1945 - 1948

 The Red Army was the first to find a German Death Camp in 1945. But the USSR made ethnic groups illegal, hence there were, under USSR law, no Jews, no Aryans, no Slavs. So the USSR recorded more than 26 million Soviets dead, some in combat, some starved to death, some killed in death camps. No record of Jews, since, under USSR law, there was no such thing.

The Allies came across German Death Camps not long after the Soviets. The Allies recognised ethnic groups, and counted 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis out of a total of 11 million Jews in Europe.

After 1944, a bit on the late side, the US guaranteed entry for any European Jew who could make it to the US. An American friend thought the US had done all it could to protect the European Jews. Not quite.

But what to do? The Europeans didn't want the Jews. Their homes had been confiscated by the Nazis and sold, and the new owners didn't see why they should be evicted for the sins of the defeated Nazis.

So the Americans decided to ship all the Western European Jews to Palestine in 1948. The Rev Keith of the UK had suggested back in the 19th century that British Jews should all go to Palestine where, with advanced agricultural methods, they could bring in very good harvests in the Fertile Crescent, providing the UK with grain and tropical fruits. 

After WWI, the UK and France took most of what had been the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans being among the losers, so they lost their Empire, as did the Austrians and Germans and Russians. The lost Ottoman Empire colonies became French and British colonies.

The British said that the traditional Jewish homeland would be given to British Jews. My Bible has a map, and there were Jewish colonies in Palestine and the Transjordan, and up into what is now southern Lebanon.

Then the Brits decided the Transjordan would be for Arabs, the Transjordan Jewish tribal members in the UK could live in part of Palestine, and not only would the Jews not get Lebanon (which went to France, not the UK) nor the Transjordan, they had to share the British colony of Palestine with the Palestinians. Both Jews and Palestinians wanted rid of the Brits, but the Brits were much too strong between WWI and WWII.

And then, in 1948, the US sent the Western European Jews to Palestine. There was a war between the European Jews and the Palestinians who wanted to keep their land, even though the US and UK said European Jews now had the right to live there. As it turned out, the Arabs managed to hold on to the West Bank and Gaza, with the European Jews getting the rest of Palestine. The Palestinians call this the Nakba.