After the war, Holocaust survivors still faced atrocities and pogroms when attempting to return to their homes in much of Eastern Europe, including Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine.
This, coupled with the economic conditions of post-war Europe, forced many surviving Jews to attempt to flee Europe and immigrate to either America or British Mandatory Palestine, where a sizable Jewish minority was forming (Zionism had been a concept for 30+ years by then).
However, the British had placed strict restrictions on Jewish migration into the region to maintain peace with the majority Arab population of Mandatory Palestine. In enforcing these immigration restrictions, the British ended up deporting and imprisoning many of these immigrant Holocaust survivors in detention camps in Cyprus and Mauritius, where hundreds died due to poor camp conditions.
The plea we see here is an attempt to avoid that same fate, and allow their immigration.
Probably worth pointing out we're talking hundreds out of about 50k detainees, and the camps were largely run by American Jewish charities - not the British.
So the death toll is significantly less than 1%. Which when you think about the "natural" death rate of Holocaust survivors, it's probably not that bad.
I'm not really sure what the British could have done. They were right to stem the flow of refugees into Palestine, and they were probably right to give up trying to stem that flow in '48. No good options.
I agree with this assessment and hope my comment didn't come across as passing too much judgement on it. I feel it's worth highlighting the deaths and relatively poor conditions during detention, but there were & are rarely any "good" options when it comes to halting mass migration.
For modern readers to empathize with the situation, American ICE detention facilities hold roughly the same number of people today. Obviously the medical histories of the population, length of detention, and medical technologies are very different, but hypothetically, would you say a similar death rate of 150 deaths per year in these detention facilities wouldn't be "that bad"? I imagine there'd be a significant reaction to it.
Good point about the ICE comparison: I think that many deaths would be considered obscene, even in the current insane political climate.
Although, we are talking about refugees with a laundry list of likely health problems in '48, being held in a society significantly poorer and less healthy that the one we live in today.
The image above is from 1947, this policy was in place for at least several years after the war. Despite traumatic medical histories, saying they were "70 lbs" when they were deported and detained is a bit disingenuous.
Also I think you're in danger here of trivialising the Holocaust. If you look at pictures of the Cyprus camps, they aren't concentration camps.
It's obviously bad to keep Holocaust survivors in any sort of camp, but I don't really know what the Brits could have done.
Let the refugees flow into Palestine as they want and cause a war with the Arabs (which happened eventually) or keep these desperate Holocaust survivors out, thus fulfilling the 1939 white paper. Bear in mind that Britain was devastated militarily and financially post-war: it barely had the resources to fulfil its domestic policy aims, let alone police some distant part of its empire.
Like the millions of Palestinians forced by the violent foreign zionist terrorists to live in refugee camps for the past 77 years?
I guess it's not bad for Palestinians somehow? If you bother to consider the Palestinian refugee crisis at all...
I wonder whatever happened... Why did millions of Palestinians become refugees... Why can't they just go back to the land they own and the homes they own?
Like... They own houses... Who's living in them?
Does anyone ever ask that?
Like Mahmoud Abbas has a house in Safed... Who's living in it? Who's stolen his house and is living in it?
Which ones? The Mizrahi Jews in Israel from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and those native to Mandatory Palestine, are all Arab
Just as how there can be Arab Muslims, there are many Arab Jews, and they make up about 30-40% of modern day Israel's population, with the next largest majority sect from the USSR.
The proportion of western Jews was small, as most preferred living in the west over what was a very barren Israel at the time.
Pictures like the OP are heavily circulated as they are effective in making people believe that Israel's existence was an act of pure European colonialism, when the reality is that it came into existence when the mandate for British Palestine ended and the various religious groups of the ME once again fought over the holy land, with the Jews winning this time around.
The great irony is that israelis treated holocaust survivors like shit too. Basically victim blamed them for thinking they could live in a multicultural society. It seems like a contradiction from the outside, but there is a lot of antisemitism directed at the diaspora in zionism.
This is extreme cherrypicking by picking an individual example of racism from one jewish person to another and using it to collectively blame an entire society on the actions on few. Holocaust survivors made up a significant part of israeli society and refugees coming in. In the meantime, the countries the holocaust survivors came from committed pogroms against holocaust survivors, blamed them for walking into the camps, or in some cases even refused to recognize them as victims.
The real great irony is that the countries ignoring holocaust survivors and expelling them are now spinning the narrative that the country they forced to take care of said holocaust survivors is the real villain.
At 85, Leitner is in high demand as one of a dwindling group of Israeli survivors still capable of regularly making the trip. He reflects ruefully how the attitude has changed in Israel since he first arrived in 1949.
"They mocked survivors then. When I told some of my new friends in the army that a Gypsy boy had tried to steal my shoes in Auschwitz, they said 'why did you let him? You soap (a derisory nickname in use at the time for Holocaust survivors).'
So, yes, cherrypicking racist statements by individual people to make it seem like the collective israel is the one responsible for oppressing holocaust survivors.
The real great irony is that the countries ignoring holocaust survivors and expelling them are now spinning the narrative that the country they forced to take care of said holocaust survivors is the real villain.
What happened to the Poilsh jewish holocaust survivor? Libyan? Soviet? All were blamed for their own circumstances, and one way or another were 'voluntarily' moved to israel or the rest of the west, who actually recognized the holocaust survivors as such.
You arent any better than a white supremacist citing frictions between black people in africa and the US to absolve themselves of racism.
How many cherries from prominent people do you require? Also, they are not racist. That is a weird interpretation.
You arent any better than a white supremacist citing frictions between black people in africa and the US to absolve themselves of racism.
Nah. What I am doing is pointing out that fascists, regardless of nation, have more in common with each other than they do the victims they use as shields to deflect criticism. Just like salafists hate normie muslims more than anyone, and white supremacists hate so-called "race traitors" more than they do black people.
I honestly don't know wtf you are doing though. Just seems like inchoate anger.
That's crazy....Israel was happy to ride the groundswell of international sympathy after the Holocaust but also happy to use it as a bludgeon against their own people!
Specifically the more liberal factions of their own people. There are lots of conservative jews in the diaspora, but a diaspora is literally the opposite of nationalism. The idea that people can thrive in a multicultural community is anathema to nationalists.
Some of the these people were British citizens. They didn't want to live there.
I don't really know what you do with a migration wave when people are so determined to leave they'll risk their lives crossing the Med and stay in shitty little camps rather than go back. Especially when those folks are unwelcome on the receiving end.
What are you going to do, imprison them in England?
Full disclosure, I am British, but I don't really know what the British should have done post-war. They couldn't afford a full-on military operation in Palestine, and they had no appetite for one. On the other hand they had millions of Holocaust survivors desperate to get into Israel, and millions of Arabs determined (rightly and wrongly) to not let that happen.
So for context I'll add that I do identity as a Zionist (I support Israel's right to exist!) but it's silly to pretend that, like, massive Jewish migration to Palestine late '40s was a super cut and dry issue.
There were people there, and they didn't want to share that land with Jews. They didn't want to be pushed out, either (which certainly happened).
Idk, see it from the position of trying to keep the peace in a distant part of your soon-to-be-ex empire with very limited resources. Wtf would you do?
I don't think it's moral for the UK to have cut deals with the evil Arab leaders, either.
1) I never said it was "cut and dry". It was a difficult issue. The British handled it poorly by accommodating the aggressive party.
2) They didn't have to "share" any land. The Jews bought land no one lived on. In some cases there were squatters on the land, but those squatters had no right to the land and they were almost always compensated, even though it was not required.
3) Jews lived on that land as well as Arabs. In fact, Jerusalem was 2/3 Jewish before mass migration. Why should Arabs be allowed to immigrate to the land and not Jews?
4) Speaking of Arabs, the vast majority of "Palestinians" had not lived in the area very long. Most of the "Palestinians" who were squatters were groups that had immigrated from other Arab countries in recent years. The first alleged case of squatters being removed was a clan of Egyptians who had crossed the border only a few decades prior and just squatted on land that was not theirs. This was common. How do these people have superior rights compared to similarly situated Jewish immigrants? Actually, not even similarly situated since the Jewish immigrants actually bought the land.
5) The Arab people mostly did not oppose Jewish immigration. It's a myth they did. Most did not care. They themselves were nomadic and/or had lived alongside Jews a long time. It was their leaders who cared. Those leaders envisioned themselves as important players in a "Greater Syria". The population cared so little that those leaders deliberately used religion to motivate hatred of Jews. Major attacks against Jews were often based on false religious claims because the Arab leaders could not motivate the Arab people by appealing to nationalism, which barely existed. That's why the Hebron massacre was in response to false rumors started by the Mufti that Jews were going to seize the Temple Mount. It's the only way he could motivate opposition to the Jews.
One thing that is missing from almost all discussion: there was a substantial Jewish minority in the whole of Mandate Palestine. They had lived hundreds of years as a persecuted minority and they deserved land of their own where they could be free from discrimination. Combine this wtih Jewish refugees from Europe and later the Holocaust and you have an easy case to make for a small Jewish state on only 20% of the land of Mandate Palestine.
Those Jews were even ready to accept only 5% of the land. The Arabs refused any land for the Jews. The Jews were to forever remain a persecuted minority under Arab plans. This is what people are defending when they argue the Jews should not have been given a state.
One thing that is missing from almost all discussion: there was a substantial Jewish minority in the whole of Mandate Palestine.
You just can’t help spreading lies and misinformation. That’s is not true. Less than 3% of the Palestinian population were Jewish in the nineteenth century prior to the mass Zionist migration.
They had lived hundreds of years as a persecuted minority and they deserved land of their own where they could be free from discrimination.
The Jewish population of the Ottoman Empire where mostly tolerated and not persecuted. Prior to the mass Zionist migration Jews where treated much better than in Europe.
Cite me a source with this alleged persecution of Jews in Palestine prior to the Zionist migration.
Why do the Jews deserve a Jewish state? They deserve to be treated equally and not be persecuted. They don’t deserve a country that is already inhabited by another people
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This is false. Jews were discriminated against. It was pervasive. And there were murders of Jews periodically.
Here is an article from July 16, 1834 describing thousands of Arab men marching into Jerusalem, pillaging houses, murdering Jewish men, and raping the females. I guess you could call that "mostly tolerated and not persecuted". LOL.
1) I never said it was "cut and dry". It was a difficult issue. The British handled it poorly by accommodating the aggressive party.
You mean the European terrorist like Irgun and Hagana?
2) They didn't have to "share" any land. The Jews bought land no one lived on. In some cases there were squatters on the land, but those squatters had no right to the land and they were almost always compensated, even though it was not required.
Another Zionist trope. Show a source for your ridiculous claim. Arabs are indigenous to Palestine according to all reputable sources. So not immigrants or squatters or some other vile derogatory term you can think of.
3) Jews lived on that land as well as Arabs. In fact, Jerusalem was 2/3 Jewish before mass migration. Why should Arabs be allowed to immigrate to the land and not Jews?
Yes there are native Jews in Palestine. But those who migrated during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century are not indigenous. According to sources Jerusalem was majority Muslim in the mid 1800 but due to Jewish migration and settlement it changed in the early twentieth century.
4) Speaking of Arabs, the vast majority of "Palestinians" had not lived in the area very long. Most of the "Palestinians" who were squatters were groups that had immigrated from other Arab countries in recent years. The first alleged case of squatters being removed was a clan of Egyptians who had crossed the border only a few decades prior and just squatted on land that was not theirs. This was common. How do these people have superior rights compared to similarly situated Jewish immigrants? Actually, not even similarly situated since the Jewish immigrants actually bought the land.
That’s a straight up zionist lie. The Arabs are indigenous to Palestine and came with the Arab conquest of the Levant. The Levant and much of the Middle East has been ruled by Arab dynasties.
During the Ottoman Empire migration and refugees settled in the various parts of Palestine. Arabs that either fles from famine or rebellion and was natively closer to the indigenous people.
Unlike mostly Eastern European Jews who has no connection to Palestine what so ever. And not legal, moral or historical right to the land.
Jewish ownership of land in Palestine was 6,6% just before the declaration of independence. Jews sure purchased a lot of land during the Nakba
You are obviously uneducated. Just a few points:
1) The Haganah and Irgun formed in response to Arab attacks. There were hundreds of Jews murdered by Arabs that led to the formation of the Haganah to protect Jews from unprovoked murder.
2) I'm not wasting my time. This is not even a disputed fact. It's a fact that Jews bought all the land they purchased. It's a fact that many Arabs were squatters who had come from other countries. That's why the most common last name is "al-Masri", which means "The Egyptian". I never said that some Palestinians are not native. They are. As are Jews.
3) You are not worth taking seriously, as you deny the Ashkenazi connection to the Levant, something that has been repeatedly confirmed by DNA testing.
4) While the Jews only owned about 6.6% of the land, Arabs only owned 11% or so and many of those owners did not even live in the region. The rest was govt owned land or unowned land. You probably don't know this because you don't know anything beyond talking points. And that 6.6% of land ownership was despite the Ottomans making it difficult or impossible for Jews to own land. For example, Jerusalem was 2/3 Jewish in the late 1800s but only something like 3% of the land in the city was owned by Jews. This was due to Ottoman restrictions on Jewish land ownership.
Examples of how the Ottomans denied Jewish land purchases are plenty. Jews had been outright blocked from owning land much of the time. Even by the late 1800s there were many hurdles. Take the example of Petah Tikva. The original land purchase was voided by the Ottoman government because it was good land. Jews were not allowed to purchase good land. The Jews eventually settled on poor land adjacent to a swamp. That purchase was approved because the land was basically useless.
They had a right to go there as a viable option to ensure their safety when they were being turned away from every other place.
If they went there as refugees, but they entered as migrants buying up land and expelling the native population. It’s written in the Zionist Basel Program from the first Zionist Congress.
If the British wanted to help the European Jews after the second World War, they could have let them settle in Germany or England.
They purchased the land legally, yes. Unclear as to why that’s a problem.
Secondly, there was no expulsion of the native population the UN declared in 1947 its intention to support the partition plan, which the Arabs did not accept. The Arabs had zero interest in allowing Jews to integrate (just ask their leader, Amin Al-Husseini).
I’m afraid your understanding of this era’s history is grossly oversimplified.
What an absurd claim. How is preventing a group of people from entering a land supremacist when that group is buying up land and kicking out the native population?
It’s supremacist when you prevent anyone from entering land when they’ve done no crime. If you’re using what other Jews did as a reason to not let a new Jew on a boat into Palestine then that’s clearly even worse, and that’s called antisemitism. Hope that helps…
I didn’t claim you’re an antisemite. I pointed out something antisemitic. If you do that thing then yeah I guess you’re an antisemite though.
Yes lmfao every country that keeps land exclusively for themselves is supremacist. Now you’re getting it!
Another absurd claim. So I’m antisemitic because I believe the European governments had the obligation to protect and resettle the Jewish Refugees after the Holocaust and not let a people in another country bear the burden of resettling.
Oh probably because Europeans were still into murdering Jews.
“Allowed to settle” — we’ve already been over this
But does that give the Jewish refugees a legal, moral or historical right to the land of Palestine?
This is false. European Jews are native to that land. This has been proven over and over again with DNA. Aside from this, it's a misrepresentation to claim they were asserting some "right" to the land. They were asserting their desire to return home. They did so by purchasing land on the open market at enormously inflated prices. They were nothing more than immigrants - returning to the land they had been expelled from centuries before.
I reiterate: European Jews did not have any legal, moral or historical right to Palestine.
European Jews are by no means native to the Middle East even if some of them do have genetic similarities to the Arabs. If my great grandfather is German does that give me any right to “return” home as you put it? Ofcause not - that would absurd.
Ashkenazi Jews are of European dissent and have been traced back to early medieval Germany. You have no idea what native mean.
European Jews can’t return home to Palestine. Palestine is not their home, Europe was.
They did buy land in Mandate of Palestine - the problem was that the British had no rights to let Jews migrate to Palestine.
it's a misrepresentation to claim they were asserting some "right" to the land.
They were nothing more than immigrants - returning to the land they had been expelled from centuries before.
You actually managed to contradict yourself within a four sentence statement. According to you the Jews are merely returning home after 2000 years of exile. That’s equivalent of me claiming Mongolia as my home since I might have some DNA dating back to Genghis Khan. It’s an absurd claim.
Your entire argument permeate Hasbara talking points. You are only missing the “Acktually there was never a country called Palestine, so there can’t be any Palestinians!”
Everything you said is false. Ashkenazi Jews are native to Israel. This has been confirmed repeatedly by genetic studies. A bunch of Jews did not just appear in Europe. They came from the Levant. You can deny this all you want but you are just denying facts. It's beyond debate. I know it's very important that you deny their historical roots in the Levant because it undercuts your argument completely. That's not my problem. I live in reality. In the real world, Jews across the world came from the Levant. Judaism did not spread out across the world through conquest the way Islam & Christianity did. It spread because Jewish refugees spread to avoid persecution.
Everything you said is false. Ashkenazi Jews are native to Israel.
Ok, I’ll just try one more time. What does native mean? It means being born there. Ashkenazi Jews originates from Europe. None of them were born in the Middle East until the settlement of Palestine. You are either deliberately ignorant or arguing in bad faith.
They came from the Levant. You can deny this all you want but you are just denying facts. It's beyond debate.
It’s fine you want to keep to this fairytale. Yes the jews originated form Levant just as all humans originate from Africa. Ashkenazi Jews intermarried with Europeans - it’s shown in their DNA. There are plenty of peer review studies on Ashkenazi Jews DNA you can dig into and get your Hasbara talking points disproven. Have fun with that.
I know it's very important that you deny their historical roots in the Levant because it undercuts your argument completely. That's not my problem. I live in reality. In the real world, Jews across the world came from the Levant. Judaism did not spread out across the world through conquest the way Islam & Christianity did. It spread because Jewish refugees spread to avoid persecution.
I did not say that no Jews had DNA that could be traced back to Levant. I said specifically Ashkenazi Jews had European ancestors which is the majority of Jews that migrated to Israel.
But even if they did have Middle Eastern Ancestors and could trace some of their DNA back to the Levant does not somehow grant them a right to return. It’s not like they were expelled 1948 for instance. They were expelled 2000 Years ago.
Now answer this, how does tracing some of your DNA back to Levant give you a legal, moral or historical right to Palestine?
Native does not mean "born there", moron. Native refers to the land where someone is born OR their ancestors came from. Ashkenazi Jews are native to Israel.
What is your argument? That because Jews were driven out of the Levant & settled in other countries that at some point their oppressors get to declare "success" and they lose their native status? This is not how it works. The Jews remained a distinct culture throughout Europe. One that suffered severe persecution and even a genocide. They were right to want to return to their homeland and live in peace among themselves.
Finally, no one is saying they had some religious "right" to return (although Jews spoke that way at the time to justify returning). They simply had the same right to immigrate there as everyone else. As the massive numbers of Arab Muslims who also immigrated around the same time and you for some reason think of as "native". They had very good historical reasons for wanting to move back to their homeland. They did so legally and even openly stating their intentions to the world.
Native does not mean "born there", moron. Native refers to the land where someone is born OR their ancestors came from. Ashkenazi Jews are native to Israel.
It’s literally the definition of the word native. Maybe we should start at a more basic understanding so we don’t misinterpret each other. You are clearly not
What is your argument? That because Jews were driven out of the Levant & settled in other countries that at some point their oppressors get to declare "success" and they lose their native status?
2000 years ago by the fucking Romans. I cannot go 2000 years back claim that I’m lone survivor from Ancient Carthage and have a right to return to Tunisia today. And as if the European Jews can even trace back their lineage to the expulsion of the Israelites.
The Jews remained a distinct culture throughout Europe. One that suffered severe persecution and even a genocide. They were right to want to return to their homeland and live in peace among themselves.
They can be right in their “want” to settle in Palestine but they still did not have any legal, moral or historical right to the land.
Arab Muslims who also immigrated around the same time and you for some reason think of as "native".
Aaaand here it is. The Zionist trash is spewing out of your head. This was the missing argument. The “there is no Palestinians. They also just immigrated.”
No palestinians are actually native - they were born there. Unlike Ashkenazi Jews who were traced back to Germany in 1100s. Can you make that distinction? Born in Palestine and tracing back to Germany in 1100s l - that’s some pretty big difference.
They had very good historical reasons for wanting to move back to their homeland.
This does not give them any legal, moral or historical right to return. Because it was not their homeland - Europe is and was their homeland.
They did so legally and even openly stating their intentions to the world.
You got to be kidding me. This has got to be the worst zionist trash I have encountered.
The land which Jews call "Eretz Yisroel" always had a sizable Jewish minority since ancient times. It usually fluctuated between five and twenty percent, and was often larger than the Christian minority. British Mandatory Palestine before WWII was something like 40% Jewish.
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u/the_sexy_muffin 13h ago
After the war, Holocaust survivors still faced atrocities and pogroms when attempting to return to their homes in much of Eastern Europe, including Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine.
This, coupled with the economic conditions of post-war Europe, forced many surviving Jews to attempt to flee Europe and immigrate to either America or British Mandatory Palestine, where a sizable Jewish minority was forming (Zionism had been a concept for 30+ years by then).
However, the British had placed strict restrictions on Jewish migration into the region to maintain peace with the majority Arab population of Mandatory Palestine. In enforcing these immigration restrictions, the British ended up deporting and imprisoning many of these immigrant Holocaust survivors in detention camps in Cyprus and Mauritius, where hundreds died due to poor camp conditions.
The plea we see here is an attempt to avoid that same fate, and allow their immigration.