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Explores the history, origin and establishment of the state of Israel in the immediate post-war period.
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00:02History is not an exact science. It is never set in stone.
00:17As time passes, knowledge of the past is refined and evolves.
00:29But by definition, existing ideas have thick skins and are hard to shift.
00:50To understand the realities of the world, you sometimes have to shake them up and decipher the facts by looking
00:57at them another way.
01:17Posterity has made the creation of Israel a direct consequence of the Holocaust.
01:22And yet...
01:37May the 8th, 1945. Germany lay under the rubble, crushed by the magnitude of its crimes.
01:51Auschwitz, Birkenau, Sobibor, Treblinka. The list of atrocities committed was immense.
02:00Six million Jews were brutally exterminated.
02:07The survivors of this tragedy endured.
02:14They lived through the deportations, the death marches.
02:22They lost everything and had nowhere to go.
02:27Their fate depended on the great victors of the conflict.
02:33But in the immediate post-war period, providing the Jewish people with a homeland was not the priority.
02:59At the time, the Allies were overwhelmed by countless challenges.
03:05The most urgent task was to re-establish lines of communication, to manage the masses of German prisoners, and above
03:11all, to repatriate the tens of millions of people displaced by the conflict.
03:19The logistics worked wonders.
03:22Within a few months, deportees, resistance fighters, forced laborers, civilians who had fled the fighting and demobilized soldiers found their
03:31way back home.
03:37Others were not so lucky.
03:44In the autumn of 1945, nearly 70,000 survivors of the Holocaust were still waiting for the world to find
03:51a solution to their predicament.
03:55Gathered in displaced persons camps, they came from Poland, Ukraine and Hungary, and refused to return to those bloody lands
04:04that were the site of so many massacres.
04:07Many sought to emigrate, to rebuild their lives.
04:11But lands of asylum were scarce, and even Palestine, the cradle of their ancestors, refused to open its arms to
04:18them.
04:19And for good reason.
04:21The English, who governed the territory, were opposed to their coming.
04:29The reason?
04:31As a strategic crossroads, Palestine was the heart of the British Empire in the Middle East.
04:38Just a stone's throw from the Suez Canal, Haifa was where the pipeline that transported precious Iraqi oil ended.
04:47And in Iraq, as in Transjordan and Egypt, there were monarchs that London wanted to protect.
04:54Their influence in the region depended on it.
05:01Thus, after encouraging Jewish immigration, the British promised the Arabs to limit visas to 1,250 per month.
05:15Present on the territory since time immemorial, the Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, regarded the Jews as invaders, settlers.
05:27For them, the tragic fate of the Holocaust survivors could not serve as a pretext for the invasion of their
05:33country.
05:47On the other hand, for the 500,000 Jews already settled in Palestine, the mass arrival of Holocaust survivors was
05:54of paramount importance.
06:00Entrepreneurs and builders, since the arrival of the first pioneers, they continued to prosper.
06:08Their farms, the so-called Kibbutz, created against all odds from the desert, increased in number.
06:16Within just a few years, the city of Tel Aviv became a modern metropolis with 200,000 inhabitants.
06:27Zionists.
06:28Zionists from the outset, they aspired to found a state, as vast as in the days of Kings David and
06:33Solomon.
06:37In other words, although they were in the minority, they laid claim to the whole of Palestine.
06:47However, this goal came up against a major problem.
06:52There were twice as many Arabs as Jews, and the extermination of the Jews in Europe deprived them of the
06:58main source of immigrants on which they were counting to force out the Arab population.
07:08So, as long as the British restricted the conditions of immigration, their state project was doomed to fail.
07:21One man rejected this inevitability, David Ben-Gurion.
07:27At the head of the Jewish agency, a kind of embryonic government, his whole life was focused on a single
07:32goal, a single idea, a single passion.
07:36To give his people a state, so that the Jews would finally have a land of their own.
07:46On the 16th of October, 1945, during a visit to Germany, the representative of the Jews of Palestine took action.
08:09That it was the Jewish people who made Palestine.
08:13That was Palestine who made the Jewish people.
08:17That no other people in the world made Palestine.
08:22He was a pragmatist, and he knew that the survivors were a tool for the Zionist cause, and he was
08:28ready to do anything to populate his future state.
08:35Quickly, the displaced persons camps were transformed into recruitment centers.
08:43To prepare the prospective recruits, Zionist militants gave Hebrew lessons to the youngest.
08:48to be a priest over the Sioux Fallscape model and DXC cast.
08:53Or lessons in history and geography.
09:00The adults were introduced to the rudiments of agriculture.
09:05For all, the learning of folk songs and dances forged a community with a common destiny.
09:13As the weeks went by, the number of volunteers for the Promised Land grew.
09:19But they still needed visas.
09:21Ben-Gurion hoped to obtain them.
09:32In the spring of 1946, the old leader mobilized international opinion.
09:40The objective was to criticize the inflexibility of the English.
09:47No less than 100,000 visas were required for all those Jews wishing to immigrate.
09:53All the networks of the Jewish world were mobilized.
09:56In Europe and especially in the United States, Britain's most faithful ally.
10:03The Zionist message was clear.
10:06The British migration policy must be fought.
10:18With a Jewish community of five million people, the American Zionist movement was the most powerful, active and wealthy in
10:26the world.
10:30Like Ben-Gurion, its supporters fought ardently for the creation of a Hebrew state, following the example of Nahum Goldman,
10:38one of the founders of the world's Jewish Congress.
10:41If there would have been a Jewish state in Palestine, then Hitler appeared on the horizon and came to power.
10:48A state and a country which would have opened its gates to all the Jews who had to come.
10:55But however strong the argument, state rationale had no use for such considerations.
11:02For Secretary of State George Marshall, supporting the Zionists meant risking the United States access to oil in the Middle
11:09East.
11:13Moreover, in this immediate post-war period when communism was on the rise, he didn't want to alienate his British
11:20allies.
11:24President Harry Truman was undecided.
11:28He was a fervent Christian, and his compassion for the Jews was sincere.
11:32More than any other head of state, he was sensitive to the tragedy of the Holocaust.
11:38Despite the reluctance of his advisers, he declared himself in favor of the 100,000 visas demanded by Ben-Gurion.
11:52Stung by this, the English reacted without delay.
12:00Ruined by the war, the country was struggling to recover.
12:06A former major world power, England was living with restrictions and shortages.
12:15The country had no money left, and survived thanks only to the financial help of the United States.
12:25Despite this dependence, Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not want his migration policy to be challenged.
12:34Outraged by the interference, he curtly replied to Truman that he should welcome the survivors in the United States himself.
12:42Very quickly, the divergence between the two countries spread around the chancelleries.
12:51Nikolai Novikov, a Soviet diplomat, alerted the Kremlin.
12:57The US request to allow 100,000 Jews into Palestine could undermine US-British relations.
13:10Joseph Stalin seized this chance.
13:14The opportunity was too good to miss, so he took advantage of it.
13:20Aggravating the dispute between the two countries could destabilize England and open the doors to the Middle East,
13:26a region from which the Soviet Union had always been excluded.
13:32He was a cunning man, and advanced his pawns.
13:38Overnight, Moscow allowed Jews from countries occupied by the Red Army to cross the borders.
13:47In Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania, a human river began to flow.
13:58In a hurry to flee the anti-Semitism that continued to rage in these countries,
14:02thousands of families placed themselves under the protection of the Allies.
14:06Their destination, Germany, and its displaced persons camps.
14:13Very quickly, the British and the Americans were overwhelmed by the number of refugees.
14:18David Wall, an American Zionist, rejoiced.
14:23The Soviet government increased the number of displaced persons from 70,000 to 250,000.
14:31This population is invaluable for increasing Jewish immigration to Palestine.
14:43Meanwhile, all over Europe, illegal immigration networks were multiplying.
14:51Hundreds of Jews, in a hurry to reach the Promised Land, set out on their adventure.
15:02In the Balkans, people smugglers sent by Ben-Gurion were there to guide them.
15:12An exhausting journey, through trails and mountain roads,
15:16before reaching the small and inconspicuous ports of the Mediterranean.
15:31Crowded into makeshift vessels, despite the deplorable conditions,
15:35the immigrants savored the end of their wanderings and the dawn of a new life.
15:46It was a short-lived reprieve.
16:00In most cases, as they approached the Palestinian coast,
16:04they were arrested by the Royal Navy.
16:13British soldiers, whose feet I would have kissed because they had liberated me in Germany,
16:18were making their way onto our boat with clubs.
16:27Prisoners of the British, the passengers were then taken under guard to a camp in Atlit near Haifa.
16:37For them, the promise of paradise turned into hell.
16:46London remained indifferent.
16:48And Ernest Bevin warned,
16:52The Jews of Europe should not overemphasize their racial situation.
16:57If they try to elbow their way in,
16:59they cannot be surprised if there's a resurgence of antisemitism across Europe.
17:11It was the spark that would set the world alight.
17:19The Jews of Palestine were appalled and began to rebel.
17:24Yesterday's peaceful civilians were transformed into fighters.
17:32In hiding, they tried their hand with weapons.
17:38The time for submission had passed.
17:42It was now time to show that Jews would no longer bow to the dictates of the English.
17:54After a number of explosions caused by terrorists, fire broke out in the oil zone.
18:00Rough estimates already put the cost at over a quarter of a million pounds.
18:09Smoke rising from a street in Jerusalem indicates yet another vain attempt by the Jewish terrorist gang to intimidate authority.
18:33In the summer of 1946, a wave of unprecedented attacks was directed against British national interests.
18:42Oil infrastructure, military facilities, communication routes.
18:48Everything was blown up.
19:00On July 22nd, a new threshold was crossed.
19:07In Jerusalem, a group of guerrilla fighters struck the headquarters of the British administration.
19:13The British mandate in Palestine was hit in the heart.
19:20In the rubble of the King David Hotel, there were 91 dead and more than 40 injured.
19:30In total, nearly 250 of Her Majesty's soldiers lost their lives that summer.
19:44Their reaction was merciless.
19:49Street by street, house by house, the real or presumed culprits were hunted down.
20:03More than 3,000 sympathizers were imprisoned.
20:06The hard core of the Zionist movement was broken.
20:15At the docks, meanwhile, the drama of the illegal immigrant ships continues.
20:20The question of immigration is the immediate cause for the conflict in Palestine.
20:29Faced with the incessant flow of stowaways, the British redoubled their severity.
20:37For the unfortunate ones who undertook the crossing, the contact with the Promised Land was limited to a few minutes
20:43on the dock.
20:49Transferred to prison ships, in undignified conditions, they were deported to Cyprus, where a huge detention camp had recently been
20:56built especially for them.
21:10After having escaped the horror of the Nazi camps, they found themselves once again behind barbed wire, surrounded by watchtowers
21:18and armed guards.
21:27By locking up Jews after all they had suffered, Great Britain proved how determined it was not to yield.
21:46To break the deadlock, Ben-Gurion then played his trump card.
21:54In order to make the Zionist project more acceptable, he gave up the idea of claiming the whole of Palestine
22:00and claimed only a part of it.
22:06Leaving the option for Arabs wishing to emancipate themselves to create their estate on the rest of the land.
22:16The manoeuvre did not go unnoticed.
22:19On behalf of the Arab community, Jamal Husseini protested.
22:24For the last 30 years, alien immigrants have been forced upon us.
22:29Now these immigrants, though still a minority, want to have a Jewish state in our country, in which we would
22:39become the minority.
22:44The Americans welcomed this concession.
22:48On the 4th of October 1946, for the first time, Harry Truman spoke out in favour of a Jewish state
22:55on a portion of Palestinian territory.
23:01For England, it was a stab in the back.
23:05Abandoned by the Americans, under pressure from the Arabs, in the grip of Zionist terrorism, its control over Palestine became
23:13an impossible mission.
23:18Especially since the Palestinian stalemate had bad press.
23:22It had involved over 100,000 soldiers, even though the war had been over for two years.
23:27And it swallowed up considerable sums of money, a luxury that the crown could no longer afford.
23:37On the 17th of February 1947, during a session in the Commons, Bevin threw in the towel.
23:45With a heavy heart, he announced that he would have to take the matter to the fledgling United Nations.
23:54The Arabs of Palestine had lost their protector.
24:03In Moscow, Stalin was jubilant.
24:08The refugee situation had delivered on its potential.
24:11The Anglo-American front had been broken.
24:14The British mandate was on its last legs, and thanks to the support of its sister countries,
24:19the USSR was in a strong position to influence the debates at the United Nations.
24:28Stalin's plan to gain a foothold in the Middle East was taking shape.
24:44Two months later, in New York, the representatives of some 50 countries took the stage.
24:58On the agenda of this extraordinary session, finding a political solution to the conflict that was tearing Palestine apart,
25:06while satisfying both communities.
25:09Two communities that did not start on equal terms.
25:12On the Zionist side, two talented lieutenants of Ben-Gurion.
25:16Abba Ibn, who spoke English with a Cambridge accent, and Moshe Sharit, a brilliant orator.
25:26These two men had an advantage.
25:29The Zionist movement had already rallied most democratic countries to its cause.
25:37On the other hand, Jamal Husseini, in the name of the Arab High Committee, was alone defending the interests of
25:43the Palestinians.
25:48The big question was the position of the Soviet Union.
25:52Everyone was wondering.
25:55Moscow had always fought Zionist ideology.
25:58Its supporters were systematically sent to gulags, or even assassinated.
26:04But Stalin was no stranger to contradiction.
26:08On the 14th of May, 1947, Andrei Gormiko, his delegate, ended the suspense.
26:15The rejection of such a right for the Jewish people is not possible.
26:21Especially considering all the things that he survived the Second World War.
26:28To everyone's surprise, the USSR declared itself in favor of the existence of a Hebrew state.
26:36Abba Ibn was stunned.
26:42This was a tremendous opportunity for us.
26:44In an instant, all our predictions and calculations about the outcome of the discussion at the United Nations were turned
26:50upside down.
26:55Things looked grim for the Arab world, but the game was not yet lost.
27:00In order to reach a compromise, a commission of inquiry was formed.
27:04It was headed by Emil Sandström, a Swedish diplomat.
27:09Its mission? To travel through Palestine, to hear from both sides and find a solution for Jerusalem and the holy
27:16sites.
27:17I want to thank you, gentlemen, for the confidence you have shown me.
27:23It's certainly a very difficult task that has fallen upon me.
27:29And that with joint efforts, we shall be able to achieve the mission which has been given to us.
27:39That summer, Emil Sandström, along with eleven delegates, arrived in the Holy Land under a blazing sun.
27:49Apart from a few prominent people, the Arab leaders refused to cooperate.
27:55Palestine was their land. There was no need to state the obvious.
28:01Boycotted, the members of the commission were denied contact with the population.
28:05They simply walked through the villages and observed the destitution.
28:16The Jews, on the other hand, gave them an enthusiastic welcome.
28:26Ben-Gurion did everything possible to dazzle his visitors.
28:31Songs, dances, nothing was excluded.
28:36It became a real propaganda tool.
28:45In the spotlight, Zionism's finest achievements.
28:50Its nascent industry.
28:56Its prosperous agricultural settlements.
29:03Its efficient school system.
29:14However, between two shows and a visit to a kibbutz, the commission witnessed the omnipresence of the British repressive apparatus.
29:23There was barbed wire, checkpoints, and roadblocks everywhere.
29:29The Guatemalan delegate described it as a real police state.
29:36Taking advantage of the presence of the United Nations commission, the Jewish agency had organized an operation that would make
29:43a lasting impression.
29:50On the 12th of July 1947, an old steamer, renamed Exodus, set sail in the Mediterranean.
29:59On board were 4,500 Holocaust survivors, led by militants, ready to fight.
30:06For Ben-Gurion, the objective was not to bring illegal immigrants into the country, but to exploit their subsequent deportation.
30:15It was a calculation that would pay off.
30:19Off Gaza, the ship was spotted by the British.
30:24Soldiers boarded the ship, and a fight broke out.
30:27The result was 3 dead and 28 injured among the passengers.
30:35The battered exodus was towed into the port of Haifa.
30:45Emil Sandstrom and his colleagues were alerted and witnessed a revolting spectacle at first hand.
30:53They watched as the passengers were transferred to prison ships before being taken back to Germany, the country of their
31:01tormentors.
31:15The images that went around the world shook the conscience of the West.
31:23Back in New York, the commission delivered its conclusions.
31:32The recommendations. End the British mandate.
31:38Divide Palestine into two independent states.
31:41One Jewish, the other Arab.
31:44And make Jerusalem, the thrice holy city, an international zone.
31:51In an instant, the skies over the Arab world darkened.
31:58Transjordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq threatened military intervention if the partition was approved.
32:12From Cairo to Baghdad, from Amman to Damascus, the streets were ablaze with demands for war.
32:25In Palestine, militias were being organized.
32:30Weapons were being brought out of storage.
32:35The possibility of an uprising in the Arab world was on everyone's mind.
32:40A godsend for Stalin, who banked on this turmoil to destabilize the region.
32:48In Washington, mistrust was the order of the day.
32:52George Marshall was worried.
32:54The Middle East had been a zone of containment of communism,
32:57and the unexpected rapprochement between Zionists and Soviets risked bringing it under the influence of Moscow.
33:10On the Zionist side, the battle for influence was intensifying.
33:19All over the country, marches, parades and demonstrations were on the increase,
33:23under the direction of Rabbi Abba Silva, one of the leaders of this mobilization.
33:33Palestine is the land of Israel.
33:35It is the historic home of the Jewish people, where it produced the Bible.
33:41Harry Truman was harassed day and night.
33:45He wrote,
33:47The leading Zionist leaders were exerting all kinds of pressure on me
33:51to use power in the service of their aspirations.
33:55I have never been the object of such a virulent propaganda campaign.
34:05On the 11th of October 1947,
34:08America officially announced that it would support the partition of Palestine into two states.
34:14In the wake of this, the nations of the free world followed suit.
34:21Delighted to put a nail in the coffin of the British mandate,
34:25the USSR, followed by its sister countries, also rallied to the partition.
34:32When suddenly,
34:34a few days before the vote,
34:36the Zionist delegation realized that it was still a few votes short of winning.
34:44Fearful of giving the communists the upper hand,
34:46the United States was quick to show that it too had the power to shift the balance.
34:53American diplomats and businessmen were immediately called in.
34:59Mr. Firestone, a giant of the tire industry, was asked to cooperate.
35:04The industrialist was threatened.
35:07If you don't, we will boycott you and your rubber plantations will rot on the spot,
35:12to the great misfortune of Liberia.
35:17Mr. Firestone took it upon himself to convince the Liberian leaders.
35:25Similar pressures were also applied to the Philippines and Haiti.
35:31Poor countries dependent on Washington's subsidies,
35:34they were rallied by dollar diplomacy to the support of their benefactor.
35:43On the 29th of November 1947,
35:47Palestine had a rendezvous with its destiny.
35:50We will proceed the whole call.
35:53Argentina.
35:55Abstention.
35:57Australia.
35:59Yes.
36:01France.
36:02Yes.
36:04Ukraine.
36:06Yes.
36:06Soviet Union.
36:08Yes.
36:10United Kingdom.
36:12Abstain.
36:14United States.
36:16Yes.
36:17In a few minutes, the future of the territory was decided.
36:23The resolution of the Duck Committee for Palestine
36:29was adopted by 33 votes, 13 against, 10 abstentions.
36:43When the result was announced, the Jews rejoiced.
36:46After 2,000 years of waiting, they had reached their goal.
36:50In a few months, their state would come into being.
36:55David Ben-Gurion, however, was less optimistic.
36:57He wrote in his diary,
37:00Today they dance.
37:01Tomorrow they will cry tears of blood.
37:09On the Arab side, an immense feeling of injustice prevailed.
37:14Amin al-Husseini, a high Palestinian dignitary, proclaimed,
37:19We will fight.
37:20We will fight.
37:21We will fight against the division of the country.
37:23We will not accept any compromise.
37:31Jerusalem erupted into unrest.
37:35A protest turned into a riot.
37:40Jewish businesses were vandalized.
37:44Seven Jews were killed that day.
37:51Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets.
37:54Jewish settlements were attacked.
37:58Soon, isolated shootings evolved into full-scale gunfights.
38:06Despite his daily yoga sessions, David Ben-Gurion remained anxious.
38:13Certainly, Moscow's support had paved the way for a Hebrew state.
38:17But its survival was already under threat.
38:25The Arab states were preparing to attack as soon as the last British soldier had left.
38:30They had tanks and planes.
38:34Ben-Gurion had none.
38:38His modest army equipped for guerrilla warfare would not be able to cope.
38:44He needed weapons and quickly.
38:47Once again, Stalin offered him a lifeline.
38:58Ehud Avriel, the best Mossad agent, flew to Czechoslovakia.
39:06With an economy in a sorry state, a stark lack of currency, and under pressure from the Kremlin,
39:12the country proved to be a first-class supplier.
39:21Arriving in Prague, Ehud Avriel was received like a prince.
39:27The Czechs offered to get him a real arsenal, starting with a stock of Mauser rifles,
39:32a good part of which, ironically, had been confiscated from the Nazis.
39:39Better still, the surplus of the Skoda arms factory was made available.
39:49It was a woman who was in charge of finding the funds for the project.
39:54Golda Meir, a close friend of Ben-Gurion.
39:59The only potential donors were the five million American Jews who were already contributing a lot.
40:05But she was able to find the words to inspire them to donate.
40:09Jews who are fighting in Palestine, the state of Israel,
40:13are fighting for the only thing that they have in their possession.
40:16It means life or death to them.
40:18And I'm here to ask the Jews in the United States
40:22that as long as they will give us the aid that we require,
40:26in a very short time, the state of Israel will be a state in peace.
40:34For two months, she scoured the United States.
40:40From Los Angeles to San Francisco, from New York to Chicago,
40:44meetings, galas and raffles followed one another and the money flowed freely.
40:56The result, instead of the expected amount, she collected twice as much.
41:0150 million dollars that went directly to Czechoslovakia.
41:07The arms were created in Prague,
41:10transited through Hungary and then loaded onto cargo ships in Yugoslavia.
41:16Three democracies that had bowed to the Kremlin's demands.
41:22On the 3rd of April, 1948,
41:25the first shipment of weapons arrived in Palestine,
41:28buried under a mountain of onions.
41:31Ben-Gurion's army seized them.
41:34They would completely change the situation.
41:43On the 14th of May, 1948, after three decades of domination,
41:47the last of the British forces quietly left Palestine.
41:54Freed from their burden,
41:55Her Majesty's soldiers bowed out, visibly relieved.
42:01In a hurry to leave, the official commentator didn't linger.
42:06The Union Jack was hauled down,
42:08and the doors closed for good on the British mandate.
42:18The British mandate in Palestine had come to an end.
42:25At 4pm on the 14th of May, 1948,
42:29David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the birth of the Jewish state.
42:37And the original work of the Jewish state and the historical history
42:42But, in the end, the first section of the American nation has formed.
42:47We have defended this in place
42:49We have centered this to entertainment your city in Israel.
42:54It's the state of Israel.
43:02However, he failed to acknowledge the decisive role the Soviets played in its creation.
43:20The next day, at dawn, Arab forces swept into the territory of the newborn state.
43:32A merciless battle began, but thanks to the weapons supplied by the Czechs, the Israeli army
43:38was ready to sustain the shock.
43:42It now had the equipment needed to defend its borders and repel attackers.
43:50As the troops advanced, Arab villages were taken one by one.
43:56Fleeing the combat, many villages were already deserted.
44:01Those who remained were driven out by violence or intimidation.
44:14Then it was the turn of the big cities.
44:16In Haifa, Jaffa and Lod, the Arabs were expelled.
44:24Forced to abandon their homes, several hundred thousand Palestinian men, women and children
44:29went into exile.
44:40At the same time, the survivors who'd been languishing in camps arrived en masse in their
44:45new country.
44:50The first were the prisoners from Cyprus.
44:54For them, the dream of the Promised Land was finally fulfilled.
45:08As soon as they stepped off the boat, they became Israeli citizens.
45:20Men of fighting age immediately joined the army.
45:26Many had tattoos on their forearms.
45:30But the new Jewish state had no interest in their painful past.
45:38After a few days of training, they were sent to the battlefront to defend their new homeland.
45:47During this conflict, one out of three Israeli casualties was a Holocaust survivor.
45:59However, the young Hebrew state won this war outright.
46:06It even extended its territory beyond the borders set by the UN.
46:12The towns of Nazareth and Akko, which the partition plan had assigned to the Arabs, were annexed.
46:25It was a military victory and a demographic one.
46:32The 750,000 dispossessed Arabs who were crammed into camps in Gaza and the West Bank, never returned.
46:45Their right to return was discussed at the UN, but Israel refused to receive them, supported by Moscow, which always
46:53stood by them and imposed its veto.
47:02Ben Gurion wrote to Stalin, our people will never forget the help given by the USSR, nor its loyal support
47:11for Israel in its struggle for independence in its historic home.
47:23But the honeymoon between the two countries were not to last.
47:27The enthusiasm of Soviet Jews for Israel quickly upset the Kremlin.
47:34Stalin saw it as a threat which could turn them away from the communist ideal, which was the foundation of
47:40the motherland.
47:44Appointed ambassador to Moscow, Golda Meir witnessed the deterioration of this alliance, which would gradually come to an end.
47:52She said, from January 1949, Russian Jews paid dearly for their betrayal.
48:01Five months later, there was not a single Jewish organization left in Russia.
48:07No Soviet Jew would be allowed to emigrate to Israel.
48:18But so what?
48:19From the first year of its creation, nearly 300,000 Jews from all over Europe flocked to the country.
48:31Among them were almost all those who had lived in the displaced persons camps.
48:41With raw memories of the genocide, they would keep silent about their sufferings in order to integrate with the native
48:47Israelis, who would remain deaf to their tragedies.
48:53A Warsaw Ghetto survivor confessed, what separates us are oceans of thought and experience.
49:02They could not understand us.
49:04They didn't speak our language, the language of the survivors.
49:10Thus, for a long time, the Holocaust remained a matter for the survivors alone.
49:21Since then, time has passed.
49:25The Holocaust is now at the heart of Israeli identity.
49:30It has become a national issue.
49:35Once a year, on Remembrance Day, everything stops.
49:41In memory of its martyrs, the country is frozen in silence and contemplation.
49:58For some years now, female survivors have been honored in a beauty contest.
50:06In celebration of life, the title of Miss Holocaust Survivor is awarded to the winner.
50:20The tragedy of the European Jews now so strongly legitimizes the existence of the Jewish state,
50:27that the world has forgotten that its creation was above all the result of the cynical game of the great
50:33powers.
50:35In reality, the ashes of Auschwitz did not weigh heavily in the birth of Israel.
50:45The
50:45The
50:45The
50:45The
50:45The
50:45The
50:47The
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