Zion’s Fifth Column

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By California State Senator Jack B. Tenney

Originally published as Zion’s Fifth Column: A Tenney Report on World Zionism
(Los Angeles : Standard Publications, 1953)

A biographical note:

Though Jack Breckenridge Tenney (b. 1898, d. 1970) is obscure today, he was moderately famous beginning in 1938, the year Bing Crosby made his composition Mexicali Rose a major Billboard hit. Tenney had written the tune 15 years earlier, when he was a bandleader in that disreputable Mexican border town. Meanwhile, he had moved on to discover his true calling, politics, first entering the California state legislature in 1936. It was during his career as a California State Senator, 1942 to ’54, that he distinguished himself as the fearless chairman of California’s Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities, a.k.a. ‘the Tenney Committee,’ proving himself a remarkable investigator and writer and, above all, a courageous, incorruptible patriot and civic leader. Though condemned to the Memory Hole as ‘red-baiters’ and worse, guardians against ‘un-American activities’ were usually concerned with any subversive / revolutionary shenanigans, including fascism, anarchism, and … Zionism, Tenney’s area of special expertise.

Among American politicians of his day, Tenney was unsurpassed as an oracle of a truth now all too plain: Zionism was and is an extremely dangerous, virulent subversive political force in its own right.

Senator Tenney produced several “Reports on World Zionism,” all of which were suppressed when new and are now very rare. Zion’s Fifth Column is particularly valuable because of the 25 pages (pp. 29-54) devoted to exposing the menace of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, circa early 1950s, which Tenney does masterfully.

To compare this section with the 1976 ‘Church Committee’ report concerning CIA media activities (Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence, part X, pp. 179-203) is to wonder if the “WASP” CIA is really so “WASP” after all…

INTRODUCTION

Zionism may be said to be as un-American as Communism or Fascism.

In its political racism it patterns Nazism.

In the United States Zionism threatens not only the American people as a whole, but American Jewry in particular. “Jewish communities” are being organized wherever Jewish populations can support them. Here the Zionist doctrines of the “oneness of the Jewish Nation” and the separateness of Jewish culture and historical heritage are being emphasized. Some of the “authority” of the ancient ghetto is being revived by “official Jews “for “disciplinary” purposes and American Jews arc being isolated from the normal flow of American life.

A network of Zionist espionage and propaganda organizations operate within the United States and throughout the world, spying on Jews as well as Gentiles, and propagandizing both. American Jewry is exploited continuously, contributing tens of millions of dollars annually for the support of multitudinous agencies whose budgets rival governmental bureaus.

Criticism of organized Jewry is always countered by the cry of “anti-Semitism”, and it makes no difference that the critic happens to be a person of the Jewish faith.

The appearance of this work will be greeted with the same cry. The admitted fact that Zionism is strictly political and economic will not, in the least, deter the Anti-Defamation League from countering with name-calling based on religious and racial implications.

Zionism, like Communism, is an international menace. While Zionism does not propose to destroy the government by force and violence, it professes no loyalty or allegiance to the United States. Its loyalties are in Israel and it considers the Jews of the world subjects of the Jewish State.

The general public knows little or nothing of organized Jewry, its purposes and operations. Jewish groups, such as the American Council for Judaism, who oppose the un-American activities of the Zionists and their agencies, receive scant publicity through the ordinary channels of communication. American Jews, such as Rabbi Elmer Berger, have little opportunity to inform either the public in general or American Jewry in particular concerning the stand of patriotic American Jews on the subject of Zionism and its operations.

It is hoped that this work will supply needed information on the subject.

The section, “Notes on Zionism”, is intended as background material. Much of this section is historical in nature and not essential reading for an understanding of various contemporary Jewish organizations and their operations. It does, however, offer some explanation as to why these organizations have come into existence and why they operate as they do.

This book would have to be written whether the organizations involved were composed of Swedes, Irish or English, just as books had to be written about the Italians in Fascist Italy, the Germans in Nazi Germany, and the Russians in the Soviet Union. In the case of Italians, the Germans, and the Russians there is no spirit of hatred against the Italian, the German or the Russian as individuals, their race, religion or ethnic origin. And there is none in this treatise on so-called “Jewish organizations”. It is the things that men DO that merit condemnation or commendation. All of the German people cannot be charged with the crimes of Hitler; all of the Italian people are not responsible for Mussolini, and the Russian people as a whole are not answerable for Stalin.

By the same token all Jews are not to be blamed for the fanaticism of Zionism, nor held responsible for the policies and un-American activities of its agencies. As a matter of fact the Jew is directly a victim of the Jewish bureaucracy. Morris S. Lazaron, writing in Council News, April 1952, (official publication of the American Council for Judaism) states:

The individual Jew has no personal right to make decisions, according to nationalist thinking; but all right and wrong, good and bad, derive from whether what is said or done tends to promote the welfare of the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Such ideas are unpleasantly familiar. They bring to mind Italian Fascism, German Nazism and Kremlin Communism.

It is to be hoped that the organizations dealt with in this work will attempt to answer on the basis of the issues involved. If, indeed, they have answers. They must know by now that the thread-bare charge of “anti-Semitism” is not quite as effective as it once was. It will not now even suffice for a smoke-screen.

The American people are beginning to ask questions and they are beginning to demand answers. They are not to be satisfied with name-calling.

NOTES ON ZIONISM

Zion was the name of the Jebusite stronghold, probably on the southern part of the eastern hill, at Jerusalem. After it was captured by David, the Temple was built above it and the name extended to the whole hill. In time it became a synonym for the city of Jerusalem.

Zionism is the result of the attachment to Zion which led the Babylonian exiles under Zerubabbel to rebuild the Temple, and which flamed up in the struggle of the Maccabees against Antiochus Epiphanes.

Through the years of ghetto seclusion the national yearning of the Jews was not permitted to relax. The nationalist spirit of mediaeval Jews is evidenced in their liturgy and in the works of Jehuda Halevi.

In the sixteenth century David Reubeni and his disciple, Solomon Molcho, presented themselves to the Jewish people as liberators and gave impetus to their nationalist yearnings. The Christian Millennarians gave a fresh impulse to the nationalist idea in the seventeenth century. In 1666 a Jew named Sabbatai Zevi appeared at Smyrna and proclaimed himself THE Messiah. The news spread to European Jewry and despite the protests and opposition of some of the outstanding rabbis, Jews everywhere prepared for the journey to Palestine. The nationalistic excitement spread among world Jewry and continued for better than a century.

Moses Mendelssohn, fortified by the growth of religious tolerance in the eighteenth
century, sought to lead the Jews into a new life as citizens of the lands of their birth or
residence. He emphasized the spiritual aspect of Judaism and the necessity of Occidental
culture. Under his sane leadership the nationalist spirit of Jews began to recede. In 1806
the Jewish Sanhedrin repudiated the nationalist tradition.

The Mendelssohnian movement, and the new Judaism that followed in its wake, did not completely destroy the spirit of Jewish nationalism. The promotion of the study of Jewish history gave rise to a new type of Jewish nationalism, a consciousness of race and a fresh interest in the Holy Land. Sir Moses Montefiore, the Rothschild family, and the Alliance Israelite Universelle interested themselves in Jewish projects designed to improve the lot of local Jews.

But the older nationalism lived passively on, strengthened by the new sense of race consciousness and the new interest in the Holy Land. Its flame was fed by the Christian Millennarians. Moses Hess, Hirsch Kalischer and Perez Smolenskin preached the essence of Zionism during the nineteenth century. Leo Pinsker of Odessa in 1882 called for “autoe-mancipation”; a plea for the solution of the Jewish problem by the reestablishment of a “Jewish nation on Jewish soil”. “Choveve Zion” (“Lovers of Zion”) was organized for the purpose of promoting Jewish colonization in Palestine.

THEODOR HERZL

Theodor Herzl was born in Budapest on May 2, 1860. He died at Edlach on July 3, 1904. He was the founder of modern political Zionism. He received a legal education at Vienna, and made a considerable name for himself as a literary journalist and as a dramatist. His work as the founder of modern Zionism, however, overshadows his other accomplishments.

Herzl published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896. In this pamphlet Herzl held that the only alternatives for the Jews were complete merging by intermarriage or self- preservation by political nationalism. It was this latter course that he advocated.

Herzl’s solution to the problem was exclusively economic and political. He did not attach himself to Judaism and did not, at first, insist on Palestine as the new Jewish home. Herzl’s ideas swept European Jewry reviving the ancient dreams of nationalism.

The first international Zionist congress met at Basle, Switzerland in 1897, and perfected its permanent organization. The Congress arrogantly called itself “the Jewish nations”. They created a world-wide political machine.

Its purposes were as follows:

“Zionism strives to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law. The congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:

(1) The promotion on suitable lines of the colonization of Palestine by Jewish agricultural and industrial workers.
(2) The organization and binding together of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, local and international, in accordance with the laws of
each country.
(3) The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and consciousness.
(4) Preparatory steps toward obtaining government consent where necessary to the
attainment of the aim of Zionism.”

With the world Zionist organization an actuality Theodor Herzl charged the 197 delegates to “capture the Jewish communities of the world!”

Zionism suffered a severe setback with the death of Dr. Herzl in 1904. He had disrupted the normal development of world Jewry toward individual freedom more than any other Jewish leader since 1666; and had done so in an age that underscored individual freedom. The Renaissance and the Reformation had wrought a revolution in man’s thinking about man, and new concepts concerning the rights of men had swept across the literate and civilized world. Dr. Herzl and his Zionist movement did a great disservice to world Jewry in its march toward individual freedom and human dignity. The Jewish communities of the world were being “captured”, as Dr. Herzl had commanded— and once more the individual Jew was being driven behind ghetto walls— the invisible, but stronger ghetto walls of Jewish nationalism.

Herzl had said that the Dreyfus case had made him a Zionist. He failed to see the Zolas and the French people that vindicated Dreyfus. He attacked Edmond de Rothschild’s lavish support of Zionist projects as “philanthropic”, rather than serving the “national purpose”— and threatened him with “a great agitation in which it shall be difficult to maintain order...” by setting “the masses in motion by a tumultuous agitation”. He attempted bartering Jewish participation in the revolutionary movements of Czarist Russia and in Germany for a political charter to Palestine. He created anti-Semitism with every move, driving wedges of misunderstanding between Jews and Christians. An understandable fight for equal rights for Jews in the countries of their birth and residence was forgotten and obscured by the insane obsession to dispossess the Arabs of Palestine and establish a “Jewish State”.

Herzl left behind him “a great, restless mass of Jews, who in consequence of his efforts, had divided Jewry as it had not been divided since the rise of Sabbatai Zevi.” (Jacob de Haas).

Herzl was succeeded by a Cologne banker, David Wolffsohn.

Meanwhile Israel Zangwill founded a rival organization under the name of the JTO (Jewish Territorial Organization) for the purpose of taking over Eastern African territory offered Dr. Herzl’s organization by the British Government and refused by the seventh Zionist congress in 1905.

Dr. Herzl had hoped to secure an autonomous Jewish commonwealth in Palestine under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Turkey. Audiences were granted Dr. Herzl by Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1901 and again in 1902 but the negotiations were unsuccessful. Under David Wolffsohn fresh negotiations were opened with the Porte which were rendered hopeless by the Turkish revolution.

The failure of these schemes gave rise to sharp differences of opinion within the Zionist ranks. The “practical” Zionists were for an immediate start in Palestine, while the “political” Zionists adhered to the charter. The “practical” Zionists won their first important success in 1908 with the establishment of a Zionist agency in Jaffa.

THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND

Stripped of its formal phraseology the Zionist movement contemplated the building of a formidable Fifth Column in Palestine. Through steady immigration and purchase of land, Zionist leaders sought to gradually dispossess the Arabs and, at a propitious time, take over the entire country. The success of the plan gives evidence of Jewish patience and perseverance though it leaves much to be desired in other fields of virtue.

The Jewish National Fund was established as the financial instrument for the secret conquest of Palestine. Although the organization quietly bought considerable land before 1910 it stepped up its program thereafter.

In view of organized Jewry’s agitation against “restrictive covenants” it is interesting to note that the charter of the Jewish National Fund forbids the rental of its land to anyone but a Jew.

The Jewish National Fund is one of the principal beneficiaries of the United Palestine Appeal, which has been the largest beneficiary of the United Jewish Appeal. Benjamin Browdy, President of the Zionist Organization of America. in a radio broadcast, said:

The Jewish National Fund is the epitome of the practical, constructive aspects of the Zionist Movement. Without it the Jewish State would never have been built.

Colonization of Palestine began. Revival of Hebrew culture in Palestine, together with the settlement of the Jews on the land, developed rapidly. The eleventh Zionist congress in 1913 approved an ambitious program of rural colonization and resolved that steps should be taken toward the early establishment of a Hebrew university in Jerusalem.

World War I brought Zionist work in Palestine to a standstill. Although colonization came to a halt, Zionism continued to barter Jewish support for a political charter to Palestine, as part of post-war settlements. Agitation for the creation of an American Jewish Congress started in 1914, opposed by many American Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee. After drawn-out negotiations, however, the American Jewish Committee agreed to participate in calling the congress after the termination of hostilities. The Jewish Workmen’s Committee agreed to join, with certain provisos.

Dr. Chaim Weizman of Manchester University headed a group of political Zionists in England and proposed that Great Britain provide in the peace settlement for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews.

ZIONIST CLAIM TO PALESTINE UNFOUNDED

The basis of the Zionist claim to Palestine is the fallacy that persons of the Jewish faith are members of the ancient “Jewish race”; a race that became a “dispersed people” scattered throughout the countries of the world. This fiction had been largely promulgated by Jewish “nationalists” and, since 1897, by the disciples of Theodor Herzl.

Contending that their ancestors once ruled the little country of Palestine, the Zionists found nothing immoral in demanding that the country’s inhabitants be dispossessed and that there be an “Ingathering of the Exiles” – the Jewish people of the world – and the “reestablishment” of the “Jewish State”. The fact that nearly two thousand years has elapsed since their alleged ancestors held sway over the land appeared to be of little conscientious importance to the Zionists. The fact that the Arab population in possession during the intervening centuries must be driven from their homes failed to arouse the ordinary instincts of compassion and justice in the minds and hearts of Zionists. In good conscience the historical claim to Palestine, even if it were founded in fact, could not balance the scales of justice in the Zionist design for the conquest of Palestine. But even this slim basis for the justification of Zionist Fifth Columns in Palestine and the ultimate acts of violent dispossessions of the Arabs is not founded in fact.

All of the world’s recognized authorities on the histories of the nations of Europe, Asia and Africa disprove the Zionist claim. Persons of Jewish faith scattered throughout the world today are the descendants of widely-scattered native populations.

Judaism spread from the Holy Land between 1500 B.C. and 1000 A.D. to populations in North Africa, along the Mediterranean, to Western Europe, Arabia, India, China and Ethiopia. The pagan populations were converted to Judaism by missionaries, traders and exiles who, if settling in these countries, were soon assimilated by the native populations. Intermarriage with the natives resulted in the disappearance of former racial origins, and populations, thus converted to Judaism, were mostly non-Semitic. These included the Falashas of Ethiopia, Chinese in China, Tamils in India, Moors in North Africa, Berbers of North Africa, Khazars of Eastern Europe, Nubians of Africa, Fulas of Senegambia, Polish of Poland, and many others of nearly every sub-racial group of Europe, Africa and Asia.

The Zionist allegation that persons of Jewish faith in Eastern Europe have a legitimate claim in Palestine as the country of their origin is without foundation in historical fact. Jewish and non-Jewish authorities agree that these people are the descendants of the non- Semitic Turkish-Tartar race which came into Europe from Asia in the First Century by a land route north of the Caspian Sea. They became known as the Khazars. A war-like people, they settled in Eastern Europe and, by continuous and successful conquests, expanded their territories to include the greater portion of Eastern Europe west of the Urals and north of the Black Sea. Near the close of the Eighth Century the Khazar nation was converted to Judaism. Henceforth only a Jewish King
might occupy the Khazar throne and Judaism became the state religion.

Conquest continued to be the chief concern of the Khazar Kingdom and, at the peak of its power, it collected tribute from no less than twenty-five conquered peoples. Toward the end of the Tenth Century, however, the Varangians (Russians) swept down from the north and conquered them, although the conquest was not complete until the middle of the Thirteenth Century. The Khazar population and territories were thus absorbed into the expanding Russian state, which accounts for the large Jewish population now found in that country. Large segments of this Jewish population became Polish, Lithuanian, Galician, Rumanian, etc., in the course of subsequent conquests.

Palestine was over fifteen hundred miles from the Khazar Kingdom. The Eastern European Jews, descendants of the Khazar Jews, therefore, have neither a historical nor racial association with the original Jews of the Holy Land.

Yiddish is the language developed by the descendants of the Jewish Khazars, and it is not the Hebrew of Judaism. It is a jargon of many languages but it is not a language in itself. Corruptions of German, Polish and Russian words were added by the Khazar King who was first converted to Judaism. Hebrew was developed more than twenty-five hundred years before Yiddish, and is further proof that the Jews of Eastern Europe and the ancient Jews of the Holy Land have no ethnic relationship.

Yiddish was carried to other Jewish populations throughout the world by the Yiddish-speaking Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe. Beginning in 1890 the descendants of the Khazar Jews started a great emigration. Within twenty-four years three-and-a-half million had left Eastern Europe of whom 1,650,000 emigrated to the United States. Americans tacitly accepted Yiddish and he descendants of the Khazar Jews as representatives of Judaism— lineal descendants of Abraham.

Zionist membership is largely composed of Jews of Eastern European origin, Polish, Lithuanian, Galician, Ukrainian, Russian and Rumanian, descendants of the Khazars.

WHY PALESTINE FOR THE JEWS?

Since 1916 the Zionists have been adamant in their demand that they have Palestine or nothing. All efforts to establish a so-called “national home” for the Jews in some other part of the world where a people in possession would not be uprooted, have been firmly opposed by the Zionists.

Why?

The official report of the British Crown Agents for the Colonies, prepared for the Government of Palestine, entitled “Production of Minerals from the Waters of the Dead Sea” (page 2) states that the Dead Sea contains forty-two billion metric tons of Potassium Chloride, Magnesium Bromide, Magnesium Chloride, Calcium and Sodium Chloride, “and also a supply of potash which may be considered inexhaustible”, of a total value of five trillion dollars ($5,000,000,000,000) at todays prices, an amount of wealth so fabulous that it defies comprehension. This natural resource which rightfully belonged to the Arabs is now being wrongfully exploited by the descendants of the rapacious Khazars through the operation of Palestine Potash, Ltd., a corporate “front” for the secret Zionist “high command”.

The Zionist insistence on Palestine, in light of this revelation, becomes clear. Possessing this fabulous wealth the Jewish State of Israel can become the greatest financial power in the world; the most important international force on the face of the globe With this wealth the descendants of the Khazar conquerors intend to reestablish in Palestine their former Eastern Europe Khazar Jewish Kingdom. Behind the pleas to Jewry for contributions for rescuing the persecuted and oppressed Jews of the world and their establishment in Israel, is the plan to secure the wealth of the Dead Sea for the ultimate domination of the world.


ZIONISTS PROSPER ON ANTI-SEMITISM

The professional Zionists have made the “Jewish State in Palestine” their vocation in life. The tens of millions of dollars collected from unsuspecting Jews make possible the payment of salaries that exceed the incomes of high governmental officials. These salaries are possible only while Jewish contributors are induced to contribute generously, and often, and the barometer of generosity and frequency is geared to fear of anti-Semitism. Where actual anti-Semitism does not exist in fact, Zionist organizations proceed to create it. It has been the stock-in-trade for the stealing of Palestine and the Dead Sea wealth; it is now the chief inducement for Israeli immigration and the development of Israeli “resources”.


THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

As the British conquest of Palestine became more and more of a possibility the British recognized its potentialities in rallying world Jewry to the cause of the Allies in World War I. The United States was not yet in the war. The Jewish population of the United States was estimated at about three million in January of 1917. The Jews were still more populous in Russia and a considerable population was scattered through the Central Powers. A British declaration in favor of Zionism would rally Jewish opinion throughout the world and bring the United States into the war. Negotiations were initiated in February, 1917 with Sir Mark Sykes as the principal intermediary. On November 2, 1917 the foreign secretary, Mr. Balfour, wrote to Lord Rothschild:

“Dear Lord Rothschild... I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty’s Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet: ‘His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’ I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”

While the Declaration was the act of Great Britain it was issued with the knowledge and concurrence of the Allied Powers. France placed its formal approval on the Declaration in February 1918 and Italy followed in May. President Wilson made it clear that he welcomed the British pronouncement. In 1922 both houses of Congress passed resolutions associating the United States with the policy of the Declaration.


THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS

The American Jewish Committee and the Jewish Workmen ‘s Committee had agreed with Zionist groups to call a congress of American Jews at the termination of ñostilities in World War I. It was to be a temporary organization and restricted as to function. An executive committee was selected “to continue in office until the expiration of one year after the adoption of a treaty of peace whereby the present European war shall be concluded.”

The Congress convened in Philadelphia May 30, 1920. Louis Marshall read the report of the ‘Congress’ activities and a motion to adjourn sine die was adopted by a large majority. The Zionist delegates, however, despite their pledge, remained in session and established a permanent organization, taking the name of the American Jewish Congress which had just adjourned sine die.


BRITISH MANDATE FOR PALESTINE

In December of 1920, the proposed terms of the Palestine mandate were submitted by the British government to the League of Nations for confirmation by the council. A modified version was approved by the council at its meeting in London on July 24, 1922. The British government previously had issued a statement of British policy on Palestine interpreting the Balfour Declaration as meaning, “not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish people, as a whole, may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride.”

The mandate became effective on September 23, 1923. It recites the Balfour Declaration in the preamble, and contains various articles dealing with immigration.

Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant declares: “Where populations are not yet able to stand alone” the machinery of government should be set up for them in keeping with the accepted belief that “the well being and development of such peoples forms a sacred trust of civilization”.

It is quite evident, from the foregoing, that the United Nations violated the “sacred trust of civilization” laid down by the League of Nations in the British Mandate for Palestine. The Arabs were not consulted and never consented that their country be taken from them and given to alien Zionists.


PALESTINE

A civil administration was established in Palestine in July, 1920. The Zionist Organization, under control of the government, began the purchase of land and started bringing in immigrants. About 280,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine between 1918 and 1936, of whom 61,854 entered in 1935. By the end of 1936 the Jewish population was estimated at about 400,000.

The World Zionist Organization was nearly bankrupt. There was little money available with which to exploit the country’s resources and it was difficult to find Jews in sufficient numbers who were willing to go to Palestine. Chaim Weizmann entered into negotiations with American Jews through Louis Marshall and succeeded in enlarging and reutilizing the Jewish Agency for Palestine.

Even though the revitalized Agency was made possible through the assistance of non- Zionists and even anti-Zionists who rationalized their actions in the interest of “our holy and immortal religion”, Weizmann reiterated the political character of the movement with greater vigor. “We feel,” he declared, “that it is time that we displayed renewed devotion in bringing Zionism before the Jewish world as a question calling for a moral decision... What we aim at is to win over the youth to decide in favor of acknowledging its national responsibilities.”


THE AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT AGRICULTURAL CORPORATION

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Bolshevik government set up Jewish colonies in the Crimea. In 1924 the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation (Agro-Joint) was organized to finance Jewish colonization under the Communist plan. A Joint Distribution Committee made an initial grant of $400,000. Julius Rosenwald, Felix M. Warburg, James N. Rosenberg, and other American Jews, raised around eight million dollars for the project.


CONFLICT WITH THE ARABS

In 1914 the Jews were in possession of 177 square miles of Palestine land. By 1936 they were in possession of 545 square miles. Between the close of World War I and 1933 over four-thousand Jewish industries had been established. Palestine is about the area of the State of Vermont: about 10,000 square miles.

The resentment of the Arabs flared into violence in 1929. Opposing Zionism and the British policy supporting it, the Arabs broke into open revolt. Religious agitation had centered around Jewish and Mohammedan rights to the Wailing Wall of the Herodian Temple, but this controversy was soon merged into a national conflict, Christian Arabs joining with the Muslims against the Jews.

There had been outbreaks in 1921 but the 1929 revolt was more serious.

A British commission of inquiry reported that the disturbances were caused by the Arabs’ fear of a Jewish majority and the dispossession of their land by the invaders.

A British WHITE BOOK, published on October 20, 1930, accepted the recommendations of the commission regarding restrictions on immigration and land purchase, which, of course, met with immediate Zionist opposition.

Hitler’s rise to power in Germany increased Jewish immigration to Palestine.

A new Arab outbreak came in April of 1936. Palestine Arabs were in open revolt against Zionism and Great Britain, and they were supported by all Arab countries including Egypt. Loss of Life was great. Another British commission was dispatched to Palestine in November of 1936 under the chairmanship of Earl Peel.

The commission again reported that the Arabs feared the domination of the Jews. Palestine was a British mandate and the inhabitants were entitled to self government, which, they believed, was being frustrated by Zionism.

The commission, finding the aspirations of Zionism and of the Arabs “mutually exclusive and irreconcilable”, recommended the partition of Palestine into a smaller Jewish State. The Zionist congress meeting in Zurich in 1937 reluctantly accepted this suggestion but the Arabs resolutely opposed the idea, and the Arab world supported them in their position.

The violence that flared up in 1937 was met by strong government measures. The leading Arab committee was outlawed and its members deported or imprisoned. The Mufti of Jerusalem fled abroad. Military courts were established and full scale military operations for the control of the country were instituted. The revolt, however, continued, gaining intensity in 1938 when the Zionists embarked upon acts of terrorism. By the fall of 1938, in spite of drastic government measures and growing Arab casualties, the country was largely in the hands of the Arabs. Bethlehem, Hebron, and Ramallah were in their hands and all normal traffic throughout Palestine was at a standstill.

Meanwhile Jewish organizations in England and the United States stepped up their political agitation on behalf of Zionist ambitions and actively and energetically enlisted
support and sympathy for a Jewish state in Palestine.


BRITISH WHITE PAPER ON PALESTINE

In November of 1938 the British government announced that it would drop the partition proposal and attempt to promote an understanding between the Arabs and the Zionists by direct negotiations in London. The failure of the delegates of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Arabs to reach an agreement forced the government to find a solution of its own. In its White Paper of May 17, 1939 it rejected the idea of a Jewish state as contrary to British obligations to the Arabs and suggested an independent Palestine which would safeguard the essential interests of Arabs and Jews alike. Ten years was the time set for the transition period. A Jewish immigration of 75,000 was to be allowed over a period of five years with further Jewish immigration dependent upon Arab agreement. Regulations for the sale of land to the Jews were also established.

Both the Arabs and the Jews rejected the proposals of the British White Paper. Palestine Jews answered with a general strike and acts of terrorism. Immigration continued illegally, for the greater part. The Zionist Congress, meeting in Geneva in the summer of 1939, protested against the White Paper and any restriction of Jewish immigration.


ORGANIZED JEWISH AGITATION

Political pressure by organized Jewry continued in England and in the United States throughout World War II. The British White Paper policy was under constant attack. The Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations condemned it as a violation of the British mandate over Palestine. Organized Jewry supported the English Labor Party in 1945 on the basis of its promise to repudiate the White Paper policy and its promise to support the Jewish State in Palestine.

President Harry S. Truman, in a letter to Prime Minister Clement Atlee o August 31, 1945, urged that 100,000 certificates for immediate immigration into Palestine be made to the Jews in the displaced persons camps. Both the prime minister and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin refused to comply with the President’s request.

The Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry was appointed as the result of Prime Minister Atlee’s refusal. Hearings started in Washington, D.C. on January 7, 1946. The Commission’s report was published on April 30, recommending that “100,000 certificates be authorized immediately for the admission into Palestine of Jews who have been the victims of Nazi and Fascist persecution”— thus amazingly confirming President Truman’s recommendations. The Commission demanded that the certificates “be awarded as far as possible in 1946 and that actual immigration be pushed forward as rapidly as conditions will permit.”

The Commission followed the Zionist Congresses in nearly every respect, thoroughly evidencing the pressures and the propaganda agitation techniques of organized Jewry. It recommended that the restrictive land regulations of 1940 be “rescinded and replaced by regulations on a policy of freedom in the sale, lease, or use of land, irrespective of race, community or creed”. Only in the case of overall Zionist ambition did the Commission fail to follow organized Jewry’s propaganda. It recommended that Palestine become neither a Jewish nor an Arab State.

President Truman urged the adoption of the Commission’s immediate recommendations sidestepping the controversial recommendation concerning Palestine’s ultimate status.

Prime Minister Atlee, on the other hand, insisted that the report be dealt with as a unit; that the United States furnish assistance for carrying out the recommendations and that the Palestine Jews disband and surrender their arms.

The Arabs objected to the Commission’s report, both as to its immediate and long range recommendations.

Jews from Poland, Hungary, Romania and other war-torn countries converged on Mediterranean ports and poured into Palestine secretly, greatly exceeding the 1500 visas authorized by the British government. Many of those entering illegally were rounded up by the British and held in camps until becoming admissible under the quota. In August of 1946 British naval patrols stopped ships carrying uncertified immigrants and transferred them to detention camps in Cyprus.

Organized world Jewry instigated anti-British demonstrations. Haganah, the secret Jewish military organization, countered the British efforts to hold Jewish immigration to legal quotas, while the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Sternists resorted to terrorism. British officials were assassinated and a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, housing the British administration and military office, was blown up.

The hard-pressed British ultimately moved against the members of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and arrested them on June 29, 1946. They were released in September.


THE MORRISON-GRADY REPORT

President Truman meanwhile had appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Henry F. Grady. This committee met with a similar committee of British in London headed by Herbert S. Morrison. The report of the two committees became known as the Morrison-Grady Report. It proposed the canonization of Palestine in four areas: an Arab province, a Jewish province, a district of Jerusalem and a district of the Negev. There was to be a central government of the mandatory, which would supervise immigration and control foreign affairs, trade and other functions, while the provinces would be given limited autonomy.

The Morrison-Grady Report didn’t make anybody happy. It was rejected by the Jewish Agency for Palestine and organized world Jewry, and by the Arabs. President Truman never approved it.

On July 25, 1946 the British foreign office announced plans for a conference on Palestine and European Jewry to which both Arabs and Jews would be invited. The Morrison-Grady Report was to be the basis of discussion. The Jewish Agency for Palestine Executive, meeting in Paris in August, replied that its members would attend the conference only if the basis of discussion would be “a viable Jewish State in an adequate area of Palestine”.

A conference was convened in London on September 10, 1946 attended only by delegates of the Arab League. Neither the Jews nor the Arabs of Palestine sent representatives. The conference recessed on October 2 without a decision.

The World Zionist Organization held its 22nd congress in Basil, Switzerland in December of 1946. It reasserted its claim to the whole of Palestine and condemned the British policy. It boycotted the London conference on the basis of the Morrison-Grady Report. The office of President, held for many years by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, was left vacant. David Ben Gurion was elected chairman of a coalition Executive and Dr. Abba Hillel Silver was elected head of the U.S. section.


RABBI ABBA HILLEL SILVER

Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver has been listed as a sponsor of the American Committee for Anti-Nazi Literature, Films for Democracy, the Medical Bureau and Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, and Round Table on India. He was one of those who urged aid for the Russian people, and he was an honorary co-chairman of a reception committee for a Russian delegation. He was a sponsor of the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief of the War Relief Fund of Americans of South Slavic Descent.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities reports that the “American Committee for Anti-Nazi Literature was active in 1937, 1938 and 1939, prior to the signing of the Stalin-Hitler pact. Individuals and organizations connected with it identify this committee as a Communist front organization.”

William E. Dodd, Jr. is listed as chairman of the American Committee forAnti-Nazi Literature. A pamphlet entitled “Nazis in U.S.A.”, published by ACANL, was written by Stefan Heym, a well-known Communist poet and contributor to the New Masses, a Communist weekly. He was a member of the Anti-Nazi Council of the American League for Peace and Democracy.

The American Committee for Anti-Nazi Literature held a meeting on May 20, 1937, at Mecca Temple in New York City, under the joint auspices of the German-American League for Culture, League of American Writers, Artists Union, and the American Students Union, all of which are listed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as Communist front organizations.

Rabbi Silver is listed as a sponsor of the ACANL on Exhibit No. 1, page 322 of Appendix TX of the reports of the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

The House Committee states (ibid., page 321) that “it should be borne constantly in mind that a Communist front organization or enterprise is not to be judged by its announced objective – whether it be peace, milk for babies, or anti-Nazi literature – but by its concealed objective, which is always and everywhere to draw sympathizers and members into the ranks of Communism.”

Aid to the Russian people falls under this admonition of the House Committee. Russian War Relief Inc. is no exception. The keynote for the formation of this organization was sounded at a meeting of the American Council on Soviet Relations, held on July 2, 194 1, at Madison Square Garden in New York City following Hitler’s attack on Soviet Russia. John A. Kingsbury, chairman of the Council, announced that “it is the Council’s purpose to rally American opinion behind ... support to the U.S.S.R.” (Daily Worker, July 2, 1941, pp.1, 2). Exhibit No. 4, page 475 of Appendix IX HCUA lists Dr. Abba Hillel Silver of The Temple, Cleveland, Ohio as one of the “eminent Americans” who “ask your help on behalf of the Russian people”. The list was published in the New York Times, October 10, 1941.

Films for Democracy is listed together with Associated Film Audiences and Film Audiences for Democracy, as a Communist front. (HCUA, page 725, Appendix IX). Rabbi Silver is listed as a member of the Advisory Board of this organization. (Exhibits No. 4 and 6, pages 729 and 730, ibid.)

In the summer of 1943 a Russian delegation consisting of Ttzik Feffer and Solomon Michoels visited the United States to offset the repercussions resulting from the Soviet execution of two Polish Jews. The Communist front organization technique was put in motion in the United States and reception committees – both national and local – were set up for welcoming the “Russian Delegation”.

The Greater Boston Reception Committee to the Russian Delegation was one of the local groups. The National Committee had Albert Einstein as its honorary chairman. The honorary co-chairmen, in addition to Rabbi Silver, consisted of Eddie Cantor, Sholem Asch, Walter Houston, Serge Koussevitzky, Henry Monsky, Paul Muni, Pierre Van Paassen, Paul Robeson, Rubin Saltzman, and Dr. Stephen S. Wise. (Exhibit No. 1, pages 1301 and 1302, Appendix IX, HCUA)

Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver is listed as a sponsor of the Medical Bureau and Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy in Exhibit No. 2 at page 1611 of Appendix IX of the reports of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The organization is cited as a Communist front.

“The secretary of the American Round Table on India was Robert Norton, well-known member of the Communist Party,” and the organization is a Communist front. (HCUA, Appendix IX, page 1771). Phillip J. Jaffe, and Louis Adamic were members of the executive committee and Lee Pressman was one of the members. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver appears as a member on Exhibit No. 2 (page 1772, ibid).

“The American Slav Congress”, says the House Committee on Un-American Activities, (Report of June 26, 1949) “is a Moscow-inspired and directed federation of Communist-dominated organizations seeking by methods of propaganda and pressure to subvert the 10,000,000 people in this country of Slavic birth or descent. By means of a nationalist appeal it strives to enlist our Slavic population in behalf of Russia’s ambitious designs for world empire and simultaneously to incite American Slays against the land of their adoption.”

The American Committee for Yugoslav Relief of the War Relief Fund of Americans of South Slavic Descent was organized in 1943 as a competitor of the American Yugoslav Relief Fund, a strictly non-political relief group. It later became known as the American Committee for Yugoslav Relief Louis Adamic and Zlatko Balokovic were co-chairmen. The organization was granted License No. 583 by the President’s War Relief Control Board. Forty-three percent of the money collected was spent for “overhead” as against the maximum of ten percent usually allotted for such purpose by bona fide relief organizations. (Page 78, ibid). Dr. Abba Hillel Silver is listed as a member of the sponsors committee on Exhibit No. 30, page 122 (ibid).

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ZIONISM AND THE UNITED NATIONS