Ben Gurion said Jewish state was primary goal

Dermot Meleady claimed that for Jewish refugees of the Nazi holocaust, Palestine was “…their only available refuge…”

The Stratton bill of April 1 1947 proposed to admit up to 4000,000 refugees of all faiths, including Jewish holocaust survivors, into the US but Zionists refused to support the bill. Other possible sanctuaries were also ignored because saving Jewish lives appeared to take second place to building a Jewish state in Palestine.

This was outlined by David Ben Gurion not long after the Evian conference of 1938 which was established to facilitate the settlement of Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. On December 7 1938, one month after Kristallnacht, Ben Gurion addressed a meeting of Labour Zionist leaders and stated: