David Ben-Gurion Talking with Brit Shalom

David Ben-Gurion to the members of the binationalist "Brit Shalom" in November 1929:

"But if in your formula you want to establish the equal value of the land for Jews and Arabs, then you are again missing the point and distorting the truth. Israel for the Jewish people and Israel for the Arab people are not the same thing.

The Arab nation is holding a multitude of vast countries, whose area in Asia alone is about a third of the area of ​​all of Europe. The economic, cultural and political existence of the Arab nation, its national identity and statehood are not tied to and do not depend on the Land of Israel. Our country is but a small region in the vast and gigantic territory inhabited by Arabs – and, by the way, exceptionally sparsely. Only one fragment of the Arab people – perhaps seven or eight percent (if we consider only the Arabs of Asian countries), lives in the Land of Israel and is tied to it. This is not the case with the Jewish people.

For the entire Jewish nation – in all its generations and diasporas – this is the one and only land with which its fate and historical future as a nation are tied. Only in this land can it renew and sustain its own life, its national spirit and its unique culture, only here could it establish its sovereignty and state freedom. And whoever obscures this truth – determines the soul of the nation.

We are commanded to preserve the rights and equality of our Arab neighbors, but we would be lying to ourselves if we said that Israel is the same for the Arab people as Israel is for the Hebrew people. If this comparison is what the formula of binationalism refers to, then it is nothing but a distortion of the truth and a neutering of the purpose. Instead of this distorted formula, I say: Israel is destined for the Hebrew people and the Arabs who live within it."

Sounds like Jabotinsky to me.

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Responding to the Jabotinsky Fascist Claim

I see that in the new issue, my letter does not appear (not that I expected it).

An extract from a review of Tom Segev's biography of David Ben-Gurion in the New York Review of Books:

Segev consistently opts for the less charitable interpretation...A more significant example is the conflict with the Revisionists, a militant, nationalist faction of the Zionist movement, which later evolved into the Likud party. Ben-Gurion described them as an enemy and the fight against them as a war. He called the Revisionist party “a Jewish Nazi party” and its leader, the Odessa-born writer Vladimir Jabotinsky, “Vladimir Hitler.” For Segev, this was all “verbal acrobatics.” In November 1944, following a series of terrorist attacks by the Revisionist underground organizations against British targets, Ben-Gurion ordered Haganah forces to crack down on them. Surrendering Jewish fighters to the resented Mandate authorities was no more popular among his ranks than restraint in the face of Arab violence had been a decade earlier. But he insisted: “The two are incompatible—either the way of the terrorists or the way of Zionism.”

According to Segev, this too was merely a political power play, “a struggle over who would rule the Jewish state that would be born after the war.” The differences between them—differences that arguably shape the political landscape in Israel to this day—are in his account negligible:

Jabotinsky was not a fascist any more than Ben-Gurion was a Marxist. Ben-Gurion was no less nationalist or militarist than Jabotinsky. The right-left divide in the Zionist movement was largely a matter of style and modes of operation, not of fundamental values. In the large picture, it was a fight over power more than it was over ideas.

It is true that Labor Zionists and Revisionists had the same goal: an independent state with a Jewish majority in historic Palestine. (Though arguably they had very different ideas about the character this state should have; the sympathy expressed by prominent Revisionists for fascism—saluting their leader as “Duce” and their unscrupulous targeting of civilians—might plausibly be taken to indicate differences in “fundamental values.”) Indeed, both parties were opposed to binationalism—the creation of a single state for both Jews and Arabs in Palestine—which was advocated in one form by the Communists and in another by a group of utopian intellectuals known as Brit Shalom. But the ideological conflicts in the Zionist movement cannot be reduced to the question of binationalism (a fanciful idea even by Segev’s account).

At a high enough altitude all differences disappear. For Segev, it seems, ideas belong to the sublime realm of fundamental values or goals. Everything else is just power, by which he means the struggle for personal gain and position. But between values and egos lies the domain of what is to be done—the domain of politics. That is where Ben-Gurion excelled.

I sent this letter to the editor:

In Assaf Sharon's review of Tom Segev's biography of David Ben-Gurion (‘This Obstinate Little Man’, Nov. 4), he refers to the clash between Ben-Gurion and Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky. Sharon notes Segev's opinion that "Jabotinsky was not a fascist any more than Ben-Gurion was a Marxist" yet adds his own view that Jabotinsky's followers were "saluting their leader as 'Duce'" and engaged in "unscrupulous targeting of civilians".

Only one member of Jabotinsky's Revisionist Party, Dr. Abba Ahimeir, suggested such behavior but Jabotinsky rejected the idea. Only amongst members in the Italian branch of his movement was he called 'Duce' due to the political atmosphere in that country. As Avishai Margalit explained in these pages (NYRB, "The Spell of Jabotinsky", Nov. 6, 2014), Jabotinsky repudiated fascism. He refused to meet Mussolini (although Chaim Weizmann did so, four times).

It need also be clarified that the "civilians" targeted were Arabs during the 1937-1939 years of the Arab Revolt when, after Arab terror gangs attacked Jewish civilians in their homes, in marketplaces and on public transportation, the Revisionist militia, the Irgun, retaliated in kind.

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A 1934 'Either...Or'

In the David Ben-Gurion Archives, you can find a summary of a conversation between two Arabs from Mandate Palestine with Israel Cohen, general secretary of the World Zionist Organization headquarted in Great Britain, which took place in London in June 1934.

As you can see, the only choice the Arab spokesman offered was that between the Balfour Declaration or Arab friendship:

Who was that Totah who thought so highly of "Arab friendship" for the Jews rather than a statement of diplomatic intent?

Here at the Quaker School in Ramallah

Khalil Totah was an Arab-American Quaker Educator and Palestinian Nationalist Crusader who married an American Quaker and Amy Smith writes:

Dr. Khalil Totah belonged to a generation of Syrians who grew up with an appreciation for the “modern” spirit that was sweeping the world...Totah and his fellow intellectuals were not so much inspired by [US President Woodrow[ Wilson’s words, but rather they viewed them as support of a pre-existing sentiment. Greater Syrians had been developing ideas of freedom and democracy since their cultural and intellectual renaissance in the mid-19th century... Dr. Khalil Totah provides one small piece of a larger transformation in Syria. His writings show the evolution of Arab nationalism in Palestine during a transformative era.

Smith's dissertation further informs, p. 134, that as regards that 1934 trip:

The Friends’ Committee requested that in 1934 Totah travel with an American Quaker from Lebanon, Daniel Oliver, to an annual Friends Meeting in London. He was to meet with British Quakers and plead the case for Palestine. The Quaker organization also arranged for him to meet with government officials to discuss “The Question of Palestine.” 

From the rest of Cohen's report, we can see that as Arab propaganda then, so today:

 

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'Saving Private David Ben-Gurion'

From this academic paper:

Sedjera has been the first Jewish village in the East of the Lower Galilee, from the very begining they turned to us to help protecting the village. They hired a guard from Kfar Kama, Daot Gorkhoz (...) One night at Sedjera, while everything was calm and quiet, and while everyone was asleep (...) Daot noticed that there was some light in house, and that it was unusual for that hour. Suddenly, he saw a shadow, he loaded his gun and aimed the target. He said: "Stop, who are you?", in order to know if it was someone from the village, he asked the password. The person answered correctly and when he approached, Daot realized he was one guard from the village. The guard asked Daot why he was here, Daot answered that he had hear a noise and that he wanted to know where it came from. The guard ordered him to return to his position, Daot obeyed. 

Less than an hour later he heard shouts and cries, he came back to the  place, there were some gunfires. All the guards rand and Daot told them: "some people attacked the village, there was a fight between them and David". David was lying on the ground, he was bleeding. Daot took him on his shoulders and carried him to the house next door to Moshe Korakin's one. He ran to the infirmary of the village to prevent the auxiliary, they returned together to David with a bag ful of drugs in order to treat him. The auxiliary said: "we must go for medical assistance immediately, we need to go to Yavnel to advise the doctor, David is going to die". Daot suggested to go there, the guards told him "do not go alone, take someone with you" but Daot told them that it would be better to use all the guards to protect the village and that he was not afraid to go there alone. He jumped on his horse and went right to Yavnel, not by the road, like people usually do, but through the fields because it was faster even if it was dangerous because of the gangs who were helding the fields. But Daot knew he could not waste time (...) nobody was daring to go out at night because everyone was afraid of the gangs. 

When he arrived at Yavnel, he knocked on the door of the doctor but all the family was deeply asleep. The he shouted "open, open" until the doctor opened. Daot explained him that there was an emergency case in Sedjera and that he had to come right now in order to prevent the guard diying in the night. The doctor mounted his horse and asked Daot which way he took to arrive to Yavnel. Daot answered "by the fields", the doctor told him that it was too dangerous and that they should go through the road of Kfar Kama, in order to be secured. When they arrived at Sedjera, the doctor examined David and said that his state of health was very worrying and that he had to  be brought to the hospital, in Tiberias (...) David was saved.

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Arms for...Eshkol

The "Feinberg" in this May 20, 1965 document snippet is Abe Feinberg, who, among other things, was President of Americans for the Hagana and organizer of Truman's "whistle-stop" tour that gained him the election (he "came up with a pledge to raise the money for a whistle stop") -

The context is the internal political fight between David Ben-Gurion and Levy Eshkol (see below).

Whether those tanks ever arrived, I do not, as yet, know but I remind you that in 1967, the US joined in on the ban for Israel to have tanks participate in the Independence Day parade, but that's another story.

In any case, America has a long history of internal interference in Israeli elections.


_________

On the Ben-Gurion/Eshkol dispute from May 17, 1965:

The Mapai Party Secretariat, after two days of deliberations, today decided to express full confidence in Prime Minister Eshkol and to back him in his dispute with former Premier David Ben-Gurion which came to a head last week, when Ben-Gurion called Mr. Eshkol “unfit” to lead the party and the country...While superficially, Mapai seemed to be on the verge of a split, party leaders today expressed confidence that no split would develop.
...Mr. Eshkol [had] declared: “If there are members of the Government who think about me the way ‘that man’ does, I suggest they free themselves from their posts.” He added that despite the sharp attack on him, he intended to continue his policies until the end of the Government’s term.
...In addressing the Mapai Secretariat during the weekend, Premier Eshkol took up Ben-Gurion’s charge that he had opposed a renewed investigation of the Lavon Affair on grounds it would open a “Pandora’s Box” of issues involving Israel’s security activities. Ben-Gurion had said that any individual afraid of Pandoras Boxes should not be Premier even if the party’s center elected him...Also attacking Mr. Ben-Gurion, Foreign Minister Golda Meir told the Secretariat that, while there were no actual differences between the majority and the minority on the issue, there was “merciless slander and libel and personal war directed at eliminating certain comrades.”...Education Minister Zalman Aranne deplored the “evil spirit” that was hovering over the party and charged that Ben-Gurion was treating Premier Eshkol the way he treated former Premier Moshe Sharett ten years ago. 

'Utter Lack of Reality'

The news, then:

Premier David Ben Gurion today made an unexpected appearance at a meeting of the Legal Committee of the Knesset when the Committee started examining a motion introduced several days ago by Menachem Beigin, leader of the Herut Party, urging the proclamation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Mr. Ben Gurion asked the Committee to postpone discussions on this motion for one week. His suggestion was accepted by all members of the Committee with the exception of the Herut representative.

Excerpted from this item:

U.N. Decision on International Rule for Jerusalem Cannot Be Implemented. Israel SaysDecember 9, 1949

The Israel Government emphasized today that the resolution adopted yesterday by the U.N. Special Political Committee placing Jerusalem under international trusteeship is “unrealistic and not implementable.” A spokesman for the government said:

“We, of course, regret the vote and we hope that the resolution will not secure the required two-thirds majority in the U.N. General Assembly when it comes up for a vote. It may be all very well for countries remote from Jerusalem to vote as they did yesterday. But those of us who are close to Jerusalem can see the utter lack of reality in the resolution. It is simply incapable of implementation.

“The United Nations will be letting itself in for an absolutely certain fiasco if the resolution is passed at the General Assembly. Not only is the scheme expressed in the resolution objectively unworkable, but it runs directly counter to the united will of the people of Jerusalem. No system of government can succeed which is not based on the consent of those governed. Jews of Jerusalem will tolerate no outside regime...

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From Netanyahu & The Mufti to Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky

Did you know the David Ben-Gurion referred to Ze'ev Jabotinsky as "Vladimir Hitler"?

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Caption Required

My suggestion:

"Thanks for that anti-Begin letter in the New York Times. Couldn't have said it better."

Irgun and Lechi More Than Justified

Rafael Medoff of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies sent me this news alert (what I call a press release):

CHURCHILL GOV’T SECRETLY PROPOSED ANTI-ZIONIST PLAN, SCHOLAR SAYS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The government of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1944 secretly proposed creating a “Greater Syria” that would have shut Holocaust escapees out of Palestine and thwarted creation of a Jewish state, according to an Israeli scholar, citing newly-released French government documents.

“This raises important questions about Winston Churchill’s attitudes toward Jewish refugees and Zionism,” said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. “Further research will hopefully shed more light on whether the gap between Churchill’s rhetoric and his actions was in fact greater than previously realized, as these documents suggest.”

...Prof. Zamir’s findings about the Churchill government’s “Greater Syria” plan run counter to two recent books, Churchill and the Jews by Martin Gilbert, and Churchill’s Promised Land, by Michael Makovsky, which portray Churchill as sympathetic and helpful to the Zionist cause and to Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

Writing in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz (Feb. 1, 2008), Prof. Zamir reported that in a previously-unknown British proposal to Syria’s leaders in August 1944, and in a secret British-Syrian agreement signed in June 1945, the Churchill government “assured Syria that it would limit Jewish immigration and thwart the emergence of an independent Jewish state in Palestine.”

For the full text of Prof. Zamir’s essay, please go here


Well, I also have thoughts on the matter:

a. if Ben-Gurion was almost a prophet (see Zamir's piece), what are we to do with Begin who declared a revolt in February 1944 or Yair, June 1940?

b. if Britain began its treason against the Yishuv in August 1944, then the claim that it was the Moyne assassination in Cairo that forced Churchill to abandon the partition idea and reject Zionism for a while is a non-starter for that shooting occured in November 1944.

c. so the Irgun and Lechi not only kicked the British out of Palestine but Syria and Lebanon as well.

It's a shame Zamir didn't go beyond the parameters of Ben-Gurion in his piece.

Further independent research is required.

UPDATE

The real point is that while Begin, et al. set out to remove the British regime, none of the "small issues" really made a difference - Britain was in the wrong in the most fundamental way and eventually, this recent material came out. BG & Weizmann's pro-British policies were what endangered the Yishuv more than just trying to be nice.