Weizmann and Feisal 1918

The famous Chaim Weizmann - Emir Feisal meeting of 1919 resulting in an understnding if not outright agreement is well documented and debated. The central element was that Feisal agreed in principle that there would be an Arab State and there would be Palestine with "respective territories". Future "definite boundaries" between them will be determined.

Moreover, 

measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil.

A bit less so is their June 1918 metting.

From the political report of June 20, 1918:

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Weizmann on Jabotinsky

Despite close collaboration throughout the war years leading up to the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of the Jewish Legion, shortly thereafter, Ze'ev Jabotinsky felt that Chaim Weizmann was betraying him and adopting a weak and vacillatory policy towards the British administration in military-occupied Palestine.

What did Weizmann think of Jabotinsky at this time?

He chattered:

he barked and jabbered

his conduct was shameful and ludicrous

and was but parades, protests and playing at soldiers

All those letters can be found in the multi-volumed collection.

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I Have a Letter in Haaretz English

Professor Norman Rose deserves appreciation for pointing out that the "sensational revelation" of Chaim Weizmann's support for collaborating with the British occupier was already published some 30 years ago (letter, August 20). Nevertheless, I would suggest it is quite sensational to be reminded by Rose that Weizmann's policy predated the official Yishuv "Saison" operation by some six months.

Rose's desire to see the "wider perspective," which includes Lehi's personal assassination (when is assassination not personal?) operations and its "flirtation with the Axis powers" is problematic. When the Hagana assassinated several Jews in 1940, who were suspected of informing on arms caches, and when the Palmach assassinated a British officer in Jerusalem in 1946, who had tortured prisoners at Biriah, did that stain them the way that the Irgun and Lehi were ostracized? Or was Weizmann's opposition more political than moral?

Moreover, as the "flirtation" he notes occured in 1940-41, and as Stern had been personally assassinated by the British in 1942 and therefore a whole new chapter had begun in the fight for Israel's liberation, one in which the Hagana and Palmach joined the so-called "dissidents" in November 1945 in the United Resistance Movement framework, perhaps Weizmann was wrong in his grovelling before the British.

Yisrael Medad
Shiloh

Former Ideas on Jerusalem

Weizmann vs Herzl

Sir, - Yehuda Avner's "Chaim Weizmann's tea with Mussolini" (January 23) was fascinating. At Weizman's 1934 meeting with Mussolini in Rome, Avner quotes Mussolini: "So what about Jerusalem - what do you say about its future?" Weizman replied: "One thing has to be made abundantly clear - if Jerusalem does not become a Jewish capital it cannot become an Arab capital. Jerusalem is the confluence of three religions. But it must be noted that the sanctity of Jerusalem for Muslims is something of a recent invention, whereas for the Jews Jerusalem is the City of David and, of course, for Christians it is the center of their holy places."

It is interesting to compare this with Theodor Herzl's ideas about Jerusalem, as expressed less than 40 years earlier in a diary entry dated May 7, 1896. Herzl related a meeting with an associate, who reported that the sultan of Turkey had declared he would never give up Jerusalem. The Mosque of Omar must remain forever in the hands of Islam.

Herzl's response: "We can get around that difficulty. We shall exterritorialize Jerusalem, so that it will belong to nobody and yet everybody; and with it the Holy Places, which will become the joint possession of all believers - a great condominium of culture and morality" (The Diaries of Theodor Herzl, Gollancz London 1958, page 127). Two years later, in Jerusalem, on November 2, 1898, Herzl wrote about his "idea of restricting the Old City to humanitarian institutions, cleaning it up, and building a New Jerusalem which could be viewed from the Mount of Olives as Rome [is] from the Gianicolo."

ZEEV RAPHAEL
Haifa

A Bit of 'Dusty' History

In 1937, Chaim Weizmann gave testimony before a British Commission of Inquiry regarding British policy and reported on it to that year's Zionist Congress.

One of the things he had to say was very disturbing, especially in the light of what eventually happened to the Jews of Europe. He was asked "But can you bring 6,000,000 to Palestine?" and he replied: "No" as he was well acquainted with the laws of physics and chemistry.

Weizmann spoke of 6,000,000 Jews of whom he was determined to save the 2,000,000 youngsters who were fit for Eretz-Yisrael. The others, the old people, were as "dust", who would disappear. "Two millions, and perhaps, less - Scheerith Hapleta - only a branch shall survive. They had to accept it.

Here's the text as it appeared in the official monthly of the World Zionist Organization (see the underlined section in the right-hand column):-



The clipping is from The New Judea, August-September 1937, page 215.