Israel came into existence because the UK, USA, and their allies did not want millions of Jewish refugees.
If these countries had wanted Jewish refugees Israel would not have existed.
Even American Jews were against large scale migration of Jews into the USA because it would aggravate and increase US anti-semitism.
https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/when-jewish-refugees-were-a-problem-no-one-... Quote:A big part of this story is the reluctance by the world, including the United States, to resettle these Jews.
A painful, painful story. We have grown up Jews who were children in the 1950s with the belief that after six million had died, America, having neglected to assist the Jews, when the war is over opened its arms and gates to the survivors and they poured in. The reality is very, very different. The United States in 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, kept out the Jewish survivors. Every nation on earth kept the Jews from resettling.
By 47, 48, the nations that had belonged to UNRRA and now the International Refugee Organization sent labor recruiters to the camps. Belgians needed miners, the British needed nurses, Canadians and Australians need farmers and railroad workers. Recruiters go into the camps to pick and choose those of the last million who they want to accept for resettlement. In every case, they chose first the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Poles and would have nothing to do with the Jews.
What accounted for the reluctance of the U.S. to absorb what, at a few hundred thousand, does not sound like very many people?
An abiding anti-Semitism is not the whole reason. Jews were considered subversives, communists, rebels, troublemakers, and the world war quickly gave way to cold war, and with it the notion that Hitler had been defeated and what we have to worry about is the communists. This was a lie that Hitler had told over and over again, that the Jews are not only a biological poison but subversives.
Jewish refugees are removed after a bloody battle from the Exodus 1947 in the port of Haifa, July 18, 1947. After two days, the illegal immigrants were deported to France and from there to Germany, where they returned to displaced persons camps. (Palmach Photo Gallery, from PikiWiki)
Most Jews would have preferred to have gone to Palestine, but that way was blocked by the British, who were in control of the Holy Land. President Truman was unable to persuade the British to open Palestine to Jewish migration. Was this a moral failing on the part of Great Britain, or simple realpolitik?
There is no doubt that the British upper classes and governing classes were frighteningly anti-Semitic and had always been so. But more than that, the British realized at the end of the war and it is not Churchill in power, but the Labour government that had always been friendly to the Jews that Great Britain is no longer a great power. India would have to be given up, the empire will shrink and in order to maintain any standing and economic leverage they have to hold onto the Middle East and be friendly with the Arabs. The only way to do that is to restrict Jewish immigration.
There is no doubt that the British upper classes and governing classes were frighteningly anti-Semitic and had always been so.
By 1947, Truman realizes the British will keep Palestine closed, and by 1948 there is no way to convince Congress to let into America large numbers of Jewish survivors. He has to get the 250,000 Jews out of Germany, which has to be done in order to establish an independent German state, which he cant do with Jews in concentration camps on German soil. So Truman supports the partition of Palestine in 1947, and in 1948 supports Israels independence not because he is a Zionist, but in part for humanitarian concerns, and more than that geopolitical concerns.
You write about the particularly nasty debates in Congress, especially the opposition by midwest Republicans and southern Democrats to absorbing Jews. What were their objections simple anti-Semitism? Was there any merit to the argument that Polish Jews were sympathetic to communism, because the Soviets had sheltered them during the war?
The organized U.S. Jewish community is divided in 45, 46. The Zionist community says, let all the Jews go to Palestine, period, end of story. The larger American Jewish organizations, like the American Jewish Committee, say Jews should have the opportunity to come to the U.S. if they want. AJC is so fearful, however, of anti-Semitism in Congress, that instead of arguing that Jews deserve to be let in because of their unique suffering during the war, it forms a coalition with Catholic and Protestant organizations and sets up this campaign to let in displaced persons not Jews as Jews. If a bill is passed, Jews, who make up a quarter of the refugees, will come in that way.
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