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….
12 comments:
Thanks, Jerry for quoting that Hans Kohn passage. As Mendes-Flohr shows, Martin Buber disagreed with his student. However, Buber failed to answer Kohn's accusations convincingly.
I wonder how this sits with you, since you style yourself on Buber's collaborator, Judah Magnes. If you were transported back to the 1920s, would you have left Palestine for good, like Kohn, or would you be planning to move there, as Buber did in the late 30s?
Thanks, Jerry for quoting that Hans Kohn passage. As Mendes-Flohr shows, Martin Buber disagreed with his student. However, Buber failed to answer Kohn's accusations convincingly.
I wonder how this sits with you, since you style yourself on Buber's collaborator, Judah Magnes. If you were transported back to the 1920s, would you have left Palestine for good, like Kohn, or would you be planning to move there, as Buber did in the late 30s?
When you have persuaded yourself that you have a clear and unassailable right (to establish a Jewish state in Palestine), and have acted on that opinion, it is natural not to seek permission from people who -- you have persuaded yourself -- have no proper business assailing your unassailable right. You decide to ignore them.
Thanks for the quote from 1929.
Michael,
And "If I were a rich man, daidi didi didi daidy," ?!
I don't know what I would have done then. I know that I still live in Jerusalem, in an apartment on the roof of a building whose inhabitants were not allowed back to their homes.
So that puts me with the Bubers and the Magneses, not with the Kohns, I guess.
I think the comment was bullshit. In all the histories that I read, the members of the yishuv DID seek out negotiations with both locals and officials.
I think the settlement effort was ultimately laudable, NOT reprehensible, as is implied by your first paragraph.
You invoke the theme that Zionism is something that Jews should be ashamed of, that shame should be our primary psychological state of mind.
I DIFFER with that. I believe that reform should be our primary emphasis, that we should be proud, and improve in our relations.
The tension in Zionism, as in all nationalism, is in how one is a healthy good neighbor.
There is a grave danger with citing quotes out of context, especially to those that are not studied in the actual history. That is that they will believe that your quote of exception or of qualification, will be taken as the norm.
Do you agree with the thesis that the primary purpose of the yishuv was to "take over", and not simply to reside, and from day one?
"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."
Aye, there's the rub.
You see, "they came" to re-join the few of their People who had maintained a constant presence in the land of their birth for over 3000 years (making the Jewish People the indigenous people to the area); and they came NOT "to a country", for no 'country" ever existed in the area since the Jewish state was expunged 2000 years earlier.
There was no need "to conspire" with the Mandate authorities, since by International Law at the time, the British were bound to work toward the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, and aid and encourage close Jewish settlement of the land.
BTW, until he was deceived by the British, the Emir Faisal was fully in agreement with re-establishing the Jewish homeland.
I have be rereading Joseph Heller's( Hebrew U)published lecture < The Ben Gurion- Magnes Deabte> and note that Palestinian Arabs who were willing to reach out and work with Buber-Magnes in Brit Shalom/ Ihud were regarded as traitors by their compatriots...Yes,Hans Kohn made an astute obervation..but by then it was too late.. I love Buhber & Magnes and respect Kohn.. but Can they help us now that it is even later find a way to better Arab Jewish relations to < mutuality and equality instead of hegemony and domination/. That is the question.
Jerry,
How does Kohn's opinion refute Karsh's research in any way? One person's opinion is not evidence for the national mood of the Palestinians. That is why Karsh correctly called it BS. If you have documents that refute Karsh's well sourced research, put it forward. Otherwise, as a researcher yourself, you should know better. Kohn's views were just that. His views. They were not based on polls or interviews or any kind of research and are just conjectures based on nothing.
Richard,
Please read what Kohn wrote. He didn't say that the Zionists didn't speak with Arabs. So what you wrote is entirely irrelevant.
Jaufre,
If you are reading Heller, you should know that Magnes and Buber were treated as traitors by their compatriots and received their share of death threats. Some readers of this piece on the 972 blog called them traitors.
Zionist historians like Morris and Heller always point out that the Palestinian Arabs opposed binationalism, but they tend to play down the fact that the Zionists in the 1940s, if not earlier, opposed binationalism just as vehemently.
The issue was then, as now, not uninationalism vs. binationalism, but unilateralism vs. bilateratalism. What Kohn, Buber, Bergman, Magnes, etc., aspired fo was the consent of the Arabs before any unilateral move that would plunge the country into unending war. That was the difference between them and Ben Gurion, who only wanted to negotiate with the Palestinian Arabs to buy time.
The Palestinian Arab leaders didn't negotiate with this group because a) they knew that they were unrepresentative and b) they feared that the Zionists had greater aims, which they did. In fact, in retrospect, most of what the Zionists said before the state was a big lie, from the binationalist proposals of Ben Gurion to the acceptance of the partition plan.
What the Zionists wanted is what the Zionists got -- an ethnic state that involved the ethnic cleansing of the majority of Palestine (and hence, a clear violation of the Balfour Declaration under any possible interpretation.)
The Zionists have never refused to offer the Arabs an eminently -- and justifiably -- refusable offer, while all the while using every opportunity they can to kick them off their land.
Oh, the Jewish tribalists out there won't mind that last remark, since they don't believe that the Arabs have any rights to Eretz Yisrael
Jerry,
The reason that history is important is for the present, to learn and to improve the current conditions.
I don't see the point of "I told you so", when the practicalities of war and community development are not possible to be reconstructed. (That is the nature of time itself, that what is past is past.)
If you are now a bi-nationalist, then please be responsible enough to say so overtly, and work responsibly for your current-future vision.
In the 1940's, bi-nationalism was rejected by Zionists for practical reasons, for the acknowledgment that with the mix of influences, that it was impossible, and that they had already made their commitment to a state.
Ben Gurion negotiated with Arabs over periods of decades, each throwing ahead of the ball, and the other rejecting the other's vision of the future.
Now that there is a Jewish state, to advocate for a change is a revolutionary stand.
I've made revolutionary stands from a distance. You live in both communities, so if you were to advocate for a single state, and to simultaneously choose to remain in Israel, and not even temporarily sit in your second residence, it would be a substantive statement.
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