Take the largest city in Israel, Tel Aviv- only one hundred years ago
Posted on 08/02/2010 11:44:11 PM PDT by propertius
I’m glad Shimon Peres has retracted his claim that the British Establishment is motivated by anti-Semitism. It was a silly and unpresidential thing to say and, more to the point, it was inaccurate. No doubt it can be frustrating to deal with FCO mandarins; but, wrong as our officials are about most things, they are rarely anti-Semitic. It’s true that our diplomats tend to emphasise Britain’s relations with its former Arab protectorates, notably Jordan and the Gulf monarchies. Nothing wrong with that, of course, though you can see why it makes some Israelis uneasy. It’s true, too, that many FCO officials are Euro-federalists. Committed as they are to supra-nationalism, they subliminally resent the country which represents the world’s greatest vindication of the national principle. For 2000 years, Jews were stateless and scattered, but they never abandoned their dream of a homeland: “Next year in Jerusalem!” Then, against all the odds – providentially, we might almost say – they fulfilled it, thereby refuting the EU’s ruling doctrine, namely that the nation-state has no special legitimacy. So, are British civil servants unsupportive of Israel? Yes, sometimes. But the idea that anti-Semitism is unusually prevalent in Britain is wretchedly ahistorical. I suggest President Peres reads Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews. Johnson argues convincingly that, prior to the opening up of North America, England was the securest and freest place to live if you were Jewish.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Of course the British had to juggle the difficult realities on the ground ...Yes, and if "juggle" is a euphemism for suppress, divide, contain, and use force of arms to prevent Jewish refugees from arriving in Palestine, then I agree with you without hedge or qualification.
Why can’t you place things in context? The 1939 White Paper limiting Jewish immigration came as Britain desperately — and all alone, I hasten to add — tried to counter Hitler.
Surely Americans, and Freepers in particular, can understand that when you are facing the destruction of your society — as the US did in the War on Terror — everything else must take second place. If the British hadn’t succeeded in standing up to Hitler, it is quite possible that the extermination of the Jews in Europe would have been fully completed.
And as for the King David Hotel, it killed more Jewish and Arab civilians than it did British soldiers (who you seem to see as a legitimate ally despite the fact that the British and American militaries were the closest of allies)
Sorry, last sentence should say “legitimate target” not legitimate “ally”
Sorry, last sentence should say “legitimate target” not legitimate “ally”
I started reading this expecting a long evidenced thesis proving the contention.
Instead I find a short explaination that because in Britian- an undisputed Democracy- in recent times there have not been specifically targeted anti Jewish laws, and because the author personally has not heard anti Semitic comments- that is prove the British and British policy has not been anti Jewish.
In the face of historical facts I was thinking that this measly defense is comical. But as I think about it, considering the damage Britain has done to the Jews, I think this attempt at explanation is tragic.
The British may not have passed any anti Jewish laws at home in recent centuries, as far as I know, but it was the British who immediately after the Holocaust took Jewish survivors of even the worst atrocities and imprisoned them behind barbed wire on Cyprus, as despicable an act as possible especially from an “enlightened democracy”, all to appease the Arabs.
A remarkable lie.
The White Paper doomed who knows how many Jews to Hitler's ovens.
Those would be illegal refugees wouldn’t they?
No one was uprooting anyone. Except the British.
It was only the British that forbade ONLY JEWS from living east of the Jordan River.
Comment after comment, I don't know if you are outright lying or are just remarkably ignorant of history.
Palestine was not a colony. It was administered by Britain as part of a UN mandate.
No. By the Balfour Declaration, legalized by International treaties, Britain pledged itself to laying the foundation of a Jewish State.
The British act of making Jewish immigration illegal was in itself illegal.
There was no UN at the time.
Why did the international community give the British that Mandate?
Precisely because of the promises made and immediately broken.
And I remember Jews that the British hung.
The one wing of the King David that was British Military HQ was a legitimate target.
The irony is that the Irgun called and warned of the imminent bombing, but the British -with their usual contempt for Jews- refused to heed the warnings and ignored them.
I think he was referring to dumping all the Arabs from west of the Jordan to East of it to allow space for Jewish settlement.
No one, not the British and not the Jews, were moving Arabs from any place to any other place. And there were no such plans from any legitimate source.
There was no restriction on Arab freedom of movement what so ever. The Arabs, many from neighboring countries, flooded the Jewish areas as the Jews were building and creating jobs and a robust economy.
Only Jews were restricted in many many ways.
But Britain didn’t make Jewish immigration illegal. It set a limit on yearly Jewish immigration that the Zionists considered too low, which it did partly for practical reasons of where are you going to put all these people, but mostly because of Arab pressure.
I’m not suggesting there was. I’m just explaining what the other poster was saying.
Take the largest city in Israel, Tel Aviv- only one hundred years ago
As for the rest of your comment - I don't understand. Please explain.
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