CONCLUSION II

We hope that this look at the historical record concerning the root cause of the PUBLISHED BY JEWS FOR JUSTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Middle East conflict will give second thoughts to all who have previously sup- DISTRIBUTED BY IF AMERICANS KNEW
ported Israel’s actions.

The Origin
The persecution of Jews for centuries in Europe was the worst of many
stains on the European record, and the Zionists’ desire for a place of sanctuary
is certainly understandable. Like all other colonial enterprises, however, Zionism
was based on the total disregard of the rights of the indigenous inhabitants. As
such, it is morally indefensible. And, as previously stated, all subsequent crimes-

of the
-and there have been many on both sides--inevitably follow from this original
injustice to the Palestinians.
Given the damage that has been done to the Palestinian people, Israel’s
moral obligation is to make whatever amends possible. Among these should be

Palestine-Israel
assisting the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in the entire West Bank
and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem. Israel should not object to this state
and, in addition, should help with its foundation via generous reparations.
Besides being the right thing to do, this would stop the sporadic acts of violence
against Israel, as the Palestinians’ legitimate desire for their own state would be

Conflict
realized. Moreover, all laws that discriminate against non-Jews living in Israel
should be repealed. All citizens should enjoy full and equal rights, as should any
Palestinians who wish to return to their ancestral homeland. These refugees
should, as a matter of principle, be compensated for their lost homesand land.
As U.S. citizens, we have a special obligation to see that justice is done in
this matter. U.S. financial aid to Israel has been, and continues to be, enormous; THIRD EDITION
and our diplomatic support allows Israel’s continued occupation of Arab terri-
tories. We strongly recommend that you contact your elected representatives in (including Intifada 2000)
Washington and urge them to pressure Israel to abide by the consensus of

A
world opinion, as shown by numerous UN votes, as a precondition of contin-
s the periodic bloodshed continues in the Middle East, the
ued support.
American Jews in particular have a special responsibility to acknowledge the search for an equitable solution must come to grips with the
Palestinian point of view in order to help move the debate forward. As root cause of the conflict. The conventional wisdom is that,
Chomsky writes in his Peace in the Middle East?, “In the American Jewish com- even if both sides are at fault, the Palestinians are irrational
munity, there is little willingness to face the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have “terrorists” who have no point of view worth listening to. Our position,
suffered monstrous historical injustice, whatever one may think of the compet- however, is that the Palestinians have a real grievance: their homeland
ing claims. Until this is recognized, discussion of the Middle East crisis cannot for over a thousand years was taken, without their consent and mostly
even begin.” by force, during the creation of the state of Israel. And all subsequent
In the long run, only by admitting their culpability and making amends can crimes--on both sides--inevitably follow from this original injustice.
Israelis live with their neighbors in peace. Only then can the centuries-old This paper outlines the history of Palestine to show how this
Jewish tradition of being a people of high moral character be restored. And process occured and what a moral solution to the region’s problems
only in this way can real security, peace and justice come to this ancient land. should consist of. If you care about the people of the Middle East,
Jewish and Arab, you owe it to yourself to read this account of the other
Distributed by
side of the historical record.
IfAmericansKnew.org CouncilForTheNationalInterest.org
(202) 631-4060 (202) 863-2951
contact@IfAmericansKnew.org contact@CNIonline.org
 INTRODUCTION CONCLUSION I – For Jewish Readers
The standard Zionist position is that they showed up in Palestine in the late As we have seen, the root cause of the Palestine-Israel conflict is clear. During
19th century to reclaim their ancestral homeland. Jews bought land and started the 1948 war, 750,000 Palestinians fled in terror or were actively expelled from
building up the Jewish community there. They were met with increasingly their ancestral homeland and turned into refugees. The state of Israel then
violent opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, presumably stemming from the refused to allow them to return and either destroyed their villages entirely or
Arabs’ inherent anti-Semitism. The Zionists were then forced to defend them- expropriated their land, orchards, houses, businesses and personal possessions
selves and, in one form or another, this same situation continues up to today. for the use of the Jewish population. This was the birth of the state of Israel.
The problem with this explanation is that it is simply not true, as the docu- We know it is hard to accept emotionally, but in this case the Jewish people
mentary evidence in this booklet shall show. What really happened was that are in the wrong. We took most of Palestine by force from the Arabs and blamed
the Zionist movement, from the beginning, looked forward to a practically the victims for resisting their dispossession. If you run into someone’s car, for
complete dispossession of the indigenous Arab population so that Israel could whatever reason, simple justice demands that you repair it. Our moral obliga-
be a wholly Jewish state, or as much as was possible. Land bought by the Jewish tion to the Palestinian people is no less clear. It is time for all Jewish people of
National Fund was held in the name of the Jewish people and could never be good conscience to make amends to the Palestinians in order to live up to the
sold or even leased back to Arabs (a situation which continues to the present). best part of the Jewish tradition—its ethical basis.
The Arab community, as it became increasingly aware of the Zionists’ in- Any criticism of Israel is traditionally seen by American Jews as harmful to
tentions, strenuously opposed further Jewish immigration and land buying be- the Jewish people, even if the criticism is true. But once we start down the
cause it posed a real and imminent danger to the very existence of Arab soci- slippery slope where the ends justify the means, we have left behind any claim
ety in Palestine. Because of this opposition, the entire Zionist project never to morality. Along with millions of other American Jews unaffiliated with the
could have been realized without the military backing of the British. The vast major U.S. Jewish organizations, we are outraged at the Israeli government’s
majority of the population of Palestine, by the way, had been Arabic since the ongoing oppression of the Palestinians and feel that it has been the ruination
seventh century A.D. (over 1200 years). of the high moral standing of the Jewish people.
In short, Zionism was based on a faulty, colonialist world-view that the Here in America, we Jews are thoroughly assimilated into the mainstream
rights of the indigenous inhabitants didn’t matter. The Arabs’ opposition to of society.We can afford to change our attitude from “Is it good for the Jews?”
Zionism wasn’t based on anti-Semitism but rather on a totally reasonable fear to “Is it good?” At the very least, American Jews need to categorically state
of the dispossession of their people. that we cannot condone Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land, their
One further point: being Jewish ourselves, the position we present here is illegal strangling of Palestinian life via “closures”, and the intentional murder
critical of Zionism but is in no way anti-Semitic. We do not believe that the and crippling of Palestinian protesters armed only with rocks, as documented
Jews acted worse than any other group might have have acted in their situa- in reports by the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Commission,
tion. The Zionists (who were a distinct minority of the Jewish people until Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli groups like B’Tselem,
after WWII) had an understandable desire to establish a place where Jews etc. According to a survey commissioned by the five largest American Jewish
could be masters of their fate, given the bleak history of Jewish oppression. organizations, but suppressed by them afterwards, 20% of American Jews sup-
Especially as the danger to European Jewry crystalized in the late 1930s and port Palestinian demands and 35% say that Jerusalem should be shared. This,
after, the actions of the Zionists were propelled by real desperation. in the face of a near-total blackout of the Palestinian position in our press, is
But so were the actions of the Arabs. The mythic “land without people for very impressive. Join this growing segment of American Jews by contacting
a people without land” was already home to 700,000 Palestinians in 1919. Not In My Name at www.nimn.org, a group that is spearheading a coalition of
This is the root of the problem, as we shall see. Jewish groups to protest the Israeli occupation.
Israel’s long-term interests can best be served by supporting Israeli peace
EARLY HISTORY OF THE REGION groups, like Gush Shalom (www.gush-shalom.org), not the Israeli government
and its brutal repression, which just leads to endless violence. Israeli peace
Before the Hebrews first migrated there around 1800 B.C., the land of Canaan groups rightfully criticize their government and we should too, since the Israeli
was occupied by Canaanites. government claims to act in our name. Don’t compromise your ethics in blind
“Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is to- support of bad policies—work for a just solution instead. Please write for more
day Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan. . . Those free copies of this booklet to the address on the back page and ask your Jewish
who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews [in the friends to consider the information presented here. For everyone’s sake. Peace.
–2– – 39 –
Israeli professor calls for a New Zionism second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard growers, pagans
“It was our nationalism. . .which drew the country into an occupation and and converts to Christianity, decendants of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans,
settlement of the West Bank. . . None of the leaders of the Labor movement Greeks and old Canaanite tribes.” Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, “Their
believed that the Palestinians deserved the same rights [as Jews] because none Promised Land.”
of them believed in universal rights. Pretending, like [Arthur] Hertzberg and The present-day Palestinians’ ancestral heritage
other do, that the Occupation and the colonial situation created in the last “But all these [different peoples who had come into Canaan] were addi-
thirty years was merely the product of the Arab refusal to recognize Israel, is no tions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree…And that parent tree was Canaanite…
more than looking for an alibi and falsifying history. . . [The Arab invaders of the 7th century A.D.] made Moslem converts of the
“The time has come to say that if the settlements in Judea and Samaria or natives, settled down as residents, and intermarried with them, with the result
in the very heart of Hebron are the natural, logical and legitimate continua- that all are now so completely Arabized that we can’t tell where the Canaanites
tion of the original intention of Zionism, then we need another Zionism. If a leave off and the Arabs begin.” Ilene Beatty, “Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan.”
‘Jewish State’ that does not recognize the absolute equality of all human beings
is considered to be closer to the spirit of the founding fathers than a new liberal The Jewish kingdoms were only one of many periods in ancient Palestine
Zionism, then it is time to say good-bye to the ghosts of the founders, and to “The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists
start forging for ourselves an identity detatched from the mystical ramifica- base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years…Then it fell
tions of our religion and the irrational side of our history.” Israeli professor of apart…[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish
political science, Ze’ev Sternhell, in “Tikkun”, May/June 1998 kingdoms, from David’s conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of
Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414-year Jewish rule.” Ilene Beatty,
Sources for further research on Palestine and Israel
“Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan.”
These short quotes do not, of course, prove the assertions made here. The
historical evidence, however, is overwhelming and is available in fully docu- More on Canaanite civilization
mented form in the books cited above. Particularly useful sources are: “Recent archeological digs have provided evidence that Jerusalem was a big
1. “Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice” by John Quigley, professor of and fortified city already in 1800 BCE…Findings show that the sophisticated
law at Ohio State University. Duke University Press, 1990. water system heretofor attributed to the conquering Israelites pre-dated them
2. “The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & the Palestinians” by Noam by eight centuries and was even more sophisticated than imagined…Dr. Ronny
Chomsky, professor at MIT and “arguably the most important intellectual alive” Reich, who directed the excavation along with Eli Shuikrun, said the entire
(NY Times). South End Press, 1983. system was built as a single complex by Canaanites in the Middle Bronze Pe-
3. “Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel” by Benjamin riod, around 1800 BCE.” The Jewish Bulletin, July 31, 1998.
Beit-Hallahmi. An honest history of Zionism by a noted Israeli scholar who How long has Palestine been a specifically Arab country?
teaches at Haifa University. Olive Branch Press, 1993 “Palestine became a predominantly Arab and Islamic country by the end of
4. “Bitter Harvest” by Sami Hadawi. A very complete look at the documen- the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its char-
tary evidence of the creation of the state of Israel, by a Palestinian Christian acteristics—including its name in Arabic, Filastin—became known to the entire
who lived through that period. Caravan Books, 1979. Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious signifi-
For articles from the alternative and Israeli press, please see ZNet at cance… In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but
www.lbbs.org and www.commondreams.org/viewsarchive.htm. A wealth of in- this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic… Sixty percent of the
formation on Palestine/Israel is to be found at www.geocities.com:0080/ population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople
CapitolHill/Senate/7891. Another very useful resource is A Jewish Voice for and a relatively small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to
Peace. To join their mailing list, e-mail shlensky@socrates.Berkeley.edu. “Not belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also
In My Name” is a group of Jews organizing a national coalition of activists members of a large Arab nation…Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of
opposed to the Israeli occupation. They can be reached at Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few
www.notinmyname.org. The American Educational Trust, publisher of The weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (a great magazine), has a large selec- was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For example, the
tion of books available. Write for their free catallog to AET, P.O.Box 53062, Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of 1,033,314.” Edward
Washington, DC 20009. Our booklet can also be found on the web at Said, “The Question of Palestine.”
www.cactus48.com.
– 38 – – 3–
How did land ownership traditionally work in Palestine and when did it change? Palestinians in the territories. They will engender unprecedented despair and
“[The Ottoman Land Code of 1858] required the registration in the name ultimately they will spark violence more cruel and painful than anything seen
of individual owners of agricultural land, most of which had never previously so far. . . Their hardship will be transformed into more and more terrorist at-
been registered and which had formerly been treated according to traditional tacks. This is the point: the horrific distress of the Palestinians because of the
forms of land tenure, in the hill areas of Palestine generally masha’a, or com- present closure will quickly turn into the distress of the Israelis. . . The current
munal usufruct. The new law meant that for the first time a peasant could be siege, a shamefully appalling operation, must be lifted quickly. This must not
deprived not of title to his land, which he had rarely held before, but rather of be made conditional on the cessation of the violence, because the siege itself is
the right to live on it, cultivate it and pass it on to his heirs, which had for- the most effective spur of violence.” Israeli writer, Gideon Levy, in Ha’aretz,
merly been inalienable… Under the provisions of the 1858 law, communal March 4, 2001
rights of tenure were often ignored… Instead, members of the upper classes,
adept at manipulating or circumventing the legal process, registered large ar- Statement by the Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, March 2001
eas of land as theirs… The fellahin [peasants] naturally considered the land to “This week, Israel’s policy of blockading the villages and towns of the West
be theirs, and often discovered that they had ceased to be the legal owners Bank and Gaza reached pernicious and horrifying heights. . . Residents in the
only when the land was sold to Jewish settlers by an absentee landlord… Not territories have not been able to move beyond the limited perimeters of their
only was the land being purchased; its Arab cultivators were being dispos- homes. Children are prevented from attending school, people cannot get to
sessed and replaced by foreigners who had overt political objectives in Pales- work, the sick remain without medical care. Food supplies, already scarce, are
tine.” Rashid Khalidi, “Blaming The Victims,” ed. Said and Hitchens. dwindling. People are truly suffering.
“Collective punishment of civilians is a gross violation of human rights.
Was Arab opposition to the arrival of the Zionists based on inherent anti- The imposition of a ‘choking closure’, or for that matter, a ‘breathing closure’
Semitism or a real sense of danger to their community? (note the insensitivity of official terminology) is effectively strangulating mil-
“The aim of the [Jewish National] Fund was ‘to redeem the land of Pales- lions of Palestinians and creating immense human misery.
tine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people’… As early as 1891, “The purposes of the closure policy are as ambiguous as they are counter-
Zionist leader Ahad Ha’am wrote that the Arabs ‘understand very well what productive. Ostensibly, the blockade of Palestinians is meant to curb terrorist
we are doing and what we are aiming at’… [Theodor Herzl, the founder of acts. . .But for every terrorist caught in such a net, tens are bred in the morass
Zionism, stated] ‘We shall try to spirit the penniless [Arab] population across of hunger, anger and frustration evoked by these pernicious restrictions. . .
the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while deny- “The damage wrought by the closure is unspeakable. Israel has exposed it-
ing it any employment in our own country… Both the process of expropria- self to justifiable international condemnation. . .Above all, Israel has directly
tion and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circum- caused untold human misery. As long as the territories captured in 1967 are
spectly’… At various locations in northern Palestine Arab farmers refused to under Israeli control, Israel bears full responsibility for what occurs in those
move from land the Fund purchased from absentee owners, and the Turkish areas. Protestations notwithstanding, the paralysis of Palestinians is an Israeli
authorities, at the Fund’s request, evicted them… The indigenous Jews of Pal- action, and the moral onus is Israel’s to bear—a most shameful and ethically
estine also reacted negatively to Zionism. They did not see the need for a indefensible burden indeed. It should neither be excused nor condoned. The
Jewish state in Palestine and did not want to exacerbate relations with the blockades must be lifted and the policy of closures must be stopped now.” Naomi
Arabs.” John Quigley, “Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice.” Chazan, deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset, in The Jerusalem Post, 3/16/2001.
Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued
“Before the 20th century, most Jews in Palestine belonged to the old Yishuv, VIEWS OF THE FUTURE
or community, that had settled more for religious than political reasons. There A future free of ethnocentrism
was little if any conflict between them and the Arab population. Tensions “The first challenge, then, is to extract acknowledgement from Israel for
began after the first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880s…when [they] pur- what it did to us. . . But then, I believe, we must also hold out the possibility of
chased land from absentee Arab owners, leading to dispossession of the peas- some form of coexistence in which a new and better life, free of ethnocentrism
ants who cultivated it.” Don Peretz, “The Arab-Israel Dispute.” and religious intolerance, could be available. . . If we present our claims about
Inherent anti-Semitism? - continued the past as ushering in a form of mutuality and coexistence in the future, a
“[During the Middle Ages,] North Africa and the Arab Middle East became long-term positive echo on the Israeli and Western side will reverberate.” Ed-
places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews of Spain and elsewhere… ward Said, in “The Progressive”, March 1998

–4– – 37 –
no. Not until you open your eyes and your heart. Not until we are ready for a In the Holy Land…they lived together in harmony, a harmony only disrupted
peace of partnership and equality.” Michael (Mikado) Warschawski, “The Party when the Zionists began to claim that Palestine was the ‘rightful’ possession of
Is Over: An Open Letter to a Friend In Peace Now”, from ZNet, www.lbbs.org/ the ‘Jewish people’ to the exclusion of its Moslem and Christian inhabitants.”
ZNETTOPnoanimation.html Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.”
“Barak promised peace and brought war, and not by accident” Jewish attitude towards Arabs upon reaching Palestine
“(Barak) promised peace and brought war, and not by accident. While speak- “Serfs they (the Jews) were in the lands of the Diaspora, and suddenly they
ing about peace, he enlarged the settlements. Cut the Palestinian territories find themselves in freedom [in Palestine]; and this change has awakened in
into pieces by ‘by-pass’ roads. Confiscated lands. Demolished homes. Uprooted them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs with hostility and
trees. Paralyzed the Palestinian economy. . .Conducted negotiations in which cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause, and even
he tried to dictate to the Palestinians a peace that amounts to capitulation. boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and danger-
Was not satisfied with the fact that by accepting the Green Line, the Palestin- ous inclination.” Zionist writer Ahad Ha’am, quoted in Sami Hadawi, “Bitter
ians have already given up 78% of their historic homeland. Demanded the Harvest.”
annexation of ‘settlement blocs’ and pretended that they amount only to 3%
Proposals for Arab-Jewish Cooperation
of the territory, while in fact he meant that more than 20% would remain
“An article by Yitzhak Epstein, published in Hashiloah in 1907… called for
under Israeli control. Wanted to coerce the Palestinians to accept a ‘state’ cut
a new Zionist policy towards the Arabs after 30 years of settlement activity…
off from all its neighbors and composed of several enclaves isolated from each
Like Ahad-Ha’am in 1891, Epstein claims that no good land is vacant, so Jew-
other, each surrounded by Israeli settlers and soldiers. . .Boasts publicly that he
ish settlement meant Arab dispossession… Epstein’s solution to the problem,
has not given back to the Palestinians one inch of territory. . .When the intifada
so that a new ‘Jewish question’ may be avoided, is the creation of a bi-national,
broke out, sent snipers to shoot, in cold blood from a distance, hundreds of
non-exclusivist program of settlement and development. Purchasing land should
unarmed demonstrators, adults and children. Blockaded each village and town
not involve the dispossession of poor sharecroppers. It should mean creating a
separately, bringing them to the verge of starvation, in order to get them to
joint farming community, where the Arabs will enjoy modern technology.
surrender. Bombarded neighborhoods. Started a policy of mafia-style ‘liquida-
Schools, hospitals and libraries should be non-exclusivist and education bilin-
tions’, causing an inevitable escalation of the violence.” Israeli peace activist,
gual… The vision of non-exclusivist, peaceful cooperation to replace the prac-
Uri Avnery, February 3, 2001, www.gush-shalom.org.
tice of dispossession found few takers. Epstein was maligned and scorned for
What “closure” means his faintheartedness.” Israeli author, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, “Original Sins.”
“Just an hour’s drive from Jerusalem, a cruel drama has been underway for
the past five months, the likes of which have not been seen since the early Was Palestine the only, or even preferred, destination of Jews facing
period of the Israeli occupation, but the majority of Israelis are taking abso- persecution when the Zionist movement started?
lutely no interest in it. The iron grip of the closure in its new format is increas- “The pogroms forced many Jews to leave Russia. Societies known as ‘Lovers
ingly strangling a population of 2.8 million people, yet no one is saying a word of Zion,’ which were forerunners of the Zionist organization, convinced some
. . . It has to be said starkly and simply: There has never been a closure like this of the frightened emigrants to go to Palestine. There, they argued, Jews would
there, in the land of the barriers and the closures. In the worst of times of the rebuild the ancient Jewish ‘Kingdom of David and Solomon.’ Most Russian
previous Intifada, when the IDF was in every corner and curfew reigned su- Jews ignored their appeal and fled to Europe and the United States. By 1900,
preme, there was not a situation in which a whole people was jailed without a almost a million Jews had settled in the United States alone.” “Our Roots Are
trial and without the right of appeal. . . Still Alive” by The Peoples Press Palestine Book Project.
“Israel has split the West Bank by means of hundreds of trenches, dirt ram-
parts and concrete cubes which have been placed at the entrance to most of THE BRITISH MANDATE PERIOD, 1920-1948
the towns and villages. No one enters and no one leaves, not those who are The Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish Homeland in Palestine
pregnant and not those who are dying. There isn’t even a soldier with whom “The Balfour Declaration, made in November 1917 by the British Govern-
one can plead and beg. . . A network of bizarre Burma roads that break through ment… was made a) by a European power, b) about a non-European territory,
the encirclement are sending an entire people along muddy, rocky routes, with c) in a flat disregard of both the presence and the wishes of the native majority
the situation aggravated by a substantial risk of getting caught or getting shot resident in that territory… [As Balfour himself wrote in 1919], ‘The contradic-
by soldiers who often open fire on the desperate travelers. . . tion between the letter of the Covenant (the Anglo-French Declaration of
“Never before has there been distress and suffering on this scale among the
– 36 – –5–
1918 promising the Arabs of former Ottoman colonies that as a reward for and no minister of propaganda can change that.” Israeli peace activist,Uri Avnery,
supporting the Allies they could have their independence) is even more fla- “12 Conventional Lies About The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict” from Palestine Me-
grant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that of the dia Watch, www.pmwatch.org
independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose even to go An Israeli’s “Open Letter to a Friend In Peace Now”
through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the “It has been seven years exactly since I wrote my last letter to you. It was
country…The four great powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it the day after the signing of the Oslo Accords, when you invited me to dance
right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in with you in Menorah Square. . . Permit me to quote for you a few passages from
future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the that old letter.
700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.’ ” Edward Said, “The Ques- “ ‘You danced in the square because you were happy about this peace. Not
tion of Palestine.” just plain peace, but a blend of peace, security, Palestinian chest-beating over
Wasn’t Palestine a wasteland before the Jews started immigrating there? sins committed (renunciation of terrorism), and far-reaching concessions by
“Britain’s high commissioner for Palestine, John Chancellor, recommended the other side. A peace that you can be proud of. A peace—so you boast—for
total suspension of Jewish immigration and land purchase to protect Arab ag- which we are giving nothing (“Just a tiny bit,” whispers the prime minister)
riculture. He said, ‘all cultivable land was occupied; that no cultivable land and gaining much: recognition, greater security, a halt to the Intifada, renun-
now in possession of the indigenous population could be sold to Jews without ciation of terrorism, being relieved of the Arabs and more. You are happy
creating a class of landless Arab cultivators.’…The Colonial Office rejected the aboutthis peace, and in its honor you invite me to dance with you. No thank
recommendation.” John Quigley, “Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice.” you...You got rid of Gaza, you separated Israelis from Palestinians, you gave
them the dirty work and you didn’t even promise withdrawal or a real state.
Were the early Zionists planning on living side by side with the Arabs?
Could peace possibly be bought more cheaply?’
In 1919, the American King-Crane Commission spent six weeks in Syria
“ ‘I, by contrast, see peace as an end and not merely as a means, and call
and Palestine, interviewing delegations and reading petitions. Their report
forgetting out of the Occupied Territories because we have nothing to be there
stated, “The commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds predis-
for, even if the occupation did not cost us even one victim or one cent; and I
posed in its favor…The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission’s confer-
am against shooting children—and adults—simply because it is forbidden to
ences with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward to a practi-
shoot children or ordinary civilians.’
cally complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Pales-
“Since the writing of these lines you celebrated the peace and you became
tine, by various forms of purchase…
fat and prosperous. The repeated and varied violations of the agreements did
“If [the] principle [of self-determination] is to rule, and so the wishes of
not move you, not to speak of any change in our culture of war and occupa-
Palestine’s population are to be decisive as to what is to be done with Pales-
tion, the arrogant tone of those negotiating in our name and their attempts to
tine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish population of Pales-
demand more and more in exchange for less and less. . .
tine—nearly nine-tenths of the whole—are emphatically against the entire
“What is there to be confused about? A conquering army is using tanks and
Zionist program…To subject a people so minded to unlimited Jewish immigra-
helicopter gunships to disperse demonstrations. What is so hard to understand
tion, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender the land, would be
here?. . .There is an occupation and there is a struggle against the occupation.
a gross violation of the principle just quoted…No British officers, consulted by
There are demonstrators and there is an army that has received orders to shed
the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out
their blood. And don’t come to me with the story of the rifles. Your glorious
except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less
war record qualifies you to understand what even CNN reporters understand,
than fifty thousand soldiers would be required even to initiate the program.
that those rifles do not endanger either Israel or the soldiers if they don’t get
That of itself is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist pro-
too close. . .
gram… The initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they
“ [From 1993 letter] ‘Peace is a tango that takes two equal partners dancing
have a ‘right’ to Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years ago, can
in unity; it is not a dance of one who drags around his partner at will. . .In your
barely be seriously considered.” Quoted in “The Israel-Arab Reader,” ed. Laqueur
dance of peace you have no partners, only enemies. For your peace is his occu-
and Rubin.
pation, your success is his loss. . .Peace is still far away because peace demands
Side by side – continued honesty, because peace demand equality. You want to force them to lie, you
“Zionist land policy was incorporated in the Constitution of the Jewish want of them a peace of surrender, you are celebrating a peace of master and
Agency for Palestine…‘land is to be acquired as Jewish property and… the slave. Under such conditions there will perhaps be peace-and-quiet, but Peace,
–6– – 35 –
thousands of Israeli settlers in Jewish-only communities linked by Jewish-only title to the lands acquired is to be taken in the name of the Jewish National
roads; home demolitions; torture; cities cut off from each other, closed down, Fund, to the end that the same shall be held as the inalienable property of the
besieged on a regular basis. It means living in a massive prison… Jewish people.’ The provision goes on to stipulate that ‘the Agency shall pro-
“Since 1967, there has been only one workable solution to the conflict. mote agricultural colonization based on Jewish labor’… The effect of this Zi-
The plan is articulated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which sets onist colonization policy on the Arabs was that land acquired by Jews became
up a two-part ‘land for peace’ solution. Part one holds that Israel must with- extra-territorialized. It ceased to be land from which the Arabs could ever hope
draw from the territories occupied in 1967. Part two calls for all states in the to gain any advantage…
region to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries. “The Zionists made no secret of their intentions, for as early as 1921, Dr.
“Every ‘peace process’ document, from the Madrid Summit to the final Camp Eder, a member of the Zionist Commission, boldly told the Court of Inquiry,
David communique, reiterates that the aim of the negotiations is the imple- ‘there can be only one National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and
mentation of 242. The Palestinian obligations under 242 were fulfilled years no equality in the partnership between Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish preponder-
ago. The Palestinian Authority recognized Israel in its 1967 borders and its ance as soon as the numbers of the race are sufficiently increased.’ He then asked
right to live in peace and security in those borders. The Israeli obligation, that only Jews should be allowed to bear arms.” Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.”
withdrawal from the occupied territories, is utterly unfulfilled.” Hussein Ibish, Given Arab opposition to them, did the Zionists support steps towards
communications director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, in majority rule in Palestine?
the Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2000. “Clearly, the last thing the Zionists really wanted was that all the inhabit-
Albright stands the facts on their heads ants of Palestine should have an equal say in running the country… [Chaim]
“With the same deadpan, expressionless, emotionless, glazed look, Madam Weizmann had impressed on Churchill that representative government would
Albright repeated: ‘Those Palestinian rock throwers have placed Israel under have spelled the end of the [Jewish] National Home in Palestine…[Churchill
seige,’ adding that the Israeli army is defending itself. . .[But] it is Israel that is declared,] ‘The present form of government will continue for many years. Step
the belligerent occupant of Palestine (and not the other way around). Israeli by step we shall develop representative institutions leading to full self-govern-
tanks and armored vehicles are surrounding Palestinian villages, camps and ment, but our children’s children will have passed away before that is accom-
cities (and not the other way around). Israeli (American-made) Apache gun- plished.’ ” David Hirst, “The Gun and the Olive Branch.”
ships are firing Lau and other missiles at Palestinian protesters and homes (and
Denial of the Arabs’ right to self-determination
not the other way around). It is Israel that is confiscating Palestinian land and
“Even if nobody lost their land, the [Zionist] program was unjust in prin-
importing Jewish settlers to set up illegal armed settlements in the heart of
ciple because it denied majority political rights… Zionism, in principle, could
Palestinian territory (and not the other way around). The settlers on the ram-
not allow the natives to exercise their political rights because it would mean
page in the West Bank are Israelis terrorizing Palestinians in their own homes
the end of the Zionist enterprise.” Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, “Original Sins.”
(and not the other way around). . . Israel is committing atrocities against the
Palestinians with total impunity, and yet you maintain, ‘Israel is beseiged.’ ” Arab resistance to Pre-Israeli Zionism
Palestinian activist, Hanan Ashrawi, in “The Progressive”, December 2000. “In 1936-9, the Palestinian Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt… David
What Arafat was offered Ben-Gurion, eminently a realist, recognized its nature. In internal discussion,
“Barak appears to be asking for only 10% of the occupied territories. In he noted that ‘in our political argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition
reality, it’s closer to 30%, taking into account the territories he wants to annex to us,’ but he urged, ‘let us not ignore the truth among ourselves.’ The truth
in the Jerusalem area and place under his ‘security control’ in the Jordan Val- was that ‘politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The
ley. But even worse, in the map submitted to the Palestinians, these percent- country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and
age points cut the country up from East to West and from North to South, settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country,
sothat the Palestinian state will consist of a groups of islands, each surrounded while we are still outside’… The revolt was crushed by the British, with con-
by Israeli settlers and soldiers. . . siderable brutality.” Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle.”
“World opinion is always on the side of the underdog. In this fight, we are Gandhi on the Palestine conflict - 1938
Goliath and they are David. In the eyes of the world [outside the US], the “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to
Palestinians are fighting a war of liberation against a foreign occupation. We the English or France to the French…What is going on in Palestine today
are in their territory, not they in ours. We settle on their land, not they on cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct…If they [the Jews] must look
ours. We are the occupiers, they are the victims. This is the objective situation
– 34 – –7–
to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it “Israel has failed the test. Palestinian control of 12% of the West Bank does
under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with not mean that Israel has given up its attitude of superiority and domination.. .
the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the The bloodbath that has been going on for three weeks is the natural outcome
goodwill of the Arabs… As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoil- of seven years of [Israeli] lying and deception.” Israeli journalist Amira Hass,
ing a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab “Israel Has Failed The Test”, in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, 10/18/00
excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what Jimmy Carter’s simple statement of the facts—November 2000
they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But “An underlying reason that years of U.S. diplomacy have failed and vio-
according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said lence in the Middle East persists is that some Israeli leaders continue to ‘create
against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.” Mahatma Gandhi, facts’ by building settlements in occupied territory. . .
quoted in “A Land of Two Peoples” ed. Mendes-Flohr. “At Camp David in September 1978. . . the bilateral provisions led to a
Didn’t the Zionists legally buy much of the land of Palestine before Israel was comprehensive and lasting treaty between Egypt and Israel, made possible at
established? the last minute by Israel’s agreement to remove its settlers from the Sinai. But
“In 1948, at the moment that Israel declared itself a state, it legally owned similar constraints concerning the status of the West Bank and Gaza have not
a little more than 6 percent of the land of Palestine… After 1940, when the been honored, and have led to continuing confrontation and violence. . .
mandatory authority restricted Jewish land ownership to specific zones inside “[Concerning UN Resolution 242] Our government’s legal committment
Palestine, there continued to be illegal buying (and selling) within the 65 per- to support this well-balanced resolution has not changed. . . It was clear that
cent of the total area restricted to Arabs. Thus when the partition plan was Israeli settlements in the occupied territories were a direct violation of this
announced in 1947 it included land held illegally by Jews, which was incorpo- agreement and were, according to the long-stated American position, both
rated as a fait accompli inside the borders of the Jewish state. And after Israel ‘illegal and an obstacle to peace.’ Accordingly, Prime Minister Begin pledged
announced its statehood, an impressive series of laws legally assimilated huge that there would be no establishment of new settlements until after the final
tracts of Arab land (whose proprietors had become refugees, and were pronounced peace negotiations were completed. But later, under Likud pressure, he de-
‘absentee landlords’ in order to expropriate their lands and prevent their return clined to honor this committment. . .
under any circumstances.)” Edward Said, “The Question of Palestine.” “It is unlikely that real progress can be made. . . as long as Israel insists on its
settlement policy, illegal under international laws that are supported by the
THE UN PARTITION OF PALESTINE United States and all other nations.
“There are many questions as we continue to seek an end to violence in the
Why did the UN recommend the plan partitioning Palestine into a Jewish and Middle East, but there is no way to escape the vital one: Land or peace?” Former
an Arab state? President Jimmy Cater in The Washington Post, November 26, 2000.
“By this time [November 1947] the United States had emerged as the most
America – An impartial mediator?
aggressive proponent of partition. . .The United States got the General As-
“America’s credibility as mediator had long been questioned by Palestin-
sembly to delay a vote ‘to gain time to bring certain Latin American republics
ians, and with reason. ‘The Palestinians always complain that we know the
into line with its own views.’…Some delegates charged U.S. officials with ‘dip-
details of every proposal from the Americans before they do,’ one Israeli gov-
lomatic intimidation.’ Without ‘terrific pressure’ from the United States on
ernment source told The Independent recently. ‘There’s good reason for that: we
‘governments which cannot afford to risk American reprisals,’ said an anony-
write them.’ ” Phil Reeves in “The Independent” (U.K.), 10/9/2000
mous editorial writer, the resolution ‘would never have passed.’ ” John Quigley,
“Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice.” Intifada II - An overview
“There is, in the final analysis, only one way to ‘stop the violence,’ and that
Why was this Truman’s position?
is to end the occupation. The desire for liberation will, eventually, always bring
“I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who
an occupied people out into the streets, stones in hand, ready to face the might
are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of
of powerful armies, preferring to risk death than live in bondage. This is not
Arabs among my constituents.” President Harry Truman, quoted in “Anti-Zion-
extreme nationalism or racism or religious fervor. It is the need to be free.
ism”, ed. by Tekiner, Abed-Rabbo & Mezvinsky.
“…(Occupation) means a reality of unending violence. It means being sur-
Was the partition plan fair to both Arabs and Jews? rounded by an abusive foreign army that enforces a social system indistinguish-
“Arab rejection was… based on the fact that, while the population of the able from apartheid; confiscations of land that is then given to hundreds of
Jewish state was to be [only half Jewish] with the Jews owning less than 10% of
–8– – 33 –
and Gaza, including air space and borders, and insisted that Israel retain per- the Jewish state land area, the Jews were to be established as the ruling body—
manent sovereignty over most of East Jerusalem, including Haram Al-Sharif. a settlement which no self-respecting people would accept without protest, to
This was a deal no Arab would accept. . . say the least…The action of the United Nations conflicted with the basic
“As the protests grew, army helicopters rocketed neighborhoods in several principles for which the world organization was established, namely, to uphold
Palestinian cities, destroying entire city blocks and causing scores of casualties. the right of all peoples to self-determination. By denying the Palestine Arabs,
Israeli tanks surrounded Palestinian towns with their guns turned toward the who formed the two-thirds majority of the country, the right to decide for
town. Armed Israeli civilians within the Green Line rampaged through Arab themselves, the United Nations had violated its own Charter.” Sami Hadawi,
neighborhoods destroying Arab property and shouting ‘Death To Arabs’. . .Is- “Bitter Harvest.”
raeli police who were quick to use bullets against Palestinian stone throwers Were the Zionists prepared to settle for the territory granted in the 1947
failed to restrain the Israelis and instead fired at Arabs trying to defend their Partition?
homes. Two Arabs were killed. . . “While the Yishuv’s leadership formally accepted the 1947 Partition Reso-
“The uprising was undoubtedly fueled by the resentment caused by years of lution, large sections of Israeli society—including…Ben-Gurion—were opposed
daily abuse and humiliation under Israeli occupation. On September 6, a group to or extremely unhappy with partition and from early on viewed the war as an
of Israeli border police stopped three Palestinian workers as they were return- ideal opportunity to expand the new state’s borders beyond the UN-earmarked
ing home from Israel and, for no reason at all, subjected them to 40 minutes of partition boundaries and at the expense of the Palestinians.” Israeli historian,
torture. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on September 19 that the police- Benny Morris, in “Tikkun”, March/April 1998.
men punched the three men, slammed their heads against a stone wall, forced
them to swallow their own blood, and cursed their mothers and sisters. The Public vs. private pronouncements on this question
incident only came to light because the policemen took photographs of them- “In internal discussion in 1938, [David Ben-Gurion] stated that ‘after we
selves with their victims, holding their heads by the hair like hunting trophies. become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish
Israeli human rights workers said such beatings are a common occurance, but partition and expand to the whole of Palestine… The state will only be a stage
they are seldom reported.” Rachelle Marshall, “The Peace Process Ends in Pro- in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our ex-
tests and Blood”, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2000. pansion into the whole of Palestine.’…In 1948, Menahem Begin declared that:
‘The partition of the Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognized. The
"Israel has failed the test" signature of institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid.
“In the Oslo Agreements, Israel and the West put the Palestinian leader- It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capi-
ship to a test: In exchange for an Israeli promise to gradually dismantle the tal. Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) will be restored to the people of Israel. All
mechanisms of the occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Pal- of it. And forever.’ ” Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle.”
estinian leadership promised to stop every act of violence and terror immedi- Zionists’ disrespect of partition boundaries
ately. For that purpose, all the apparatus for security coordination was created, “Before the end of the mandate and, therefore before any possible interven-
more and more Palestinian jails were built, and demonstrators were barred tion by the Arab states, the Jews, taking advantage of their superior military
from approaching the [Jewish] settlements. preparation and organization, had occupied. . . most of the Arab cities in Pal-
“The two sides agreed on a period of five years for completion of the new estine before May 15, 1948. Tiberius was occupied on April 19 1948, Haifa on
deployment and the negotiations on a final agreement. The Palestinian lead- April 22, Jaffa on April 28, the Arab quarters in the New City of Jerusalem on
ership agreed again and again to extend its trial period. . . From their perspec- April 30, Beisan on May 8, Safad on May 10 and Acre on May 14, 1948. . . In
tive, Israel was also put to a test: Was Israel really giving up its attitude of contrast, the Palestine Arabs did not seize any of the territories reserved for
superiority and domination, built up in order to keep the Palestinian people the Jewish state under the partition resolution.” British author, Henry Cattan,
under its control? “Palestine, The Arabs and Israel.”
“More than seven years have gone by and Israel has security and adminis-
trative control of 61.2% of the West Bank and about 20% of the Gaza Strip Culpability for escalation of the fighting
and security control over another 26.8% of the West Bank. This control is “Menachem Begin, the Leader of the Irgun, tells how ‘in Jerusalem, as else-
what has enabled Israel to double the number of settlers in 10 years. . . and to where, we were the first to pass from the defensive to the offensive…Arabs
seal an entire nation into restricted areas, imprisoned in a network of bypass began to flee in terror…Hagana was carrying out successful attacks on other
roads meant for Jews only. . . fronts, while all the Jewish forces proceeded to advance through Haifa like a

– 32 – –9–
knife through butter’…The Israelis now allege that the Palestine war began INTIFADA II AND THE “PEACE PROCESS”
with the entry of the Arab armies into Palestine after 15 May 1948. But that
was the second phase of the war; they overlook the massacres, expulsions and The flaws of the Oslo Accords
dispossessions which took place prior to that date and which necessitated Arab “The United States has been a terrible ‘sponsor’ of the peace process. It has
states’ intervention.” Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.” succumbed to Israeli pressure on everything, abandoning the principle of land
for peace (no U.N. resolution says anything about returning a tiny percentage,
The Deir Yassin Massacre of Palestinians by Jewish soldiers as opposed to all of the land Israel seized in 1967), pushing the lifeless Palestin-
“For the entire day of April 9, 1948, Irgun and LEHI soldiers carried out the ian leadership into deeper and deeper holes to suit Netanyahu’s preposterous
slaughter in a cold and premeditated fashion…The attackers ‘lined men, women demands.
and children up against the walls and shot them,’…The ruthlessness of the “The fact is that Palestinians are dramatically worse off than they were
attack on Deir Yassin shocked Jewish and world opinion alike, drove fear and before the Oslo process began. Their annual income is less than half of what it
panic into the Arab population, and led to the flight of unarmed civilians from was in 1992; they are unable to travel from place to place; more of their land
their homes all over the country.” Israeli author, Simha Flapan, “The Birth Of has been taken than ever before; more settlements exist; and Jerusalem is prac-
Israel.” tically lost…
Was Deir Yassin the only act of this kind? “Every house demolishment, every expropriated dunum, every arrest and
“By 1948, the Jew was able not only to ‘defend himself’ but to commit torture, every barricade, every closure, every gesture of arrogance and intended
massive atrocities as well. Indeed, according to the former director of the Is- humiliation simply revives the past and reenacts Israel’s offenses against the
raeli army archives, ‘in almost every Arab village occupied by us during the Palestinian spirit, land, body politic. To speak about peace in such a context is
War of Independence, acts were committed which are defined as war crimes, to try to reconcile the irreconcilable.” Edward Said in “The Progressive”, March
such as murders, massacres, and rapes’… Uri Milstein, the authoritative Israeli 1998.
military historian of the 1948 war, goes one step further, maintaining that ‘ev- The roots of Intifada II
ery skirmish ended in a massacre of Arabs.’ ” Norman Finkelstein, “Image and “The explosion of Palestinian anger last September 29 put an end to the
Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.” charade begun at Oslo seven years ago and labelled the ‘peace process.’ In
1993 Palestinians, along with millions of people around the world, were led to
STATEHOOD AND EXPULSION – 1948 hope that Israel would withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza within five
Was the part of Palestine assigned to a Jewish state in mortal danger from the years and that Palestinians would then be free to establish an independent
Arab armies? state. Meanwhile both sides would work out details of Israel’s withdrawal and
“The Arab League hastily called for its member countries to send regular come to an agreement on the status of Jerusalem, the future of Israeli settle-
army troops into Palestine. They were ordered to secure only the sections of ments, and the return of Palestinian refugees.
Palestine given to the Arabs under the partition plan. But these regular armies “Because of the lopsided balance of power, negotiations went nowhere and
were ill-equipped and lacked any central command to coordinate their efforts… the Palestinians’ hopes were never fulfilled. The Israelis, regardless of which
[Jordan’s King Abdullah] promised [the Israelis and the British] that his troops, government was in power, quibbled over wording, demanded revisions of what
the Arab Legion, the only real fighting force among the Arab armies, would had previously been agreed to, then refused to abide by the new agreements.
avoid fighting with Jewish settlements… Yet Western historians record this as Meanwhile successive governments were demolishing Palestinian homes, tak-
the moment when the young state of Israel fought off ‘the overwhelming hordes’ ing over Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem for Jewish housing, and seizing
of five Arab countries. In reality, the Israeli offensive against the Palestinians Palestinian land for new settlements. A massive new highway network built
intensified.” “Our Roots Are Still Alive” by the Peoples Press Palestine Book Project. after 1993 on confiscated Palestinian land isolates Palestinian towns and vil-
lages from one another and from Jerusalem, forcing many Palestinians to go
Ethnic cleansing of the Arab population of Palestine through Israeli checkpoints just to get to the next town. . .
“Joseph Weitz was the director of the Jewish National Land Fund… On “According to President Clinton and most of the media, Prime Minister
December 19, 1940, he wrote: ‘It must be clear that there is no room for both Ehud Barak conceded at Camp David virtually everything the Palestinians
peoples in this country… The Zionist enterprise so far… has been fine and wanted, and Yasser Arafat threw away the opportunity for peace by rejecting
good in its own time, and could do with ‘land buying’—but this will not bring Barak’s offer. In fact Arafat could not accept it. Barak, backed by Clinton,
about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salva- wanted assurance of Israel’s continued strategic control over the West Bank
– 10 – – 31 –
Why doesn’t Israel, “the only democracy in the Middle East”, have a constitution? tion (this is the secret of the Messianic idea); and there is no way besides
“The abstention from formulating a constitution was no accident. The transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them
massive expropriation of lands and other properties from those Arabs who fled all; except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not
the country as a result of the War of Independence and of those who remained leave a single village, not a single tribe’…There were literally hundreds of
but were declared absent, as well as the confiscation of large tracts of land from such statements made by Zionists. ” Edward Said, “The Question of Palestine.”
Arab villagers who did not flee, and the laws passed to legalize these acts—all Ethnic cleansing - continued
this would have necessarily been declared unconstitutional, null and void, by “Following the outbreak of 1936, no mainstream [Zionist] leader was able
the Supreme Court, being expressly discriminatory against one part of the citi- to conceive of future coexistence and peace without a clear physical separa-
zenry, whereas a democratic constitution obliges the state to treat all of its tion between the two peoples—achievable only by way of transfer and expul-
citizens equally.” Israeli author, Boas Evron, “Jewish State or Israeli Nation?” sion. Publicly they all continued to speak of coexistence and to attribute the
violence to a small minority of zealots and agitators. But this was merely a
JEWISH FUNDAMENTALISM IN ISRAEL public pose. . .Ben-Gurion summed up: ‘With compulsory transfer we (would)
The fundamentalist wing of the Jewish religion, while certainly not represen- have a vast area (for settlement). . . I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see
tative of Judaism as a whole, is influential in Israel and is the ideological basis anything immoral in it.’ ” Israeli historian, Benny Morris, “Righteous Victims”
of the settler movement in the West Bank and Gaza (except for “Greater Jerusa-
lem” where many secular Jews have moved because of cheap, subsidized hous- Ethnic cleansing - continued
ing.) The following quotes show the racism inherent in this fundamentalist “Ben-Gurion clearly wanted as few Arabs as possible to remain in the Jew-
world-view and why its influence should be opposed by all rational people. ish state. He hoped to see them flee. He said as much to his colleagues and
aides in meetings in August, September and October [1948]. But no [general]
Ideological basis of racism in Israel expulsion policy was ever enunciated and Ben-Gurion always refrained from
“The Talmud states that…two contrary types of souls exist, a non-Jewish issuing clear or written expulsion orders; he preferred that his generals ‘under-
soul comes from the Satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holi- stand’ what he wanted done. He wished to avoid going down in history as the
ness. . . Rabbi Kook, the Elder [chief rabbi of Palestine in the 1920s], the re- ‘great expeller’ and he did not want the Israeli government to be implicated in
vered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism said, ‘The a morally questionable policy… But while there was no ‘expulsion policy’, the
difference between a Jewish soul and the souls of non-Jews… is greater and July and October [1948] offensives were characterized by far more expulsions
deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.’ “ and, indeed, brutality towards Arab civilians than the first half of the war.”
Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky’s “Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel” Benny Morris, “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949.
Racism - continued Didn’t the Palestinians leave their homes voluntarily during the 1948 war?
“Gush Emunim rabbis have continually reiterated that Jews who killed Arabs “Israeli propaganda has largely relinquished the claim that the Palestinian
should not be punished. . .Relying on the Code of Maimonides and the Halacha, exodus of 1948 was ‘self-inspired’. Official circles implicitly concede that the
Rabbi Ariel stated, ‘A Jew who killed a non-Jew is exempt from human judge- Arab population fled as a result of Israeli action—whether directly, as in the
ment and has not violated the [religious] prohibition of murder’…The signifi- case of Lydda and Ramleh, or indirectly, due to the panic that and similar
cance here is most striking when the broad support, both direct and indirect, actions (the Deir Yassin massacre) inspired in Arab population centers through-
for Gush Emunim is considered. About one-half of Israel’s Jewish population out Palestine. However, even though the historical record has been grudgingly
supports Gush Emunim.” Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky’s “Jewish Funda- set straight, the Israeli establishment still refuses to accept moral or political
mentalism In Israel” responsibility for the refugee problem it—or its predecessors—actively cre-
Jewish fundamentalist rationale for seizing Arab land ated.” Peretz Kidron, quoted in “Blaming The Victims,” ed. Said and Hitchens.
“They argue that what appears to be confiscation of Arab-owned land for Arab orders to evacuate nonexistent
subsequent settlement by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but one of “The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) monitored all Middle East-
sanctification. From their perspective the land is being redeemed by being ern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a United
transferred from the satanic to the divine sphere. . . To further this process, the States monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum… There was not a
use of force is permitted whenever necessary. . . Halacha permits Jews to rob single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine, from any
non-Jews in those locales wherein Jews are stronger than non-Jews.” Israel Shahak Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is a repeated moni-
and Norton Mezvinsky’s “Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel”
– 30 – – 11 –
tored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay hauling of the total world situation in the same way. It does not advocate the
put.” Erskine Childers, British researcher, quoted in Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.” restoration of the Roman empire… [In addition,] Palestinians have claimed
Ethnic cleansing - continued descent from the ancient inhabitants of Palestine 3,000 years ago!…
“That Ben-Gurion’s ultimate aim was to evacuate as much of the Arab popu- [Jewish suffering as justification.] It was easy to make the Palestinians pay for
lation as possible from the Jewish state can hardly be doubted, if only from the 2,000 years of persecution. The Palestinians, who have felt the enormous power
variety of means he employed to achieve this purpose. . . most decisively, the of this vengeance, were not the historical oppressors of the Jews. They did not
destruction of whole villages and the eviction of their inhabitants… even [if] put Jews into ghettos and force them to wear yellow stars. They did not plan
they had not participated in the war and had stayed in Israel hoping to live in holocausts. But they had one fault. They were weak and defenseless in the face
peace and equality, as promised in the Declaration of Independence.” Israeli of real military might, so they were the ideal victims for an abstract revenge...
author, Simha Flapan, “The Birth Of Israel.” [Anti-semitism as justification] Unlike the situation of Jews persecuted for
being Jews, Israelis are at war with the Arab world because they have commit-
The deliberate destruction of Arab villages to prevent return of Palestinians ted the sin of colonialism, not because of their Jewish identity…
“During May [1948], ideas about how to consolidate and give permanence [The law of the jungle justification.] Presenting the world as naturally unjust,
to the Palestinian exile began to crystallize, and the destruction of villages was and oppression as nature’s way, has always been the first refuge of those who
immediately perceived as a primary means of achieving this aim… [Even ear- want to preserve their privileges… The need to justify Zionism, and the lack of
lier,] On 10 April, Haganah units took Abu Shusha…The village was destroyed other defenses, has made it part of the Israeli world view… In Israel, one com-
that night… Khulda was levelled by Jewish bulldozers on 20 April… Abu Zureiq mon outcome is cynicism, for which Israelis have become famous…
was completely demolished… Al Mansi and An Naghnaghiya, to the south- [The effect on Israelis] Israelis seem to be haunted by a curse. It is the curse of
east, were also leveled…By mid-1949, the majority of [the 350 depopulated the original sin against the native Arabs. How can Israel be discussed without
Arab villages] were either completely or partly in ruins and uninhabitable.” recalling the dispossession and exclusion of non-Jews? This is the most basic
Benny Morris, “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”. fact about Israel, and no understanding of Israeli reality is possible without it.
After the fighting was over, why didn’t the Palestinians return to their homes? The original sin haunts and torments Israelis; it marks everything and taints
“The first UN General Assembly resolution—Number 194—affirming the everybody. Its memory poisons the blood and marks every moment of exist-
right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property, was passed on De- ence.” Israeli author, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, “Original Sins: Reflections on the
cember 11, 1948. It has been repassed no less than twenty-eight times since History of Zionism and Israel.”
that first date. Whereas the moral and political right of a person to return to Zionism’s ’historical right’ to Palestine
his place of uninterrupted residence is acknowledged everywhere, Israel has “Zionism’s ‘historical right’ to Palestine was neither historical nor a right. It
negated the possibility of return… [and] systematically and juridically made it was not historical inasmuch as it voided the two millennia of non-Jewish settle-
impossible, on any grounds whatever, for the Arab Palestinian to return, be ment in Palestine and the two millenia of Jewish settlement outside it. It was
compensated for his property, or live in Israel as a citizen equal before the law not a right, except in the Romantic ‘mysticism’ of ‘blood and soil’ and the
with a Jewish Israeli.” Edward Said, “The Question of Palestine.” Romantic ‘cult’ of ‘death, heroes and graves’. . .
Is there any justification for this expropriation of land? “The claim of Jewish ‘homelessness’ is founded on a cluster of assumptions
“ The fact that the Arabs fled in terror, because of real fear of a repetition of that both negates the liberal idea of citizenship and duplicates the anti-Semitic
the 1948 Zionist massacres, is no reason for denying them their homes, fields one that the state belongs to the majority ethnic nation. In a word, the Zionist
and livelihoods. Civilians caught in an area of military activity generally panic. case for a Jewish state is as valid or invalid as the anti-Semitic case for an
But they have always been able to return to their homes when the danger ethnic state that marginalizes Jews.” Professor Norman Finkelstein, “Image and
subsides. Military conquest does not abolish private rights to property; nor Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.”
does it entitle the victor to confiscate the homes, property and personal be- How about the Zionist argument that Jordan already is the Palestinian state?
longings of the noncombatant civilian population. The seizure of Arab prop- “It is often alleged that there was, in fact, an earlier ‘territorial compro-
erty by the Israelis was an outrage.” Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.” mise’, namely, in 1922, when Transjordan was excised from the promised ‘na-
How about the negotiations after the 1948-1949 war? tional home for the Jewish people,’. . . a decision that is difficult to criticize in
“[At Lausanne,]Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians were trying to light of the fact that ‘the number of Jews living there permanently in 1921 has
save by negotiations what they had lost in the war—a Palestinian state along- been reliably estimated at two, or according to some authorities, three per-
sons.’ ” Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle.”
– 12 – – 29 –
respites, he shuttles from a tiny chair to which he is painfully shackled; to a side Israel. Israel, however… [preferred] tenuous armistice agreements to a defi-
stifling, tiny cubicle in which he can barely move; to questioning sessions in nite peace that would involve territorial concessions and the repatriation of
which he is beaten or violently manhandled; and then back to the chair. even a token number of refugees. The refusal to recognize the Palestinians’
“The intensive, sustained and combined use of these methods inflicts the right to self-determination and statehood proved over the years to be the main
severe mental or physical suffering that is central to internationally accepted source of the turbulence, violence, and bloodshed that came to pass.” Israeli
definitions of torture. Israel’s political leadership cannot claim ignorance that author, Simha Flapan, “The Birth Of Israel.”
ill-treatment is the norm in interrogation centers. The number of victims is Israel admitted to UN but then reneged on the conditions under which it was
too large, and the abuses are too systematic.” 1994 Human Rights Watch report, admitted
“Torture and Ill-Treatment: Israel’s Interrogation of Palestinians from the Occupied “The [Lausanne] conference officially opened on 27 April 1949. On 12
Territories.” May the [UN’s] Palestine Conciliation Committee reaped its only success when
The use of “force” – continued it induced the parties to sign a joint protocol on the framework for a compre-
“Amnesty International also observed that, when brought to trial, most hensive peace…Israel for the first time accepted the principle of repatriation
Palestinian detainees arrested for ‘terrorist’ offenses and tortured by the Shin [of the Arab refugees] and the internationalization of Jerusalem…[but] they
Bet (General Security Services) ‘have been accused of offenses such as mem- did so as a mere exercise in public relations aimed at strengthening Israel’s
bership in unlawful associations or throwing stones. They have also included international image… Walter Eytan, the head of the Israeli delegation, [stated]
prisoners of conscience such as people arrested solely for raising a flag.’ On a …‘My main purpose was to begin to undermine the protocol of 12 May, which
related point, Haaretz columnist B. Michael noted that there wasn’t a single we had signed only under duress of our struggle for admission to the UN. Re-
recorded case in which the Shin Bet’s use of torture was prompted by a ‘ticking fusal to sign would…have immediately been reported to the Secretary-Gen-
bomb’ scenario: ‘In every instance of a Palestinian lodging a formal complaint eral and the various governments.’ ” Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé, “The Making of
about torture, the Shin Bet justified its use in order to extract a confession the Arab-Israel Conflict, 1947-1951.”
about something that had already happened, not about something that was Israeli admission to the U.N. - continued
about to happen.’ ” Norman Finkelstein, “The Rise and Fall of Palestine.” “The Preamble of the resolution of admission included a safeguarding clause
The 1997 U.N. Commission Against Torture rules against Israel as follows: ‘Recalling its resolution of 29 November 1947 (on partition) and
“B’Tselem estimates. . . that the GSS annually interrogates between 1000- 11 December 1948 (on repatriation and compensation), and taking note of
1500 Palestinians [as of 1998]. Some eighty-five percent of them—at least 850 the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Govern-
persons a year—are tortured during interrogation… ment of Israel before the ad hoc Political Committee in respect of the imple-
“The U.N. Committee Against Torture…reached an unequivocal conclu- mentation of the said resolutions, the General Assembly…decides to admit
sion:… ‘The methods of interrogation [used in Israeli prisons]…are in the Israel into membership in the United Nations.’
Committee’s view breaches of article 16 and also constitute torture as defined “Here, it must be observed, is a condition and an undertaking to imple-
in article 1 of the Convention…As a State Party to the Convention Against ment the resolutions mentioned. There was no question of such implementa-
Torture, Israel is precluded from raising before this Committee exceptional tion being conditional on the conclusion of peace on Israeli terms as the Israelis
circumstances’… The prohibition on torture is, therefore, absolute, and no later claimed to justify their non-compliance.” Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.”
‘exceptional’ circumstances may justify derogating from it.” 1998 Report from What was the fate of the Palestinians who had now become refugees?
B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Terri- “The winter of 1949, the first winter of exile for more than seven hundred
tories, “Routine Torture: Interrogation Methods of the General Security Service.” fifty thousand Palestinians, was cold and hard… Families huddled in caves,
Some arguments used to justify Zionism abandoned huts, or makeshift tents… Many of the starving were only miles
“There is clearly no need to justify the Zionist dream, the desire for relief away from their own vegetable gardens and orchards in occupied Palestine—
from Jewish suffering. . . The trouble with Zionism starts when it lands, so to the new state of Israel… At the end of 1949 the United Nations finally acted.
speak, in Palestine. What has to be justified is the injustice to the Palestinians It set up the United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA) to
caused by Zionism, the dispossesion and victimization of a whole people. There take over sixty refugee camps from voluntary agencies. It managed to keep
is clearly a wrong here, a wrong which creates the need for justification… people alive, but only barely. ” “Our Roots Are Still Alive” by The Peoples Press
[E.g.,the inheritance claim] The aim of Zionism is the restoration of a Jewish Palestine Book Project.
sovereignty to its status 2,000 years ago. Zionism does not advocate an over-
– 28 – – 13 –
 THE 1967 WAR AND ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in 1919 at the Paris peace conference, quoted in
Ella Winter, “And Not To Yield”
THE WEST BANK AND GAZA
The international consensus on Israel (a very small representative sampling)
Did the Egyptians actually start the 1967 war, as Israel originally claimed? “[In the early 1950s] Arab states regularly complained of the reprisals to the
“‘In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations UN Security Council, which routinely rejected Israel’s claims of self-defense…
in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. “In June 1982 Israel again invaded Lebanon, and it used aerial bombard-
We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.’ ” Menachem ment to destroy entire camps of Palestinian Arab refugees. By these means
Begin, quoted in Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle.” Israel killed 20,000 persons, mostly civilians… Israel claimed self-defense for
Was the 1967 war defensive? its invasion, but the lack of PLO attacks into Israel during the previous year
“I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai made that claim dubious… The [UN] Security Council demanded ‘that Israel
would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we withdraw all its military forces forthwith and unconditionally to the interna-
knew it.” Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s Chief of Staff, in Le Monde, 2/28/68 tionally recognized boundaries of Lebanon’…
“The UN Human Rights Commission, using the Geneva Convention’s pro-
Defensive? - continued
vision that certain violations of humanitarian law are ‘grave breaches’ merit-
“It was not fear of Egypt or the closure of the Straits of Tiran that motivated
ing criminal punishment for perpetrators, found a number of Israel’s practices
the [Israeli] Cabinet’s decision [to go to war]. It was the general’s confidence
during the uprising [the intifada] to constitute ‘war crimes.’ It included physi-
that victory would be theirs and the need to prove to the Arabs that Israel
cal and psychological torture of Palestinian detainees and their subjection to
could not be intimidated.” Donald Neff, “Warriors For Jerusalem”
improper and inhuman treatment; the imposition of collective punishment on
Moshe Dayan posthumously speaks out on the Golan Heights towns, villages and camps; the administrative detention of thousands of Pales-
“Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in tinians; the expulsion of Palestinian citizens; the confiscation of Palestinian
1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan… [said] many of the firefights with property; and the raiding and demolition of Palestinian houses.” John Quigley,
the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents “Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice.”
who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security
From the 1970s until 1999 when an Israeli High Court decision forbid torture
than for the farmland. . . [Dayan stated,] ‘They didn’t even try to hide their
during interrogation (theoretically), hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were
greed for that land… We would send a tractor to plow some area where it
subjected to inhuman treatment in Israeli prisons.
wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance
“Israel’s two main interrogation agencies in the occupied territories engage
that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the
in a systematic pattern of ill-treatment and torture—according to internation-
tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and
ally recognized definitions of the terms…The methods used in nearly all inter-
shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s
rogations are prolonged sleep deprivation; prolonged sight deprivation using
how it was… The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to
blindfolds or tight-fitting hoods; forced, prolonged maintainance of body posi-
us.’ ” The New York Times, May 11, 1997.
tions that grow increasingly painful; and verbal threats and insults.
The history of Israeli expansionism “These methods are almost always combined with some of the following
“The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan; abuses; confinement in tiny, closet-like spaces; exposure to temperature ex-
one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a tremes, such as deliberately overcooled rooms; prolonged toilet and hygiene
state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations deprivation; and degrading treatment…Beatings are far more routine in IDF
are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to interrogations than in GSS interrogations. Sixteen of the nineteen detainees
limit them.” David Ben-Gurion, in 1936, quoted in Noam Chomsky, “The Fate- we interviewed [detained between 1992 and 1994] reported having been as-
ful Triangle.” saulted in the interrogation room. Beatings and kicks were directed at the throat,
Expansionism – continued testicles, and stomach. Some were repeatedly choked; some had their heads
“The main danger which Israel, as a ‘Jewish state’, poses to its own people, slammed against the walls…
to other Jews and to its neighbors, is its ideologically motivated pursuit of ter- “Israeli interrogation consistently use methods in combination with one
ritorial expansion and the inevitable series of wars resulting from this aim… another, over long periods of time. Thus, a detainee in the custody of the Gen-
No zionist politician has ever repudiated Ben-Gurion’s idea that Israeli poli- eral Security Service (GSS) may spend weeks during which, except for brief

– 14 – – 27 –
 “Is it a good means of social control? Perhaps, but at what cost? It strips the cies must be based (within the limits of practical considerations) on the resto-
faith and history of Jew and gentile alike of all but their moments of antago- ration of the Biblical borders as the borders of the Jewish state.” Israeli profes-
nism. It wallows in evil imagery and postulates a forever morally superior Jew, sor, Israel Shahak, “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of 3000 Years.”
victimized by the forever morally inferior ‘goy’… I have spent most of my adult Expansionism – continued
life amongst Hasidic Jews, almost all of whom were Holocaust survivors, and In Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharatt’s personal diaries, there is an ex-
I’ve heard almost nothing of the relentless harping on victimology and our cerpt from May of 1955 in which he quotes Moshe Dayan as follows: “[Israel]
need to forever memorialize it… (Victimology) allows Jews to bypass their must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep
own faith and offers the national allegiances of Holocaust/Israel in its place.” its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no—it
Rabbi Mayer Schiller, quoted in “Issues of the American Council for Judaism”, Sum- must—invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provoca-
mer 1998. tion-and-revenge… And above all—let us hope for a new war with the Arab
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space.”
Israel has on occasion sought peace with its Arab neighbor states but it refused Quoted in Livia Rokach, “Israel’s Sacred Terrorism.”
to negotiate with Palestinians directly until 1993. Why? But wasn’t the occupation of Arab lands necessary to protect Israel’s security?
“My friend, take care. When you recognize the concept of ‘Palestine’, you “Senator [J.William Fulbright] proposed in 1970 that America should guar-
demolish your right to live in Ein Hahoresh. If this is Palestine and not the antee Israel’s security in a formal treaty, protecting her with armed forces if
Land of Israel, then you are conquerors and not tillers of the land. You are necessary. In return, Israel would retire to the borders of 1967. The UN Secu-
invaders. If this is Palestine, then it belongs to a people who lived here before rity Council would guarantee this arrangement, and thereby bring the Soviet
you came. Only if it is the Land of Israel do you have a right to live in Ein Union—then a supplier of arms and political aid to the Arabs—into compli-
Hahoresh and in Deganiyah B. If it is not your country, your fatherland, the ance. As Israeli troops were withdrawn from the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip
country of your ancestors and of your sons, then what are you doing here? You and the West Bank they would be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force. Israel
came to another people’s homeland, as they claim, you expelled them and you would agree to accept a certain number of Palestinians and the rest would be
have taken their land.” Menahem Begin, quoted in Noam Chomsky’s “Peace in settled in a Palestinian state outside Israel.
the Middle East?” “The plan drew favorable editorial support in the United States. The pro-
More from the horse’s mouth posal, however, was flatly rejected by Israel. ‘The whole affair disgusted
“Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never Fulbright,’ writes [his biographer Randall] Woods. ‘The Israelis were not even
make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, willing to act in their own self-interest.’ ” Allan Brownfeld in “Issues of the Ameri-
God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not can Council for Judaism,” Fall 1997. [Ed.- This was one of many such proposals.]
theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is What happened after the 1967 war ended?
that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschweitz, “In violation of international law, Israel has confiscated over 52 percent of
but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we came here and stole their the land in West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip for military use or for
country. Why should they accept that?” David Ben-Gurion, quoted in “The Jew- settlement by Jewish civilians… From 1967 to 1982, Israel’s military govern-
ish Paradox” by Nahum Goldmann, former president of the World Jewish Congress. ment demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes on the West Bank. Over this pe-
More from the horse’s mouth riod, more than 300,000 Palestinians were detained without trial for various
“Before [the Palestinians’] very eyes we are possessing the land and the vil- periods by Israeli security forces.” “Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising Against
lages where they, and their ancestors, have lived… We are the generation of Israeli Occupation,” ed. Lockman and Beinin.
colonizers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a World opinion on the legality of Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza
tree and build a home.” Israeli leader Moshe Dayan, quoted in Benjamin Beit- “Under the UN Charter there can lawfully be no territorial gains from war,
Hallahmi, “Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel.” even by a state acting in self-defense. The response of other states to Israel’s
More from the horse’s mouth occupation shows a virtually unanimous opinion that even if Israel’s action
“The Arabs will be our problem for a long time,” Weizmann said, “It’s not was defensive, its retention of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was not…The
going to be simple. One day they may have to leave and let us have the coun- [UN] General Assembly characterized Israel’s occupation of the West Bank
try. They’re ten to one, but don’t we Jews have ten times their intelligence?” and Gaza as a denial of self-determination and hence a ‘serious and increasing
threat to international peace and security.’ ” John Quigley, “Palestine and Israel:
– 26 – A Challenge to Justice.” – 15 –
Examples of the effects of Israeli occupation Political gain - continued
“A study of students at Bethlehem University reported by the Coordinating “Inside the DP camps, emissaries from the Yishuv organized survivor activ-
Committee of International NGOs in Jerusalem showed that many families ity—crucially, the testimony the DPs gave to the Anglo-American Commit-
frequently go five days a week without running water…The study goes further tee of Inquiry and the UN Special Committee on Palestine about where they
to report that, ‘water quotas restrict usage by Palestinians living in the West wished to go. . . The Jewish Agency envoys reported home that they had been
Bank and Gaza, while Israeli settlers have almost unlimited amounts.’ successful in preventing the appearance of ‘undesirable’ witnesses at the hear-
“A summer trip to a Jewish settlement on the edge of the Judean desert less ings. One wrote his girlfriend in Palestine that ‘we have to change our style
than five miles from Bethlehem confirmed this water inequity for us. While and handwriting constantly so that they will think that the questionaires were
Bethlehemites were buying water from tank trucks at highly inflated rates, the filled in by the refugees.’ ” Peter Novick, “The Holocaust in American Life”
lawns were green in the settlement. Sprinklers were going at mid-day in the Roosevelt’s adviser writes on why Jewish refugees were not offered sanctuary
hot August sunshine. Sounds of children swimming in the outdoor pool added in the U.S. after WWII
to the unreality.” Betty Jane Bailey, in “The Link”, December 1996. “What if Canada, Australia, South America, England and the United States
Israeli occupation - continued were all to open a door to some migration? Even today [written in 1947] it is
“You have to remember that 90 percent of children two years old or more my judgement, and I have been in Germany since the war, that only a minor-
have experienced—some many, many times—the [Israeli] army breaking into ity of the Jewish DP’s [displaced persons] would choose Palestine…
the home, beating relatives, destroying things. Many were beaten themselves, “[Roosevelt] proposed a world budget for the easy migration of the 500,000
had bones broken, were shot, tear gassed, or had these things happen to sib- beaten people of Europe. Each nation should open its doors for some thou-
lings and neighbors…The emotional aspect of the child is affected by the [lack sands of refugees… So he suggested that during my trips for him to England
of] security. He needs to feel safe. We see the consequences later if he does not. during the war I sound out in a general, unofficial manner the leaders of British
In our research, we have found that children who are exposed to trauma tend public opinion, in and out of the government…The simple answer: Great Brit-
to be more extreme in their behaviors and, later, in their political beliefs.” Dr. ain will match the United States, man for man, in admissions from Europe. . .
Samir Qouta, director of research for the Gaza Community Mental Health It seemed all settled. With the rest of the world probably ready to give haven
Programme, quoted in “The Journal of Palestine Studies,” Summer 1996, p. 84. to 200,000, there was a sound reason for the President to press Congress to
Israeli occupation - continued take in at least 150,000 immigrants after the war…
“There is nothing quite like the misery one feels listening to a 35-year -old “It would free us from the hypocrisy of closing our own doors while making
[Palestinian] man who worked fifteen years as an illegal day laborer in Israel in sanctimonious demands on the Arabs…But it did not work out…The failure
order to save up money to build a house for his family only to be shocked one of the leading Jewish organizations to support with zeal this immigration
day upon returning from work to find that the house and all that was in it had programme may have caused the President not to push forward with it at that
been flattened by an Israeli bulldozer. When I asked why this was done—the time…
land, after all, was his—I was told that a paper given to him the next day by an “I talked to many people active in Jewish organizations. I suggested the
Israeli soldier stated that he had built the structure without a license. Where plan…I was amazed and even felt insulted when active Jewish leaders decried,
else in the world are people required to have a license (always denied them) to sneered and then attacked me as if I were a traitor…I think I know the reason
build on their own property? Jews can build, but never Palestinians. This is for much of the opposition. There is a deep, genuine, often fanatical emotional
apartheid.” Edward Said, in “The Nation”, May 4, 1998. vested interest in putting over the Palestinian movement [Zionism]. Men like
Ben Hecht are little concerned about human blood if it is not their own.” Jewish
All Jewish settlements in territories occupied in the 1967 war are a direct violation attorney and friend of President Roosevelt, Morris Ernst, “So Far, So Good.”
of the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has signed.
“The Geneva Convention requires an occupying power to change the ex- Victimology
isting order as little as possible during its tenure. One aspect of this obligation “Jewish proponents of the ‘victim’ card are aware not only of its social effec-
is that it must leave the territory to the people it finds there. It may not bring tiveness but of its usefulness as a means of insuring Jewish solidarity and, hence,
its own people to populate the teritory. This prohibition is found in the survival. If we were forever hated by all and are doomed to be forever hated by
convention’s Article 49, which states, ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport all, then we’d best stick together and make the best of it…Personally, I have
or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.’ ” never found this view of the eternally-hating gentile to have any resemblance
John Quigley, “Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice.” with reality. It seems a myth, pure and simple, and an ugly one at that.

– 16 – – 25 –
Emigration to Palestine before World War II - continued Excerpts from the U.S. State Department’s reports during the first Intifada
“In fact, Zionism suffered its own defeat in the Holocaust; as a movement, “Following are some excerpts from the U.S. State Department’s Country
it failed. It had not, after all, persuaded the majority of Jews to leave Europe for Reports on Human Rights Practices from 1988 to 1991:
Palestine while it was still possible to do so.” Israeli historian, Tom Segev, “The 1988: ‘Many avoidable deaths and injuries’ were caused because Israeli ‘sol-
Seventh Million.” diers frequently used gunfire in situations that did not present mortal danger to
Emigration during World War II troops. . . IDF troops used clubs to break limbs and beat Palestinians who were
“[With the start of the war, Nazi] edicts forbidding emigration followed in not directly involved in disturbances or resisting arrest… At least thirteen
all countries under direct Nazi control: after 1940-1 it was in effect impossible Palestinians have been reported to have died from beatings…’
for Jews legally to emigrate from Nazi-occupied Europe to places of safety... 1989: The State Department reported that 304 Palestinians were killed by
The doors… were firmly shut: by the Nazis, it must be emphasised.” Prof. Wil- Israelis in 1989, including eleven by Israeli settlers and ten by beatings during
liam D. Rubinstein, “The Myth of Rescue.” interrogation…
1990: Human rights groups charged that the plainclothes security person-
Palestine was not necessarily a safe haven either nel acted as death squads who killed Palestinian activists without warning,
“In September 1940, the Italians, at war with Britain, bombed downtown after they had surrendered, or after they had been subdued…
Tel Aviv, with over a hundred causalties…As the German army overran Eu- 1991: [The report] added that human rights groups had published ‘detailed
rope and North Africa, it appeared possible that it would conquer Palestine as credible reports of torture, abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in
well. In the summer of 1940, in the spring of 1941, and again in the fall of 1942 prisons and detention centers.” Former Congressman Paul Findley,“Deliberate
the danger seemed imminent. The yishuv panicked…Many people tried to Deceptions.”
find a way out of the country, but it was not easy… Some… were taking no
chances; they carried cyanide capsules.” Israeli historian, Tom Segev, “The Sev- Jerusalem - Eternal, Indivisible Capital Of Israel?
enth Million.” “Writing in The Jerusalem Report (Feb. 28, 2000), Leslie Susser points out
that the current boundaries were drawn after the Six-Day War. Responsibility
In any case, Palestine was not Britain’s to give away: it was already occupied. for drawing those lines fell to Central Command Chief Rehavan Ze’evi. The
“We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we line he drew ‘took in not only the five square kilometers of Arab East Jerusa-
are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish, state here…Jewish villages were lem—but also 65 square kilometers of surrounding open country and villages,
built in the place of Arab villages…There is not a single community in the most of which never had any municipal link to Jerusalem. Overnight they
country that did not have a former Arab population.” Israeli leader, Moshe Dayan, became part of Israel’s eternal and indivisible capital.’ “ Allan Brownfeld in “The
quoted in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi’s ”Original Sins.” Washington Report On Middle East Affairs”, May 2000.
Already occupied - continued
“One can imagine an argument for the right of a persecuted minority to THE HISTORY OF TERRORISM IN THE REGION
find refuge in another country able to accommodate it; one is hard-pressed, We believe that the killing of innocent people is wrong, in all cases. Thus, we
however, to imagine an argument for the right of a persecuted minority to cannot condone the use of terrorism by some extreme Palestinian groups,
politically and perhaps physically displace the indigenous population of an- especially prevalent during the 1970s. That being said, however, it is necessary
other country. Yet…the latter was the actual intention of the Zionist move- to examine the context in which such incidents occur.
ment.” Norman Finkelstein, “Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.”
We hear lots about Palestinian terrorism. How about the Israeli record?
The use of the Holocaust for political gain “The record of Israeli terrorism goes back to the origins of the state—in-
“[In 1947] the U.N. appointed a special body, the United Nations Special deed, long before—including the massacre of 250 civilians and brutal expul-
Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), to make the decision over Palestine and sion of seventy thousand others from Lydda and Ramle in July 1948; the mas-
UNSCOP members were asked to visit the camps of Holocaust survivors. Many sacre of hundreds of others at the undefended village of Doueimah near Hebron
of these survivors wanted to emigrate to the United States, a wish that under- in October 1948;. . . the slaughters in Qibya, Kafr Kassem, and a string of other
mined the Zionist claim that the fate of European Jewry was connected to that assassinated villages; the expulsion of thousands of Beduins from the demilita-
of the Jewish community in Palestine. When UNSCOP representatives ar- rized zones shortly after the 1948 war and thousands more from northeastern
rived at the camps, they were unaware that backstage manipulations were lim- Sinai in the early 1970s, their villages destroyed, to open the region for Jewish
iting their contacts solely to survivors who wished to emigrate to Palestine.” settlement; and on, and on.” Noam Chomsky, “Blaming The Victims,” ed. Said
Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé in “The Link”, January-March 1998 and Hitchens.
– 24 – – 17 –
Terrorism – continued pects. He delegated rescue work to Yitzak Gruenbam, who [stated]. . . ‘They
“However much one laments and even wishes somehow to atone for the will say that I am anti-Semitic, that I don’t want to save the Exile, that I don’t
loss of life and suffering visited upon innocents because of Palestinian vio- a varm Yiddish hartz. . . Let them say what they want. I will not demand that the
lence, there is still the need, I think, also to say that no national movement Jewish Agency allocate a sum of 300,000 or 100,000 pounds sterling to help
has been so unfairly penalized, defamed, and subjected to disproportionate re- European Jewry. And I think that whoever demands such things is performing
taliation for its sins as has the Palestinian. The Israeli policy of punitive coun- an anti-Zionist act.’
terattacks (or state terrorism) seems to be to try to kill anywhere from 50 to “Zionists in America. . . took the same position. At a May 1943 meeting of
100 Arabs for every Jewish fatality. The devastation of Lebanese refugee camps, the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, Nahum Goldmann
hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and orphanages; the summary arrests, argued, ‘If a drive is opened against the White Paper (the British policy of
deportations, house destructions, maimings, and torture of Palestinians on the restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine) the mass meetings of protest against
West Bank and Gaza… these, and the number of Palestinian fatalities, the the murder of European Jewry will have to be dropped. We do not have suffi-
scale of material loss, the physical, political and psychological deprivations, cient manpower for both campaigns.’ ” Peter Novick, “The Holocaust in Ameri-
have tremendously exceeded the damage done by Palestinians to Israelis.” can Life
Edward Said, “The Question of Palestine.” Main goal of Zionism – continued
The U.S. government and media bias on terrorism in the Middle East “I have already gone exhaustively into the reason for our being here, rea-
“It is simply extraordinary and without precedent that Israel’s history, its sons that I as a pioneer of 1906 can affirm have nothing to do with the
record—from the fact that it… is a state built on conquest, that it has invaded Nazis!…We are here because this land is ours. And we are here because we
surrounding countries, bombed and destroyed at will, to the fact that it cur- have again made it ours in this time with the work we have put into it. Nazism
rently occupies Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian territory against interna- and our history of martyrdom abroad do not concern our presence in Israel
tional law—is simply never cited, never subjected to scrutiny in the U.S. me- directly.” David Ben-Gurion, “Memoirs.”
dia or in official discourse… never addressed as playing any role at all in pro-
voking ‘Islamic terror.’ ” Edward Said in “The Progressive,” May 30, 1996. In hindsight, it is easy to say that the millions of Jews who were murdered in
the Holocaust could have been saved if Palestine had been available for un-
JEWISH CRITICISM OF ZIONISM limited immigration. The history of this period is not so simple, however. First,
“Albert Einstein - ‘I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the keep in mind that other realistic resettlement plans were proposed but actively
Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish opposed by the Zionist movement. Second, the great majority of Jews in Eu-
State. Apart from practical considerations, my awareness of the essential na- rope were not Zionists and did not try to emigrate to Palestine before 1939.
ture of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish State, with borders, an army, and a Third, after the start of the war, as the Nazis occupied various countries, they
measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner refused to let the Jews leave, making emigration virtually impossible. And Pal-
damage Judaism will sustain’… estine, as we have shown, was already occupied; the indigenous Arabs had
“Professor Erich Fromm, a noted Jewish writer and thinker - ‘In general more valid reasons than any other country for wanting to limit Jewish immi-
international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or gration.
his rights of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which Emigration to Palestine before World War II
the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews. Just because the “In 1936, the Social Democratic Bund won a sweeping victory in Jewish
Arabs fled? Since when is that punishable by confiscation of property, and by kehilla elections in Poland. . . Its main hallmarks included ‘an unyielding hos-
being barred from returning to the land on which a people’s forefathers have tility to Zionism’ and to the Zionist enterprise of Jewish emigration from Po-
lived for generations? Thus, the claim of the Jews to the land of Israel cannot land to Palestine. The Bund wished Polish Jews to fight anti-semitism in Po-
be a realistic claim. If all nations would suddenly claim territory in which their land by remaining there…The Zionist goal was also opposed, as a matter of
forefathers had lived two thousand years ago, this world would be a madhouse… principle, by all the other major parties and movements among pre-1939 Pol-
I believe that, politically speaking, there is only one solution for Israel, namely, ish Jewry…Elsewhere in eastern Europe…Zionist strength was weaker still.”
the unilateral acknowledgement of the obligation of the State towards the Prof. William Rubinstein, “The Myth of Rescue.”
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
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Wasn’t the main goal of Zionism to save Jews from the Holocaust? our people of their murderous sickness of causeless hatred… It is bound to
“In 1938 a thirty-one nation conference was held in Evian, France, on re- bring complete ruin upon us. Only then will the old and young in our landrealize
settlement of the victims of Nazism. The World Zionist Organization refused how great was our responsibility to those miserable Arab refugees in whose
to participate, fearing that resettlement of Jews in other states would reduce towns we have settled Jews who were brought from afar; whose homes we have
the number available for Palestine.” John Quigley, “Palestine and Israel: A Chal- inherited, whose fields we now sow and harvest; the fruits of whose gardens,
lenge to Justice.” orchards and vineyards we gather; and in whose cities that we robbed we put
Main goal of Zionism – continued up houses of education, charity, and prayer, while we babble and rave about
“It was summed up in the meeting [of the Jewish Agency’s Executive on being the “People of the Book” and the “light of the nations” ’…
June 26, 1938] that the Zionist thing to do ‘is belittle the [Evian] Conference “In an article published in the Washington Post of 3 October 1978, Rabbi
as far as possible and to cause it to decide nothing…We are particularly wor- Hirsch (of Jerusalem) is reported to have declared: ‘The 12th principle of our
ried that it would move Jewish organizations to collect large sums of money for faith, I believe, is that the Messiah will gather the Jewish exiled who re-dis-
aid to Jewish refugees, and these collections could interfere with our collection persed throughout the nations of the world. Zionism is diametrically opposed
efforts’…Ben-Gurion’s statement at the same meeting: ‘No rationalization can to Judaism. Zionism wishes to define the Jewish people as a nationalistic en-
turn the conference from a harmful to a useful one. What can and should be tity. The Zionists say, in effect, “Look here, God. We do not like exile. Take us
done is to limit the damage as far as possible.’ ” Israeli author Boas Evron, “Jew- back, and if you don’t, we’ll just roll up our sleeves and take ourselves back.”
ish State or Israeli Nation?” 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
Main goal of Zionism – continued
wishes of those residing there.’ ” Sami Hadawi, “Bitter Harvest.”
“[Ben-Gurion stated,] ‘If I knew that it was possible to save all the children
in Germany by transporting them to England, but only half of them by trans- Martin Buber on what Zionism should have been.
porting them to Palestine, I would choose the second—because we face not “The first fact is that at the time when we entered into an alliance (an
only the reckoning of those children, but the historical reckoning of the Jew- alliance, I admit, that was not well defined) with a European state and we
ish people.’ In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogroms, Ben-Gurion commented provided that state with a claim to rule over Palestine, we made no attempt to
that ‘the human conscience’ might bring various countries to open their doors reach an agreement with the Arabs of this land regarding the basis and condi-
to Jewish refugees from Germany. He saw this as a threat and warned: ‘Zionism tions for the continuation of Jewish settlement. This negative approach caused
is in danger.’ ” Israeli historian, Tom Segev, “The Seventh Million.” those Arabs who thought about and were concerned about the future of their
Main goal of Zionism – continued
people to see us increasingly not as a group which desired to live in coopera-
“The Zionist movement…interfered with and hindered other organizations, tion with their people but as something in the nature of uninvited guests and
Jewish and non-Jewish, whenever it imagined that their activity, political or agents of foreign interests (at the time I explicitly pointed out this fact).
humanitarian, was at variance with Zionist aims or in competition with them, “The second fact is that we took hold of the key economic positions in the
even when these might be helpful to Jews, even when it was a question of life country without compensating the Arab population, that is to say without
and death…Beit Zvi documents the Zionist leadership’s indifference to saving allowing their capital and their labor a share in our economic activity. Paying
Jews from the Nazi menace except in cases in which the Jews could be brought the large landowners for purchases made or paying compensation to tenants
to Palestine…[e.g.] the readiness of the dictator of the Dominican Republic, on the land is not the same as compensating a people. As a result, many of the
Rafael Trujillo, to absorb one hundred thousand refugees and the sabotaging of more thoughtful Arabs viewed the advance of Jewish settlement as a kind of
this idea—as well as others, like proposals to settle the Jews in Alaska and the plot designed to dispossess future generations of their people of the land neces-
Philippines—by the Zionist movement… sary for their existence and development. Only by means of a comprehensive
“The obtuseness of the Zionist movement toward the fate of European Jewry and vigorous economic policy aimed at organizing and developing common
did not prevent it, of course, from later hurling accusations against the whole interests would it have been possible to contend with this view and its inevi-
world for its indifference toward the Jewish catastrophe or from pressing mate- table consequences. This we did not do.
rial, political, and moral demands on the world because of that indifference.” “The third fact is that when a possibility arose that the Mandate would
Israeli author Boas Evron, “Jewish State or Israeli Nation?” soon be terminated, not only did we not propose to the Arab population of the
Main goal of Zionism - continued
country that a joint Jewish-Arab administration be set up in its place, we went
“Even David Ben-Gurion’s sympathetic biographer acknowledges that Ben- ahead and demanded rule over the whole country (the Biltmore program) as a
Gurion did nothing practical for rescue, devoting his energies to post-war pros- fitting political sequel to the gains we had already made. By this step, we with
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– 22 –
our own hands provided our enemies in the Arab camp with aid and comfort conflict in Palestine.” Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé in “The Link”, published by
of the most valuable sort—the support of public opinion—without which the Americans for Middle East Understanding, NY, NY , January-March, 1998.
military attack launched against us would not have been possible. For it now “It is no longer my country”
appears to the Arab populace that in carrying on the activities we have been “For me, this business called the state of Israel is finished…I can’t bear to
engaged in for years, in acquiring land and in working and developing the land, see it anymore, the injustice that is done to the Arabs, to the Beduins. All
we were systematically laying the ground work for gaining control of the whole kinds of scum coming from America and as soon as they get off the plane
country.” Martin Buber, quoted in “A Land of Two Peoples” ed. Mendes-Flohr. taking over lands in the territories and claiming them for their own… I can’t
Israel’s new historians now refute myths of the founding of the state do anything to change it. I can only go away and let the whole lot go to hell
“Since the 1980s,… Israeli scholars [have] concurred with their Palestinian without me.” Israeli actress (and household name) Rivka Michaeli, quoted in Israeli
counterparts that Zionism was… carried out as a pure colonialist act against peace movement periodical, “The Other Israel”, August 1998
the local population: a mixture of exploitation and expropriation… The effect of Zionism on American Jews
“They were motivated to present a revisionist point of view to a large ex- “The corruption of Judaism, as a religion of universal values, through its
tent by the declassification of relevant archival material in Israel, Britain and politicization by Zionism and by the replacement of dedication to Israel for
the United States. [For example,]… dedication to God and the moral law, is what has alienated so many young
Challenging the Myth of Annihilation - The new historiographical picture is a Americans who, searching for spiritual meaning in life, have found little in the
fundamental challenge to the official history that says that the Jewish commu- organized Jewish community.” Allan Brownfield, “Issues of the American Council
nity faced possible annihilation on the eve of the 1948 war. Archival docu- for Judaism”, Spring 1997.
ments 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…
ZIONISM AND THE HOLOCAUST
Israel’s Responsibility for Refugees – The Jewish military advantage was trans- The U.N. decisions to partition Palestine and then to grant admission to
lated into an act of mass expulsion of more than half of the Palestinian popu- the state of Israel were made, on one level, as an emotional response to the
lation. The Israeli forces, apart from rare exceptions, expelled the Palestinians horrors of the Holocaust. Under more normal circumstances, the compelling
from every village and town they occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was claims to sovereignty of the Arab majority would have prevailed. This reac-
accompanied by massacres [of civilians] as was the case in Lydda, Ramleh, tion of guilt on the part of the Western allies was understandable, but that doesn’t
Dawimiyya, Sa’sa, Ein Zietun and other places. Expulsion also was accompanied mean the Palestinians should have had to pay for crimes committed by others—
by rape, looting and confiscation [of Palestinian land and property]… a classic example of two wrongs not making a right.
The Myth of Arab Intransigence – [The U.N.] convened a peace conference The Holocaust is often used as the final argument in favor of Zionism, but
in Lausanne, Switzerland in the spring of 1949. Before the conference, the is this connection justified? There are several aspects to consider in answering
U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution that in effect replaced the No- that question honestly. First, we will examine the historical record of what the
vember 1947 partition resolution. This new resolution, Resolution 194 of De- Zionist movement actually did to help save European Jewry from the Nazis.
cember 11, 1948, accepted [U.N. mediator] Bernadotte’s triangular basis for a Shamir proposes an alliance with the Nazis
comprehensive peace: an unconditional return of all the refugees to their homes, “As late as 1941, the Zionist group LEHI, one of whose leaders, Yitzhak
the internationalization of Jerusalem, and the partitioning of Palestine into Shamir, was later to become a prime minister of Israel, approached the Nazis,
two states. This time, several Arab states and various representatives of the using the name of its parent organization, the Irgun (NMO)…[Their proposal
Palestinians accepted this as a basis for negotiations, as did the United States, stated:] ‘The establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and
which was running the show at Lausanne. . . Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion totalitarian basis and bound by a treaty with the German Reich would be in
strongly opposed any peace negotiations along these lines…The only reason the interests of strengthening the future German nation of power in the Near
he was willing to allow Israel to participate in the peace conference was his East… The NMO in Palestine offers to take an active part in the war on
fear of an angry American reaction…The road to peace was not taken due to Germany’s side’….The Nazis rejected this proposal for an alliance because, it
Israeli, not Arab, intransigence. is reported, they considered LEHI’s military power ‘negligable.’ ” Allan
Conclusions – The new Israeli historians…wish to rectify what their research Brownfield, “The Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs”, July/August 1998.
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
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