from The Nation, 2001-Jul-23, by Christopher Hitchens:

Israel Shahak, 1933-2001

In early June I sat on a panel, in front of a large and mainly Arab audience, with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Our hosts, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, had asked for a discussion of contrasting images of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The general tempo of the meeting was encouragingly nontribal; there were many criticisms of Arab regimes and societies, and one of our co-panelists, Raghida Dergham, had recently been indicted in her absence by a Lebanese military prosecutor for the offense of sharing a panel discussion with an Israeli. However, it's safe to say that most of those attending were aching for a chance to question Friedman in person. He was accused directly at one point of writing in a lofty and condescending manner about the Palestinian people. To this he replied hotly and eloquently, saying that he had always believed that "the Jewish people will never be at home in Palestine until the Palestinian people are at home there."

That was well said, and I hadn't at the time read his then-most-recent column, so I didn't think to reply. But in that article he wrote that Chairman Arafat, by his endless double-dealing, had emptied the well of international sympathy for his cause. This is a very Times-ish rhetoric, of course. You have to think about it for a second. It suggests that rights, for Palestinians, are not something innate or inalienable. They are, instead, a reward for good behavior, or for getting a good press. It's hard to get more patronizing than that. During the first intifada, in the late 1980s, the Palestinians denied themselves the recourse to arms, mounted a civil resistance, produced voices like Hanan Ashrawi and greatly stirred world opinion. For this they were offered some noncontiguous enclaves within an Israeli-controlled and Israeli-settled condominium. Better than nothing, you might say. But it's the very deal the Israeli settlers reject in their own case, and they do not even live in Israel "proper." (They just have the support of the armed forces of Israel "proper.") So now things are not so nice and many Palestinians have turned violent and even--whatever next?--religious and fanatical. Naughty, naughty. No self-determination for you. And this from those who achieved statehood not by making nice but as a consequence of some very ruthless behavior indeed.

I am writing these lines in memoriam for my dear friend and comrade Dr. Israel Shahak, who died on July 2. His home on Bartenura Street in Jerusalem was a library of information about the human rights of the oppressed. The families of prisoners, the staff of closed and censored publications, the victims of eviction and confiscation--none were ever turned away. I have met influential "civil society" Palestinians alive today who were protected as students when Israel was a professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University; from him they learned never to generalize about Jews. And they respected him not just for his consistent stand against discrimination but also because--he never condescended to them. He detested nationalism and religion and made no secret of his contempt for the grasping Arafat entourage. But, as he once put it to me, "I will now only meet with Palestinian spokesmen when we are out of the country. I have some severe criticisms to present to them. But I cannot do this while they are living under occupation and I can 'visit' them as a privileged citizen." This apparently small point of ethical etiquette contains almost the whole dimension of what is missing from our present discourse: the element of elementary dignity and genuine mutual recognition.

Shahak's childhood was spent in Nazified Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto and Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; at the end of the war he was the only male left in his family. He reached Palestine before statehood, in 1945. In 1956 he heard David Ben-Gurion make a demagogic speech about the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt, referring to this dirty war as a campaign for "the kingdom of David and Solomon." That instilled in him the germinal feelings of opposition. By the end of his life, he had produced a scholarly body of work that showed the indissoluble connection between messianic delusions and racial and political ones. He had also, during his chairmanship of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, set a personal example that would be very difficult to emulate.

He had no heroes and no dogmas and no party allegiances. If he admitted to any intellectual model, it would have been Spinoza. For Shahak, the liberation of the Jewish people was an aspect of the Enlightenment, and involved their own self-emancipation from ghetto life and from clerical control, no less than from ancient "Gentile" prejudice. It therefore naturally ensued that Jews should never traffic in superstitions or racial myths; they stood to lose the most from the toleration of such rubbish. And it went almost without saying that there could be no defensible Jewish excuse for denying the human rights of others. He was a brilliant and devoted student of the archeology of Jerusalem and Palestine: I would give anything for a videotape of the conducted tours of the city that he gave me, and of the confrontation in which he vanquished one of the propagandist guides on the heights of Masada. For him, the built and the written record made it plain that Palestine had never been the exclusive possession of any one people, let alone any one "faith."

Only the other day, I read some sanguinary proclamation from the rabbinical commander of the Shas party, Ovadia Yosef, himself much sought after by both Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. It was a vulgar demand for the holy extermination of non-Jews; the vilest effusions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad would have been hard-pressed to match it. The man wants a dictatorial theocracy for Jews and helotry or expulsion for the Palestinians, and he sees (as Shahak did in reverse) the connection. This is not a detail; Yosef's government receives an enormous US subsidy, and his intended victims live (and die, every day) under a Pax Americana. Men like Shahak, who force us to face these reponsibilities, are naturally rare. He was never interviewed by the New York Times, and its obituary pages have let pass the death of a great and serious man.

introduction to the American Council for Judaism, from Hebrew Union College (NYU affilate), Jewish Institute of Religion, from http://server.huc.edu/aja/acj.htm:

INSTITUTIONAL SKETCH

In 1942, at its annual conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) passed a pro-Zionist resolution supporting the formation of a Jewish army in Palestine. This nullified a 1935 CCAR agreement which had stated that the CCAR would remain neutral on the Zionist issue. Immediately after the 1942 conference, several non-Zionist rabbis met to discuss their displeasure with the resolution.

As a result of this meeting, sixteen CCAR rabbis led by such men as Louis Wolsey, William Fineshriber and Morris Lazaron, addressed letters to CCAR members concerning the formation of a Jewish "anti-nationalist" organization. Although various attempts were made to appease the "anti-nationalists" (on the grounds that they would split the CCAR as well as the American Jewish community) they remained adamant and held a meeting in early June. At this meeting a "Statement of Principles" was formulated. In essence, the "Principles" stated that the non-Zionists supported Palestine and Palestinean rehabilitation but, in light of their universalistic interpretation of Jewish history and destiny, and also their concern for the welfare and status of the Jewish people living in other parts of the world, they could not "subscribe to or support the political emphasis now paramount in the Zionist program". Furthermore could not help but believe "that Jewish nationalism tends to confuse our fellowman about our place and function in society and diverts our own attention from our historic role to live as a religious community wherever we may dwell".1

In August of that year, this "Statement", signed by 90 Reform rabbis and lay leaders, was released to the press. By the end of 1942, this group of "anti-nationalists" had chosen a name for itself, the American Council for Judaism (ACJ); they had adopted a constitution and named Elmer Berger, a rabbi from Flint, Michigan, as Executive Director. On March 19, 1943, the American Council for Judaism was incorporated in the State of New York and by the end of the year, a slate of officers was selected. As President the Council chose Lessing Rosenwald; as VicePresidents, Rabbi Louis Binstock, Fred F. Florence, Ralph W. Mack, Rabbi Irving Reichert and Rabbi Louis Wolsey; as Treasurer D. Hays Solis-Cohen.

Because the Council felt that it represented the views of the majority of American Jews, it began its anti-Zionist campaign with a massive membership drive. By 1946, the ACJ had numerous local chapters and had established regional offices in Richmond, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco.

Throughout its existence, the Council continued its membership solicitations while also maintaining a vigorous publicity campaign through press releases and the publication of various articles, pamphlets and journals (Council News, Brief, Information Bulletin, Issues, etc.). To demonstrate that the American Zionists did not reflect the opinions of all American Jews, the ACJ addressed letters to various government officials, expressing their opposition to the establishment of Palestine or any other independent locality as a Jewish state. Instead, the ACJ advocated a policy of rehabilitating European Jewry through a restoration of civil, political and economic security in those nations containing a Jewish population.

The ACJ was initially created to represent a religious opposition to political Zionism. But with the appointment of Sidney Wallach, a layman, as public relations representative and the election of several lay officers, the religious aspects were de-emphasized. Indeed, some of the rabbinic pioneers of the idea to create a non-Zionist organization never even joined the ACJ, claiming that the Council represented anti-Zionism rather than pro-Judaism. With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, and the ACJ's announced intent to continue its anti-Zionist program, several other prominent Reform rabbis, among them ACJ founder Louis Wolsey, resigned from the Council.

After 1948, through press releases and other commentary, the Council continued its opposition to the establishment of Israel, but it also expanded its program to include non-political aspects of its opposition to Zionism. In the early 1950's the ACJ provided aid to Christian and Moslem refugees from Palestine. In 1955, the Philanthropic Fund of the American Council for Judaism was established to provide assistance to Jews within their own countries and to aid Jewish and non-Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Arab countries.

In 1952, the Council opened Sunday schools, based on a program of universal Judaism, in Milwaukee, Westchester (New York), New York City and Chicago. By 1954 the Council was progressing with a multi-faceted program of creating religious tests free of nationalist bias, conducting annual teachers' institutes and distributing a serial entitled Education in Judaism.

In 1955, Rabbi Elmer Berger advocated the complete assimilation of Jews into American life through a program which called for the establishment of Sunday as the official Jewish day of worship, the designing of a new menorah which "would reflect the appreciation of American Jews of the freedom of life in the United States," and the interpretation of the holiday of Succot "to be broadened to take on meaning to [all] citizens of an industrial society".

introduction to Allan C. Brownfeld, from Accuracy in Media, from http://www.aim.org/speakers/allan.htm:

Mr. Brownfeld writes a Washington-based syndicated column that appears throughout the U.S. and in a number of other countries. He is author of five books, the latest of which is The Revolution Lobby (with J. Michael Waller), published by the Council for Inter-American Security.

In addition to an extensive writing career, Mr. Brownfeld has been a consultant and staff aide to several members of Congress, and has served as a member of the U.S. Senate Internal Security Committee.

from http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zistrngallianc.html:

Zionism and Anti-Semitism: A Strange Alliance Through History

by Allan C. Brownfeld

[The Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, pp. 48-50]

IT HAS, for many years, been a tactic of those who seek to silence open debate and discussion of U.S. Middle East policy to accuse critics of Israel of "anti-Semitism."

   In a widely discussed article entitled "J'Accuse" (Commentary, September 1983), Norman Podhoretz charged America's leading journalists, newspapers and television networks with "anti Semitism" because of their reporting of the war in Lebanon and their criticism of Israel's conduct. Among those so accused were Anthony Lewis of The New York Times, Nicholas von Hoffman, Joseph Harsch of The Christian Science Monitor, Rowland Evans, Robert Novak, Mary McGrory, Richard Cohen and Alfred Friendly of The Washington Post, and a host of others. These individuals and their news organizations were not criticized for bad reporting or poor journalistic standards; instead, they were the subject of the charge of anti-Semitism. Podhoretz declared: "...the beginning of wisdom in thinking about this issue is to recognize that the vilification of Israel is the phenomenon to be addressed, not the Israeli behavior that provoked it...We are dealing here with an eruption of anti Semitism."

   To understand Norman Podhoretz and others who have engaged in such charges, we must recognize that the term "anti Semitism" has undergone major transformation. Until recently, those guilty of this offense were widely understood to be those who irrationally disliked Jews and Judaism. Today, however, the term is used in a far different way--one which threatens not only free speech but also threatens to trivialize anti-Semitism itself.

   Anti-Semitism has been redefined to mean anything that opposes the policies and interests of Israel. The beginning of this redefinition may be said to date, in part, from the 1974 publication of the book The New Anti-Semitism by Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein, leaders of the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith.

   The nature of the "new" anti-Semitism, according to Forster and Epstein, is not necessarily hostility toward Jews as Jews, or toward Judaism, but, instead a critical attitude toward Israel and its policies.

   Later, Nathan Perlmutter, when he was director of the Anti-Defamation League, stated that, "There has been a transformation of American anti-Semitism in recent times. The crude anti-Jewish bigotry once so commonplace in this country is today gauche...Poll after poll indicates that Jews are one of America's most highly regarded groups."

SEMITICALLY NEUTRAL POSTURES

Perlmutter, however, refused to declare victory over such bigotry. Instead, he redefined it. He declared: "The search for peace in the Middle East is littered with mine fields for Jewish interests...Jewish concerns that are confronted by the Semitically neutral postures of those who believe that if only Israel would yield this or that, the Middle East would become tranquil and the West's highway to its strategic interests and profits in the Persian Gulf would be secure. But at what cost to Israel's security? Israel's security, plainly said, means more to Jews today than their standing in the opinion polls..."

   What Perlmutter did was to substitute the term"Jewish interests" for what are, in reality, "Israeli interests." By changing the terms of the debate, he created a situation in which anyone who is critical of Israel becomes, ipso facto, "anti-Semitic."

   The tactic of using the term "anti-Semitism" as a weapon against dissenters is not new. Dorothy Thompson, the distinguished journalist who was one of the earliest enemies of Nazism, found herself criticizing the policies of Israel shortly after its creation. Despite her valiant crusade against Hitler, she, too, was subject to the charge of "anti-Semitism." In a letter to The Jewish Newsletter (April 6, 1951) she wrote: "Really, I think continued emphasis should be put upon the extreme damage to the Jewish community of branding people like myself as anti-Semitic...The State of Israel has got to learn to live in the same atmosphere of free criticism which every other state in the world must endure...There are many subjects on which writers in this country are, because of these pressures, becoming craven and mealy-mouthed. But people don't like to be craven and mealy-mouthed; every time one yields to such pressure one is filled with self-contempt and this self-contempt works itself out in a resentment of those who caused it."

   A quarter-century later, columnist Carl Rowan (Washington Star, Feb. 5, 1975) reported: "When I wrote my recent column about what I perceive to be a subtle erosion of support for Israel in this town, I was under no illusion as to what the reaction would be. I was prepared for a barrage of letters to me and newspapers carrying my column accusing me of being 'anti-Semitic'...The mail rolling in has met my worst expectations...This whining baseless name-calling is a certain way to turn friends into enemies."

   What few Americans understand is that there has been a long historical alliance--from the end of the 19th century until today- between Zionism and real anti-Semites--from those who planned pogroms in Czarist Russia to Nazi Germany itself. The reason for the affinity many Zionist leaders felt for anti-Semites becomes clear as this history emerges.

   When Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, served in Paris as a correspondent for a Vienna newspaper, he was in close contact with the leading anti-Semites of the day. In his biography of Herzl, The Labyrinth of Exile, Ernst Pawel reports that those who financed and edited La Libre Parole, a weekly dedicated "to the defense of Catholic France against atheists, republicans, Free Masons and Jews," invited Herzl to their homes on a regular basis.

   Alluding to such conservatives and their publications, Pawel writes that Herzl "found himself captivated" by these men and their ideas: "La France Juive struck him as a brilliant performance and--much like Duhring's notorious Jewish Question 10 years later--it aroused powerful and contradictory emotions...On June 12, 1895, while in the midst of working on Der Judenstaat, [Herzl] noted in his diary , 'much of my current conceptual freedom I owe to [Edouard] Drumont, because he is an artist.' The compliment seems extravagant, but Drumont repaid it the following year with a glowing review of Herzl's book La Parole Libre."

   In the end, Pawel argues, "Paris changed Herzl, and French anti-Semites undermined the ironic complacency of the Jewish would-be non-Jew." Yet Herzl was not entirely displeased with anti Semitism. In a private letter to Moritz Benedikt, written in the final days of 1892, he writes: "I do not consider the anti-Semitic movement altogether harmful. It will inhibit the ostentatious flaunting of conspicuous wealth, curb the unscrupulous behavior of Jewish financiers, and contribute in many ways to the education of the Jews...In that respect we seem to be in agreement."

   Herzl's book Der Judenstaat, was widely disparaged by the leading Jews of the day, who viewed themselves as French, German, English or Austrian citizens and Jews by religion--with no interest in a separate Jewish state. Anti-Semites, on the other hand, eagerly greeted Herzl's work. Herzl's arguments, Pawel points out, were "all but indistinguishable from those used by the anti-Semites." One of the first reviews appeared in the Westungarischer Grenzbote, an anti-Semitic journal published in Bratislava by Ivan von Simonyi, a member of the Hungarian Diet. He praised both the book and Herzl and was so carried away with his enthusiasm that he paid Herzl a personal visit. Herzl wrote in his diary: "My weird follower, the Bratislava anti-Semite Ivan von Simonyi came to see me. A hypermercurial, hyperloquacious sexagenarian with an uncanny sympathy for the Jews. Swings back and forth between perfectly rational talk and utter nonsense, believes in the blood libel and at the same time comes up with the most sensible modern ideas. Loves me."

   After the barbaric Kishinev pogrom of April 1901, when hundreds of Jews were killed or wounded, Herzl came to Russia to barter with V.K. Plehve, the Russian interior minister who had incited the pogrom. Herzl told Jewish cultural leader Chaim Zhitlovsky: "I have an absolutely binding promise from Plehve that he will procure a charter for Palestine for us in 15 years at the outside. There is one condition, however, the revolutionaries must stop their struggle against the Russian government."

   Zhitlovsky, incensed at Herzl for dealing with a killer of Jews, and aware that Herzl had been outsmarted, persuaded him to abandon the idea. Still, the Zionist leaders in Russia agreed with the government that the real responsibility for the pogroms rested with the Jewish Bund, a socialist group urging democratic reforms in the Czarist regime. Zionists wanted Jews to remain aloof from Russian politics until it was time to leave for Palestine.

   The head of the secret police in Moscow, S.V. Zubatov, was sympathetic to Zionism as a way to silence Jewish opponents of the repressive Czarist regime. In her book The Fate of the Jews, Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht reports that, "Zionism appealed greatly to police chief Zubatov, as it does to all anti-Semites, because it takes the Jewish problem elsewhere. Both Zubatov and the Zionists wanted to destroy the Bund, Zubatov to protect his country, and the Zionists to protect theirs. Zionism's success is based on a Jewish misery index; the greater the misery, the greater the wish to emigrate. The last thing the Zionists wanted was to improve conditions in Russia. Zionists served Zubatov as police spies and subverters of the Bund..."

   In his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Israel Shahak points out that, "Close relations have always existed between Zionists and anti-Semites; exactly like some of the European conservatives, the Zionists thought they could ignore the 'demonic' character of anti-Semitism and use the anti-Semites for their own purposes...Herzl allied himself with the notorious Count von Plehve, the anti-Semitic minister of Tsar Nicholas II; Jabotinsky made a pact with Petlyura, the reactionary Ukrainian leader whose forces massacred some 100,000 Jews in 1918-1921...Perhaps the most shocking example of this type is the delight with which Zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Hitler's rise to power, because they shared his belief in the primacy of 'race' and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among 'Aryans.' They congratulated Hitler on his triumph over the common enemy--the forces of liberalism."

   Dr. Joachim Prinz, a German Zionist rabbi who subsequently emigrated to the U.S., where he became vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a leader in the World Zionist Organization, published in 1934 a book Wir Juden (We Jews) to celebrate Hitler's so called German Revolution and the defeat of liberalism. He wrote: "The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image. Its meaning for us must be set forth there: the fortunes of liberalism are lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish assimilation is sunk."

   The victory of Nazism ruled out assimilation and inter-religious marriage as an option for Jews. "We are not unhappy about this," said Dr. Prinz. In the fact that Jews were being forced to identify themselves as Jews, he saw "the fulfillment of our desires." Further, he states, "We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and the Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only be honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation..."

   Dr. Shahak compares Prinz's early sympathy for Nazis with that of many who have embraced the Zionist vision, not fully understanding the possible implications: "Of course, Dr. Prinz, like many other early sympathizers and allies of Nazism, did not realize where that movement was leading..."

   Still, as late as January 1941, the Zionist group LEHI, one of whose leaders, Yitzhak Shamir, was later to become a prime minister of Israel, approached the Nazis, using the name of its parent organization, the Irgun (NMO). The naval attache in the German embassy in Turkey transmitted the LEHI proposal to his superiors in Germany. It read in part: "It is often stated in the speeches and utterances of the leading statesmen of National Socialist Germany that a New Order in Europe requires as a prerequisite the radical solution of the Jewish question through evacuation. The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a precondition for solving the Jewish question. This can only be made possible and complete through the settlement of these masses in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the establishment of a Jewish state in its historic boundaries."

   It continues to state that, "The NMO...is well acquainted with the good will of the German Reich Government and its authorities towards Zionist activity inside Germany and towards Zionist emigration plans" and states that, "The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis and bound by a treaty with the German Reich would be in the interests of strengthening the future German position of power in the Near East...The NMO in Palestine offers to take an active part in the war on Germany's side...The cooperation of the Israeli freedom movement would also be in line with one of the recent speeches of the German Reichs Chancellor, in which Herr Hitler stressed that any combination and any alliance would be entered into in order to isolate England and defeat it."

   The Nazis rejected this proposal for an alliance because, it is reported, they considered Lehi's military power "negligible."

   Rabbi David J. Goldberg, in his book To the Promised Land: A History of Zionist Thought, discusses the life and thought of the leader of Zionist revisionism, Vladimir Jabotinsky, who was the great influence upon the life of Menachem Begin.

   "The basic tenets of Jabotinsky's political philosophy," writes Goldberg, "are subservience to the overriding concept of the homeland: loyalty to a charismatic leader, and the subordination of the class conflict to national goals. It irked Jabotinsky when, over 20 years later, he was accused of imitating Mussolini and Hitler. His irritation was justified: he had anticipated them...Given that for Jabotinsky echoing Garibaldi 'there is no value in the world higher than the nation and the fatherland,' it is not altogether surprising that he should have recommended an alliance with an anti-Semitic Ukrainian nationalist. In 1911, in an essay entitled 'Schevenko's Jubilee,' he had praised the xenophobic Ukrainian poet for his nationalist spirit, despite 'explosions of wild fury against the Poles, the Jews and other neighbors,' and for proving that the Ukrainian soul has a 'talent for independent cultural creativity, reaching into the highest and most sublime sphere."

   In a review of the book In Memory's Kitchen: A Legacy From The Women of Terezen, Lore Dickstein, writing in The New York Times Book Review, notes that, "Anny Stern was one of the lucky ones. In 1939, after months of hassle with the Nazi bureaucracy, the occupying German army at her heels, she fled Czechoslovakia with her young son and emigrated to Palestine. At the time of Anny's departure, Nazi policy encouraged emigration. 'Are you a Zionist?' Adolph Eichmann, Hitler's specialist on Jewish affairs, asked her. 'Ja wohl,' she replied. 'Good,' he said, 'I am a Zionist too. I want every Jew to leave for Palestine.'"

   The point has been made by many commentators that Zionism has a close relationship with Nazism. Both ideologies think of Jews in an ethnic and nationalistic manner. In fact, Nazi theoretician Alfred Rosenberg frequently quoted from Zionist writers to prove his thesis that Jews could not be Germans.

   In his study, The Meaning of Jewish History, Rabbi Jacob Agus provides this assessment: "In its extreme formulation, political Zionists agreed with resurgent anti-Semitism in the following propositions:

1. That the emancipation of the Jews in Europe was a mistake.
2. That the Jews can function in the lands of Europe only as a disruptive influence.
3. That all Jews of the world were one 'folk' in spite of their diverse political allegiances.
4. That all Jews, unlike other peoples of Europe, were unique and unintegratible.
5. That anti-Semitism was the natural expression of the folk-feeling of European nations, hence, ineradicable."

   Nazi theoretician Rosenberg, who was executed as a result of his conviction for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials, declared under direct examination: "I studied Jewish literature and historians themselves. It seemed to me after an epoch of generous emancipation in the course of national movements of the 19th century, an important part of the Jewish nation found its way back to its own tradition and nature, and more and more consciously segregated itself from other nations. It was a problem which was discussed at many international congresses, and Buber, in particular, one of the spiritual leaders of European Jewry, declared that the Jews should return to the soil of Asia, for only there could the roots of Jewish blood and Jewish national character be found."

   Feyenwald, the Nazi, in 1941 reprinted the following statement by Simon Dubnow, a Zionist historian and author: "Assimilation is common treason against the banner and ideals of the Jewish people...One can never 'become' a member of a national group, such as a family, tribe or a nation. One may attain rights and privileges of citizenship with a foreign nation, but one cannot appropriate for himself its nationality too. To be sure the emancipated Jew in France calls himself a Frenchman of the Jewish faith. Would that, however, mean that he became part of the French nation, confessing to the Jewish faith? Not at all...A Jew...even if he happened to be born in France and still lives there, in spite of these, he remains a member of the Jewish nation."

   Zionists have repeatedly stressed--and continue to do so--that, from their viewpoint, Jews are in "exile" outside of the "Jewish state." Jacob Klatzkin, a leading Zionist writer, declared: "We are simply aliens, we are foreign people in your midst, and we emphasize, we wish to stay that way." This Zionist perspective has been a minority view among Jews from the time of its formulation until today.

   When the term "anti-Semitism" is casually used to silence those who are critical of the government of Israel and its policies, it should be noted that Zionism's history of alliance with real anti-Semitism has been long-standing and this has been so precisely because Zionism and anti-Semitism share a view of Jews which the vast majority of Jews in the United States and elsewhere in the world have always rejected.

   This rarely discussed chapter of history deserves study, for it illuminates many truths relevant to the continuing debate, both with regard to Middle East policy and the real nature of Jews and Judaism.

   [ Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.]

from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/1979/myths_part3.html:

The founding myths of the State of Israel

Preface by the Compilation Editor

The following assemblage of citations was assembled by one of the euphemistically-named "revisionists" - those who profess to believe that the mass murder of Jews by the Nazi regime never happened. The simple reality is that it did happen. One of my closest friends has relatives (whom she has met) who lost family members to concentration camps. One can haggle over figures - was it 4, 6 or 8 million murders - or proportionality of killing methods - was it predominantly by starvation and disease, by Zyklon B or other poison gases, by bullet, etc. - and one can even debate the motivation and politics behind the Holocaust - but, to quote Noam Chomsky (who is Jewish and has defended a notorious "revisionist" in France (Faurisson) on free speech grounds), "to even contemplate that the Holocaust did not happen is to have lost one's humanity." (I do not fully agree with Chomsky's sentiment, since to completely exclude from the realm of intellectual probing is to embrace madness in proportion to the significance of the matter removed from the realm of contemplation and discourse - I have superficially examined the matter of the Holocaust and, through sound reasoning - not through no reasoning - I conclude it occured.) If I and my readers are to understand the twentieth century - and that understanding is my goal - there are a lot of ugly places we have to look. This is one of them. In the process of setting up the reader for his "revisionist" garbage, this guy Garaudy ("described as an ex-Marxist `theoretician,' now a Catholic") has done extensive research to document real collaboration between the Jewish Zionist elite and the Nazis. At a certain point, not coincidentally exactly the point where I summarily terminate my excerpt of his document, he launches into specious evidence and arguments that the Holocaust never occured, that millions who are now dead did not die, that the camp at Auschwitz isn't there, etc. Ironically, the material he collected for the set-up leads one to believe that the Holocaust was inevitable. Garaudy is a sick kook, but even kooks can quote genuine material that edifies those who are not sick. This document, by the way, is "more or less banned in France" (where there are real laws against political speech protected in, e.g., the United States). So how does this document fit into the system documented by the rest of my compilation? Well, this is about a set of elites, particularly financial and political elites, pursuing an agenda of control without regard for, and in fact contrary to, virtue or morality. It is also about the role of religion in great evils. And finally, it is about the intrinsic corruption and evil of the traditional support by the United States of Israel, and particularly its support of exactly those elites who exhibit the corruptions recorded below. The modern nation-state of Israel is a nation-cum-crime-wave, imperialist, terrorist scourge (not unlike the United States...), and the displaced Palestinians are very real. Why the United States, often unique among the community of nations, has been such a bulwark for Israel (for many years a nuclear power in its own right), is one of the great questions of the twentieth century. Is it the strategic appeal, to a nation with imperialist intentions, of an outpost in the Middle East (particularly that part of the region)? Is it Zionist control over US policy? Consider, for example, that Madeleine Albright, recent US ambassador to the UN and current US secretary of state, is Jewish (not to say Zionist - but the possibility is there). Is it some unseen third explanation? Did the Jewish Zionist elite expect a Holocaust? Probably not. Were they hapless aides to its infliction? Probably. The Jews who died in the Holocaust are precisely not that handful of Jewish financial magnates who alone inspire hateful resentment among some of the duller-brained relatives of civilized man (i.e. anti-semites) - though even a brief exposure to the aberrant Hassidic Jews will leave no doubt that even their rank and file are profoundly and offensively racist and elitist.

by Roger Garaudy, Holocaust "revisionist" extraordinaire

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1 - The myth of Zionist anti-Fascism

In 1941, Yitzhak Shamir committed "an unforgivable crime from the moral point of view: he preached an alliance with Hitler, with Nazi Germany, against Great Britain."

Source : Bar Zohar. "Le prophète armé-- : Ben --> -- Gourion." ["The Armed Prophet"] (Fayard. Paris 1966, p.99.)

When the war against Hitler began, almost all the Jewish organizations joined forces with the Allies and some of the most eminent leaders, such as Weizmann, declared themselves on the allied side; but the German Zionist group, though it was a small minority at the time, took the opposite side : from 1933 to 1941 [note that the Final Solution began in earnest in 1941; even Garaudy admits the collaboration ended at that time, causing an astute reader to observe Garaudy's inconsistency, since without the Holocaust there would be no new motivation to end collaboration], it was committed to a policy of compromise and even of collaboration with Hitler. The Nazi authorities, even while they persecuted the Jews, for example by dismissing them from the Civil Service, kept contact with the Zionist leaders, granting them special treatment and distinguishing them from the "integrationist" Jews they were hunting down.

The accusation of collusion with the Hitlerian authorities does not therefore apply to the immense majority of Jews; these had not even waited until the war to fight Fascism with weapons, as they did in Spain from 1936 to 1939 as members of the International brigades, all the way to the Warsaw ghetto where the fighters of the "Jewish Committee" showed that they knew how to die in battle.

But the highly organized minority of Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis for eight years. Their one goal was to create a powerful Jewish State, while their racist vision of the world made them more anti-British than anti-Nazi.

* * *

On September 5th 1939, two days after the Anglo-French declaration of war on Germany, Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency, wrote to the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. In his letter, he declared : "We Jews are on the side of Great Britain, and shall fight for democracy." He added that "the Jewish representatives are ready to sign an immediate agreement to allow the use of all their resources in men, techniques, material aid and all their capacities." This letter was printed in "The Jewish Chronicle" of September 8th, 1939 ; it was a genuine declaration of war on Germany by the Jewish people and raised the problem of internment of all Jews in Germany within concentration camps as "citizens of a nation at war with Germany."

* * *

In the days of Hitler and Mussolini, the Zionist leaders behaved in an ambivalent way with regards to Fascism, at times sabotaging the anti-Fascist struggle and even attempting to collaborate at others. The fundamental aim of the Zionists was not to save Jewish lives but to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Ben Gurion, Israel's first head of State, declared outright to the "Labor" Zionists on December 7th 1938 :

"If I knew it was possible to save all the children in Germany by taking them to England, and only half of the children by taking them to Eretz Israel, I would choose the second solution. For we must take into account not only the lives of these children but also the history of the people of Israel."

Source : Yvon Gelbner, "Zionist policy and the fate of European Jewry", in Yad Vashem studies (Jerusalem, vol. XII, p. 199).

"The saving of the Jews in Europe did not figure at the head of the list of priorities of the ruling class. It was the foundation of the State which was primordial in their eyes."

Source : Tom Segev. "Le septième million" ["The Seventh Million"] Ed. Liana Levi, Paris, 1993, p.539"

(...) Must we help all those who need it without taking into account the characteristics of each one? Must we not give this action a national Zionist character and attempt to give priority to the saving of those who can be useful to the Land of Israel and to Judaism? I know it may seem cruel to pose the question in this way, but unfortunately we must establish clearly that if we are able to save 10,000 people out of the 50,000 people who can contribute to the construction of the land and to the national rebirth, or else a million Jews who will become a burden for us or at best a dead weight, we must restrict ourselves to the saving of the 10,000 who can be saved - despite the accusations and the appeals of the million left behind."

Source : Memorandum of the "Salvation Committee" of the Jewish Agency. 1943. Quoted by Tom Segev. Op. cit. p.124.

It was this fanaticism which inspired, for instance, the attitude of the Zionist delegation at the Evian conference of July 1938, where 31 nations had gathered to discuss the absorption of refugees from Nazi Germany : the Zionist delegation demanded, as the only possible solution, the admission of 200,000 Jews to Palestine.

The Jewish state was more important than the lives of Jews.

As far as the Zionist leaders were concerned, the worst enemy was "assimilation". In this they resembled the Hitlerians as do all racists, for whom the fundamental preoccupation is purity of blood. This is why the Hitlerians regarded the Zionists as valid interlocutors who served their designs, insofar as Hitler's ultimate goal was to rid Germany, and later Europe, of all Jews. We have proof of this collusion between Nazis and Zionists.

In a memorandum of June 21st 1933 to the Nazi party, the "Zionist Federation of Germany" expressed itself as follows :

"In the foundation of the new State, which has proclaimed the race principle, we wish to adapt our community to these new structures... Our recognition of the Jewish nationality allows us to establish clear and sincere relations with the German people and its national and racial realities. Precisely because we do not want to underestimate these fundamental principles, because we too are against mixed marriages and for the maintaining of the purity of the Jewish group...The Jews who are conscious of their identity and in whose name we speak, can find a place within the structure of the German State, for they are free of the resentment that the assimilated Jews must feel;...we believe in the possibility of loyal relations between those Jews conscious of their community and the German State.

To attain its practical objectives, Zionism hopes it will be able to collaborate with a government that is fundamentally hostile to the Jews....The realization of Zionism is impeded only by the resentment of Jews from without against the present German orientation The propaganda in favor of Zionism currently aimed against Germany is essentially non-Zionist... "

Source : Lucy Dawidovitch, "A Holocaust reader", p. 155.

The memorandum added that "should the Germans accept the cooperation of the Zionists, these would try to dissuade Jews abroad from supporting the anti-German boycott."

Source : Lucy Dawidovitch : "The war against Jews (1933-1945)" Penguin books. 1977. p.231-232

The Hitlerian leaders were well-disposed towards the Zionists, whose exclusive aim was to create a state in Palestine, thus favoring their own designs to get rid of the Jews. Alfred Rosenberg, the chief Nazi theoretician, wrote :

"Zionism must be vigorously backed so that a yearly contingent of German Jews shall be transported to Palestine."

Source : A. Rosenberg : "Die Spur des juden im Wandel der Zeiten". Munich 1937. p.153.

Reinhardt Heydrich, who was later to become "Protector" of Czechoslovakia, wrote in Das Schwarze Korps, the official organ of the S.S. in 1935, when he was head of the S.S. security. In an article entitled "The invisible enemy", he made a distinction between two kinds of Jews :

"We must separate the Jews into two categories, the Zionists and the partisans of assimilation. The Zionists profess a strictly racial concept and, through emigration to Palestine, they help to build their own Jewish State...our good wishes and our official goodwill go with them."

Source : Hohne. "Order of the Death's Head", p.333.

"The German Betarreceived a new name: Herzlia. The activities of the movement in Germany had to obtain, of course, the approval of the Gestapo; in fact, Herzlia acted under the protection of the Gestapo. One day, a group of SS attacked a Betar summer camp. The head of the movement then complained to the Gestapo and, a few days later, the secret police declared that the SS in question had been punished. The Gestapo asked the Betar what compensation would seem most adequate. The movement asked that the recent prohibition that had struck them, forbidding them to wear brown shirts, be lifted; their request was granted."

Source : Ben-Yeruham, "Le livre de Betar" ["The Book of Betar"] T.II, p. 350.

A circular issued by the Wilhelmstrasse indicated :

"The goals that this category of Jews have set themselves (those Jews who oppose assimilation and favor a regrouping of their co-religionaries within a nation), with the Zionists in the front rank,are those least distant from the goals pursued in reality by Germany's policy towards the Jews."

Source : Circular letter by Bulow-Schwante to all the Reich diplomatic
missions. #83. February 28,1934.

"There is no reason," wrote Bulow-Schwante to the Ministry of the Interior,"to impede by administrative measures the Zionist activity in Germany ; for Zionism is not in conflict with the National-Socialist program, whose object is to make the Jews leave Germany progressively."

Source : Letter number ZU 83-21. 28/8, April 13, 1935.

These directives confirmed previous measures and were applied scrupulously. By virtue of the privileged status of Zionism in Germany, the Bavarian Gestapo addressed the following circular to the police on January 28,1935: "By reason of their activity orientated towards emigration to Palestine, the members of the Zionist organization must not be treated with the harshness needed in dealing with the members of German Jewish (assimilationist) organizations."

Source : Kurt Grossmann : "Sionistes et non sionistes sous la loi nazie dans les années 30" ["Zionists and Non-Zionists under Nazi law in the 1930s"] Yearbook.Vol.VI, p.310.

"The Zionist organization of German Jews had a legal existence until 1938, five years after the advent of Hitler....

The "Judaiche Rundschau" (the German Zionist newspaper) came out until 1938."

Source : Leibowitz : "Israel et Judaisme". Ed. Desclée de Brouwer, 1993. p.116.

In exchange for their official recognition as sole representatives of the Jewish community, the Zionist leaders offered to break the boycott which the world anti-Fascists were trying to organize.

Economic collaboration began in 1933 : two companies were created : the "Haavara Company" at Tel Aviv and the "Paltreu", in Berlin.

The mechanism of the operation was the following : a Jew wanting to emigrate would deposit a minimum of 1,000 pounds sterling at the Wasserman Bank in Berlin or in the Warburg bank in Hamburg. With this sum, Jewish exporters could buy German goods for Palestine, and pay the corresponding amount in Palestinian pounds into the Haavara account at the Anglo-Palestine Bank at Tel Aviv. When the immigrant arrived in Palestine, he received the equivalent of the sum he had deposited in Germany.

Several future Israeli prime ministers took part in the "haavara" undertaking, including Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharret (who was then called Moshe Shertok), Golda Meir (who supported it from New York), and Levi Eshkol, who was its representative in Berlin.

Source: "Ben Gourion et Shertok, dans Black": L'accord de la "havaara" ["Ben Gourion and Shertok, in Black: The agreement of the "havaara"], p.294. Quoted by Tom Segev in "Le septieme million", (Ed. Liana Levi. French translation. 1993, p. 30 and 595).

The operation was advantageous for both parties : the Nazis thus succeeded in breaking the blockade (the Zionists managed to sell German merchandise even in Britain); whereas the Zionists were able to operate the "selective" immigration they desired : only millionaires were able to emigrate, their capital providing the funds needed to develop Zionist colonization in Palestine. In accordance with the goals of Zionism, it was more important to save Jewish capital from Nazi Germany that would permit the development of their undertaking, than to save the lives of poor Jews, unable to work or fight, who would have been a burden.

This policy of collaboration lasted until 1941, in other words eight years after Hitler's rise to power. Eichmann liaisoned with Kastner. The Eichmann trial revealed to some extent the mechanism of this connivance, of these "exchanges" between Zionist Jews "useful" to the creation of a Jewish State (wealthy personalities, technicians and youngsters who could serve to reinforce an army, etc.). with a mass of Jews who, being less favored, were left in Hitler's clutches.

The president of the committee, Ytzhak Gruenbaum, declared on January 18, 1943 :

"Zionism comes before everything else.. "

"They're going to say I'm an anti-Semite," Gruenbaum answered, "that I don't want to save the Exile, that I don't have a Warm Yiddish heart (...) Let them say what they want. I won't demand the sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Judaism. And I think that whoever demands such things accomplishes an anti-Zionist action."

Source : Gruenbaum: "Jours de destruction" ["Days of Destruction"], p. 68.

This was also Ben Gourion's point of view:

"The Zionist's task is not to save the "rest" of Israel which finds itself in Europe, but to save the land of Israel for the Jewish people."

(Quoted by Tom Segev. op.cit.p.158.)

"The leaders of the Jewish Agency agreed on the fact that the minority which could be saved had to be chosen according to the needs of the Zionist project in Palestine."

Source: Idem p.125.

The conclusion of Isaiah Trunk's book : "Judenrat" (MacMillan, New York 1972) was that:

"According to Freudiger's calculations, fifty percent of the Jews could have escaped if they had not followed the instructions of the Jewish councils." (p.141)

Significantly, at the time of the 50 th anniversary of the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, Yitzhak Rabin asked Lech Walesa not to let one of the co-leaders of the insurrection, Marek Edelman, make a speech.

In 1993, Marek Edelman had been interviewed by Edward Alter for the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz". In this interview, he recalled those who had been the true instigators and heroes of the Warsaw ghetto's "Jewish fighters' committee" :

"Socialists of the Bund, anti-Zionists, Communists, Trotskyites, Mihal Rosenfeld, Mala Zimetbaum, Edelman and a minority of Left-wing Zionists from the Poalei Zion and the Hashomer Hatzair."

"It was they who fought against the Nazis with weapons, as did the Jewish volunteers in the international brigades of Spain. Over 30% of the Americans in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were Jews, who were attacked at the time by the Zionist press because they fought in Spain instead of going to Palestine."

Source : "Jewish Life", April 1938, p. 11.

2,250 of the fighters in the Polish Dombrovski brigade, out of a total of 5,000 Poles, were Jews.

These heroic Jews fought on all fronts side by side with the antiFascist forces of the world. And yet, the Zionist leaders declared in an article by their London representatives entitled : "Must Jews take part in the anti-Fascist movements?" "NO !...", setting a single goal : "the construction of the land of Israel".

In his autobiography, the President of the World Zionist Organization, Nahum Goldman, described his dramatic meeting with the Czech Prime Minister, Edward Benes, in 1935. Benes accused the Zionists of having broken the boycott of Hitler with the "Ha'avara" (the transfer agreements) and blamed the refusal of the world Zionist Organization to organize resistance against the Nazis.

"I have had to take part in many painful meetings in my life, but I have never felt as miserable and ashamed as during those two hours. I felt with every fibre of my being that Benes was right."

Source : Nahum Goldman."Autobiographie", op.cit. pp. 157- 158. Ibid, p.260.

The Zionists, counting on Mussolini's hostility to England, established contact with him as early as 1922. He had received them after his march on Rome in October, on December 20th 1922.

Source : Ruth Bondy, "The Emissary: a life of Enzo Sereni" (p.45).

Mussolini received Weizman on January 3rd 1923, and another time on September 17th 1926; Nahum Goldman, president of the World Zionist Organization, had a meeting with Mussolini on October 26th,1927, where the Italian leader told him : "I will help you to create this Jewish state." (Nahum Goldman : "Autobiographie", op.cit.p.170)

This collaboration was already a form of sabotage against the international anti-Fascist struggle. It subordinated the entire Zionist policy to the sole design of building a Jewish state in Palestine. Its design remained unaltered during the war, even when Hitler's persecution of European Jews was at its worst.

When the Jews were deported from Hungary, Rudolf Kastner, the vice-president of the Zionist organization, negotiated with Eichmann on the following basis : if Eichmann allowed the departure to Palestine of 1,684 "useful" Jews who would help in the construction of the future state of Israel (capitalists, technicians, soldiers, etc...) Kastner would allow Eichmann to make 460,000 Hungarian believe that they were not being deported to Auchwitz but simply being transferred.

At the time of the Eichmann trial, Judge Halevi recalled that Kastner had intervened on behalf of one of his Nazi interlocutors : one of Himmler's henchmen, Standarten feurher Kurt Becher, escaped punishment thanks to Kastner's testimony at the Nuremberg Trial.

The Judge was formal :

"There was no truth or good faith in Kastner's testimony...Kastner deliberately committed perjury in his testimony before this court when he denied that he had intervened on behalf of Becher. Furthermore, he concealed this vital fact : his action on behalf of Becher was made in the name of the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress...It is clear that Kastner's recommendation was not made on a personal basis but also in the name of the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress...and this is why Becher was released by the Allies."

After the verdict, Israeli opinion was shaken. In the newspaper "Haaretz", Dr. Moshe Keren wrote on July 14th 1955 :"Kastner must be tried for collaboration with the Nazis..." But the evening paper "Yediot Aharonot" (23rd June,1955) clearly explained why this was impossible. "If Kastner is tried, the entire government might collapse before the nation, following what this trial will uncover."

What would be discovered was that Kastner had not acted alone but with the agreement of the other Zionist leaders who were members of the government at the time of the trial. The only way to prevent Kastner from talking and causing a scandal was for him to disappear. And indeed, he died at just the right moment, after which the Israeli Government introduced an appeal to rehabilitate him. The Supreme Court granted the appeal.

This policy of collaboration reached its apogee in 1941, when the most extremist Zionist group, the "LEHI" ("Fighters for the Liberation of Israel"), led by Abraham Stern and, after his death, by a triumvirate of which Itzak Shamir was a member, committed " an unforgivable crime from the moral point of view : advocating an alliance with Hitler, with Nazi Germany, against Great Britain. "

Source : Bar Zohar. "Ben Gourion, le Prophète armé" (Fayard. Paris 1966. p.99)

Eliezer Halevi, a well-known Labor unionist, member of the Gueva Kibbutz, revealed in the weekly "Tel-Aviv Hotam" (August l9th, 1983) the existence of a document signed by Itzak Shamir (who was then called Yezernitsky) and by Abraham Stern; this document was handed over to the German embassy in Ankara at a time of all-out war in Europe, and when Marshal Rommel's troops were already on Egyptian soil. The document said, among other things, "In the matter of concept, we identify with you. So why not collaborate with one another ?" In its issue of January 31st,1983, "Haaretz" quotes a letter marked "secret", sent in January 1941 by Hitler's ambassador to Ankara, Franz Von Papen, to his superiors. In it, he described his contacts with the members of the Stern Gang, joining a memorandum by the Nazi secret service agent in Damas, Werner Otto Von Hentig, regarding the negotiations with the envoys of Stern and Shamir. The memo said, notably : "cooperation between the Israel liberation movement and the new order in Europe conform with one of the speeches of the Chancellor of the Third Reich, in which Hitler stressed the need to use every combination of coalition to isolate and defeat England." It also said that the Stern Gang had "close links with the totalitarian movements in Europe, their ideology and structures." These documents are to be found at the Holocaust Memorial (Yad Vachem) in Jerusalem, classified under the number E234151-8.

One of the historical leaders of the Stern Gang, Israel Eldad, published an article in the Tel Aviv daily,"Yediot Aharonot" (February 4th, 1983) in which he confirmed the authenticity of these negotiations between his movement and the official representatives of Nazi Germany. He asserted straight out that his colleagues had explained to the Nazis how there was a probable identity of interest between the new order in Europe based on the German concept, and the aspirations of the Jewish people in Palestine, as represented by the Stern freedom fighters for Israel.

This text was entitled :

"Basic principles of the military organization(NMO) in Palestine (Irgun Zevai Leumi) concerning the solution of the Jewish question in Europe and the active participation of the NMO in the war on the side of Germany."

The following are extracts :

It emerges from the speeches of the leaders of the German National Socialist State that a radical solution to the Jewish question implies an evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe. (Judenreines Europa).

This evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is the primary condition of the solution of the Jewish problem, but it is only made possible by the installation of these masses in Palestine, in a Jewish state with its historical frontiers.

To resolve the Jewish problem definitively and to liberate the Jewish people is the goal of the political activity and the long years of struggle of the "Movement for the Freedom of Israel" (Lehi) and its national military organization in Palestine (Irgun Zevai Leumi).

The NMO, knowing the benevolent position of the Reich government towards the Zionist activity within Germany, and the Zionist emigration projects, considers that:

1) There could exist common interests between the foundation of a new order in Europe, according to the German concept, and the genuine aspirations of the Jewish people as they are incarnated by the Lehi.

2) Cooperation would be possible between the new Germany and a renewed Hebrew nation (Volkish Nationalen Hebraertum).

3) The establishment of the historical Jewish State on a national and totalitarian base, linked by a treaty to a German Reich, could contribute to the reinforcement in the future of Germany's position in the Middle East.

On condition that the German government recognizes the national aspirations of the 'Movement for the Freedom of Israel' (Lehi), the National Military Organization (NMO) proposes to participate in the war on the side of Germany.

The cooperation of the Israel liberation movement would go in the direction of the recent speeches of the Reich chancellor, in which Mr. Hitler stressed that all negotiations and any alliance should serve to isolate England and to defeat it.

Because of its structure and concept of the world, the NMO is narrowly linked to the European totalitarian movements.

Source : The original text, in German, is to be found as appendix number 11 of the book by David Yisraeli : "Le probleme palestinien dans la politique allemande, de 1889 à 1945" ["The Palestinian Problem in German Politics from 1889 to 1945"], Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan. Israel, 1974,p. 315-317.

According to the Israeli press, which has published a dozen articles on the subject, the Nazis never took the proposals of Stern, Shamir and their friends seriously.

The negotiations stopped abruptly when the Allied troops arrested the emissary of Stern and Shamir in June 1941. The emissary, Naftali Loubentchik, was actually arrested in the Nazi secret service oat Damascus. Other members of the group continued to have contacts with the Nazis until the arrest by the British authorities of Izhak Shamir in December 1941 for "terrorism and collaboration with the Nazi enemy."

Such a past did not prevent Izhak Shamir from becoming Prime Minister, and from still being today the leader of a powerful "opposition", the most fiercely determined to continue the occupation of Cisjordania. This is because, in fact, the Zionist leaders all pursue the same racist goal, notwithstanding their internal rivalries : to chase all the native Arabs out of Palestine through terror, expropriation or expulsion, in order to remain the sole conquerors and masters.

Ben Gurion once declared :

"Begin undeniably belongs to the Hitlerian type. He is a racist, ready to destroy all the Arabs in his dream of unification of Israel, prepared to resort to any means to realize this sacred goal."

Source : E.Haber. "Menahem Begin, the man and the legend." Delle Book. New York 1979, p. 385.

The same Ben Gurion never believed in the possibility of coexistence with the Arabs. The fewer Arabs there were within the borders of of the future state of Israel, the better it would be. He did not say so explicitly, but the overall impression one gets from his speeches and his comments is clear: a major offensive against the Arabs would not only defeat their attacks but would also reduce as far as possible the percentage of the Arab population within the State.

"(...) He can be accused of racism, but then one will have to put on trial the entire Zionist movement, which is founded on the principle of a purely Jewish entity in Palestine."

Source : Bar Zohar (op.cit) p.146.

At the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, the Attorney General, Haim Cohen, reminded the judges:

"If it does not coincide with your philosophy, you can criticize Kastner...But what does that have to do with collaboration?...It has always been in our Zionist tradition to select an elite to organize immigration to Palestine... Kastner did nothing else."

Source : Court record 124/53. Jerusalem district court.

This prominent magistrate was indeed evoking a constant doctrine of the Zionist movement : its goal was not to save Jews but to build a strong Jewish state.

Rabbi Klaussner, who was in charge of "Displaced persons," presented a report before the Jewish American Conference on May 2nd, 1948 :

"I am convinced people must be forced to go to Palestine....For them, an American dollar appears as the highest of goals. By the word "force", I am suggesting a programme. It served for the evacuation of the Jews in Poland, and in the history of the 'Exodus'... To apply this programme we must, instead of providing 'displaced persons' with comfort, create the greatest possible discomfort for them...At a second stage, a procedure calling upon the Haganah to harass the Jews."

Source : Alfred H.Lilienthal in "What price Israel", Chicago 1953.p.194-195.

There were several variations on this method of inducement and even of coercion.

In 1940, to arouse indignation against the English, who had decided to save the Jews threatened by Hitler by taking them to Mauritius, the Zionist leaders of the "Hagannah" (led by Ben Gurion) did not hesitate to blow up the ship when it called at Haifa on December 25th 1940, causing the death of 252 Jews and English crew-members.

Source : Dr.Herzl Rosenblum, director of "Yediot Aahronot", revelation made in 1958 and justified in "Jewish Newsletter", N.Y.,November 1958.

Another example was that of Irak :

Its Jewish community (110,000 people in 1948) was well-implanted in the country. The chief Rabbi of Irak, Khedouri Sassoon had declared :

"The Jews and Arabs have enjoyed the same rights and privileges for a thousand years and do not consider themselves as separate elements in this nation."

Then began the Israeli terrorist acts in Baghdad in 1950. Confronted by the reticence of the Iraki Jews to register on the immigration lists for Israel, the Israeli secret services did not hesitate to throw bombs at them to convince them they were in danger...The attack on the Shem-Tov synagogue killed three people and injured dozens more. It was the start of the exodus baptized "Operation Ali Baba".

Source : Ha'olam hazeh. April 20th and June 1st 1966, and "Yediot Aahronot", November 8th 1977.

This has been a consistent doctrine ever since Theodore Herzl replaced the definition of Jew no longer as a religion but as a race.

Article 4b of the fundamental law of the State of Israel (which has no constitution),which defines the "Law of the return" (5710 of 1950), stipulates that :

...will be considered as Jewish a person born of a Jewish mother, or converted. (racial or confessional criteria)

Source : Klein : "L'Etat juif" ["The Jewish State"], ed. Dunod.Paris.p.156.

This was in keeping with the founding doctrine of Theodore Herzl, who constantly harped on the theme in his "Diaries". As early as 1895, he declared to a German interlocutor (Speidel) :

"I understand anti-Semitism. We Jews have remained, even if it is not our fault, foreign bodies in the different nations."

Source : ("Diaries",p.9)

A few pages further, he is even more explicit :

"Anti-Semites will become our surest friends, anti-Semitic countries our allies."

Source : ("Diaries", p.19)

They did indeed have a common goal : to assemble Jews in a world ghetto.

The facts have borne out Theodore Herzl's arguments.

Pious Jews, like many Christians, repeated each day : "Next year, Jerusalem, " making of Jerusalem not a specific territory but the symbol of the Alliance between God and Men, and the personal effort to deserve it, so that the "Return" occurred only under the impulse of anti-Semitic threats in foreign countries.

On August 31st 1949, Ben Gurion declared to a group of American visitors to Israel :

"Although we have realized our dream of creating a Jewish State, we are only at the beginning. There are still only 900,000 Jews in Israel, whereas the majority of the Jewish people still remains abroad. Our future task is to bring all the Jews to Israel."

Ben Gurion's goal was to bring four million Jews to Israel between 1951 and 1961. 800,000 came. In 1960, there were only 30,000 immigrants for the year. In 1975-76, emigration out of Israel outstripped immigration.

Only the great persecutions, such as that in Romania, had given a certain impulse to the Return. Even the Hitlerian atrocities did not succeed in fulfilling Ben Gurion's dream.

Out of the two and a half million Jewish victims of the Nazis which sought refuge abroad between 1935 and 1943, hardly 8,5% went to settle in Palestine. The United States limited their number to 182,000 allowed to enter US soil (less than 7%); England limited the number to 67,000 (less than 2%). The vast majority (1,930,000),in other words 75% found shelter in the Soviet Union.

Source : Institute for Jewish Affairs of New York, quoted by Christopher Sykes in "Crossroads to Israel", London 1965, and by Nathan Weinstock, "Le sionisme contre Israel," p.146.

[end of excerpt]

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The following newspaper article lines up well with the above (and lines up well with the assumption that the Holocaust happened approximately as is accepted in mainstream circles):

from The Australian, 15 January 1998, from http://203.2.124.7/fredadin/news71.html :

File `proves' Hitler ordered Holocaust

Bonn: A German historian has unearthed documents in the KGB archives that he says show Hitler personally ordered the killing of European Jews.

The discovery, by Christian Gerlach, is sure to prompt fresh controversy in the dispute among historians about the extent of Hitler's involvement in the Final Solution.

Key evidence is the appointments diary of SS chief Heinrich Himmler. On December 18, 1941, he had a talk with Hitler. His diary records the subject as being "the Jewish question". Underneath, Himmler notes: "To be exterminated as partisans."

Historians have already demonstrated that Himmler justified the shooting of Jewish civilians earlier in 1941 as a consequence of an order from Hitler.

Nobody, however, has found such an order signed by Hitler.

Mr Gerlach believes that the Moscow document not only shows there was a fundamental decision by Hitler , but that it is also possible to reconstruct the date on which the killing order was given: December 12, 1941, six days before the meeting with Himmler and a day after Germany declared war on the US following the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbour.

According to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, Hitler used an official function to recall his Reichstag speech of January 30, 1939, in which he promised that in the event of a world war, the Jews would have to face the consequences.

Mr Gerlach says it is now possible to see a direct link between those remarks, the Himmler conversation and the Wannsee conference of January 20, 1942, which dealt with how to implement the Final Solution.

The conference was to be held on December 9, 1941, but was postponed because of Pearl Harbour and the globalisation of the war. That, argues Mr Gerlach, changed its agenda. The original purpose was to discuss the deportation of German Jews. Hitler's decision on December 12 to exterminate European Jewry changed its theme.