Zionism: a discussion document

ZIONISM

ants semitisms twin in Sewish gar

Hitler's illusion was, that he could physically liquidate Europe’s resistance against fascism. Begin’s and

his generals’ illusion is, that they can physically liquidate the PLO and the Palestinian resistance against Zionist occupation.

AND ANT) SEM/T/SI

WIR WOLLEN... continuing iaenas [mes relationship rereies | ete BRIGHTON LABOUR BRIEFING discussion document

TOMY CREENSTEIN 30p

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ZIONISM AND THE LABOUR PARTY

Although portrayed as a humanitarian and even idealistic movement, Zionism is one of the most ruthless political creeds of our time, tolerating absolutely no dissent within the Jewish community.

It has cynically exploited the natural hatred of the labour movement for anti-Semitism. Dedicated to the establishment of a Jewish only state, it let nothing stand an its way not even the plight of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe.

At first the Zionists bought the land thei Pakeseintdn peasants worked from absentee landlords and then evicted them from it, but in 1948/9 the Zionists took the opportunity to forcibly expel them. Today the Zionists claim that the Palestinians left what is now Israel, of their own accord, but the following account of Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister, at a meeting with officers. of Haagannah (the main Zionist terror group prior to 1948),should disprove that:

"Ben Gurton was still sceptical about any posstbility of co-extstence wtth the Arabs. The fewer there were living within the frontters of the new Jewtsh state, the better he would like it...the tmpresston whieh emerged from his intervention and remarke wae clear enough...a major offensive agatnst.the Arabs would not only break up thetr attacks but would also greatly reduce the percentage of Arabs in the population of the new state. This might be called ractalism, but the whole Ztontst movement was based on the principle of a purely Jewtsh community tn Palestine."(1l)

Since its foundation Israel has continued to expand, confiscating yet more Palestinian land with the latter becoming refugees,often two or three:times over,or else turned into hewers of wood and the drawers of water of the Zionist state. An Israeli newspaper noted in respect of some Oriental Jewish squatters that:

"They truly belteve,as do many tn the stum quarters of Tel Aviv

2 that squatting on public Land entitles them to oecupancy rtghts on the land. "Did the state of Israel buy all the lands now owned by the Israelt Land Authortity?"(2)

But the Palestinians have fought back and created their own representative organisation, the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The logic

of a Jewish state in a land where, *even by 1948, the majority of the populace were Palestinian (and in 1918 less than 10% of Palestinians were Jewish,the majority of whom were anti~Zionist inevitably led to the expulsion of the Palestinians:

"The majority of Jews (in Jerusalem) sttll belonged to the pre-tmmtgratton communtty etther taking no interest tn Ztontsm or were acttvely opposed to tt."(3)

It is clear, even as early as May 1911, that the expulsion of the Palestinians was being discussed.

M Bar Zohar,'Ben Gurton Lhe Armed Prophet' pl09,re meeting of 26.12.47 Yedtot Aharanot,28.5.76 etted in Uri lavtes,'Israel;Utopta Incorporated pll6,Zed Press

W.Laecquer,'A Htstory of Ztonism' p2l3,Holt, Finehart’ & Wilson, Chtcago, New York, 1975

"At one stage,in May 19ll,he ( fuppin) suggested tn a memo to the Ztontst Executive a limited population transfer...the tdea of a population transfer preoccupied the members of the Executtve."(4)

Ruppin was the head of the “orld Zionist Organisations Palestine Office. But as Ruppin made clear:

"On every site where’ we purchase..land and where we settle people, the present cultivators will inevitably be displaced. "(5)

And during the civil war itself, the Zionists both through direct massacres and a psychological blitz drove the vast majority of the Palestinians out:

"I gathered all of the Jewish mukthars, who have contact with

Arabs in different villages and asked them to whisper tn the ears of some Arabs that a great Jewish reinforeement has arrived in .:° Galilee and that tt ts going to burn all of the villages of. the Huleh. They should suggest to these Arabs, thetr friends, ‘toesecape whtle there ts still time. The tactte reached its goal completely. The butlding of the Police station at Halsa fell tnto our hands wtthout a shot. "(6)

And H Levin, a Zionist radio broadcaster relates how:

"Hagannah..breadeast to etviltan Arabs, urging them to leave the district before §.15 am; 'Take pitty on your wtves and chtidren and get out of this bloodbath.' it said, Surrender your arms. No harm will come to you...If you stay,you tnvite disaster. "(7)

To its everlasting shame, the Labour Party manifesto of 1945 also supported the idea of a'population transfer‘ ,arguing that “the Arabs should move out as the Jews move in...",something which the Zionists fulfilled only too well. For too long the Labour Party,both left and right, has been politically supportative of the Zionists. Since 1920 Poale Zion,the overseas branch

of the Israeli Labour Party, has been affiliated as a "Socialist ‘Society' to the Labour Party. From 1920 to 1925 Moshe Shertok,Israels second Prime Minister, acted as a liason between the Rritish Labour Party and the Histadrut, the Zionist ‘Trade Union’. And what other organisation other then the Labour Friends of Israel, has Tony Penn,Ian Mikardo,Harold Wilson, Roy Hattersley,Peter Shore,Gerald Kauffkann as members? The Trade Union leaders,both left and right are also prominently represented in the LFI. Bassnett,Sirs,Clive Jenkins;Kitson- all are members. The T.U.C. has official links with the Histadrut, the Israeli. Trade Union which until 1959 barred Arabs from membership and,which to this day has an Arab section. Histadrut is also .the major employer in Israel., As.socialists we have an elementary duty to support the Palestinians in their demand for a state of their own encompassing the whole of Palestine. In so doing we will be. giving support not only to the Palestinians, but also to Jewish people for whom.Zionism, far from heing a solution to the question of anti-Semitism has in fact precipitated it where it didnot exist, and legitimised anti-Semitic movements where they did exist. In addition Zionists have often consciously impeded the fight against anti-Semitism. Such is the record of Zionism,

and the Labour Movement does itself a disservice hy supporting it.

(4) Ibid. p23t

(5) A’ luppin '3' lecades of Palestine',Sechocken Books,Jerusalem 1936 cited tn’ lavies op.ctt pl4 ;

(6) Ha Sepher Ha Palmach Vol.2 p268,Yigal Alton

(7) H Levin, 'Jerusalem Embattled, pt60 :

“Fntroduébion —

BC Newsday: programme as to whether there isa” png 2 Jew and.a. Zionist, and hence whethér f rc Be ing anti-Semitic, the Chief Rabbi Emmanuel

When as ea. on “the distinction between

Gacobovitz xeplied:

"To me certainty. there

tion...tn. theory that té posstble,'tn -practtse:, gee

In ,an article,'Zionism Was on -Campus',in the Jerusalem Post, Hyam > a maine wrote: — : "The thin: line, IF Semttism ts one wv cobs nds hard to see...'The two may be distinguiskavle in Ys oe i1 practice these attacks single out the Jewtsh student and force htm to-stand-up and be counted or

dtsappear into the shadows."({1) (my emphasis).Jacobs was Chairperson of the Unicon of Jewish Students.

ZISTs AT Pay between antt-Ziontsm and anttJa re)

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ve language about disappearing into the shadows b fundemental political point. Such is the big lie technique whicu néen'used te intimidate all those who oppose the policies. anc bd i e Israeli state and who support the right ox the Palest pe sif-determination. If you are anti- Zionist in reality you Ete. ors intimidation has been used to suppress i end support for, the Palestinians. A cursory the = ish Chronicle will indicate the

J cause ané in preventing any reali through a variety of intimidatory teehniques the Diaspora have no right to ert une se ® Stone once put it:

discussion such as sta israel at ail.

"Pinding an Amextecan pubte sshing house willing to publish’a book whteh departs fron the standard Israelt line,its about as easy as

setling'a thoughtful exposttton of atheism to the Osservatore ’ mano in Vatiean City. "(2}

One of the purposes being anti-Jewish, applicable. It is t antisSemites, In in a talk he gave

is, to.show that far: from. anti~Zionists tonist.izovement to whom this is most... ~ whe have worked hand in glove with the

t ‘Let Zionist novellist,A B Yehoshua; of Jewish Students!

"Eyen tod,in'a perverse vay, a real antt-Semite must be a Ztoniet: (3)

Although of < se i+ is true that the State of Israel is fundamentally racist and © i pamphlet will concentrate on the relaticnehip Scunitism and Zionism. Some,even on the left, accept that Ws a national liberation movement of the Jews. After reading this ‘the origins of Zionism should be a little clearer and its actions today easier, <o understand as a result. It should also be clear that Zionism is not concerned about liberating anybody from anything, and.that its attitude to Jews yesterdey was ogee different from its.

attitude: t .iestinians LOSE.

(L) reprinted by tne Union of Jewish Students lecember 198 (2) New York. Bvtew of Books,9.3.7€ : (3) Jewtsh Chrontete 22:72.82

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THE ORIGINS OF ZIONISM

Zionism arose as a political movement in response to the economic

and political predicament of the Jewish petit~bourgeoisie. In the late 19th. Century, this class found itself in.a dilemma to which it could see no solution, other than the creation of a national Jewish political entity in another land, sponsored by one of the Imperial powers. This was still the age when the activities of colonialists and settlers. were considered honourable and worthwhile. But-this was a nationalism which didn't seek to struggle against oppression but the nationalism of a particular class which sought its own»solution by transferring its own oppression to another people. It ‘had nothing to do with the progressive nationalism in Europe which'had*ied to the. formation of nations from feudal principalities:

"Whereas the nattonal movement ts the product of the ascending pertod of capitalism, Ztontsm ts the product of the imperialist era."(1l)

As Christopher Sykes;: the pro-British historian noted:

"Ziontsm, one of the most powerful manifestations of the nationalist - age...found itself elosely bound to tmpertaltsm. It depended for tts foundatton. and early growth on the success of Brittsh tmpertalism."

The dilemma of the Jewish pétit-bourgeoisie originated with their (a2

confrontation with the political anti-Semitism of their non-Jewish business competitors on the one hand, and the growth of working class oe political and economic strueqles on the other.

"Zionism appeared as a reaction of the Jewish pettt-bourgeotste (which sttll forms the core of Jewry),hard hit by the mounting antt-Semttic wave, kicked from one country to another, and striving to attatn the

_ Promised Land where it might find shelter from the tempests sweeping the..modern world. "(3)

As Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism put ‘it:

"When we sink we become a revoluttonary proletartat...when we rise there rises also the terrible power of our purse."(4)

The more fiercely the workers fought, and the greater the economic crisis; the more anti-Semitic the ruling class in Eastern Europe (and later = Germany) became, as they strove to divide the working classes on racist lines and to divert the masses from anti-Capitalism to anti-Semitism.

The Jew was capitalism personified as far as the anti-Semitic parties,

in their battle to save capitalism itself, was concerned. Even though this meant dumping the Jewish bourgeoisie like ballast from a. sinking ship. Capitalism moreover went into crisis almost as soon as it started developoing in Eastern Europe. As Leon remarked :

"The Jewish masses find themselves wedged between the anvil of deeaying. feudaltsm and the hammer of rotting capttalism. "(&5)

Under feudalism the Jews had played a specific economic and social role, a ‘People Class' as Leon termed it. They were intemediaries between the Kings and Nobles on the one hand and the Peasants on the other,fulfilling the role of merchants and lending money in a natural economy based on

use values. With the transition to Capitalism, the Jews were squeezed,

as Marx put it, out of the pores of society. It was this impoverishment which led to mass immigration from Eastern Europe to Western Europe

‘and the United States,

Abram Leon, 'The Jewish Questton;A Marxist Interpretattion'p249,Pathfinder Press,1974

Christopher Sykes; 'Crossroads to Israel' p26,1973,Indtan University Press Ibid. p24s5

BRStewart,'Herzt',p 219

Leon op.ett. p226

suman.

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But while many Jews entered the Polish and Russian working classes, albeit at the periphery, and became active in the Social Democratic

and Communist Parties, the Jewish petit-bourgoeisie feared the prospect of proletarianisation and their consequent diminution of status. Their adoption of Zionism reflected the class outlook of the most reactionary section of Jews who feared both the working class and hig business, just as their German counterparts took to Naziism in the thirties. Zionism's emphasis on the creation of a national state was but one of the solutions posed to the Jewish Question. As Noah Lucas emphasised, Zionism was a response: es aS

" born of. the tenston. between emancipation or the idea of emanetpation and persecution. The transformation of the Zionist emotton from a mystical messtante bond, toa political tdea was...one amongst a

“much Larger number of Jewtsh responses."(6)

Working class solidarity between Jews and non-Jews against the reactionary regimes in Eastern Furope and Russia, and the proletarianisation of the Jewish masses, was the socialist solution to the growing problem of antiSemitism. This was the solution of the anti-Zionist Bund,a Jewish socialist and nationalist party in Poland,Russian and Lithuania.

As Lacquer remarks:

"The hostility of the Bund to Ztontst intttattives...did not mellow with time. "(7)

Zionism's solution to the Jewish Question was the establishment of a state based on exactly the same principles and social system as espoused by the Jews' anti~Semitic tormentors.The first thing the Zionists did in Palestine was to organise a boycott of Arab Labour and Produce. As Sir John Hope Simpson wrote, in his Report after the 1929 riots:

"Prom the beginning they(the Zionists-TG) had followed a natural tendency...to employ Jewish workers tin preference to others in the budding colonies, but during the hard times of the mid twenttes, this had become something of a prtnctple...The princtple of the persistent and deliberate boycott of Arab Labour in the cotlontes is not only contrary to the Mandate but tt ts in additton a constant and increasing source of danger to the country."(8)

Leon summed up Zionism in a nutshell when he said:

"Z¢ontsm wishes to resolve the Jewish Question without destroying ecapttalism, which is the prinetple source of suffering of the Jews. "(9)

An alternative analysis to Leon's argued by Moshe Machover stresses that anti-Semitism is in itself a fake anti-Capitalist reaction, it is not possible therefore to argue as Leon does that "“Capitalism...is the principle source of the suffering of the Jews." There is no doubt that anti-Semitism and indeed much of fascist ideology borrows from a pre~ Capitalist and feudal period, a past when the Jews did indeed play the role of a particular class. The mythical portrayal of a past golden

age is also part of the Nazi ideological baggage. But in the context of capitalism today, the only role such a false anti~-Capitalism has is to reinforce Capitalism by dividing its opponents. And given the active encouragement anti-Semites have received from the more reactionary (and sometimes not so reactionary) segments of the bourgeoisie, it cannot

be wrong to attribute anti-Semitism to the capitalist system. This is _«r"” particularly true of a capitalist system in acute crisis and unable to

A st? : ae

Noah Lucas,'A Modern History of Israel'pl4,Wetdenfield’ 6 Nicholson, 1975 Lacquer 'A.History of Ztonism',lew York 1972,Holt, Finehart’ & Wilson p29l Sykes op.ctt. plls

Leon op.ctt. p249

expand, which seeks out particular groups as-scapegoats. The. policies

of the Thatcher government should be proof of this and this is why

there is in reality a difference only of emphasis between Machover (Rodinson's?) and Leons' analysis. It was in the INABILITY of capitalism to expand and absorb both national minorities and other pools of labour that lay behind the staying power and transformation of anti-Semitism.

Large sections of the Jewish middle and upper classes had

‘seen either assimilation,or Haskalah,'The Enlightenment' (the secularis-

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ation of Judaism) as the answer to the Jewish Question. Reform Judaism which grew indirectly out cf the. Haskalah: :

"eliminated Hebrew and all Israelt- centred allustons from the liturgy and ceremonies so that no vestige would remain of any tmpltecatton that Judaism involved a collective allegtance beyond the confessional. "(10)

Zionism represented the final defeat of Haskalah and Jewish assimilation.

Lucas op.ctt. pls

ZIONISM: WHAT SORT QF REACTION?

Zionism today likes to pose as the answer to anti-Semitism. It is certainly a reaction. As socialists we have to say that whilst it was a reaction to anti-Semitism, Zionism was the most defeatist and conservative reaction. Zionism represented a running away from fascism and anti-Semitism. Zionism held that anti-Semitism was the eternal, natural reaction of a Gentile society to a Jewish presence. From the first,the Zionist movement decided to come to terms with anti-Semitism. Theodore Herzl who was President of the first 6 Zionist C%ngresses, noted after the Dreyfus trial which set him along the Zionist path:

“In Parts...I achteved a freer attitude towards anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all,I recognise

the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' antt-Semitism. "(1)

To the Zionists it was 'futile' to try and combat anti-Semitism because racism, like the existence of separate races was "natural’,and what was natural was in bourgeoise logic,by definition unchangaeble. The alternative would have been to analyse the social ,political,economic and historical roots of anti-Semitism in order to combat it. But that would have called into question the very reason for Zionism’s existence. Instead Zionism has,in Herzl's words, found it easier to come to terms with and pardon anti~Semitism. Pinsker, a Zionist who predated Herzl, held that 'Judaephobia' was a

psychic abnormality whose symptoms were anti-Semitism:

"Judaephobta ts then a mental disease, and as a mental disease tt ts hereditary, and having been inherited for 2 000 years, tt ts incurable.”

And at the 1900 Zionist Congress in London, Herzl also described anti- i=

Semitism as a contagious disease.

"Large scale immigration would be dangerous both for the English Jews and the immigrants. For these poor immigrants would unknowingly bring with them the very thing that provoked thetr flight-antt Semitism. "(3)

Anda Chaim Weizzman,President of the World Zionist Organisation for so long and first President of Israel, confided to the late Richard Crossman MP, a member of the 1946 Anglo American Commission of Inquiry, and himself an ardent Zionist that:

"anti-Semitism ts a bacillus whitch every Gentile carries wtth him wherever he goes and however often he dentes $0.5"(4)

As Leon wrote: "Ziontsm transposes modern anti-Semitism to all of history; tt saves ttself the trouble of studying the vartous forms of anti-Semitism and thetr evolution. "(5)

From beginning to end,Herzl sought an agreement with the various anti-Semitic rulers. He explained the strategy thus:

"The governments of all countries seourged by anti-Semitism will be keenly interested in assisting us to obtain the sovretgnty we want."(6)

He travelled to Czarist Pussia to meet the notorious Interior Minister, Count von Plehve, who had organised the porgroms at Kishinev. Herzl outlined his vision of a Jewish state either in Palestine,Uganda or Argentina (the biblical 'justification' for such a state came later) ,sponsored he hoped by the Czar. In return he offered to rid Russia of its Jews,who he pointed out would feed the growing revolutionary movemnents. Plehve was all in favour,and when Herzl tried to convince him of the merits of Zionism,he

(1) ' Bartes of Theodore Herzl,Gollancz,London 1958 pé

(2) Pinsker,Autoemanzipation,etn Mahnrufan seine Stammesgenossen,von etnem russtschen Juden Berlin 1882 pd

(3) Elt Lobel, 'Kodsky and Lobel, 'The Arab World and. Isvael' pptloo/t

(4) ° FH Crossman,'A Nation’ kborn',New York Atheneum 1960 p2

(5) Leon op.ctt. p247

(6) Hersl,'The Jewish State',New York 1946 p92

interrupted him saying that he was already a firm Supporter:Plehve wrote a letter pledging "moral and material assistance"”,a letter which became

"Herzl's most cherished.asset."(7)

Herzl saw the Ottoman Sultan, the German Emperor,Lord Cromer ,Count. Witte of czarist Pussia,ing Victor Emmanuel and even the pope! He was told by Count Witte, the Czars Finance Minister that: yen ae <3

"If tt were posstble to drown six or seven million Jews tn the Blaek Sea I would be perfeetly happy to do 80, but ttts not posstble 80 we must Let them live. But we encourage the Jews to emtgrate,we kick * them out. "(8)

Years later Jabtinsky, leader of the Revisionist Zionists, was to hole similar talks with the Ukranian leader Petlyura, whose fascist gangs murdered some 200 000 Jews between 1918 and 1920 and during the Nazi invasion. As Lacquer admits:

"The matn eulprit regarding the pogroms were the nattonalist forces under Petltura. "(9) ;

Jabotinskyv came to an agreement with Mussolini whereby the latter. estah«! lished a navy school at Civitavechia in 1934 as a training camp for the youth Zionist group of his, Betar, in order to produce a navy for the future Jewish state:

"This school was able to funetton right up to 1937. Jabottinsky was

convinced- and managed to convince. others- that tt vould be better for the Palestinian Jews for the Zionist movement and for Jews all over the world tf Fascist Italy beeame the mandatory power tin Palestine instead

Mussolini praised Jabotinsky in a conversation with the Chief Rabbi of Rome ,David Pinto saying that:

"For Ztontsm to sueceed you need to have a Jewtsh state with a Jewish flag and language. The man who really understands thts ts your fasetst Jabotinsky. "(12)

And Mussolini,had in turn been told by Nahum Sokolow of the Zionist Executive that:

"true Jews had nver fought against him"

and this endorsement was echoed by Jewish periodicals the world over. Nathan Weinstock notes that:

"the Italian representatives to the Ztonist Congress held in Prague in 1933-Sacerdoti qnd’ lante Lattes- did their best to moderate antt-German statements. Hachsharot (training camps for Ptoneers) were estabtished ° tn Italy with offtetal governmental approval. In short by the middle of the thirties, Mussolint was the darling of European Ztontsts as well as @ hero to most Italtan Jews." (13)

Mussolini also told Mahim Goldmann, the World Jewish Congress leader when he visited him (one wonders if there were any Zionist leaders who did NOT visit the worlds first fascist leader) that:

(7) Moshe Menhuin,' lecadenee ‘of Judaism in Our Time'(Institute of Palestindan Studtes),1969 p46 (8) quoted by Ruben Atnsztetn, 'Jewtsh’ ksistance in Nazt Occuvied Eastern Europe',London 1974 plst (9) Laequer p44l . (10) Luey Steinberg, 'Not As A Lamb; Jews Against Hitler'Gordon ’ € Cremones, University Press,Glasgow 5$i (22) Ibid p.62 (22)M Zohar, Ben Gurton,The Armed Prophet (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, New Jersey 1968 p4é. (23) W Weinstock, 'Zionism;A False Messtah'Inklinks, 1979 pls0/l,see Michael A Ledeen'Italtan Jeus’ &Poeeoten! Sutacan UAT Pou. A ae iis Se

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"You must create a Jewtsh state. I am myself a Ztontst. I have also satd this to Ir Wetzaman. YoR must-have a true state...I will help you have a Jewtsh state. "(t4)

When Mussolini joined with Hitler, the Revisionists found a sponsor in the anti-Semitic Polish government under Marshall Pilsudski. These Polish anti-Semites trained Betar in the Carpathian mountains and the Zionists proposed that:Poland:

"ask Britain to turn over the mandate for Palestine to you and make tt in efféet a Polish colony. You could then move all your unwanted Jews to Palestine." (15)

And the 20th. > Zionist Congress (Zurich,3-17.8.37) decided to send Chaim

Weizzmann,the President:

"to Poland and’ lumania to ensure the support of. those countries for the ereatton of a Jewish state. The poltey of those states was in reality very clear. A community ofnearly 3% million Jews lived in Poland and nearly 800 000 Jews lived in. Rumania. Just like Berlin, Warsaw and Bucharest were interested in seeing the Jews leave thetr nattonal territory. So those two capttals were very favourable to the arguments put forward by the Ztonists. "(16)

Walter Lacquer,;himself a noted Zionist historian and apologist,could not fail to raise’ the question which has haunted the Zionist movement since its inception, namely its relationship to the anti-Semites:

"It was a dilemma whteh faced Zionist leaders from Herzl onwards and eaused them much heart searching. Thirty years Later Wetamann was to

be recétved in audience by Mussolint...to have refrained from meeting dictators and anti-Semites would have saved them a great many moral conflicts. But tt would have severely limited thetr freedom of aetton..."(17)

From the very beginning, the Zionists realised that theirs and the antiSemites interests. conicided. After Herzl wrote the programmatic pamphlet, ‘Der Judenstaat. (the Jewish State or ‘State of the Jews') which helped to bind the various Zionist fragments into one cohesive movement politically, and which outlined both..the nature and means of achieving the future State, he recalled the reaction to it: ; =a

"Was at the printing office and talked with the managers...both are presumably anti-Semites. They greeted me with genuine cordtaltity. They liked my pamphlet. "(18) :

Similarly the atni-Semite Edouard Drumont wrote in La Libre Parole that Herzl accepted in his Jewish State,many of the accusations levelled at the Jews by

those such as himself. (29) é Hanna Arendt tells how a von Mildenstein (see later) required Adolph Eichmann:

"to read der Judenstaat,the famous Zionist classic which converted Eichmann promptly and forever to Ztontem...as late as 1939 he seems to have protested against desecrators of Herzl's grave in Vienna. "(20)

In welcoming anti-Semitism Herzl: wrote:

"Great exertions will hardly be necessary to spur on the movement. Antt semites provide the necessary impetus. "21)

(L4Ibtd plst = (15) RBrtscoe,'For the Life of Me'Longmanns 1959,London 1959 p268

(46) Eliahu Ben Elissar,p204,La' iplomatique du Illie’ Rich et tes Jutfs

(17) Laequer op.ctt pl26

(18) Marvin Lowenthall'The Diaries of T Herzl'New York 1962 p9l,ctted in Ztontsm’ & laetsm, Biltig’ &@ Sons, International Organtsatton for the Elimination of All: Forms of lactsm,Klaus Herrmann p206! Kstrtbuted BAZO

(19) D Stewart, Hersl, pas :

(20) Avendt,'Eichmann in Jerusalem:A Report on the Banality of Evil'p4l, 1979

(2L) Heral,The Jewish State,H Pordes,London 1967 p57 eited tn Marton Woolfson "Prophets tn Babylon,Jews tn the Arab World! pll4 ;

2IOQNISM: WHAT SORT OF REACTION? “a=

In regard to the Grand Duke of Baden, Frederich I, Herzl noted: .

"He took my project for building a state wtth the utmost earnestness. His chief mtsgiving was that if he supported the cause, people “=~ mtght aceuse- him of anti-Semitism." (22)

And when planning his meeting with the German ruler he noted that:

"To the German Katser I shall say-'let us go we are altens! They do not let us dtssolve. into the population nor are we able to do so."(83

When Zionist attention shifted towards Britain, anti-Semites were the first to receive Herzl's attention. In 1902 he appeared before the Aliens Commission, set up to formulate restrictions on Jewish immigration

“Heral's appearance before the commtsston could have only two effects. . Phe anti-Semites would be able to say that’ Heral, the expert, matntatned that a Jew eould never become an Englishman. "(24)

The Aliens Act, which came from the work of the Atiens Commission, following the agitation of the British Brothers League , was introduced into Parliament by none other than Arthur J Balfour, author of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. And not only was Balfour, then Home Secretary and later Foreign Secretary, an anti-Semite, so was his Prime Minister Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary. Of Lloyd George, an ardent Zionist and a supporter of Hitler in the thirties, it was said: i :

"He .does not care a damn for the Jews or their past or their future.”

Similarly Churchill, who played such a pivotal role in the establishméAe? of two very similar states, namely Ulster and Israel, was not above writing about Trotsky's:

"Schemes of a world wide communistie state under Jewish domination. "(26)

The. anti-Semites wanted the various nations to be rid of 'their' Jews and the Zionists also wanted the Jews to depart. The Zionists only qualification was that their destination be Palestine. Up. to the firer— World War, there was'a massive emigration of Jews from the poverty of |

e Eastern Europe, treading the paths of the Irish and other national

minorities before them. Virtually none chose to go to an inhospitable Palestine. As was pointed out: wx

"It was prectsely the Zionists who showed themselves ready to free

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Germany of tts Jews...the only Jews with whom, in the final analysis, vartous organs of the Third’ Rich and in particular the Ministers of Foretgn Affatrs and the Eeonomy were to establish real working retlattons, were tn effect the Ztontists and the Palestinian Jews. "(27) :

As early as the 20th June 1932, a "300 Nazts marched through the streets of Breslav and terrorised

Jewish passers by shouttng,'Let the Jews go to Palestine."(28)

Heinrich Class, President of the Pan German League, who on Hitlers‘ elevation to power was made an honorary member of the Reichstage,wrote:

"Those who regard the Jews as a foretgn race,which desptte tts parttetpatton in all the products of our culture,dtd not become German...must

Lowenthall op.ctt. plla,Ziontsm p20é

T.Heral, 'Tagebuches, Vol II p27 Laequer op.cit. pltg Asquith etted by Leanord Stein,pl49-§0,'The Balfour leclaration'London

Ztontsm versus Bolshevism, 'Illustrated Sunday Herald' 8.2.80 1963 Eltahu Ben Elissar, La’ Kplomattque du Ille Mich et les Jutfs pp86/7 JM Wise, ‘Swastika, the Nazt Terror',New York 1933 p45 : see also H Agar'The Saving’ Remnant! London 1960 on the original attitude of the SS to the Ztontsts

yr ZIONISM: WHAT SORT OF REACTION : res =5=

rejotee over the fact that among the Jews themselves the ‘nationalist movement called Ztontsm ts gaining more and moré adherents. One must tcke ones! hat off to the Ztontsts, they admtt openly and honestly that their people are a folk of tts own kind whose baste charactertsttes are tmmutable _..they also deelare openly’ that a true assimtlation of the Jewish atiens to the host nations would be imposstble according to the natural laws of race...THE ZIONISTS CONFI M WHAT THE ENEMIES OF THE JEWS, THE A THE ENTS OF ‘THE’ ACIAL THEO W HAVE ALWAYS ASSE WED...German and Jewish nattonalists are of one opinion in regard to the indestructabtlity of the Jewtsh race.” : (29) my emphasis The book'Wenn Ich der Kaiser War’ ith went into 5 editions before the war)

laid out the progratme adopted by the Nazis in 1938 when Jewish property was confiscated..As Davidowicz noted:

"German anti-Semites vegarded Class'’s book as ‘tratlblazing' and his influence on the National Socialists was deetstve.” (30)

And 80 we s3e how Zionism legitimised all that the anti~Semites and later the Nazis, had to say. Is it any wonder that the anti-Zionist and socialist Bund éttacked them’s5 fiercely, and that the Jewish workers despised them? Similarly Theodore Fritsch stated:

“ie still consider the Zionists as the most honest of Jews...we therefore demand together with the Zionists 'a elean separation’ and the settlement of the Hebrews in a special Jews dominton."(3l) \°

Fritsch was described as the ‘grand old man of anti-Semitic propaganda and

"qa Llynehpin.in the anti-Semitic movement was the author of a elassiec anttSemitte text, 'Antisemiten Katechtsmus' (Anti Semtitte Catechism): renamed © 'Handhuch der Judenfrage'’ of whtch Himmler satd,"one can find all the relevant material...If only some of tne eternally blind could have tt put before thet» eyes. "(32)

After the Nazis hed come to power, the Zionists continued to receive warm . praise. Schwarze Lorps, papes of the SS, argued that the Zionists alone in‘ the

Jewish community should be supported:

"The Zionists adhere to a strict ractal position and by emigrating to Palestine they are helping to butld their own Jewtsh state, "(33)

The Nazis ,just like the British with their Balfour Declaration and McMahon/ Hussein double dealines sought to deal with both the pro-Nazi Mufti and the Pr

Zionists at one and the same time. The Nazis consistently encouraged emigration to Palestine:

"In addition to the flow of Jewish refugees from Germany to Eastern Europe ..a new type of immigration headed towards Palestine organtsed from the ports of Eastern Mediterranean early in 1938...But to a great extent it was organiseu by Gestapo agents bent on making Central Europe Judenretn...When passengers

ave needed...Jews are rounded up and threatened with the concentration eamps unless they leave Germany. 'Where can we go' they plead, 'Palestina' vepltes the Gestapo...It was well known that the refugee traffte was run with Gestapo consent and sometimes on their striuous initiative. "(34)

The anti-Semites were not slow to recognise a coincidence of interest.And those that remained elso saw Zionism,with its emphasis not on fighting anti-

(29) If I Were the Katser,1912, D Frymman (pseudonym)

(30) Luey lwitdowtiez, War Against the Jews',Peltean 1975 p&é

(31) Der Hammer (Letpatg) January 1922,cited in Hermann op.ett p207

(32) Dawidowtez op.ctt. pp38,68, 104

(33) Ibid pll8

(34) WM Wischnitzer'To' Well in Safety',Philadelphia 1948,cited in Sykes pp 220/'

ZIONISM: WHAT SORT OF REACTION 65

"It should be remembered that the great majority of East European Jews were,up to the outbreak of the second World War, opposed to Ztontsm... - the most fanatical enemtes of Ziontsem were prectsely the workers, those: who spoke Yiddish...they were the most determined opponents of the tdea of an emtgratton. from. Fast-Europe to- Patestine...in the tdea ofan ° : evacuation, of an exodus, from the.countries in- which they had thetr homes and in whitch thetr. ancestors had lived for centurtes, the antt-Zionists saw an abdication of thetr rights,.q surrender to anti-Semitism. To them anti-Semitism seemed to triumph in Ztontsm, which recognised the legttimacy and the validity of the old ery 'Jews get out!' The Zionists were

agreetng to get out, "(35) as As Dawidowiez .wrote:: %

"Ihe Ziontets.and the Ostjuden...were the more conspteuous minortttes among German Jews, for they challenged the central tenet of German Jewtsl “extstence-~ Jeutsh betongingness to Germany.' uring the life of the Weima " kpublte, most German Jews regarded Zionism.as an alten doctrine. "(36)

The bourgeois leaders of the Jewish community in Britain felt the same way. In a letter to the Times (24.5.17) David Anexander and Claude Montefic

President of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo Jewish Assotiation respectively,wrote pointing out:that: ‘

"A. Jewish polttical nationaltty was an anachronism™ 4nd that it would "compromise the Jews wherever they had secured equal rights for all."(37)

This was-the accusation of virtually all Ztonism's. Jewish opponents name Ly that tt would legitimate antt-Semittem.And Leon wrote whilst working for the 4th International tn Naat oceupied Belgium that : aie

"The Zionist illusion began to lose its attractiveness...In Poland the last elections revealed that the Jewish masses were turning completely away from Zionism. The Jewish masses began to understand that Ztontem

.not. only could not-sertcusly tmprove thetr situation, but that it was furnishing weapons to.the anti-Semites by tts theortes of the objectiv necesstty of Jewish emigration. *(38)

Of the twenty Jewish Council seats, the Zionists gained precisely one. .

(35) ‘Teaqe. leutschen, 'The. Non: Jewtsh Jew.’ & Other Essays-The’ msstan Revolution and the Jewish Question" pp66/7

(36) Tauidowtez op.ett p2lée

(37) Lacquer op.ctt plg4\ mys

(38) Leon op. ctti p256s. oss

Zionists will often argue that while & co~incidence of interests between themselves and the anti-Semites exists, their political and philosophical world view, that is ideclogy sharply differs. But on closer’ analysis the similarity in outlook which made cooperation so easy is all to evident. Herzl in his ‘Der Judenstaat' saw Zionism as a means of deflecting support for socialism amongst Jewish workers,just as the reactionaries used antiSemitism to deflect the anti-Capitalism of the non-Jewish workers.

"In his memoranda, Herzl played on the fear of the Katser and his - collaborators of revoluttonary soetalism Jews would eontinue to supply

- the revolutionary parties with leaders and lteutenants unless a remedy was found for thetr plight. "(1)

e a

And Herzl told Von Plehve:

"Help us faster to land and the revolt will end. So wtll the defection to the soctalist ranks."(2)

In fact Herzl boasted that Zionism would dissolve all revolutionary ©. pa socialist elements among the Jews. (3)

The anti-Semitism of the ruling classes was not aimless and based upon a personal dislike of things Jewish. On the contrary it recognised as did

the Bolsheviks, that the Jewish proletariat was the most likely to be won over to the cause of revolutionary socialism because of the oppression and poverty they suffered, and it was thiswhich helped foster their ‘anti-Semitic prejudices, in addition to the Jews being handy economic scapegoats. In much the same way that Hitler 20 years later was to hate the Jews because of his hatred of socialist revolution and his identification of the former with the latter. Of Plehve it was said that:

_"What we pursued in the Jew was the revoluttonary."(4) As Lacquer noted:

"Heral's ertttes maintained ...that he made a deal with Plehve promising that Jewish Socialists would no longer attack the tsarist government. "(5)

And similarly the timing of the Balfour Declaration (coming as it did just days before the revolution in Russia, was not accidental. It was hoped that by giving support to Zionism, the Jewish working class in Russia might in turn give support to the allies - a somewhat forlorne hope. But for Balfour;

"Ztontsm was a valuable antidote to the revolutionary aspirations of the Jewtsh masses,"(6)

and not surprisingly the "Tsarist government...favoured the establishment of an independent Jewish state capable of absorbing several millions of them. "(7)

But according to Moses Hess, the first modern political Yionist,in his novel Rome & Jerusalem:

"The race struggle is the primary one, the class struggle is secondary.”

Hess had no doubt at all where he stood in the political divide,when the question of socialism or nationalism reared its head. It is Hess incidéntally who is held to have inspired Marx's essay 'On the Jewish Question',which in fact used the Jewish Question to illustrate wider philosophical and political questions. Hess's article bore the title 'On the Essence of Money’ and it

was noted that:

(lL) The Complete Bartes,? Herzl,Wew York 1960,5 Vols p769 cited in Lacquer see also Leanord Stein,The Balfour’ leelaration p325

(2) Ibtd. ptl24

(3) Menhin op.ett pp46/7

(4) Baruch Hagant,'Le Stonisme Politique et son fondateur' pl70

(5) Laequer op.cit. pl2s

(6) see’ breen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-22'Seeds of Confltet’London 1972 p? and Stein op.cit p340 eited in Weinstock 'Ziontem False Messiah'p99

a me Say T= ear ey eenhas EC ie aes

ZIONIST IDEOLOGY : 3 : ~3

"The similarities between Hess's article and Marz's Judénfrage are strtking and can only be accounted for on the supposition that Marz copted heavily from Hess's essay presuming tt would not be published."(8)

Marx's essay is held by many Zionists ,erroneously,to be anti-Senitic,but they never mention who in fact it was. who inspired it:

As Herzi's relationship with the various anti-Semitic rulers deve lope he came to the conclusion that:.

"the anti-Semites wtll be our most dependable friends...our allies."(9) and as Lacquer notes:

"many Jewish institutions and individuals claimed there was no Jewish Questt.

-.why stir up trouble and supply ammunition to the antt-Semttes who had azg: ued all along that the Jews constituted a nation apart with their own secret government. "(1L0)

But as Lucas,a critical Zionist historian notes,Herzl's political Zionism

"was derived from the analysts of antt-Semites,many assumptions of which tt shaved;that the Jews were untque in a metaphysical sense and could not assimtlate...and that anti-Semitism was a natural expresston of folk feeling and hence ineradicable...the endorsement of anti-Semitic assumptti and agserttons of the national character of the communtty wae directly eontrary to the beltefs and asptrations of the Jews of the.West and it tis not surprising that they vehemently. rejected Ztonitsm and regarded tt as a threat to thetr progress and their very security. In the end however, the Ztontst doetrine accorded closely with the expertence of the Jewtsh middle elass."(1l) : ,

and as Lacquer notes :

"the Ztont sts were in a position of strength because tt was already obvious before the first World War that the ttde was running agatnst ltberalism... the antt-ltberal tide...(that) strengthened the Ztontst thesis also put Ztpntsm into undesirable tdeological proximity wtth right wing and reacttonary movements and ideas."(12) ;

The Zionists accepted the views fashionable in pro~imperialist circles, that the world was.divided into superior (white) races and inferior (black) races. Those which were civilised and those which were savage. Such was the staple diet of racism which provided the ideological justification for the imperialist domination of the majority of the world by the Western powers, who went in search of raw materials, markets and pools of cheap labour. But the racism which justified colonial oppression, was algo refined and used against the national minorities of Europe, not least the Jews. Racism (like sexism) legitimised the inequalities of the existing capitalist order, both between “and within nations, and:provided convenient scapegoats for the ruling classes. There is no better example of Herzl'’s racist and colonialist mentality than the account of his visit to Palestine. Like colonialists before and since, he took no account of the Palestinian population which had been living there for hundreds of years. As Amos Elon, an

Israeli writer noted:

“The natives seemed to have vanished before his eyes...or else they assumed mo politteal.tmportance in his mind."(13) :

DMeLellan, 'The Young Hegeltians and Karl Mavz'(London) 1970 ppts4/é etited in Weinstock op.ett. p268

(9) J B Agus.'The meaning of Jewtsh History' p423 ctted in Zionism’ & Factsm p24,Humphrey Walz, ‘Contrasting Perspectives’ & Percepttions'

(10) Laequer plo3

(41) Lueas op.cit. p30

(12) Lueas p397 : . : (13) Amos Elon, Herzl,Wetdenfeld’ & Nicholson,London 1975 p290 etted in Martor

Woolfson 'Jews tn the Arab Lands-Prcphets in Babylon'Faber ptl3

(8)

ZIONIST IDEOLOGY ~-3-

And in the words of Israel Zangwill, a member of the Zionist Executive in a phrase which was used continuously by the Zionist movement,Palestine was:

"qa Land without a people watting for a people without a Land. "(14)

But a certain Tschlenow provides an interesting justification of Zangwill's infamous saying: :

"IE. £8 truethat. the number of Arabs (in Palestine=TG) ts higher than the number of devs by about half a mtilton, but on the whole Jews and Arabs

today comprise no.more than ten to fifteen pereent of the population whieh formerly tnhabited Jewish (7) Palestine. The country ts therefore uninhabited and avatts those who will colonise tt and regenerate 4," (18)

And as other critics noted:

"Hergl vistts Palestine but seems to. find nobody there but his fellow Jews, Avabe apparently vanish before him as in their own Arabtan nights."(16)

But Herzl saw them long enough.to recommend that before they left

"the natives should be put to work exterminating wild animals such as snakes to.whteh the Jzws were not accustomed. "(t7)

Even Weizzmenn had said in 1931:

"If you Loox at prewar Ztontst literature...you will hardly find a word about the Arabs"

and Lacquers’ chapter on the Arabs in entitled 'The Unseen Question’. And yet the Zionists were for ali the talk about an empty land,aware of the presence of the Palestinians. It was simply their racist mentality which : prevented them becoming a factor in their calculations. When the ‘cultural’ Zionist Ahad Ha'am visited Palestine in 1891, he wrote:

"ye abroad are used to believing that Palestine is almost entirely desolate,an uncultivated desert in which anyone who wants to buy Land ean ‘do so at will. But this ts not so. In the whole country it ts difficult to find arable tand that is not already cultivated."(18)

And Max Nordau,Herzl's Deputy exci aimed: "But there cre Arabs in Palestine! I did not know"(t9)

And the Haycraft Com Palestine, concluded

aission,set up after the first wave of riots in

that the Zionist Organisation:

"desired to ignore the Arabs as a faetor to be taken into sertous constderatton. "(20>

But it was official policy of the Zionist Executive in the 1920s not to enter into political discussions with the Arabs (Lacquer p24). And when at the Jewish Agency Council meeting in August 1937 in Zurich,Judah Magnes proposed negotiations with the Arabs he was shouted down and ruled out of order! Presumably it was out of order to mention the Palestinians. (22)

“And the same conclusion is reached by Lucas:

"early votces ealling for a political appratsal of what for Ztontsm became the 'Arab Guestton’ were tgnored in the higher counetls of the movement and virtually silenced-within Palestine by the fury of. the reaetton they

(14) Zwanguill,Isrsel The Return to Palestine;New Liberal’ vtew II lecember 1901, etted in lTavid Hirst'The Gun’ & the Olive Branch’ pl9 (15) EW Tsehlenow 'La Guerre lo revolution russe et le stonisme, Copenhagen 1917 ppl8/9 etted in Weinstock p79 (16) IN Jeffries;Palestine The .Rality,London 1939 p40 etted in Lacquer p2to (17) Complete’ Earies of T Herzl,herzl Press and T Yoseloff,New York 1960 Vol One p98 cited in Hirst op.ctt ple (18) Ahad Haam,Colleeted Works (Hebrew) Volt 3 pp234/5 Tet Aviv 1977 (19) ctted in 'Israeltis,Founders and Sons',Amos Elon pl48 (20) George Kirk, 'A Short History of the Middle East'London 2966,Methuen pls7 (2L) See J Marlowe, ‘Seat of Pilate’ London Cresset Press,1959,ctted in Shkes pi

ZIONIST I OLOGY °“-4~-

provoked...(they) assoctated any tenderness...wtth the sort of mtnort ty

psychology whitch was .typteal of European Jewry and which was repudiated by Ztonists."(22)

Eugenics, the ‘science’ of selective breeding which explained why the manority of the population were poor whilst the few were wealthy, was part of the. ideological baggage of the early Zionist theoreticians. Just as

there were elite races, so there were. elites WITHIN the races (and of course ‘inferior’ elements). The wealthy were naturally part of the elite, and intelligence theories and IQ tests were used to provide the intellectual gloss. Poverty too was natural because the poor brought it upon themselves and one therefore had to control their breeding through forced sterilisation if necessary. It is from this ideological strata, the most reactionary segment of bourgeois ideology, that Zionism sprang.

In 1904,L'Echo Sioniste featured the contributions of Zionist scholar Herman Jacobsolin on craniometry. In a series of 5 articles he reveiwed the

cranial measurements,eye and hair ‘colour etc. in order to prove the existence of a ‘Jewish Racial Type." (23)

science,social darwinist and Egenicist movaments. For instance Max Nordau, was a follower of Lombroso the social Darwinist criminologist ,Nordau claimed

"The Jews possess. a greater enterprising spirtt and abiltttes than the average European, to say nothing about all those Astans or Afrteans."(24)

Nordau who briefly succeeded Herzl was author of a book 'Degeneration' (1968,New York) which attacked virtually every progressive thinker in vacial/biological terms. And Moses Fess wrote in a similar vein that:

"Thave even heard it satd quite sertously that the Indo Germante race tmproves tts quality by mixing with the Jewtsh race."(25)

Even Walter Lacquer, a Zionist himself, noted regarding the early Zionist theoreticians that:

"Far beyond the wishes and asptrattons of individuals, there was the objective Jewish Question. This referred to soetologteal factors and also to the distinet character of the Jews as a race. Some western vriters were influenced by the writings on race theory published ; during the two decades before the first World War and a few (tneluding fuppin and Elias Auerbach) pursued their own studtes tn this fteld. . The theory of ractal constancy taught that certain distinctive qualtties were tnhertted irrespective of soetal, cultural and geographical etreumstances...These views were later absorbed by the Nazis and provided

the justtfteation for Hitlers’ ractal poltey."(26)

Dr Ruppin,2 relatively unknown but powerful figure in the Zionist project, opened the Jewish National Funds' Palestine Office in 1908 and headed

the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Orcanisation during the 1920s and 30s,lending powerful support to the Kibbutz type of settlement (see later),he was someone that Dayan was prone to quote at length. In Zionist terms he was a 'dove',associated for a time with Juda Magnes's group,

(22) Lueas op.ett. ppl40/l a 7 Se SL he

(23) MR Marrus,The Polities of Assimilatton (Oxford 1971l) p27l eited in Ztontsm’ @ Retsm,p209 i

(24) Max Nordau to this People,New York 194L,p73 etted by $ Goranov p32 in

(25) A Hertzberg, 'The Zionist Idea’ pl27,New York 1959 Ztontsm' & lactsm etted in lan, Ziontem’ & ketsm p38

(26) Lacquer op.ctt. pp386/7

2IONIST roLosy ==

Brit Shalom, (Peace League) ,Today the Jensens and Evsencks of this world continue to justify the oppression of women and black people in terms of their biological and genetically inherited differences.

In a similar vein’ Ben Frommer, a revisionist Zionist,outlined the theoretical tenets of his brand of Zionism:

"It ts presumpttous on the part of a Jew to demand that he be treated as

lovingly as say a Teuton in a Teutonte country, or as a Pole in a Poltsh country. He must jealously guard his life and ltberty but he must candidly recognise that he doesn't'betong’. The liberal fietton of perfect: equality

ts doomed because itt is unnatural."(27) As the modern Zionist historian Y Elam wrote in the Mapai newpaper:

"Ztontsm has not regarded anti-Semitism as abnormal, absurd,deformed and marginal phenomenon. It has regarded anti-Semitism as a natural phenomenon, something given and normal in the attitude of gentiles to the presence of Jews in thetr midst...a normal,almost rational reaction of the genttles to the abnormal and deformed situation of-the Jewish. people tn the dtaspora."(28)

Zionism also distinguishes itself by its worship of the state. Israel's very name is the 'State of Israel’ and everything the Zionists did from their beginnings in Basle in 1897 to their declaration of independence in 1948 was geared to one thing- the establishment of a state. Herzl's book was entitled the ‘State of the Jews’. Isarel -Shahak, President of the Israeli League for Civil and Human Rights, commenting upon this state worship noted in reference to the Bible which is used as a source of legitimation for the state:

"But to be devoted to the State? I aan well imagine Amos or Istah splitting thetr stdes with Laughter if somebody had demanded them to be '‘devoted' to the Kingdom of Israel or the Kingdom of Judah." (29)

Today the destruction of the state of Israel is automatically taken to mean the killing of every Israeli,just as the destruction of other colonialist regimes such as in Rhodesia, was taken by the settlers to mean white bahies murdered in their sleep etc. Such are the siege fantasies of a settler population. But in Israel even this is exceeded as the state is virtually worshipped. Zionists talk of ‘our national institutions’ in revered and awed tones. Worship of the state is part and parcel of right wing bourgecis and fascist ideology.

"In asserting at the end of the 19th Century the centrality of the nattonat prinetple contained within ltberal thought, tt (Ztontsm) was conceding the defeat of the tndtvidualtst principle. While asserting the Jewtsh determtnatton to obtain freedom as understood tn the modern world, Zionism simultaneously tn a sense repudiated that hope by sharing many key assumptions with the doctrine of antt-Semitism."(30)

In Israel the most revered institution of the state, the army, has bv virtue of the Emergency Defence Requlations and other regulations, dictat~ orial powers which it uses daily against the Palestinians. Socialists quite rightly see the state as an instrument of class rule and in no way neutral. Hence why the advent of socialism would coincide with the withering away

(27) B Frommer,'The Significance of a Jewish State', Jewish Call Shanghat 5/33

(28) Y Elam,New Assumptions to the same Ztontam, (Hebrew) in Ot 1967 cited in 'Ztontsm;Why We Oppose It’ Moshe Machover pp8/9,Pal. Soltdartty Campaign

(29) A Jewtsh' luty or a Jewish Apostasy,The Times,27.1.73

(30) Lueas op.ett. plé

ZIONIST IDEOLOGY ~6-

of the state. But for Ben Gurion this was certainly not true: ‘ f

"If the Ztontst idea has any true content; tt ts the content of the state. Zionism ts the desire for a state of the Jews, the yearning for the country of Palestine and for the establishment of a government. "(31) ;

There were others in their time who argued that what the German people wanted was their own national state. We also know what they or rather the Nazis did with that state. And in fact at the very same time that the Nazis were consolidating their hold on power, the Zionists too were arguing that what the Jews needed was a state of their own just like the German nation.

"Everywhere. tiiroughout the world symptoms develop whteh spell doom to the cornerstone values of liberaltem. Parliament and democracy are inereasingly shattered. The exagerrated harmful emphasts on the value of the indtvtdual ts recognised to be mistaken. The concept and reality of the nation and the people ts gaining, to our happiness, more and more ground. The last and most powerful and sublime formulation of nattonal rights and the rejection of tnternattonaltem ts found in the demands of soctalism that tit

be founded exclustvely on the untque character of every natton. The spectal demands of every natton namely nattonal soctaltsm... the state.cannot destre any other Jeus exeept those who: subsertbe to. thts principle amongst thetr own people. It cannot destre to have sycophantie Jews; It must demand from us recognition of our absolute uniqueness and qualities, since only those who give full honour to their own untqueness, their own blood, eould gain the respect and honour whtch is bestowed by stmtlarly tnsptred nations subsertbing to the same principle. "(32)

(3L) Ben Gurton,Memoirs, op.ctt. p275 etted in Khamstn 6,Machover’ & Offén-

burg, 'Ziontsm’ & Its Scarecrous'

(32) J Prinz,'’Wir Juden' ppls0/l1,155/6 (Berlin) cited in Urt’ Iavies, Utopia

Incoporated op.cit. plé

iy

It is often claimed that Ziofism is a progressive,even socialist movement. What is not often understood is that without exception, the early Zionist theoreticians were reactionary to the core. The phenomena of ‘Labour’ or ‘Socialist’ Zionism occured because the Jewish workers in Eastern. Europe were attracted to the left given the latter were the only ones who fought anti-Semitism, and it was necessary for Zionism to use the language of the left if they were to ever match the appeal of the left to Jewish works~s.

"The Bundse' leadere'clatmed that the Soctalism of the left 2tonists was a dettberate sham, that they wore a red mask to hide thetr real tntenttons and to adjust themselves to the radical Zettgetst."(Ll)

Of 'left' Zionism, Lucas notes that:

"Ziontsem e@ame tnto dtrect conflict with the Jewish proletariats pereetved interest. It was tn thts context that the —- of soctalist Zionism were formulated."(2) .

And yet many Jewish people genuinely believed it was possible to be both Zionist and Socialist. Some found out to their cost under Nazi occupation that the movement they had joined was not one which was formed to fight anti-Semitism. Some particularly chose in. the further left groups such as Hashomer _Hatzair, made common cause where they could with non or antiZionist Jews and left groups in combatting anti-Semitism. But what mattered was: not the individual motives and sincerity of left Zionists. After, all in the Russian Revolution, a 'Borochov' regiment. fought with the Red army

and the Russian Poale Zion joined the Bolshevik Party after 1917 (though keeping a certain limited independence up to about 1925). When those fighting for socialism were on the offensive, then Zionism found it difficult to hold its own and in the left Zionists in particular, the socialist aspect gained ground as‘the Zionist dream faded. Conversely when the fight for socialism seemed more distant and when the reactionaries were triumphant, (as after the 1905 Russian Pevolution, and the 1881 pogroms) then support for Zionism and emigration to Palestine increased. Zionism like ali reactionary nationalisms, only offer hope to those who at times of defeat and despair can see no other solution, and when the achivement of a class~ less society is further away than ever. But within ‘left’ Zionism there

was this constant battle between class solidarity and national solidarity. A minority in Achdut Haavodah, Hashomer Hatzair and Left Poale Zion;at different times broke away. to either form as in Belgium part of the 4th International or in Palestine the Communist Party.

In Palestine itself, the Zionist Organisation not only agreed but was anxious to see the British authorities suppress and deport the leaders of the Jewish Communist Party MOPSI (Mifleget Poalim Sotzialistim Ivrim) after the May Day riots in 1921. (3)

The Palestinian Communist Party moved from a position of left Zionism to an anti~-Zionist and anti~imperialist outlook. It was formally expeiled from the Zionist Histadrut in April 1924 and the Zionist Labour leader, Berl

(Ll) Ben Ehud, Ztonismus oder Soataltsmus (Yiddish) Warsaw 1899p30 and Origine of the Husstan-Jewish,L Monst, Metbourne,l947 pl36 etted in Lacquer p273

(2) Lueas op.ctt. p3d

(3) See Nathan Weinstock, 'Ztontsm A False Messtah'Inklinks, ppLli-tl7

‘SOCIALIST’ ZIONISM -2-

(4)

(5) (6)

(7)

Katznelson referring to them said:

"We don't want national (as opposed to ‘soctal-TG) strikebreakers in our midst. "(4) :

The Communist Party organised its own union,Ichud, after their expulsion and the 4th Congress of the Communist International in 1922 condemmed, referring to the Histadrut and others:

"The pseudo socialist tendenctes towards colontalism of some categories of well patd European workers in the cotontes. "and as Weinstock notes:

"the tendency to ereate separate European communi st organtsattons was simply a, concealed form.of eolontalism.ineompattble with pnotetartan internattonalism."(5); é :

But the. Histadrut, a Jewish only union, tried hard to prevent both Jewish Arab working’ class solidarity (for example by trying to split the joint railworkers union (see M Offenburg op.cit) and at the same time trying toprevent the development of nationalist consciousness amgng Arab workers through the establishment in 1927 of its own Arab section, the Palestine Labour League. As Hurewitz notes after the Arab revolt,its membership

"shrank almost to the vanishing potnt. To offset Arab nattonaltst indoctrination against Ziontsm, whtch tended to keep the League's direct influence over Arab workers at a minimum,the Hietadrut exptotted every advantage."

This included using Histadrut ownershio of companies like Solel Boneh, Israels largest Construction Co.,to insist that Arab workers (who if there were government contracts had to be employed) join what was in effect a company union. (6)

As Weinstock says of the Palestine Labour League:

"The Histadrut inevitably found it difficult ta organtse Arabs whilst denying them equality on the Labour Market."(7)

The President of the Zionist Executive also held discussions with the British Police on how to combat Communist propaganda among the Arabs, (just as they were to supply similar information to the Nazis later on) (8)

This shows quite clearly that what the Zionists feared above all was not that the leadership of the Arabs should fall into the hands of feudal reactionaries like, the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nashashibis :(most of whom were subsidised by the*Arab Department of the Jewish Agency under Kalvarisky) but that a left’ wing would emerge among the Arabs which would not divert the anti-Zionist struggle into the blind alley of religious fanaticism. f

The Kibbutzim, (where less than 5% of Israelis live)

areoften cited as examples of Israeli socialism. Leaving aside their role as employers and exploiters of Arab labour, it should be noted that Kibbutzim always served as the vehicles of expansion (as well as being Jewish only!). For the very act of colonisation required collective action in the face of Arab resistance. Just as State ownership of industry doesn’t necessarily change ‘the capitalist nature of it,so collective

_ forms of colonisation does not change the nature of colonialism.

Mario Offenburg, Kommunismus in Palaestina Nation und Kalassetn der anttKolontalen’ kvolutton,Metsenhetm am Glan 1975 (Ph' D Thests,W Berlin 1975) pl87 see also Recent Studies on the History of the Palestine CP,Flores Khamstn No 7 pp€t~-5t t Weinstock pl85 op.ctt.ctting Schram Helene Carrere d'Encausse pp 194-5 Hurewttz,ppl22/3 'The Struggle for London, Marxism’ & Asta L969 Palestine’. 1976 Schocken Books 4 : Wetnetock Op.ctt. pl8é etting fevusky pp238-42 (8) Ibid. pt34

‘SOCIALIST’ ZIONISM -3-

Lucas described the Kvutza, forerunners of the Kibbutzim but which were much smaller, as the result of:

"an alliance between the embryonic labour movement and the Zionist finanetal instituttons.The pragmatism of the more radical socialists among the ptoneers was reveated in thetr readiness to enter such an

alliance with the Jewish bourgeotste abroad." and it was an associate of Ruppin, Professor Franz Oppenheimer, who :

"propagated cooperative theortes in Palestine...The Kvutaza didnot = ortginate as a deliberate soctal experiment.Its forms were elaborated by aeeretton in the school of etreumstances."(9) ~ :

And it was probably Ruppin himself no socialist who summéd it up. best :

"I can say with absolute certainty : those enterprises tn Palestine which are most profit bearing for the businessman are almost the least profttable for the national effort,and per contra many enterprises which “aré Least profitable for the businessman are of high national value. "10)

Which is why Labour Zionism either rejected class struggle or gave it a

subordinate position within the national effort, because Zionism always involved class collaboration. . A D Gordon,founder of Hapoel Hatzair:

"rejected outright the Marxian doctrine of class struggle and-formulated an. tdealtstte theory of nationalism in which soctal goals were subord-

inated to nattonal...Gordon came to the same egnclusion as the orthodox soctalists that soctaltsm and nattonalism were incompatible." ‘tl)

Ben Gurion from Achdut Haavodah (which in 1930 mergéd with Hapoel Hatzair to form: Mapai): ~ oe Ns

"eoined the stogan from class to natton...both perspectives saw the role of tabour as a nationalist role...the Zionist themes of nationalism and soctalism were henceforth closely intertwined tn Labour culture. "(12)

and as time, took its toll so:

"Poale Zion gradually came to gtve prtortty to the nattonalist range of goals. over the socialist. "(13)

Ben Gurion as earty as 1906 had at the Congress of the Palestinian Poale

Zion in Jaffa dépposed Savransky and others who wished to organise Arab. labour instead of excluding it. (1¢)

And from. the earliest days of Zionist colonisation,explicitly racist attitudes developed amongst the Zionists:

"One observer wrote that ona few occastons he had detected an. attitude

towards the Arabs which reminded tim of the way.Europeans treated the blaeks.." (152 and :

"Levontin,; director of the loeat Anglo-Palestine bank wrote to Wolfssonn the head of thé World Ztontst Executive, thatthe young men from Poale Zion were largely responsthle for the growing tenston...behaving : towards the Arabs with arrogance’ and contempt."(16) and that:

"from the outset the pioneers and. thetr trade unions fought for the replacement of Arab by Jewtsh labour. "(17) :

(9) Lueas p56 .% (L0)° hippin; Butlding Israei,Wew York 1949 pp47-9.65

(ll) Lucas p46 : (12) Ibid. pp49/50

(43) Ibid p5t :

(44) Offenburg op.ctt-ppl46-8 cited in Weinstock op.ctt p87?

(45) Hugo Bergmann,Jawne und Jerusalem ,Prague 1919 p60 cited in Lacquer p217 (16) Quoted in ge pak Avab Question in the Policy of the Ztonist Executive before the +48t World War'in Shtivot Zion 4,pl63 etted in Lacquer pél?

(17) Laequer patg9

‘SOCIALIST’ 2I0NISM -4-

Hans Kohne,as early as 1919,denounced the: "chauvinism of the new immigrants"(18)

And was it any wonder? Zionism was a colonial project from its very beginnings and it sought to ignere the Palestinians, excluding them first from the economy and then from the country altogether. The official racism of the Zionist movement permeated downwards to the Halutzim (pioneers) racist attitudes socially and politically. As Israels lst Prime Minister, Ben Gurion wrote:

"First and foremost I am a Ztonist and strive for the concentration of the Jewish people in its own country. Only after that do I see the Arab questton arising. "(19) :

Little wonder that a Harris Poll in Time Magazine (12.4.71) found that 3/4 of Israelis believed Arabs to be "less intelligent” and 2/3 thought Arabs ‘inferior’... : :

With regard to the Boycott policies,many private capitalists and even the British administration often found themselves in opposition, on a mixture of grounds, not the least being that Arab Labour was cheaper being unorganised. Histadrut,stood for General Federation of HEBREW Labour) . As Lucas remarks: ;

"The Histadrut thus found itself in the paradoxical posttton of defending what appeared to be a reacttonary doctrine from what appeared to be a ltberal ertttque by the poltttical right wing. *(20) :

In fact contributions by United States unions to the Histadrut budget ranged from 2/3 to 3/4 of its entire revenue after the declaration of independence. The AFL-CIO Union in the states has a long history of subverting genuine unions and sponsoring yellow unions. (21)

The consequence of their'national' trade unionism and the relegating of socialist to nationalist goals is that:

"Israels' economy is perhaps untque in the capitalist world tn that tt is controlled by a labour bureaucracy." (22)

But even that is changing as private capital asserts itself,as shown in the victory of Begin in 1977 and 1981. Yet again the thesis holds that those *socialists’ who stay running a capitalist economy and who relegate their own theory and practise to national aims, end up being changed before the system they operate changes. In practise whenver the needs of Zionism and Socialism conflicted, it was the latter which qave way: Yttzhak ben Zvi, Israels second President put it succinctly when,in 1921, as the Histadrut was’ being formed,he stated that:

"whahever we come aceross a contradiction between nattonal and socialist prtnetples, the contradiction should be resolved by retinqutshing the soetalist prinetple-in favour of the nattonal acttvity. We shall not accept the contrary attempt to solve the contradiction by déspensing wtth the national interest in favour of the soctalist tdea."(23)

Indeed Borochov, the ‘Marxist’ Zionist forerunner of Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam, used the formulation of an inverted pyramid to describe the Jewish social composition in Eastern Europe. He argued for a postponing of the class

(18) Ler Jude,July 19,1919 (19) Ben Gurton,Memoirs,Part 1 Tel Aviv 1971 pp299/300 Hebrew,ctted in Machover

op.ett p49.

(20) Lueas pl5¢4 : (2U) Htstadrut Executive Committee,Ha Bik Koret ba-Histadrut (Tel Aviv 1949)

pp46-7 etted in Lucas op.ctt fn p454 (22) Lueas op.ctit. p344 ; (23) Achduth Wo 16 Tel Aviv 1921 cited in Machover/Offenburg op.ctit pp49/50

"SOCIALIST' ZIONISM -5-

struggle in Palestine between the Jewish working class ecisie until the economic strength of the Yishuv was otic up ca ee Se peor inverted. Borochov and the ‘left’ Zionists argued that if there were tc be class struggle, they first needed a Jewish proletariat and.that required the investment of a Jewish bourgeoisie,if not the creation of the latter. Hence at least in the short term an alliance with Jewish capital against the Palestinians was necessary. Mapam,which still subscribes to Borochovism despite portraying itself as a leftist party abroad,is as racist as any of the other Zionist parties. But its left image does not prevent it from a trading with South Africa or its Kibbutzim from confiscating Arab lands such as at Kfar Birim or paying differential rates of pay to Arabs.

"Many plants tn Israel are trying recently,qutetly but tntenstvely to tnerease thetr commercial relations wtth South Africa. One of the most active enterprises in this field is Asta Malaharot belonging to the ktbbutz Ma'abarot of Hashomer Hatzatr. The plant has set ttself an objective. To tnerease every year by 20% the export of tts mixture for cattle feeding to South Africa. According to the scientifie director

of the plant, avid Shimoni, the export of tts roduce to § Afrt was worth one mtltton dollars. "(24) : 3 eo

But Mapam's trade with South Africa is only a logical continuation of the history of this 'left' Zionist group (which incidentally continues to grow weaker in internal Israeli politics as those who don't have to face the strain of reconciling socialism and racism take Over). Mapam has continually sacrificed its ‘socialist’ principles to those of national (ie Zionist) hegemony. As David Hirst wrote of the settlers:

"Their soctalism did not extend to thetr non-Jewtsh fellow men. "(25)

David HaCohen,former Managing Director of Sollel Boneh and described as "a elassteal proto-type of a Labour Ziontst leader and member of the tnner-

most ectrcle 'Unser Mensclen' by Uri Davies wrote:

"T had to fight my frtends on the tssue of Jewtsh socialism to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my Trade Unton, the Histadrut;to defend preaching to housewtves that they should not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there...to pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes;to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash Arab eggs they had bought...to buy dozens of dunums from an Arab ts permitted but to sell God forbid one Jewish dunum to an Arab is probibited;to take’ lothschild the inearnation of eapttalism,as a soctalist and to name him the 'benefaector'- to do all that was not easy. And desptte the fact that we did tt- maybe we had no chotce-I wasn't happy about tt. "(26) =

In fact the Histadrut, theZionist Trade Union was never set um to defend the rights of workers, be they Jewish still less non Jews, it was set up as an instrument of Zionist colonisation and was formed through the joint efforts of the same two parties,Achduth Haavodah and Hapoel Hatzair in.1920 which later formed Mapai. The Histadrut was: = "Under Katanelson's leadership a ‘non party'...a roof organisatton of Labour Zionism relegating the parties to the cultivation of abstractions” and it was "a general union based on direct tndividual membershtp rather than a a federation of craft or tndustrtal untons with block membership. "(27) As Golda Meir said: "then (1928) I was put on the Histadrut Executive Cttee at a time when thts btg labour unton wasn't just a trade unton organtsattion It was a great colontsing agency."(28) Such was Labour Zionism. (24) Yedtot Aharanot 12.10.76 ectted in’ Avies p98 op.cit. (25) Htrst op.cit. p2s (26) Ibtd p63 (27) Lueas ppél, 85 (28) Observer 24.1.7l cited in' lAavtes pl42

(t) (2)

(3) (4)

The leader of the German Zionists and later Deputy Chairperson cf the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, (who became a Zionist ‘dove'wrote)

"(The Jews) have*been drawn out of the last recesses of christening

and; mized marriages. We are not unhappy about it...the theory of asstimilatton has collapsed. We are no longer hidden in secret rececses. We want to replace asstmilatton hy something new. The declaration of belonging to the Jewtsh nation and thé Jewtsh race. A state built according to the prinetples of purity of the natton and race can only be honoured and respected by a Jew who declares hts belonging to hts own kind. "(1)

Prinz went on to declare that:

"On the foundatton of the new state whtch has established the principle of race,ue wish to fit our communt ty into the total structure so that for us too...fruttful acttvtty for the fatherland ts possible. Our -acknowledgement of Jewtsh nattonaltity provides for a clear and stneere relationship to the German people and tts nattonal and racial realities. We don't wen to falsify these fundamentals, because we too,are against mixed marriages end are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group and reject any trespasses of the cultural domain...For tts ; practical. aims,Ziontsm hopes to be able to wtn the collaboratton even of a government fundamentally hostile to the Jews...the realisation of Ztontsm could only be hurt by resentment of Jews abroad against the German development. Boycott propaganda ...ts tn essence fundamentally unZionist, because Zionism wants. not to do battle bu to convince and to butld."(a)

" Jacob: Kletekin, a Zionist ‘radical* no less ,wrote:

"We are in a word naturally foretgners. We are an alten natton in your midst and we ‘want to remain one. An unbridgeable chasm yawns between you and us.A loyal Jew ean never be other than a Jewtsh patriot:..We recognise a national unity of’ Kaspora Jews no matter in which land they may restde...no boundartes can restratn us tn...pursuing our own Jewish poltey. "(3)

Just as the anti-Semites defined the Jews as a race,despite the physical, cultural,linguistic and even religious differences between Jews of different

countries, so too did the Zionists. They accepted that. being Jewish was a

question primarily of being members of the same Race and Nation, and was not a question of a shared religion. Most early Zionists had in fact been atheists or agnostics. Herzl wrote:

"I consider the Jewish Question neither a soctal nor a reltgtous one... tt ts a national one...In our native lands where we have ltved for ecenturtes we are sttll deerted as aliens...the majority dectdes who the 'atien' ts;this,and all else ts the relationship between peoples,it tis

a matter of power. "(4) :

And this idea of a nation was not based on the progressive nationalism of

the French Revolution,which asserted the political equality of ail;,but was

a reactionary,raciai and biological concept of nationhood directly counter-

posed to notions of equality,liberty and fraternity. It was no different

to the nationalism of the ultra~-reactionary German Junker class. Herzl

J Prinz,'Wir Juden' Berlin 1934 pl54 etted tn Khamsin N"o 6,)Plyuto- Presa op.cit Ibid cited tn Glaser, 'Some of my best friends are Nazis',Jewtsh Guardtan

Volt 2,No 2,November 1978

J Klatekin, ’Krists und Entscheidung in Judentum', Berlin 192l,pll8 ctted in Ztontsm’ € Racism p204 Klaus Hermann, (Crists’ leéiston) see Menhuin pp482/3 Herzl, the Jewish state quoted in Hertzberg op.ctt. p209,cited in’ fan op.cit

p39 also etted tn Lacquer p86 based on lst Engitsh translation by Sylvte d'Avigdor

THE JEWISH FACE -2-

went on to define a nation as:

"an historical group of men of a recognisable cohesion, held together by a common enemy. Then tf you add to that the word Jewish, you would have what I understand to be the Jewish nation. "(5)

Nordau similarly in an interview with 'La Libre Parole' in 1903 stated tpat:

ei "(Ziontsm) ts not a question of reltgion but exclusively of race and

there ts noone with whom I am in greater agreement on this position than M’ Irumont."(6) .

‘And 40 years later,Abraham Stern,the terrorist leader of the Stern gang

developed this type of thinking further in his first of 18 Principles of Liberation:

"(t) The People 3 The Jewish People is the chosen people whitch gave birth to monotheism, to the ethics of the prophets and the culture of the world, tt excels in tradition and devotton,tits will to live,its endurance and its confidence tn the coming ltberation."(7)

Jacob Klatzkin explained that:

"To be a Jew means the acceptance of neither a religion nor an ethical ereed...tn short to be part of the nation one need not believe in the Jewish reltgion or the Jewish sptritual outlook. "(8)

R J Gottheil,Professor of Semitic Languages at Columbia University and the first President of the Federation of American Zionists,wrote in the first official statement by the Federation of its philosophy:

"We belteve that the Jews are something more than a purely religtous body, that they are not only a race but also a natton."(9)

And of course the idea that Jews,however fragmented and scattered they are, consist of one race and nation, is the basis of the anti-Semitic world conspiracy theory which forms the central core of Nazi ideology.In fact:

"Jews were tndignart when an anti-Semtte like Huhs argued that they still constituted one natton,.."(L0)

Yet again Zionism was legitimising what the anti-Zionists were saying. Moses Hess attributed German anti-Semitism to the fact that:

"The Germans hate the religion of the Jews less than they hate thetr race-

they hate the pecultar fatth of the Jews less than thetr peculiar noses... reform, converston,educatton and emanctpatton, none of these open the gates of soctety to the German Jew, HENCE HIS’ ESI EH TO’ IENY HIS’ MCIAL O HGIN."

At. the same time,prominent Zionists were quite happy to accept that, (tt) there were racial differenves between Jews and Gentiles which made

their co-existence impossible: : "Jewish noses can't be reshaped and black curly hatr can't be changed into blond hatr or combed stratght by ehristening. The Jewtsh race ts a baste one and revroduces itself in its integrity...the Jewish type has itself always remained the same throughout the course of the centuries... the Jewtsh type can't be exterminated. "(12)

One could be forgiven for thinking that this was another Nazi race theoretician. Of course it was Moses Hess,a 'socialist' Zionist. Little wonder

(5) Ibtd

(6) C Parker/Pottins,Labour Review

(7) Pt ha Aton 24.2.71 cited in’ lavies op.ctt pl50

(8) Hertzberg op.ctt p3l7 cited in yan op.ectt p39

(9) Ibtd p500

(10) Lacquer op.ctt. p23 (41) Ibtd. p49 see also p7l

(12) Hess,' Pome’ & Jerusalem-The Last Nationality Question',1862 pb26/6 etted in

Machover/Offenburg op.ctt

THE JEWISH FACE -3-

that the Zionists saw it as no part of their duty or raison d'etre to fight for an equality of political and social rights for Jews in the countries they lived in. In fact when the prominent French archeologist Salomon Reinach wrote attacking the concept of a Jewish Race, he was in turn attacked by L'Echo Sioniste and accused of assisting:

"The last supreme effort made by the proponents of assimilation to break down every barrter between themselves and the non-Jewish world. "(13)

Zionism could only see people in terms of the race and nation they belonged to. The individual existed in order to serve the State,not the other way round. American philosopher,Morris S Cohen wrote in 1919:

"Nattonaltstte Zionism demands not complete liberty for the Jew but group autonomy..a nattonal Jewish Palestine must necessarily mean a state founded on a pecultar race,a tribal religion,and a mystte belief in a peeultar sotl..Ztionists fundamentally accept the ractal ideology of.. antt-Semttes but draw different conclusions. Instead of the Teuton tt

ts the Jew that ts the pure or supertor race."(l4)

(13) M' EMarrus,The Politics of Assimilation (Oxford 1971) p27l (14) Ztonism-Tribaltsm or Liberalism? New Republic 8.3.19 pl83 reprinted in

Cohen's'The Fatth of a Liberal’ New York 1946 pp326-33,Gary Smith'Politica Ztontam A Jewish Critique’ in Zionism’ & Racism p2l7

Just as racism functioned as an ideological justification of imperialism,so too did Zionism with its messianic message and claims of biblical fulfill= ment in pure-i* of its colonial project. In fact the first people in the modern coloniaiist era to suggest the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine were non-Jewish impefyialists such as Palmerston and Laharrane, Napoleon IIIs Secretary. Laharanne’wrote a pamphlet in 1860,"The New Eastern Question: Egyptian and Arabian Empires.Reconstitution of the Jewish Nation" which inspired Hess, the earliest Zionist theoretician to write 'Rome & Jerusalem’. As Weinstock says: : P . ; ,

"For his part Hess was captivated right away by the prospect of an alltance

of the Jews with French tmpertalism tn the Middle East."(l) and

"In 1839,Palmerston gave instructions to the British Vice Consul in Jerusalem, for the protection of the Jews and the ‘restoration of the Jews. "(2)

And in 1840 Palmerston wrote on the reasons behind this sudden burst of idealism: : .

"It would be of manifest tmportance forthe Sultan to eneourage the Jews

to return to and settle in Palestine,because the wealth which they would bring with them would inerease the resources of the Sultan's dominions, and the Jewish people, returning under the sanctton of,protectiton and at the invttatton of the Sultan would be a cheek upon any future evil destgns of Mohammed Alt or his suecessor...and strongly recommend them to hold

out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine.

Another similar pamphlet was 'Paris,Rome,Jerusalem ou la question (3)

religieuse au XIX siecle' (Paris 1860). As Lacquer remarked: "Hess drew heavily on Laharannes analysie of the Eastern Question."

The British Consul in Beirut,Colonel Henry Churchill, even submitted in 1841 a plan for Jewish colonisation of Palestine to the Jewish Board of Deputies. Herzl had envisaged that the Jewish state:

"would form part of a defensive wall for Europe tn Asta, an outpost of etvtlisation against barbarism,Europe would guarantee tts extstence."(4)

Those settlers who tried like the Ihud and Brit Shalom to forge a common cause with the Palestinians were told: B

"Ishmael ts not our uncle. We belong to God, to Europe."(5)

“But then even Eichmann and Stahlecker,the latter being commander of the Death Squad Einsatzgruppen A,proposed in the spring of 1941 that an autonomous Jewish state be set up as a Protectorate in Poland! as a_solution to the Jewish Question. (6)

Strange indeed how the solutions posed to the Jewish Question by the Nazis, assorted racialists and Zionists cor~erged,and also how their 'solutions'

(1) Weinstock op.ctit p36 (2) Ibid. pgs

(3) George E Kirk,'A Short History of the Middle East',Universtty Paperbacks Methuen,London 1966 citing A N Hyams on 'The British Consulate tn Jerusalem (4) Lacquer op.cit. p95

(5) Ibid. p228é

(6) Arendt op.ctt. p74

THE FUTU © JEWISH STATE -2-

stood out in-opposition to the socialist solution. The western Jewish bourgeoisie was,however,at this time assimilationist. Religious bodies had played a very important part in colonial enterprises. They often entered the territory first and the home country then sent in an armypurely to protect their freedom to worship of course: Such was the role of Zionism in relation to the conquest of Palestine- no matter that the

religious Jewish community in Palestine wanted no part of it.

"Meanwhile in 1920, the Ztonist leaders convened an ‘Assembly of’ leputte: whitch appotnted a-'Nattonal Councit'(Vaad Leumi)...Orthodoxz Jews deseended from the. old Palestinian communtty refused to be part of tt... For thetr part they formed a separate association of practising Jews,

'Agudat Yisrael'. The strange Leader of this violently antt-Ztontst tendency, the' lutch poet Jakob de Haan, was murdered in Jerusalem

at the beginning of the Twenties."(7)

The leaders of the Ottoman Palestine Jewish community including the Chief Rabbi,Hakham Bash Chaim Nahum also vigorously opposed thé Zionist

project.Similarly with the Orthodox community of Jews outside Palestine. Herzl's own Chief Rabbi,when approached by Ferzl for support said:

"Never has any competent authority issued to the collectivity of the Jews a call for a so-called ‘bloodless crusade’ for the regaining of tts national autonomy. Sueh would have appeared as an intervening tnto Gods' leadership. Zton was and ts to the Jews the symbol of thetr own future and that whieh encompasses all mankind. Our plea for a return to Zion in the eontext of our prayers ts to be understood in this sense, WHICH IS ANYTHING BUT NATIONAL."(8) my emphasis

And then years before Herzls' Judenstaat, the Convention of Reform Rabbis had declared:

"We constder ourselves no Longer a natton but a reltgtous communtty and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine..."(9)

And the Reform Central Confederation of American Rabbis attacked Political Zionism: "Ztontsm was a preetous possession of the past...as such it ts a holy memory, but it ts not our hope of the future, America ts our Zton.” (10)

Whatever claims are now made that the establishment of a Jewish state is the fulfillment of a biblical dream, at the time of Zionism's rise, it was the Orthodox Jews who were most fearful of it:

"It (Ztontsm) was taken far more seriously by the Orthodox, who with some notable exceptions (the Mtzraht-TG) regarded tt as thetr matin enemy. "(1L)

And of Herzl,the founder of Political Zionism,it was said:

"That he was ‘one on whom his Jewteh origin Lay. so lightly that it is probable that...he often completely forgot tt."(12)

The Zionists proposed that their Jewish state be oraanised on exactly the same racist principles that the anti-Semites espoused.According to Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism:

7 . . , 5 ' i (7), iginetock pls? from Hurguits. 's ryggie for, rales ting, ES Re i se Dee hanki p200 (9) Lacquer op.ctt. p402 ’ ; (LO) Naomt Wiener Cohen,'The American Jewish Historical Soctety',June 1951 p365 (ll) Lacquer p40? (12) George Kirk op.ctt. pl4é

THE FUTU H JEWISH STATE -3-

"Palestine should belong. to the Jews. The applteation of suttable methods aimed at-the.creatton-of an ethnically pure Jewish state will always be necessary and-toptcal\.The Arabs know only too well even now, what we intend to do wtth them and what we desire from them."(13)

Today Jabotinsky is honoured as the greatest Zionist theoretician and practician. after Herzl and is worshipped by Begin. Herzl's vision of the future Zionist state showed,as Hanna Arendt noted,

"to which eategory- of polttictan,in the framework of European history, Herzl betonged to."(l4)

Herzl envisaged:

"a standing: army (strength 1/10 of the male population)...Eduecattion would make use of patrtotte songs...men in full dress, the women altogether

i sumptuous...high priests in the Jewtsh state would wear impressive robes

(13) (14) (15) (16) (27)

the cavalry would wear yellow trousers... "ete. (15)

The Zionists justified their project with biblical mystiaue, mythology and messianism linked to the supposed 2000 years biological/racial link to the twelve Hebrew tribes which conquered the ancient land of Canaan. This should not be surprising. As there was no valid reason based: on actual realities for emigrating to Palestine of all places,as: Lucas notes:

"Ztonism...represents a radtcal break with the spirtt of Jewish messtantem transmuting it from an essentially religious instght to a doctrine of secular polttics."(16)

Indeed the South African Afrikaaner press asked:

"Is there any difference between the way the people of Israel are trying to maintain themselves amid the non-Jewish peoples and the way the Afrikaaner is trying to rematn what he is? The people of Israel base themselves upon the Old Testament to explain why they do not wtsh to mix with other people. The Afrtkaaner does this too."(t7) =e

Dr Verwoerd, a former South African Prime Minister noted:

"The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs lived there for a 1000 years.In this I agree with them.Isvael like South Afrtca ts an apartheid state."(18) :

And the Jerusalem Post made clear in April 1976 on the conclusion of a pact between Israel and South Africa, after Vorster's visit there:

"The Afrikaaners were espectally enthusiastic...seeing a stmtlarity

of interest tn two 'white' nations at the head and foot of the African continent waging Lonely fights for survival against overwhelming Zz black numbers." : :

As Harold Soref, former Tory MP for Ormskirk and a member of the Board of . Deputies wrote: ; :

"No country in the world has done more to further the Ztontst cause than South Afrtca..Politically they share the same enemies not least the UN"

But there is a long history of solidarity between the Zionists in. ~ a Palestine and the white settlers of South Africa. Both the white leaders of Rhodesia and the South African leaders, especially General Smuts,were strongly sympathetic to Zionism,realising that Zionism just like apartheid

B fainov,'The’ loads to Ztonism' Softa 1969 pé3

Hanna Arendt, 'The’ Iream and the’ kaltty'

Lacquer p94

Lucas op.ctt. pal :

Henry Katzew,South Africa-A Country Without Friends,Midstream Spring 1962 p73" FP. Stevens, 'Israel’ & South Africa’ Ziontsm & lactsm plé

(18) Fand Taily Matl,23.11.61,Stevens op.ctt. pl68

(19)

Jewtsh Chronicle 25.8. 78

THE FUTUrE JEWISH STATE —-4-

was an inter-class ideology and practise, able to secure a strong organic base by deflecting the class antagonism in the Jewish working class onto , the Palestinians,just as happened with South African miners in the 1920s vs the Blacks. In a draft letter to Cecil Phodes, whom he greatly admired, + Herzl:wrote almost pleadingly: :

"Please give me a statement saying you have examined my programme and found it appropriate. And why do I come to you,Mr’ hodes,you wilt ask. Because my programme ts a colonial programme. (20)

Given the battery of Isxaeli laws,requlations,administrative and other practises which discriminate against the Palestinians it is hard to disagree. It is relevant indeed to remember the warning words of Chaim Weizzmann , President of the World Zionist Organisation almost continuously from Herzl's death to the establishment of the state of Israel and lst President of Israel; to the 14th Zionist Congress in 1925:

"The Zionist Congress must. not confine ttself to Platonic formulae.It has to learn the truth that Palestine ts not’ hodesta and that 600 000 Arabs live there."(21)

But if there is one person whose name is synonomous almost with the establishment of the state of Israel it is Arthur J Balfour. His Balfour Déclara~ tion promised Palestine to the Zionists as a Jewish national home whilst ignoring those whose home it already was.

"For in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present tnhabitants of the country,though the American commission (King Crane-TG) has been going through the form of asking. "(22)

This is the same Balfour whose Aliens Act: "forbade persecuted Jews access to British territory. "(23) and who:

"described himself as 'an ardent Ztonist',but this did not mean that he was a natural Judeophil;on the contrary in common with many Ztontsts of the time; both Jews and Gentiles,he accepted many of the allegations made against the Jews anti-Semites. "(24)

The same is true of another British official Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, who was Chief Political Officer. under Allenby. Sykes writes of his Middle East Diary 1917-56 that: ‘

"as an ingredient of that remarkable little book...tt attraeted little attentton...not the least betng an emergent self portratt of the author

as a Zionist extremist who recommended the adoption of anti-Jewtsh laws

in England among the other singlular discords of will and temperament. "(25)

Which is presumably why Weizzmann described him as:

"an ardent Ztonist...And that not merely tn words. Whenever he ean perform

a service for the Jews or Palestine he will go out of hts way to do ee : (26

(20) T Herzlj Kartes,Vol III ptos

(21) Sykes p95

(22) Ibid. pst

(23) N Wetnstock,'Le Stonisme contre Israel'(Paris 1969) ppl06-7 see also Hansard 10.7.05 Vol 149 eol. 154-5

(24) Sykes op.ctt. pé (25) Tbtid. ps8. : : (26) Trial’ & Error p229 cited in’ breen Ingrams,'Seeds of Conflict' p82

THE JEWISH STATE TODAY

Today the activities of the Israeli state in Lebanon speak for themselves. But there were those, Zionists amongst them, who predicted bow that

state might develop even before the Israeli state was established.

Judah Magnes, first President of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and

founder of Brit Shalom and ther Ihud, was one who gave repeated warnings: He wrote:

"We are told that when we become the majority we shall show how just and generous a people in power can be. That ts like the man who says that he will do anything and everything to get rich,.so that he may do good with the money thus accumulated. Sometimes he never grows richhe fails. And tf he does grow rich under those ctreumetances, <8 power of doing good has been atrophied from long lack of use. In other words tts not only the end for which:Israel but what ts of equal importance, the means must be conceived and brought forth in eleanliness. "(4 )

For this and similar statements, Magnes was reviled and eventually had to leave Palestine altogether for the United States.- The role of the Zionist Movement and its creation, the Jewish state, have remained the same since the Balfour Declaration, namely as a partner of western imperialism. An interview with ex President Richard Nixon's Jewish advisor, Rabbi Baruch Korf, illustrates this very neatly: :

- was a true friend of Israet?.” : i Korf storming) "Yes, yes, yes, without a shadow of a doubt. More than <~ ‘Pyyman, Etsenhower, Johnson and Kennedy." Bashan "Why?" : Korf :€smiling) "I too asked that onee, and do you know what he told me? she satd) ‘Why not? Israel costs the US less than the Stauth Piger 2) ;

or as Levi Eshkol, wno later became the Israeli Prime Minister,said in a speech to the Knesset: ‘ : :

" "What is our regime? It ts a vegime of elearing the ground and paving the way for przvate capital, tf only tt exists and wants to come here."

-It is precisely as a partner of,and a watchdog for, western and in ae particular American Imperialism, than one can understand the built in : conflict between Israci and the Arab people, the Palestinians in particular,as the latter strecgle for.the right to self-determination. Racism . is the handmaiden of colonialism, and given that Zionism is by its own

. admission a colonising venture, anti-Arab racism is.to be expected in Israel today. This expresses itself in both economic exploitation and in, the expulsion of the Palestinians, which in themselves represent the main contradictions in Zionisms relations with the Palestinians. The following description of differences in.a Histadrut Company illustrates the roles of Arab Labour in. Israel:

Bashan. (interviewer) Would you now: tn retrospect say that Kehard Ntxon

"At the beginning the Jewish workers objected to the employment of Arabs at the plant, and there were some slight seuffles. The tocal (trade

(1 ) Like All the Nattions,Magnes, Jerusalem 1930 p28

( 2) Yedtot Aharanot 5.3.76 cited in U. lavtes op.ctt p.l04

( 3) M.Sneh'The Israeli Eeonomy',Central Committee of the Israelt Communist Party 1960, etted in 'Ztonism and tits Ortental Subjects’ Khamsin Wo.5, laphael Shapiro, pl4

aja

unton) Labour Council significantly assisted in changing the Jewtsh workens attttudes.and.they came to realise that the Arab workers do not replace them, andin.reality even relieve them to some extent, tn that they usually do..the.unekitled,.hard and dirty jobs."(4) .

Or ‘as*a Jewish farmer put A a

"If Arabs exist, Let them work. Why shouldn't Jews be the bosses. The Arab workers are naturally built for tt. I have one who is 50 yédrs old and works :bent double for':8 hours a day. Show me a,Jew ltke him."(5)

\ v

But this did not prevent the ‘Labour ‘ Agricultural Minister, Aharon Uzan, describing Arab Labour thus:

"The domination of Jewish agriculture by Arab workers is a cancer in our body." (6)

And the same Minister went on to introduce the Agricultural Settlement Law which prevented Arabs from leasing Jewish or 'national’ land. : But racism in Israel does not merely operate at -the level of employment. If you are a Palestinian ‘and actually wish to invest capital and employ others, you will still have problems as the following report makes clear:

"Closed to. non-Jews’ the answer given to a rettred Druze offtecer. who wanted to start a quarry. This area ts closed to non-Jews, thus replted in writting the director of IFérael Land Authority to Mr Ismail Qablan...

who wanted to start a marble quarry next to the development town of Karmtel."(7) :

Karmiel is situated in the Galilee where over 50% of the inhabitants are Arabs. The Galilee was the subject of the ‘Koenig Report',so named after the Northern District Commissioner of the Ministry of Interior, Israel Koenig,which recommended measures for the ‘Judaisation of the

Galilee’ in order to ensure that the Palestinians were thinned out. Koenig proposed:

"to redress the drastic situation by gtving Arabs no more than 20% of the avatlable jobs; by changing the selection system to reduce the number of Arab students in the universities and encouraging the channel ing of these students into technical professtons...and thus to leave them wtth + less time for dabbling in nattonalism- also to make trtps easter while making the return and employment more atffticult, whitch is to encourage thetr emigration... (and that) big family grants to Arabs should be ~-

transferred from the nattonal insurance. system to the Jewish Agency or the Ztonist Organisation. "(8)

To this very day, Arabs inside Israel are subject to Military Law as embodied in the Defence’ (Emergency) Regulations,1946, introduced by the Britigh. Yaacov Shapiro, later an Israeli Minister of ‘Justice’ said:

"The system established in Palestine since the tseue of the' kfence. :Laws ts unparalleled in any civilised country; there were no such laus even

tn Nazt Germany. There is indeed only one form of government which resembles the system in force here now, the case of an occupted country. They try to pactfy us by saying that these Laws are only directed against malefactors, not against honest eitizens. But the Nazt Government

(4) Maartv 14.2.71 cited in UsDavies op.ett p93

(5) ' lavar 8.41.72 3 (6). . Ha'areta, 13.12.74. (7) Yediot Aharanot 8.2.71 cited.in U! Lavtes op.ett pl32/3 see also the

'Shahak Papers', Institute of Palestinian’ Studies p 230 (8) Al Hammishmar 7.9.76

Re

of Occupied Osto also announeed that no harm would eome to etttzens

who minded thetr own bustness...It ts pure euphemtsm to call the

Melitary Useund ‘courts’, In faet they are nothing more than (to

use Naat nomenelature) Military Judictal Committees Advising the Generals. ; (9)

most exclusively against the Arabs in Israel.

e Israeli state denies even the

, although today it might pay lip

rd enough. Golda Meir, the former Prime

saids

These laws are tor: Like all such racist ent existence of a Palestin service to the ide H Minister. put it biuntly when sh

OTe was not as though there was a Palesttntan people and in Palestine constdering ttself as a Paiestintan people and we eame and threw them out and took thetr country away from them, they did not extst."(10)

‘And it was what a ‘Jewis

E wao was quite explicit in regard to in practises

Interviewer : "If the Jews a minority had the same priveleges as those ing the Arabs as a minority, would you be Metr ; aere must be one place in the world.where > a mtnortty."(1L)

The racism of the strate, its laws and institutions is quite naturally reflected in the r to i ceptions and attitudes to, Arab people. The telling exche 2 between a visiting Conservative MP,Maxwell Hyslop, and the Chairperson of the Fereign Affairs Committee of the Knesset is

illustrative:

Mazwell Hyslop se Hacohen, I am profoundly shocked that you speak of other human beings in terms stmilar to those in which Jultus Stretcher spoke of the Jews, Have you learnt nothing?"

fr. Hacohen : "But they are not human.betngs,they are not people, they : are Arabs."(12)

The cause of the dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis is often held by e latter to be the refusal of the Arabs to recognise the latters state. The reali is somewhat different as Moshe Dayan explained to some , "Jattng the tast 100 years our people are tin the process of butlding up. .thts country and this natton, of expansion, of getting more Jews and moré settlements tc expand the borders. LET NO JEW SAY THAT THIS IS THE END OF THE P OCESS : LET NO JEW SAY THAT WE ARE NEAR THE ENT OF THE RAD." (23; And Ben Gurion, vein just what

he

+. me university graduates:

OM ce

Minister,explained in a similar really was:

<srael' kind of "To matntain the status auc will not do. We have to set up a dynamte state bent upon expansion."

and Dayan again explained why the Palestinians have resisted. for so long:

in the place of Arab villages. You don't r

"Jewtsh.villages were 282 Arch vtllages and I don't blame you,

even know the wares

Sty OF x

ut

oot ch

fey ®

(9) Ha Praklit (She Lawyer) February 1946, etted tn Sabrt Jtryts 'The Arabe tn Israel’,Institute of Palestine Studies, 1968 p4

(20) Suday Times 15.6.69

(Ll) Marte Syrktin, 'Goida Metr' pl33,l966

(12) Hansard 18.10.73 as recounted by M.Hystop

(13) Maartv 7.7.68 . (14) DB.Gurton,’ birth and lestiny'pp&7é-7

ooks no longer extst. Not only do the books not exter, the Head se lta ages are not there etther. Wahal arose tn the place of Mahtul, Cvat in t

single ptace, buttt 3

population. {15}

he- place of Jibta....there ts not one country that dtd not have a former Arab

the time of the infamous confiscations

Or as Yoram Bax o of Birim and Ikrit, (by the ‘left’

of the land

"It ts the dut with elari with the vc ts no Ztont Arabs and

a of oF these is the fact that there wish state wtthout evtetton of the lands. "(16)

acclimatisin for new wars

"We are doomed to.4 2 ..a@ constant state of war with the Arabs and there.is no, escape ; fice and bloodshed. This is perhaps an under: ts a fact. If we are to proceed with our work ¢ et the wishes 2 he Arabe we shall ahve to expect.’ such Sacer 2s L pirat used to be called ‘Jew after Jew’,

i ve by aere’,'goat by goat’. It means villages, more settlements. Twenty years we are nearly 3 mtllion. There should be 2e@ who says we are neartng the: pth the Land...Your duty ts not

to stop, ] unsheathed, to have fatth, to keep the flag flying. wu must La hait- ~heaven forbid and say 'thats allsup to here,up so’ Rganta,to Mufallasim, to Nabil Oz.For that rE} not all. "(i7)

When Israelis demo: Gaza and the h (under General $s another post 67

éxpanston,m ago wé were 00 no Jew we say end of ¢

é al

confiscation of land in the « that the Palestinians were subject to Saiil,Golda Meir'’s advisor said in

"Our rtght on Gaac eolontsing Gaza e Jaffa. Phose who fel Aviv ae well. replied, as one of

itke ou v right on Tel Avte. We are ame manner in which we colonised

3 & on Gaza should doubt our right on

Amos Keenan, an Israeli Journalist

cra

SA chee S =) =

"tf one who belteves ¢ as no rtght to Gaza must also doubt his rtght.to Tel Aviv" the Amos Keenan "would begin to doubt if tndeed I have a right to ! viv, at Least Tel Avtv as tt ts now, A Jewish etty in a Jeutsh Pate 1 a mtilton Arabs deprtved of rights, "(13} But if the Palest should remembe: against by the community there has managed to

io) iS) R D i a o 3 ° a + iS} 'S Ss 5 1) a a co) Qa a oO QO ch be 9 3 = ct - © 3 = m0)

or — “Jews are also discriminated establishment, Within the Jewish

di ion of labour, though Zionism ssicn and the inherent class contrad-

(45) Halareéts ¢.2.59

(46) Yedtot Aharanot 14.7.72 cited tn Liltienthall, 'Ztontst Conneetion' page 113, todd Mead’ & Co. New York, 1978 (47) Hactam # ha?

(18) Ha'aretz 18,¢.72 atted in U.Davtes,op.ett pls

ictions by deflecting the anger of the Oriental Jews onto the Pales~ tinians in a re-run of the poor whites syndrome of the southern states of jthe United States. First the history of the Oriental

Jews has keen obliterated and re-written just as it has in the

case of the Arab population generally. Abba Eban, then Israeli Foreign Minister put it thus:

"So far from regarding cur tmmigrants from Ortental countries as

a bridge towards our integration wtth the Arab speaking world, our object should be to infuse them with an Oectdental spirtt rather than allow them to drag us tnto an unnatural Ortentaltsm."(19)

This attitude of the Ashkenazi establishment has been best described as the : "Self determinatton of other poeple"(20)

An interview with the representatives of some Morrocan Jews returning home from Israe] illustrates the position of Oriental Jews in Israel

today.

"Wy do you Askkenazim make such a fuss when we declare our resolve th return to Morocco?...There was no Holocaust there. On the ontrary there Jews were treated wtth respect! (The spokespersons unele) Albert adds :

"We have never suffered tn Moroceo. If there was tn Moroceo any oppresston, tt wasperpetrated by the Freneh regime a

"And what" the interviewer asks,"if King Hassan ts ousted and a madman Like Colonel Qaddafi gets to power"

"And what" they respond "tf the Arabs settle seores with Israel...

History will tell who was wiser. Anyway you should know that we

have always gotten on well with the Arabs. Wonderful people It ts

only the Ashkenazim that we have never gotten on wtth."(21t)

And similarly the State of Israel has consistently discriminated against Black Jews, refusing to register their births,preventing them from entry to the country and even deprting them back to the U.S.A. As one of their representatives saidfIsrael isracist to the core." (Maariv 4.6.73 cited in Lillienthall p134).

Isruel is none the less heid out as a symbol of western enlightenment,especiaily with regard to Women and their role in Israeli society. Little mention is made of how women have always been the servicers of Israeli men and the Zionist economy and of how their role as producers of Jewish babies (Aliyah Pnimit- internal immig~ ration) has always been considsred pivotal, especially in a siege state which counts its members ethnically. Abertion has for example been considerably restricted. For two excellent articles on the myths behind Israeli Womens Liberation see‘ Avishai Erlich “Zionism Demography and Womens Work" Khamsin No.7 and N Yuval Davies/D Hecht ‘Ideology Without Revolution. Jewish Women in Israel’ Khamsin No 6. The last articie in particular demonstrates why the fight for womens liberation is incompatible with support for the Zionist state.

(19) A Mack, 'Oriental Jews,ciass,ethnicity and Ideology’! in U lIuvies, A Mack and N Yuval luvtes ‘Israel’ & Palestinians" Ithaea,London 1975, etted tn Davies op.ett p34

(20) RShaptro, Zionism & Its Ortental Subjeets,op cit pé

(21) Ha'aretz 6.6.76 etted in U Invies,op.ett pills

Not ‘only did ‘Zionism share ‘the’ sane idedlodital territory ‘as anti-Semitism,

» it also concluded that anti-Semitism was vital if it was to succeed in its mission.. Without the spur of anti-Semitism, Jews would feel little need to emigrate. Herzl had already noted early on that:* © f _

"Antt-Semtttem has grown and continues to grow and so do I."(1l)

Herzl compared anti~Semitism to "a propelling force that could be used in the same way that boiling water produces stzam power. "(2)

In 1958 Nahum Goldmann, then President of the World Zionist Organisation, warned that the current decline of anti-Semitism:

"might constitute a new danger to. Jeutsh survival...the disappearance of antt-Semitism tn its elassteal meaning while benefictal to the polttteal and material situation of Jewtsh communities, has had a very negative effect on our tnternal life.”(3)

And 8 years later he was reneating much the same message:

"The danger represented to the survival of the Jewish people by. the integration of Jewish communities into the peoples among whom they ltve ts greater than that constituted by external threats,antt-Semitism.."(4)

But Nahum Goldmann is a liberal Zionist. For suggesting that Soviet Jews should be encouraged to fight for civil and political rights WITHIN the

USSR, he was howled-down and prevented from sneaking by Herut at a World Jewish: Conqress conference. This worry that anti-Semitism might eventually disappear, and Judaism with it, is reminiscent .of the opposition of Orthodox Rabbis in the 19th‘Century to the granting of full civil and political rights to the Jews. of Europe, who feared their powers and that of the Kehillot (Jewish. Councils) over the. Jewish communities would be eroded. Zionism felt equally threatened as assimilation. became easier. Leo Pfeffer of the American Jewish Congress went one step further:

"Such dtscriminatton may well be a blessing. It its posstble that some antt-Semttism ts necessary tn order ‘to ensure Jewish survival." (5)

Michael Sasher,former Israeli Consul for Jewish Affairs in New York wrote:

"the more the Jews suffer from oppresston and discrimination, the less danger to their Jewish future. "(6)

Nearly 40 years earlier,Jacob Klatzkin had written:

"The contribution of our enemtes ts in the continuance of Jewry in Eastern Europe. One ought to appreetate the national service which the Pale of Settlement performed for us..,we ought tobe thankful to our oppressors ‘that they closed the gates of asstmilatton to us and took care. that our’ people were concentrated and not dispersed." (7) (the Pale of Settlement was an area’ where Russian Jews were confined by the Czarist police and foreed to live and work).

(2) M Lowenthall op.ett p?

(2) Hanna Arendt,'The Jewish State 50 vears after-Where Have Herzl's politics led?? Commentary Vol 1 No. 7,May 1946 cited in F Yahya ‘Zionist Pelations With Nazi Germany’ Palestine Research Centre,Reirut, 1/78 plo

(3) New York Times 24.7.58 cited in Lilltenthall, Zionism’ & Factsm p56/7

(4) Le Monde 13.1.66 ctted in Weinstock op.ctt

(5) The National Jewish Post’ & Opinion 6:11.59 cited in Lillienthall tbid.

(6) Yedtot Aharanot 1.4.75 : p (7) I Klatzkin 'Crisis’ leciston' pé2 etted in Hermann op.ctt. p205

ZIONISM AN D.ANTI-SEMITISM -2-

“And so Zionism,which arose as a reaction to anti-Semitism,ends up thanking anti-Semites for having preserved the Jewish ‘nation’ and ‘race’. They had come full circle in recognising that without anti-Semitism there would be no Zionism: and hence no Jewish state. The Zionists even’ came to share many of the anti-Semites attitudes towards Jews: :

" », the ehtef negotiator with Weizaman for the Balfour oe eee ae pede A isan day of the sentémentalstios of the 'Judedphille’ as he ecatled them;and he praised Str Mark Sykes because he ltke Balfour, harboured no sort of illusions about Jews. The early Ztontsts were somewhat too ltable in fact, to share the tdeas of anttSemttes about the mtschievtous role whitch the Jews as.a displaced people tended to play.in the world...Lord Boothby has told the writer of an oceaston when he was Listening. to speeches at a Ztontst Congress wtth' lr Wetaaman. £he venerable President turned to him and whispered,

"This ts the sort of speech that brings out all my Se a

Nowhere more than Israel was the necessity of anti~Semitism recognised if a steady flow of immigrants was to be maintained. Zionists ‘have always been contemptuous of Jews living in the Diaspora or Galut (exile!) as they term it. Ben, Gurion could see no future in the Diaspora and Jabotinsky saw the Galut devouring its Jews. ‘

"The’ lkevistontsts talked in extravagant terms about liquidating. the Diaspora: (9) and similarly:

"The second Altya,a handful of people reduced by 1909 to a mere. 165... were quite clearly persecuted by the 50 000 Yishuv,which was relatively well established as urban middle class and farmers (not Peasants) and they tn turn utterly despised Petah Tikva, hallowed as the. Mother of Jewtsh (agricultural) settlemen-s was often referred to by them as shmutaige (dirty) shtetle,worthy of nothing other than contempt. The embodiment: of Jewish life which they were determined to end,a repltea of prectsely that whitch they committed themselves to abolish. They were committed to establish in Palestine the eomplete and radical anttithests of the despicable traditional Jewish diasporah extstence... the heat of thetr viston was plainly fed by their utter rejection and hatred of Jewish Basporah existence and culture. They, the eommttted few,would pull the people they so despised out of their 2000 year long infertor humantty and pathotogteal degradation into the light of redemption and the march of liberation and progress. (10)

"To the -Israett majority,the minorities abroad appeared. as the pt ti ful vietims of a fatal tlluston."(11) ,

The Nazis and other: fascists spoke in very much the same way about nations infested with liberalism,and in need of redemption. This talk of "pathological redemption" is not new nor is the hatred evident in the above passages. Not once is class mentioned. Jewish people are seen as just one amorphous mass,indeed. just as the anti-Semites saw them.As Uri Davies notes:

"Zionist contempt of Kasporah Jewtshness was directed-againat: the poor Jew. The'Gvir, the rich merchant, trader or banker, always commanded — respect...the Ztonist leadership ttself came from.-the wealthy Jewish | strata as’ lavid HaCohen typteally demonstrates. "(12) ey

(8) Sykes op.ctt. pp268/9 fn.4 (9) Hurewitz op.ett p4g

(10) H Enosh,'The 2nd Alttyah' vibsed Today’ Ba Mahareh (official Israeli Avmy Weekly) -2404.'732! gtted”in Indies ped 1 < i (LL) Lucas=p4ts-:- Prrenss (12)" Iavtigs optetti-pos

Oe

2IONISM AN D ANTI-SEMITISM 283 <

The only purpose of Jews aanelas Israel is ée provide support, pelitical

and financial, to those inside. In the = 50s, a columnist.in Ravar, the Histadcrut paper wrote: :

"IT: shalt not :be ashamed to confess that if I had the power, AS: I HAVE THE WILL, I would select.a .seore of effictent young men.ecand I-:-would

_ send them to the countrtes where Jews absorbed in sinful self-satisfaetion(!). The task of these young men would be to disgutse themselves as non-Jetitsh and plague’ Jews with anti-Semitic slogans such as

..' Bloody Jews’, 'Jews go to Palestine’ and similar intimactes. I ean vouch that the results,in'terms of a‘constderable immigration to Israet, would be ten thousand times larger than the results brought

webye thousands: of .emissartes who have been preavhtny for decades to _ deaf ears. (13) My émphasis

As Fric Mardon wrote: — Y

"Paradoxteally tt seems that after.centurtes of soup tataine of: perseeutton, Israelis are now tempted to see a lack of antt=Semittsm as an obstacle to encouraging emtgratton to Israel. "(14)

And as the logic and momentum of Zionism’s own position took its toll, they did indeed help to stimulate/simulate anti-Semitism on occasions. Uri Harari spelt this out quite clearlv in.an article in an Israeli daily. He also revealed the true as opposed to synthetic feelings of outrage that many Zionists experience when they hear of anti-Semitic ‘attacks abroad that is when they ‘are not stirring up a cold war campaign against the Soviet Union or yes to:convince others of the *plight’ of Jews in the Arab countries:

"When we hear of riots,pogroms or. hanging (af Jews).we-seethe with anger and justly so...then we ask ourselves ‘where were they all these yeans? Why did they not tmmigrate to the country (Israel): in time?’ Stilt later and deep in our heart there ts also a tiny flteker of ‘ptetous joy. 'Serves them right!’ "We warned them!" It ts of course not customary to talk about tt in public but many of us felt a tiny bit of joy at another elamity when we read.tn the papers reports

about the swastika eptdemte tn Europe in 1960 or about the (pro-Nazt) Takuara movement in Argentina... lespite all the anger and the shock and the insult. these phenomena fit into our wold vtew because Ztonism

‘ satd then as it.says: today that this is the state of affairs,and that tt must be so long as the Jews live among the Gentile nattons. In our great enthusiasm for the achtevement of Israelt tndependence and sovretgnty we sometimes forget the negative aspects of Zionism, its

. eruel world view...But does the state of Israel have duties towards

~ Jews who can tmmigrate to the country and do not wish to do so? Furthermore do’ ve have the right. to tell them, "We know hetter than

you what ts good for you' and we shall, therefore act to get you to tmmigrate to thts Gountry, we might even act tn order to faectlttate the deterioration of your ‘sttuatton ‘(in the’ Kasporah) so that you havi no other chotee but to immigrate to Israel." One should note that this last questton ts not tmaginary. We have atready had to face this question tn very .concrete sttuattons and we may have to face F agatn tin the future."(15)

(13) A Lilltenthall,'The Other Side of the Coin' New York pl84¢ cited in Hirst (14) Sunday Ttmes 16. DLe25 «ny pL60 (15) Urt Harart,'Our’ kesponsthilities Towards the Jews in the Arab Couceeies.

Yedtot Aharanot, 9.2.69 cited in lavies ppl&/9

ZIONISM AN 2 ANTI-SEMITISM ~4=

Indeed this isexactly what happened in Iraq and to a. lesser extent in Egypt and Algeria. In Iraq; Zionist emissaries: had been operating since the heginning of the second World War (David. Paziel,chief of Irgun,Regin's terrorist group was killed there on a mission for British Intelligence. and Hagannah was represented strongly in the British army stationed there) and had access to arms there. In Iraq, the Zionists after the war concluded an agreement with the reactionary Nuri e Said regime, whereby the Israelis would have the 120 000 Iraqui Jews physically, and the regime would have their Property The only snag was that the Jews refused to leave Iraq. They had been there for some 2 500 years, the oldest Jewish community in the world,and they were a rich,well established community. 100 090 Jews lived in. Baghdad alone. As .a correspondent in an Israeli paper noted: :

"Among .the Iraqut Jéws who immigrated to Israel in 1950-1 (over

220 000 in a stngle year) the proportion of phystetans was 4 timés higher than among the (pre-48) Jewish Yishuv tn Eretz Yisrael... Iraqut Jews in facet administered the Iraqut state and the Iraqut eeonomy."” (216) =

Then suddenly bombs -started exploding outside places Jews frequented-cafes and synagogues. When. a homb exploded outside the Masuda Shemtov synagague - killing one person and injuring ‘at least one more, there then started an exodus of Iraqui Jews. Kaduri Salim,who was injured by the bomb at the Masuda Shemtov claimed in’ Black Panther: : '

"I was hurt by the bomb. The Court of Law established that the bomb was thrown. by the Movement. The Israeli Government has to gtve me compensatton. "(17)

"But after 2 more bombs and after the arrest of the Israeli envoy-

tt was too much, the police started acting, and tt was tmposstble to stop the wheels. There ts only one more thing to add tn the objective conditions of the issue. The trial vas made aecarding to internattiona law. The evtdence was just ‘such that tt wasn't dtffieult at all to pronounce such sentences. "(18)

As Sassoon Khedduri,Chief ‘Rabbi. of Iraq explained:

"By mid-1949 the big Propaganda guns were already going Off tn the us, Amertean dollars were going to save the Iraqut Jews-whether Iraqut Jews needed saving or not. There were daily pogroms in the Mew York Times and under dated, lines whitch few notteed were. from Tel Aviv. "(19)

As Haolam Hazeh, an Israeli weekly stated: —

"On one potnt all the immigrants who followed the Iraqut affair closely or were tnvolved in it, tneluding the families of those who were hanged (2 were caught and hanged after being tried by the Iraquis-TG) ++-were agreed. That they pratsed Haolem Hazch for tts decision to expose the secret. The time has:come for the people of Israel to know what efforts were made to bring the Jevs of Iraq:to.Israel and what they left behind them. "(20) ;

Besides the two who were hanged, other very senior Zionists were involved

including Yehuda Tajar, former Defence Attache at the London Embassy, and a

Yehoshua Ben Porat,ex Knesset (Parliament) member. A numher of the erissaries .. have admitted the part they played in the affair and those injured hy the '..bombs have demanded compensation from the Israeli Government. And so the

(16) B Nadel, Yediot Aharanot 23.7.76 etted in Tavies p3é

(47) Hirst op.cit. pls9

(18) Ibid

(19) Hirst pl63 etting Elmer Berger, 'Who Knows Better Must Say So',Institute for Palestine Studies, Betrut p34

(20) Haolem Hazeh 20.4.66,s8ee also Black Panther 9.11.72 (reprinted in I from Israel, Ithaca Press,Uri’ lavies/N Mezvinsky,ppl26/33, D Hirst op ppls5-64° &M Wootfson,Prophets in Babylon-Jews in Arab Lands,Faber

ZIONISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM -5-

Iraqui Jews,as a result of Zionist activities. designed to ‘save! them,were made destitute refugees, in order that Israel could have a Jewish proletariat (the Ashkenazi Western Jews providing the Israeli ruling class) .(212)

"Suddenly one of the richest and most splendid Jewish communities in the werld had lost everything... from a htghty-educated.group wrth a

very Large proportton, of university graduates, tt waé reduced: td one that was poorly educated, oppressed and discriminated againat-in every wasy,trapped tn the Ashkenazt culture. "(22)

For years ‘the Zionists had had their eyes. on Arab Jewry as potential immigrants. In October’ 1949, a Jewish Agency memorandum stated that:

"The main group of would be immigrants are...(tt) Jews in those ortenta' countrtes where thetr safety and well betng are. in permanent jeapordy. (Who was jeapordising their safety.is another matter!). (23)

And the Israelis have had indirect (and possibly direct) relations with European Nazi groups for years. It is well documented that the Phalangists in Lebanon (supplied and protected by the Israelis) have provided weapons and

training for those such as the German Hoffman group (24) Some ofthese Nazis are even active within Israel operating on the West

Bank against the 'gooks'. One such Nazi,a Vietnam veteran, was amongst six members of Kach (the Jewish Nazi group headed by 'Rabbi'’ Meir Kahane) killed in Hebron. By his own admission he admired Hitler (and therefore hated Arabs). Today Israelis trying to establish a Phalangist buffer state to its north.

So the Israelis are supplying and supporting the very Nazis who in Europe

are making bomb attacks on Jewish targets. And with the recent invasion of Lebanon there have been anti-Semitic attacks in France and even’ in Fire against Jews. Far from ensuring the safety of Jewish poeple around the world the 'Jewish' State ensures the very opposite. And Zionism has always. manipul~ ated. if not created the very existence of Jewish refugees in order to bolster up the national state. Today the Zionists are quite onenly tryine to deny all humanitarian and welfare assistance to the 80% of Soviet Jews who once they've left the USSR, prefer to go to the Fest rather than Israel. The Jewish Agency has turned the screw on NIAS,the main Jewish welfare agency,and the main reason for their lack of success is the existence of an anti-Zionist welfare organisation, Rav Tov .and also the help that the Catholic organisation,Carritas, has given. An Israeli. newspaper reported that:

"The suggestion that an unequtvocal, binding commitment be taken from Jews who wish to leave the Soviet Unton stating :that thetr atm ts to immigrate to Israel, will ‘be considered in the framework of the current discussion on the new policy towards the 'dropouts' that should be adopted by the 4Gevernment and the Jewtsh Agency. The opinton that is forming at the Jewtsh Agency ts that drastic steps must be taken against the ‘drop outs' who now make up some 60% of those who recetve immigration certificates from the USS F to emigrate to Israel, and who subséquently arrive in Vienna. .The problem is how to influence HIAS, the Jewish Welfare assoctatton and other institutions to cooperate in the tmplementatton of the policy that will be determined in Jerusalem."* . (25)

The Zionists care little for the Soviet Jews as people in their ovn right, but see them as pavms to:be used in the battle against the Soviets, a source of fresh immigration to Israel and Cold War fodder for those such as Henry Jackson on the US Right. The attitude of the Zionists to the Soviet Jews was

(21) see Munya Mardor's Strictly Illegal translated H A G Shmucklev, Fobert Hale,London 1964 with foreword by Ben Gurton (22) M Woolfson op.ctt. plée9

(23) Hurewittz op.ctt p205 : ‘ es = (24) For further information see the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight

January 1980 and June 1982. (25) Yediot Aharanot 6.6.76

ZIONISM AN D ANTI-SEMITISM -6-

west summed up in a memorandum from Herman Edelsberg, Bnai Brith Washington representative:

"The-tssue which offers by far the richest promise for a long sustained propaganda. campaign ts the pltght of the Jews. in the Sovtet .Unton. se Expertence has shown that this issue can-be exploited to block or at least delay agreements made’ at the Summit. "(26€)

Begin even argued with Reagan,as reported in the Jerusalem Post,that Sovieu Jews should not be treated as refugees as they had Israel to go to.Similarly

the thousands of Jews who found themselves in DisplacedPersons camps after the last war were treated as ideal human fodder for the new state, and were

coerced into going to Palestine. In the infamour Klausner Report, Chaplain ‘Klausner declared (2.5.48) to the American Jewish Congress:

"I am convinced that the people must be foreed to go to Palestine. They are not prepared to understand their own position nor the promises of the future. To them an American dollar looms as the greatest of objecttves. By foree I suggest a program. The first step in such a program ts the adoptton of the principle that...those who are not interested (in

_gotng to Palestine) are’no longer to be wards of the. Jewish communtty to be maintained in the -camps...tt becomes necessary for the Jewish communtty to make them as uncomfortable as posstble..a further procedure would eall for an organisation such as the Hagannah to harrass them."(27) ae

(The Hagannah was the main Zionist terrorist organisation in Palestine durinc ‘the British mandate. After the War it also operated in Europe,many of its members being members also of the Jewish Brigade of the British army).

As a US Labour Leader noted at the time, there was a campaign: -

"to force displaced persons to accept Ziontsm,to jotn. the Palestine * . Jewtsh army, and to give up legitimate differences. "(28)

‘Similarly the Zionists used the. refugees herded together in boats like the Fxodus, drifting from country to country as cannon fodder to hurl. at the British immigration barriers, as and until the barriers: gave way. They!were otc of course interested in lowering the US immigration harriers and in fact were in total. agreement with anti-Semitic US Congressmen: e :

"Hagannah activists, by sttrring the passengers to.a wild mood of reststance and threatetitng those who hesitated, were able to represent them (passengers on the Exodus) as unanimous tn their demand to be landed in Palestine

and nowhere else. "(29) As a Yiddish paper stated:..

,/By pressing for an exodus of Jews from Europe,by insisting that Jevtsh "Baplaeed Persons do not wish to go to any country outside of Isrrel; by not parttctpating in the negotiations on behalf of the IPs and by refra~ tning from a campaign of their own, by all this they (the Ziontsts) certainly did not hetp to open the gates of America-for Jews.In fact they saertfteed the interests of living people to the polities of their oun movement. "(30) —"* yan ‘

And the Editor of the Néw York Times, Arthur Sulzberger (before the Zionist boycott which nearly bankrupted the paper to change its policy) wrote:

"I cannot rid myself. of the feeling. that the unfortunate Jews: 0f:Europes' “LP. eamps are helpless hostages for whom statehood has been made the

c+ an ly. ransom. "(31) : , 2

As Ian’ Gilmour, former: Deputy Foreign Secretary noted:

at

(26) Cited in A.Lilltenthall, 'The Zionist Connection' p5l2

(27) A Lititenthall, 'What Price. Israel'(Chicago 1953) ppl9o4/5 : (28) Louis Welson,manager of Knit-Goods WerkersUnion,later Vice Pres. of International Garments Workers Unton,letter in New Leader 21.8.48 cited tn Liltlienthatl, 'Ztontiam’ & kactsm' op.cit p47 sae : “ (29) Sykes op: ctt p32 saad : : oe : Se: (30) Yiddish Bulletin,Free Jewish Club,19.5.50 ctted in Litttenthall, Ztonist (31) New York Times 27.10. 46 ' Connectton pd?

ZIONISM AN L ANTI-SEMITISM -?7-

"Z¢ontsm has almost a vested interest in ractal diserimination. The Israelis mount rescue operations to save allegedly threatened Jews tn other countries...In Arab countries, Jewish difficulties and . emigration to Israel were the result not of anti-Semittsm but of Zionist activities and the existence of the state of Israel. Zionism aggravates the disease it professed to cure. "(32)

And Judah Magnes noted even before the establishment of the Israeli state, that:

"We had always thought that Zionism would diminish anti-Semitism in the world. We are witness to the oppostte."(33)

Small wonder that the Anti Zionist Committee in Germany,referring to Houston Chamberlain's hook ‘Foundations of the 19th Century' said:

"this chauvinist,nattonal racial insantty is the theoretical foundation the sptritual mother sotl of Ztonism...And always tt ts the same kind of water which derives from a potsoned well; be tt coloured Aryan anti-Semttte or Jewish nattonal. Whoever ts of the optnton that nattonal demagoguery and racial anti-Semitism are a ertme agatnst culture must also condemn its twin in the Jewish garb;Nattonal Ztontsm." (34)

Ten years earlier, Lucien Wolf, President of the Anglo Jewish Association, declared:

"The characteristic peril of Zionism is that it ts the natural and abiding ally of anti-Semitism and its most powerful justifieation." (35)

(32) Spectator 27.6.60

(33) 27.10.47 quoted in Counetl News (New York, American Counetl for Judats cited in Lilltenthall ‘What Price Israel?' Chicago 1954 p52

(34) Antt-atonistisches Komittee Schriften zur Aufklarung uber den Ztontsmus Nr 2 ler Ztontemus- seine Theorten,aussichten und Wirkungen (Berlin 1913) pptl-l2 ctted in Hermann op.ett p208

(35) Lueten Wolfe, 'The Ziontst Peril' Jewish Quarterly Fevitew,October 1904

LSIWAZ | mS i i cease U Not surprisingly the Zionists had little trouble in co-operating and collaborating as a movement with the Nazis. From 1933 until the beginning of the war, they instituted an economic agreement between the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) and the Nazis, which enabled German Jewish capitalists on 1 emigrating to Palestine, to take capital with them. This gave rise to a barter agreement between Nazi’ Germany and the Yishuv. This agreement,Ha'avara, was as Weinstock points..out, responsible for giving the Jewish economy in Palestine an ‘enormous. hoost precisely at the time that the rest of the world bar Germany, was in the throes of Depression. From 1929 the Palestinian’ economy started to grow just as the rest of the world went into recession. (Z) Ha'avara also served to-~ break the anti-Nazi boycott of Germany which anti-fascists were trying to enforce. In a letter from Blumenfield,on behalf of the Zionist Federation to Nazi official Bulow Schwante, of 11.6.34, the official Zionist- position regarding the boycott of Germany was made clear:

"The propaganda which calls for boycotting Germany in the manner tt ts frequently conducted today,is by tts very essence eompletely unZtonist,’

(2)

This was even though according to the Nazi officials themselves, Ha'avara

was only agreed to"in order to make a breach in the wall of the antiGerman boycott" and.also to further Nazi propaganda:

"Hitler satd that while England was hindering Jewish settlement in Palestine, Germany was aiding tt even to the extent of letting the

emtgrant take out of the country the currency required for the landing fee in Palestine. "(3)

The result of which was that;

"when American Jewry took great patns to organtse a boyeott of German _merchandise, Palestine of all places was swamped with all kinds of goods, 'Made in Germany'."(4)

And it is the same Kurt Blumenfield,previously Secretary of the German

Federation of Zionists from 1909-11,° _. Secretary of the World Zionist

Organisation from 1927 and as President of the German Federation,....: in

a letter to Rathenau,the Jewish Minister in the Weimar Government later assasinated by the anti-Semites, warned:

"under no circumstances does a Jew have the right to represent the affairs of another people."(5)

The 17th World Zionist Congress rejected the call for a boycott of Nazi Germany, and the 19th Zionist Congress at Lucerne (20. 8.-3.9.35): placed the Ha'avara under the direct control of the Zionist Executive Committee.

Even within Germany, the Zionists were eager to adapt to the Nazis (6) racial laws. In fact the Zionist Federation demanded, in response to the Nazis attempt to foist the revisionist Zionist banker ,Kareski,upon them:

"That it be given the full jurisdiction on the adaptton of German Jewry to the conditions created by the Nuremburg Laws."(7)

Kareski was appointed by the Gestapo as Director of the Jewish Cultural Leagues (8)

(1) Laequer p320

(2) See' lavid Yisraelt,'The Third’ kt vig Re : of Contonpoegey Ree tori ret ‘wee deren Agreement’ in Journal (3) ‘FE Melka,Nazt Germany’ & the Palestine Qudditon, Weddle Eastern Studtes 5 ...' (1969) p22l cited in’ lawitdowiez pll6,'War Against the Jews' (4) Arendt op.ctt. p60 (5) Weinstock op.ectt. pl3s (6) Eltesar op.ctt. ppl86/7, Yahya pp22/3 (7) Weinstock op.ctt. pl3é

(8) American Jewish Congress Bulletin cited tn Weinstock p36

ZIONISM AND WAZIISM ~-2-

Kareski was considered by the Jewish community to be little more than a Gestapo.agent.. The Palestine Post in 1936 stated that:

"The posttion ts now such that no Jew ean speak in Germany tf Mr Kareskt objects, and that anyone who offends him is-liable to severe penalttes "for an attitude of animosity towards the state. This is what the Gestapo told the representatives to the State of the German Jews, and through ~

them to the Jews tn General."(9)

Naturally Kareski,political ally of Begin, advocated the mass emigration of Jews from Germany and even Lacquer admits that Zionisms' Jewish critics

"(asserted) that Nazt and Ztontst were working hand in glove end that the t. Nazt laadere in. their speeches-andcwritings. quoted.Zionist sources from

time to time to prove that Jews were different, that they could not be

assimilated."(10)

JB Agus wrote on the similarity of Zionist and Nazi writings:

"Ed the. Ztontst programme and philosophy contribute decistvely to the enormous catastrophe of the extermination of 6 millton Jews by the Nazis

by popularising the notton that the Jews were forever aliens tn Europe?”

t and on 21.6.33 the Zionist Union for Germany proposed in a memo to ina? °

Nazis that:

"The new German state recognise the Ztontst movement as the most suttable Jewish group in the new Germany with which to deal, that Jewtsh status in Germany henceforth be regulated on the basts of a group status rather

than individual rights...in the event the Germans co-operated the Ztonists would try to get the Jews abroad to eall off the anti-German boyeott."(12)

Reading this it is hard to believe the Nuremburg Laws were termed the most murderous legislative instrument known to European History. (73)

The Zionist weekly, Be Judisehe’ bndschau, (the only Jewish paper allowed to publish) contributed towards the Spirit of Nuremburg by coining the slogan,'Wear it with Pride, the Yellow Star' at a time. when its wearing wasn't even compulsorary. But the :

"polemical point of the slogan...was directed against the 'asstmilattonists' and all those people who refused to be reconctted to the new 'revoluttonary developments'...during tts first few years, Hitlers rise to power appeared to the Ztonists chiefly as the decisive defeat of asstmtlattontsm!

And because Zionism was a political movement engaged in battle with (04) its Jewish critics, the rise of the Nazis was seen as vindicating all they had been saying. To them Hitler meant their own success.fhe preamble to the _Nuremburg Laws had. paid handsome tribute to the Zionists: ;

“"IF the Jews had a state of their own in which the butk of thetr people were at home, the Jewtsh Questton could already be considered solved today, even for the Jews themselves. The ardent Zionists of all people have objected least of all to the baste ideas of the Nuremburg Laws because they know that these laws are the only correct solution for the Jewtsh people too."(1l5)

Hanna Arendt commenting upon the trial of Eichmann wrote:

"Tsraelt citizens,religious and non-religious seem agreed upon the destrability of having a law which prohtbits intermarriage and tt te ehtefly for thts reason...that they are also agreed upon the undestrabt lity

(9) Weinstock op.ctt. pl49

(LO) Laequer op.ctt. ps00 :

(11) J B Agus 'Meaning of Jewish History'’,WNew York,1963 Vol 2 p447

(12) Dawtdowtez pp23t/2

(13)°G@ Tettltnger,The Final Solution, (New York) 1961 p?7

(L142) Arendt op.ctt. p59 ‘ (15) Die Nurnberger Gesetze 5 Auflage Berlin 1939. ppl3/4 quoted tn Machover/

Offenburg op.ctt. p38

ZIONISM AND WAZIISM -3-

OF A written constttutton in whieh such a law would embarrasingly have to be spelt out...there certainly was something breathtaking tn the natvette with which the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremburg Laws of 1935, which had prohtbited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans."(16)

The Zionists also negotiated with Adolph Eichmann and others in the SS, including Heydrich, to secure the setting up of agricultural training camps in Europe for Zionist pioneers who were to leave for Palestine. They sent Moshe Bar Gilad over from Palestine and Ehud Avriel, who'd lived in Vienna, from Londen to conduct these negotiations. (27)

According to the Kimches:

"The se Jews from Palestine spoke a language not totally different from that of Eichmann. They had been sent to Europe by the communal settle-

ments tn Palestine and they were not interested in rescue operations" After all that was not their job,

"se. they wanted to select ‘suitable matertal' and their chief enemy prior to the extermination programme was not those who made life tmposstble for the Jews tn the old countries,Germany or Austria, but

those who harred access to the new homeland; THAT ENEMY WAS TBFINITELY BHTAIN NOT GE MANY. "(28)

The Central Jewish organisation 'Zentral auschuss der Deutschen Juden fur Hilfe und Aufbau" was established in 1933. It set up ten agricultural training camps for Zionist youth emigrants (19)

The policy of 'encouraging’ the emigration of Jews to Palestine had the support of the whole of the Nazi leadership from Hitler down:

"In: January 1938,he.(Hitler) had already given orders that Jewish emtgratton was to be directed primartly to Palestine."(20)

It was in consequence of this that the policy of favouring the Zionists

(allowing them a newspaper,letting the Zionist youth movement Betar wear uniforms) was also approved from the top down. In fact:

"The Ziontsts and proponents of emigration to Palestine were less badgered in thetr aettvities by the police and the SD than the non-Ztontsts!

(27) On 28.1.35.,Heydrich issued an order stating that:

"the aetivtty of the Zionist ortented youth organisations are not to be

treated with the strtetness that tt is necessary to apply to the members of the so called German Jewish organsations (assimtilationists)."(22)

Within Germany the Zionists used the rise of the Nazis in order to bolster their own position and to remove the traditional anti-Zionist leadership of the German Jewish community. As even Dawidowicz,herself a Zionist notes:

"Publtely noone attributed the Ztonist power bid to the then current Nattonal Soetaltst poltey favouring the Ziontsts,but the connection did not pass unnottced...the Zionist demand for partty (between Ztonists’ & non-Ztonists on the’ Richsvertretung (the German equtvalent of the Board of' lkeputtes) stunned the non-Ztonists. The CV-Zettung of 9.5.35

branded it 'unjusttfied,dtsruptive and astonishing..an attempt to turn present events tn Germany to Ztontst proftt."(23)

In 1939 the Nazis reconstituted the Reichvertretung as a Judenrat,now called ~ the Reichsvereiniguna under control of the Zionists.

(16) Arendt op.ett p*

(47) For detatls see Jon’ € David Kimehes' 'The Secret’ lads-The Iltegal Migratton of a People 1938-48'London 1954jJDavid Kimche is now Director General of and Ehud Avriel,'Open the Gates' Israel's Foreign Ministry (18) cited in Arendt op.cit. pé (19) N.Bentwich,'The' efugees from Germany',London 1936 ppl42/3 (20) Ktmehes op.cit. pp2l7,230 (21) Pawtdowtez pile

(22) Mommsen ' ler Wattonalsozialistische Polizetstaat pp78/9; lawtdowitcz p487 (23)! lawtdowtez op.ctt. p24

Z2L0HISHé AN LWAZLISM -4-

"In the event of a Jew choosing not to accept the tnvitatton (to be deported to a concentration camp) the’ lkichsvereinigung could and did send

henchmen to the home of the reealeitrant with orders to bring htm by force. "(24)

Arendt noted that:

"all leading posttions..were held by the Ziontsts...because Ztontsts

according to the Nazts,were the decent Jews since they too thought in "nattonal'terms."(25)

. With all this in mind, it is obviously incorrect to say that Hitler gave support to the Mufti against the Zionists, in fact knowing that the Mufti

couldn't deliver in terms of an Arab uprising, the Nazis cemented their relationship with the Zionists.

"Hitler coneluded that Jewish emtgratiton should be econeentrated on Palesttne,because this would ereate only one centre of Jewish trouble in the world which Germany could oppose by concerted counter-measures."(26)

The pro-Nazi sympathies of the Mufti are 6ften_used . by the Zionists to

"prove' that the Palestinians were also pro-Nazi. In fact the Mufti who was appointed by the British:

"yas for years denounced by extremtst-Arab politicians. as a British agent!

rane (27) "The majority of poltttcally minded Syrtans,ltke thetr brethren tin Palestine, deetded that there wak- nothing to choose between oppresston by a demoeraey and that excercised,in the name of fascism.."(28)

The Nazis also sent an SS Officer, Baron Leapold Itz von Mildenstein to Palestine accompanied by Kurt Techler of the German Zionist Federation, to continue negotiations on Ha*avar and training camps. (29)

There were articles describing Mildenstein's visit in Der Angrifi,Goebbels paper in 1934. Mildenstein himself was soon to occupy the Jewish desk in

Heydrich's Security Service. In fact ‘Mildenstein hired Eichmann at the end of 1934 as his "expert on Ztongsm. " (30)

And Adolph Fichmann could declare that:

"As a matter of fact, there was a very strong similarity between our, attitudes in the SS and the viewpotnt of these immensely.tdealtstic Zionist leaders...I believe that Kastner would have saertfteed a hundred or a hundred thousand of his blood to achieve his polttteal goal."(3l)

Arendt relates that:

"(Eitchmanns) first personal contacts with Jewish funettonaries,all of them well known Ziontsts of long standing were thoroughly satisfactory... these Jews,unlike the Asstmilattonists,whom he always desptsed...were 'tdealtsts' ltke him..: ® Kastner as Etchmann understood tt,had saertfteed his fellow Jews to his tdea, and this was as tt should be...he agreed that today the Jews might not be happy to recall this pulling. together and he did not want ‘to hurt their feelings'."(32)

Just .in case it is thought that these are the delirious fantasies of an old Nazi about to meet his maker, it should be borne in mind that Dr. Rudolph

(24)'tews Against Hitler-Not As a Lamb’ L Steinberg,Gordon’ & Cremones' Untverst ty Press, Glasgow pl2

(25) Arendt op.ctt. p60 : :

(26) Interview with Dr Max Gruenwald,New York,l.2.73, lawidowtez op.ett. pl20

(27) Barbour,Nist' Ibminus,a Survey of the Palestine Controversy,London 1946 p40l fn,ctted in Kirk op.ctt pl54

(28) Kirk op.ectt p206

(29) See History Today,January 1980,"4 Nazt Travels to Palestine"’ r J Boas

(80)! Izwidowtes pll3 (3L)Life Magazine 28.11/5.12.60 quoted in 'Perfidy',Ben Hecht,New York 1961 Julian Messner Ine. pp260/l

(32) Arendt op.ett pp4t/2

ZIONISM AND NAZIISM -5-

Verba, the first Auschwitz escapee, teils much the same story from the other side of the fence about how his warnings of Hungarian Jewry's fate -were used by Kastner to his own advantage, (33) All this was taking place in the midst of the European carnage. It is no wonder that whilst Rudelph Kastner, head of the Jewish Agency's 'Rescue Committee! in Hungary was -Saving 600 souls of the Zionist elite, Moshe Kraus was sacked by the Agency from his job with them as he obtained passports and visas for

40 000 of the Jewish poor. It is estimated by Steinberg that Kraus ‘rescued up to 90 000 Hungarian Jews by using ‘collective visas/passports. Count Folke Bernadotte, a member of the Swedish Royal Family, who came to Palestine as a UN Mediator had:

von hte own.pevsonal intttattve suceeeded in rescuing a survtving remnant...some 30.000, from the eoncentration eamps."(34)

Bernadotte was killed it: ¢60?4@ blood by the Stern gang not long after coming to Palestine, for failing to turn a blind eye to the activities

of the Zionists althouch initiallv he was very sympathetic to them. Today one of the leaders of the Stern gang, Yitzhak Shamir, is Foreign Minister in Begins! -Governme: Others such as Raoul Wallenburg the Swedish diplomat, and Rabbi Wei del the orthodox: Chasidic Rabbi, were also doing their best to save is by means of false visas, passports, immigration certificates etc. For sone 2 years, the deportation of the Slovakian ‘Jews was postponed w. .Slicany accepted in..1942.50 000 G@Ollars from the Jewish Relief Commi: B

in Bratislava: : ;

"Wislticeny receti the Jews offer of a bribe on ebnditton that he put an end to the daportattons...tre deportations were halted. What ts more,.’. labbt Wetss jel set up a peciechia bore adouns eampatgn known as Europa Plan. to veseve all the Jews in “eyman oeeupted terrttortes. it was stmply a matter of finding the necessary money. luring the following 2 years’ labbt Wetssmandel sent request after request to the Jewtsh organisations in Suttzerland,each one more urgent and more anguished than the last be ging for money...the amounts he received were paltry...Suttzerland did not veally belteve in the Europa Plan.. Be that .s tt may,during those. 2 years there were no deportations of Jews from Slovakia so that Slovakian territory even came to be a territory for those Jews who escaped from the camps and ghettoes of Poland...Inetdentally tt was’ Iabbt Wetssmandel who smuggled the Wetzler (Verba-TG) losenburg report. to the West at the beginning of 1942...written by £ Ausenwite escapees. "(35) — :

In fact none of i el's messages were replied to. And when Weiss-

mandel communicated the news of the two escapees, he transmitted the news

to Dr Kastner... ;

"The account of tho © escapees,Wetzler (Verba) and’ bsenberg had

broken the wall of silence. It might be more fitting to eall tt a deltberate deafness.” Ne of the gasstngs had reached London just after they had commenced. The delegate of the World Jewtsh Congress

tn Switzerland, Gerhard egner, had sent a detatled telegram about . the matter durc YP of 1942...Soon after, the Amertcan State

" lepartment regu tsston in Swuttzerland not to send any more private messages. 7 y h press tn Palestine which had. recetved 4 detatled information in summer of 14942, that is to say around: the time that HKegner was writing :hhes report, hardly menttoned it for

(33 February 196L, London Itty Herald see Perfidy p26l fn 68 (34) Flirst op.cit pl4.see Menhutn pdl2. (35) steinberg op.ctt. pp295/6

ZIONISM ANI WAZIISM -6-

6 months, and when tt did,.all it had to say was that the informatton appeared .to be..extremely exageratted : A good idea to be. on the alert. but there was no need to pante."(36)

'. The Weissmandel-Fleischman group was to be deported to Auschwitz,though Weissmandel escaped. ~ ‘

: Time and again the Zionists, when faced with a choice between fighting the Nazis and saving refugees, or using the Holocaust to create their own state deliberately chose the latter course. As Lucas notes:

"While hopes and efforts for the reseue of Europes Jews continued, the struggle for a Jewtsh state became the primary coneern of the(Ztontst) movement." (37) y And in consequence:

"Onee the achievement of statehood became the ‘overriding goal of the movement, the Zionist realpolittk developed a rigorous logie and a momentum of tts own in which humanitarian constderattons were subordinate. "(38)

. At every single stage the Zionists when given a choice between opposing the Nazis or.trying to. make a deal with them chose the latter. This was because

the: Zionist movement had not been set up to oppose anti-Semitism but to ahieve a political state. As Steinberg notes:

"The Zionist movement...was going through a grave crisis since.tt realised that tt was not in a postttion at this stage to solve the Jewtsh problem. Its advice to Jews that they should emigrate to Palestine could only be taken up by a very small minority..." (89)

And the desire of American Jews (and others) to rescue Europes' Jews:

"yas conventently structured. by the Ziontst programme tin a way that involved only helping Jews to reach Palestine."(40) 3and

"Ate the European Holocaust erupted, Ben Gurion saw it as a dectstve opportunity for Ztontsm...Ben Gurton above all others sensed the tremendous possibilities inherent in the dynamte of the chaos and carnage in Europe...the forces unleashed by Hitler in all thetr horror must be harnessed to the advantage of Ztontsm."(4lL)

in an analogy much like that of Herzl's when comparing anti-Semitism to the pressure of. steam.

In the course 'of the war, the Zionists provided the vast majority of the members of the Judenrats- the Nazi appointed Jewish Councils which pacified people within the ghettoes and selected who would depart for the concentration camps first.(42) Getting Jewish collaborators to serve on the Judenrats and in the Jewish police was essential if the Final Solution was to succeed:

"The final rounding up of Jews in Berlin was...done entirely by

2 Jewish poltce, there would have been etther complete chaos or an tmposstbly severe drain on German manpower...Hence the establishment of Quisling governments in occupied terrttortes was dways accompanted by the organisation of a central Jewish office."(48)

As Judge Halevi elicited from Eichmann in the latters trial:

"The Nazis had regarded this co-operation as the very cornerstone of their Jewtsh poltey.”(44)

(36) Ibid. p288 (37) Lueas op.ett. plaé (38) Ibtd. plg9o (39) Steinberg op.cit. plé9 (40) Tueas plée9 (41) Ibtd. ppts7/é

(42) See Hertzberg, Ha'aretz 24.9.63) (43) Arendt op.ctt. ptt? (44) Ibid. pl24

ZIONISM ANT NAZIISM -7-

Arendt points out wherever there was a Jewish leadership; this leadership collaborated with the Nazis, whereas:

"If the Jewtsh people had really been unorganised and leaderless..the total number of victims would hardly have been between 4% and 6 mtllton poeple. "(45)

Arendt gives Holland as a prime example of this, but the Zionists for example in Dawidowicz's book and: Trunk, devote a great deal of time to proving that the existence of Judenrats somehow benefitted the Jews of Europe. As Steinberg even notes: : :

"This argument of Arendt provoked a general outery among the Jewtsh histortane of the catastrophe but -eould not be refuted...the Jeutsh Councils had been created by the Germans for the sole purpose of destroying the Jews."(46)

In Israel the Supreme Court in the Hirsch Birnblatt appeal exonerated the Jewish Councils and Police. Arendt wrote regarding Belgium:

"The Jewish Council did not command any authority among native Jews. With this'lack of understanding' on all sides,it ts not surprising that very.few Belgtan Jews were deported. "(47) THe agus

Where anti-fascist opposition was strongest such as in. Belgium, Denmark and Bulgaria, the number of Jews exterminated was least. In Hotland the efforts of non-Jewish anti-fascists came full square up against the Zionist led Jewish Council. in Ambterdam which was eager to°collaborate. The same is true of Greece. The political dominance of: Zionism could only result in defeat. This despite the fact that Zionists, even the European leadership in some cases, died in the holocaust; written off by the movement~ outside. Zionism as a political movement was simply incapable of fighting anti-Semitism and wherever possible tried*to adapt to it. Where ‘as in the Warsaw Ghettoe Zionists fought, it was in spite of rather than because of their Zionist affiliations. In the case of Hungary in particular, by sabotaging the rescue efforts of others while securing the safe exit of the Zionist elite, Zionism bartered the lives. of whole communities in exchange for the saving of a select few.This was

termed 'selectivity': :

"Selectivity is an inescapable factor in dealing with the problem of

immigration to. Palestine...there could be no more deadly ammunttion

provided to the enemies of Ztontem...tf Palestine were to be flooded with very old people or wtth undestrables."(48)

‘Montor was described in his obituary as a:

"Key figure in the ratsing of huge amounts of money for Israel from dtaspora Jewry..and as Executive Vice President of the United Jewish Appeal (1934-50) he directed the raising of prevtously unparalleled amounts for Israel from overseas Jewry."(49) se

He was also Chief Executive 1951-9 of the American: Financial Development Corporation for Israel in charge of the Israel bond eampaign. But he was zealous in ensuring that the vast amounts of money raised didn't go to help save some of the Jews of Europe (as the rest of the letter quoted above which was a letter of refusal) makes clear. Chaim Cohen, Attorney General and Prosecutor in the Kastner trial (see later) makes clear

the Zionist position:

(45) Arendt op.ctt. ples (46) Steinberg op:cit. plog

(47) (48)

(49)

Arendt op.ctt. plé6é Letter from Henry Montor, Emecutive Vice Chair,United Jewish Appeal to . labbt Baruch’ kbinowitz 1.2.40, faesimile reproduced in 'Holocaust Victims

Accuse, leb Moshe Shonfield,pp89-94,Neturet Karta,New York,1977 Jewish Chronicle 16.7.82

ZIONISM AND NAZIISM -8-

"It has always been our Ztonist tradition to select the fev out of many tn arranging the tmmtgratton to Paléstine...Are we to be ealled trattors?"(50) a :

Dawidowicz describes what selectivity meant in practise:

"The Ztontst movement itself set up rigid standards for prospective tmmtgrants. The 18th Zionist Congress in 1933 established within the Jewish Agency for Palestine a Central Bureau for the settlement of German Jews which to begin with excluded antt-Ztonists as appltcants for certificates _ (te. most Jews-TG). Young poeple in good health, with some training for agricultural work or manual trades and persons with capttal were the preferred candidates for altya IN A P WCESS. WHE H THE NEEDS AND INTE BESTS OF PALESTINE. TOOK P HCE IENCE OVEF A ST ATEGY OF HESCUE."(my emphasts-5l)

But at the time of the 2nd Aliya, the Zionist Organisation had opposed unpropertied immigration. (52) :

KASTNER

The Kastner Trial which began in 1953 lasted till 1955, not counting the appeal. .Kastner sued Malchiel Greenwald, the author of a-right wing newssheet for criminal libel and the government sent its Attorney General Chaim Cohen along to prosecute, Cohen later became a Supreme Court Judge. Shmuel Tamir, the Defence Attorney and ex Irgun member became Justice Minister in Begins' Cabinet as a member of Yigael Yadin's Democratic Movement.The case collapsed with virtually the whole government being put on trial instead. As the right wing paper, Yediot Aharanot said: :

"TF Kastner ts brought to trtal, the entire government faces a total politteal and national collapse- as a‘result of what such a trial may disclose." (53) :

It was said that during Eichmanns' trial:

"Hovering over the courtroom...was the. ghost of Israel Kastner" (54)

Eichmanns' trial allowed the deal between Kastner,Becher,Krumey and Wisliceny to become submerged by pinning all the blame on Eichmann(55) :

The Prosecutor,Hausner,preferred not to call Biss, Kastner's Deputy,, because the last thing that was wanted was for the Kastner affair to raise its head. The same was true for Verba.

The Communist Party newspaper, Kol Haam, wrote after the Kastner trial:

"ALL those whose relatives were ‘butchered by the Germans in Hungary know now clearly that Jewtsh hands helped the mass murder. "(56)

Kastner was later killed by Ze'ev Eckstein who. had strong connections with the Israeli Secret Service,Shin Beth,and he was apparently paid by them. The Judge Benjamin Halevi summed up in the trial thus:

"The Jews of the ghettoes would not have trusted the Nazt or Hungarian rulers. But they had trust in. the Jewish Leaders...those of. the Jews who tried to warn their friends of the truth (of the deportations) were persecuted by the Jewish leaders in charge of the local rescue work. The trust of the Jews in the misleading information and their lack of knovledge that thetr wives and children and themselves were about to be deported to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, led the victtms. to rematn quiescent in their ghettoes...and the Jewish leaders did everything in thetr power to soothe the Jews tn the ghettoes and to prevent such

(894 Hecht. op.ctt. ppl94¢/5 pc ee (Sl)central Bureau for the Settlement of German Jews, kport to the 19th Ztontst

Congress and 4th Council of Jewish Agency in Luecerne,London 7/35 pat” & Landauer ' ler Ztonismus in Wandel' ppl3-46 cited in lawidowtez:op.ctt. pp23/9 (52) Lueas op.ctt. p79 (53) 23.6.55 etted in Nazt-Zionist Collaboratton-BAZO (54) M Pearlmann,The Capture and Trial of A Eichmann,New York 1963 po34 pee (55) See L Susman,Analysts of Perfidy,American Counctl for Judatem,cited by

Menhuin p48¢ © (56) Nazi-Zionist Collaboration p22, (23.6. 55)

ZIONISM AND WAZIISM -9.-

reststance activities...the Nazt chiefs knew that the Zionists were a most vital element in Jewry and the most trusted by the Jews...Etehmann did not want a second Warsdaw...the Nazis’ patronage of Kastner, and thetr agreement to let htm save 600 prominent Jews were part of, the plan to exterminate the Jews...the opportunity of rescuing prominent people appealad to him greatly. He considered the rescue of the most important Jews’ as a great personal success and a success for Ziontsm,..He concent~ - rated his efforts in the reseue of the prominents and treated the camp of the doomed as if they hdd atready been wiped out from the book of the Lltving. One cannot estimate the damage caused by Kastner's collaboration and put down the number of victims whieh tt cost Hungarian Jews...Just as the Nazt. war criminals knew, they needed an alibi and hoped to achieve tt by the rescue of a few Jews at the eleventh hour,sd Kastner also needed an altbt...Collaboration between the Jewish Agency Fescue Committee and the Exterminators of the Jews was solidified in Budapest and Vienna. Kastners duttes were part and parcel of the general duties of the SS...the Nazis opened a leseue’ lepartment headed by Kastner. "(57) :

If the Nazis did not want a second Warsaw Ghettoe,neither did the: Zionists. According to one of those who died in the uprising: | ; :

"our Leaders abandoned us in time of danger, they scattered in alt

_ directions like mice. "(58) : Neither did the Zionists provide or attempt to provide arms or other help. : (59)

And even in Warsaw prominent Zionists collaborated. Those such as Abraham Gancawajch of Hashomer Hatzair and Rabbi Blumenfeld and Glacensztajn of Agudat Yisrael, who held that the Nazi persecution was Gods' blessing in disguise. Mordechai Anielwicz, also of Hashomer Hatzair was very much the exception that proved the rule, in that he went down fighting leading the

resistance.

Kastner also obtained the freeing from US custody of Lt. General Kurt Becher of the Waffen $S, responsible for implementing the Final Solution as regards Hungary's Jews, again in his role as Jewish Agency official.

As Chaim.Cohen pointed out:

"Phe man Kastner does not stand here as a private indivtdual. He was a

recognised representative, official or non-official of the Jewish

National Institutes in Palestine and of the Zionist Executive; and I come here in this court to defend the representative of our nattonal insti tuttons. "(60)

Little wonder that Dr Karlebach wrote in Maariv:

"What ts going on here? The Attorney General has to mobilise all the government's power,appear in court himself to justify and defend zollaboration with Himmler. And in order to defend a quistling, the government must drag through the streets one of the grimmest stortes ,

of our history." . Rees <

Not that Hungary was the only example by any means of an. indifference to the rescue of Jews from Hitlers' furnaces. When it was possible to rescue 70 000 Rumanian Jews from certain death with funds the Zionists refused ie point blank and in fact did their best to discredit the story:

" ‘Henry Morgenthau Jnr reports,according to Wischnitzer,a seandalous case of neglected opportunity whilet the Bermuda Conference was sitting, 70 000 Jews...could have been rescued from’ manta agatnst funds

(57) Judge Benjamin Halevi,Jerusalem LPistrtet Court 22.6.55,Ppotoecol CC 124/53 etted in Hecht op.ctt. ppl78/&3

(58) Chaim Kaplan,Seroll'of Agony;a Warsaw Bary (London 1966) p33

(59) see Martin Grey,Au Nom de Tous les Miens (Parts) 1970

(60) Hecht op.ctt. fn p268

ZIONISM AN D NAZIISM -lO-

deposited tn, Sut taerLand The - first news <a /of the- proposed transact appeared tn. the New York Times in omtd- February. ™bL) _

Although Sykes attributes the stymying of the deal to the British and US

“ ‘Governments-, (Who without a doubt were not keen-on such. a rescue mission)

it was the Zionists,who by denying that there was any danger sto ‘the.

» Rumanian Jews, gave legitimacy to the two governments reluctance.

This. sabotage of all rescue work extended to opposing the lowering of immigration barriers in the West. For the Zionists,it was a question of Palestine or nowhere. Zionism never had. as its goal the rescue of. endangered Jews, it was a political movement with a political goal, not a rescue or, charity mission. Indeed to have rescued. Jews and then sent them to countries other than Palestine would have negated the reason for, Zionism's existence. Even during the period of mass immigration into Palestine

. between 1932 and 1935, less than one eighth of the immigrants were German

with 47% coming from Poland, where the Zionist leadership also originated. The Jewish Agency. controlled the allocation of immigration certificates (62) Zionism's ruthlessness even extended to blowing up a ship, the Patria, in Haifa harbour on 24.11.40.,killing 240 refugees who had already escaped from Nazi Germany. Why? Because the British were about to transfer: them

to Mauritius. The Jewish Agency even claimed this was a mass suicide by those on board,whereas the explosion was the work of a small Hagannah ~ > group. The same is. suspected as regards the Struma which sank in-the: Black Sea on 24.2.42 with over 700 lives lost. Again as Marlowe points out, 7° © lives could have been saved if the Jewish Agency had:

"concentrated on the humanitarian instead of on the polttteal propaganda aspect."(63)

Kirk describes the Struma as: an:

"object of a political gesture of enepat or deftance."(64)

In a: letter to the Times of 6 June 1967, Rabbi Dr Solomon Schon tamed: chairperson of ‘the Chief Rabbis’ Rescue Committee wrote:

"My expertence in 1942/3 was wholly in favour of a British séadingne to help openly,constructively and totally, and that thts readiness met wtth oppostttion from Zionist Leaders who tnsisted on rescue to Palestine as the only form of hetp."(65)

And after the war in the United States it was much the same story:

"It was only wtth extreme reluctance that Congress agreed to admtt a mere 290 000 of these self same remnants of the Holocaust and espectally the Jews among them; 3 years were needed to persuade it to accept a btll whteh, in Trumans' words, 'diseritminate in a callous fashion against displaced persons of the Jewish faith. "(66)

As Hurewitz notes:

"Congressman generally votced support of Ztonism and the ended for large scale immigratton into Palestine,sentiment in Congress strongly opposed the relaxation of American immigration laws,whtch might have relteved the pressure on Palestine. "(67)

Ernest Bevin,the right wing Foreign Secretary, in a comment which infuriated the Zionists and fellow. Congressmen,noted that the Americans wanted the displaced Jews to go to Palestine because they didn't»want them to come to

(6L) Sykes p242 see also pplol/s Holocaust Vietims Accuse and pple9/92 Perfidy.

(62)

(63) (64)

(65)

(66)°

(87)

Ben itecht was one of those ee gitage for lacing adverts in the NYTim and had first had knowledge o the affatr . 3 ee

Sykes pl36 aleo see Hyamson, Bode Under the Mandate,London £950 Ibid. pp224/7 and also. Holocaust \Vietims Accuse, Schonfietd : Kirk op.ectt. p203

Sehonfield;: labbt op. ett pp60/l_see also Ztontst/Nazt Collaboration pp4¢§-57 HK Bivine, American Immtgration Poltey 1924-52,0xford Untversity, Press,pl28 Hurewets on.aett. n2s7 London 1952

ZIONISM AN L NAZIISM -tt-

New York!. Noone did more to encourage the American denial of entry certificates for the Jewish refugees than the Zionists themselves. Trumans’ predeces*— sor,Roosevelt,had sent Morris Ernst,a Jewish lawyer on a mission to explore the possibilities of an international effort to take in the refugees ,with every country taking a reasonable share of them. Ernst recalled:

"I was amazed,even felt insulted, when active Jewtsh leaders deerted, sneered and then attacked me as tf I was a trattor...I was openly accused of furthering this plan for freer immigration in order to undermine Political Ztontsm. But that did not prevent Truman or the Zionists from demanding that the gates of Patestine be thrown open...Nor did tt prevent them from reviling Britain for refusing them entry. "(68) :

Everywhere Ernst “went-he found those to whom rescue was important only as

a means of building a Jewish state in Palestine. (69)

When the Stratton Bill was introduced into Congress in 1947 allowing for. 400 000 refugees to enter the US,what was the reaction of the Zionists? They totally ignored the Bill in. contrast to the Wright Compton resolution calling for the establishment .of a Jewish commonwealth (when 500 pages of testimony were produced in 4 days), with only one witness,Senator A Lehman appearing for all the major Jewish organisations and in total just 11 pages of testimony from the same organisations. Yet again the Zionist leadership was determined that Zionism would not be confused with'refugeeism'’. As the President of the Zionist Organisation in America stated:

"I am happy that our movement has finally veered around to .the potnt where we are all,or nearly all,talking about a Jewtsh state..But I ask...are we again,in moments of desperation going to confuse Ztonism with refugeetsm which ts likely to defeat Ziontism...Ziontsm ts not a refugee movement. It is not a product of the Seeond World War,nor of the first. Were there no displaced Jews in Europe...Ztontsm would sttll be an tmperative necessity, "(70)

And similarly the Zionists put pressure on the Australian Government not to go ahead with the Kimberley project for the settlement of Jewish refugees in Western Australia,sponsored by the Freeland League. The latter asked:

"Who can tell how many thousands of Jewish lives might have been saved from Hitlers’ claws tf these anti-Jewish pressures exerted by Jews had not been effected."(71)

Barnet Litvinoff (citing. his book Weizzmann:Last of the Patriarchs,1976) tells how Weizzmann in December 1938 turned down a British offer to allow 10 000 Jewish refugee children to come to Britain. Weizmann demanded that they be sent to Palestine only.(72) Je also told much the same story of the US Zionists. One such was the US Ambassador to Moscow and then Turkey ,Lawrence Steinhardt,former American Zionist Federation official in the twenties anda fierce opponent of Jewish immigration to the United States whom the Assistant

Secretary of State,Breckenbridge Longe used to cite in justification of his anti-Semitic immigration policy (see Henry.Eingold,'Politics of Rescue") The Israeli anti-Zionist. group ,Matzpen wrote:

[he intervention of the Zionist movement in the questton: of the. posstbility of Jews emigrating to America,ts a elassical example of the cyntcism of the 'Cruel Ztontsm'. At the time of the 2nd World War hundreds of thousands of European Jews could still have escaped the Nazis by emtgrating to other countries. It ts beyond all doubt that representatives of the. Zionist’ movements.in the US .tried to sabotage the plan to save Jewish refugees by bringing them to the US or any

(68) Hirst pll5 etting ML Ernst -'So Par So Good',Harper’ & Bros ,New York 1948 ppl38/9 see also Tz2zt Cohen, 'The Cruel Ziontsm' Matzpen Aprtl 1974

(69) see Ernst ppl70-7 etted in "Zionist Connection',Lillienthall p3é : (70) Fabbt Hillel Silver to 49th Annual Convention of the Ztontst Organtsatton. of

America,New York Times 27.10.46

be, A Lillienthall,'The Other Side of the Coin’ New York, 1965 p26

‘Jewtsh Chronicle Oe Cie

(73) (74)

(76)

(77) (78)

ZIONISM AN D NAZIISM 32> place other than Palestine. "(73)

Ben Gurion's letter (17.12.38) to the Zionist Executive makes this approach to saving the lives of Jewish refugees quite explicit: ;

"If the Jews are faced with a choice between the refugee problem and rescuing Jews from concentratton camps on the one hand, and atd for

the nattonal museum on the other, the Jewish sense of ptty wtll prevatl ---We are risking Zionism's very extstence if we allow the refugee problem to be separated from the Palestine problem. "(74)

And on a similar theme,Yitzhak Greenbaum (a member of the 'left' Hashomer Hatzair and Mapam and a member of Ben Gurions' first Cabinet in addition to being firectpy of th: Jewish-Ag-rcy's 'Rescue'Committee.,..) at a meeting on

the Diaspora and the Redemption in Tel Aviv,February 1943 said:

"When they come to us with 2 plans- the rescue of the masses of Jews in Europe or the redemptton of the'land- I vote without a second thought, for the redemption of the land. The more satd about the slaughter of our people,the greater the minimisation of our efforts to strengthen and promote the Hebratsattion of the land."(75) .

In hts book 'In Days of Holocaust and Desgtruction' he wrote:

"And when I was asked,but you could donate from the resources of the United Jewtsh Appeal (Foundation Fundd for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said no.And I say again no. I know that people wonder why I found tt necessary to say that. Frtends tell me that even tf these things are true,one should not reveal them in public at a moment of such sorrow and anxtety...I cannot agree. In my, eptnton one should resist this wave whteh relegates the Zionist activities to secondary importance. And because of that I was called anti-Semitic and was judged to be respons-~

thle for the facet that we do not absorb ourselves completely in the rescue activity."(76)

In these statements Greenbaum actually advocates saying less about the extermination of Jews. Something borne out in the Kastner trial when the Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University,Professor Aktzin, was questioned:

Tamir: "Is tt true that the Jotnt Kstribution Committee and the Jewtsh Agency did suppress the news of the extermination in the US up to and through 1941?”

Prof.Aktztin "The Zioniste,Jewish Agency and Joint’ B strtbutton Committee did refrain from publicising in the Ameriean press the massacre of the Jews." (77)

As Ari Bober of Matzpen wrote:

"When the Zionists had to choose between the Jews and the Jewtsh state, tt unhesttatingly preferred the latter. "(78)

And in ease anybody is still not convinced or thinks these were the ramblings of a few isolated individuals and not the policy of the movement as a whole, let us quote Moshe Sharrett (Shertok),a ‘dove' who was Israel's first Foreign Minister and its second Prime Minister (before Ben Gurion reached out from retirement in a southern Kibbutz to knife him in the back:

"The fate of Ztonism is to be sometimes eruel towards the Jewish Diaspora, that ts when the building up of this country requtres it.”

Matzpen April 1974

Y Elam, 'Introduetton to Zionist History’ Tel Avtv 1972 ppl25/6 etted in Machover/Offenburg op.ctt. see also '0t’, organ of the Youth cadre of the Israelt Labour Party,no 2 Winter 1967 (75) Shonfield op.cit. p26

Ibid. and Y Greenbaum, Bi Mei Hurban ve Sho'ah Haverim (Tel Aviv 1946) pp68/9 cited in Davies p25-(slightly different translation)

Hecht op.ctt. pp92/3 New Yorkpt71 A Bober,'The fadical Case Against Ztonism-The Other Israel’ Anchor Books

ZIONISM AND WAZIISM -13-

and similarly the Zionist historian,$ Beit Zvi wrote:

"Narrowmindedness and the fear of the territorialist danger (that ts emtgration ofndaws to countrtes other than Palestine) led the Ztonist movement to ag of eases against the efforts of other Jews and non-Jews to save Jewtsh ltves."(79)

And as Richard Crossman,right wing Labour Minister and Zionist put it:

"The Zionists...main preoccupation is not to save Jews alive out of Europe but to get Jews into Palestine. "(80)

This opposition to rescuing Jews applied also in Sweden where fortunately they were unable to prevent the transfer of Denmark's Jewish community. (37) Even pro-Zionist historians such as Christopher Sykes and Noah Lucas, agree that the fate of Europe's. Jews was of little concern to the Zionist movement, obsessed as it. was with the Biltmore Programme, (formulatéd-iu 1942 by US Zionists, for the first timelexpliettly for the formation of a Jewish state in Palestine. The other main campaign of the Zionists during the war was an obsession with the creation of a Jewish Brigade. The British were rightly wary of creating such a force (despite) formal acceptance) because it could form the nucleus of: opposition to them after the war, and would have dual loyalties.As the President of the non-Zionist American Jewish Committee

wrote in April 1942 of this demand:

"I do not think that it is wise for the Ageney to assume the grave responstbility of pressing for a mecsure which can in no way enhance the opportunity for service by Jews to the war effort."(82)

But of course the purpose of the demand was not to further the war effort but to further the creation of a Jewish state by helping create the nucleus of a future Zionist army. The demand was incidentally put into effect in late 44 Naturatly the last thing the Zionists wanted was for the Evian and Bermuda Conferences on (supposedly) saving the Jewish masses of Europe,to succeed.

"The Ziontsts who played no part in the (Evion) Conference,were not worried

by tts fatlure...From the start they regarded the whole enterprise with

hostile indifference. Zionist writers searcely mentton tt...If the 31

nattons had done their duty.and shown hospitality to those in dtre need, then the pressure on the National Home and the hetghtened enthusiasm of

Ztontsm wtth Palestine would both have been relaxed. THIS WAS THE LAST

THING THAT THE zIONIST LEA TE IS WISHE TFOR As things stood after Evian,

the outlook for the Jews was bleak throughout the world except for (to

to quote Norman Bentwitch) the bright spot of Palestine and the speck of

y lominteca. The Ztonist leaders preferred that tt should remain that way.

Palestine to be suecessful...The Ztontsts wanted to do something more for Jews than merely help them to escape danger. They wanted to make them the object of respect,not the object of ptity...If thetr poltey entatled suff-

: matter of opinion but a fact abundantly Provable by evidence...There can “Se doubt that here agatn one ts confronted with an tdea which even eH Judged as morally Wrong <8 such as could only be concetved by a great

people. As time went on tt grew rather than dimintsh L formed another crossroads. "(33) oe ret

(79) S Bett Zvt, Post Ugandan Zionism in the Cructble of the Holoeaust (Hebrew)

P458,Bronfman,Tel Aviv,1977 etted in Machover 'Ztont : am; Wh pos H (60)° FR Crossman, Washington’ Kary for 1946 ; oo eee

etton its debated ane reproduced. Sweden's Chief’ bbt ron.

(82) Hurewttz pl30, citing Aguda Yisrael World Or sho eee ‘eta ’ ? g Ag fe ant satton, N x

Confidential’ keport 1.1-30.6.48) pl3 ‘ PEON aa sees

(83) Sykes op.ctt. ppls8ée/9

ZIONISM AND NAZIISM -14-

And similarly with the Bermuda Conference which gave rise {to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration ((UNRRA) also the American War Refugee Board: A

"Mark Wisehnitzer,one of the fatrest of Ztonist commentators,even goes so’ far as to describe this effort (the Bermuda Conference) as ‘deplorable’. The truth of the matter seems clear : The Bermuda Conference undertook humanitartan duties without reference to ~ Ztonitst polttical aims,9g0 tt was of no interest to Ztonists,

and tts weak result was not regretted by them."(84)

Lucas comes to exactly the same conclusion:

"The Ziontsts were not displeased by the fatlure of the Evian Conference, stnce. the opening up of barrters to tmmtgrattion elsewhere would. have eased the pressure on Palestine."(85)

Not all Zionists of course realised the implications implicit in Zionisms' rejection of the fight against anti-Semitism. One such was Joel Brand, the emissary that Hungarian Jewry sent abroad in a last ditch effort to prevent their. own extermination. Brand was himself a .. member of Mapai. Brand wrote a letter to Moshe Sharrett concerning

. . how the Zionists had obstructed him (including colluding with the

British who arrested him in Syria,Ehud Avriel who accompanied him from Turkey also being in the pay of the British Intelligence).

"For decades our people strove towards one end~ the Ztontst goal which was again and again aspired to...In the days of Hitler another goal should have taken precedence to save the lives of our people...You Comrade Sharrett, and all the agenctes did not do a single thing...to alarm without delay, the whole world, or to alert all the newspapers in the free world as much as

posstble."(86)

And this unfortunately is the record of the whole Zionist movement during the Holocaust which did not merely do nothing itself but actively obstructed those who did wish to do something.

(84) Ibtd. p242

8s op.ctt. p458 fn. 2 xy 2 (an) nee pea F Hana fesh (Satan and the, Soul),Joet Brand cited in

Holocaust Victims Accuse, Schonfield, pp 68/9

The Revisionist Zionists founded by Jabotinsky were in oe qe irskd bandeer Pots Ht Sep teed beige e- Reace Hs ger political throughout Europe. Politically ere ; ee eet a: Given tne similarities between them and the European fascis ae, Speeet es _— class basis of the Revisionists, their attitude to mi pee tes er such trappings, and most of all their total hos ty

sean ice Ean of werking class organisations, there can Mae. oe Sores that it is correct to class them as fascist. In Palestine they organ an openly scab union,the Revisionist Labour Federation: aye he

"hich enjoyed the patronage of some factory.owners an eading

orange growers. "(1L)

In fact the Revisionist movement in Palestine, in particular Brit —— yonim,(A small group of para military thugs who overlapped with Betar

"saw the matin enemy tn the Labour Movement. "(2) But though a small group of activists:

"Jabotinsky gave his blessing to all aettons of the Biryontm. "(3) Revisionism itself:

"beeame more and more antt-socialist tn character...(and) tdentified with opposition to organised labour"(4)

Revisionism in fact saw the class struggle as "an insidtous subverston-of the nattonal struggle."(5)

And similarly in Nazi Germany itself, the Revisionists were busy collaborating with their political mentors. The President of the German Revisionist State Zionists, was interviewed in Goebbels paper, der Angriff,under the heading: “The Nuremburg Laws Fulfill Anetent Zitontst’ lemands."

It is hard to quarrel with this assessment of the Revisionists, but as Weinstock notes:

"The Naat propaganda vehicle gleefully introduced the interview with the remark that the Ghettoe’ legulations enforced in Germany found favour among some sections of Jewtsh optnton. "(6)

Lacquer maintains that because Jabotinsky was not a fascist,the movement he led could not be fascist either. Even if it is true that Jabotinsky

did not believe much of the rubbish that filled the heads of his supporters he did little to counter the leader cult, the wearing of Brownshirts by Betar or their military salute,Fuhrerprinzip (7) or indeed the open ; worship of fascism by so many of his supporters. The fact that Jabotinsky's

disciples had taken to wearing brownshirts reminiscent of the German SA did not endear them to the left,and as Lacquer admits _

‘L) Laequer p318 o (2) Fbtd.: p363 (3) Thid. ppse4/s etting an article on adventurtsm tn Chastt Ha'am G0;3.32 quoted in Sehectman, (4) Ibid.

(5) Lueas op.ctt. pl3t

'6) Weinstock pl49 see Wiener Library Archives,Amertcan Jewtsh Congress Bulletti 24.1. 36,Palestine Postt3.1.36 and Selbstwehz 3.1.36,a Jewish weekly in Prague which published Kareskis interview of 23.12.35 in fat" - 2-<-

‘?7) see Abraham’ kvusky,Les Jutfs en Palestine,Paris 1936 p2o2

‘ EVISIONISM ANT HSISTANCE ~2-

"the stress on military training...gave (Betar) a certain simtlarity to the fascist youth movements of the 1920s and 30s."(8). :

Abba Achimeir, a frustrated would be leader,the Enoch Powell of the Palestinian’ Evisionistsdescribed by Lacquer as the"Leading tdeologtst of Palestinian neo-revisirnism", wrote a column in the'Aewspaper, Doar Hayom, entitled 'Diary of ‘a“Fascist'. Ip is in. fact. quite possible for a fascist party to have a non-fascist jeader ‘eg. O!Brien,.the Powéllite chairperson of the National Front after Chesterton. Today Begin's Likud has representatives in it.of the old fascist past: and/of Israel's private’ ee as — Aridor of the: Maritime Fruit Company. But-even

in compare epi " i "and | — Pascrentd bi < ae to the "screeching of a useless door" and

"When for the first time I heard Begin on the radio, I heard the votce and.sereeching of Hitler."(9) :

The Revisionists slogan when Hitler came to power was:

"Hitler for Germany, Mussoltnt for Italy and Palestine for us."(t0) AsJabotinsky's. biographer explained:

"The organ of the Palestinian extremists expressed the view that but for Hitler's anti-Semitism, German National Soctalism would. have been acceptable, and that anyway Hitler had saved Germany. "(L1l)

And Weinstock relates how:

"fascist tendenctes sprang up in the’ kevistonist movement, partteularly in its Palestinian section, whose leaders, Abba Achtmetr,

Y¥ A Yevin and the poet Zvi Greenberg, all ex members of the Ztontst Labour Movement,glorified the National. Socialist ereed- except for * its anti-Semitic components of course- in thetr paper Chaztt Ha'am (Peoples Front) and hailed Hitler as Germanys' savtour."(12)

In fact Achimeir wrote in his diary that

"T wish that a million Polish Jews might be slaughtered, then they might realise they are living in a Jewtsh ghettoe."(13)

Jabotinsky's followers in Jerusalem told a District Court:

"yes we entertain great respect for Hitler. Hitler has saved Germany. Without him it would have perished four years ago. And we would have gone along with Hitler tf he had only given up his anti-Semitism! (14)

Indeed Jabotinsky, who had described Achimeir as:

"our spiritual guide and teacher" (15)

became increasingly exasperated with, if not the politics,» at least the tactics of Achimeir and company. In a letter to Yevin of 14.5.33, again | quoted in Schectman's biography of him (Schectman was one of oat s closest colleagues and followed him into the wilderness when he left .the

~g¥enist Executive), Jabotinsky wrote:

tices on Hitler and the Hitlertte m 1 s e thrust tnto our backs...to tae in ae a 'mattonal liberation movemen ts she

D°R PRISENT CIRCUMSTANCES ALL THIS BABBL_ (16) my emphasis :

t are to me "Articles and no , ovement a and all of us,ltke a kntfi

Hitlerism some feature of

ignorance. Moreover AND UMN ¢ ING IS DISCREDITING AND PARALYSING MY WORK.

.ett. 18 fog " . pt Geet 2 pe d by A’ I George, Guardian 30.6.82

)) Israel No 108,15.6.77 ette : ) L Jodinson, ‘Israel a Colontal State’ fn ; OT paaeeae bk eS pp3él/2 etting Schectman, 'Frghter and Prophet

L 3 sh’ L in 8.9.33 i k ett. psd (13) Jewtsh’ latly Bulletin

ars) Wein tog e ukne (Ber in) 31.5.32 ae wer

(15) Lacquer op.ctt. p36¢d (16 ahs

“RV SSIONZEM-AN- F#SES@ANCE -3~

Albert Einstein,Hanna Arendt and others wrote on the occasion of Begins' first visit to the United States:

"Herut (is) a politteal party closely akin in its appeal to the Nazt and Fasctst parties...tt ts inconceivable that those who oppose fasetsm throughout the world, tf correctly informed as to.Begin's political record and perspectives could add their namesxand support to*the- movement he represents. "(17)

Herut is the party that Begin formed after 1948 out of the Irgun and Stern Gang terrorist groups plus someof Israel's bourgeoisie. Begin of course is now Israels' Prime Minister. In the 1930s the Revisionists were in a small minority and broke away from the World Zionist Organisation to form the

New Zionist Organisation. Inside Palestine their differences with theLabour Zionists were essentially tactical eg. their decision to break the ceasefire with the British much earlier than Hagannah (January 1944) or their call for the establishment of a Jewish state when the Labour Zionists were using formulations such as a Jewish homeland. Their differences largely centered around questions of timing, though Jabotinsky believed the Zionists should not be purchasing land from the Arabs,(as the mainstream Zionists were doing) but getting it free from the British. Weizmann's retort that this was not quite an empty country like Rhodesia shows how natural it was to compare the Zionist project then with Rhodesia (which of course was not empty) although ° Zionists today deny the colonialist nature of Zionism. (28)

The Irgun in fact resumed its war against the British when the threat from Rommel to Palestine had faded, and the Stern Gang even made an agreement with the Nazis against the British. Its leader Abraham Stern:

"One of the central figures tn Irgun...belteved that Britatn not Germany was the matin enemy. Consequently he refused to stop the fight agatnst the mandatory power. "(19) and : 4

"itn addition to his other misdeeds came into some sort of treasonable relattonshtp with Italian Fascists...he held...there could be no radteal distinetion between German Nazis or the British because both were opposed to the total realtsation of the Jewish state." (20)

"The ultra patriotism(!) of the Stern gang had manifested ttself even earlter...in thetr attempts in 1941 to contact German emissartes tn Betrut tn order to establish a common anti-Brittsh front."(2t)

And in fact Stern elaborated his programme:

"which was to asstst Germany to conquer Palestine in return for the transfer of Europes' Jews to its shores. Stern belteved that a deat with Hitler offered better hope for Jewish independence than a truce wtth Britain. "(22) :

And this reluctance regarding the allied cause was not just confined to the Revisionists.

"In the free countries the feelings of most Jews about the war was straightforward and uncompltecated...Brttain and France were at war with the persecutor of thetr race so,whatever their feelings regarding Palestine they rallted to the democratic stde. In Palestine...Jewtsh

feelings remained dominated by Ztonism and tn consequence were not stmple."(23)

(17) Letter to Wew York Times 4.12.48

(18) Laequer p465 (49) Ibtd. p376 (20) Sykes op.ctit. p243 (21) Lacquer p556 (22) Lucas op.ctt. pp2l2/3

(23) Sykes op.ctt p204

~teet. Gse6 uGu Sacensive contacts with the wazis, as a memorandum dated 1/41 from a report by the Naval attache at the German embassy in Turkey makes clear

"The NMO(Nattonal Military Organtsation or Irgun-TG) which is well aequainted with the goodwill of the German’ kich government and tts authortties towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans, ts of the opinion that...the establishment of the htstorteal Jewtsh state on a nattonal and totalitarian basts and bound by a treaty with the German’ kich would be in the interest of matntatning and strengthening the future German position of power tn the Near East.

Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO tn Palestine offers to take an active part in the war on Germany's stde,provided the above menttoned nattonal aspirations of the Jewish liberation movement are recogntsed by the German’ ketch government. "(24)

Not that the Irgun-were the only ones to supply intelligence. Hagannah,in the form of their commander Felvel Polkes,held discussions with Eichmann ‘on

October 10-11-1937 in Jerusalem and subsequently in Cairo, approved of the "radical' German policies and supplied information on pro-Soviet Arab leaders: trying to prevent an Arab-Axis alliance. Polkes in turn visited Berlin from‘ +

26th February to 2nd March. This information came out when German war records were captured by the United States. (25)

Kastner's assistant in Budapest, Andre Biss, revealed in the course of a book which tried to exonerate Kastner, that. the latters "Rescue Committee’ had also cooperated with German military intelligence headed by Admiral Canaris. :

"For a long time past (Canaris's men) had been in contact with Jewtsh ". - etreles and especially with the Ztontsts and the representative of the American Jewish Welfare organisation known as the American Joint Listrtbution Committee. "(26)

‘ed The Zionists provided up to 98% of the Jewish police in the ghettoes, half of whom were Revisionists appointed by the Nazis to police their own community. This they did with a determined ruthlessness (27)The Revisionists provided a major share of collaborators and members of the Judenrats. Figures Such’‘as Jacob Gens, head of the Vilna Judenrat,responsible for the torture and murder of Yitzhak Wittenburg,Communist leader of the underground. The Vilna Judenrat consisted of members of the General Zionists ,Mizrahi (religious Zionists) Revisionists and Aguda. (28) Gens was also Deputy commander of the ghettoe police, the commandant of which was another revisionist, Muszkat,a Warsaw lawyer. The Chief of Police, Salek Desler,was a revisionist too (29) The smashing of the Vilna resistance and the subsequent appointment of 'left'

Zionist Abba.Kovner as leader of the resistance with Gens approval, is in contrast to ghettoes. such as Lachwa in Byelorrusia where without even arms , the inhabitants attacked the Nazis. The same was true for Bialystock. (30)

Even in Warsaw as Chaim Kaplan noted:

"divided views prevatled among hts Ztontst frtends" (31)

Kovner,the Zionist resistance leader,was one of those who prevailed,.on,

Wittenburg -to give himselfup to the Gestapo.(32) Similarly the head of the Lodz Judenrat, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, who was"elected to the Lodz kehilla

on the Zionist ticket" and Moses Merin who "had been elected on the’ kvtstontst tteket to the Kehilla" (33)

Rumkowski in fact established 20 kibbutzim under his Judenrats' jurisdiction

"These members of the Ktbbutatm were on the way to becoming elitist having 3 _ ©Omme tapy 96 4958 pp 3) TInwidowtez p280 see Trunk pp25/6,Philip Friedman, 2Savtours Who Fatled 479/91 (24) Klaus Polkehn, "The Secret Contacts; Ztonist Nazt Relattons,1933-41" Journal of Palestine Studtes,'Spring-Summer 1976 25) Mterofilm’ b1L’ FSS Cll Frames 2936012-2936069- archives of the’ letchs fuhrer

of SS,Himmler see Naat-=Ztonist Collaboration p34,Hetnz Hohne! kr Orderunterdem Totenkopf, Gutersloh, 1967

(26) Andre Btes,'A Million Jews to Save! London 1975 cited in Yahya pp62/3 ‘ (27) see Istah Trunk,'Judenrats;the Jewish Counetls in Eastern Europe under Nazt

oceupatton' MacMillan New York 1972 (28) Lawtdowtez op.ett. p279 (29) see Ainsztetn pp505-7 and Tenenbaum p344/5 and 353/4

30) Yurt Sahl,They Fought Back,London 1968 plat (3L) Tawtdowtez op.ctt. p279. (82) Steinberg op.cit p237

33)" lawidowtez p280 see Trunk pp25-6’ € Philip Friedman, '2 Savtours-Who Patled' Commentary 2F 70608 nntAI70_n4

JEVISIONISM AN IT BHSISTANCE -5-

distanced themselves from the teeming ghettoes and the masses of Jews!'(34

As Faris Yayha notes, Ainsztein in his painstaking 894 page study does not quote a single instance of military assistance to the revolts in the ghettoes and concentration camps by the Zionist movements' highly organised world wide apparatus outside Nazi occupied Europe. In fact he repeatedly points out that the only allies the ghettoe’ fighters had outside their ghettoe walls were local groups of leftists or other anti Nazis such as the Peoples guard. Ainsztein is himself a Zionist and his book is filled with anti~Soviet comments and glorifications of those Zionist individuals and small groups that were overwhelmed by the Holocaust after 1941 and who had no chdice but to resist. (35)

As the left Zionist Steinberg points out:

"Most of the Jewtsh members of the German reststance belonged to leftwing political groups,in particular...the Soctal' lemocratte Party...and to the Communists."(36) Where. the Zionists played a role as in the Baum group (37) it was very much a subsidiary one. In France it was the communists and left Jews who were

prominent in the resistance, in fact: "several thousand Communtst Jews were actively engaged in combat. "(38)

The Zionist militant from Palestine ,Polonski, a member of Mapai:

"had no objection to the Jews fighting in France against the Germans but, above all, he wanted them to asstst in the ecreatton of the Israelt Jewish state. "(39)

In Belgium when Professor Flam attempted to organise resistance: "eertain Zionist leaders regarded Flams' ideas as particularly audactous some groups gotng as far as to aceuse him of provocation."(40)

And in Holland it was much the same story: "the members of the various Knokploegen (combat groups) were Soctalists,

with a small number of Communists and a few Ztonists."(41l) but

"some Ztontst groups mostly German refugees Living on farms, were preparing to leave for Palestine. "(42)

In the ghettoes of Kovno and Minsk it was similarly the Communists who led the revolt. In Bulgaria,communist influence played a large part in the political pressure to save the Jews. (43) One of the Bulgarian resistance leaders joining the Israeli CP after the war. In Rumania,the Young Zionists again set up"their agricultural and ideological training (camps) for ¢ training for life in Israel which had been their one and only aim for years! Bu the: C44) "Zionist movement and indeed the whole of the Ztonist organisation...was looked upon quite favourably by the’ lumantan authorities, for they tended in the long run to diminish the numbers in the Jewish community. "(45)

As Steinberg remarks:

"Wherever the Communists took part in the’ lesistance and they took part almost everywhere, they injected it with fresh energy. "(46) ;

But as some fought the Nazis so others collaborated with them:

"The only Jewtsh politteal party from whitch a stzeable proportion of poltce were drawn was the Ztonist’ kvistonists."(47)

(34) ayy dowtes 9p cit. p32e. ¢ 4 ; i ‘ 3 (35) Ya ye (B87 / etting LAinsztetn, 'Jewtsh’ leststance in Nagar Oceupied er et ondon 19749 pp408, 442, 468,634-8, see also letter from M Antelewtcz to BYYERE Home army Command and Governments* lelegate Offtce 13.3.43 (36) Steinberg op.ett p22 (37) Ibid. pp26-43 (38) Ibid. plo4 (39) Ibid. pptl2/3 (40). Ibtd. pl33 . (41) Ibid. ptlsé8 (42) Ibid. pls9 (43) Ibid. p308 (44) Ibid. p3t4 (45) Ibid p320

(46) Ibid p337 (47) Iawidowtez op.ctt p288

“ IEVISIONISM AND ESISTANCE -6-

The Revisionists in the Warsaw Ghettoe, the only place they ever fought the Nazis:

.."fatled to matntatn security among their members"., ang they had:

"untlateral contacts with right wing Poltsh milttary groups outstde the ghettoes. They refused to share the weapons they had obtained and tried to bully thetr way to ZOB leadership."(48)

Even those such as Dr Szyper,"a militant political Zionist of moderate views opposed the Warsaw Ghettoe."(49) It was only the left Zionist groups, Dror,

Hashomer Hatzair and Poale Zion that agreed to form a united front with the- communists.

"It did not strike the Zionist moderates that any sort of immedtate danger hung over the ghettoe, and they feared the consequence of any ill constdered action. "(50) and

"the Jewish Combat Organtsation (20B-TG) executed a few Jewish Gestapo agents among them a 75 year old German Jew,’ r Alfred Nosstg."(51)

Dr Nossig was also a prominent Zionist.

In Amsterdam, the Revisionist Jacques de Leon led the Judenrat ; against the Jewish and non-Jewish anti-fascist opposition and he ccndemned the General Strike against anti-Jewish measures. (52)

As Dawidowicz, herself a Labour Zionist notes:

"Only the left wing parttes and the soetalist Ztontst youth movements succeeded tn transforming their pre-war apparatus into funettoning underground organtsattons. The largest of these was the Jewish Labour Bund...the Jewtsh section of the Communist Party had been second in numerical strength before 1939...smaller and weaker than the communists were the Labour Zionists,split into left and right wings. "(53)

And as Dawidowiez is forced to admit:

"except for the left Labour Ziontst movement in Warsaw and Czaestochowa...: no substanttal Zionist underground existed. "(54)

Whereas the Bund argued that the Jewish working class had more in common with the Polish working class than its own bourgeoisie. the Zionists,except the left Labour Zionists, argued the contrary and Dror in 1942 in Warsaw still collected for the Jewish National Fund in Palestine!! The Bund was at this time keeping the traditions of May Day alive and workers solidarity. In

Lodz, the Bunds' youth organisation SKIF picketted outside the Zionist head of the Judenrats' office, Rumkowski, declaring:

" lumkowskt, you are our misfortune. "(55)

Such is the record of Zionist resistance and the Revisionists role in Lt; under Nazi occupation. When Begin invokes the Holocaust against the Jews as a reason for perpetrating a similar one against the Palestinians, it should be noted what the role of his own organisation was between'1939 and 1945.

(48) Y Zuekerman 32.22.72 in 5 page Yiddish letter,see Dawidowtez p382 ". (49) Steinberg op.cit. plé2 (50) Ibid. plg9s (51) Ibid. p207 ‘ (52) see J Presser,'Ashes in the Wind’ &W Warmbruum 'The' lutch Under German Oceupation' etted in €.Parker,Ztontsm’ € Anti-Semttism’ Labour’ Rviev 2 (53) Iawtdowiez p32l peti ATES (54 Israel Gutman, 'Youth Movements in the Underground and Ghettoe’ kvolts Jewish leststance' pp260-84 cited in Lawidowtce p323 (58)" lawidowtez p336

The history of Zionism during the Holocaust is a special example of Zionism's traditional attitude towards anti-Semitism. It regarded the rise of Naziism as a golden opportunity to advance towards their goal of a Jewish State. That the Zionists did nothing to rescue the victims of the Holocaust, ard regarded attempts to do so as a distraction from their work around the Biltmore Programme cannot be doubted. Chaim Weizmann stated at the 20th Zionist Congress in 1937:

",..the hopes of 6 millton are centered on emigratton...I was asked: "But can you bring 6 million Jews ‘to Palestine?" I replted "no"...In the depth of the Jewish tragedy- I want yo save 2 million of youth... the old ones will pass, they wittl bear heir fate or they wtltl not. They are dust, economte and moral dust-tn a cruel world...Only a remnant. shall survive...we have to accept tt. "(l) :

or in Kastners' words:

"Hungartan Jewry vas a branch which long ago drted up on the- tuea! Weizmann was a member of the General Zionists and in Nazi occupied Europe

"many of thetr ranking leaders were tn the Judenrate...the substantial number of General Zionists in the Judenrate militated against their

~~ maintaining the party as an underground movement."(2)

Even Nahum. Goldmann confessed that:

. "the main responsibility rests on us beeause we didn't go beyond: routine petittons and requests. I recetved a cable from the Warsaw Ghettoe asking why the Jewish leaders tn the US hadn't resolved to hold:a day and ntght vigil on the steps of the White House until the Prestdent decided to gtve the order to bomb the extermination camps or the death trains. We refrained from doting this becauee most of the Jewish leadership was then of the optnton that we mustn't disturb the war effort of the Free World against the Nazis with stormy protests. "(3)

As Lacquer remarks:

"The Jewtsh communtty in Palestine had come of age during the war...the vtetors tn the war had an uneasy consetence as the stark tragedy of the

4 Jewtsh people unfolded before thetr eyes. It was only now that the question was asked whether enough had been done to help them and, what could be done for the survivors. "(4)

As is understandable given Lacquers Zionist convictions, he skirts around the subject and gently broaches the uneasy conscience that many leading Zionists beside Nahum Goldmann had of their role in the war. ‘Noah Lucas ees sums this mood of both self justification and regret ‘up best:

"For the Israelt leaders and survivors of Naztidom, a gnawing sense of gutlt was perhaps their most patnful personal burden. lid the Jewtsh Agency and other organisations do all that had been posstble to save

(1) Ziontst Nazt Collaboration op.ctt. p54,Kongress Zettung 5.8.37 and Lacquer p5l8 (2)! Iawtdowtez op.ctt. p320 (3) NB Gotdmann,'Jewish Heroism in Siege',In the’ Esperston,Winter 1963 and see Tavar 22.4.64

eee op.ett. p5é

’ BG ETS AND’ EC AIMIWATIONS -2- : i i the Jews of Europe from extermination. Were the various wartime negotta: tions with the Nazi executives of death morally impeccable? Also,while Jevish statehood was theoretically an instrument of rescue,tn the event tt came too late to avail the millions.’ Hd the concentration on attaining statehood itself impede reseue?'’ Hd Zionist statecraft eontribute to the toll of Jewish ltfe? These and other questions tnvolving the historical and tdeologteal relations of Israel with world Jewry were submerged in the unconsctous mind of the natton ttke the reservotr of a chronic nightmare. From time to time they came to the surface demanding precise elucidation in the courts of lay,as tn the Kastner case."(5)

But if the Zionists didn't want to disturb the "Free World's war effort with stormy protests"about the murder of European Jewry, this didn't stop the Jewish Agency in Palestine organising mass demonstrations in Haifa, Jerusalem, Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv against: the Land Transfer Regulations of 28.2.40. Seventy twc Jews were seriously injured, two died and 323 slightly injured with 25 British casualties. When the British censored reports of the demonstrations, the Hagannahs!:illegal radio, 'Voice of Ispael' saw to it that details got out. (6)

As Hurewitz in his extremely pro-Zionist account notes:

"The rest of the (Palestintan-TG) communtty; ESPITE THE’ IST PACTIONS OF WAF, was passing through a state of political turmotl. The tssue on whieh all others converged was the controversy over the Biltmore programme."(7) my emphasis

The Jewish leadership referred to was the Zionist leadership. The telegram Goldmann referred to was from Rabbi Weissmandel in Slovakia. What the ‘Jewish leadership' did do was to sabotage the rescue efforts of non/

anti Zionist orthodox Jews, including picketting Jews sending food packages to the starving Jews of the ghettoes. Stephen Wise, chairperson of the US Zionists, and Congressman Sol Bloom actively tried to prevent the setting up of Roosevelt's War Refugee Board. But as Menachem Bader of the Jewish Agency stated in the Kastner trial:

"Letters like thts came to us everyday’ (8)

But when it came to British policy in Palestine, the Zionists didn't feel their hands were tied by the war. Ben Gurion had after all promised to fight the 1939 White Paper, which restricted Jewish immigration and land sales as if there were no war, and vicer versa. As Sykese> notes:

"Ben Gurton...wanted the struggle against the White Paper to take precedence over everything else...several meetings of the Executive between February and May 1940 were devoted to a constderatton of proposals for intensifying resistance to the White Paper."(9) But when it came to the § million who died in the Holocaust the war effort came first. A war effort which wasn't even primarily anti-fascist, no country which was a colony before the war gained its independence: as

a result of the war eg. Vietnam which had pushed the Japanese out then had to fight the British and the} rench with the British using the Japanese as fighting troops.Precisely because the war was NOT antifascist/racist literature was. allowed freely in the barracks of the Free Polish army here, and the Polish Government in exile refused to repeal ,

pre-war anti-Semitic legislation. (10)

(5) iuecas op.cit. pp326/7 (6) JC Hurewtta, Struggle for Palestine' ppl35/7 (7) Ibid. p2ot (8) Hecht pl43 (9) Sykes op. ett p239 (10) Zvt fAvttal, the Polish Government in Exile,Wiener Library Bulletin, 4 Vol XXVII new series 33,34,1975, cited in Zionism ‘ € Anti-Semitism,S Cushton Pomme. 22 of tees” Fob /Manak Lene

REGRETS ANZ RECRIMIWATIONS -3-

With the siege of the Warsaw Ghettoe, the Polish Bunds' representative in the Government in exile, committed suicide in protest at the inactivity of the Allies who refused to bomb the railtracks leading to the concentration camps. The Zionists refused to pressurise them,despite it being quite possible...Air Vice Marshall Sir Arthur Bomber Harris stated:

"I ean't reeall that I ever heard such a plea (to bomb Auschwitz)...to vr. the best of my recollectton,I never knew of the extstence of German extermination camps unttl we liberated Bergen-Belsen at the close of the war."(11) Why was it that the Zionists felt so incapable of going public over a small matter such as the bombing of concentration camps when they could scream blue murder over their right to buy land in, and immigration curbs regarding Palestine? Similarly Col, Leanord Cheshire admitted:

"The bombing of Auschwitz in 1944 although dtfficult was feastble. Had we known that the Jews requested to bomb the place there would have been no dtffteulty at all in mobilising an air group to aarry out this task.”

Whether Bomber Command did know of the existence of the concentration inh) camps and simply refused to do it or as is more likely, Churchill (the "ardent Zionist') refused to order it, matters little, given the Zionists refusal to challenge them over it. Even today Thatcher justifies the refusal to bomb the rail lines, a statement which produced virtually no reaction from the Zionists. There was only one occasion,that of the Servigliano operation, where the RAF helped to support a campaign aimed at preventing the deportation of Jews. (13)

The Zionists even tried to play down knowledge of what was happening in occupied Europe, despite having extensive contacts with the Nazis and listening posts in neutral countries such as Switzerland, which were in the heart of Nazi occupied Europe. In 1944 with the extermination of Hungarian Jewry, the last such community to survive, the Zionist press in Palestine was full of news of elections to the Jewish Council. Hardly a word was mentioned regarding the fate of Hungary's Jews (many of them refugees from other parts of Europe). As Ben Hecht records, Davar at the time noted:

"The Nazt dental of exterminatton has a good foundation. Not as many were annthilated as was feared."(14)

And today there is an attempt by the Zionists,most notably the historian Martin Gilbert, to assert that nothing was known of the Final Solution until 1944 ie. over 2 years after its start.2s Sykes points out the Zionists

knew about the Holocaust by August 1942 at the latest. (25)

The news about the mass exterminations spread as early as December 1941 in Poland. Vilna was the Jewish ghettoe which first became fully aware of its fate.(26)

One victim M Podhlebnick escaped from Chelmno and carried word of what. was happening as early as December 1941:

"Early in Auguet 1942 an agent of the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland brought a report to the American legatton in Berne. "(17)

As Tamir noted in the Kastner trial:

"Unttl mtd July, 6 weeks after the killing of 12 000 a day had begun, still not a single authoratative word ts uttered by the Jewish Agency or any Ztontst offictals that the deportations had started- that already

(tt) Ma'artv 1.6.61 cited in Sehonfield op.cit. p67 (12)’' latly Telegraph 2.6.62 (13) Stetnberg p77

(14) Hecht op. ett pl4s (15) Sykes op.ctt. p234 see also Lacquer op.cit p238/9 (16) J Tenenbaum, 'Underground, The Story of a People'’,Wew York 1952 pp8l/2

(17) Michael Elkins, 'Forged in Fury' New York 1971 pp59,66

EG ETS AND EC HMINATIONS -4-

4% a mtllion were exterminated...for a full month and a hatf, Mr Sharrett and the Jewish Agency are knowingly and wilfully suppressing all the news known to them."(18)

The. Revisionist Zionists from whom Tamir came, decided for their own reasons to wash Labour Zionist dirty linen in public. The Revisionists differed with their Labour colleagues over selectivity in particular.

The Revisionists paper, Herut, asked:

"How are we to explain the fact that the leaders of the Jewish Agency and the chtefs of the Zionist movement in Palestine kept stlent?

Why dtdn't they raise thetr votees? Why dtdn't they shout about tt over the whole wide world?...By stlence they collaborated with the scoundrels who provided the Germans with the death ltests...Was not the very extstence of the Jewish Agenay a help for the Naats?"(19)

Henry Feingold, ihimself a dedicated Zionist is forced to ask whether or not

"a gnawing doubt rematne. Is tt posstble that there was an element of ' truth tn the contentton of the Bergson group that the goal worked at eross purposes during the war?"(20)

Despite the Zionist silence and denials regarding the extermination of Hungarian Jewry, (and with the mission of Joel Brand they can't help but have known) the story broke and Admiral Horthy was forced to call a halt

to the deportations after American threats. Such is the record of the movement which now uses the Holocaust in order to justify the oppression of of the Palestinians.

(48) Hecht op.ctt. pl47

(19) Herut 25.5.64

(20) H Fetngold,'Politics of kscue- The losevelt Admintstratton and the Holocaust, 1938-45'" ktgen University Press, New Brunswick, 1970 p264

(1)

‘Zionism. from its .very beginnings asia modern political movement Peliant on imperialism, worked with anti-Semites. This was quite ‘understandable because it started off from thepremise not of fighting anti-Semitism “but of adapting teit, in order to propel themselves -forward. -As Laequér remarks in his

summing up of Zionism:

“"2tonism ‘has always regarded ‘assimilation as its main, enemy,without elearly distingutshing bétween emanetpation and assimilation. "(t)

When the fight against fascism and anti-Semitism was at its strongest,

Zionism was at its weakest, whereas during the war, the Zionists captured the leadership of every Jewish community in Europe, starting with Germany, and offered a mirror image of anti-Semitism with the Jews as the chosen race, and with the Palestinians taking the place of the traditional Jewish scapegoat. The PLO being at the centre of a world wide anti-Jewish conspiracy. Despite its relationship to anti-Semitism, Zionists use the label ‘anti-Semite' as a means of attacking all. those opposed to them. No doubt: this pamphlet will be. so termed, just as Hann Arendts book,'Eichmann in Jerusalem' was so attacked. Attacks which pretend that the writing in question puts over arguments that only fascists could possibly adhere to.

Having set up their Aunt Sally, they then proceed to attack it. As Arendt wrote

"Certain reviews chose to draw conclustons from the tmage of a book ereated by certain interest groups, in whtch I allegedly had eclatmed that the Jews had murdered themselves. And why had I told such a monstrously implaustble lite? Out of self hatred of course. "(2)

The Holocaust is often used as the justification for the State of Israel. Unfortunately in the eyes ofthe Zionist leadership, and some such as Nathan Schwalb of the Swiss Jewish Agency made this explicit, the reverse is also true. Zionism did not prevent the murder of 6 million and without a Zionist movement- both within and without occupied Europe, it is hard to believe that anything like 6 million would have been allowed to die. If’ it was the

Nazis who pulled the trigger it was the Zionists who provided them with the alibi. As Sykes notes:

"From the very beginning of the Nazt disaster, the Ztonist leadership determined to wrest polttical advantage from the tragedy."(3)

Despite Stalins' anti-Jewish policies, some 23 million Jews were saved from the clutches of the Nazis only by the existence of the only non-capitalist state in Europe. Even Menachem Begin, vicious anti-communist though he. is, is forced to admit that:

"I eannot forget, and no Jew should forget, two fundamental facts. Thanks to the Sovtet Unton hundreds of thousands of Jews vere saved from Naat hands. "(4)

That hardly suggests that the socialist strategy of fighting fascism and anti-Semitism is wrong, nor that the eradication of capitalism which is the root .cause of modern political racism‘is wrong compared to the Zionist solution of creating ones own national capitalist state. It was only because Rommel was stopped at El Alamein that the Yishuv in Palestine also didn't perish. Even today the most dangerous place in the world for Jews is Israel! As Trotsky wrote, a Jewish state could prove a gigantic trap for the Jews. The existence of Zionism saved nobody apart from a few Zionist

cadres. It obstructed the saving of a great many and helped stimulate antiLaequer n59t ‘

(2) Arendt p284 (3) Sykes pl37 (4) Begin; The’ levolt 1953 pl3

CONCLUSION -2-

Semttism. As Leon wrote tn Nazt oecupted Belgium:

"But tn what way will the existence of a small Jewtsh state in Palestine ‘change anything in the st tuation of the Polish or German Jews? Admttting:even that all. the Jews tn: the world were Palestinian ettizens, wouldithe policy Of fitter have been any dtfferent?"(5)

Trotsky wrote:-in ‘1g9g8 that:

"Even without war, the next development of world reaction stgnitfies with certainty the physteal extermination of the Jews. Palestine appears a tragte mtrage."(6) :

As long as Diaspora Jews support the racist policies of the Israeli. State, they will be that less able to fight racism and anti-Semitism at home. Zionism legitimates all that the National Front say and .in fact todays Nazis increasingly take up the refrain of ‘Jews go back to Palestine',in addition to associating Jews in this country with the brutal and racist policies of Israel. Little wonder that the Zionist Board of Deputies was so hostile to the Anti Nazi League when it was founded in 1978. For both the Board and the Zionist Jewish Chronicle talk about the "anti-Semitism of the left and right" while the latter is quite happy on occasion to print letters from open fascists, and the former combats racism via chats with Home Secretaries and Police Chiefs. To the Board, the presence of anti-Zionists such as Peter Hain in the ANL meant that for them joint _anti-fascist work was impossible, though the Board has a disgraceful recor

_ywhen it comes to opposing fascists, going back to the 30s, when it . _ opposed Jews and workers smashing Moseley off the streets of the East End in the battle of Cable Street.

Zionism as a bourgeois ideology cannot help but tie Jews down to the very system that gives rise to racist and anti-Semitic movements, spawned as they are by the high unemployment and poverty of present day capitalism. And support for Israel increasingly means support for those powers,in particular the United States, who support Israel. It means support for a world view which defines those who are fighting for their freedom and liberation as 'terrorists' and 'communists' and those who are the oppressors, and imperialists as. part of the ‘Free World'. It means justifying the role of Israel as the US's strategic ally and watchdog in the Middle East. Inevitably that means placing oneself on the side of. Imperialism. All the leaders of the major Israeli political parties,Labour Gahal (Likud) supported the United States in Vietnam.‘ Similarly the Zionis organisations in the diaspora also lent their support. For example in November 1969, the President of the Zionist Organisation of America appeal ed for support for the Vietnam War effort and attacked Reform Jewish leaders for urging a ceasefire. (7)

It is essential that the grip of Zionism on the Jewish community here in Britain is broken, if ever again large numbers of Jewish people are to involve themselves in the fight against racism and fascism. As Moshe Machover of Matzpen,the Socialist Organisation in Israel put it:

"Ztontsm ean only begin after you have given up the struggle against antt-Semtttsm. "(8)

The same was even more true with respect tc Nazi Germany. Only the Zionist could negotiate with the Nazis because the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith had the fight against anti-Semitism as its main task."(9)

(s) Leon. op.ett. p2s3 ; (6) Appeal to Amertean Jews menaced by Fasetem and anti-Semitism, 22.12.38 printe

tn 4th International, 12/45,see'0n the Jewtsh Question,L Trotsky, 3/80, Pathfin (7) Litltenthall, Ziontst Conneetton pp799/800 fn 27 er Press ~ (8)' Weinstock op.ctt. p. xxt (9) Arendt op.cit p59

_—— CONCLUSION -3-

Zionists were also not interested in fighting for full equality of political and civil rights for Jews in the Diaspora. After all why fight for Jewish rights in a country other than Palestine when you don't even wish them to stay there in the first place? As Lloyd George noted with regard to Curzon:

*He was all in favour of tnereased Jewish immt gratt om. ..and giving the Jevs the same ctvic and reltgtous rights as other inhabitants. But this was of course not what the Zionists wanted. "(10)

As Lucas remarks:

"Zionism was the antagonist above all of the individual,assimilation assoctated with emanetpation. "(t2)

Jacob Klatzkin, describee as the chief Zionist idealogue in pre-war Germany, v went so far as to argue that Jews should in fact be fighting not against the fascists but against the anti-fascists, a point the present Board of Deputies and its Jewish Chronicle mouthpiece, seem to have taken to heart:

"Instead of establishing societies for defence against the anti-Semites who want to. reduce our rights, we should establish soctettes for defence against our friends who destre to defend our rights. "(13)

There is one other reason for writing this pamphlet. Whenever support is given to the fight of the Palestinians, the spectre of anti-Semitism is raised. When Dundee's Labour Council twinned with Nablus on the West Bank, the. Board of Deputies and the Union of Jewish Students cried 'anti-Semitism'. Not only that, but they discovered Nazi graffitti in Dundee! A cursory reading of Bulldog, would reveal that Dundee has one of the most active Young National Front groups in the country and thatpicketting and harrassing a Labour Council (with the support of right wing Tories!) is hardly going to change that. Judging by the pages of the Jewish Chronicle, it would appear that Dundee is the only town in Britain with Nazi graffitti on its walls. And it is for this, if no other reason, that it is necessary to break the lie which says that to support the Palestinians and to oppose Zionism is to be anti-Semitic. In

fact when the Jewish community in the Wadi Abu Jamil area of Beirut was under siege in the Lebanese civil war, as a result of the Phalangist offensive ,it was the PLO who broke the siege and ensured their safety. (14)

When in Beirut, a member of the Jewish community told me that p?ior to that there had been a political concordat between the leaders of the Jewish community and those of the right wing Christians (arising as a result of their position in pre-independence Lebanon) but that that had not prevented Phalangists from attacking the community the moment war broke out. And

again today with the Israeli bombardment of Beirut, the Jewish community too came under a sustained barrage from the'Jewish' state. Zionists have on the face of it, managed what is the remarkable feat of equating fascism and anti-Semitism with anti-fascism by asserting that there is no difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. In short opposition to and hatred of a complete religious category of people is equated with opposition to a political creed. Today Begin classes Yasir Arafat as the new Hitler and

Beirut as the new Berlin. But even Lacquer admits that the opposition of the Palestinians to Zionism has always been:

"basically polttteal in character...because they anttctpated that the Jews intended one day to become masters of the country and that as a vesult they would be reduced to the status of a minority."(15)

or as Dayan put it: "Why do the Arabs hate us? Because we took their lanod." In short their opposition, despite the feudal character of Palestinian

(21) Lioyd George, 'The Truth About the Peace Treattes'London 1938 vol2 ptl.23

ed,tn.La 2 198 (12), Lucas geet 8 (13) J KL aa BIH B ; , > P, e Vodheb) hted tn’ fat abu apace pre to and tne’ fast 8 ar Issue Winter (14) Times 4.11.75 (15) Lacquer p228

bie.

\Conciusron -4- . \

society in the early 20th Century, was political not racial.~In--fact the

association’ of a whole religious grouping of people with a political creed _

is itself vacist and the attempt by Zionists to argue that Judaism and Zionism are, and always have been, intertwined is erroneous. The idea that a religion, any religion, remains static for 2000 years irrespective of changes in society is. laughable. But this hasn't prevented the history of the. last 35 years being full of examples of sincere anti-fascists and even Zionists being accused of anti-Semitism because they dared to criticise the State of Israel. In fact it is hard to think of any prominent anti-Zionist Jewish or non-Jewish, who HASN'T been so labelled. Dorothy Thompson, a famous US broadcaster during the war, described by Ehud Avriel as an "outstanding journalist"(16)

for her work in pressurising the US Government to accept Jewish refugees in the war, when she criticised Israels’ policy towards the Palestinians was in turn accused of anti-Semitism. Even Meir Weisgal, friend of Ben Gurion ,wrote

of the campaign against her, which included pressurising the New York Post to drop her as a columnist: :

"the attacks upon her became outrageous, she was accused among other things

of having laundered her pockets with the fees of Zionist organtsattons."

And Dorothy Thompson herself wrote that: (27) "continual emphasts should be put on the extreme damage to the Jewtsh community of branding people ltke myself as antt-Semitic...They just

tend to make anti-Semitism more respectable than tt might otherwise be." ‘ee, (28) mn, ?

Fr Daniel Berrigan, famour for his role in the anti-Vietnam war movement ineurred similar wrath when he ventured to criticise Israeli policies. And ' Margaret McKay, Labour MP for Clapham, was subject to abusive phone calls, ‘obscene letters, bomb threats,physical intimidation, and rumours spread in the local party itself concerning her financial affairs which resulted in her being deselected by this party within a party, on account of her support for

the Palestinians. (19)

We have to say that on the contrary it is the Zionists themselves who have most in common with the anti-Semites and fascists. And it is ironic that Begin, for all his invocation of the Holocaust against the Palestinians, received an honorary degree from the North Western University in Illinois, where Arthur Butz, author of'Hoax of the 20th Century' which denies that the Holocaust even happened and is a nrofessor, happens to lecture.

It is Jewish people- socialists ,orthodox,communists ,liberals and even conservative/bourgeois Jews, who have always been the most vociferous opponents of Zionism. Even within the Board of Deputies a bitter battle

was fought between the Zionists and their opponents before the former secured

control. The allegation that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism is nothing less than a blood libel directed against all those who wish to see the Palestinians return to their homeland and the establishment of a secular and democratic socialist Palestine in a socialist Middle East.

(16) E.Avriel,'Open the Gates',Weidenfield’ & Nicholson,London 1975. p20, foreword by Gotda Meir (17) Marton Sanders ' Dorothy Thompson : A Legend In Her Times' New York,Houghton

Mifflin 1973 p323 Usiaes : 18) Vere News etter, New York 6.4.51 cited in Lillienthall,op ett pp¢t9/20

(19) see Evening Standard,29.7.69 cited tn Lillienthall op.ctt ppllt9/l20/444-5t .