A Wales of a Pogrom

I was sent this:

The Times, 15 February 2019:

Sir, Winston Churchill’s detractors need to recall that in August 1911 the Jewish communities of the “Western Valleys” (West Monmouthshire and East Glamorgan) were subjected to a week of brutal, premeditated assaults, robbery and looting by coal miners and their wives, whipped up by socialist propaganda. Only the troops deployed by Churchill, who was then home secretary, protected them. Churchill quite correctly referred to these incidents as a “pogrom”. Professor Geoffrey AldermanUniversity of Buckingham

Professor Alderman authored "The Jew as Scapegoat? The Settlement and Reception of Jews in South Wales before 1914", Transactions & Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England), Vol. 26 (1974-1978), pp. 62-70.

I admit I was unaware of this event.  I am going to guess most of you are as well. So, a bit of history -

Information is here:

anti-Jewish riots...swept the valley communities of Monmouthshire and Glamorgan in August 1911, leading to the temporary imposition of military rule – Churchill ordered detachments of the Worcester Regiment to patrol the affected areas - and to the wholesale evacuation of Jewish families by special trains that conveyed them to the relative safety of Cardiff, Newport, Aberdare and Merthyr. These riots - a week-long orgy of attacks on Jewish property - began in Tredegar during the evening of Saturday, August 19, and spread rapidly to Ebbw Vale, Rhymney and other industrial centres of the Western Valleys. Wherever Jews could be found, the rioters struck. 

And

At Tredegar only Jewish shops were attacked, while at Ebbw Vale, the Daily News reported, "the cry of the mob was … one long denunciation of Jews." The view of the presiding magistrate at Tredegar was that "the first disturbances were no doubt anti-Jewish," and the chief constable of Monmouth, in a report to the Home Office (August 21), gave it as his opinion that there was "a determination expressed by the inhabitants [of Tredegar] to get rid of them," meaning the Jews.

There is compelling evidence that the attacks were planned. According to the Rev Harris Jerevitch, minister at the Cardiff synagogue, "There is no doubt that the attacks were planned. Some of the Jewish inhabitants were informed a day or two before the outrages that people intended to wreck and loot their shops."

And here.

Churchill in Parliament

There were in several places gross instances of incendiarism, and in two cases in South Wales, at any rate, of wholesale loot by persons previously of good record. That is an amazing feature in the recent disturbances. I was told that at Tredegar there had been a case of anti-Semitism; and, quite peculiar and quite unknown in this country before, persons hitherto respectable were seen going home with bundles of clothes which they had taken from shops and which they were taking away as if they were not in the least ashamed of what they had done.

And Liberal MP Sir Arthur Markham

...The letter which I received states that serious rioting took place at Tredegar. [An HON. MEMBER: "Read it all."] You shall have it all if you wish it. The letter, dated August 21st, says:— Serious rioting took place at Tredegar on Saturday and Sunday night. It would appear that on Saturday night, between 11 and 12 o'clock, an attack was made upon shops owned by Jews in the main street of the town. There can be no doubt that this had been pre-arranged, although the police had no knowledge that such an attack was likely to take place. There were only eight constables available, and they were quite inadequate to deal with the disturbance, and could do little more than look on at the wrecking and looting or eighteen shops owned by Jews or persons of Jewish extraction. At an emergency meeting of the magistrates held on Sunday afternoon, it was decided to ask the Home Office for military protection, as there were strong rumours of a recurrence of the riots that evening. About 200 military arrived in the town about 10.30 that night from Cardiff, but previous to their arrival a few scuffles had taken place with the police, and the wrecking and looting of two other somewhat large business premises owned by Jews was commenced. Fortunately the arrival of the military prevented further grave disturbances, but the two premises I have previously referred to were looted of everything they contained; respectable people to all appearances carrying off bundles of clothing quite openly, and apparently without shame. 
At one time a serious conflict seemed imminent, but by appealing to the crowd a large number were prevailed upon to go home, with the result that by the aid of the military patrolling the town and by police rushes, the streets were eventually cleared without serious mishaps other than broken heads and cuts from the baton charges. Had I not seen it myself, I would not have believed that such an occurrence could have taken place in Tredegar, and I am sorry to say that although undoubtedly started in the first stage by hooligans, there were a large number of respectable working men taking part in the disturbance…. As previously stated the feeling in the first case was against the Jews, but now it appears to be an outburst of lawlessness in all directions, and threats have been used against respectable tradesmen who have been in the town for many years." 

^

Background to 1921 Churchill Partition

Winston Churchill created Transjordan out of the territory that was to be included in the Mandate for Palestine. I blogged about that here, here, and here and also here.

What needs to be added is Churchill's frame of mind at that time and shortly thereafter.

And here on page 65 that is described so:

Churchill almost lost for us the Mandate.

And was nasty:

But there was this:

^

Moyne Not An Anti-Zionist?

I hope to read an academic article soon. The subject is the fall-out from the Lechi assassination of Edward Guiness.  It is "Politics and Ideology: Lord Moyne, Palestine and Zionism 1939–1944" by Ronen Yitzhak published in Britain and the World, Aug 2017, vo. 10, No. 2 : pp. 155-169.  It is not his first treatment of the subject.

From the abstract it claims it

refutes the claim that Lord Moyne was anti-Zionist in his political orientation and in his activities and shows that his positions did not differ from those of other British senior officials at the time. His attitude toward Jewish immigration to Palestine and toward the establishment of a Jewish Brigade during the Second World War was indeed negative. This was not due to anti-Zionist policy, however, but to British strategy that supported the White Paper of 1939 and moved closer to the Arabs during the War.

So, in other words, Moyne wasn't that bad, he just went along with anti-Zionism because...?

Because why?

Lord Moyne displayed apolitically pragmatic approach and remained loyal to Prime Minister Churchill. He therefore supported the establishment of a Jewish Brigade and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine in the secret committee that Churchill set up in 1944. Unaware of his new positions, the Zionists assassinated him in November 1944. The murder of Lord Moyne affected Churchill, leading him to reject the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

I wonder, if I injure someone because I am loyal, say, to my friend, am I liable for the consequences? Does this not apply to Moyne?

Are not politicians to be moral and independent thinkers?

But am I to think that the 1939 White Paper of 1939 which fundamentally altered the idea of a reconstituted Jewish homeland, and actually negated it completely, and moving closer to the Arabs during the War are not deep anti-Zionist elements rather than simply "policy"?  A politician would have to be anti-Zionist to adapt to those positions.

That later Churchill sought to alter them, however inadequately - and let us not forget the four-year delay in establishing the Jewish Brigade, not to mention the refusal to bomb the railways to Auschwitz or the camp itself, horrific anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish decisions - should not lessen Moyne's own personal proclivities which some think anti-Semitic.  In his first article cited above, Ronen claims

Lord Moyne was not anti-Semitic, and he did not support Zionism. 

Yitzchak Shamir, one of the Lechi commanders who ordered the assassination continued to believe until his last lucid days that Moyne was anti-Semitic, although that did not intrinsically affect the decision to kill him.  And in that interview, Joanna Saidel writes

British Foreign Office documents confirm that a plan for partition was set for proposal. It is questionable whether the plan would have been accepted. According to Eban the motives for the plan were pro-Arab but would, nonetheless, serve the Jewish cause. Winston Churchill’s November 4, 1944 memorandum to Chaim Weizmann noted that Moyne had come over to the Zionist cause, albeit for pro-Arab motives...As unclear as the plan was there is no doubt that Moyne’s motivation was not to further the Jewish plan for statehood. Even Eban agreed, telling me: “He (Moyne) did this for Arab reasons. In other words, he said that unless the British were able to stop immigration, which they were not able to do, then the only way to save anything for the Arabs was by seeing that some part of Palestine was reserved for them. So he reached what I would call a Jewish State solution for anti-Jewish reasons, namely that otherwise the Jews would take over the whole of the country, and, therefore, partition was a sort of defense of the Arab position.”

Here is from Moyne's speech on June 9, 1942:

If a comparison is to be made with the Nazis it is surely those who wish to force an imported régime upon the Arab population who are guilty of the spirit of aggression and domination. Lord Wedgwood's proposal that Arabs should be subjugated by force to a Jewish régime is inconsistent with the Atlantic Charter, and that ought to be told to America. The second principle of that Charter lays down that the United States and ourselves desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; and the third principle lays down that they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live.

Surely it is time for the Zionists to abandon this appeal to force, and to seek a settlement with the Arabs by consent. The Zionist leaders expect about 7,000,000 Jews to be surviving in Eastern Europe at the end of the war, and they reject the policy of re-establishing Jewish communities under civilized conditions in Europe... I hope the Government will give serious consideration to the possibility of negotiations with the neighbouring States of the Levant to take part in re-settling the Jews. It is obvious that the fear of political domination by immigrant Jews will be decreased if they can be spread over a wider area and shared among different Administrations. A Federation of the Northern Arab States might well assist such a solution, but federation may be long in coming, and we ought at once to discuss with the Governments concerned to what extent and under what conditions they could admit Jewish immigration without swamping their own nationalities and independence.

Did Moyne compare Zionism to Nazism in there?  

Again:

If a comparison is to be made with the Nazis...those who wish to force an imported régime upon the Arab population who are guilty of the spirit of aggression and domination

By the way, Lord Josiah Wedgewood had little compunction when describing the Mandate Administration and its supporters as being anti-Semitic:

My Lords, before I begin to lose your sympathy I should like to say a word...now that we are discussing a question which relates to Palestine.I think that the whole gist of the speech of my noble friend Lord Davies points to one self-evident truth, which is that the Administration in Palestine is Anti-Semitic. I think that all our troubles in connexion with that country have come from this constant Anti-Semitic bias of the Palestine Administration. The evidence of that Anti-Semitism has been given in the speech of my noble friend, and, in addition to the things which he mentioned, I should like to refer to certain other facts. I will quote as evidence the toleration shown by the Administration to the Arab side in the riots of four years ago, and the escape of El Fawzi and the Mufti from that country when the riots were suppressed and their capture could have been effected. Then there was the question of the imprisonment of those Jews who dared to drill. They attempted to drill with the rifles that had been issued to them. It was against the law. They were all sent to prison, with sentences which range up to seven years' imprisonment for merely drilling in order to learn how to defend themselves. Some of them are still in prison. That, I think, is evidence of Anti-Semitism.

Can't wait to read it.

^

Jabotinsky Meets Churchill

Did you know Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Winston Churchill met?

In July 1937?

And that Churchill was impressed and adopted Jabotinsky's points?

Here:

^

Churchill's Comment in GraphicZionism Portrayal

And, yes, he did express himself so:

I always had in my mind the hope that the whole ques­tion of the Mid­dle East might have been set­tled on the largest scale on the mor­row of vic­tory and that an Arab Con­fed­er­a­tion, com­pris­ing three or four Arab States—Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, Tran­sjor­da­nia, Syria and the Lebanon—however grouped, pos­si­bly united amongst them­selves, and one Jew­ish State, might have been set up, which would have given peace and unity through­out the whole vast scene of the Mid­dle East. As to whether so large a pol­icy could have been car­ried into being I can­not be sure, but a set­tle­ment of the Pales­tine ques­tion on the basis of par­ti­tion would cer­tainly have been attempted, in the clos­est pos­si­ble asso­ci­a­tion with the United States and in per­sonal con­tact with the Pres­i­dent, by any Gov­ern­ment of which I had been the head. But all this oppor­tu­nity was lost. (Churchill by Him­self, 176-77)

And since it were the Arabs who scuttled that partition, obviously it was a no-solution. 

This, too, is indicative:-

PALESTINE (JEWISH SETTLEMENT).

HC Deb 16 March 1922 vol 151

§26. Captain Viscount CURZON asked the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to establish a national home for the Jews in Palestine; if so, whether, before such a decision was arrived at, the cost of such an undertaking received consideration; what is the direct cost to this country of such a policy to-day; and whether, in all the circumstances, this policy can be reconsidered in the interest of economy?

§Mr. CHURCHILL This question should be addressed to me. The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The policy of the Government, as the House is aware, was laid down in the letter addressed to Lord Rothschild in November, 1917, by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council. The question of the grounds that led to the adoption of that policy is not one that can be dealt with by question and answer. I am not prepared to reconsider the policy that has been adopted... 

_____________

P.S.

For those asking about borders, here:

PLEDGES TO ARABS.HC Deb 11 July 1922 vol 156

23. Mr. LESTRANGE MALONE asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the continual misinterpretations of our pledges to the Arabs, he will publish the letter of 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon to the Sheriff of Mecca in full or the whole correspondence of which that letter formed one item?
§Mr. CHURCHILL No, Sir; it would not be in the public interest to publish one or all of the documents comprising the long and inconclusive correspondence that took place with the Sheriff of Mecca in 1915–16. I am dealing with the question of the alleged pledges to the Arabs in my reply to the hon. Member for North Stafford.
§31. Mr. ORMSBY-GORE asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what pledges, if any, were made to the Palestine Arabs in the year 1915; whether the Sykes-Picot agreement, negotiated between the Governments of France and Great Britain before the Arabs entered the War as Allies, provided that in the event of Allied victory Palestine west of the Jordan was to be a separate international State with the exception of Haifa, which was to be British territory; and whether the Balfour declaration of November, 1917, was preceded by any pledges or promises regarding the future of Palestine?
§Mr. CHURCHILL No pledges were made to the Palestine Arabs in 1915. An undertaking was given to the Sheriff of Mecca that His Majesty's Government would recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within certain territorial limits, which specifically excluded the districts of Mersina and Alexandretta and the portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Horns, Hama and Aleppo. It was also stipulated that the undertaking applied only to those portions of the territories concerned in which Great Britain was free to act without detriment to the interests of her Allies. His Majesty's Government have always regarded and continue to regard Palestine as excluded by these provisos from the scope of their undertaking. This is clear from the fact, to which the hon. Member refers, that in the following year they concluded an agreement with the French and Russian Governments under which Palestine was to receive special treatment.
So far as I am aware, the first suggestion that Palestine was included in the area within which His Majesty's Government promised to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs was made by the Emir Feisal, now King of Iraq, at a conversation held in the Foreign Office on the 20th January, 1921, more than five years after the conclusion of the correspondence on which the claim was based. On that occasion the point of view of His Majesty's Government was explained to the Emir, who expressed himself as prepared to accept the statement that it had been the intention of His Majesty's Government to exclude Palestine.

When I assumed responsibility for Middle Eastern affairs, I went carefully into the correspondence referred to, and my reading of it is the same as that of the Foreign Office, as was recently stated in the declaration of British policy in Palestine which has been published and laid before the House. I am quite satisfied that it was as fully the intention of His Majesty's Government to exclude Palestine from the area of Arab independence as it was to exclude the more northern coastal tracts of Syria.

^

That Sunday Walk in Jerusalem

The phrase "a Sunday walk in Jerusalem" has a special meaning in Zionist historiography.

It refers to a meeting, held subsequently to the famous Cairo Conference which had been chaired by Churchill as Colonial Secretary when the fate of the post-World War I Middle East as Britain viewed it was laid out, in Jerusalem some 10 days later.

Thanks to a recent article by Martin Gilbert, some more precise information is available.

The Cairo Conference was primarily oriented to fixing the future of Iraq. Forty advisors, premier among them the 'Arab Bureau' deliberated and the future of what was to be the 'Palestine Mandate' as a result of the Balfour Declaration, the Versailles Peace Conference, the San Remo Conference decisions and the appointing of Sir Herbert Samuel, culminating in the League of Nations decision in 1922, finalized in 1923.

The date of the operative action by Churchill to found a state where there had not been more previously, and, at the very least, had not been an Arab state ever, a state to be ruled by a Saudi Arabian and who was to shortly become a refugee from his own country, his father losing out to Ibn Saud assuring the Hashemite Huesseinis, the Sherafians, could never return, was March 29, 1921 it would seem.

Or, perhaps it was a Shabbat stroll, on March 28th?

...Since the French were already installed in Damascus, and were not willing to make way for Feisal or any Arab leader, Churchill proposed giving Feisal, instead of the throne of Syria, the throne of Iraq, and at the same time giving Feisal’s brother Abdullah the throne of Transjordan, that part of Britain’s Palestine Mandate lying to the east of the River Jordan. Installing an Arab ruler in Transjordan would enable Western Palestine—the area from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, which now comprises both Israel and the West Bank—to become the location of the Jewish National Home under British control, in which, in Churchill’s words, the Jews were to go “of right, and not on sufferance.”11

Briefed by Lawrence at the March 17, 1921, Cairo Conference, Churchill explained to the senior officials gathered there that the presence of an Arab ruler under British control east of the Jordan would enable Britain to prevent anti-Zionist agitation from the Arab side of the river. In support of this view, Lawrence himself told the conference, as the secret minutes recorded: “He [Churchill] trusted that in four or five years, under the influence of a just policy,” Arab opposition to Zionism “would have decreased, if it had not entirely disappeared.”12

Lawrence went on to explain to the conference that “it would be preferable to use Trans-Jordania as a safety valve, by appointing a ruler on whom we could bring pressure to bear, to check anti-Zionism.” The “ideal” ruler would be “a person who was not too powerful, and who was not an inhabitant of Trans-Jordania, but who relied upon His Majesty’s Government for the retention of his office.”13 That ruler, Lawrence believed, would best be Emir Abdullah, Feisal’s brother...

...On March 27, 1921, ten days after Lawrence’s suggestions in Cairo, Churchill sent him from Jerusalem to Transjordan to explain to Abdullah that his authority would end at the eastern bank of the River Jordan; that the Jews were to be established in the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan (“Western Palestine”); and that he, Abdullah, must curb all anti-Zionist activity and agitation among his followers.

The next day, in Jerusalem, Lawrence, Churchill, and Abdullah were photographed at British Government House: Churchill bundled up against the cold, Lawrence in a dark suit and tie, Abdullah in army uniform with Arab headdress. At their meeting that day, Abdullah agreed to limit the area of his control to Transjordan and to refrain from any action against the Jewish National Home provisions of the Palestine Mandate west of the Jordan.

11. British White Paper of June 1922, cited in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p. 46.
12. Colonial Office Papers 935/1/1, cited in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p. 51.

Gilbert also highlights the attitude of TE Lawrence vis-a-vis Zionism:

In an article entitled “The Changing East,” published in the influential Round Table magazine in 1920, Lawrence wrote of “the Jewish experiment” in Palestine that it was “a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the ages, and return once more to the Orient from which they came.”6

Lawrence noted of the new Jewish immigrants: “The colonists will take back with them to the land which they occupied for some centuries before the Christian era samples of all the knowledge and technique of Europe. They propose to settle down amongst the existing Arabic-speaking population of the country, a people of kindred origin, but far different social condition. They hope to adjust their mode of life to the climate of Palestine, and by the exercise of their skill and capital to make it as highly organized as a European state.”7

As Lawrence envisaged it in his Round Table article, this settlement would be done in a way that would be beneficial to the Arabs. “The success of their scheme,” he wrote of the Zionists, “will involve inevitably the raising of the present Arab population to their own material level, only a little after themselves in point of time, and the consequences might be of the highest importance for the future of the Arab world. It might well prove a source of technical supply rendering them independent of industrial Europe, and in that case the new confederation might become a formidable element of world power.”8

6. T.E. Lawrence, “The Changing East,” The Round Table, September 1920. Available at http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/works/articles_essays/1920_changing_east.htm
7. Lawrence, “The Changing East.”
8. Lawrence, “The Changing East.”

A Churchill Moment

Patrick Kinna, who died on March 14 aged 95, was Winston Churchill's confidential assistant during the Second World War and saw the great man in some of his most private moments.

At Christmas 1941, while Churchill was staying at the White House, Kinna was summoned to take dictation by the prime minister, who was soaking in his bathtub, planning the speech he would make to Congress on Boxing Day. Finding the muse, Churchill stomped in and out of the tub, evading the ministrations of a valet with a bath-towel.

As the prime minister paced the room "completely starkers", Kinna recalled, there was a knock on the door and Churchill went to open it. It was Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Mortified at finding his guest with nothing on, the president prepared to make his excuses, but was prevented by Churchill. "Oh no, no, Mr President," he said. "As you can see, I have nothing to hide from you."

Nice, but if he worked with Bevin:

news of Kinna's skills had reached the ears of Ernest Bevin, now foreign secretary. "If he was good enough for Winston, he's good enough for me," Bevin is supposed to have said. Kinna worked with Bevin until his death in 1951,

I'd love to know things about the end of the Palestine Mandate.


Source

This Sound Familiar?

“Like many of his contemporaries at the turn of the century, he thought large-scale war between great powers was obsolete...surely civilization had progressed beyond that point in a new century, when nations were more and more dependent upon one another for commerce and common sense had made such nightmares ludicrous.”

Now, you may be thinking of a certain President-elect saying/thinking that but, in truth, it was...Winston Churchill, in 1900!

And, of course, he developed a different concept a few years later:

In political exile following World War I, he warned of the rise of dictatorships in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the Soviet Union, so much so that his critics, who did not want to think anymore about great confrontations, called him a warmonger. When he denounced the agreement reached at Munich in 1938, he warned that there could “never be friendship between the British democracy and the Nazi power.” ...

...Like Lincoln, he saw the importance of bolstering public morale, and he understood how deadly it was to talk of peace deals when the nation was losing. “We shall go on and we shall fight it out,” he declared. “And if at last the long story is to end, it were better it should end, not through surrender, but only when we are rolling senseless on the ground.” No one doubted him when he promised to die with pistol in hand fighting the Nazis in the streets of London.

These were the qualities that made Britons choose him over other men, and to follow him in a desperate struggle against the greatest odds.

Rafi Medoff's Letter on Churchill

Good work!

William Kristol (“The Jewish State at 60,” column, May 12) recalls that as the Nazis prepared for war, “the civilized world was helpless. Churchill’s pleas to act were ignored. The world was plunged into war,” and six million Jews were murdered.

It is true that Churchill’s pre-World War II warnings about the Nazi menace were generally ignored. It is also true, however, that Churchill had the opportunity to save the lives of many Jews from the Holocaust, but failed to do so.

By upholding the White Paper policy of closing the doors of Palestine to all but a handful of Jewish refugees, Churchill shut off one of the few havens for those fleeing Hitler.

Moreover, Churchill assigned refugee rescue matters to his Foreign Office, which repeatedly sabotaged rescue opportunities because it feared what one official called “the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued from enemy occupied territory.”

Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. characterized the Churchill government’s attitude as “a satanic combination of British chill and diplomatic double-talk, cold and correct and adding up to a sentence of death.”

Rafael Medoff
Washington, May 12, 2008

Irgun and Lechi More Than Justified

Rafael Medoff of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies sent me this news alert (what I call a press release):

CHURCHILL GOV’T SECRETLY PROPOSED ANTI-ZIONIST PLAN, SCHOLAR SAYS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The government of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1944 secretly proposed creating a “Greater Syria” that would have shut Holocaust escapees out of Palestine and thwarted creation of a Jewish state, according to an Israeli scholar, citing newly-released French government documents.

“This raises important questions about Winston Churchill’s attitudes toward Jewish refugees and Zionism,” said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. “Further research will hopefully shed more light on whether the gap between Churchill’s rhetoric and his actions was in fact greater than previously realized, as these documents suggest.”

...Prof. Zamir’s findings about the Churchill government’s “Greater Syria” plan run counter to two recent books, Churchill and the Jews by Martin Gilbert, and Churchill’s Promised Land, by Michael Makovsky, which portray Churchill as sympathetic and helpful to the Zionist cause and to Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

Writing in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz (Feb. 1, 2008), Prof. Zamir reported that in a previously-unknown British proposal to Syria’s leaders in August 1944, and in a secret British-Syrian agreement signed in June 1945, the Churchill government “assured Syria that it would limit Jewish immigration and thwart the emergence of an independent Jewish state in Palestine.”

For the full text of Prof. Zamir’s essay, please go here


Well, I also have thoughts on the matter:

a. if Ben-Gurion was almost a prophet (see Zamir's piece), what are we to do with Begin who declared a revolt in February 1944 or Yair, June 1940?

b. if Britain began its treason against the Yishuv in August 1944, then the claim that it was the Moyne assassination in Cairo that forced Churchill to abandon the partition idea and reject Zionism for a while is a non-starter for that shooting occured in November 1944.

c. so the Irgun and Lechi not only kicked the British out of Palestine but Syria and Lebanon as well.

It's a shame Zamir didn't go beyond the parameters of Ben-Gurion in his piece.

Further independent research is required.

UPDATE

The real point is that while Begin, et al. set out to remove the British regime, none of the "small issues" really made a difference - Britain was in the wrong in the most fundamental way and eventually, this recent material came out. BG & Weizmann's pro-British policies were what endangered the Yishuv more than just trying to be nice.