Quoting Tom Segev’s The Seventh Million, page 18:

More than anything else, though, the rise of the [Third Reich] was seen as confirming the historical prognosis of Zionist ideology. Hapoel Hatsair described the [Fascist] persecution of the Jews as “punishment” for their having tried to integrate into German society instead of leaving for Palestine while it was still possible to do so. Now they would have to run in panic, “like mice in flight,” the paper said.¹¹

The Revisionist paper Hazit Haam used even stronger language: “The Jews of Germany are being persecuted now not despite their efforts to be part of their country but because of those efforts.”¹² The Holocaust would later be the primary argument for the establishment of the [so‐called] State of Israel and for its wars of survival.

The leaders of the yishuv—the [Zionist] community in Palestine—and the heads of the political parties followed the German crisis closely; they seemed to have grasped its meaning quite soon.

“Hitler’s anti‐Jewish plans form an organic part of his ideology and he is likely to try to carry them out,” Jabotinsky declared at the beginning of 1933, and two years later he wrote, “The Third Reich's policy toward the Jews calls for a war of extermination. It is being conducted in a way that exceeds the bounds of humanity.”¹³ In 1934, David Ben‐Gurion stated after reading Hitler’s Mein Kampf, “Hitler’s policy puts the entire Jewish people in danger.”¹⁴

Everyone wondered how the persecution of the Jews in Germany would affect life in Palestine. The papers predicted “loss and ruin beyond repair” and described “the dance of death” that was going on in Berlin. Nonetheless, they expected that “the hour of trouble and anguish” would open unprecedented historical opportunities—specifically, increased immigration to Palestine.¹⁵ Ben‐Gurion hoped the [NSDAP’s] victory would become “a fertile force” for Zionism.¹⁶

Writer and Mapai activist Moshe Beilinson went to Germany and reported back to Berl Katznelson, editor of Davar and one of the leaders of Mapai, “The streets are paved with more money than we have ever dreamed of in the history of our Zionist enterprise. Here is an opportunity to build and flourish like none we have ever had or ever will have.”¹⁷

(Emphasis added.)