When Weizmann approached Moyne, the latter, after consulting Churchill, replied that the Division scheme would have to be left ‘in cold storage for the present’, once again, due to shortage of equipment, now more acute still, since the Russians had

joined the Allies, in June.’? Weizmann now sensed that each Department was trying to fob him off with excuses, and asked therefore for a definite answer, whether

positive or negative.1??

On 10 September, 1941, he wrote one last, impassioned appeal to Churchill. He dwelled on two familiar themes - the influence of American Jewry, and the continuation of the discredited policy of appeasement in the Middle East, long after it had passed from the world in Europe:

Tortured by Hitler as no nation has ever been in modern times, and advertised by him as his foremost enemy, we are refused by those who fight him the chance of seeing our name and our flag appear among those arrayed against him.

I know that this exclusion is not in your own intentions or spirit. It is the work of people who were responsible for the Munich policy in Europe and for the White Paper in Palestine. We were sacrificed in order to win over the Mufti of Jerusalem and his friends who were serving Hitler in the Middle East, whereas the only thing which can square the Arabs is British strength in the Middle East, as has been clearly shown in Iraq.

But are the Jews so utterly unimportant as the treatment meted out to them suggests? I have spent four months in America, travelling up and down the country, and closely watching the American scene. Forces over there are finely balanced; the position is uncertain. There is only one big ethnic group which is willing to stand, to a man, for Great Britain, anda policy of ‘all-out-aid’ for her; the five million American Jews …

It has been repeatedly acknowledged by British statesmen that it was the Jews who, in the last war, effectively helped to tip the scales in America in favour of Great Britain. They are keen to do it ~ and may do it ~ again. But you are dealing with human beings, with flesh and blood, and the most elementary feeling of self-respect sets limits to service, however willing, ifthe response is nothing but rebufis and humiliations. American Jewry waits for a word ~ a call - from His Majesty’s Government. The formation of a Jewish fighting force

would be that signal.123

Churchill and the Jews, Michael J. Cohen, 2003