15. Judgment on the Sand
EVEN BEFORE Sam Cohen's deal was verbally accepted by the Reich Economics Ministry on May 13, 1933, it became impossible to confine knowledge of the secret negotiations to a select few German Zionist circles in Germany and Jerusalem were aware of developments, as were key Zionist leaders in London, including Weizmann, Rutenberg, and Professor Brodetsky. And in late April, the Jewish Agency Executive Committee finally learned of the project. Who knew how much, and at what point during the first hush-hush weeks of negotiations, created a chaotic scenario.
For instance, Sam Cohen was still in Poland when Siegfried Moses received word on May 13 of the Reich Economics Ministry's acceptance. [2] So the German Zionists were unaware of the height or breadth of the deal, although they probably suspected it might include Hanotaiah.
After Sam Cohen first secured the currency exemption in late March 1933, he quickly convinced the Reich to link an emigrant's currency grant to the purchase or attempt to purchase orchard acreage from Hanotaiah. Cohen did this without the ZVtD's permission. [2] The Emigrant Advisory Office had agreed to the linkage because they were guarding against citizens removing currency from Germany for merely a temporary stay abroad. A good-faith attempt to purchase acreage from Hanotaiah was a reasonable indicator of an emigrant's sincere intent to relocate permanently. [3]
Reich recognition made Hanotaiah the "preferred" Palestine land broker and transfer authority for German Jews. But Hanotaiah was unacceptable to the ZVtD because its transaction terms left little choice of relocation or cash for German Jews. ZVtD director Georg Landauer was originally able to thwart the Reich's Hanotaiah requirement by encouraging individual emigrants to protest the condition or substitute another Palestinian land broker in place of Hanotaiah. Landauer had thought this effectively cut Hanotaiah out. [4]
But Landauer soon learned that Hanotaiah was back in the arrangement. Cohen briefed Landauer on the new arrangement sometime between May 14 and May 17. From Cohen's description, Landauer suspected that Hanotaiah was no longer just the "preferred" land broker but the chartered company entrusted with the future of German Jewish emigrants. Cohen was bluntly told his monopoly was out of the question. He tried to reassure the German Zionists that Hanotaiah actually held no monopoly, but the ZVtD leadership was not convinced. They insisted Cohen issue a formal disavowal of any monopoly to the Reich. Cohen answered that he had already made that point perfectly clear during negotiations. [5]
The Economics Ministry's official May 19 confirmation of Sam Cohen's deal was delivered to Siegfried Moses, who was still listed as Cohen's solicitor. Landauer studied the document but found no indication of a Hanotaiah monopoly. He concluded that Cohen's deal was in fact a limited arrangement between the German government and a private Palestinian company that would not obstruct the official Zionist bodies from negotiating the larger transfer Arlosoroff was still formulating. [6]
The same day, May 19, Arlosoroff finalized his transfer ideas. The grandiose project was outlined in a personal memo marked TOP SECRET. The centerpiece of the plan was a "Liquidation Bank." Rutenberg had originally talked of a liquidation company, but ownership of the company had become a political issue, and Arlosoroff was now convinced the solution was a publicly supervised transfer, not a privately controlled migration. Arlosoroff's Liquidation Bank would be internationally recognized, probably under the aegis of the League of Nations. Relying on Weizmann's good relations with both the British government and Mussolini, Arlosoroff proposed that the bank's funding be secured by joint British-Italian sponsorship with international Jewish contributions. Merchandise would of course be the nexus between Germany and the Zionists. [7]
In fact, Arlosoroff's May 19 transfer plan was essentially the same as Sam Cohen's deal, with two basic improvements. First, German exports would not be limited to agricultural wares. Any German product or commodity would be included. Arlosoroff's memo listed items as varied as automobiles, building materials, dyes, and pharmaceuticals.8 His thought was not just the expansion of orchards, but the creation of a thriving urban and rural society.
Second, Arlosoroff's transfer would not be cashless. Emigrants would receive their £1,000 entrance money in hand, and then transfer an additional sum that would be used in trust by Zionist institutions to develop the country. This additional money was essential. Thousands of Jews could not be suddenly transferred to primitive Palestine without the roads, schools, hospitals, ports, and other fundamentals of a twentieth-century nation. Many of these had to be constructed virtually from scratch. Arlosoroff's Liquidation Bank would take over the blocked assets of German Jews, use them to pay for German exports, sell them in Palestine, and give proceeds of the first £1,000 to the immigrant, minus a small percent for administration. [9] Transferred cash beyond the first £1,000 would be invested in infrastructure. In this way, Palestine would receive the maximum merchandise and investment capital. The Jewish immigrant would receive the maximum cash.
In addition, Arlosoroff's May 19 memo listed Germany's inducements: a gateway to the Middle East market, increased employment, and the foreign-currency opportunities of unhindered exports. Moreover, the Zionist transfer would be seen as the minimum of "fair play" toward German Jewry that Western leaders had publicly called for in recent days. Thus, Hitler could both remove the Jews and be recognized as assisting in their national aspirations. [10] Arlosoroff's memo demanded all Jewish "sentimentality" about negotiating with the Nazis be rejected. Emotionalism, he argued, would not gain Jews their homeland. [11]
But Arlosoroff appended one important stipulation to his memo. German Jewish transfer must be wholly voluntary. This was a mandamus from Herzl. The Jewish State awaited only those who would ascend to it: Emigration was aliya, the Hebrew word for ascent. No Jew would be forced to liquidate his German existence. [12] Arlosoroff's plan combined the best elements of international law, bribery, and freedom of choice. All his hypothesizing had created a workable transfer, guaranteed by law and motivated by self-interest.
When Arlosoroff completed his top-secret memo on May 19, he was unaware that the Reich had already agreed to Sam Cohen's deal. When apprised of the unexpected development, probably that same day, Arlosoroff did not agree with Landauer's assumption that Cohen's pact was a limited deal. Arlosoroff believed it was the deal. But they were all still guessing. Cohen himself could not be located in Berlin to explain, because on May 19 Cohen had suddenly surfaced in London. [13]
Arlosoroff had to move quickly lest a man and his orchard company supplant the entire international Zionist movement and seize control of the fate of the Jewish nation.
His first task was to circulate word that the official proposal of Zionism was in the hands of Chaim Arlosoroff, head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency -- not Sam Cohen, orchard broker. More important, transfer must provide emigrants with as much of their cash as possible and Palestine with as many building materials as possible. On May 20, in a wide-ranging interview with Robert Weltsch, editor of the ZVtD's Juedisehe Rundsehau, Arlosoroff detailed all the proposals of his plan, which only twenty-four hours earlier had been marked TOP SECRET. [14]
The interview was printed in the Rundsehau's May 24 edition. In it, Arlosoroff pinpointed the problem for Jews. They no longer needed refuges, asylums, or other temporary solutions to their persecution. Jews needed an endpoint in their quest for self-determination. Palestine was this endpoint. There Jews would find the glory of self-imposed struggle. After the struggle they would find agrarian opportunities if they chose, industrial opportunities if they chose -- whatever they chose, for the choosing would now be free from anti-Jewish decrees or concessions from on high. Through liquidation, Jews would achieve independence -- for the first time in 2,000 years. [15]
"This leads me to a central question ... the liquidation of capital and holdings belonging to German Jewish emigrants," Arlosoroff explained in the article. "There appears to be no way out for people whose fortune exceeds the amount of foreign currency normally permitted ... under present laws. . . . It makes no sense to ignore it or to think that it can be solved without an agreement with the German government. ... The only way out is to ... provide a benefit to both parties." [16]
Nazi censors ordered the newspaper seized. The Reich Press Office routinely suppressed troublesome editions and sometimes closed publications down altogether. In this case, the first for Juedisehe Rundsehau, the edition was merely confiscated. [17] No reason was given, but that same day, to clarify matters, the Reich Foreign Ministry transmitted a written guideline to the British embassy, ostensibly in response to their earlier inquiries regarding the original currency exemption. [18] The Reich specified: "The emigrant must first of all give convincing evidence of his serious intention to transfer his domicile abroad permanently [Reich emphasis], and must produce a certificate from the Emigrant Advisory Office that his proposals are economically realizable and that the capital which he wishes to take with him is of suitable amount for beginning a new existence abroad." [19] The reference -- without naming it -- was to Sam Cohen's cashless or near cashless orchard settlement scheme. An accompanying message warned that publicity be strictly avoided. Whatever cash German Jews were allowed would severely burden monetary reserves, and if too many emigrants applied, the intensified fiscal strain would force a curtailment of the entire arrangement. [20]
The Nazis had effectively muffled Arlosoroff. So Arlosoroff left the country to promote the position that a Jewish exodus from Germany should guarantee as many emigrant assets as possible. Arlosoroff went to Prague, where on May 25 he urged an audience to act unemotionally for the benefit of Germany's Jews and indeed the entire Jewish people. The most pressing issue, he told them, was the immediate transfer of German Jewish youth. "We do not want them to become psychic cripples." Second in line, Arlosoroff said, should be laborers from ages seventeen to twenty-two, who would build and cultivate for a dramatic national expansion. Then would come the settlers, rural and urban. These new settlers, the commercial and agrarian lifeblood of the nation-to-be, should not be exploited by competitive and un viable programs -- a reference to Sam Cohen's deal. Instead, Jews should pool their resources in a single officially sanctioned program. That program would have to include German merchandise. Undoubtedly, many in the crowd were boycott advocates, but he urged them to be realistic and understand that Jewish assets must be made liquid and transferable. And this would require an understanding with the German government that would hinge on exports. This theme was repeated in a public address in Warsaw on May 27 and in newspaper interviews published in Europe and Palestine that week. [21]
Arlosoroff tried to circulate his notions as the true position of the Zionist movement. But with a secret deal already ratified by the German government, Sam Cohen was far ahead of him. And Cohen was now in England, making arrangements with the rest of the Zionist hierarchy. Enough speeches had been made. Arlosoroff hurried to London.
***
In London, Mr. Sam Cohen had been very busy. On May 19, shortly after his arrival, Cohen telephoned Martin Rosenbluth, the German Zionist dispatched to London by Goering to stop the anti-Hitler movement. Rosenbluth was now stationed in London as the Zionist Organization's liaison with the ZVfD. Cohen briefed Rosenbluth on the deal and asked for an immediate meeting to discuss its implementation, but warned that Landauer and company were extremely dissatisfied with the arrangement. However, after hearing Cohen's preliminary explanations, Rosenbluth was convinced that Landauer must be sorely mistaken. Cohen's deal seemed fine, especially in light of the Jewish Agency quarrels and sniping, which prevented any decisive action in April. So just after he hung up, Rosenbluth dashed off a short note to Landauer reminding him that German Zionists had received reports of the squabbling in Jerusalem and London, and perhaps Cohen's deal was not so bad. [22]
During the next several days, Cohen explained the lucrative potential of his deal to the Zionist Executive Committee in London. Seeking to broaden the benefits, the Zionist Executive urged him to submit his private agreement to "national control." That would mean sharing the agreement with the official land-settlement firms such as Yakhin, owned by the Mapai-controlled Histadrut workers organization. Cohen agreed. The Executive then asked him to return at once to Palestine to personally handle negotiations between Hanotaiah, Yakhin, and other companies. They promised the Jewish Agency's full support and gave him a letter of authority dated May 30, 1933: "The Executive Committee has taken note of your agreement with the German Ministry of Economics and would be gratified if you were successful in bringing about an agreement for joint implementation of the plan between Hanotaiah, Yakhin, and other appropriate societies. We are pleased that you agree with the idea of national supervision for this project." [23] By relying on Cohen, the Zionist Organization preserved its own deniability. If tumult arose over any deal with Hitler, they could just blame a private citizen acting alone.
***
Frustrated and travel-weary, Arlosoroff arrived in London on June I, almost two weeks after Sam Cohen. The challenge facing Arlosoroff was to unravel the complicated arrangements Cohen had woven. At stake was a nearsighted business deal that would squander Zionism's one great chance, probably its last great chance, to bring the Jewish people en masse to Palestine.
Upon arrival, Arlosoroff went to Zionist headquarters at Great Russell Street for a conference with Nahum Sokolow, president of the Zionist Organization, Berl Locker of the Zionist Executive, David Werner Senator of the Jewish Agency Executive, and Martin Rosenbluth and Leo Herrmann of the ZVfD. Arlosoroff made his appeal. He began with an analysis of Zionism's precarious status in Germany and claimed the future was in the hands of young German Jewish leaders. The older leaders, such as Landauer, would be emigrating to Palestine in the near future. Arlosoroff called their abandonment of the work in Germany "deplorable," adding that they would be hard to replace. [24]
As to transfer, there was only one solution, argued Arlosoroff: an internationally guaranteed Liquidation Bank. Without it, Jewish assets in Germany would soon dwindle to nothing. Only personal savings and reserves were buffering the present misery. With those depleted, the narrow Jewish employment possibilities remaining in Germany would utterly pauperize the community. Moreover, German currency was so weak that the absence of international guarantees could collapse any system limited to reichmarks. [25]
Arlosoroff was sure that when German Jews discovered they could not remove large amounts of their money through Sam Cohen's deal, they would postpone emigrating to Palestine until they were destitute. In that case, their indispensable capital contribution would be squandered. Or they would resort to widespread smuggling. The Nazis would invariably catch many of the smugglers, and the Jews would suffer even worse. Without larger cash permits, the overwhelmingly non-Zionist German Jewish population would simply reject Palestine as a realistic option. [26]
The Executive Committee and the German Zionists heard Arlosoroff's compelling explanations. It was now a choice between Sam Cohen's deal or Chaim Arlosoroff's transfer. A long discussion ensued. Arlosoroff answered the questions persuasively. By meeting's end the decision was made: in favor of Arlosoroff. [27]
Arlosoroff was instructed to proceed to Jerusalem and establish an official institution to supervise the Liquidation Bank. Rosenbluth and Senator would coordinate the program in Berlin. Arlosoroff would control the entire operation. [28] There was no time to enjoy the triumph. With his instructions and authority clearly laid out in writing, Arlosoroff left the conference for a meeting across town with Colonial Secretary Cunliffe-Lister.
At 5:00 P.M. in an office at the stately House of Commons, Professor Brodetsky and Arlosoroff met Cunliffe-Lister and A.C.C. Parkinson. Speaking in a clear, forceful manner, Arlosoroff impressed upon Cunliffe-Lister that Jews were finished in Germany. Their only way out was his transfer plan: children first -- this captured Cunliffe-Lister's sympathy the most; laborers second -- Cunliffe-Lister understood the need for this advance group and was receptive to bending the immigration-certificate system to the emergency. [29]
Arlosoroff then began to explain how the transfer would work. The Liquidation Bank would gather in Jewish assets and use them to export German goods to Palestine. Cunliffe-Lister's facial expression changed. His reaction to a flood of German wares displacing British wares on the Palestinian market was as Professor Brodetsky feared. Cunliffe-Lister interrupted, "Where do we come in? You will be increasing German exports at our [British] expense." [30] Throughout all the secret meetings with Weizmann, Arlosoroff, and Arab leaders in Palestine during April, Cunliffe-Lister had been willing to cooperate on a glorious new plan for the area, a plan of binational self-determination that would solve a host of Arab and Jewish problems and produce a modern Jewish State in the process. There would be commerce, technology, and prosperity for all. Great Britain would reap the financial benefits, selling basic materials and consumer goods to a developing Palestine. The notion of Germany replacing Britain as Palestine's greatest commercial partner had not even occurred to Cunliffe-Lister.
Arlosoroff tried to minimize Cunliffe-Lister's bad reaction. Perhaps the League of Nations, in overseeing the Liquidation Bank, could structure things so as not to harm British commercial interests. Cunliffe-Lister stopped the discussion cold and snapped, "Do what you like, but don't tell us!" [31]
Arlosoroff realized that opposition to trading with Germany would be everywhere. But he was convinced that economic inducements were the only way to prompt Germany to cooperate in the transfer. Next, it was necessary to contact Sam Cohen.
Exactly how the Zionist Executive explained the withdrawal of support for Cohen is unrecorded. Cohen had already set things in motion under the Zionist Organization's preliminary May 30 authority. Meetings had been scheduled in Palestine between Hanotaiah, Yakhin, and other companies. But ultimately, Cohen was forced to step back and allow Arlosoroff to assume control of the transfer. The difficult negotiations must have stretched over several days, because not until June 4 was a cable dispatched to Hanotaiah Ltd. in Palestine: "JOINT IMPLEMENTATION OF SAM COHEN PROJECT REQUIRED UNDER NATIONAL CONTROL. DISCUSSION BY ALL PARTICIPANTS NECESSARY. DELAY MEETING FOR ARRIVAL COHEN ON 12TH [JUNE], ARLOSOROFF 15TH." The cable was signed "ARLOSOROFF/COHEN." [32]
Arlosoroff intended to use the Hanotaiah agreement as a springboard for formal negotiations with the Reich that would produce a transfer controlled by the Jewish Agency. However, Arlosoroff quickly learned that the German government, believing Cohen and Hanotaiah represented the Zionist movement, had indeed granted Hanotaiah complete responsibility for Jewish emigration to Palestine.
On May 19, the day the Reich confirmed Cohen's deal in writing, the British Passport Control Officer in Berlin received new instructions governing the issuance of capitalist certificates for Palestine. Previously requiring evidence of £1,000 in hand, he was now told "not to insist on the production by the applicants of a currency export permit." Instead, the passport officer was "to accept as evidence" proof of capital in "reputable banks in Holland, Switzerland, etc." And he was to "take into consideration as capital the value of machinery, stock, immovable property, etc." [33] What's more, whenever Jews applied for their currency permits at Reich offices, they were handed a notice referring them to "the firm Hanotaiah Ltd. (the solicitor Siegfried Moses), on the basis of an agreement which has been concluded, sells settlement sites, etc., against payment of the purchase price into a blocked account." [34] The cashless or near-cashless transfer was formally in place. And Hanotaiah was totally in charge.
Quickly the word reached the ZVfD in Berlin from prospective emigrants all over the country. Hanotaiah did indeed hold a monopoly, despite the assurances of Sam Cohen. Emigrants found they could leave Germany -- but only if they left behind most of their holdings to be divided between Hanotaiah and the Reich. By June 9, Landauer was forced to concede in a letter to a colleague in Breslau that he had been deceived by Cohen. Landauer promised to intervene at once to strike down the Hanotaiah exclusive. [35] He knew that non-Zionist, middle-class German Jews would simply not leave everything behind for a new life in Palestine. If they were to be convinced to start a new life in the Jewish national home, they must be allowed to take some of their old life with them.
***
Palestine was ready to explode. Internal Zionist politics had produced a dangerous undercurrent to the German emergency. Revisionist forces led by Jabotinsky were challenging the entire leadership of the Zionist Organization -- which was becoming increasingly Mapai-dominated. Jabotinsky planned a dramatic appeal for floor votes at the upcoming Eighteenth Zionist Congress to oust the existing leadership and install himself and his circle. [36] At stake was the very philosophy of Zionism.
In simplified terms, Mapai, or Labor Zionism, saw Palestine as a home for a Jewish elite that would toil in the noble vocations of manual work and farming. Their orientation was communal, socialist. They wanted collective farms and villages. Moreover, Labor Zionism desired the many, but not the multitudes. Mapai's Israel would not be for every Jew -- at least not in the beginning. At first Israel would be for the approved cadre of pioneers. And Mapai wanted gradual "constructive programs" to build the Jewish Homeland -- dunam by dunam. [37]
Revisionist Zionism rejected Jewish exclusivity. They wanted a nation of ordinary Jews in a mixed urban-rural society. The system would be free enterprise not socialism. And Revisionism believed that Palestine could not be acquired a nibble and a shipload at a time. Only by rapidly transferring the largest number of Jews in the shortest amount of time would the Jews constitute a sudden majority in Palestine that could declare the State. With specific unpleasantries about starvation and exposure deleted, Revisionism was very much an updated version of Max Nordau's catastrophic Zionism. [38]
All the conflicts of Mapai-dominated Zionism and Revisionism became life-or-death issues with the rise of Hitler. How many Jews to bring to Palestine, how quickly, from which socioeconomic-national category, and by what means were all fighting questions. Whether to work with the Hitler regime, or combat it through an economic boycott, only heightened the confrontation.
The battle techniques of Revisionism and Mapai also differed. Mapai was expert at political warfare -- not so much by the rules as for the rules. Preoccupied with legalisms, they favored sudden organizational and government meetings that would yield repressive regulation. For example, in December 1931, a Mapai-engineered Zionist Organization decree urged all registered Zionists to avoid membership in Jabotinsky's Revisionist Union. [39]
Revisionists, on the other hand, were heavily Fascist and profoundly influenced by Mussolini. Neither Vladimir Jabotinsky nor Benito Mussolini approved of Hitler's twisted version of Fascism. Nonetheless, Jabotinsky's legions were wrapped in many of the same fabrics. The paramilitary Betar youth corps trained in military camps and wore the same characteristic brown-colored shirts found in Germany. Revisionists claimed their brown was the color of the earth. But a German brown shirt and a Jewish brown shirt were practically indistinguishable when laid side by side. On one occasion, in mid-April 1933, a Betar parade through Tel Aviv was attacked by Labor Zionists who claimed the brown outfits were so reminiscent of Nazi uniforms (even though nothing resembling a swastika was displayed) that the march itself was a provocation to violence. [40] True to Fascist ideology, the fist and the shout were the preferred methods of achieving Revisionist goals. Labor Zionists, especially David Ben-Gurion, were fond of calling Jabotinsky the Jewish Hitler. [41]
During the spring of 1933, every Zionist decision was calculated for its impact on the coming elections for control of the Eighteenth Zionist Congress. As the sniping intensified, Revisionist sympathizers were increasingly shut out of the Mapai-controlled Histadrut labor exchanges. Palestinian Revisionists found they could not earn a living. Revisionists in turn became professional strikebreakers, available for Palestinian employers suffering from Histadrut labor actions. This was especially true in the vast orchard business, where a strategic strike could forfeit a harvest and cripple an entire settlement. [42]
While Revisionists were trying to topple the Mapai labor monopoly in Palestine, Labor Zionist leaders were touring hundreds of East European towns and villages, hoping to convert traditional Revisionist voters. Typical was the May 5, 1933, visit of Ben-Gurion to Riga, Latvia. No sooner had Ben-Gurion stepped from the railway station than a band of Betarim pelted him with rotten eggs. Mapai supporters rushed to Ben-Gurion's aid. Police were called to disperse the fight. [43]
Politics was in fact a vital factor when the Zionist Executive in London persuaded Cohen to merge his Hanotaiah deal with Yakhin, the Mapai-controlled land firm. Whoever controlled the German Jewish money and immigrants, directed votes and financial resources that could be wielded in the war for control of Zionism.
Advocating the anti-Hitler boycott became part of Revisionism's campaign for popular support. On April 28, despite official Zionist calls to abstain from anti-Hitler agitation, Jabotinsky delivered a forceful condemnation of Nazi relations with Palestine. It was the first speech by a foreign Jew ever broadcast by Poland's state-controlled radio. Speaking alternately in threat than a promise. Assassination was the known punishment for moderation.
Jewish radicals were equally irate. Mizrachi -- the major religious Zionist party -- publicly demanded Arlosoroff's resignation on the grounds he had no authority to convene the extraordinary luncheon. [52] The ranks of Revisionism went further and demanded Arlosoroff be relieved of his life. One Revisionist leader in Lodz, Poland, declared at a news conference that if a Jewish courtmartial existed, Arlosoroff would be condemned to death; he reportedly added that his own hand would not tremble if asked to carry out the sentence. Another Revisionist leader, this one in Warsaw, allegedly stated that any Jewish youth who fired a shot at Arlosoroff would become a saint. [53]
Undaunted, Arlosoroff continued his binational efforts, enlisting the active support of the British. The first fruits of these secret initiatives came quickly. By the end of April, Palestine's high commissioner had announced the resettlement of one hundred Arab families evicted when their absentee Arab landowners sold land to Zionists. The high commissioner stressed that Jewish agricultural methods were to be employed. The unnamed architect of the resettlement plans was Chaim Arlosoroff, who had been secretly working on the program for some time. [54]
Simultaneously, a model Arab community was being sponsored by the Jewish residents of Netanya, the Jewish colony just north of Tel Aviv established in part by Hanotaiah and Revisionist leaders. Netanya residents included a number of American Zionists, many of whom were devout binationalists. Several of these residents, Hebrew University Chancellor Judah Magnes among them, convinced Hanotaiah to rehabilitate the nearby rundown Arab village of Umm Khaled. Under the plan, Hanotaiah would provide each household with ten dunams (2-1/2 acres) of land, a house, an area for animals, and additional dunams for vegetable growing and citriculture. In a confidential May 1 report, United States Consul in Jerusalem Alexander Sloan explained that Hanotaiah had agreed to assist "provided it is given complete title to a certain section of sand dunes facing the sea on which it now holds a 99-year lease." Sloan explained that "Hanotaiah Ltd. is interested politically in the betterment of Arab-Jewish relations." [55] Naturally, the better Arab-Jewish relations were, the less difficult it would be to conclude land sales.
The binational initiatives of spring 1933 found not only Jewish takers but Arab takers as well. Suddenly, for the first time in Palestine's turbulent history, moderate Arabs were standing up. With the security of German Jewish money forecast by Arlosoroff, many Arabs were finally willing to say yes to coexistence. For example, shortly after the King David Hotel luncheon, the Transjordan Opposition scheduled a major anti-Zionist conference for May 18. But the conference was postponed when pro-Zionist Arabs violently disrupted the meeting. [56]
On May 24, dozens of Arab sheikhs and property owners, representing twenty-three villages and a large town in Transjordan, visited the white, mazelike structure housing the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. The assembled leaders collectively invited Zionists to purchase Arab land in Transjordan for the mass settlement of Jews. [57]
That same day, Jewish Agency chairman Emanuel Neumann met with W. J. Johnson, treasurer of the Palestine government. Neumann was always lobbying for the British to allocate as much of Palestine's tax money and other fiscal resources to Jewish projects as to Arab projects. That day, as Johnson explained some of the government's big development plans -- housing for British troops and the accretion of a huge monetary reserve -- Neumann asked how then would the resettlement of displaced Arabs be financed? Johnson replied that the money wouldn't be provided from the government's normal revenues. [58]
Where will the money come from? asked Neumann. Johnson at first tried to evade the question. But Neumann pressed until Johnson, stipulating the strictest confidence, admitted that the specifics of a £2-million Palestine development loan had been secretly approved by Sir Cunliffe-Lister when he visited Palestine in April. The fine points, just completed, were being rushed to London in the next airmail pouch for Cunliffe-Lister's signature. Such a development loan had been debated for two years without agreement. Therefore, Neumann was amazed as Johnson itemized the details: first, a water supply system for Jerusalem and Haifa, possibly with a drainage grid. Neumann interrupted and said such a massive endeavor would cost at least £350,000 for Jerusalem alone. Johnson corrected him: £480,000. Second, an oil port at Haifa costing anywhere from £150,000 to £200,000. Third, port improvements at Jaffa, no figure mentioned. [59]
Johnson then described some of the Arab settlement programs. To start, a program of general assistance, say, £50,000, to help Arab villagers in the hill country; Neumann guessed this money was designed to buy political support for the new situation. Additional money would resettle Arabs displaced by absentee landlord property sales to Zionists. Neumann guessed resettlement would cost a few hundred thousand pounds. Johnson said no, it would be "much more than that." [60]
Central to the plan was an "Agricultural Bank" capitalized with £100,000 from the new fund and an additional £500,000 from the Prudential Insurance Company or its executives, perhaps Barclays Bank, and Anglo-Zionist investors. To avoid any sectarian character, Englishmen would manage the Agricultural Bank; a three-man bank advisory committee would include a Jew, an Arab, and the Palestine director of agriculture. Once in place, the Agricultural Bank would permit both Jew and Arab to purchase and settle land throughout the Palestine plains. [61]
Johnson mentioned other projects: irrigation plants, hydrographic surveys, Arab municipal improvements, water for remote Arab villages. All this money would be borrowed by the Mandate government from the great new fund. The interest rate would be no more than 3-1/2 to 5 percent because the British Treasury would guarantee repayment. Neumann remarked, "Very cheap money indeed." Johnson answered that the Treasury was willing to guarantee repayment, thus assuring the low interest rate, because Palestine would generate huge purchases of British exports. [62]
Johnson and Cunliffe-Lister were unaware of it at the time, but Britain's special inducement -- massively increased exports to Palestine -- was to be eliminated in favor of a bitter concession to Nazi Germany. A week later, on June 1, during the meeting with Arlosoroff, Cunliffe-Lister finally discovered this and realized that all the binational plans, many of which were already under way, were now of primary benefit only to Jews and Germans. Britain would lose -- and not just trade. For Germany's winnings would include breaking the boycott and gaining the economic recovery she needed to rearm.
***
Chaim Arlosoroff was one of the most provocative thinkers of his day in that he tried not to overwhelm, but to transform. In an era of extremes, his efforts to combine the hostile forces around him were almost too theoretical to succeed. Rumors of a deal with Hitler only accelerated the controversies swirling around him. By early June 1933, Arlosoroff was in fact a threat to so many groups that people measured themselves by how vehemently they opposed him.
His Jewish friends began to fear and hate him. Arlosoroff was a top Mapai leader, but Labor-aligned moderates could hardly contain their fury that the prodigy of the Zionist movement was abandoning all Zionist discipline. Unilaterally he was formulating and executing policy -- binational breakthroughs with the Arabs and controversial trade-offs with the Nazis. Arlosoroff was by himself engineering the fate of societies and nations, not in theoretical, discreet ways leaving plenty of doors open for retreat, but by one stunning fait accompli after another. Arlosoroff was dangerous to Mapai and to the others of moderate mainstream Zionism. He was giving away the Promised Land to the Arabs, and in so doing giving away the Eighteenth Zionist Congress elections to the Revisionists. Arlosoroff would have to be stopped.
His enemies among the Jews were convinced there was no greater nemesis. Arlosoroff was a special foe of Revisionism. It was Arlosoroff who in late 1931 conceived the decree against membership in Jabotinsky's Revisionist Union. The calls for his assassination were so commonplace during early 1933 that it was rumored Revisionist circles were merely debating whether to kill him before or after the Eighteenth Zionist Congress. According to one such rumor, Vladimir Jabotinsky himself was said to have quashed a far-gone Palestinian conspiracy by cabling the ringleaders a one-word instruction: "NO." [63] More than rumor was an odious Revisionist pamphlet published by Abba Achimier, the editor of the Revisionist newspaper Hazit Haam. Achimier's pamphlet, entitled "Manifesto of the Sicarii," explained a new secret society based on an ancient sect of Jewish assassins from the Masada era. The Sicarii carried short Roman daggers and assassinated Jewish leaders found guilty of consorting with the Roman enemy. [64] Arlosoroff was consorting with 'all of Revisionism's greatest enemies: the British, who occupied the land; the Arabs, who refused to make room for Jewish destiny; and the Germans, who were dedicated to annihilating the Jews. Arlosoroff would have to be stopped.
His enemies among the Arabs saw him as the one Zionist willing to push past the historic barriers. Arlosoroff was too willing to use the new powers and wealth arising out of the German crisis to create a new binational community that would make the battle cries of Arab rejection obsolete. To Arab extremists, Arlosoroff was the most dangerous Zionist in Palestine. Not because he sought to conquer. But because he sought to combine. Arlosoroff would have to be stopped.
His enemies in Britain were created unexpectedly. Suddenly the British government realized that Chaim Arlosoroff carried the key to economic turmoil or triumph in Palestine for either Britain or Germany. The transfer as London had originally envisioned it would be a boon for the British economy that would blossom into an extended economic sphere of influence over the entire Mideast. That prize was now going to Germany. Arlosorofrs dreams would play right into Hitler's plans. Arlosoroff would have to be stopped.
And his newest enemy was the one enemy people knew the least about. His name was Mr. Sam Cohen. Cohen had masterminded an international economic and political coup. If successful, he alone would control millions of dollars, thousands of people, and large tracts of land. One man working alone could, if allowed, deliver the Jewish nation to the Jewish homeland. Cohen could be this private messiah. But now Arlosoroff was obliterating it all. Cohen was being robbed of both his promise and his profit. Arlosoroff would have to be stopped.
The question was: Who would stop him, and how?
***
The passions of Palestine, its dreams and disappointments, all focused on a single man. When Arlosoroff departed London in the first week of June, he was returning to a land whose potentials he loved. Too few in Palestine would accept the clarity of his ideas. But Arlosoroff had visions from the beginning.
When he was only twenty-two years old, in 1922, Arlosoroff first visited Palestine and encountered the reality of a land inhabited by one people of the present while cherished by another people of the past. The young Zionist wrote, "Let us not overlook the following fact: there is in the country a massive [Arab] nation ... and it makes no difference if we call it a national movement or not. . .. We have only one way: the road of peace; only one national policy: a policy of mutual understanding .... Peace and agreement cannot grow overnight. The road to it is long and requires much work." [65]
For years Arlosoroff had sought peace by the forces of reason. All efforts failed. In June 1932, one year after becoming the political secretary of the Jewish Agency, Arlosoroff wrote a disconsolate letter to Weizmann, predicting that soon only two options would remain: "narrowing down the geographical area [in Palestine] in which Zionism will materialize." That failing, a man of peace such as Arlosoroff in desperation advocated a brief coup, hoping that this position of power could result in coexistence. [66]
But such transient suggestions as armed revolt were outmoded because the German crisis would at last allow him to create realities with money where reason had failed.
As Arlosoroff traveled across Europe, rumors were everywhere. He was sealing a pact with Hitler, and forging a new binational political party with pro-Zionist Arabs, and was even ready to publish an Arab-Zionist newspaper. Shortly after Arlosoroff left Poland in early June, the Polish Revisionist newspaper Die Welt accused Arlosoroff of trying to make peace with Hitler and warned; "Get off the Jewish stage, Dr. Arlosoroffi" On June 9, the Palestinian Revisionist newspaper Hazit Haam declared, "At a time when the people of Israel in Palestine and abroad are in a defensive war of honor against Germany ... an official of the Jewish Agency suggests not only a cancellation of the boycott but also a promise of a market for German imports .... This should be viewed as putting a knife in the back of the Jewish people while attempting to stretch out the hand of friendship to the Hitler government." [67]
The animosity of the Jewish masses, the desperation of German Jewry, and the momentus failure or success that might emerge within the coming days could not help but cast the thirty-four-year-old Arlosoroff into a deep depression. As he journeyed home to Palestine, Arlosoroff's gloom was only worsened by a sequence of missed trains, lost wallets, and strange delays. Everything had gone wrong, and Arlosoroff felt the omens were not good. [68]
Arlosoroff had hoped to meet his wife Sima in Egypt and enjoy the train ride back to Tel Aviv together. But the mishaps forced him to board a ship in Naples that didn't arrive in Egypt until June 13. The superstitious Arlosoroff asked Sima to instead meet him at 6:00 A.M. on the fourteenth at a Palestine train station along the way. [69]
Arlosoroff and Sima arrived in Tel Aviv at 9:00 A.M. on June 14 and went straight to their Tel Aviv apartment at 82 Yarkon. There Arlosoroff hugged his children for the first time in over a month. Later that day, he visited his mother. And he conferred with various Zionist officials. Throughout the day, his dejection remained clearly visible to those he met. [70]
That night, Arlosoroff tried to find solace playing with his infant son Shaul. One of Shaul's favorite games was to remove his father's ring from his finger and replace it. But this day, when Shaul removed the ring, he replaced it on his mother's finger. Arlosoroff cried out, "Not yet." [71]
***
On June 15, Arlosoroff, still tired from his travels, continued meeting on the transfer question. It is rumored that among those he spoke with was Sam Cohen.
The next day, June 16, Arlosoroff lunched with High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope. After lunch, they visited a village that Arlosoroff said would become a major center for transferred German Jewish youngsters. At the end of the afternoon, Arlosoroff went back to Tel Aviv, arriving at 5:15 P.M., in time for shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath. [72]
At about sunset, Sima and Arlosoroff tried to soothe their nerves with a quiet dinner at the Kaetedan boardinghouse on the beach north of Tel Aviv. It was a favored establishment of Mapai leaders. [73] After dinner, Arlosoroff wanted to walk along the deserted seashore around the Kaetedan, but Sima was afraid. Just that day, the Revisionist newspaper Hazit Haam had issued what many considered a public death threat. The article attacked what it called an alliance between Hitler and the Mapai party engineered by Arlosoroff. "There will be no forgiveness for those who have for greed sold out the honor of their people to madmen and anti-Semites .... The Jewish people have always known how to size up the betrayers of the nation and their followers, and it will know today how to react to this crime." [74]
Arlosoroff had lived with threats for some time. When informed in early 1933 that he was at the top of a fanatic Revisionist group's hit list, Arlosoroff at first refused protection, saying, "No Jew would kill me." Not long after, however, Sima heard footsteps outside their door late at night. Situated as they were in a Jewish neighborhood, they concluded the prowlers were Jewish. So Arlosoroff finally agreed to post a guard outside his home. The threat from the Arab side became equally real, forcing Arlosoroff to carry a pistol while traveling through Arab areas. But before leaving for Germany, Arlosoroff had deposited his pistol with a friend, and had not yet reclaimed it. So on the night of June 16, Arlosoroff was unarmed. [75]
The moon was not out that night. As Sima and Arlosoroff began walking, little could be seen except the red running lights of freighters in the Mediterranean to the west and the sparkling crescent of lights formed by Tel Aviv and Jaffa to the south. Before long they had strolled so far north there was nothing but solitude, sand dunes, and the foamy fizzles of the sea. But then Sima noticed two men following, a short one and a tall one who seemed to waddle as he walked. [76]
Soon the two men quickened their pace and passed Sima and Arlosoroff. Sima was frightened, but Ariosoroff reassured her. "Don't worry, they're Jews." The two men were now ahead, but they then stopped. The taller one began to urinate into the sand as the Arlosoroffs came closer. [77] Finally, the Arlosoroffs saw the lights of a distant Jewish housing development. They left the seashore and meandered through the new neighborhood, discussing the construction that everywhere rose from the sand. An hour later, they returned to the beach, arms entwined, and began walking south, staying close to the waterline. After a while the two men again appeared, walking slowly so the Arlosoroffs could not help but pass. When they did, the two men sped up and in turn passed the couple. This passing and falling back occurred several times as the Arlosoroffs continued walking south. [78]
When the Arlosoroffs neared a Moslem cemetery on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Sima noticed a donkey carcass lying on the shore. And then, just ahead at the cemetery, the two men stopped entirely, turned, and positioned themselves on either side of the Arlosoroffs' path. As the Arlosoroffs passed between the men, the taller one shined a flashlight in Chaim's face and said, "kamah hashaa" -- an erroneous construction of the Hebrew phrase for "What time is it?" [79]
Just then the other man pulled out a Browning automatic and a bullet flashed into Arlosoroff's chest. He dropped to all fours, his life spilling onto the sand. The two assailants fled into the dunes as Sima screamed in horror, "Help, help! Jews shot him!" The bleeding Arlosoroff immediately corrected her, saying, "No, Sima, no." [80]
At first Sima struggled to help Arlosoroff crawl. Finally she helped him stand. Sima supporting him on her shoulders, they walked toward some people summoned by the shot. As bystanders took Arlosoroff's bleeding body, Sima ran back to the Kaetedan to call police and an ambulance. As she raced into the lobby, she cried, "They've shot Chaim" and begged for help. Meanwhile, people on the beach carried Arlosoroff to the roadway and began looking for someone to take him to a hospital. But this was shabbat, 10:30 P.M. No automobile traffic. In desperation, a bystander sounded the horn of a parked car. The car's owner came out and at once agreed to drive Arlosoroff to the hospital. [81]
Arlosoroff was lying on the gravel of the roadway, still bleeding, his jacket under his head as passersby kept asking who had done the shooting. Arlosoroff answered, "I will tell everything, but let me rest." Finally the automobile was brought around and Arlosoroff was helped in and rushed to Hadassah Hospital. Along the way, Arlosoroff remained coherent, but still refused to answer any questions. [82]
At the hospital, the doctors were ill prepared and indecisive. This being shabbat, there was no surgeon on duty. Arlosoroff reached the emergency room at eleven-thirty -- about an hour after being shot. The first surgeon arrived before midnight but would not operate until joined by three other specialists still en route. While waiting, the staff tried to make a weakened Arlosoroff comfortable. By this time, word had spread throughout Tel Aviv. The loved-hated son of Zionism had been shot. Political friends and associates began gathering around his bed. They and the police asked him question after question. But Arlosoroff was too faded to respond cogently. [83]
They were all helpless. Nothing could be done. Arlosoroff had just a few powerless moments remaining. No one expected him to speak. But with the last air in his lungs he turned toward the mayor of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengoff, looked up, and whispered in soft tones, "Look what they have done to me." [84]
And then he died.