Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume 1 (37 page)

By this time the Arab League was in being as the institution representing the Arab states. Initially there were seven member states. Through U.S. Chiefs of Mission in those states the Arab League sent the State Department a strong memorandum. It drew attention to the fact that in Palestine over the preceding 20 years the proportion of Jews to Arabs had increased from one-in-ten to one-in-two. And it went on to say that President Truman’s call for 100,000 more Jews to be allowed to enter Palestine was a violation of American (and British) government pledges that no decisions would be taken on Jewish immigration or the settling of the Palestine problem as a whole “without full consultation and agreement with the Arab states.”

And that raised a big and difficult question that could no longer be avoided. Did previous American assurances of full consultation mean what the Arabs assumed it to mean
—consultation and agreement?

In Saudi Arabia, Prince Feisal, Ibn Saud’s second son in the line of succession and the kingdom’s foreign minister, wanted an answer to that question and he asked America’s Chief of Mission, William Eddy, to call on him. In his cabled report of the conversation to Secretary of State Byrnes, Eddy said that when asked the question by Feisal he had replied that “consultation would be meaningless if the results were predetermined, but that my personal understanding is that it (consultation) assures full consideration of Arab opinion and local conditions.”
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It was not the answer Feisal wanted or needed to hear. Consultation so defined implied that the Americans could listen to the Arabs and then tell them to go to hell.

Feisal then gave Eddy a warning which the American diplomat included word for word in his cable to Byrnes.

I assure you that the British are telling us officially that they favour the Arab case against Zionism, but that they are being pushed by you into pro-Zionist moves.
The very real admiration and respect which all Arabs hold for America is rapidly evaporating and may soon disappear altogether, along with our many mutual interests and co-operation.
We Arabs would rather starve or die in battle than see our lands and people devoured by the Zionists, as you would do if we were giving them one of your states for a nation. Do not think we would yield to Zionism in the hope of survival or property elsewhere. If it develops that the USA and the British will aid the Zionists against our will and to our destruction, we shall fight Zionism to the last man. In the meantime, don’t forget that the British are blaming this initiative [for the 100,000 additional Jewish immigrants] on the Americans.”
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Feisal’s warning enabled the State Department to persuade President Truman to change his mind about the terms of reference for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry On Palestine. As Lord Halifax had indicated in his conversation with Secretary of State Byrnes, the British wanted the Committee to be free to recommend Jewish emigration to countries “other than Palestine”. Out of fear of provoking Zionism’s wrath, and probably on the advice of Niles, Truman had been resisting that.

The extent to which Truman did adjust his position was evident when the terms of reference were announced simultaneously in London and Washington on 10 December. The six American and six British members of the Committee were empowered “to examine political, economic and social conditions in Palestine as they bear upon the problem of Jewish immigration and settlement therein”, and to examine the position of European Jews in terms of estimating the “possible migration to Palestine or elsewhere outside of Europe.”
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Zionism’s response to the announcement was immediate and also simultaneous in London and New York. The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry On Palestine was a “fresh betrayal” to which Zionists “would never submit”.
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And there were Zionist riots in Tel Aviv.

On 22 December 1945, when the Committee was preparing to begin its work, President Truman took a major initiative. He directed the Secretaries of State and War and all appropriate federal authorities to speed up in every possible way the granting of visas to “facilitate full immigration to the United States under existing quota laws.”

Every possible way included making use of the quotas that had not been taken up in the war years because of the need to keep out enemy agents and potential subversives of all kinds. In 1942 only 10 per cent of the quotas were used; in 1943 only 7 per cent; in 1944 only 6 per cent; and in 1945 only 7 per cent. If the unused quotas could be brought into use in the immediate aftermath of the war—in the lengthening shadow of the Nazi holocaust, it was possible that up to 400,000 refugees could be given visas for a new life in the USA as American citizens. That was nearly twice the number of Jewish refugees festering in the camps of liberated Europe. As Halifax had told Byrnes, very many of them would have opted for a new life in America rather than Palestine if they had been given the choice.

Such a solution to the Jewish refugee problem, if it had been implemented, would have destroyed Zionism’s most powerful weapon of the time—the Nazi holocaust as a political and emotional blackmail card. At the very least Zionism would have been put into a position in which it did not have the influence needed to determine America’s foreign policy agenda for Palestine.

Nobody seems to know, and probably nobody will ever say if they do know, from where the initiative came. Was it Truman’s alone, or was it really a State Department initiative that Truman endorsed and agreed to take forward?

From a practical point of view there was a problem. Use of the unused quotas of the war years to make up these numbers required legislation in Congress. The truth is that for nearly two critical years the Zionist lobby succeeded in preventing the necessary legislation being introduced into Congress. (The story of what happened when Congressman William G. Stratton did introduce the necessary legislation has its place later in this chapter).

There was to come a time when one of President Truman’s Secretaries of State, Dean Rusk, would say that there were “two Harry Trumans”.
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I think there were three.

One was the Truman who was inclined to the State Department’s view (under successive Secretaries of State) that the creation of a Jewish State in the teeth of Arab opposition was not in America’s longer-term interests and, most likely, would be a disaster for all concerned.

Another was the Truman who, as the leader of his party, felt the need to do whatever had to be done to protect his party’s election prospects from being damaged by the Zionist lobby if it turned nasty, even when doing so meant allowing Zionism to determine America’s agenda for the Middle East.

Another was Truman the human being who, like most Americans, and as Rusk said, had been “deeply shocked by the full exposure of the frightful atrocities of the Hitler regime.”
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It is reasonable to assume that this Truman’s understanding of the history of anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews was greatly assisted by the man who was, probably, his best friend in the whole world—his former haberdashery partner in Kansas, the non-Zionist Jew, Eddie Jacobson. The quality of their friendship was such that Harry’s White House doors were always open to Eddie. (During the Truman presidency Eddie passed through them for private conversations with his friend on not less than 24 occasions, and there were numerous telephone conversations between the two men). I imagine that it was this Truman—not president or calculating party leader—who took the visa initiative. My guess is that he did not even think about the damage it could do to Zionism. I think this Harry Truman just wanted to do whatever he could to bring an end, as quickly as possible, to the suffering of the Jewish refugees in Europe. And I think he wanted to do it out of the brotherly love he had for his old friend Eddie, and on account of the understanding his friendship with Eddie had given him about the agony and the ecstasy of being Jewish.

From here on the three Trumans were at war with each other as events unfolded.

The six British and six American members of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine began their work in early January 1946. When the Committee’s unanimous report
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was made public simultaneously in London and Washington on 30 April 1946, the proverbial excrement hit the fan in great dollops, mostly great Zionist dollops.

Though one of the Committee’s ten recommendations said “Yes” to the immediate issuance of entrance certificates into Palestine for 100,000 Jews “who had been the victims of Nazi and Fascist persecution”, another said “No” to the creation of a Jewish state.

As a package the Committee’s recommendations also fell far short of what the Arabs of Palestine wanted, and not just on account of the insistence that they accept another 100,000 Jewish immigrants. There was also a “No” to an exclusive Arab state.

In the light of what was to happen—in the days, weeks, months and years to come—the report containing the Committee’s recommendations is worth a closer look.

The first recommendation was concerned with “The European Problem”. Under this heading the report said:

We have to report that such information as we have received about countries other than Palestine gave no hope of substantial assistance to finding homes for Jews wishing or impelled to leave Europe.

But Palestine alone cannot meet the emigration needs of the Jewish victims of Nazi and Fascist persecution. The whole world shares responsibility for them and indeed for the settlement of all Displaced Persons.

We therefore recommend that our governments together, and in association with other countries, should endeavour immediately to find new homes for all such Displaced Persons, irrespective of creed or nationality, whose ties with their former communities have been irreparably broken. Though emigration will solve the problems of some victims of persecution, the overwhelming majority, including a considerable number of Jews, will continue to live in Europe. We recommend therefore that our governments endeavour to secure that immediate effect is given to the provision of the United Nations Charter calling for universal respect for, and observation of, fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.

In retrospect an intriguing question is in order. At the time they were writing their report did the Committee members know that Zionism, through its mouthpieces in Congress, was intent on blocking the introduction of legislation to give substance to President Truman’s wish to open America’s doors by use of the unused visa quotas? If they did know of Truman’s initiative, it would have been best practice for the Committee to cite it as an example of what could be done. And that might have made it far more difficult for Zionism to block the legislation to make it happen.

The second recommendation was for the immediate issue of certificates for the admission into Palestine of 100,000 Jews, with “actual immigration pushed forward as rapidly as conditions will permit.”

The third recommendation was concerned with “Principles of Government” in Palestine. Under this heading the report said:

No Arab, no Jewish state: in order to dispose once and for all of the exclusive claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine we recommend it as essential that a clear statement of the following principles be made:

 


1. (1) That Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine.
   

2. (2) That Palestine shall be neither a Jewish nor an Arab state.
   

3. (3) That the form of government ultimately to be established shall, under international guarantees, fully protect and preserve the interests in the Holy Land of Christendom and of the Muslim and Jewish faiths.
   

 

Thus Palestine must ultimately become a state which guards the rights and interests of Muslims, Jews and Christians alike; and accords to the inhabitants, as a whole, the fullest measure of self-government, consistent with the three paramount principles set forth above.

This section of the report also included the observation that because it was a Holy Land sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, “Palestine is not, and can never become, a land which any race or religion can justly claim as its very own.”

Under the same heading three members of the Committee who were later to become pro-Zionist and advocates for Jewish statehood expressed this view as their own: “While the Jews have an historic connection with the country, they embody but a minority of the population... Palestine is not and never can be a purely Jewish land. It lies at the crossroads of the Arab world, its Arab population, descended from the long-time inhabitants of the area, rightly looks upon Palestine as their homeland.”

On the subject of how Palestine should be governed for the foreseeable future, the Committee said, in its fourth recommendation, the following:

We have reached the conclusion that hostility between Jews and Arabs and, in particular, the determination of each to achieve domination, if necessary by violence, make it almost certain that now and for some time to come any attempt to establish either an independent Palestinian state or independent Palestinian states could result in civil strife as might threaten the peace of the world.