In 28 January 1935, the Bavarian Gestapo circularised to the regular police that henceforward:
“members of the Zionist organisations are, in view of their activities directed towards emigration to Palestine, not to be treated with the same
strictness which is necessary towards the members of the German-Jewish organisations [assimilationists]”.
In other words if you're Jewish and wish to remain a German living in Germany you will be persecuted, however if you foster support for a Jewish
state in Palestine you will be virtually left alone
On June 21, 1933 the Zionist Federation of Germany sent a memorandum of support to the Nazi Party. In it the Federation noted:
"... a rebirth of national life such as is occurring in German life ... must also take place in the Jewish national group."
"On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state which has established the principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total structure so
that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible ..."
Additionally the World Zionist Organization Congress in 1933 defeated a resolution calling for action against Hitler by a vote of 240 to 43. During
this very Congress, Hitler announced a trade agreement with the World Zionist Organisation's Anglo-Palestine Bank, breaking, thereby, the Jewish
boycott of the Nazi regime at a time when the German economy was extremely vulnerable. It was the height of the depression and the German people were
wheeling barrels full of worthless German Marks. The World Zionist Organization broke the Jewish boycott and became the principal distributor of Nazi
goods throughout the Middle East and Northern Europe. They established the Ha’avara, which was a bank in Palestine designed to receive monies from
the German-Jewish bourgeoisie, with which sums Nazi goods were purchased in very substantial quantity.
The correlative to the acts of collaboration with the Nazis throughout the 1930’s was that when attempts to change the immigration laws of the
United States and Western Europe were contemplated in order to provide token refuge for persecuted Jews of Europe, it was the Zionists who actively
organised to stop these efforts.
Ben Gurion informed a meeting of Labour Zionists in Great Britain in 1938:
"If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them
to Eretz Israel, then I opt for the second alternative."
This obsession with colonising Palestine and overwhelming the Arabs led the Zionist movement to oppose any rescue of the Jews facing extermination,
because the ability to deflect select manpower to Palestine would be impeded. From 1933 to 1935, the World Zionist Organisation turned down two-thirds
of all the German Jews who applied for immigration certificates.
Berel Katznelson, editor of the Labour Zionist Davar, described the "cruel criteria of Zionism": German Jews were too old to bear children in
Palestine, lacked trades for building a Zionist colony, didn’t speak Hebrew and weren’t Zionists. In place of these Jews facing extermination the
World Zionist Organisation brought to Palestine 6,000 trained young Zionists from the United States, Britain and other safe countries. Worse than
this, theWorld Zionist Organisation not merely failed to seek any alternative for the Jews facing the Holocaust, the Zionist leadership opposed
belligerently all efforts to find refuge for fleeing Jews.
Parliament calling on the government to provide asylum in British territories for persecuted Jews. The meager undertaking which was prepared was as
follows: "
"His Majesty’s Government issued some hundreds of Mauritius and other immigration permits in favour of threatened Jewish families."
But even this token measure was opposed by the Zionist leaders. At a Parliamentary meeting on January 27, 1943, when the next steps were being pursued
by over one hundred members of Parliament, a spokesperson for the Zionists announced that they opposed this motion because it did not contain
preparations for the colonization of Palestine. This was a consistent stance. Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who had arranged the Balfour
Declaration and was to become the first president of Israel, made this Zionist policy very explicit:
"The hopes of Europe’s six million Jews are centred on emigration. I was asked: “Can you bring six million Jews to Palestine?” I replied,
“No.” ... From the depths of the tragedy I want to save ... young people [for Palestine]. The old ones will pass. They will bear their fate or
they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world ... Only the branch of the young shall survive. They have to accept it."
source:
myweb.tiscali.co.uk...