Dalia Ofer.pdf - WNLibrary

26 ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN THE FIRST YEARS OF WORLD WAR II
Zionists, also argued that further immigration should not proceed as long as
the pressing economic situation continued. He recommended that money for
European refugee relief be paid out of funds in European accounts earmarked
for Palestine that were now blocked because of wartime currency-transfer
restrictions.
Indeed, Palestine was in the midst of an economic recession that continued
to worsen during the first years of the war. It had been in an economic
recession since the end of 1937, and income per capita had decreased since
then at a rate of ten percent per year. The economic situation deteriorated
further in the first months of the war because it was almost impossible to
export goods to Europe—especially citrus, the economy's chief cash crop. 4
The Jewish Agency's treasury was quite limited. It depended primarily on
contributions given to the national funds and on special fund-raising drives
in the Diaspora. It had no authority to tax the Yishuv population; sales tax
and other forms of taxation went to the Mandate government. The Jewish
Agency could propose voluntary taxation of the Jewish community, which it
had done since the summer of 1938, and it could also ask the government to
support it in special loans. Once the war started, however, its treasury budgets
shrank from 811,514 Palestinian pounds in 1939 to 799,117 in 1940.
Ben-Gurion, for his part, disagreed with Kaplan's conclusions. However,
he understood Kaplan's reasoning given his responsibility as treasurer and
his reading of Palestine's economic constraints. 5 In a report to the Mapai
political committee, he characterized the Agency debate as being of fundamental
significance, pitting pragmatic Zionists against visionary Zionists. 6
Among the visionaries, Ben-Gurion noted, were those who argued that aliyah
was not a means, but rather an end in itself with the purely humane purpose
of saving lives.
Among the members of Mapai, this view was echoed. Yitzhak Ben-Aharon
rebuked the kibbutz movement for yielding to economic considerations rather
than accept new immigrants and called these actions a grotesque distortion
of Zionism. 7 Aaron Zisling noted that Palestine was relatively well off, with
but a few actually threatened with hunger. He contended that "Anyone who
calls for a halt in immigration at a time [like this] negates our very right to
stand on this soil." Shmuel Dayan reiterated this view, arguing that continued
aliyah took precedence over the Yishuv's economic development, even should
it jeopardize that drive. He stated that "We here are no more privileged nor
entitled to any more than Jews elsewhere. .. . There is no choice; aliyah must
continue." 8 Bed Katznelson objected to the discussion of aliyah bet in terms
of utilitarian calculations. Aliyah and rescue, he argued, had to be viewed as
a historic movement, an expression of instinctive feelings of national unity,
common destiny, and mutual responsibility. Rescue and immigration could
not be judged in terms of success or failure. They were their own justification. 9
The Yishuv had put forth the plan to aid the 2,600 refugees in response
to the new needs arising from the war in late 1939. However, those opposing
and supporting the plan on economic and ethical grounds were not of a single
mind on the issue of aliyah bet in general. These were their stances in this