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