Churchill

I have the greatest possible sympathy with the article of Rabbi Dov Aharoni (“Again, the Politics of Appeasement Isolate the Jews,” Commentary, Jan. 23). However, his assertion that “Churchill sealed the gates of hope to appease Arabs in the 1940s” is incorrect.

Winston Churchill was a professed and active Zionist, at least from 1907 onwards. As colonial secretary in 1922, it was he who implemented the Balfour Declaration and presided over the establishment of the Jewish homeland that later became the state of Israel. When Palestinian-Arabs demanded self-determination, he told them they could have it whenever there was a Jewish majority. On the eve of World War II, he opposed Chamberlain’s White Paper, limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine. It is true that--as Martin Gilbert relates in his classic work “Exile and Return”--after he became prime minister officials of the Foreign and Colonial offices continued the policy of limiting Jewish immigration, but they did so against Churchill’s orders and without his knowledge.

HARRY V. JAFFA

President, Winston S. Churchill Assn.

Claremont