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 the 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 a serious error (see  p. 13) of implying that Arabs flooded into Palestine (after Jewish alleged development of the country by the Jews) although it is well documented from British Mandate primary sources that under 33,305 Arabs immigrated to Palestine between 1920 and 1945 (see Survey of Palestine, p. 185). Actually, it was Ben-Gurion who correctly said a year before Nakba that the Arabs of Palestine were suffering from emigration, not immigration. This blatant lie (for which Dina never provided a source) was made popular by Joan Peters' hoax of a book, "From Time Immemorial" (which the NY Times rebuked early on), and that was 6 years before Dina released her book! Honestly, we were baffled how she could make such a serious error. If you care, here is how Google AI responded when we casually asked it what to make of what Dina wrote.
2. Dina went out on a limb to find excuses for Zionist leaders' conduct concerning rescuing European Jewry. 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, 9-10, 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 cite how Ben-Gurion looked upon Europe's Jews' suffering as the LEVER that would create the "Jewish state." Sadly, this analysis applies to most Jewish historians like Tom Segev, Yehuda Bauer, 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 only one or two times that was the case. On the other hand, one of them was cited without a reference (see p. 235-36), and the other lacked details. This point was the primary trigger that drove American Jewry to investigate Zionists' actions and policies concerning rescue during WWII in the early 1980s, which was nixed in its early stages.
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 as much as the so-called yishuv spent on rescue during WWII in very little time. Most importantly, Zionist leaders fought the WRB tooth and nail. They were completely ignored.
5. Ms Porat chewed Rabbi Michael Bar-Dov Weissmandl's reputation and went out on a limb 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, who was the 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 in late 1938, or Y. Gruenbaum (the head of the so-called Rescue Committee), whom she reported on his open antisemitism during the war. To rub salt in the wound, she credited Rabbi Michael (of the Al Domi group) for the idea of bombing the death camps and the railroads leading to them, although it was Rabbi Weissmandl who was the first to propose it. It is worth noting that Zionists were against bombing the death camps and the railroads leading to them at the height of calamity. Thus, the idea was on the table since the Holocaust was officially recognized in early 1943. Actually, this idea was openly debated (along with the use of gas chambers) during the infamous American Jewish Conference in the Fall of 1943 (you can read it in the official proceedings). It is worth noting too that this insane policy continued as late as June of 1944, and Ben-Gurion & Co., at the Jewish Agency, ONLY reversed course after the Gentile public in Switzerland protested following the release of the Auschwitz Protocols.
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 Vrba'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 exist") 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.