In 1941, Yitzhak Shamir committed "an unforgivable crime from the moral point of view: he preached an alliance with Hitler, with Nazi Germany, against Great Britain."

Source : Bar Zohar. "Le prophète armé-- : Ben Gourion." (Fayard. Paris 1966, p.99.)

When the war against Hitler began, almost all the Jewish organizations joined forces with the Allies and some of the most eminent leaders, such as Weizmann, declared themselves on the allied side; but the German Zionist group, though it was a small minority at the time, took the opposite side : from 1933 to 1941, it was committed to a policy of compromise and even of collaboration with Hitler. The Nazi authorities, even while they persecuted the Jews, for example by dismissing them from the Civil Service, kept contact with the Zionist leaders, granting them special treatment and distinguishing them from the "integrationist" Jews they were hunting down.

The accusation of collusion with the Hitlerian authorities does not therefore apply to the immense majority of Jews; these had not even waited until the war to fight Fascism with weapons, as they did in Spain from 1936 to 1939 as members of the International brigades, all the way to the Warsaw ghetto where the fighters of the "Jewish Committee" showed that they knew how to die in battle.

But the highly organized minority of Zionist leaders collaborated with the Nazis for eight years. Their one goal was to create a powerful Jewish State, while their racist vision of the world made them more anti-British than anti-Nazi.

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In the days of Hitler and Mussolini, the Zionist leaders behaved in an ambivalent way with regards to Fascism, at times sabotaging the anti-Fascist struggle and even attempting to collaborate at others. The fundamental aim of the Zionists was not to save Jewish lives but to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Ben Gurion, Israel's first head of State, declared outright to the "Labor" Zionists on December 7th 1938 : "If I knew it was possible to save all the children in Germany by taking them to England, and only half of the children by taking them to Eretz Israel, I would choose the second solution. For we must take into account not only the lives of these children but also the history of the people of Israel."

Source : Yvon Gelbner, "Zionist policy and the fate of European Jewry", in Yad Vashem studies (Jerusalem, vol. XII, p. 199).

"The saving of the Jews in Europe did not figure at the head of the list of priorities of the ruling class. It was the foundation of the State which was primordial in their eyes."

Source : Tom Segev. "Le septième million" Ed. Liana Levi, Paris, 1993, p.539"

(...) Must we help all those who need it without taking into account the characteristics of each one? Must we not give this action a national Zionist character and attempt to give priority to the saving of those who can be useful to the Land of Israel and to Judaism? I know it may seem cruel to pose the question in this way, but unfortunately we must establish clearly that if we are able to save 10,000 people out of the 50,000 people who can contribute to the construction of the land and to the national rebirth, or else a million Jews who will become a burden for us or at best a dead weight, we must restrict ourselves to the saving of the 10,000 who can be saved - despite the accusations and the appeals of the million left behind."

Source : Memorandum of the "Salvation Committee" of the Jewish Agency. 1943. Quoted by Tom Segev. Op. cit. p.124.

It was this fanaticism which inspired, for instance, the attitude of the Zionist delegation at the Evian conference of July 1938, where 31 nations had gathered to discuss the absorption of refugees from Nazi Germany : the Zionist delegation demanded, as the only possible solution, the admission of 200,000 Jews to Palestine.

The Jewish state was more important than the lives of Jews.

As far as the Zionist leaders were concerned, the worst enemy was "assimilation". In this they resembled the Hitlerians as do all racists, for whom the fundamental preoccupation is purity of blood. This is why the Hitlerians regarded the Zionists as valid interlocutors who served their designs, insofar as Hitler's ultimate goal was to rid Germany, and later Europe, of all Jews. We have proof of this collusion between Nazis and Zionists.

To attain its practical objectives, Zionism hopes it will be able to collaborate with a government that is fundamentally hostile to the Jews....The realization of Zionism is impeded only by the resentment of Jews from without against the present German orientation The propaganda in favor of Zionism currently aimed against Germany is essentially non-Zionist... "

Source : Lucy Dawidowicz, "A Holocaust reader", p. 155.

The memorandum added that "should the Germans accept the cooperation of the Zionists, these would try to dissuade Jews abroad from supporting the anti-German boycott."

Source : Lucy Dawidowicz : "The war against Jews (1933-1945)" Penguin books. 1977. p.231-232

The Hitlerian leaders were well-disposed towards the Zionists, whose exclusive aim was to create a state in Palestine, thus favoring their own designs to get rid of the Jews. Alfred Rosenberg, the chief Nazi theoretician, wrote : "Zionism must be vigorously backed so that a yearly contingent of German Jews shall be transported to Palestine."

Source : A. Rosenberg : "Die Spur des juden im Wandel der Zeiten". Munich 1937. p.153.

"We must separate the Jews into two categories, the Zionists and the partisans of assimilation. The Zionists profess a strictly racial concept and, through emigration to Palestine, they help to build their own Jewish State...our good wishes and our official goodwill go with them."

"The German Betar received a new name: Herzlia. The activities of the movement in Germany had to obtain, of course, the approval of the Gestapo; in fact, Herzlia acted under the protection of the Gestapo. One day, a group of SS attacked a Betar summer camp. The head of the movement then complained to the Gestapo and, a few days later, the secret police declared that the SS in question had been punished. The Gestapo asked the Betar what compensation would seem most adequate. The movement asked that the recent prohibition that had struck them, forbidding them to wear brown shirts, be lifted; their request was granted."

Source : Ben-Yeruham, "Le livre de Betar" T. II, p. 350.

A circular issued by the Wilhelmstrasse indicated : "The goals that this category of Jews have set themselves (those Jews who oppose assimilation and favor a regrouping of their co-religionaries within a nation), with the Zionists in the front rank, are those least distant from the goals pursued in reality by Germany's policy towards the Jews."

Source : Circular letter by Bulow-Schwante to all the Reich diplomatic missions. #83. February 28,1934.

"There is no reason," wrote Bulow-Schwante to the Ministry of the Interior, "to impede by administrative measures the Zionist activity in Germany ; for Zionism is not in conflict with the National-Socialist program, whose object is to make the Jews leave Germany progressively."

Source : Letter number ZU 83-21. 28/8, April 13, 1935.

These directives confirmed previous measures and were applied scrupulously. By virtue of the privileged status of Zionism in Germany, the Bavarian Gestapo addressed the following circular to the police on January 28,1935: "By reason of their activity orientated towards emigration to Palestine, the members of the Zionist organization must not be treated with the harshness needed in dealing with the members of German Jewish (assimilationist) organizations."

Source : Kurt Grossmann : "Sionistes et non sionistes sous la loi nazie dans les années 30" Yearbook.Vol. VI, p.310.

"The Zionist organization of German Jews had a legal existence until 1938, five years after the advent of Hitler....

Source : Leibowitz : "Israel et Judaisme". Ed. Desclée de Brouwer, 1993. p. 116.

In exchange for their official recognition as sole representatives of the Jewish community, the Zionist leaders offered to break the boycott which the world anti-Fascists were trying to organize. Economic collaboration began in 1933 : two companies were created : the "Haavara Company" at Tel Aviv and the "Paltreu", in Berlin.

The mechanism of the operation was the following : a Jew wanting to emigrate would deposit a minimum of 1,000 pounds sterling at the Wasserman Bank in Berlin or in the Warburg bank in Hamburg. With this sum, Jewish exporters could buy German goods for Palestine, and pay the corresponding amount in Palestinian pounds into the Haavara account at the Anglo-Palestine Bank at Tel Aviv. When the immigrant arrived in Palestine, he received the equivalent of the sum he had deposited in Germany.

Several future Israeli prime ministers took part in the "haavara" undertaking, including Ben Gurion, Moshe Sharret (who was then called Moshe Shertok), Golda Meir (who supported it from New York), and Levi Eshkol, who was its representative in Berlin.

Source: "Ben Gourion et Shertok, dans Black": L'accord de la "havaara", p.294. Quoted by Tom Segev in "Le septième million", (Ed. Liana Levi. French translation. 1993, p. 30 and 595).

The operation was advantageous for both parties : the Nazis thus succeeded in breaking the blockade (the Zionists managed to sell German merchandise even in Britain); whereas the Zionists were able to operate the "selective" immigration they desired : only millionaires were able to emigrate, their capital providing the funds needed to develop Zionist colonization in Palestine. In accordance with the goals of Zionism, it was more important to save Jewish capital from Nazi Germany that would permit the development of their undertaking, than to save the lives of poor Jews, unable to work or fight, who would have been a burden.

This policy of collaboration lasted until 1941, in other words eight years after Hitler's rise to power. Eichmann liaisoned with Kastner. The Eichmann trial revealed to some extent the mechanism of this connivance, of these "exchanges" between Zionist Jews "useful" to the creation of a Jewish State (wealthy personalities, technicians and youngsters who could serve to reinforce an army, etc.). with a mass of Jews who, being less favored, were left in Hitler's clutches.

The president of the committee, Ytzhak Gruenbaum, declared on January 18, 1943 : "Zionism comes before everything else.. "

"They're going to say I'm an anti-Semite," Gruenbaum answered, "that I don't want to save the Exile, that I don't have a Warm Yiddish heart (...) Let them say what they want. I won't demand the sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help European Judaism. And I think that whoever demands such things accomplishes an anti-Zionist action."

Source : Gruenbaum: "Jours de destruction", p. 68.

This was also Ben Gourion's point of view: "The Zionist's task is not to save the "rest" of Israel which finds itself in Europe, but to save the land of Israel for the Jewish people."

"The leaders of the Jewish Agency agreed on the fact that the minority which could be saved had to be chosen according to the needs of the Zionist project in Palestine."

Source: Idem p.125.

Significantly, at the time of the 50th anniversary of the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, Yitzhak Rabin asked Lech Walesa not to let one of the co-leaders of the insurrection, Marek Edelman, make a speech.

"It was they who fought against the Nazis with weapons, as did the Jewish volunteers in the international brigades of Spain. Over 30% of the Americans in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade were Jews, who were attacked at the time by the Zionist press because they fought in Spain instead of going to Palestine."

Source : "Jewish Life", April 1938, p. 11.

2,250 of the fighters in the Polish Dombrovski brigade, out of a total of 5,000 Poles, were Jews.

These heroic Jews fought on all fronts side by side with the antiFascist forces of the world. And yet, the Zionist leaders declared in an article by their London representatives entitled : "Must Jews take part in the anti-Fascist movements?" "NO !...", setting a single goal : "the construction of the land of Israel".

Source : Nahum Goldman. "Autobiographie", op.cit. pp. 157- 158. Ibid, p.260.

The Zionists, counting on Mussolini's hostility to England, established contact with him as early as 1922. He had received them after his march on Rome in October, on December 20th 1922.

Source : Ruth Bondy, "The Emissary: a life of Enzo Sereni" (p.45).

This collaboration was already a form of sabotage against the international anti-Fascist struggle. It subordinated the entire Zionist policy to the sole design of building a Jewish state in Palestine. Its design remained unaltered during the war, even when Hitler's persecution of European Jews was at its worst.

When the Jews were deported from Hungary, Rudolf Kastner, the vice-president of the Zionist organization, negotiated with Eichmann on the following basis : if Eichmann allowed the departure to Palestine of 1,684 "useful" Jews who would help in the construction of the future state of Israel (capitalists, technicians, soldiers, etc...) Kastner would allow Eichmann to make 460,000 Hungarian believe that they were not being deported to Auschwitz but simply being transferred.

At the time of the Eichmann trial, Judge Halevi recalled that Kastner had intervened on behalf of one of his Nazi interlocutors : one of Himmler's henchmen, Standartenführer Kurt Becher, escaped punishment thanks to Kastner's testimony at the Nuremberg Trial.

The Judge was formal : "There was no truth or good faith in Kastner's testimony...Kastner deliberately committed perjury in his testimony before this court when he denied that he had intervened on behalf of Becher. Furthermore, he concealed this vital fact : his action on behalf of Becher was made in the name of the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress...It is clear that Kastner's recommendation was not made on a personal basis but also in the name of the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress...and this is why Becher was released by the Allies."

After the verdict, Israeli opinion was shaken. In the newspaper "Haaretz", Dr. Moshe Keren wrote on July 14th 1955 :"Kastner must be tried for collaboration with the Nazis..." But the evening paper "Yediot Aharonot" (23rd June, 1955) clearly explained why this was impossible. "If Kastner is tried, the entire government might collapse before the nation, following what this trial will uncover."

What would be discovered was that Kastner had not acted alone but with the agreement of the other Zionist leaders who were members of the government at the time of the trial. The only way to prevent Kastner from talking and causing a scandal was for him to disappear. And indeed, he died at just the right moment, after which the Israeli Government introduced an appeal to rehabilitate him. The Supreme Court granted the appeal.

This policy of collaboration reached its apogee in 1941, when the most extremist Zionist group, the "LEHI" ("Fighters for the Liberation of Israel"), led by Abraham Stern and, after his death, by a triumvirate of which Itzak Shamir was a member, committed " an unforgivable crime from the moral point of view : advocating an alliance with Hitler, with Nazi Germany, against Great Britain. "

Source : Bar Zohar. "Ben Gourion, le Prophète armé" (Fayard. Paris 1966. p.99)

Eliezer Halevi, a well-known Labor unionist, member of the Gueva Kibbutz, revealed in the weekly "Tel-Aviv Hotam" (August l9th, 1983) the existence of a document signed by Itzak Shamir (who was then called Yezernitsky) and by Abraham Stern; this document was handed over to the German embassy in Ankara at a time of all-out war in Europe, and when Marshal Rommel's troops were already on Egyptian soil. The document said, among other things, "In the matter of concept, we identify with you. So why not collaborate with one another ?" In its issue of January 31st, 1983, "Haaretz" quotes a letter marked "secret", sent in January 1941 by Hitler's ambassador to Ankara, Franz Von Papen, to his superiors. In it, he described his contacts with the members of the Stern Gang, joining a memorandum by the Nazi secret service agent in Damas, Werner Otto Von Hentig, regarding the negotiations with the envoys of Stern and Shamir. The memo said, notably : "cooperation between the Israel liberation movement and the new order in Europe conform with one of the speeches of the Chancellor of the Third Reich, in which Hitler stressed the need to use every combination of coalition to isolate and defeat England." It also said that the Stern Gang had "close links with the totalitarian movements in Europe, their ideology and structures." These documents are to be found at the Holocaust Memorial (Yad Vachem) in Jerusalem, classified under the number E234151-8.

One of the historical leaders of the Stern Gang, Israel Eldad, published an article in the Tel Aviv Daily, "Yediot Aharonot" (February 4th, 1983) in which he confirmed the authenticity of these negotiations between his movement and the official representatives of Nazi Germany. He asserted straight out that his colleagues had explained to the Nazis how there was a probable identity of interest between the new order in Europe based on the German concept, and the aspirations of the Jewish people in Palestine, as represented by the Stern freedom fighters for Israel.

This text was entitled :

"Basic principles of the military organization(NMO) in Palestine (Irgun Zevai Leumi) concerning the solution of the Jewish question in Europe and the active participation of the NMO in the war on the side of Germany."

The following are extracts :

It emerges from the speeches of the leaders of the German National Socialist State that a radical solution to the Jewish question implies an evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe. (Judenreines Europa).

This evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is the primary condition of the solution of the Jewish problem, but it is only made possible by the installation of these masses in Palestine, in a Jewish state with its historical frontiers.

To resolve the Jewish problem definitively and to liberate the Jewish people is the goal of the political activity and the long years of struggle of the "Movement for the Freedom of Israel" (Lehi) and its national military organization in Palestine (Irgun Zevai Leumi).

The NMO, knowing the benevolent position of the Reich government towards the Zionist activity within Germany, and the Zionist emigration projects, considers that:

1) There could exist common interests between the foundation of a new order in Europe, according to the German concept, and the genuine aspirations of the Jewish people as they are incarnated by the Lehi.

2) Cooperation would be possible between the new Germany and a renewed Hebrew nation (Volkish Nationalen Hebraertum).

3) The establishment of the historical Jewish State on a national and totalitarian base, linked by a treaty to a German Reich, could contribute to the reinforcement in the future of Germany's position in the Middle East.

On condition that the German government recognizes the national aspirations of the 'Movement for the Freedom of Israel' (Lehi), the National Military Organization (NMO) proposes to participate in the war on the side of Germany.

The cooperation of the Israel liberation movement would go in the direction of the recent speeches of the Reich chancellor, in which Mr. Hitler stressed that all negotiations and any alliance should serve to isolate England and to defeat it.

Because of its structure and concept of the world, the NMO is narrowly linked to the European totalitarian movements.

Source : The original text, in German, is to be found as appendix number 11 of the book by David Yisraeli : "Le problème palestinien dans la politique allemande, de 1889 " 1945", Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan. Israel, 1974,p. 315-317.

According to the Israeli press, which has published a dozen articles on the subject, the Nazis never took the proposals of Stern, Shamir and their friends seriously.

Such a past did not prevent Izhak Shamir from becoming Prime Minister, and from still being today the leader of a powerful "opposition", the most fiercely determined to continue the occupation of Cisjordania. This is because, in fact, the Zionist leaders all pursue the same racist goal, notwithstanding their internal rivalries : to chase all the native Arabs out of Palestine through terror, expropriation or expulsion, in order to remain the sole conquerors and masters.

Ben Gurion once declared :

"Begin undeniably belongs to the Hitlerian type. He is a racist, ready to destroy all the Arabs in his dream of unification of Israel, prepared to resort to any means to realize this sacred goal."

Source : E. Haber. "Menahem Begin, the man and the legend." Delle Book. New York 1979, p. 385.

The same Ben Gurion never believed in the possibility of coexistence with the Arabs. The fewer Arabs there were within the borders of the future state of Israel, the better it would be. He did not say so explicitly, but the overall impression one gets from his speeches and his comments is clear: a major offensive against the Arabs would not only defeat their attacks but would also reduce as far as possible the percentage of the Arab population within the State. "(...) He can be accused of racism, but then one will have to put on trial the entire Zionist movement, which is founded on the principle of a purely Jewish entity in Palestine."

Source : Bar Zohar (op. cit) p.146.

Source : Court record 124/53. Jerusalem district court.

This prominent magistrate was indeed evoking a constant doctrine of the Zionist movement : its goal was not to save Jews but to build a strong Jewish state.

Source : Alfred H. Lilienthal in "What price Israel", Chicago 1953.p.194-195.

There were several variations on this method of inducement and even of coercion.

In 1940, to arouse indignation against the English, who had decided to save the Jews threatened by Hitler by taking them to Mauritius, the Zionist leaders of the "Hagannah" (led by Ben Gurion) did not hesitate to blow up the ship when it called at Haifa on December 25th 1940, causing the death of 252 Jews and English crewmembers.

Source : Dr. Herzl Rosenblum, director of "Yediot Aharonoth", revelation made in 1958 and justified in "Jewish Newsletter", N.Y., November 1958.

Then began the Israeli terrorist acts in Baghdad in 1950. Confronted by the reticence of the Iraqi Jews to register on the immigration lists for Israel, the Israeli secret services did not hesitate to throw bombs at them to convince them they were in danger...The attack on the Shem-Tov synagogue killed three people and injured dozens more. It was the start of the exodus baptized "Operation Ali Baba".

Source : Ha'olam hazeh. April 20th and June 1st 1966, and "Yediot Aharonoth", November 8th 1977.

This has been a consistent doctrine ever since Theodore Herzl replaced the definition of Jew no longer as a religion but as a race.

Source : Klein : "L'Etat juif", ed. Dunod, Paris, p. 156.

Source : ("Diaries", p. 9)

Source : ("Diaries", p.19)

They did indeed have a common goal : to assemble Jews in a world ghetto.

The facts have borne out Theodore Herzl's arguments.

Ben Gurion's goal was to bring four million Jews to Israel between 1951 and 1961. 800,000 came. In 1960, there were only 30,000 immigrants for the year. In 1975-76, emigration out of Israel outstripped immigration.

Only the great persecutions, such as that in Romania, had given a certain impulse to the Return. Even the Hitlerian atrocities did not succeed in fulfilling Ben Gurion's dream.

Out of the two and a half million Jewish victims of the Nazis which sought refuge abroad between 1935 and 1943, hardly 8,5% went to settle in Palestine. The United States limited their number to 182,000 allowed to enter US soil (less than 7%); England limited the number to 67,000 (less than 2%). The vast majority (1,930,000),in other words 75% found shelter in the Soviet Union.

Source : Institute for Jewish Affairs of New York, quoted by Christopher Sykes in "Crossroads to Israel", London 1965, and by Nathan Weinstock, "Le sionisme contre Israel," p.146.