Scott Johnson at Powerline has an interesting post that touches upon Winston Churchill’s fondness for Jews, and his support for a Jewish homeland, and also describes the background of a proposed meeting between Churchill and Hitler in Germany in 1932 that never came off, apparently because Churchill posed this question to Hitler’s intermediary: “What is the sense of being against a man simply because of his birth? How can any man help how he is born?"
Perhaps that is a question President Obama might one day put to Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
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Alas I think the telling phrase in the article is that he supported a Jewish homeland "where this did not clash with the aspirations of the British Empire" and from the mid 1930s onwards it became pretty clear that the aspirations of the British Empire (which required keeping promises to the Arabs that they wouldn't be disadvantaged) started to run up against the notion of a Jewish homeland. Of course he wasn't in power when restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine started to bite but I suspect he would have come up with much the same outcome. From then on, unfortunately, there was little fondness for Britain in Israel and of course attacks started against British troops as well as Arabs by the Stern Gang and Irgun. I'd like to think that Churchill's philo-semitism survived the murder of his close friend Lord Moyne by the Stern Gang in 1944 but I'm not sure it did.
ReplyDeleteFrom an Israeli perspective I can understand why they felt betrayed but I've always thought it sad that this cast a shadow over UK-Israel relations ever since as without the Balfour Declaration and British protection and active support the State of Israel would almost certainly not now exist.
From an Israeli perspective I can understand why they felt betrayed but I've always thought it sad that this cast a shadow over UK-Israel relations ever since as without the Balfour Declaration and British protection and active support the State of Israel would almost certainly not now exist.
ReplyDeleteVery true.
"Perhaps that is a question President Obama might one day put to Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
ReplyDeleteAnd, perhaps, some day pigs will fly F-22s in the Iranian Air Force.
What? Who, me? Cynical? Naw!
;-p
Great piece of Churchilliana. Great comment by Cac!
ReplyDeleteWhat is the sense of asking a murderous dictator anything that tries to appeal to his non-existent sense that other people are human?
ReplyDelete