"I have a great surprise for you: His Majesty, Sovereign of the British Empire, is sending you a gift -- a gift called Uganda!" - Theodore Herzel, Sixth World Zionist Congress
"We don't want it!" they shouted. "We don't want it!"
The Russian Zionists began to explain: 'We don't want just any country! We are Zionists! We want to return to our ancient, ancestral homeland.'"
- Salome Levite,
Swiss Delegate,
Sixth World Zionist Congress
Humanitarian Bombing :
In 1940, The Zionist Resistance murdered over 200 Jewish refugees and more than 50 British civilian crew, rather than allow the British authorities to relocate and settle those Jews in Mauritius, rather than Palestine.
In November of 1940, there was no Holocaust occurring in Europe at that time.
Better Dead than Zed.
"There was never any intent to cause the ship to sink. The British would have used this against the Jewish population and show it as an act of sabotage against the war effort."
Written confession and justification the bomber, Munya Mardor of the Mapai,
Memoirs of his Haganah Terrorism, 1957
He presumes that rescuing Jews was an aspect of the British or Allied Strategic War Effort - it was not.
These are weasel words.
Humanitarian efforts and operations intended towards the rescuing of Jews, or any other refugee population during time of war, in the theatre of combat operations are burden on warfighting powers, not an aid.
"On one bitter and impetuous day, a malicious hand sank the ship".
Israel Cohen,
Ha-Po'el ha-Tza'ir ("Young Worker"),
Mapai party newspaper
December 1945
On Easter, 1903, the first and most notorious pogrom of the 20th century took place in Kishinev, in Czarist Russia. For two whole days, while the police did nothing, rampaging gentiles attacked the city's Jews. They threw children out of upper-story windows, gouged out their victims' eyes, and drove nails into their heads. By the time the order came from St. Petersburg to stop the pogrom, sixty Jews had been murdered and many more were maimed for life.
"I have a great surprise for you: His Majesty, Sovereign of the British Empire, is sending you a gift -- a gift called Uganda!"
Four months later, Theodore Herzl convened the Sixth Zionist Congress with the words, "I have a great surprise for you: His Majesty, Sovereign of the British Empire, is sending you a gift -- a gift called Uganda!"
Indeed, the British government had offered Dr. Herzl an entire country in Africa, what the British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain described as a land with a comfortable climate and the possibility of raising cotton and sugar. "When I first saw Uganda," Chamberlain declared, "I said to myself: 'This is a land for Dr. Herzl.'"
In the wake of the Kishinev pogrom, Herzl felt gratified that he had procured for the Jews of Europe an immediate, safe haven. Raised with virtually no Jewish background, Herzl was totally unprepared for the reaction of the delegates at the Zionist Congress. "We don't want it!" they shouted. "We don't want it!"
As Salome Levite, a Swiss delegate to the Congress, described Herzl's reaction: "He didn't understand what had happened. He didn't understand at all. He just couldn't digest what had happened here, how it was that such an unfortunate nation, suffering pogroms and denied all rights and privileges, could be offered an entire country and say, 'No.' The Russian Zionists began to explain: 'We don't want just any country! We are Zionists. We want to return to our ancient, ancestral homeland.'"
Herzl was particularly amazed that even the delegates from Kishinev rejected Uganda, claiming that they would go nowhere else but the Land of Israel.
What had happened? If the purpose of Zionism was to provide a refuge from anti-Semitism or political independence, why wouldn't Uganda do? Max Nurock, a secular British Jew who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Uganda during the 1940s, years later explained: "Uganda wouldn't do. You know, it hadn't got the spark of divinity in it."
"I have a great surprise for you: His Majesty, Sovereign of the British Empire, is sending you a gift -- a gift called Uganda!"
Four months later, Theodore Herzl convened the Sixth Zionist Congress with the words, "I have a great surprise for you: His Majesty, Sovereign of the British Empire, is sending you a gift -- a gift called Uganda!"
Indeed, the British government had offered Dr. Herzl an entire country in Africa, what the British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain described as a land with a comfortable climate and the possibility of raising cotton and sugar. "When I first saw Uganda," Chamberlain declared, "I said to myself: 'This is a land for Dr. Herzl.'"
In the wake of the Kishinev pogrom, Herzl felt gratified that he had procured for the Jews of Europe an immediate, safe haven. Raised with virtually no Jewish background, Herzl was totally unprepared for the reaction of the delegates at the Zionist Congress. "We don't want it!" they shouted. "We don't want it!"
As Salome Levite, a Swiss delegate to the Congress, described Herzl's reaction: "He didn't understand what had happened. He didn't understand at all. He just couldn't digest what had happened here, how it was that such an unfortunate nation, suffering pogroms and denied all rights and privileges, could be offered an entire country and say, 'No.' The Russian Zionists began to explain: 'We don't want just any country! We are Zionists. We want to return to our ancient, ancestral homeland.'"
Herzl was particularly amazed that even the delegates from Kishinev rejected Uganda, claiming that they would go nowhere else but the Land of Israel.
What had happened? If the purpose of Zionism was to provide a refuge from anti-Semitism or political independence, why wouldn't Uganda do? Max Nurock, a secular British Jew who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Uganda during the 1940s, years later explained: "Uganda wouldn't do. You know, it hadn't got the spark of divinity in it."
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