The Arab Angle – undramatized
The Jewish War Front (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1940)
the Palestinian Arabs. All current affirmations to the contrary are utterly incorrect.
A territory of over 100,000 square kilometers settled at the average density of France
A territory of over 100,000 square kilometers settled at the average density of France
(87 inhabitants per square kilometer) would hold over 8 million inhabitants; at the
density of Switzerland (104) over 10 million; at density of Germany or Italy (140)
about 14 million. It now holds, counting Arabs and Jews and Trans-Jordanians and
all, just over one million and a half inhabitants. There is margin enough left for
Palestine to absorb the better part of East-Central Europe’s ghetto – the better part of
five million souls – without approaching even the moderate density of France. Unless
the Arabs choose to go away of their own accord, there is no need for them to
emigrate.
Another fallacy is the assertion that if the Arabs were in the minority in a State
predominantly Jewish, they would be persecuted and oppressed. The last people to
repeat this fallacy ought to be the authors of the 1939 White Paper. Since they assure
us that the Jews, condemned to remain a one-to-two minority in Palestine, would not
only not be oppressed but would even enjoy the delights of a Jewish National Home,
what grounds have they for suggesting that it would be disastrous for the Arabs if the
position were reversed? It would be much more logical for the authors of the White
Paper to offer the Arab minority the same safeguards which they consider to be
sufficient to ensure the welfare of a Jewish minority.
It is absurd to assume that an ethnical minority is always and everywhere an
oppressed minority. The assumption is untrue. The Scots who have left Scotland and
the Welsh who have left Wales live scattered all over England, yet it has not been
suggested that their rights are curtailed. Consider the position of the Catholic Frenchspeaking
minority in the mixed province of Ontario, Canada; they are anything but
oppressed. Soviet Russia has been guilty of many sins, but not one can deny that her
ethnical minorities enjoy a very reasonable equality of status – in so far as anything
can be “enjoyed” in that political climate, Czechoslovakia was a model state in this
respect; as is Finland today, where the Swedish minority enjoys a position even better
in some respects than that of the Scots in Great Britain. Nothing, of course, is perfect
on this earth, and there is no doubt that it is pleasanter to be in the majority than in
minority, even under the best conditions imaginable; but that does not mean that the
status of a minority is everywhere and always a tragedy. Every great people has its
outlying fragments which form minorities in other countries: the English in South
Africa, the French in Canada. Belgium and Switzerland, the Germans all over the
world. Their position depends on the régime. Under a decent régime a minority can
live in reasonable contentment. The world has no right to assume that Jewish
statesmanship is unable to create as decent a régime as that created by English,
Canadian or Swiss statesmanship. After all, it is from Jewish sources that the world
has learned how the “stranger within thy gates “should be treated.
There is only one circumstance in which it is a tragedy to constitute a
minority; it is the case of the people which is only a minority everywhere and always
a minority, dispersed among alien races, with no corner of the earth to call its own,
and no home in which to find refuge. Such is not the position of the Arabs, with four
Arabian countries on the east of the Suez Canal, and five others west of Suez. Some
of these lands are already independent, others are not so as yet; but in each of them
there is no question of any but an Arab majority; each if them is already an Arab
national homeland.
It would be an idle pastime, at this present stage, to devise draft constitutions
for the Jewish Palestine of the future. But it may be that some people are genuinely
worried as to what would happen to the rights of the Palestinian Arabs if the country
became a Jewish State. The author can at least give them some idea of what Jews
themselves intend to do in this respect when they are in the majority and when
Palestine is a self-governing State. It may reassure such persons to learn how not the
moderate but precisely the so-called “extremist” wing of Zionism visualizes the
constitution of the Palestine of the future. The following extracts are quoted from a
draft worked out by a Revisionist Executive in 1934, so it might be said that this tells
us “the worst that can happen” to the Palestinian Arabs. The draft is not an official
programme, and the writer is not prepared to defend it in all its aspects. Still, it was
the result of much careful labour; a wide range of precedents had been studies, and
documents consulted which were regarded with the utmost respect in the days when
the intelligentsia of East-Central Europe ─ which then included Russia − was
infatuated with the theories of the Austrian Socialists’ Nationalitaeten-Staat: Rudolf
Springer’s books, the minutes of the Bruenn congress of the Austrian Social
Democratic Party, the excellent Hungarian law of 1868 on the use of minority
languages in civil service communications, and even the truly remarkable old Turkish,
legislation as to the autonomy of the various ethno-religious communities, whose
official title was Millet =“nations”: Millet-i-Roum, Millet -i-Ermeni, Millet-i-
Moussévié (Greek, Armenian Mosaic.) Only a few sections can be quoted here: those
dealing with civic equality, languages, so-called ”cultural autonomy”, the Holy
Places, and the land laws. Only the broad issues will be touched upon. These
quotations will bear out the statement made by this writer before the Palestine Royal
Commission: that the Jews are ready to guarantee to the Arab minority in a Jewish
Palestine the maximum of the rights which they claimed but never obtained for
themselves in other countries.
In reading this draft it should be remembered that according to the principle
which is the alpha and omega of Zionist Revisionism, Palestine can be promoted to
independent Statehood only after the constitution of a Jewish majority. On the other
hand, the Revisionists’ idea of an independent Palestine was then (1934) a Dominion
within the British Empire, as it still is to many among them.
1. Civic Equality
1. Provided nothing be done to hinder any foreign Jew from repatriating to
Palestine, and, by doing so, automatically becoming a Palestinian citizen, the
principle of equal rights for all citizens of any race, creed, language or class shall
be enacted without limitation throughout all sectors of the country’s public life.
2. In every Cabinet where the Prime Minister is a Jew, the vice-premiership shall
be offered to an Arab, and vice-versa.
3. Proportional sharing by Jews and Arabs both in the charges and in the benefits
of the State shall be the rule with regard to parliamentary elections, civil and
military service, and budgetary grants.
4. The same rule shall apply to mixed municipalities or county councils.
2. Languages
1. The Hebrew and the Arabic languages shall enjoy equal rights and equal legal
validity.
2. No State law, proclamation or ordinance; no coin, banknote or stamp of the
State; no publications or inscription produced at the State’s expense shall be valid
unless executed identically in both Hebrew and Arabic.
3. Both Hebrew and Arabic shall be used with equal legal effect in Parliament, in
the Courts, in the schools and in general before any office or organ of the State, as
well as in any school of whatever degree.
4. All offices of the State shall answer any applicant, orally and in writing, in the
language of his application, whether Hebrew or Arabic.
3. Cultural autonomy
1. The Jewish and the Arab ethno-communities1 shall be recognized as
autonomous public bodies of equal status before the law. Should the Christian
Arabs, or any other group of citizens reasonably justified in claiming autonomy,
1 The world is used in the original is the Hebrew equivalent of “nationalists”. As in English
the term denotes State allegiance rather than ethnical allegiance, the word is translated as
above.
also demand a measure of independent recognition, Parliament shall be entitled to
grant the request.
2. The following matters shall be delegated by the State of each ethnocommunity
with regard to its members :
(a) religion and personal status ;
(b) education in all its branches and grades,
especially in the compulsory stages;
(c) public relief, including all forms of social
assistance;
(d) settlement of ordinary law cases arising out of
the above-mentioned matters.
3. Each ethno-community shall elect its National Diet with the right to issued
ordinances and levy taxes within the limits of its autonomy, and so to appoint,
a national executive responsible before the Diet.
4. A permanent Minister of Cabinet rank, independent of all parties, shall
represent each ethno-community in the country’s government.
4. THE HOLY PLACES
1. The relevant areas within the Old City of Jerusalem, to be delimited under the
authority of the League of Nations, shall enjoy the same measure of extraterritoriality
as that universally recognized in the case of embassies.
2. Each of these areas shall constitute a municipality under a council appointed
by agreement between the ecclesiastic authorities concerned.
3. A similar régime shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to other holy sites within the
country.
4. Except in war, pilgrim permits of sufficient duration shall be freely granted to
nationals of any State: subject only to genuine requirements of hygiene, traffic
and public safety, and provided any paupers among the pilgrims shall be
maintained, and in due course repatriated, at the expense of the respective
ecclesiastic authority.
5. A delegate of the League of Nations, with the status of Ambassador, shall be
appointed to represent the interests concerned.
5. Land
1. A Palestine Land Court shall be formed including, among other members,
judges and agricultural experts belonging to both ethno-communities.
2. All the waste lands, as well as all lands inadequately cultivated in the opinion
of the Court, shall be requisitioned (under fair compensation in the case of the
latter) to form the State’s Land Reserve.
3. After improvement at the expense of the State, reclaimed areas of the Land
Reserve shall be divided into allotments to be granted, at fair prices and easy
terms of credit, to individual applicants and groups.
4. Allotment shall be distributed under the Land Court’s supervision to Jewish
and Arab applicants and groups indiscriminately.
5. Each applicant shall have to satisfy the Land Court:
(a) that he owns no other land;
(b) that he possesses a reasonable minimum of capital or equipment for
working that land, no matter whether his own or supplied by supporters;
(c) that he will work the land personally.
Whether the Arabs would find all this a sufficient inducement to remain in a
Jewish country is another question. Even if they did not, the author would refuse to
see a tragedy or a disaster in their willingness to emigrate. The Palestine Royal
Commission did not shrink from the suggestion. Courage is infectious. Since we
have this great moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of 350,000 Arabs
from one corner of Palestine, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000
with dismay. The writer, as he has already said, cannot see any necessity for this
exodus; it would even be undesirable from many points of view; but if it should
appear that the Arabs would prefer to migrate, the prospect can be discussed
without any pretence of concern.
Since 1923, when within a few months at least 700,000 Greeks were moved to
Macedonia, and 350,000 Turks to Thrace and Anatolia, the idea of such migrations
has been familiar and almost popular. Herr Hitler, detested as he is, has recently
been enhancing its popularity. Of course, his critics very strongly disapprove of his
policy in removing Germans from the Trentino and the Balticum and planting them
in fields and houses robbed from the Poles; but it is the robbing of the Poles, not
the moving of the Germans, which really elicits the censure. One cannot help
feeling that if only Germans, on the one hand, and Italians and Balts on the other
were concerned, the operation might in the end prove not so bad for their common
welfare. When Mr. Roosevelt foresees the existence of 20 million potential
refugees after the war, he is doubtless considering that the position of all minorities
may have become untenable in many countries, so that some radical solution may
have to be found. Nuisantia, which, as we know, is situated between Andivia and
Hedulia, and populated by a potpourri of both races, has a majority of the
Andivians, so in 1918 it was adjudged to Andivia. The result? Andivia has now a
minority of 300,000 Hedulians, who are causing trouble. Perhaps, then, we had
better annex the province to Hedulia? But then Hedulia will have a minority of
500,000 Andivians, with the same result. Majority rule is perhaps not such a
perfect panacea, even where political parties are concerned, but in the case of
nationalities the medicine simply does not work except as an irritant; and the
alternative, minority rule, would be still worse. One really radical remedy would be
the Graeco-Turkish precedent of 1923. The writer frankly doubts whether that
would be feasible; at all events, other solutions – which cannot be examined here,
─ might be given a trial. But theoretically the idea of redistributing minorities en
masse is becoming more popular among “the best people,” and there is no longer
any taboo the discussion of the subject.
There is, moreover, one great ethical difference between the case of Palestine and
that of all the other poly-ethnical areas with regard to this particular question of
allowing the minority to migrate. In all the other areas friction is caused by
ambition: one section wishes to dominate, or so at least the weaker section fears.
Such an ambition may be, or seem justifiable or excusable, in the sense that it is an
expression of inherited vitality, so strongly dynamic that only the most angelic
self-restraint could keep it always on the leash: but even so it is, after all, only an
ambition, not a real need; a healthy “appetite,” not a “hunger”. In Palestine any
inconvenience to the native population from the influx of immigrants arises from
the tragic necessity that these immigrants must find a home. It has nothing to do
with ambition, nothing to do with the will to dominate over anyone; in many
individual cases it may have little to do even with a personal desire to immigrate,
for in any mass migration there must be hundreds or thousands who would have
preferred to remain in the old home if they could.
The cause is genuine hunger, the nostalgic passion of people who have nowhere
else where they can make a home for themselves. Should the Arabs prefer to
migrate, the very fact that they can do so would prove that they, on the contrary,
have a “somewhere else” where they can build a new home. This contest between
“nowhere else” and somewhere else” would only be an echo of a universal feature
of our modern age, the inevitable settlement between the “have nots” and the
“haves”. No “have not” need feel guilty because the scales have been levelled as
they ought to have been long ago.
One thing seems certain: any Arab country which should find the courage and the
acreage for inviting such an immigration of trekkers would reap enormous material
advantages. It would immediately have unlimited sums of capital and the world’s
best experts as its disposal for the most ambitious schemes of land reclamation and
irrigation. The Arab trekkers, moreover, would probably migrate with donkey
loads of pelf. All the problems connected with the evacuation of the European
“zone” would become incomparably easier. Who knows?
But this is an aside; it has nothing to do with war aims. Palestine, astride the
Jordan, has room enough for the million of Arabs, room for another million of their
eventual progeny, for several million Jews, and for peace; for so much peace that
there would then be peace also in Europe.
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