Discussion on Zionism and its Impact

So usually when we talk about Zionism, the history of Zionism, we talk about the impact

that the Zionist movement had on the Palestinians.

Rightfully so.

I spent 15 years of my life writing about Palestinian history, focusing on the impact

of Zionism and the State of Israel on the Palestinians.

And that's correct, because the Palestinians are obviously the primary victims of the Zionist

movement.

But I want to pick up on something Francesca Albanese said earlier, which is, I think most

people in this room are well aware of the consequences that Zionism has had on the Palestinians.

But we also want to meet people where they're at.

And we're also trying to compel and convince Jews and non-Jews alike who believe all kinds

of myths about Zionism, such as the Zionist movement set out to save Jews fleeing persecution.

That's sort of the narrative.

That's the grand story that Zionists tell about Zionism and why we should support it.

Although the Zionists claim they were all about saving Jews fleeing persecution, the

reality of the history of the Zionist movement is quite the opposite.

And I want to spend a few minutes talking about that, which is that in the early period

before World War I, the Zionist movement rejected about 61% of Jews that wanted to immigrate

to Palestine.

Arthur Rupin and Menachem Schenken were the Zionist officials based in Jaffa who rejected,

like I said, 61% of the applicants.

Why were they rejected?

The primary reason for the rejection?

They were too destitute.

They were too poor.

The Zionist movement didn't want poor Jews.

They wanted wealthy Jews to prop up those flailing settlements, those flailing economic

enterprises that were not self-sustaining.

That's why they needed financial backstops.

That's why they wanted rich Jews, not poor Jews.

After World War I, Chaim Weizmann, he obviously compelled the British government to adopt

the Balfour Declaration.

So now after World War I, it's 1919, 1920, the British have established a British mandate

in Palestine.

And at the same time, you had about 50,000 to 100,000 Ukrainian Jews that were murdered

in pogroms in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922.

So you had hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Jews fleeing, looking for a safe haven.

Chaim Weizmann goes to the British in 1920 and 1921 and compels them to reduce Jewish

immigration quotas to Palestine.

Well, that would be a strange thing to do if you were all about saving Jews from persecution,

wouldn't it be?

Because he didn't want refugees.

He didn't want Ukrainian refugees.

He didn't want families with kids and elderly people who had diseases.

No, those people would burden the Zionist movement.

And so he actually went to the British and he compelled them to reduce the number of

Jews allowed to Palestine.

He said, this is a direct quote, even 1% of them, if they show up to Palestine, will ruin

the whole Zionist project.

Because they were refugees.

They were by definition unwanted.

The Zionist movement wanted ideologues.

So not just wealthy Jews, but also ideological Jews who wanted to move to Palestine in order

to build a Jewish state.

The point was building a Jewish state.

In 1922, you had thousands of Jews who faced anti-Jewish persecution in Iran.

They fled to Baghdad.

The Baghdad Zionists wrote letters to the Palestine office.

We got thousands of Jews, Iranian Jews, they're fleeing, they need a safe haven.

The Palestine office wrote back, we don't want refugees.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Zionist movement actually sent Jews back to Europe.

Those misfits, those outcasts, those invalids, those diseased Jews, those unwanted Jews,

they were sent back to Europe.

In fact, they were sent back to Nazi Germany after 1933.

Between 1933 and 1939, the Zionist movement rejected about two thirds of the German Jews

that wanted to migrate to Palestine.

Well, if you were all about saving Jews fleeing persecution, presumably, the German Jews would

be at the top of the list.

They were living in Nazi Germany.

But most of them were rejected because they were of the incorrect human material.

They were weak.

They were poor.

They were refugees.

They wanted to move to Palestine for material reasons, not for ideological reasons, so they

were unwanted.

In 1938, Ben Gurion, leader of the Zionist movement, a famous quote in a Jewish agency

executive meeting, after the Kristallnacht pogrom, in which 91 Jews are slaughtered,

thousands of Jewish businesses destroyed, it's the most severe pogrom in Nazi Germany

to date.

And so after that pogrom, you have this effort to rescue Jewish children from Germany to

Britain.

10,000 of them.

It's called Kindertransport.

They're going to take these Jews to Britain.

Ben Gurion says to his comrades, to his affiliates in the Jewish agency executive, he says, if

he could have saved all those Jews and brought them to Britain, or if I could have only saved

half those Jews, but the half I could save would come to Palestine, I would save the

half.

In 1940, American Zionists compelled U.S. President Roosevelt at the time, because Roosevelt

had decided we're going to save 150,000 Jews in Europe.

The American Zionists said, what do you mean?

Save them?

Wait, save them to the United States?

Those Jews are needed as demographic weapons in Palestine.

And so they sabotaged the rescue efforts.

It wasn't just American Jews that sabotaged rescue efforts, it was also the Zionist community

in Palestine.

After World War II, you have hundreds of thousands of Jews in the DP camps in Austria and Germany

and Italy.

Ben Gurion travels to the displaced person camps, and he meets with the displaced person

leaders, Holocaust survivors, people who just survived five years of hell.

And he compels them, do not allow any Jews to be rescued to France, Germany, the U.S.

and Italy or elsewhere.

At a time when you had all these attempts to rescue all of these Jewish displaced persons,

Holocaust survivors, Ben Gurion said, no, we need those Jews in Palestine.

And I'll just end on this one note.

After 1948, after the Zionist movement is in control of its own immigration policy,

the selective immigration policy continues.

In fact, between 1948 and 1954, a majority of North African Jews were rejected.

Not that they wanted to come to Palestine in the first place, actually most of them

wanted to go to Europe.

But two thirds of Moroccan Jews were rejected.

Why?

For the same reasons.

The four criteria.

What's your profession?

Can you work?

Can you help us build a Jewish state in a country that's 90, 80, 70% non-Jewish?

Do you have capital?

Are you bringing money with you?

Because that's what the Zionist movement needs.

So it's your profession, it's how much capital you have, it's your health status.

Are you healthy?

Are you going to be a burden on us?

We're not about saving, disease, Jews fleeing persecution, no, we want you to be healthy.

And that's why they rejected a majority of the Moroccan Jews that wanted to move to Israel

after 1948 until 1954.

And they loosened the policy afterwards.

They also needed Jews to line the frontier, to act as human shields on the front line.

As the state of Israel built 120 settlements along the frontier in the north, along the

border with Lebanon, in the quote unquote Gaza envelope, all those towns that were attacked

on October 7th, well guess what?

Those towns were built for the purpose of putting civilians on the front lines as human

shields and that's what they were tragically used for on October 7th.

And so I think when we're zooming out and thinking about the Zionist movement, we're

all well aware that the Zionist movement was catastrophic for the Palestinian people.

Displacement, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and now genocide.

But I think it's also incumbent upon us to learn that the Zionist movement was not about

rescuing Jews, it wasn't about saving Jews fleeing persecution, it wasn't about that

in the 1910s or 20s or 30s or 40s, it wasn't about that in the 1950s.

And today, we want to bring this story all the way up to the present day.

Where are Jews most in danger?

Where is a Jew most likely to be targeted for being Jewish?

Well guess what?

It's not the United States, it's not here in Ireland, it's in Israel.