I never said that Zionism wasn't about creating a Jewish state.
Excuse me, but it sure looked like that's what you said. I wrote these comments, which you cited in your post:
It was clear from the beginning, to any who desired to see it, that peaceful co-existence with a pre-existing non-Jewish local population could never be achieved within the context of a Jewish State. That goal could not be achieved unless the local population were subjugated or removed, and that could not be achieved without violence. Violence, therefore, was implicit in Zionism from the very beginning.
You wrote:
This is completely revisionist history. The aim was to establish a Jewish majority peacefully, and to improve living conditions for everybody.
I will now assume, since you have clarified your comments, that what you said was not what you meant, and that your declaration applied to some portions of the item you cited, but not to others. Absent the clarification, though, I interpreted your remark in the only possible way.
It’s not wise to play the revisionism game with matters of recent public record, especially in the age of cut and paste.
I was objecting to this "violence is inherent in Zionism" formulation, a formulation that neatly absolves everyone but the Jews for any choices they have made.
As I said, nothing I wrote had anything to do with blame or absolution. I was trying to trace a chain of causes and effects. The initial choice, the decision to pursue large-scale immigration aimed at the creation of a Jewish State in an area with a pre-existing non-Jewish population, was the choice of one party. That choice left the other party, the pre-existing population, with a choice of their own: to accept this initiative, which would mean living as non-Jews in a Jewish State, or to resist it. They chose the latter. It is not for me to proclaim this choice was “right” or “wrong”, I merely commented that given the context, the choice was inevitable.
The Zionist enterprise was the only colonial "conquest" on record where the "colonists" bought their land, at inflated prices, from landlords only to happy to sell it to them.
The initial stage in the Zionist program was to purchase land and introduce settlers there. Taken alone, this would not constitute a colonial enterprise. This part of the program, though, cannot be separated from the eventual goal, which was always to declare Jewish sovereignty over the entire area, including those lands not owned by Jews. It is possible that if the program was limited to land acquisition and settlement, large-scale violence might have been averted. This was not the case.
The realities surrounding the inflation of prices and the purchase of land are also a little more complex than meet the eye. This is an interesting story, and someday I will probably be forced to declaim on the subject at length. It revolves around the peculiar relationship between Great Britain and the idea of the Jewish State. This would have been a mere quirk of history were it not for the enormous value given to the pound sterling, relative to other currencies, by the exceedingly tight fiscal policies of many successive chancellors of the British Exchequer. It is a situation roughly analogous to a group raising funds in the US for the purchase of land in Vietnam: even very modest donations would, because of the strength of the currency, be sufficient to allow the recipients to totally distort local land markets. While not all of the money raised for land acquisition came from England, most did come from areas with a large supply of high-value currency, especially during the boom years of the 1920’s. The prospect of foreigners armed with currencies of fantastic value buying up land with the avowed intention of declaring sovereignty over the entire area cannot have been very reassuring to those who already lived there.
They also were not trying to drive off the natives, but to outnumber them
They were trying to establish a Jewish State in an area with an existing non-Jewish population. Driving out the natives might not have been an explicit part of that program, but the establishment of that state would inevitably leave the non-Jewish natives with a choice between departure and subjugation. This is not the sort of choice that appeals to anyone.
Jews were hardly foreigners to the neighborhood. There have been Jews in Israel for thousands of years. In fact, if the Zionists had been pure Europeans, it would probably have been more acceptable to the Arabs.
In 1882 the Jewish population numbered approximately 24,000, and most of these were immigrants, elders who had come there to end their years in the holy places. This was a tiny fraction of the total population. The Jewish immigrants after this point were almost exclusively European, and yes, they were foreigners, at least to those who already lived there.
I would hardly start with bombs, especially if the foreigners were law-abiding and bringing jobs. I would start by talking, a concept perfectly foreign to the Mufti, whose proposals all assumed that nobody but himself had any interests at all.
Nobody started with bombs. The violence started with disorganized attempts to resist individual evictions, and did not reach a large scale until 1921. Those looking at the May riots of 1921 in retrospect have tried to cast them as a pre-planned exercise led by Arab notables, but those on the spot did not take this view. Again, from the Haycraft Commission report:
“We are convinced that the charge constantly brought by the Jews against the Arabs, that this outbreak had been planned by them, or by their leaders, and was pre-arranged for the 1st May, is unfounded. It appears in evidence that on more than one occasion Arabs in European dress incited the crowd, but the notables on both sides, whatever their feelings may have been, were always ready to help authorities in the restoration of order, and we think that without their assistance the outbreak would have resulted in even worse excesses. A good deal has been alleged by Jewish witnesses about the instigation of the Arab mob to violence by their leaders. If this means no more than that while educated people talk and write, the mob acts, then there is truth in the allegation. But if it means that if it had not been for incitement by the notables, effendis, and sheiks, there would have been no riots, the allegation cannot be substantiated…. In this campaign the people participate with the leaders because they feel that their political and material interests are identical. There is no evidence worth considering to show that the outbreak was planned and organised…”
Interestingly, the Commission fount that the riots were sparked by a clash between two Jewish groups: a small illegal march by members of the Socialist Revolutionary Party encountered a larger approved rally held by the Ahdot ha Avodah, a social democratic party. The two sides came to blows, and the violence spread quickly and chaotically.
You are of course welcome to denounce those conclusions as “revisionism”, but they are the reports of those who were on the spot and conducted a detailed and immediate investigation into those events. Can a period account be classified as “revisionist”? I really don’t know, I’ll have to consult one more familiar with the semantics of the discipline.
Before declaring that the newcomers were law-abiding, you might want to read the accounts of American journalist Vincent Sheehan, who wrote in 1929 of gangs of Haluzim, described as “rugged pioneer youth from the settlements” roaming the city, armed and ready for “a bust-up”, marching through Arab neighborhoods waving Zionist flags and chanting Zionist slogans. The vast majority of the Jews may well have been peaceful and law-abiding, but they had their extremists as well, and unfortunately it is always the vocal extremists that create the impression of the whole. In any event, the reality that the newcomers were peaceful and brought jobs would have seemed far less important than the stark fact that the newcomers were loudly declaring their intention to take over the entire area and declare it their country.
There were many attempts to reach a compromise, such as the Peel Commission of 1937, but the Mufti made sure none of them got anywhere.
The only compromise that would have meant anything was a renunciation of the stated intention to establish a Jewish State, and I don’t believe that this was ever seriously brought to the table.
Again, you say, they are Arabs, what else can anyone expect?
Perhaps you should read my post again. That’s not what I said.
In any event, nothing you’ve said serves as a material challenge to the basic formulation I proposed several posts ago: that the declared aim of a Jewish State made violent confrontation with the pre-existing non-Jewish population inevitable.
You’re welcome to try again, if you feel that you must. |
