Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- A Note on United Nations Committees
- Abbreviations
- 1 A Public Relations Imperative
- 2 Promises, Promises
- 3 Pranks in Paris and Geneva
- 4 Courting the Commissar
- 5 Saving Europe's Jews – Our Way
- 6 Smoke and Mirrors at the YMCA
- 7 The Ship that Launched a Nation
- 8 Cocktails at the Consulate
- 9 Causing Chaos
- 10 Denying the Undeniable
- 11 A Peace-Loving State?
- 12 Joining the World with Fingers Crossed
- 13 Israel: 1, United Nations: 0
- 14 A Phantom Attack
- 15 Sabras in Sinai: Pardon My French
- 16 Suez Smoke-Screen
- 17 Mr. Nasser, Please Attack
- 18 Abba Eban's Finest Hour
- 19 Old Issues, New Lies
- 20 An Organization Turned Sinister
- 21 Prevarication Pays
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
21 - Prevarication Pays
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- A Note on United Nations Committees
- Abbreviations
- 1 A Public Relations Imperative
- 2 Promises, Promises
- 3 Pranks in Paris and Geneva
- 4 Courting the Commissar
- 5 Saving Europe's Jews – Our Way
- 6 Smoke and Mirrors at the YMCA
- 7 The Ship that Launched a Nation
- 8 Cocktails at the Consulate
- 9 Causing Chaos
- 10 Denying the Undeniable
- 11 A Peace-Loving State?
- 12 Joining the World with Fingers Crossed
- 13 Israel: 1, United Nations: 0
- 14 A Phantom Attack
- 15 Sabras in Sinai: Pardon My French
- 16 Suez Smoke-Screen
- 17 Mr. Nasser, Please Attack
- 18 Abba Eban's Finest Hour
- 19 Old Issues, New Lies
- 20 An Organization Turned Sinister
- 21 Prevarication Pays
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In its early years, the Zionist Organization advanced its cause by making promises to governments, coupled with predictions of benefits that would accrue if it were given a foothold in Palestine. Those promises and predictions involved considerable speculation, as the addressees of the promises sometimes realized. If a Jewish state were given by the Turkish empire, Turkey would be freed of its debts to Europe, and Arab nationalism would be curbed. If a Jewish state were given by Britain, the Turkish empire along with Germany would be defeated. If the League of Nations endorsed a Jewish state, Jewish settlement would not cause any detriment to the Palestine Arabs, who to the contrary would see their lives improve. The same plea was made by the Zionist Organization's new international wing, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, to the League's Permanent Mandates Commission. If the Commission would press Britain to allow more migration to Palestine, prosperity for all would prevail, and peace would reign.
By the time the British government informed the Permanent Mandates Commission that the promises and predictions made by the Jewish Agency could not be realized, and that large-scale Jewish migration to Palestine could not continue, the Zionist Organization had a critical mass of population in place that could not be displaced. As disaster loomed for the Jewish population of Europe, Palestine was projected as the only solution, even as the Zionist Organization maneuvered to keep Jews from being admitted elsewhere.
When the USSR and United States came into the role of power brokers, attention was turned to them. To the United States, electoral assistance was projected. To the Soviet Union, influence in the Middle East. A Jewish state would ally with the Soviet Union against the neo-feudal Arab states aligned with Britain and the West.
By the time hearings were called before the UN Special Committee on Palestine, the Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency were accustomed to fashioning outlandish promises and unlikely predictions to make a case for their cause. Facts could be turned when needed to back an argument. Harmony in Palestine was promised to a panel that was not well positioned to dispute what it was being told.
When the Special Committee reported to the UN General Assembly, the Jewish Agency reaped the rewards of its approaches to the United States and the Soviet Union.
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- Information
- The International Diplomacy of Israel's FoundersDeception at the United Nations in the Quest for Palestine, pp. 228 - 236Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016