Page 7 - TORCH #16 - August 2020

CHURCHILL THE ZIONIST
honourable and earnest way the promise that Britain will do her best to fulfil her undertakings to the Zionists.” In the same debate, Churchill praised the restoration of the Jewish homeland and saw its benefits to both Jews and Arabs alike, whilst delivering a scathing attack on the Arab failure to previously do likewise.
“Anyone who has visited Palestine recently must have seen how parts of the desert
have been converted into gardens, and how material improvement has been effected in every respect by the Arab population dwelling around,” he remarked approvingly. “On the sides of the hills there are enormous systems of terraces, and they are now the abode of an active cultivating population; whereas before, under centuries of Turkish and Arab rule, they had relapsed into a wilderness. There is no doubt whatever that in that country there is room for still further energy and development if capital and other forces be allowed to play their part. There is no doubt that there is room for a far larger number of people, and this far larger number of people will be able to lead far more decent and prosperous lives.”
Churchill continued to acclaim the agricultural, scientific and industrial development, including the water irrigation that was turning the land fertile and employing the Arab population.
“Was not this a good gift which would impress more than anything else on the
Arab population that the Zionists were
their friends and helpers, not their expellers and expropriators, and that the earth was a generous mother, that Palestine had before it a bright future, and that there was enough for all?
He added, “I am told that the Arabs would have done it themselves. Who is going to believe that? Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell—a handful of philosophic people—in the wasted sun- scorched plains, letting the waters of the, Jordan continue to flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea.”
It was frankly a pro-Israel speech that would have shuddered any anti-Semites in Parliament at the time. And in typical Churchill style,
he fashioned a phrase in support of Jewish
immigration that perfectly rebuts apartheid against Jews, by tapping into his Biblical knowledge once more. “Over the portals of the new Jerusalem,” he retorted, “you are going to inscribe the legend, ‘No Israelite need apply,’ then I hope the House will permit me to confine my attention exclusively to Irish matters.”
The struggle against British Foreign Policy
Throughout the 1920s, the British were confronted with coordinated Arab riots against Jews in Palestine, culminating in the Mufti’s Arab Revolt of 1936-39 as the Jewish refugee crisis continued to intensify.
On 11 November 1936 the Peel Commission arrived in the Holy Land to explore causes and solutions to the Arab unrest. On 25 November Chaim Weizmann testified before the Commission, saying, “Today almost six million Jews...are doomed to be pent up in places where they are not wanted, for whom the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter.”
Churchill heeded Weizmann’s wisdom and on 24 March 1936, Churchill urged Parliament to allow as many Jews into Palestine as necessary. Heeding Churchill’s warning, on 7 July 1937 the Peel Commission published its report which recognised the threat posed to the Jews who were desperate to leave Europe and asserted that “restrictions on Jewish immigration will not solve the Palestine problem.”
The Commission also recommended partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state as the only viable solution to the tensions between the Jews and the Arabs. Churchill opposed the idea. He warned, “The policy of Partition will not lead away from violence but into its very heart; will not end in peace, but in war.” He was right.
In 1939, a new White Paper, called
the “Black Paper” by Jews, was issued by Chamberlain’s government following pressure to stop all Jewish immigration to Palestine.
In 20 April 1939, at the Cabinet Palestine Committee meeting, Chamberlain stressed that it was of “major importance...to have the Moslem world with us.” He added, “If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather
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