The Balfour Declaration promises
a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
"The Balfour Declaration,
made in November 1917 by the British Government...was made
a) by a European power, b) about a non-European territory,
c) in flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the
native majority resident in that territory...[As Balfour himself
wrote in 1919], 'The contradiction between the letter of the
Covenant (the Anglo French Declaration of 1918 promising the
Arabs of the former Ottoman colonies that as a reward for supporting
the Allies they could have their independence) is even more
flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine
than in that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine
we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting
the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country...The
four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right
or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in
present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than
the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit
that ancient land,'" Edward Said, "The Question
of Palestine."
Wasn't Palestine a wasteland
before the Jews started immigrating there?
"Britain's high commissioner
for Palestine, John Chancellor, recommended total suspension
of Jewish immigration and land purchase to protect Arab agriculture.
He said 'all cultivable land was occupied; that no cultivable
land now in possession of the indigenous population could be
sold to Jews without creating a class of landless Arab cultivators'...The
Colonial Office rejected the recommendation." John
Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice."
Were the early Zionists planning
on living side by side with Arabs?
In 1919, the American King-Crane
Commission spent six weeks in Syria and Palestine, interviewing
delegations and reading petitions. Their report stated, "The
commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predisposed
in its favor...The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's
conferences with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked
forward to a practically complete dispossession of the present
non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, by various forms of purchase...
"If [the] principle [of self-determination]
is to rule, and so the wishes of Palestine's population are
to be decisive as to what is to be done with Palestine, then
it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Palestine—nearly
nine-tenths of the whole—are emphatically against the entire
Zionist program...To subject a people so minded to unlimited
Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure
to surrender the land, would be a gross violation of the principle
just quoted...No British officers, consulted by the Commissioners,
believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except
by force of arms.The officers generally thought that a force
of not less than fifty thousand soldiers would be required even
to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a strong
sense of the injustice of the Zionist program...The initial claim,
often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a
'right' to Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years
ago, can barely be seriously considered." Quoted
in "The Israel-Arab Reader" ed. Laquer and Rubin.
Side by side - continued
"Zionist land policy was
incorporated in the Constitution of the Jewish Agency for Palestine...'land
is to be acquired as Jewish property and...the title to the
lands acquired is to be taken in the name of the Jewish National
Fund, to the end that the same shall be held as the inalienable
property of the Jewish people.' The provision goes to stipulate
that 'the Agency shall promote agricultural colonization based
on Jewish labor'...The effect of this Zionist colonization
policy on the Arabs was that land acquired by Jews became extra-territorialized.
It ceased to be land from which the Arabs could ever hope to
gain any advantage...
"The Zionists made no secret
of their intentions, for as early as 1921, Dr. Eder, a member
of the Zionist Commission, boldly told the Court of Inquiry,
'there can be only one National Home in Palestine, and that
a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews
and Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as soon as the numbers
of the race are sufficiently increased.' He then asked that
only Jews should be allowed to bear arms." Sami Hadawi, "Bitter
Harvest."
Given Arab opposition to them,
did the Zionists support steps towards majority rule in Palestine?
"Clearly, the last thing
the Zionists really wanted was that all the inhabitants of
Palestine should have an equal say in running the country...[Chaim]
Weizmann had impressed on Churchill that representative government
would have spelled the end of the [Jewish] National Home in Palestine...[Churchill
declared,] 'The present form of government will continue for
many years. Step by step we shall develop representative institutions
leading to full self-government, but our children's children
will have passed away before that is accomplished.'" David
Hirst, "The Gun and the
Olive Branch."
Denial of the Arabs' right
to self-determination
"Even if nobody lost their
land, the [Zionist] program was unjust in principle because
it denied majority political rights...Zionism, in principle,
could not allow the natives to exercise their political rights
because it would mean the end of the Zionist enterprise." Benjamin
Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins."
Arab resistance to Pre-Israeli
Zionism
"In 1936-9, the Palestinian
Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt...David Ben-Gurion, eminently
a realist, recognized its nature. In internal discussion, he
noted that 'in our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab
opposition to us,' but he urged, 'let us not ignore the truth
among ourselves.' The truth was that 'politically we are the
aggressors and they defend themselves...The country is theirs,
because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle
down, and in their view we want to take away from them their
country, while we are still outside'...The revolt was crushed
by the British, with considerable brutality." Noam
Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
Gandhi on the Palestine conflict—1938
"Palestine belongs to the
Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English
or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine today
cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they
[the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their
national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of
the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the
aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine
only by the goodwill of the Arabs...As it is, they are co-sharers
with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong
to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they
had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly
regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country.
But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing
can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming
odds." Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two
Peoples" ed. Mendes-Flohr.
Didn't the Zionists legally
buy much of the land before Israel was established?
"In 1948, at the moment that
Israel declared itself a state, it legally owned a little more
than 6 percent of the land of Palestine...After 1940, when
the mandatory authority restricted Jewish land ownership to
specific zones inside Palestine, there continued to be illegal
buying (and selling) within the 65 percent of the total area
restricted to Arabs.
Thus when the partition plan was
announced in 1947 it included land held illegally by Jews,
which was incorporated as a fait accompli inside the borders
of the Jewish state. And after Israel announced its statehood,
an impressive series of laws legally assimilated huge tracts
of Arab land (whose proprietors had become refugees, and were
pronounced 'absentee landlords' in order to expropriate their
lands and prevent their return under any circumstances)." Edward
Said, "The Question of Palestine."
