I Am Interviewed in Italian

I was text interviewed for an Italian outlet. I received an email, responded, was asked two additional questions of clarification and here I am: (translation via ChatGPT)

[For text of the full correspondence, see at end]

Israeli settler: “The violent ones? Three hundred young men”

Journalist Medad even denies the Palestinian question: “We have the right to live here”

Rome, August 17, 2026 — First he uses international law as his argument. Then, when it is pointed out to him that the League of Nations has not existed for quite some time, he moves onto the terrain of history. Yisrael Medad, an Israeli journalist, settler from Shiloh and a historian who supports the settlements in the West Bank, has one virtue: clarity. He finds surprising analogies between the Holy Land and our own country. And, according to him, the solution to the Palestinian question is “Italian” as well.

Medad, on what basis does an Israeli claim the right to live and build in the West Bank, which much of the international community considers occupied Palestinian territory?

“The fact that the international community considers Judea and Samaria occupied territories does not mean that they are. In 1922, fifty-five countries of the League of Nations recognized the right of the Jews to reestablish their historic national homeland.”

But the UN Security Council subsequently stated that settlements in territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity, and in 2024 the International Court of Justice ruled that the settlement policy is contrary to international law.

“I do not base the rights of the Jews on the League of Nations or on the UN Security Council. The right exists and is applicable even without recognition. It is based on three thousand years of Jewish presence in the land of kings, priests and prophets, psalms and revolts, olive trees and vineyards.”

If this right applies to Israelis, what equivalent right do you recognize for Palestinians who have lived there for generations?

“Arabs, like Druze and anyone else, can live there. But they do not have the right to carry out terrorist acts against Jews, which they have been doing since 1920.”

Terrorism: the same term used to describe the siege of Qusra by the American ambassador to Israel. Do you think the definition should change if the aggressor is Israeli?

“It should not change. Anyone who attacks civilians is a terrorist. Huckabee, however, is wrong in how he characterizes certain incidents; one has to have a sense of proportion. I checked, for example, the statistics on sexual violence in Italy: would it be justified to call Lombards ‘sexual terrorists’ because many cases are reported in Lombardy? No.”

But Palestinians repeatedly report assaults, arson and attacks on villages.

“All violence is wrong. But there is much more violence perpetrated by Arabs against Jews, and it is also more lethal. I am surprised that the world's attention is so one-sided.”

When Palestinian villages are attacked, don't you think that the settler movement bears political responsibility?

“No. That violence is the result of the failure of the education provided by parents and religious authority. I must, however, emphasize that Arab violence is tolerated and even praised, especially in Europe, by ‘progressive’ forces. This makes it difficult to explain here to these 300 young men that violence does not work.”

You speak of Judea and Samaria as part of the Land of Israel. Does that mean that, in your view, there should not be a Palestinian state in the West Bank?

“Exactly. I am convinced that the real objective of the Palestinians is not to have their own state, which they could have had in 1937, 1947 and 1967, but to deny the Jews a state.”

But if you reject the two-state solution outright, what is the concrete alternative for millions of Palestinians?

“We could try autonomy and see what happens.”

Can Israelis and Palestinians really coexist in the same territory without having the same rights?

“If there were no terrorism and incitement to violence, there would be no restrictions. In Italy, for example, millions of foreigners live without Italian citizenship.”

What is the political objective of the settler movement?

“To guarantee the continuity of the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.”

The problem is how. Imagine that your political vision were fully realized: twenty years from now, who would govern the territory between the Jordan and the Mediterranean?

“Israel will be the sovereign power. An Arab could be an Israeli citizen, or a resident without citizenship, or could once again become a Jordanian citizen. Or perhaps we could learn something from South Tyrol.”

“If he says so.” [Se lo dice lui — the journalist's closing, slightly ironic, comment.]

And here are a couple of nuances in the Italian (added by ChatGPT)

There are a few places where the Italian framing is somewhat sharper than your actual answers:

• “nega persino la questione palestinese” literally means “even denies the Palestinian question.” That is the journalist's characterization; your answer itself does not deny that Palestinians exist or that they have rights to live there.
• “I violenti? Trecento ragazzi” is a headline, roughly “The violent ones? Three hundred young men.” It refers to your statement that it is difficult to explain to “these 300 young men” that violence does not work.
• “colono” means “settler.” It is not necessarily derogatory in Italian, but colono israeliano is the terminology the newspaper chose.
• Your South Tyrol/Alto Adige analogy is particularly interesting because it invokes a model of territorial autonomy within a sovereign state rather than partition into two sovereign states.

Also, the headline “abbiamo diritto a vivere qui” (“we have the right to live here”) is not actually a verbatim quotation appearing in your answers as reproduced below it; it is the newspaper's headline characterization of your position.

P.S. My final line to him was:

"Of course, I have kept my replies short and concise but the issue is quite complicated."

I do not think I convinced him of the practicality that a democratic, binational society in which Jews and Arabs live together without ethnic domination cannot exist.

-----

I found there this interview too: (translation via ChatGPT)

West Bank, No Other Land activist: “An ethnic-cleansing campaign is underway”

Huraini, Palestinian reporter: “There is no everyday life there; Israeli settlers continue with complete impunity.”

Rome, August 17, 2026 —

“On the 19th of last month, late at night, more than 40 masked Israeli settlers broke into At-Tuwani. I was with my cousins when we heard desperate screams coming from my house: they were my sisters. They were sleeping when the settlers began smashing the windows in order to throw gasoline inside. They wanted to burn my family members alive.

For the first time in my life I felt completely helpless: I was alone against forty of them, and the only ‘weapon’ I had in my hand was my camera. My neighbor lost the baby she was carrying because of the terror of those scenes.”

It is through his own story that Mohammad Hesham Huraini, a Palestinian reporter and activist from Masafer Yatta, describes the West Bank today. Huraini collaborated on No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary.

“A huge campaign of ethnic cleansing is being carried out by Israeli settlers with complete impunity.”

What is everyday life like there?

“There is no everyday life. We wake up in the morning to demolitions and in the evening we witness pogroms. We cannot even move from one village to another because of army and police roadblocks and the continuous attacks by settlers. Going to the doctor or buying food is an ordeal.”

How do the people who live there make a living?

“Securing an income is complicated. Since October 7, 2023, most of the people who worked inside ‘48”—in Palestinian terminology, the Israeli territory within the Green Line—“have lost their jobs and no one has been able to return there.”

Are you more afraid of violence, or of gradually being forced to abandon those lands?

“The greatest fear is facing the daily threat of death.”

U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee has called those responsible for the siege “Israeli terrorists.” Can words like these really make a difference?

“They are important, but they are not enough. Real pressure is needed from the European governments and the United States.”

Israel will go to the polls again on October 27. Do you hope the election can change anything?

“For the Palestinians, little or nothing will change. The settlers are taking advantage of the election period: they know that the government needs their votes, so they attack knowing that they will never be stopped.”

Do you still believe that Israelis and Palestinians can live together?

“Every time a solution has been proposed, Israel has destroyed it because it does not believe in peace, but only in the displacement of Palestinians. We are human beings, not numbers.”

After the Oscar, it seemed that the world had become aware of No Other Land. Do the people who live there feel that anyone is still watching?

“Precisely after that recognition, the filmmakers became the principal targets of attacks, arrests and detentions. The 96 minutes of the documentary showed our past life; the reality we have been experiencing from October 7 until today is even more insane and brutal than what was shown in the film.”

You mentioned October 7. Beyond the horror, don't you think that massacre caused enormous political and moral damage to the Palestinian cause?

“I prefer not to answer this question because the issue is not about October 7: the occupation already existed beforehand, as did the attacks, pogroms and killings of Palestinians.”

And ChatGPT added

A couple of points worth noting

The Italian interviewer uses “pogrom” (pogrom) in the questions/description as well as Huraini using the term in his answer. I have retained it rather than softening it to “attacks.”

Also, “inside the ‘48” is Huraini's terminology for Israel within the Green Line. The Italian journalist actually inserts an explanatory parenthesis making this explicit.

One potentially important point for your purposes: the article is not an independent report of the alleged July 19 incident. It is an interview in which Huraini gives his own account and characterization of events. The article does not provide corroborating evidence for his claims about the settlers, nor does it present an Israeli response.

_________________________________

My responses to a questionaire sent by Antonio Del Prete, Responsabile Redazione Interni/Esteri - QN Quotidiano Nazionale, in Bologna, Italy:

Dear Antonio, 

Allow me to respond from my personal/private gmail as I am retired from the Begin Center (although I still do research there) and my opinions are solely mine.

"Let me startt with the fundamental question: why should an Israeli have the right to live and build in the West Bank, in territory that most of the international community regards as occupied? Is that right historical, religious, legal or political?  

That the international community regards Judea and Samaria as occupied does not make those territories so. They may be technically under belligerent occupation but that is but a legal technicality. In 1922, based on the San Remo Conference of April 1920, the right of Jews to reestablish their historic national homeland was recognized in international law by 55 nations of the League of Nations. By the way, at San Remo, Italy played an important part. The official minutes for 25 April 1920, when the Palestine mandate resolution was adopted, list Francesco Saverio Nitti — Prime Minister, and chairman of the meeting; Vittorio Scialoja — Foreign Minister and Italian secretaries: Garbasso, Galli, Trombetti and Lt. Zanchi who were present at the San Remo Conference. That, of course, followed the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty. The right to reside in these areas is the natural, historical, legal and religious right of Jews based on a 3,000 presence in the Land, of kings and priests and prophets, of psalms and revolts, of olives and grapes - and a constant residency even after dispersion and conquest all throughout the centuries, especially in Jerusalem and Hebron.

If that right applies to Israelis, what equivalent right do you recognise for Palestinians who have lived there for generations? When those rights clash, who should decide which one prevails? 

Arabs - and Druze and anyone else - can live there. One right they do not possess is to conduct terror against Jews which they have been doing since 1920.

You speak of Judea and Samaria as part of the Land of Israel. Does that mean that, in your view, there should ultimately be no Palestinian state in the West Bank? 

Yes. I am convinced their utmost goal is not their own state - which they could have had in 1937, 1947, 1967 and so forth - but to deny Jews a state. I do not need to reward them for their failure to eliminate Jews. They could have had autonomy of a condominium with Jordan. It's their choice to keep losing. Besides, the two-state solution is actually a four-state solution as Jordan, separated from the Palestine Mandate in 1922 by Churchill, is properly "Palestinian" (and so is the majority of its population if we want to be exact) and Gaza will never accept rule by the PLO in Ramallah. And besides, why should there be three Arab uni-ethnic states but just one Israel with 20% Arab population?

If the two-state solution is dead, what is the concrete alternative for millions of Palestinians? 

Israeli citizenship with full political rights, limited autonomy, or permanent life without sovereignty? We could try autonomy and see what happens. Unfortunately, after 30 years+ since Oslo they have done abolsutley nothing in state-building.

Can coexistence genuinely exist when Israelis and Palestinians living in the same territory are subject to different legal systems, different restrictions on movement and different levels of protection? 

A. if there was no terror, incitement to violence, there would be no restrictions. 

B. Did you know that as of January 1, 2026, ISTAT (the Italian National Institute of Statistics) reported that 5,560,000 foreign residents with non-Italian citizenship live in Italy, making up about 9.4% of the country's total population? I presume they all have mostly the same rights except for voting and being elected. I am sure similar situations exist all over Europe. It could work in Israel + Judea and Samaria as well. By the way, I am not at all convinced there is a separate, distinct national grouping called 'Palestinian Arabs'.

Palestinians argue that the expansion of settlements, outposts and roads is making territorial separation physically impossible. Is creating an irreversible reality on the ground part of the political objective? 

It should be.

How do you judge violence committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians, and how significant do you believe this phenomenon is today in the West Bank? 

All violence is wrong, immoral and criminal unless exercised by authoritative state agencies. As there is much more violence perpetrated by Arabs against Jews - more deadly, too - I am amazed of the world's attention being one-sided.

When fields are burned, residents assaulted or Palestinian villages attacked, does the settlement movement bear any political responsibility beyond the criminal responsibility of the individuals involved? Directly? 

No. It is a failure of education, parental guidance and religious authority. It is a wrong ideological orientation and immoral. However, I must point out that Arab violence is tolerated and even praised especially in Europe by 'progressive' forces which makes it difficult here to tell these 300 youngsters that violence doesn't work. 

Mike Huckabee, who has long been one of the strongest American supporters of the settlement movement, has used the word “terrorism” in relation to violence by Israelis against Palestinians. If the same act were committed by a Palestinian against an Israeli family, it would certainly be called terrorism. Why should the definition change when the attacker is Israeli? 

He was wrong, as he was at the incident in Taybeh [https://tps.co.il/articles/burning-questions-what-really-happened-at-taybehs-church/]. No definition should change. Persons attacking civilians uninvolved in violence are engaging in terror. Of course, there is also perspective and proportion. I checked stats for sexual violence in Italy and found that in 2024, 6,831 rapes occurred in the country. Lombardy was the region with the highest reports nationwide, with over one thousand cases of sexual violence in 2022. Would I be justified in thinking Lombardy people are sexual terrorists? P.S. I wouldn't.

Palestinians also describe a more gradual form of pressure: grazing livestock next to homes, blocking access, intimidation and repeated harassment until families eventually leave. If the result is the depopulation of a Palestinian community, is that not a form of displacement? 

A. As Regavim has been reporting for years, Arabs are being funded to move into Area C and take over state land. There is a counter move on. Almost all of the incidents involve this type of Arab incursion, but not all. 

B. In 1948, some 15,000 Jews were displaced from Jerusalem, its neighborhoods and other communities due to the Jordanian invasion and subsequent illegal occupation. Did they have rights? Why not?

What, ultimately, is the political objective of the settlement movement? To live alongside Palestinians, to incorporate the West Bank permanently into Israel, or to create a Jewish-majority territory in which the Palestinian presence is progressively reduced? 

I would think to assure continued Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria. If I can quote Ze'ev Jabotinsky from 1923: "I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall never try to eject anyone. This seems to me a fairly peaceful credo. But it is quite another question whether it is always possible to realise a peaceful aim by peaceful means. For the answer to this question does not depend on our attitude to the Arabs; but entirely on the attitude of the Arabs to us and to Zionism."

Imagine that your political vision is fully realised. Twenty years from now, what does the map between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea look like? And what status does a Palestinian currently living in Tuba, Qusra or Al-Mughayyir have? 

Israel is the sovereign power there and the Arab in Qusra is either a citizen of Israel, a resident non-citizen or a re-citizen of Jordan (Arabs there possessed Jordanian citizenship until 1988) or perhaps we could learn from South Tyrol?

Of course, I have kept my replies short and concise but the issue is quite complicated.

P.S. 

Oh. And one more thing, a "der Treppenwitz" matter, regarding "settlement". 

It is a legal right guaranteed to the Jews as found in Article 6 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine decision:

"The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."

And, of course, the territory then of the Jewish historic homeland envisioned was at least from the sea to the Jordan River.

There was a follow-up:

Thank you very much for your previous answers and for taking the time to respond so fully. I would be grateful if you could also answer these two follow-up questions:

You base the legal right of Jews to settle in the West Bank on Article 6 of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. However, the UN Security Council has repeatedly taken a different position: Resolution 446 stated that Israeli settlements in the territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity, and Resolution 2334 reaffirmed that they constitute a flagrant violation of international law. In 2024, the International Court of Justice also found Israel’s settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territory to be contrary to international law. On what legal basis do you consider a provision of the 1922 Mandate to remain controlling today while rejecting these subsequent UN resolutions and the conclusions of the ICJ?

​A. To be precise: I do not base the Jews' right on the League of Nations nor the UN Security Council. They recognized that right. That right exists and is applicable even without that recognition, or for that matter, non-recognition. I am sure Italians did not need, for example, Garibaldi's One Thousand volunteers in 1860-61 to create a right to a united Italy. 

The same Article 6 that you cite also states that Jewish settlement should be encouraged while ensuring that “the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.” How do you reconcile that condition with settlement expansion, restrictions on access to land and the displacement of Palestinian communities in the West Bank?

​If you review that entire decision, Arabs are not mentioned once. Not at all. The League of Nations knew of Jews and non-Jews: Arabs, Germans, Armenians, Turks, Italians, Christians (of a half-dozen denominations), Alawites, Bahais, Sunni & Shi'ite Muslims. ​All were "existing non-Jewish communities".  Arabs were awarded after WW One Saudi Arabia, Mesopotamia (Iraq), Syria, Lebanon, Jordan from the former Ottoman Empire, not to mention the later Arab states of today, almost 30 in North Africa and Middle East including a few countries built entirely around oil refineries. There was no "Palestinian people/nation" then for sure.

^

Quick Quiz: Did I write 'West Bank'?

Did I write "West Bank"?

Here:

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Palestine is Southern Syria, 1915

"Palestine is Southern Syria"

Ze'ev Jabotinsky
June 30, 1915

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What Did the Temple Mount Floor Look Like?

From this clip illustrating Frankie Snyder's work:

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Jabotinsky using "Palestinian"

When Jabotinsky used "Palestinian" (referring to Jews of the Palestine Mandate), as reported in Denver Jewish News, Sept. 3, 1925

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From the Series: Extra-Biblical Testimonies to Biblical Events

Many doubt the Bible is a genuine reliable record of history.

For example, do we have testimony to an exile of Jews from Judea as a result of an Assyrian conquest in 585 BCE?

Well ---

There are the Āl-Yāhūdu tablets. "Āl-Yāhūdu" is Akkadian and means "Town of Judah" or "Village of the Judeans."  There was a settlement in Babylonia where deported Judeans and their descendants lived after the exile that followed the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE.

The tablets found numer about 200 cuneiform, including fragments. They were written in Akkadian on clay tablets. Most date from approximately 572–477 BCE, spanning the late Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods. They were salvaged from the antiquities market and were later studied by scholars.

These are ordinary administrative and legal documents, including land leases, tax records, loans, labor obligations, property transactions and court-related documents.

They show that the Judeans, aka Jews, retained their identity, bore clearly Yahwistic names, such as Ahikam, Gedaliah, Shelemiah, Yashuv-Tzadok and...Netaniah. They contain references to the God of Israel (Yahu/Yah) and prove the exiles did not just disappear into Babylonian society but retained their national ethnic identity.

As Ariel Kopilovitz has observed:

“It will be a long time” (Jer 29:28). These words, allegedly sent to the Judean exiles in Babylonia, were meant to suppress expectations that existed among them, and possibly also among some of those remaining in Judah, that the exile would end soon (Jer 28:1–4). Jeremiah declares that the opposite is true: the exiles must prepare for a long stay in Babylonia and therefore should build houses, plant gardens and do as much as they could to improve their living conditions until their long-awaited restoration.

As Lauire Pearce has written:

The term ‘Judean’ refers to people with origins in the southern kingdom of Judah, which, along with the northern Israelite kingdom, occupied a strategic position between the imperial powers of Mesopotamia (Assyria, and later, Babylonia) and Egypt. Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 BCE) vanquished the northern kingdom, and deported the vast majority of Israel’s population throughout locales in Mesopotamia and North Syria. Although he also deported a significant portion of the Judean population, as illustrated in wall reliefs depicting the siege of Lachish and recorded in 2 Kgs 18:14-16, Sennacherib maintained Judah as a political identity, albeit as a vastly reduced vassal state. The scattered redistribution of deportee populations across the landscape complicates the identification and study of Israelites and Judeans in Assyrian sources, as the few distinctively Israelite or Judean names stand in geographic and social isolation from others of the same background; it is thus difficult to trace their history and/or social and economic location. The documentary situation is different with the population of Judah, deported to Babylonia in several waves: in 597 BCE, following Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of Jerusalem, which resulted in the deportation of the 18-year-old king Jehoiachin and his family (2Kgs 24:12-16); in 587 BCE, after destruction of the Jerusalem Temple; and in 582 BCE. Unlike their Assyrian predecessors, Babylonian kings (primarily Nebuchadnezzar) resettled their deportees as largely intact groups and resettled them in single locales, in many cases, in new settlements named for their places of origin. Some deported Judeans were settled in a town called Yahudu (“Judah”). 

The tablets cover more than a century, showing families across multiple generations. This helps explain why many Jews remained in Babylonia even after Cyrus the Great allowed exiles to return to Judah in 538 BCE.

The Āl-Yāhūdu documents provide direct contemporary evidence of the lives of ordinary Judeans in exile.

The tablets 

help confirm that large numbers of Judeans were indeed deported to Babylonia, that they formed recognizable communities and maintained distinct identities while adapting to Babylonian rule.

The Babylonian exile was not simply a literary or theological concept but a documented historical reality reflected in everyday records.

The standard scholarly publication is the book Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer by Laurie E. Pearce and Cornelia Wunsch, which first brought many of these texts to broader academic attention. Documents of Judean Exiles and West Semites in Babylonia in the Collection of David Sofer.

One scholar wrote:

"The documents published in the present volume are of immense importance for the study of Judeans in Babylonia... The new evidence from Āl-Yāhūdu and its surroundings corroborate...that exile did not equal enslavement, but Judeans had rights, responsibilities, and even opportunities to prosper. From now on, the study of Judean communities in Babylonia is to be primarily based on cuneiform sources, not only on the sporadic pieces of information found in the Hebrew Bible."

And most importantly, from this community that retained and preserved and cherished its identity, Jews returned to the Land of Israel.

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The Cassandra Project

After reading Richard Landes' Substack post on cognitive war, I commented that I found this summary:

Cassandra appears to be the only one who takes notice; she warns the Trojans that they must burn the wooden horse. Unfortunately, the Trojans disregard her warnings.  She’s described as having “one heart was steadfast, and one soul clear-eyed.” (Smyrna, 556)  She has a very powerful gift of prophecy and sees evil forces falling upon the city of Troy. She is compared to a lion, running about and screaming of the city of Troy’s impending fall.  Here, she embodies pure terror and doom.  “Her neck writhed, like a sapling in the wind shaken, as moaned and shrieked that noble maid” (Smyrna, 565) It appears that no one takes her omens seriously and she tries to convince everyone to burn the wooden horse, but unfortunately no one believes her.  She tries to take matters into her own hands and burn the horse herself but is unable to do so.  She exhibits determination and will by attempting to respond to her prophecy and prevent their downfall; however, her failure to destroy the horse demonstrates her powerlessness as a woman. 

I suggest the effort be termed The Cassandra Project.

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Jabotinsky and Petliura - in Jabotinsky's Words

"Petliura and the pogroms", a letter from Vladimir Zhabotinsky to the newspaper "Latest News" first published in Russian on October 11, 1927 in Paris

and then in Yiddish in the Warsaw Haint daily on October 16, 1927

and then in Hebrew, in Haaretz on October 21, 1927

In English:

Part of the Ukrainian press, discussing the Schwartzbard case, completely misinterpreted my position on the issue of Petliura’s responsibility for the pogroms of 1917-1920.

There were two reasons for this:

1) In the summer of 1926, I published an article in the New York newspaper Morgen-Journal, in which I said that, although I had never seen Petliura, I did not, however, consider him a convinced pogromist; and that in general I saw pogroms as the result not so much of the subjective “anti-Semitism of people” as of the objective “anti-Semitism of things”.

2) In the autumn of 1921, I signed an agreement with Maksym Slavinsky, the Prague representative of Petliura's then-exile government, establishing a special Jewish gendarmerie within Petliura's army (the remnants of which were then encamped in Galicia) specifically to prevent pogroms. (This agreement was never implemented, as Petliura's army was soon liquidated.)

From all this, a section of the Ukrainian press has concluded that I consider Petliura not responsible for the pogroms. I believe it would be useful to explain to this section of the Ukrainian press that they are profoundly mistaken.

The question is not whether Petliura was a supporter of pogroms at heart. I have expressed my hypothesis and consider it plausible. But even if my hypothesis is correct, I insist most emphatically that it has no bearing on the question of Petliura's responsibility for the pogroms. Petliura was the head of the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian army for two years or more; pogroms continued for almost the entire time; the head of the government and army failed to suppress them, did not punish the perpetrators, and did not resign. Therefore, he bears responsibility for every drop of Jewish blood spilled. This is so clear that no excuses will suffice.

Petliura's apologists won't be helped by arguing that, from the perspective of the philosophy of history, pogroms are a consequence not so much of "the anti-Semitism of individuals" as of "the anti-Semitism of things." Every sociology textbook claims that theft, banditry, and the like are explained not so much by the evil will of individuals as by the pressure of social conditions. But no one has ever concluded from this that an individual thief or bandit is "innocent" and not guilty and not subject to punishment. 

The pogromists who slaughtered Jews during Petliura's reign were also guilty and subject to severe punishment. Petliura didn't punish them, even though he was the head of the government and the army. The philosophy of history has nothing to do with this: such a head of government, such a head of the army, is guilty of an unheard-of and unforgivable crime against the Jewish people, the Ukrainian people, and all of humanity.

That Petliura, if he had seriously wanted to, could have taken measures to truly suppress the pogroms is best proven by my agreement with his authorized representative, Mr. Slavinsky. This agreement stipulated the establishment of a Jewish gendarmerie. In other words, the legalization of Jewish self-defense and the right to maintain order by force of arms. This means there is a remedy against pogroms. But this very remedy was already available in 1917-1920. Jewish self-defense organizations existed in Ukraine even then. Therefore, they could have been legalized, armed, and all Jewish youth could have been called upon to participate. But Petliura did not take advantage of this remedy. On the contrary, the Jewish self-defense, under the pretext of eradicating Bolshevism, was exterminated by his own soldiers.

Whatever Petliura's inner self, responsibility for the pogroms falls on him; to deny it is to misunderstand the nature of the head of government and the army.

If a portion of Ukrainian society concludes from this explanation that I have become an enemy of the Ukrainian national movement, it will be as absurd as the suggestion that I considered Petliura "innocent."

I remain a friend of the Ukrainian movement. I will continue to strive to allay the righteous indignation pent up in the Jewish soul, even if it means invoking the philosophy of history or constructing hypotheses about the psychology of figures I don't personally know. Moreover, I will continue to seek an agreement with the Ukrainian movement—as I did, incidentally, in the agreement with M.A. Slavinsky—despite this movement's grave sin against the Jews. But I consider it unacceptable to deny this sin or to treat it as a trifle. And if there are people or groups in the Ukrainian movement who think that pogroms are a forgivable trifle, that one can tolerate the systematic slaughter of Jews and still remain heroes and pure—then I am not a friend to such people and groups, but an enemy, and I warn Ukrainian society that such people or groups are not its friends, but its enemies.

^

Academic Distortion: Was Jabotinsky a Leader Prior to 1923?

How do academics distort?

Example:

From a book review by Professor Josdeph Heller published in Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, April 1993, pp. 355-369 -

Anyone who checks Google, Wikipedia or the Jabotinsky Institute will readily find that he was a leader on the world Zionist stage well before 1910.

He was one of the initiators of Jewish self-defence in 1905 in Russia. Was a delegate to the 1903 Zionist Congress and subsequently became one of Russia's leading Zionists polemicists. He was sent to Turkey to lead the Zionist press there in 1909. By 1913, he was on the Committee to establsih the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Almost single-handedly he establsihed the Jewish Legion in 1917. He was a member of the Zionist Commission in 1919. In 1920 he led the Hagana in Jerusalem. In 1921 he was appointed to the World Zionist Executive. He was a member of the Keren Hayesod delegation to America spending some eight months there.

He was a leader.

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Left-wing anti-Zionism - Historical Note

From the abstract of the article: "The Palestine Question in the Soviet Press in the 1920s and 1930s", Kesher No. 38 (2019):

The Soviet state and Party press invested much space in discussing events in and around Palestine. It was a major vehicle in presenting the Soviet leadership's official stance to readers in and outside the Soviet Union in all matters related to foreign policy. In the first half of the 1920s, the Soviet press reported with emphasis a "drastic turning point" in Great Britain's Middle East policy: "The general situation in the Near East has forced Britain to waive its policy of pro-Zionist bias and to tilt toward the Arabs," mainly due to "the growing strength of the [...] Arab national movement [...] in Palestine." 

In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviet press indulged in active anti-Zionist propaganda of three main types. The first was comprised of ideological and political criticism of Zionism. Soviet publications termed Zionism the "idealistic national movement" and devoted much attention to "exposing" Zionism's class essence. Bogen called Zionism "the dream of the Jewish petite bourgeoisie, which lacks a class perspective." In the opinion of Broido, Deputy People's Commissar for Nationalities, Zionism is shunned due to the "class despair of the Jewish bourgeoisie, which was driven from its economic bastions by its powerful rivals: Russian, Polish, and American capital, etc." The "British imperialism" and "Jewish economic circles, which view Palestine as a convenient place to invest money," were considered the main pillars of the Zionist Movement. Hence the definition of Zionism as "the ally of British imperialism" and "spearhead of the capitalist colonization of Palestine." The press repeatedly spoke of the bankruptcy of Zionism. Similarly, from the second half of the 1920s (and regularly from the early 1930s onward), it commonly applied the term "Fascist" or "Social Fascist" not only to the European Social Democratic movement but to Zionism as well. Second, the Soviet press ran frequent descriptions of the horrors awaiting Jews who immigrated to the "Land of the Patriarchs." The evident purpose, quite clearly, was to reduce their numbers. 

The press described Palestine as a place where "unparalleled exploitation of workers is practiced" amid "a perceptible increase in prostitution, a phenomenon unmatched anywhere in the Jewish Diaspora." It also underscored the lack of minimum security for the immigrants, since "the British authorities have disavowed their promise due to unwillingness to offend the Arabs," whereas Zionist leaders "are afraid of making their relations with Britain, which are bad to begin with, even worse." The press made special efforts to present accounts of Jews who left Palestine for the Soviet Union. Third, the Soviet press contrasted the favorable outcomes of Soviet policy for the improvement of Jews' status in the USSR with the "failures" of Zionism. Especially noteworthy is the criticism that the Soviet newspapers brought against the Zionist Labor Movement and emphasis on the claim that "proletarian Zionism" lacks broad support among "workers of the soil and true proletarians." Conclusions were drawn from these arguments about the lack of support for Zionism among workers in Palestine (Bogen) or workers' mass abandonment of Zionist ideas (Drezen, Steinberg). Media publications posited the Soviets' Jewish resettlement projects against the Zionist programs that were geared to solve the Jewish problem. Thus, the Crimea plan sponsored by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) was termed "the bitterest fruit served up to the Zionist Congress in Vienna in 1925." 

At the outset of the Jewish resettlement project in Birobidjan (late 1920s—early 1930s), the Soviet press habitually stated that the British authorities would never allow Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Soviet pundits were wont to note the "perceptible change that has come about in the situation in Palestine." Thus, they spoke about the change in the composition of immigrants, "who are not only Zionist occupiers but also victims of the Fascist regime, fleeing for their lives from Germany to Palestine." The Soviet leadership viewed with concern the growing strength of anti-Jewish thinking among the Arabs, which they construed as evidence of the victory of Nazi propaganda. However, it smiled on the actions of the Arab "guerrilla fighters who are attacking the Zionist colonies, [which were] established on land confiscated [from the Arabs]." The Soviet authorities regarded the Zionist formula for the solution of the Jewish problem as "an intrigue of British imperialism," even though Jewry obviously was up against an unprecedented catastrophe. Only "the unification of the ranks of Jewish and Arab workers in Palestine and the establishment of a united front among all progressive elements" might, to the Soviet leadership's minds, solve the problem that had come about in Palestine.

I add:

An example of the convolutionism can be found in this booklet composed in 1939 by Paul Novick of the National Council of Jewish Communists

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Antifa in Palestine or, When Avigdor Hameiri Turned on Jabotinsky

Avigdor Hameiri (1890-1970) was born in Hungary, then ruled by the Ukraine, as Avigdor Feuerstein. He published his first poem in Hebrew in 1907 and his first book of poetry five years later. 

For approximately two years he fought in Galicia against the Russian army and at the end of 1916 was captured. For six months he was transported to, and tortured in, various prison camps in Asiatic Russia, until he was set free in February 1917 as a result of the Russian Revolution. 

Hameiri immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1921, joined the staff of the daily Haaretz, and was editor of several literary and cultural journals. In 1932, he founded the first social satirical theater in Hebrew in Tel Aviv, Ha'Metateh. Hameiri wrote over 30 books, including poetry, novels, short stories, non-fiction and children’s books. He was awarded the Bialik Institute Prize (1936) and the Israel Prize (1968).

Among his works are the documentary novels Ha-Shiga‘on ha-gadol (The Great Madness; 1929) and Be-Gehinom shel matah (Hell on Earth; 1932); three compendia of surrealistic-fantastical short stories (1925–1928); and an anthology of poetry, Sefer ha-shirim (The Book of Poems; 1932), which includes some of his best lyrical poems. These latter works are Hebrew literature’s most important contributions to pacifist literature, a genre that flourished in the wake of World War I. 

During the late 1920s, he befriended Ze'ev Jabotinsky with whom he conducted a correspondence preserved in the Jabotinsky Institute Archives and was partially employed in two of the newspapers then associated with the Revisionist Movement - Doar HaYom and Ha'Am. Together with Jabotinsky and Itamar Ben-Avi, they thought to romanize the Hebrew alphabet.

Jabotinsky and Hameiri articles highlighted in Doar Hayom April 5, 1929:

On March 12, 1929, Hameiri and Jabotinsky are advertised to appear on the same stage for a Trumpeldor Memorial on behalf of Betar in Jerusalem:

In his own biographical entry that he authored for David Tidhar's Encyclopedia of Eretz-Yisrael Pioneers, he erases all mention of his links with Jabotinsky and Revisionism. On January 14, 1929, it was reported that he had spoken to a group of Betar members in Tel Aviv on the topic of "slogans' amongst the youth. Much earlier, on April 30, 1924, a letter appeared in the conservative Doar HaYom, responding to an article in Ha'Aretz (here), 

complaining about insults that were published in the left-wing socialist weekly HaPoal HaTzair against Hameiri (the letter - ).

What happened? (As for Jabotinsky's fall-out with Bialik, see here.)

Although the Zionist socialists and German Zionists had begun, already by 1925, to refer to Jabotinsky as a 'fascist', the big break came as a result of the 1929 riots which some viewed as resulting from the efforts of Jabotinsky and Betar to assure Jewish rights at the Western Wall as well as the economic confrontations over the role of the Histadrut dominance in which Mapai-linked groups initiated violence towards Betar at strikes and meetings. The 1933 murder of Chaim Arlosoroff was a further event that led to socialist anti-Revisionist extremism and could have been decisive for Hameiri.

In a letter that Jabotinsky sent him on December 11, 1929, it is possible to grasp the indications of the beginnings of Hameiri's transformation (in another letter, Jabotinsky remarks as to Hameiri bit of a peacock character): 

"I am sorry that here you are writing about a 'broken heart.' Perhaps you meant the wounded heart of a Jew who saw the events, then I understand. But if there is a hint in your words of a personal wound of a friend who was insulted by his closest friends - I am sorry. The heads of the square do not understand insults between friends. Both I am insulted and I insult: Schwam Drieber (forget about it) and there are no accounts. It is impossible to work in any other way. I would be very happy if you would accept this philosophy despite all the personal obstacles."

By this time, Hameiri's pacifism had increased. I found a January 25, 1931 new item reporting that there were official Zionist complaints about speeches Hame'ri was making in Czechoslovakia as he was on an official Keren HaYesod speaking tour. Again, ,ost of 1932 he was abroad and probably was influenced by the events there.

Not long after, in Germany, a new anti-Nazi/fascist movement developed: Antifa, Antifaschistische Aktion, founded in 1932. It was a Communist storm troop group based on  paramilitary organisation, Roter Frontkämpferbund (Alliance of Red Front-Fighters), established by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), in 1929.

Its Palestine branch was established in 1934. They, too, engaged with the Zionist Right. In 1936, it presented its own Memorandum of the violent Arab 'disturbances'. Some of its members went off to volunteer in Spain's civil war. It resurrected form, it is active today in Israel.

On April 12, 1935, a ceremonial opening of the Second National Antifa Conference took place at the Mugrabi Theater in Tel Aviv. Hameiri spoke. An English translation has been published of that speech. The relevant excerpts to Hameiri's attitude at that time to Jabotinsky and Revisionism is evident and follows:

During one of my discussions with my friends, the creators of Jewish fascism in Israel, I asked their leader if he has ever felt the double responsibility implicit in war: 1) responsibility to himself, to his own life, that is to say those whom he loves and whose love depends on him—his wife, sons, mother, brothers, and friends who fear for his life; 2) responsibility to others—the simple, upright men under his command who risk dying a gruesome death at any moment. I knew that he had never felt this in his life. I knew that he had never in his life stood face to face with awful death and never experienced the grisly death of others. It was enough for me to read his book about the Jewish Legion, to sense that he had never been at the front in his life. It is difficult to deceive us on this point—we, who came so close to death, not once but several times during the war. It is sufficient for us to hear a short sentence from someone about the war to recognize that, for him, it is only a theoretical concept...

Only when a quarter of my life had passed did I gradually realize for whom and for what I had given up everything for which my sacred soul had wailed and wondered: it was for the new Hebrew fascism that copies all the impurities in Europe in all its details!

...have carefully preserved my socialist ideal even at a time when I was forced to work for non-socialist newspapers, who, by the way, never thought of equating Marxism with infamy. My socialist ideal always seeks its counterpart in every party and movement, in the same way it sought it in revisionism until it became too right wing. I speak here in the name of the deep inner revulsion that damages my  entire life, I speak about the human impurity called war, about which Fascists shamelessly boast, and which our Hebrew Fascists imitate with buttons and straps, confusing our youth who haven’t tasted war even in their dreams...I will rise up from my grave to warn you against this loathsome poison that your children soak up without proper knowledge of what is happening by their parents and teachers, who have not yet trodden the path on which fascism steals into young, impressionable brains...

...I wish that you could inoculate your children with an antidote against the plague called “culture of the homeland,” whose sole purpose is to sacrifice them like sheep on the altar of the unappeasable appetite of the Capitalist Moloch!......We must scream with all our strength, and whisper burning words in each other’s ears, against a war for such “culture” and “ideals”: Don’t go! Don’t go! Don’t go! Better to die on the spot than go and die over there or even to return like a leprous dog, living for generations for the next war like a leprous dog and then dying like a leprous dog!

Learn the bitterest, most obstinate slogan of all: Don’t go! Don’t go! Don’t go!"

What is obvious from this is that Hameiri both errs as to facts and has made a political volte face. Jabotinsky actually did fight on the front, leading his men in an enagagement at the Jordan River and it is in the book he mentions.

On September 23, 1918, the Fusiliers were ordered to capture the Umm esh-Shert crossing and Jabotinsky led the first company to cross the River Jordan for which he was praised for his courage in leading the Fusiliers during the difficult action under firs from the enemy Turks.

Using the terms "Marxism", "socialist" and "Capitalist" points to a turnabout in his political orientation or to gross hypocrisy for money during his work with the Revisionist press. Another similar instance is that of Arthur Koestler.

Having to recourse to a diary of Hameiri and the limited sources I have so far located, I am inclined to limit myself to assuming that personality aspects played much upon his mind, that is, the horror of war, and perhaps, also, his own battlefield experience, not to mention the obvious hypocrisy his previous employments reveal.

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