HISTORY DISPROVES MYTH THAT FOUNDING ZIONISTS WERE NAIVE
By Judea Pearl
The Jewish Journal of greater L.A
id=19364
May 15 2008
CA
We are often told, mostly by anti-Israel propagandists, that the early
Zionists’ attitude toward the indigenous Arab population in Palestine
was laden with ignorance, naivete, denial, contempt, abuse and outright
oppression. Afif Safieh, the PLO representative to the United States,
tells audiences on campus after campus: "[Palestinians] have suffered
three successive denials — a denial of their mere physical existence,
a denial of their national rights and, the most morally disturbing,
a denied recognition of their pain and suffering."
The slogans "Land without a people to a people without land" and
"Palestinians? Who?" continue to be quoted today by enemies of
coexistence as a proof of those alleged denials and of Zionism’s
ingrained and irredeemable disrespect for Arabs, both as people and
as a nation.
This is sheer nonsense.
On Israel’s 60th birthday, it is time we set the record straight:
The Zionist movement may have erred in many ways, but contempt,
naivete and denial were not among its errors.
I’m looking at my "History of Zionism" bookshelf, and I find it loaded
with books and pamphlets, apparently unavailable in English, which
record a history of understanding, respect and persistent attempts
at reaching mutual recognition with the Arabs of Palestine since the
beginning of the 20th century.
Here are a few shiny gems from this dusty bookshelf:
Ben-Gurion and Our Arab Brethren
During World War I, David Ben-Gurion, who would become the first
prime minister of Israel, spent three years in New York, from 1915
to 1918, having been exiled from Palestine "for conspiring against
Ottoman rule."
He spent most of this time organizing (with Y. Ben Zvi) the He-Halutz
youth movement, but, as he was also an ardent scholar and historian,
he also found time to conduct research at the public library and
published an interesting treatise "on the origin of the Falahin,"
in the summer of 1917, a few months before the Balfour Declaration.
In this treatise, Ben-Gurion advances an elaborate cultural-demographic
theory that the Falahin (the Arab peasants in Eretz Israel), are none
others than our lost brethren — descendants of Jews who remained in
Eretz Israel after the Roman expulsion and were forcibly converted
to Islam after the Muslim conquest (638 AD). In Ben-Gurion’s words:
The greater majority and main structures of the Muslim Falahin in
Western Erez Israel present to us one racial strand and a whole
ethnic unit, and there is no doubt that much Jewish blood flows in
their veins — the blood of those Jewish farmers, "lay persons,"
who chose in the travesty of times to abandon their faith in order
to remain on their land.
To the best of my knowledge, Ben-Gurion’s theory was proven wrong. DNA
analysis shows indigenous Palestinians to be the likely descendants
of Arab tribesmen that migrated north from the Arabian (now Saudi)
Peninsula in the wake of the conquering Muslim armies. Ben-Gurion’s
theory, nevertheless, shows a genuine attempt to hypothesize an
ancestral kinship with the Arab population in order to bridge cultural
and religious gaps, and thus prepare an atmosphere of trust.
If this is not respect, what is?
If this is not an outreach, nothing is.
Ben-Gurion and Palestinian Rights
In 1918, Israel Zangwill, author of the influential novel "Children
of the Ghetto" (1892) and an on-off Zionist, wrote an article
suggesting that the Arabs should be persuaded to "trek" (i.e., to be
"transferred") from Palestine. Ben-Gurion was quick to react and
distance the Zionist movement from any such notion. In an article
published that year in the Yiddish newspaper Yiddishe Kemper (titled
"The Rights of the Jews and Others in Eretz Israel") Ben-Gurion
ridicules Zangwill and makes his position unequivocal:
Eretz Israel is not an empty country … west of Jordan alone houses
three quarter of a million people. On no account must we injure the
rights of the inhabitants. Only "Ghetto Dreamers" like Zangwill can
imagine that Eretz Israel will be given to the Jews with the added
right of dispossessing the current inhabitants of the country. This
is not the mission of Zionism. Had Zionism to aspire to inherit the
place of these inhabitants — it would be nothing but a dangerous
utopia and an empty, damaging and reactionary dream….
"Not to take from others — but to build the ruins. No rights on our
past — but on our future. Not the preservation of historic inheritance
— but the creation of new national assets — this is the core claim
and right of the Hebrew nation in its country.
(Reprinted in "Anachnu U’Shcheneinu," 1931, p. 31.)
Our next gem belongs to Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952), the first president
of Israel and the man who played a key role in influencing the British
government to issue the Balfour Declaration on Nov. 2, 1917. In 1918,
Weizmann was sent to Palestine by the British government to advise
on the future development of the country. There, he met Arab and
Armenian representatives and delivered the following speech in the
house of the High Commissioner in Jerusalem:
With heartfelt admiration and great interest, we are viewing today
the current war of liberation conducted by the ancient Arabic nation.
We see how the scattered Arab forces are being united under the
good will of Western governments and other peace-loving nations,
and how, from the mist of war there emerge new and immense political
possibilities. We see again the formation of a strong and united
Arab political body, freshly renovated and aiming to renovate the
great tradition of Arab science and literature that are so close to
our heart.
This kinship found its glorious expression particularly in the Spanish
period of the Hebrew-Arabic development, when our greatest authors
wrote and thought in the Arabic language, as well as in Hebrew.
(Translated from Weizmann’s book "Dvarim," vol. 1 Tel Aviv, 1936,
p. 99.)
And, as if contemplating postmodern complaints that Zionism, while
promising Palestinians human and civil rights, denied them national
rights, Weizmann wastes no time dispelling this allegation and writes:
If indeed there is among the Arabs a national movement, we must relate
to it with the utmost seriousness…. The Arabs are concerned about
two issues:
1. The Jews will soon come in their millions and conquer the country
and chase out the Arabs… Responsible Zionists never said and never
wished such things.
2. There is no place in Eretz Israel for a large number of
inhabitants. This is total ignorance. It is enough to notice what is
happening now in Tunis, Tangier and California to realize that there
is a vast space here for a great work of many Jews, without touching
even one Arab.
(Haaretz, Dec. 15, 1919, Reprinted in Dvarim, vol 1 1936, p. 129.)
Ben-Gurion and Palestinian Self-Determination
In November, 1930, about a year after the Arab riots that led to the
Hebron massacre, Ben-Gurion delivered a keynote lecture entitled "The
Foreign Policy of the Hebrew Nation" at the First Congress of Hebrew
Workers. In this lecture, later published in Ben-Gurion’s first book,
"We and Our Neighbors" ("Anachnu U’Shcheneinu, Tel Aviv, 1931. p. 257),
he makes statements that would have toppled Rabin’s government ten
times over.
There is in the world a principle called "the right for
self-determination." We have always and everywhere been its worshipers
and champions. We have defended that right for every nation, every
part of a nation, and every collective of people.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the Arab people in Eretz Israel
have this right. And this right is not limited by or conditional upon
the result of its influence on us and our interests. We ought not to
diminish the Arabs’ freedom for self-determination for fear that it
would present difficulties to our own mission.
The entire moral core encapsulated in the Zionist idea is the notion
that a nation — every nation — is its own purpose and not a tool for
the purposes of other nations. And in the same way that we want the
Jewish people to be master of its own affairs, capable of determining
its historical destiny without being dependent on the will — even
good will — of other nations, so too we must seek for the Arabs.
Naivete? Denial? Disrespect? Hardly.
I don’t believe Ben-Gurion would be prepared to make such bold
statements today, given what we know about Hamas’ charter and
rocket terror. I am sure, however, that the Middle East would look
substantially different today had one Arab leader, any time in the
past 75 years, had the courage to reciprocate Ben-Gurion’s offer with
as generous a recognition of Jewish self-determination.
Jabotinsky and the Sobering Days Before the Holocaust
The next pearl belongs to Zev Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion’s main rival,
and by far the most militant Zionist leader of that time.
Jabotinsky garnered a reputation as an advocate of a tough, "iron-wall"
approach toward the Arabs. Yet even he expressed respect for Arab
nationalism, and explained, even identified with, Arabs’ fears of
reciprocating Ben-Gurion’s offer.
I chose to translate several excerpts from this article because they
dispel not only the myth of Zionist denial and naivete, but also the
myth of Arabs’ fear of dispossession by Jewish immigrants. Here is
what Jabotinsky says in his book "A Hebrew State" ("Medina Ivrit,"
Tel Aviv, 1937, pps. 71-79), published a few months after the break-out
of the Arab Riots of 1936-1939 (which one UCLA historian glorifies as
"The Great Arab Revolt").
There is no point talking about the possibility that the Arabs
in Eretz Israel would consent to the Zionist plan while we are a
minority here. I express it with such confidence not because I enjoy
disappointing decent people but, simply, to save them disappointments:
All these decent people, except those blind from birth, have understood
already that this is something that is utterly illogical — to obtain
the Arabs’ consent and goodwill to turn Eretz Israel from an Arabic
country to a country with Jewish minority.
Every indigenous people, regardless of whether it is primitive or
advanced, views its country as a national home and aspires to be and
remain its sole and eternal landlord; it does not voluntarily agree
to accommodate, not only new landlords, but even new partners or
new participants. And our most misleading argument would be to rely
on the fact that our agricultural settlements bring them economical
advantages. Though this is an undisputed truth, there is no nation
in the world that sold its national aspirations for bread and butter
(pps. 73-74) .
So much for Zionists’ naivete, denial and disrespect. Now to the core
of the Arab objection to the Zionist plan.
Many of us still think in full honesty that a terrible misunderstanding
has occurred, that the Arabs did not understand us, and that this is
the reason why they oppose us; but if only we could explain to them
how benevolent our intentions, they would stretch their hands back
to us. This is a mistake that has been proven so again and again. I
will bring one such incident.
Several years ago, when the late N. Sokolov visited Eretz Israel,
and he was one of the most moderate and diplomatic Zionists at that
time, he delivered an elaborate speech on this misunderstanding. He
explained clearly how mistaken Arabs are in thinking that we wish to
steal their property or dispossess them or oppress them.
"We do not even want to have a Jewish government, we want merely a
government representing the League of Nations." Sokolov’s speech
received an immediate response in the main editorial of the Arab
newspaper, Carmel, the content of which I convey here from memory:
"The Zionists" — so wrote the Arab editor — "are tormenting their
nerves unnecessarily."
There is no misunderstanding here whatsoever.
The Arabs never doubted that the potential absorption capacity of
Eretz Israel is enormous and, therefore, that it is possible to
settle here enough Jews without dispossessing or constraining even a
single Arab. It is obvious that "this is all" the Zionists want. But
it is also obvious that this is precisely what the Arabs do not want;
for, then, the Jews will turn into a majority and, from the nature of
things, a Jewish government will be established, and the fate of the
Arab minority will depend on Jewish good will; Jews know perfectly
well what minority existence is like.
There is no misunderstanding here whatsoever.
The Arab’s argument is rather compelling, but Jabotinsky confronts
them with an equally compelling moral dilemma:
Whoever thinks that our arguments [for Jewish immigration] are immoral,
I would beg him to address the following question: If this [Jewish
immigration] is immoral, what should the Jewish people do?…. Our
planet is no longer blessed with uninhabited islands. Take any oasis
in any desert, it is already taken by the native who inhabits that
place from time immemorial and rejects the coming of new settlers
that will become a majority, or just come in great numbers.
In short — if there is a homeless nation in the world, its very
yearning for a homeland is immoral.
The homeless must forever remain homeless; all the land in the universe
has already been divided–that’s it. These are the conclusions of
‘morality’…. This sort of morality has a place among cannibals,
not in the civilized world. The land belongs not to those who have too
much land, but to those who have none. If we appropriate one parcel of
land from the owners of mega-estates and give it to an exiled nation —
it is a just deed.
In this historical week of Israel’s 60th birthday, it is most fitting
that we remind ourselves of the principles of reciprocity and mutual
respect on which the state of Israel was founded.
May those principles light our path today, and may Israel’s adversaries
be blessed with a faint semblance of these principles.
Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl
Foundation () named after his son. He and his wife,
Ruth, are editors of "I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by
the Last Words of Daniel Pearl" (Jewish Light, 2004), winner of the
National Jewish Book Award.