Reply by Abu Yehudah and Brit-Am Answers (31 October 2016, 29 Tishrei, 5777)
A Sequel to:
Defending the British. Palestine and the Mandate
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/16/defending.html
1. Message from Vic Rosenthal
2. Restorationism
3. Concerning the Mandate
4. The Germans were Responsible for the Holocaust NOT they who fought against Germany!!!
5. Jewish Immigration to Palestine and British Policies
6. Jewish Displaced Persons After the Holocaust
7. Conclusion
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1. Message from Vic Rosenthal
AbuYehuda wrote:
My comment policy is that you have to send me an email to register. Hardly a rigamarole, and it weeds out the crazies which I would then have to moderate, as well as eliminating spam comments and hacking attempts. There are comments on most of my articles.
I'm not sure I understand your remarks about the "Israelite origin" of the British (?) but if you mean that many putative non-Jews in Britain are descended from the various tribes of Israel, I do not believe that.
There was a strong Christian Zionist movement in the mid-19th century in Britain, but it was based in Protestant theology. I believe Balfour was in this tradition. There were others that were not anti-Zionist, like Churchill as I mentioned in post, Ord Wingate, etc. On the other hand, there were and are strong anti-Jewish attitudes among all social classes.
Read the Mandate. It does not refer to creating a national home for anyone other than the Jewish people. That is its stated purpose. It also says that the "civil and religious rights" of non-Jews must not be damaged. But national rights are reserved for the Jewish people. It calls for "close settlement of the Jews on the land." It is not an "evenhanded" document; it most definitely favors the Jewish people. Remember that several Arab states were also created out of former Ottoman territory at more or less the same time.
The "Jewish capitalists" were happy to get labor. The British authorities did not want it to be Jewish labor. Jewish workers may have been discriminated against because they wanted higher wages, but the fact remains that the British controlled entry into the country, and ensured that there would not be Jewish workers available.
No, they were not as bad to the Jews in Palestine as they were to the Irish. This, however, is very faint praise.
What wasn't true in the paragraph you quoted? Did they or did they not prevent Jewish immigration when the Nazis were about to kill millions, and did they or did they not maintain this practice all during and after the war? Did they or did they not help the Arabs in the 1948 war? Etc., etc.
The Jews interned in Cyprus were "allowed to enter" only after the end of the Mandate.
The point about the schools is that taxes were collected from Jews and Arabs (and much more from Jews) and then the money was spent on Arabs alone. Hardly consistent with the intent of the Mandate to develop a Jewish national home.
The Jews, with help from donors abroad, constructed the complete infrastructure of their future state with almost no help from the British.
Vic
Abu Yehuda blog
http://AbuYehuda.com
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Brit-Am Reply:
Thank you for your answer. It is good to know that "Abu Yehudah" and "Vic Rosenthal," author of the article, are one and the same person.
So too, on our part where we say "Brit-Am" we mean
Yair Davidiy.
http://hebrewnations.com
http://www.britam.org
https://www.youtube.com/user/yairdavidiy
Sorry for the misunderstanding about the Commentaries but I still do not see any comments to any of the articles on your site. What am I missing? Assuming there are are comments, may our own observations also be published on your site? If not, do not worry about it.
I sense you may not have read our second article which was also in part a response to your own, see:
The British in Palestine. A New Perspective
Extracts and Adaptation from the "Prologue" to "The Tribes"
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/16/mandate.html
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2. Restorationism
The "Christian Zionist movement in the mid-19th century in Britain" is more correctly known as "Restorationism." The theological rationale, where it existed, came after the urge for Restoration of the Jews to the Land of Israel, not before it.
An example of Resorationist thought is found in the book "Daniel Deronda," 1876, by George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans). This was her last major work.
Daniel Deronda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Deronda
# As Moses was a Jew brought up as an Egyptian who ultimately led his people to the Promised Land, so Deronda is a Jew brought up as an Englishman who ends the novel with a plan to do the same. Deronda's name presumably indicates that his ancestors lived in the Spanish city of Ronda, prior to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. #
George Eliot and the essence of Zionism by Mellanie Philips
http://www.melaniephillips.com/george-eliot-and-the-proud-place-of-zionism
# ....The Victorian novelist George Eliot is often spoken of in the same breath. In 1876, she caused a sensation with her novel, Daniel Deronda, which not only had a Jewish hero and delineated Judaism with extreme sympathy but embodied a passionately Zionist message, 21 years before Herzl addressed the first Zionist Congress in Basle. #
See Also:
"The Vision Was There. A History of the British Movement for the Restoration of the Jews to Palestine" by Franz Kobler, 1956, London
http://www.britam.org/vision/koblercontents.html
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3. Concerning the Mandate,
The British ruled Palestine. They provided the necessary infrastructure, protection, and assistance for the Jews to lay the foundations of the future Jewish State.
The Mandate could be, and was, used by them to justify this policy.
The words that had been inserted into the Mandate, as an afterthought and due to pressure from Jews in Britain, also required consideration of other peoples living in Palestine.
This clause helped those among the administrators who were already prejudiced to impede Jewish settlement activity.
If the initial prejudice had not been there it may not have made much difference either way.
From the negative we learn the positive.
If the British had not usually interpreted the Mandate as favorably as possible towards the Jews all the pro-Jewish progress that was made might not have been possible.
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Vic Rosenthal (Abu Yehudah) said:
What wasn't true in the paragraph you quoted? Did they or did they not prevent Jewish immigration when the Nazis were about to kill millions, and did they or did they not maintain this practice all during and after the war? Did they or did they not help the Arabs in the 1948 war? Etc., etc.Rosenthal:
# The British betrayal of the Jewish people must be reckoned as one of the great crimes of the 20th century. Entrusted with the Mandate to ultimately make possible a Jewish National Home, Britain instead fought its realization tooth and nail, ultimately becoming complicit in the Nazi Holocaust. Even after the war, when the evil consequences of its policies should have been clear, when Germany herself began to recognize her obligation to what was left of the Jewish people, Britain continued to fight against the establishment of a Jewish state, battling attempts to resettle Jewish refugees, even arming and providing military advisors to the Arab armies that in 1948 tried to finish the job Hitler started. #
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Brit-Am Reply:
Britain did not fight against the realization of the Balfour Declaration BUT in the 30 odd years (ca. 1917-1948) of British Rule most of the time, according to most parameters, the British worked to provide the framework from which was to emerge the Jewish State.
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4. The Germans were responsible for the Holocaust NOT they who fought against Germany!!!
The Nazi Holocaust was the responsibility of Germany. Also complicit were nations such as Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and others, and cliques of Antisemites and Fascists throughout Europe as well as in Japan.
Defeat of the Axis (Germany, etc) was the salvation of the Jews. Britain was the one power primarily responsible for defeating Germany.
Both my parents served in the British Armed Services and they thought at the time that the fate of the world rested on their shoulders. Who is to say they were wrong? The sister of my father died in Japanese captivity. Relations of my mother were put to death for being Jewish in France and Germany.
Before WW2 most Jewish refugees came from Germany. Most of them, despite great difficulties, were given refuge in other countries. Some of the countries (such as France, Netherlands, Belgium, etc) where Jews were given refuge were later conquered by Germany and the refugees then exterminated. Before WW2 most (but not all) the Jews in Germany wished to flee and ca. 80% succeeded in doing so. The fact that a portion were later killed by Germans in other places had not been foreseen before the war.
Britain during WW2 received ca. 40,000 Jewish refugees, another 40,000 were transported with British help to the USA, and another 40,000 to British overseas possessions including Palestine.
During the War it could be that many Jews may have been able to flee to Palestine from the Balkans, Rumania, etc. Exactly how many is another story. Even one unnecessary death is too many BUT the doubt remains. Getting out of Europe was not a simple matter.
Jews who fled from Eastern Europe went to Russia which was closer and perhaps more certain.
Turkey was rabidly against the Jews and would have ravaged its own Jewish communities were it not for US intervention.
From March 1944 any Jew reaching Istanbul in Turkey was sent by British authorities straight on to Palestine regardless of certificates or quotas.
This may be a subject for further discussion.
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5. Jewish Immigration to Palestine and British Policies
Below are a few extracts followed by our comments. This gives something of an overall picture.
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JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO HISTORICAL PALESTINE
http://www.cjpme.org/fs_181
Factsheet Series No. 181, created: November 2013, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East
Extracts:
... on the eve of WWI, the 80,000 Jews of Palestine constituted only a tenth of the country's total population. Moreover, Jewish immigration to Palestine constituted only 3 percent of the transoceanic Jewish migration during that period. By way of comparison, of the 2,367,000 Jews who left Europe then, 2,022,000 established themselves in the US.[4]
With WWI and the subsequent famine, Palestine's total population dropped. Its Jewish community now numbered only 60,000
Stronger immigration: The third and fourth aliyot brought 35,000 Jews from the Soviet Union, Poland and the Baltic countries between 1919 and 1923, and 82,000 Jews from the Balkans and the Near Orient between 1924 and 1931, respectively.[5] By the end of 1931, 174,600 Jews were living in Palestine, 17 percent of the population. During this period, 15 percent of the transoceanic Jewish migration was to Palestine.[6]
The rise of anti-Semitism and Nazism : The increase in anti-Semitism in Europe led many Jews again to leave their countries. ... From 1932 on, with the Nazi victory in Germany and the intensification of persecution in Austria and Czechoslovakia, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased dramatically. Between 1932 and 1939, Palestine absorbed 247,000 newcomers,[7] 46 percent of Jewish emigration from Europe.
What was the British policy on Jewish immigration?
British policy regarding Jewish immigration into Palestine evolved during the mandate period, as did the Jewish European response to it.
A policy favouring it from 1919 to 1930: The British were in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The first Zionists, under the Ottoman Empire, had been able to establish themselves in the country under the protection of foreign consulates, notably British ones. Nonetheless, in the wake of the increase in immigration during the 20th century's first decades, Arab Palestinians began pressuring Great Britain, which found itself in the political crossfire. From the 1930s on, the British authority began providing fewer immigration certificates than there was a demand for. But the real change in policy took place in 1939.
Restrictions and criminalisation of Jewish immigration to Palestine from 1939 on: In an attempt to mollify the Arab Palestinian population, Great Britain emitted in 1939 a 'white paper' restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine to 75,000 people over five years and limiting the purchase of land by Jews.[9] ... the policy did not really slow Jewish immigration, because it opened the door to illegal immigration at a moment when the persecution of Jews in Europe was only intensifying. Until WWII began, and even after, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine. Despite the interception of some ships by the British, many immigrants were able to establish themselves in Palestine.
In the end, between 1939 and 1948, 118,228 Jews reached Palestine, despite the British restrictions. [10]
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http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_oppose_immigration.php
The situation was exacerbated once Jewish immigration increased so much that the ratio which was 82:16 for Arabs and Jews in 1931 became 67:31 in 1946.
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http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/british-white-paper-of-1939/
While the Nazis prepared to annihilate the Jews in Europe, Britain passed a White Paper in 1939 that severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine under the British Mandate. The White Paper, the text of which is featured below, also reinterpreted the Balfour Declaration and declared that Britain did not intend to build an independent Jewish state in Palestine.
http://www.palyam.org/English/Hahapala/mainpage
In general, the [British] navy men tried to act with restraint and there were only a few incidents of the use of greater force than necessary. There were also cases when kindness and consideration were shown.
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An outline of British restrictions is found at:
Britain's role in bringing in illegal Arabs and keeping out Jews, trying to create an artificial Arab majority in Palestine 1920-1948
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/return.html
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http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/Aliyah_during_war.html
In total, it is estimated that between 1939 and 1948 approximately 110,000 Jewish immigrants had participated in Aliyah Bet by sailing to the territory of the British Mandate.
The number of immigrants during the entire Mandate period, legal and illegal alike, was approximately 480,000, close to 90% of them from Europe. The population of the yishuv expanded to 650,000 by the time statehood was proclaimed.
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Brit-Am Comment:
Note that the Jewish presence in Palestine increased greatly. All this was under the aegis of the British.
The illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine was in effect countenanced by the British most of the time despite periodic attempts to partially curtail it.
Even during the dark period of 1939-1948 ca. 110, 000 Jews arrived. This was ca. 18% of the total Jewish Population in Palestine by 1948.
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6. Jewish Displaced Persons After the Holocaust
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http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/dp_camps/index.asp
At the end of World War II there were about seven to eight million displaced persons (DPs) in Germany and the territories of its former allies. The DPs included former concentration camp inmates, prisoners of war, and East European nationals who had fled from Communist rule to Hitler's Germany. Most DPs were repatriated soon after the end of the war in May 1945; by July 4.2 million had returned to their home countries, and by September the number had risen to 6 million.
In that period Jews constituted only a small minority of DPs. Approximately 50,000 Jews, mostly from Eastern Europe, who had survived the camps and the death marches, were liberated within German and Austrian territory. Many of them died after liberation as a result of malnutrition, disease, and exhaustion....
Just one year after the end of Nazi rule, Germany and the territories of its former allies became the major destinations of Jewish refugees who fled violent anti-Semitism in Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe. The flight of Polish Jewry culminated after the Kielce pogrom of July 1946, when about 700 Jews a day left the country. By the end of 1946 a quarter of a million Jews lived in Germany, Austria, and Italy, with the vast majority in the American occupation zone of Germany, which was considered by the survivors a stepping stone for emigration to Palestine or the United States...
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http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206273.pdf
By the end of 1946, there were approximately 250,000 Jewish DPs: 185,000 in Germany, 45,000 in Austria, and 20,000 in Italy.
The need for DP camps dwindled with the establishment of the State of Israel; about two-thirds of the DPs emigrated to Israel, while most of the rest moved to the United States, which had loosened its immigration quotas. The last Jewish DP camp in Germany was closed in 1953.
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http://jcpa.org/article/jewish-displaced-persons-in-postwar-italy-1945-1951/
Most of the refugees in Italy came from Poland, Romania, other East European and Baltic countries, and the main reason cited for not wanting to return to these places was the local population's attitude toward the Jews during the German occupation. Refugees of Polish origin gave this answer most often. Although many refugees cited stories of helpful people, the prevalent feeling was one of betrayal stemming from the locals' participation in the mass murder.[55] Fear of pogroms and attacks in the present also played a part and was accentuated by the pogroms in Kielce in 1946 and Krakow in 1947. Polish and Lithuanian Jews referred to the prevalent hatred of Jews, and refugees in general felt that their country provided no possibility for national life as Jews. Refugees from Poland and Czechoslovakia reported the need,[56] and refugees from Yugoslavia cited current political struggles as a reason for not returning.
General figures indicate that two-thirds of the DPs in Germany, Austria, and Italy emigrated to Eretz Israel. According to Leo Garfunkel, about 70 percent of the Jewish refugees in Italy left for there.[71] According to Arie Kochavi, out of the fifty thousand Jewish refugees in Italy, twenty-one thousand emigrated to Palestine from 1945 to Israel's establishment.[72]
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Brit-Am Comment:
At the end of WW2 and close to the end of the British Mandate:
There were 250,000 Displaced Jews in camps in Germany. Many wanted to go to Palestine but could not do so since the British restricted them. Others wanted to migrate elsewhere , to the USA, Canada, Australia, Argentina, etc, but quotas were not found for them.
Those who wished to go to Palestine should have been allowed to do so. It was a crime that such was not the case.
Eventually most of those who had not gone elsewhere went to Israel after the Establishment of the State.
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7. Conclusion
The British in Palestine were both good and bad. The positive aspects greatly outweighed the negative ones.
This does not mean that we should deny the negativity that occasionally manifested itself. Neither should we over-emphasize it.
The GOOD side was usually the one that prevailed and this is what we should make known and focus attention upon.
See Also: Churchill and Israel. WINSTON CHURCHILL, THE JEWS AND ZIONISM