Also, yes, I would heartily agree that when presented as the only option Israel was a much more attractive option than staying in the aftermath of WWII.
I would then point out that this was intentional -- that the Balfour Declaration was a cheap and easy way (or so it seemed at the time) for the Allied Powers to wash their hands of the "Jewish problem" in a way that involved minimal costs to themselves (or so it seemed at the time) and scoring maximum political points (or so it seemed at the time).
But it is an awfully cheap and shoddy way to try to help out survivors of the Holocaust and provide insurance against such a thing happening again, compared to what they could have done. Far from being a truly magnanimous act it was a brush-off -- "If we give you this useless land that's of religious and political significance to you we can stop feeling guilty, right? We can walk away".
It's almost exactly the same logic behind the Back-to-Africa movement among white abolitionists in antebellum America, people who wanted to have to stop wringing their hands over the plight of black slaves but who didn't want to deal with the responsibility of letting freed slaves become full and fully protected participants in their own country -- just plunk them back where they "belong", in a "homeland" they've never seen and that is of little intrinsic value, and let them deal with their own problems from then on. Clean hands, problem solved.
And it was nasty, ugly logic when applied to African slaves and it was nasty, ugly logic when applied to the Jews, no matter how much people argue that it was the only "realistic" solution. Hoping that all the Jews will flee to Israel and leave your country so you don't have to deal with it is not nearly as malicious or horrific as actively wishing genocide upon them, but it is, qualitatively, sprung from the same root -- a wish that there weren't any Jews around. (Indeed, in very early talks about what the "Final Solution" should be shipping off the Jews to an island somewhere *was among the possible plans* that Hitler and his cronies discussed, before they decided it was too costly and bore too much risk of the Jews someday coming back, and that they'd been successful enough at exerting their iron will over Europe that they weren't really worried about the bad international PR of actually killing them.)
no subject
I would then point out that this was intentional -- that the Balfour Declaration was a cheap and easy way (or so it seemed at the time) for the Allied Powers to wash their hands of the "Jewish problem" in a way that involved minimal costs to themselves (or so it seemed at the time) and scoring maximum political points (or so it seemed at the time).
But it is an awfully cheap and shoddy way to try to help out survivors of the Holocaust and provide insurance against such a thing happening again, compared to what they could have done. Far from being a truly magnanimous act it was a brush-off -- "If we give you this useless land that's of religious and political significance to you we can stop feeling guilty, right? We can walk away".
It's almost exactly the same logic behind the Back-to-Africa movement among white abolitionists in antebellum America, people who wanted to have to stop wringing their hands over the plight of black slaves but who didn't want to deal with the responsibility of letting freed slaves become full and fully protected participants in their own country -- just plunk them back where they "belong", in a "homeland" they've never seen and that is of little intrinsic value, and let them deal with their own problems from then on. Clean hands, problem solved.
And it was nasty, ugly logic when applied to African slaves and it was nasty, ugly logic when applied to the Jews, no matter how much people argue that it was the only "realistic" solution. Hoping that all the Jews will flee to Israel and leave your country so you don't have to deal with it is not nearly as malicious or horrific as actively wishing genocide upon them, but it is, qualitatively, sprung from the same root -- a wish that there weren't any Jews around. (Indeed, in very early talks about what the "Final Solution" should be shipping off the Jews to an island somewhere *was among the possible plans* that Hitler and his cronies discussed, before they decided it was too costly and bore too much risk of the Jews someday coming back, and that they'd been successful enough at exerting their iron will over Europe that they weren't really worried about the bad international PR of actually killing them.)