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The Window Dressers: the Signatories of Israel's Proclamation

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The Window Dressers: the Signatories of Israel's Proclamation Published by Americans for The Link Middle East Understanding, Inc. Volume 48, Issue 1 Link Archives: www.ameu.org January-March 2015 The Window Dressers: The Signatories of Israel’s Proclamation of Independence By Ilan Pappe On Friday, May 14, 1948, the members of the “People’s Council,” the makeshift parliament of the Jewish community in Palestine, convened in Tel-Aviv to listen to David Ben- Gurion read aloud Israel’s Proclamation of Independence. The reading was broadcast on local radio and heard around the world. In years to come, it would be treated in Israel as an unwritten constitution that had no binding legal powers but provided moral guidance for the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Its model was the American Constitution and in order to adapt it to (Continued on Page 3.) The Link Page 2 AMEU Board of Directors About This Issue Jane Adas (Vice President) Elizabeth D. Barlow In discussing Israel’s upcoming demnation in the Knesset, Israel’s Edward Dillon elections this March, Amos parliament, and to several death Rod Driver Yadlin, Israel’s former chief of threats. John Goelet defense intelligence, was quoted This is Pappe’s third article for in The New York Times as saying David Grimland The Link. His first, our Jan.-March, that Israel’s political center needs 1998 issue “What Really Happened Richard Hobson (Treasurer) to run on the core values of its Anne R. Joyce Fifty Years Ago?,” was followed by founding prime minister, David our April-May, Hon. Robert V. Keeley Ben-Gurion. That 2008 issue “State of Kendall Landis is, it needs to run Denial: Israel, 1948- Robert L. Norberg (President) on building “a 2008.” Hon. Edward L. Peck state that has a Donald L. Snook Jewish majority, a state that is dem- On page 15, we Rosmarie Sunderland ocratic where all list several books James M. Wall its citizens are and videos rele- equal.” vant to our present AMEU National topic, including Ah, but there’s Council Pappe’s signature the rub: Can the Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. work “The Ethnic Jewish state be William R. Chandler Cleansing of Pales- both Jewish and Kathleen Christison tine.” democratic? Paul Findley Ilan Pappe For the answer Moorhead Kennedy to that question, our feature writ- We also invite our readers to Ann Kerr er Ilan Pappe goes back to May visit our redesigned website: Nancy Lapp 14, 1948, back to David Ben- www.ameu.org. There you will George E. Mendenhall Gurion, and back to the signers of find every Link issue going back to Mary Norton Israel’s Declaration of Independ- 1968, as well as rare monographs, Don W. Wagner ence. such as Dr. Fayez Sayegh’s critical analysis of the Camp David Ac- Pappe, an Israeli historian, cur- Executive Director cords. All are easily downloadable rently teaches at Exeter Universi- John F. Mahoney in pdf format. The site also con- ty in England, where he directs tains a listing of books for sale at the European Center for Palestine discount prices, many now out-of- AMEU (ISSN 0024-4007) Studies, and co-directs the Center grants permission to print. Also, there is a short, ani- for Ethno-Political Studies. reproduce material from The mated video presentation of the Link in part or in whole. Before he went to Exeter in 2008, Palestinian-Israeli question, pre- AMEU must be credited and he had been teaching at the Uni- pared by Jewish Voice for Peace. one copy forwarded to our versity of Haifa, where his en- office at 475 Riverside Drive, Room 245, New York, New dorsement of the boycott of Israeli York 10115-0245. Tel. 212- universities led to the call for his John F. Mahoney 870-2053; Fax 212-870- resignation by the university’s Executive Director 2050; E-mail: president. It also led to his con- [email protected]; Website: www.ameu.org. The Link Page 3 (Continued from Page 1.) That promise of a democracy is not the rea- son why members of the international commu- that document an American Jew, an academic nity still support Israel today or at least turn a scholar and a rabbi, Shalom Zvi Davidowitz, blind eye to its criminal policies vis-à-vis the joined the team that articulated the final draft of Palestinians. Their reasons for doing so are the proclamation. complex and this is not the place to explore The proclamation summarizes the consensu- them. But this pledge to democracy is the con- al Zionist narrative of the day, with all its princi- venient pretext for Jews around the world, liber- pal fabrications, historical distortions and total als, socialists and democrats in the West and denial of the native population and its fate. And their counterparts inside Israel, for providing yet miraculously, without any explanation, the immunity other states would never enjoy twice in the proclamation the natives are men- had they pursued similar policies. tioned, as if they appeared out of the blue. First The main litmus test, as offered by the proc- they are referred to as the people who benefited lamation itself, for examining the democratic na- from the Zionist endeavour in Palestine that ture of the future state is the treatment of the made the desert bloom and modernized the non-Jewish minority in its midst. primitive land beyond recognition. More im- portantly, they are alluded to as future citizens By itself this was a problematic notion in of the Jewish State whose treatment in the future that, even as the final draft was being written, would prove that the Zionist movement found- that minority was being subjected to an ethnic ed the only democracy in the Middle East. cleansing operation that had begun three months earlier. And quite a few of those signing Here is the relevant paragraph: the proclamation were privy to the plans to THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for complete the ethnic cleansing operation in such Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering a way that it would be very easy to grant rights of the Exiles; it will foster the development to a minority that would not be there. of the country for the benefit of all its in- habitants; it will be based on freedom, jus- In any event, the document proved more im- tice and peace as envisaged by the prophets portant than intended as a small minority did of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of remain in the Jewish state. Much larger than ex- social and political rights to all its inhabit- pected probably because the locals showed ants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it steadfastness, were partially protected by Arab will guarantee freedom of religion, con- troops, and benefitted at the end of the day science, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all reli- from the fatigue of an army that was by the end gions; and it will be faithful to the princi- of 1948 too stretched and too exhausted to com- ples of the Charter of the United Nations. plete the job. As we shall see some of the signatories want- This particular paragraph was the window ed to rectify this by further ethnic cleansing op- dressing aimed at safeguarding Israel’s future erations, but the majority reconciled to the pres- international image and status. While the histor- ence of a Palestinian minority and imposed a ical narrative in the proclamation described ac- harsh military rule on it so as to ensure that its curately the international complacency in the “rights” do not clash with the ethnic identity dispossession of Palestine, it also incurred the and ideology of the Jewish state. promise that this colonialist act would be re- deemed by the foundation of the only democra- Thus in many ways the proclamation was cy in the Middle East. born in sin. It was drafted while Jewish forces The Link Page 4 were ethnically cleansing most of Palestine’s or ethnicity did not play a major role in the way towns but before they had to face troops from you treated your neighbor or the land itself. One the Arab world sent by an enraged public opin- Arab Jew came from Yemen. ion in the region demanding its reluctant gov- Four of the signatories, at least on paper, ernments put an end to the onslaught that had were not Zionists—one a member of the com- already caused hundreds of thousands of refu- munist party and three of the ultra orthodox gees and hundreds of massacred Palestinians parties. In the end, the proclamation, written as if an It is hard to know whether any of these sign- ethnic state can be a democratic one, was the ers were cognizant of the charade they were per- biggest exercise ever in squaring the circle on forming, and harder still to believe they were paper. It can of course be done with words. genuinely convinced they could square the cir- There is a Hebrew adage: “the paper tolerates cle. anything.” The reality, however, is that even be- fore the ink dried on the paper, up until today, I would like to look at their actions before the circle cannot be squared and a project such and after the proclamation in order to examine as the Jewish state is either democratic or ethnic their relationship with democracy and its values. —it cannot be both. They were invited to sign not as individuals but as representatives of the various political fac- This article focuses on the 35 men and two tions and parties in the Zionist community and women who signed this document.
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