Text of my Zoom address to the Chartwell Society of Portland, Oregon on 10 May 2021, 81st anniversary of Churchill taking office as Prime Minister. “Questions and Answers” are part of an iTunes audio file. For a copy, please email rlangworth@hillsdale.edu.
Questions and Answers (continued from Part 3)
From Senator Bob Packwood (who recalls shelling peas with you on a pleasant former occasion): Everybody asks what Churchill’s position would be today on the Middle East. It appears that he wanted to do right by everybody—guarantee the Jews a homeland but respect the rights of the Arabs.…
The Dream of Israel : An earlier version of this article appeared in The American Spectator on June 30th. There were some interesting comments. Click the link to read.
Herein, some edits of the edits, which diverged slightly from the draft. The published subtitle was, “Here’s betting he would have loved America’s new embassy.” (Never bet on what Churchill might love or not love.) It’s worth noting that the U.S. Embassy is in West Jerusalem. In a settlement, there could also be an Arab seat of government in East Jerusalem. RML
Britain and IsraelPrince William landed in Israel June 25th for the first royal visit to the country.…
A lifelong supporter of Zionism and the Jews, Winston Churchill is sometimes labeled an anti-Semite. The proffered evidence, an alleged article of his, has made the obligatory rounds of the Internet.
A 1937 article draft in the Churchill Archives supposedly proves that Churchill’s off-expressed sympathy for the Jews was hypocrisy. Churchill was, if this article is to be believed, a closet anti-Semite.
Origins of a SlurThe allegations began with a 2007 article in Britain’s The Independent: “Uncovered: Churchill’s Warnings About the ‘Hebrew Bloodsuckers.’”
The 1937 draft, “How the Jews Can Combat Persecution,” had “apparently lain unnoticed in the Churchill Archives at Cambridge since the early months of the Second World War,” stated The Independent:
Churchill criticised the “aloofness” of Jewish people from wider society and urged them to make the effort to integrate themselves….Churchill…
A new Phrase Index to Churchill quotes is available.
My Churchill quotations book, Churchill By Himself, is being updated and corrected for a new edition called Churchill in His Own Words, with an eventual e-book version as well. It contains a new Key Phrase Index that will greatly assist readers in finding the quotation they require.
Since the pagination of the new book will not change (we found only one quote which had to be removed as fictitious), the Phrase Index can also be used by present owners of Churchill By Himself. For a copy please contact me.…
The Churchill Society of Israel serves Israelis with an interest in Sir Winston Churchill, according to Russell Rothstein, quoted in the January 9th Daily Telegraph: “Churchill’s long-standing support of Zionism and friendship with the Jewish people make it particularly appropriate that the modern state of Israel have a local organisation devoted to his memory and to preserving his thoughts, words and deeds for future generations.”
Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, added: “Churchill was very familiar with the Old Testament. He wrote about the Children of Israel who “understood and adopted ideas which even ancient Greece and Rome, for all their power, failed to comprehend.…
In the January 2009 issue of Commentary, Hillel Halkin penned an interesting piece, “The Jewish State & Its Arabs,” which resulted in a flurry of reader comment on the Commentary website.
One reader had the impression that Churchill “overreacted” to the 1944 assassination of Lord Moyne by members of the Jewish Lehi (Stern Gang). Another wrote something I just could not let pass without rejoinder:
…had Churchill given an order to bomb Auschwitz, rather than simply recommend that it be bombed, it would have been bombed. He did not do so, presumably, because he was loath to quarrel with his general staff and did not wish to stand accused of risking British pilots and air crews in order to save Jewish lives that had no military value.…
