[Transcript]
I would go one step further and say Palestine is partially responsible for the Holocaust considering it was Arab pressure on Britain that succeeded in limiting Jewish immigration.
(Source.)
I doubt that the ‘Arabs’ were responsible for the limitations considering that many Palestinians were willing to accept about 350,000 Jewish refugees in 1946. The ‘Arabs’ did not need to exert pressure on anybody anyway considering that the Zionists did not want to receive a mass of ordinary Jews:
In the Zionist Congress which took place in London in 1937, Dr. Weizmann established the line of policy with his words:
“The hopes of Europe’s six million Jews are centered on emigration. I was asked, ‘Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?’ I replied, ‘No’…From the depths of the tragedy I want to save two million young people…The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or they will not. They were dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world…Only the branch of the young shall survive…They have to accept it.”
(Holocaust Victims Accuse, p. 25)“Palestine cannot absorb the Jews of Europe. We want only the best of Jewish youth to come to us. We want only the educated to enter Palestine for the purpose of increasing its culture. The other Jews will have to stay where they are and face whatever fait awaits them. These millions of Jews are dust on the wheels of history and may have to be blown away. We don’t want them pouring into Palestine. We don’t want Tel Aviv to become another low‐grade ghetto.” (Quoted in The Jewish Press, October 18, 2002)
Yitzhak Gruenbaum was chairperson of the Jewish Agency’s Rescue Committee.
“When they asked me, couldn’t you give money out of the United Jewish Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, ‘NO!’ and I say again, ‘NO!’…one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to secondary importance.”
(In Days of Holocaust and Destruction, by Yitzchak Greenbaum)
(Emphasis added. Source and more here.)
Not only did the Zionists play down the Shoah as it was happening, but they had no respect for the survivors either. For the Zionists, the Shoah was a confirmation of their philosophy at best, and a distraction at worst.
If indeed Palestine was partially responsible for the Shoah by refusing immigrants, then logically many other nation‐states would also become Shoah perpetrators, such as Switzerland and Imperial America. Although somehow I doubt that Herzlians would welcome such a consensus.
What this Zionist is probably referring to is the 1937 Peel Plan and the Arab reaction to it at the Bloudan Conference in the same year. But their understanding of it is woefully wrong.
The British initiated the Peel Plan in 1936, which stated the British intention to create a Jewish state in Palestine. The Peel Commission undertook the mission of examining the feasibility of such a task, and started conducting public meetings followed by several positive pronouncements in 1937.
In response to this, Arab leaders and representatives met at Bloudan (a small town on the current Syria/Lebanon border) and declared their opposition to the insertion of a Jewish state into Arab lands. The British were furious about this by the way. Initially, they banned the conference to be held in Jerusalem (hence why they ended up meeting in a remote village), then they chastised the Arab leaders who participated in it. The French also banned Syrian Arabs from participating in this conference.
A year later (1938), the Peel Commision announced its conclusions: The creation of a Jewish state was desirable by the British government, but at the current conditions, it would require immense funding and support in order to turn it into a viable state. They shelved the proposal to be re-examined later.
So the Zionist here is probably alleging that the Arab conference had something to do with the British decision, but it did not at all. The British were condemning the Arab conference, and statements were made that this was a precursor to a “Pan-Arab phoenix”, which should not be allowed to rise. Further statements suggested that a newly-formed Jewish state would help to deter the unification of Arabs, but the very reason the proposal was deemed unachievable was that the British government was unable to arm and defend the Jewish state from the wrath of Arabs, but NOT UNWILLING. Furthermore, the British were originally interested in releasing a Jewish puppet state in Palestine, as a means to reduce their colonial spending. Arming the Jewish state would mean an increase in expenses. That is the only reason the plan was rejected.
Notice by the way, that so far this has nothing to do with Jewish immigration from Germany to Palestine. The British were all too happy to accept German Jews moving into Palestine, since that would actually aid in making a potential Jewish state more feasible.
In 1933, Hitler and the German Zionist Federation signed the Haavara Agreement, which oversaw the gradual transfer of German Jews to Palestine. The Zionist movement in Britain convinced the British government to accept this arrangement, which as stated, the British were more than happy to accept (though no formal agreements were made between Germany and Britain regarding this).
Worth noting, that when Hitler assumed power in 1933, he was aiming for an Anglo-German alliance, which would eventually lead to war against the Soviet Union. Hitler viewed the British as a cousin to Germanic people, and a natural ideological ally against communism. They even went ahead to sign the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935, which lifted several restrictions on German naval capabilities established at the end of WW1. The British tried to play it off as part of their “appeasement policy”, but they signed this without consulting the French (who co-signed the Versailles Treaty), and this alliance even included anti-French and anti-Soviet provisions. There were remarks by British politicians that this was to be the first of many such agreements with Fascist Germany, that would ultimately lead to an alliance.
Following the Peel Commission’s announcements, there was public debate in Germany on whether the Haavara Agreement should be continued, seeing as it would lead to the creation of a formal Jewish state, which was considered anathema by many prominent Nazis. However, Hitler intervened in the end and allowed the continuation of the immigrations up to the point when war was declared between Germany, France and Britain the next year. Hitler probably thought it was worth getting rid of as many Jews as possible out of Germany, before the war started, so they wouldn’t impede the war effort. Moreover, he made the decision at this point to start looking for alternatives to the “Jewish Problem” which is what led to the Holocaust eventually.
Note that in this whole series of events, the British NEVER tried to stop the Jews from immigrating, and even Hitler was willing to keep the immigration going.
An excellent source to read on this is “The Third Reich and the Palestine Question” by Francis R. Nicosia
I seem to remember in Losurdo’s Stalin book, that this event is what led to the Grand Mufti reaching out to Hitler and trying to engage with him. It’s critical to point out that this happened only after the Haavara Agreement; because that correctly frames it as a defensive maneuver by the Grand Mufti who was only concerned with more settlers showing up in Palestine (for those who may not know, it’s a popular hasbara talking point to suggest that the Grand Mufti was “allied” with Hitler and the Nazis. This serves to imply that the Palestinians are in some way responsible for the Holocaust and thus it’s justified to steal their land).