By Jeremiah Haber
Recently, Prof. Efraim Karsh gave a talk at my university, in which he claimed that contrary to received wisdom, the Arab-Israeli conflict was not inevitable, that the Palestinian Arab masses were willing to live in peace among the Zionists, that they were betrayed by their leadership, the Arab states and the British.
Part of what he said made sense, especially the betrayal business, since it is pretty close to what Rashid Khalidi says in the Iron Cage. But, of course, the Zionists indeed made the conflict inevitable when they came, as settlers, to a country and conspired with the mandate authorities to carve out a state for themselves. That many of the natives were fellahin who weren’t particularly nationalistic, or did not have a Palestinian national identity is irrelevant, just as it was irrelevant for the millions across Africa and the Middle East where colonial regions become states.
But the best refutation of Karsh (which he dismissed as “bullshit”) was provided by Hans Kohn in 1929, after the first Arab disturbances against the Jews. Kohn, a Zionist who had emigrated from Germany to Jerusalem, broke with Zionism after the riots. Here is some of what he wrote.
I cannot concur with [official Zionist policy] when the Arab national movement is being portrayed as the wanton agitation of a few big landowners. I know all too well that frequently the most reactionary imperialist press in England and France portrays the national movements in India, Egypt, and China in a similar fashion – in short, wherever the national movements of oppressed peoples threaten the interest of the colonial power. I know how false and hypocritical this portrayal is. We pretend to be innocent victims…
Of course the Arabs attacked us in August. Since they have no armies the could not obey the rules of war. They perpetrated all the barbaric acts that are characteristic of a colonial revolt. But we are obliged to look into the deeper cause of this revolt. We have been in Palestine for twelve years [since the British mandate] without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people. We have been relying exclusively upon Great Britain’s military might. We have set ourselves goals which by their very nature had to lead to conflict with Arabs…We ought to have recognized that these goals would be the cause, the just cause, of a national uprising against us. ..Having come to this country [as immigrants], we were duty bound to come up with constitutional proposals which, without doing serious harm to Arabs right and liberty, would have also allowed for our free cultural and social development. But for twelve years we pretended that the Arabs did not exist and were glad when we were not reminded of their existence
-Hans Kohn, Letter to Dr. Feiwel, Jerusalem, 21 November 1929, cited in Paul Mendes-Flohr, ed. Martin Buber, A Land of Two Peoples.
So Karsh was refuted already in 1929 by a far-seeing Zionist. Needless to say, when I confronted him with the passage, he dismissed it as “bullshit”. The more things change….
Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber is the nom de plume of an Orthodox Jewish studies and philosophy professor, who divides his time between Israel and the United States. This post was originally published on his blog, The Magnes Zionist, on May 4, 2012.
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Stasis
But it sort of does sound like bullshit…
caden
I’ve read some of what this guy writes. He is as much a zionist has Nasrallah, Marzook, and Barghouti. And holds the same views
Danny
Of course this argument is bullshit – it completely ignores the universally-recognized truth that the Jews are and always have been God’s chosen people! And as such, have an innate right to “Eretz Yisrael” (even though the Arabs have been living there for many generations before the first Jewish immigrant ever set foot there).
Cortez
“Of course this argument is bullshit – it completely ignores the universally-recognized truth that the Jews are and always have been God’s chosen people! And as such, have an innate right to “Eretz Yisrael” (even though the Arabs have been living there for many generations before the first Jewish immigrant ever set foot there).”
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Universal to whom? Over 90% of the Arabs (which includes Jewish, Christian and Muslim Arabs) who are living in Israel according to archaeologist, DNA test and historians represent a core population that has been in place for thousands of years. Anyways…all people should be treated equally.
palestinian
Cortez , its either you are confused or I’m ,we arent arguing whether the Palestinians are indigenous to the land or not but to bring me a German and claim his/her ancestors lived there 3000 years ago only because he/she happens to be Jewish !
Richard Witty
The element that is bullshit about the history is that various responsible parties in the Yishuv did repeatedly make overtures to on the ground Arab communities, distant Arab leaders (in a state of civil war and struggle, by the way), mandatory and international institutions.
To claim that the yishuv ONLY sought to take over is a false implication.
Commonly held with the modern historiography, but still false.
I wrote to Jerry (not posted on his blog), that it felt to me like an effort to shame Zionism, Zionists, rather than an effort to resolve differences, apply color-blind justice, or just get the Palestinian community on its feet and sovereign.
I personally resent the effort to ask that Zionists, and diaspora Jewish and other supporters, live in a state of “walking shame”, meaning the equivalent of original and irredeemable sin, rather than an urging of acceptance of the other (both ways).
There is no question that the Arab and specifically Palestinian communities got the short end of the stick, continue to.
But, that is a different beast entirely than the shaming of the left towards Zionists, (reactionary, defensive, moderate and kind alike).
Danny
“Universal to whom?”
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Universal to God-fearing white guys in the American bible belt.
caden
How does a guy like Haber who is an advocate of the destruction of Israel qualify has a zionist?
Joel
Secret French intelligence archives from the 1940′s have revealed that Judah Magnes held secret, personal meetings with the Arabs while their leadership conspired with Great Britain to destroy the new Jewish State.
See the groundbreaking research of Professot Meir Zamir.
Magnes was at best, a ‘useful idiot’ and at worst a high traitor.
Joel
“Of course the Arabs attacked us in August…..We have been relying exclusively upon Great Britain’s military might. We have set ourselves goals which by their very nature had to lead to conflict with Arabs”
So why in August 1929, did the Arab masses needed to get stoked into a religious frenzy with doctored photos of supposed Jewish desecration of Moslem holy sites?
Richard Witty
Disappointingly, my earlier post was rejected.
I do not know why.
Cortez
Palestinian: I was responding to the old “Arabs have been here for many generations” but not all generations lie that has been proven to be untrue.
Joel
Mine too.
Maybe someone’s got their panties in a twist.
Kolumn9
Oh those poor Arab mobs hunting down Jews in Hebron. If only they had been asked nicely about whether they would be willing to not kill Jews for sport perhaps they would have not done so. This is like Robert Fisk’s crap about ‘understanding’ the Afghan mob that attacked him because of their hurt Muslim pride. If only the Jews had subserviently crawled on their knees when coming back to their homeland then the Muslims would have been generous and all would be kumbaya.
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I am assuming the same logic should apply when ‘undersanding’ the poor oppressed anti-immigrant gangs beating up non-Europeans in Europe or is it only understandable when the violence is carried out by the innocent oppressed noble savages?
Joel
“Of course the Arabs attacked us in August…..We have been relying exclusively upon Great Britain’s military might. We have set ourselves goals which by their very nature had to lead to conflict with Arabs”
So why in August 1929, did the Arab masses needed to get stoked into a religious frenzy with doctored photos of supposed Jewish desecration of Moslem holy sites?
Aaron the Fascist Troll
I’ve never heard of Hans Kohn, but I came to the same conclusions myself; I know I’ve been repeating them ad nauseam in comments here (sorry!). I do have a minor disagreement with what Jeremiah Haber wrote, though.
It wasn’t the Zionist will “to carve out a state for themselves” that made Arab resistance both inevitable and just. It was much less than that: it was mass Jewish settlement in Palestine itself. Even if Jews had wanted to establish a Jewish home under the Ottoman Empire, integrated into the existing political structure, with no statehood or sovereignty, Zionism would still have been a threat to the existence of the indigenous people. But apparently the anti-Zionist left can’t go along with that: Michael Neumann makes the same argument as Haber in his The Case Against Israel, focusing on the injustice of Jewish *sovereignty* and implicitly accepting the justice of mass Jewish settlement. But it’s Jewish settlement, not only Jewish sovereignty, that was the existential threat at the time.
Greg Pollock
Aaron: “it’s Jewish settlement, not only Jewish sovereignty, that was the existential threat at the time.”
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And now the Supreme Court of Israel, in the Citizenship case, speaks of preventing “national suicide,” Arab increase now the existential threat to Isreal.
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Here we all stand. And we have to find a way to prevent, or ameliorate, recurrence of the past.
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Kolumn9, you well know many Arabs hid Jews during the time you speak of.
palestinian
Greg ,those “Arabs” /Palestinians are the indigenous population ,there is no place for your comparison.And dont worry Israel is doing its best to decrease the population of the Palestinians starting from discriminative citizenship laws to encouraging crimes among the Palestinians (every dead arab is a good arab).The “peaceful” Jews who were flooding Palestine were preparing for their …crimes,they werent angels attacked by “barbaric” Arabs.
caden
If Israel is decreasing the Arab population by those evil Jewish methods they are are doing one lousy job at it. Perhaps lessons from the Arabs might be in order. They really know how to ethnically cleanse.
max
There’s the traditional mix of considerations.
First, the historical context: there’s no question in my mind that the Zionist movement couldn’t have developed as it did in our times. However, at the time it was quite natural and the legality of the partitioning the Ottoman Empire not questioned much.
The historical context is also the only reason for those who claim that Jews were accepted by Arabs before Zionism, as this ‘acceptance’ – with a pogrom here and there during hundreds of years – can only be viewed as positive in comparison to their treatment in other countries, at that time.
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Then, there’s the distinction between the rights of the individuals and that of Nations, and there’s no question about the fact that the people living in Palestine weren’t widely considered as a Nation.
And while the rights of people to their land is separated from their rights to government land, the implications of the way it’s being used is that there’s no sense to deal with non-democratic governments (whatever democracy means) and – for example – that Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt is invalid.
Further, it allows playing both hands: it’s the leadership’s fault, not the people’s, so if you’re forced to fight – and win – the leadership, you’ll still have to address the people…
This plays into the hands of those who claim that Israel has no partner: the people voted Hamas, the PA has no mandate.
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Finally, there’s the fact that the problem now is not the problem then, and keeping with the I’m Right theme will not solve the problem – the refugees have been rejected by their Arab brothers and want their own country, and the Jews are here to stay, in a country that will accept Jews because they’re Jews.
……………………………….
But let’s get rid of the façade: the clear message of Mr. Haber and Palestinian is that the victims of the Hebron massacre are guilty of their own massacre.
Richard Witty
Purely on a humanistic level, the determination to shift the relations of Jews to the rest of the world from harrassed pariah, to self-determining peer, is a great good in the world.
May the Palestinians finally get to experience a similar good in the world.
The notion stated by BOTH some Palestinian advocates and some Zionists, that “the land is only ours, we were always there” is both historically false and a denial of justice.
palestinian
You are right Richard ,we should share the land with the thieves ,thats your justice.Why dont we share Europe ?why do non citizens apply for a visa ?some people in Europe are obsessed with the immigrants who comprise less than 5% of their population ,but we have to share our land with 7+million foreigners because they claim their ancestors lived there …3000 years ago ,it makes sense
Joachim Martillo
In Baksheesh Diplomacy Rafael Medoff, who differs little politically from Efraim Karsh, documents an one-state offer made in 1937 by the Mufti (through his brother and by AHC member Izzat Tannous) to allow the Jewish immigrant population to rise to 45% as long as the Zionist leadership was willing to renounce the idea of making Palestine a Jewish state.
Guess what! If all the European Jewish DP’s emigrated to Palestine (highly unlikely), the new state would have been approximately 55% native Palestinian and 45% Jewish immigrant.
It is not improbable that the Palestinian leadership would have accepted such a one-state outcome instead of partion (and were holding out for such a GA resolution — as unfair as it might have seemed to most Palestinians).
Probably in fear of such a new resolution that eliminated partition, Ben-Gurion ordered ethnic cleansing operations to start practically immediately after the Zionist leadership officially accepted partition proposal of November 1947.
rose
here it is the answer:
“The result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialised. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future….The principle of the persistent and deliberate boycott of Arab labour in the Zionist colonies is not only contrary to the provisions of that article of the Mandate, but it is in addition a constant and increasing source of danger to the country.”
Richard Witty
“Thieves”
That language is the permanent divide between live and let live.
THAT, partially because it is prejudicial and national/ethnically screened, rather than judicial, is the commitment to permanent war and to permanently continued theft in reaction.
You are NOT advocating for the rule of law, but to the collective prejudice.
Again, I am proud, happy, that my family of families of families emerged, and in the only locale in which they had any permission to do so following WW2.
The nativist urge (by white protestants) in the US from the 20′s on, created the setting in which European Jews could no longer find refuge in the US in the early and mid-thirties, during the second world war, and following the war.
Only Israel accepted the hundreds of thousands of refugees.
“A great tragedy happened here” is a very different sentiment than “A great crime happened here”, and is a different sentiment also than “The nakba that happened here is permanently unforgivable”.
palestinian
Richard, what do you call someone who takes over your property ? a friend ,can I pick any car I like on the street and keep it ..is that legal in your country ? cool
Joachim Martillo
Jews had difficulty finding refuge in the USA during the mid-30s in the midst of the Great Depression because Jews were an undesirable immigrant group.
By the time Hitler took power in 1933, Jews were already up to their eyeballs in mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
Since the Napoleonic Wars Jews were simply out of control with possibly the worst record in Europe of profiteering from war, usury, financial crimes, economic exploitation, smuggling, kidnapping, white slaving, sabotage, targeted assassination, revolutionary violence, and espionage as well as the aforementioned mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
If it is reasonable to talk about group sociopathy, the Ashkenazi ethnic group certainly qualified in the 1930s and still does to this day.
Ethnic Ashkenazim should be grateful that Christian charity inspired many Christians to attempt to help Jewish refugees despite at least 100 years of outrageous Jewish misbehavior, which continues to this day right before our eyes both in Palestine and also throughout the world.
Rodrigo
Great. The neo-Nazi showed up to provide support to the murder of Jews in 1929 all the way to the present and into the future regardless of where they might be. If there was a Facebook style like button I am sure his comment would be voted up by all the wonderfully liberal readers of 972mag.
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The rest of the people justifying the 1929 murders are retroactively legitimizing it on the basis of considerations that could not possibly make sense in 1929. Even in 1947 the vast majority of Arabs didn’t believe that a Jewish state would rise. Arguing that in 1929 this was the reason for the riots is complete garbage. These were ethnic pogroms against the Jews and those that try to justify it on left-wing or liberal grounds are the worst kind of hypocrites.
max
Joachim is the reason Jews are in Israel, Palestinian the reason the Palestians have no home
Richard Witty
Palestinian,
So long as you use “thief” rather than “suspected thief”, you are prejudicial rather than lawful in my book.
Courts decide the status of title.
There is NO national “theft”, that is a question of sovereignty.
If you are an advocate of democracy, then you would be an advocate of self-determination in the PRESENT, majority rule, not who might have been here.
palestinian
Richard , they arent suspects ,they are living in our homes and land ,they are stealing (in progress) more and more.I dont call it a national theft , they dont make a nation.Before you advocate for democracy ,advocate for justice.
Richard Witty
Palestinian,
Who are “they”? Specific.
Without specific charge of an individual or individual entity, then proven by argument in court, with the right of the accused to make their case, your assertion is not “justice”, but just a mob.
The word “justice” has important real meaning. Don’t diminish it by political rhetoric.
You used the word “property”. That refers ONLY to questions of individual (or individual entity) title.
Richard Witty
Further,
To use the word justice about title or crimes, requires a JUST remedy to be justice.
Again, don’t cheapen the word, please.
palestinian
Richard are you trying to look smart ?mentally I mean .Dont act like a fool , please.By “they” I’m not referring to people in Japan or Peru
properties = our homes ,you know doors , windows , ….homes and a land is a land ,soil..justice is …justice, when someone steals your car ,you “supposedly” will try to get it back .If you wish to take every single “property” in Palestine ,you are gonna do us a favour.
Richard Witty
The term “reactionary” refers to those that see a wrong and over-react.
Its not justice.
To be justice, it has to address cases, NOT the assertions of a mob.
I don’t really care what you “don’t mean”. I do care that you are explicit, rather than vague.
Lots of hatred is promoted by vagueness. Is that “justice”?
palestinian
Richard ,we agree to disagree.One person is living in his utopian world the other seeks his rights that will disrupt the lives of the people who disrupted his …and I choose mine .Your definition of justice maintains their injustice ,thats how people behave when they take side in any conflict .I’m going to sleep.
Richard Witty
“One side”.
That is the logic of war.
War is the least just of any setting.
It makes vanguard solidarity impose its politically correct interpretation onto other solidarity and force conformance, often brutally.
It makes neighbors into enemies, based on changing references of “enemy”.
And, it FAILS to make change.
“Which side are you on?”
The side of mutual humanization and moderation. Live AND let live.
Richard Witty
Your betrayal of “justice” is in the vague use of the term “they”.
Samtor
How long will it take for “Jerry Haber”, “Palestinian” and other deniers of Israel’s legitimacy to recognize that the Jewish People were granted the right to RECONSTITUTE their nation in Palestine under international law at the San Remo Conference, in 1920? Not to “create” out of thin air, but to RECONSTITUTE.
Now, if you reject the authority of the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers, you might as well question the validity of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and even Jordan, which were all states created by the same Council, at the same time and under the same Mandate conditions as the future State of Israel.
You might also question all the other decisions made by the Supreme Council in Europe, and cast doubt on the legality of Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and many other European states.
Aaron the Fascist Troll
Joachim, that historical reference is very relevant and interesting. Two things, though: it came in 1937, which was relatively late, so it could be seen as an attempt by the losing side to avoid a much more catastrophic loss; and it was provided out of context, so it’s hard to see whether it was a sincere offer, a move in a diplomatic game, or what. While it’s relevant to Karsh’s claim, I think my own point holds: the Arab *masses* would not have accepted 45 percent Jewish settlement, with or without Jewish sovereignty. And their resistance was just.
Aaron the Fascist Troll
Richard’s plea for the use of juridical language and the “rule of law” is laughable. The Zionist enterprise was completely legal, by the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations mandate. To ask the indigenous peoples to use juridical language is a bad joke.
Jerry Haber
Since most of these comments don’t have anything to do with what I wrote, I won’t bother to respond.
But there is one point worth responding to, and that is the following:
It wasn’t the Zionist will “to carve out a state for themselves” that made Arab resistance both inevitable and just. It was much less than that: it was mass Jewish settlement in Palestine itself. Even if Jews had wanted to establish a Jewish home under the Ottoman Empire, integrated into the existing political structure, with no statehood or sovereignty, Zionism would still have been a threat to the existence of the indigenous people.”
This is idle speculation because the Zionists never tried to integrate themselves within the existing political structure, nor were they willing to have that structure limit immigration — as Kohn wrote in 1929. (By the way, Kohn was the greatest scholar of nationalism in the 20th century, for those who wrote that they never heard of him.)
Mass Jewish settlement was in order to achieve a numerical majority in Palestine, whose goal was Jewish autonomy, although not necessarily statehood; the latter only became explicit in the early 1940s. Binationlists like Ben Gurion and Katznelson in the 1930s, and even Magnes until relatively late, insisted on unrestricted immigration; the only disagreements were on pacing. This was unacceptable, for obvious and justifiable reasons, to the Palestinian natives.
However, what Kohn is pointing out is that the Zionists (except Brit Shalom) were never willing to seriously engage with Palestinian leaders about how a Jewish homeland would not be a threat to Palestinian arab self-determination. The talks between Zionist and Palestinian leaders were all about buying time for more immigrants to get there, or, when it looked as if Zionism was failing, to try to get the best possible deal for the Zionists
Of course, the Balfour declaration, which only spoke of a Jewish homeland, was anathema to the Arabs for obvious and justifiable reasons. But since the official Zionist movement always asked for more than they could reasonably get, given their numbers, and the mainstream representatives always demanded unrestricted immigration, it was clear to the Palestinians that this settler nationalism was exclusivist. The Zionists came and bought land from absentee landlords, boycotted Palestinian Arab labor, and did nothing that suggested that they wished to work together with the Palestinians. The binationalist and federative proposals of the 1930s and 1940s were about as reasonable as Latinos asking the US for the same today.
There were certainly enough Arab leaders inside and outside Palestine who were willing to allow Jews a national minority status, and the circumstances in which they could build national educational and cultural institutions. But the Zionists wanted more and more, and as they saw they could get more or more, they went for that.
XYZ
I do not accept any of “Haber’s” claims, such as his repeating that the Arabs opposed Jewish immigration for “justifiable” reasons. I may say that they were “understandable” within their context, just as bad behavior can be “understandable” in some context, but not justifiable and society may have the right to outlaw such behavior. Same with the Palestinians “understandable” opposition, which the Zionists had every right to defend themselves against, because the Zionists were and are in the right! (I can hear the gasps coming from all around the world).
One of the ironies is when liberal/left/progressives complain about “Hebrew Labor” saying they discriminated against Arab workers. If the Zionist movement HAD used Arab laborers, Haber and the rest would then claim they had “exploited them”. You just can win.
Remember that South Africa built its wealth on the backs of cheap black labor. The Zionist movement was very wise not to do the same here with the Arabs.
Rodrigo
Jerry, even in your biased narrative you point out that the mainstream Zionists were willing to settle for less than a Jewish state until relatively late. Despite your perfunctory dismissals of such proposals, even in your narrative it is clear which side was unwilling to compromise. Additionally, all your declarations of what was reasonable and unreasonable on both the Jewish and Palestinian sides is based on some strange perfect word. Given where the Jews were at the time I would argue that most of the positions were extremely reasonable. Given where the Palestinians are right now, their positions in the 1930s and 1940s do not seem at all reasonable.
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Defining Zionism as a threat to the ‘indigenous people’ is problematic on multiple counts, starting from definitions. First, there is a question of what is considered a threat. Second, who in this scenario can be considered indigenous people. If the threat was of Jewish autonomy or a binational state, then it could be classified as a threat to the demands of Palestinians for self-determination, but these did not exist until rather late in the game. It certainly can not be defined as a threat to their existence since there physical existence was never in danger and Zionist tactics prior to 1947 were generally both legal and peaceful. Second, defining Jews as being somehow foreign to the region is strange coming from someone claiming to be an Orthodox Jew. It is also problematic on the basis of legal definitions since the Jews had always had a presence in the region and many had arrived purely legally under the Ottoman laws and one would imagine would have some legitimate rights to pursue their own interests even in opposition to the majority Muslim population.
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Hans Kohn was indeed a scholar of nationalism, and was well placed as such to see the influence of his subject matter even where it didn’t exist. This is a common problem among professors.
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You don’t actually disprove Karsh by quoting Kohn. Karsh can quite simply respond that though you seem to accept the fact that most peasants were illiterate and not-nationalist, in order to argue for nationalist motives for their actions you must find someone who held such nationalist notions in order to motivate and mobilize the mob that attacked the Jews in 1929. Given this point, couldn’t Karsh simply argue that it then must have been the a’yan and ulema that were the ones that pushed the illiterate mobs into confrontation with the Zionists and had they acted otherwise the Arab-Israeli conflict was indeed evitable?
Rowan Berkeley
Joachim Martillo presents an interesting example of essentialist thinking: if the Ashkenazim are not ‘real Jews’ (and this can only mean, they are not of Jewish but of Khazar race), then the ‘real Jews’ (the Mizrachi Jews) can disown them and rewrite Jewish history without them. But in fact, Ashkenazi Jews do have a history in late ancient and early medieval Europe, independently to the Khazars. Another form of essentialist thinking is religious, rather than racial: it argues that the highly assimilated western Jewish elite so feared by anti-Semites is, though of Jewish descent, the result of a religious and moral perversion, namely Sabbateanism (or more exactly, Frankism).
Richard Witty
Jerry,
One reason that the comments don’t relate directly to the article, is that the article doesn’t say much. (Sorry to say). (It does infer though.)
I think it is entirely reasonable that Jews, Zionists, would seek as much of what is critical to their survival as they could.
It is NOT a mark of shame, and less than that should not be expected. To seek to not be a minority (the flip side of the evil goal of being a majority), is to find a haven, a place where one is not at the whim of frankly habitually racist fashion and power ploys.
It seems perfectly reasonable.
The confusion about the extent of the promise of the Balfour Declaration is also not a mark of shame.
The only thing that is shameful, and it is actions and policies, NOT existential, not an original sin, is based on the ethical concept of “Now that you got what you want, and you still want more, want more” (Thank you Bob Marley).
The idea that political ethics trumps survival, especially in a post WW1 – present middle east when one is genuinely under genocidal threat (not currently), is a ludicrous one.
What is needed is healing, not a pendulum swing.
Healthy Palestine is needed (neighbor to Israel), not “no Israel”, not even “shamed Israel”.
Richard Witty
One last comment. Thanks for describing Ben Gurion as a bi-nationalist, rather than as only an expropriator as is the fashion.
Aaron the Fascist Troll
Thanks, Mr. Haber, for your reply to my comment. I must have heard of Kohn, but forgotten what I read about him. I’ve never read his work, but I’ve read some stuff by later scholars of nationalism – Walker Connor, Anthony Smith, Benedict Anderson, and Elie Kedourie – who I’m sure wrote about him. I’ve never studied this stuff; as usual, I don’t know what I’m talking about. So, continuing…
I say that we can be fairly certain that mass settlement was an existential threat to the indigenous peoples, even though a “kinder and gentler” Zionism was never tried. In other words, Mr. Haber’s form of Zionism would have been an existential threat as well. By existential, I mean to their social-political existence. It’s impossible to integrate such a large minority (or majority), and the European Jews would have become economically, socially, and maybe even politically dominant even if that were not their goal.
In the same sense, mass immigration to America a century ago was an existential threat to America as an Anglo-Protestant country: America’s existence as such was destroyed, for good or for ill. And this was by people whose goal was to integrate themselves into the social-political structure, not to change it. These American immigrants were *immigrants*, unlike the Zionist *settlers* – whom you mistakenly call “immigrants” in your gloss on Kohn’s words.
I admit that I don’t know history (didn’t even recognize Hans Kohn’s name), so maybe someone else can tell me how often indigenous peoples acquiesce without resistance to existential threats, whether from settlement or mass migration. If non-resistance and acceptance are relatively normal responses, then I take back my claim that the masses in Palestine would have resisted.
I do respect leftists such as Haber and Neumann for not condemning mass Jewish settlement itself (as opposed to Jewish sovereignty) in Palestine. They’re being admirably consistent. Opposition to mass Jewish settlement would, if followed consistently, take them to a place they don’t want to go.
Aaron the Fascist Troll
Correction, in the last paragraph I guess I should have written “immigration” not “settlement.”
Richard Witty
Aaron,
And in the present?