Perspectives on Modern World History The Creation of the State of 1st edition 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Perspectives on 8 9 Modern 10 11 World History 12 13 The Creation of the State of Israel 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

pmwhcsi.indd 1 9/10/09 11:03:46 AM Master Final Pages 1st edition

Perspectives on Modern World History The Creation of the State of Israel

Myra Immell Book Editor

pmwhcsi.indd 3 9/10/09 11:03:50 AM 1 Christine Nasso, Publisher 2 Elizabeth Des Chenes, Managing Editor 3 © 2010 Thomson Gale, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. 4 Gale and Greenhaven Press are registered trademarks used herein under license. For more information, contact: 5 Greenhaven Press 6 27500 Drake Rd. Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 7 Or you can visit our Internet site at gale.cengage.com 8 All Rights Reserved. 9 No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, 10 stored, or used in any form or by any means­ graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, 11 information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written 12 permission of the publisher. 13 14 For product information and technology assistance, contact us at 15 Gale Customer Support, 1-800-877-4253. For permission to use material from this text or product, submit all requests online at 16 www.cengage.com/permissions. 17 Further permissions questions can be emailed to [email protected] 18 Articles in Greenhaven Press anthologies are often edited for length to meet page requirements. In 19 addition, original titles of these works are changed to clearly present the main thesis and to explicitly in- dicate the author’s opinion. Every effort is made to ensure that Greenhaven Press accurately reflects the 20 original intent of the authors. Every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyrighted material. 21 Cover images copyright Hiroko Masuike/Getty Images and Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced by permission. 22

23 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data 24 The creation of the state of Israel / Myra Immell, book editor. p. cm. -- (Perspectives on modern world history) 25 Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7377-4556-6 (hardcover) 26 1. Israel--History--Declaration of Independence, 1948--Juvenile literature. 2. --History--­ 1929-1948--Juvenile literature. 3. Israel--History--1948-1967--Juvenile literature. 4. -- 27 History--20th century--Juvenile literature. 5. Israel--History--Declaration of Independence, 28 1948--Sources--Juvenile literature. 6. Palestine--History--1929-1948--Sources--Juvenile literature. 7. Israel--History--1948-1967--Sources--Juvenile literature. 8. Jews--History--20th century--Sources-- 29 Juvenile literature. I. Immell, Myra. DS126.4.C69 2009 30 956.94'04--dc22 2009024199 31 32 33 34 35 Printed in the United States of America 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 12 11 10 09

pmwhcsi.indd 4 9/10/09 11:03:50 AM Final Pages Master Contents 1 2 3 4 Foreword 1 5 Introduction 4 6 7 World Map 9 8 9 10 CHAPTER 1 Historical Background on the Creation 11 of the State of Israel 12 1. From Palestine to Israel: An Overview 13 13 14 Sara Pendergast, Ralph G. Zerbonia, and 15 Tom Pendergast 16 Excerpts from the Gale Middle East Conflict 17 Reference Library explain that after World 18 War I, the British had mandate power over 19 Palestine. Announcement of a plan in 1947 to 20 partition Palestine resulted in the end of the 21 British Mandate, the creation of the state of 22 Israel, and war between Arabs and Israelis. 23 2. Reactions to the 1947 UN Approval 24 of Partition 22 25 The Economist 26 27 In this 1947 news article the British, the 28 Arabs, and the Jews view differently the 29 United Nations approval of the establishment 30 of Arab and Jewish states in Palestine. For the 31 Jewish people, partition is a victory. For most 32 of the Arab population, it is not acceptable. 33 34 35 36

pmwhcsi.indd 5 9/10/09 11:03:51 AM Master Final Pages 3. The Future of Israel After the British Mandate Ends 28 The Times of London The ending of the British Mandate in Palestine and the withdrawal of British troops brings into question the new state of Israel and the future of Arab-Jewish relations. Concessions are called for on both sides in this London news article from 1948. 4. Three Days of Turmoil in Palestine’s History 33 The Post The English-language Israeli newspaper reports that the forty-eight to seventy-two hours immediately after Israel is proclaimed an independent state in May 1948 are chaotic. The new nation is in a state of emergency as it comes under attack from Arab snipers on the ground and Arab bombers in the skies. 5. Israel Becomes a State 39 The Jerusalem Post The day the state of Israel is officially pro- claimed, May 16, 1948, the Post reports that the new nation pledges to allow entry to Jewish immigrants from all countries and asks Arab citizens who have fled to return to their homes. 6. Israel Is a Model of Instant Democracy 44 I.D.W. Talmadge In this article published in September 1948, four months after Israel became a state, the foreign affairs editor of The Nation magazine reports that Israel’s democratic government is

pmwhcsi.indd 6 9/10/09 11:03:51 AM Final Pages Master secure and has the full support of the people. Israel is seen as the most stable regime in the Middle East.

CHAPTER 2 Controversies Surrounding the Creation of the State of Israel 1. The Jewish People Deserve a Home 52 A.J. Balfour The former prime minister of the United Kingdom argues in this 1922 speech that the Jewish people should have an opportunity to develop their culture and traditions free from unjust persecution. The Palestine Mandate makes this possible. 2. The British Plan to Partition Palestine Is Not the Best Solution 57 Herbert Samuel A British politician who is the high com- missioner to Palestine supports the British Mandate in Palestine and contends in 1937 that it should not be ended and that partition is not the best option to solve the Jewish-Arab problems in Palestine. 3. British Obligations to the Jewish People Are Not Legal 66 Higher Arab Committee In this 1938 report the Higher Arab Committee maintains that British obligations to the Jewish people and the Arab popula- tion are conflicting and cannot be reconciled and that obligations to the Jewish people are beyond the scope of a solution in Palestine.

pmwhcsi.indd 7 9/10/09 11:03:51 AM Master Final Pages 4. Palestine Should Not Be Partitioned 74 Jamal el-Husseini A member of the Palestine Arab delegation to the UN General Assembly’s Committee on Palestine argues in this 1947 speech that Palestine is the birthright of the Arab people. Only an Arab state for all of Palestine is acceptable. 5. Palestine Should Be Partitioned 83 Abba Hillel Silver A spokesman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine contends in this 1947 speech that Palestine is the historic home of the Jewish people and that the Jewish people have been promised a national homeland there. 6. Arab States Have No Right to Intervene in Israel 93 Abba Eban An Israeli statesman asserts in this 1948 speech that Arab acts of aggression against Israel must cease and Arab states must agree that the doctrine of sovereign equality applies to Israel as well as to themselves. 7. Outside Factors Contributed to the Birth of Israel 102 Geoffrey Wheatcroft A British journalist and author makes the case in 1997 that Jewish politicians, Zionists, and settlers were not wholly responsible for the creation of Israel; world events over which they had no control played a major role.

pmwhcsi.indd 8 9/10/09 11:03:51 AM Final Pages Master 8. The Connection Between and the Creation of Israel 108 Evyatar Friesel An Israeli academician argues in this 1996 paper that there was a point of contact between the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, but the Holocaust was not the basis for the creation. 9. Establishment of the State of Israel Was an Injustice to the 117 Avi Shlaim A contemporary historian argues in 2008 that the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel resulted in considerable injustice to the Palestinians. He contends that Israel needs to end its opposition to an independent Palestinian state. 10. The Is Responsible for Instability in the Middle East 127 Peter Mansfield A Middle East expert argues in this 1967 magazine article that the ambiguous wording of the Balfour Declaration led Arabs and Jews to interpret it differently. The ambiguity has resulted in ongoing unrest. 11. The United States Has a Responsibility for the Israeli-Palestinian Problem 133 Richard H. Curtiss A former U.S. secretary of defense reflects on actions taken in 1948 and concludes that the United States should not have pushed for par-

pmwhcsi.indd 9 9/10/09 11:03:51 AM Master Final Pages tition nor recognized the state of Israel until borders were officially agreed upon. 12. Palestinian Arabs Should Be Returned to Their Homes 142 Rafat Abu Ghali A Palestinian currently living in a in the contends that refu- gees should be returned to their original land and repaid for their losses. He feels that the international community should take steps to ensure the Palestinian right of return. 13. Palestinian Arabs Should Not Have the Right of Return 148 Rachel Neuwirth A contemporary political commentator and analyst argues that demands for Israelis to return former land and property to Palestinian Arab refugees or their descendants are unreasonable. Many present-day refugees have never lived in Palestine.

CHAPTER 3 Personal Narratives 1. A Briton Serves in Palestine from 1946 to 1948 159 Howard Mansfield A member of the British section of the Palestine police from 1946 to 1948 explains how the force operated during the British Mandate and describes his duties after the end of the mandate. 2. A Student Celebrates the Dawn of a Jewish State 167 Zipporah Porath In a letter home, an American attending

pmwhcsi.indd 10 9/10/09 11:03:51 AM Final Pages Master Jerusalem’s Hebrew University in 1947 and 1948 tells how she and friends celebrated the outcome of the United Nations’ vote to parti- tion Palestine. She describes the emotions evoked by Israeli prime minister David Ben- Gurion’s victory speech. 3. A Young Immigrant Joins the 173 David Rubinger, with Ruth Corman A photojournalist documents his experiences as a resident of Jerusalem in 1947 and 1948. He tells what it was like to be a member of the Haganah, the Jewish defense organization, fighting for Israel against Arab invaders. 4. A Diplomat Begins His Mission in Israel 180 James G. McDonald The first U.S. ambassador to Israel gets settled in Jerusalem in 1948. He paints a portrait of life in the city of and describes his visits with top government officials. 5. A Palestinian Arab Remembers the 1948 Arab-Israeli War 187 Ilene R. Prusher An Arab veteran relates to a reporter what his village was like and how he helped defend it against Israeli forces in 1948. He believes the Arabs were not united enough to protect their land. 6. A Jewish-American Teen Personally Encounters the Arab-Israeli Conflict 194 Rachel Sacks A high school student describes how a trip to Israel and an encounter with an Arab- Christian woman changed her perceptions of Arab-Israeli hostilities.

pmwhcsi.indd 11 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Master Final Pages Glossary 198 Chronology 201 For Further Reading 205 Index 209

pmwhcsi.indd 12 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Final Pages Master Foreword 1 2 3 4 “History cannot give us a program for the future, 5 but it can give us a fuller understanding of our- 6 selves, and of our common humanity, so that we 7 can better face the future.” 8 —Robert Penn Warren, 9 American poet and novelist 10 11 he history of each nation is punctuated by momen- 12 tous events that represent turning points for that 13 nation, with an impact felt far beyond its borders. 14 TThese events—displaying the full range of human capa- 15 bilities, from violence, greed, and ignorance to heroism, 16 courage, and strength—are nearly always complicated 17 and multifaceted. Any student of history faces the chal- 18 lenge of grasping the many strands that constitute such 19 world-changing events as wars, social movements, and 20 environmental disasters. But understanding these sig- 21 nificant historic events can be enhanced by exposure 22 to a variety of perspectives, whether of people involved 23 intimately or of ones observing from a distance of miles 24 or years. Understanding can also be increased by learn- 25 ing about the controversies surrounding such events and 26 exploring hot-button issues from multiple angles. Finally, 27 true understanding of important historic events involves 28 knowledge of the events’ human impact—of the ways 29 such events affected people in their everyday lives—all 30 over the world. 31 Perspectives on Modern World History examines 32 global historic events from the twentieth-century onward 33 by presenting analysis and observation from numerous 34 vantage points. Each volume offers high school, early 35 college level, and general interest readers a thematically 36 1

pmwhcsi.indd 1 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Master Final Pages arranged anthology of previously published materials that address a major historical event, with an empha- sis on international coverage. Each volume opens with background information on the event, then presents the controversies surrounding that event, and concludes with first-person narratives from people who lived through the event or were affected by it. By providing primary sources from the time of the event, as well as rel- evant commentary surrounding the event, this series can be used to inform debate, help develop critical thinking skills, increase global awareness, and enhance an under- standing of international perspectives on history. Material in each volume is selected from a diverse range of sources, including journals, magazines, news- papers, nonfiction books, personal narratives, speeches, congressional testimony, government documents, pam- phlets, organization newsletters, and position papers. Articles taken from these sources are carefully edited and introduced to provide context and background. Each volume of Perspectives on Modern World History includes an array of views on events of global signifi- cance. Much of the material comes from international sources and from U.S. sources that provide extensive international coverage. Each volume in the Perspectives on Modern World History series also includes: • A full-color world map, offering context and geo- graphic perspective. • An annotated table of contents that provides a brief summary of each essay in the volume. • An introduction specific to the volume topic. • For each viewpoint, a brief introduction that has notes about the author and source of the viewpoint, and that provides a summary of its main points. • Full-color charts, graphs, maps, and other visual representations. 2

pmwhcsi.indd 2 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Final Pages Master • Informational sidebars that explore the lives of key individuals, give background on historical events, or explain scientific or technical concepts. • A glossary that defines key terms, as needed. • A chronology of important dates preceding, during, and immediately following the event. • A bibliography of additional books, periodicals, and Web sites for further research. • A comprehensive subject index that offers access to people, places, and events cited in the text. Perspectives on Modern World History is designed for a broad spectrum of readers who want to learn more about not only history but also current events, politi- cal science, government, international relations, and sociology—students doing research for class assignments or debates, teachers and faculty seeking to supplement course materials, and others wanting to improve their understanding of history. Each volume of Perspectives on Modern World History is designed to illuminate a complicated event, to spark debate, and to show the human perspective behind the world’s most significant happenings of recent decades.

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pmwhcsi.indd 3 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Master Final Pages 1 Introduction 2 3 4 5 mmigration is at the very heart of the state of Israel. 6 Olim, Hebrew for those who immigrate to Israel, 7 began arriving long before Israel was proclaimed a 8 Istate in 1948 and continue to come to the present day. 9 Olim built Israel, gave it its unique character and culture, 10 and in the process created an independent state. 11 Traditional Jewish belief holds that the 12 was given to the Jewish people by God. They have been 13 making , large-scale Jewish immigration to the 14 Land of Israel, since biblical times. In modern times 15 before statehood, during Ottoman rule and the British 16 Mandate of Palestine, there were five numbered aliyot 17 (plural of aliyah). The first was between 1882 and 1903. 18 It laid the foundation for Jewish settlement in Israel. 19 Between twenty thousand and thirty thousand olim— 20 mostly from eastern , some from Yemen—arrived 21 in Palestine. Most came for religious reasons, seeking 22 refuge from the Jewish persecution and in 23 their own countries. By 1903 they had bought almost 24 ninety thousand acres of land and founded twenty new 25 ­settlements. 26 During the Second Aliyah, 1904–1914, forty thou- 27 sand more eastern European and Yemeni immigrants 28 arrived in Palestine. This influx of immigrants created 29 the first enduring framework for the future establish- 30 ment of the state of Israel and is considered by many 31 the most important and influential aliyah of the five. 32 Several kibbutzim, collective farms or settlements, were 33 established and Tel Aviv, the first modern all-Jewish city 34 in Palestine, was founded. Political parties were created 35 and workers’ agricultural organizations began to form. 36 Hebrew was revived as a modern, spoken language, and 4

pmwhcsi.indd 4 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Final Pages Master Hebrew literature and newspapers were published. The first health and welfare organizations were formed, the first bank was founded, the (JNF) was established, and the first Jewish self-defense organi- zation in Palestine came into being. The , 1919–1923, brought about thirty- five thousand new immigrants, mainly from eastern European countries, almost half from . These olim established more new institutions, organizations, and forms of settlement. In his 1976 work, Immigration Without Integration: Third World Jews in Israel, Avraham Shama characterizes the olim of the first three aliyot: The members of the first three aliyot were dedicated individuals. For a person to abandon his home and migrate to a new country requires a readiness to make great adjustments and changes in his life. Migration to Palestine required a commitment beyond that required for migration elsewhere. The Jewish population was small and scattered. The political environment was hostile or at best indifferent to the plight of the Jews. Amenities were almost nonexistent. Living conditions were hard; malaria and other diseases were endemic. The future was uncertain. Admittedly, most Jews who migrated from Europe went to America. Given the harsh conditions in Palestine, this is not surprising. But those who did go to Palestine were committed individuals, convinced that their privations would bear fruit in the form of a livable Jewish state. They were chalutzim (pio- neers) and viewed themselves accordingly—as only the first of many to settle in the Land of Israel. The Fourth Aliyah, 1924–1928, brought yet another eighty-two thousand olim to Palestine. While most came from , in particular, smaller num- bers came from Asia, the rest of Europe, and America. They began small businesses and workshops in the grow- 5

pmwhcsi.indd 5 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Master Final Pages ing cities, strengthened the towns, promoted industrial development, and restored Jewish labor in the villages. During the , 1932–1939, more than two hundred thousand new immigrants arrived in Palestine. This group was different. Many were from upper- and middle-class backgrounds and were highly educated pro- fessionals—doctors, lawyers, college professors. About one-fifth of them had fled Germany, fearful of the rise to power of Adolf Hitler. The Germans had a great influ- ence on culture and society in the Jewish community. They also were relatively prosperous, and the funds they brought with them helped strengthen the economy of the Jewish community. This heavy immigration greatly increased the Jewish population of Palestine. It grew from about twenty-four thousand people in 1882 to more than six hundred thou- sand people by 1948. The continuing growth pleased the Zionists, those who supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine, but began to alarm the Arabs. In time the Arabs turned from peaceful protests to a campaign of terror, riots, and pogroms against the Jews. To appease the Arabs during the time of the British Mandate, the British restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine again and again. Restrictions placed on immigration when the British controlled the area led to Aliyah , clandestine, illegal immigration. According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The period of clandestine immigration was one of the most crucial chapters in the history of the struggle for an independent Jewish state in Palestine.” It proved to be the salvation of many Jews fleeing the Nazi Holocaust. Between 1934 and 1948 more than a hundred thousand Jews were brought into the country illegally. The greatest deluge of immigrants to Israel to that point in time—688,000 people—arrived during the nation’s first three years, 1948–1951. Since then many hundreds of thousands more have come, and they have changed the character of Israel yet again. Since the late 6

pmwhcsi.indd 6 9/10/09 11:03:52 AM Final Pages Master 1980s around 1 million former Soviet citizens have streamed into Israel, a fair percentage of them not Jews according to religious law. Nonetheless, by the mid- 1990s, more Jews had immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union than from any other country in the world. Today Russians constitute the largest national group in Israel. According to Dina Siegel, author of The Great Immigration: Russian Jews in Israel, the scale and nature of the Russian migration to Israel changed both the nation’s official approach to immigration and its ideology. At about the same time the Russians were making their presence felt in Israel, Ethiopians began enter- ing the country by the thousands. In 1977, the prime minister of Israel, , had convinced the president of Ethiopia to allow 200 Ethiopian Jews to go to Israel aboard an Israeli military jet returning to Israel. The Ethiopians were known as falasha mura, an ancient Jewish community who for the most part were subsis- tence farmers living in small villages in the mountains. From November 1984 to January 1985, a secret forty- five-day airlift through Sudan known as Operation Moses brought 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. In May 1991, the Israelis conducted another airlift, Operation Solomon, which brought another 14,200 to Israel. Since then, other Ethiopians have immigrated to Israel, and the Ethiopian community consists of about 120,000 immigrants and their descendants. The modern Israeli culture and way of life proved very different from the traditional culture and lifestyle of the Ethiopian immigrants, and they have had a difficult time adjusting. Most are not well-educated, are poor, and live in the least desirable neighborhoods. In August 2008 Israel ended its policy of immigration from Ethiopia in an effort to devote more resources to integrating Ethiopian Jews already in the country. The efforts and determination of the early Jewish immigrants made possible the creation of the state of 7

pmwhcsi.indd 7 9/10/09 11:03:53 AM Master Final Pages Israel. Although new Jewish immigrants from different parts of the world continue to arrive in Israel, in recent years their numbers are fewer. According to an immigra- tion ministry spokesperson, almost as many people are leaving Israel as are immigrating to it. Since 1948, all Israeli governments have made it their policy to encour- age Jewish immigration for both political and emotional reasons, not the least of which is the continued survival of Israel as a Jewish nation. That policy is not expected to change.

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CHAPTER 1 1 2 Historical Background on the Creation 3 4 of the State of Israel 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

pmwhcsi.indd 12 9/10/09 11:04:06 AM Final Pages Master VIEWPOINT 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 From Palestine to Israel: 10 11 An Overview 12 13 14 Sara Pendergast, Ralph G. Zerbonia, 15 and Tom Pendergast 16 17 The following viewpoint, excerpted from Sara Pendergast, Ralph G. Zerbonia, and Tom Pendergast’s multi-volume Middle East 18 Conflict Reference Library, introduces and provides a brief 19 overview of major factors that culminated in the establishment 20 of Israel as an independent state in 1948. Heavy immigration 21 to Israel by Jewish people seeking refuge from anti-semitism, A 1909 land auction 22 accompanied by the rise of , played an early role. So did at the site that was to become Tel Aviv, 23 the Balfour Declaration, which proclaimed that the British sought Israel. The city’s name 24 to create an independent Jewish state in Palestine without tak- came from the writ- 25 ing away the rights or the privileges of non-Jewish people in the ings of Theodor Herzl, 26 region. Other key factors followed, including the British Mandate pioneer of modern 27 of Palestine, the decision by the British to end their mandate in Zionism, and means Palestine, and ultimately the division of Palestine into two sepa- “Hill of Spring.” (AP 28 rate but linked political bodies by the United Nations. Images.) 29 30 31 32 SOURCE. Sara Pendergast, Ralph G. Zerbonia, and Tom Pendergast, 33 Middle East Conflict Reference Library. Belmont, CA: UXL, 2006. 34 Copyright © 2006 Gale, Cengage Learning. Reproduced by permis- 35 sion of Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 13

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alestine is a land claimed by two determined 1 peoples, the Jews and the Arab Palestinians. . . . 2 Both . . . feel that they were promised access to 3 andP control of this land by foreign powers that governed 4 Palestine during the 1800s and 1900s. . . . 5 Reacting to violent anti-Jewish riots, or pogroms, 6 Russian Jews began to leave their country to settle in 7 Palestine in the late nineteenth century. The first such 8 groups formed an organization called Lovers of Zion 9 with Zion being an ancient name for Eretz Yisrael [“Land 10 of Israel”]. In 1881 a Russian named Leo Pinsker wrote 11 a book called Autoemancipation. According to William 12 L. Cleveland, author of A History of the Modern Middle 13 East, Pinsker’s booklet “argued that anti-Semitism was 14 so deeply embedded in European society that . . . Jews 15 would never be treated as equals. . . . Jews could not wait 16 for Western society to change; they had to seize their 17 own destiny and establish an independent Jewish state.” 18 Pinsker’s book, along with the first wave of Jewish 19 immigration to Palestine (known as 20 the first aliyah), brought approxi- 21 The Jews . . . wanted more than mately thirty-five thousand Jews to 22 simply an independent society Palestine. . . . 23 within Palestine, they wanted The second wave of immigra- 24 to form an independent Jewish tion was far more organized and 25 state. determined. A Hungarian Jew named 26 Theodor Herzl independently came 27 to many of the same conclusions as 28 Pinsker, and in 1896 he published a book called The 29 Jewish State, which drew mass attention to the Zionist 30 cause. Herzl argued very convincingly that Jews liv- 31 ing throughout Europe had all the characteristics of a 32 nation—a shared religion, history, and culture—but that 33 they lacked a state in which they could live out their 34 hopes and dreams for the future. . . . From 1896 on, 35 Zionists grew ever more focused on creating a national 36 home for Jews in Palestine. . . . 14 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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This great surge of Zionist organizing led directly to the second aliyah, which brought approximately forty 1 thousand Jews to Palestine, mostly from Russia, between 2 1904 and 1914. This influx of settlers helped to establish 3 some of the first stable and permanent Jewish social 4 institutions in Palestine. Settlers built the foundations 5 for the city of Tel Aviv, the first all-Jewish city. They 6 joined together to create farms that would allow Jews 7 to be self-sufficient, meaning that they could provide 8 all of their own food. In 1909 they established the first 9 , or collective farm. . . . The Jewish people were 10 building an independent Jewish society alongside but 11 independent of the Arab society that already existed in 12 the area. The Jews, however, wanted more than simply 13 an independent society within Palestine, they wanted 14 to form an independent Jewish state. This task was dif- 15 ficult to achieve without the support of either the failing 16 , which oversaw the region, or Britain, 17 the dominant European power in the Middle East. . . . 18 19 The Balfour Declaration 20 Under Ottoman rule, which had provided stability in 21 the Middle East starting in 1516, the populations of 22 the regions of Palestine, Greater Syria, , and 23 Mesopotamia (later Iraq) were left under the control of 24 leading Arab families. As long as the families paid their 25 taxes to the empire, the empire did not interfere greatly 26 in their affairs, including the affairs of Jews, who began to 27 represent a significant minority population in Palestine. 28 But the coming of brought immense change 29 to the region. The Ottoman Empire 30 sided with Germany in the war in 31 the hopes of revitalizing the strength [The Balfour Declaration] was 32 of the empire and keeping Western arguably the single most influ- 33 European powers such as and ential document in the history 34 Britain from gaining control over the of the Middle East. 35 Middle East. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 15

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UN PARTITION PLAN, 1947 1 2 Beirut 3 Damascus 4 LEBANON 5 SYRIA 6 7 8 N 9 Tel Aviv Amman 10 Jerusalem 11 Gaza 12 13 14 TRANS SAUDI ARABIA 15 JORDAN 16 17 18 SINAI 19 20 21 22 Jewish State 23 24 Arab State 25 International Zone 26 EGYPT 27 28 Taken from: UN Partition Plan 1947, The , Department of Jewish Zionist Education, © 2008 29 30 Britain and France, however, were already devel- 31 oping plans to defeat the Ottoman Empire. They rec- 32 ognized that the Arab populations in the region had 33 legitimate claims to self-rule, and that these populations 34 were willing to help Britain and France fight against 35 the Ottomans. In order to encourage Arab assistance, 36 Britain and France promised that they would help the 16 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Arabs build independent nations. Britain was also very interested in World opinion after [World War 1 gaining cooperation from the Jewish II] was in favor of granting inde- 2 community in Palestine. High-placed pendence to the Arab nations of 3 Jews in London, especially Chaim the Middle East. 4 Weizmann, a spokesman for the 5 Zionists, convinced British diplo- 6 mats that they could win the support 7 of Russia (which encouraged Jewish immigration to 8 Palestine) in the war if they offered support for a Jewish 9 homeland in Palestine. . . . 10 In order to secure all of its many interests . . . the 11 British government in 1917 issued a brief statement 12 known as the Balfour Declaration. In its entirety, it read: 13 “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the estab- 14 lishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish 15 people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate 16 the achievement of this object, it being understood that 17 nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and 18 religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities 19 in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by 20 Jews in any other country.” 21 This statement was arguably the single most influen- 22 tial document in the history of the Middle East. Britain 23 had committed itself to what would soon prove to be a 24 nearly impossible task, creating an independent Jewish 25 state in Palestine without taking away the rights or the 26 privileges of non-Jewish people in the region. . . . 27 28 British Mandate of Palestine 29 Following World War I, the victorious Allies—Britain, 30 France, and the United States—joined with other nations 31 to decide the fate of the Middle East. The plan they 32 devised . . . was called the mandate system. Under the 33 mandate system, the Middle East was divided into ter- 34 ritories that were expected to become independent 35 nations. . . . France thus gained mandate power over 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 17

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The corpses of Jewish 1 men killed in a 1900 Ukrainian 2 cover a wooden 3 table. (Hulton Archive/ 4 Getty Images.) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Syria and Lebanon, and Britain gained control over Iraq, 28 Transjordan, and Palestine. The Arab nations moved 29 relatively quickly toward independence, but Palestine 30 soon became deeply divided between the Jewish and 31 Arab populations. 32 The British mandate of Palestine began in 1920 33 under the supervision of Sir Herbert Samuel, an experi- 34 enced British politician. . . . Britain knew that it could not 35 ignore the Arab Palestinians in its support of the Jews in 36 Palestine. The British . . . had pledged to cooperate with 18 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Arab leaders to develop the economy of Palestine. Samuel also publicly proclaimed Britain’s duty to live up to their 1 promises in the Balfour Declaration to uphold the rights 2 of Palestinians, the Arab inhabitants of Palestine that 3 the actual declaration had characterized as the “existing 4 non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” The promises the 5 British had made to both sides of the emerging conflict 6 for control of Palestine made it very difficult for them to 7 commit their resources to the support of either side. As 8 a result Britain’s support continued to shift, favoring first 9 one group, then the other. . . . 10 By the late 1930s it had become apparent to all that 11 the Jews and Arabs were not willing to live together in 12 Palestine. In 1937 the British Peel Commission Report 13 called for Palestine to be partitioned, or split, into inde- 14 pendent Arab and Jewish states. Jews considered this 15 solution, but wanted to modify it; Arabs rejected it out- 16 right, declaring that giving land to an outside minority 17 was an unjust solution. . . . In 1939 the British tried again, 18 issuing a policy paper, called the White Paper, that . . . 19 proclaimed that Britain no longer planned that Palestine 20 would become a Jewish state and announced further lim- 21 its on Jewish immigration to Palestine. . . . 22 The events of World War II brought about major 23 shifts in power, both in the Middle East and in the rest 24 of the world. Three of these shifts are particularly impor- 25 tant for understanding politics in Palestine. First, the war 26 exhausted Britain and, as the war came to an end, the 27 British looked for ways to withdraw from [their] com- 28 mitment to administer Palestine. Second, world opinion 29 after the war was in favor of granting independence to 30 the Arab nations of the Middle East. The Arab League, 31 a coalition of Arab nations formed in 1945, was espe- 32 cially sympathetic to the desire of Arab Palestinians for 33 their own nation. Finally, the world’s horror at Hitler’s 34 “Final Solution,” the ghastly name given to his attempt 35 to exterminate all European Jews, created a great sym- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 19

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pathy, especially in the United States, 1 The state of Israel was now a for the creation of a Jewish state in 2 reality, recognized by the United Palestine. . . . 3 Nations and welcomed by many In February 1947 Britain request- 4 in the international community. ed that the United Nations come 5 to Palestine to provide assistance. 6 By August of that year the United 7 Nations Special Committee on 8 Palestine (UNSCOP) called for an end to the British 9 mandate and for the partition, or division, of Palestine 10 into two separate but linked political bodies. The British 11 announced in September that they would end their man- 12 date by May 14, 1948. . . . 13 The partition plan was voted on and passed in the 14 United Nations on November 29, 1947, marking the first 15 time that the international community publicly endorsed 16 the idea of a Jewish state. . . . 17 18 The Arab-Israeli War 19 From the moment that UNSCOP announced its plan of 20 partition in 1947, the situation in Palestine changed from 21 one in which politicians lobbied to win support for their 22 land claims to one in which armed groups fought with 23 each other to secure land. This scramble to claim land 24 and define boundaries occurred in two distinct phases: 25 the first in what has been called the Intercommunal War, 26 when Jews and Palestinians fought among themselves, 27 and then in the first Arab-Israeli War (called the War for 28 Independence in Israel) in which the neighboring Arab 29 nations fought to deny Israel its independence. . . . 30 Unwilling to supervise the partition plan, British 31 forces left Palestine on May 14, 1948, and on that same 32 day David Ben-Gurion [Israel’s first prime minister] pro- 33 claimed the existence of the state of Israel roughly within 34 the borders defined by the United Nations partition plan. 35 The next day, the armies of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, 36 and Transjordan invaded Israel. . . . 20 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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The fighting in this war was largely over by August 1948. Israeli forces not only secured the areas granted 1 by the United Nations partition, they also significantly 2 expanded Israeli-controlled territory in the north, cap- 3 turing the entire northern quarter of Palestine all the 4 way to the Lebanese border, and making real gains on 5 both the northern and southern edges of the , 6 a Palestinian-dominated territory west of the bank of 7 the Jordan River. . . . By the middle of 1949, Israel had 8 negotiated ceasefire agreements—though not peace trea- 9 ties—with all its neighboring countries, and considered 10 its borders secure and established. The state of Israel was 11 now a reality, recognized by the United Nations and wel- 12 comed by many in the international community. 13 Israel had secured a victory and realized the Zionist 14 dream, but in so doing, it had also created significant 15 regional problems. The first and biggest problem was 16 that of Palestinian refugees. . . . 17 Another significant problem created by Israel’s rise 18 to independence is the lasting ill will and anger that it 19 created among Arab nations. Arab nations would fight a 20 series of wars with Israel over the next thirty years and 21 would consistently deny Israel’s right to exist. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 21

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Reactions to the 1947 11 12 UN Approval of Partition 13 14 15 The Economist 16 In the following viewpoint, the British newspaper The Economist 17 contends that while Jewish people are accepting of the United 18 Nations 1947 approval of the partition for Palestine, the Arab 19 population is defiantly opposed. For the most part, the new 20 Jewish state is united and working hard to resolve internal politi- 21 cal situations, the lack of room for all the immigrants seeking 22 immediate entry, and other problems. The Arab population does 23 not want to recognize the partition: They want the Jewish people 24 out of Palestine and are willing to resort to violence to achieve their goal. The Arab state is in denial and refuses to make plans 25 to take over and administer the Arab part of the country. 26 27 28 29 he reaction of the three interested communi- 30 ties in Palestine to the United Nations’ approval 31 of partition has been almost exactly what one 32 T 33 SOURCE. The Economist Special Correspondent, “Partition on the 34 Spot,” The Economist, December 13, 1947, pp. 963–964. Copyright 35 © 1947 The Economist Newspaper Limited. Republished with permis- 36 sion of The Economist Newspaper Limited. 22 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 would have expected. The Jews are pleased, the Arabs Egyptians gather in 21 Cairo’s Opera Square 22 angry, and the British sceptical. But sentiments stop in 1947 to protest short of excess. There were frenzied Jewish rejoicings; the United Nations’ 23 now many Jews are finding imperfections in the plan. partition of Palestine 24 There were widespread Arab riots; they were neither as and to hear speeches 25 violent nor as lengthy as many officials expected. The by Arab leaders, who 26 can be seen atop average British official (the adjective is carefully chosen) the structure to the 27 first said, “The whole thing’s damn silly”; on reflection right. (AP Images.) 28 his attitude is more, “Well, it’s an admirable scheme on 29 paper, but . . . ” 30 Partition is a victory for the Jewish people, and was 31 celebrated as such. But some of their leaders realise 32 already that, unless they walk extremely warily, victory 33 may be costly and its fruits bitter. It has already cre- 34 ated new and difficult problems. The Zionist movement 35 has in the past maintained surprisingly strict discipline 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 23

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amongst its adherents, most of whom 1 It will be an authoritarian and are not by nature disciplined people. 2 ruthless state; but it will work. Now there is a slight cracking of that 3 discipline. There is an immediate 4 demand both from would-be immi- 5 grants waiting in Europe and also 6 from lands where, in the past, Jews seemed reasonably 7 secure, that the gates of Palestine be at once opened to 8 them. But no appreciable increase in immigration is 9 likely until the British administration is withdrawn; even 10 when the Jews take over their part of Palestine it will 11 still not—they say—be possible to bring in more than a 12 maximum of 5,000 a month. So the Jewish Agency, or the 13 Jewish Government, will soon be appreciating some of 14 the difficulties which for so long bedevilled the British. 15 Fears of persecution have led Jewish communities 16 settled for generations in the Moslem countries of the 17 Middle East and to send urgent appeals to 18 the Agency that they should be immediately brought to 19 Palestine. “We are hostages: our lives are in danger,” is the 20 tenor of the messages. This problem the Agency had not 21 foreseen. They fully intend that at some future date these 22 Middle East Jews should emigrate to Palestine (whether 23 they want to or not), but there is no room for them yet; 24 priority must be given to European Jews. . . . 25 26 A Complex Government 27 The new Jewish State faces even more complex internal 28 situations, of which the most important are political. 29 The executive of the Jewish Agency which, until a con- 30 stitution is promulgated and elections held, will probably 31 turn itself into a temporary government, is composed of 32 nineteen members. Eight of them belong to the General 33 Zionists, seven to Mapai (Palestine Workers’ Party) and 34 four to the strict orthodox Mizrahi Party. Seats are held 35 in the Asefath Hannivharim (the elected assembly) and 36 indeed on other representative bodies such as the Va’ad 24 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Leumi (national council) much in the same proportion, but with the addition of representatives of half a dozen 1 smaller parties. Since the United Nations decision, two 2 of these parties, the left-wing Socialists and left-wing 3 Labour, both previously against partition and anti- 4 Mapai, have announced their readiness to accept parti- 5 tion and to work with Mapai. This makes Mapai now far 6 stronger than the General Zionists and can give official 7 Jewish policy a strong leftish tendency. 8 The Mapai leaders, David Ben Gurion, chairman of 9 the Agency Executive, Mosche Shertok and Mrs Golda 10 Meyerson, are probably delighted with this development 11 on a long-term basis. For immediate purposes, however, 12 they are playing it down. They are at pains to point out 13 that “Jewish ” will be “for internal consump- 14 tion only,” and that they have no thought of any gen- 15 eral “socialisation” of Jewish economy. This disclaimer 16 is clearly aimed at pacifying their wealthy American 17 supporters, who might be alarmed—and stop the flow of 18 dollars—if they thought action would be taken in Jewish 19 Palestine against private capital. 20 Incidentally, it has not yet been decided what name 21 the new Jewish State will adopt. Zion is a popular sug- 22 gestion; but, some Jews point out sadly, “you can’t have 23 a Zionist State, call it what you will, that doesn’t include 24 the city of Zion—Jerusalem.” Eretz Israel, Israel, Palestine 25 are other possibilities. 26 Faced though they are by these and a multitude of 27 other problems, the Jews are exerting all their boundless 28 energy and initiative—and, in financial matters, their 29 guile—in hastening the construction of their state. It will 30 be an authoritarian and ruthless state; but it will work. 31 32 Arabs Without a Plan 33 What can one say about the Arab State? The Palestine 34 Arab leaders—the Mufti and the members of the Arab 35 Higher Executive—know that unless they can reverse 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 25

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the United Nations decision by force of arms, partition 1 will be inevitable. Yet they still refuse even to consider 2 making plans to take over and administer their part 3 of the country. Further, they refuse to allow any of the 4 more reasonable, progressive young Arabs, who realise 5 that something has got to be done, to make any plans of 6 their own. The surprisingly complete observance of the 7 three-day protest strike called by the Mufti shows that 8 the Arabs follow the Mufti’s orders. They dislike having 9 the Jews in their “own land” and would be delighted to 10 turn them out by force. But no Arab 11 with his senses about him can believe 12 There will be the very reverse of that to be physically possible until, at 13 good will from the Arab side, and any rate, very considerable assistance 14 so it is possible that the 27-year- is furnished by the Arab States. It 15 old conflict will ­continue. would, therefore, have seemed rea- 16 sonable to make some attempt to 17 keep what they have and to maintain 18 their part of Palestine as a going concern, which it is, 19 thanks to a maligned British Administration and also to 20 Jewish initiative and Jewish money. 21 Nothing of the kind has happened. So far as can 22 be seen, there will be no authority, no administration, 23 not even leaders, to whom the departing British or the 24 United Nations Commission can formally deliver the 25 deeds of Arab Palestine. As transfer of authority must be 26 made, opinion in British circles here is tending more and 27 more to the idea of giving King Abdullah of Transjordan 28 the baby to hold. 29 30 The Odds of Success 31 Can partition succeed? With good will on both sides the 32 answer is obviously “yes.” It is not an ideal solution: but it 33 could be a solution and no one has produced a better or 34 even a workable alternative. Unfortunately, there will be 35 the very reverse of good will from the Arab side, and so 36 it is possible that the 27-year-old conflict will continue— 26 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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without a British administration to hold the ring and take the blame. The Jews will make a most determined 1 effort to make a success of their state; Jewish leaders who 2 had for years set their faces against partition have now 3 accepted it faute de mieux [for lack of anything better]. 4 The danger is—if the Arabs finally accept the solution— 5 that the Jews might use their state as a stepping off 6 ground for peaceful penetration of the rest of Palestine. 7 Jewish voices have already complained that partition vio- 8 lates their historical conception of a Palestine “on both 9 sides of the Jordan.” The extremists of the Revisionist 10 Party and the terrorist organisations are for that reason 11 flatly against it. Among even moderate Zionists there 12 is equal determination that, come what may, Jerusalem 13 must be returned to the Jews. 14 How implacable the Palestine Arabs’ opposition to 15 the division of “our own country” will remain depends 16 mainly on the attitude of the neighbouring Arab States. 17 Nationalism has a firm hold on the Moslem countries, 18 but their dependence upon the Western Powers is still 19 a factor capable of bringing about surprising changes 20 in policy, which in their turn may alter the ideas of the 21 Palestine Arabs. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 27

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The Future of Israel 11 12 after the British 13 14 15 Mandate Ends 16 17 The Times of London 18 19 The following viewpoint from the May 12, 1948, edition of the 20 British newspaper The Times of London details the British plans for withdrawal from Palestine as the British Mandate in 21 that country comes to an end. The overriding concern is what 22 will happen when the British no longer are in charge. Arabs and 23 Jews must cooperate to ensure progress made during the man- 24 date is not lost and that institutions established are maintained 25 and continue to grow. A lack of Arab leadership threatens the 26 future of an independent Arab Palestine, and strong Arab hostil- 27 ity and escalating attacks threaten the very future of the new 28 Jewish state and make the already daunting task of the Jewish people all the more difficult. 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 SOURCE. “Last Days in Palestine,” The Times, May 13, 1948, p. 4. 36 Copyright © 1948 Times Newspapers Ltd. Reproduced by permission. 28 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 ‘Until we succeed in securing 15 the good will of the Arabs a dark 16 portentous shadow remains 17 over the National Home.’ 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 29

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1 Leaders must emerge, or else 2 the independent Arab Palestine 3 will disintegrate. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 ­ 36 30 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Members of Haganah, 20 the Jewish Agency 21 defense organiza- tion, escort three 22 Palestinian Arabs who 23 have been expelled 24 from Haifa. (AFP/Getty 25 Images.) 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 31

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Three Days of Turmoil in 10 11 Palestine’s History 12 13 14 The Jerusalem Post 15 16 The following viewpoint from the May 16, 1948, edition of The Jerusalem Post details events in and concerning “Jewish 17 Palestine” over a three-day period beginning May 14 with the 18 proclamation by the head of the provisional government, David 19 Ben-Gurion, of the establishment of the State of Israel. The 20 United States gave de facto recognition to the new state, Russia 21 and its allies said they intended to give their recognition as well, 22 but the United Nations faltered. All of Jewish Palestine, mean- 23 while, was in a state of blackout, bombs were dropped on the 24 city of Tel Aviv, a cease-fire petered out, and a battle raged for 25 control of Jerusalem. 26 27 28 or the Jewish population there was the anguish 29 over the fate of the few hundred Haganah [Jewish 30 defense organization] men and women in the Kfar 31 FEtzion bloc of settlements near [the city of] . 32 33 SOURCE. “Most Crowded Hours in Palestine’s History,” Jerusalem 34 Post, May 16, 1948. Copyright © 1948 Jerusalem Post. Reproduced by 35 permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 33

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Their surrender to a fully equipped superior foreign 1 force desperately in need of a victory was a foregone 2 conclusion. What could not be known, with no commu- 3 nications since Thursday morning, was whether and to 4 what extent the Red Cross and the Truce Consuls would 5 secure civilized conditions for prisoners and wounded, 6 and proper respect for the dead. Doubt on some of these 7 anxious questions have now been resolved. 8 On Friday afternoon, from Tel Aviv, came the Israel’s first prime min- 9 ister, David Ben-Gurion expected announcement of the Jewish State and its offi- 10 (left), on May 15, cial naming at birth, “Medinat Yisrael”—State of Israel, 11 1948, stands with an with the swearing in of the first Council of Government. 12 official who displays The proclamation of the State was made at midnight, 13 the signed document proclaiming the estab- coinciding with the sailing from Haifa of Britain’s last 14 lishment of the Jewish High Commissioner. Within the hour, President [Harry] 15 State of Israel. (AP Truman announced in Washington that the Government 16 Images.) of the United States had decided to give de facto rec- 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 34 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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ognition to the Jewish State, with all that such recognition implied. The members of the Arab League 1 The Assembly of the United Nations, completed their plans for a full- 2 meeting since the middle of April scale invasion of Palestine in 3 for “further study” of the Palestine what has been described as a 4 problem was thus left, by one means Moslem ‘crusade’ against the 5 or another, to ratify the Two-States Jews. 6 decision of November [1947], or dis- 7 solve with nothing concrete to its 8 credit. The Assembly adjourned with 9 the resolution to appoint a mediator between the Jews 10 and Arabs, to cooperate with the Security Council’s 11 Truce Commission in Jerusalem. 12 Russia and her allies had given early assurance of 13 their intention to recognize the Jewish State, whoever 14 else did or did not. As a result of Washington’s action and 15 the Eastern Bloc’s stand, other countries are expected to 16 extend their recognition to the newly born state. 17 18 An Arab Invasion 19 Nor did the Arab Bloc remain idle. True to promises, 20 or threats, the members of the Arab League completed 21 their plans for a full-scale invasion of Palestine in what 22 has been described as a Moslem “crusade” against the 23 Jews. Tel Aviv was bombed twice yesterday by Egyptian 24 war planes. One of the enemy planes was shot down by a 25 Jewish fighter plane, and the pilot taken prisoner, show- 26 ing that this move against the civilian population was 27 not a surprise, and that the Jewish preparations include 28 anti-aircraft defences. 29 A black-out has been ordered for the whole of Jewish 30 Palestine. Tel Aviv itself having blacked out on Friday. 31 At the same time, the air was filled with reports 32 of two Egyptian columns on the move from the south 33 towards Gaza and Beer Sheba, and of intensified shelling 34 from across the northern border of Jewish settlements in 35 North Eastern Galilee. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 35

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1 2 3 David Ben-Gurion: Israel’s First Prime Minister 4 The son of a lawyer, David Gruen and socialism were both seen by the 5 was born on October 16, 1886, in young Ben-Gurion as necessities for 6 Plonsk (Czarist Russia; now Poland). the future of the Jewish people. To him 7 He received a traditional Jewish educa- Zionism meant the obligation to come 8 tion, later adding some secular studies to Palestine, settle the land, and use in Warsaw. In 1900 he was among the Hebrew as everyday speech. 9 founders of the Zionist youth club Ezra; By 1947 he was a major spokes- 10 in 1903 he joined the Zionist socialist man for the Zionist cause before the 11 movement, Poalei Zion. United Nations Special Committee on 12 Gruen arrived in Palestine in Palestine, which later that year pro- 13 September 1906. He changed his posed the partition of Palestine and 14 name at that time to the Hebraic the formation of a Jewish state. As the 15 David Ben-Gurion, after a defender of British mandate was about to expire, 16 Jerusalem who died in 70 A.D. Zionism Ben-Gurion proclaimed the restoration 17 18 19 20 The Security Council met yesterday in a special ses- 21 sion to consider action on the invasion of Palestine by 22 member states of the U.N. 23 In the afternoon, Jerusalem was subjected to shell- 24 ing from the northwest. Haganah forces throughout 25 the country continued mopping up, and Jewish sources 26 claimed most of Western Galilee safe against attack. 27 Naharayim, near Jist el Majamie, inside Trans-Jordan, 28 where the Jordan river works of the Palestine Electric 29 Corporation are, is claimed by the Arab Legion. The 30 battle for the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Road at Bab el Wad is 31 still on, Haganah taking two villages— and 32 Kubab—between [the two cities of] Ramleh and Latrun. 33 34 An Ongoing Battle for Jerusalem 35 In Jerusalem the “cease fire” observed on both sides for 36 six days was broken on Friday, although the more stra- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 of the state of Israel on May 14, in the Middle East. During his premier- 4 1948. ship more than a million Jews, from 5 Serving as prime minister and min- 80 countries and speaking many lan- 6 ister of defense from 1948 to 1963 guages, came to Israel. The absorption 7 (except for a brief retirement from and integration of the immigrants and 8 1953 to 1955), Ben-Gurion revealed the Israeli achievements in housing, 9 himself to be not only an astute party agricultural settlement, employment, leader but also a great statesman. He industry, education, health services, 10 protected Israel from invasion by estab- and trade, under the Ben-Gurion gov- 11 lishing a well-equipped and well-trained ernment, were among the remarkable 12 people’s army. He forged the image of accomplishments of the twentieth 13 Israel as a modern democratic country ­century. 14 based on parliamentary rule, a unique Ben-Gurion died December 1, 15 sociological and political phenomenon 1973. 16 17 18 19 tegic buildings in Princess Mary Avenue, the Russian 20 Compound, and Jaffa Road passed to the Jews without 21 a shot being fired, as did the David Building command- 22 ing the road to the German Colony and Railway Station. 23 By yesterday evening, Jewish forces were approaching 24 some of the gates of the Old City. The Police Training 25 School on Mt. Scopus and Sheikh Harrah are in Jewish 26 hands. 27 On Friday morning, the Truce Commission met at 28 the French Consulate and invited Jewish and Arab repre- 29 sentatives to confer with them. Jewish Agency delegates 30 agreed that the “cease fire” be extended in Jerusalem for 31 eight days. Arab representatives could not attend, they 32 said, because of the firing in Julian’s Way, and a two-hour 33 respite was arranged from 5 to 7 in the evening. Whether 34 they agreed or not, became academic as by that time the 35 battle for Jerusalem had been renewed. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 37

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To Jerusalem’s tension was added the aggravation of 1 electric power failing in most parts of the city, as nearly 2 all of the Electric Corporation’s lines had been shot 3 down. This meant, on top of the other hardships to a 4 fuel-less city, no broadcast news yesterday, when there 5 were no newspapers. For more than a week the city was 6 also without piped water. 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 38 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Israel Becomes a State 10 11 12 The Jerusalem Post 13 The following viewpoint from the May 16, 1948, edition of The 14 Jerusalem Post documents the speech given by David Ben- 15 Gurion, head of Israel’s newly formed Provisional Council of 16 Government, proclaiming the creation of Medinat Yisrael, the 17 State of Israel. Ben-Gurion affirms the historic and national 18 rights of the Jewish people to a Jewish state. The new state will 19 welcome Jewish immigrants from all countries; safeguard the 20 Holy places of all religions within its borders; afford full freedom 21 of religion, culture, and language; and work for the economic union of Palestine as a whole. Ben-Gurion reaches out to the 22 Arabs of Palestine, asking Arab citizens to return to their homes, 23 stop the bloodshed, and restore peace to the land. 24 25 26 27 he first act of the Council of Government, as 28 announced by its head, was to abolish all legisla- 29 tion of the 1939 White Paper of the late Mandatory 30 TPower, particularly the Ordinances and Orders relating 31 to immigration and land transfer. 32 33 SOURCE. “Proclamation by Head of Government,” Jerusalem Post, 34 May 16, 1948. Copyright © 1948 Jerusalem Post. Reproduced by per- 35 mission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 39

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Mr. [David] Ben Gurion prefaced the declaration 1 with a review of the historic connection of the Jewish 2 people with the land of Israel and of their efforts to 3 return, which never ceased throughout the generations 4 of their dispersal, until the Nazi holocaust proved anew 5 the urgency of the need for a Jewish State. 6 The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the 7 League of Nations, had given explicit international rec- 8 ognition to the right of the Jewish people to reconstitute 9 its National Home in Palestine, he said. 10 “On November 29, 1947,” con- 11 tinued the declaration, “the United 12 Pursuant to the decision of the Nations decided on the establish- 13 U.N. and based on our historic ment of a Jewish State and an Arab 14 and national rights, we hereby State in Palestine and called upon the 15 declare the establishment of inhabitants of the country to take all 16 the Jewish State which will be steps necessary for the establishment 17 called “Medinat Yisrael” (State of two States. 18 of Israel). “This decision cannot now be 19 changed. Accordingly, we, the mem- 20 21 22 APPROXIMATE POPULATION CHANGE IN , 1922–1947 23 Year Source Muslim % Jewish % Christian % Other % 24 of Total of Total of Total of Total 25 26 1922 Census 78.34 11.14 9.50 1.01 27 28 1931 Census 73.52 16.90 8.60 0.98 29 30 1937 Estimate 63.32 27.91 7.94 0.83 31 32 1945 Survey 58.35 32.96 7.86 0.84 33 34 1947 Projection 58.06 33.24 7.86 0.84

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 bers of the Provisional Government Council, members as Jewish immigrants 22 arrive in Israel only 23 we are of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and represen- days after the new tatives of the entire Jewish Community in Palestine, are nation’s establish- 24 meeting on this historic day when the British Mandate ment. (AFP/Getty 25 comes to its end. Images.) 26 “Pursuant to the decision of the U.N. and based on 27 our historic and national rights, we hereby declare the 28 establishment of the Jewish State which will be called 29 ‘Medinat Yisrael’ (State of Israel).” 30 “This State will be provisionally governed by this 31 Council acting as a Provisional Government Council and 32 taking over its duties at midnight, on May 15 with the 33 end of the [British] Mandate.” 34 “This Provisional Government Council will function 35 until due governmental bodies have been constituted by 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 41

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a newly elected Constituent Assembly, which shall meet 1 not later than October 1, 1948.” 2 “The Provisional Government Council will be the 3 Provisional Government of the State of Israel until the 4 elected Constituent Assembly meets.” 5 6 Open Gates to Immigration 7 “The State of Israel will open its gates to immigration of 8 Jews from all lands. It will strive to develop the country 9 for the benefit of all its inhabitants, in accordance with 10 the social ideals of our Prophets.” 11 “We declare that full civil and political liberty will 12 be enjoyed by all citizens, regardless of religion, race, or 13 sex. There will be full freedom of religion, culture and 14 language.” 15 “We declare that we shall safeguard the Holy Places of 16 all religions within the area of the State of Israel.” 17 “We declare our readiness to cooperate closely with 18 all relevant bodies of the U.N. in accordance with the 19 resolution of November 29, 1947.” 20 “We declare our readiness to work for the economic 21 union of Palestine as a whole.” 22 23 A Call for Peace and Support 24 “We call upon the U.N. to give its blessing to the estab- 25 lishment of the Jewish State, to help us in our efforts and 26 to accept the Jewish State into the family of nations.” 27 “Even at this hour of bloodshed, we call upon the 28 Arabs of Palestine to restore peace in this country. We 29 call upon the Arab citizens to return to their homes. We 30 assure them full civil rights on the basis of full represen- 31 tation in all governmental organs of the State. We are 32 extending the hand of friendship to the neighbouring 33 Arab states in order to initiate mutual cooperation. We 34 are ready to contribute our share to the revival of the 35 Middle East.” 36 42 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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“We call upon the Jewish people in all lands of its dispersion to stand fast and lend us every support in our 1 struggle for the establishment of the State of Israel.” 2 Mr. Ben Gurion then announced that those mem- 3 bers of the Provisional Council who were in Jerusalem 4 and unable to reach Tel Aviv in time for the meeting, 5 had met in Jerusalem on Friday morning and had noti- 6 fied their colleagues in Tel Aviv that they joined in the 7 ­declaration. 8 “In virtue of this authority,” Mr. Ben Gurion then said, 9 “the Provisional Council of Government is ­established.” 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 43

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Israel Is a Model of 11 12 Instant Democracy 13 14 15 I.D.W. Talmadge 16 In the following viewpoint, written in 1948, journalist I.D.W. 17 Talmadge maintains that four months after Israel was pro- 18 claimed a state, its government is the most stable regime in 19 the Middle East. He contends that the government has achieved 20 such success because it is democratic and has the unwavering 21 support of the people. A foremost principle of a new special 22 Ministry of Minorities is encouragement of self-governing institu- 23 tions among the Arab population. Talmadge maintains that the 24 new state is every bit as socialist as England. The , the General Federation of Jewish labor, controls almost one-fourth 25 of the economy and most agriculture is owned jointly by mem- 26 bers of a group rather than by any individual. At the time this 27 viewpoint was written, I.D.W. Talmadge was the foreign affairs 28 editor of Scholastic magazine. 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 SOURCE. I.D.W. Talmadge, “Israel: The Making of a State,” The 36 Nation, September 25, 1948, pp. 337–339. 44 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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he state of Israel, unlike Rome, was built in a day. Within twenty-four hours after the British 1 pulled out, the Jews had a fully functioning state. 2 TThey had a Cabinet and a Provisional Parliament. From 3 nowhere they produced an army, an air force, and even 4 a sizable naval fleet. Before the last Tommy [British sol- 5 dier] had stepped aboard the last ship for England, an 6 effective Jewish government was in operation—complete 7 from Prime Minister down to sanitation inspector. 8 Overnight a new, prefabricated structure of admin- 9 istration was erected. Jewish personnel moved in and 10 took over the offices and bureaus vacated by the British. 11 Essential government services were hardly interrupted. 12 Everything went off smoothly as planned. The schools 13 opened as usual, the buses ran on time, the mail was 14 delivered on schedule. The hospitals, the factories, the 15 telephone exchange—all continued to work as if nothing 16 had ­happened. 17 Only, where the Union Jack [British flag] flew the day 18 before, the new standard of the Republic of Israel was 19 unfurled. And the signs on the government buildings 20 were repainted in Hebrew characters. A new seal bore the 21 inscription “Medinat Isroel”—“State of Israel.” By the next 22 day the new-born state even had its own postage stamps. 23 Today, four months later, that hastily installed govern- 24 ment is still functioning. It is, indisputably, the most sta- 25 ble regime in the Middle East. It has survived the armed 26 attack of six sovereign states. The secret of its success is 27 simple. The government of Israel is a democratic govern- 28 ment receiving the unswerving support of the people. 29 30 Democracy Is Key 31 There is amazingly little red tape and even less pomp 32 and protocol. Members of the Cabinet work in their 33 shirt sleeves, without ties. At first there was too much 34 informality. People would drop in to have a schmüss 35 [talk] with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion or Foreign 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 45

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1 2 3 Golda Meir: Israel’s Fourth Prime Minister 4 Golda Meir was Israel’s fourth prime sister, Sheyna, in Denver, Colorado, 5 minister, serving from 1969 until her she came into contact with numerous 6 resignation in 1974. She was the only socialist Zionists and joined Poalei 7 woman to head the state of Israel and Zion (Workers of Zion) in 1915. With 8 one of a handful to have led modern the November 1917 passage of the nations. When people would ask Meir, Balfour Declaration, in which Sir Arthur 9 who had a reputation for toughness, if Balfour committed the British to the 10 she felt handicapped at being a woman support of the creation of a Jewish 11 minister, she would reply: “I don’t know. homeland in Palestine, she decided 12 I’ve never tried to be a man.” to immigrate to Palestine, persuading 13 Golda Mabovitch was born May her new husband, Morris Meyerson, 14 3, 1898, in Kiev, Russia, to a poor with whom she later had two children, 15 Jewish family. The family immigrated to join her. 16 to the United States in 1906. During After the formation of the state of 17 her teens, while living with her parents Israel in 1948, Meir became Israel’s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and her first ambassador to Moscow but was 18 19 20 21 22 Minister Moshe Shertok and suggest to them how to run 23 the government. That had to be stopped. But even today 24 a session of the Provisional Parliament resembles a meet- 25 ing of the executive board of a trade union more than of 26 a national legislative body. 27 Fourteen political parties, including the puny 28 Communist Party, are represented in the Provisional 29 Parliament, or State Council. The Communists have one 30 representative among the thirty-seven members. As one 31 legislator explained to me, “We can’t give them less than 32 one seat.” It is not uncommon for the Prime Minister to 33 be outvoted in the Israeli Parliament. But as becomes 34 a democratic leader of a democratic state, Ben-Gurion 35 takes it graciously. Even in war time Israel is not a dic- 36 tatorial state. Any suggestion of totalitarianism is repug- 46 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 called back to join the Knesset (parlia- In March 1969, following the death 4 ment) after seven months. During her of Levi Eshkol, Meir became prime min- 5 tenure as labor minister from 1949 to ister. Again, she focused on keeping 6 1956, Meir’s main responsibility was arms flowing from the United States 7 overseeing the assimilation of Jewish and resisting initiatives to negotiate 8 immigrants, tens of thousands of whom with the Palestinians. During this time 9 were then living in tent cities. numerous Jewish settlements were set In 1956 she became foreign min- up on the newly occupied West Bank 10 ister. David Ben-Gurion, who was then and Gaza Strip. 11 prime minister, persuaded her to take Meir, an unassuming and down-to- 12 on the Hebrew-sounding name Meir. earth politician, was accused by her 13 During her decade-long tenure as for- opponents of being stubborn and unso- 14 eign minister, Meir pursued a close phisticated. Her supporters cherished 15 relationship with the United States and her warmth and simplicity. She died in 16 gained significant quantities of arms Jerusalem on December 8, 1978. 17 from it. 18 19 20 21 nant to the Jewish masses. Accordingly, strikes were 22 not outlawed despite the desperate struggle for national 23 survival. 24 I talked with an official of the Ministry of Police. 25 “The outgoing government can scarcely be said to have 26 handed over to us any central police organization,” he 27 told me. But by the end of [August 1948] about 100 offi- 28 cers, 70 N.C.O.’s [noncommissioned officers] and 1,300 29 men had been trained and posted. “The Israeli police is 30 still at less than half strength,” this official continued. 31 “For example, the department cannot provide more 32 than twelve men for night patrol in all of Tel Aviv. It is 33 noteworthy, however, that crimes of violence in Israel are 34 some 30 per cent lower than they were a year ago in the 35 towns and 50 per cent lower in the rural areas.” 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 47

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No Gap in Financial Functions 1 The Israeli Ministry of Finance took over the finan- 2 cial functions of the state without any gap or hitch— 3 an achievement which would have been astonishing 4 even had there been sympathetic cooperation from the 5 outgoing authority. As a result of careful preparation 6 beforehand, income tax, customs, and excise duties 7 were collected without interruption. Even in the first 8 crowded days the Ministry initiated action in fields 9 where the Mandatory Government had been in default. 10 Immediately after the declaration of the Israeli state a 11 national loan was launched for 5,000,000 Palestinian 12 pounds. This loan has already been subscribed. 13 A special Ministry of Minorities 14 was set up in the Cabinet under the 15 able leadership of Behor Shitreet. Its 16 [The new state of Israel] . . . is purpose is to defend the interests of 17 certainly as Socialist as Austra­ the Arab and Christian minorities in 18 lia or New Zealand or England Israel and to promote friendly rela- 19 itself. tions among the three religious com- 20 munities. One of its main principles 21 is the encouragement of autonomous 22 institutions among the Arabs. Arab schools have been 23 reopened. An Arab newspaper is now published in Israel. 24 Even during the fighting the Israeli government appoint- 25 ed Arabs to police Arab areas in Palestine. 26 27 Separation of Synagogue and State 28 In the new state of Israel synagogue and state are sepa- 29 rate and will continue to be so under the proposed 30 constitution. Saturday is the day of rest instead of 31 Sunday—and that’s about all that makes Tel Aviv any 32 different from an American city. Synagogue attendance 33 in Israel is about as good, or bad, as church attendance 34 in America. Dietary laws are not universally observed. 35 Some restaurants serve kosher meals, others don’t. The 36 story is told—it is probably apocryphal—that the Arabs, 48 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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who are not permitted to eat pork, raise hogs to sell to their Jewish neighbors. 1 A draft constitution for the state of Israel is pat- 2 terned on the American model and guarantees freedom 3 of expression, worship, assembly, and association. The 4 preamble to the proposed basic law of Israel assever- 5 ated [declared] that “the state shall insure the sanctity of 6 human life and uphold the dignity of man.” An interest- 7 ing innovation in the projected constitution is a clause 8 which provides that freedom of expression shall not be 9 accorded to movements which advocate the suppression 10 of the democratic form of government. Among provi- 11 sions being considered for inclusion are guaranties for a 12 national system of compulsory unemployment, old-age, 13 and health insurance; equal pay for men and women; 14 prohibition of child labor; and minimum hours of 15 employment for women in industry. 16 17 A Socialist State 18 Israel is the most eastern of the Western democracies. Its 19 destiny is in the hands of a party (the Mapai) which is the 20 very counterpart of the British Labor Party. . . . 21 How Socialist is the new state of Israel? It is certainly 22 as Socialist as Australia or New Zealand or England itself. 23 The bus you board in Tel Aviv or Haifa, the Tnuva restau- 24 rant where you eat, the shop where you buy your clothes, 25 the factory where the clothes are made are for the most 26 part owned by the Histadrut, the General Federation of 27 Jewish Labor. And so are the leading bank and the larg- 28 est insurance company. In fact, the Histadrut controls 29 almost a fourth of the national economy. Its membership 30 comprises nearly half of the adult population. 31 Moreover, most of the country’s agriculture is col- 32 lectivized. In the kibbutzim (farming communes) all 33 property is owned in common and all members contrib- 34 ute and share alike. . . . There is no coercion in the com- 35 munes, no party functionaries to lay down the “line,” no 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 49

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Allied Arab forces 1 behind a barricade fire on Jewish fight- 2 ers of the Haganah, 3 the self-defense 4 force of the Jewish 5 Agency, in the city of 6 Jerusalem. (AFP/Getty Images.) 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 threats of imprisonment or exile. One is free to join or 17 quit a commune at will. . . . 18 Socialist labor dominates the government and its 19 institutions only by virtue of its electoral strength. It 20 has not set up a dictatorship of the party. There are no 21 fewer than twenty-five political parties in tiny Israel. The 22 strongest of these is the Mapai. . . . 23 [About fifteen parties] are represented in the thirty- 24 seven-man Provisional Parliament. . . . 25 Not participating in the government are two dis- 26 sident groups—the Zvai Leumi and the Fighters 27 for Freedom of Israel (the Stern gang). The Irgun claims 28 a following of 6,000 and the Stern organization claims 29 about 1,500. Both groups plan to take part in the coming 30 electoral contest. . . . 31 The infant state of Israel is the youngest member in 32 the family of nations. To the amazement of its United 33 Nations nursemaids, it has turned out to be a tough kid, 34 with a tenacious will to live. 35 36 50 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The Jewish People 11 12 Deserve a Home 13 14 15 A.J. Balfour 16 In the following viewpoint, a speech made to the British House 17 of Lords in 1922, A.J. (Arthur James) Balfour argues that the 18 Jewish people have made major contributions in almost all 19 aspects of society and have earned the right to a Jewish home- 20 Photo on previous land. The British Mandate of Palestine, he contends, will give page: An unidentified 21 the Jewish people the opportunity to have a home in which they Israeli official and can, under British rule, develop their culture and traditions free 22 a Haganah military from the persecution they have had to endure for centuries. 23 policeman grip their 24 newly proclaimed A.J. Balfour was a British politician and statesman who served his country in many capacities, including prime minister (1902– 25 nation’s flag as they 1905) and foreign secretary (1916–1919). In 1917, he wrote 26 prepare to raise it over the Haifa Airport. (AP the Balfour Declaration, a controversial statement recognizing 27 Images.) the Jews’ right to a homeland in Palestine. 28 29 30 31 32 33 SOURCE. A.J. Balfour, Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Speeches. 34 London, United Kingdom: Viking Penguin, 1999. Copyright © 1992, 35 1993, 1999 Brian MacArthur. All rights reserved. Reproduced by per- 36 mission of the Literary Estate of Earl Arthur James Balfour. 52 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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y noble friend [John Dickson-Poynder, Lord Islington] told us in his speech, and I believe 1 him absolutely, that he has no prejudice against 2 Mthe Jews. I think I may say that I have no prejudice in 3 their favour. But their position and their history, their 4 connection with world religion and with world politics, 5 is absolutely unique. There is no parallel to it, there is 6 nothing approaching to a parallel to it, in any other 7 branch of human history. Here you have a small race 8 originally inhabiting a small country, I think of about the 9 size of Wales or Belgium, at any rate of comparable size to 10 those two, at no time in its history wielding anything that 11 can be described as material power, 12 sometimes crushed in between great 13 Oriental monarchies, its inhabitants [The Jewish people] have been 14 deported, then scattered, then driven able, by this extraordinary tenac- 15 out of the country altogether into ity of their race, to maintain 16 every part of the world, and yet main- this continuity, and they have 17 taining a continuity of religious and maintained it without having any 18 racial tradition of which we have no Jewish Home. 19 parallel elsewhere. 20 21 Jewish Contributions Deserve 22 Recognition 23 That, itself, is sufficiently remarkable, but consider—it is 24 not a pleasant consideration, but it is one that we cannot 25 forget—how they have been treated during long centu- 26 ries, during centuries which in some parts of the world 27 extend to the minute and the hour in which I am speak- 28 ing; consider how they have been subjected to tyranny 29 and persecution; consider whether the whole culture of 30 Europe, the whole religious organization of Europe, has 31 not from time to time proved itself guilty of great crimes 32 against this race. I quite understand that some members 33 of this race may have given, doubtless did give, occasion 34 for much ill-will, and I do not know how it could be oth- 35 erwise, treated as they were; but, if you are going to lay 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 53

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stress on that, do not forget what part they have played in 1 the intellectual, the artistic, the philosophic and scientific 2 development of the world. I say nothing of the economic 3 side of their energies, for on that Christian attention has 4 always been concentrated. 5 I ask your Lordships to consider the other side of their 6 activities. Nobody who knows what he is talking about 7 will deny that they have at least—and I am putting it 8 more moderately than I could do—rowed all their weight 9 in the boat of scientific, intellectual and artistic progress, 10 and they are doing so to this day. You will find them in 11 every University, in every centre of learning; and at the 12 very moment when they were being persecuted, when 13 some of them, at all events, were being persecuted by the 14 Church, their philosophers were developing thoughts 15 which the great doctors of the Church embodied in their 16 religious system. As it was in the Middle Ages, as it was 17 in earlier times, so it is now. And yet, is there anyone here 18 who feels content with the position of the Jews? They 19 have been able, by this extraordinary tenacity of their 20 race, to maintain this continuity, and they have main- 21 tained it without having any Jewish Home. 22 23 British Mandate Gives 24 We should then have given Jews a Home 25 [the Jews] what every other What has been the result? The result 26 nation has, some place, some has been that they have been described 27 local habitation, where they can as parasites on every civilization in 28 develop the culture and the whose affairs they have mixed them- 29 traditions which are peculiarly selves—very useful parasites at times 30 their own. I venture to say. But however that 31 may be, do not your Lordships think 32 that if Christendom, not oblivious 33 of all the wrong it has done, can give a chance, without 34 injury to others, to this race of showing whether it can 35 organize a culture in a Home where it will be secured 36 from oppression, that it is not well to say, if we can do it, 54 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 that we will do it. And, if we can do it, should we not be While visiting 19 Jerusalem, British for- 20 doing something material to wash out an ancient stain eign secretary Arthur upon our own civilization if we absorb the Jewish race in Balfour points out a 21 friendly and effective fashion in these countries in which feature of the Church 22 they are the citizens? We should then have given them of the Holy Sepulchre 23 what every other nation has, some place, some local to the city’s gover- 24 nor, Ronald Storrs. habitation, where they can develop the culture and the Jerusalem’s Arab pop- 25 traditions which are peculiarly their own. ulace was on strike 26 I could defend—I have endeavoured, and I hope not as a protest against 27 unsuccessfully, to defend—this scheme of the Palestine the 1917 Balfour 28 Mandate from the most material economic view, and Declaration, which 29 supported creation of from that point of view it is capable of defence. I have a Jewish homeland in 30 endeavoured to defend it from the point of view of the Palestine. (Topical Press 31 existing population, and I have shown—I hope with some Agency/Hulton Archive/ 32 effect—that their prosperity also is intimately bound up Getty Images.) 33 with the success of Zionism. But having endeavoured 34 to the best of my ability to maintain those two proposi- 35 tions, I should, indeed, give an inadequate view to your 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 55

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Lordships of my opinions if I sat down without insisting 1 to the utmost of my ability that, beyond and above all 2 this, there is this great ideal at which those who think 3 with me are aiming, and which, I believe, it is within 4 their power to reach. 5 6 A Worthwhile Experiment 7 It may fail. I do not deny that this is an adventure. Are 8 we never to have adventures? Are we never to try new 9 experiments? I hope your Lordships will never sink 10 to that unimaginative depth, and that experiment and 11 adventure will be justified if there is any case or cause 12 for their justification. Surely, it is in order that we may 13 send a message to every land where the Jewish race 14 has been scattered, a message which will tell them 15 that Christendom is not oblivious of their faith, is not 16 unmindful of the service they have rendered to the great 17 religions of the world, and, most of all, to the religion 18 that the majority of your Lordships’ House profess, and 19 that we desire to the best of our ability to give them that 20 opportunity of developing, in peace and quietness under 21 British rule, those great gifts which hitherto they have 22 been compelled from the very nature of the case only 23 to bring to fruition in countries which know not their 24 language, and belong not to their race. That is the ideal 25 which I desire to see accomplished, that is the aim which 26 lay at the root of the policy I am trying to defend; and, 27 though it be defensible indeed on every ground, that is 28 the ground which chiefly moves me. 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 56 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The British Plan 10 11 to Partition Palestine Is 12 13 14 Not the Best Solution 15 16 Herbert Samuel 17 18 In the following viewpoint, Herbert Samuel describes the situa- 19 tion in Palestine that has prompted the British to send a com- 20 mission of inquiry to investigate. The report presented in 1937 by the commission proclaims that the current partition and 21 mandate are not working. Palestine should be divided into three 22 parts—a new Jewish state, an Arab section to be united with an 23 existing principality, and a neutral section under British control. 24 Samuel contends that even though partition is not a good solu- 25 tion it is the only probable one so long as the Arab population 26 and the Jewish people show no willingness to cooperate with 27 each other. Samuel was a British statesman and philosopher. In 28 1909 he became one of the first Jewish members of the British 29 cabinet. In 1920 he was appointed the first British high commis- sioner for Palestine, a position he held for five years. 30 31 32 33 SOURCE. Viscount Herbert Samuel, “Alternatives to Partition,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 16, October 1, 1937, pp. 143–155. Copyright 34 © 1937 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., www 35 .ForeignAffairs.com. Reproduced by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 57

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hen the representatives of a war-weary world 1 met at Paris in 1919 the problem of Palestine 2 seemed one of the simplest of the many that 3 confrontedW them. Turkey made no claim for the reten- 4 tion of her sovereignty. The system of Mandates was 5 established with general approval, and Palestine was 6 obviously a case for its application. As to the choice of a 7 Power as Mandatory, there was only one candidate. Great 8 Britain was willing to accept the duty. . . . 9 The Zionist Movement, which for thirty years had 10 been struggling, slowly and painfully, to found colo- 11 nies of Jews in Palestine in the face of stolid Turkish 12 obstruction, now took a leap forward. Year after year, 13 with immense energy, the Zionists collected funds from 14 their co-religionists all over the world. They bought land, 15 trained young men and women as colonists, organized 16 emigration from the crowded and often unfriendly 17 countries of Europe to the , so old and so 18 new, that was at last opened to them. . . . 19 During the seventeen years that have since elapsed a 20 considerable part of the cultivable land of Palestine has 21 passed into Jewish ownership, bought, often from absen- 22 tee landlords, at prices many times its previous value. 23 The Jewish population of Palestine has risen from some 24 60,000 to over 400,000. . . . 25 26 A Growing Arab Nationalism 27 But meanwhile there had also been growing a move- 28 ment of nationalism among the Arabs. Simultaneously 29 with the striking progress of the Zionist Movement, a 30 spirit of Arab patriotism, previously 31 almost non-existent in Palestine, had 32 ‘It is impossible, we believe, for arisen. . . . Those in Palestine looked 33 any unprejudiced observer to upon themselves as an outpost of the 34 see the National Home and not Arab world, specially charged with 35 to wish it well.’ the guardianship, within the old city 36 of Jerusalem, of one of the three most 58 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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sacred shrines of Islam. They viewed with apprehension the Jewish incursion (for so it appeared to them) and 1 feared that at no distant date they would be swamped 2 altogether by it. . . . 3 As a result of the nationalist 4 movement among the Arabs, disor- ‘The answer to the question 5 ders had broken out on a small scale “Which of them [Jews or Arabs] 6 as early as 1920, and on a somewhat in the end will govern Palestine?” 7 larger scale in 1921. Then for a peri- must surely be “Neither.”’ 8 od of eight years there was tranquil- 9 lity, though there continued to exist 10 an undercurrent of political tension. In 1929 serious and 11 widespread disturbances occurred in many parts of the 12 country, resulting in some hundreds of deaths. Finally 13 in 1936 disorders broke out again, and lasted for many 14 months, reaching almost the dimensions of a rebellion 15 and requiring the dispatch of two divisions of British 16 troops to Palestine. 17 Public opinion in Great Britain had by this time 18 become seriously perturbed, and the Government deter- 19 mined to review the whole situation. The first stage was 20 to order a thorough inquiry into the facts. . . . 21 Six Commissioners were appointed; their compe- 22 tence and impartiality were acknowledged on all hands. 23 They went to Palestine; spent several weeks in visiting 24 all sections of the country and in hearing the views of 25 all parties; and on June 22, 1937, presented a unanimous 26 Report. . . . 27 28 The British Dilemma Regarding 29 Palestine 30 The Commissioners speak in most appreciative terms of 31 the work already accomplished by the Jews in Palestine. 32 They write: “It is impossible, we believe, for any unpreju- 33 diced observer to see the National Home and not to wish 34 it well. It has meant so much for the relief of unmerited 35 suffering. It displays so much energy and enterprise and 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 59

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devotion to a common cause.” They praise highly its 1 achievements, both economic and cultural. And they 2 declare, repeatedly and with emphasis, that the Arabs 3 have greatly gained in a material sense from the Jewish 4 immigration. While the Jewish population has grown 5 since the Mandate by 350,000, the Arab population has 6 increased by exactly the same figure. Nevertheless, the 7 conclusion reached by the Royal Commission is pes- 8 simistic. On the political side they consider that the 9 problem as hitherto presented is insoluble. “The obliga- 10 tions Britain undertook towards the Arabs and the Jews 11 some twenty years ago . . . have proved irreconcilable, 12 and, as far ahead as we can see, they must continue to 13 conflict. . . . We cannot—in Palestine as it now is—both 14 concede the Arab claim to self-government and secure 15 the establishment of the Jewish National Home.” Yet 16 neither of these aims can be discarded. “Arab aspira- 17 tions towards a new age of unity and prosperity in the 18 Arab world” are legitimate and praiseworthy; to those 19 aspirations “British public opinion is wholly sympa- 20 thetic.” On the other hand, it is out of the question 21 that, having encouraged the intense Jewish effort in 22 Palestine by assurances of the most formal character, 23 Great Britain should now merely wash its hands of the 24 whole matter and discard responsibility. “Manifestly,” 25 the Commissioners say, “the problem cannot be solved 26 by giving either the Arabs or the Jews all they want. The 27 answer to the question ‘Which of them in the end will 28 govern Palestine?’ must surely be ‘Neither.’ We do not 29 think that any fair-minded statesman would suppose, 30 now that the hope of harmony between the races has 31 proved untenable, that Britain ought either to hand over 32 to Arab rule 400,000 Jews, whose entry into Palestine 33 has been for the most part facilitated and approved by 34 the League of Nations; or that, if the Jews should become 35 a majority, a million or so of Arabs should be handed 36 over to their rule.” 60 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Need for a Wholly Different Plan 1 The Commission criticizes some 2 aspects of the British administration 3 of the country. . . . 4 The Commission imply in their 5 Report that the fomenters of the dis- 6 turbances of 1936 had been allowed 7 too much scope. . . . 8 The Commission are inclined to 9 criticize also the choice of officials for 10 the British service in Palestine. . . . 11 But the Commissioners are ­clearly 12 of the opinion that, even if all those 13 things had been different, even if 14 none of these mistakes had occurred, 15 the underlying problem would have 16 remained. There would still have 17 been the essential antagonism, as 18 they regard it, between the Jewish 19 aims and the Arab aims, and still the 20 impossibility of finding any policy, 21 along the lines hitherto pursued, that 22 would end it. So they have devised a 23 wholly different plan, not previously 24 advocated in any quarter. Their pro- 25 posal is a division of the country into 26 three parts: a new Jewish state; an 27 Arab section which would be united 28 with the existing Arab Principality of Trans-Jordan; and Known to Jews as the 29 Temple Mount, the 30 a neutral section which would remain under the admin- Dome of the Rock is istration of Great Britain as mandatory. . . . at the heart of the 31 The British Government, simultaneously with the Israeli-Palestinian con- 32 publication of the Report, declared its general accep- flict. (AP Images.) 33 tance of these recommendations. It announced that it 34 would forthwith approach the League of Nations with 35 a view to the ending of the present Mandate, and the 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 61

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substitution of a new one on the lines 1 The scheme of partition . . . is proposed. Meanwhile Great Britain 2 subject to grave objections. would continue to bear responsibil- 3 ity for the government of Palestine; if 4 serious disorders should again break 5 out, martial law would be declared; 6 land sales by Arabs to Jews would be restricted during 7 the period of transition; Jewish immigration would only 8 be allowed to continue at a rate not exceeding in any 9 circumstances the figure, suggested by the Commission, 10 of 12,000 a year. 11 The declaration of the British Government was 12 prompt, definite and uncompromising. Nevertheless it 13 did not command general acquiescence. . . . 14 15 A Proposed Alternative 16 As the only member in either House [of Parliament] who 17 had held the post of High Commissioner for Palestine, 18 it fell to me to take part in the debate in the [House of] 19 Lords and to offer an examination of the conclusions of 20 the Royal Commission. I could not but agree with their 21 judgment that it was necessary to make a fresh start. 22 Undoubtedly the present situation is a deadlock. . . . 23 The scheme of partition, however, is subject to grave 24 objections. It does not effect, and no scheme of partition 25 possibly could effect, a clear severance between the Arab 26 and the Jewish populations of Palestine: the geographical 27 conditions do not allow it. . . . 28 I ventured to suggest an alternative plan: not to end 29 the existing Mandate, not to regard as altogether hope- 30 less the policy of coöperation, remembering that since 31 peace and tranquillity had reigned for eight years it was 32 not impossible that it might be restored, though on a new 33 basis. The alternative might embrace five points: First, 34 a recognition by the Jews that they must make some 35 sacrifice in order to reassure the Arabs and arrive at a 36 reconciliation; and this sacrifice should take the form of 62 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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a limitation of the Jewish population of Palestine, during a period of years, to an agreed percentage of the whole. 1 (I suggested, tentatively, forty percent; the present per- 2 centage is about thirty.) Secondly, the aspirations of Arab 3 nationalism should be recognized and should be assisted, 4 and efforts made to promote the formation of a great 5 Confederation in the Middle East, in which Palestine 6 should be included, to which it would 7 bring wealth, and in which the indus- 8 tries of Palestine would find a vast No one is enamored of the solu- 9 and valuable market. Thirdly, Trans- tion by partition. Its difficulties 10 Jordan should be opened by agree- and dangers are recognized on 11 ment to the settlement of both Jews all hands. 12 and Arabs, and a loan arranged to 13 promote that object. Fourthly, the 14 ownership of the Moslem Holy Places in Palestine should 15 be guaranteed by the League of Nations in perpetu- 16 ity. Fifthly, the Jewish Community in Palestine as now 17 organized, and the Arab Community, provided with a 18 new organization, should each be given large powers 19 over the education of their own peoples and over public 20 health and other matters, and be provided with adequate 21 revenues from taxation. A new Advisory Council should 22 be established, in which each Community would be 23 represented as such; the Council should also contain the 24 principal British officials: it would be consulted by the 25 High Commissioner on all matters of common concern. 26 I agreed that, if Jews and Arabs did not come to an agree- 27 ment on some such basis as this, the only alternative 28 would be to face partition with all its disadvantages and 29 risks. 30 31 A Plan in Flux 32 In the House of Commons matters took an unex- 33 pected turn. . . . The Government had given notice of 34 a motion approving the recommendations of the Royal 35 Commission and their own acceptance of them; but this 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 63

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1 2 The Role of the Western Wall 3 4 For those who follow the Jewish faith, the western wall 5 of the Judaic Temple complex is believed to be clos- 6 est to the site in the inner sanctuary where the Ark of the Covenant and its Ten Commandments were kept. 7 This site in the Temple is known as the Holy of Holies, 8 and consequently, the Western Wall has become a 9 popular destination for visitors and prayers. Some 10 Muslims also believe the site to be holy because it 11 was the spot where the prophet Muhammed tethered 12 his winged steed, Buraq, on his way to Heaven. 13 On August 14th and 15th, 1929, in the midst of 14 long-standing Arab-Israeli polarization concerning ter- 15 ritory in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, Jewish activists staged demonstrations in Tel Aviv and at the 16 Western Wall in Jerusalem. On August 16th, following 17 rumors that these same activists planned to claim 18 holy places in Palestine as well, Muslims demon- 19 strated by burning Jewish offerings at the Wall. During 20 the course of violence instigated in part by these 21 demonstrations, 133 Jewish and 116 Arab people 22 were killed in August 1929 alone; and hundreds more 23 were injured. 24 Violence erupted again in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, and Jordan captured , bar- 25 ring Jewish access to the Wall for 19 years. But in 26 1967’s Six-Day War, the Jewish population reclaimed 27 Jerusalem and its holy landmark. Now the Wall looks 28 out on an adjacent plaza that accommodates its daily 29 visitors of diverse faiths, who come to be near the 30 venerable site and to leave prayers written on scraps 31 of paper in the Wall’s cracks. 32 33 34 motion was subjected to vigorous criticism. . . . It was 35 urged that the Government were acting too hastily; that 36 the plan of partition raised very grave issues, and, even if 64 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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accepted in principle, might have to be modified in many points of application; time should be given for the reac- 1 tions of both the Jews and the Arabs to be ascertained. 2 Ultimately these views carried the day. . . . 3 At the time when this article is being written the 4 whole matter is under the consideration of the Congress 5 which is the final authority in the Zionist Movement; 6 of the two sections of the Palestine Arabs . . . and of 7 the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of 8 Nations. . . . 9 No one is enamored of the solution by partition. Its 10 difficulties and dangers are recognized on all hands. The 11 Royal Commission would undoubtedly have preferred 12 to recommend an alternative based upon coöpera- 13 tion between the two parties if they had regarded such 14 coöperation as a possibility. It cannot be doubted that 15 the British Government would still welcome that solu- 16 tion if it were attainable. But whether either of the par- 17 ties directly concerned would consent to such a sacrifice 18 of its particular aims as would be necessary to win the 19 assent of the other party, is very doubtful. Both dislike 20 the very idea of the partition of Palestine, but neither 21 shows—as yet—any sign of such a change of attitude as 22 would permit an escape from that drastic solution. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 65

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 British Obligations 11 12 to the Jewish People 13 14 15 Are Not Legal 16 17 Higher Arab Committee 18 19 The Higher Arab Committee argues in the following viewpoint 20 from 1938 that the proposed British partition of Palestine was biased in favor of the Jewish people at the expense of the Arab 21 population. British obligations to the Jewish people are unjust 22 and based on force and evil and, therefore, are not legal, the 23 committee argues. The committee contends that the British 24 must accept the Arabs’ national program, which includes recog- 25 nition of Palestine as an independent Arab country. The Higher 26 Arab Committee was formed in British Mandatory Palestine in 27 1936 by six prominent Arab leaders. Headed by the Grand Mufti 28 of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husayni, its mission was to protest British support of Zionist progress in Palestine. The commit- 29 tee led a campaign of Arab revolt against Jewish and British 30 targets. 31 32 33 SOURCE. Higher Arab Committee, “Statement by the Higher Arab 34 Committee 1938,” National Archives, U.K., 1938, pp. 182–188, docu- 35 ment reference FO 684/11. Copyright © 2005 The National Archives, 36 London. Reproduced by permission. 66 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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he Partition Commission’s report constitutes the worst possible end to the unsuccessful policy of 1 sending commissions. It is regrettable and incom- 2 Tprehensible that a report of this nature should consider 3 Palestine, which is already a Holy Place, and the heart of 4 the Arab homeland, and which moreover is but a small 5 country, as a fit object to be divided, torn, cut up, and 6 parcelled cut. The British commission came with this 7 theory in mind but was brought to a standstill when 8 attempting to fix boundaries; we consider therefore its 9 new partition scheme still-born, the more so that the 10 British Government after careful perusal of the report 11 have concluded that the establishment of two nations in 12 one country was impracticable. 13 The Arab Committee deeply regrets that so long 14 a time was required for His Majesty’s Government to 15 realize this truth which was obvious from the very first 16 day; and we ask ourselves with pain who is responsible 17 for the misfortunes which have fallen on the country 18 on account of the Government policy—a policy which 19 has ended in the failure of the partition scheme—and 20 who is responsible for the destruc- 21 tion which has been inflicted on 22 the country in pursuance of this [The Arab people] hope that 23 policy. Will Palestine continue to the British Government realize 24 be threatened by similar dangerous also that the scheme was not 25 programmes evoked by the dreams equitable and have definitely 26 of Zionists and colonizers, which abandoned the idea of partition 27 the British Government will set out in any form. 28 to fulfil? The idea of granting to the 29 Jews a right in Arab Palestine and of 30 instituting a National Home for them in the heart of the 31 Arab homeland gave rise to the policy of partition which 32 has had so unfortunate an ending. All things based on 33 wrong are wrong; and any future scheme to benefit 34 the Jews at the expense of the Arabs will meet with the 35 same fate. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 67

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The Impracticality and Unfairness of 1 Partition 2 As regards the British Government’s statement (of poli- 3 cy) the Arab people note with pleasure that Great Britain 4 has abandoned the partition scheme and has realized 5 that partition was impracticable; and they hope that the 6 British Government realize also that the scheme was not 7 equitable and have definitely abandoned the idea of par- 8 tition in any form or of any of these schemes similar to 9 partition which were at one time under ­discussion. 10 The Arab people also note with 11 pleasure that the British Government 12 The Arab people cannot con- have adopted a method of negotiation 13 sider British obligations to the and have realized that the Palestine 14 Jews, which are based on force question should be solved by political, 15 and evil, as a fundamental . . . as opposed to military, means; they 16 of the Palestine question. note also with pleasure the envisaged 17 collaboration of the Arab nations 18 towards a settlement of this question 19 which has dragged on for so long. They consider this 20 as an admission that the Palestine question is a general 21 Arab question. The Higher Arab Committee is, however, 22 astonished at and disapproves of Syria and the Lebanon 23 being excluded from the negotiations, despite their close 24 relations with Palestine, on a pretext that they are under 25 mandate, while the Government of Transjordan, which is 26 also under mandate, has been asked to take part. 27 28 Arab Denial of British Obligations 29 The Highest Arab Committee disagrees with the state- 30 ment of the British Government that “they are faced 31 with a problem of finding alternative means of meeting 32 the difficult situation which will be consistent with their 33 obligations towards Arabs and Jews”, because they do not 34 admit the legality of British obligations to the Jews, these 35 obligations being based on force and hostility and being 36 at the expense of others. The Royal Commission stated 68 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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in its report, and the British Government and the British delegates to the League of Nations have confirmed, that 1 British obligations to Jews and Arabs were contradic- 2 tory and irreconcilable; the attempt now once again to 3 reconcile these contradictory obligations can lead to no 4 result, and to base the solution of the question on such a 5 reconciliation is impracticable and can only lead to new 6 difficulties. The Arab people cannot consider British 7 obligations to the Jews, which are based on force and 8 evil, as a fundamental either of the Palestine question or 9 of the proposed negotiations. 10 The British Government state that the surest foun- 11 dation for peace and progress in Palestine would be an 12 understanding between Arabs and Jews. The Higher 13 Arab Committee consider that such an understanding 14 is irrealisable so long as the Jews persist in their wrong- 15 ful ambitions in Palestine. If, by an understanding, the 16 British mean that the Jews may live in peace amongst the 17 Arabs, this is practicable for the Jews, and forms a part of 18 the national program of the Arab people who alone are 19 the owners of their country. But the claims of the Jews in 20 Palestine are false, based only on dreams and unsupport- 21 ed except by British bayonets. The question should be 22 determined by considerations of right and equity only. 23 24 An Approved Arab Program 25 The British Government announce their intention of 26 inviting representatives of the Palestinian Arabs and of 27 the Arabs from neighbouring countries to London to 28 discuss future policy in Palestine, without defining the 29 basis of these discussions. The Higher Arab Committee 30 state in this connection that they have a programme 31 which may be summarized as the complete stoppage of 32 Jewish immigration and the replacement of the manda- 33 tory system by a treaty giving the country an indepen- 34 dent national government. This programme has been 35 approved by the Arab delegations, commissions, and 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 69

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governments, and the Arabs cannot 1 If the British seriously wish to renounce it for it is the sole guarantee 2 settle the question, let them of their existence and of their legal 3 face realities and declare their right to their country. It is inspired 4 acceptance of the Arab pro- by this legal right and contains the 5 gramme as a basis for the pro- maximum concessions to the Jews. 6 posed settlement. When negotiations are to take 7 place to settle a question, it is cus- 8 tomary to define the basis of nego- 9 tiation, especially in cases like that 10 of Palestine where the Jews are inspired by their dreams 11 and rely on blind force and false propaganda. The 12 Higher Arab Committee much regrets that the British 13 statement contains no grounds for hope or optimism 14 and feels that this lack of definition may result in the 15 failure of the conference and that this may be their 16 intention, so that the British Government may propose a 17 policy of their own which would cause the present state 18 of affairs in Palestine to continue. But as regards the 19 British Government’s invitation to discuss future policy 20 the Arab people cannot regard the Jews as a party to the 21 affair and will not enter into discussion with them as 22 regards a solution. 23 24 The British Burden of Responsibility 25 His Majesty’s Government reserve the right to refuse to 26 receive those Arab leaders whom they regard as respon- 27 sible for the campaign of assassination and violence. The 28 Committee repeats, as it has many times done before, 29 that the responsibility for the disorders from first to last 30 belongs to the British Government and their represen- 31 tatives in Palestine. The Arab people only ask for their 32 rights in their own country and it is the British authori- 33 ties who have at every stage attacked in an endeavor 34 to crush the Arabs and have closed their ears to their 35 demands. It is therefore inequitable to hold the Arabs or 36 their representatives responsible for the disorders which 70 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 were forced on them because the British Government Members of the Arab 22 Higher Committee, 23 had left no other means open to them of protesting circa 1935, following against their wrongful policy—a policy which consists a meeting at which 24 in imposing the Jews on them so that the Arabs were the group decided 25 bound in the end to find themselves turned out of their to boycott the Royal 26 own country. Commission in 27 Jerusalem. (Keystone/ Getty Images.) 28 The Committee Represents Arabs 29 The Committee wonders on the other hand which 30 Palestinian Arabs the British Government means if they 31 do not refer to the members of the Committee. The 32 British Government are fully aware that the Higher Arab 33 Committee enjoys the complete confidence of the Arab 34 people, and entrusts them with the task of defending 35 Arab rights and of carrying out their programme, and 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 71

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that there are no others in Palestine who can pose as 1 representatives of the Arabs in this matter. The British 2 Government know also that any other Palestinians who 3 accepted their invitation would not enjoy the confidence 4 of the Arab people, nor would they truly represent them; 5 and the Committee considers that this statement will 6 add further difficulties to the question. The Committee 7 considers that the British Government in making this 8 statement, have proved that they do not wish Palestine to 9 be properly represented in these talks, on which its very 10 existence depends. Events in Palestine have proved that 11 this method is already wrong. 12 If the British seriously wish to settle the question, let 13 them face realities and declare their acceptance of the 14 Arab programme as a basis for the proposed settlement, 15 stop Jewish immigration during the negotiations, with- 16 draw their accusations, and allow the Arabs the right to 17 choose the representatives they trust. 18 The British Government declare that if the London 19 discussions fail, they will take their own decision. The 20 Committee points out that these reservations increase the 21 existing difficulties. If the negotiations fail, the responsi- 22 bility would be that of the British and of the Jews. The 23 Committee proclaims to the world, from now, that in 24 case this occurs the Arab people will be unable to accept 25 a solution imposed on them by blind force, and which 26 would not give them their rights, and will in any case go 27 on enjoying the sympathy and approval of both Arab and 28 Moslem worlds, until they will get their full rights. 29 30 The Only Road to Settlement 31 The Higher Arab Committee thinks it wise to take this 32 opportunity to repeat their national programme, which 33 is as follows: 34 35 1. Recognition to the Arabs of their right to full inde- 36 pendence in their country. 72 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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2. Abandonment of the attempt to institute for the Jews a National Home. 1 3. Termination of the British Mandate and its replace- 2 ment by a treaty similar to the Anglo-Iraqi, the 3 Anglo-Egyptian, and the Franco-Syrian treaties, 4 under which Palestine would become an indepen- 5 dent country. 6 4. Complete stoppage of Jewish immigration and of sale 7 of land to the Jews. 8 9 The Arabs are prepared to institute negotiations with 10 the British on a legitimate basis, with the object of reach- 11 ing an agreement which would safeguard reasonable 12 British interests, and would guarantee the Holy Places 13 and access to them, and the protection of all legitimate 14 rights of Jews and other minorities in Palestine. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 73

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Palestine Should Not 11 12 Be Partitioned 13 14 15 Jamal el-Husseini 16 In this 1947 speech to the UN General Assembly’s Committee 17 on Palestine, Jamal el-Husseini argues that Palestine should 18 not be partitioned. He contends that all of Palestine must be 19 returned to its rightful owners, the Arab people. The Balfour 20 Declaration, on which the Jewish people base their claim to 21 establish a Jewish home, is an immoral, unjust, and illegal 22 promise made by the British, who did not own Palestine and 23 have no right to give it away. Jamal el-Husseini was a Palestine 24 Arab leader and nationalist who, in 1947, was chairman of the Palestine Arab delegation to the United Nations. The cousin of 25 the grand mufti of Jerusalem, he served as prime minister of 26 the 1948 Government of Common Palestine, which was never 27 recognized by the United Nations. 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 SOURCE. Jamal el-Husseini, “Palestine Partition Denounced,” Vital 35 Speeches of the Day, vol. 14, October 15, 1947, pp. 2–10. Reproduced 36 by permission. 74 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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he Palestine Arab case is simple and self- ­evident. . . . It hardly needs elaboration. . . . It is 1 that of a people who desire to live in undisturbed 2 Tpossession of their country, in which they have continu- 3 ally existed and with which they have become inextrica- 4 bly interwoven. . . . 5 We have one glaring, all-embracing fact: That we are 6 there and have always been there in actual possession of 7 our own country, and we have one binding, lawful and 8 sacred duty: To defend it against all aggression. We ask 9 for no favors and we desire nothing that is not ours by 10 birthright. 11 The Zionists are conducting an aggressive campaign, 12 in fact, an invasion. For no matter with what apparel it is 13 clothed, religious, humanitarian, or political, the Zionist 14 movement for the possession of Palestine is nothing but 15 an invasion that aims, by force, at securing and dominat- 16 ing a country that is not theirs by birthright. 17 18 The Case in a Nutshell 19 On one side, therefore, there is self-defense; on the other 20 side, an aggression. . . . This is the case before you in a 21 nutshell. 22 Investigation and fact-finding should have, by all 23 means, been set afoot a long time ago, with the Zionist 24 invaders who carry out this act of aggression and with 25 Great Britain who enforces it at the points of their 26 ­bayonets. . . . 27 Our rights and patrimony have 28 been the subject of close scrutiny Great Britain . . . has never 29 and investigation for not less than owned Palestine to dispose 30 eighteen times in twenty-five years. of it. 31 During the last eighteen months 32 alone, our case has been examined in 33 its minutest detail four times before 34 commissions of inquiry and at official conferences. All 35 to no purpose. . . . 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 75

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The Balfour Declaration Must Go 1 The Zionists claim the establishment of a Jewish national 2 home by virtue of the Balfour Declaration. Great Britain, 3 however, has never owned Palestine to dispose of it. It 4 occupied Palestine in the name of the Allies with whom 5 the Arabs were associated. . . . When the British Army 6 entered Palestine, the United Kingdom declared to 7 the world that they entered it as liberators and not as 8 ­conquerors. 9 The Balfour Declaration that contradicts the Covenant 10 of the League of Nations, and is now standing between 11 democracy and the , is an immoral, unjust 12 and illegal promise. It is immoral because it was made 13 behind the back of the inhabitants of the country, and 14 was diametrically opposed to previous pledges given to 15 them by the same government. It is unjust, because it 16 aims at the national destruction of a friendly people. It is 17 illegal because it was a gift that was not the property of 18 the giver. . . . 19 The Balfour Declaration, therefore, and its incorpora- 20 tion in the mandate, must be doomed as the most wicked 21 and inapplicable policy that ever existed. If justice is to be 22 done, it must go. . . . 23 Great Britain, as one of the greatest powers, and the 24 Zionist organization, the most influential association in 25 the capitals of the world, have joined hands, thirty years 26 ago, to execute a policy in Palestine that aims at the 27 destruction of the national existence of its Arab owners. 28 In 1918, when this policy of wholesale destruction 29 was set afoot, Palestine was 93 per cent Arab in popu- 30 lation, language, traditions and aspirations. This over- 31 whelming, all-prevailing Arab atmosphere was to be 32 overturned for the establishment of the Jewish forthcom- 33 ing national home. . . . 34 In 1920 a draft mandate, for Palestine, again behind 35 the back of the indigenous population, was laid down by 36 both the Zionist executive and the British Government, 76 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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and instantly put into effect. In 1922, under the influ- ence of both, this mandate was ratified by the League of 1 Nations without any alterations, again in the absence of 2 the Arab owners of the country and in the face of their 3 never-failing protests. 4 Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations 5 defined the objects of the mandatory system. The first 6 paragraph of that Article states that the rights and inter- 7 ests of the indigenous population under the mandate 8 become a sacred trust of civilization in the hands of 9 the mandatory, and Paragraph 4 gives those territories 10 that were detached from Ottoman rule, Palestine obvi- 11 ously included, the distinctive position in which they will 12 enjoy independence, subject, temporarily, to administra- 13 tive advice and assistance by mandatory. 14 The Palestine mandate, as ratified, corresponds nei- 15 ther to the first paragraph nor to the last. For its object is 16 to create a home for a people who were not in Palestine, 17 and who have no direct relation with the indigenous 18 population. . . . 19 What is known as the Palestine Administration has 20 no relation to the people, in the sense that it represents 21 London and not Palestine. The inhabitants of Palestine, 22 and the Government which they were supposed to con- 23 stitute and for whose assistance the British Government 24 got the mandate, have no place or existence in this British 25 combination. 26 The present administration of Palestine consequently 27 has no legal basis under the Government of the League 28 of Nations. . . . 29 30 Arabs Have No Rights or Freedoms in 31 Palestine 32 As far as political freedom is concerned, the Arabs, 33 contrary to the letter and spirit of Article 22 of the 34 Covenant of the League of Nations, have no existence in 35 Palestine. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 77

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We have no say whatsoever in the 1 The Arab world is a racial homo- administration. We have no say in 2 geneity. legislation. We have no responsible 3 positions. We have no control over or 4 knowledge of the external or internal 5 policy of the Government. Our polit- 6 ical existence as indigenous population whose rights are 7 held in sacred trust of civilization by Great Britain has 8 thus been liquidated. . . . 9 This policy has cost all concerned, including the 10 mandatory, worries and losses in life and property. 11 12 The British Are Responsible 13 Several and successive disturbances took place, the last 14 of which continued from 1936–39. This led the British 15 Government, in 1939 . . . , to come to the conclusion that 16 Jewish immigration must stop, and Palestine should, in 17 a fixed period of time, become an independent unitary 18 state under a constitution to be formulated by the people 19 of Palestine. Again under Zionist pressure, the British 20 Government did not implement that policy, but gradu- 21 ally backed out. 22 This state of affairs has created an atmosphere which 23 augurs of calamitous developments for Palestine and the 24 Middle East. Under the stress of these circumstances 25 and gloomy forebodings, the British Government at last 26 came out with the truth that the mandate was incompat- 27 ible and so it was unworkable. . . . 28 The British Government which made the Balfour 29 Declaration in 1917, and those who laid down the draft 30 mandate in 1920, cannot but have realized the obvi- 31 ous fact that both contained inconsistent and opposed 32 terms and as such they could not be fairly and squarely 33 applied. . . . 34 They created the problem which has led to the pres- 35 ent crisis. They ask us now to be objective and realistic, 36 they would have us accept the position as it stands. In 78 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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other words, they ask us to compromise our country and future. . . . 1 2 Arabs Are One People Worldwide 3 Palestine is a tiny country of only 10,000 square miles, 4 more than half of which is uncultivativable. It has no raw 5 materials or industries, and so it cannot afford relief for 6 millions of Jews in distress. 7 The Zionist organization does not want Palestine for 8 the permanent solution of the Jewish problem or the relief 9 of the Jews in distress. They are after power, they are after 10 the central and strategic position of Palestine. . . . 11 Their movement is . . . not one caused by distress- 12 ful conditions, but it is one of political ambitions and 13 designs on Palestine and the Near East. 14 This brings us to another consideration which is of 15 fundamental importance to us, not only as Palestinian 16 Arabs, but as Arabs of the very core of the Arab world. 17 The Arab world is a racial homogeneity that extends 18 over the southern and parts of the eastern border of the 19 from the North of Africa throughout 20 Egypt to the Persian Gulf and from the Turkish borders 21 to the Indian Ocean. 22 The people of that vast territory speak one language 23 and have the same history, traditions and aspirations. 24 Their unity in all these matters is bound to be a basis 25 for mutual understanding and a solid foundation for 26 peace in one of the most central and sensitive areas of 27 the world. 28 With these characteristics, the Arab world affords 29 a conspicuous contrast to the nations that occupy the 30 northern border of the Mediterranean. From the Iberian 31 Peninsula to Turkey, the different nationalities and non- 32 homogeneous communities have clashed in a diversity of 33 interests, mentalities and national aims. This condition 34 created always an atmosphere of antagonism that culmi- 35 nated in many a calamitous war. . . . 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 79

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Arabs are Entitled to a Free and 1 Independent State 2 It is illogical . . . that the United Nations, the peace- 3 making machinery of the world, should associate itself 4 or lend a helping hand to weaken or to break up an 5 existing natural old homogeneity as that of the Arab 6 world by the introduction in its midst of an alien body 7 as is now being contemplated by sponsors of a Jewish 8 state in Palestine. 9 If such a political monstrosity is carried out, no sane 10 person could expect to see peace prevail in that part of 11 the world. . . . 12 It may be asked, what then is your proposal for the 13 solution of the problem that was created by the Balfour 14 Declaration and the mandate. . . . 15 The solution is in your Charter. . . . In accordance 16 with this Charter, the Arabs of Palestine, who constitute 17 the great majority, are entitled to a free and independent 18 state. 19 [In mid-October 1947] the honorable delegate of 20 the United Kingdom declared that his Government has 21 come to the conclusion that the 22 should now be terminated, and that such a termination 23 should be followed by independence. 24 The Arab delegation heartily welcomes this belated 25 declaration and trusts the British Government, this time, 26 will not reverse its decision. . . . 27 With regard to the manner and form in which the 28 independence of Palestine should be 29 shaped, the view of the Palestine The Arabs of Palestine are . . . 30 Arab delegation is that this is a matter solidly determined to oppose, 31 for the rightful owners of this coun- with all the means at their dis- 32 try to decide. The future government 33 posal, any scheme that provides of Palestine cannot be imposed from 34 for the dissection, segregation without. 35 or partition of their tiny country. Once Palestine is found to be 36 entitled to its independence, the 80 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 United Nations is not competent and cannot legally dic- Amir Faisal al Saud 22 II of Saudi Arabia, tate to it the form of its government. This would amount center, confers with 23 to interference in the internal affairs of that country. The delegates from Iraq 24 future government of Palestine must be a government by and Egypt—Abdullah 25 the people and for the people. Damlougi (left) 26 and Abdelmonem 27 The only just, practical and democratic way to Mostafa-—who were achieve the independence of Palestine is to recognize the affiliated with the Arab 28 following principles as the basis for its future constitu- League to press the 29 tional organization: Palestinian case dur- 30 ing the United Nations 31 1. That an Arab state in the whole of Palestine be estab- meeting at Lake 32 lished on democratic lines. Success, New York in 1947. (Keystone/Getty 33 2. That the said Arab will respect Images.) 34 human rights, fundamental freedoms and equality of 35 all persons before the law. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 81

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3. That the said Arab state of Palestine will protect the 1 legitimate rights and interests of all minorities. 2 4. That freedom of worship and access to holy places 3 will be guaranteed to all. 4 5 The following steps will have to be taken to give effect 6 to the aforesaid principles: 7 8 A. A Constituent Assembly should be elected at the 9 earliest possible time. All genuine and law-abiding 10 nationals of Palestine will be entitled to participate in 11 the elections for the Constituent Assembly. 12 B. The said Constituent Assembly shall, within a fixed 13 time, formulate and enact a Constitution for the Arab 14 state of Palestine, which should be of a democratic 15 nature and should embody the above-mentioned 16 four principles. 17 C. A government should be formed within a fixed 18 time, in accordance with the terms of the Constitution, 19 to take over the administration of Palestine from the 20 mandatory power. . . . 21 22 This is the one and only course that the Arabs of 23 Palestine are prepare to take. . . . 24 The Arabs of Palestine are, therefore, solidly deter- 25 mined to oppose, with all the means at their disposal, any 26 scheme that provides for the dissection, segregation or 27 partition of their tiny country or that gives to a minority, 28 on the ground of creed, special and preferential rights or 29 status. 30 They will oppose such schemes, in the same zeal and 31 with the same sacrifice that any other people would do 32 under the same circumstances. 33 34 35 36 82 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Palestine Should 10 11 Be Partitioned 12 13 14 Abba Hillel Silver 15 16 In this 1947 speech to the UN General Assembly’s Committee on Palestine, Abba Hillel Silver argues that Palestine should 17 be partitioned and the Jewish people given a home there. He 18 states that Palestine was the home to Jewish people thou- 19 sands of years before Arab people first conquered it, and a 20 far-reaching Jewish civilization had already been created there. 21 Silver contends that the national home promised by the Balfour 22 Declaration and the Palestine Mandate is the only solution to 23 “the Jewish problem.” Abba Hillel Silver was a rabbi and an 24 influential Zionist leader and activist for Jewish statehood and 25 was considered among the most prominent leaders of American Judaism. A spokesperson for the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 26 he participated as a representative of the Jewish Agency at the 27 United Nations General Assembly sessions in 1947–1948. 28 29 30 31 32 33 SOURCE. Abba Hillel Silver, “Palestine Partition Acceptable,” Vital 34 Speeches of the Day, vol. 14, October 15, 1947, pp. 10–15. Reproduced 35 by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 83

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hen the Allies liberated Palestine in 1917 1 along with other parts of the former Ottoman 2 Empire, Palestine was a segment of a Turkish 3 province.W There was no politically or culturally distinct 4 or distinguishable Arab nation in that province. There 5 never had been. . . . 6 By the time the Arabs conquered Palestine in 684 7 a.d., the Jewish people had already completed nearly 8 2,000 years of national history in that country, during 9 which time they created a civilization which decid- 10 edly influenced the course of mankind, gave rise both 11 to Judaism and Christianity, produced the Bible and 12 brought forth prophets, saints and spiritual leaders who 13 are venerated not only by Judaism, but by Christianity 14 and Islam as well. . . . 15 The very identity of Palestine as a unit of human 16 society is an achievement of Jewish history. The country 17 lost its separate character with the Jewish dispersion 18 and only assumed a specific role in history when the 19 Palestine mandate was ratified. The mandate acknowl- 20 edged this history by setting Palestine in a distinct and 21 separate context in relation to the Arab world. “I am 22 persuaded,” declared [U.S.] President [Woodrow] Wilson 23 on March 3, 1919, “that the Allied nations with the full- 24 est concurrence of our own Government and people are 25 agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundation of a 26 Jewish Commonwealth.” 27 Speaking in the House of Lords on June 27, 1923, 28 Lord Milner, who called himself “a strong supporter of 29 the pro-Arab policy,” stated: 30 “Palestine can never be regarded as a country on 31 the same footing as the other Arab countries. You can- 32 not ignore all history and tradition in the matter . . . 33 and the future of Palestine cannot possibly be left to 34 be determined by the temporary impressions and feel- 35 ings of the Arab majority in the country in the pres- 36 ent day.” 84 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 When the Palestine mandate therefore recognized Rabbi Abba Hillel 25 Silver, the chairman 26 “the historical connection of the Jewish people with of the Jewish Agency Palestine” it was only stating a fact that was universally for Palestine, speaks 27 acknowledged through the ages. And when it gave inter- in 1948 during a rally 28 national recognition to the grounds for reconstituting at Madison Square 29 the Jewish national home in that country . . . it was only Garden in New York 30 to celebrate the newly reaffirming the fact that the Jewish people had never sur- established state of 31 rendered the hope of national restoration in its ancestral Israel. (Leo Rosenthal/ 32 homeland. For to the Jews Palestine was not merely a Pix Inc./Time Life 33 place of sacred shrines as to Christians and Moslems, but Pictures/Getty Images.) 34 the home of their exiled people, the land of their national 35 destiny, and throughout the dark centuries of persecu- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 85

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tion and wandering there were continuous efforts to 1 return to it. . . . 2 3 The British and Partition 4 It may be pertinent to recall that the principle of partition 5 on which the majority report of the Committee is based 6 was first projected by the all-British Royal Commission 7 in 1937. At that time the British Government accepted 8 that recommendation in principle and declared: 9 “In supporting a solution of the Palestine problem by 10 means of partition, His Majesty’s Government are much 11 impressed by the advantages which it offers to the Arabs 12 and the Jews. The Arabs would obtain their national 13 independence and thus be enabled to cooperate on an 14 equal footing with the Arabs of neighboring countries 15 in the cause of Arab unity and progress. They would be 16 finally delivered from all fear of Jewish domination. On 17 the other hand, partition would secure the establishment 18 of the Jewish National Home and relieve it from any pos- 19 sibility of its being subjected in the future to Arab rule. 20 It would convert the Jewish National 21 Home into a Jewish State with full 22 Palestine offers to [Jews] that control over immigration. Above all, 23 which they need most and can- fear and suspicion would be replaced 24 not find anywhere else: the by a sense of confidence and security, 25 chance of a real home, . . . the and both peoples would obtain, in 26 insurance of permanency. the words of the Commission, ‘the 27 estimable boon of peace.’” . . . 28 In 1947 the British Government 29 proposed another examination of the Palestine problem, 30 this time by the United Nations. . . . This committee has 31 now submitted a report which recommends a plan of 32 partition coupled with economic union. . . . 33 34 The Issue of Jewish Displaced Persons 35 The Jewish Agency . . . wishes to indicate at the outset 36 its full approval of all but one of the eleven unanimous 86 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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recommendations made by the com- mittee. On the sixth recommenda- There is but one solution to 1 tion, of which it does not disapprove, [the Jewish] problem, a national 2 it would like to make this obser- home. 3 vation. The sixth recommendation 4 calls upon the General Assembly “to 5 undertake immediately the initiation 6 and execution of an international arrangement whereby 7 the problem of the distressed European Jews, of whom 8 approximately 250,000 are in assembly centers, will be 9 dealt with as a matter of extreme urgency for the allevia- 10 tion of their plight and of the Palestine problem.” . . . 11 The report of your Special Committee refers to the 12 “intense urge” of these distressed persons to be allowed 13 to go to Palestine. 14 The “intense urge” of the Jewish displaced persons to 15 proceed to Palestine and the refusal of most of them to 16 go anywhere else springs not only from their realization 17 that the prospects of their admission to other countries 18 are slight in the extreme, and even then only of a very 19 limited scope. It springs preeminently from the fact that 20 Palestine offers to them that which they need most and 21 cannot find anywhere else: the chance of a real home, the 22 prospect of a life in congenial surroundings, the insur- 23 ance of permanency. 24 All the longing of these uprooted people for a life of 25 peace and dignity, for a normal and secure existence finds 26 expression in this “intense urge” to go to Palestine. . . . 27 And if it be countered that mere desire does not create a 28 right, a complete answer is that that desire was the basis 29 for the creation of the right by the Balfour Declaration 30 and the League of Nations ­mandate. 31 That desire was recognized as morally so compelling 32 that it led the victorious Allies in the First World War to 33 establish solemn international commitments guarantee- 34 ing the legal right of Jews to go to Palestine. . . . 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 87

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The Jewish Problem in General 1 The twelfth recommendation of the committee, which 2 was not unanimously opposed by the Committee, reads: 3 “It is recommended that in the appraisal of the Palestine 4 question, it be accepted as incontrovertible that any solu- 5 tion for Palestine cannot be considered as a solution of 6 the Jewish problem in general.” We are at a loss to under- 7 stand the meaning of this recommendation. . . . The 8 “Jewish problem in general” is not a problem of Jewish 9 immigration or of refugees. It is the age-old problem of 10 Jewish national homelessness. 11 There is but one solution to this problem, a national 12 home. This was the basic Jewish problem which was 13 faced by the Balfour Declaration and the mandate, and to 14 which the proper solution was given—the reconstitution 15 of the national home of the Jewish people in Palestine. 16 Without attempting at this stage a detailed analysis 17 of the solution recommended by the minority of three 18 ­members of the Special Committee, we must state at 19 once that we find it wholly unacceptable. . . . This minor- 20 ity report proposes the establishment of an indepen- 21 dent Federal State of Palestine, consisting of what are 22 described as an Arab and a Jewish “State,” though they 23 are, in fact, little more than semi-autonomous cantons 24 or provinces. 25 It is obvious that under the constitutional provisions 26 envisaged in this recommendation, Palestine would 27 become in effect an Arab State with two Jewish enclaves, 28 in which the Jews would be frozen in the position of a 29 permanent minority of the population of the Federal 30 State. Under the proposed constitution the Jewish prov- 31 ince would not have control over immigration even 32 within the narrow confines of its own borders. Nor 33 would it have control over its own fiscal policies. Not 34 only with regard to the crucial question of immigration, 35 but also with regard to many other matters of funda- 36 mental importance, the ultimate power of decision will 88 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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rest with the Arab majority of the proposed Federal State. . . . 1 The plan entails for the Jews all the disadvantages 2 of partition—and a very bad partition geographically— 3 without the compensating advantages of a real partition; 4 statehood, independence and free immigration. . . . 5 6 Jewish Acceptance of Partition 7 Partition clearly was never contemplated by the Balfour 8 Declaration of the mandate. It was intended that Palestine, 9 the whole of Palestine, shall ultimately become a Jewish 10 State. This is the clear testimony of Mr. [David] Lloyd 11 George, who was the British Prime 12 Minister at the time of the issuance of 13 the Declaration. The land referred to The Jewish people of Palestine 14 as Palestine in the Declaration includ- stand ready to assume immedi- 15 ed what is now Trans-Jordan. The ately all responsibilities which 16 Royal Commission of 1937 declared the establishment of the Jewish 17 that “the field in which the Jewish State will involve. 18 national home was to be established 19 was understood at the time of the 20 Balfour Declaration to be the whole of historic Palestine.” 21 That area has already been partitioned. . . . 22 To return to the basic solution of partition proposed 23 by the Special Committee: It entails, as we have said, a 24 very heavy sacrifice on the part of the Jewish people. But 25 if such a sacrifice is made the inexorable condition of an 26 immediate and final solution, we would be prepared to 27 assume the responsibility for recommending acquies- 28 cence to the supreme organs of our movement, subject, 29 of course, to further discussion of the constitution and 30 territorial provisions. . . . 31 We would be prepared to do so because the proposal 32 makes possible the immediate re-establishment of the 33 Jewish State, an ideal for which our people ceaselessly 34 strove through the centuries, and because it ensures 35 immediate and continuing Jewish immigration which, 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 89

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as events have demonstrated is possible only under a 1 Jewish State. We would do so also as our contribution to 2 the solution of a grave international problem and as evi- 3 dence of our willingness to join with the community of 4 nations in an effort to bring peace at last to the troubled 5 land which is precious to the heart of mankind. 6 We are impressed with the recommendation in the 7 report of an economic union between the two states. We 8 approve of the conclusion reached by the committee that 9 “in view of the limited area and resources of Palestine, 10 it is essential that, to the extent feasible, and consistent 11 with the creation of two independent states, the eco- 12 nomic unity of the country should be preserved.” 13 This appears to us to be a progressive and statesman- 14 like conception of great promsie. The Jewish Agency 15 is prepared to accept this proposal of an economic 16 union. . . . 17 18 A Jewish Nation in Palestine 19 We have builded a nation in Palestine. That nation now 20 demands its independence. It will not be dislodged. Its 21 national status will not be denied. We are asked to make 22 an enormous sacrifice to attain that which, if uninter- 23 fered with, we would have attained long ago. In sadness, 24 and most reluctantly, we are prepared to make this sacri- 25 fice. Beyond it we cannot, we will not go. . . . 26 The Jewish people of Palestine stands ready to assume 27 immediately all responsibilities which the establishment 28 of the Jewish State will involve. . . . 29 Twenty-five years ago a similar international orga- 30 nization recognized the historic claims of the Jewish 31 people, sanctioned our program and set us firmly on the 32 road of realization. We were not then regarded as intrud- 33 ers or invaders, not even by the foremost leaders and 34 spokesmen of the Arab world, but as a people returning 35 home after a long, sad exile. The world approved and 36 acclaimed the return of Israel to its ancient homeland. 90 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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United Nations General Assembly Vote 1 on the Partition Plan for Palestine, 1947 2 3 “Yes” to Partition “No” to Partition Abstain Absent 4 5 Australia Afghanistan Argentina Thailand 6 Belgium Cuba Chile 7 Bolivia Egypt China Brazil Greece Colombia 8 Byelorussia India El Salvador 9 Canada Iran Ethiopia 10 Costa Rica Iraq Honduras 11 Czechoslovakia Lebanon Mexico 12 Denmark Pakistan United Kingdom 13 Dominican Republic Saudi Arabia Yugoslavia 14 Ecuador Syria France Turkey 15 Guatemala Yemen 16 Haiti 17 Iceland 18 Liberia 19 Luxembourg 20 Netherlands 21 New Zealand Nicaragua 22 23 Panama 24 Paraguay 25 Peru 26 Philippines 27 Poland Sweden 28 Ukraine 29 Union of South Africa 30 USSR 31 USA 32 Uruguay 33 Venezuela 34

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The statesmen of the world faced the tragic problem 1 of Jewish national homelessness and they set about to 2 solve it. 3 The Jewish people was confirmed in its right to 4 rebuild its national life in its historic home. It eagerly 5 seized the long hoped-for opportunity and proceeded 6 to rebuild that ancient land of Israel in a manner which 7 evoked the admiration of the whole world. It has made 8 the wilderness blossom as the rose. Surely this great inter- 9 national body, surveying this faithful and fruitful work, 10 will wish to see that work continued, that undertaking 11 advanced, that hope of the centuries consummated. It 12 will be a noble achievement which will redound to the 13 everlasting glory of this world organization. It will be a 14 supreme act of international justice. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 92 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Arab States Have 10 11 No Right to Intervene 12 13 14 in Israel 15 16 Abba Eban 17 18 In the following 1948 speech to the United Nations, Abba Eban 19 calls upon the United Nations (UN) Security Council to instruct 20 the Arab states to end their acts of aggression against the state of Israel. He argues that the acts are unprovoked and a viola- 21 tion of the UN charter and international law. The Arab states 22 have clearly stated that their use of armed force against Israel 23 is political and that their goal is to destroy Israel and make all 24 of Palestine an Arab state. Abba Eban was an Israeli statesman 25 and diplomat. He served Israel in many capacities, including as 26 Israel’s first Ambassador to the UN, a member of the Knesset 27 (Israeli Parliament), chief delegate to the UN, minister of educa- 28 tion and culture, and foreign minister. 29 30 31 32 33 34 SOURCE. Abba Eban, “The War of Independence,” Jewish Media 35 Fund, July 13, 1948. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 93

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here is not a single person in this room or outside 1 it who does not know in the depths of his heart 2 that the Arab States, by resuming their attacks 3 Tupon Israel, have committed an act of aggression within 4 the meaning of Chapter VII of the [UN] Charter. Their 5 armed forces are operating beyond their frontiers for 6 purposes which the Charter specifically forbids. They are 7 using force against the territorial integrity and political 8 independence of the State of Israel in a manner incon- 9 sistent with the purposes of the United Nations. Their 10 object, which they openly confess, is to secure the vio- 11 lent extinction of the State of Israel, the establishment of 12 which was recommended by the General Assembly. . . . 13 It should not be necessary at this stage to provide 14 elaborate evidence in order to prove the aggressive char- 15 acter of these warlike movements upon which the armies 16 of the Arab States have launched themselves—with con- 17 spicuous and welcome lack of success. . . . 18 The principles of the Charter themselves proclaim 19 these operations as acts of aggression. . . . For here we 20 are in the unusual position of not being faced with any 21 conflict of views on the question of who began the fight- 22 ing. When the first official phase of this aggression began 23 on 15 May, representatives of the Arab States showered 24 documents upon this Council, . . . asserting that they had 25 taken the initiative for using armed force outside their 26 frontiers with the purpose of overthrowing the political 27 independence and territorial integrity of a neighboring 28 State, whose existence they dislike. 29 30 Arab States Have Violated Not one of the conditions 31 International Law which make the use of armed 32 Under the Charter, they are, of course, 33 force legitimate under the [UN] entitled to dislike the existence of 34 Charter exists or has ever been the State of Israel. But under the 35 claimed to exist. Charter, they are most emphatically 36 and categorically forbidden to use 94 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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armed force against the political independence or terri- torial integrity of that State, or indeed, to use armed force 1 against anybody in Palestinian territory for any purpose 2 whatever “save in the common interest” of the United 3 Nations, or in defense of their own territories, if these 4 territories had been unprovocably attacked. Not one of 5 the conditions which make the use of armed force legiti- 6 mate under the Charter exists or has ever been claimed 7 to exist in respect of these acts. 8 At the 302nd meeting of the Security Council the 9 representative of the Arab States read statements . . . , 10 asserting the political ambitions whereby they are ani- 11 mated and the violent means which they use in their sup- 12 port. On that occasion, the representative of the United 13 States said of these declarations: 14 15 Their statements are the best evidence we have of the 16 international character of this aggression . . . They 17 tell us quite frankly that their business in Palestine is 18 political and that they are there to establish a unitary 19 State . . . Therefore . . . we have the highest type of evi- 20 dence concerning the international violation of the law: 21 namely the admission by those who are committing this 22 ­violation. . . . 23 And finally, the representative of the United States, 24 referring to the claim of the Arabs that their operations 25 aimed at the maintenance of peace, said: 26 27 This is equivalent in its absurdity to the legend that these 28 five armies are there to maintain peace, while they are 29 conducting a bloody war. . . . 30 31 Concessions to Promote Peace 32 Cease-fire resolutions were repeatedly sponsored, accept- 33 ed by the Government of Israel, rejected by the Arab 34 States, re-examined by the Security Council, and eventu- 35 ally served up on 29 May [1948] in the form of a resolu- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 95

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tion which combined the call for a cease-fire with the 1 satisfaction of what the United Kingdom representative 2 called the “political demands which the Arabs consider 3 reasonable.” . . . 4 As a further inducement to the Arab States to refrain 5 from the use of armed force, encroachments upon the 6 sovereignty of Israel were demanded in that matter 7 wherein its sovereignty is most vital and cherished, the 8 matter of immigration. . . . 9 Addressing the Security Council five weeks ago, I 10 took leave to enquire whether any State represented 11 around this table would willingly neglect opportunities 12 for improving its defense for a period of four weeks, if 13 it had complete certainty that at the end of those four 14 weeks, the armies of five neighboring States would sweep 15 upon it in converging aggression. We further expressed 16 doubts whether any State ­represented 17 here would willingly submit its immi- 18 The Government of Israel . . . gration policy, based upon its own 19 has been eager at all times right of internal jurisdiction, to the 20 to affirm its fidelity to the prin- scrutiny or control of anyone else. 21 ciples and the processes of the Yet the State of Israel did accept 22 [UN] Charter. these restrictive conditions, which 23 it believes should never have been 24 imposed upon it. It allowed its scanty 25 defensive resources to remain unaugmented during the 26 period which it knew to be merely a prelude for further 27 attacks upon its boundaries and its political integrity. It 28 allowed the hand of external control to reach into the 29 rights of immigration, which are the very substance of 30 its national purpose and ideal. It was able to accept these 31 limitations because they were imposed for a specified 32 period of brief duration, and because the Government 33 of Israel, born out of a United Nations judgment and 34 recommendation, has been eager at all times to affirm 35 its fidelity to the principles and the processes of the 36 Charter. . . . 96 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 The Truce Is Dead During his time as 24 Israel’s ambassador 25 On the morning of 9 July the period of the four weeks’ to the United Nations, truce expired. Owing to the Arab refusal to grant a pro- Abba Eban (center) 26 longation, it was not renewed. . . . confers with his boss, 27 At any rate, the truce is dead. The apparatus of obser- Israeli foreign minister 28 vance and supervision has disintegrated. The readiness Golda Meir (left), and 29 with Israeli delegation of the Government of Israel to agree to a four-weeks staff member Gideon 30 continuation was most contemptuously rejected on the Rafael (second from 31 Arab side, and in the absence either of continuous valid- left) at a meeting 32 ity or of mutual acceptance, that Jewish offer also belongs of the UN General 33 to the history of these recent weeks. In an admirable Assembly in New York 34 in 1957. (AP Images.) last-minute effort to keep war at bay while the next stage 35 was contemplated, the Mediator turned to both par- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 97

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ties and asked them to agree to an 1 What we have to ensure is that unconditional cease-fire for a period 2 the whole tide of invasion is of ten days. . . . The Government of 3 ordered back to the territory Israel accepted this proposal. . . . The 4 from which it arose. Arab Government rejected it. Before 5 the previous truce had even expired, 6 Egyptian forces in the coastal sec- 7 tor of the Negeb [in southern Israel] 8 launched their assault. Their commander was found, on 9 capture, to possess operation orders which show conclu- 10 sively that his Government had planned not merely to 11 avoid prolongation, but even to launch the aggression 12 anew before the statutory period of the existing truce had 13 expired. . . . 14 15 Arab Aggression Must Stop 16 It is therefore the considered view of the Government of 17 Israel that the only action consonant with the duty of the 18 Security Council at this hour would be to determine an 19 act of Arab aggression, arising out of the Arab decision 20 to resume hostilities and, as a provisional measure under 21 Article 40, to order that aggression immediately and 22 unconditionally to cease. . . . 23 We need no repetition of a truce with invading 24 armies poised in suspended violence upon Israel’s fron- 25 tiers. We need a deterrent from aggression. We need 26 those invading armies to go home so that the frontiers of 27 Israel become the frontiers of a durable peace. A truce, 28 by its very nature, crystallizes aggression at the point 29 which it has reached at the time the truce comes into 30 operation. It therefore carries with it the seed of possibly 31 renewed war. What we have to ensure is that the whole 32 tide of invasion is ordered back to the territory from 33 which it arose. . . . 34 It seems well for all parties to this dispute and for 35 all who hope to help bring it to an end, to focus their 36 attention all the time upon the central issue. That issue 98 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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is the immovable determination of the State of Israel to exist and survive. This State is the product of the 1 most sustained historic tenacity which the ages recall. 2 Somehow this people, in the very climax of its agony, has 3 managed to generate the cohesion, the energy and the 4 confidence to bring the third Jewish commonwealth into 5 existence. . . . The Jewish people has not striven towards 6 this goal for twenty centuries in order that, having once 7 been achieved, with the full endorsement of interna- 8 tional opinion, it will now be surrendered in response to 9 an illegitimate and unsuccessful campaign of aggression. 10 Whatever else changes, this will not. . . . 11 12 Israel’s Immigration Policy 13 Nonnegotiable 14 The policy of the Government of Israel is to seek rela- 15 tions of harmony with the neighboring Arab States on 16 the basis of its own complete freedom and integrity. 17 It was therefore compelled to reject certain proposals 18 which encroached upon its sovereignty in a way that has 19 seldom been suggested in respect of any independent 20 State. It affirmed, and it now re-affirms, its inability to 21 agree to any encroachment upon or limitation of the 22 free sovereignty of the people of Israel in its independent 23 state. It must be particularly emphatic in its opposition 24 to any infringement of Israel’s independence and sover- 25 eignty as regards immigration policy. . . . 26 The Government of Israel made it clear that there 27 could be no question of any Israeli Government accept- 28 ing the slightest derogation from Israel’s sovereignty as 29 regards control of its immigration policy in favor of any 30 joint or international body. . . . 31 To portray the possibilities of Jewish immigration, 32 drawing from a pathetically depleted reservoir of Jewish 33 remnants left alive in the world, to portray this State of 34 Israel approaching its first million of population as a 35 potential threat to the far-flung Arab Empire, with its 40 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 99

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millions of population, is to accept 1 It is for the [UN] Security Council, uncritically one of the most unfound- 2 therefore, to ‘forbid armed ed of Arab ­contentions. . . . 3 force in the settlement of this We cannot accept that “Jewish 4 ­problem.’ immigration into the Jewish area of 5 Palestine concerns . . . the neigh- 6 boring Arab world.” We declare 7 that immigration into Israel is the 8 business of Israel alone. The Governments of Egypt, 9 Transjordan and Syria have no more jurisdiction in this 10 question than has the Government of Israel in any of 11 their internal affairs. The suggestion that a neighboring 12 State might exercise a power of challenge or veto against 13 Israel’s immigration policy is to us as fantastic as it would 14 be to suggest that Canada should be able to influence the 15 immigration policy of the United States on the grounds 16 of geographical proximity and a mutual continental 17 interest. . . . 18 19 A Right to Political Sovereignty 20 The insistence by the State of Israel upon its unrestricted 21 sovereignty is by no means incompatible with its vision 22 of Arab-Jewish co-operation. Indeed the doctrine of sov- 23 ereign equality which is the basis of the Charter makes 24 political independence the essential condition of regional 25 co-operation in the modern world. When we speak of an 26 independent sovereign Israel joining with its neighbors 27 in projects of regional development, we set no precedent. 28 We depart from no principle which is based upon the 29 Charter and commonly accepted as the most advanced 30 political ideal of the contemporary world. . . . The Arab 31 League itself, little as it might have done in the sphere 32 of social and economic progress on a regional basis, at 33 least has the merit of respecting the sovereignty of its 34 individual members. Even two countries so akin as Syria 35 and Lebanon, joined together by common economic 36 interests in so many enterprises, cannot envisage their 100 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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co-operation except on the basis of the free unrestricted political sovereignty of each one. How far-fetched then it 1 is to imagine that this principle of political independence 2 which cannot be compromised even between peoples of 3 similar social and cultural background, can be obscured 4 in the relations of Israel with its neighbors. . . . 5 Only when aggression dies down, only when armed 6 force is forbidden in the settlement of this problem, only 7 when it is made “prohibitively unprofitable” for the Arab 8 States to employ it, only then does the prospect of any 9 peaceful relations emerge upon the horizon, beckoning 10 the initiative and foresight of both parties. We should be 11 wrong to spend time considering a final peace unless we 12 were sure that these obstacles could be surmounted. It 13 is for the Security Council, therefore, to “forbid armed 14 force in the settlement of this problem.” 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 101

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Outside Factors 11 12 Contributed 13 14 15 to the Birth of Israel 16 17 Geoffrey Wheatcroft 18 19 In the following viewpoint, Geoffrey Wheatcroft contends that 20 while Jewish heroism, sacrifice, diplomacy, military discipline, and terrorism helped bring about the birth of the state of Israel, 21 they were not the only contributing factors. Without world events 22 over which the Zionists had no control the state would not have 23 been born. World War I and World War II, as well as the positions 24 and actions of the British, the Americans, and the Soviets, all 25 had a part. Adolf Hitler was a major factor. Wheatcroft asserts 26 that without Hitler, “Israel could not have been born when 27 and as it was.” Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a British journalist and 28 author. 29 30 31 32 33 SOURCE. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Controversy of Zion: Jewish 34 Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma. 35 Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996. Copyright © 1996. Reprinted by 36 permission of Basic Books, a member of Perseus Books Group. 102 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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n 14 May 1948, a new state was born. The Zionist General Council proclaimed . . . that 1 ‘foreign rule’ would no longer be tolerated in the 2 Ocountry. In Washington, the [Harry S.] Truman admin- 3 istration immediately extended de facto [unofficial] rec- 4 ognition to the new state of Israel, and three days later 5 Soviet Russia capped this with de jure [according to law] 6 recognition. . . . 7 As independence dawned, [first 8 Prime Minister of Israel David] Ben- 9 Gurion echoed an old Zionist slogan: The new state would not have 10 ‘Like other nations, it is the right of been born without factors which 11 the Jewish people to determine its the Zionists did not control. 12 history under its own sovereignty.’ 13 This seemed to be the central moral 14 accomplishment, but the rhetoric obscured the reality. 15 On the face of it the Jews had at last, for the first time in 16 nearly two thousand years, taken their destiny in their 17 own hands and were shaping their own history. The cre- 18 ation of Israel, with its subsequent history, was indeed a 19 breath-taking achievement, a triumph of will and human 20 spirit, won, as that one-time Zionist enthusiast Winston 21 Churchill could have said, by blood, toil, tears, and sweat, 22 by heroic battles against the odds. 23 24 Contributing Factors to the Birth 25 of Israel 26 But it was not that alone. Although the new Israeli 27 people wanted to make their own story, it was in truth 28 still to a large degree being made for them from outside. 29 For all the heroism and sacrifice of the pioneers, for 30 all [first Israeli president Chaim] Weizmann’s long and 31 patient diplomacy, for all the military discipline of the 32 Haganah [Jewish defense organization] and for all the 33 frank terror of the Sternists [terrorist group] and Irgun 34 [militant Zionist group] the new state would not have 35 been born without factors which the Zionists did not 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 103

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control. One great war had led to the establishment of a 1 Jewish homeland, another to a new conjunction in inter- 2 national affairs. Israel was born when the British were 3 too worn out by war to continue their own imperial bur- 4 den, when the American administration had decided to 5 back the new state, despite many misgivings in the State 6 Department and even in the White House, when Soviet 7 Russia, for even more irrelevant and cynical reasons, 8 decided that it too would act as a sponsor. 9 Above all, it was born after the greatest catastrophe 10 in Jewish history. More than thirty years later, [author] 11 George Steiner wrote a strange fantasy, in which [Nazi 12 dictator Adolf] Hitler is found in Latin America where, 13 not having died at all, he had fled like [Nazi SS officer 14 Adolf] Eichmann. At one moment ‘AH’ muses about 15 the fate of Germany and the Jews: ‘And the Reich begat 16 Israel.’ To some Israelis this literary conceit seemed 17 distasteful, and to some rigorous 18 Zionists it was a point of principle 19 It was wholly original, an ‘idea in that the Zionist vision was in no way 20 history’ made flesh. affected or further justified by the 21 fate of the European Jews. This flew 22 in the face of common sense. Hitler 23 was the most unsuccessful politician of all time, for all 24 his vast and insane deeds: he left Germany divided for 25 nearly half a century, left Europe as far west as the Elbe in 26 the hands of his mortal enemies the Bolsheviks, and left 27 his even more hated enemies, the Jews, with a voice in 28 world affairs for the first time. But for him, Israel could 29 not have been born when and as it was. 30 31 Why Israel Was Unique 32 As for Ben-Gurion’s other phrase, the old Zionist aspira- 33 tion, that too was implausible. ‘Like other nations’ was 34 quite obviously just what Israel was not. It was like no 35 other country on earth, and in many ways did not pretend 36 to be. This was no England or France, no United States 104 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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or Soviet Russia, not even another or Serbia, the pattern against which [Russian author Leo] Tolstoy 1 had warned the early Zionists. It was wholly original, an 2 ‘idea in history’ made flesh. And, if its relationship with 3 the outside world was different, its relationship with the 4 Jewish Dispersion was also different from that of other 5 new-born countries with their own Diasporas [disper- 6 sions], a difference of kind rather than degree. 7 One uniquely distinctive feature which made the new 8 state unlike other nations was its Magna Carta or Bill of 9 Rights, the which gave any Jew anywhere 10 on earth (begging the question of who was a Jew) the 11 right to settle in Israel. It was no abstract notion. In the 12 first years from 1948 to 1951 there was a huge immigra- 13 tion, more than 650,000. They came as survivors from 14 Europe, notably from Romania where a larger propor- 15 tion of the Jewish population than 16 in most east European countries had 17 survived the Germans. They came in Most Jews were happy that 18 increasing numbers from the Arab Israel had happened, and happy 19 countries, from Morocco far to the to leave it at that. 20 west of Israel, from Irak [Iraq] to the 21 east, from Yemen to the south. This 22 was something few had foreseen. . . . The creation of the 23 Jewish state sent convulsions through the Arab world. 24 In 1949, Israel signed armistices with the neighbour- 25 ing countries which still did not officially recognise her, 26 Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon. Humiliating defeat led in 27 turn to a surge of populist nationalism in those countries, 28 which threatened the old regime: the king of Jordan was 29 assassinated in 1951, the stamp-collecting King Farouk 30 of Egypt was deposed the next year. Under old or new 31 leaders, these countries talked about crushing the Zionist 32 interloper, but only talked. The fledgeling state profited 33 from its neighbours: from their verbal violence, from 34 their appearance of strength if only numerically, and 35 from their actual military incompetence. It was not only 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 105

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British police load 1 their equipment onto trucks in December 2 1947. Their departure 3 represented the first 4 step in Britain’s evacu- 5 ation of its personnel 6 from Palestine. (AP Images.) 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 that the Israelis could say, as the anti-imperialist (and 27 antisemitic) [writer Hilaire] Belloc had said, ‘Whatever 28 happens, we have got The Maxim gun and they have 29 not.’ Along with their great advantage in technology 30 and weaponry, the Israelis had the crucial advantage of 31 morale, of believing that they were fighting for something 32 very precious, not to say for their very existence. . . . 33 34 The Jewish Reaction to the New State 35 The creation of the new state and its embattled survival 36 were the cause of intense pride to Jews everywhere. . . . 106 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Most Jews were happy that Israel had happened, and happy to leave it at that. They did not have the time or 1 inclination to examine what the creation of a Jewish state 2 had done to the . . . . 3 The Jewish state had been created. Jewish opposition 4 to Zionism, which had had such a long history, and often 5 a morally and intellectually honourable one, was almost 6 extinguished. It became morally intolerable for any Jew 7 to oppose Israel, or even publicly to criticise her. At the 8 same time, only a small minority of Jews actively wished 9 to live in this Jewish state. Most of the Israeli population 10 was composed of people, or the descendants of people, 11 who had gone there because they had no choice: of refu- 12 gees fleeing Polish antisemitism and Hitler’s mad perse- 13 cution between the wars, of the remnant of mass murder 14 after 1945 who were offered refuge nowhere else, of the 15 Jews of Araby who were now driven out of their native 16 lands and likewise had nowhere else to go. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 107

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The Connection 11 12 Between the Holocaust 13 14 15 and the Creation 16 17 of Israel 18 19 Evyatar Friesel 20 21 In the following viewpoint, Evyatar Friesel argues that the 22 Holocaust was a factor in, but was not the basis for, the 1948 23 establishment of the state of Israel. Jewish statehood was 24 the ultimate goal of the Zionists but not the impetus for the member nations of the United Nations to vote for the partition 25 of Palestine and creation of a Jewish state. During their discus- 26 sions, the member nations did not attach much significance 27 to the Holocaust; their primary concerns were the practical 28 problem of the Jewish refugees and the possibility that the 29 Palestinian problem might escalate into war. Evyatar Friesel is a 30 historian and an internationally recognized author. He served as 31 32 33 SOURCE. Evyatar Friesel, Major Changes within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Ninth Yad Vashem 34 International Historical Conference. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Va-shem, 35 1996. Copyright © Yad Vashem Publications. Reproduced by permis- 36 sion of Yad Vashem Publications. 108 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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state archivist of Israel from 1993 to 2001 and later an emeri- tus professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The following 1 viewpoint is from an abridged version of the original article. 2 3 4 t is widely believed that the catastrophe of European 5 Jewry during World War II had a decisive influence 6 on the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. 7 IAccording to this thesis, for the Jews the Holocaust 8 triggered a supreme effort toward statehood, based on 9 the understanding that only a Jewish state might again 10 avoid the horrors of the 1940s. For the nations of the 11 world, shocked by the horror of the extermination and 12 burdened by feelings of guilt, the Holocaust convinced 13 them that the Jews were entitled to a state of their own. 14 All these assumptions seem extremely doubtful. . . . 15 The quest for a Jewish state had always been para- 16 mount in Zionist thought and action. For tactical rea- 17 sons official Zionism was cautious in explaining its 18 ultimate aims, especially when addressing general public 19 opinion. Terms other than “state” were used in various 20 political documents or official utterances by leading 21 Zionist statesmen: Jewish home, Jewish National Home, 22 commonwealth, Jewish commonwealth. But there is no 23 reason to doubt that the ultimate aim 24 of the Zionist mainstream was the 25 creation of a state in Palestine. . . . Regarding the deliberations of 26 On May 15, 1948, the State of the United Nations and its bod- 27 Israel was proclaimed. A new politi- ies in 1947–1948, it is dif- 28 cal reality was thus established. In ficult to find evidence that the 29 the words of the Israeli diplomat Holocaust played a decisive or 30 Walter Eytan: If this Jewish state even significant role [in estab- 31 came into being . . . it was not primar- lishing a Jewish state]. 32 ily because the United Nations had 33 ­recommended it. . . . When the day of 34 independence dawned, the decision 35 was Israel’s alone. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 109

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The Holocaust’s Role in the UN Decision 1 Was there, then, a connection between the Holocaust 2 and the creation of Israel? Is it conceivable that the two 3 most decisive events in modern Jewish history could 4 occur almost simultaneously and not be linked? Is it pos- 5 sible that the emergence of the Jewish state was unrelated 6 to the terrible disaster of the Jewish people and to the 7 remorse of the nations of the world? 8 Regarding the deliberations of the United Nations 9 and its bodies in 1947–1948, it is difficult to find evi- 10 dence that the Holocaust played a decisive or even 11 significant role. No bloc of nations proclaimed during 12 the UN discussions on Palestine that its foremost aim 13 was the creation of a Jewish state. (On the other hand, 14 an important group of countries did favor the transfor- 15 mation of Palestine into an Arab state.) What impelled 16 the international body was the practical problem of 17 the Jewish refugees and, even more, the awareness that 18 the Palestinian problem was drifting toward chaos 19 and war. 20 The actual General Assembly decision regarding 21 partition was made possible by the support of the two 22 super-powers. However, although their agreement was 23 a necessary condition for the UN partition resolution, it 24 was not in itself sufficient. The majority of the UN mem- 25 bers who voted for the resolution deserve additional con- 26 sideration, especially since the American representatives 27 abstained from lobbying too actively for the UNSCOP 28 [United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] pro- 29 posal. True, some of the countries of the Western bloc 30 did display an understanding—and, in a few cases, even 31 a genuine interest—in Jewish and Zionist aspirations, 32 but, for most of the states represented at the UN, the 33 Jewish problem was something far removed from their 34 concerns. It was, however, natural and understandable 35 for them to go along with the Soviet-American proposi- 36 tion, given the great political and moral weight of such 110 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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an agreement between the super-powers. And since the measure of agreement between the United States and the 1 Soviet Union neutralized clear-cut international rival- 2 ries, their tendency was to consider the Palestine ques- 3 tion in terms of political realities. 4 Factors such as the historical connec- 5 tion of the Jewish people to Palestine, It seems clear that both the 6 or feelings of remorse because of the Holocaust and Jewish state- 7 recent Jewish tragedy were hardly hood had some common histori- 8 heard, if at all. Indeed, were they to cal foundations. 9 be expected? It is only reasonable to 10 assume that the great majority of UN 11 members considered the Palestine question in “practical” 12 terms. That attitude was well expressed in Article XII of 13 the UNSCOP principles, which stressed that there could 14 be no connection between the Palestinian issue and the 15 Jewish problem. 16 Consequently, when at the beginning of 1948, it 17 became increasingly clear that partition was not going 18 to prevent a war in Palestine, the UN . . . started look- 19 ing for a different, “practical” solution. All of which only 20 emphasizes how modest a role the facts about and the 21 reactions to the Holocaust played in the considerations 22 of the international community. Even if there were a 23 similarity in the actual outcome under consideration, 24 there was little in common between the reasons impel- 25 ling Jews and Zionists toward Jewish statehood and the 26 reasoning behind the United Nations resolution for the 27 partition of Palestine. 28 29 The Connection from the Jewish 30 Viewpoint 31 Obviously, from the standpoint of Jewish history, there 32 is a different perspective about the relationship between 33 Jewish statehood and the Holocaust. One factor to be 34 pondered is the subjective attitudes of post-Holocaust 35 Jewry regarding the Holocaust. The process of weaving 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 111

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the knowledge of the Holocaust into the texture of Jewish 1 historical consciousness, which began with the extermi- 2 nation and which has continued ever 3 since, has a sense of its own. It is an 4 A distinction should be made ongoing labor in which diverse seg- 5 between the influence of the ments of the Jewish people . . . tend 6 Holocaust as a historical occur- to emphasize different aspects of the 7 rence . . . and the Holocaust as tragedy that befell the Jewish people 8 a molding factor in later Jewish during World War II. The nearness 9 consciousness. in time between the Holocaust and 10 the birth of Israel also encourages 11 the connection between the events, 12 if only for the purpose of self-consolation. But their 13 enormous historical significance demands sharp and 14 unpitying lucidity in order to understand their place in 15 the history of the Jewish people. The complex logic of 16 this historical problem suggests apparently contradictory 17 conclusions: that there was a relationship between the 18 Holocaust and the emergence of Israel—and that there 19 was none. 20 Either way, it seems clear that both the Holocaust and 21 Jewish statehood had some common historical founda- 22 tions. Each expressed, in its own way, the final crisis of 23 the relationship between Jewish and non-Jewish society, 24 a relationship based on patterns of co-existence that 25 had developed in Europe since the Middle Ages. In that 26 sense, both represented radical responses. Rather than 27 converging, however, both responses ran parallel and in 28 opposite directions. Considered alongside the establish- 29 ment of the Jewish state, the Holocaust represented the 30 sitra ahra, the other face, of Jewish existence—the side of 31 darkness and destruction, against the side of creation and 32 continuity. The reaction to the Holocaust brought about 33 a peculiar tension in Jewish life, a sense of aharit ha- 34 yamim (“end of days”), reminiscent of the response to the 35 earlier disasters in Jewish history, such as the destruction 36 of the First and the Second Temples [in Jerusalem], or 112 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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the expulsion of the Jews from in the late Middle Ages. This consciousness brought about an awakening 1 of inner strength, blending despair and grim hope that 2 permeated the political struggle of the Jews to prevail 3 in Palestine and to overcome all obstacles in spite of 4 and against all odds. This spirit, uncharacteristic—and 5 perhaps undesirable—in times when the life of a people 6 runs its normal course, was an essential component of 7 the Zionist and Jewish effort to establish their state in 8 Palestine. Any examination of what happened in the late 9 1940s in Palestine and at the United Nations shows that 10 the Jews were not the strongest among the political par- 11 ticipants in that international drama. But they were pos- 12 sessed by a singleness of purpose and by a sense of total 13 dedication to a constructive goal that were unmatched 14 by any of the other direct or indirect participants in the 15 question of Palestine. 16 17 The Holocaust as a Molding Factor 18 That characteristic in Jewish political activism became a 19 powerful lever in a situation that, for reasons unrelated, 20 had already reached the point of maturation. As we have 21 shown above, in a narrower sense it was the British pol- 22 icy in Palestine, or, more specifically, 23 the , that set in 24 motion the process leading toward The destruction of European 25 the political aim of Zionism—the Jewry almost rendered the birth 26 creation of a Jewish state. In the of Israel impossible. 27 background there were additional 28 long-term factors. The wheels mov- 29 ing toward the emergence of Israel the state reflected 30 developments going back a century at least: the modern- 31 ization of Jewish society, the rise of Jewish nationalism, 32 the crisis of the Jewish-Gentile relationship in modern 33 times, and the emergence of Zionism itself. The extermi- 34 nation of European Jewry happened long after these long 35 or short term forces in Jewish history, striving toward 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 113

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national sovereignty and independent statehood, had 1 been set into motion. 2 True, a distinction should be made between the influ- 3 ence of the Holocaust as a historical occurrence (as we 4 have just done), and the Holocaust as a molding factor 5 in later Jewish consciousness. In the second case there 6 seems little reason to believe that the Holocaust influ- 7 enced the creation of the Jewish state. In terms of subjec- 8 tive insight, it would take a long time for the Holocaust to 9 be absorbed by the Jewish people in its deeper historical 10 and meta-historical significances. The incorporation of 11 the Holocaust into the collective awareness of the Jewish 12 people is a process that is far from complete. . . . It will 13 take a long time for the Jewish people to learn how to live 14 with the knowledge of the Holocaust and how to merge 15 this knowledge into the complex structure of its millen- 16 nial historical consciousness, with its varied patterns of 17 shadows and light, tragedy and creation, death and life. 18 The emergence of the State of Israel in 1948 occurred 19 long before then. 20 21 A Reverse Point of Contact 22 Nevertheless, there was a point of contact and influence 23 between the Holocaust and the creation of the Jewish 24 state. It was, however, exactly the reverse of what is 25 commonly assumed: the destruction of European Jewry 26 almost rendered the birth of Israel impossible. 27 Zionism as an idea and a movement expressed yearn- 28 ings and needs of very diverse strata of the Jewish people, 29 from the fringe of the almost assimilated to the opposite 30 fringe of those almost untouched by modern secular cul- 31 ture. In its focal point, its vital and most creative main- 32 stream, Zionism was the movement of a broad part of 33 Jewish society, combining a significant degree of cultural 34 integration in the secular world with a high degree of 35 Jewish consciousness. Zionism arose out of a long expe- 36 rience of relations between Jews and non-Jews, where all 114 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 the options of mutual understanding had been tried and At the end of World 28 War II the bodies of 29 had failed, up to the point in modern times where only murdered victims, negative solutions remained open—from the Jewish as most of them Jewish 30 well as from the non-Jewish perspectives. In this respect people or political 31 Zionism was essentially a product of European Jewry, prisoners, are piled on 32 especially East European Jewry. a cart at the German 33 concentration camp Ironically, that sector of the Jewish people was almost Buchenwald in April 34 completely annihilated in the Holocaust. When the dust 1945. (AP Images.) 35 settled after the tempest of World War II, and Jewry 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 115

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took stock of its situation, what remained were three 1 major groups of Jews. First, the Jewish communities in 2 Arab lands, soon to be swept by the messianic hope of 3 Israel-reborn, but strangers to the European-grounded 4 social and ideological premises that had created modern 5 Zionism. Second, there were the new Western commu- 6 nities, such as American Jewry, rich and active, but still 7 young and unsettled sociologically and trying to define 8 its status in its new general environment. But the pat- 9 terns of Jewish life there were developing significantly 10 different from the conditions that had brought about the 11 development of Zionism in Europe. Finally, there was 12 the Jewish community in Palestine—the last creation of 13 a Jewry that was no more. 14 The most vital segment of modern Jewry, the most 15 settled and vigorous among the Jewish communities, 16 the East European Jewry that had created the Jewish 17 National Home in Palestine and would have been the 18 most able and most prepared to complete the task, had 19 been exterminated in the war. The child of its hopes and 20 endeavors, Israel-the-state, was reborn beside the graves 21 of its fathers and mothers at the Jewish people’s darkest 22 hour. Israel came forth smaller and poorer, in the physi- 23 cal and spiritual sense, than she would have had the huge 24 reservoir of manpower and talent within European Jewry 25 attended her birth and kept watch over her cradle. In 26 her internal structure, in her spiritual life, even in her 27 relationship with her surroundings and in her position 28 among the nations of the world, both as a state and as 29 a people, Israel is still enduring the consequences of the 30 Holocaust. 31 32 33 34 35 36 116 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Establishment of the 10 11 State of Israel Was an 12 13 14 Injustice to 15 16 the Palestinians 17 18 19 Avi Shlaim 20 In the following viewpoint, Avi Shlaim argues that the Palestinians 21 suffered a great injustice with the establishment of the state of 22 Israel. Israel owes Palestine a debt, which it must repay, he con- 23 tends. It should not have come as a surprise that Palestinians 24 would not voluntarily give up their right to hold on to their heri- tage. Shlaim maintains that Arab–Israeli conflict will continue to 25 plague the area until the Israelis stop taking over Palestinian 26 land and agree to an independent Palestinian state. Avi Shlaim 27 is a professor of international relations at Oxford University and 28 a fellow of the British Academy. A frequent contributor to maga- 29 zines and newspapers and a commentator on radio and televi- 30 sion on Middle Eastern affairs, he has authored many books, 31 including The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. 32 33 SOURCE. Avi Shlaim, “A Somber Anniversary,” The Nation, vol. 286, 34 May 26, 2008, pp. 11–16. Copyright © 2008 by The Nation Magazine/ 35 The Nation Company, Inc. Reproduced by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 117

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sraelis approach the sixtieth anniversary of the 1 establishment of their state in a subdued and somber 2 mood. Israeli society is deeply divided, and there is 3 Ino consensus on how to mark the milestone. On the one 4 hand, Israel can boast some stunning successes: a demo- 5 cratic polity with universal suffrage; a highly developed, 6 some might say overdeveloped, multiparty system; an 7 independent judiciary; a vibrant cultural scene; progres- 8 sive educational and health services; a high standard of 9 living; and a per capita GDP [gross domestic product] 10 almost the size of Britain’s. 11 The ingathering of the exiles has worked. Israel’s 12 population has reached 7,241,000, nearly ten times what 13 it was in 1948. Forty-one percent of the world’s Jews 14 live in the Jewish state, speaking the 15 that was confined to liturgy when 16 Zionism was born at the end of the 17 There is no denying that the nineteenth century. In its central aim 18 establishment of the State of of providing the scattered Jews with 19 Israel involved a massive injus- a haven, instilling in them a sense of 20 tice to the Palestinians. nationhood and forging a modern 21 nation-state, Zionism has been a bril- 22 liant success. And these achievements 23 are all the more remarkable against the background of 24 appalling tragedy: the extermination of 6 million Jews by 25 the Nazis during World War II. 26 On the other hand, some failures can be noted. The 27 most pronounced one has been the failure to resolve 28 the conflict with the Arabs, which has accompanied the 29 Zionist enterprise from the very beginning. That con- 30 flict involved neighboring Arab states, but in origin and 31 in essence it was a clash between two movements for 32 national liberation: the Jewish one and the Palestinian 33 one. In 1948 the Zionist movement realized its aim of 34 Jewish national self-determination in Palestine. Israel’s 35 War of Independence was the Palestinians’ catastrophe, 36 al-Nakba in . 118 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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The Right to National Self-Determination 1 The moral case for the establishment of an independent 2 Jewish state was strong, especially in the aftermath of the 3 Holocaust. The case for a Jewish state was also bolstered 4 by the international norm of self-determination for 5 national groups. Based on this norm, the UN partition 6 resolution of November 29, 1947, provided a charter of 7 international legitimacy for the creation of a Jewish state 8 in Palestine. However, there is no denying that the estab- 9 lishment of the State of Israel involved a massive injus- 10 tice to the Palestinians. Sixty years on, Israel still has not 11 arrived at a reckoning of its sins against the Palestinians, 12 a recognition that it owes the Palestinians a debt that 13 must at some point be repaid. 14 The conflict with the Palestinians, and with the Arab 15 world at large, has cast a very long shadow over Israel’s 16 life. For the first forty-five years of the state’s existence, 17 Israel’s leaders were unwilling to discuss the right of 18 the Palestinians to national self-determination. . . . The 19 dilemma, in a nutshell, was that the Jewish aspiration to 20 sovereignty in Palestine could not be reconciled with the 21 Palestinian people’s natural right to sovereignty over the 22 same country. . . . 23 24 The Iron Wall 25 Ze’ev Jabotinsky, founder of the right-wing Revisionist 26 Zionist movement and spiritual father of the Likud Party, 27 was the first major Zionist leader 28 to acknowledge that the Palestinians 29 After knocking their heads in were a nation and that they could 30 not be expected to renounce volun- vain against the ramparts, the 31 tarily their right to hold on to their Palestinians would eventu- 32 patrimony. It was, he argued in two ally recognize that they were 33 seminal articles in 1923, therefore in a position of permanent 34 pointless at that early stage in the ­weakness. 35 Zionist enterprise to hold a dialogue 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 119

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with the Palestinians; the Zionist program could only be 1 executed unilaterally and by force. Jabotinsky’s prescrip- 2 tion was to build the Zionist enterprise behind an “iron 3 wall” that the local Arab population would not be able to 4 break. Yet Jabotinsky was not opposed to talking with the 5 Palestinians at a later stage. On the contrary, he believed 6 that after knocking their heads in vain against the ram- 7 parts, the Palestinians would eventually recognize that 8 they were in a position of permanent weakness; that 9 would be the time to enter into negotiations with them 10 about their status and national rights in Palestine. 11 In a way, this is what happened. The history of the 12 State of Israel is a vindication of Jabotinsky’s strategy of 13 the iron wall. The Arabs—first the Egyptians, then the 14 Palestinians and then the Jordanians—recognized Israel’s 15 invincibility and were compelled to negotiate with it from 16 a position of palpable weakness. The real danger posed 17 by the strategy of the iron wall was that Israeli leaders 18 less sophisticated than Jabotinsky would fall in love with 19 a particular phase of it and refuse to negotiate even when 20 there was someone to talk to on the other side. . . . 21 22 The Oslo Accord 23 The first serious attempt to transcend the iron wall was 24 made by following the Labor Party’s vic- 25 tory at the polls in June 1992. . . . During his first term as 26 prime minister, in the 1970s, Rabin remained implacably 27 opposed to any negotiations with the PLO [Palestine 28 Liberation Organization]. 29 But during his second term, after exhausting all alter- 30 natives, Rabin grasped the nettle, which meant negotiating 31 with the PLO. The upshot was the Oslo Accord. . . . What 32 the accord amounted to was PLO recognition of Israel’s 33 right to exist, Israeli recognition of the PLO as the repre- 34 sentative of the Palestinian people and an understanding 35 between the two sides that the remaining differences 36 between them would be settled by peaceful means. 120 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 Water Flows Through Arab–Israeli Disputes 2 3 After the 1967 Arab-Israel War, new water available for Palestinian towns issues complicated an already complex and cities. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War did 4 situation, since Israel took and occupied nothing to change this situation, nor did 5 Jerusalem and the West Bank of the the wars of the 1980s in Lebanon and in 6 Jordan [River]. Discovering the existence the Persian Gulf. . . . 7 of the huge aquifer under the spine of In the West Bank, Israeli reoccupa- 8 the mountains of the West Bank, Israel tion, the Palestinian uprising, and the 9 began to pump winter floodwaters into collapse of much of the regional peace 10 the aquifer to use it as a better water process have at least delayed any hope 11 storage area than the Sea of Galilee. of more equitable access to surface or 12 Israel refuses to allow the Palestinians groundwater supplies. Hence the water in the West Bank to drill deeply for new situation for the Palestinian Authority 13 wells lest they tap this vital storage remains dire and will be a vital point of 14 area. By taking the Golan Heights from negotiation with Israel. 15 Syria, Israel also gained complete con- Hydropolitics are vitally important to 16 trol over the Galilee, the upper Jordan Israel, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinian 17 River, and even part of the Yarmuk River. Authority as they approach the point when 18 This gave Israel effective control over they will be using all their available water 19 the Jordan River, preventing water diver- and yet have rapidly growing populations. 20 sion downstream by either Jordanians Unless there is a major technological or Palestinians. Indeed, securing control breakthrough, and unless greater levels 21 over the water supply was one of several of cooperation can be arranged between 22 Israeli motivations in launching the 1967 these riparian [riverbank-dwelling] peo- 23 war in the first place. ples, hydropolitics may precipitate ecolog- 24 Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and ical disaster and possibly the next war. 25 1990s, Israel continued to build settle- 26 ments in the West Bank, diverting sur- SOURCE. Sara Reguer, “Jordan River,” 27 face water from the Jordan and more Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East 28 groundwater from underground aquifers, and North Africa, Philip Mattar, ed., 2nd ed. 29 in each case lessening the amount of Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 30 31 32 The Oslo Accord was a major breakthrough in the 33 century-old conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. 34 It was the first-ever agreement between the two principal 35 parties to the conflict. . . . By signing the agreement, the 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 121

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Palestinians conceded the legitimacy 1 It was simply not reasonable of the Jewish state over 78 percent of 2 to expect the Palestinians to what had been the British Mandate 3 go forward toward a peace deal of Palestine. What they expected to 4 when Israel was expropriating get in return—though this was not 5 more and more of their land. written down in the agreement—was 6 independence over the remaining 7 22 percent: the West Bank, the Gaza 8 Strip and East Jerusalem. 9 To be sure, the agreement . . . fell a long way short 10 of the Palestinian aspiration to full independence and 11 statehood. But the agreement did set in motion a 12 gradual and controlled Israeli withdrawal from the 13 occupied . In the two years follow- 14 ing the signing of the accord, substantial progress was 15 achieved. Cooperation between the security services of 16 the two sides was very close, and also progress was made 17 in empowering the Palestinians to govern themselves, 18 culminating in the Oslo II Accord of September 1995. 19 This period wasn’t without tensions. . . . But it was the 20 overall success, not the failure, of the Oslo peace process 21 that provoked a right-wing backlash in Israel and the 22 assassination of Rabin by a Jewish religious fanatic in 23 November 1995. . . . 24 25 A Step Backward 26 With the murder of Rabin, the peace process began to 27 falter. In a long-term historical perspective, however, 28 the series of agreements between 1993 and 1999 under 29 the auspices of Oslo were not a failure. Nor were they 30 doomed to fail from the start. They did not collapse 31 under the weight of their own contradictions, as critics 32 like to argue. Rather, the peace process failed because 33 Israel, under the leadership of the Likud, reneged on its 34 side of the original deal. 35 Likud Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no 36 friend of the Oslo Accord. He regarded it as incompat- 122 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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ible with the historic right of the Jewish people to the entire Land of Israel and with Israel’s right to security. 1 Netanyahu spent his three years in power, from 1996 to 2 1999, in a largely successful attempt to arrest and subvert 3 the peace process. By subverting it, he inflicted serious 4 damage not only on the Palestinians but on his own 5 country and on the Middle East as a whole. 6 As far back as 1988, the Palestinians had made their 7 choice. They offered Israel recognition and peace in 8 return for a minimal restitution of what had been taken 9 away from them by force. Since then the ball has been 10 in Israel’s court. Israel had to choose. Netanyahu and his 11 colleagues in the ultranationalist camp chose to go back 12 on the historic compromise struck by their Labor prede- 13 cessors and to return to confrontation. 14 15 Path to a Full-Scale Uprising 16 In May 1999 the Israeli electorate deposed Netanyahu 17 and replaced him with Ehud Barak in order to give 18 peace a chance. . . . The most fundamental obstacle to 19 peace with the Palestinians was settlement expansion 20 on the West Bank. . . . This did not violate the letter of 21 the accord, but it most definitely violated the spirit. It 22 was simply not reasonable to expect the Palestinians to 23 go forward toward a peace deal when Israel was expro- 24 priating more and more of their land. Land-grabbing 25 and peacemaking do not go well together. This became 26 clear at the Camp David summit in July 2000. The pack- 27 age offered by Barak was not enough to persuade the 28 Palestinian negotiators to give him what he wanted: a 29 formal and final end to the conflict. Following the col- 30 lapse of the summit, Barak propagated the notion that 31 there was no Palestinian ­partner for peace. This was not 32 true; there was a Palestinian partner, but not on Barak’s 33 terms. 34 With the collapse of the Camp David summit, the 35 countdown to the outbreak of the next round of violence 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 123

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began. , the leader of the 1 The occupation has to end, not opposition, provided the spark that 2 simply because the Palestinians set off the explosion. On September 3 deserve no less but in order to 28, 2000, flanked by a thousand secu- 4 preserve the values for which rity men and in deliberate disregard 5 the State of Israel was created. of the sensitivity of Muslim wor- 6 shipers, Sharon ostentatiously walked 7 into Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif, the 8 Noble Sanctuary [an Islamic holy 9 place]. His walk-about sparked riots that spread to other 10 Arab areas of East Jerusalem and to other cities. Within 11 a very short time, the riots snowballed into a full-scale 12 uprising—the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The escalating violence, 13 and the belief that there was no Palestinian partner for 14 peace, paved the way to Barak’s political demise and to 15 Sharon’s Likud victory in the February 2001 election. 16 17 Israel’s One-Sided Approach 18 The rise to power of Sharon, the champion of violent 19 solutions, marked the end of any serious negotiations 20 between Israel and the Palestinians. . . . His policy toward 21 the Palestinians consisted of the iron fist inside the 22 iron glove. Under Sharon’s leadership Israel reverted to 23 unilateralism in its purest and most unrestrained form. 24 His objective was to set aside the Oslo Accords, to frag- 25 ment and mutilate the Palestinian territories, to reassert 26 total Israeli control over the West Bank and to deny 27 the Palestinians any independent political existence in 28 Palestine. His long-term aim was to redraw the borders 29 of Greater Israel. . . . 30 The Israeli right thus provided both the paradigm 31 for solving the conflict with the Palestinians and the 32 politicians who are unable or unwilling to act on it. 33 Consequently, on its sixtieth anniversary, Israel still faces 34 the same dilemma it was faced with forty-one years ago, 35 after seizing new territory in the 1967 war: it can have 36 land or it can have peace. It cannot have both. 124 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 The Need for a Two-State Solution As a Palestinian 20 woman yells during a 21 During the past forty-one years Israel has tried every protest at the Israeli conceivable method of ending the conflict with the border near the village 22 Palestinians except the obvious one: ending the occu- of Marwahin, Lebanon, 23 pation. The occupation has to end, not simply because she holds aloft a 24 the Palestinians deserve no less but in order to preserve symbolic key bearing 25 Arabic writing that the values for which the State of Israel was created. In reads, “We are return- 26 any case, whether Israelis like it or not, an independent ing.” (AP Images.) 27 Palestinian state is inevitable in the long run. . . . 28 To its credit, the Israeli public has never been as 29 implacably opposed to an independent Palestinian state 30 as the politicians of the right. The question now is 31 whether Israel will give the Palestinians a chance to build 32 that state or strive endlessly to frustrate it. . . . At the time 33 of writing there is precious little evidence to suggest that 34 Israel’s leaders are willing to rise to the challenge. They 35 appear united in their determination to preserve Israel’s 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 125

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military and economic control over the West Bank. Yet 1 there is some ground for optimism. The Palestinians 2 learned from their own mistakes: they put rejection- 3 ism behind them, moderated their program and opted 4 for a two-state solution. It is not beyond the bounds of 5 possibility that the Israelis will one day learn from their 6 mistakes and elect leaders who recognize the need for a 7 genuine two-state solution. Nations, like individuals, are 8 capable of acting rationally—after they have exhausted 9 all the alternatives. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 126 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The Balfour Declaration 10 11 Is Responsible for 12 13 14 Instability in 15 16 the Middle East 17 18 19 Peter Mansfield 20 In the following viewpoint, Peter Mansfield argues in 1967 that 21 the wording and intent of the 1917 Balfour Declaration was 22 ambiguous and contradicted other British pledges regarding 23 Palestine. He maintains that in retrospect it is believed that the 24 opponents of the declaration lost out because their arguments, although valid, were not strong enough to counter such ­influences 25 as the Protestant belief in the return of the Jewish people to Zion 26 and British imperialist goals. Because the policy set down by 27 the Balfour Declaration could not be brought into line with other 28 Allied declarations and pledges, there is chronic instability in 29 the Middle East as the Arab population and the Jewish people 30 continue to dispute each other’s claims regarding the right to 31 existence of the state of Israel. Peter Mansfield was a British 32 33 SOURCE. Peter Mansfield, “Did We Double-cross the Arabs?” New 34 Statesman, November 3, 1967. Copyright © 1967 New Statesman, Ltd. 35 Reproduced by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 127

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historian, writer, journalist, and commentator who specialized in 1 the contemporary affairs and history of the Middle East. 2 3 4 he root cause of the chronic instability of the 5 Middle East is an irresponsible act of statesman- 6 ship of half a century ago. When the Balfour 7 TDeclaration was issued on 2 November 1917, in the form 8 of a letter from the British Foreign Secretary to Lord 9 Rothschild, saying that His Majesty’s Government ‘view 10 with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national 11 home for the Jewish people’, some members of the [prime 12 minister David] Lloyd George government forecast the 13 storms ahead. [war cabinet member George] Curzon, 14 who had studied Zionist literature, said he ‘could not 15 share the optimistic views held concerning the future 16 of Palestine’ and he feared that the Declaration ‘raised 17 false expectations which could never be realised’. Edwin 18 Montagu, Secretary of State for India and the only Jew 19 in the Cabinet, regarded the Declaration as an anti- 20 Semitic act because it would jeopardise the position of 21 Jews throughout the world. He also believed that it broke 22 promises made to the Arabs and violated the principle of 23 self-determination. These opponents were easily over- 24 whelmed by the confidence of the Declaration’s three 25 champions—[Arthur] Balfour, [undersecretary of state 26 Lord Robert] Cecil and Lloyd George himself. 27 28 Underlying Motives 29 Their motives have been the subject of endless specula- 30 tion. They seem to have been a pecu- 31 liarly British blend of hard-­headed 32 Had [the British] considered the realism and romantic idealism, 33 reactions of . . . the Arabs who strongly tinged with hypocrisy. The 34 formed more than 90 per cent Declaration’s sponsors were so vague 35 of the population? about their reasons that they were 36 driven to post hoc rationalisation in 128 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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later years. Lloyd George told the House of Commons in 1936 that in 1917 the war was going so badly for the 1 Allies that ‘we came to the conclusion that it was vital 2 that we should have the sympathies of the Jewish com- 3 munity’. But there is no evidence that they thought of this 4 at the time. 5 An important influence on the minds of the govern- 6 ment was the Bible-reading Protestant belief in the return 7 of the Jews to Zion on which men like Lloyd George (and 8 the agnostic [Winston] Churchill—another enthusiastic 9 Zionist) had been nourished. Imperialist motives also 10 played their part, but it was less the specific aims of 11 balancing French influence in Syria with a pro-British 12 community in Palestine which would also help to protect 13 the Suez Canal (although this was in the back of their 14 minds) than the general idea that the Jews, as civilised 15 Europeans, would carry the white man’s burden in an 16 area where Britons were unlikely to do so themselves. 17 18 An Independent Jewish National State 19 Did they understand the implications of their action? 20 Were they aware that the Zionist aim was to make 21 Palestine a Jewish national state? Had they considered 22 the reactions of the ‘natives’—that is, the Arabs who 23 formed more than 90 per cent of the population—and, 24 if so, did they think they mattered? There are several 25 pieces of evidence to help answer these questions. One 26 is that the first draft of the Declaration prepared by the 27 Zionist Organisation at Balfour’s invitation foresaw the 28 creation of an autonomous Jewish state under the protec- 29 tion of one of the Allied powers. It was after the strong 30 protests of the Jewish Conjoint Committee, representing 31 British Jewry, backed by Edwin Montagu, that the draft 32 was changed to refer to the establishment of a national 33 home for the Jewish people in Palestine, adding the 34 words ‘it being clearly understood that nothing shall be 35 done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 129

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of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the 1 rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other 2 country.’ But, as Balfour was undoubtedly aware, a Jewish 3 national state was what the Zionists wanted. 4 5 An Admitted Commitment to Zionism 6 In his efforts to persuade the war cabinet, Balfour said 7 the Declaration ‘did not necessarily involve the early 8 establishment of an independent Jewish state, which was 9 a matter of gradual development in accordance with the 10 ordinary laws of political evolution.’ But, being a philoso- 11 pher more than a politician, Balfour could be unusually 12 candid. In August 1919 he wrote a memorandum on 13 Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia in which he said: 14 15 The contradiction between the letter of the Covenant 16 and the policy of the Allies is even more flagrant in 17 the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in 18 that of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine 19 we do not propose even to go through the form of 20 consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the 21 country, though the American Commission [the 1919 22 King-Crane Commission] has been through the form 23 of ­asking what they are. The four great powers are com- 24 mitted to Zionism, and Zionism, be it right or wrong, 25 good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present 26 needs, in future hopes of far profounder import than the 27 desires and prejudices [sic] of 700,000 Arabs who now 28 inhabit that ancient land. 29 He went on to say that in his opinion this was quite 30 right but that he did not see how this policy could be har- 31 monised with all the other declarations and pledges that 32 had been made by the Allies. ‘In fact, so far as Palestine 33 is concerned, the powers have made no statement of 34 fact that is not admittedly wrong, and no declaration of 35 policy which, at least in the letter, they have not always 36 intended to violate.’ 130 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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The Relevance of Incompatible Pledges Israelis celebrate, while Arabs 1 A rare and remarkable confession, mourn, the anniversary of the 2 apart from the Allies’ general pledges Declaration. 3 to set up national governments in 4 the Middle East which would derive 5 their authority ‘from the free exercise 6 and choice of the indigenous population’, the British 7 government had committed itself in two other ways. One 8 was in the correspondence in 1915 between Sir Henry 9 McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Cairo, and 10 the Sherif Hussain of Mecca, the leader of the Arab revolt 11 against the Turks, and the other was the so-called Sykes- 12 Picot agreement, an Anglo-French understanding on the 13 partition of the Middle East into great-power spheres of 14 influence, which was published by the Russians, to the 15 acute embarrassment of the Allies, after October 1917. 16 Fountains of ink have flowed in the discussion of 17 how far the British government was to blame for making 18 these pledges which, though couched in ambiguous and 19 evasive language, were undeniably incompatible with 20 each other. Evidence which has recently come to light 21 proves fairly conclusively that at least the Foreign Office 22 believed that the Sherif Hussain had been promised that 23 Palestine should be an independent Arab state. 24 The question is whether this has any relevance to 25 the present day [1967]. Israelis celebrate, while Arabs 26 mourn, the anniversary of the Declaration, but does it 27 mean any more than, say, the British and French atti- 28 tudes to Agincourt [a controversial British victory in 29 the Hundred Years’ War]? The answer is surely yes. It 30 is sometimes said that, whatever the rights or wrongs 31 of the past, the Zionists have taken Palestine, the Arabs 32 have lost and should recognise the fact, just as Germany 33 will have to forget about her eastern provinces. But the 34 peculiar nature of Zionism invalidates this agreement. 35 What the Arabs remember is that out of this small begin- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 131

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British prime minister 1 Arthur James Balfour was responsible for 2 the Balfour Declaration 3 of 1917, which was a 4 pledge of British sup- 5 port for the creation 6 of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. At that 7 time, the area of 8 Palestine had a large 9 Arab population. (Bob 10 Thomas/Popperfoto/ 11 Getty Images.) 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 ning—a brief letter from the British Foreign Secretary 23 to a prominent English Jew—a 9-percent minority in 24 Palestine grew in 30 years to establish its own exclu- 25 sive and powerful nation-state on land which had been 26 theirs for 1,500 years. They can be forgiven for regard- 27 ing Zionism as expansionist by nature—especially when 28 Zionists reassert their aim of gathering in the Diaspora 29 of 12 million Jews. Possibly the Palestinian Arabs would 30 have done better to settle for half a loaf by accepting 31 almost any of the proposals for the partition of their 32 country which were made during the British mandate. 33 But would they? It is hard to imagine that Zionism would 34 have been content to live within even narrower frontiers 35 than it occupied in June [1967]. And Britain was inca- 36 pable of seeing that it did. 132 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The United States Has 10 11 a Responsibility 12 13 14 for the Israeli– 15 16 Palestinian Problem 17 18 19 Richard H. Curtiss 20 In the following viewpoint, Richard H. Curtiss contends that the 21 United States is largely responsible for the Israeli-Palestinian 22 problem, including the exodus of Palestinians from their lands 23 and the ensuing Arab-Israeli wars. The United States pushed for 24 partition of Palestine in the United Nations in 1947 even though American diplomats stationed in the Middle East and other gov- 25 ernment officials cautioned against it. The United States com- 26 pounded the problem by ignoring the arguments of the secretary 27 and undersecretary of state and other members of the State 28 Department against recognizing the new Jewish state before it 29 agreed to the borders the United Nations assigned it. Richard 30 H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on 31 32 33 SOURCE. Richard H. Curtiss, “Truman Adviser Recalls May 14, 1948 US Decision to Recognize Israel,” Washington Report on Middle 34 East Affairs, May-June 1991, p. 17. Copyright © 1991 American 35 Educational Trust. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 133

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Middle Eastern Affairs. A former U.S. Foreign Service officer and 1 a cofounder of the American Educational Trust, he has authored two books on U.S.–Middle East relations. 2 3 4 5 ith US President George [H.W.] Bush increas- 6 ingly frustrated by the Israeli-Palestinian 7 problem, a new generation of Americans is 8 askingW an old question: Why must the US deal with this 9 seemingly intractable dispute? 10 The answer, unfortunately, is that the US is largely 11 responsible for the problem because of two American 12 decisions in 1947 and 1948. Now, only the US can break 13 the impasse, by forcing its Israeli client state to give back 14 all or most of the land the United Nations allotted to 15 Muslim and Christian inhabitants when it partitioned 16 Palestine in 1947. . . . 17 Most people who knew the Middle East at first hand 18 opposed the partition plan, adopted by the United Nations 19 on November 29, 1947. Patently unfair, it awarded 56 20 percent of Palestine to its 650,000 Jewish inhabitants, and 21 44 percent to its 1,300,000 Muslim and Christian Arab 22 inhabitants. 23 Partition was adopted only after ruthless arm-twisting 24 by the US government and by 26 pro-Zionist US senators 25 who, in telegrams to a number of UN member states, 26 warned that US goodwill in rebuilding their World War 27 II–devastated economies might depend on a favorable 28 vote for partition. 29 In a Nov. 10, 1945 meeting with American diplo- 30 mats brought in from their posts in the Middle East to 31 urge [President Harry] Truman not 32 to heed Zionist urgings, Truman had 33 Extensive fighting broke out bluntly explained his motivation: 34 between Jews and Arabs, just “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I have 35 as US diplomats had predicted. to answer to hundreds of thousands 36 who are anxious for the success of 134 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Zionism: I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my con- Officials in the State Department 1 stituents.” had done everything in their 2 Immediately after the plan was power to prevent, thwart, or 3 adopted, however, extensive fighting delay the President’s Palestine 4 broke out between Jews and Arabs, policy in 1947 and 1948. 5 just as US diplomats had predicted. 6 The Arab states categorically rejected 7 the partition by outside parties of an 8 overwhelmingly Arab land. 9 David Ben-Gurion, soon to be Israel’s first prime 10 minister, had ordered his representatives at the UN to 11 accept the plan, but not to enter into any discussion or 12 agreement defining the new Jewish state’s borders. . . . 13 14 UN Trusteeship as a Solution 15 As well-organized Jewish militias seized village after vil- 16 lage assigned by the UN plan to the Arabs, and badly 17 organized Arab villagers retaliated with bloody but 18 purposeless attacks on Jewish vehicles and convoys, 19 Secretary of State George C. Marshall urged Truman to 20 reconsider. 21 The British Army was resolved to withdraw from 22 Palestine on May 15, 1948 regardless of the outcome of 23 events in the UN. The fighting was spreading all over 24 the mandate, including Jerusalem, which was supposed 25 to remain a “corpus separatum” [separate body] under 26 international control and not be assigned either to the 27 Jewish or the Arab state. 28 Marshall and a majority of diplomats at the UN saw 29 a direct UN trusteeship, succeeding the British mandate, 30 as the only solution to halt the bloodshed. Otherwise, 31 they knew, neighboring Arab states would send military 32 units across the border into Palestine the day the British 33 withdrew, in an attempt to reoccupy the Arab towns and 34 villages seized by Jewish forces. The State Department 35 urged Truman not to grant diplomatic recognition to 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 135

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Standing alongside the Jewish state when the British withdrew, but instead 27 Haim Weizman (right), U.S. President Harry to side with rapidly growing sentiment in the United 28 S. Truman holds a Nations in favor of trusteeship. Truman wavered and, for 29 Torah scroll given to a time, both sides in a bitter battle for the president’s ear 30 him by the Zionist thought they had his support. . . . 31 leader in Washington. 32 Truman chose to rec- ognize the new state Opposition to the President’s Palestine 33 of Israel almost imme- 34 diately after its estab- Policy 35 lishment. (AP Images.) Confirming charges by “Arabists” that the decision to 36 recognize Israel was hasty and based upon domestic 136 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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political considerations, [Truman’s principal domestic advisor Clark] Clifford writes [in a New Yorker article]: 1 2 Marshall firmly opposed American recognition of the 3 new Jewish state; I did not. Marshall’s opposition was 4 shared by almost every member of the brilliant and now 5 legendary group of presidential advisers, later referred 6 to as the Wise Men, who were then in the process of 7 creating a post-war foreign policy that would endure for 8 more than 40 years. . . . 9 Officials in the State Department had done every- 10 thing in their power to prevent, thwart, or delay the 11 President’s Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948, while I 12 had fought for assistance to the Jewish Agency. 13 At midnight on May 14, 1948 (6 pm in Washington), 14 the British would relinquish control of Palestine, which 15 they had been administering under a mandate from the 16 old League of Nations since the First World War. One 17 minute later, the Jewish Agency, under the leadership of 18 David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new state. . . . 19 On May 7th, a week before the end of the British 20 mandate, I met with President Truman for our custom- 21 ary. private day-end chat . . . 22 I handed the president a draft of a public statement 23 I had prepared, and proposed that at his next press 24 conference, scheduled for May 13th, the day before the 25 British mandate would end, he announce that it was his 26 intention to recognize the Jewish state. The president 27 was sympathetic to the proposal, but, being keenly aware 28 of Marshall’s strong feelings, he picked up the telephone 29 to get the Secretary’s views. . . . 30 On ending the conversation, the president swiv- 31 eled his chair toward me. “Clark, I am impressed with 32 General Marshall’s argument that we should not recog- 33 nize the new state so fast,” he said. “He does not want to 34 recognize it at all—at least, not now. I’ve asked him and 35 [undersecretary of state Robert] Lovett to come in next 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 137

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week to discuss this business. I think Marshall is going to continue to take a 1 ‘We should strengthen [the new very strong position. . . .” 2 Jewish state] in its infancy by 3 prompt recognition.’ 4 A Crucial Meeting 5 6 At 4 pm on Wednesday, May 12 7 . . . seven of us joined President Truman in the Oval 8 Office . . . President Truman did not raise the issue of 9 recognition; his desire was that I be the first to raise it, 10 but only after Marshall and Lovett had spoken, so that 11 he would be able to ascertain the degree of Marshall’s 12 opposition before showing his own hand. 13 Lovett began by criticizing what he termed signs of 14 growing “assertiveness” by the Jewish Agency . . . Marshall 15 interrupted Lovett. He was strongly opposed to the 16 behavior of the Jewish Agency, he said. He had met on 17 May 8th with Moshe Shertok, its political representative, 18 and had told Shertok that it was “dangerous to base long- 19 range policy on temporary military success.” Moreover, 20 Marshall said, he had told Shertok that if the Jews got 21 into trouble and “came running to us for help . . . there 22 was no warrant to expect help from the United States, 23 which had warned them of the grave risk which they 24 were running.” . . . The United States, he said, should 25 continue to support those resolutions in the United 26 Nations which would turn Palestine over to the UN as a 27 trusteeship, and defer any decision on recognition. 28 29 Clifford then relates his own arguments, citing the 30 British Balfour Declaration of 1917 promising a Jewish 31 homeland, the European Holocaust, and the possibility 32 of establishing “a nation committed to the democratic 33 system” in the Middle East. 34 “The new Jewish state can be such a place,” Clifford 35 reports he told the group. “We should strengthen it in its 36 infancy by prompt recognition. . . . 138 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Lovett joined the attack. “It would be highly injurious to the United Nations to announce the recognition of 1 the Jewish state even before it had come into existence 2 and while the General Assembly is still considering the 3 question.” . . . 4 5 Clifford’s article details at length his further negotia- 6 tions, through Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett, to 7 stick to his own plan to recognize the Jewish state. . . . 8 In recounting this, however, Clifford indicates 9 throughout the New Yorker article that he represented 10 President Truman’s own personal position, even when he 11 did not consult the president. 12 Truman’s own accounts, . . . and those of his biog- 13 raphers, indicate that he vacillated and was honestly 14 confused. He was pulled one way by Jewish White House 15 adviser David Niles, and Truman’s old Jewish army buddy 16 and business partner, Eddie Jacobson, and another by the 17 professionals at the State Department. 18 19 Setting the Machinery in Motion 20 Meanwhile Clifford and Niles, as well as the Department 21 of State, were dealing directly with Eliahu Epstein, the 22 Jewish Agency (predecessor to the government of Israel) 23 representative in Washington. Clifford describes his own 24 role on May 14 as follows: 25 26 Even without a clear signal from Lovett and Marshall, I 27 felt, we had to set in motion the machinery for recogni- 28 tion, in the event that a favorable decision was made. At 29 10 am, I made a different call—one that I looked on later 30 with great pleasure. . . . 31 “Mr. Epstein,” I told the Jewish Agency represen- 32 tative, “we would like you to send an official letter to 33 President Truman before 12 o’clock today formally 34 requesting the United States to recognize the new Jewish 35 state. I would also request that you send a copy of the 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 139

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letter directly to Secretary Marshall.” 1 Epstein was ecstatic. He did not realize that the 2 president had still not decided how to respond to the 3 request I had just solicited. . . . It was particularly impor- 4 tant, I said, that the new state claim nothing beyond the 5 boundaries outlined in the UN resolution of Nov. 29, 6 1947, because those boundaries were the only ones that 7 had been agreed to. . . . 8 A few minutes later, Epstein called me. “We’ve 9 never done this before, and we’re not quite sure how 10 to go about it,” he said. . . . With my knowledge and 11 encouragement, Epstein then turned for additional 12 advice to two of the wisest lawyers in Washington, David 13 Ginsburg and Benjamin Cohen, both of whom were 14 great New Dealers and strong supporters of the Zionist 15 cause. Working together during the rest of the morning, 16 he and they drafted the recognition request. . . . 17 18 The Ongoing Impact of US 19 Five Arab-Israeli wars . . . and the Recognition 20 Middle East ­instability . . . are Clifford closes with the well-known 21 largely attributable to US recog- story of how a Jewish Agency 22 nition of Israel before it officially employee driving to the White House 23 agreed to the borders assigned with the request for recognition of 24 it by the United Nations in “the Jewish state” was overhauled 25 1947. by another Jewish Agency employee. 26 Epstein had just heard on the radio 27 that the new state was to be called 28 “Israel” and instructed the second employee to write in 29 that name in ink before handing over the request for rec- 30 ognition to the White House. 31 Meanwhile, General Marshall agreed that, although 32 he could not support President Truman on the issue, he 33 would not oppose it. When the news was broken to the 34 American delegation at the UN, which had been lin- 35 ing up votes for continued trusteeship, US Ambassador 36 Warren Austin left the building in order not to be present 140 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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when US recognition of Israel was announced, just 11 minutes after the state’s creation. . . . [Clifford writes:] 1 2 Lovett remained adamant for the rest of his life, howev- 3 er, in his view that the president and I had been wrong. 4 So did most of his colleagues. . . . Because President 5 Truman was often annoyed by the tone and fierceness 6 of the pressure exerted on him by American Zionists, 7 he left some people with the impression that he was 8 ambivalent about the events of May 1948. This was not 9 true. He never wavered in his belief that he had taken 10 the right action. 11 Nor, apparently, does Clifford, who never once 12 expresses any regret about the 750,000 Palestinians 13 pushed out of their country during the 1947 to 1949 fight- 14 ing, and never allowed by Israel to return to their homes. 15 Nor does Clifford seem to realize that his opponents in 16 the bureaucratic battle he describes are vindicated by 17 the five Arab-Israeli wars. These and the Middle East 18 instability that has led to the overthrow of several Arab 19 governments and, perhaps, the two bloody wars in the 20 Persian Gulf, are largely attributable to US recognition of 21 Israel before it officially agreed to the borders assigned it 22 by the United Nations in 1947. That recognition has led 23 subsequently to the US military and economic support of 24 every elected government of Israel. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 141

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Palestinian Arabs 11 12 Should Be Returned 13 14 15 to Their Homes 16 17 Rafat Abu Ghali 18 19 In the following viewpoint, Rafat Abu Ghali maintains that the 20 solution to the Palestinian refugee problem is to give the refu- gees back their original land, reimburse them for the losses they 21 suffered as a result of the creation of the state of Israel, and 22 punish those who committed terrible crimes against them. He 23 relates incidents that led his family and other Arab Palestinians 24 to flee their homes and begin new lives as refugees. He goes 25 on to describe how the Nakba, the defeat and destruction of 26 Palestinian society in 1948, affected and has continued to 27 affect the lives of Palestinian refugees. Rafat Abu Ghali is a 28 Palestinian refugee who lives in the Al-Shabora refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He is a full-time lecturer at the Palestinian 29 Al-Aqsa University. 30 31 32 33 SOURCE. Rafat Abu Ghali, “The Darker it Is, the Closer We Are 34 to the Break of Dawn,” al majdal, Winter-Spring 2008, pp. 45–47. 35 Copyright © 1998–2007 badil.org. All rights reserved. Reproduced by 36 permission. 142 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 y family’s name is Abu Ghali and my family As a Palestinian flag 19 flaps in the back- 20 comes from Bir Saba. We used to own 48,000 ground, a Palestinian sq meters of cultivatable land. People used to boy in refugee 21 Mcultivate their land in winter and move to another area camp in the north- 22 called Sidna Ali, near Jaffa. There, they used to rent land ern Gaza Strip walks 23 lots and cultivate them. During the harvest season they atop the rubble of 24 his house. It was would go back to Bir Saba. In 1933, the British came destroyed during 25 and expelled the Arabs from Sidna Ali in order to settle Israel’s 22-day offen- 26 Jewish immigrants on their lands. They offered compen- sive there on March 1, 27 sation to the land owners. The compensation was one 2009. (Mahmud Hams/ 28 camel, twelve cans of oils, and 20,000 sq meters of land AFP/Getty Images.) 29 with a house built on it in the Moqibla area near . 30 Most people accepted the offer, among them was Khalil 31 Abu Ghali, my grandfather. Those who rejected the offer 32 were expelled by force. A Jewish settlement called Kabus 33 was built there. 34 The Zionist schemes started in Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Arab 35 owners understood the real intention of these schemes; 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 143

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they were offered two-storey houses 1 Zionist forces hunted down the built on Palestinian lands. According 2 Palestinians to kill them while to the plan, the ground floor was 3 they were escaping to Gaza. to be occupied by Palestinian land 4 owners while the first floor was for 5 Jewish immigrants. When violence 6 erupted, the Jewish residents started 7 firing from the first floor on their Palestinian neighbors. 8 The British did not allow Arabs to own guns, but they 9 provided weapons for the Jews. 10 11 Growing Violence 12 The Zionist forces secretly brought four trucks loaded 13 with weapons for military training and armament, but 14 were seen by a Palestinian man living in the area. The 15 man was from the Shawabka clan, and his clan received 16 death threats from the Zionists, who told them not to 17 tell anyone about the weapons they saw or they would all 18 be killed. The British were informed and confiscated the 19 weapons without punishing the Zionists. One day later, 20 Zionist forces attacked the homes of the Shawabka clan, 21 killing five people. While Khalil Abu Ghali was going 22 to sell his orange harvest in Ramat Gan, he saw dead 23 people lying on the ground and injured people. Their 24 relatives, from the Shawabka clan, were crying in anger. 25 He went back home because he was afraid to be killed by 26 the Zionists. This is also the reason why he left to Gaza 27 with his family and relatives. Some of his relatives went 28 to Gaza while others went to Jenin in the West Bank. 29 Zionist forces hunted down the Palestinians to kill them 30 while they were escaping to Gaza. 31 There was a noteable incident which involved the 32 poisoning of a water well. People saw Zionists put poison 33 in the well and removed the poison bottle immediately. 34 They tried hard to purify the water but were unsuccess- 35 ful. My grandfather, Khalil Abu Ghali, came to fill twelve 36 jars of water from the well but people told him not to 144 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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do so because the well had been poisoned. Unfortunately, he thought [My family] moved from the very 1 people did not want him to fill his top to the very bottom over- 2 jars to keep the water for themselves night. 3 and their livestock. He filled his jars 4 and paid no attention to their warn- 5 ings. He took the water to his family 6 who used the water for drinking in the evening. The 7 following morning, everyone from his family fell ill and 8 started vomiting; especially Khalil’s 12 year-old daugh- 9 ter, Tamam. She went into a coma and died instantly. 10 However, Tamam was not the only victim. Other people 11 died and some suffered from hair loss because of the 12 poisoned water. Those who drank camel milk recovered 13 soon while people who refused to drink it stayed in hos- 14 pital for two months for treatment. They left the area and 15 moved to another area called Hirb Thiab. 16 The planes started bombing Gaza and people were 17 forced to move towards Al-Bureij camp in Gaza. The 18 Zionists kept hunting them down. People had to run 19 to and stayed there ever since. All of my family 20 members are registered refugees with UNRWA [United 21 Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees 22 in the Near East]. They benefited from the food rations 23 that UNRWA used to give to Palestinian refugees in the 24 early years after 1948. 25 26 Effects of the Nakba 27 The Nakba [“catastrophe”] affected us very badly. We lost 28 everything. It was a dramatic change for our family. We 29 moved from the very top to the very bottom overnight. 30 We were living on our own lands, growing our crops and 31 breeding livestock. We used to depend on organic crops 32 and livestock. We became homeless refugees, waiting for 33 other nations to give us something to eat. We still tell our 34 children about our land. They know their original land 35 very well. It is inscribed in our hearts and minds. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 145

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Being a refugee means a lot to me. Being a refugee, I 1 cannot forget that I have rights to fight for. It means that 2 my family and I are looking forward to regaining our 3 stolen land from the oppressors. 4 Socially, one of the main impacts of the Nakba is 5 that the differences between people from different vil- 6 lages and towns melted away. In many places, marriage 7 used to take place only within the same clan or village. 8 Nowadays people marry their daughters to people from 9 distant places and clans. The Nakba also changed our 10 professions. We were land owners and farmers. We were 11 less educated then. Now we work as teachers, doctors, 12 engineers, mechanics, nurses, social workers, and build- 13 ers. We changed our professions because we were forced 14 to, in order to adapt to the new living conditions associ- 15 ated with our situation as refugees in Gaza. 16 17 A Just Solution to the Refugee Problem 18 I studied English in India. I chose this profession because 19 of the job market. There has been a need for English 20 teachers in Gaza. I worked for the armed forces for a 21 while as a translator but I did not like 22 it. I felt that teaching at university is 23 The solution is simple: return better and more rewarding in terms 24 the refugees to their original of academic status and professional 25 land and compensate them for development. Currently I am work- 26 their losses. ing at Al-Aqsa University as a full 27 time lecturer. I live in Shabora refugee 28 camp in Rafah. I live there because it 29 is the place my parents came as refugees 60 years ago. 30 There has been a misconception about solving the 31 refugee problem. The international community has 32 always been ambivalent when it comes to Palestinians. 33 The solution is simple: return the refugees to their origi- 34 nal land and compensate them for their losses. One state 35 solution is fine, but we do not want to be second class cit- 36 izens living under a colonial power. Jews, Christians and 146 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Muslims can live side by side, but the last word should be for Palestinians, the indigenous people of Palestine. 1 Criminals who committed heinous crimes against us 2 should face justice as well. 3 A just solution means the return of rights, all rights 4 and the punishment of all criminals. The responses 5 of the UN and other international organizations were 6 nice to look at and read, but they were never applied. 7 They cannot be applied when they concern the rights 8 of Palestinians such as the right of return. Why don’t we 9 have a UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner 10 for Refugees] in Palestine? I think that the UN and other 11 international bodies are accomplices by being silent. 12 Why does the UN use force in other places of the world 13 and not here? We need more than words and humanitar- 14 ian aid from the UN and the international community. 15 16 A Desperate Need for a Change 17 As for the peace process, it is not effective enough for us. 18 The Israelis have left Gaza but they are still bombing us 19 from the sky. We live in the prison where we were born; 20 no movement, no travel, no leisure, no security, nothing 21 at all! We miss a lot of the basic things which are available 22 to all free nations. 23 I do not know what will happen to me or to my 24 children. Our best weapon is education, which is, unfor- 25 tunately, deteriorating. We have to stick hard to our 26 books and pencils because education is the only effective 27 weapon to fight the occupation. My slogan is Education! 28 Education—in order to face occupation. 29 Sometimes I think that our kids have a bleak future. 30 There is not enough space in the Gaza strip. People are 31 suffering now and life is worse than ever. We are living 32 under the most extraordinarily difficult circumstances. I 33 think, however, that the darker it is, the closer we are to 34 the break of dawn. The situation cannot remain as bad 35 as it is now. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 147

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Palestinian Arabs 11 12 Should Not Have 13 14 15 the Right of Return 16 17 Rachel Neuwirth 18 19 In the following viewpoint, Rachel Neuwirth argues that 20 Palestinians should not have the “right of return.” Palestinian Arabs were the primary aggressors, not innocent victims, in 21 the 1948 war, she contends. She asserts that Palestinians did 22 not evacuate because Israeli leaders ordered them to do so. 23 They fled because Arab leaders and governments told them 24 they should. Many refugees claiming that their land must be 25 returned to them never owned land in Palestine, Neuwirth notes, 26 and others only lived there a very short time. Still others are 27 descendents of Arab Palestinians and have never themselves 28 lived in Palestine, she contends. Many other refugees from war or revolution in other lands were not granted right of return, and 29 the Palestinian Arabs should not be granted a right those others 30 were not, she maintains. Rachel Neuwirth is a political com- 31 32 33 34 SOURCE. Rachel Neuwirth, “The Arab ‘Right of Return’ to Israel,” 35 American Thinker, January 6, 2008. Copyright © 2008 American 36 Thinker. Reproduced by permission. 148 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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mentator and analyst who specializes in the Middle East with particular emphasis on militant Islam and Israeli foreign policy. 1 2 3 media and propaganda campaign has been 4 under way . . . to legitimate the longstanding 5 demands made on behalf of the Palestinian 6 A“Arab refugees”—meaning in practice the grandchildren 7 and great-grandchildren of refugees—from the 1948 8 Arab-Israel war of 60 years ago, for their return to their 9 ancestral homes and the return of all their ancestors’ for- 10 mer land and property in what is now Israel. 11 The Palestinian National Authority headed 12 by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation 13 Organization founded by Yasser Arafat have always 14 made this demand a sine qua non 15 [absolutely essential] for “peace” with 16 Israel. . . . And the Palestinian Arab ‘The rights of the Palestinian 17 leadership continues to stand by this refugees have been ignored for 18 demand today, promising their sup- six decades by a world that has 19 porters that they will never agree to wished them away.’ 20 “peace” without its acceptance by 21 Israel. 22 23 Media Support for the Right of Return 24 An example of the current media blitz on behalf of this 25 “right of return” demand is an op-ed by Nir Rosen, a 26 reporter who has covered the Islamic world for many 27 of the United States’ leading media organs, in the 28 Washington Post. Mr. Rosen writes: 29 30 The rights of the Palestinian refugees have been ignored 31 for six decades by a world that has wished them away. But 32 the Middle East will never know peace or stability until 33 they are granted justice. In 1948–49, around the conflict 34 that Israelis refer to as their War of Independence and 35 that Palestinians call the Catastrophe, some 750,000 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 149

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Palestinians were ethnically cleansed to make way for 1 the creation of the Jewish state. In 1967, during the 2 Six-Day War, 400,000 Palestinians were expelled by the 3 Israeli military, according to Amnesty International. 4 5 A similar polemic by one Ghada Ageel, who describes 6 herself as “a third-generation Palestinian refugee [who] 7 grew up in the Khan Yunis refugee camp in Gaza and 8 teaches Middle Eastern politics at the University of 9 Exeter in Britain,” appeared in the Dec.1, 2007 issue of 10 the Los Angeles Times: Ms. Ageel avers: 11 12 Sixty years ago, my grandparents lived in the beautiful 13 village of Beit Daras, a few kilometers north of Gaza. 14 They were farmers and owned hundreds of acres of land. 15 But in 1948, in the first Arab-Israeli war, many people 16 lost their lives defending our village from the Zionist 17 militias. In the end, with their crops and homes burn- 18 ing, the villagers fled. . . . We became refugees, queuing 19 for tents, food and assistance, while the state of Israel 20 was established on the ruins of my family’s property 21 and on the ruins of hundreds of other Palestinian vil- 22 lages. . . . I raise this story today . . . to help convey the 23 deep-seated fears of Palestinian refugees that we will be 24 asked to exonerate Israel for its actions and to relinquish 25 our right to return home. That cannot be allowed to 26 happen. All refugees have the right to return. This is an 27 individual right, long recognized in international law, 28 that cannot be negotiated away. 29 30 In Defense of the Israelis 31 What is wrong with these demands? Just about every- 32 thing. Here are only a few of the reasons why they are 33 unjust, ill-intentioned and grounded in deceit: 34 First and foremost, the Palestinian Arabs were the 35 primary aggressors in the 1948 war, not innocent victims 36 of the “Zionists” as their spokesmen and advocates claim. 150 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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The Palestinian Arab guerilla-terrorists used very brutal tactics indeed in 1947–48 to achieve their leaders’ pub- 1 licly affirmed goal of “driving the Jews into the sea.” . . . 2 Soon terrorist and guerilla attacks on Jewish villages 3 and urban neighborhoods were being carried out all 4 across Palestine. Few if any Jewish communities were 5 spared attack. . . . The attacks on Jewish-operated vehi- 6 cles along the roads were especially 7 vicious, resulting in many casualties 8 and effectively closing all of the major Many Arab leaders . . . have con- 9 roads in Palestine to Jewish traffic. firmed the role of the Palestinian 10 As a result, many Jewish com- Arab leadership and the govern- 11 munities developed severe short- ments of the Arab states in 12 ages of food, fuel, and medicines. causing the mass evacuation of 13 The Jerusalem areas’ 100,000 Jewish much of the Arab population. 14 inhabitants were especially hard-hit 15 by the Palestinian Arabs’ siege war- 16 fare. By May 15, 1948, after five and a half months of 17 Palestinian guerilla-terrorist attacks, but before six Arab 18 states had begun their massive invasion of Palestine- 19 Israel, 2,500 Jews had already been killed, half of them 20 civilians, and thousands more had been wounded. . . . 21 By the time the war ended, about 6,000 Jews had 22 been killed, including approximately 2,000 civilians— 23 nearly one per cent of the Jewish population of Palestine/ 24 Israel. 25 In order to defend the country’s 650,000 Jewish 26 inhabitants, whose villages and urban neighborhoods 27 were scattered amongst Arab ones, from annihilation 28 by the combined Palestinian Arab and Arab states’ 29 onslaught, the Palestinian Jewish defense militias . . . 30 were forced to capture Palestinian villages that served 31 as bases of operation for the guerilla-terrorist attackers. 32 It is true that when the defense militias entered some 33 Palestinian villages in order to drive out or capture the 34 guerilla-terrorists, much of the Palestinian Arab civilian 35 population also fled from these villages. . . . 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 151

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The Arab Palestinian guerillas did not wear uniforms 1 or distinguish themselves in any way from the Arab civil- 2 ian population, among whom they lived and from whom 3 they were recruited. As a result, there was no way that 4 the Israeli soldiers could drive the guerillas out of these 5 villages without adversely affecting their noncombatant 6 relatives and neighbors. 7 8 Arab Responsibility for Palestinian 9 Exodus 10 Even so, the Israeli forces’ counter-guerilla opera- 11 tions . . . , were not even the immediate cause of the 12 “exodus” of most Palestinian Arabs from the areas that 13 became Israel in 1948. Many Arab leaders as well as 14 ordinary Palestinian Arabs have confirmed the role of 15 the Palestinian Arab leadership and the governments of 16 the Arab states in causing the mass evacuation of much 17 of the Arab population from what is now Israel. . . . A 18 prime example is none other than the present head of the 19 Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). 20 Abbas wrote in March 1976 that 21 22 the Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the 23 Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny, but instead they 24 abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave 25 their homeland, imposed upon them a political and ide- 26 ological blockade and threw them into prisons similar 27 to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern 28 Europe. 29 Another well-informed Arab politician, Khaled al- 30 Azm, a former Syrian Prime Minister, states in his mem- 31 oirs published in 1973 that 32 33 since 1948, it is we who have demanded the return of 34 the refugees, while it is we who made them leave. We 35 brought disaster upon a million Arab refugees by invit- 36 ing them and bringing pressure on them to leave. We 152 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Many peoples have been forced from their 1 homelands, their land seized without com- 2 pensation, because 3 of wars and revolu- 4 tions since the start 5 of the 20th century. 6 Such refugees include the Hmong, who fled 7 Laos for Thailand 8 in the mid-1970s, 9 and relocated in the 10 United States for a new life under a 11 resettlement program 12 launched by the U.S. 13 government. (©Paula 14 Bronstein/Getty Images.) 15 16 17 18 19 have accustomed them to begging. . . . We have partici- 20 pated in lowering their morale and social level. . . . Then 21 we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson 22 and throwing stones upon men, women and children . . . 23 all this in the service of political purposes. . . . 24 And Mahmud Al-Habbash, a columnist for the . . . 25 paper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, has confirmed that the Arabs 26 left Israel in 1948 only after Arab leaders persuaded them 27 to do so by promising them a speedy return to their 28 homes in Palestine; as Habbash puts it, 29 30 the leaders and the elites promised us at the beginning of 31 the ‘Catastrophe’ [the establishment of Israel and the cre- 32 ation of the refugee problem] in 1948, that the duration 33 of the exile will not be long, and that it will not last more 34 than a few days or months, and afterwards the refugees 35 will return to their homes, which most of them did not 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 153

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leave only until they put their trust in those . . . promises 1 made by the leaders and the political elites. . . . 2 3 In Dispute of Arab Claims 4 Even the claims of many of the present-day “refugees” 5 to be Palestinians are dubious. In her painstakingly 6 researched study From Time Immemorial, Joan Peters 7 points out that UNRWA [United Nations Relief and 8 Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] 9 defines [as a refugee] any Arab who lived in Palestine 10 for a minimum of only two years before Israel became 11 independent in 1948, and who left Israeli territory at that 12 time, plus all Arabs descended from such individuals to 13 the end of time. As Ms. Peters documents at great length, 14 tens if not hundreds of thousands of Arabs immigrated 15 to Palestine under the British Mandate administration 16 of 1918–1948, attracted by the massive economic devel- 17 opment and infrastructure improvements introduced 18 into Palestine by the Jewish “settlers” and the British 19 ­administration. 20 Thus many of the “Palestinians” not only have never 21 lived in Palestine themselves, but are fairly distant descen- 22 dants of people who lived their only briefly before 1948, 23 having been born elsewhere in the Arab world. . . . 24 Dubious are the claims of so many of the refugees 25 to be the heirs of former Palestinian landowners. . . . 26 Very few Palestinian Arabs actually left behind valuable 27 property when they left Israeli territory in 1948. Prior to 28 Israel’s independence very few Arabs possessed clear and 29 unencumbered legal title to land in Palestine. Vast areas 30 of the country were the property of the “state” (originally 31 the Turkish government). Other land was held in com- 32 mon by villages. 33 Much of what land as was privately owned by Arabs 34 prior to 1948 was included in vast latifundia [great 35 landed estates] owned by a few dozen wealthy “effendi” 36 (aristocratic) families, some of whom did not even live 154 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 Making Aliyah Possible for All 3 Aliyah refers to the immigration of Jewish individuals 4 to Israel, and this movement has continued, legally 5 and illegally, since it began in the late 19th century. 6 Since 2002, a Jerusalem based organization called 7 Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) has sought potential Jewish 8 immigrants, or Olim, in North America and the United Kingdom. NBN’s mission is 9 10 to revitalize Western Aliyah and expand it for 11 generations to come, by removing the financial, 12 professional and bureaucratic obstacles that are preventing many potential Olim from fulfilling their 13 dreams. In the process, we hope to send an unmis- 14 takable signal of Jewish solidarity linking Israel and 15 the Diaspora. 16 17 That Diaspora includes all countries, outside of the Holy Land, that are now housing people of Jewish 18 descent. Even after the creation of the state of Israel 19 in 1948, the majority of the Jewish population still 20 lives in the Diaspora. 21 Nefesh B’Nefesh attempts to ease some of the 22 burdens of Aliyah by subsidizing travel; aiding in job, 23 school, and housing searches; and supporting the 24 emotional transitions for individuals and families. 25 26 27 in Palestine. Most Palestinian Arabs were tenant farm- 28 ers, landless laborers, or Bedouin nomads. And such 29 farms as were owned by Arab smallholders were usually 30 hard-scrabble affairs on sandy, unproductive soil, which 31 enabled their cultivators at most to eke out a bare living. 32 Their owners were heavily indebted to money-lenders or 33 large landlords. 34 In addition, many Arabs who claim to have once 35 owned land in Palestine were actually squatters on pre- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 155

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viously unoccupied and unclaimed 1 Why should the Palestinian “state” land, without a legal private 2 Arabs be considered a uniquely owner. Although many of these indi- 3 special case, with more rights viduals never possessed title deeds 4 than other refugees from wars to the land they professed to own 5 and/or revolutions? and did not pay any taxes on them, 6 they or their descendants nonethe- 7 less demand that “their” land be 8 “returned” to them. 9 Claims of massive poverty, deprivation and suffering 10 on the part of the Palestinian Arab refugees are largely 11 false. For sixty years four generations of Palestinian 12 refugees or alleged refugees have had all or most of their 13 housing, food, education through college and gradu- 14 ate school, medical care and social services provided to 15 them for free by UNRWA. . . . 16 There have been no tents in the “refugee camps” 17 (actually towns or urban neighborhoods) since the 18 1950s; the “refugees” live in apartments or houses, many 19 of them as large and with the same amenities as apart- 20 ments and houses in the United States and Europe. . . . 21 22 Right of Return Is Unwarranted 23 The international community has not recognized or 24 enforced a “right of return” for most of the very numer- 25 ous non-Palestinian refugee communities throughout 26 the world. The list of refugee populations who have 27 been forced from their homelands and whose lands have 28 been seized without compensation because of wars and 29 revolutions within the past 100 years is endless. The 30 more than 850,000 Jews who have either been expelled 31 or fled from Arab and other Muslim countries since 32 the Arab world initiated hostilities against the Jews of 33 Israel-Palestine in 1947; the fifteen million Germans 34 expelled from Pomerania, Silesia, Bohemia and Moravia 35 by Poland and Czechoslovakia after World War II; the 36 two million ethnic Greeks and Turks who were expelled 156 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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from either Greece or Turkey in a “population exchange” administered by the League of Nations in 1922; the addi- 1 tional 200,000 Greeks who were expelled from northern 2 by the Turkish military invasion in 1974; the 3 millions of Hindus who fled the newly created Muslim 4 state of “Pakistan” and the millions of Muslims who fled 5 what remained of India to Pakistan following the parti- 6 tion of India in 1947; the millions of Russians who fled 7 Russia after the Communist takeover of that country in 8 1917 for other European countries or the United States; 9 and the millions of Cubans, Vietnamese and Laotians 10 who fled their homelands for the United States after the 11 Communist take-overs of these countries, have all been 12 denied repatriation, the return of the vast amounts of 13 property they were forced to leave behind, or even com- 14 pensation for their lost property. 15 Why should the Palestinian Arabs be considered a 16 uniquely special case, with more rights than other refu- 17 gees from wars and/or revolutions? . . . 18 It is long overdue for the libel [false publication] of 19 an Israeli or Zionist “original sin” against the Palestinian 20 Arabs to be discredited, along with the supposed 21 Palestinian Arab “right of return,” which is grounded in 22 this false “narrative.” 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 157

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A Briton Serves 10 11 in Palestine 12 13 14 from 1946 to 1948 15 16 Howard Mansfield 17 18 In the following viewpoint, Howard Mansfield describes his Photo on previ- 19 experiences as a member of the British section of the Palestine 20 police during the last years of the British Mandate and shortly ous page: A cave after. He describes the Muslim town of , its police facili- in the hills east of 21 is home ties, and its people and relates how the situation in the town 22 to Mohamed Ahmed changed after the United Nations voted in favor of partition and 23 Issa and his family the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. He goes on to of seven. Many Arab 24 depict life and conditions in conflict-torn Jerusalem, where he families such as Issa’s 25 was posted next, and then in Haifa, where he stayed until the fled their homes in the 26 end of June 1948. Mansfield was one of the last members of territory that became 27 the British section of the Palestine police to leave the country Israel in the late 28 after the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. 1940s. (AP Images.) 29 30 31 32 33 34 SOURCE. Howard Mansfield, “British Mandate: On Duty in Nablus, 35 Jerusalem and Haifa from 1946–1948.” Reproduced by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 159

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y first posting in the Palestine Police was 1 to Nablus in an area steeped in Biblical his- 2 tory. . . . 3 MNablus was the administrative capital of the District 4 of Samaria, boasting a District Officer, a District Police 5 Headquarters, a rural police station, which was entirely 6 mounted, a district jail, and an urban police station hous- 7 ing British and Arab members of the Palestine Police. I 8 was posted to Nablus Urban. . . . 9 We patrolled the town paired with an Arab police- 10 man, by night and day, carrying out normal peace-time 11 police duties, and although there was no terrorism or 12 political unrest of the kind that the Jewish areas were 13 experiencing we carried Lee Enfield (SMLE) rifles and a 14 cloth bandolier of 50 rounds of .303 ammunition for our 15 own protection. . . . 16 After a few months of patrol duties I was moved to 17 the Investigation Section which brought me into much 18 closer contact with the Arab policemen and the towns- 19 people and villagers. . . . 20 Nablus was a fervent Moslem stronghold and, in 21 accordance with strict Moslem tradition, the women 22 dressed in black robes and veils 23 when in the town. These robes were 24 Once the U.N. resolution was not floor-length chadors [Muslim 25 adopted the situation in Nablus gowns], and some of the younger 26 began to deteriorate. ladies wore stylish shoes and trans- 27 parent silk veils revealing well made- 28 up faces. The Bedouin women were 29 completely covered but many had elaborate facial tattoos 30 and strings of gold coins dangling across their faces as a 31 sign of wealth. . . . 32 Both the Urban and the Rural stations at Nablus were 33 part of the network of modern police stations which 34 had been built following a report in 1938 by Sir Charles 35 Tegart, a former Commissioner of Police in Calcutta, 36 who was advising the Inspector General on security mat- 160 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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ters. They were red sand-stone buildings of the Foreign Legion style of architecture. The smaller Urban stations 1 were a single block, with messing [dining] and sleeping 2 accommodation on the upper floor, while the Mounted 3 stations were built in a square with the stables on one side, 4 the station offices on another, and the Arab and British 5 living accommodation on the other two sides. . . . 6 7 The Situation Changes 8 Numerous bodies had looked into the Palestine situation 9 over the years, and in August 1947 the United Nations 10 Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) submitted 11 its report and recommended that the country be par- 12 titioned. The Arabs rejected the recommendation and 13 vowed to resist but never believed that the British would 14 leave. The Jews accepted it with the intention of getting 15 as much territory as they could when the British left. On 16 29th the U.N. General Assembly adopt- 17 ed a Resolution requiring the establishment of a Jewish 18 State in Palestine, and Great Britain announced that the 19 mandate would be terminated on May 15th 1948. 20 Once the U.N. resolution was adopted the situa- 21 tion in Nablus began to deteriorate. At the beginning of 22 1948, a group of well-known . . . soldiers of fortune from 23 Lebanon . . . was reported in the area, and the locals 24 began to carry rifles openly in public. The crackle of 25 rifle fire could be heard frequently at night, but at this 26 stage no one was being shot at and the firing was purely 27 the customary morale-boosting exercise. There were no 28 British troops at all in Samaria and the only soldiers we 29 had ever seen were a few members of the Trans-Jordan 30 Frontier Force. . . . 31 There was still little animosity being shown to us at 32 this stage and when we abruptly left in 3-ton trucks for 33 Jerusalem in late January 1948 the townspeople stood 34 in disbelief. There was only one armoured vehicle at the 35 station, an old pre-war clunker, known as the pig, which 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 161

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had a hand-cranked revolving turret 1 There were road blocks where we for firing a rifle or Bren gun [light, 2 were stopped by poorly trained, gas-powered machine gun] out of. 3 very twitchy local militias who It would not have made the trip to 4 considered everyone to be the Jerusalem and was left behind at 5 enemy. the station in the hands of our Arab 6 police ­colleagues. 7 8 Life in Jerusalem 9 When we arrived in Jerusalem, my group from Nablus 10 became part of a force of British police which had been 11 organized to help in the withdrawal and to stabilize the 12 situation in the capital. Jerusalem was like a city under 13 siege. All public buildings were heavily sandbagged and 14 guarded, and the only policing that was being done was 15 responding to the numerous terrorist incidents. The 16 police were now equipped with 2-man armoured cars, 17 with radio communications and a Bren gun. These were 18 positioned at crucial points around the city and would 19 race to the scene of an incident, often while it was in 20 progress. As an additional protection the exterior of the 21 armoured cars was electrified to prevent people from 22 climbing up onto them while stationary. 23 We lived in villas in the German Colony and drove 24 out every morning to key British and Jewish sites to pro- 25 tect them from the terrorists. My most memorable post 26 was manning a Bren gun inside Barclays Bank . . . across 27 from the so-called New Gate in the walls of the walled 28 Old City, to prevent the bank from being robbed. I sat 29 in a sandbagged cupola on the mezzanine looking down 30 at the main counter, waiting for terrorists to strike. Our 31 soft-skinned [i.e., unarmored] vehicles would be fired on 32 as we drove through Jewish areas along the walls of the 33 Old City, but there were no casualties and when we were 34 off duty we were able to live a fairly normal existence. 35 The chaplain of the Palestine Police was an Irish 36 Franciscan monk called Father Eugene, who was a highly 162 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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respected personage in Jerusalem and a great guide to the Holy Places. Together, we were able to walk the Stations 1 of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa, and visit the Church 2 of the Holy Sepulchre, the Mount of Olives and the 3 Garden of Gethsemane which were all virtually in our 4 backyard. In spite of the present upheaval, Pax Britannica 5 [“the British peace”] still made it possible for us to min- 6 gle with orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall, with Arabs at 7 the Mosque of Omar on the Dome of the Rock, and with 8 Christians at the birthplace of Christ at the Church of the 9 Nativity in Bethlehem a few miles away. 10 At this stage we were also able to spend some time 11 in the Jewish Quarters, which had some of the European 12 features which I had missed in almost a year in strict 13 Moslem surroundings. Some of the Jewish bars were 14 reasonably hospitable, and I was having a quiet drink in 15 one of them one evening when the building across the 16 road was blown up. We raced outside and found that the 17 premises of the Palestine Post newspaper were on fire. 18 We did what we could to stop the fire from spreading 19 until the Fire Brigade arrived, but it burned all night and 20 the building was completely destroyed. It was rumoured 21 later that this might have been the work of British army 22 deserters. 23 24 Preparing for the End of the Mandate 25 It was not possible for the British army and all its equip- 26 ment to leave the country in the short time before the 27 end of the mandate, and so to retrieve as much as pos- 28 sible an enclave was set up at the port of Haifa through 29 which the troops and equipment would be withdrawn. 30 Volunteers were called for from the Palestine Police to 31 stay on after the end of the mandate to provide traffic 32 control and security, and I volunteered to stay. Even at 33 that, a large quantity of warlike stores was simply dis- 34 posed of by driving it over a cliff into the sea. A month 35 before the mandate ended, we received word that we 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 163

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were to withdraw from Jerusalem to Haifa. The briefing 1 was given by the normally taciturn Superintendent, Ian 2 Proud, who was not given to exaggeration. This time his 3 briefing was nothing short of dramatic: the Jews were 4 already taking action to secure the main road from Tel 5 Aviv to Jerusalem, even before the partition date, and 6 roadblocks had been set up by both Jews and Arabs on 7 the route we would be taking. We would be travelling in 8 the usual soft-skinned 3-ton trucks but there would be 9 an armoured car escort and we must be prepared to fight 10 our way through. 11 12 Haifa: The End of the Road 13 All distances in Palestine are small and the journey to 14 Haifa was less than a hundred and fifty kilometres, but 15 the roads through the hills were not good at the best of 16 times and now there were road blocks where we were 17 stopped by poorly trained, very twitchy local militias 18 who considered everyone to be the enemy. It was a slow 19 and tense drive but there were no serious incidents and 20 we were all intact when we arrived at our new quarters, 21 a former monastery south west of Haifa. The Central 22 Police Station had been badly damaged the previous 23 September by a barrel of explosives catapulted over the 24 perimeter fence from the back of a Jewish truck, but the 25 Palestine Police were still nominally in control of the city. 26 As evidence of this, the Station Officer, a man of striking 27 military bearing would stride around his domain every 28 morning, immaculate in his summer uniform with high- 29 ly polished Sam Browne belt [wide belt with a shoulder 30 strap], all topped by the black astrakhan hat (or kalpak) 31 which senior police officers and Arab policemen wore. 32 A Haifa Operational Patrol had been 33 formed, whose armoured cars were 34 We were obviously a high-risk on immediate alert in the station 35 target. compound with their engines run- 36 ning and their Bren guns cocked. . . . 164 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 As the end of the mandate approached, the British In Bethlehem, a British 31 policeman inspects a 32 police finally handed over the Haifa police stations to Palestinian man for the Jewish members of the Palestine Police. The sounds weapons, which were 33 of intense battle had been heard for a few days and we illegal for Arabs to 34 learned that the Jews had already driven many Arabs possess in the munici- 35 out of the city. The British no longer had even de facto pal area. (AP Images.) 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 165

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jurisdiction but in spite of this, my group was given the 1 task of controlling traffic on the main routes of the city 2 through which the army was withdrawing. . . . 3 The Port of Haifa itself remained entirely under 4 British control even after the mandate had ended and 5 apart from the usual dock thefts there were few security 6 problems. We continued to live in the monastery outside 7 the town, where our own security became a serious con- 8 cern. Our small arms, including Bren guns, were very 9 much sought after by the now legal terrorist groups and 10 we were obviously a high-risk target. A sand-bagged 11 Bren gun position at the entrance to our compound 12 was manned day and night and patrols roamed inside 13 until we, the last members of the British section of the 14 Palestine Police finally left at the end of June 1948. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 166 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A Student Celebrates the 10 11 Dawn of a Jewish State 12 13 14 Zipporah Porath 15 16 In the following viewpoint, written November 30, 1947, the morn- ing after the United Nations voted to approve the Partition Plan 17 for Palestine, American student Zipporah (“Zippy” Borowsky) 18 Porath shares with her family her experiences and the excite- 19 ment she felt at that time. She relates how she and her fellow 20 students reacted when they first heard the results of the UN 21 vote on the Partition Plan for Palestine. She goes on to describe 22 in detail the celebrations in the streets of Jerusalem, the reac- 23 tions of the crowds to the speeches of Jewish leaders Golda 24 Myerson (Meir) and David Ben-Gurion, and the overwhelming 25 emotions experienced by her friends and all those they encoun- tered. Zipporah Porath is a writer and lecturer. A native New 26 Yorker, she went to British Mandatory Palestine in 1947 for a 27 year of study at the Hebrew University, and eventually made 28 Israel her home. 29 30 31 SOURCE. Zipporah Porath, “Jerusalem: Sunday Morning, 11:00 32 a.m., November 30, 1947,” From Zipporah Porath’s book, Letters from 33 Jerusalem 1947–1948, third edition, Jonathan Publications, 2008, pp. 43–47. Copyright © 1987 Zipporah Porath. Reproduced by per- 34 mission of the author. To order copies contact: [email protected] or 35 [email protected]. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 167

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Jerusalem 1 Sunday morning, 11:00 a.m. 2 November 30, 1947 3 4 Dearest Mother, Dad and Naomi, 5 6 walked in a semi-daze through the crowds of happy 7 faces, through the deafening singing, “David, Melech 8 Yisrael, chai, chai vekayam” [David, King of Israel, 9 Ilives and is alive), past the British tanks and jeeps piled 10 high with pyramids of flag-waving, cheering children. 11 I dodged motor cycles, wagons, cars and trucks which 12 were racing madly up and down King George V Street, 13 missing each other miraculously, their running boards 14 and headlights overflowing with layer 15 upon layer of elated, happy people. I We got through just as the 16 pushed my way past the crying, kiss- announcement of the majority 17 ing tumultuous crowds and the exul- 18 vote was made: thirty-three in tant shouts of “Mazal Tov” [congratu- 19 favor, thirteen against and ten lations] and came back to the quiet of 20 abstentions. my room . . . to try to share with you 21 this never-to-be-forgotten night. 22 23 Victory at the UN 24 The light in my room was still on from last night. I had 25 planned to go to sleep early since rumor had it that 26 voting at the UN on the Partition Plan would probably 27 be postponed for another day. But, at about 11:00 p.m. 28 there was a knock on the door: “We’re getting through 29 to America. Come on down. The voting’s tonight.” Ten 30 pajama-clad bodies crowded into a room with space 31 enough for five and sat tensely round the battered radio 32 for what seemed like hours while vain attempts were 33 made to get clear reception from Lake Success. We got 34 through just as the announcement of the majority vote 35 was made: thirty-three in favor, thirteen against and ten 36 abstentions. 168 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Ecstatic, we hugged and kissed each other frantically, then stood rigidly at attention and sang Hatikvah [“The 1 Hope”: Israel’s national anthem] fervently. Out came 2 bottles of wine, biscuits and candy. We ate and drank and 3 held a solemn little ceremony, then dashed to our rooms, 4 hurriedly slipped on whatever clothing was on hand and 5 banged on all the doors to wake up those who had slept 6 through the good news. All the students in the build- 7 ing scrambled up to the roof and, under the warmth of 8 moonglow and wine, danced deliriously. Then we made 9 a snake line to the nearest houses, banging on the shut- 10 ters and doors, shouting the news as we went. In a seem- 11 ingly endless column, we wound our way to the next 12 community, Bet Hakerem, where the Teachers Seminary 13 is and where most of its students live. The streets were 14 already full, ring upon ring of dancing groups circling 15 in a frenzied hora [circle dance]. Ours was the last and 16 largest circle. 17 18 Tears of Joy 19 Arms linked, marching six abreast, singing all the way, 20 the battalion of students advanced, shouting the news 21 to neighbors who poked their sleepy heads out of win- 22 dows and doors to see what the commotion was about, 23 straight to Hamekasher, the bus terminal. Confronting 24 the watchman with the news, we demanded a bus to take 25 us to town. He was so excited he provided three. In a 26 mad scramble we piled in, body on body; down the road 27 we raced like a million hearts on fire, 28 headed for the heart of Jerusalem. 29 We looked at each other, The streets in the city were begin- 30 ning to fill as the news got around. drew closer together, wrapped 31 People poured out of their homes in arms . . . and felt the thrill 32 a continuous ever thickening stream. of experiencing a historic won- 33 In the center of town crowds of happy der, dawn bidding Shalom to a 34 people, hugging each other, dancing Jewish State. 35 horas and jigs, headed spontaneously, 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 169

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as we were headed—drawn by some magnetic force— 1 to the courtyard of the fortress-like Sochnut [Jewish 2 Agency] building, which for years housed the hopes for 3 a Jewish State in Palestine. Out came a flag and onto 4 the balcony came Golda Myerson [Meir—head of the 5 Political Department of the Jewish Agency]. There were 6 no words to suit the moment. Choked with emotion, 7 she managed to say “Mazal Tov” and down came tears, 8 oceans of unrestrained happy tears. All night streams of 9 joyful crowds assembled in the courtyard milling in and 10 out—to pay homage, to give vent to exultant feelings that 11 welled up from deep inside. 12 13 A Morning of Celebration 14 A group of us marched to the press room of the Palestine 15 Post to get the latest news from Morty and Dov, our 16 friends who work there. Another round of drinks and 17 embraces and crazy dances while we waited for the his- 18 toric First Edition to come off the presses. At 4:30 in the 19 morning, flushed with excitement, ignoring the wet ink, 20 we passed our copies around for everyone to autograph, 21 including an English Tommy [soldier] who wandered in 22 for a drink. Then Morty, Dov, Milt and Ray Sussman, 23 and I and several student friends who had come with me 24 headed back to the Sochnut building, just in time to see 25 a streak of warm beauty spring up out of the horizon and 26 smile good morning to us. We looked at each other, drew 27 closer together, wrapped arms about each other’s chilled 28 shoulders and felt the thrill of experiencing a historic 29 wonder, dawn bidding Shalom [peace] to a Jewish State. 30 Our group consisted of about fourteen fellows and 31 a few girls, from about as many countries. We made 32 our way singing to Morty’s room, not far away, where 33 we found the landlord so elated he didn’t know what 34 to do for us first. Ever the practical person, I suggested 35 food and prepared sandwiches, fruit and coffee while 36 we drank yet another “Le Chaim” [toast to life]. Leaving 170 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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the house, we were met by scores of morning crowds, some from the Ben-Gurion tossed his head 1 night before, some fresh out of bed, back proudly . . . and charged 2 kissing and embracing and shouting the air with electricity when he 3 “Mazal tov!” And as we rounded the shouted defiantly, ‘WE ARE A 4 corner into Keren Kayemet Street, FREE PEOPLE.’ 5 where the Sochnut is, whiz came the 6 motorcycles, lorries [trucks], cars and 7 the children, now awake, and took up 8 the gaiety where we had left off. Spontaneous parades 9 formed, led by a flag bearer and a couple of drunken 10 British soldiers—this time, thank goodness, unarmed. 11 The sun was getting warmer and warmer, a glorious 12 day. The end of November, and seventy-five degrees of 13 heartwarming sunshine was bearing down on a happy 14 city. The foreign correspondents and Pathé [newsreel] 15 men were on the job photographing the British tanks 16 which were suddenly converted into flying transport for 17 anyone who could climb aboard, sing, shout and wave a 18 flag. We joined the crowds, going from one end of King 19 George V Street to the other, meeting friends and frater- 20 nizing with the English soldiers, who were as happy as 21 we were about the end of tension and ill feeling between 22 us. All they wanted was to go home. With each round we 23 ended up at the Sochnut again; every crowd did. 24 25 Long Live the Jewish State! 26 Rumor had it that [David] Ben-Gurion [chairman of 27 the Jewish Agency] had just arrived from Tel Aviv and 28 would make a personal appearance. Sure enough, there 29 he was, standing on the balcony of the Sochnut building. 30 He looked slowly and solemnly around him—to the roof 31 tops crammed with people, to the throngs that stood 32 solid in the courtyard below him. He raised his hand: an 33 utter silence waited for his words. “Ashreynu shezachinu 34 layom hazeh.” (Blessed are we who have been privileged to 35 witness this day.) He concluded with “Techi Hamedinah 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 171

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Ha’ivrit” (Long Live the Hebrew State—it didn’t have a 1 name yet) and called for Hatikvah. A solemn chant rose 2 from all sides. The moment was too big for our feelings. 3 There were few dry eyes and few steady voices. Ben- 4 Gurion tossed his head back proudly, tenderly touched 5 the flag that hung from the railing and charged the air 6 with electricity when he shouted defiantly, “WE ARE A 7 FREE PEOPLE.” 8 How I wished you could have heard his words and 9 been here for this memorable night and never-to-be- 10 forgotten morning. It was too unbelievable. 11 Making my way to the bus to go home for a camera 12 and a wash, I noticed that all the cafes and wine shops had 13 flung open their doors—drinks on the house. Flags were 14 hoisted everywhere and shopkeepers had decorated their 15 windows with photos of Theodor Herzl [founder of the 16 Zionist political movement], whose words have inspired 17 and sustained Zionists until this day: “If you will it, it is no 18 dream.” Now that it was happening, it seemed more than 19 ever like a dream. My heart was bursting from joy. 20 21 Later that night . . . 22 I grabbed my camera, changed clothes and joined my 23 friends to return to the city and the excitement. Notices 24 were already prominently displayed announcing a mass 25 meeting to be held in the Sochnut courtyard at 3:00 in 26 the afternoon, and a very impressive affair it was. We 27 had already heard that there were incidents of Arab 28 ambushes on the road from Haifa to Jerusalem. The 29 crowds were more sober and, when told to, dispersed in 30 an orderly and disciplined manner, everyone going to his 31 own home and his own family celebration. We had ours 32 too, then a hot bath and off to sleep, trying to make up 33 for about fifty non-stop hours of delirium. 34 35 Your loving daughter, 36 Zippy 172 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A Young Immigrant 10 11 Joins the Haganah 12 13 14 David Rubinger, with Ruth Corman 15 16 In the following viewpoint, David Rubinger describes his experi- ences in Israel in 1947 and 1948 during the days immediately 17 preceding and following the Israeli declaration of independence. 18 He tells how he and his neighbors and others in the city of 19 Jerusalem reacted to the news that a majority vote was cast for 20 the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. He goes on 21 to describe his induction into the Jewish defense organization, 22 the Haganah, and his battlefront experiences in the fight against 23 Arab invaders. Rubinger and Ruth Corman are co-authors of 24 Israel Through My Lens, from which this viewpoint is excerpted. 25 Rubinger, who was born in and immigrated to Israel in 1939, is a photojournalist acknowledged internationally for his 26 photographs depicting the . Corman is a London- 27 based photographer, art consultant, and curator of the British 28 Israel Arts Foundation. 29 30 31 32 SOURCE. David Rubinger with Ruth Corman, Israel Through My 33 Lens. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2007. Text copyright © 2007 David Rubinger and Ruth Corman. Compilation, including 34 selection of text and images, copyright © 2007 Abbeville Press. All 35 rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 173

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nni and I started married life living in one room 1 in Jerusalem. We had absolutely nothing except 2 a camp bed provided by the Jewish Agency. We 3 Afound bricks and a plank to make a bookcase and man- 4 aged to acquire two secondhand armchairs, which, we 5 acknowledged, gave a real air of luxury to our surround- 6 ings. Suddenly I found myself, aged twenty-two, living in 7 Palestine with a now-pregnant wife—two and a half of us 8 in one extremely small room. . . . 9 Anni had a part-time job cleaning houses, and for the 10 first time I sold some of my photographs—to neighbors, 11 for six piastres [the currency of the Ottoman Empire] 12 apiece. I think that it was not so much the money, which 13 was a very small amount, but rather the satisfaction of 14 knowing that someone placed such value on my pictures 15 that they were prepared to part with real currency to 16 possess them! 17 18 A Vote for Partition 19 One of the very earliest photographs I took was an image 20 of some of my neighbors thrusting bread through a 21 barbed wire fence to their relatives and friends. This took 22 place during one of the many curfews imposed by the 23 British in certain areas of Jerusalem. 24 Roads were cut off from each other 25 It was no time for dancing and with barbed wire, largely in response 26 singing as we had a dangerous to the activities of the Jewish terrorist 27 road ahead. group, the Irgun, who were proving 28 troublesome and outright dangerous 29 to the British authorities. 30 On November 18, 1947, our first child, a daughter we 31 named Tami, was born. The atmosphere in Palestine was 32 very tense because of the ongoing UN deliberations as to 33 the future of the country. There were frequent attacks by 34 local Arabs, and it had become so dangerous that when it 35 came time to deliver Tami, Anni had to be escorted up to 36 the hospital on Mount Scopus in a British armored car. 174 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Eleven days later, on November 29, towards midnight, A photograph by 20 David Rubinger shows 21 the United Nations voted for the partition of Palestine barricaded mem- into a Jewish and an Arab state. For anyone privileged bers of the Jewish 22 to have been living there at the time, this surely was Agency’s Haganah 23 one of the most momentous happenings that one could defense division in 24 have imagined. We, along with all our neighbors, were Jerusalem. (David 25 Rubinger/Time & Life glued to the radio. At midnight, a majority vote was cast Pictures/Getty Images.) 26 for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The 27 city erupted with milling crowds thronging the streets, 28 singing, dancing, and celebrating. Anni went out to buy 29 cigarettes from a nearby kiosk. The kiosk owner gave her 30 the cigarettes but refused payment. “Tonight,” he said, “I 31 am not accepting any money from anyone.” 32 33 From Celebration to Danger 34 The celebrations continued all night and well into the 35 next day. It was on the morning of this day that I took 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 175

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one of my most arresting images, that 1 Seven countries joined in the of a British armored car in the center 2 jihad, with five of them, Saudi of Jerusalem onto which ten or more 3 Arabia, Transjordan, Lebanon, young children and teenagers had 4 Egypt, and Iraq, deciding to scrambled, waving handmade Jewish 5 invade our newly formed state flags, laughing, and cheering. . . . 6 of Israel. On that same day in 1947, David 7 Ben-Gurion, with great prescience, 8 warned that it was no time for danc- 9 ing and singing as we had a ­dangerous 10 road ahead of us. He could not have been more right, and 11 in fact it was only one day later, on December 1, that I 12 took pictures of Arab rioters burning Jewish shops in the 13 commercial center then located behind the King David 14 Hotel. 15 I also shot pictures of our unofficial army, the 16 Haganah, who were attempting to reach the area in 17 trucks but were prevented from doing so by British 18 armored cars, which had blocked the streets. . . . 19 20 The Haganah and Independence 21 The Haganah had been formed in 1920 as a clandestine 22 force for Jewish self-defense. Originally composed of 23 individual units active in different towns and settlements 24 throughout Palestine, the Haganah gradually grew into 25 the central defense mechanism of the Zionist move- 26 ment. After the State of Israel was declared, the Haganah 27 became the Israel Defense Forces. 28 In mid-December 1947, I was inducted into the 29 Haganah and sent up to Mount Scopus for training. This 30 activity was then considered illegal and had to be covert, 31 as the British still controlled the country. We had a gun 32 or two, but mostly we used make-believe guns made out 33 of sticks. 34 Those of my contemporaries and I who had received 35 military training from the British Army (about five thou- 36 sand soldiers) were part of the nucleus, together with 176 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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the Haganah, that eventually became Israel’s legitimate army. Our experience proved invaluable; indeed, my sec- 1 ond lieutenant in the British Army went on to become a 2 major general in the Israeli army many years later. 3 The British decided to relinquish the responsibilities 4 of the Mandate, given to them in 1919, on May 14, 1948. 5 This thereafter became the official Independence Day 6 of Israel, the historic occasion when David Ben-Gurion 7 declared the establishment of the State of Israel upon the 8 departure of the British troops. 9 Serious fighting began immediately the next day, with 10 the Muslims declaring a jihad (holy war) on the fledgling 11 state. Their intentions were made clear by Azzam Pasha, 12 Secretary-General of the Arab League, when he declared, 13 “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous 14 massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian 15 massacres and the Crusades.” 16 17 Defending Against Arab Invasion 18 Seven countries joined in the jihad, with five of them, 19 Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq, 20 deciding to invade our newly formed State of Israel. They 21 were well armed and equipped, in great contrast to the 22 makeshift weaponry that we had at our disposal. 23 That same day, May 15, proved to 24 be one of the most unforgettable days 25 of my life. My military group, dressed I remember crouching, huddled 26 in civilian clothes, had taken up posi- down behind the wall, looking 27 tions on Jaffa Road, Jerusalem, in a at a nearby tree as bullets tore 28 building that housed Barclays Bank into its trunk and branches. 29 and later became the municipal offic- 30 es of the city. The building faced the 31 Jaffa Gate of the Old City, next to which was David’s 32 Tower—a tall edifice with a commanding view of the 33 whole area. 34 Among our inadequate weaponry, we had just one 35 homemade two-inch mortar and two cases of shells. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 177

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What we failed to realize, however, was that the shells 1 we had were a fraction of a millimeter larger than the 2 barrel of the mortar, so it was impossible to use them 3 without first filing down the fins of the shells to reduce 4 their size. 5 I was the one “volunteered” to return to our HQ 6 [headquarters], . . . to try to find a file. This I managed 7 to do, but on returning I did not know that the building 8 immediately on the left of our previous position was now 9 occupied by Arab snipers. It did not take long for me to 10 realize what had happened, as the whole area, including 11 the little garden that I had to traverse to get back, was 12 being liberally peppered with gunshot. 13 I took shelter behind a low wall about twenty inches 14 high, alongside two other Haganah fighters. They were 15 both killed. I survived. I remember crouching, huddled 16 down behind the wall, looking at a nearby tree as bul- 17 lets tore into its trunk and branches. I went back to visit 18 this tree many years later and could still see signs of the 19 wounds it had suffered that day. 20 I lay there for some time, perhaps twenty meters 21 from the safety of our post, when suddenly an armored 22 car . . . which the Haganah had presumably “requisi- 23 tioned” from the British, came into view. A man in the 24 vehicle motioned for me to make a dash for it while its 25 occupants poured heavy fire onto the enemy positions. I 26 did as he suggested, armed solely with my file for protec- 27 tion. I got back. . . . 28 29 A Fight for Survival 30 Two of the places where I was involved in the street fight- 31 ing were Yemin Moshe and Mount Zion. Both of these 32 areas were extremely vulnerable as they were totally 33 exposed to fire from the Jordanian positions on the top 34 of the Old City walls. One of the earliest photographs I 35 have of myself in this war shows me crouching behind a 36 stone wall, wearing a sports jacket and clutching a Sten 178 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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gun [submachine gun] in Yemin Moshe. Today this place is the location of Mishkenot Sha’ananim, a very elegant 1 residence where visiting artists from around the world 2 are invited to stay. Quite a contrast to how it was when I 3 was there trying to defend it! 4 After surviving these episodes, I was sent on an 5 officers’ training course by the then-established Israeli 6 army, although we were still in makeshift uniforms and 7 without insignia. I became a platoon commander, the 8 equivalent of a second lieutenant. 9 We soon found ourselves once again stationed in a 10 building opposite the Tower of David. The Tower was 11 under the control of the Arab Legion. Their arsenal 12 included a six-pound gun with which they continually 13 bombarded our position. I remember that the shells went 14 in one side and came straight out of the other side of the 15 building. On one occasion, I needed to go downstairs to 16 check on a machine gun. When I returned upstairs, the 17 place where I had slept and where my desk and phone 18 had been had simply disappeared. Someone somewhere 19 must have been watching out for me again! 20 Israel won the War of Independence against over- 21 whelming odds, but the Tower of David remained in 22 the hands of the Jordanian army for the next nineteen 23 years, until 1967, when Israel again took control of the 24 Old City. 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 179

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A Diplomat Begins His 11 12 Mission in Israel 13 14 15 James G. McDonald 16 In the following viewpoint, James G. McDonald relates what 17 went on during his first four days as the first U.S. ambassador 18 to Israel. He describes his arrival in 1948, including the changes 19 he observes on the drive to Tel Aviv, and talks about conditions 20 in Tel Aviv and how the city and its inhabitants have been affect- 21 ed by the flood of Jewish refugees and resulting conflict with the 22 Arab population. He goes on to describe his meeting with the 23 Israeli foreign minister and his visit with prime minister David 24 Ben-Gurion and his wife at their home. James G. McDonald was the American ambassador to Israel from 1948 to 1951. Prior 25 to that he served in many other official capacities, including 26 chairman of the Foreign Policy Association, High Commissioner 27 for Refugees Coming from Germany, chairman of the President’s 28 Advisory Committee on Political Refugees, and member of the 29 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. 30 31 32 33 SOURCE. James G. McDonald, My Mission in Israel 1948–1951. 34 New York: Simon & Schuster, 1951. Copyright © 1951 by James G. 35 McDonald. Copyright © renewed 1979 by Mrs. James G. McDonald. 36 Reproduced by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 180 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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fter a brief stop in Athens [Greece], we made an auspicious arrival in midafternoon, August 12th, 1 at the Haifa Airport in Israel. 2 AWe were greeted by officials of the Israel Government 3 and a military guard of honor, and members of our own 4 staffs at Haifa and Tel Aviv, headed by our Counselor, 5 Charles Knox, who had left Washington a few weeks 6 before me. We underwent the barrage of newspaper and 7 motion picture photographers with such grace as we 8 could muster, and with what we hoped would later appear 9 as appropriate casualness. The trip down the heavily trav- 10 eled coastal road to Tel Aviv, a distance of about sixty-five 11 miles along the Mediterranean, took more than two hours 12 despite an escort of police motorcycles and a military car 13 with plain-clothes officers. How different this ride from 14 my earlier journey along this same ancient road, for mil- 15 lennia the route of imperial conquerors! In 1946 and 16 1947 the road had been jammed with British military 17 convoys, heavy equipment, racing military police cars 18 and motorcycles, with road-blocks every few miles and 19 constant interrogation by the British military. Now there 20 were no British. Arabs with their picturesque donkeys 21 and camels were no more. Bombed-out, razed Arab and 22 Jewish villages, and neglected orange 23 groves were mute witnesses of recent 24 fighting. Everywhere Jews were work- There was a press interview dur- 25 ing with pick and shovel, tractors and ing which I stressed . . . that I 26 bulldozers. felt as if I had come ‘home.’ 27 28 Arrival in Tel Aviv 29 Within Tel Aviv one of the main streets had been cleared. 30 We drove quickly to our abode, the Gat Rimmon, one of 31 a series of small hotels which front on Hayarkon Street, 32 running parallel to the sea, and which boast teatime and 33 restaurant terraces looking out on the Mediterranean. 34 The reception from the public was enthusiastic. We 35 were flattered by the press estimates of thousands waiting 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 181

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to cheer us. Again and again [my daughter] Bobby and I 1 had to face the cameras. There was a press interview dur- 2 ing which I stressed . . . that I felt as if I had come “home.” 3 This, judging from the press reactions, was a fortunate 4 phrase; it had the advantage, too, of being sincere. 5 Finally, we were allowed to go up to our rooms. Knox 6 had held out to us the prospect of the best rooms in 7 the hotel; he had kept his promise! My tiny room duly 8 looked out on the Mediterranean; Bobby and [my sec- 9 retary] Miss [Harriet] Clark shared a room barely big 10 enough for two cots and a washstand. Between the two 11 rooms was a bath but no toilet. 12 Our quarters were wide open to curious eyes or ears— 13 friendly or otherwise; we developed a goldfish complex 14 [from living visible to all, as a goldfish in a bowl]. In the 15 interests perhaps of cleanliness, the bathroom was the 16 one secluded spot. Immediately below 17 us was the outdoor café where every Rationing was already under 18 day except Shabat [Jewish Sabbath] a 19 way, meat was in short supply dance orchestra played with enthusi- 20 and good coffee was already a astic use of brass until midnight. Last 21 luxury. of all there was no telephone in our 22 rooms. 23 24 The Reality of Life in Tel Aviv 25 Why should we have been so inadequately housed? 26 The answer is that Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv, had been 27 the prewar tourist center. Now the town was terribly 28 overcrowded because of the war and the uneasy truce 29 which had brought with it a crowd of UN observers who 30 completely filled one of the best hotels. Our hotel was 31 particularly crowded because it was also playing host to 32 the members of the Russian delegation, who had arrived 33 only three days before us. . . . 34 At my first dinner at the Gat we were waited on as if 35 we were royalty, but the food was indifferent: frozen fish, 36 eggplant and potatoes, no meat, butter or milk, insipid 182 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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dessert and worse coffee. Nonetheless we knew that it was far better than that received by the Israel citizenry. 1 Rationing was already under way, meat was in short sup- 2 ply and good coffee was already a luxury. A number of 3 factors lay behind this. A goodly percentage of Israeli 4 manpower—and woman power—was still under arms, 5 and the best of what food there was went to them. At the 6 same time the tidal flood of ingathering Jewish refugees 7 (they were then arriving at the rate of seventeen thousand 8 a month, a figure soon to reach as high as thirty thou- 9 sand) was beginning to make more and more demands 10 upon Israel’s inadequate larder. As rationing tightened, 11 food in public places and in private homes (other than 12 those of diplomats) became less and less varied. Meat, 13 butter and even potatoes became nearly unobtainable; 14 but miraculously, no one seemed to be undernourished. 15 Fish substituted for meat; an excellent local margarine 16 for butter; eggplant and Brussels sprouts for other veg- 17 etables; and plentiful citrus fruits or juices for other des- 18 serts. Eggs and milk were reserved primarily for invalids 19 and children. The latter could not have been huskier. 20 21 A Truce Not Honored 22 Feeling a desperate need to get away 23 from the noise and eyes of the hotel— The next day came new evi- 24 I had trouble sleeping—Bobby and dence of a truce that was hon- 25 I sought refuge at [president of ored more in the breach than in 26 the Women’s International Zionist the observance. 27 Organization] Rebecca Sieff’s beau- 28 tiful estate at Tel Mond, about forty 29 miles from Tel Aviv. 30 We were seated on the veranda there when we heard 31 rifle shots. [Security officer Eugene F.] McMahon imme- 32 diately ordered us inside, and investigated. He returned 33 to announce, “Truce or no truce, at this moment the 34 Iraqi troops are stationed only about four or five miles 35 from here, and those rifle shots came from their direc- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 183

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tion. I’m afraid we’ll have to consider Tel Mond out of 1 bounds.” 2 Reluctantly we returned to the Gat Rimmon and its 3 blaring dance music. My staff continued their search to 4 find permanent headquarters for us that would be practi- 5 cal in terms of both diplomatic needs and security. 6 The next day came new evidence of a truce that was 7 honored more in the breach than in the observance. Word 8 came that the Arabs had blown up the Jerusalem water- 9 pumping station at Latrun. Jerusalem then received its 10 water from natural springs near Petah Tikva, about ­twenty 11 miles from the coast, and Latrun 12 was the point at which the pipelines 13 The next day—four days after carry­ing the water began their climb 14 our arrival in Israel—the Prime up the Judean hills to Jerusalem. The 15 Minister, disregarding protocol, fact that the pumps were under the 16 invited . . . me to his house for protection of UN guards made the 17 an informal visit. truce violation a particularly flagrant 18 one. And it underlined more clearly 19 than the Iraqi sniping how powerful 20 a blow could be struck by one side against the other even 21 while a “truce” was in force. 22 23 Meeting with the Foreign Minister 24 In this atmosphere I began my round of official calls. 25 My first was upon the Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett, 26 at his office in Sarona, the former German Templar sub- 27 urb of Tel Aviv. He was then Moshe Shertok, but later, 28 in line with the desire of the Prime Minister, supported 29 by strong public opinion, he Hebraized his name, as 30 did scores of other Israel officials. Sarona was an excel- 31 lent choice as a governmental headquarters. Wisely, the 32 Provisional Government, instead of requisitioning one of 33 the better sections of Tel Aviv, had taken over this sub- 34 urb, which for some years had been used by the British 35 Army and police, and left almost a total wreck when the 36 British withdrew from Palestine. Now it was being rap- 184 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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idly rebuilt into an attractive and convenient government center, called Hakirya—Hebrew for “The Town.” Despite 1 the heat of the day, Sharett’s office and balcony overlook- 2 ing a little garden were pleasantly cool. 3 The Foreign Minister, in his early fifties—dark, intel- 4 ligent, enormously erudite and energetic—greeted me 5 warmly. . . . As befitted a first meeting, the rest of our talk 6 was general. Sharett did, however, tell me that elections 7 for Israel’s first Constituent Assembly would probably 8 be held in September and a constitutional regime estab- 9 lished as soon as possible thereafter. 10 My second call was on Mrs. Golda Myerson [later 11 Meir], soon to leave as Israel’s first Minister to Moscow, 12 and later to be Minister of Labor. . . . 13 14 A Visit with the Prime Minister 15 The next day—four days after our arrival in Israel—the 16 Prime Minister [David Ben-Gurion], disregarding pro- 17 tocol, invited Bobby and me to his house for an informal 18 visit. Knox went along. Ben-Gurion and his very devot- 19 ed, energetic and unconventional wife, Paula, lived very 20 modestly in a small, unmodern and simply furnished 21 house. Its simplicity was relieved by Ben-Gurion’s fine 22 library, one of the best private collections in the Middle 23 East, which occupied most of the upper floor. 24 The Ben-Gurions received us like old friends. B.G.— 25 as he is known to everyone in the Government—was 26 as I had last seen him when he testified before our 27 Committee in Jerusalem in early 1946—the same stocky 28 figure, with the same shock of white hair rising in an 29 undisciplined fringe around his head, and the same 30 piercing but friendly look in his blue eyes. He rose from 31 a chair in the living room and, shaking hands warmly, 32 made me at once feel at home. I had known him for sev- 33 eral years and had often discussed Palestine and Jewish 34 problems with him. Indeed, when our Committee was 35 hearing testimony in Jerusalem, one of my British col- 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 185

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leagues on the Committee took advantage of our known 1 friendship to pay me a dubious compliment. According 2 to the wholly false rumor which he had spread, I “had 3 given Ben-Gurion instructions” the night before he was 4 to testify as to the relations between the Jewish Agency, 5 of which he was then the head, and the Jewish under- 6 ground army, the Haganah! 7 8 A Tea Time Air Raid 9 While we were having tea in the tiny living room, there 10 was a sudden shrill scream of a siren. “It’s an air raid,” 11 Paula Ben-Gurion announced, and before it had stopped, 12 she insisted that her husband follow his own regula- 13 tions. We all trooped into an improvised air-raid shelter 14 used by the Prime Minister—the next-door room with 15 a reinforced ceiling. Ben-Gurion gave the planes one 16 contemptuous sentence: “They come from the Egyptian 17 lines about thirty-five miles south of here.” 18 With that announcement, we continued our talk, 19 maintaining the pretense that nothing was happening 20 outside. 21 One peculiarity of the air-raid warnings in Israel led 22 to endless arguments in our household and, I suppose, in 23 many others. Because of the short distance the Egyptian 24 planes had to fly—usually less than ten minutes’ flying 25 time—at times we heard the thuds of the bombs before 26 the sirens sounded. Then would ensue the argument: 27 Was the raid over or not? Was it worth while to leave 28 lunch or dinner, or get up out of a warm bed, to go to a 29 so-called shelter? (In the residence we obtained shortly 30 after we arrived, we were supposed to go to the base- 31 ment.) Gradually, as the raids continued over the course 32 of months, we went less and less to the shelters, becom- 33 ing, we liked to pretend, fatalists. 34 35 36 186 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A Palestinian Arab 10 11 Remembers the 1948 12 13 14 Arab-Israeli War 15 16 Ilene R. Prusher 17 18 In the following viewpoint, Ilene R. Prusher focuses on the recol- 19 lections and views of an elderly Palestinian, Mahmoud Jadallah, 20 who lived and fought in Palestine against the Israelis in 1947 and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He still lives in the same 21 area he did then, but it no longer is Arab land; it was annexed 22 by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War. Jadallah describes his war 23 experiences and relates how important his land was—and still 24 is—to him and his family. He expresses his sentiments about 25 partition and shares his frustrations with the British for favoring 26 the Zionists, with the surrounding Arab countries for not provid- 27 ing enough aid when it was needed, and with the lack of Arab 28 unity both in the past and in the present. Ilene R. Prusher is a 29 staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor. 30 31 32 SOURCE. Ilene R. Prusher, “An Arab Veteran of 1948 Recalls 33 Palestinian ‘Catastrophe’,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 9, 2008, pp. 1–3. Copyright © 2008 The Christian Science Publishing Society. 34 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Christian Science 35 Monitor (www.csmonitor.com). 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 187

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ahmoud Jadallah recalls the 1948 Arab-Israeli 1 war as if it were yesterday. As he guides a 2 visitor through the village he once defended 3 Magainst Israeli forces, the names of outposts and pass- 4 words his Arab fighters used trip off his tongue. 5 But the day that the Jordanians told them to stop 6 fighting is clearest. The war was over—for the moment, 7 at least—and an armistice had been reached between 8 Israel and Jordan. “The Jordanians came along with us 9 and said, ‘OK, we don’t need you anymore. You can go 10 home. We’re in charge now. They’re a state, and we’re a 11 state.’ 12 “One of our soldiers couldn’t believe what had hap- 13 pened. In front of everyone, he put his rifle under his feet 14 and broke it, destroyed it. He said, ‘Losing the soil of this 15 land, which is mixed with our blood, this is something I 16 cannot take,’” Mr. Jadallah recalls. 17 18 Frustrations 19 A Jordanian officer chastised the soldier. “This weapon 20 you broke, you should have sold it to buy food for your 21 family.” After that, says Jadallah, no one said a word, and 22 the only sounds were of people crying. 23 While Israelis kicked off the 60th anniversary of their 24 independence [on May 8, 2008,] in celebrations that are 25 expected to continue in the coming weeks, Palestinians 26 are beginning to mark the same series of events as the 27 nakba, or catastrophe. 28 Just south of Sur Baher, the former Arab village south 29 of Jerusalem where Jadallah fought, 30 young Palestinian demonstrators 31 ‘[The Israeli takeover] was like in Bethlehem carried an enormous 32 an earthquake that falls upon key through town [on May 8] as a 33 people and shakes them up. symbol of their longing to return 34 After it’s over, people start look- to homes they—or more specifically, 35 ing around for what’s left.’ their parents and grandparents—lost 36 in 1948. But it is the older generation 188 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 of Palestinians who most intimately knows the details With Jerusalem visible 23 in the background, 24 of the sea-change they lived through 60 years ago, and several Arab gunmen who have the most telling tales to share. And many, like pose in a foxhole from 25 Jadallah, feel almost as frustrated with the state of today’s which they attack 26 political realities—especially the searing split within Jewish buses traveling 27 Palestinian society between the West Bank and the Gaza to and from the city 28 in 1948. (©Bettmann/ Strip—as they did six decades ago. Corbis.) 29 “It was like an earthquake that falls upon people 30 and shakes them up. After it’s over, people start looking 31 around for what’s left,” Jadallah explains, looking out 32 from his balcony toward the semiarid mountains lead- 33 ing out to the desert to the places where he’s seen many 34 an army pass: from the British to the Jordanians to the 35 Israelis. 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 189

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A Shared Blame 1 In 1947, Jadallah was sent to Syria by Abdel Qader 2 Husseini, a military leader of the Arab forces in what was 3 British-controlled Mandatory Palestine, for training. 4 “It was known that the British were going to with- 5 draw, and that’s why we were planning to have an army. 6 The idea was for us to go to Syria and come back able to 7 train others,” he explains. 8 Things did not go the way they planned, and for this, 9 he points the blame in many directions. He lays it at the 10 feet of the British, which he believes made it easy for 11 Zionist militias to gain the upper hand: a photographic 12 negative of the historical picture seen by most Israelis. 13 But he also blames the surrounding Arab countries 14 for not providing enough aid. His strongest memories 15 are of “irregulars” from places as far off as Yemen, and a 16 contingent from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. 17 “We were shocked to see that the British withdrawal 18 did not equal our ascendancy. They gave all of their sites 19 and locations and equipment to the Jews,” Jadallah says. 20 “Our capacity was very weak. We didn’t have the same 21 weaponry they did. We only had some simple rifles and 22 ammunition.” 23 Sur Baher wasn’t a particularly wealthy area, and 24 Jadallah remembers people scrambling for enough money 25 to buy weapons. “We were 105 men in this village and we 26 relied on our own personal resources,” he says. “Anyone 27 who had a wife who had a bracelet or necklace asked her 28 to sell it so we could buy guns. We armed ourselves from 29 our own personal resources. But we 30 were starting to see that the British ‘Our only option was to protect 31 withdrawal was facilitating the com- the land on which we were liv- 32 ing of the Jewish state.” 33 ing, because we saw that the 34 Jews were taking much more A Need for Arab Unity 35 than the partition called for.’ In retrospect, he says he regrets that 36 the Partition Plan for Palestine, passed 190 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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by the fledgling United Nations on Nov. 29, 1947, was a failure. Palestinian Arabs felt they had no choice but to 1 fight it, he says, because they didn’t feel the division of land 2 was fair. Israel agreed to the partition plan and Arab states 3 rejected it, which led to the outbreak of the war and Israel’s 4 declaration of statehood less than six months later. 5 “We liked the concept of partition, but we felt it 6 was not done correctly,” Jadallah sighs. “We reached a 7 moment where partition was an opportunity, and we 8 missed it. Our only option was to protect the land on 9 which we were living, because we saw that the Jews were 10 taking much more than the partition called for.” Israel’s 11 portion of the land in the partition plan was indeed des- 12 ignated to be smaller than what it became by mid-1948; 13 Zionist leaders believed the partition’s narrow borders to 14 be indefensible. 15 Jadallah says he wishes that Arabs would have been 16 more united in their stance and strategy. He looks at the 17 splits then—those who favored a cease-fire and those 18 who didn’t—and can’t help but look with dismay at the 19 schism in Palestinian society now, following [militant 20 Islamic group] ’s takeover of Gaza [in 2007]. Gaza, 21 where many Palestinian refugees fled to in 1948, is now 22 cut off from the Palestine Liberation Organization–run 23 Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. 24 “We weren’t united then and we’re not now,” he says, 25 sitting in the reception room, in which he has pictures 26 of Jerusalem and a photograph of him embracing Yasser 27 Arafat, the Palestinian leader whom he outlived. In 28 Jadallah’s eyes, no one will again be able to bring together 29 Palestinians the way Arafat did. At the same time, he 30 adds, “Arafat was never satisfied with what he was being 31 given, so he got nothing. 32 “Had all Arabs been united in 1948, we would really 33 have created an impact. Israel was so tiny then and we 34 were big,” he says. “Today, it’s essentially the same. We are 35 as disunited now as we were in 1948.” 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 191

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A Village Transformed 1 ‘All of this makes me sad . . . Sur Baher remained part of Jordan 2 because it makes me feel like until the Six-Day War of 1967, when 3 we didn’t achieve anything.’ Israel occupied the West Bank. Israel 4 later annexed Sur Baher and other 5 Arab neighborhoods and villages to 6 Jerusalem, expanding the city bound- 7 aries several times, and thousands of East Jerusalemites 8 like Jadallah were given Israeli IDs with the status of 9 “permanent resident.” 10 Sixty years on, they’re still not citizens of any country. 11 They can, however, get rights afforded to Israeli citizens, 12 such as education and healthcare, and travel on Jordanian 13 or Palestinian passports. 14 And so in an area that Israel counts as part of its capi- 15 tal, Jadallah can still, in a short walk from his home, visit 16 the very sites where he once fought. 17 First he passes the school that his men used as a base, 18 which is, once again, a school. Then he goes by a hill 19 where some of the heaviest fighting took place, where 20 there were casualties on both sides. 21 “This was one of the trenches,” he says, pointing to a 22 hidden cement box embedded in the hillside, with two 23 holes through which guards would watch or shoot. “It 24 was called ‘mujahid,’” Arabic for one who wages holy 25 war. “You can see how crucial this one was, because all of 26 the Jewish settlements nearby were exposed to it. Every 27 night, I would come and supervise the trenches. There 28 was a password for anyone who came near.” 29 They changed it all the time, but it always started 30 with a hard Arabic “h”—one that they could count on 31 most of their enemies to mispronounce because Hebrew 32 has a different, more guttural “h.” 33 “The years of 1948 to 1950 were years of sacrifice. 34 We lost a lot of colleagues, of homes, of land. All of this 35 makes me sad,” he says, “because it makes me feel like we 36 didn’t achieve anything.” 192 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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Living with the Reality Jadallah went on to have a large family—seven girls and 1 three boys—and now has close to 70 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren. 3 To many of them, living with Israel is a reality with 4 which they grew up. Jadallah’s son, Nihad, has worked 5 with Israel’s ambulance service, Magen David Adom, for 6 27 years. He speaks excellent Hebrew and is clean-­shaven. 7 Still, Nihad says he feels there’s still great discrimination 8 in how he’s treated at work. 9 Not long ago, he says, when his father was [not] feel- 10 ing well, he couldn’t get his own ambulance company to 11 enter Sur Baher without an Israeli army escort, causing 12 a half-hour delay. He still feels suspect, the “other.” He is 13 expected to come to an Israeli Independence day celebra- 14 tion for all employees and was struggling with whether 15 to go. But earlier this week, when colleagues at work were 16 receiving free Israeli flags to put on their cars, he drew 17 the line. “It’s not my flag,” he says, “and it’s not my state.” 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 193

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A Jewish-American Teen 11 12 Personally Encounters 13 14 15 the Arab-Israeli Conflict 16 17 Rachel Sacks 18 19 In the following viewpoint, Rachel Sacks describes her emo- 20 tions during a visit to Israel as a participant in Young Judea’s Machon program. She explains how, never before having met 21 any Palestinian Arabs or heard their stories firsthand, the visit 22 proved a great revelation. She tells how moved she was by a 23 young Arab-Christian woman, a speaker for a coexistence group, 24 who shared her experiences and expressed her anti-Jewish 25 sentiments. Sacks tells how difficult it was for her to listen 26 to the young woman and explains why she felt listening was 27 something she had to do. She goes on to acknowledge that 28 the woman’s bitterness was justified and tells how the woman’s words brought home to her the depth of the hostility felt by 29 Arabs toward Israel. Rachel Sacks was a high school senior in 30 Milburn, New Jersey, at the time this was written. 31 32 33 SOURCE. Rachel Sacks, “Close Encounters with the Arab-Israeli 34 Conflict,” JVibe, October 2007. Copyright © 2007 JVibe. JVibe is the 35 Web site and national magazine for Jewish teens. Reproduced by per- 36 mission. 194 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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hen I packed my two very large suitcases for my trip to Israel with Young Judaea’s Machon 1 program, I did not prepare for the reality of 2 theW country. Machon is a five-and-a-half week trip that 3 starts in the Negev [desert in southern Israel] and moves 4 North, allowing teens to experience an off-the-beaten- 5 track view of Israel. 6 I had not prepared myself for what I was ­presented 7 with on Machon: the extensive pov- 8 erty, the tension between secular 9 and religious Jews (like two different Hearing Sorayda’s story was the 10 worlds), the immigrant disparity— hardest and truest experience 11 how Russians and Ethiopians strug- of my time in Israel. 12 gle to assimilate into Israeli society. 13 Most of all, I did not prepare myself 14 for my own intimate encounter with the Palestinian 15 ­conflict. 16 Though I had learned about the conflict at camp, 17 Hebrew school, youth group and high school, never had 18 I confronted the complex tension between Arabs and 19 Jews face-to-face. Never had I met a Palestinian or an 20 Arab-Israeli myself, nor heard his or her story. Thus, 21 hearing Sorayda’s story was the hardest and truest expe- 22 rience of my time in Israel. 23 24 Sorayda’s Story 25 Sorayda was young and pretty, her hair pulled back, her 26 clothes modern. She wore tight pants, high heels and a 27 tank top. She visited us in Nazareth, at the inn that her 28 family owned. A young mother, Sorayda represented the 29 Arab-Christian minority in Nazareth, as indicated by her 30 Western clothing. She came to us as a speaker for a coex- 31 istence group, ready to share her perspective with a group 32 of Zionist, American teenagers. None of us expected her 33 to say what she did; she was, after all, with a coexistence 34 group, dressed as an American might [be], speaking to 35 Jews—what could she say that would shock us? 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 195

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She spoke casually, joking about her shoes, mention- 1 ing her Jewish best friends. As she warmed up, however, 2 she began to speak of her intrinsic distrust for Jews, a 3 deep loathing in her heart. She did not identify Israel as 4 her home, but Nazareth as her home; she viewed Israel 5 with contempt and identified herself as an Arab first. She 6 talked about her grandpa—how his land was taken in the 7 1967 war, and how Jewish soldiers came to his property 8 and beat him when he returned to pick some olives. 9 Sorayda talked about how Jews dominate the 10 American government, how they are rich and greedy 11 and want to own everything—rattling off stereotypes 12 one after another, much to everyone’s 13 dismay. She scornfully referred to 14 Sorayda represented an inkling the “Israeli mentality,” how Jews take 15 of the conflict; she was the con- everything, stuffing their pockets. 16 flict, adorned in Western garb And then she mentioned how she 17 and a sweet smile. likes France because Jews are treated 18 with suspicion there, and Arabs are 19 treated better. She described watch- 20 ing “that Jew guy,” as she called him, searched at the 21 French airport, and the pleasure she obtained from the 22 experience. 23 She was bitter, her views extreme for an Arab 24 Christian, more akin to those of an Arab Muslim. My 25 friends looked outraged as we sat through her speech, 26 feeling uncomfortable, attacked. 27 Yet, while I did not want to hear what Sorayda had 28 to say, I knew I had to; I knew that listening to her was 29 a valuable experience, and as hard as it was to admit, I 30 understood her cynicism. Her experiences had produced 31 such resentment. What mother wants her child to grow 32 up feeling inferior? She mentioned how becoming a 33 mother had hardened her perspective, how she cringed 34 to think her son would have to feel as small as she had. 35 She told us how her son, only 6 1/2, played with a Jewish 36 girl next door, his best friend, but one day the girl told 196 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY

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him he should take care; he was Arab. How can one blame her for her hostility? 1 2 Bridging the Gap 3 While Sorayda harbored so much contempt, I kept in 4 mind that she was speaking for coexistence, however 5 ironic it seemed. For all her stereotypes and virulent 6 views, she was making a deliberate effort to bridge rela- 7 tions between Jews and Arabs. She emphasized that we 8 were all human beings, and she wished for no religion to 9 divide people. 10 As other kids exchanged angry glances and whis- 11 pers, I tried to respect her views, to understand them, to 12 absorb the experience. This hostility, in so much conflict 13 with my own views, was very real and represented just a 14 drop of the hostility felt toward Israel. 15 Even more so, her bitterness was justified. In Israeli 16 society, Arabs are constantly treated as inferior—even 17 Arab-Israeli citizens and Arab Christians like her, 18 although with less enmity than Arab Muslims. Sorayda 19 represented an inkling of the conflict; she was the con- 20 flict, adorned in Western garb and a sweet smile. 21 Always hospitable, our kind Arab hosts served us 22 black Arabic coffee at the end of the seminar—bitter, like 23 the views on both sides. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 PERSPECTIVES ON MODERN WORLD HISTORY 197

pmwhcsi.indd 197 9/10/09 11:04:40 AM Master Final Pages 1 Glossary 2 3 4 5 Aliyah Large-scale immigration of Jews to Israel or the Holy Land 6 (plural: aliyot). 7 8 Arab League Coalition of Arab states founded in 1945 to strengthen and 9 coordinate political, cultural, economic, and social programs 10 and to mediate disputes. 11 12 Balfour Declaration Statement named for Lord Balfour issued by the British in 13 1917 recognizing the right of the Jewish people to establish a national home in Palestine with consideration for the rights of 14 non-Jewish Palestinians. 15 16 diaspora A population dispersed from its settled territory; can refer to 17 both Palestinians living in areas other than the West Bank, 18 Gaza, and Israel and Jews living outside of Palestine or present- 19 day Israel. 20 21 Eretz Yisrael Land of Israel; the homeland promised to the Israelites in the 22 Bible. 23 Haganah Jewish defense organization that operated underground during 24 the British Mandate and, after the creation of Israel in 1948, 25 became the core of the Israel Defense Forces. 26 27 Hatikvah “The Hope”; the national anthem of Israel. 28 29 Holocaust The systematic killing of approximately six million Jews by 30 the Nazis and their collaborators from the 1930s to the end of 31 World War II. 32 Intifada Armed uprising of the Palestinians that began in December of 33 1987 to protest Israeli policies and occupation of the West Bank 34 and Gaza Strip. 35 36 Irgun Underground Jewish terrorist organization very active during 198

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and after World War II in operations against British authorities in Palestine and against Arab civilians.

iron wall Term created in 1923 by Zionist leader Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky to express his contention that the Jews would have to deal with the Arabs from a position of great strength if they ever wanted to be able to negotiate a reasonable peace with them.

Jewish Agency Group established originally under the terms of the British Mandate to promote Jewish immigration and to administer the affairs of the Jewish community in Palestine prior to the 1948 declaration of the state of Israel.

jihad Islamic holy war waged against non-Muslims.

kibbutz Israeli collective farm or settlement.

Lovers of Zion Organizations established in the early 1800s to promote Jewish settlement, mostly agricultural, in Israel.

mandate Authority granted to a state by the League of Nations to govern a particular region in order to promote self-government.

Medinat Yisrael The State of Israel.

mujahid Muslim who takes part in a holy war.

Nakba Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” used by Palestinians for the flight and expulsion of Palestinian Arabs in 1948 and the defeat of the Arab armies in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Olim Persons who immigrate to Israel.

Palmach Jewish military force in Palestine created with British coopera- tion in 1941 that became the Haganah’s leading commando force.

right of return Moral and legal right of Arab refugees and their descendents to return to their pre-1948 homes in Israel and the occupied ter- ritories. 199

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Stern Gang Jewish terrorist group created in 1939 and disbanded in 1948; also known as Fighters for Israel’s Freedom.

War of Independence Term used by Jews and Israelis to refer to the first war (November 1947–March 1949) between the state of Israel and neighboring Arab countries.

White Paper Document issued in 1939 that defined British policy regarding Palestine, closing Palestine to any further Jewish immigration.

Yishuv The Jewish community in Palestine before Israel was declared a state in 1948.

Zionism Political movement founded as an official organization in 1897 by Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

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pmwhcsi.indd 200 9/10/09 11:04:40 AM Final Pages Master Chronology 1 2 3 4 5 1882 The First Aliyah (large-scale immigration of Jews to 6 Israel) begins, consisting mostly of Jews from eastern 7 Europe. 8 9 1896 Austrian journalist Theodore Herzl publishes Der 10 Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”), a pamphlet arguing for 11 a Jewish state. 12 13 1897 The First Jewish Zionist Congress convenes in Basel, 14 Switzerland; the World Zionist Organization is 15 ­founded. 16 17 1903 The First Aliyah ends. 18 19 1904 The Second Aliyah begins, consisting mostly of Jews 20 from Russia and Poland. 21 22 1909 The first modern all-Jewish city, Tel Aviv, is founded. 23 24 1910 The first kibbutz (collective farm), Degania , is 25 founded. 26 27 1913 The Second Aliyah ends. 28 29 1914 World War I begins. 30 31 1916 The Arabs revolt against Turkish Ottoman rule; the 32 Sykes-Picot Agreement divides the Middle East into 33 areas of influence for France, Great Britain, and others. 34 35 1917 The British government issues the Balfour Declaration, 36 201

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pledging support for establishment of a “Jewish national home” in Palestine.

1918 World War I ends; the British bring to an end four hun- dred years of Ottoman rule in Palestine.

1919 The Third Aliyah begins, consisting mostly of Jews from Russia.

1920 The British Mandate over Israel is issued; the Haganah (Jewish defense organization) is founded.

1921 Arabs riot against Jews in Hebron, Jerusalem, and Jaffa.

1922 League of Nations grants Britain a mandate for Palestine.

1923 The Third Aliyah ends; the Palestine British Mandate officially comes into force; Britain divides Palestine into two districts, the eastern three-fourths of territory for Transjordan and the rest set aside for a Jewish national homeland.

1924 The Fourth Aliyah begins, consisting mostly of Jews from Poland.

1928 The Fourth Aliyah ends.

1929 Arabs riot in Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed.

1932 The Fifth Aliyah begins, consisting mostly of Jews flee- ing and neighboring countries.

1936 Arab militants begin instigating anti-Jewish and anti- British riots, which go on for three years.

1937 The British Peel Commission recommends the partition of Palestine. 202

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1939 The Fifth Aliyah ends; World War II begins; the Holocaust in Europe begins; a British White Paper limits Jewish immigration into Palestine and restricts Jewish land purchases.

1941 The (Jewish military force) is created.

1945 World War II and the Holocaust in Europe end; the League of Arab States is formed in Cairo, Egypt; the British limit Jewish immigration into Palestine to fifteen hundred persons a month.

1946 The British government resists increased Jewish immi- gration from Europe to Palestine; the Irgun (Jewish militant organization) bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which houses the British military command and the Mandatory government secretariat.

1947 Britain announces it will end its mandate for Palestine and refers the future of Palestine to the United Nations; the Irgun and Stern Gang fighters massacre more than a hundred Palestinian villagers in Deir Yassin near Jerusalem; the United Nations votes to partition Palestine into independent Jewish and Arab states; Arabs riot in Jerusalem and blockade the city; the war for independence begins.

1948 May 14: The British mandate ends; the State of Israel is proclaimed; hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee; the United States and the Soviet Union recognize Israel.

May 15: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invade Israel.

1949 Israel’s first national elections take place; the first 120- seat Knesset (parliament) goes into session; Chaim Weizmann is elected the first president of Israel; David 203

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Ben-Gurion becomes the first prime minister of Israel; Israel signs armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria; the War of Independence ends; Israel takes its seat as the fifty-ninth member of the United Nations.

1950 Transjordan annexes the West Bank and renames it the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

1952 The mass immigration to Israel from Europe and Arab countries ends.

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pmwhcsi.indd 204 9/10/09 11:04:41 AM Final Pages Master For Further Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Books J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli 6 Independence. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 1996. 7 Michael T. Benson, Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. 8 Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997. 9 10 Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 11 2003. 12 , Israel: A History. New York: Morrow, 1998. 13 14 Eunice Holliday, Letters from Jerusalem During the Palestine Mandate. London: Radcliffe Press, 1997. 15 16 Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller, eds., Israel at Sixty: Rethinking 17 the Birth of the Jewish State. New York: Routledge, 2008. 18 Adam LeBor, City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and 19 Jews in Jaffa. New York: Norton, 2007. 20 21 Aaron Levin, Testament at the Creation of the State of Israel. 22 New York: Artisan, 1998. 23 , Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947– 24 1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 25 Benny Morris, ed., Making of Israel. Ann Arbor: University of 26 Michigan Press, 2007. 27 28 Sari Nusseibeh with Anthony David, Once upon a Country: A 29 Palestinian Life. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007. 30 Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. New York: Harcourt, 31 2003. 32 Itamar Rabinovich, ed., Israel in the Middle East: Documents 33 and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre- 34 1948 to the Present. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 35 2007. 36 205

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Ahmad H. Sa’di and Lila Abu-Lughod, Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Edward W. Said, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis. New York: Henry Holt, 1998. Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. New York: Norton, 2000. Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. New York: Bloomsbury, 2006. Ben Wicks, Dawn of the Promised Land: The Creation of Israel. New York: Hyperion, 1997.

Periodicals Haim Baram, “Israel’s Secret Fears,” New Statesman, May 19, 2008. Richard Boudreaux and Ashraf Khalil, “For some Palestinians, One State with Israel Is Better than None,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 2008. James Barker, “The Bombing of the King David Hotel,” History Today, July 2006. Ethan Bronner, “After 60 Years, Arabs in Israel Are Outsiders,” New York Times, May 7, 2008. Jeffrey Goldberg, “Prophesying Palestine,” Atlantic Monthly, April 2008. Ruth Gruber, “The Birth of a Nation, 1948,” New York Times, May 18, 2008. Muhammad Hallaj, “Recollections of the Nakba Through a Teenager’s Eyes,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 2008. Ray Hanania, “All Palestinians Not Living in Palestine Are ‘Refugees’ of al-Nakba,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 2008. 206

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David Horowitz, “Founding the New State: An Expert’s Estimate of the Tasks Ahead,” Commentary, February 1948. Efraim Karsh, “1948, Israel, and the Palestinians—the True Story,” Commentary, May 2008. Rashid Khalidi, “Palestine: Liberation Deferred,” Nation, May 26, 2008. Elias Khoury, “For Israelis, an Anniversary. For Palestinians, a Nakba,” New York Times, May 18, 2008. Tim McGirk, “The Long View,” Time, May 19, 2008. Walter Russell Mead, “Change They Can Believe In: To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their Due,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009. Benny Morris, “Why Israel Feels Threatened,” New York Times, December 29, 2008. Greg Myre, “Israel’s Acting Leader Backs Creation of Palestinian State,” New York Times, January 24, 2006. History Today, “Foundation of the State of Israel,” May 1998. Ilene R. Prusher, “Two Loyalties Tug at Arabs Who Are Israeli, Too,” Christian Science Monitor, May 6, 1998. Romesh Ratnesar, “The Dawn of Israel,” Time, March 31, 2003. Kermit Roosevelt, “Will the Arabs Fight?” Saturday Evening Post, December 27, 1947. Nancy Salvato, “A Brief History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” World & I, May 2006. Zohar Segev, “American Zionists’ Place in Israel after Statehood: From Involved Partners to Outside Supporters,” American Jewish History, September 2007. David K. Shipler, “A Conflict’s Bedrock Is Laid Bare,” New York Times, May 27, 2001. Ruth R. Wisse, “Forgetting Zion,” Commentary, October 2008. 207

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Web Sites Behind the Wall (www.lifebehindthewall.org). On this site, Palestinian teenagers share their thoughts and feelings about a broad range of topics, including their religion, freedom, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Eye 2 Israel (www.israel1.org). On this site, Israeli teenagers share their experiences growing up in Israel and their thoughts on many different topics, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and coexistence. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.mfa.gov.il/MFA). This site features facts about Israel, information about its his- tory and government, and much more, including historical documents. MidEastWeb (www.mideastweb.org). This site contains news, history, analysis, dialogue, bibliography, maps, statistics, cul- ture, and opinions about Israel and Palestine, as well as links to an e-zine, articles, and other sites for further information about the Middle East.

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pmwhcsi.indd 208 9/10/09 11:04:41 AM Final Pages Master INdex 1 2 3 4 5 A Israel intervention, 93–101 6 Abbas, Mahmoud (Abu Mazen), 149, Jewish communities, 116 7 152 leaders, 25–26 8 Abdullah, King of Trans-Jordan, 26 nationalism, 16–17, 27, 59–59, 63, 9 10 Abu Ghali, Rafat, 142–147 105 need for unity, 60, 79, 86, 187, 11 Ageel, Ghada, 150 190–191 12 Agency Executive, 25 Palestinian, 75–76, 79–82 13 Al-Aqsa Intifada, 124 14 political demands, 96 15 Al-Aqsa University, 146 rights, 72–78 Al-Habbash, Mahmud, 153–154 16 self-governance, 44 17 Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (newspaper), 153 worldwide, 78–79 18 Aliyah, 4–8, 155 Arab-Israeli War (1948), 20–21, 64, 19 Al-Shabora refugee camp, 142 187–193 20 21 American Zionism, 141 Arab-Israeli War (1967), 121 Anti-Semitism, 14, 107, 128 22 Arab-Israeli War (1973), 121 23 Arab autonomy, 48 Arafat, Yasser, 149, 191 24 Arab Christians, 195–197 Ark of the Covenant, 64 25 Arab Higher Executive, 25 26 Armistices, 105 Arab intervention, 93–101 27 Article 22, Covenant of the League of Arab League, 19, 35, 100, 177 28 Nations, 77 29 Arab Legion, 31, 179 Article XII, United Nations 30 Arab nationalism, 58–59, 63 Special Committee on Palestine 31 Arab peoples (UNSCOP), 111 32 aggression, 98–99 33 Asefath Hannivharim, 24 autonomy, 48 34 independent state, 80–83 Autoemancipation (Pinsker), 14 35 invasions, 35–36 Azm, Khaled al-, 152–153 36 209

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B Royal Commission, 60–65 Balfour, A.J., 52–56, 130, 132 social progress during, 30 UN trusteeship solution, 135–136 Balfour Declaration, 15–17, 40, 52–56 ambiguity, 127–132 Bush, George H.W., 134 incompatible pledges, 131–132 legal basis, 76–78 C underlying motives, 128–129 Calls for peace and support, 42–43 Barak, Ehud, 123 Camp David summit, 123 Begin, Menachim, 7 Ceasefire agreements, 21 Belloc, Hilaire, 106 Cecil, Robert, 128 Ben-Gurion, David, 33–43, 176, Chapter VII, UN Charter, 94 185–186 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 55, Ben-Gurion, Paula, 186 163 British Mandate of Palestine, 13, Church of the Nativity, 163 17–20 Churchill, Winston, 103, 129 approved Arab program, 69–70 Clark, Clifford, 137–141 Arab denial of British obligations, Cleveland, William, 14 68–69 Cohen, Benjamin, 140 Arab invasion, 35–36 Communist Party, 46 Arab representation, 71–72 battle for Jerusalem, 36–38 Constituent Assembly, 82 bias, 66 Corman, Ruth, 173–179 British burden of responsibility, Curtiss, Richard, 133–141 70–71 Curzon, George, 128 British inroads, 30 British withdrawal, 30–32 D end of, 28–32, 163–166, 177 Democracy models, 44–50 home for Jews, 54–56 Diaspora, 105, 132, 155 impracticality, unfairness, 68 legality, 66–73 Dissident groups, 50 negotiations, 68–73 Dome of the Rock, 163 population change, 40, 60 proposed alternative, 62–63 E road to settlement, 72–73 Eban, Abba, 93 210

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The Economist (magazine), 22–27 Jewish settlements, 47 Education, of Palestinians, 147 Khan Yunis refugee camp, 150 Egypt, 35, 98 map, 16 Palestinan escape to, 144–146 Epstein, Eliahu, 139–140 Palestinian independence over, 122 Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), 4–5, 14 Palestinian society, 189 Eshkol, Levi, 47 General Federation of Jewish labor Ethiopian Jews, 7 (Histadrut), 44, 49 European Zionism, 146 General Zionists, 24–25 George, Lloyd, 89, 128–129 F German Colony, Nablus, 162 Falasha mura, 7 Ginsburg, David, 140 Father Eugene, 162–163 Golan Heights, 121 Fifth Aliyah, 6 Governance, 44–47 Fighters for Freedom of Israel (Stern Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, 25–26, 66, gang), 50 74 First Aliyah, 4, 14 Great Britain. See also British Fourth Aliyah, 5–6 Mandate of Palestine France, 16–18, 131 frustration of, 60 non-ownership of Palestine, 75, 76 Friesel, Evyatar, 108–116 partition scheme abandonment, 68 From Time Immemorial (Peters), 154 partnership with Zionist organiza- tion, 76 G Power of Mandatory candidate Garden of Gethsemane, 163 acceptance, 58 Gat Rimmon, 181, 184 public opinion in, 59 Gaza Strip responsibility for Palestine, 61–62 Al-Shabora refugee camp, 142 termination of mandate (1948), 161 Arab invasion, 35 withdrawal from Jerusalem, 30–31 conditions, 147 The Great Immigration: Russian Jews English teachers, 146 in Israel (Siegel), 7 Hamas takeover, 191 Israeli departure, 147 H Jabalia refugee camp, 142 Haganah, 30, 36, 103, 176–179 211

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Haifa, 31, 164–166 external control, 96 Haifa Airport, 181 first Jewish wave, 14 Haifa Operational Patrol, 164 Higher Arab Committee, 69 Hamas, 191 ideology, 7 Israel as Jewish nation, 8 Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), Jewish, 4–8, 39–42, 99–100, 105 124 Jewish control, 86, 88, 96 Hebrew language, 118 Jewish problem, 88 Herzl, Theodore, 13–14 Jewish stoppage, 72–73, 78 Higher Arab Committee, 66–73, 71 limits, 19, 24, 62 Histadrut (General Federation of Nefesh B’Nefesh, 155 Jewish labor), 44, 49 neighboring state, 100 Historical connections, 40 nonnegotiable, 99–100 Historical foundations, 111–116 Olim, 4–8, 155 open gates, 42 A History of the Modern Middle East organized, 14 (Cleveland), 14 recent numbers, 8 Hitler, Adolf, 6, 102, 104 Russian, 7 H.M.S. Euryalus, 30 second Jewish wave, 14 Holocaust, 19–20, 40, 108–110 State of Israel creation reason, 13 Jewish viewpoint, 111–113 terrorism, 6 as molding factor, 113–114 White Paper of the late Mandatory reverse point of contact, 114–116 Power, 39 Hussain, Sherif, 131 Immigration Without Integration: Husseini, Abdel Qadar, 190 Third World Jews in Israel (Shama), 5 Husseini, Jamal el-, 74–82 Intercommunal War, 20 Hyrdopolitics, 121, 184 Irgun (Zionist terrorist group), 30, 50, 103 I The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab Immigration World (Shlaim), 117 Aliyah, 4–8, 155 Israel Arabs’ benefit, 60 Arab autonomy, 48 clandestine, illegal, 6 Arab intervention, 93–101 Ethiopian Jews, 7 armistices, 105 European, 105 Communist Party, 46 212

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constitution, 49 Jadallah, Mahmoud, 187–193 dissident groups, 50 Jenin, 144 financial functions, 48 Jerusalem, 58–59, 162–163, 168 governance, 44–47 Arab-Israel War and, 121 historical foundations, 111–116 Balfour’s visit to, 55 Jewish reaction, 106–107, 168–172, daily life in, 162–163, 168, 174, 175–177 177–179 Labor Party, 120 expansion of boundaries, 192 Likud Party, 119, 122 First and Second temples, destruc- Ministry of Finance, 48 tion, 112–113 Ministry of Minorities, 44, 48 Haganah defense division, 175–176 Ministry of Police, 47 Haram al-Sharif (Noble minorities, 48 Sanctuary), 124 outside factors, 102–107 inclusion in Zionist state, 25, 27 police, 47 Nefesh B’Nefesh organization, 155 political parties, 46, 50 ongoing battles in, 36–38, 50, 151, population, 118 172, 177, 184 as socialist state, 25, 49–50 Provisional Council of, 43 sovereignty, 100–101, 103 role of Western Wall in, 64 synagogue vs. state, 48–49 Royal Commission boycott in, 71 technology, weaponry, 106 terms of truce, 29 two-state solution, 125–126 troop withdrawal from, 30–32 uniqueness, 104–106 truce commission, 35 violent crimes, 47 UN trusteeship solution, 135 water rights, 121 withdrawal from, 30–31, 66, 74 West Bank settlements, 121, 123– Jerusalem Post (newspaper), 33–43 124, 126 Jesus Christ, 163 Israel Through My Lens (Rubinger, Jewish Agency, 37, 83, 86–87, 137, 171 Corman), 173 Jewish Conjoint Committee, 129 Jewish National Fund (JNF), 5 J Jewish people Jabalia refugee camp, 142 American, 116 Jabotinsky, Ze’ev, 119–120 British, 129 Jacobson, Eddie, 139 contributions, 53–54, 84, 102 213

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Eastern European, 116 Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), 4–5, 14 Ethiopian, 7 Law of Return, 105 groups, 116 League of Nations, 40, 60, 65, 69 Holocaust viewpoint, 111–113 Article 22, 77 Jewish-Gentile relationship, 113– Lebanon, 68, 100 114 Likud Party, 119, 122 militas, 135 Los Angeles Times (newspaper), 150 opposed to Zionism, 107 Palestine history, 84–86 Lovers of Zion, 14 Palestine population, 4–7, 58, 60 Lovett, Robert, 137–139, 141 Palestinian, 116 reaction to State of Israel creation, M 106–107 Magen David Adom (Israeli ambu- Russian immigrants, 7 lance service), 193 socialism, socialists, 25, 49–50 Mansfield, Howard, 159–166 Jewish Quarters, 163 Mansfield, Peter, 127–132 Jewish Socialism, 25, 49–50 Mapai (Palestine Workers’ Party), The Jewish State (Herzel), 14 24–25, 49–50 Jewish-Gentile relationship, 113–114 Marshall, George, 135, 137–140 JNF (Jewish National Fund), 5 McDonald, James, 180–186 Jordan River, 121 McMahon, Henry, 131 Medinat Yisrael (State of Israel), 34, K 39–40, 45 Katamon evacuation, 29 Meir, Golda, 25, 46–47, 97, 167, Khan Yunis refugee camp, 150 185–186 Kibbutzim, 4, 15, 49 Meyerson, Morris, 46 King David Hotel, 176 Middle East American diplomats, 134 King-Crane Commission (1919), 130 democracy in, 138 Knesset (Israeli Parliament), 93 instability, 127–132, 140–141 Knox, Charles, 181–182, 185 national governments, 131 partition, 131 L peace process, 123 Labor Party, 120 Middle East Conflict Reference 214

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Library (Pendergast, Zerbonia), Operation Moses, 7 13–21 Operation Solomon, 7 Milner, Alfred, 84 Oslo Accords, 120–123 Ministry of Finance (Israel), 48 Ottoman Empire, 15–16, 77, 84 Ministry of Minorities (Israel), 44, 48 Outside factors, 102–107 Ministry of Police (Israel), 47 Mishkenot Sha’ananim, 179 P Mizrai Party, 24 Palestine Montagu, Edwin, 128–129 Arab conquest, 84 “Moslem Holy Places,” 63 governance, 81–82 Mosque of Omar, 163 identity, 84 Mount of Olives, 163 Jewish history, 84–86 Jewish population, 4–7, 58, 60 Muslim Brotherhood, 190 as Jewish State, 89–90, 92 Muslim holy sites, 58–59, 63, 124, liberation, 84 163 Palestinian Arabs, 75–76, 79–82 travel in, 164 N two-state solution, 125–126 Nablus, 160–161 weapons in, 160–162, 165–166 Al-Nakba, 118, 142, 145–147 Palestine Administration, 77 Nazareth, 195–196 Palestine Electric Corporation, 36, 38 Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN; Jewish immi- Palestine Liberation Organization gration organization), 155 (PLO), 120, 149, 191 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 122–123 Palestine National Authority, 149 Neuwirth, Rachel, 148–157 Palestine Police, 160–166 New Yorker (magazine), 137, 139 Palestine Post (newspaper), 163 Niles, David, 139 Palestine Workers’ Party (Mapai), 1939 White Paper of the late 24–25, 49–50 Mandatory Power, 19, 39, 113 Palestinian Authority, 191 Palestinian people O Al-Aqsa Intifada, 124 Old City. See Jerusalem Arab leadership, 152–153 Olim, 4–8, 155 education, 147 215

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full-scale uprising, 123–124 R heritage, 117 Rabin, Yitzhak, 120, 122 injustice, 117–126 Red Cross, 34 iron wall, 119–120 Israel’s one-sided approach, 124 Refugees, 156–157 Muslim traditions, 160 Representative bodies, 24–25 national self-determination, 119 Revisionist Party, 27 Oslo Accords, 120–123 Right of return, 142–145 Palestinian Arabs, 75–76, 79–82 Arab claims, 154–156 poverty, 156 Arab responsibility, 152–153 right of return, 142–157 in defense of Israelis, 150–152 terrorist organizations, 151–152 international community, 156–157 Pasha, Azzam, 177 joint solution, 146–147 Peace concessions, 95–96 media support, 149–150 Peel Commission Report, 19 need for change, 147 unwarranted, 156–157 Pendergast, Sara, 13–21 Rosen, Nir, 149–150 Pendergast, Tom, 13–21 Permanent Mandates Commission, Royal Commission, 60–65, 86 League of Nations, 65 Rubinger, David, 173–179 Persian Gulf wars, 141 Russians, 7, 35 Petah Tikva, 184 Peters, Joan, 154 S Pinkser, Leo, 14 Sacks, Rachel, 194–197 PLO (Palestine Liberation Samuel, Herbert, 18–19, 57–65 Organization), 120, 149, 191 Second Aliyah, 4–5, 14–15 Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion), 36, 46 Shama, Avraham, 6 Political sovereignty, 100–101 Sharett, Moshe, 25, 46, 184 Porath, Zipporah, 167–172 Sharon, Ariel, 124 Port of Haifa, 163, 166 Shawabka clan, of Palestinians,144 Proud, Ian, 164 Shitreet, Bilot, 48 Provisional Council of Government, Shlaim, Avi, 117–126 39, 41–43 Siegel, Dina, 7 Prusher, Ilene, 187–193 Silver, Abba, 83–92, 85 216

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Six-Day War (1967), 64, 150, 192 Ten Commandments, 64 Social services, 45 Terrorism, terrorist organizations, 27, Socialism, socialists, 25, 49–50 151 Sorayda, 195–197 birth of Israel, 102 Soviet Union, 110–111 Hamas, 191 immigration, 6 State Department, U.S., 135, 137–141 Jerusalem, 162 Stations of the Cross, 163 legal, 166 Steiner, George, 104 Stern gang, 50, 103 Stern gang (Fighters for Freedom of tactics, 151 Israel), 50, 103 Zionist, 30, 50, 103, 186 Storrs, Ronald, 55 Third Aliyah, 5 Suez Canal, 129 Times of London (newspaper), 28–32 Sur Baher, 188–190, 192 Tower of David, 179 Sykes-Picot agreement, 131 Trans-Jordan, 61, 63, 68, 89, 161 Synagogue vs. state, 48–49 Truce, 97–98, 183–184 Syria, 68, 100, 129 Truce Commission, 37 T Truce Consuls, 34 Truman, Harry, 34, 103, 134–138, Talmadge, I.D.W., 44–50 136 Technology, weaponry, 106 Turkey, 58 Tegart, Charles, 160 Two-state solution, 125–126 Tel Aviv, 181–183 Two-States decision of November battle for, 34–36 (1947), 35 conditions, 48–49, 180–182 Egyptian bombing, 33, 35 U German Templar suburb, 184 Jewish activists demonstrations, 64 Ukranian pogrom, 18 kibbutzim, 4 United Nations (UN), 13 map, 16 Chapter VII, 94 1909 land auction, 13 Israel recognition, 20–21 origins, 13, 15 Security Council’s Truce settlers, 15 Commission, 35 violent crimes, 47 Two-States decision of November 217

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(1947), 35 and Works Agency for Palestinian United Nations High Commissioner Refugees in the Near East), 145, for Refugees (UNHCR), 147 154, 156 United Nations Partition Plan, 1947, UNSCOP (United Nations Special 16, 109, 134, 161 Committee on Palestine), 20, 110– Arab hostilities, 29, 174, 176–179, 111, 161 183–184, 186 Arab plans, 24–25, 191 V British withdrawal, 135 Va’ad Leumi (Israeli national coun- complex government, 24–25 cil), 24–25 fairness, 134 General Assembly vote, 91 W Holocaust’s role, 110–111 Israeli reaction, 168–172, 175–177 Wailing Wall, 29, 64, 163 Jewish militias, 135 Washington Post (newspaper), 149 odds of success, 26–27 Washington Report on Middle Eastern reaction, 22–24 Affairs (magazine), 133–134 Soviet-American proposition, Water rights, 121 110–111 Weizmann, Chaim, 17, 103, 136 US support, 134–141 West Bank, 121–126, 191 United Nations Relief and Works hydropolitics, 121 Agency for Palestinian Refugees in Israeli economic control, 126 the Near East (UNRWA), 145, 154, Israeli forces, 21, 126 156 Israeli reoccupation, 121–122 United Nations Special Committee Jenin, 144 on Palestine (UNSCOP), 20, 110– Jewish settlements, 47, 121–122 111, 161 Palestinian Authority, 191 United States (U.S.) Palestinian independence over, 122 domestic politics, 136–137 Palestinian society, 189 Palestinian problem, 133–141 Persian Gulf wars, 141 Western Wall, 29, 64, 163 recognition of Israel, 34–35, 140– Wheatcroft, Geoffrey, 102–107 141 White Paper of the late Mandatory State Department, 135, 137–141 Power (1939), 19, 39, 113 UNRWA (United Nations Relief Wilson, Woodrow, 84 218

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Women’s International Zionist American, 141 Organization, 183 appeal, 114–115 Workers of Zion (Poalel Zion), 46 discipline, 23–24 World Map, 10–11 European, 116 World opinion, 19 goal, 109, 129–130, 132 World War I, 15 Hebrew language, 118 World War II, 19, 109 Jabotinsky, 119–120 Jewish opposition, 107 Y origins, 114–115 Young Judea Machon program, 195 Palestine, 58, 75, 79 success, 118 Z terrorism, 30, 50, 103 Zerbonia, Ralph, 13–21 violence, 144–145 Zionism Zionist General Council, 102

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