Tribal Report: Britain, Finland (15 February, 2015, 26 Shevet, 5775)
Contents:
1. Why Don't the British Like Israel? by Alexander H. Joffe
2. Jews delivered to the Nazis from Finland in WW2.
3. Finish Volunteers who helped Israel in 1948
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1. Why Don't the British Like Israel? by Alexander H. Joffe
The Times of Israel
February 5, 2015
http://www.meforum.org/5018/why-dont-the-british-like-israel
Extracts:
A recent poll shows that Britons regard Israel less favorably than any other country besides North Korea. The results came as a shock to Israelis and supporters of Israel, but they shouldn't have. After all, British supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement are widespread, blood libels about the Palestinian 'genocide' and Israeli organ harvesting are heard from members of the peerage, and Israel remains one of the few countries the British royal family hasn't visited.
True, Jews are deeply integrated into British society and have felt secure for decades. But incidents of antisemitic violence have been escalating and even notables like the Jewish director of television of the BBC have expressed fear about the future of Jews in the country. Antisemitism, interwoven and often indistinguishable from anti-Zionism, has reemerged full force. New statistics on antisemitic incidents prove that the British climate is changing for the worse.
Why the animosity against Israel, which extends from the political left to the right, and across all social classes? Four sources may be suggested, each with roots in the 20th century.
The British Establishment arguably never recovered from the loss of the Empire.
First, the British Establishment, comprised of elite schools and universities, government and idea setting industries like the media, arguably never recovered from the loss of the Empire.
Britain won World War II but quickly lost the peace. Bankrupt, Britain was only preserved by an enormous loan in 1946 from the United States. Britain's most important colony, India, became independent in 1947 and promptly split with Pakistan at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and tens of millions of refugees. But it was Palestine, which at its peak was garrisoned by 100,000 British soldiers unable to keep the peace, which rankled most.
Losing the empire was bad enough, but losing Palestine to the Jews was a unique humiliation. Zionist anti-British violence, above all the destruction of the King David Hotel, resonated strongly for decades. It is also only now being understood that the British establishment had fought a covert war for decades against France in Syria and Lebanon, and had encouraged Arab states to invade the infant State of Israel. This strategy also backfired, helping usher in revolutionary regimes that overthrew British allies and reducing British influence still further. These multiple failures embittered the British Establishment for decades.
More recently, however, a wave of politically correct guilt has swept over the British Establishment. In this revisionist view the British Empire, unlike any other empire over the preceding 5000 years, was a singular source of evil in the world, and the impact in Palestine, uniquely so.
In this view, Britain's contradictory promises to Arabs and Jews, alleged favoritism towards Zionism and repression of local Arabs, and the British role in maintaining an international system that has permitted Israel to exist, are deep wrongs, yet to be righted. Little wonder that the BBC and British media focus relentlessly on Israeli wrongdoing, real and imagined, while glossing over those of its neighbors. In contrast, the British attitude toward Palestinians is marked by expressions of guilt and patronizing behavior.
A second reason for current British attitudes is the gradual conversion of the British labor movement to the Palestinian cause. Until the 1960s the British labor movement saw Israel as a fellow socialist state with anti-imperialist leanings. But in the wake of the 1967 and 1982 wars Israeli success (and alignment with the United States) became increasingly unpalatable to a labor movement that could only see Jews as underdogs or victims. Coupled with an orientation towards the Soviet worldview, implacably anti-Israel and pro-Arab, that grew from the 1960s onward, the labor movement has become one of the centers of virulent anti-Israel bias in Britain.
The dramatic changes in British Christianity must be counted as a third cause. Jews like to point to British Christian Zionism, but in truth this was a spent force even before the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Indeed, Anglicanism is deeply supersessionist and regards Judaism as retrograde, a community forsaken by God.
Anglicanism is deeply supersessionist and regards Judaism as retrograde, a community forsaken by God.
Though the Anglican Church has been in steep decline in recent decades, it has been reinvigorated in part by Palestinian Christians who have reinvented traditional Christian antisemitism, converting Israelis into Romans and themselves into the new Jews. The impact of this old/new Anglican theology is seen in the degree to which the church, like the labor movement, leads the BDS movement in Britain.
Finally, there is the role of Muslims in the United Kingdom. Until the early 21st century Muslims were a small minority. Now, in part thanks to the Labour Party's covert strategy of encouraging immigration under Tony Blair, including from backwards places like Pakistan, precisely to change the demographic and electoral composition of Britain, Muslims number around 5% of the total population. Muslims in Britain are at the forefront of antisemitic agitation in Britain and maintain a dizzying network of organizations to support BDS and the Palestinian and Islamist causes.
Record trade relations between Israel and Britain are one bright spot. But with BDS calls expanding in Britain there should be few expectations that trade will continue without several challenges.
Britain struggles to define itself in the 21st century as a European or Atlantic state, as a multiicultural or British society. In the end, Israel's continued belief in its own religious and national identities, and the vigor with which it defends itself, may be too much like the Britain of old for today's British to regard with much favor.
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2. Jews delivered to the Nazis from Finland
From:Â arsisaarijarvi (slightly edited by Brit-Am)
Hi Yair,
Information of the Jews in Finland during the WWII.
Finnish Historian wrote a book called Kuoleman Laiva. This is translated as The ship of Death.
The Ship was s/s Hohenhoern.
https://kirja.elisa.fi/ekirja/kuoleman-laiva-ss-hohenhorn-juutalaispakolaisten-kohtalo-suomessa
But let's go to the Era.
Soviet Union destroyed many Finnish tribes in the years 1937 and 1938 as Ethnic cleansing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge
The list of the Finns killed before WWII. http://maine.utu.fi/emreg/martyrologia/Martyrologia_Tyyne_Martikainen_2012.pdf
Finns were in the edge of destruction, hammered by the Soviet Union who were connived with by almost all Western States, Great Britain, United States, France etc.
Originally the Soviet Union agreed with Germany to split Europe, the Soviet Union was to get Finland and Germany some of the Eastern European States.
This agreement was known as as Molotov-Trippentrop Pact. You may read about that from the followin Wikipedia link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
So Finland was totally alone. It tried to remain neutral and succeeded (with the help of Heaven) until the Continuation War. Then Finland had no other choice than to take what was possible, and reluctantly accept the Nazi-Germany as allies.
 The Soviet had a Plan was to erase Finland, which carries the Lion of Judah in Its Coat of Arms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
The Peace Pact made with the Soviets obliged Finland to evict all Germans From Finland in 1945. Germans who were opposed to the eviction burned the whole of Lapland.
So the German-Finnish alliance came to an end. It had lasted only a few years.
What about antisemitism in Finland?
 There was practically none.
Finland was pressured to turn over Jews in Finland to the Germans.
Heinrich Himmler came to Finland on July-Autumn 1942 and asked the Prime minister Jukka Rangell about the Jews. Jukka answered "Wir haben keine Judenfrage". Which is translated as "We have no Jewish question".
Himmler did not ask the question again, but was quoted as saying in Germany:
 " Finland is a louse of a state, whose neck the Fuhrer can twist and easily brake."
Finland refused to turn over Citizens, but could not save a few foreign Jews living in Finland..
At the time of delivering these Jews Finland still assumed that they were going to work camps instead of Extermination centers.
But then pressure from Germany increased. Jews who had committed crimes, as well as those who already had served prison sentences for crime, were offered to Germany. After that matters got out of hand, some Jews were handed over without reason.
Max Jacobson stopped the delivery. 150 Jews were saved. They were moved to Sweden and to the United States as a result of this early interaction. Finland did not have the information, as Great Britain had already in the year 1942, that the Nazis were destroying Jews on the basis of race.
But the damage had been done. At least one of those delivered to the Nazis survived to tell the story.
Jewish War refugees from Nazi held areas abroad had been delivered up. Hohenhoern held 8 victims. After that another 4 others who were assumed to be Jews had also been turned in.
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomen_juutalaisluovutukset
From the camp hold Soviet Union war prisoners, Finland handed over 39 suspected Jews. This brings the total number of those betrayed to 51.
Some scholars think the total numer maybe 74, but It is very uncertain, because the figures are based only on the names of the people.
Those Israelite victims are remembered, not forgotten. Some of us, who bless Israel, weep for the memory of the Martyrdom of those Jews, who were given by Finland to Germany. Finland asked forgiveness from the Jews in the year 2000.
Some of us pray a lot that Finland will not accept the existence of a Palestine State. We think that if we do not remain faithful to Israel that G'd will surely be angry with Finland and takes away the blessing that Finland has enjoyed for so many years and through which Finland has survived many dangers.
Blessed be Israel in the Holy name of the G'd of Israel.
KG
Arsi Saarijarvi
ps. Finnish:Â http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomen_juutalaisluovutukset
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3. Finish Volunteers who helped Israel in 1948
From:Â arsisaarijarvi (slightly edited by Brit-Am)
Hi Yair,
Here is some interesting information for you. The Finns blessed Israel long ago.
The Finnish non commercial television channel YLE (run by the Finnish State, like the British BBC) has a documentary film about a secret war wherein Finns took part in forming the State of Israel.
Text in English :
In the spring 1948 Israeli Zionists visited Finland intending to collect resources for the soon to be established army of Israel. At the same time volunteers were requested to fight by the side of Jews because of the expected arab hostilities. Recruiting was secret, because It was against of law of Finland.
Dina Wert was one of the Zionist activists who came to Finland 1948, and who was getting help for the planned Jewish state. 40 years later she remembers how Finnish citizens, including those who were not Jews, wanted to help, . There was plenty of unused war-material after the Wars of Lapland during WWII. This material was not allowed to be sold without the permissioon of the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain. As Finnish Congresswoman and general secretary, Hertta Kuusinen, told Wert, if it was up to her the help would be given.
As a result of recruiting there were 28 young people, including women, from Finland who went as volunteers to fight on behalf of the Jews over the Palestine area controlled by Great Britain. Fighters had been recruited from all over the world.
The general public was told that young people had gone to a farmingcamp situated in Sweden, where they would be trained as farmers. The news paper Huvudstadsbladet wrote a story on the topic and published a picture in the paper about the young persons going into the farm camp.
(Commentary : There was no actual need of that kind of training because Finland was mostly full of Farms right after the war, The country was organized to give everyone their small portion of land, also those who came from Carelia as refugees)
The route of the Finnish volunteers went through Sweden to the Palestine war-zone. In Sweden, Mahals, voluntary soliders, practised fighting. From there they were transported to Italy, and from there to the final destination Tel Aviv. The weapons came from places such as Czechoslovakia. Military training continued in British controlled Palestine and included training in different kinds of weapons.
Most of the young people who came from Finland already had war experience from fighting in the wars against the Soviet Union. The early phase of the Israeli-Arab war was difficult, because the British soldiers who left Palestine, had given all the heavy artillery to the Arabs. Those who fought alongside the Jews had to survive despite their lighter arms. On the other hand the fighting experience of the Finnish volunteers compensated for the poor weaponry. Even though these volunteers ended the War with warm memories, war was war. It involved followed fear and serious injury. The Volunteer Finns remember the Army of Israel decades later with a positive attitude. Their reception by the Israelis was good and an effort had been made to make their living conditions as good as possible. The memories of Finnish volunteers have remained positive ones.
"My fealings towards Finland are warm. Finns are so quiet, peaceful and they can kill without any feeling any problems."Â says Dina Wert in the Interview.
Finnish Text : Sirpa Jegorow
Translated into English: Arsi Saarijarvi
TEXT IN FINNISH :
http://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2013/10/25/suomalaisten-salainen-sota-palestiinassa-1948