Nazi Germany And The Palestinian Arabs

Some things never change. According to documents from the British National Archive:

"If war were to break out, no trouble that the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment against the importance of winning Muslim opinion to our side," Britain's Minister for Coordination of Defence, Lord Chatfield, told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly before Britain reversed its decision to partition its mandate, promising instead all of the land to the Palestinian Arabs.

Even back then--

• Moslems rioted
• The West caved
• Jews were betrayed

But according to the article, reports from the British archives show that the catalyst for events during the 1930's was Nazi Germany, which is documented as having attempted to send arms to the Palestinian Arabs.

But there is an irony in the plans both Nazi Germany and England had for Palestine--and in the way they executed them. On the one hand:

German records show that the Nazis viewed the establishment of a Jewish state with great concern. A 1937 report from German General Consulate in Palestine said: "The formation of a Jewish state… is not in Germany's interest because a (Jewish) Palestinian state would create additional national power bases for international Jewry such as for example the Vatican State for political Catholicism or Moscow for the Communists. Therefore, there is a German interest in strengthening the Arabs as a counter weight against such possible power growth of the Jews."

On the other hand, according to Bernard Lewis in The Crisis of Islam (p. 94), it was the Nazis who permitted and even encouraged Jewish migration to British controlled Palestine until the the outbreak of WWII--while the British unsuccessfully tried to gain Arab goodwill by imposing restrictions.

The other irony Lewis notes is that

the Palestinian leadership of the time, and many other Arab leaders, supported the Germans, who sent the Jews to Palestine, rather than the British, who tried to keep them out. (p. 94)

But with all the enduring influence Nazi Germany had in the region, and the success it had in the short term in frustrating the immigration of Jews into Palestine, in the end--it failed and was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the restoration of the State of Israel just as it failed in its plan to wipe out the Jewsl.

Let Iran take note.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Nazi Germany and Palestinians and Palestine and Bernard Lewis.