Haavara FAQs: How did Zionist leaders responded when they faced couple existential crises in the 1930s?

NY Times Magazine, April 18, 1982: Zionist leaders admitted there wasn't enough bandwidth to fight the White Paper of 1939 and Hitler. Thus, fighting the Nazis for the Gentiles so they can focus on defeating the White Paper.

In the 1930s, the Zionist movement faced several existential crises that drove the movement into panic mode. At the time, Zionists of all shares behaved more like a chicken with its head cut off where all hands were on deck. As we shall prove soon, Zionists are the most dangerous (to Jews and others) when they feel their existence is at stake (the last of which after the Oct. 7th Raid).

The first existential crisis that confronted Zionism occurred during the great depression when Zionists enterprises (i.e., the Jewish Agency, JNF, ..etc.) were all on the verge of bankruptcy (which drove them to sign the Haavara Agreement with the Nazis), and

The second crisis was the British White Paper of 1939 that promised complete independence to Palestinians after the war, plus it imposed severe limits on future Jewish immigration. Effectively, that reversed Great Britain's commitment in the Balfour Declaration.

Nothing rattled the Zionist movement as those crises until the Oct. 7th Raid arrived. Well, maybe the October War of 1973 comes close to the 4th.

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?

From Zionists' points of view, these existential crises drove Zionists at the time to look upon Jewish immigration to countries other than Palestine as a betrayal, and Zionist leaders were extremely bitter about it. David Ben-Gurion articulated this bitterness in his infamous hate speech a month after the Kristallnacht pogrom (of late 1938) when he wished death to the German Jews who saved themselves by immigrating to England rather than Palestine. What Ben-Gurion articulated was no aberration or off-the-cuff remark. On the contrary, Ben-Gurion's hate speech a month after the pogrom was the rule.

Which hate speech was worse: Hitler's hate speech at the Reichstag on Jan 30th, 1939, or Ben-Gurion's speech (just two months before Hitler's speech) when he incited the murder of German Jews a month after the Kristallnacht pogrom?

What Ben-Gurion articulated reflected the dominant Zionist viewpoint at the time, which explains: A) Why Ben-Gurion's hate speech was never retracted? That by itself is very telling. B) Why Jews, to this date, never condemned Ben-Gurion's apparent antisemitism? It should be noted that Ben-Gurion repeated similar remarks before and after Kristallnacht. Most importantly, C) this explains why and how Ben-Gurion's plan was implemented to the teeth during WWII (see the American Jewish Conference for details). D) This explains why little was done to rescue Jews (especially those who could have been saved in countries other than Palestine) and why little budget was spent on rescue efforts.

David Ben-Gurion envisioned that Nazis' Nuremberg Race Laws would become the LEVER that would end up creating the "Jewish state," but how? Click the image for the details

Thus, from Zionists’ frame of reference, this was a matter of life and death situation for them, and they cared less about those Jews who chose not to immigrate to Palestine (irrespective of the reasons). Actually, Ben-Gurion expressed it the best when he described such rescue efforts as "Witch Doctor's Medicine." From David's point of view this meant that the Jews are only alive in Eretz Yisrael; and in any other place they will be dead anyhow. Based on our research, the vast majority of Zionists agreed with such an outlook (see Catastrophic Zionism for more details; more on that in the next paragraph). Therefore, from his point of view, it was a waste of resources, money, and manpower to rescue those who are not coming to Palestine. As if Ben-Gurion was saying: Why bother? On this note, we were surprised to discover that Ben-Gurion kept repeating similar statements in the 1950s and 1960s, which drove American Jewry crazy because he made a commitment in the early 1950s to stop saying dangerous stuff as such. But as we all know, old habits die hard! Why change a winning formula?

Catastrophic Zionism at its worst: Zionists often spoke of the Holocaust decades before its time. What did Zionists do to confront it? Zionists were the FIRST to normalize trade with the Nazis!

Just in case you think we are implying that Zionism is some apocalyptic cult, well, you are onto something. Zionist and Jewish intellectuals named this phenomenon Catastrophic Zionism. YES, ladies and gentlemen. Zionists were the first to predict the Holocaust three decades before it happened, and instead of warning Jews by saving them anywhere, they focused all their attention, efforts, and resources ONLY on Palestine. This explains why Zionists used to speak of the Holocaust in the past tense in the 1920s and 30s. We managed to trace it to Theodor Herzl's Uganda Scheme when the Israeli founding fathers opposed Herzl's plan to create Israel in Uganda rather than Palestine. In our humble opinion, that was the canary in the coal mine. Now Jews, please give yourselves a big hand on this "wonderful" ideology.