From
The Controversy of
Zion,
Chapter 39. Text as it appears
here has been reformatted. The
entire book is available in .pdf format
here.
“Mr. Churchill’s rousing words about fighting forever on the
beaches and in the streets and never giving up did not thrill me,
because I knew that, if an invasion once gained foothold, they were
empty; men cannot fight tanks with bare hands. The unarmed state of
the land was dire. I should have been bewildered had I known that Mr.
Churchill, at such a time, gave his mind so persistently to the arming
of Zionists in
Palestine.”—Douglas
Reed
The Arming of
Zion
Douglas Reed
For six years the grappling masses surged to and fro over
three continents, and at the end those who thought themselves the
victors were further from the Holy Grail than at the start; at the
victor-politicians’ parleys the cock crowed a second time. Three
decades earlier President Wilson had striven to cry that “the causes
and objects are obscure . . . the objects of the statesmen on both
sides are virtually the same,” and the outcome justified him. The
German leaders then had decided to “foment” and Mr. House to “support”
the world-revolution; the Zionists kept their headquarters in
Berlin
as long as they thought that a victorious
Germany
might set up the “Jewish homeland” in
Palestine,
and only transferred them when victory was seen to lie with the West.
The Second War again bore out the truth of Mr. Wilson’s
stifled cry. It could not have begun at all without the complicity of
the world-revolution in the onslaught of the new “madman in
Berlin,”
and the peoples then overrun could discern no difference between the
Communist and the Nazi oppression. Then, when the two turned against
each other, Mr. Hopkins (in Mr. House’s stead) began to “support” the
world-revolution again, so that victory could bring no “liberation.”
Hitler wanted to re-segregate the Jews; Mr. Brandeis in America
similarly, and imperially, decreed that “No Jew must live in
Germany.”
Mr. Churchill desired that “three or four million Jews” should be
transplanted to Palestine; the Communist state, by profession
anti-Zionist, supplied the first contingent of these.
When the smoke of battle cleared only three purposes had
been achieved, none of them disclosed at its start: the
world-revolution, with Western arms and support, had advanced to the
middle of Europe; Zionism had been armed to establish itself in
Palestine by force; the “world-government,” obviously the result which
these two convergent forces were intended to produce, had been set up
anew in embryo form, this time in
New York. The war
behind the war was the true one; it was fought to divert the arms,
manpower and treasure of the West to these purposes. Through the
dissolving fog of war the shape of the great “design” first revealed
by Weishaupt’s paper, and exposed again in the Protocols, showed
clear.
When the war began the intention to abandon the unworkable
“Mandate” and withdraw from
Palestine, after
ensuring the equitable representation of all parties there, was
official British policy, approved by Parliament. The Zionists saw
that no British government, in any foreseeable future, could be
brought to perform the actual deed of assassination: that is to say,
to expel the Arabs from their own
Palestine
by arms. They set about to obtain arms for themselves under cover of
the war.
The war was hardly begun when Dr. Weizmann appeared in Mr.
Churchill’s office. Unknown to the general public, this remarkable
man for thirty-three years (from the day of his interview with Mr.
Balfour) had exercised mastery over the politicians of
England and
America. His person cannot have inspired such awe, so that they must
have seen in him the representative of a force which cowed them; the
one which Dr. Kastein called “the Jewish international” and Mr.
Neville Chamberlain “international Jewry.”
Mr. Churchill, returned to office after ten years as First
Lord of the Admiralty, presumably should have been absorbed by the war
at sea, but Dr. Weizmann was concerned with other things. He said,
“after the war we would want to build up a state of three or four
million Jews in
Palestine”
and states that
Mr. Churchill replied, “Yes, indeed, I quite agree with that.” Mr.
Churchill, twelve months earlier, had called for “solemn assurances”
to the Arabs that Zionist immigration would be regulated and
restricted. Even today, in 1956, Palestine has but 1,600,000 Jews and
a state of permanent warfare exists in Arabia in consequence of their
introduction; if their number is to be doubled or trebled the shape of
the future is apparent and Mr. Churchill, in 1939, presumably saw it.
Mr. Churchill then had no responsibility for
Palestine. Dr.
Weizmann evidently expected that Mr. Churchill would soon be Prime
Minister. He then went to America and expounded his plan to President
Roosevelt, finding him “interested” but cautious (his third election
campaign impended), and returned to England, where Mr. Churchill had
supplanted Mr. Chamberlain in the highest office.
Thus the situation of 1916 was recreated, with a small
difference. Mr. Lloyd George was required to divert British armies
to Palestine, for the initial conquest of the coveted land, and
did so. Mr. Churchill was asked to divert arms to the Zionists
there so that they could establish themselves, and sought to comply.
Indeed, he had been giving orders in that sense for five months when
he next saw Dr. Weizmann, and records them in appendices to his war
memoirs.
He became prime minister on
May 10, 1940 as
France collapsed
and the British island stood alone, defended only by the remnant of
its air forces and its navy; the army had been destroyed in France.
On May 23 he instructed his Colonial Secretary, Lord Lloyd, that the
British troops in Palestine should be withdrawn and “the Jews armed
in their own defence and properly organized as speedily as
possible.” He repeated the order on May 29 (while the evacuation from
Dunkirk was in progress) and on June 2. On June 6 he complained of
military opposition to it, and at the end of June of “difficulties”
with two responsible ministers, particularly Lord Lloyd (“who was a
convinced anti-Zionist and pro-Arab; I wished to arm the Jewish
colonists.”
Thus the matter was already being discussed in terms, not
of national interest, but of “pro” this and “anti” that, the language
of the soap-box. Mr. Churchill continued in this strain, telling Lord
Lloyd that the large numbers of troops in
Palestine were “the
price we have to pay for the anti-Jewish policy which has been
persisted in for some years” (the policy of his own White Paper of
1922). If the Jews were properly armed, he said, British troops would
be released for service elsewhere “and there would be no danger of
the Jews attacking the Arabs.” He refused to acquaint Parliament
with the views of the responsible minister: “I could certainly
not associate myself with such an answer as you have drawn up for me.”
At that moment arms were more precious than diamonds in
England.
The armies rescued from France were without weapons and disorganized;
Mr. Churchill records that the whole island contained barely 500 field
guns and 200 tanks of any age or kind; months later he was still
urgently appealing to President Roosevelt for 250,000 rifles for
“trained and uniformed men” who had none. In those days I scoured the
countryside to obtain, at last, a forty-year old pistol which would
fire only single shots. Mr. Churchill’s rousing
words about fighting forever on the beaches and in the streets and
never giving up did not thrill me, because I knew that, if an invasion
once gained foothold, they were empty; men cannot fight tanks with
bare hands. The unarmed state of the land was dire. I should have
been bewildered had I known that Mr. Churchill, at such a time, gave
his mind so persistently to the arming of Zionists in Palestine.
The danger of invasion was receding when Dr. Weizmann next
saw Mr. Churchill, in August 1940. He then proposed that the Zionists
should form an army of 50,000 men, and in September presented Mr.
Churchill with “a five-point programme,” the main point of which was
“the recruitment of the greatest possible number of Jews in
Palestine for the
fighting services.” He says that Mr. Churchill “consented to this
programme.”
Lord Lloyd (like Sir William Robertson, Mr. Edwin Montagu
and many others in the First War) fought hard to avert all this. He
was pursued by the untimely fate which dogged many of the men who
tried to do their duty in this matter: he died in 1941, aged only 62.
However, responsible officials and soldiers never ceased to try and
restrain the “top-line politicians” from this new diversion. Dr.
Weizmann complains that, despite Mr. Churchill’s support, “exactly
four years were to pass before, in September 1944, the Jewish Brigade
was officially formed,” and attributes this delay to the obstinate
resistance of “experts” (his word). Mr. Churchill similarly
complained: “I wished to arm the Jews at Telaviv . . . Here I
encountered every kind of resistance” (July 1940, just before the air
attack on Britain began).
Dr. Weizmann evidently thought the time was come to subdue
this resistance by “pressure” from another quarter, for in the spring
of 1941, he went again to
America. At this
time (as in the First War) he was nominally giving the British “war
effort” the benefit of his scientific knowledge, on this occasion in
the field of isoprene. He says he was “absorbed in the work,” but he
contrived to make himself free from it and, as he was Dr. Weizmann, no
difficulties arose about crossing the Atlantic in wartime.
The ground had been prepared for him in America, where
Rabbi Stephen Wise was instructing President Roosevelt (as he had
instructed the long-dead President Wilson) about his duty towards
Zionism: “On May 13, 1941 I found it necessary to send the president
firsthand reports from Palestine” (the rabbi’s firsthand reports about
a “reported” pogrom in 1933 had produced the boycott in New York) “and
write about the imperilled status of the unarmed Jews . . . The
British Government ought to be made to understand how enormous
would be the shock and how damaging its effect upon the democratic
cause, if there should be a general slaughter because of failure
adequately to arm the Jews as well as to strengthen the
defences of Palestine with guns, tanks and planes.”
The president replied, “I can merely call to the attention
of the British our deep interest in the defence of
Palestine and our
concern for the defence of the Jewish population there; and, as
best I can, supply the British forces with the material means by which
the maximum protection to Palestine will be afforded.” Equipped with
this letter (as Dr. Weizmann once with a report of an interview
written on British Foreign Office letter-paper) Rabbi Stephen Wise
“the next day left for Washington, and after conference with high
government officials felt more confident that the British would be
made to understand that there must be adequate equipment (guns,
tanks and planes) for our people in Palestine. . . And probably
thanks to the intervention of Mr. Roosevelt, the business of parity
had been dropped to a large extent” (the last allusion is to the
insistence of responsible British administrators that, if arms were
being handed around, Arabs and Zionists in equal numbers should
be armed in Palestine; even Mr. Churchill had found difficulty in
resisting this proposal).
These Zionist potentates in the various countries applied
“irresistible pressure on international politics” in perfect
synchronization. If
London lagged in
compliance, it was “made to understand” by
Washington;
had the positions been reversed the procedure would have been the
opposite. Thus the mechanism had been well oiled when Dr. Weizmann
arrived and he soon satisfied himself that “the top political leaders”
showed “real sympathy for our Zionist aspirations.”
In
Washington, as in
London, he found the responsible officials a nuisance: “The trouble
always began when it came to the experts in the State
Department.” Below the “top-line politician” in
Washington
level ministers and high officials, and in
Palestine
American professors, missionaries and businessmen, all tried to keep
American state policy free of this incubus. The chief responsible
official in Washington is described by Dr. Weizmann in the identical
terms used by Mr. Churchill to Lord Lloyd: “The head of the Eastern
Division of the State Department was an avowed anti-Zionist and
pro-Arab”; this indicates the original source of political
vocabulary at the top level.
Dr. Weizmann realized that from this period on
Washington was the
place whence pressure might best be maintained on London, and early in
1942 transferred himself thither. His liberation from the scientific
work which “absorbed” him in England was easily arranged, President
Roosevelt discovering that Dr. Weizmann was urgently needed in America
to work on the problem of synthetic rubber. The American Ambassador
in London, Mr. John G. Winant, scented trouble and “earnestly advised”
Dr. Weizmann, when he reached America, to devote himself “as
completely as possible to chemistry.” Mr. Winant was alarmed about
the consequences of all these machinations, and foreboding eventually
broke him; his death, soon afterwards, was of tragic nature. As for
his counsel, Dr. Weizmann remarks that “actually, I divided my time
almost equally between science and Zionism,” and if that was so
“chemistry” came off better than any who knew Dr. Weizmann would have
expected.
Before he left he “dropped in” at
Ten Downing Street,
where by 1942 he had been on dropping-in terms for nearly thirty
years, to bid goodbye to Mr. Churchill’s secretary, as he says. Not
surprisingly, he saw Mr. Churchill, who said (according to Dr.
Weizmann): “When the war is over, I would like to see Ibn Saud made
lord of the Middle East, the boss of the bosses, provided he
settles with you . . . of course we shall help you. Keep this
confidential, but you might talk it over with
Roosevelt when you get to
America. There’s
nothing he and I cannot do if we set our minds on it.” (Dr. Weizmann,
after the interview, made a note of this confidence and gave it to the
Zionist political secretary with instructions to disclose it to the
Zionist executive if anything befell Dr. Weizmann; also, he published
it in his later book).
Mr. Churchill erred if he expected Dr. Weizmann to help set
up an Arabian “lord of the
Middle East,”
for that potentateship is obviously reserved to Zionism. Hence Dr.
Weizmann did not even convey Mr. Churchill’s message when he saw
President Roosevelt and talked only about his scientific work. In
other quarters he pressed for “America to send the maximum number
of planes and tanks to that theatre” (Africa, where they would be
most accessible to the Zionists in Palestine). At this stage he began
close co-operation with Mr. Henry Morgenthau, junior, of the
president’s inner circle, who was to prove of “peculiar assistance” at
the later, decisive moment.
Dr. Weizmann again encountered irritating hindrances: “Our
difficulties were not connected with the first-rank statesmen. These
had, for by far the greatest part, always understood our aspirations,
and their statements in favour of the Jewish National Home
really constitute a literature. It was always behind the scenes,
and on the lower levels, that we encountered an obstinate,
devious and secretive opposition. . . All the information
supplied from the
Middle East to the
authorities
in
Washington worked
against us.”
For nearly forty years, at that time, Dr. Weizmann had
worked “behind the scenes,” deviously and in secret; history shows no
comparable case. At one more behind-the-scenes meeting with President
Roosevelt he then imparted Mr. Churchill’s message, or rather
(according to his own account) a different one: he said Mr. Churchill
had assured him that “the end of the war would see a change in the
status of the Jewish National Home, and that the White Paper of 1939
would go.” He describes this as Mr. Churchill’s “plan” but it is not
the message previously quoted, although it might depict Mr.
Churchill’s mind. What is significant is that Dr. Weizmann omitted
Mr. Churchill’s main proposal, to make King Ibn Saoud “lord of the
Middle East
. . . provided he settles with you.”
Dr. Weizmann says that President Roosevelt’s response to
Mr. Churchill’s plan (as thus misrepresented to him) was “completely
affirmative,” which in Zionese means that he said “Yes” to a Jewish
state (“a change in the status of the Jewish National Home”). The
president, according to Dr. Weizmann, then himself introduced the name
of Ibn Saoud, and showed himself “aware of the Arab problem.” Dr.
Weizmann, if his account is correct, did not then say that Mr.
Churchill recommended “a settlement” with Ibn Saoud. On the contrary,
Dr. Weizmann “maintained the thesis that we could not rest our
cause on the consent of the Arabs.”
That was the opposite of Mr. Churchill’s envisaged
“settlement” and was specific: it meant war against the Arabs
and American support for such a war. Thereon Mr. Roosevelt merely
“again assured me of his sympathies and of his desire to settle the
problem.”
There is some mystery in this reserve of President
Roosevelt in the matter of “the Arab problem” which might have had
important consequences had he not died, two years later, almost
immediately after meeting Ibn Saoud. However, what he
cautiously said and privately thought was no longer of vital
importance in 1943, because the real decision had been taken. Behind
the scenes, under cover of a war in
Europe, arms were
on their way to the Zionists, and this secret process was to determine
the shape of the future. From this moment neither the top-line
politicians, if they rebelled, nor the hard-pressed responsible
officials had the power to prevent Zionism from planting in Palestine
a time-bomb which may yet blow up the second half of the 20th Century.
For the time being
Dr. Weizmann, in July 1943, returned to London, assured that “pressure” from
Washington
would be maintained.
Douglas Reed page