Those who risked their lives rescuing European Jews from certain persecution and death at the hands of Nazi authorities earned a special place as righteous people.

After World War 2 concluded and the concentration camps liberated, numerous Anglo-majority nations, such as Canada, Britain and Australia, provided sanctuary for thousands of Eastern European Nazi collaborators. This long term policy dishonoured the victims of the Holocaust, and is a slap in the face of those who rescued Jewish lives.

I have written about this subject before. Before anyone worries about covering old ground, there are two points to make here. First, we will cover new material in this article; second, this topic contains many lessons relevant for today.

Some people keep newspaper clippings of articles they find important or emotionally significant. I keep bookmarks of webpages – legions of them. One of them is an investigative piece in the Smithsonian magazine of a little-known episode of World War 2 – the rescue of thousands of Moroccan Jews from certain death by the Sultan of that country.

Morocco, ruled by Mohammed V at the time, was a French protectorate. The French installed the young Mohammed Ben Youssef in 1927. Seen as a pliant instrument, the French colonial authorities continued their rule over Morocco through their compliant lackeys, the Alawi dynasty.

How did developments in Europe impact Morocco? In 1940, France, with its much vaunted army, was soundly defeated by Nazi Germany. The French established a Nazi collaborationist government at Vichy, composed of ultranationalist French forces. Already antisemitic, Vichy enacted a series of antisemitic laws. France’s overseas dominions, such as Morocco, fell under the control of Vichy.

The Moroccan sultan was under pressure to apply Vichy’s antisemitic policies in his nation. Morocco’s 250 000 strong Jewish community was integrated into the wider society. Antisemitism was very much a European innovation and importation. The Sultan resisted implementing the antisemitic legislation of Vichy, arguing that Jews were people of the book. The followers of the Abrahamic cousins of monotheism – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – were taken seriously by the Sultan.

Vichy officials, and their Nazi overlords, applied pressure to Mohammed V, the latter reluctantly signing into law restrictive antisemitic measures. However, he still treated the Jewish community with respect, invited rabbis to celebrate religious holidays, and refused to meet Nazi officials. There were no mass roundups or deportations of Jews from Morocco. In 1942, Allied troops landed on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and Vichy French forces were thrashed.

In 1943, Casablanca – yes, that town, associated with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall – hosted a pivotal meeting of FDR and Churchill, the two major Western powers.

Mohammed V is remembered fondly by Morocco’s Jewish community today. Since 1948, with the creation of the state of Israel, thousands of Moroccan Jews emigrated to Israel, where they became settlers in the newly colonised land of Palestine. While Morocco and Israel established formal diplomatic relations only in 2020, contacts and cooperation between Tel Aviv and Rabat go back decades.

As Algeria, another French colony, was fighting for its independence in the 1950s, Israel and Morocco cooperated secretly with the French to ensure that the Arab nationalist revolt would be put down. Morocco has acquired Israeli expertise in military and intelligence matters; on at least one occasion, Israel helped the Moroccan monarchy assassinate an opposition leader.

As Israel continues its genocidal assault on the people of Gaza, the nations that have normalised relations with Tel Aviv must re-examine their reasons for doing so.

Ancient history is one thing; the cynical manipulation of historical ties is quite another. Morocco has been home to Jewish communities since 1492, when the Jewish population was expelled from Spain and Portugal at the conclusion of the Reconquista, Cooperative relations between Tel Aviv and Rabat have nothing to do with ancient relations between Jews and Moorish people.

Let’s change tack for the moment – Albania can rightly claim to have rescued Jews from the horrors of the Holocaust. The Albanians, even though they were occupied by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, took in Jewish refugees in an under appreciated episode from World War 2.

Albania emerged from the war with a larger Jewish community than before the start of the war. This episode of sanctuary remained largely unknown since Albania was isolated from the outside under the longtime Communist premiership of Enver Hoxha.

In 1935, a young Albert Einstein transited through Durrës, an Albanian city, before continuing on his journey out of Europe. Benefiting from Albanian passport, he escaped encroaching antisemitism. Albania granted travel documents to those Jews who wished to leave.

In Pristina, capital of Kosovo, a monument was erected in 2023 to 23 Kosovar Albanians who provided refuge for escaping Jews. It is no secret that Israel enthusiastically recognised Kosovo’s independence, and contributed to investment in the fledging nation. Actually, Kosovo has been turned into an American protectorate, with most industry privatised.

We are repudiating the memory of those who rescued Jewish refugees from a genocidal regime, by supporting a government in Tel Aviv that is carrying out a genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in our own times.