Netanyahu, the Mufti, and the British White Paper

There was something I realized recently.

Because I was educated by Israelis at Hebrew School and Jewish summer camps, I learned nothing true about Israel.

But there was actually something that I did learn about from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's excellent book Jewish Literacy, given to me when I graduated Hebrew school.***

***(That counts as them teaching me right? LOL.  Actually it was everything they didn't teach me, plus a few more lies about Israel).  The Jewish summer camp gave me Myths and Facts---everything is the opposite in that book......)

When recently Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that in 1941 the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, convinced Hitler to kill the Jews of Europe instead of letting them just leave and emigrate to Palestine,

saying

to the Zionist Congress on Tuesday night that “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews.” The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.

“ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’ ”

there was something Netanyahu, son of a historian (and personal secretary to Ze'ev Jabotinsky) knew he was leaving out.....the White Paper of 1939.

The news articles that I saw also left this out as part of the answer to Netanyahu's revisionist history.  While Israel focuses too much on the Holocaust in my opinion, as IDF soldiers recently showed how well they have learned lessons on their annual trips to Poland to visit concentration camps----there is one thing that we must remember.  Almost no country would take Jewish refugees during the war.  Not America, Canada, British Mandate Palestine, only the Dominican Republic offered to take in Jews in 1938, ironic because now they are kicking out Haitian descendants born in the Dominican Republic.

***OK one paper mentions the White Paper---The Times of Israel, in a contradictory argument that Netanyahu is right

The Grand Mufti’s meeting with Hitler was driven by his concern regarding the consequences of a possible expulsion of the Jews from the Reich, many of whom were likely to end up in Palestine, thus strengthening the Yishuv.[13]

However this prospect was no longer an option in 1941 because the British had barred the Jews to immigrate in Palestine by means of theWhite Paper[14]. As no other country was prepared to welcome Jews anyway, the Nazis concluded that the only remaining solution, which had to be final, consisted in systematically and industrially exterminate them.

Netanyahu rightly to remind that at the time of the meeting between the Grand Mufti and Hitler the Nazis were still expelling Jews,

last sentence in article, "the Nazis were still expelling Jews" when the Mufti met Hitler in 1941 contradicts the beginning of the excerpt that states that the White Paper barred emigration to Palestine and no country would welcome Jews anyway.  Expel them where??

another error---

Netanyahu never stated the Grand Mufti gave Hitler the idea of the Final Solution, but rather that he played an important role by campaigning relentlessly against Jewish emigration from Germany.

back to Netanyahu's quote

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews.” The prime minister said that the mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had protested to Hitler that “they’ll all come here,” referring to Palestine.

“ ‘So what should I do with them?’ ” Mr. Netanyahu quoted Hitler as asking Mr. Husseini. “He said, ‘Burn them.’ ”

Netanyahu certainly puts words in the Mufti's mouth beyond just "don't expel Jews from Germany."  Netanyahu does credit the Mufti with the final solution, telling Hitler not only to kill the Jews but to burn them. 

The 1939 British White Paper forbidding Jewish immigration to Palestine during World War 2.

After the outbreak of war in September 1939, the head of the Jewish Agency for Palestine David Ben-Gurion declared: 'We will fight the White Paper as if there is no war, and fight the war as if there is no White Paper.'[21]

The White Paper

called for the establishment of a Jewish national home in an independent Palestinian state within 10 years, rejecting the idea of the creation of a Jewish state and the idea of partitioning Palestine. It also limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 for 5 years, and ruled that further immigration was to be determined by the Arab majority (section II). Restrictions were put on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs (section III). Further, it promised that only with Palestinian support would Britain allow Jewish state. This greatly upset Zionists because of the increasing persecution of Jews in Europe at the onset of World War II, particularly in Germany.

Netanyahu clearly lied, but the newspapers explaining the history left out an important piece as well.