Maybe Churchill Wasn't Such A Friend To Jews After All

A friend forwarded to me this news alert from The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies:

Churchill Government Secretly Proposed Anti-Zionist Plan, Scholar Says

The government of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1944 secretly proposed creating a “Greater Syria” that would have shut Holocaust escapees out of Palestine and thwarted creation of a Jewish state, according to an Israeli scholar, citing newly-released French government documents.

“This raises important questions about Winston Churchill’s attitudes toward Jewish refugees and Zionism,” said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. “Further research will hopefully shed more light on whether the gap between Churchill’s rhetoric and his actions was in fact greater than previously realized, as these documents suggest.”

...The British proposed creation of a “Greater Syria” consisting of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Transjordan. London was seeking “preferential status in military, economic, and cultural matters,” veto power over Syria’s agreements with other countries, oil exploration rights in Syria, and a role in the Syrian Army.

Arthur Herman wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal, Churchill understood that the Jews are the bedrock of Western tradition--maybe so, but there is a point where the paths of civilzation and political self-interest part.

Read the complete article in Haaretz.

Technorati Tag: Winston Churchill.