15th of May 'Nakba Day', meaning ‘Day of the Catastrophe’ commemorates the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians forced to flee as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The result of the war was land theft and the destruction and depopulation of hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages by the Zionists that have continued through today.
The refugees were forced to seek refuge in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, often without citizenship being granted.
On the eve of the international Quds Day, to know more about the history of the establishment of the Zionist entity in the occupied lands we reached out to Alison Weir.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the US Was Used to Create Israel.
Here is the full text of the interview:
Based on the available data on the US and Britain’s arms and financial support to the Israelis, how do you see the role of Washington and London in the formation and realization of the Zionist regime?
In the decades preceding the creation of Israel in 1948, the US establishment actually opposed supporting Zionism. There were numerous studies and memos by the State Department, intelligence agencies, and the Pentagon recommending against it.
In 1912, the Zionist Literary Society asked the government for an endorsement, but the Secretary of State turned them down flat, noting that “problems of Zionism involve certain matters primarily related to the interests of countries other than our own.”
In 1919 the director of the State Department office that covered Palestine opposed the Zionist position.
He wrote that “[it] impinges upon the rights and the desires of most of the Arab population of Palestine.”
Westermann and other US diplomats felt that the Arab position was much more in line with Wilson‘s principles of self-determination, and they circulated Arab material at the Paris Peace Talks after World War 1 when decisions about the lands under the defeated Ottoman Empire were being made.
President Wilson decided to send a commission to Palestine to investigate the situation.
After spending two months in the area, the commission, known as the King-Crane Commission, recommended against the Zionism. After spending two months in Palestine, the commission tasked by president Wilson, known as the King-Crane Commission, recommended against the Zionism.
The commissioners stated that the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine could be accomplished only with “the gravest trespass upon the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” pointing out that to subject the Palestinians “to steady financial and social pressure to surrender the land, would be a gross violation of the principle [of self-determination] and of the peoples’ rights…”
Zionists in the US, however, managed to bury this report and it had little impact.
The US State Department opposed this partition plan strenuously, considering Zionism contrary to both fundamental American principles and US interests.
For example, the director of the State Department‘s Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, Loy Henderson, consistently recommended against supporting a Jewish state in Palestine. He warned that the creation of such a state would go against locals’ wishes, imperil US interests, and violate democratic principles.
Henderson emphasized that the US would lose moral standing in the world if it supported Zionism, writing:
“At the present time, the United States has a moral prestige in the Near and Middle East unequaled by that of any other great power. We would lose that prestige and would be likely for many years to be considered as a betrayer of the high principles which we ourselves have enunciated during the period of the [second world] war.”
When Zionists pushed the partition plan in the UN, Henderson recommended strongly against supporting their proposal, saying that such a partition would have to be implemented by force and was “not based on any principle.” He warned that partition “would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future…” When Zionists pushed the partition plan in the UN, Henderson recommended strongly against supporting their proposal
There were many such reports.
However, the Zionist lobby was far stronger than these officials, and Harry Truman was more interested in getting Zionist support and winning the election than in taking actions in the US interest.
The Zionist lobby in the US had begun in the late 1800s and worked to manipulate the US government and American people, using both public and covert methods. This has continued through today.
One little-known example in the early years was a secret society called “The Parushim.” This society was first exposed by Israeli professor Sarah Schmidt in an article in the American Jewish Historical Quarterly and by long-time New York Times journalist Peter Gross.
The goal of this secret group was to promote the Zionist agenda throughout the United States. One of its leaders was Louis Brandeis, a Supreme Court Justice who was close to President Woodrow Wilson. (Another Supreme Justice also seems to have been a member.)
Zionists in Britain used Brandeis to obtain the Balfour Declaration. There was a “gentleman’s agreement” between the British government and Zionists that Britain would assist the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish “homeland” in Palestine in return for Zionists pushing the US to enter the “great war” (World War !) on Britain’s side.
At the time, the large majority of Americans opposed entering this unnecessary and tragic European war. However, after Zionists began to work to plunge the US into this war, the US did indeed enter it, helping Britain defeat the Ottoman Empire. This paved the way for Britain to be placed in charge of Palestine, and then to open it to Jewish colonization.
I have much more information about all of this in my book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. (All its information is cited; in fact, the book is half footnotes.)
There has been a great effort to suppress this information in the United States. Even some Jewish groups and individuals who say they support Palestinian rights have tried to block information about the book from reaching Americans.
Fortunately, despite these efforts, the book is doing extremely well and has sold over 30,000 copies. I believe it has been translated into Farsi.
The Israel lobby continues to be extremely powerful in the US and largely determines US Middle East policies. Campaign donors such as Sheldon Adelson (Republican), Haim Saban (Democrat), and numerous others pressure politicians to support Israel.
In addition, the Israel lobby is extremely influential in the US media. For example, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer used to openly work for an Israel lobby organization. There are many such examples of Israel partisans enjoying powerful positions in US media, both print, and broadcast.
The US moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds in 2017; how much did this measure favor the legalization process of the Zionist regime?
This greatly favored the Zionist agenda and went against the actions of all previous presidents, who knew it would cause extreme harm in Palestine and create enormous hostility to the US.
Currently, in the US there is a struggle between the hard-core Zionists, who wish to take over the West Bank and Gaza, and the more intelligent Zionists, who think such actions hurt Israel. Trump's decision to relocate the US embassy favored the Zionist agenda and went against the actions of all previous presidents, who knew it would cause extreme harm in Palestine and create enormous hostility to the US.
The powerful lobby group AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is an example of the former, and the much newer pro-Israel lobby group, J Street is an example of the latter. Both are working for what they perceive as Israeli interests.
For almost the first time in US politics, there is a somewhat significant difference between Republicans and Democrats on Israel.
Progressive Americans have finally begun to learn the real facts about Israel-Palestine, and large numbers now support Palestinian human rights. For that reason, Democratic politicians largely favor the J Street “soft” Zionist approach.
However, conservative Americans have received even more pro-Israel, anti-Muslim propaganda than before, and therefore Republican candidates largely favor the AIPAC version of Zionism. While in the past some Republican politicians like Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey, and Charles Person opposed the Israel lobby, today very few Republicans are daring enough to do so. (Although this could change as more and more evangelical Christians are starting to change their positions on Israel and their interpretation of the Bible.)
Trump entered office with statements indicating he might be somewhat reasonable on this issue. However, this changed when he came under the onslaught by the Democratic establishment that began even before he was inaugurated, and he has now moved over to the AIPAC hard Zionist approach.
If Trump is re-elected, US policies could grow even more misguided.
If Biden is elected, US policies would likely not be quite as bad. While Biden has called himself a Zionist and is greatly beholden to the Israel lobby, his base may decree that his policies be less blatantly counter to human rights.
Interview by Payman Yazdani