(Fathom-BICOM) Jeffrey Herf - During the Cold War the Soviet Union spread a variety of lies about Zionism, the most famous being the assertion that Hitler and the Nazi regime were supporters of Zionism. The fact is, however, that Hitler despised Zionism. He ridiculed the idea as he was convinced that the Jews would be incapable of establishing and then defending a state. More importantly, he viewed the prospect of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of the broader international Jewish conspiracy which his fevered imagination presented as a dire threat to Germany. The Holocaust itself was an enormous blow to the Zionist project. Millions of Jews in Europe who might have contributed to the establishment of the Jewish state could not do so because the Nazis had murdered them. Moreover, in November 1941, Hitler promised the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, then in Berlin, that if and when the German armies were successful in the Caucuses, they would drive south to destroy the Jewish population then living in areas controlled by Britain in North Africa and the Middle East. It was only the Allied victory at El Alamein by forces from Australia, New Zealand and Britain that prevented mass murders of Jews in Mandatory Palestine. The writer is professor of history at the University of Maryland.
2016-05-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive