Chaim Weizmann and Israel

The death of Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel, has called forth many eulogies from the Press. This was to be expected since like many other politicians who live to a ripe old age, the sentimentality that attaches to the veteran tends to overlook any serious criticism even while they are alive.

It has long been forgotten by the Zionists themselves how the obstinacy of Weizmann drove their leader and pioneer, Theodore Herzl, to his grave – broken in spirit over the stubborn insistence of those who insisted on Palestine as the only possible ‘homeland’. Herzl originally contemplated a Jewish State, but the religious element led by Weizmann cast aside all offers of land anywhere but Palestine, insisting on ‘the Promise’ and other such myths. It is true that Herzl probably did not foresee that the Jewish State would eventually triumph in Palestine, but it would have been difficult to foresee in the early days of this century how religious orthodoxy could combine with an artificially-stimulated nationalism and even a secular socialism that nevertheless held fast to a mythical ‘Promise’ in the settlement in Palestine.

A modern myth which may well yet rank with the ‘Promise’ made by ‘God’ is that which was fostered by Lloyd George and others, namely, that they made the ‘National Home’ promise to the Jewish faction led by Weizmann because of the latter’s ‘assistance to the Allies’ in certain chemical inventions. Weizmann himself discounted this legend though there is an apocryphal story that during a luncheon to aid Israel in the early days of its establishment, a Zionist leader remarked bitterly to Einstein, ‘If the Weizmann story’s true, Albert, you certainly sold yourself cheap’. In actual fact, of course, the politicians give nothing away so easily. The whole point was that in re-drawing the boundaries of Turkish possessions, they wanted an ‘Ulster’ in Palestine and the ‘Jewish Nation’ within a mandated territory suited them very well. It also diverted the Arabs from anti-imperialism. But what was not foreseen at Versailles was the resurgence of barbarism in Europe – as a result of their other deliberations – and the anti-semitic drive that began in Poland and spread a thousand times worse in Germany, which forced Jews to leave Europe and who, finding no other sanctuary but Palestine, became Zionists by force rather than by argument.

Thus the minor settlement gradually increased in importance, and under various influences – though, despite what the religion taught, they were not a nation before, but a religion – a nation was in fact created. Weizmann took the course of trying to reconcile Zionist aspirations with British foreign policy. It is probably true that this was due to his consciousness that the victors agreed to settlement provided that such an Ulster was created. His opponents in the Zionist movement, however, cared nothing for the arrangements he had made. They could not agree that the mandatory power had any real right there anyway, and with the growing national consciousness, it was inevitable that a showdown should come – which really left Weizmann high and dry from Zionist opinion, an apostle of appeasement, but by virtue of his years he remained the titular head and later became President of the State when it was formed by force of arms.

To do him credit, Weizmann never joined those humbugs who for so long declared, ‘The Jewish people is not interested in building a State. It only wants a National Home, &c., &c.’ – the people who more or less denied that the Arabs were to be excluded in any way whatsover, until finally they were altogether liquidated. On the other hand, he did help to obscure the final aims of Zionist nationalism in his policy of appeasement with the British which involved such soft-soaping of the Arabs prior to the final trial of strength.

Leaving aside the legends about Weizmann, it can still be said he made an enormous difference in Europe. It was due to him that so much energy and intelligence and application was diverted from Europe to the building of the State of Israel. All the enthusiasm that has been given to erecting that State has created one more State like any other, with its own police like any other, its own Army like other, its own class divisions. It is impossible to say what would have happened had all that remained in Europe. If the private armies formed in Palestine to fight immigration restrictions and military rule had been recruited in Eastern Europe to fight anti-semitism on the spot for instance, it might well have made the one great check to Hitler’s mass murders, as could be seen in the final decision of the Warsaw Ghetto to rise, when it was too late. Moreover, a great difference might have been made in the transformation of Europe had Jewish proletarians not been diverted into Palestine. These considerations, however, are now too late. The terrorism that might have brought Hitler and Stalin to their knees and assisted a libertarian transformation instead has been used in a military victory that has created the State of Israel. Its future lies largely in its military power, and it is not the liberal and pacific Weizmanns who will have any influence on it in the foreseeable future. For the moment the Social Democrats form the Government – due solely to a coalition with the Orthodox Religious bloc in order to form a Parliamentary majority. But the nationalism which has been created will not rest until the Old City of Jerusalem, Arab-occupied Palestine and Transjordan, too, are included in the borders of Israel. This will mean increasing restrictions, austerity, military rule and autocracy, and the days of idyllic ‘Plant a tree in the Holy Land’ Zionism are over. 

Internationalist [Albert Meltzer]

Freedom 1952-11-22