Fallacies of a Fundamentalist

Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened – Winston Churchill, 1936 (Langworth, Churchill by Himself, p.322)

The claim that Winston Churchill was antisemitic is an example of Churchill Derangement Syndrome (itself the leading cause of the Churchillian Black Legend). To believe that claim, one has to ignore considerable evidence of Churchill’s philosemitism, Zionism, and opposition to antisemitism.  Enter Ranbir Singh.

Ranbir Singh runs an organization called Hindu Human Rights (HHR). According to Edward Anderson HHR “have a primarily web - and protest-based presence, and [an Indian] diaspora-oriented, assertive Hindutva tone” (Anderson, “Neo-Hindutva”, p.52). In other words, he’s a Hindu nationalist. In my experience, while Churchill detractors often lie, none lie quite so brazenly or ridiculously as Hindu Nationalists.

To be fair, I can’t comment on the work of Ranbir Singh or HHR generally. I am not very familiar with everything they do. However, based on what conversations I have had with him on Twitter I can say that he is a dishonest man who is either trying to sell a bill of goods or has been sold one.

Ranbir’s Ravings

Ranbir’s dishonesty is apparent in this tweet in which three statements are presented as if they were statements made by Churchill:

·        Jews were “the main instigators of the ruin of the Empire”

·        Jews played a “leading part in Bolshevik atrocities”

·        Jewish involvement in radicalism was due to “inherent inclinations rooted in Jewish character and religion”

What Ranbir leaves out is that in the first two statements Churchill was describing the antisemitism of the anti-Bolshevik Russian Whites. He wasn’t stating that he agreed with them!

There is a very bitter feeling throughout Russia against the Jews, who are regarded as being the main instigators of the ruin of the Empire, and who certainly have played a leading part in the Bolshevik atrocities… This feeling is shared by the Volunteer Army and the army of the Don under General Denikin (Carlton, Churchill and the Soviet Empire, p.18; emphasis added)

Ranbir also omitted any mention of Churchill’s opposition to the murderous pogroms perpetrated by the Whites. Churchill pleaded with Denikin in terms that would be persuasive:

“Your Excellency, I know, will realise the vital importance at this time, when such brilliant results are being secured, of preventing by every possible means the ill-treatment of the innocent Jewish population. My task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian National Cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer Armies.

Prime Minister has today sent me a letter on this subject enclosing allegations which I am referring to your Excellency by mail. I know the efforts you have already made and the difficulty of restraining anti-Semitic feeling. But I beg you, as a sincere well-wisher, to redouble these efforts and place me in a strong position to vindicate the honour of the Volunteer Army…” (quoted in Gilbert, World in Torment, p.343)

Ranbir’s third quotation - concerning Jewish involvement in political radicalism - is an outright fabrication. Churchill never said it. It was actually written by historian Gisela C. Lebzelter in her 1978 book Political Anti-Semitism in England. As we’ll see, Churchill did not attribute Jewish involvement in radicalism to any inherent racial or cultural characteristics of the Jews.  

After I pointed out this chicanery Ranbir did what any self-respecting bullshitter would do and blocked me. However, he repeatedly unblocked me to reply to my tweets and QT me before blocking me again. Clearly, he had discovered that an actual debate would be dangerous for him and so he was content just to pollute my Twitter timeline while denying me the right of reply.

Churchill On Jews

Churchill was not antisemitic. In fact, he was pro-Jewish. This attitude struck many of his contemporaries as bizarre. Antisemitism was not an uncommon prejudice among the aristocracy in Britain during Churchill’s lifetime. In 1969 Churchill’s friend General Sir Edward Louis Spears remarked to the historian Martin Gilbert that “[e]ven Winston had a fault. He was too fond of Jews” (Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.xv).

In my introduction, I claimed that Churchill was a philosemite, Zionist, and opponent of antisemitism. I’ll demonstrate that he was each of these in turn.

1.      Churchill’s Philosemitism

Through his father, Churchill knew many Jews socially. His social circle included Lord Rothschild, Baron de Hirsch, Phillip Sassoon and Sir Ernest Cassel, the latter of whom Churchill would describe as:

A good and just man who was trusted, respected and honoured by all who knew him. He was a valued friend of my father’s and I have taken up that friendship and I have held it all my grown life (quoted in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.5).

Churchill’s relationship with Jews went beyond social after he became the Liberal candidate and then MP for Manchester North-West in 1904. Churchill became a very visible ally of the Jews and an admirer of their culture. According to Martin Gilbert, he was particularly impressed with the “Jewish communal emphasis on social responsibility and self-help” and became a subscriber to his constituency’s Jewish Soup Kitchen, Jewish Lad’s Club and the Jewish Tennis and Cricket Club (Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.14).

Unlike many of his contemporaries who resented Jewish success, Churchill appreciated it. “He recognized Judaism as a moral and civilizing force in history” (Himmelfarb, People of the Book, p.146). Of Jewish settlement in Palestine, he said the Jews had brought the Arabs:

Nothing but good gifts, more wealth, more trade, more civilisation, new sources of revenue, more employment, a higher rate of wages, larger cultivated areas and better water supply – in a word, the fruits of reason and modern science (quoted in Himmelfarb, People of the Book, p.142).

In the fifth volume of his history/memoir of the Second World War Churchill praised the Jews (as well as the Greeks) for their contributions to humanity:

No two cities counted more with mankind than Athens and Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy, and art have been the main guiding lights of modern faith and culture (quoted in Himmelfarb, People of the Book, p.146).

2.      Churchill’s Zionism

Churchill first encountered the question of a Jewish homeland in December 1905 when he was approached by Dr. Joseph Dulberg, the Secretary of the Manchester Territorialists. Churchill wrote to Dr. Dulberg that:

I recognize the supreme attraction to a scattered and persecuted people of a safe and settled home under the flag of tolerance and freedom. Such a plan contains a soul, and enlists in its support energies, enthusiasms, and a driving power which no scheme of individual colonisation can ever command (quoted in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.12).

In March 1921 in a speech delivered in Jerusalem, Churchill said:

Personally, my heart is full of sympathy for Zionism. This sympathy has existed for a long time, since twelve years ago, when I was in contact with the Manchester Jews…. I believe that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine will be a blessing to the whole world, and a blessing to the Jewish race scattered all over the world, and a blessing to Great Britain. I firmly believe that it will be a blessing also to all the inhabitants of this country without distinction of race and religion (quoted in Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land, p.117).

In the 1930s Churchill emerged as a leading Gentile champion of the Zionist goals in Palestine. To quote historian W.D. Rubinstein:

Throughout the 1930s Churchill remained a strong supporter of Zionism, and his support for and by the Jewish community in Britain increased greatly in this period, with Churchill being seen by Jews, and also by non-Jewish victims of the Nazis such as the Czechs, as their best hope among Britain's leaders or potential leaders. He remained one of the most consistent supporters of Zionism in the political mainstream: for instance in June 1937, when negotiations over the Peel Commission on the future of Palestine were being held in London, Churchill was the guest of honour at a dinner in London organized by Weizmann and attended by leading pro-Zionist political figures such as Leo Amery, Josiah Wedgwood, Victor Cazalet and also (ironically) by Clement Attlee. Churchill was one of the few speakers to support the Partition of Palestine mandate, a proposal first mooted at the time, and rejected by most Zionists as a further watering down of the Balfour Declaration, although it would have led to a Jewish State. Apparently Churchill had had too much to drink, turned to Weizmann and rather cryptically said, 'You know, you are our masters - and yours and yours [pointing to other members of the party] - and what you say goes. If you ask us to fight, we shall fight like tigers.' In March 1939 the British government issued the notorious Macdonald White Paper, heavily limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine just as the Nazis were conquering Europe; to his credit, Churchill made an outspoken attack on it in Parliament, stating on 23 May 1939 that 'I was from the beginning a sincere advocate of the Balfour Declaration ... I regret very much that the pledge of the Balfour Declaration . . . [has] been violated by the Government's proposals.' Churchill voted in a minority of 181-281 opposing the White Paper, along with Amery, Brendan Bracken, Victor Cazalet, Lloyd George, Harold Macmillan (note) and most of the Labour party (W.D. Rubinstein, “Churchill and the Jews”, p.172).

In 1954 Churchill said to journalists

I am a Zionist, let me make this clear. I was one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration and I have worked faithfully for it…. I think it is a most wonderful thing that this community should have established itself so effectively in turning the desert into fertile gardens and thriving townships and should have afforded refuge to millions of their co-religionists who suffered so fearfully under Hitler, and not only under Hitler. I think it is a wonderful thing (quoted in Rubinstein, “Churchill and the Jews”, pp.174-175).

As writer Michael Makovsky says:

However subordinate, Zionism remained an important, largely sentimental concern that fit into Churchill’s own worldview. His romantic love of the past, determination to right historical wrongs, and broad devotion to religious values contributed to his supporting the restoration of the Jews to their ancient homeland. He was also devoted to his father and his father’s principles, attitudes, and friends. This encouraged Churchill’s comfort with Jews on a personal level, a respect for them and their abilities, and compassion for their plight…. These convictions made Churchill more favorably disposed to the Jews and their causes, and his own encounters with them only reinforced that predilection (Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land, pp.260-261).

3.      Churchill’s Opposition to Antisemitism

Churchill was consistently opposed to antisemitic policies throughout his life. In 1898 during the Dreyfus Affair, he praised French journalist Emile Zola’s defence of Dreyfus and attack on the antisemitism of the French army. “I am delighted to witness the complete debacle of this monstrous conspiracy”, he wrote to his mother (Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.3). In 1904 Churchill spoke out against the Aliens Bill, which was intended to limit Jewish immigration into Britain. Not for the last time in his career, antisemites accused Churchill of being a Jewish puppet. Nathan Laski wrote to Churchill thanking him for his efforts in opposing that bill:

You have won the gratitude of the whole Jewish community not alone of Manchester, but of the entire country (quoted in Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.9)

In 1905 Churchill condemned the pogroms in Russia as “appalling massacres and detestable atrocities”, “barbarities” and “unparalleled acts of brutality” (Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land, p.51). In the 1930s Churchill was appalled by the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Clement Attlee later recalled:

I remember the tears pouring down his cheeks one day before the House of Commons, when he was telling me what was being done to the Jews in Germany – not to individual Jewish friends of his, but to Jews as a group.

Churchill’s opposition to antisemitism was often frustrated by the indifference to antisemitism that many of his contemporaries exhibited. For example, in 1933 Churchill wrote to Professor Frederick Lindemann, asking him to bring German-Jewish students and academics to universities in Britain. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol wrote to Churchill complaining that it would be hard to make them offers because of a glut of applications to the university (Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, p.101). In 1942 he wrote to the Colonial Secretary asking him to dismiss a number of antisemitic colonial officials only to receive a sharp rebuke (Himmelfarb, People of the Book, p.144).

According to David Mandel, a Fellow in History at Melbourne University, during the Second World War:

Churchill frequently intervened to ease the escape of Jewish refugees from Europe…as First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill instructed Royal Navy vessels not to intercept ships suspected of bringing illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine….in November 1940… General Archibald Wavell sought to have deported from Palestine a group of Jewish refugees who had reached the country aboard the Patria, Churchill intervened to prevent it and they were permitted to stay, despite the objections of officials (Mandel, “Winston Churchill”, p.170).

Churchill repeatedly, and in the face of opposition from his Cabinet, argued that Jewish immigration into Palestine should not be hindered or discouraged (Mandel, “Winston Churchill”, p.171). In April 1943 Churchill asked the Spanish ambassador to convince Franco to open Spain's borders to Jews fleeing the Third Reich (Mandel, “Winston Churchill”, p.171). Mandel concludes that:

During the war, Churchill sought many avenues to provide refuge for Jews fleeing the Nazis, including in Palestine, and in the teeth of great opposition from virtually all of his officials. Indeed, such was the perception of Churchill’s solicitude for Jews among them that, on at least two occasions, callous members of his own inner staff withheld from him Jewish requests out of fear that he would respond positively to them (Mandel, “Winston Churchill, p.172).

Steelmanning Singh

So, what is the case for the proposition that Churchill was actually an antisemite? The strongest evidence that Ranbir Singh adduces to make his case is an article Churchill wrote called “Zionism versus Bolshevism”, which was published in the Illustrated Sunday Herald on the 8^th of February 1920. According to Ranbir, Churchill is alleged to have endorsed the canard that Bolshevism was a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination. Ranbir claimed that antisemites such as David Duke quote this essay approvingly and think the article itself must have been an endorsement of their beliefs. Of course, Holocaust deniers, antisemites, and neo-Nazis aren’t exactly known for their honest use of historical documents so I am not persuaded by this argument.

To be fair to Ranbir though, he’s not the first person to have interpreted “Zionism versus Bolshevism” as an endorsement of antisemitic canards. One writer in Current Affairs wrote:

[Churchill] embraced much of the antisemitic rhetoric of his time without question, writing of a “sinister confederacy” of “International Jews” in the essay “Zionism versus Bolshevism”…. the average reader could be forgiven for thinking it came from Mein Kampf or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, rather than the man credited as Hitler’s nemesis.

The contemporary reaction was also mixed, with the Jewish Chronicle condemning Churchill:

The SECRETARY OF WAR charges Jews with originating the gospel of Antichrist and with engineering a ‘world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization’…. It is the gravest, as it is the most reckless and most scandalous campaign in which even the most discredited politicians have ever engaged… It is difficult to understand the object of this tirade, with its flashy generalizations and shallow theories (quoted in Cohen, Churchill and the Jews, p.56)

However, historians who have studied Churchill’s attitudes to the Jewish people – even those critical of Churchill - tend to reject the view that Churchill was an antisemite even if they say the essay demonstrated Churchill's poor judgement. Michael J. Cohen, Professor of History Emeritus at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and author of the book Churchill and the Jews described Churchill’s article as “irresponsible” but added that “[i]t is to be doubted whether Churchill subscribed to the anti-Semitic prejudice common at the time” (Cohen, Churchill and the Jews, p.56). Michael Makovsky wrote that the essay has been “rather misunderstood” but that “the article was irresponsible in echoing the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] and right-wing conspiratorial propaganda and suggesting that some Jews sought world revolution and domination, especially given the charged anti-Semitic environment” (Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land, pp. 85 & 87). On the other hand, historian W.D. Rubinstein has strongly defended Churchill:

Churchill's article is sometimes used to show that he was, at this time at least, something of an anti-Semite, accepting the view of Jews as incorrigible radicals expressed often by the extreme right wing, but he was actually saying nothing of the kind - indeed, his argument was precisely opposite (Rubinstein, “Winston Churchill and the Jews”, p.169).

So, what’s the truth? Did Churchill endorse the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy theory, or has he been misunderstood?

Zionism versus Bolshevism

“Zionism versus Bolshevism” was not an antisemitic screed. A straightforward, honest, and complete analysis of the text shows that it was written by someone who was clearly pro-Jewish but anti-communist. Claims about Churchill making statements identical to those found in Mein Kampf can only be supported by selective quotation  – a classic technique of those afflicted by Churchill Derangement Syndrome.

Part of Churchill’s motivation for writing the article was to emphasize his support for the Jews. In January 1920 Churchill gave a speech in Sunderland warning about the damage that Bolshevism had caused to Russia and the dangers it posed to Britain. During that speech, he once referred to ‘the International Soviet of the Russian and Polish Jew’. Churchill was later informed that the prominent Jewish scholar Claude Montefiore had taken issue with Churchill’s comments. This criticism stung Churchill, who wrote that “[I]f I have any mental bias…it is rather in favour of than against the Jews among whom I am proud to number many good friends” (Gilbert, Companion Vol, V, p.1010).

Churchill’s argument was that Zionism and Bolshevism were competing for the hearts and minds of oppressed Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. While the argument that Bolshevism and Zionism were intrinsically opposed ideologies was an oversimplification there was an undeniable element of truth to it. The same point has been made by some prominent Jews. According to Michael Makovsky:

[Theodor] Herzl repeatedly argued that Zionism was a cure to Jewish seditious activity, and in 1919 [Chaim] Weizmann told peace conferees that the Zionist proposal “was the only one which would in the long … transform Jewish energy into a constructive force instead of its being dissipated in destructive tendencies”. Once these Zionist leaders advanced this argument, even if only to win over Gentiles to their cause, it became fair game for others…. Weizmann on several occasions before the First World War debated various Communist leaders such as Lenin, Trotsky, and Karl Radek over Zionism versus Communism, in effect creating a proposition of conflict and rivalry between the two movements (Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land, pp.87-88).

Here’s what Churchill didn’t write in “Zionism versus Bolshevism”:

1)     He didn’t generalize Jews as communists. He distinguished between Jews who had integrated into Gentile society (whom Churchill describes as National Jews), Zionists, and Bolsheviks (whom Churchill also described as International Jews and Terrorist Jews). Churchill also approvingly wrote that “many” of the National Jews in England had been prominent in anti-Communist movements and that “the Bolshevik movement is not a Jewish movement, but is repudiated vehemently by the great mass of the Jewish race”. He also said that “there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries”.

2)     He didn’t describe Jews as having a negative impact on civilization. He wrote that “we [non-Jews] owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics…on that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization”. He praised British Jews who played a “distinguished part” in serving in the British Army. He commended the contribution to Russian life made by “National Russian Jews who, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and useful part in the national life even of Russia”.

3)     Most importantly, Churchill did not advocate for persecution or extermination of Jews. He criticized antisemitism saying “there can be no greater mistake than to attribute to each individual a recognizable share in the qualities which make up the national character. There are all sorts of men – good, bad and, for the most part, indifferent – in every country, and in every race. Nothing is more wrong than to deny to an individual, on account of race or origin, his right to be judged on his personal merits and conduct”.

The sentences which are usually taken out of context relate to communism, which he describes as a “world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence and impossible equality”. Churchill pointed out that Jews had played a disproportionate role in the Bolshevik movement (“the part played…in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing”). This isn’t evidence of antisemitism; Churchill was just stating a fact. To quote historian Richard Pipes:

Jews undeniably played in the Bolshevik Party and the early Soviet apparatus a role disproportionate to their share of the population. The number of Jews active in Communism in Russia and abroad was striking: in Hungary, for example, they furnished 95 percent of the leading figures in Bela Kun’s dictatorship. They were also disproportionately represented among Communists in Germany and Austria during the revolutionary upheavals there in 1918-1923, and in the apparatus of the Communist International (Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, pp.112-113)

Churchill noted that these Jews were “for the most part atheistical” and had “forsaken the faith of their forefathers”. Therefore, it is untrue to claim that Churchill viewed Jewish involvement in political radicalism as being caused by some intrinsic flaw in Jewish culture or ethnic character. Churchill attributed it to antisemitic persecution (“The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race”). He compared the “miserable state of Russia, where of all countries in the world the Jews were the most cruelly treated” with the “fortunes of our own country” where Jews were not persecuted. “Like Disraeli, Churchill ultimately blamed the Gentiles” (Makovsky, Churchill’s Promised Land, p.87). Churchill also pointed out that while Jews were subject to antisemitism “[i]n its worst and foulest forms” at the hands of the Whites, they were also victimized by the Bolsheviks (“most [of the Jews] are themselves sufferers from the revolutionary regime”).

Conclusion

Churchill lived in a more politically incorrect age. Had Churchill harboured antisemitic beliefs he would not have felt obliged to beat about the bush. Usually people who are antisemitic never miss an opportunity to slander the Jews. However, the evidence produced by Ranbir Singh to argue that Churchill was antisemitic is weak. It relies on the classic Churchillian Black Legend tactic of cherry-picking a couple of sentences, misinterpreting them and then ignoring everything else Churchill said and did during his lifetime. Churchill was a philosemite, a Zionist and had a long track record of opposing antisemitism. 

Bibliography

Anderson, Edward, “’Neo-Hindutva’: the Asia House M.F. Husain campaign and the mainstreaming of Hindu nationalist rhetoric in Britain”, Contemporary South Asia, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.45-66

Carlton, David, Churchill and the Soviet Union (Manchester University Press, 2000)

Cohen, Michael J., Churchill and the Jews, 1900 – 1948 (Routledge, 2013)

Gilbert, Martin, Churchill and the Jews (Pocket Books, 2008)

Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill: Volume IV: World in Torment, 1917 to 1922 (Minerva, 1990)

Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill: Companion Volume V Part 2: July 1919 - March 1921 (Houghton Mifflin, 1978)

Himmelfarb, Gertrude, People of the Book: Philosemitism in England from Cromwell to Churchill (Encounter Books, 2011)

Langworth, Richard (ed.), Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations (PublicAffairs, 2008)

Mandel, David, “Winston Churchill – A Good Friend of Jews and Zionism?”, Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol. 21, No. 1/2 (2009), pp.162-175

Makovsky, Michael, Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft (Yale University Press, 2007)

Pipes, Richard, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Alfred A. Knopf, 1993)

Rubinstein, William D., “Winston Churchill and the Jews”, Jewish Historical Studies, Vol. 39, pp.167-176