and, in addition, the Arabs will enjoy full autonomy in their own internal affairs. But if any Arabs do not wish to remain in a Jewish State, every facility will be given to them to transfer to one of the many and vast Arab countries.” (“Palestine’s Role in the Solution of the Jewish Problem”, Foreign Affairs, N.Y., January 1942, pp. 337-338)



Ze'ev Jabotinsky

 A similar stand was taken by the Revisionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in the book which turned out to be his last (1940). He and his party have quite often been wrongly and maliciously attacked for their ostensible intention to drive the Arabs out of Palestine. (See, for instance, Hannah Arendt’s article in The Menorah Journal, Autumn 1945, vol. xxxiii, no. 2, reproduced in Zionism Reconsidered, edited by Michael Selzer, London, 1970, where she mistakenly states (p. 215) that the transfer of all Palestinian Arabs “is openly demanded by Revisionists”, and that “they [the Revisionists] were the first to advocate the transfer of Palestine Arabs to Iraq” (p. 218).)

Nowhere and at no time did Jabotinsky propagate the evacuation of the Arabs from Palestine. On the contrary, he expressed himself many times in favour of granting the Arabs in a Jewish State full equality, but, as he was not sure that all this would be sufficient inducement for the Arabs to remain in a Jewish country, he

“would refuse to see a tragedy in their willingness to emigrate. The Palestine Royal Commission did not shrink from the suggestion. Courage is infectious. Since we have this great moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of 350,000 Arabs from one corner of Palestine, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay.” (The War and the Jew, NY, 1942, pp. 218-219)

Chaim Weizmann

Jabotinsky based himself on the Greek-Turkish precedent of 1923, and Dr Weizmnn, too, often referred to the “Greek example”. At a meeting held in New Court, London, Dr Weizmann told the assembled representatives of British Jewry (Anthony de Rothschild, Lionel de Rothschild, Lord Bearsted, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, Lord Victor Rothschild, Mr Leonard Montefiore and others), that the question of a Jewish State’s boundaries raised the question of transfer of population; "If, for instance, they could transfer those Arab tenants who owned no land of their own (he believed there would be about 120,000 of them) they would be able to settle in their stead about half a million Jews.” (Note of meeting held at New Court, Tuesday, 9 September 1941, Weizmann Archives).

Officially and publicly Dr Weizmann quite often expressed himself, in the late 20s and early 30s, against Zionist aspirations for a Jewish State in Palestine, or for a Jewish majority, but in informal gatherings and in his private correspondence he almost never repudiated what seemed to him the correct interpretation of the historic pledges made by the British concerning the fulfilment of Zionist aims. He referred to a Jewish State and the prospective evacuation of at least a portion of the Palestine Arabs to the neighbouring states. To cite but one example, in his letter of 17 January 1930 to James Marshall, the son of the well-known leader of American Jewry, Louis Marshall, he writes: "There can be no doubt that the picture in the minds of those who drafted the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was that of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. Palestine was to be a Jewish State in which the Arabs would enjoy the fullest civil and cultural rights; but for the expression of their own national individuality in terms of statehood they were to turn to the surrounding Arab countries – Syria, Iraq, Hedjaz, etc.” (The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem, 1978, vol. xiv, p. 206)

R. Meinertzhagen

The Royal Commission’s recommendation to the effect of an Arab transfer really proved to be infectious, and it caused great enthusiasm among British friends of Zionism. Col. Meinertzhagen insisted on the need to establish Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, and “if any Arabs have doubts about it, let them go to the large Arab territories bordering Palestine after full compensation”.

He believed that two or three million pounds would be enough to “buy the lot out”, and he was sure that thousands of Englishmen would follow his example in contributing to this cause. (R. Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary (1917-1956), vol. xx, p. 203)

The Partition proposal with its concomitant clause about a transfer of Palestinian Arabs was ultimately shelved by the British Government itself, mainly because of Arab opposition, but its basic principles seem to have lived on, and to have been implemented by the force of inexorable circumstances brought about through the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The British Labour Party too, on the eve of its coming to power, adopted the transfer proposal. Its Party Conference, held in December 1944, adopted the following Declaration on “The Post-War International Settlement” with respect to Palestine:

'There is surely neither hope nor meaning in a “Jewish National Home” unless we are prepared to let Jews, if they wish, enter this tiny land in such numbers as to become a majority. There was a strong case for this before the war. There is an irresistible case now, after the unspeakable atrocities of the cold and calculated German plot to kill all Jews in Europe. Here, too, in Palestine, surely is a case, on human grounds and to promote a stable settlement for transfers of population. Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in. Let them be compensated handsomely for their land, and let their settlement elsewhere be carefully organized and generously financed. The Arabs have many wide territories of their own... Indeed, we should re-examine also the possibility of extending the present Palestinian borders, by agreement with Egypt, Syria, or Transjordan.’ (Documents Relating to the Palestine Problem published by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, London, 1945, p. 81. See also Dr [Hugh] Dalton’s statement on behalf of the Labour Party Executive 1945, on the same issue – Ibid.)

This unexpected pledge caught Dr Weizmann completely by surprise. In his autobiography he tells us that he pleaded with Dr Hugh Dalton, the Labour statesman, saying that there was no need of their proposal, and that the Zionists “never contemplated the removal of the Arabs, and the British Labourites, in their pro-Zionist enthusiasm, went far beyond our intentions.” (Trial and Error, Phila., 1949, vol. 2, p. 436.)

St John Philby

Another British plan to solve the Palestine problem, involving the evacuation of the Palestinian Arabs, was afoot in 1938-1939, at the initiative, or at least, with the active participation of King Ibn Saud’s “confidant”, St John Philby. Under “Philby’s Plan”, “The whole of Palestine should be left to the Jews. All Arabs displaced therefrom should be resettled elsewhere at the expense of the Jews , who would place a sum of £20 millions at the disposal of King Ibn Saud for this purpose.” (J. B. Philby, Arabian Jubilee, NY, 1953, pp. 212-213) The price the British and American Governments were expected to pay for this was the formal recognition of the complete independence of all Arab countries with the exception of Aden. It was Philby’s allegation that the Plan failed because Dr Weizmann was unable “to interest his powerful friends [Churchill and Roosevelt].” (Ibid., p. 214. As for Dr Weizmann’s version of the story, see Trial and Error, pp. 427-428.)

Victor Gollancz

The readiness to entertain the idea of a transfer of the Palestinian Arabs to neighbouring states, which was a radical change in the accepted view of the Palestine problem, evolved as a result of the impact of the Holocaust on British public opinion. This also accounted for the change of mind regarding Zionism on the part of such a leftist intellectual as the publisher Victor Gollancz. Arguing for the Zionist cause he writes:

“Suppose that a few hundred thousand of the million Arabs at present in Palestine would consider life in a Jewish Commonwealth impossible ... is there no way out? Surely there is, and a very simple one. The world has recently been discussing the project of moving great hordes of men and women – not a few hundred thousand, but ten to twelve million – from their old homes to a new environment... Suppose the United Nations said to the Arab statesmen “We desire to establish, by the necessary stages, a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine, for we believe a settlement of the Jewish question on lines such as these to be an indispensable part of the world settlement. We give our guarantee that every Arab in Palestine shall have complete civic equality and religious freedom. But if, in spite of this guarantee, any Arab should wish to leave Palestine and settle elsewhere we would make it easy for him to do so; we will see to it that the change takes place in the best conditions, and we will provide ample funds, in each case, for the decure establishment of a new home.” (Nowhere to Lay Their Heads, London, 1945, pp. 28-29)

Mr Gollancz then points out that the agricultural and industrial development of the Arab lands is hampered by shortage of population. Iraq, for instance, openly invited Arabs to come and settle on its land.

Indeed, efforts were made during World War II and the years immediately following, to bring about a transfer of the Palestinian Arabs to Iraq. In one such project, the correspondent of the London Times, H. T. Montague Bell, was involved. In his article “Iraq To-Day”, he writes: “Iraq’s paramount requirement is an increase of population. With from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 inhabitants, she cannot do justice to the potentialities of the land – the lack of labour is a constant problem – and she is at a disadvantage against Turkey and Iran with their far larger populations ... any substantial increase of population in the near future must come from outside.” (The Times, 27 Oct. 1938, p. 13. For a discussion of Mr Bell’s involvement with the plan for the transfer of Palestinian Arabs to Iraq, see my article “Exchanges of Population Plans for the Solution of the Palestine Problem” (Hebrew), Gesher, Spring-Summer, 1978, pp. 160-162.)

However, all these plans, too, failed to materialise either because of lack of goodwill or sustained drive.

(Article first published in Forum on the Jewish People, Zionism and Israel, No. 42/43, Winter 1981, pp. 101-107; pictorial content added for this blog by Daphne Anson.)