"Albert Einstein—"'I
should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs
on the basis of living together in peace than the creation
of a Jewish State. Apart from practical considerations, my
awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea
of a Jewish State, with borders, an army, and a measure of
temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner
damage Judaism will sustain'...
"Professor Erich
Fromm, a noted Jewish writer and thinker, [stated]...'In
general international law, the principle holds true that
no citizen loses his property or his rights of citizenship;
and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the
Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews.
Just because the Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable
by confiscation of property, and by being barred from returning
to the land on which a people's forefathers have lived for
generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel
cannot be a realistic claim. If all nations would suddenly
claim territory in which their forefathers had lived two
thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse...I believe
that, politically speaking, there is only one solution for
Israel, namely, the unilateral acknowledgement of the obligation
of the State towards the Arabs—not to use it as a bargaining
point, but to acknowledge the complete moral obligation of
the Israeli State to its former inhabitants of Palestine'...
"Martin Buber—'Only an internal revolution
can have the power to heal our people of their murderous sickness
of causeless hatred...It is bound to bring complete ruin upon
us. Only then will the old and young in our land realize how
great was our responsibility to those miserable Arab refugees
in whose towns we have settled Jews who were brought here from
afar; whose homes we have inherited, whose fields we now sow
and harvest; the fruits of whose gardens, orchards and vineyards
we gather; and in whose cities that we robbed we put up houses
of education, charity, and prayer, while we babble and rave about
being the "People of the
Book" and the "light of the nations"'...
"In an article published
in the Washington Post of 3 October 1978, Rabbi Hirsch (of
Jerusalem) is reported to have declared: 'The 12th principle
of our faith, I believe, is that the Messiah will gather the
Jewish exiled who are dispersed throughout the nations of the
world. Zionism is diametrically opposed to Judaism. Zionism
wishes to define the Jewish people as a nationalistic entity.
The Zionists say, in effect, 'Look here, God. We do not like
exile. Take us back, and if you don't, we'll just roll up our
sleeves and take ourselves back.' 'The Rabbi continues: 'This,
of course, is heresy. The Jewish people are charged by Divine
oath not to force themselves back to the Holy Land against
the wishes of those residing there.'" Sami Hadawi, "Bitter
Harvest."
Jewish Criticism - continued
"A Jewish Home in Palestine
built up on bayonets and oppression [is] not worth having,
even though it succeed, whereas the very attempt to build it
up peacefully, cooperatively, with understanding, education,
and good will, [is] worth a great deal even though the attempt
should fail." Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, first president
of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, quoted in "Like
All The Nations?", ed. Brinner & Rischin.
Martin Buber on what Zionism
should have been
"The first fact is that at
the time when we entered into an alliance (an alliance, I admit,
that was not well defined) with a European state and we provided
that state with a claim to rule over Palestine, we made no
attempt to reach an agreement with the Arabs of this land regarding
the basis and conditions for the continuation of Jewish settlement.
This negative approach caused
those Arabs who thought about and were concerned about the
future of their people to see us increasingly not as a group
which desired to live in cooperation with their people but
as something in the nature of uninvited guests and agents of
foreign interests (at the time I explicitly pointed out this
fact).
"The second fact is that
we took hold of the key economic positions in the country without
compensating the Arab population, that is to say without allowing
their capital and their labor a share in our economic activity.
Paying the large landowners for purchases made or paying compensation
to tenants on the land is not the same as compensating a people.
As a result, many of the more thoughtful Arabs viewed the advance
of Jewish settlement as a kind of plot designed to dispossess
future generations of their people of the land necessary for
their existence and development. Only by means of a comprehensive
and vigorous economic policy aimed at organizing and developing
common interests would it have been possible to contend with
this view and its inevitable consequences. This we did not
do.
"The third fact is that when
a possibility arose that the Mandate would soon be terminated,
not only did we not propose to the Arab population of the country
that a joint Jewish Arab administration be set up in its place,
we went ahead and demanded rule over the whole country (the
Biltmore program) as a fitting political sequel to the gains
we had already made. By this step, we with our own hands provided
our enemies in the Arab camp with aid and comfort of the most
valuable sort—the support of public opinion—without which
the military attack launched against us would not have been
possible. For it now appears to the Arab populace that in carrying
on the activities we have been engaged in for years, in acquiring
land and in working and developing the land, we were systematically
laying the ground work for gaining control of the whole country." Martin
Buber, quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr
Israel's new historians now
refute myths of the founding of the state
"Since the 1980's,...Israeli
scholars [have] concurred with their Palestinian counterparts
that Zionism was...carried out as a pure colonialist act against
the local population: a mixture of exploitation and expropriation...
"They were motivated to present
a revisionist point of view to a large extent by the declassification
of relevant archival material in Israel, Britain and the United
States. [For example,]...
Challenging the Myth of Annihilation—The new historiographical
picture is a fundamental challenge to the official history that
says the Jewish community faced possible annihilation on the
eve of the 1948 war. Archival documents expose a fragmented Arab
world wrought by dismay and confusion and a Palestinian community
that possessed no military ability with which to frighten the
Jews...
Israel's responsibility for
Refugees—The Jewish military advantage was translated
into an act of mass expulsion of more than half of the Palestinian
population. The Israeli forces, apart from rare exceptions,
expelled the Palestinians from every village and town they
occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was accompanied by
massacres [of civilians] as was the case in Lydda, Ramleh,
Dawimiyya, Sa'sa, Ein Zietun and other places. Expulsion
also was accompanied by rape, looting and confiscation [of
Palestinian land and property]...
The Myth of Arab Intransigence—[The U.N.] convened a
peace conference in Lausanne, Switzerland in the spring of 1949.
Before the conference, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution
that in effect replaced the November 1947 partition resolution.
This new resolution, Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, accepted
[U.N. Mediator] Bernadotte's triangular basis for a comprehensive
peace: an unconditional return of all the refugees to their homes,
the internationalization of Jerusalem, and the partitioning of
Palestine into two states. This time, several Arab states and
various representatives of the Palestinians accepted this as
a basis for negotiations, as did the United States, which was
running the show at Lausanne...Prime Minister David Ben Gurion
strongly opposed any peace negotiations along these lines...The
only reason he was willing to allow Israel to participate in
the peace conference was his fear of an angry American reaction...The
road to peace was not taken due to Israeli, not Arab, intransigence.
Conclusions—The new Israeli
historians...wish to rectify what their research reveals as
past evils...There was a high price exacted in creating a Jewish
state in Palestine. And there were victims, the plight of whom
still fuels the fire of conflict in Palestine." Israeli
historian, Ilan Pappe in "The Link", January, 1998.
"It is no longer my country"
"For me, this business called
the state of Israel is finished...I can't bear to see it anymore,
the injustice that is done to the Arabs, to the Beduins. All
kinds of scum coming from America and as soon as they get off
the plane taking over lands in the territories and claiming
it for their own...I can't do anything to change it. I can
only go away and let the whole lot go to hell without me." Israeli
actress (and household name) Rivka Mitchell, quoted in Israeli
peace movement periodical, "The Other Israel", August
1998.
The effect of Zionism on American
Jews.
"The corruption of Judaism,
as a religion of universal values, through its politicization
by Zionism and by the replacement of dedication to Israel for
dedication to God and the moral law, is what has alienated
so many young Americans who, searching for spiritual meaning
in life, have found little in the organized Jewish community." Allan
Brownfield, "Issues of the American Council for Judaism",
Spring 1997.
