A History of Zionism (48 page)

This was the political and psychological background to the failure to promote Arab-Jewish
rapprochement.
Most Jews would have preferred agreement with the Arabs. The recurrent riots claimed a heavy toll in lives, and in resources, which had to be diverted from productive labour. The halutzim had come to Eretz Israel not to conquer but to build a new, just, Socialist society. Only a few realised that the Arabs would not accept
faits accomplis
, that continuing immigration and settlement would involve the yishuv in a conflict which might last for generations. The repeated attacks on Jewish settlements, and the gruesome way in which some of the massacres were carried out, brought about a gradual change in popular attitudes. The image of the honest, brave and hospitable Arab gave way to a feeling of contempt for these ‘dishonest Levantines’.

A minority of Zionists and Palestinian Jews were aware from the beginning of the crucial importance of relations with the Arabs. Some of them thought that the national aspirations of the two peoples could be reconciled, while the pessimists early on reached the conclusion that conflict was basic and unavoidable. The majority of Zionists were less concerned with the Arab question. Only gradually did they face it, assuming at first that the Palestinian Arabs, finding themselves economically prosperous and reasonably content, would eventually accept minority status in the coming Jewish state. If this was an unjust assumption, it seemed almost insignificant in view of the need to save European Jewry.

*
Jakob Klatzkin, in
Die Araberfrage in Palästina
, Heidelberg, 1921, p. 21; Dr M. Lewite, ‘Zur Orientierung in der arabischen Frage’,
Jüdische Rundschau
, 5 August 1921.

*
J.J. Jeffries,
Palestine: The Reality
, London, 1939, p. 40.

†
Jüdische Rundschau
, 27 November 1931.

‡
Truth from Eretz Israel’,
Hamelitz
, June 1891.

*
Altneuland
, p. 133.

†
Die Welt
, 13 March 1903.

‡
Max Nordau,
Zionistische Schriften
, Berlin, 1909, p. 172.

§
Stenographisches Protokoll der Verhandlungen des II. Zionisten-Kongresses
, Vienna, 1899, p. 125.

‖
H.H. Kalvarisky, in
She’ifotenu
, vol. 2, 2, p. 50.

*
N. Mandel, ‘Turks, Arabs and Jewish Immigration into Palestine 1882-1914’, in Albert Hourani (ed.),
Middle Eastern Affairs
, 4, London, 1965, pp. 84-6. See also Mandel’s dissertation (same title), Oxford, 1965.

†
Quoted in
Sefer Toldot Hahagana
, Tel Aviv, 1954, vol. 1, p. 66.

‡
E. Sapir, ‘Hatred of Israel in Arab literature’,
Hashiloah
, 1899, p. 222
et seq.

§
Hochberg to Jacobson, Zionist Archives, Cologne All, quoted in P.P. Alsberg, ‘The Arab Question in the Policy of the Zionist Executive before the First World War’, in
Shivat Zion
, 4, p. 189. See also, N. Mandel, ‘Attempts at an Arab-Zionist Entente 1913-14’,
Middle Eastern Studies
, vol. 1, April 1965.

‖
In a report to the Zionist executive in 1912, quoted in Yaacov Ro’i, ‘Attempts of the Zionist Organisation to influence the Arab Press in Palestine between 1908-14’,
Zion
3-4, 1967, p. 205.

*
Meyers Reisebücher,
Palästina und Syrien
, Leipzig, 1907, p. 128.

†
Elias Auerbach, in
Die Welt
, 1910, p. 1101.

*
Jüdische Rundschau
, 13 January 1931.

†
Belkind, quoted in A. Cohen,
Israel vehaolam ha’araui
, Merhavia, 1964, p. 68.

‡
Ibid.
, pp. 65-9 and
Sefer Toldot hahagana
, vol. 1, pp. 73-7.

§
Hashiloah
, 1909, p. 466.

*
Neguib Azoury,
Le Reueil de la Nation Arabe
, Paris, 1905, p. v;
Sefer Toldot Hahagana
, p. 185. Mandel,
Middle Eastern Affairs
, p. 94.

†
Professor A.A. Aehuda in a report to Professor O. Warburg of the Zionist executive, dated 31 August 1911, cited by Ro’i, ‘Attempts of the Zionist Organisation …’, p. 212.

‡
His speech was subsequently published under the title ‘She’ela ne’elma’, in
Hashiloah
, 1907, pp. 193-206.

*
Nehama Puchachevski, in
Hashiloah
, 1908, pp. 67-9.

*
Elias Auerbach, in
Palästina
, Cologne, 1910, p. 121.

†
Hugo Bergmann,
Jawne und Jerusalem
, Prague, 1919, p. 60.

*
Quoted in Yaacov Ro’i, ‘The Zionist Attitude to the Arabs, 1908-14’, in
Middle Eastern Studies
, April 1968, pp. 210, 216.

*
Quoted in Alsberg, ‘The Arab Question in the Policy of the Zionist Executive before the First World War’, in
Shivat Zion
4, p. 163.

†
Ibid.
, p. 184.

*
After the First World War they showed more awareness. At the fourteenth Zionist congress in Vienna (1925) no one was more emphatic than Ben Gurion on the necessity ‘to find the way to the heart of the Arab people’. Empty phrases about peace and fraternity, he insisted, were not sufficient; what was wanted was a genuine alliance between Jewish and Arab workers. He was thereupon attacked by the revisionists as a cosmopolitan and doctrinaire Socialist theoretician.

†
See Kalvarisky’s own account in
Ha’olam
, 7, 1914, and in
She’ifotenu.
p. 54.

‡
Mandel, St Antony’s Papers, pp. 93-4.

*
Menahem Sheinkin, quoted in
Sefer Toldot Hahagana
, vol. 1, p. 135.

†
Sefer Toldot Hahagana
, p. 191.

‡
Mandel,
Middle Eastern Affairs
, p. 97.

*
Quoted in Ro’i, ‘The Zionist Attitude…’, p. 227.

†
Sefer Toldot Hahagana
, p. 308. This refers to Josef Lishanski, born in Metulla, who spoke the language and knew the customs of the Arabs much better than the newcomers. He was one of the most famous
shomrim
of the early period. During the First World War he played a leading part in the
Nili
conspiracy.

‡
Mandel, Dissertation, pp. 165-8.

*
Sefer Toldot Hahagana
, p. 186; Cohen,
Israel vehaolam ha’aravi
, p. 84; Alsberg, ‘The Arab Question…’, p. 168.

†
Mandel, Dissertation,
chapter 6
.

‡
Alsberg, ‘The Arab Question…’, p. 169.

*
Ibid.
, p. 172. For a fuller discussion of the negotiations, see N. Mandel, ‘Attempts at an Arab-Zionist entente 1913-14’, in
Middle Eastern Studies
, April 1965, p. 238
et seq.

†
On Hochberg, see Cohen,
Israel vehaolam ha’aravi
, p. 95, and Lichtheim,
Rückkehr
, Stuttgart, 1970, pp. 216-17.

‡
The text of his report is published in Alsberg, ‘The Arab Question …’, p. 187
et seq.

*
For Hochberg’s report on the Paris congress see
ibid.
, pp. 195-205.

†
Ibid.
, p. 177.

‡
Ibid.
, p. 178.

*
Mandel.
Middle Eastern Studies
, p. 260; see also Cohen,
Israel vehaolam ha’aravi
, pp. 107-10.

†
Mandel,
Middle Eastern Studies
, pp. 263–5.

‡
M. Medzini,
Esser Shanim shel Mediniut Eretz Yisraelit
, Tel Aviv, 1928, p. 80.

§
Wolffsohn to Ruppin, 15 September 1908, quoted in Alsberg, ‘The Arab Question …’, p. 179.

‖
Quoted in Ro’i, ‘The Zionist Attitude …’, p. 227.

*
Ktavim letoldot Chibat Zion
, vol. 3, P. 495.

†
Ro’i, ‘The Zionist Attitude …’, pp. 217-18.

‡
Beginning with
Die Pforte des Ostens
, Vienna, 1924, in which he also advocated a bi-national state. Jabotinsky, on the other hand, had no patience with such theories. When he approached Nordau during the war about the establishment of a Jewish Legion which was to fight against the Turks, he was told, ‘But you cannot do that, the Muslims are kin to the Jews, Ishmael was our uncle.’ ‘Ishmael is not our uncle,’ Jabotinsky replied. ‘We belong, thank God, to Europe and for two thousand years have helped to create the culture of the west.’

*
‘Die Bedeutung der Araberfrage fuer den Zionismus’, in
Der Jude
, 1918, p. 150.

†
Reports dated October and November 1913, quoted in Ro’i, ‘The Zionist Attitude …’, pp. 214–15.