Martin Gilbert Quote

On 3 September 1937, as the Jewish leaders debated for and against Partition, Churchill wrote an article in the Jewish Chronicle that came down firmly against. He began, however, with a sympathetic account of Weizmann’s desire to accept, reluctantly, the truncated Jewish State. He could ‘readily understand’, he wrote, Dr Weizmann, and others with him who have borne the burden and heat of the day, and without whose personal effort Zionism would perhaps no longer be a reality, being attracted by the idea of a sovereign Jewish State in Palestine, however small, which would set up for the first time, after ages of dispersion and oppression, a coherent Jewish community and rallying point for Jews in every part of the world.’ Instead of constant bickering with British Mandate officials, and annual disputes about the quota of immigrants, there would be ‘a responsible Government and independent autonomous State, a member of the League of Nations, to play its part not only in the Holy Land but in world affairs.