Governing Zion from the Shores of the Hudson. - Review - book review

Judaism, Spring, 2001 by Edward Alexander

Baksheesh Diplomacy: Secret Negotiations Between American Jewish Leaders and Arab Officials on the Eve of World War II. By RAFAEL MEDOFF. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2000.

Rafael Medoff, one of Zionism's most meticulous and imaginative historians, has written a dazzling narrative, at once scholarly and dramatic, about one of those dubious Middle Eastern eggs called possibilities. The possibility was that, between 1937-39, American Jewish leaders, British and American officials, and Arab leaders would reach an agreement to transfer willing Palestinian Arab peasants to an Arab country, either Transjordan or Iraq. The chief proponents of this transfer idea were not Zionist leaders, but opponents of the movement toward a Jewish state, principally Felix Warburg, the leader of the nonZionist faction of the Jewish Agency, and Edward Norman (whose parents bore the surname Nusbaum). Medoff's portrait of these wealthy and arrogant patricians of German-Jewish extraction is as compelling as the bizarre political story he tells. Both men had inherited enormous fortunes and had been imbued with the obligation of philanthropic activity, which became their primary link to the American Jewish community. They inclined to the belief that most of the world's problems were economic in origin and therefore susceptible of economic solutions. For this reason, the nostrums forPalestine proffered by these capitalist Leviathans bear a curious (and ironic) resemblance to those ofthe former Marxist Shimon Peres, who within days of the outbreak of the Oslo War (otherwise known as Intifada II) in September 2000 said that the whole unpleasantness could be brought quickly to an end by a greater infusion of money into the Palestinian economy.

At first Warburg was interested in Palestine only as one amonghis 57 charities, each of which was represented by a compartment in the great cabinet in his luxurious Manhattan office. But he was favorably influenced by Louis Brandeis' Americanized version of Zionism and also impressed by the character of Chaim Weizmann, who seemed to him farmore restrained and cultivated than such boorish and unreasonable ideologues of Labor Zionism as David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok. In fact, most Zionist leaders seemed to Warburg close cousins of the Lower East Side's Jewish street peddlers from Eastern Europe. How could such coarse people possibly run a state? "I shudder," said Warburg, "at the representatives whom they will send to the different countries to obtain backing and trade conditions" (89). Should a Jewish state-something Warburg strongly opposed-come into being, non-Zionists like himself might be restricted to fundraisingwhile the Zionistpropaganda agents and talkingmachines would wield the real power.

Of course, not all American Jewish leaders shared the view that the German Jewish elitists were the only people with the common sense and moderation to manage Jewish affairs. Stephen Wise was impatient with the belief of American Jewry "that millionaires must not be contradicted or challenged or denied" (28). When Warburg refused to contribute a penny to buy weapons for self-defense for the yishuv, Wise acidly remarked to Brandeis: "Think of sitting at ease on 92nd St. and Park Avenue [the Warburg family residence] and presuming to leave our best unguarded. What magnificent self-righteousness or callousness!" (74).

Warburgtended to be very concessive to the Arabs in the aftermath of their frequent violent acts against the Jews of Palestine. Indeed, he was often scolded by Weizmann and other Zionist leaders for acceding to the principle (not unknown in more recent times) that no act of Arab violence should go unrewarded. But Warburg's appeasement policies were in his mind short-term means to a long-term solution. "Concessions to the Arabs," Medoffobserves, "wouldrestore peace; peace would lead to investments; investments would lead to a long-term solution to the Palestine conflict" (39).

But the long-term solution that Warburg had in mind was not at all what might have been expected from an advocate of appeasement and concession. Since Warburg always believed that dollars could work where diplomacy could not, he concluded that financial incentives could be used to persuade Palestinian Arabs to resettle in other countries, thus clearingPalestinefor the Jews-rather a peculiar aim for an opponent of Jewish statehood. (Did Warburg think that Palestinian Jewry would opt to remain a mostly Jewish colony of the British Empire, or that it would choose American Jews to rule a Jewish homeland/refuge from the comfort of Manhattan?) He found supportfor this idea in Weizmann, who reported in May 1930 that an Arab leader (apparently the Lebanese Riad asSulh) had told him that the government of Transjordan would like a loan of one million pounds to develop the country so that it could be placed at the disposal of Arabs who might choose to leave Palestine (to say nothing of Jews who wanted to live there). Warburg did not think of this plan as expatriation of the Arabs, since Transjordan was "distinctly Arab territory and ... only separated from Palestine by the Jordan-a smallish river, in some places not broader than the Bronx River" (43).