Haavara FAQs: The Blue and the Yellow Stars of David By Dina Porat (Book Review)

 

Ms. Porat's book is very well-researched on Zionism and how its leaders reacted to Shoah before, during, and after WWII. Dina examined primary sources and included lots of data that make this book a must-read book. On the other hand,

1. Ms. Porat made very serious errors (see Part One, p. 5-22) by quoting blatant lies (without citing the sources) that were made popular by Joan Peters' hoax of a book "From Time Immemorial" (which NY Times rebuked early on; 6 years before Dina released her book). Honestly, we were baffled how she could make such serious errors, especially when she emphasized that Arabs immigrated to Palestine in large numbers in the 1930s (as a result of the influx of Jewish capital via the Haavara Agreement), although the truth is the opposite. It is a fact that a lot of Palestinians immigrated to the South & Latin Americas even before Nakba.
2. Dina went on a limp to find excuses and to concoct the necessary Hasbarah (without citing any evidence) to find excuses for Zionist leaders' conduct at the time. For example, for some reason, Ms. Porat avoided citing Ben-Gurion's infamous hate speech (when he incited the murdering of German Jews a month after the Kristallnacht pogrom in late 1938) although she cited the exact meeting where it happened (see page 2, when JAE spoke of Shoah in the past tense). If she is trying to dig into Zionists' heads at the time and to find different meanings for the words Shoah or destructions to mean something else, at least bring out how Ben-Gurion always looked upon Europe's Jews' suffering as the LEVER (by exploiting or fomenting a European Jewish refugee crisis) that will create the "Jewish state." Sadly, this analysis applies to most Jewish historians like Tom Segev, Aaron Berman, and many others. They all have a blind spot to Zionists' blatant antisemitism, especially when it is an open secret that Europe's Jews were anti-Zionists who considered Zionists the enemy from within.
3. Fake Valor: Jewish-Brigade, Italy April - 1945: The Impostering Hero, see me while I bomb Nazis ONLY a few weeks before WWII ended. We wonder if similar selfies were taken at the El Alamein meat grinder!
   Ms. Porat never addressed the main issue: Zionist leaders' response to saving Jews to places other than Palestine! She cited one or two times that was the case, and one of them with a reference cited (see p. 235-36), but the other lacked details. This issue was the primary driver that drove American Jews to investigate Zionists' dominant organizations in the early 1980s, which got nixed quickly.
4. Ms. Porat completely ignored the effect of the Bergson Group on FDR, creating the War Refugee Board. WRB was credited with saving 200k Jews and spent eight times the so-called yishuv spent on rescue during WWII in very little time. Most importantly, Zionist leaders fought the WRB with tooth and nail.
5. Ms Porat chewed Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl's reputation and went on a limp to discredit him (see pages 174 - 188). She primarily used the fact that some of his evidence was based on his memories (especially related to Schwalb's letter, which was Jewish Agency's representative in Geneva) and not on primary documentation. YES, primary documents are important for history's sake, but isn't that too much to ask from the Rabbi who jumped from a cattle train car while being shipped to Auschwitz? Not only Mr. Schwalb's letter was corroborated by Andrej Steiner (from the Working Group, see p. 77) who was cited by Yehuda Baur, but most importantly, what was written by Schwaulb was typical of Zionists' opinions at the time especially once compared to Ben-Gurion's infamous hate speech, or Y. Gruenbaum (the head of the so-called Rescue Committee) whom she reported about his antisemitism during the war. To robb salt in the wound, she credited Rabbi Michael (of Al Domi group) for the idea that the death camps and the railroads into them should be bombed, although it was Weissmandl who was the first to propose it. It is worth noting that Zionists were against doing that not only as late as June of 1944 but MOST IMPORTANT in 1943 when it came during the American Jewish Conference. Rescuing Jews was officially deprioritized (American Jewish Conference Report On The Interim Committee And Commissions On Rescue, Palestine And Post War", see pages 4-5, 12-13, 16-17, & 18-19)
6. It was really sad that those who wrote the Auschwitz Protocols (a.k.a. Vrba-Wetzler report) Ms. Porat intentionally kept them nameless, although the source she cited named them by name! Not only wasn't AP translated to Hebrew, but also Rudolf Vbra's memoirs. That is why many Israelis have never heard of them. Just imagine the same land of Israel, which refused to boycott Nazis goods, boycotted the free and the brave. No wonder the majority of Kapos walked free in Israel, and those who pointed their fingers at them were prosecuted by the state.
7. Were the British so STUPID as to promise COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE to Palestinians in 1939 (who, of course, "didn't exists") while the Indians had been DREAMING of such a thing for 400 years?
   On multiple occasions, Dina reminded the readers of thousands of the so-called Yishuv who enlisted in the British Army to fight Hitler. That said, she failed to tell the readers that ONLY a few of them saw action as WWII was winding down! Could that be based on Ben-Gurion's orders, as Tom Segev reported in The Seventh Million, and his desire to save the Yishuv so that he would be free to fight the Arabs just a few years later? (The Seventh Million, p. 83-4, 86-89)
8. Ms. Porat used incredible propaganda (a.k.a. Hasbarah, gaslight) to show Palestinians' resistance to British colonialism of their land as terror. Still, she portrayed Haganah terror on the British and the 1939 White Paper as appeasement to Arabs. On the other hand, when Zionists were the FIRST to normalize trade with Nazis for 9 years straight, that was no appeasement (here is Nahum Goldmann looking back with regrets on the "good old days" when Jews appeased the Nazis)! It seems Hasbarah dies hard. In this regard, Palestinians wonder how Jewish historians would characterize Palestinians' resistance against the Napoleonic invasion of Palestine! Would they label our response as terror, attack, or resistance? As if Jewish historians believe that Palestinians didn't exist, and Jews (who mostly don't live in Palestine even after it was emptied) have a valid claim to the land! Dina doesn't see colonization whatsoever! Palestinians got more empathy from Jabotinsky than from the most liberal of Jewish historians.