In her 1954 autobiography, Many A Good Crusade: Memoirs of Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, the Dean of Barnard College of Columbia University between 1911 and 1947, Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve, wrote the following:
"As the clouds of that terrible struggle [in World War II against Nazi Germany and Japanese militarism] began to lift a little and we could again put our minds on the Palestine problem, among so many others, we were aware that disorder and death were rife in the Holy Land. The Zionists with ruthless efficiency were pushing to get more and more Jewish immigrants into Palestine. The Arabs were violently resisting. The British, in despair of arriving at any satisfactory adjustment, or even keeping order in the unhappy country, were preparing to give up the Mandate. In the United States powerful and influential Zionists began to put heavy pressure upon our government to force the British, contrary to the desires of the majority of the population, to admit more and more Jews to the Holy Land.
"The Zionists were supported in this by a great many American Christians, some few of whom, I am sorry to say, advocated the project because it would relieve us of doing anything ourselves to help the exiles. These unworthy Christians did not want to admit any more Jewish refugees into America. `Let's push them off on Palestine by all means,' they thought. They apparently saw no objection to our bullying our British allies, now in such an embarrassing position with relation to us, and forcing them to bully the Arabs into admitting this huge influx of alien foreigners. This seemed to me a most contemptible attitude for my country to tak, and I was bitterly ashamed of it..."
(end of part 3)
James and the Twenty-Seven Bicycles
14 years ago
