View source for This is the price we have to pay for the anti-Jewish policy which has been persisted in for some years - Their Finest Hour by Winston Churchill

{{Book quote
|quote title=This is the price we have to pay for the anti-Jewish policy which has been persisted in for some years
|book=Their Finest Hour
|author=Winston Churchill
|wmdsays=This is a letter that Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Lloyd who Churchill declares earlier is a "convinced Anti-Zionist and Pro-Arab". Churchill also states that he is "keen to arm the Jewish colonists".

Churchill is desperate to pull any and all troops back from the colonies to defend Britain against a possible German invasion: France is just about to fall.

|pages=154
|extract=Prime Minister to Secretary of State for the Colonies (Lord Lloyd). 28.VI.40. 

The failure of the policy which you favour is proved by the very large numbers of sorely needed troops you [we] have to keep in Palestine: 

* 6 battalions of infantry;
* 9 regiments of yeomanry;
* 8 battalions of Australian infantry;

the whole probably more than twenty thousand men. '''This is the price we have to pay for the anti-Jewish policy which has been persisted in for some years'''. Should the war go heavily into Egypt, all these troops will have to be withdrawn, and the position of the Jewish colonists will be one of the greatest danger. Indeed I am sure that we shall be told we cannot withdraw these troops, though they include some of our best, and are vitally needed elsewhere. '''If the Jews were properly armed, our forces would become available, and there would be no danger of the Jews attacking the Arabs, because they are entirely dependent upon us and upon our command of the seas'''. I think it is little less than a scandal that at a time when we are fighting for our lives these very large forces should be immobilised in support of a policy which commends itself only to a section of the Conservative Party.

I had hoped you would take a broad view of the Palestine situation, and would make it an earnest objective to set the British garrison free. I could certainly not associate myself with such an answer as you have drawn up for me. I do not at all admit that Arab feeling in the Near East and India would be prejudiced in the manner you suggest. Now that we have the Turks in such a friendly relationship, the position is much more secure.
}}
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