No Worse Than Jabotinsky

In some quarters, and especially amongst some so-called younger generation 'leaders' of the 'hilltop youth' sub-culture in Judea and Samaria, although they have some elderly backers, the report in Haaretz yesterday about comments made by Yesha Council Head Dany Dayan set off some 'fuses' as they phrase is here.

One element I found that could be misunderstood was this:

"The fact that I am able to understand the Palestinians does not make me for them," he added. In the WikiLeaks cable Dayan was quoted as telling the U.S. Embassy officials that he was aware of the Palestinians' attachment to the West Bank.

...During one meeting with U.S. diplomats, Dayan said he was "deeply attached" to the West Bank, adding that the settlers had a "moral right" to settle there. Dayan said he understood why the Palestinians felt a similar tie to the land.

No less important a person but Ze'ev Jabotinskyt expressed quite similar expressions of, on the one hand, undrstanding of the decalred Arab positioin and, on the other, the superior Jewish claim to this land while seeking not to harm individual Arabs.

Here's some excerpts from The Ethics of the Iron Wall:

... it is absurd to expect the Arabs to have the mentality of an impartial judge; for in this conflict they are not the judges; but one of the contending parties. And after all, our chief question is whether the Arabs, even if they believed in peaceful collaboration they would agree to have any "neighbours", even good neighbours, in the country which they regard as their own. Not even those who try to move us with high-sounding phrases will dare to deny that national homogeneity is more convenient than natural diversity. So why should a nation that is perfectly content with its isolation admit to its country even good neighbours in any considerable number? I want neither your honey nor your sting", is a reasonable answer...

...All sorts of catchwords are used against Zionism; people invoke Democracy, majority rule, national self-determination. Which means, that the Arabs being at present the majority in Palestine, have the right of self-determination, and may therefore insist that Palestine must remain an Arab country. Democracy and self-determination are sacred principles, but sacred principles like the Name of the Lord must not be used in vain – to bolster up a swindle, to conceal injustice. The principle of self-determination does not mean that if someone has seized a stretch of land it must remain in his possession for all time, and that he who was forcibly ejected from his land must always remain homeless. Self-determination means revision – such a revision of the distribution of the earth among the nations that those nations who have too much should have to give up some of it to those nations who have not enough or who have none, so that all should have some place on which to exercise their right of self-determination. And now when the whole of the civilised world has recognised that Jews have a right to return to Palestine, which means that the Jews are, in principle, also "citizens" and "inhabitants" of Palestine, only they were driven out, and their return must be a lengthy process, it is wrong to contend that meanwhile the local population has the right to refuse to allow them to come back and to that "Democracy”...

...It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not "meet halfway" those who do not want to meet you.

There was a typical example in old Russia, when one of the oppressed nations, with one accord, launched a crusade against the Jews, boycotting them and pogroming them. At the same time, this nation was fighting to gain its own autonomy, without any attempt to conceal it means to use its autonomy for the purpose of oppressing the Jews. Worse than before. And yet, Jewish politicians and writers, (even Jewish nationalists) considered it their duty to support the autonomist efforts of their enemy, on the ground that autonomy is a sacred cause. It is remarkable how we Jews regard it as our duty to stand up and cheer whenever the Marsellaise is played, even if it is played by Haman himself, and Jewish heads are smashed to its accompaniment. I was once told of a man who was an ardent Democrat and always whenever he heard the Marsellaise, he stood stiffly attention, like a soldier on parade. One night burglars broke into his house, and one of them played the Marsellaise. This sort of thing is not morality, it is twaddle. Human society is built up on the basis of mutual advantage. If you take away the mutual principle right becomes a falsehood. Each man who passes my window in the street has a right to live only in so far as he recognises my right to live; but if he is determined to kill me, I cannot admit that he has any right to live. And that is true also of nations. Otherwise, the world would become a jungle of wild beasts, where not only the weak, but also those who have any scrap of feeling would be exterminated.

The world must be a place of co-operation and mutual goodwill. If we are to live we should all live in the same way, and if we are to die we should all die in the same way...

And more reality from the previous article on the subject he published, The Iron Wall:-

This Arab editor was actually willing to agree that Palestine has a very large potential absorptive capacity, meaning that there is room for a great many Jews in the country without displacing a single Arab. There is only one thing the Zionists want, and it is that one thing that the Arabs do not want, for that is the way by which the Jews would gradually become the majority, and then a Jewish Government would follow automatically, and the future of the Arab minority would depend on the goodwill of the Jews; and a minority status is not a good thing, as the Jews themselves are never tired of pointing out. So there is no "misunderstanding". The Zionists want only one thing, Jewish immigration; and this Jewish immigration is what the Arabs do not want.

This statement of the position by the Arab editor is so logical, so obvious, so indisputable, that everyone ought to know it by heart, and it should be made the basis of all our future discussions on the Arab question.

And this:

Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators.

This is equally true of the Arabs. Our Peace-mongers are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine , in return for cultural and economic advantages. I repudiate this conception of the Palestinian Arabs. Culturally they are five hundred years behind us, they have neither our endurance nor our determination; but they are just as good psychologists as we are, and their minds have been sharpened like ours by centuries of fine-spun logomachy. We may tell them whatever we like about the innocence of our aims, watering them down and sweetening them with honeyed words to make them palatable, but they know what we want, as well as we know what they do not want. They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and the Sioux for their rolling Prairies.

To imagine, as our Arabophiles do, that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism, in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland for a good railway system.

There is no justification for such a belief. It may be that some individual Arabs take bribes. But that does not mean that the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously, and which even the Papuans will never sell. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.

That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of "Palestine" into the "Land of Israel."

Some of us have induced ourselves to believe that all the trouble is due to misunderstanding – the Arabs have not understood us, and that is the only reason why they resist us; if we can only make it clear to them how moderate our intentions really are, they will immediately extend to us their hand in friendship.

This belief is utterly unfounded and it has been exploded again and again.

But there is this, too, from Jabotinsky's "Bi-National Palestine":

I confess that there are moments when I, too, dream dreams of an Arab-Jewish agreement on Palestine. True, these are only moments of exceptional tiredness, or, perhaps, of exceptional sublimation which, they say, are an experience reserved only for souls or minds which are utterly tired. Then I dream of a great pan-Arab gathering containing representatives of a long belt of lands stretching from Agadir to Bassora; and the Jewish delegate, facing that gathering, openly and honestly claims the whole of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan for his own people's home and state, to settle and govern. In my dream, this is what he says," This land is less than one hundredth of the immensity of space which God has given you, and my people are homeless; and in my heart I have always called this land mine. I must have it or die; I am ready to fight for it: but perhaps fighting is not necessary; perhaps, O Sons of Father Ibrahim, Ishmael will uphold the claim of Israel, not because compelled to nor because deceived, but simply because it is right that God's earth should be re-distributed so that a homeless nation may re-occupy its ancient kingdom." And the great gathering's answer in my dream is in the affirmative.

I very much doubt whether this dream of mine has any chance of ever coming
true. I am afraid we shall get Palestine only by fighting. But at least it is a clean and honest dream, as honest and clean as the other and more likely expedient – fighting.

In 1937, he gave testimony before the Peel Commission, that had been formed to deal with the aftermath of the Arab riots of 1936. Some of the highlights of that testimony are the following:

“...Why should the Jews in Palestine be forced to prepare for self-defense underhand; as though committing a legal offense? You know what a pogrom means in Jewish history; we know what pogroms mean in the history of Mandatory Palestine. The Jews have never been allowed to prepare for that holy duty of self-defense, as every Englishman would have done. We had in our case to prepare by underhand methods, with insufficient equipment, with insufficient drilling, in an amateurish way.”

“...Why should the impression be created in this country that we want Johnny, Tommy and Bobby to defend us? We do not. If, in the building of Palestine, sweat and gold have to be employed, let us give the sweat and let us give the gold; if blood has to be shed by the defenders of Palestine, let it be our blood and not English blood. But that suggestion has always been turned down.”

“...There is only one way of compromise. Tell the Arabs the truth, and then you will see the Arab is reasonable, the Arab is clever, the Arab is just; the Arab can realize that since there are three or four or five wholly Arab States, then it is a thing of justice which Great Britain is doing if Palestine is transformed into a Jewish State. Then there will be a change of mind among the Arabs, then there will be room for compromise, and then there will be peace.”

Dany knows Jabotinsky well and knows that there is no contradiction in recognizing the Arab claim and feelings to a land they consider theirs, and expressing also sympathyy for their situation, even if that claim is wrong and that the Jews have a much better claim - and need. (See this post of mine on Jabotinsky and this one, too).

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