The Holocaust that almost was

By Steve Rodan

For most of his life, David Ben-Gurion had been an admirer of Josef Stalin. On Dec. 22, 1949, Ben-Gurion, now prime minister, joined leaders of the East Bloc to congratulate Stalin on his 70th birthday.

There were sound reasons for this gesture. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union became the first country to recognize the State of Israel. Moscow ensured that weapons would be delivered to the new Jewish state even as the United States blocked all military aid and Britain trained and armed the invading Arab armies.

But within months of Ben-Gurion's warm wishes to Stalin, relations between Moscow and Jerusalem turned sour and then deadly until the Soviet dictator would begin plans to annihilate the more than three million Jews in the Soviet Union and many more in satellite states.

And all because Ben-Gurion was tempted by the promise of American money and weapons.

The story begins soon after the end of Israel's war of independence in 1949 in which nearly 7,000 Jews -- one percent of the community -- were killed in the year-long conflict. The new Israeli army was saddled by low morale, infighting among commanders, insufficient weapons and equipment as well as daily interference by Ben-Gurion and the ruling Mapai Party. This was not a military worth writing home about.

That all changed in June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea and soon captured its capital Seoul. China and the Soviet Union supported the north while the United States and its allies were defending the south. Within days of the war Washington turned to Jerusalem. President Harry Truman demanded that Israel contribute a combat infantry brigade to the multi-national coalition.

The American demand appeared ludicrous. Israel did not have a combat infantry brigade. The Jewish state had just finished a bloody war with five Arab armies and needed to defend itself from a much stronger Egypt as well as a British-trained and -equipped Iraq and Jordan. Moreover, Jerusalem owed nothing to Washington, which had imposed a hermetic arms embargo that lasted long after Israel was established. Truman even ordered other countries to deny Israel weapons.

On July 2, the Cabinet met in emergency session at the home of the ailing President Chaim Weizmann to discuss the U.S. demand. Most of the Cabinet wanted Israel to stay out of the war and maintain its policy of neutrality. Instead, the prime minister rammed through a resolution that condemned the "aggressor" and supported decisions by the United States to intervene.

"The Israeli government always objected to having its foreign policy described as neutral," Ben-Gurion said on Aug. 20, 1950. "We are not neutral regarding the supreme question of mankind in our days..." [1]

Ben-Gurion's move ignited an uproar, and the pro-Soviet bloc in the government and Knesset tried to throw him out of office. But the prime minister had the last word and defeated a no-confidence motion regarding Israeli support for the U.S.-led bloc in Korea. Then, Ben-Gurion urged the Cabinet to send military units to South Korea. He said this could stop another world war.

This was too much even for Ben-Gurion's closest allies. Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, who had served Ben-Gurion for more than 20 years, warned that Israeli deployment in Korea would endanger relations with Moscow and damage the military posture of the Jewish state. The rest of the Cabinet agreed.

Ben-Gurion was not deterred: “Even the majority has the right to be mistaken," he said.

Ben-Gurion's colleagues knew why he was ready to send Jews to die in a far-off land: He believed that a significant Israeli deployment in Korea would mean money for the ruling Mapai Party and weapons for Israel. Echoing what he had earlier told Britain, he proposed that Washington use Israel as a base in the Middle East. The United States would stockpile everything that a military force would need for deployment -- arms, equipment and food. Israel would then have the option of acquiring this in the future.

Washington maintained pressure on Israel to send thousands of troops to Korea. Soon, Truman was playing with Ben-Gurion's ego. In May 1951, the prime minister arrived in the United States and was invited to meet Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Defense Secretary George Marshall. The Americans made additional demands -- including that Israel vote in the UN for an embargo on China.

Again, Ben-Gurion faced a hostile Cabinet. But the prime minister waved the prospect of American dollars. He also warned that Washington might torpedo the sensitive negotiations between West Germany and Israel in what could amount to billions of dollars in reparations for the Holocaust. Even Sharett could not oppose that. [2]

Meanwhile, the prime minister launched a campaign to change public opinion. He told leading Israelis that the government would abandon non-alignment to join the West. He began to write articles in the Histadrut daily Davar against the Soviets. Ben-Gurion dared not to use his real name. Instead, he signed the articles S. Shel Yair, which the Russians soon figured out stood for "grandfather of Yair," Ben-Gurion's grandchild.

On Jan. 30, 1953, Ben-Gurion, under his pseudonym, wrote a long article in Davar titled "On the Communism and Zionism of Hashomer Hatzair," a reference to the pro-Stalin youth wing of the Mapam Party in Israel. The piece detailed Moscow's killing of leading Jewish communists both in the Soviet Union and East Bloc. Ben-Gurion challenged his pro-Stalin detractors: They could support communism or Judaism. They could not do both.

"There is no middle way," Ben-Gurion concluded. "And regarding this question, there is more to be said." [3]

For Stalin, this was the last straw. He had sent messages through his supporters in Mapam that Ben-Gurion's policy would be regarded as hostile. Moshe Sneh, a founder of Mapam who later joined the Communist Party, warned of a harsh Soviet backlash that could go far beyond bilateral ties.

Stalin didn't have to look far to take vengeance. The Soviet Union and the East Bloc contained millions of Jews. Starting in late 1951, the Soviet media began an anti-Semitic campaign. The film "Village Doctor" portrayed a Jewish physician as a money-hungry villain. This was followed by defamation in leading Soviet magazines and newspapers, including Pravda in Ukraine, where collaboration with the Germans during World War II led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews

Then came the show trials. In November 1952, Moscow engineered the prosecution of 14 members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia -- 10 of whom were Jews -- on charges of high treason. Eleven defendants were executed. The Jews were charged with being agents of Zionism and international Jewry. Prosecutors said Israel, particularly Ben-Gurion and Weizmann, was working with the United States to destabilize Czechoslovakia in exchange for weapons and money. [4]

Finally, Stalin gave the word to destroy the Jews. He accused Jewish doctors of trying to kill him and other Soviet leaders. The allegations began as early as 1948 but Stalin did not order the Soviet media to publicize the affair until January 1953 -- again presented as an operation by Washington and Jerusalem. Stalin was said to have ordered a three-stage genocide that would include deportation to the Urals followed by mass executions. In February 1953, after a bomb was hurled at the Soviet legation in Tel Aviv, Moscow severed relations with Israel and Stalin ordered the establishment of death camps in Siberia. Had he not died on March 5, many Soviet historians believed the killings would have begun.

In the end, Ben-Gurion received hardly anything for his gamble. With the end of the Korean war, Washington maintained its arms embargo until 1962. The CIA established bogus anti-Zionist organizations to stop Israeli lobbying in Congress. The United States condemned Israel at the United Nations at every opportunity while wooing Egypt.

But Stalin's policy of holding Jews hostage as a lever against Israel remains. In July 2022, President Vladimir Putin, long identified as a friend of Jews, retaliated after Israeli leaders, prompted by Washington, condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine five months earlier. Moscow threatened to shut down the Jewish Agency, declare other Jewish groups "foreign agents" and forced the departure of Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. At the same time, Putin's aides issued what was regarded as anti-Semitic statements. To many Russian Jews, it was a sign that history repeats itself.

"The goal is to teach Israel a lesson and to create problems for those who want to leave Russia,” a Jewish documentary filmmaker in Moscow, identified only as Vadim, told the Washington Post.

Notes

1. Ben-Gurion, the Korean War, and the Change in Israeli Foreign Policy. Gangzheng She

Ben-Gurion University. https://in.bgu.ac.il/bgi/israelis/DocLib/Pages/2015/She.pdf

2. ibid

3. "On the Communism and Zionism of Hashomer Hatzair," S. Shel Ben-Yair. Davar. Jan. 30, 1953. Page 3

4. The Doctor's Plot and the Soviet Solution: Stalin's War Against the Jews. Louis Rapoport. Page 71. Free Press. 1990

5. "Moscow's move to shutter Jewish Agency alarms Russian Jews" Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova. Washington Post. July 29, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/29/russia-jewish-agency-israel-ukraine/

Below: an anti-Semitic cartoon from the Soviet magazine Krokodil, January 1953