katalog-overlapping voices - Ritesinstitute

east africa. But these suggestions never stood a
chance of winning over the Zionist rank and file.
the choice of eretz Yisrael (the land of Yisrael)
was not rational. Rather, it stemmed from a deep
historical intuition that building a Jewish state
would require every ounce of energy and all the
spiritual strength of the Jewish people. this could
be mustered only for the sake of eretz Yisrael. in
current intellectual discourse, it is fashionable to
define Zionism as a settler colonialist movement.
considering the fact that Zionism made great progress
under the auspices of the British mandate
in Palestine, this approach seems sensible. however,
this line of thought disregards the ideological
and social roots of Zionism, the variety of factors
that caused its evolution and the uniqueness of the
Jewish case. Palestine had very little to offer to european
settlers – no natural resources, no oil and
no iron. its soil was not particularly fertile, and the
scarcity of water and the need for significant investment
before undertaking modern farming
made it unsuitable for european settlement. But
the Jews chose to disregard the disadvantages of
the land, because for them it was their legendary
homeland. they did not see themselves as europeans
in search of riches and good fortune, rather
as people returning to rebuild the land of their
forefathers.
the founders of the Zionist movement knew relatively
little about contemporary Palestine, as distinct
from the eretz Yisrael of legends, literature
and the Bible. however, those that settled in the
country soon observed that it was not an empty
land. at the onset of Zionist immigration in Palestine
(1881), it was home to a few tens of thousand
Jews and less than half a million arabs. the Zionists
did not conceal their intention to transform
arab Palestine into Jewish eretz Yisrael through
immigration and settlement. they maintained that
there was more than enough room in the country
for 1 million arabs and a few million Jews. Jewish
immigration, it was reasoned, would bring capital
to the country and spur economic development
beneficial to the population as a whole. clearly, this
line of reasoning disregarded the feeling of the
arab population that the country had been theirs
for hundreds of years. while Palestine had not
been an independent political unit since the first
century B.c., this did not negate the sense of possession
and dominion felt by the country’s arab
population. Zionist leaders’ promises of friendship
did not impress them; they were not interested in
gaining partners in a country that they regarded as
exclusively their own. they perceived the Jews as
invaders. as the Jews’ foothold in the country
strengthened, the arabs’ opposition grew as well.
as one of history’s ironies, it should be noted that
Zionism is what created Palestinian nationalism.
the most important period for the implementation
of the Zionist project was between the two world
wars. world war i resulted in the dismantling of
the ottoman empire, and a number of arab states
were established on its ruins. initially these states
were under British and french mandates and later
they became independent. at the same time,
the international community also recognized the
Jewish people’s historic connection to Palestine
and its right to establish a “national home” there.
this recognition was anchored in the British mandate
over Palestine, as issued by the league of nations.
the three decades of British rule in Palestine
(1918-1948) laid the foundations for a modern
state, and gave the Jews an opportunity to establish
their “national home”. During the interwar
period, Zionist state-building processes accelerated
in the face of the growing threat to Jewish communities
in europe, as the nazis rose to power in
germany and anti-semitic, proto-fascist regimes
emerged in the states of eastern europe. concurrently,
the intensity of the Jewish-arab conflict was
also on the rise. the more perilous the situation of
european Jews became, and the more they were
humiliated and deprived of dignity as citizens and
human beings, the more central the Zionist project
became in Jewish life. the “national home”
in mandate Palestine was the only place in the world
that was willing to accept any Jew who wished to
come. Beyond saving lives, Zionism re-endowed
Jews with a sense of belonging, an identity and a
renewed sense of dignity. the arabs, however, saw
only one fact – that more and more Jews were entering
the country and that the country was gradually
losing its arab landscape and taking on a european
character. the arab strategy against what
they perceived to be an existential threat was total
denial of any Jewish link to Palestine, and rejection
of the legitimacy of the Zionist project. they
therefore turned down any proposals made by either
the British or the Jews regarding taking part
in the administration of the country. on the eve of
world war ii the arabs still constituted a two-thirds
majority of the country’s population. hence, this
strategy of total refusal made sense from their point
of view. however, it also resulted in the evolution
of a culture of extremism and rejectionism among
the Palestinians, which eventually led them to
tragedy.
in 1936, the arab Rebellion erupted in Palestine
(an intifada of sorts). its aim was to force the British
authorities to halt Jewish immigration into the
country, which had been on the rise since hitler
came to power in germany. a Royal commission
headed by lord Peel investigated the events, and,
in its 1937 report, recommended partitioning the
country into two states – one Jewish and one arab.
this was the first international recognition of the
fact that the Jewish community in Palestine possessed
the attributes of a nation and the capabilities
required for statehood. the proposal caused
stormy debate among Zionists. what was the use
of a Jewish state, many asked, if it did not include
Jerusalem and other historically significant places?
the partition plan allocated the Jews a small portion
of the country; would such a small area suffice
for the establishment of a state and for absorbing
the masses of Jewish refugees? But against
the ideological and pragmatic faults of the plan and
despite its limitations, a majority supported it. for
the first time in two thousand years, the Jews were
just striking distance away from Jewish rule in the
land of Yisrael.
the leader of this majority was David Ben-gurion,
who would later declare israel’s independence and
guide the new state through the war that ensued.
he understood Palestinian nationalism and respected
it. therefore he searched for a compromise
that would secure sovereignty for the Jews
and not deny it to the arabs. the arabs, on the
other hand, rejected the plan out of hand, and the
Peel commission proposals were doomed to be
buried in the archives of the British colonial office.
on the eve of the impending world war, the
British sought to appease the arabs in order to
guarantee their loyalty. Jewish loyalty in the war
against hitler was a given. the British thus gave
in to arab demands and halted the expansion of
the “national home”. the most tragic aspect of this
policy was the cessation of Jewish immigration,
just as Jewish distress and need of a safe haven
were at their peak. Reading protocols from the
world war ii years about arab vetoes that denied
a few thousand Jewish children the right to enter
Palestine (and thus prevented the saving of their
lives), it is difficult not to feel a degree of frustration
at the Palestinian arabs’ lack of generosity.
ever since 1937, the same scenario has repeated
itself – the arabs initiate a wave of violence, the
Jews respond in kind, and a proposal of compromise
between the two wrangling nations is placed
on the table. the Jews are willing to accept compromise,
and the arabs reject it. two types of compromise
have been on the agenda ever since: division
of sovereignty and division of territory. Back
in the early 1940s, Jews in search of Jewish-arab
co-existence proposed a bi-national state, in which
both peoples would live in equality regardless of
the numerical ratio between the two populations.
since then, such proposals have been popular
among radical Zionist circles striving to evade the
Jewish-arab confrontation and to develop a common
loyalty to a joint arab-Jewish citizenship in
one state. But while this idea has great intellectual
appeal, it comes nowhere near securing the basic
interests of both peoples. for the Palestinians and
the Jews alike, an independent state is a symbol
of identity and a means of restoring their dignity
and pride. it is no coincidence that, aside from a
few idealists, there was never any real support on
either side of the divide for a bi-national state.
the functional compromise has always been territorial
compromise – a sort of ‘judgment of solomon’
in reverse, with a result of “i will have it, and
you will have it too”. territorial compromise was
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