Chapter Twelve U.S. FRONT GROUPS FOR ZIONIST MILITARISM by Alison Weir

 

Chapter Twelve U.S. FRONT GROUPS FOR ZIONIST MILITARISM by Alison Weir

 Chapter Twelve
U.S. FRONT GROUPS FOR ZIONIST MILITARISM
A number of groups operated in the U.S. to support Zionist paramilitary groups in Palestine. These
often employed clandestine methods and deceptive names. The general American public had little
idea about the true nature of these groups and what they were supporting.
a. Irgun Delegation: Hillel Kook as “Peter Bergson“
A covert Irgun delegation operated in the U.S. from the late 1930s through 1948 under a half dozen
front organizations, including the “Emergency Committee to Save European Jewry“ and “American
Friends of a Jewish Palestine.”[252]
The main leader was Hillel Kook, the senior Irgun officer working outside Palestine. Upon
coming to the U.S. he assumed the alias “Peter Bergson,” and the group is often called the “Bergson
Boys.”
The other leader was Yitzhak Ben-Ami (father of Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder of today’s lobbying
organization J-Street). Also closely involved was Eri Jabotinski, son of right-wing Zionist leader
Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky.[253] Also associated with the group was Meir Kahane, who twenty
years later founded the violent Jewish Defense League (JDL).[254]
Though historians have documented that their purpose in coming to the U.S. was to raise money for
Irgun activities in Palestine, this was unknown to the multitude of high-level supporters the group
eventually acquired. These supporters included Eleanor Roosevelt,[255] Harry Truman, Dorothy
Parker, Herbert Hoover, Will Rogers, Jr., Labor leader William Green, U.S. Solicitor General
Fowler Harper, and U.S. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes.[256]
The FBI, however, suspected this illegal fundraising. It investigated the front groups several times,
but largely bungled the investigations and failed to produce evidence. As author Rafael Medoff
divulges: “In fact, according to Bergson lobbyist Baruch Rabinowitz, funds raised by the Bergsonites
in the United States were indeed secretly transferred to the Irgun; the methods of transfer were simply
so well concealed that the FBI could not uncover them.”[257]

Their biographer, Israeli professor Judith Baumel, writes that the Irgun Delegation quickly set
about “integrating themselves into the social and political culture of their temporary home.” They
quickly grasped that “public mood, molded to a large extent by propaganda and public relations
[was] a dominant force in the American system of direct representation” and they soon became
masters of media manipulation.[258]
Thus, besides their secret funneling of money for terrorist activities in Palestine against
Palestinians, the British, and members of the Jewish community[259], the Irgun Delegation engaged in
numerous public activities pushing for the Jewish state in Palestine. They lobbied Congress and the
White House, organized a march on Washington, D.C. of 500 Rabbis, and placed full-page ads in
newspapers around the U.S.
They also produced a pageant called “We Will Never Die! “ celebrating the Jewish contribution to
Western civilization, written by Ben Hecht, directed by Moss Hart, featuring music by Kurt Weil, and
starring Edward G. Robinson. The cast also included Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein,
one hundred Yeshiva students from Brooklyn, and fifty Orthodox rabbis. [260] Forty thousand
attended the extravaganza’s New York performances. It then went on to play in most of America’s
largest cities. The group produced several other plays and rallies, one of which starred a young
Marlon Brando and brought in $1 million.
Baumel reports that an American Jewish leader who had immigrated to Palestine wrote to Eleanor
Roosevelt asking her to withdraw support from the Brando production, because its profits “were
being used to fund terrorist activity.”[261] Eleanor ignored this advice, apparently unaware that it
was well founded.
During WWII, the various organizations created by the Irgun Delegation frequently pushed for
rescuing European Jews from the Nazis, but one of their major demands was for the creation of a
“Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews.” The idea was that the Allies should create a Jewish
army to fight alongside them against the Nazis.
However, certain right-wing Zionists had sought this army even before the Nazi holocaust began,
and some analysts argue it was a plan with a mixed agenda.[262] Historian William Rubinstein
writes, “It is rather difficult to believe that Bergson‘s implausible proposal did not have far more to
do with creating the nucleus of a Jewish Palestinian force, to be used against the British and the
Arabs, than with saving Europe’s Jews from the Nazis.”[263]
One supporter, best-selling author Pierre van Paassen, resigned when he learned that various
Delegation-spawned “committees” to save Jews were all being run by the same small group, and that
they were tied to horrific terrorist actions in Palestine.
He declared that he did not believe they had the means or intention to truly save Jews from the
Nazis, writing: “To speak bluntly, that ‘Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe‘ is a hoax, in
my judgment a very cruel hoax perpetrated on the American public, Jewish and non-Jewish
alike.”[264]
Some at the time and since have considered the Delegation’s efforts heroic, but critics point out
that it did not manage to rescue any Jews during the Nazi holocaust[265], though it may have helped
contribute to the pressure on President Roosevelt to later create a War Refugee Board.[266]
The group had numerous opponents among Jewish leaders, both Zionist and anti-Zionist.[267]
Some, unlike the general public, were aware of their secret connections to Menachem Begin‘s Irgun,
whose violent tactics many found abhorrent, particularly when they targeted the British at a time that
England was fighting to defeat Hitler – the most effective way, many felt, to rescue Jews.
Biographer Baumel writes that the more mainstream Zionist establishment was disturbed by “the
clandestine nature of the committee’s formation and the absence of any hint as to its intention.”[268]
This division among Zionists was largely hidden from view, however, as the Delegation aimed for
the American man in the street, using tantalizing slogans, illustrated advertisements, and “seductive
curiosity-whetting gimmicks.” Baumel notes that the Irgun Delegation’s primary triumph was to
understand “the power of Madison Avenue.”[269]
Author Rafael Medoff describes the importance of that understanding: “[T]he violent behavior of
the Jewish forces in Palestine would have surely undermined American public sympathy for the
Zionist cause, if not for the efforts of the Jewish underground’s American friends.” [270] This public
relations crusade was critical in building American support.
After WWII, the Delegation became involved in the sometimes secretive, sometimes very public
movement of European Jews to Palestine. One purpose, Ben-Ami explained, was to build up the Irgun
terror forces: “We must build a network in Europe capable of moving thousands of Irgun soldiers to
Palestine...”[271] This intention, however, was not announced to the general public.
Bergson-Kook‘s uncle was Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, often known as “Rabbi Kook the
Elder.” Rabbi Kook was originally from Eastern Europe, had worked toward the Balfour Declaration
in Britain,[272] and eventually became the “Chief Rabbi of Palestine.”
Perhaps his most significant accomplishment was to devise an ideology that merged a Kabbalistic
version of religious Judaism with political Zionism, founding an extremist religious Zionism that
continues in existence today.[273]
The Kabala teaches that non-Jews are the embodiment of Satan, and that the world was created
solely for the sake of Jews.[274] Rabbi Kook, who achieved saintly status among his followers in
Israel and the U.S., stated: “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews… is greater
and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”[275]
In addition to spanning the Jewish religious-secular continuum, the Irgun Delegation spanned the
political spectrum from left to right. Baumel writes that it “evinced many of the unique characteristics
of Eastern European protofascism” while also forming partnerships with communists and Jews who
belonged to left-wing American groups.[276]
b. Rabbi Korff and the “Political Action Committee for Palestine“
Another terrorist front group and PR machine was formed by an Orthodox rabbi named Baruch
Korff,[277] who achieved tremendous mainstream success and became well known in the U.S. His
underground activities, on the other hand, were considerably less known.
Korff had earlier been executive director of one of the Bergson group’s entities,[278] before
starting his own splinter group, the Political Action Committee for Palestine (PACP). Korff used
many of the same tactics as Kook, while also building close relationships with various active and
former Congressmen.
Korff combined these strong political connections and PR machinations to extraordinary, if
duplicitous, effect. One example, which historian Rafael Medoff calls “a particularly well
choreographed stunt,” involved a former Republican Congressman, Joseph Clark Baldwin of New
York.
At Korff‘s request, Baldwin, who had friendly relations with President Truman, staged a highly
publicized visit to England and Palestine in late 1946.[279]
Korff then composed “Baldwin‘s” official report of the visit, which called on England and the
United States to recognize Palestine “as an independent democracy of which homeless European
Jews shall be considered citizens.”[280]
Then, immediately after writing Baldwin‘s report, Korff put out a press release criticizing one
aspect of the report, in order to make it appear that Baldwin “was not a puppet of the PACP but rather
had visited London and Jerusalem with an open mind and returned with his own conclusions.”[281]
Korff was also involved in a terrorist plot that was foiled at the last minute by a young American
World War II aviator studying in France.
British intelligence had discovered in 1946 that Jewish terrorists, including Korff, were planning
to assassinate the British foreign minister. For some reason details about this were heavily censored
from the British public for many years, but in 2003 the British security files were finally
released.[282]
In 1947, Korff and his group hatched a plan to drop bombs on the British foreign office, along with
10,000 threatening leaflets. “[W]e will carry the war to the very heart of the [British] Empire,” the
leaflets were to read. “We will strike with all the bitterness and fury of our servitude and
bondage.”[283]
The group tried to recruit a young American aviator in Paris to fly a plane from which the bombs
would be dropped, promising him “lucrative jobs” after the mission was completed.[284] The
aviator, Reginald Gilbert, had flown 136 combat missions over Europe during WWII, shooting down
three German planes and damaging seven.
Gilbert pretended to agree to the plot, but instead informed the American Embassy, and then
worked with Scotland Yard and the Paris police to have the would-be assassins arrested. French
police, who said they “feared for the flier’s life if the Stern gang ever caught up with him,” then flew
him to London until he could return to the U.S.[285]
Almost no one remembers this plot today, but it was headline news at the time in newspapers
across the United States.[286] While some news accounts revealed the full plot, reports quickly
stopped mentioning the bombs and recounted only the plan to drop the threatening leaflets. Someone
was leaning on spokespeople or reporters to make sure only part of the story got out.
But they couldn’t keep Gilbert quiet. In a first-hand account of the plot published by the New York
Herald Tribune, Gilbert confirmed that the group had planned much more than a leaflet drop. The
first idea had been to drop bombs on Britain’s Parliament, but the target was subsequently changed to
the Foreign Ministry, “because Korff held a grudge against that office for refusing him a visa to
Palestine.”[287]
In his article, Gilbert recounted a conversation he had with Korff while playing along with the
plot, which he continued to do at the direction of the Paris police. He says he told Korff fog might
prevent them from locating their exact target, to which Korff replied that they could just drop the
bombs anywhere on London. When Gilbert protested that innocent people might be killed, Korff
replied, “They are British, so they are our enemy.”[288]
After being arrested by Paris police and charged with “illegal possession of explosives and war
weapons”,[289] Korff came up with various stories. At one point he claimed that Gilbert had been
the guilty party. Next, he and Hillel Kook (using his alias “Peter Bergson“) claimed that the plot was
a British “frameup” and that Gilbert was a British agent.[290] In other versions, Korff claimed that
the “British Nazi Party” fabricated the story,[291] a claim picked up by the British weekly News
Review.[292]
According to the London Times, Korff later said that “millions of dollars had been subscribed by
private American sources to fund the purchase of the aircraft.”[293]
Powerful allies proclaimed that Korff was innocent and brought pressure on the State Department
to help him.[294] These allies included Korff‘s contacts in Congress and his father, Rabbi Jacob
Korff, who was leader of the Boston Jewish Rabbinate and wielded considerable influence (when he
died, the Massachusetts governor and Boston mayor attended his funeral, which was accompanied by
a 5,000-person march.)[295] By November 22nd all charges were dropped.
In 1948, Baruch Korff had the temerity to publish a large advertisement in the New York Post
calling a State Department policy against enforcing the Partition of Palestine “pure and simple anti-
Semitism… plain everyday anti-Semitism, incorporated in the hearts and minds of those who govern
free America.”[296]
Later, Korff became a close friend and fervent supporter of President Richard Nixon, who called
him “my rabbi.”[297] Korff is reported to have influenced Nixon‘s strong support for Israel and
efforts to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate.[298] It appears that Nixon was unaware of Korff‘s terror-
connected past. According to a book on Nixon by investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl
Bernstein (who also appear to have been ignorant of Korff‘s background), Korff introduced himself to
Nixon as a “just a small-town rabbi.”[299]
Korff served as a chaplain for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health for 21 years.[300]
He later acted as a “consultant to Brown University in conjunction with the school’s acquisition of his
extensive archives.”[301] According to the London Independent, Korff had many supporters in high
places in Israel, including Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Golda Meir.[302]
c. The “Sonneborn Institute“
A third collective of front groups was the secret American arm of the main Zionist paramilitary in
Palestine, the Haganah. Known as the “Sonneborn Institute,” it was founded by an American, Rudolf
G. Sonneborn, in conjunction David Ben-Gurion, who led Zionist forces in Palestine.[303]
Sonneborn, scion of a wealthy German-Jewish family from Baltimore, had met Ben-Gurion in
1919. Sonneborn had traveled to the Versailles peace conference as secretary of a Zionist delegation,
at the behest of Supreme Court Justice Brandeis (a family friend), and afterward went on a tour of
Palestine.[304]
In 1945, Sonneborn and Ben-Gurion hosted a meeting of seventeen well-connected guests at
Sonneborn‘s Manhattan penthouse. Ben-Gurion informed the group that their purpose was to form an
underground organization to raise money and support “for purposes which could not be publicized or
even fully disclosed.”
The guests came from Los Angeles, Toronto, Miami, Birmingham, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,
Cleveland, Columbus, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Newark, New Haven and New York. One was a rabbi,
five were lawyers, and the others were highly successful businessmen.[305] The organization was
eventually to have representatives in at least 35 to 40 industry groups, and in one month alone there
were meetings in Memphis, Ohio, New Jersey, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Baton Rouge, Dallas,
Washington DC, and 40 more were scheduled.
They also organized Zionist youth groups, whose young members sometimes helped load guns onto
boats headed for Palestine for use in taking over the land for a Jewish state. [306]
U.S. authorities tried to stop these illegal and damaging activities. In 1948, the Director of Central
Intelligence filed a top-secret report with the Secretary of Defense about the Zionist arms trafficking.
He warned, “U.S. National security is unfavorably affected by these developments and it could be
seriously jeopardized by continued illicit traffic in the ‘implements of war.’”[307]
But, like the other Zionist front groups discussed above, the Sonneborn Institute had friends in high
places. Author Grant Smith reports that, under Truman, “Haganah operative groups active in arms
trafficking within the U.S., like the terrorist charges, would only be lightly investigated and seldom
prosecuted.”[308]
* * *
The amount of American money mobilized for Zionism during this period is impossible to know,
but indications suggest that it was astronomical. The Jewish Agency for Israel raised the equivalent in
today’s dollars of $3.5 billion between 1939 and May 1948 alone. And, as has been described
above, this was just one of numerous Zionist organizations raising money from Americans.[309]
Chapter Thirteen
INFILTRATING DISPLACED PERSON’S CAMPS IN EUROPE
TO FUNNEL PEOPLE TO PALESTINE
A similar underground campaign was operating in Europe. Zionist cadres infiltrated displaced
person’s camps that had been set up to house refugees displaced during WWII. These infiltrators tried
secretly to funnel people to Palestine. When it turned out that most didn’t want to go to Palestine, they
worked to convince them – sometimes by force.
The fact was that Zionists needed more people to go to Palestine. As Ben-Gurion stated in 1944:
[T]he essence of Zionism is one of a populating endeavor, to populate [Israel] with multitudes of
Jews.”[310]
Israeli professor Yosef Grodzinsky explains that Zionists were looking for “chomer ‘enoshi tov
(good human materials, a phrase Zionist organizers frequently used). Convincing Jews to uproot
themselves and move to Palestine proved to be a formidable task: When life is good, people tend to
stay where they are. Candidates for Palestine immigration therefore had to be Jews whose life was
not good. Post-Holocaust DPs [displaced persons], became a human reserve of great immigration
potential, hence a prime target for the Zionists…”[311]
A senior Mossad commander anticipated that even these might not wish to come to Palestine and
would need to be actively recruited: “We must not think that thousands upon thousands will come
knocking at the country’s gates once they open. The Zionist movement must understand that it must be
first on the market.”[312]
When only a minority of Jewish refugees wished to go to Palestine, a report by Zionist operative
Rabbi Klaussner concluded, “[T]he people must be forced to go to Palestine.”
Author Alfred Lilienthal reports that Zionists working in the refugee camps employed numerous
means to compel residents to agree to go to Palestine, including confiscation of food rations,
dismissal from work, expulsion from the camps, taking away legal protection and visa rights, and, in
one case, “even the public flogging of a recalcitrant recruit for the Israel Army.”[313]
The Jewish Brigade of the British Army, a unit long sought by Zionists and finally created in the
final months of the war,[314] was one of the first on the scene. Its soldiers and officers turned into
clandestine emissaries of the Zionist movement.[315]
Grodzinsky reports, “One role Brigade soldiers took upon themselves was to gather Jewish
children hidden away in monasteries, or with non-Jewish families.”[316]