ALBERT EINSTEIN'S ZIONISM
The Movement to Resurrect the Jewish Homeland
as seen through the eyes of its most exceptional advocate


A year-by-year account of Einstein's take on ideas and events as they shaped the Zionist struggle
(THIS WORK IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. EDITORIAL REVIEW, COPYEDITING, FULL REFERENCING, PERMISSIONS AND CREDITING IS IN PROGRESS)

An Internet Project By

Daniel S. Cutler

 

© 2005

All Einstein writings © Estate of Albert Einstein
Photos, images © as noted. More on ©  here.
Section 7 of 8
 

Before Zionism
1910-1919
1920-1929
1930-1939
1940-1949
 

Defeat of Nazism - Stateless Holocaust Remnant-
Einstein Opposes Zionist Independence but Demands Immediate Immigration of Jews to Palestine Israel Independence War - Israel Reborn / Arab Nakbah

"In This Last Period of the Fulfillment of Our Dreams ...
One Thing That Weighed Heavily Upon Me ...

we [Zionists] were compelled ... to assert our rights through force of arms; it was the only way to avert complete annihilation."


1940
USA:
Einstein becomes US citizen
He retains his Swiss citizenship
Citizen Einstein
Left: Einstein's secretary Helen Dukas, Right: Stepdaughter Margot take the oath of US citizenship

 

August 16


Zionist Revisionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky in USA,
enlisting support for a Jewish army to fight Nazis

In upstate New York Ze'ev Jabotinsky inspects uniformed youths of Beitar - the youth group of his Revisionist Zionist Movement which was abhorrent to Einstein.

A regiment of enlisted Zionist Jews from Palestine fighting in the British Army want to fight the Nazis as a national body under their own flag. Jabotinsky, co-creator of the Jewish Legion in WWI, champions that cause.

The "Arab Legion" that does fight in WWII fights for the Nazis.

Jabotinsky dies of a heart attack near New York
(His remains were re-interred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in 1965.)  Einstein thoroughly opposed militarism in Zionism and signed a public letter repudiating Jabotinsky's successor, Menachem Begin.

1941

USA:

Einstein attends dedication of a HeChalutz (pioneers for Palestine) Farm in Hightstown, New Jersey

"The professor spent more than fifteen minutes inspecting the chicken houses"
(NYT June 16, 1941, In Pais, Einstein Lived Here pg.219)

Chicken houses at HeChalutz Farm, Cream Ridge New Jersey - a kibbutz preparatory commune similar to the nearby farm Einstein visited.

1946 photo. [My mother was in charge of this chicken house when she met my father. She had lived on the commune for two years when my father came for a visit after he returned from fighting in Europe in WWII - Dan Cutler] More photos of HeChalutz Farm here.

 


This farm will be used by members of our third American Kibbutz, who, cut off from emigration by the war, are continuing and intensifying their training for future life as pioneers in Palestine. The broad fertile fields, 45 acres of orchard, and modern and extensive facilities for raising chickens will provide ample opportunity for the pioneers to learn and develop their collective economy.

Hashomer Hatzair. A Monthly Magazine for American Jewish Youth, March,1941 link

PALESTINE:

January
LEHI (Lohmai Herut Yisrael - "Fighters for Israel's Freedom" (called "Stern Gang" by British ) break away from Irgun in protest against wartime truce with Britain.
Their leader offers to ally with Nazis against Britain. He is rebuffed.

Fanatically anti-British, the tiny dissident group rejects mainstream Zionism. Dubbed "Stern Gang" by the British (after founder Avraham Stern) they openly espouse terrorism to drive out the British and establish a Jewish state modeled on fascist Italy. In a bizarre footnote to history, founder Avraham Stern even offered alliance with Nazi Germany to expel British from Palestine. Stern's letter to Berlin got no response.

Avraham Stern
"Yair" (his nomme de guerre) is arrested and shot dead by British in 1942. A triumvirate leadership then heads the violent splinter group.
Yitzhak Shamir
One of the LEHI commanders after the British killed "Yair" was elected Israeli Prime Minister in 1983.

 
IRAQ:

April 3, 1941

Pro-Nazi coup instigated in Iraq by Mufti Amin al-Husseini
Nazi sympathizer Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and four generals lead a military coup after Iraqi ruler flees to British air base at Hibbanya, and then to Amman. Germany sends weapons and aircraft to Husseini, but pro-Nazi coup fails. (The Mufti's right-hand man in Iraq, Kharaillah Tulfah was Saddam Hussein's uncle and mentor).

Mufti Amin al-Husseini with Pro-Nazi Iraq coup leader Rashid Ali.

Irgun leader David Raziel killed in undercover anti-Nazi mission in Iraq
Menachem Begin takes command of the Irgun, the dissident Jewish militia

David Raziel, Irgun commander killed in an undercover anti-Nazi operation on behalf of the British. His mission: to assassinate Mufti Amin al-Hussseini in Iraq

 

Britain suppresses pro-Nazi coup in Iraq
Army of Transjordan, fighting under British officers on Britain's behalf suppresses the pro-Nazi coup and restores the regent to power. (The army of Transjordan -- the Arab Legion -- will be the only battle-tested professional army among the Arab states that invade Israel in 1948).

 

British-led Arab Legionnaires put down Mufti-instigated pro-Nazi coup in Iraq.
When Israel declares independence in 1948 the Arab Legion (Transjordan's British-led army) will be the only battle-tested force among the Arab armies and irregulars to attack the new Jewish state.

Wounded in the fighting : Fawzi al-Quwakji, pro-Nazi Mufti supporter
Hero of the Palestinian Arab Revolt (link) who will lead the the Arab Salvation Army against Israel's independence (link).
Al-Quwakji will marry a German woman and return to the Middle East as a German officer.

June 1

Pro-Nazi Iraqis riot against Jews after British put down coup.

The "Farhud" (violent dispossession) is triggered against Jews greeting the returning ruler (a regent, ruling in place of the underage king). Murders, rapes, and looting continue for two days. In several instances Muslims defend their Jewish neighbors against the mobs.

Churchill incensed at Palestinian leaders' support for Nazis
Churchill: Britain now owes the Arabs nothing after the war. (Righteous Victims pg. 166)

FASCIST ITALY:

Mufti escapes Iraq, reaches Rome, obtains Mussolini's support
From Rome he declares jihad against Britain.

Mufti calls for jihad against British

 

THE MUFTI'S WWII FATWAH AGAINST BRITAIN
May 10, 1941

In the name of Merciful and Almighty God. I invite all my Moslem brothers throughout the whole world to join in the Holy War for God, for the defense of Islam and her lands against her enemy. O Faithful, obey and respond to my call. O Moslems! Proud Iraq has placed herself in the vanguard of this Holy Struggle, and has thrown herself against the strongest enemy of Islam ... The English have overthrown the Ottoman Empire, have destroyed Moslem rule in India, inciting one community against another; they stifled the Egyptian awakening, the dream of Mohammed Ali, colonizing Egypt for half a century. They took advantage of the weakening of the Ottoman Empire to stretch out their hands and use every sort of trick to take possession of many Arab countries as happened to Aden, the 9 Districts, the Hadramut, Oman, Masqat and the Emirates of the Persian Gulf and Transjordan. The vivid proof of the imperialistic designs of the British is to be found in Moslem Palestine which, although promised by England to Sheriff Hussein has had to submit to the outrageous infiltration of Jews, shameful politics designed to divide Arab-Moslem countries of Asia from those of Africa. In Palestine the English have committed unheard of barbarisms; among others, they have profaned the el-Aqsa Mosque and have declared the most unyielding war against Islam, both in deed and in word. The Prime Minister at that time told Parliament that the world would never see peace as long as the Koran existed. What hatred against Islam is stronger than that which publicly declares the Sacred Koran an enemy of human kind? Should such sacrilege go unpunished? ... I invite you, O Brothers, to join in the War for God to preserve Islam, your independence and your lands from English aggression. I invite you to bring all your weight to bear in helping Iraq that she may throw off the shame that torments her. O Heroic Iraq, God is with Thee, the Arab Nation and the Moslem World are solidly with Thee in Thy Holy Struggle!

 
NORTH AFRICA:
Nazi army advances on Egypt, Suez Canal at risk
Thousand of Palestinian Jews rush to enlist in British Army. German tanks commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel fight British forces in Tunisia and Libya.  Palestinian Jews fear that if the Germans break through, they will take Egypt and come to Palestine.
 

NAZI GERMANY, BERLIN:

November


Palestinian leader meets Hitler, agree their common enemy: The Jews
Hitler: We're natural allies - we have the same enemy, namely the Jews.  When we win, Mufti will be Fuehrer of Muslims.

Record of the Conversation Between the Fuehrer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941, in the Presence of Reich Foreign Minister and Minister Grobba in Berlin, Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945, Series D, Vol. XIII, London, 1964, p. 881ff in Walter Lacquer and Barry Rubin, The Israel-Arab Reader, (NY: Penguin Books, 2001), pp. 51-55.

November 30, 1941
Mufti Amin al-Husseini sees eye to eye with Hitler

Mufti Amin al-Husseini and his patron Heinrich Himmler
Himmler awarded the Mufti rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer and turned over to him Jewish property in Dresden for an Islamic Institute to train Muslim chaplains for the Mufti's SS troops. With Himmler the Mufti toured Auschwitz and wondered whether the process could not be speeded up.

Mufti Amin al-Husseini recruits Nazi Waffen SS Muslim Divisions to fight for Hitler
His Muslim troops pledge allegiance to the Nazi regime in an official statement prepared by SS Chief Heinrich Himmler. They include Bosnian Muslims recruited into Waffen SS units Hanjar (named for a dagger worn by Turkish officers), 13th Waffen SS division; the Kama 23rd Waffen SS division; and the Albanian Skanderbeg 21st Waffen SS division. These units distinguished themselves brutally suppressing Tito's anti-fascist resistance fighters, committing genocide of Serbs, and by implementing the Final Solution to the "problem" of Jews and Roma ("Gypsies"). The Mufti calls his SS troops "the Cream of Islam".

Mufti reviews Bosnian troops of his Muslim Waffen SS Handschar Division
 

April

Ustashe Fascist Party sets up Nazi puppet state of Independent Croatia

The Nazi puppet "Independent Croatia" and the Mufti
Zagreb, Croatia (photo 1943) En route to Sarajevo to oversee the formation of the Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS Division, The Mufti greeted by Andrija Artukovic, Interior Minister of the Croatian Nazi-puppet state, and (right) Minister of Culture and of Religion Mile Budak ("our brother Muslims are also the purest Croats".

Artukovic, "the Croat Himmler" ran Croatian concentration camps. Budak's signature authorized some of the most infamous decrees of the Ustashe. His pronouncement towards the Serbs: "kill a third, expel a third, and convert a third" of the Serbian population, from their Orthodox church to Catholicism. (The neat mathematical approach was copied from Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev's 1882 solution to Czar Alexander III's Jewish problem.)

Mufti Amin al-Husseini and friends ( Mile Budak cooling soup)

 

 

US PACIFIC TERRITORY, PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII:

December 7
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
America is brought into the war.
 

1942

USA:
MAY 6-11

Zionists announce goal is now a political independence
,
"a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world."

This is the first time political independence rather than a "national homeland" is proclaimed as the goal of Zionism. Unrestricted right of immigration is paramount.  The pronouncement is made at an extraordinary wartime Zionist Conference at Biltmore Hotel, New York

May 1942: Zionists now want a political independence, not just "homeland"
Biltmore Hotel, New York City, lends its name to the program announced by extraordinary wartime Zionist Congress held there May, 1942. For the first time the Zionist Movement declares political independence is now our goal.

Associated with the Ben Gurion faction, the program implies acceptance of less than the entire historic Land of Israel, and therefore, meets opposition.

In a private memorandum earlier Ben Gurion suggested that due to the urgency of accommodating the influx of refuge Jews it might be necessary to transfer Arabs to neighboring Arab countries.

EASTERN EUROPE:
Nazi offensive towards east,
Mobile killing squads round up, exterminate Jews. A similar unit is attached to Rommel's North African troops, tasked with finishing off the Jews in Palestine once the region falls to the Third Reich.

1942 Einsazgruppen, Ukraine
Nazi push eastward entails mass murder of whole Jewish populations. Shooting individuals proves too slow for the scale of murder contemplated by Nazis. More efficient methods are sought.

The Mufti's Muslim recruits are active among the killer squads.

February 24

OFF COAST OF TURKEY:

768 Jewish escapees from Nazis denied refuge in Palestine or anywhere else, drown at sea.

Stranded off coast of Turkey, British tow the disabled Struma out to sea and set it adrift. Hopelessly overcrowded with now malnourished , sick refugees, with  no country willing to accept them, the Struma is torpedoed by a Russian submarine. 768 drown, one survivor.

 

"People Unwanted Anywhere Else"
The overcrowded, crippled SS Struma. Denied entry in Palestine, set adrift off the coast of Turkey and eventually sunk. 768 drown.

"Turkey cannot be expected to serve as a refuge or surrogate homeland for people unwanted anywhere else."


Turkish Minister

 

Einstein Cites a Similarly Doomed Refugee Ship
Einstein and historian friend Eric Kahler quote from Walter Clay Lowdermilk, who had recently published a study on land use in the middle east (Palestine, Land of Promise, Harpers, New York, 1944)

During my stay in Palestine in 1939," Mr. Lowdermilk tells us "I witnessed a tragic by-product of the German advance ... In Palestine and Syria we were told of old cargo boats, filled with refugees from Nazi-dominated Central Europe…whose miserable passengers were not permitted to land anywhere because of the lack of formal visas. We saw those wretched ships floating about on a steaming sea, with refugees packed in holds under intolerablely inhuman conditions. The laws governing the transportation of animals for slaughter in the United States do not permit conditions like those which some of the intelligentsia of Central Europe had to undergo on these old boats on the Mediterranean. The revolting slave ships of a century ago were better; for slaves had a sale value and their ships were sped their destination without delay. But Jewish refugees were kept floating about upon a torrid sea, just out of sight of land, with the desperate hope that the captain…would attempt to discharge them illegally on the shores of Palestine…

During our stay in Beirut, an old cargo boat. Loaded with 655 refugees…was unloaded at the quarantine station for few days. The ship was so overrun with rats that the passengers had to be removed to exterminate the vermin. We found that they had been floating about for eleven weeks, packed into little wooden shells built around the four cargo holds. The congestion, the ghastly unsanitary conditions and the sufferings that these people had undergone aroused our highest admiration for their courage and fortitude. We were astonished to find that these former citizens of Czechoslovakia represented a very high level of European culture…42 were lawyers, 40 were engineers, 26 were physicians and surgeons, in addition to women doctors, professional writers, gifted musicians, pharmacists and nurses.

…Without passports, without country, these useful and highly cultured refugees presented one of the most tragic spectacles of modern times. No ambassador, no consul spoke up for them to demand the rights and privileges enjoyed by the lowliest citizen in the smallest country."

This is the Jewish situation; and there is no guarantee whatever against the persistence or recurrence of anti-Semitic outbreaks everywhere after this war. Even if we put aside the spiritual, religious and cultural ties making Palestine the only place in the world which persecuted Jews could consider their home and develop - with all the devotion a homeland inspires - there is not even any other country acceptable to human beings which the numerous refugee conferences were able to offer to this hounded people.

Albert Einstein and Eric Kahler, Palestine Setting of Sacred History of Jewish Race, Princeton Herald, April 14, 1944

 

 

The British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Harold MacMichael, says of SS Struma:

The fate of these people [Jews fleeing Nazi Germany] was tragic, but the fact remains that they were nationals of a country at war with Britain, proceeding direct from enemy territory. Palestine was under no obligations towards them.

British High Commissioner in Palestine

British Navy continues to block Jewish refugee boats from reaching Palestine.
Some refuge boats are fired on as they approach the coast; some are turned back.
During the war 3 refuge ships will be sunk; 21 boats will succeed in running the British blockade, landing some 15,000 refugees.

NAZI GERMANY:

Mufti Amin al-Husseini's other efforts for Hitler:
Radio propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany, espionage, fifth column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle East, formation of schools and training centers for imams and mullahs to accompany the Muslim SS and

Mufti Radio Plea for for Axis


Haj Amin el Husseini flies the flag for the Nazis in a broadcast from Italy. Among other things, he declared that "if England and America win the war, the Jews will dominate the world. If on the other hand the victory is carried off by the Axis, the Arab world will be freed. The Axis is befriending us. Fight for its victory."

New York Times, November 12, 1942. page 9

Mufti Amin al-Husseini and one of his Muslim SS recruits

Mufti Amin al-Husseini has 10,000 Jewish children sent to concentration camp rather than safety in Palestine
At the end of 1942, Eichmann orders 10,000 Jewish children sent from to Theresienstadt. The Red Cross offers to trade German prisoners for them. Mufti al-Husseini learns of the plan and protested vehemently to Himmler. The exchange is thwarted and the children are eventually sent to the gas chambers.

 

 

Mufti Amin al-Husseini inspects Bosnian Muslim SS volunteers, his "Cream of Islam".

October 23 -November 3

Nazi conquest of North Africa stopped by British at Battle of al-Alamein
Nazi advance towards Palestine turned back.

Scottish soldiers charge Rommel's Afrika Korps at El- Alamein, halting the Nazi advance towards the Suez Canal and Palestine where local Arab Einsatzgruppen would dispatch the Jews. The Mufti laments defeat of the Nazi advance and urges his followers to keep faith with ultimate victory of Nazi Germany. (AP photo)

 

SS Ensatzgruppe Egypt stands down
24 man Einsatzgruppe under SS Standartenfuhrer Walther Rauff standing by in Athens in the summer of '42, attached to Rommel and prepared to move with him into the Suez Canal Zone and Palestine (although some reports have him in Tunis as head of the SD there) Most of the manpower for the mission would be provided by Palestinian Nazi collaborators.

Mufti broadcasts from Berlin:
Followers, don't lose hope, ultimate Nazi victory coming.
1943
 

Heinrich Himmler to Mufti:
"Natural Alliance" in Our "Common Struggle"
November 2, 1943

To the Grand Mufti: The National Socialist Movement of Greater Germany has, since its beginning, inscribed upon its flag the fight against world Jewry. It has, therefore, followed with particular sympathy the struggle of the freedom-loving Arabians, especially in Palestine, against the Jewish interlopers. It is in the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against him that lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between National-Socialist-Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Moslems of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the certain final victory.

Signed: Reichsfuehrer-S.S. Heinrich Himmler

At the Nuremberg Trials, Adolf Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny (subsequently executed as a war criminal), testified:

The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan. ... He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz.

 

The Mufti saluting Bosnian-Muslim SS, 1943
1944
PALESTINE:
February

Irgun commander Menachem Begin proclaims "Revolt" to drive Britain out of Palestine
Targets immigration authorities, income tax offices, British intelligence and police

Irgun bomb British tax office; July 13, Irgun bomb British Intelligence HQ 1944 February 12
NAZI GERMANY:

March 1

"Kill Jews" urges Mufti Amin Al-Husseini
In a March 1 broadcast to Muslim SS troops by radio broadcast from Berlin:

 

Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases This pleases God, history and religion.  This saves your honor. God is with you.

Mufti Amin al-Husseini Radio Berlin broadcast, March 1, 1944

USA:

March 12
Einstein recalls first Zionist appearance in US on occasion of Zionist leader's 65th birthday:

 


Einstein Recollects His Zionist Mission to USA

Now almost twenty-five years have passed since your first visit to me, when you persuaded me to make the journey to the United States, a journey that was good and necessary; and also pleasant once it was over.
(Hoffman article pg. 238)

 

February
Pro-Zionist American Palestine Committee sponsors National Conference on Palestine
Founded in 1932 the American Palestine Committee included a number of prominent public figures, statesmen and elected officials. It merged in 1946 with the Christian Council on Palestine (founded in 1942) and became the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), with a membership of over 15,000 Christians from mostly liberal congregations who argued the justice of the Zionist cause. Future president Harry Truman joined in 1941.

 

Protestant Support for Zionism: Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr
Two Protestant luminaries of the Christian Council on Palestine - a Zionist support group demanding justice for Jews everywhere.-- They endorsed the Zionist goal of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.


Einstein: Zionism's Aim is Dignity

Zionism is nationalism whose aim is not power but dignity and health.

From an article in New York Times Magazine, March 12, 1944 quoted in Jamie Sayen, Einstein in America, The Scientist's Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima, Crown, New York (1985) pg. 107

 

 

The Arab case for Palestine made by Princeton scholar Phillip Hitti (A History of Arab Peoples) to US Congress Committee on International Relations. His testimony is reprinted in Princeton Herald.

Hitti's salient points:

1. Local Arabs descend from Canaanites, he maintains. They precede Israelite claim on the land.
2. Jerusalem is the third most important Muslim holy site.
3. The land was won through jihad and is therefore a bequest of Allah to Muslims for eternity.

Einstein rebuts Phillip Hitti's anti-Zionist testimony.

Einstein and his historian friend Eric Kahler, like Einstein, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, compose a rebuttal:


Einstein/Kahler Rebuttal of Hitti Claims

If... the Arab conquest of Palestine is considered holy it would be only fair to admit the corresponding holiness of the peaceful claim and the peaceful reclamation of the country by the Jews. To refer to the legitimacy of a "holy war" sounds rather queer for a people which denounces peaceful immigration as a violation of their rights...

But the Jews do not resort to arguments of power or of priority. One does not get very far with historical rights. Very few peoples of the world would be entitled to their present countries if such a criterion were applied...

The Jews are willing and ready to give any guarantee of protection for the holy places and the civil rights ... they offer their assistance and their experience for the economic and scientific advancement of the Arab countries, for the lifting of the population to a modern standard of living.

But this, unfortunately, is just what the Arab leaders do not want. For the true source of Arab resistance and hostility toward a Jewish Palestine is neither religious nor political, but social and economic...

[T]he masses of people are held in a backward and inferior condition... [T]he big effendis fear the example and the impulse which the Jewish colonization of Palestine presents to the Peoples of the Near East, they resent the social and economic uplift of the Arabian workers in in Palestine. They act as all fascist forces have acted: they screen their fear of social reform behind nationalistic slogans and demagoguery. If it were not for these leaders and instigators a perfect agreement and cooperation could be achieved between the Arab and the Jewish people.

We do not, and the vast majority of Jews does not, advocate the establishment of a state for the sake of national greed and self-glorification...

In speaking up for a Jewish Palestine we want to promote the establishment of a place of refuge where persecuted human beings may find security and peace and the undisputed right to live under a law and order of their own making.

In a subsequent article Hitti reiterates his arguments opposing a Jewish State. Einstein and Kahler again reply: Hitti seems to know nothing of Jewish historical attachment to the land and the primacy of Jerusalem in Jewish religion.

Of Zionist achievements they note that even so sure a friend of the Arabs as T.E. Lawrence observed:

"Palestine was a decent country [in ancient times], and could easily be made so again. The sooner the Jews farm it all the better: their colonies are bright spots in the desert."

There is only one point in which we may agree with Professor Hitti: The Jews too have their diehards and their terrorists... We do not shield or excuse these extremists...

Einstein and Kahler take exception to Hitti's assertion that Chaim Weizmann threatened to expel the Arab population:

..we have to correct Professor Hitti's quotation. [Weizmann] never threatened the Arabs with expulsion.

The passage to which Professor Hitti refers reads: There will be complete civil and political equality of rights for all citizens without distinction of race or religion, and, in addition, the Arabs will enjoy full autonomy in their own internal affairs. But if any Arabs who do not wish to remain in a Jewish state, every facility will be given to them to transfer to one of the many and vast Arab countries.

There was a time, in 1919, when a perfect Arab-Jewish-British agreement was worked out by the late King Feisal, a nobler brand of leader than the present chiefs, Dr. Weizmann and T.E. Lawrence...

Princeton Herald April 28, 1944 reported in Brian pg. 337-338

 


Einstein: Jews and Arabs Must Both
Avoid Narrow-Minded Nationalism

The spirit of the Jews in Palestine has remained fresh and resilient. I have no doubt that they will succeed in a good measure of cooperation with the Arab people if only both our people and the Arabs succeed in conquering that childhood complaint of a narrow-minded nationalism imported from Europe and aggravated by professional politicians. Both peoples, it is to be hoped, will soon recognize that no rigid legal formula but only a lively mutual understanding and faithful cooperation in the daily tasks can open the right way.

(1944. June. Message by Einstein to a dinner by the American Fund for Palestinian Institutions in Abraham Pais, Einstein Lived Here, Clarendon Press, Oxford U Press, 1994, pg.248:)

 

Near Florence Italy,
August 3

Nazis murder wife and two daughters of Einstein's cousin Robert

August 21

United Nations foundations set
Allies meet to discuss postwar world at Dumberton Oaks conference, Washington D.C.

Einstein is pessimistic about the organization's ability to maintain peace.
It's fatal flaw: Each state retains individual sovereignty. He will say of the UN...

By holding onto their sovereignty, the great states make the weapons race unavoidable and this will in turn make future wars unavoidable. The fear of these wars’ frightfulness leads in two directions, working as a deterrent, but also compelling a preventive war... The physicists are well-behaved; they are all against secret armament, and they are in favor of preventing wars on an international basis. But they are afraid of drawing the final consequence—a world government that alone has military power.


The Jewish Brigade
British accede to Zionist wish to fight Nazis under their own flag. The Jewish Brigade is organized as part of British 8th Army  Sept 20, 1944 Brig Ernest F Benjamin commands the 5500 man formation. Eventually, 25,000-28,000 Palestinian Jews fight with the British. A plan to even-handedly raise a similar Arab Brigade falters. The Jewish Brigade trains in Egypt, sees action against Germans in northern Italy.

The Jewish Brigade
1945 Jewish brigade members in Rome

Late 1944
Mufti Amin al-Husseini's Nazi agents paratroop into Palestine to poison Tel Aviv's water
A mixed German-Arab SS commando crew sponsored by the Mufti parachutes into Palestine in a last ditch effort to trigger all-out war between Arabs and Jews, drawing off British troops from anti-Nazi campaign. They are discovered and arrested  before completing their first mission: poisoning Tel Aviv's wells.

 

November 6, 1944
Right-wing Jewish LEHI (Stern Gang) assassinates British Minister responsible for deporting Jewish refugees
Lord Moyne, the British Secretary of State in Cairo, declared on 9 June 1942 in the House of Lords that the Jews were not the descendants of the ancient Hebrews and that they had no "legitimate claim" on the Holy Land. at his place of residence in Cairo was responsible for implementing the White Paper, responsible for the deportation of the immigrant ships


Left: Lord Moyne, in charge of deporting Jewish refugees and his assassins. Moyne's murder by dissident LEHI incurs wrath of British, and particularly the formerly sympathetic Churchill. Moyne was his personal friend. Mainstream Jewish Hagana militia ends alliance and turns on LEHI.

"Hunting Season" begins - Jewish mainstream cracks down on Jewish terrorists
Haganah (mainstream Jewish militia) cooperates with British authorities to hunt down Jewish terrorists and turn them in to the British

 

1945
1945-46: WORLD WAR II ENDS, PALESTINE CRISES COMES TO A HEAD
EINSTEIN DEMANDS FREEDOM FOR DISPLACED JEWS
TO MAKE NEW HOMES PALESTINE

1945

JAPAN:
Atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki. WWI ends.

Left: Soviet flag flies over defeated Nazi government building, Berlin. Right: Atomic bomb explodes on Nagasaki, Japan.

 

EUROPE:
Scope of Nazi holocaust is revealed.
Among the millions murdered are Einstein's relatives, colleagues and friends:
Georg Pick, the mathematician at the German University in Prague who suggested to Einstein the appropriate mathematical tool to generalize his Theory of Relativity.

Corpses piled at Buchenwald death camp, liberated by US Third Army, April 11, 1945

Buchenwald concentration camp survivors, April 1945 (AP photo)

 

Dachau survivors liberated by US 7th Army April 29, 1945

 

May:

Mile Budak captured by Tito's partisans, tried and executed. They now demand the Mufti to face justice.

Anti-Fascist commander of Yugoslavia Marshal Tito demands Mufti face justice for genocidal crimes
Mufti al-Husseini's troops distinguished themselves by bestial treatment of Tito's anti-Nazi partisans.

 

 

 

 

Yugoslavia indicts Mufti Amin al-Husseini as a war criminal. He escapes
but is captured in France and placed under house arrest

 

Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons stranded throughout Europe
Poles brought to Germany as slaves, Russian prisoners awaiting return home. Among the displaced: 100,000 traumatized Jewish survivors of Nazi death camps

 

Allies create Displaced Persons camps
Russian POWs, Polish slave laborers, liberated concentration camp inmates await repatriation to homes

 

Jewish DPs can't return to former homes
Some who try are murdered by neighbors who have confiscated their property (notably on July 4, 1946: 43 Holocaust survivors straggle back to Kielce, Poland and are murdered by neighbors). Others have nowhere to go, as their communities have been liquidated, families exterminated.

1945 Polish Jewish survivors awaiting transit to DP camps

These Jewish youngsters are on their way to the British Mandate of Palestine after being released from Buchenwald concentration camp, June 5, 1945, near Weimar, Germany. The girl on the left is from Poland, the boy in the center is from Latvia, and the girl holding the Zionist flag is from Hungary. (AP Photo and original caption)

 

 

Jews seek to rebuild lives in Palestine are blocked by British.

Left: British intercept refugee ship off coast of Palestine,
They arrest the stateless passengers and keep them in detention camps.
Center: Refugee wounded resisting British arrest deported to Cyprus April 12, 1946;
Right: Brits check Holocaust survivors before deporting them to Cyprus detention camps after intercepting them aboard the Aliyah Bet ship Theodor Herzl.

"Illegal" immigration secretly land ships of Jewish refugees. If caught, British send them to detention camps.

65 "illegal" immigrant boats embarked for Palestine 1945 - 1948. Most of the boats were intercepted by the British, the passengers transferred to detention camp at Atlit. From August 1946, the British begin deporting Jewish refugee immigrants to detention camps in Cyprus

October

Jewish Resistance Movement formed through alliance of Haganah, Irgun, LEHI (Stern Gang)
Haganah militia allies with dissident Irgun and LEHI (Stern Gang) to fight British restrictions on Jewish immigration. [The alliance will end after Irgun bombs British military, police, and civil headquarters at the King David Hotel as a retaliation for Black Sabbath (Operation Agatha)].

PALESTINE:
Mufti Amin al-Husseini is appointed leader of Muslim Brotherhood in Jerusalem, in absentia
LIBYA:
November 1945
Mass anti-Jewish violence in Libya:
120 Jews massacred, over 500 wounded,2,000 made homeless, synagogues torched.
USA:

December

Einstein: Jewish immigration to Palestine  must be immediately resumed with no restrictions:


Einstein: Justice for Jewish Remnant!

As long as Nazi violence was unleashed only, or mainly, against the Jews the rest of the world looked on passively..

[Once] the methods of the gas chambers were well known all over the world, all attempts to rescue... Jews came to naught because the doors of Palestine were closed to Jewish immigrants by the British government, and no country could be found that would admit those forsaken people. They were left to perish like their brothers and sisters...

But after all that has happened, and was not prevented from happening, how is it today? While in Europe territories are being distributed without any qualms about the wishes of the people concerned, the remainders of European Jewry, one fifth of its prewar population, are again denied access to their haven in Palestine and left to hunger and cold and persisting hostility. There is no country, even today, that would be willing or able to offer them a place where they could live in peace and security. And the fact that many of them are still kept in the degrading conditions of concentration camps by the Allies gives sufficient evidence of the shamefulness and hopelessness of the situation.

 

British Displaced Persons Camp director:  Jews should not try to "jump to the head of the queue"

DP camps run by British General Frederick Morgan, Director of UN Relief and Rehabilitation Agency for all zones of occupation in Germany

Jews should not try to "jump to the head of the queue"

 

Einstein responds:


Einstein: 6 Million Dead Push Them
to the Head of the Queue

...the Western powers, in upholding the ban of the White Paper, are yielding to the threats and the external pressure of five vast and underpopulated Arab states. It is sheer irony when the British Foreign Minister tells the poor lot of European Jews they should remain in Europe because their genius is needed there, and, on the other hand, advises them not to try to get to the head of the queue lest they might incur new hatred and persecution. Well, I am afraid, they cannot help it; with their six million dead they have been pushed to the head of the queue, of the queue of Nazi victims, much against their will.

from an address at the Astor Hotel, Dec 10, 1945 published as "The War is Won but Peace is Not" reproduced in Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years Greenwood Press, Westport, CN, 201-202

 

Einstein ceaselessly speaks out on behalf of Jewish war refugees and Holocaust survivors


Einstein to Britain: Honor your promises.
Open Palestine to Jewish immigration

   Percentage wise the Jewish people have lost more than any other people people effected by the disasters of recent years. If a truly just settlement is to be striven for, the Jewish people must be given special consideration in the organization of the peace... In decades of hard work and voluntary financial aid the Jews have restored the soil of Palestine to fertility. All of these sacrifices were made because of the trust in the officially sanctioned promise given by the governments in question after the last war, namely that the Jewish people were to be given a secure home in their ancient Palestinian country. To put it mildly, the fulfillment of this policy has been but hesitant and partial.

   Now that the Jews - especially the Jews in Palestine - have in this war too rendered a valuable contribution, the promise must be forcibly brought to mind. The demand must be put forward that Palestine, within the limits of its economic capacity, be thrown open to Jewish immigration. If supranational institutions are to win the confidence that must form the most important buttress for their endurance then it must be shown above all that those who, trusting to these institutions, have made the heaviest sacrifices are not defrauded.

from an unpublished preface to a Black Book [commemorating a community destroyed by the Nazis] written 1945 reproduced in Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years Greenwood Press, Westport, CN, pg. 258


Einstein slams anti-Zionist Jews

Anti-Zionist American Jews advance what they call a "just and peaceful resolution" of Palestine conflict.
American Council for Judaism publishes their denunciations of Zionism in a full page ad in New York Post (Nov. 20, 1945).


Einstein Denounces Anti-Zionist Jewish Group

I am very happy indeed to hear that the platform for which the American Council for Judaism stands is meeting with strong opposition. This organization appears to me to be nothing more than a pitiable attempt to obtain favor and toleration from our enemies by betraying true Jewish ideals... I believe this method to be both undignified and ineffective. Our opponents are bound to view it with disdain and even contempt, and in my opinion justly. He who is untrue to his own cause cannot command the respect of others. Apart from these considerations the movement in question is a fairly exact copy of the [Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith*] of unhappy memory, which in the days of our crucial need showed itself utterly impotent and corroded the Jewish group by undermining that inner certitude by which alone our Jewish people could have overcome the trials of this difficult age.

Aufbau 11, December 14, 1945, reprinted in Einstein on Politics , ed . Rowe, Schulamann Princeton Press (2007) pg. 339

 

* The Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith was rebuffed by Einstein at the start of his career as a public Zionist.


EGYPT:
Arab League founded
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen join to reinforce Pan-Islamic unity.  The alliance is headquartered in Cairo. Between the seven countries they field five armies.

March 22, 1945 Creation of the Arab League
Mufti Amin al-Husseini represents the proposed Arab state of Palestine at the Cairo meeting. They declare economic war on Jews in Palestine

 

"Jewish products and manufactured goods shall be considered undesirable to the Arab countries." All Arab "institutions, organizations, merchants, commission agents and individuals" are called upon "to refuse to deal in, distribute, or consume Zionist products or manufactured goods."

Arab League Boycott declaration, December 2, 1945

 

November 1945

Arab League reestablishes Arab High Committee for Palestine.

After changes it becomes Arab Higher Committee (1947), headed by Mufti Amin al-Husseini

 
1946
EINSTEIN ARGUES FOR A BINATIONAL STATE IN PALESTINE
WITH UNRESTRICTED RIGHTS OF JEWS TO SEEK REFUGE

 

Einstein in 1946

President Truman: Allow in 100,000 Jewish refugees. Britain: No!
Arabs demand an independent Arab state, end to Jewish immigration, cessation of all land sales to Jews

 

Jewish DPs: Open the Gates to Palestine!
Allow free immigration for holocaust survivors

Displaced persons (DPs) in camp rally demand to be permitted to go to Palestine
Photo credit: Alice Lev Collection, USHMM Photo Archives

Our Only Refuge - Open the Gates to Palestine!

ANGLO-AMERCIAN COMMITTEE ON PALESTINE
Einstein's Testimony on the Future of Palestine:

USA:

An Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry

A British-US Committee of Inquiry is formed to decide policy towards Jewish immigration to Palestine. Six Americans and six Brits investigate DP camps in Europe, take testimony in Palestine and Washington. ( Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion and Walter Lowdermilk argued for Jewish statehood.Judah Magnes - with no support from Zionist mainstream nor Arab nationalists - continued to argue for a binational state.)

January 1
Einstein called to testify to Anglo-American Committee in Washington:

Other experts who weighed in: Chaim Weizmann(l) and David Ben Gurion (R) before Anglo-American Committee

 

 

Weisgall, Helen Dukas, and Einstein on their way to the Anglo-American Committee hearing in Washington (AP photo)

 

Albert Einstein arrives to testify at the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine at the end of a day of Arab advocates' testimony

Einstein cheerfully delivers a scathing indictment of Britain

1. Britain unfit to rule in Palestine
In India, Britain's colonial policy is to stir strife between communities, according to the principal of
"divide and conquer".
Britain's Palestine policy is
"a small model of India"; Jewish-Arab tensions are "artificially created".
"British colonial rule is based on the 'native' - Do you know what it is, the 'native'? - and he is a very exploited man."

British colonial governors
"always were in tacit alliance with the land-owning class which opposes the bulk of the people." (Arab landowners are dependent on keeping the masses impoverished and ignorant so Zionist raising the standard of living threatens them.) The British empowered the Mufti Amin al-Husseini - exactly the kind of "trouble-maker" they need for their purposes.
"
As long as Britain rules Palestine there will be no peace between the Jews and the Arabs."
Einstein repeatedly denounces the very commission as nothing but a ploy to give the appearance that Britain is doing something while retaining power in Palestine.

2. Immediately end restrictions on immigration of Jews to Palestine
The majority of dispossessed Jewish refugees should immediately be permitted to settle in Palestine.
The Jews there will take responsibility for rehabilitating these destitute people. (Indeed, after Independence, once Jewish refugees did arrive, Einstein himself lead efforts to raise funds for their resettlement).

3. UN trusteeship for Palestine, pending home rule.
No single countr
y should be entrusted with the Mandate. Rather, Palestine should be jointly administered by the United Nations.

3. Einstein's shocker: No need for Jewish homeland to be a nation-state
When asked his opinion about the form of government home rule should take, Einstein shocks his supporters by declaring:


Einstein Opposes Political Independence

The state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with many difficulties and a narrow mindedness. I believe it is bad.

The Zionist proposal to create a Jewish national state was an invitation of the weaknesses of of Europe which "is ill from nationalism".

Zionist leaders ask Einstein to clarify his remarks to the Committee
by signing a statement penned by his friend Rabbi Stephen Wise stating that
Jews should be able to immigrate "freely within the limits of the economic absorptive possibilities of Palestine, which in turn should have a government that made sure there was no "Majorisation...of one group by the other."

Einstein signs, but adds a private note to Stephen Wise:

 


Einstein for a Binational State

I believe furthermore that a solution on the basis of an honestly bi-national character is the only one we can hope for and I am firmly convinced that a rigid demand for a Jewish State will have only undesirable results for us.

Einstein note to Stephen Wise

 

Anglo-American Committee on Palestine recommendation: "Repeal White Paper"
(1939 British restriction on Jewish immigration)

1. Permit immediate immigration of 100,00 Jewish refugees
2. Set up of a binational state.
3. Do not dismantle Jewish Haganah militia - Doing so would insure attacks on the Jews.

 

British government ignores the report

September until February 1947
A New London Conference
At the later stages of the conference, the British government presents its own proposal for two autonomous provinces in Palestine, which would continue to be governed under the British High Commissioner. (Einstein later accuses British of delaying and obfuscating for the purpose of maintaining control of Palestine.) Both the Arab and the Jewish sides reject the British proposal.

Jews of Palestine arm for the struggle
to evict the British and to defend themselves against their hostile neighbors.

 

 

Einstein Reiterates His Concept
of a Bi-National State

A Government in Palestine under the United Nation's direct control and a constitution assuring Jews' and Arabs' security against being outvoted by each other would solve the Jewish-Arab difficulties.

Letter to Progressive Palestine Association cited in Pais, Einstein Lived Here. p 249

USA:

Einstein chairs Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists

Einstein's contribution: Only a world government backed by supranational military might can save the world from future wars.

 


January (probably)
Einstein further defends Zionism
against charges of being overly nationalistic:


Einstein: Herzl's Courageous Conclusion
Gives Holocaust Survivors Dignity

In my opinion, condemning the Zionist movement as "nationalistic" is unjustified. Consider the path by which Herzl came to his mission. Initially he had been completely cosmopolitan. But during the Dreyfus trial in Paris he suddenly realized with great clarity how precarious was the situation of the Jews in the western world. And courageously he drew the conclusion that we are discriminated against or murdered not because we are Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, etc. of the"Jewish faith" but simply because we are Jews. Thus already our precarious situation forces us to stand together irrespective of our citizenship.

Zionism gave the German Jews no great protection against annihilation. But it did give the survivors the inner strength to endure the debacle with dignity and without losing their healthy self respect. Keep in mind that perhaps a similar fate could be lying in wait for your children.

Letter to an anti-Zionist Jew, quoted in Dukas and Hoffmann, Albert Einstein, The Human Side, Princeton University Press (1979)

 
MIDDLE EAST:

Syria gains independence from France.


May:

Transjordan declares independence
Eastern Palestine now known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Abdullah declares independence (left)
His country is now called the "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan". Right: Jordanian King Abdullah with his Prime Minister and the British commander of his army, the Arab Legion: John Glubb,

June 3

Mufti Amin al-Husseini Returns
The would-be "Fuehrer of the Arabs" turns up in Egypt with his SS-trained entourage to resume leadership in the fight against the Jews.

"Papa has returned."
Coded message announces Mufti's return to middle east, h
aving been allowed to escape French custody in return for a promise to not contest French rule in North Africa. Message from Cairo arrives in Mufti's Jerusalem headquarters: "Papa has returned". Collins and La Pierre, O Jerusalem! , Simon and Schuster (1972) p 59

1946 Mufti at World Islamic Congress

 

Mufti helps set up "ODESSA Network" to spirit fellow-nazi criminals to safety
He and Muslim Brotherhood provide to wanted Nazis safe haven in Arab lands, help place thousands of Nazi experts into Egyptian and Syrian army, government and propaganda service. Mufti is main contact with Francois Genoud, Swiss banker of Third Reich, who finances the ODESSA network with money stolen from murdered European Jews.
Tell the Children the Truth web site
 
PALESTINE:

June
"Black Sabbath" British crackdown on Jewish terrorists -
Also called Operation Agatha: 3,000 Jewish activists arrested in the largest British action against Jews. British raid Jewish Agency, remove records to British administrative HQ in King David Hotel.

July 22
British HQ in Jerusalem's King David Hotel bombed by Irgun
killing 91 largest Jewish action against British by Irgun led by Menachem Begin.

King David Hotel July 22, 1946 Blown up by Irgun

British soldiers digging through the ruins of the King David Hotel July 22, 1946 (AP photo)
August
British continue to intercept Jewish immigrants, detain them in camps on Cyprus
by Attlee government order

Jewish Holocaust survivors intercepted on way to Palestine, detained in Cyprus camps (AP)

Einstein writes to Siegfried Hessing, Polish writer and student of philosophy concerning Hessing's proposal that Einstein write a forward to his book on Baruch Spinoza. Einstein opens his letter acknowledging the continued suffering of Hessing and his fellow Jews in the Cyprus Displaced Persons Camp while awaiting transport to Palestine. He empathizes "with all the painful experiences" Hessing is undergoing.


Fate of Holocaust Survivors on Cyprus

...I am happy for you that this episode of suffering will surely change soon into an existence under more normal conditions. We all own the small heroic group of our brothers in Israel gratitude and admiration because they have achieved on their own that which is theirs by right.

1947

USA:

Famous 1947 Life Magazine photo
by Phillip Halsman, whom Einstein helped come to America.
A story little-known to Halsman's American colleagues: As a young man he was the unwilling principal in a prewar nightmare that came to be known as the Austrian Dreyfus case. He was hiking in the alps with his father when the old man fell and was killed. Halsman was arrested, accused of murdering his father. At a long, well publicized trial the sole evidence against him was that he was a Jew, and everyone knows greedy Jews would do anything for insurance money, even murder their own parents!


Einstein: Loudmouths and Demagogues
Hurt Our Zionist Cause

It has to be admitted that we attend poorly to our rights. We can't agree on a central political representation. The successful ones among us behave "centrifugally"

With respect to Palestine we have advocated unreasonable and unjust demands under the influence of demagogues and other loudmouths. Our impotence is bad. If we had power it might be worse still. We imitate the stupid nationalism and racial nonsense of the goyim even after having gone through a school of suffering without equal.

Letter to Hans Musham January 1947 in Jamie Sayen, Einstein in America pg. 237

 

Hillel Abba Silver (1950 photo) ousts Einstein friend Stephen Wise as leader of American Zionists.
In the face of urgent help for Holocaust survivors Wise is seen as having been overly cautious. Silver's forceful style is regarded as abrasive by some --President Truman, for one.

British Prime Minister Clement Atlee

 


 

January
Truman to Britain: Admit 100,000 Jews to Palestine immediately.

 

Attlee reply: No.

One must remember that within these camps were people from almost every race in Europe and there appears to have been very little difference in the amount of torture and treatment they had to undergo. Now if our offices had placed the Jews in a special racial category at the head of the queue, my strong view is that the effect of this would have been disastrous for the Jews.

Clement Atlee, British prime Minister


British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin adds insult:

Jews should return to their former homes and just get over their "fears and nerves".

February

Britain transfers Palestine issue to the United Nations

UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP)
formed two months later.
11 members charged with investigating, recommending solution to Problem of Palestine

SYRIA:

Syrian Jews attacked
Jewish shops, synagogues destroyed. Thousands of Jews flee to Palestine and America

April 30
Arab League countries set invasion of Jewish territory
All Arab states must prepare their armies to invade Palestine and block emergence  of a Jewish state, decides
Political Committee of the Arab League

 


Einstein: Obnoxious Leaders on Both Sides Keep Jews and Arabs from Reconciling

If I had to give orders [in Palestine], I would leave the people in peace, but would send the Arab as well as the Jewish politicos to Cyprus and incarcerate them together so that they can bicker at leisure among themselves.

April 1947 Letter to Musham: Jamie Sayen , Einstein in America, Pg. 237

 

June 29, 1947 Jewish women inducted into fighting force
Only through mobilization of the entire populace could the Jewish state hope to counter the vastly greater numbers of the surrounding Arab states. (AP photo)

June 13
Einstein lobbies India's incoming Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru for India to vote in the UN in favor of partitioning Palestine:

Arab population increased, prospered under Zionist influx

Einstein lobbies India's Nehru for India's support in upcoming UN vote.

 

.

Einstein Explains Zionism to India's Nehru
from Bennie Morris: Einstein's Other Theory

Einstein's letter to Nehru opens with praise for India's constituent assembly, which had just abolished the Untouchable caste designation.

The attention of the world was [now] fixed on the problem of another group of human beings who, like the untouchables, have been the victims of persecution and discrimination for centuries" - the Jews.

He appeals to Nehru as a "consistent champion of the forces of political and economic enlightenment" to rule in favour of "the rights of an ancient people whose roots are in the East". He pleads for "justice and equity".

"Long before the emergence of Hitler I made the cause of Zionism mine because through it I saw a means of correcting a flagrant wrong."

Not that Einstein liked nation states but the world is divided into nation states, and "the Jewish people alone has for centuries been in the anomalous position of being victimised and hounded as a people, though bereft of all the rights and protections which even the smallest people normally has... Zionism offered the means of ending this discrimination. Through the return to the land to which they were bound by close historic ties... Jews sought to abolish their pariah status among peoples.

The advent of Hitler underscored with a savage logic all the disastrous implications contained in the abnormal situation in which Jews found themselves. Millions of Jews perished... because there was no spot on the globe where they could find sanctuary... The Jewish survivors demand the right to dwell amid brothers, on the ancient soil of their fathers.

Can Jewish need, no matter how acute, be met without the infringement of the vital rights of others? My answer is in the affirmative. One of the most extraordinary features of the Jewish rebuilding of Palestine is that the influx of Jewish pioneers has resulted not in the displacement and impoverishment of the local Arab population, but in its phenomenal increase and greater prosperity.

Though the Arab of Palestine has benefited... economically, he wants exclusive national sovereignty, such as is enjoyed by the Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria [sic]. It is a legitimate and natural desire, and justice would seem to call for its satisfaction.

But at the end of the first world war, the Allies gave the Arabs 99% of the "vast, underpopulated territories" liberated from the Turks to satisfy their national aspirations and five independent Arab states were established. One per cent was reserved for the Jews "in the land of their origin"...In the august scale of justice, which weighs need against need, there is no doubt as to whose is more heavy.... What the Jews were allotted in the Balfour Declaration redresses the balance of justice and history.

Einstein concludes by appealing to Nehru to brush aside  " the rivalries of power politics and the egotism of petty nationalist appetites" and to support   " the glorious renascence which has begun in Palestine " .

July 29

Three Irgun men executed by British.

Irgun kidnaps, hangs two British sergeants in revenge.

British soldiers go on shooting spree in Tel Aviv, killing five, wounding twenty.

June-July

UNSCOP tours Palestine. Meets Jewish leaders, but Arabs boycott

Abba Eban (left), Chaim Weizmann (dark glasses) on way to meet UNSCOP in Jerusalem

July

REFUGEE SHIP EXODUS INCIDENT
UNSCOP members, hundreds of reporters and photographers witness cargo of 4,500 Holocaust survivors dragged off by British troops intent on sending them back to Germany.

Refuge ship Exodus 1947 with 4,500 Holocaust survivors turned back to Germany by British

Exodus 1947 passengers disembark. Some stand in a hole torn open when a British war ship rammed the refugee ship.

Protesting return of Exodus 1947 Jewish refugee ship

 

PARTITION OF PALESTINE

August 31
New York City

UNSCOP REPORT PUBLISHED:
Recommendation: Partition
Palestine into Arab and Jewish states
(Two weeks earlier a Muslim state, Pakistan, was formed by partitioning India. An enormous population exchange saw twenty million people displaced.)

PALESTINE:

Einstein abandons dream of binational state as unworkable

November 14, 1947, just
Egyptian delegate's veiled threaten: If partition, then anti-Jewish massacres in Arab lands

The proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Muslim countries. Partition of Palestine might create in those countries an anti-Semitism even more difficult to root out than that of Nazism. If the UN decides to partition Palestine, it might be responsible for the massacre of a large number of Jews.

If a Jewish state were established ... riots would break out in Palestine, [and] would spread through all the Arab states, [leading] to a war between two races."

Heykal Pasha, Arab League Spokesman

 

November 17
Golda Meir, then of the Jewish Agency, secretly meets with King Abdullah of Transjordan
Secret negotiations to avoid war.
USA:

November 29

UN General Assembly debates partition of Palestine
A number of Arab delegates (Egyptian, Iraqi and Palestinian) threaten violence against the indigenous Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa.



November 30

UN votes: Partition Palestine
into Jewish and Arab states UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (Partition Plan) adopted

UN: Partition along ethnic lines
Palestinian Jewish state (not yet named) allotted areas of Jewish population, plus the empty Negev desert (beige). Arab Palestine allotted areas of greatest Arab population concentration (grey). Jerusalem-Bethlehem to be international zones.

 

 

 

 

 

Zionists disappointed in the size of the proposed Jewish state, but leaders accept the plan.
Arabs vow to thwart UN resolution, will not tolerate Jewish independence.

Celebrating UN partition vote

 

Dr. Chaim Weizmann, left, and Moshe Shertok, chief spokesman of the
Jewish Agency for Palestine, exchange congratulations after addressing
the convention of the National Committee for Labor Palestine inside
St. Nicholas Arena in the upper Manhattan section of New York, Nov. 29,
1947. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler, original caption)

 

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 1: "Civil War" from passage of UN partition resolution November 30, 1947 to proclamation of independence May 14, 1948

Civil War, Part 1: Palestinian victories:
As hostilities commence
Zionists prepare for statehood within UN allotted borders, assuming a large Arab minority that will be accorded "full rights, needs, and freedom ...in the Hebrew state without discrimination", striving for "co-existence with freedom and respect" Bennie Morris And Now for Some Facts in The New Republic, May 8, 2006

Palestinian forces initiate hostilities with sniping attacks on Jewish traffic. Initially no one yet knows whether this is transitory violence or prelude to war. Haganah reprisals first confined to specific attackers, then, by February, more general reprisals. Irgun and LEHI acting independently revert to their 1937-39 terror tactic of bombing Arab markets and bus stops. Palestinian
Arabs retaliate with terror bombings. (Benny Morris Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, pg 66-67).

Palestinian refugee exodus, Stage 1 (of 4)
December 1947 - March 1948
Most of the Palestinian national leadership (Arab Higher Committee) departs along with Palestinian upper and middle class townspeople. They expect to return when situation stabilizes. Also, many fear living under Jewish rule or even under Mufti Amin al-Husseini. Contributing factors: general lawlessness as British suspend services winding down involvement in Palestine. Arab volunteers from Syria and Iraq extort from wealthy families and abuse locals.

PALESTINE:

Jews celebrate partition vote, Arabs furious
Civil war ensues fought by paramilitary groups, militias, non-governmental military organizations.

Jewish Palestinians celebrate UN vote for partition with dancing in the streets

November 30 cont'd

Arabs snipe at traffic on the intercity roads, pedestrians in cities
Arab Higher Committee reasserts its leadership, National Committees set up in cities and bands of irregulars roam countryside, as in 1936

Arab attacks on south Tel Aviv neighborhoods
(Later, on December 8, hundreds of Palestinian irregulars led by Hassan Salame launch a frontal assault on the bordering Tel Aviv neighborhood as British troops stand by. The assault is repelled by Haganah.)

Fighters of the dissident Irgun militia take up positions on Tel-Aviv rooftops along the "seam" with Jaffa's Arab neighborhoods. November 1947

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 1

Palestinian Arabs strike to protest partition plan
Arab High Command declares 3 day general strike, freeing masses for action

December 2

Arab mob storms Jewish commercial center of Jerusalem,
Mufti phone call from Beirut to Jerusalem initiates looting and burning. (Collins and LaPierre, O Jerusalem, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972)

Arabs set fire to Jewish commercial district, Jerusalem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 


 

Arab anti-Jewish attacks unhindered by British.

Palestinian Jewish Defense chiefs: No retaliation, don't play into Mufti's hands
Retaliation, they fear, may play into the hands of the Mufti to incite wider resistance to UN plan.
Jewish leaders hope violence will blow over, like the intense but brief violence of 1920,1921,1929.


But Irgun kills 10 British and Arabs



British soldiers pack a car with explosives
on a Jerusalem street and blow up 60 Jews in retaliation.

December 11

Britain announces plans to quit Palestine

in 5 months.



Arab League vows war to prevent establishment of Jewish State
Arab League is divided between a Hashemite bloc (Transjordan and Iraq) and an anti-Hashemite bloc led (Egypt and Saudi Arabia). King Abdullah of Transjordan is seeking to enlarge his rule to "Greater Syria", i.e., adding Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Meanwhile, King Faruq of Egypt sees Abdullah's ambition as a direct threat to Egypt's leadership of Arab world. Rulers of Syria and Lebanon see King Abdullah as threat to the independence of their countries. Also, they correctly suspected him of being in cahoots with the enemy.

Arab League Intrigues
Transjordan's King Abdullah (l) makes nice with King Abdel Aziz ibn-Saud whose family ousted his (the Hashemites) from Arabia. Meanwhile, rivalry between Egypt and the Hashemites for leadership of Arab world will undercut Arab unity and effectiveness in their upcoming joint attack on the new Jewish state.

Foreign volunteers for Arabs
1947 December: Arab League resolves to send 3,000 volunteers to thwart Jewish independence in Palestine. Taha Al-Hashmi Pasha (right) is appointed Inspector General of the Arab Liberation Army . Fawzi Al- Qawuqji (left) is reactivated to train the volunteers (largely Iraqi and Syrians) in camps near Damascus
Foreign volunteers for Jews
Jews and non-Jews volunteer service with Mahal, ("Volunteers from Abroad") - foreign contingent to Jewish forces. Many are recently discharged US and Canadian WWII vets.

 

Dec 13, 1947

Irgun bombs Arab shoppers at Jerusalem's Damascus Gate

 

Palestinian Arabs attempt to overturn a Jewish taxi after setting it
ablaze during a clash near Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, Dec. 29, 1947 in
the Arab-Jewish conflict following the United Nations' decision to
partition Palestine. Twelve Arabs, two British constables and one Jew
were killed. In the background is part of the Old City wall. (AP
Photo). (Dec. 29, 1947 AP Photo)

 

A white Jewish ambulance, with a British soldier riding aboard,
carries wounded Jews through a crowd of Arabs at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem as
British soldiers keep watch in Dec. 1947. The Arabs, who were
imprisoned inside Jerusalem's Old City during curfew hours, did not attack the
ambulance. (AP Photo/James Pringle, original caption)

December

Irgun bombs Arab bus in Haifa

Irgun bombs an Arab bus in Haifa (1947 December)

 

 

Haifa Oil Refinery Massacre
Arab workers, on learning of the Irgun bus bombing, spontaneously turn on their Jewish coworkers with hammers, chisels, clubs, killing 39, wounding 50 before British forces intervene.

December 31

Haganah reprisal on Arab village outside Haifa

 

Several independent non-belligerency agreements are struck between Arab and Jewish neighbors
Most between Jewish and Nashashibi-connected villages. Mufti Husseini allies oppose any reconciliation and quash nascent agreements.

SYRIA:

Anti-Jewish pogroms erupted in Aleppo in 1947.
All local synagogues destroyed, 7,000 of the town's 10,000 Jews flee in terror.

Ruins of Allepo synagogues destroyed in 1947

1947 Jewish refugees arrive from Yemen, Aden

1948

Palestinian force under Mufti Amin al-Husseini' and Arab Higher Committee:
The Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (Holy Warriors)
Commanders: Abdul Khader Husseini (the Mufti's cousin) and Hasan Salama. Both are graduates of Nazi SS commando training.

Palestinan force organized by Arab League: The Arab Liberation Army
Some 4,000 Arab volunteers for the Palestine jihad, trained in southern Syria bases.
Commander: Fawzi al-Q
uwakji. Also trained by Nazi SS, al-Quwakji harbors a personal grudge against his rival, the Mufti and Abdul Khader Husseini.

Arab Liberation Army
Funded by the Arab League as a counterweight to the Mufti, comprised of mostly Iraqi and Syrian volunteers. Some extorted money from wealthy Palestinians, contributing to the general lawlessness and threat that prompted many upper class Palestinians to flee for safety.

 

Fawzi al-Quwakji returns to Palestine Former Wehrmacht officer commands ALA
Right: Quwakji's calling card.

The ablest military commander fighting for the Palestinian side, the Syrian Quwakji harbors a deep grudge towards the Mufti and the Mufti's commanders, stemming from the time they all spent serving the Third Reich in Berlin. His personal animosity will fatally undercut Palestinian military capability.

 

January

Jan 1, 1948 Irgun bombs Grand Serai, Jaffa
Irgun members wearing British Army uniforms bomb the Grand Serai (the old Turkish government House). The building had been used as headquarters of the Arab National Committee.

Jan 4
LEHI bombs Arab National Committee offices in Jaffa City Hall

Jan. 5
Haganah blows up Jerusalem's Semiramis Hotel. Jewish Agency apologizes
Mistaking it for Khader Husseini's headquarters. Eleven Christian Arabs killed, none involved in the fighting. David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meyerson (later Golda Meir) both apologize for the bombing to the British High Commissioner, Alan Cunningham.

Jan. 7
Irgun sets off a bomb at Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem
14 Arabs killed, 40 wounded. 

Arab Liberation Army attacks rural Jewish kibbutzim
Kfar Szold (Jan 9-10), Kfar Uriah (Jan 11), Etzion Bloc (Jan 14)

Irgun barrel bomb
such as the one rolled into Jerusalem's Bal Al-Amood Arab neighborhood killing 14 and injuring 27.

 

An Arab volunteer armed with a Molotov cocktail in his left hand, a rifle and bullets, and two hand grenades keeps guard at his post near Upper Bakaa on the outskirts of Jerusalem. There has been heavy fighting between the Jews and the Arab Palestinians following the United Nations' decision to partition Palestine. (Original caption to AP Photo/James Pringle Jan. 12, 1948)

Haganah command: Defense only


"We must avoid making mistakes that would make it easier for the Mufti stir up trouble.
"
Benny Morris, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Cambridge University Press (1987) Pg. 35

February 5
Palestinian forces divide Palestine into four zones
Quwakji's Arab Liberation Army fights in Galilee and Samaria; Abdul Khader Husseini commands Jerusalem district, Lydda area under Hassan Salame. (All three have been trained by Nazi SS.) Southern areas of Palestine are to be under an Egyptian commander. Determines at a meeting in Damascus with Mufti Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian Military Committee.


Al-Ahram Egyptian newspaper headlines:

February 9
"Attack on Palestine begins next week."

February 15

"Arab forces preparing to march on Palestine

The Arab forces are ready to launch the Jihad outside and inside Palestine according to a master plan, to be implemented in several phases.

In an interview in Le Monde, reported in Al-Ahram the same day former Wehrmacht officer Fawzi al-Qawuqji , says:

"Major military operations have not started yet, but when the war breaks out, we will stun the Jews and the whole world. The war may last for a month; it could last for a century. But we will surely win."

 

"We will strangle Jerusalem"
Commander of Jerusalem area, SS-trained Abdul Khader al-Husseini

 

Mufti's commander: "We will strangle Jerusalem"
Abdul Khader Husseini, the Mufti's cousin, sees Jewish Jerusalem as Jews' most vulnerable target. Lays siege to the city, cutting off food.

February
Arab forces succeed in cutting roads between Jewish population centers

 

TIME Correspondent Eric Gibbs: "I stood on a high escarpment amid a crowd of Arab soldiers, watching their 105-millimeter Schneider howitzer lob big shells into Jewish convoys trying to round a perilous bend in the road, two miles away. A Haganah truck or armored car looked like a tiny beetle as it climbed slowly and unsuspectingly towards danger. As the howitzer fired, Arabs waited tensely for the shell to land, bony brown hands clutching at rifles, eyes narrowed to slits. Another instant and a black mushroom of smoke grew silently out of the road. By the time the sound had echoed back, the vehicle was rolling helplessly down the precipice. From the escarpment rose an Arab cheer; one man jumped up and kissed both chubby cheeks of Captain Selim Assil, a staff officer from Fawzi's headquarters. ..

 

In the north, Irgunists masqueraded as blue-uniformed Palestine police, surprised a small British army camp. They lined up four soldiers against a wall and shot them in the back. While some raiders broke into arms dumps, others sprayed the camp with machine-gun fire from an armored car. The camp commander was shot dead as he stepped from his office. Then the raiders made off with 62 rifles, 38 Sten guns, 18 Bren guns, 4 bazookas, and ammunition.

"We're Very Worried." But the real battle was still the battle for the roads. For the Jews in Jerusalem, it was a matter of survival. Each day food grew scarcer, bread lines longer. Those most immediately threatened by the Arab stranglehold were 1,500 Orthodox Jews living in the Old City, surrounded by blockading Arabs. What food they got was coming through in British convoys...

Said Sheik Yaseen el Bakri, head of some of the Old City's Arab forces: "We understand the food situation is very bad in the Jewish quarter. It will be no more than two weeks before they have to surrender. After the 15th of May, if there is no foreign interference, it will take no more than three months to solve the Palestine problem."

Time Magazine Monday, Apr. 19, 1948
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,798381-1,00.html


Strangling Jerusalem
Abdul Khader Husseini's troops and local mountainside village militias swoop down on Jewish convoys bringing food to Jerusalem. (AP photo)

Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road today, with destroyed Jewish convoy left as memorial

1947, January 19: Jewish Quarter, Jerusalem's Old City  
Jews queue for convoyed food early in the siege (AP Photo-James Pringle)

Mufti's explosives expert plots attacks on Jews in Jerusalem's New City:
Fawzi al-Kutub is one of several Palestinian Arab commanders who graduated from Nazi SS commando course

Feb 1
Fawzi al-Kutub destroys Palestine Post building
The primary English language newspaper of Jewish Palestinians (renamed Jerusalem Post after independence, it continues publishing today).

Palestine Post building blown up
(Central Zionist Photo Archives, February 1, 1948 )

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Feb 11
Four Haganah men disarmed by British and handed to Arabs at Jaffa Gate who kill them.
Jewish Anti-British sentiment is intense.



Feb 21
Fawzi el-Kutub truck-bombing of Jerusalem's Ben Yehudah Street.
The explosives are driven by two British deserters

Jewish commercial center after truck bomb
(February 22, 1948, AP photo)

 

Sandbags for defense works are filled by Jewish girls in the Montefiore quarter of Jerusalem in Feb. 1948. The girls belong to the few Jewish families still remaining in the section with members of the Haganah (AP photo with original caption)

Stern Gang bombs British troop train
Jewish terrorists take credit for bombing the British Haifa-bound train from Cairo as retaliation for Ben Yehuda street bombing. 28 British soldiers killed. Rehovot February 29, 1948 (AP photo)

Arab snipers drag a Jewish driver from his truck,
Sheik Jarrah neighborhood, Jerusalem  (March 7,1948, AP photo)

March 10

Plan D: Raze hostile Arab villages to clear roads, open communication lines
With Palestinian forces winning the war for the roads and Arab armies mobilizing on their borders Haganah Defense planners determine to secure internal lines of communication, gain control of main roads, secure border areas in preparation for expected invasion. Plan D (tochnit dalet) , submitted to Haganah general staff March 10, gives brigade and battalion commanders permission to raze or empty hostile - or potentially hostile villages.

The earlier Plan B (1945) outlined strategy should Palestinian Arabs renew attacks as in 1936-1939. It conceived Hagana as an adjunct to British forces. Subsequent Plan C (May 1946) presented guidelines for retaliation against organized attacks by Arab forces, including how to deal with British forces should they help the Arabs.

 

March 11
Jewish Agency Building blown up
Suicide truck bomber sent by Fawzi al-Kutub

Jewish Agency car bombed by Husseini squad (March 11, 1948 Jewish National Fund Photo Archives)

 

Series of Arab victories in rapid succession:

March 27

Large Jewish convoy to isolated Etzion Bloc ambushed, destroyed by village militias
commanded by Kamal Erikat, deputy of Adul Khader al-Husseini, in largest convoy ambush of the war.

Arab militias destroy Jewish convoy Galilee.
Men returning next day to collect bodies find many have been mutilated.

March 31
Jewish food convoy to Jerusalem destroyed near Kibbutz Khulda by village militias.

Conditions worsen for besieged Jews in Jerusalem's Old City.

Besieged Jews line up for rationed water. Haganah fears onset of "panic" and "food riots" Jerusalem 1948

 

 

Said Sheik Yaseen el Bakri, head of some of the Old City's Arab [Palestinian] forces: "We understand the food situation is very bad in the Jewish quarter. It will be no more than two weeks before they have to surrender. After the 15th of May [when British troops will withdraw leaving Palestinian forces unhindered], if there is no foreign interference, it will take no more than three months to solve the Palestine problem."

Time Magazine Monday, Apr. 19, 1948
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,798381-1,00.html


Civil War, Part 2: Jews go over to offense, crush Palestinian military
S
uffering defeats at hands of Palestinian militias, and facing pan-Arab invasion, Haganah changes strategy. Goes over to offensive, begins uprooting Palestinian communities "unsystematically and without a general policy" in order to open internal lines of communication and deny bases to militias.
Bennie Morris And Now for Some Facts in The New Republic, May 8, 2006

Palestinian refugee exodus, Stage 2 (of 4)
1948 April - June, Principal cause: Arab villagers' fear of attacks, or actual attack


April 1

Arab, Jewish commanders secretly meet
Yehoshua ("Josh") Palmon for Haganah (Jewish), Fawzi al-Qawuqji, Arab Liberation Army
Both hope to thwart the Mufti. Al-Qawukji has by now was under the influence of the Mufti's archrival, Emir Abdullah of Transjordan.

 

April 9
Irgun-Lehi massacre 93 Arab villagers in Deir Yassin,
one of the villages astride road to Jerusalem. The action is led by Menachem Begun.
(The number of killed noncombatants has been subject to revision. 93 is the number cited by Ilan Pappe (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, 2006. pg 91.)

 

The depth of the shame

TIME Correspondent Eric Gibbs: For the first time, the Irgun and Stern terrorists were fighting against Arabs as a tactical force. While the Zionist General Council was accepting the Irgun's offer to serve under general Haganah direction, the Jewish Agency denounced the terrorists for the Deir Yesin massacre. It called on them to "realize the depth of the shame you have inflicted on Jewry, to whom such acts are utter abomination...

Time Magazine Monday, Apr. 19, 1948
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,798381-1,00.html

Attack at Deir Yassin (April 9, 1948, Yitzhak ben Zvi Photo Archives)

 

Palestine Radio broadcasts exaggerated, fabricated details of Deir Yassin massacre
Expecting to rouse Arab states to indignation and therefore "come to liberate Palestine from the Jews", editor Hazem Nusseibeh and Hussein Khalidi of the Arab Higher Committee miscalculate. Their broadcasts sow panic among Palestinians.

This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror.

Hassan Nusseibeh, former Palestine Broadcasting Service Arabic News editor, interviewed in BBC documentary series The Fifty Years' War: Israel and the Arabs (1998)

Mufti's forces collapse with death of commander Abdul Khader al-Husseini

Haganah captures al-Kastel
While Irgun and LEHI are in Deir Yassin, Haganah captures hilltop village al-Kastel which controls western entrance to Jerusalem. Killed in the back-and-forth fighting is Abdel Khader al-Husseini, the Mufti's commander. Mufti's forces in Palestine collapse 1948, April:

 

April 13
Arabs massacre 78 Jewish nurses and doctors

"Hadassah Medical Massacre" : Convoy to Jerusalem's Haddassah Hospital destroyed in retaliation for Deir Yassin. Among the killed are founders of the medical faculty to which Einstein was devoted.

Hadassah massacre in revenge for Deir Yassin
Convoy of Jewish doctors and nurses is ambushed by Palestinian village militiamen. Survivors are doused with gasoline and burned alive.

 

"Bevingrad"
British forces remain sequestered behind barbed wire in "Bevingrad" (a witticism recalling heavily defended Stalingrad in the then recent mammoth WWII battle)
View down Princess Mary Street, Jerusalem from Zion Square
(1948 May 19  AP photo)

April 6

Haganah breaks blockade of Jerusalem after 5 months siege
First truckloads of food delivered via "Burma Road"

"Burma Road" 
Haganah pushes a food convoy along a high mountain goat path as an alternative to the besieged road to Jerusalem. (Named for the British-built supply route through Burma to China, this lifeline was guided by an ex-US colonel volunteer who was killed in the course of its construction.)

1948 downtown Haifa
Mass flight from Haifa (despite Jewish mayor broadcasting appeals Arabs to stay). April 17-18. after gradual evacuation of almost entire upper and middle class during preceding months. Jaffa emptied late April-early May, Tiberias April 17-18, Safad May 10. Flight from big cities "radiated pessimism and despair to surrounding villages" (Morris pg 255)

USA:

Einstein and Leo Baeck write an open letter in NY Times.
Recognizing legitimacy of self defense, they plead for calm.

(published April 18)

Social psychologist Erich Fromm wrote the initial two drafts (Einstein on Politics pg. 346)

 

Einstein Appeals to Jews, Arabs:
Renounce Terror. Work for Common Goal.

Both Arab and Jewish extremists are today recklessly pushing Palestine into a futile war. While believing in the defense of legitimate claims, these extremists on each side play into each other's hands. In this reign of terror the needs and desires of the common man in Palestine [both Jews and Arabs] are being ignored.

We believe that in such a situation of national conflict it is vitally important that each group and particularly its leaders uphold standards of morality and reason in their own ranks rather than confine themselves to accuse their opponents of the violation of these standards. Hence, we feel it is our duty to declare emphatically that we do not condone methods of terrorism and of fanatical nationalism any more if practiced by Jews than if practiced by Arabs. We hope that responsible Arabs will appeal to their people as we do to the Jews.

Were war to occur the peace would still leave the necessity of the two peoples working together...

 

Einstein and Baeck draw attention to a letter published in the US press and dated March 28, 1948. The signatories include Judah Magnus and Martin Buber of Einstein's beloved Hebrew University as well as representatives of other "far-sighted Jewish groups opposed to any form of terror"

"An understanding between the two peoples is possible, despite the constant refrain that Jewish and Arab aspirations are irreconcilable. . The claims of the extremists are, indeed, irreconcilable, but the common Jew and the common Arab are not extremists. They yearn for the opportunity of building up their common country, the Holy Land, through labor and cooperation. "

True, the letter's signers are a minority, but, insist Einstein and Baeck, they speak for an inarticulate wider audience and "in the name of principles which have been the most significant contribution of the Jewish people to humanity. "


We appeal to the Jews in this country and in Palestine not to permit themselves to be driven into a mood of despair or false heroism which eventually results in suicidal measures. While such a mood is undoubtedly understandable as a reaction to the wanton destruction of six million Jewish lives in the last decade, it is nevertheless destructive morally as well as practically.

 

We believe that any constructive solution is possible only if it is based on the concern for the welfare and cooperation of both Jews and Arabs in Palestine. We believe that it is the unquestionable right of the Jewish community in Palestine to protect its life and work, and that Jewish immigration into Palestine must be permitted to the optimal degree.

The undersigned [Einstein and Baeck] plead with all Jews to focus on the the one important goal: the survival and permanent development of the Jewish settlement in Palestine on a peaceful and democratic basis, the single one which secures its future in accordance with the fundamental spiritual and moral principles inherent in the Jewish tradition and essential for Jewish hope.

Letter from Einstein and Leo Baeck to Editor, New York Times, dated April 12, 1948, published April 18

April 16

Palestinian bluntly tells UN "we started it".

"The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight."

Jamal Husseini

Jamal Husseini, cousin of the mufti


Arab Legion and Palestinian village militias overrun Gush Etzion, massacre surrendered Jewish defenders

Doomed Revadim, of the Etzion bloc of settlements, beating off an attack by the Arab Legion.
One week later (one day before Israel declares independence) the Legion returns with neighboring villagers and wipes out the defenders, including those who surrender.
(May 4, 1948, Revadim outpost of Etzion bloc, Jewish National Fund Photo Archive)

Months earlier reinforcements to Gush Etzion had been thwarted by Arab village militia irregulars. All 35 were killed and their bodies mutilated.

"War of extermination", "momentous massacre" of Jews vowed by Arab spokesman, if Jews declare independence

This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.

Azzam Pasha, Arab League Secretary-General (cited in Collins and LaPierre, O Jerusalem, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972)

to which the Mufti's aid Ahmed Shukeiry (later Palestine Liberation Army commander) adds the goal is

the elimination of the Jewish state

(Benny Morris Righteous Victims pg. 219)

MOROCCO:
Jews massacred in Morocco
More than one seventh of the 350,000 Jews of Morocco flee in terror.  Almost all remaining Moroccan Jews will flee after a subsequent attacks on them a few years later.
USA:

May 4

With war inevitable, Einstein raises funds for Haganah defense
Ten days before the end of the British Mandate in Palestine and the now inevitable war, Einstein composes a letter for auction, the funds raised to go for purchasing arms for the Haganah. (It was sold in Montevideo, Uruguay)

Regarding the Jewish community in Palestine as they brace for being invaded by Arab armies Einstein writes:


Einstein: They Must Defend Themselves or Die

If we wait until the Great Powers and the United Nations fulfill their commitments to us then our [Jewish] Palestinian brothers will be under the ground before this is accomplished.

These people have done the only thing possible in the present deplorable conditions of the world. They have taken their destiny in their own hands and fought for their rights.

On the destiny of our [Jewish] Palestinians will depend, in the long run, the destiny of the remaining Jews in the world. For no one respects or bothers about those who do not fight for their rights.

We may regret that we have to use methods that are repulsive and stupid to us, methods of which the human race has not yet been able to free itself. But to help bring about better conditions in the international sphere, we must first of all maintain our existence by all means at our disposal.

reproduced in Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times ( 1971) peg 605

PALESTINE:

May 11

Golda Meir meets secretly with King Abdullah of Jordan in an effort to prevent war on eastern front.
Golda Meir will go on to serve as Israel's foreign minister and it's fourth prime minister (1969-1974).

Golda Meir (photo c 1950)
Disguised as an Arab woman, she meets secretly a second time with Jordan's King Abdullah to try to avoid war.

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

Round 1: Invasion May 15, 1948 - First Truce, June 11, 1949

The new State of Israel will be defeated within two weeks - opinion of Field Marshall Montgomery, commander of the victorious Allied armies in North Africa and Northern Europe, expressing nearly universal, world military opinion about the outcome (wikipedia). Israeli military planners put their own chances at 50/50.

Arab states' invasion of Jewish territory is "the first armed aggression which the world had seen since the end of the [Second World] War."
UN Secretary General Trygve Lie

 

Palestinian Refugee Exodus Stage 3 of 4, December 1947 - March 1948
Pan-Arab invasion hardens Israeli resolve towards Palestinian population. Most departures due to expulsion and harassment by independently operating Jewish forces. They fear fifth column and to deny bases to enemy.
Fear of atrocities amplified by exacerbations over Voice of Palestine (Arab) Radio
.

 

May 15, 1948
British Mandate ends
-  British quit Palestine.


End of British rule in Palestine
left: British lower the Union Jack. Right: High Commissioner Cunningham departs

Declare independence or no? Zionist Council debates
Commander of Jewish forces Yigal Yadin puts Jewish chances of surviving Arab attack at "50-50". Ben Gurion shouts, "It's now or never... There will be no second chance." National Council vote: 6 for, 4 against.

Israel declares independence, offers full citizenship to Arab minority, peace with neighboring states.

David Ben-Gurion declares the new state of Israel

Excerpts from Declaration of Independence:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles;

...will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants

...will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel

...will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex

... will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture

...will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions

 

WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

 

Palestinian Jews - renamed Israelis - celebrate with spontaneous dancing in the streets

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Arab armies invade:
Armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, expeditionary forces from Saudi Arabia and Yemen,
Egyptian air force bombs Tel Aviv, which has no anti-aircraft defense.

May 16, 1948

NYT Headline: "Jews in Grave Danger in all Moslem Lands."
Subhead: "Nine Hundred Thousand in Africa and Asia Face Wrath of Their Foes"
(New York Times: May 16, 1948)



"Not like Dachau, is it, Herr Mufti!" says a muscular, armed Jew (labeled "Palestine"
to Hitler's ally, the leader of Palestinian Arabs.

 

Israel arms:
British continue to provide arms to the Arabs. US embargoes arms to Israel, fearing Arab oil embargo.

Under a US, European weapons embargo to Palestinian Jews and Arabs, Israel turns to homemade weapons like the Little David mortar. Palestinians are armed with free-flowing arms from Arab states, though those proved to be inferior. Both sides are actively pursuing clandestine arms, but none get through the British naval blockade.

Arab fighters take aim (AP photo)1948
 

Haganah officer demonstrates use of Sten gun, secretly manufactured in Haganah workshops before the war. (AP)

 
Jordanian Army (Arab Legion, under British officers) moves on Jerusalem

May 21, 1948 Hurva Synagogue, Jerusalem
Arab Legion blasts into the Jewish position in Jerusalem's Old City.

 

May 21, 1948 Arab Legionaries pick through rubble of Hurva Synagogue, last Jewish defensive position in Jerusalem's ancient Jewish Quarter.

 

28 May
Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter inside the Old City surrenders to the Arab Legion.

Arab Legion expels Jews from Jerusalem's Old City

Jews expelled from Jerusalem
Surrendered Jews fear massacre as in Gush Etzion. They are expelled unmolested through Zion Gate, to behind Jewish lines in the western part of the city. A little over a month later Haganah will similarly force Arabs of Lod and Ramleh out of their homes and push them across Arab Legion lines.

Arab Legion bombards West Jerusalem
Photo: "The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia",Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1959 

 

Haganah fighters withstand the bombardment, Jerusalem, June, 1948 

 

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

First Truce, June 11, 1949 - scheduled to go through July 9


Israel rearms with clandestine Czech weapons after secretly sinking ship bringing in clandestine arms meant for Arab forces


Jews holding out in Jerusalem's New City unload food bags, delivered during first cease fire. (1948)

June 1

Dissident Jewish militia dismantled, incorporated into Israel Defense Force
Irgun brings in ship arms for its own units on refugee ship Altalena (Jabotinsky's pen name). Ben-Gurion insists there is now only one Israel army. Firefight leaves several Irgun fighters dead and Altalena is sunk with all arms lost. Simultaneous arrest and disarming of Irgun dissidents. Irgun fighters are dispersed within Israel Defense Force.

Irgun arms ship sunk by Haganah,
Ben-Gurion insists there is now only one army.

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

Round 2: "The Ten Days", Fighting resumes July 8 - July 18, 1948

 

8 July
Egyptians attack, preempting end of truce (scheduled for July 9) ending the truce and committing the Arab side irreversibly to a second round of fighting.

1948 July 7 Egyptian field officer shows positions to King Farouk (AP photo)

 

July 12

Israeli forces captured Lydda (Lod) and Ramla
Seeking to clear road to Jerusalem and clear threat of Arab Legion forces there threatening Tel Aviv.
Expel residents across lines to Arab Legion-held territory

Haganah marching from Ramle to Lydda (Lod)
Arab Legion forces 10 miles south of Tel Aviv seen as threat (mistaken intelligence -- in fact, few Legion were stationed there)

Israeli forces fail to dislodge Arab Legion from Latrun, a former British fort.

 

North

Israeli forces capture Quwakji's headquarters in Nazareth and route Arab Liberation Army. A hard fought battle against Syrian Army leaves Syrians in control of

Golani brigade in action in the north

 

Rumors spread by Haganah: Giant Jewish force on its way. Palestinians flee in fear.

Arab refugees fleeing Galilee. "Flight proved contagious."
-Benny Morris
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Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

Second
Truce, June 19, 1949 - open ended

SWITZERLAND:

August 4

Mileva dies
Einstein's first wife.

EGYPTIAN-OCCUPIED GAZA:

Sept 6
Egyptian set up Mufti Amin al-Husseini as head of "All-Palestine" government.

Egyptian puppet government installed only to counter Jordanian influence, receives no funding or authority, is recognized by only Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen - not by Jordan or any non-Arab country. Nasser will dissolve it a few years later.

All Palestine Government declared with Mufti at its head
In fact, its authority over only the slivers of Palestine occupied by Egyptian troops
Chief of Irgun Zvai Leumi, Menachem Begin, moving freely again after being underground with a price on his head during the British
occupation of Palestine, kisses the flag of Irgun during a parade in Jerusalem, August 4, 1948 when he presented the banner to the Jerusalem commander.
Many smartly uniformed Irgun members, both men and girls, some of whom have just returned from detention in Kenya, were at the parade. Irgun Zvai Leumi is now a part of the Israeli forces, but still maintains its separate identity. (AP Photo/Pringle, original caption)

 

September 17
LEHI assassinates UN mediator Count Bernadotte
AKA "Stern Gang", Jewish right-wing extremists hopes to undermine Bernadotte's call for Palestinian refugees to be returned to their homes. murder. Replaced by his American deputy Ralph Bunche. 

Count Folkk Bernadottte (left) is assassinated by Jewish terrorists. His work is carried on by Ralph Bunche (with cigarette)

BINATIONAL STATE UNWORKABLE, EINSTEIN REGRETFULLY CONCLUDES
In the face of rising violence, Arabs and Jews unable to share power. In a letter to Hans Muhsam, then a statistician at The Hebrew University (later, principal statistician for the government of Israel) Einstein writes:


Einstein: Binational state no longer possible

I also think that in these last years and understanding between us and the Arabs which might have led to a bi-national administration [became] no longer possible. But previously - from 1918 on, really - we have neglected the Arabs and again and again trusted the English. I never considered the idea of a state a good one, for economic, political and military reasons. But now there is no going back, and one has to fight it out. At the same time, we must realize that the "big ones" [US and Soviet Union] are simply playing cat and mouse with us and can ruin us any time they seriously want to."

Letter from Einstein to Hans Muhsam Sept 24, 1948 quoted in Jamie Sayen, Einstein in America, 239

 

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

Operation Yoav: Israel seeks to expel four
Egyptian brigades occupying Negev, threatening southern settlements, October 15-October 31, 1948

October 22

Qawukji's ALA aided by Syrian infantry capture northern Israeli positions.

Night of October 28 IDF counterattack recaptures all plus some villages in Southern Lebanon

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

Third truce Oct 31

November 24, 1948

Einstein celebrates statehood, acknowledges continued suffering of Jews in Cyprus detention camps
Einstein writes to Siegfried Hessing, Polish writer and student of philosophy concerning Hessing's proposal that Einstein write a forward to his book on Baruch Spinoza. Einstein opens his letter empathizing with "all the painful experiences" Hessing and his family have undergone, as at this time they were confined to a Jewish detention camp on Cyprus awaiting emigration to Israel.


Einstein: We Owe Our Israeli Brothers
for Securing Their Rights

I am happy for you that this episode of suffering [detention on Cyprus] will surely change soon into an existence under more normal conditions. We all owe the small heroic group of our brothers in Israel gratitude and admiration because they have achieved on their own that which is theirs by right.

TRANS-JORDAN:

Dec 1, 1948

Abdullah crowned King of Arab Palestine
Thirteen later Jordanian parliament confirms union of Transjordan with remnant of
Arab Palestine into The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

 

Before war ends Israel holds first national election

 

USA:

Menachem Begin visits US on fundraising tour for his new Freedom Party (Herut, predecessor of Likud)


December 4
Einstein, others denounce Begin, Freedom Party

Menachem Begin at home in Tel Aviv in 1948.
The former commander of Irgun (and future Prime Minister) is denounced as a fascist and terrorist by Einstein. (AP photo)

 

 

Einstein, Others, Denounce Menachem Begin

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat HaHerut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin's behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin's party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants — 240 men, women, and children; and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute. The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

Discrepancies Seen

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin. The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

(signed) ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAISEL, SEYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. OSLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH, LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGIS, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SHOENBERG, SAMUEL SHUMAN, M. SINGER, IRMA WOLFE, STEFAN WOLFE

Dec. 2, 1948

Letter to Editor, New York Times, December 4, 1948

EGYPT:
28th December

Nokrashy Pasha, the prime minister gunned down by Muslim Brotherhood

 

Israel's Independence War / Arabs' Al Naqba
Phase 2: Pan-Arab Invasion

Operation Horev: Israeli offensive to drive out Egyptian force and compel them to sign armistice - December 22, 1948


Egyptian invasion force staging in Gaza

Israel Defense Force advances in the Negev desert towards Egyptian invasion force (AP photo)

 

 

 

 

 

Final cease fire is ordered January 9, 1949 marking end of first Arab-Israeli War. (Egypt signs armistice in February, followed by other combatants)


1949 signing armistice in the field (AP photo)

 

USA:

Einstein operated on for abdominal pains
Doctors at Jewish Hospital, Boston find aortic aneurysm, decide it's too dangerous to operate and not an imminent threat.

 
1949
EINSTEIN REJOICES AT ISRAEL'S BIRTH,
DEFINES REMAINING ZIONIST GOALS:
PEACE, UPHOLDING "
HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARDS"
 
PALESTINE:

7 January
UN-decrees cease-fire, marking the formal end to first Arab-Israeli war.

January 25
Israel's first national elections
David Ben-Gurion's party (Mapai) forms a coalition with the religious parties and the Progressive party. Menachem Begin's Herut party, a successor to the Revisionist Movement and the former Irgun

 

First election: David Ben-Gurion, standing, Israeli's first prime minister, delivers the opening speech during campaigning prior to elections at Habima Theatre in Israel on Jan. 1949. The nation's first government elections will take place Jan. 25. (AP Photo)

 

Arab representatives elected to first Keneset in 1949 election
January 24
First Holocaust survivors detained on Cyprus allowed to sail for Israel.

Cyprus detainees arrive aboard Atzmaut (Independence) 1949

February
Egypt signs armistice
,
followed by negotiated cessation of of hostilities with other combatants:

Arabs: This is not peace. Our war will continue...
All Arab states make clear: Armistice agreements are only temporary cease fires - until next round of fighting.

1945 Arab League boycott of "Zionists" intensifies
Three aspects evolve:
Primary boycott prohibits direct trade between Israel and the Arab nations.
Secondary boycott of companies that do business with Israel.
A tertiary boycott blacklist of firms that trade with other companies that do business with Israel.

 
YEMEN:
Attacks on Yemeni Jews, looting
After Israel's successful defense in 1948 war, mobs rampaged, sending the Jews fleeing for survival and forfeiting their property to the state. Israel's Operation Magic Carpet brings some 50,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel.

Yemen's Jews Flee to Israel
The mass airlift is dubbed "Operation Magic Carpet"

 

Jewish immigrants arrive 1949

 

Egalitarian socialist institutions predominate in new Israeli state. Einstein approves.

On May 1, 1949, Israel had its first May Day Parade with over 20,000 marchers and a crowd of thousands lining the sidewalks to cheer them. All of Israel's labor unions, and cooperative organizations took part, including this float representing the Kibbutzim showing agricultural machinery. The parade ended in Tel Aviv Football Stadium where a gigantic rally was held. Mrs. Golda Mayerson, Israel's Minister of Labor addressed the throng. (AP Photo and original caption)

USA:

Einstein eulogizes Zionist leader,
friend Stephen Wise

Among all those whom I have personally met who have labored in the cause of justice and in the interest of the hard-pressed Jewish people, only a few were at all times selfless -- but there was no one who gave his love and energy with such consuming devotion as Stephen Wise. All his life he has been a fighter for Zionism...

There are those who do not love him [e.g. Revisionist Zionists] , but... everybody knows that behind the enormous labors of this man there has always been the passionate desire to make mankind better and happier.

Out of My Later Year

.

 

 

 

 
 
Einstein, recovering from surgery in Florida.
Too weak to play violin, he walks the beach and occasionally gets to sail. He writes to Muhsam:
 
 
 

Einstein: Zionist-baiting now finished

There is now general rejoicing about Israel's success. The worst Zionist baiters have forgotten the past. What has been achieved can only be admired!

Letter to Musham

SYRIA:

Syrian army officers seize power from discredited Syrian Prime Minister
Inaugurating 20 years of nearly annual coups

Hebrew University bestows an honorary degree
on one of its primary founders 1949

Einstein Predicts Future: Fruitful Co-operation,
Mutual Respect, Trust with the Arab People

"[Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Mount Scopus campus] is today a living thing, a home of free learning and teaching and happy collegial work. There it is, on the soil that our people have liberated under great hardships; there it is, a spiritual center of a flourishing and buoyant community whose accomplishments have finally met with the universal recognition they deserve.

In this last period of the fulfillment of our dreams there was but one thing that weighed heavily upon me: the fact that we were compelled by the adversities of our situation to assert our rights through force of arms; it was the only way to avert complete annihilation. The wisdom and moderation of the leaders of the new state have shown gives me confidence that gradually relations will be established with the Arab people which are based on fruitful cooperation and mutual respect and trust ."

From a speech to Hebrew University upon receiving an honorary doctorate March 15, 1949 published as "To the University of Jerusalem

April-May

Einstein: Zionism Was Not Seeking a State

Zionism in 1921 strove for the establishment of a national home, not the foundation of a state in the political sense. However, this later aim has been realized because of the pressure of necessity.

Liberal Judaism 16 (April-May 1949)

.

1949
Einstein at Princeton: At home with Jewish refugee children.
July
Israel offers to allow 100,000 Arab refugees to return as part of overall peace deal.
Alternatively, Israel would annex Gaza strip and absorb refugees.
Israel argues it needs abandoned lands to house influx of refugees. Arab states refuse deal. Only Jordan offers refugees citizenship rights.

New State of Israel is broke: "Austerity" regimen enforced
Food, other staples tightly rationed. Austerity regulations last ten years.
(Dancing a hora to a song on austerity, austerity, austerity - tzena, tzena, tzena - becomes a hit.)

Einstein: Israel is "precious gift" to all Jews. We must not let it fail economically.
Also, we must work out peace with Arabs


Einstein Urges Support for New State of Israel

There is no problem of such overwhelming importance to us Jews as consolidating that which has been accomplished in Israel with amazing energy and unequaled willingness for sacrifice. May the joy and admiration that fill us when we think of all that this small group has achieved give us the strength to accept the great responsibility which the present situation has placed upon us.


When appraising the achievement, however, let us lose sight of the cause to be served by this achievement: rescue of our endangered brethren...creation of a community which conforms as closely as possible to the ethical ideals of our people... One of these ideals is peace, based on understanding and self-restraint and not on violence. If we are imbued with this ideal, our joy becomes somewhat mingled with sadness, because our relations with the Arabs are far from the ideal at the present time. It may well be that we would have reached this ideal, has we been permitted to work out, undisturbed by others, our relations with our neighbors, for we want peace and we realize that our future development depends on peace...


It was much less our own fault or that of our neighbors than that of the Mandatory Power, that we did not achieve an undivided Palestine in which Jews and Arabs would live as equals, free, in peace...

The Jews of Palestine did not fight for political independence for its own sake, but they fought to achieve free immigration for the Jews of many countries where their very existence was in danger; free immigration also for those longing for a life among their own. It is no exaggeration to say that they fought to make possible a sacrifice that is perhaps unique in history...

It must not be that this magnificent work breaks down because the Jews of this country [America] do not help sufficiently or quick enough. Here, to my mind, is a precious gift with which all Jews have been presented: the opportunity to take an active part in this wonderful task.

NBC radio broadcast for the United Jewish Appeal, New York, November 27, 1949 published as "The Jews of Israel" in Out of My Later Years Greenwood Press, Westport, CN (1950) pp. 274-276

December 8

Refugee relief agency established by UN
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) created to provided support for persons displaced by recent combat, both inside and outside Israel.
UNRWA will suspend relief to persons within Israel's borders in 1952 when the Israeli government assumes responsibility [using funds raised by appeals to private donors, such as that by Einstein (above)]. Arab refugees remain wards of UNRWA to this day.

December 10

Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man passes UN General Assembly
Milestone in advancement of Human Rights was secured by Eleanor Roosevelt. Longtime Zionist champion, she had threatened to resign her UN appointment if President Truman failed to recognize and aid the newly formed State of Israel.



 

ALBERT EINSTEIN'S ZIONISM CONTINUES...


Before Zionism
1910-1919
1920-1929
1940-1949