Zion’s Fifth Column - Part II

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By California State Senator Jack B. Tenney


Part I: Zion’s Fifth Column


Part II


ZIONISM AND THE UNITED NATIONS

Dr. Chaim Weizmann’ s leadership of the World Zionist Organization was rejected at the 22nd Congress because he advocated Jewish participation in the London Conference.

On April 28, 1947, a special session of the UN General Assembly opened at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., with the question of Palestine as the sole item on its agenda. On May 15 the Assembly set up one of its alphabetical agencies, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine UNSCOP), composed of representatives of eleven countries, and instructed it to make a report by the first of September and recommendations to the next Assembly. Throughout 1947 the Holy Land resembled an armed camp. Jewish terrorists continued their attacks on British troops and police. Haganah continued organizing Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine in defiance of the government’s regulations. Two British sergeants were hung by Irgun Zvai Leumi in the latter part of July.

The UNSCOP report of September 1 contained 11 unanimous recommendations. The most important was that the mandate be terminated and that the independence of Palestine be achieved at the earliest possible date. The United Nations General Assembly met at Flushing Meadows on September 16, and on September 23 it set up a special ad hoc committee comprising representatives of all member-states to discuss the problem of Palestine.

The British delegate accepted the 11 unanimous recommendations of the UNSCOP report but made it clear that he would not support the majority plan which proposed that Palestine be constituted into an Arab and a Jewish state with Jerusalem an international city, neither would he oppose it. He stressed the fact that his government would not accept responsibility “either alone or in a major role” for the enforcement of a scheme which was not agreed to by both Jews and Arabs, or which it did not consider to be just.

Both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. declared their acceptance of the majority plan. The Arab and Moslem states were indignant and vehement in their opposition to it.

The vote was finally taken on November 29, 1947. It was approved by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions and one absentee.

The result of the vote was hailed with delight by organized world Jewry and the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and with bitter resentment by the Arabs.

The reception of the news in Palestine was the signal for an immediate outburst of rioting and bloodshed. By the middle of December 1947, 84 Jews, 93 Arabs and 7 British were killed. Rioting broke out in Aden involving the deaths of 75 Jews and 36 Arabs. Disturbances were reported from Syria.


THE JEWISH STATE WAS BORN.

THE 'STATE' OF ISRAEL

The British army had occupied Palestine since December, 1917. The mandate terminated on May 15, 1948. The Jewish Agency for Palestine announced it would proclaim a state and a government on the day the British mandate terminated. On midnight of May 14 the new state and government of Israel was proclaimed. David Ben-Gurion was made Prime Minister. Moshe Shertok, minister of foreign affairs, and Chaim Weizmann, President. The United States, responsive to organized Jewish pressure, immediately recognized Israel, thereby giving the provisional government de facto status. The Soviet Union followed with recognition on May 17— indicating the behind-the-scene pressures and manipulations.

As soon as the United Nations General Assembly learned of U.S. recognition of Israel it immediately appointed a mediator to Palestine and adjourned. The vote for the appointment of a mediator was 31 to 7 with 16 abstentions. Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden was nominated to the post.

Meanwhile the fighting between the Jews and the Arabs had continued. An Arab army of liberation was organized under Fawzi al Kawukji. Volunteers from other Arab states arrived in Syria where preliminary training and equipment were available. The Arab world appeared determined to resist the invading Jews who were driving Palestine Arabs into the desert from their homes and farms.

Great Britain began the evacuation of British troops early in March, 1948. Arab irregulars blocked the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as the British left. On March 9th Haganah issued a final call for mobilization of all Jews between the ages of 17 and 45. In early April Arab irregulars attempted to isolate Haifa by the capture of Mishmar HaEmek to the south, and Jerusalem. Jewish forces captured Qastel on April 9 and drove back Kawukji’s irregulars at Mishmar HaEmek. Taking advantage of British withdrawals in Tiberias and Haifa the Jews captured both towns with little fighting on April 19 and 22. The Arab population fled before the Jewish advances. Jaffa was attacked on April 25 causing the British to deploy some of their remaining security troops to halt the major fighting.

Trans-Jordanian and Iraqi troops moved in from the east while an Egyptian force advanced from the south. Irgun Zvai Leumi (Jewish) troops, in British uniforms, attempted to hold Jerusalem but the city was taken by Trans-Jordan Arab legionnaires on May 20.

The Israeli army was well equipped with small arms but lacked artillery and an air force. It had four advantages over the Arabs: a unified command, free access to the sea, financial resources from world Jewry for the purchase of war materials and interior lines of communication. The Arab allies lacked a unified command and failed to develop satisfactory liaison. Intelligence of opposing forces was inadequate. Troop movements were hampered by long lines of communications. After May 15 Great Britain discontinued the military supply obligations under its treaties with Iraq, Trans-Jordan and Egypt. The United States had announced an arms embargo in December of 1947. All of these events, plus a general lack of financial resources, reduced the Arab reserve supplies to a negligible quantity and gave the Jews a military advantage.


COUNT FOLKE BERNADOTTE

Count Folke Bernadotte consulted with various leaders in Palestine seeking methods of halting the war. On May 29 the first truce resolution was accepted by all parties. On June 9 Count Bernadotte issued a “cease-fire” order effective on June 11, listing nine points designed to “ensure that no military advantage would accrue to either side during the truce or as a result of its application”.

On June 28 the mediator suggested a Palestinian union with each state exercising full control over domestic and defense problems. The Arabs would get Negev in exchange for eastern Galilee, which had been captured by Israel, and Jerusalem would be under Arab rule subject to a measure of local government for the Jewish Community. Both the Arabs and the Jews rejected the suggestion.

Count Bernadotte pleaded with both sides for an extension of the truce. Although Israelappeared agreeable to a 30-day extension, the Arabs, charging that Israel was secretly strengthening its army by large-scale importation of mercenary fighting personnel and equipment, refused to comply.

The Israeli army, now reinforced, took the offensive. Ramle, Lydda, Nazareth, and other Arab towns were captured.

The United Nations Security Council voted a truce of indefinite length on July 15 which was finally agreed to by both the Arabs and the Jews.

On September 17, 1948 Count Bernadotte was murdered in Jerusalem by Jewish assassins. Dr. Ralph Bunche, a United States Negro, was named acting mediator.

Count Bernadotte’s report reached the general assembly of the United Nations meeting in Paris after his death.

DR. BUNCHE’S REPORT TO U.N.

On September 27, 1948 Dr. Ralph Bunche, Chief of Staff of the Truce Commission in Palestine, submitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations a report regarding the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte and Colonel Andre Serot. The report formally charged the Jewish authorities with responsibility for the assassination.

Reported Dr. Bunche:

The ruthless assassination.., was the result of a deliberate and planned attack aimed at the person of the mediator and at the authority of the United Nations in Palestine. Assassinations occurred in territory controlled and administered by armed forces and officials of the Provisional Government of Israel. It is quite clear, therefore, that the provisional government of Israel must assume the full responsibility for the action of these assassinations, involving a breach of the truce of utmost gravity.

THE UNITED NATIONS TOOK NO ACTION.

ISRAELI WAR OF CONQUEST

Meanwhile an Arab Palestinian government under Ahmed Hilmi Pasha as prime minister, was announced from Gaza, claiming all Palestine. Haj Amin el Husseini was elected president of the new government National Assembly. The state was immediately recognized by most of the Arab League. While this unexpected development was being discussed by the Security Council of the United Nations, fighting again broke out with new intensity in Palestine.

The whole weight of the Israeli army was thrown against the Egyptian positions in October and, after capturing Beersheba, turned north and drove out the last remnants of Kawukji’s irregulars from Galilee.

The Israeli forces thus occupied various territories not assigned to the Jews by the United Nations, such as the Arab cities of Jaffa, Lydda, Ramle, western Galilee, parts of the city of Jerusalem, and a corridor connecting Jerusalem with the coastal plain. Nevertheless these territories were put under Israel administration. The Arab population of these territories fled from their homes and farms. The number of these refugees is estimated at about 750,000. The population of Israel became overwhelmingly Jewish, estimated in 1948 at about 800,000, increasing at the rate of over 10,000 Jewish immigrants per month. By the end of 1948 the state had established its own currency and postal system, and had entered into diplomatic relations with a number of other countries.


CHAIM WETZMANN

By January of 1949 the Israeli government was in control of nearly the whole area over which it had claimed jurisdiction, with the exception of Negev, the southern part of the country. The partition plan adopted November 29, 1947 by the General Assembly of the United Nations allocated 5,579 square miles, including Negev, to Israel. This area had been reduced to 2,124 square miles, with Negev, by Count Bernadotte in his report of September 16, 1948. After the armistice, however, the de facto area of Israel was estimated at about 7,800 square miles. By the end of 1949 the Jewish population neared the million mark. Jewish immigration having averaged more than 18,000 per month for the preceding eighteen months.

Fighting continued along the Egyptian frontier in the Gaza district. Egyptian opposition melted away and armistice negotiations opened at Rhodes January 13 under the auspices of United Nations Acting Mediator Ralph Bunche.

Election to the Constituent Assembly was held on January 25, 1949. Twelve parties contested for 120 seats. 484,000 votes were cast. The Mapai (Israel Labor Party) was first with 46 seats. Mapam (United Worker’s Party) was second with 19 seats. The United Religious Party was third with 16 seats and the Herut (Freedom Party) fourth with 14. The Communists polled 3.4 percent of the votes and were awarded four seats. On February 17, 1949 Chaim Weizmann was elected president.

Chaim Weizmann was born November 27, 1874, in Motol near Pinsk in the then Russian part of Poland. After attending the universities of Berlin and Fribourg, he became a lecturer in chemistry at Geneva University, and later, reader in biochemistry at Manchester University in England. In 1916-19 he was director of the British Admiralty laboratories. He was president of the World Zionist Federation and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine from 1929 to 1931 and from 1935 to 1946. He took the oath of office as provisional president of Israel on October 1, 1948.

With nearly three quarters of a million civilian Arabs driven from their homes and farms into the desert, President Weizmann, addressing the opening session of the first Knesset Hagdola (General Assembly) of Israel, declared that the new state was built on solid foundations of freedom, equality, collective responsibility and national self-discipline.

These high-sounding phrases were obviously for foreign consumption because Israel is probably the only country in the world, except the Soviet Union, that locks its gates against its citizens who would emigrate. Immigration has never actually been voluntary, and emigration is illegal. The Jewish Agency for Palestine sent its agencies into the countries of the world stirring the Jews to panic. Even America is pictured as ripe for the rise of a new Hitler. But once the unsuspecting Jew is in the “national homeland” he awakens to the fact that he can not leave. Jews from India, brought to Israel by the Jewish Agency for Palestine at great expense, learned that getting into Israel is a lot easier than getting out. They staged public demonstrations protesting the law that denies them a right to return to their homes. Smuggling recalcitrant Jewish “nationals” out of Israel is reported to have become a profitable business.


DAVID BEN-GURION

David Ben-Gurion was born October 16, 1886 at Plonsk, Poland. When twenty years old he went to Palestine where he worked as a wine-presser. He helped organize the Jewish Shomer (watchmen), who guarded Jewish farms against the Arabs. In 1912 he went to Istanbul, Turkey to study law, returning to Palestine in 1918 as a member of the Jewish Legion. After demobilization, he organized the Histadruth (General Federation of Jewish Labor) and became its secretary general. In 1930 he became the chairman of the Jewish Labor Party, and in 1935 he was elected chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

On May 14, 1948 he was named provisional Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of the new government of Israel. In his policy statement, when forming the new administration in February of 1949, Ben-Gurion declared that Israel would seek friendship with all peace- loving nations, particularly the United States and the Soviet Union. He said that the struggle between Socialist Zionists and Communist anti-Zionist Jews could not be compromised and that Israel must be built as a Jewish State or act as a foreign agency.


WORLD SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL

1949 found the new state of Israel in financial difficulties. Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan, introducing his budget on June 14, 1949, recommended an austerity regime. World Jewry doubled its efforts to bolster the country’s economy. A credit of one hundred million dollars was granted by the Export-Import Bank in January while commercial agreements were negotiated with many countries.

Meanwhile most of the nations of the world, with the exception of Arab and Moslem countries, recognized the new State, and, on May 11, 1949, the United Nations admitted Israel to its membership.

Peace settlements broke down on disposition of the impoverished Arab refugees. The Arab states demanded that Israel permit them to return to their homes and farms. Israel agreed to permit a hundred thousand of the 750,000 to return subject to the signing of a peace settlement.

By June of 1950 the population of Israel was estimated at 1,247,000, of which 1,094,000 were Jews.

On December 9, 1949 the United Nations General Assembly decreed an international regime for Jerusalem. This decision was greeted by defiance on the part of the government of Israel, which immediately transferred the Knesset (Parliament) to Jerusalem, together with the majority of the government offices. On January 23, 1950 Jerusalem was declared to be the capital of Israel. The United Nations did nothing to implement its decision of December 9, 1949.

It became apparent to the leaders of world Jewry that the ordinary means of raising funds for Israel, through the United Jewish Appeal and the various affiliates of the World Zionist Organization, were insufficient and inadequate. The government of Israel thereupon adopted a bold course. It summoned an economic conference in Jerusalem from September 3rd to September 6th attended by leading Jews from the United States, Great Britain and South Africa. Ben-Gurion proposed that a billion and a half dollars be raised within then the next three years to finance immigration and development, one third to be raised in Israel and the remainder abroad, principally in the United States. This proposal was adopted by the conference.

Ben-Gurion’s government fell in a cabinet crisis on October 15, 1950. The Prime Minister had attempted to make a change in the post of Minister of Supply, a cabinet seat claimed by the religious bloc. The crisis lasted 17 days and came to an end through the pressure of United States Jewry. Ben-Gurion formed a new administration which took office on November 1, 1950.

On December 26, 1950 the Export-Import Bank of Washington announced a new loan of $35,000,000 to Israel for agricultural development.

By March of 1951 the population was estimated at 1,555,000 of which 1,383,000 were Jews. 174,000 immigrants entered the country during the year.

Ben-Gurion’s second administration fell February 14, 1951 when he was defeated in the Knesset on a motion dealing with religious education in immigrant camps. Elections were held on July 30 in which the General Zionists gained 13 seats and Mapai lost one. On October 7 Ben-Gurion was able to form a new coalition cabinet for his third administration. Chaim Weizmann was reelected president on November 19 by 85 votes to 11 in the Knesset.


CHURCH AND STATE IN ISRAEL

The most vehement advocates in America for the separation of church and state are the leading Jewish organizations. It is notable that this stand is not official in the new State of Israel. Rabbi Judah L. Maimon is the Minister of Religions in the Israeli cabinet. He toured the United States in 1951 under the auspices of Mizrachi Organization of America, the religious Zionists.

The American Council for Judaism reports that several leaders of Reform Judaism in Cincinnati rejected invitations to sponsor the appearance in that city of Rabbi Maimon.

In rejecting the invitation to serve on the welcoming committee, Mr. Lester A. Jaffe is reported to have said that the Israeli rabbi and Cabinet Minister “is the spearhead of the present movement in Israel to create an effective union of church and state”.

Rabbi Stanley A. Bray of Rockdale Temple in Cincinnati declared that “the Ministry of Religions has not only contributed to open discrimination in Israel against expressions of Judaism other than its own strict interpretation, but by its very existence violates against the principle of the separation of church and state, and makes for an Established Religion.”

The American Council for Judaism reported that Rabbi Maimon, at a press conference in New York, reaffirmed his stand in favor of the re-establishment of the Sanhedrin as a supreme religious authority for all Jews. The rabbi is quoted as having said that the emergence of new “inventions” necessitates the establishment of such a body, which would be composed of rabbis living in Israel.


23rd WORLD ZIONIST CONGRESS

The World Zionist Organization held its 23rd Congress in Jerusalem August 14th to 30th, 1951. The state of Israel, as an accomplished fact since the organization’s last Congress presented a problem. An attempt to formulate a new program, comparable with the program of the first Congress held at Basel in 1897, failed for lack of agreement among the 480 delegates. It was agreed, however, that the task of Zionism was to strengthen the state of Israel, to facilitate Jewish immigration and to work for the unity of Jewish people
everywhere.

Israeli delegates insisted that it was the duty of all Jews to come to Israel.


PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO ISRAEL

Meanwhile American children in some Jewish schools were being taught “Our Homeland is Israel Forever” while pledging allegiance to the “Jewish State” of Israel. The pledge, reproduced by the American Council for Judaism, is as follows:

Here is Our Pledge, Israel:

I pledge my loyalty to God, to the Torah and to the Jewish state, and I promise to live some part of every day in a Jewish way, and to be of some service to my fellowmen.

THE AMERICAN COUISICIL FOR JUDAISM

Opposed to Zionism and much of the activities of organized Jewry, the American Council for Judaism declares that it is a product of the American ideal. Composed of American Jews, the Council states that its basic principle is simple and clear. The religion of its members is Judaism and their nationality is American. The organization believes that observance of Judaism requires no segregating patterns in the communal or national life of the American people.

The American Council for Judaism condemns David Ben-Gurion’s proposal to settle the youth of world Jewry on the soil of Israel. Says the Council: “One of the most insidious aspects of ‘Jewish’ nationalism is its efforts to create in our youth a sense of separation and a ‘volition to go to Israel’ and to view Israel as their ‘homeland’.”

The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Ben-Gurion, speaking in New York City on the evening of May 29, 1951 asserted that the establishment of the new state was not the fulfillment of Zionism, and that the movement was more necessary now than ever before. To this declaration the American Council for Judaism replies that “Judaism is a historic religious faith, not a nationality.”.., and that “the integrity of this faith of our fathers is being subverted by a militant ‘Jewish nationalism’ which seeks to substitute secular concepts for the centrality of God.”

“We believe,” says the Council, “that it is necessary to enunciate these truths plainly and without equivocation in the face of misleading propaganda representing Americans of Jewish faith as seeking cultural and national distinctiveness in the United States, and of programs designed to transform Jews into a nationalistic bloc with special interests in the foreign state of Israel. These are Zionist objectives, now that the State of Israel exists.”

Referring to Ben-Gurion’s assertion that the Zionist movement embraces all Jews
throughout the world and that the movement has an important role to play in aiding Israel
in maintaining its security, its immigration programs, colonization and dissemination of
Hebrew culture, the counters by declaring that “organized Zionism represents a fraction
of Americans of Jewish faith.”

The Council states: “no organization of Jews, including this one; and no group of Jewish organizations and no individual Jew, has the right to speak for all American Jews. We condemn the frequent utilization of Israeli officials by institutions or organizations of Americans of Jewish faith as a means of mobilizing American Jews into a bloc with political or economic responsibilities. Americans of Jewish faith have no national responsibilities except those of all Americans to the United States.”

The American Council for Judaism points out that the Jewish nationalists in 1948 spent twenty-five million dollars in the United States to sell their program of segregation. They would “make the world believe,” says the Council, “all Jews have a ‘Jewish’ nationality; that Jews can feel at home only in Israel, and that everywhere else, including America, Jews live in Galut (Exile).”

Should the Zionists succeed, declares the Council, synagogues, religious schools and community centers would become outposts of Israeli nationalism, cutting American Jews off from fellow Americans and from American traditions and ideals.


THE “OFFICIAL” JEW AND THE GHETTO

The word “ghetto” formerly applied to the street or quarters of a city in which Jews were compelled to live. The term is now used loosely to designate a locality or place where Jews congregate.

The Lateran Council (1179) laid down the first principles of Jewish segregation which were only sporadically enforced during the next several centuries. The Bull cum nimis absurdum of Paul V in 1555 called for consistent enforcement and the Ghetto of Rome was established in 1556. The Papal example spread through Italy, into Germany and into the Papal territories of France. The formal practice of Jewish segregation never generally prevailed in the rest of Europe. Within their ghettos the Jews were more or less left to themselves except for oppressive taxation. A degree of autonomy prevailed among them under Jewish authority. The “official” Jew was an immediate result of the ghetto, and through the years of close segregation the “official” status grew in power and influence. There was nothing that the individual Jew could do about it. Imprisoned by the ghetto he was controlled by OFFICIAL JEWRY and he bowed to its will or faced excommunication. “Official” Jews always have fought the dissolution of physical ghettos as they now fight the dissolution of the ghetto symbol— the “Jewish people”.

Rabbi Elmer Berger, in an address delivered at the first annual conference of the American Council for Judaism at Philadelphia in January of 1945, recognized official Jewry’s opposition to Jewish emancipation. “In every year before and since,” declared Rabbi Berger, “after emancipation was possible for Jews, ‘official’ Jews always have retarded that progress. Sometimes they did it openly. Sometimes more subtly. The outstanding example of Jewry’s inherent opposition to emancipation occurred in Holland in the year 1795. At that time, ‘official’ Jews, with vested interests in the maintenance of a medieval Jewish community, actually rejected the status of equal rights offered the Jews of Holland. The method of rejection is historically significant. There were fifty-thousand Jews in Holland at the time. Of the fifty-thousand, one thousand signed their names to a petition rejecting equal rights and insisting upon the right of Jews to retain separate, Jewish communities. This was presented to the Dutch government as the will of ALL Holland’s Jews!”

And Rabbi Berger goes on to say that the process “is more than faintly reminiscent of more recent events.” He finds that the tradition of the eighteenth century Dutch “official” Jews is “discernible in the movement known as Jewish nationalism today”. Zionism, he believes, is the last hope to maintain any trace of ghetto control over the lives of individuals who are Jews.

Herzl had declared that “we (Jews) are what the Ghetto made us.”

“Zionism,” asserts Rabbi Berger, “was created on the premise that Jews want to – and must – remain what the ghetto made them.”

The activities of the American Council for Judaism are under constant attack by the Zionist organizations. An editorial by Rabbi A. Allen Steinbach, editor of the Jewish Examiner for July 18. 1952 is typical. Says Rabbi Steinbach:

The American Council for Judaism has been lobbying against Israel among the delegates to the Republican and Democratic conventions. This contemptible action by the American Council must be branded for what it is— a treacherous stab in the back. It is a vile and underhanded attack which fits the pattern of an anti-Semitic mentality... The rabid anti-Zionists in the Council could not be denied the right to espouse their own peculiar ideology, even though their propaganda was not infrequently reminiscent of harangues typical of certain anti-Semites... These would-be destroyers will not prevail. Their treachery will stamp them for what they are— enemies of the Jewish people.

This frenzied and irrational editorial not only indicates the fanaticism of the Zionists toward their critics but points up the difficulties encountered by patriotic American Jews in their efforts to present an opposition viewpoint.


JEWISH AGENCY FOR PALESTINE

This international Jewish organization is a foreign body, registered as such with the Department of Justice in Washington, under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Dr. Nahum Goldmann is the chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. While the Jewish Agency for Palestine was originally a creation of the World Zionist Organization it is now an agent of the Israeli government. Dr. Nahum Goldmann sums up the Agency’s position and perhaps the views of the government of Israel in the following statement.

It will become more difficult to fight in behalf of Israel’s political demands when these demands do not conform with the policy of the states of which Jews are citizens... For once there is a (Zionist) state, clashes inevitably arise with the needs and demands of other countries to which Jews owe loyalty. The problem of double loyalty cannot be lightly dismissed merely by saying that it does not exist.


JEWISH NATIONALISM

While organized Jewry may be international in its operations, it is, for the greater part, extremely nationalistic in its program for the Jews. Since the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel this nationalism has become more and more intensely aggressive. In one of the most successful Fifth Column operations in the history of the world, the Jews, after progressively dispossessing an entire people of their homes and farms, exemplify a chauvinism that has never been equaled. This fanatical nationalism not only permeates the masses of foreigners who now call themselves the citizens of Israel, but is extended to foreigners who have never set eyes on Palestine. Few, if any, can prove that a remote ancestor ever actually trod the soil of Palestine.

Ben-Gurion and authoritative Zionists imply a distinction with but little difference between the “State of Israel” and the “Jewish Nation”. The difference is interpreted as secular and not religious. Mr. Ben Locker, chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, makes this quite clear in the following (Jewish Agency Digest, December 22, 1950):

They (American Jews) were not doing enough, and the idea had to be removed once and for all that their aid to Israel was being a work of charity, guided only by humanitarian motives. American Jewry had to realize that where the consolidation of the Yishuv and the Ingathering of the Exiles were concerned, the whole of the Jewish People shared the historical responsibility. There was no possibility of our imposing any disciplinary measures on American Jewry, but they of their own accord should regard themselves as citizens of Israel from the point of view or responsibility for the common historical tasks that face both them and the Yishuv.

Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett (Shertok) casting Israel’s vote with the Soviet Union against the United States in the United Nations declared his vote not only represented the viewpoint of Israel but the viewpoint of the Jews throughout the world. So far as the record discloses only Lessing J. Rosenwald, President of the American Council for Judaism, voiced protest to the Foreign Minister’s statement.

The Lexington, Ky. Leader, on November 15, 1951, (reproduced in Council News, official publication of the American Council for Judaism) concluded an editorial on Israeli’s Foreign Minister by saying: “It was the hateful doctrine of Hitler that there was an ‘international Jewry’ whose members were not loyal to the countries of which they were nationals. Mr. Sharett comes dangerously close to affirming a similar doctrine.”


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ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA

-To be continued in tomorrow's post...