Talk:Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine

Article Neutrality

This acticle gives a one sided view on the issues and the conflict, using quotes to slant the arguement without evenly balancing the points. Suggest it is re-written balancing both points of view and not using misleading quotations.

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The title "British conflict with Zionism" is slanted, suggesting as it does British culpability.JohnC (talk) 06:32, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, the quality of this article is exceedingly poor. Zero^talk 08:00, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Funny, I see the article itself as suggesting Zionist culpability. :) Stellarkid (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Lord Moyne anti-semite or anti-zionist

There is a contradiction between this article and the one on Lord Moyne. Unless anyone can source info on him being Anti-Semitic I think this article should show him as Anti-ZionistJonathan Cardy (talk) 13:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC).

I suggest you read the article on Lord Moyne through to the end. There is plenty of evidence there to suggest that he was an anti-semite. Telaviv1 (talk) 07:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

By reverting my edit you've left this article contradicting another. Can I suggest you reconsider and revert your last edit? I've reread Lord Moyne, and don't see either of your points, there is plenty of evidence in that article that he was anti-zionist and that Britain's antizionist policy was the motive of his assassins, and specifically that it was the office he held that made him a target.

There are a couple of very anti-semitic points, but both are clearly challenged within the article. His responsibility for Britain operating an Anti-Zionist policy in the mandate is clear as is the motive of his assassins.

As for the relevance in an article on 'British conflict with Zionism of his being a close friend and ally of Churchill, the article on Lord Moyne says: British prime minister Winston Churchill, until then the Zionists' main supporter in London, was deeply disillusioned and his further support for Zionism was greatly subdued.[59][60] Moyne had been sent to Cairo because of their long personal and political friendship, and Churchill told the House of Commons:

"If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of an assassin's pistol, and the labours for its future produce a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, then many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past".[61]

The Times of London quoted Ha'aretz's view that the assassins "have done more by this single reprehensible crime to demolish the edifice erected by three generations of Jewish pioneers than is imaginable."[62]

In November 1943, a committee of the British Cabinet had proposed a partition of Palestine after the war, based loosely on the 1937 Peel Commission proposal. The plan included a Jewish state, a small residual mandatory area under British control, and an Arab state to be joined in a large Arab federation of Greater Syria. The Cabinet approved the plan in principle in January 1944, but it faced severe opposition from the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden among others. "Moyne's position differed from that of nearly all the British civil and military officials in the Middle East: the consensus of British official opinion in the area opposed partition and opposed a Jewish state; Moyne supported both."[64] The partition plan was before the Cabinet for final approval in the same week that Moyne was assassinated, but the assassination caused it to be immediately shelved and never resurrected. Moyne's successor in Cairo, Sir Edward Grigg, was opposed to partition.[65] Some historians, such as Wasserstein and Porath, have speculated that a Jewish state soon after the war had been a real possibility.[66][67]

So there is a conflict between these two articles, the one on Lord Moyne spells out that the death of a close ally of the then British Prime Minister led to a major change in British Policy re Zionism, this article merely describes him as an anti-semite and makes no mention of the repercussions of his assassination on British conflict with Zionism.Jonathan Cardy (talk) 07:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Anti semitism and anti-zionism are not the same. To suggest that Moyne was anti-semitic because he may have been anti-zionist is incorrect. It is the equivalent of equating being anti-South African with being anti-Apartheid.JohnC (talk) 06:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

From some historians of the period, speaking only to the anti-semite/anti Zionist issue :

Churchill's promised land by Michael Makovsky, pg 174 -- "In addition, there was a rise of anti-Semitism and xenophobia among the populace during the war, and these sentiments were outright rampant throughout the ranks of the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, military, and other branches of the bureaucracy. Several senior Cabinet ministers, such as Lord Moyne(Walter Guinness), who held various portfolios, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, disliked Jews and were anti-Zionist. These officials regularly communicated a cold indifference to the Jews' fate in Europe and elsewhere, and a steely determination to keep them out of Palestine no matter the dire consequences. They did not believe that the Jews deserved a homeland in Palestine and did not wish to upset the Arabs for strategic and other reasons. [2]"

Brother against brother Ehud Sprinzak , pg 36-37 -- "Lehi commanders killed Moyne because they believed him to be anti-Semitic and personally responsible for blocking the entrance to Palestine of Holocaust survivors and other Jewish refugees. [53]"

Jabotinsky and the revisionst movement, 1925-1948 Jacob Shavit pag 234 -- "Moyne was hated because of anti-Semitic remarks he had made, but principally he was murdered because of his contribution to the implementation of the immigration regulations of the White Paper... "

Religious fundamentalism and political extremism , pg 111 By Leonard Weinberg, Ami Pedahzur -- "Lord Moyne was minister of the British colonies at the beginning of the Second World War and was appointed resident minister for the Middle East on 28 January 1944. In the Jewish settlement he was already known for his hostility, expressed both in his long-term support in favor of a Middle Eastern Arab Federations as well as in his anti-Semitic lectures(such as his call for Arab sovereignty in the Land of Israel based on the superior purity of the Arab race compared to the mixed Jewish race).[71]" Stellarkid (talk) 20:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

None of these are anywhere near sufficient to apply the label "anti-semitic" to him personally. Having made antisemitic remarks is not the same as being an anti-semite, let alone such a flagrant, undisputed and prominent one that it is proper to use it as an identifying description in another article. It would involve OR to go from most of these to "antisemitic." The only one that uses "anti-semitic" applying to him is Sprindzak, who says Lehi "believed him to be anti-Semitic" which is the most one could say.John Z (talk) 20:02, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that, but the original question was labeling him antisemite or anti-Zionist. There is plenty of evidence that he was basically an antisemite, not merely an anti-Zionist. However, I don't believe it is up to WP editors to pin a pejorative label on him. Simply state the facts or what other reliable sources (historians and others) claim the facts are, and otherwise say nothing. However I do disagree about your interpretation of the quotes above. Makovsky says that Moyne..."disliked the Jews," which sounds like a good def of "antisemite," and Weinberg refers to "antisemitc lectures" as well as clear racist remarks ("the superior purity of the Arab race compared to the mixed Jewish race.") An antisemitic comment or two may be made in ignorance or taken out of context, but "antisemitic lectures" would be another think altogether. Stellarkid (talk) 12:37, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

We shouldn't be attaching labels to names (pejorative or not) unless they are the consensus of reliable sources. If the label is not the consensus, we must either omit the label or note the various non-fringe opinions of the sources. That seems to be what NPOV demands. In this case I think omitting the label is the correct way, since the issue is too complex and peripheral for this article. Incidentally, regarding Weinberg and Pedahzur, what Moybe actually said can be read here (at column number 198). He never actually says Arabs are racially pure, though this interpretation can be forgiven. The mainstream historian Bernard Wasserstein wrote an article that defended Moyne's speech, quoting him as saying that the only pure races on Earth were to be found in the jungles of New Guinea. It should be remembered that at that period of history everyone described populations in racial words. But none of this belongs in this article, imo. Zero^talk 14:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

lede

Well, again I am having a hard time getting by the first couple of sentences. The first one is alright but the second has issues. "Between 1945 and 1948, the decision of the British government to halt Jewish immigration to the British Mandate of Palestine led to an increasingly bitter conflict between Britain and Palestinian Jews. In particular it resulted in large scale illegal Jewish immigration, "boat people", and Zionist political violence in Palestine." It is true that there was large scale (hmmm...what constitutes 'large scale'?) Jewish immigration to the Mandate, but the cause was WWII, not the conflict between the Brits and the Jews. The result of the British government's making Jewish immigration illegal was to turn people who were trying to escape the death camps into criminals, and not allowing them any refuge; resulting in the deaths of more Jews, and was the direct cause of the bitter conflict and Zionist political violence. It did not result in ... illegal Jewish immigration. The immigration was happening. The British just criminalized it. This is not clear in that second sentence. Stellarkid (talk) 01:17, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It has never been clear to me what this article is supposed to be about. If the opening "between 1945 and 1948" is to be taken seriously, it is mainly about that period (with earlier periods mentioned only as background). In 1945-1948 there were no people trying to escape death camps. The second sentence seems to be trying to say that illegal immigration (not immigration in general) resulted from British policies. Zero^talk 01:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I just had an edit conflict with you which said: "Also the dates are weird. The Brits had put restrictions on Jewish immigration (not Arab though) much earlier than '45; actually in the 20's. The Struma incident for example happened in 1941 already. You can't define the British-Zionist conflict between those two arbitrary and late years. Stuff happened before then. Stellarkid (talk) 01:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

There was the SS Exodus which I believe was '47. No one wanted the Jews but no one wanted to let them go to Palestine either. The survivors sat in the concentration camps now guarded by British soldiers. The article needs serious expansion and certainly not these date restrictions. so yeah I agree with you.Stellarkid (talk) 01:44, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Though I do think the article is needed and there is much in it that is good. It is not an easy subject to do! Stellarkid (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Where is this page from? Likely copyvio.

It is pretty clear that this page is largely copied from somewhere else, but I can't find the source. Maybe it is a translation or copied from a book. Even the earliest version has references to arcane sources like unpublished documents from the British Foreign Office, and is well beyond the knowledge level of the editor who typed it. We aren't allowed to use unpublished documents as sources, nor are we allowed to extract bulk text from another source. What to do? Zero^talk 07:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Uncited statements

There are two statements in this article that need to be sourced. These are 'British foreign policy, as defined by Ernest Bevin, and its military policy, as defined by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to help the Arabs.', and 'Fearing an invasion of Egypt and Transjordan, and acting on the basis of the mutual defence pacts with these countries, Britain's Ministry of Defence began to prepare for the possibility of invading Israel.' These statements may well be true, but they are not (so far as I can immediately tell) supported by the currently available sources. Robofish (talk) 18:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Enough history revisionism by the paliphiles

Those here on the talk page who wish to delete or whitewash the article are not honest editors and should admit to their exploits and straighten up , or go edit somewhere else. enough is enough looking at history pages there is a grim and consistent change to white wash anything up until it touches the surface of conspiracy theories presented as truth or ideological terminology used freely at literal meaning. oh and please don't delete this talk page entry like you did the last times(read my talk apge of this ip for other posts I made) instead have constructive proposals and reliable sources 79.176.49.28 (talk) 15:36, 28 March 2010 (UTC)