The likelihood that the Polish-Jewish refugee crisis stimulated some Soviet officials to mull various possible solutions to the problem may help explain the otherwise inexplicable views which Maisky expressed to Weizmann. After referring to that "great Jewish problem," Maisky asked the Zionist leader "whether it was Dr. Weizmann's opinion that the only solution lay in Palestine." When Weizmann replied in the affirmative, "M. Maisky said that there would have to be an exchange of populations," that is, an exchange involving the removal of Arabs from Palestine to facilitate the establishment of a Jewish homeland.