British complicity in the German Holocaust

By Mordechai Ben-Menachem 9 Av 5783 (7 July 2023)

For Britain, the German Holocaust that would begin in 1933 actually began much earlier.  The precise date is open for debate.

Britain’s role in the Holocaust was active and intense, before Germany and ended afterwards, though less “productive” numerically.

Britain was “the backstop” to Germany’s team.  Germany was the perpetrator. But Britain was prime enabler, while no slouch in their own mass killing machine.

The story and facts are still not well-known.  The objective of this short article is awareness of the basic facts, so that interested people can find the entire story for themselves.

This is about British murders of Jews during the Mandate, and what led to them – depending upon source, the quantity may be as many as 35,000.  It is not possible to comprehend “what they did to us” without comprehending “what they did.”  English actions toward Jews did not occur in a vacuum.

The Monster Queen

Victoria was crowned 24 May 1819 and reigned until 22 January 1901, when the world was finally shut of this “paragon of virtue.”  Massive deaths occurred during her reign; one of the bloodiest in human history.  “At a time when Ireland was enduring the terrible loss of a million dead and the mass exodus of a million more during the Great Hunger, the story goes that the Ottoman Sultan, Khaleefah Abdul-Majid I, declared his intention to send £10,000 to aid Ireland’s farmers.  However, Queen Victoria intervened and requested that the Sultan send only £1,000 because she had sent only £2,000 herself.  So the Sultan sent only the £1,000, but he also secretly sent five ships full of food.  The English courts attempted to block the ships, but the food arrived in Drogheda harbor and was left there by Ottoman sailors.”[1]  In a truly amazing feat of “Christian brotherly love” not one European country came to the aid of the Irish, neither Catholic (as the Irish) nor Christian; the Vatican did not even ease the burden of the tithe.  “The London Times urged readers not to donate at all, pronouncing that sending funds to Ireland was akin to throwing money away in an ‘Irish bog’”.[2]

“Lionel de Rothschild created an organisation for Irish relief which succeeded in donations of some about £600,000.  … In the 1840s, in Ireland’s hour of greatest need, Jews in Britain, the United States and elsewhere heeded that call, donating money and working to alleviate some of the suffering of the Irish Potato Famine.”[3]

Jews saved perhaps millions of Irish, in recompense, Ireland is now Europe’s most antisemitic country – they learned well from their masters.

The Mandate

The Mandate for Palestine was a written and signed contract, ratified as International Law by the San Remo Conference and subsequently by the League of Nations and United Nations.  Withal, at NO point did any British government uphold even one article of that agreement that they had solemnly sworn to uphold.

Lloyd George, in his memoirs stated clearly that it had always been his and his Government’s “intension” to abide by the agreement.  Even Winston Churchill, at no point in his years as Prime Minister did the Churchill Government uphold even one Article of the agreed contract.

Balfour Declaration in truth and context

Balfour Declaration importance results from its recognition of the historical rights of the Jewish People to a National Home, in their Homeland, by a world government – as opposed to that of the Blackstone Memorial, which was by individuals.  A “world government” but not yet by general world governments; the broader recognition arrives slightly later, at San Remo.  The declaration dates from 2 November 1917, and was initiated by Minister of Foreign Affairs, Balfour, as a letter to Dr. Haim Weizmann, head of the World Zionist Organisation, which was the recognized representative of the Jewish People.

The Declaration was NOT a unilateral act of Britain.  On 4 June 1917, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jules Cambon, wrote that the French government “felt sympathy” for the cause, as “renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.”  British diplomacy also secured support of US President Wilson.

There was also Ottoman Government agreement encouraging establishment of a Jewish Homeland; with historical precedent from sixteenth century actions of Suleiman.  On 12 August 1918, Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha, issued: “… We have resolved to do away with all restrictive measures and definitely to abolish the restrictive regulations regarding the immigration and settlement of Jews in Palestine.  I assure you of my sympathy for the creation of a Jewish religious center in Palestine by means of well-organized immigration and colonization.  It is my desire to place this work under the protection of the Turkish government.”[4]  Add to this the letter of strong support from Assad (grandfather to the Butcher of Damascus).

Britain assumed this was simply an alternate method to acquire an additional colony to join its ‘collection’ and never intended to keep any of its agreements, and in fact did not.

Chronology of signed agreements:

(1)          In British-Ottoman negotiations of 1911-1913, Britain upheld sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire (except where breached prior to this agreement).  Britain broke this agreement with the Constantinople Agreement and its subsequent agreements.
(2)          From 4 March 1915 until 10 April 1915, a series secret of “diplomatic exchanges” between Britain, France and Russia, initiated by Russian Foreign Minister Sazonov; collectively “The Constantinople Agreement.”  This was a “first attempt” by the parties to divide up the Ottoman Empire in the event of their victory.  There would be three additional agreements to follow:
(3)          The London Agreement of 26 April 1915,
(4)          the Sykes-Picot Agreement of April-October 1916
(5)          the Saint-Jean de Maurienne Agreement of April-August 1917.[5]
“As it happened, key Foreign Office officials had their own reasons for dissatisfaction with the Sykes-Picot agreement.  For one thing, the British were bearing the major burden of military operations in the Near East, and felt that they were entitled to more for their efforts than the agreement provided.  They were entitled, for example, to control of the eastern flank of the Suez Canal; namely the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine.  Yet the Foreign Office had no ‘moral’ justification for a British protectorate over Palestine.  It occurred to Lloyd George that a Jewish National Home might well provide that justification.”[6]

In 1917, the war was going badly.  Russia had left the field after the first revolution, while France was bogged down in trenches with no way out.

(6)          On 26 December 1915, Britain concluded an agreement with Abd al Aziz ibn al Rahman al Feisal al Saud (better known as ibn Saud – progenitor of the present Saud dynasty in Saudi Arabia).  This was the first (of many) breaks with the agreement with the Ottoman Empire.  With this, Britain paid ibn Saud some five thousand British Pounds Sterling per month.

(7)          There followed one of the most controversial acts of Britain in the War.  “Perhaps no other British commitment in the Middle East in World War I attracted greater and more conflicting attention in the three decades following the war that the Husayn-McMahon correspondence. (14 July 1915 to 10 March 1916)”[7]  Note that only in 1960 was the actual content released to public record.  The correspondents were Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner for Egypt and Husayn ibn Ali Al Abadila, the Sharif of Mecca, the holiest spot for all Muslims.  Britain’s objective was for the Sharif to initiate and lead a revolt against Ottoman rule in the Arabian Peninsula; despite the previous agreement with the Ottomans.  The most historically significant aspect of this agreement was the great British effort, with centuries of diplomatic experience, for vague and ambiguous wording.  This perfidy plagues the Middle East until the present – indeed, British misconduct is the primary source of the conflict between State of Israel and the Arabs.

(8)          The Tripartite Sykes-Picot Agreement on the Partition of the Ottoman Empire: Britain, France and Russia – 26 April 1916 to 23 October 1916.  This agreement caused formation of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq as Arab “States” while disregarding the Kurds.  The Golan Heights were ceded to the French on 7 March 1923, under terms of the Paulet-Newcombe Agreement; a subsidiary to Sykes-Picot; thus the international disagreement over the Golan Heights, as neither Sykes-Picot nor Paulet-Newcombe had validity; nor were they in any way reasonable to the populations of the areas under discussion. [8]

“Into Mesopotamia – a vague geographical concept that at its largest embraced the Ottoman vilayets of Basrah, Baghdad, and Mosul – British-Indian forces moved only slowly, when they moved at all.  Following the seizure of the city of Basrah as early as 22 November 1914, more than two years elapsed before British-Indian units took Baghdad (11 March 1917) … The Palestine campaign reopened with a flourish in the fall of 1917, after long and hesitant preparation and initial reverses in 1916, only to stall after the Egyptian Expeditionary Force captured Jerusalem in December 1917.”[9]

(9)          The British Balfour Declaration of Sympathy with Zionist Aspirations – 4 June 1917 to 2 November.  [In interest of brevity, the full text of the Declaration is not included here.  Also, the NILI story, though integral, is also omitted.  Full texts can be found in my books – MBM.]

Lloyd George, in his autobiography, asserted that Britain, at issuance, had “no intention” of not keeping the Declaration; “of aborting the possibility of an ultimate Jewish commonwealth in Palestine”.  Full text of the Balfour Declaration was incorporated as an integral part of both the San Remo Resolution and the British Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations; Transforming the Declaration from a “letter of intent” to a legally-binding and foundational document under international law.  Note: NO Arab nation, organisation or entity opposed the San Remo Resolution.

Britain never had any intention of keeping their sworn word.

“It has been urged that the expression ‘a national home for the Jewish people’ offered a prospect that Palestine might in due course become a Jewish State or Commonwealth.  His Majesty’s Government do not wish to contest the view, which was expressed by the Royal Commission, that the Zionist leaders at the time of the Balfour Declaration recognised that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the Declaration.  But, with the Royal Commission, His Majesty’s Government believe that the framers of the Mandate in which the Balfour Declaration was embodied could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population of the country.”[10]

The League of Nations agreed the British refused to abide by their sworn word.  “In June (1939) the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations unanimously concluded  ‘that the policy set out in the White Paper was not in accordance with the interpretation which, in agreement with the mandatory Power and the Council, the Commission had placed upon the Palestine mandate’ (Minutes of the Thirty-sixth Session, p. 275).”[11]

This statement of “Mandatory Policy” before Parliament went unchallenged despite the explicit statement to the contrary in the Mandate Document:

“Article 2: The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing institutions, and also for safe-guarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion.”[12]

This is ultimately very important, because interdiction British policy and mass murder was never given Parliament approval, was never passed as law.

All tens of thousands of Jews killed were killed extra-judicially and illegally.

Balfour himself later declared that there had been NO intention to form a Jewish State and that the Declaration was perfidy.

Numbers

Following is a brief display of quantities of Jews Murdered by Britain during the Mandate: this is NOT complete, new discoveries still occur.  Warship Ramming of an unarmed civilian ship on the High Seas (not territorial waters) because the Capitan “suspects” they may in the future commit a crime not Parliamentary proscribed is a crime.  More than 1,700 Jews were murdered by the British Navy by ramming, alone.

Note that British warship interdictions continued through 1951.

[1]           IrishCentral Staff; “Little known tale of generous Turkish aid to the Irish during the Great Hunger”; 6 July 2019; Irish Central; downloaded 24 September 2019;        https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/generous-turkish-aid-irish-great-hunger

[2]           Miller, Dr. Yvette Alt; “Jews and the Irish Potato Famine”; AISH.COM; 14 Mar 2018; downloaded 24 September 2019; https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Jews-and-the-Irish-Potato-Famine.html

[3]           ibid

[4]           Gold, Dore Amb.; “The Historical Significance of the Balfour Declaration”; 31 October 2017; Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; downloaded 6 November 2017; http://jcpa.org/article/historical-significance-balfour-declaration/?utm_source=phplist3568&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=ISRAPUNDIT+DAILY+DIGEST++NOV+02%2F17

[5]           Hurewitz, J. C. compiler, translator and editor; “The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics – a Documentary Record”; second edition, revised and enlarged; volume 2 British-French Supremacy, 1914-1945; New Haven and London; Yale University Press; 1979; pp. 16-17

[6]           Sachar, Howard Morley; “The Course of Modern Jewish History”; a Delta Book; 1977; pp. 374

[7]           Hurewitz, J. C. compiler, translator and editor; “The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics – a Documentary Record”; second edition, revised and enlarged; volume 2 British-French Supremacy, 1914-1945; New Haven and London; Yale University Press; 1979; pp. 46

[8]           Paulet-Newcombe Agreement; https://ecf.org.il/issues/issue/246

[9]           Hurewitz, J. C. compiler, translator and editor; “The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics – a Documentary Record”; second edition, revised and enlarged; volume 2 British-French Supremacy, 1914-1945; New Haven and London; Yale University Press; 1979; pp. 118-119

[10]          Hurewitz, J. C. compiler, translator and editor; “The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics – a Documentary Record”; second edition, revised and enlarged; volume 2 British-French Supremacy, 1914-1945; New Haven and London; Yale University Press; 1979; pp. 533

[11]          Ibid; pp. 531

[12]          Ibid; pp. 306

Mordechai ben Menachem is a prolific author. The article is a precise of  his 1,000 page book on European Antisemitism, “Now is History!”.

If you want a copy of the book write to him at quality@acm.org