New Page

On the occasion of the Sixteenth Convention of the Israeli Communist Party, a paper was submitted at the outset of the conference in which it was slated that "after Hitler's taking of power in Germany, when all anti-fascist (braces in the world and the great majority of the Jewish organizations proclaimed a boycott against Nazi Germany, contacts and collaboration existed between Zionist leaders and the Hitlerite government."1 The paper quoted the Zionist official Eliezer Livneh (who had been editor of the Haganah organ during the Second World War) as declaring, during a symposium organized by the Israeli newspaper Maariv in 1966, "that for the Zionist leadership the rescue of Jews was not an aim in itself, but only a means" 2 (i.e., to establishing a Jewish state in Palestine). To question the reaction of the Zionist movement to German fascism, which in the course of its twelve-year car rule murdered millions of Jews, is a taboo in the eyes of the Zionist leaders. Only rarely is it possible to come across authentic evidence or documents concerningt hese occurrences. The following enquiry consists of information gathered up to this date about some important aspects of the cooperation between the Zionists and the fascists. It remains in the nature of things that this enquiry does not present a complete picture. This can only be possible when the archives (above all those in Israel), in which the documents concerning these events arc under lock and key,3 are made available for scholarly research.