A History of Zionism (46 page)

Zionism, Jabotinsky argued, was either
ab initio
moral or immoral. If the basic principle was moral, it was bound to remain so even if some people opposed it.
*
There were no empty spaces in the world. The Jews would have encountered the opposition of a native population even in Uganda. Jabotinsky denounced the ‘cannibalist ethics’ of the anti-Zionists. How could anyone, on the basis of moral criteria, deny the validity of the Zionist claim, given that the Arabs had so much land and the Jews none at all? His instinctive attitude towards the Arabs was, as he once wrote, the same as to all other nations, one of polite lack of interest. He thought that it was impossible to expel the Arabs and that Palestine would always remain a multinational state. The weakest part of Jabotinsky’s doctrine was no doubt his assumption that Zionism was bound to remain morally unassailable, whatever the means applied. In their transfer to Palestine Jabotinsky’s views lost much of their sophistication and moderation, and served as the ideological justification for primitive and chauvinistic slogans which helped to poison Arab-Jewish relations during the 1930s and 1940s.

The Zionist movement was gravely disturbed by the riots of 1929 but comforted itself with the thought that these attacks were not the beginning of a national revolt but had their source ‘in religion and in blood’. Incited by some of their leaders, who had deliberately spread false rumours, the Arabs had come out to defend their religious honour (which had not been insulted) and to revenge Arab blood (which had not been spilled). The riots, according to the official Zionist assessment, did not have a clear political or social character, nor were they countrywide, and that once the government disabused the rioters of their belief that they had official support, the movement would collapse and probably not recur.

The first Zionist reaction was to regard the uprisings as simple pogroms, the Arab grievances as totally unfounded, and to ask for strict measures by the mandatory authorities. But suggestions were also advanced by some of the more farsighted Zionist leaders for new and greater efforts to improve Arab-Jewish relations. It had gradually dawned on them that a series of favourable articles in a leading Cairo newspaper was of greater importance than a sympathetic editorial in the Polish or Italian press. The Histadrut had decided in 1927 to organise Arab workers in joint trade unions (
Irgun meshutaf
), but the practical results had been negligible so far, apart from the establishment of a small Arab workers’ club in Haifa. There was still no Arab department in the Jewish Agency or the
Va’ad Leumi
, nor was there any Arab-language newspaper. Above all, the Zionist leadership still had no clear idea about what to do, and it was therefore not surprising that the years after the 1929 uprising produced a great deal of heart-searching. While the revisionists tried to compel the Zionist movement to adopt a clear resolution about the final aim, namely a Jewish state, Weizmann reiterated his belief in the principle of parity in the coming Palestinian Constituent Assembly, which, needless to say, was rejected by the Arabs. And Ben Gurion outlined a project for parliamentary representation, to be carried out in stages over many years; a Jewish majority let alone a Jewish state, was not even mentioned.

Perhaps most revealing were the vacillations of Chaim Arlosoroff, who had been one of the first to realise the importance of the Arab national movement as a political factor. After 1929, while still maintaining the need for a political agreement with the Arabs, he asserted that the Arab national movement was dominated by the forces of social reaction and political tyranny and blamed it for not having produced leaders like Sun Yat-sen or Gandhi. Arlosoroff favoured cooperation on the municipal level, economic collaboration, the dispatch of Jewish students to Al Azhar and other Arab universities, and Zionist support for Egyptian and Iraqi independence. But he was pessimistic with regard to the chances of an understanding with the Palestinian Arabs, for the simple reason that the Arabs were still convinced that they could defeat Zionism with violence.
*
His pessimism deepened during the early 1930s. In a letter to Weizmann he envisaged limiting the Zionist efforts to a part of Palestine — i.e. partition or cantonisation of the country. Failing that, he considered the possibility of the Jewish minority seizing power through an organised revolutionary government.
†

Such counsels of despair were the result of Arlosoroff’s own negative personal experience. Earlier that year, accompanied by Moshe Shertok, he had met Auni Bey Abdul Hadi, a leader of the Istiqlal Party, in an attempt to discover some common ground and to open a dialogue. But Auni Bey had told his visitors point plank that there was no use in discussions on basic problems. There were no misunderstandings between Arab and Jew. He understood Jewish nationalism only too well, but unfortunately there was a fundamental clash of interests which could not be resolved through talk.
*
This was not, however, the end of the affair. By the early 1930s the Zionist leaders had reached the conclusion that of the three Arab political parties the Istiqlal, however strongly opposed to Zionism, was the most promising movement in terms both of its political prospects and of the chances of Arab-Jewish
rapprochement.
Cooperation with the mufti’s party was out of the question after all that had happened. The Zionists had supported the Nashashibis on various occasions (such as the municipal elections of 1926): the quarrel between this clan and the Hussainis (to whom the mufti belonged) dominated Palestinian Arab political life for many years. But the Nashashibis were closely identified with British mandatory policies and had no intention of compromising themselves in the eyes of the Arab public by cooperating with the Jews. There remained the Istiqlal, a modern, secular, nationalist group which stood for Arab unity and had many supporters among the younger generation.

The Istiqlal Party seemed in many ways an ideal political partner for the Zionists. Ben Gurion met Auni Abdul Hadi in Dr Magnes’ house in July 1934 and tried to persuade him that it might be possible after all to coordinate the ultimate aims of the Jewish and Arab national movements. What if the Jews, with their political influence and financial resources, were to join the struggle for Arab unity? Whereupon Auni, according to Ben Gurion’s account, became very enthusiastic and promised that he would accept the immigration of five or six million Jews, that he himself would go out into the streets and propagate the idea among his friends in Palestine and other Arab countries.
†
But after a few moments Auni again cooled down: ‘How do we know that we can trust your promises?’ Mussa Alami, another prominent Arab figure, and a moderate in his politics, told Ben Gurion that the Arabs were not particularly eager to get Jewish money and know-how, and that he would much prefer Palestine to remain poor and desolate even for a hundred years, in which time the Arabs would be able to develop the country by their own exertions.

The accounts of such meetings between the Zionist leaders and Arab representatives, or of the talks with George Antonius, the author of the standard history of the Arab national movement, make melancholy reading. The basic positions were so far apart that any agreement was illusory from the beginning. These were the years after Hitler’s rise to power, and any compromise on Jewish immigration was unthinkable for the Zionists. By June 1936, after the outbreak of the third Arab revolt, Ben Gurion wrote in a private letter that he doubted whether there was even one chance in ten of reaching agreement. Of course, they should go on talking, but there was no readiness on the Arab part to accept the yishuv, though they might eventually, in complete despair, accept the Jewish presence in Palestine after the failure of the rebellion, and above all as a result of the growth of the yishuv. It was Jabotinsky’s ‘iron wall’ all over again. Ruppin, who had been in the forefront of the struggle for Arab-Jewish
rapprochement
both before and after the First World War, and who was a founder of Brit Shalom, reached similarly pessimistic conclusions at the same time. It was only natural that there should be sporadic outbursts if the Zionists continued their work against the desire of the Arabs: ‘It is our destiny to be in a state of continual warfare with the Arabs and there is no other alternative but that lives should be lost.’

Only the indefatigable Magnes and some of his closest friends continued to believe that with a little more goodwill on the part of the Jews agreement could be reached. And occasionally even Magnes had doubts about the reliability and honesty of his Arab partners. In a note to Harold MacMichael, the British high commissioner, he wondered whether there was any point in further negotiations: ‘They are no more true Arabs than I am a South Sea Islander. These people around here and Beirut are true Levantines.’
*

Arab rebellion

The third and biggest wave of Arab attacks began in April 1936. It was a period of feverish political and diplomatic activity. Zionist leaders maintained their contacts with the Arabs, and a great many blueprints and memoranda were produced in an attempt to resolve the conflict. The disturbances were far more widespread than those of 1921 and 1929 and claimed a much heavier toll in life and property. They lasted with short interruptions for three years, petering out in the spring and summer of 1939, during the months preceding the outbreak of war. A major military effort on the part of the mandatory authorities was needed to defeat the armed gangs which had established their rule in various parts of the country. Unlike the riots of 1920 and 1929, this revolt was not sparked off by an isolated incident, unless the murder of a Jew by Arab highwaymen whose motives may have been partly political is considered as such. The tension had been building up gradually. After Hitler’s rise to power the number of immigrants reached a new high — 30,000 in 1933, 42,000 in the following year, and 61,000 in 1935. By the middle 1930s Jews constituted 30 per cent of the total population of Palestine.

There had been a brief wave of unrest in October 1933, instigated by the Istiqlal. It was directed mainly against the British and collapsed quickly when the call for a general Arab strike was not heeded. Three years later the response to the Arab leadership’s call to arms was much greater. The international situation seemed more auspicious for the Arabs. The Berlin-Rome axis effected a marked shift in the balance of power. British influence seemed everywhere on the decline: Iraq had gained independence in 1932–3, and the movement for Arab independence had made great strides in Egypt and Syria. The Palestinian Arab leaders must have reached the conclusion that the time was ripe for the achievement of their own demands: the establishment of a national (Arab) government, and the immediate prohibition of Jewish immigration and land sales. The armed revolt did not succeed and the demand for independence was not fulfilled. But it was not a total failure either, for Jewish immigration and land purchases were severely restricted, and the White Paper of 1939 envisaged the virtual repudiation of the Balfour Declaration. Jewish immigration was to stop altogether after a number of years.

Arab guerrilla warfare confronted the yishuv with several major problems. The most agonising dilemma concerned the issue of non-retaliation (
havlaga
). During the first year of the riots it was official Zionist policy to refrain from retaliation, and even Jabotinsky’s extremist paramilitary organisation adhered to this policy, albeit under protest.
*
The decision was not an easy one. It demonstrated the political maturity of the yishuv, and it gave the Zionists a good press in Europe, but it helped to spread despondency among the Jewish community. When the Arab revolt reached its second, more intense stage in 1937–8, the policy of non-retaliation was discontinued by both the Hagana, which engaged in selective retaliatory action, and the revisionst
IZL
, which was less discriminating.

Nationalist passions were running higher than ever during those years. In view of the rapidly deteriorating situation for central and east European Jewry, all sections of the Jewish community, with the sole exception of the Communists, insisted on the gates of Palestine being kept open. There was even less belief than previously that the Arabs would respect the rights of Jews in a binational state. The murder of hundreds of Assyrians immediately after Iraq acquired independence acted as a further deterrent and was quoted in many Zionist speeches and articles at the time.

The Arab attack was a trial for the whole yishuv. For left-wing Zionism, which had traditionally advocated close Arab-Jewish cooperation, it was in addition a major ideological problem. This does not apply to the Communists, who had always rejected Zionism as a reactionary movement and a tool of world imperialism, and who since 1929 had given active support to Arab nationalism. The dilemma facing a Jewish Communist in Palestine was insoluble: ‘objectively’ he was bound to play a reactionary role, because he could not become an Arab. The most logical and consistent way out of the dilemma, chosen in fact by some Jewish Communists, was to emigrate to another country where they could make a more positive contribution to the struggle for world revolution. But Hashomer Hatzair and the left-wing Poale Zion were both Marxist
and
Zionist. They could not regard the Arab attacks on Jewish settlements as progressive in character. They had always envisaged a common Arab-Jewish struggle for the victory of revolutionary Socialism in Palestine, and while they had never been very successful in finding allies outside the Jewish camp, they now found themselves in total isolation. Opposed to British imperialism, they had now to accept its help in suppressing the Arab revolt. But this had been the dilemma facing all those Zionists opposed to ‘British imperialism’, including some who were by no means Marxists.