In 1923, Jabotinsky contemplated how to achieve Zionist aims of a Jewish majority. He understood that to do so Jews had to be protected by an “iron wall” so to speak, maintained by the British, behind which Jews would be free to immigrate subject to absorptive capacity. He disabused his fellow Zionists of any possibility of reaching a voluntary agreement with the Arabs so long as they had any hope of preventing it. The reason being that “there has never been an indigenous inhabitant anywhere or at any time who has ever accepted the settlement of others in his country.” (Except I must note, Europe today.)
And he knew that the Arabs would not be bought off with offers of of material betterment. In fact he rejected “endless talks” to get an agreement, which no amount of concessions could achieve, and called such talks “a snare and a delusion”. Sound familiar. He wrote “We would destroy our cause if we proclaimed the necessity of an agreement.” His message to us today is end the peace process and colonize the land. Ted Belman
Contrary to the excellent rule of getting to the point immediately, I must begin this article with a personal introduction. The author of these lines is considered to be an enemy of the Arabs, a proponent of their expulsion, etc. This is not true. My emotional relationship to the Arabs is the same as it is to all other peoples – polite indifference. My political relationship is characterized by two principles. First: the expulsion of the Arabs from Palestine is absolutely impossible in any form. There will always be two nations in Palestine – which is good enough for me, provided the Jews become the majority. Second: I am proud to have been a member of that group which formulated the Helsingfors Program. We formulated it, not only for Jews, but for all peoples, and its basis is the equality of all nations. I am prepared to swear, for us and our descendants, that we will never destroy this equality and we will never attempt to expel or oppress the Arabs. Our credo, as the reader can see, is completely peaceful. But it is absolutely another matter if it will be possible to achieve our peaceful aims through peaceful means. This depends, not on our relationship with the Arabs, but exclusively on the Arabs’ relationship to Zionism.
After this introduction I can now get to the point. That the Arabs of the Land of Israel should willingly come to an agreement with us is beyond all hopes and dreams at present, and in the foreseeable future. This inner conviction of mine I express so categorically not because of any wish to dismay the moderate faction in the Zionist camp but, on the contrary, because I wish to save them from such dismay. Apart from those who have been virtually “blind” since childhood, all the other moderate Zionists have long since understood that there is not even the slightest hope of ever obtaining the agreement of the Arabs of the Land of Israel to “Palestine” becoming a country with a Jewish majority.
Every reader has some idea of the early history of other countries which have been settled. I suggest that he recall all known instances. If he should attempt to seek but one instance of a country settled with the consent of those born there he will not succeed. The inhabitants (no matter whether they are civilized or savages) have always put up a stubborn fight. Furthermore, how the settler acted had no effect whatsoever. The Spaniards who conquered Mexico and Peru, or our own ancestors in the days of Joshua ben Nun behaved, one might say, like plunderers. But those “great explorers,” the English, Scots and Dutch who were the first real pioneers of North America were people possessed of a very high ethical standard; people who not only wished to leave the redskins at peace but could also pity a fly; people who in all sincerity and innocence believed that in those virgin forests and vast plains ample space was available for both the white and red man. But the native resisted both barbarian and civilized settler with the same degree of cruelty.
Another point which had no effect at all was whether or not there existed a suspicion that the settler wished to remove the inhabitant from his land. The vast areas of the U.S. never contained more than one or two million Indians. The inhabitants fought the white settlers not out of fear that they might be expropriated, but simply because there has never been an indigenous inhabitant anywhere or at any time who has ever accepted the settlement of others in his country. Any native people – its all the same whether they are civilized or savage – views their country as their national home, of which they will always be the complete masters. They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a new partner. And so it is for the Arabs. Compromisers in our midst attempt to convince us that the Arabs are some kind of fools who can be tricked by a softened formulation of our goals, or a tribe of money grubbers who will abandon their birth right to Palestine for cultural and economic gains. I flatly reject this assessment of the Palestinian Arabs. Culturally they are 500 years behind us, spiritually they do not have our endurance or our strength of will, but this exhausts all of the internal differences. We can talk as much as we want about our good intentions; but they understand as well as we what is not good for them. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile. This childish fantasy of our “Arabo-philes” comes from some kind of contempt for the Arab people, of some kind of unfounded view of this race as a rabble ready to be bribed in order to sell out their homeland for a railroad network.
This view is absolutely groundless. Individual Arabs may perhaps be bought off but this hardly means that all the Arabs in Eretz Israel are willing to sell a patriotism that not even Papuans will trade. Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement.
That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of “Palestine” into the “Land of Israel”.
Some of us imagined that a misunderstanding had occurred, that because the Arabs did not understand our intentions, they opposed us, but, if we were to make clear to them how modest and limited our aspirations are, they would then stretch out their arms in peace. This too is a fallacy that has been proved so time and again. I need recall only one incident. Three years ago, during a visit here, Sokolow delivered a great speech about this very “misunderstanding,” employing trenchant language to prove how grossly mistaken the Arabs were in supposing that we intended to take away their property or expel them from the country, or to suppress them. This was definitely not so. Nor did we even want a Jewish state. All we wanted was a regime representative of the League of Nations. A reply to this speech was published in the Arab paper Al Carmel in an article whose content I give here from memory, but I am sure it is a faithful account.
Our Zionist grandees are unnecessarily perturbed, its author wrote. There is no misunderstanding. What Sokolow claims on behalf of Zionism is true. But the Arabs already know this. Obviously, Zionists today cannot dream of expelling or suppressing the Arabs, or even of setting up a Jewish state. Clearly, in this period they are interested in only one thing – that the Arabs not interfere with Jewish immigration. Further, the Zionists have pledged to control immigration in accordance with the country’s absorptive economic capacity. But the Arabs have no illusions, since no other conditions permit the possibility of immigration.
The editor of the paper is even willing to believe that the absorptive capacity of Eretz Israel is very great, and that it is possible to settle many Jews without affecting one Arab. “Just that is what the Zionists want, and what the Arabs do not want. In this way the Jews will, little by little, become a majority and, ipso facto, a Jewish state will be formed and the fate of the Arab minority will depend on the goodwill of the Jews. But was it not the Jews themselves who told us how ‘ pleasant’ being a minority was? No misunderstanding exists. Zionists desire one thing – freedom of immigration – and it is Jewish immigration that we do not want.”
The logic employed by this editor is so simple and clear that it should be learned by heart and be an essential part of our notion of the Arab question. It is of no importance whether we quote Herzl or Herbert Samuel to justify our activities. Colonization itself has its own explanation, integral and inescapable, and understood by every Arab and every Jew with his wits about him. Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible.
A plan that seems to attract many Zionists goes like this: If it is impossible to get an endorsement of Zionism by Palestine’s Arabs, then it must be obtained from the Arabs of Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and perhaps of Egypt. Even if this were possible, it would not change the basic situation. It would not change the attitude of the Arabs in the Land of Israel towards us. Seventy years ago, the unification of Italy was achieved, with the retention by Austria of Trent and Trieste. However, the inhabitants of those towns not only refused to accept the situation, but they struggled against Austria with redoubled vigor. If it were possible (and I doubt this) to discuss Palestine with the Arabs of Baghdad and Mecca as if it were some kind of small, immaterial borderland, then Palestine would still remain for the Palestinians not a borderland, but their birthplace, the center and basis of their own national existence. Therefore it would be necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs, which is the same condition that exists now.
But an agreement with Arabs outside the Land of Israel is also a delusion. For nationalists in Baghdad, Mecca and Damascus to agree to such an expensive contribution (agreeing to forego preservation of the Arab character of a country located in the center of their future “federation”) we would have to offer them something just as valuable. We can offer only two things: either money or political assistance or both. But we can offer neither. Concerning money, it is ludicrous to think we could finance the development of Iraq or Saudi Arabia, when we do not have enough for the Land of Israel. Ten times more illusionary is political assistance for Arab political aspirations. Arab nationalism sets itself the same aims as those set by Italian nationalism before 1870 and Polish nationalism before 1918: unity and independence. These aspirations mean the eradication of every trace of British influence in Egypt and Iraq, the expulsion of the Italians from Libya, the removal of French domination from Syria, Tunis, Algiers and Morocco. For us to support such a movement would be suicide and treachery. If we disregard the fact that the Balfour Declaration was signed by Britain, we cannot forget that France and Italy also signed it. We cannot intrigue about removing Britain from the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf and the elimination of French and Italian colonial rule over Arab territory. Such a double game cannot be considered on any account.
Thus we conclude that we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say “no” and depart from Zionism. Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.
Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with our efforts.
All of us, without exception, are constantly demanding that this power strictly fulfill its obligations. In this sense, there are no meaningful differences between our “militarists” and our “vegetarians.” One prefers an iron wall of Jewish bayonets, the other proposes an iron wall of British bayonets, the third proposes an agreement with Baghdad, and appears to be satisfied with Baghdad’s bayonets – a strange and somewhat risky taste’ but we all applaud, day and night, the iron wall. We would destroy our cause if we proclaimed the necessity of an agreement, and fill the minds of the Mandatory with the belief that we do not need an iron wall, but rather endless talks. Such a proclamation can only harm us. Therefore it is our sacred duty to expose such talk and prove that it is a snare and a delusion.
Two brief remarks: In the first place, if anyone objects that this point of view is immoral, I answer: It is not true; either Zionism is moral and just or it is immoral and unjust. But that is a question that we should have settled before we became Zionists. Actually we have settled that question, and in the affirmative.
We hold that Zionism is moral and just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done, no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet agree with it or not.
There is no other morality.
All this does not mean that any kind of agreement is impossible, only a voluntary agreement is impossible. As long as there is a spark of hope that they can get rid of us, they will not sell these hopes, not for any kind of sweet words or tasty morsels, because they are not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered, but still living. A living people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions only when there is no hope left. Only when not a single breach is visible in the iron wall, only then do extreme groups lose their sway, and influence transfers to moderate groups. Only then would these moderate groups come to us with proposals for mutual concessions. And only then will moderates offer suggestions for compromise on practical questions like a guarantee against expulsion, or equality and national autonomy.
I am optimistic that they will indeed be granted satisfactory assurances and that both peoples, like good neighbors, can then live in peace. But the only path to such an agreement is the iron wall, that is to say the strengthening in Palestine of a government without any kind of Arab influence, that is to say one against which the Arabs will fight. In other words, for us the only path to an agreement in the future is an absolute refusal of any attempts at an agreement now.
]nbvbgb>@ Felix Quigley:
Ben Gurion was a Capitalist? That would be news to him and just about everybody else who lived during his time. He was a Socialist par excellence and had no brook with any Capitalist except to raise money from them but he never allowed almost any of them to gain a foothold in Israel except a small few like Haim Shiff. (Dan Hotels) Later taken over by the Israel government.
g
Capitalism for us is not a religion, we have tried socialism and found it deficient and wanting but not all. We have kept some like Universal education and health care and what didn’t work we eliminated most of the residue but certainly by any means all. What ever works best for the most is the rule of thumb and if a mix of socialism and capitalism works best for us that’s what should be kept until such time it proves unworkable and another system or hybrid does work best for us. Capitalism is an economic system not the Holy Grail.
Secular Zionism is the Jewish movement of National Liberation whose primary aim was attaining a Jewish sovereign state in Palestine and bringing the Jews scattered around the world home. By any criteria I would assess that those aims have been accomplished not in full but enough to say that that that revolutionary aspect of Zionism is done at least for the time being.
Capitalism does not cause or breed wars any more or less than any other economic/social system and if you have evidence to refute this let’s have it. Antisemetism has been with the Jews in one form or another since the time of Abraham and is not contingent upon one system or another. It is so pathological that were every Jew in the world to disappear there would still be antisemitism in some form.
This may be true but it has little to do with them being bourgeois or not. It has more to do with their being politicians with no beliefs or faith and a large dose of corruption and fear.
I lined up with no one and even said not once that the Serbs were being shafted, that said as a Jew I could care less about the Serbs and concede that the Serbs don’t give a rats ass about the Jews. I said that in the over 600 years of conflict both sides slaughtered each other which they did. I said that Serbs on the whole were little better in their treatment of Jews all 4-10,000 of them than most other Europeans and that there was no objective reason to side with or against them. Actually the Jews fared better under the Muslims in Kosovo than they did under the Serbs and the Croats were the worst of the worst. That the Serbs fought the Nazis is not disputed but there were Serb nationalists and Church Clerics who sided with the Nazis as well.
I told you many years ago I base my attachments and loyalties after I ask the question is it good or bad for the Jews not on other criteria.
What millions of Jews were saved and rescued because of the Serbs?
What damage? Politically bankrupt? This is your opinion and you have said it many times but you never say what damage nor what you consider constitutes our political bankruptcy? I think it’s about time you stop beating around the bush and spell out what you mean.
So now you are calling me antisemitic?
Get a grip Felix.
/
One elementary issue that seems to be overlooked in Jabotinsy’s treatise and the comments that followed, is the idea that Zionism is not man’s idea, but God’s. Even a short wading into the Torah and Tanakh will point out that God gave us the prophetic word that He would scatter the Jewish people to the far corners of the world (See Deuteronomy 28:62 thru Deuteronomy 30:7) and that HE would regather Israel to the land that “belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.” While it is a struggle to dialogue with, make decisions, and even fight with the enemies of Israel, God is seeing the process to completion. Israel, in the end, WINS. No question! This is God’s plan! The only question remaining is an individual one. How will each one of us decide to fit into His plan? Will we be obedient to His Law and Truth, or will we try to do everything in the arm of the flesh? With all of the possible permutations today, it is mind-boggling to see the whole plan of how Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc will act and/or react to life. Only the Almighty knows it ALL. But, as we submit to Him who does know it all…we will be winners in the end.
@ yamit82:
Two of my reply’s Re: Trotsky and the Jews were blocked by Ted’s filter.
@ Felix Quigley:
Trotsky and the Jewish Problem
an excerpt from an article on “Thermidor and Anti-Semitism” written in 1937.
Some would-be “pundits” have accused me of “suddenly” raising the “Jewish question” and of intending to create some kind of ghetto for the Jews. I can only shrug my shoulders in pity. I have lived my whole life outside of Jewish circles. I have always worked in the Russian workers movement. My native tongue is Russian. Unfortunately, I have not even learned to read Jewish. The Jewish question, therefore, has never occupied the center of my attention.
But that does not mean that I have the right to be blind to the Jewish problem which exists and demands a solution. “The friends of the USSR” are satisfied with the creation of Birobidjan. I will not stop at this point to consider whether it was built on a sound foundation and what type of regime existed there (Birobidjan cannot help reflecting all the vices of bureaucratic despotism). But not a single progressive thinking individual will object to the USSR designating a special territory for those of its citizens who feel themselves to be Jews, who use the Jewish language in preference to all others, and who wish to live as a compact mass.
Is this or is this not a ghetto? During the period of Soviet democracy, of completely voluntary migration, there could be no talk of ghettoes. But the Jewish question and the very manner in which settlements of Jews occurred, assumes an international aspect. Are we not correct in saying that a world socialist federation will have to make possible the creation of a Biro-bidjan for those Jews who wish to have their own autonomous republic as the arena for their own culture?
It may be presumed that a socialist democracy will not resort to compulsory assimilation. It may very well be that within two or three generations the boundaries of an independent Jewish republic, as of many other national regions, will be erased. I have neither time nor desire to meditate on this. Our descendants will know better than we what to do. I have in mind a transitional historical period when the Jewish “question” as such, is still acute and demands adequate measures from a world federation of workers’ states.
The very same methods of solving the Jewish question which under decaying capitalism will have a utopian and reactionary character (Zionism) will, under the regime of a socialist federation take on real and salutary meaning. This is what I want to point out. How could any Marxist or even any consistent democrat object to this?
1937
@ Felix Quigley:
Trotsky and the Jewish problem. (Trotsky Archives)a letter which Trotsky addressed to the Jews menaced by the mounting wave of anti-semitism and fascism in the United States, calling upon them to support the revolutionary struggle of the Fourth International as the only road to their salvation. The fourth statement is from the archives of Leon Trotsky.
Dear Friend: Father Coughlin, who apparently tries to demonstrate that the absolute idealistic moral does not prevent man from being the greatest rascal, has declared over the radio that in the past I received enormous sums of money for the revolution from the Jewish bourgeoisie in the United States. I have already answered in the press that this is false. I did not receive such money, not, of course, because I would have refused financial support for the revolution, but because the Jewish bourgeoisie did not offer this support. The Jewish bourgeoisie remains true to the principle: not to give, even now when its head is concerned. Suffocating in its own contradictions, capitalism directs enraged blows against the Jews, moreover a part of these blows fall upon the Jewish bourgeoisie in spite of all its past “service” for capitalism. Measures of a philanthropical nature for refugees become less and less efficacious in comparison with the gigantic dimension of the evil burdening the Jewish people.
Now it is the turn of France. The victory of fascism in this country would signify a vast strengthening of reaction, and a monstrous growth of violent anti-semitism in all the world, above all in the United States. The number of countries which expel the Jews grows without cease. The number of countries able to accept them decreases. At the same time the exacerbation of the struggle intensifies. It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak of the future world war. But even without war the next development of world reaction signifies with certainty the physical extermination of the Jews .
Palestine appears a tragic mirage, Biro-bidjan a bureaucratic farce. The Kremlin refuses to accept refugees. The “anti-fascist” congresses of old ladies and young careerists do not have the slightest importance. Now more than ever, the fate of the Jewish people—not only their political but also their physical fate—is indissolubly linked with the emancipating struggle of the international proletariat. Only audacious mobilization of the workers against reaction, creation of workers’ militia, direct physical resistance to the fascist gangs, increasing self-confidence, activity and audacity on the part of all the oppressed can provoke a change in the relation of forces, stop the world wave of fascism, and open a new chapter in the history of mankind.
The Fourth International was the first to proclaim the danger of fascism and to indicate the way of salvation. The Fourth International calls upon the Jewish popular masses not to delude themselves but to face openly the menacing reality. Salvation lies only in revolutionary struggle. The “sinews” of revolutionary struggle, as of war, are funds. With the progressive and perspicacious elements of the Jewish people rests the obligation to come to the help of the revolutionary vanguard. Time presses. A day is now equivalent to a month or even to a year. That thou doest, do quickly!
December 22, 1938
The attempt to solve the Jewish question through the migration of Jews to Palestine can now be seen for what it is, a tragic mockery of the Jewish people. Interested in winning the sympathies of the Arabs who are more numerous than the Jews, the British government has sharply altered its policy toward the Jews, and has actually renounced its promise to help them found their “own home” in a foreign land. The future development of military events may well transform Palestine into a bloody trap for several hundred thousand Jews. Never was it so clear as it is today that the salvation of the Jewish people is bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system.
July, 1940
@ Felix Quigley:
I saw nothing there to indicate that ‘Lev’ was a Zionist. So help me out and lead me by the hand to your proof texts that you claim he was.
Trotsky like Ninety-nine percent of our Jewish thinkers thought: Because our crisis is that of the entire world, we must solve the world’s crisis, and then ours will be resolved; socialism, democracy, the danger of world war – the resolution of our crisis will come with the resolution of the world crisis. This seems a logical solution. But the solution proposed by a movement of national liberation is different: Resolve the two crises by separating completely from the foreign world, and returning to our own. Thus we can be rid of both crises. (The Jewish crisis and the world’s)
Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2008. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons License [
Leon Trotsky On the Jewish Problem
Trotsky interview given to correspondents of the Jewish press upon his arrival in Mexico.
Before trying to answer your questions I ought to warn you that unfortunately I have not had the opportunity to learn the Jewish language, which moreover has been developed only since I became an adult. I have not had, and I do not have the possibility of following the Jewish press, which prevents me from giving a precise opinion on the different aspects of so important and tragic a problem. I cannot therefore claim any special authority in replying to your questions. Nevertheless I am going to try and say what I think about it.
During my youth I rather leaned toward the prognosis that the Jews of different countries would be assimilated and that the Jewish question would thus disappear in a quasi-automatic fashion. The historical development of the last quarter of a century has not confirmed this perspective. Decaying capitalism has everywhere swung over to an exacerbated nationalism, one part of which is anti-semitism. The Jewish question has loomed largest in the most highly developed capitalist country of Europe, in Germany.
On the other hand the Jews of different countries have created their press and developed the Yiddish language as an instrument adapted to modern-culture. One must therefore reckon with the fact that the Jewish nation will maintain itself for an entire epoch to come. Now the nation cannot normally exist without a common territory. Zionism springs from this very idea. But the facts of every passing day demonstrate to us that Zionism is incapable of resolving the Jewish question. The conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine acquires a more and more tragic and more and more menacing character. I do not at all believe that the Jewish question can be resolved within the framework of rotting capitalism and under the control of British imperialism.
And how, you ask me, can socialism solve this question? On this point I can but offer hypotheses. Once socialism has become master of our planet or at least of its most important sections, it will have unimaginable resources in all domains. Human history has witnessed the epoch of great migrations on the basis of barbarism. Socialism will open the possibility of great migrations on the basis of the most developed technique and culture. It goes without saying that what is here involved is not compulsory displacements, that is, the creation of new ghettos for certain nationalities, but displacements freely consented to, or rather demanded by certain nationalities or parts of nationalities. The dispersed Jews who would want to be reassembled in the same community will find a sufficiently extensive and rich spot under the sun. The same possibility will be opened for the Arabs, as for all other scattered nations. National topography will become a part of the planned economy . This is the grand historical perspective that I envisage. To work for international socialism means also to work for the solution of the Jewish question.
You ask me if the Jewish question still exists in the USSR. Yes, it exists, just as the Ukrainian, the Georgian, even the Russian questions exist there. The omnipotent bureaucracy stifles the development of national culture just as it does the whole of culture. Worse still, the country of the great proletarian revolution is now passing through a period of profound reaction. If the revolutionary wave revived the finest sentiments of human solidarity, the Thermidorian reaction has stirred up all that is low, dark and backward in this agglomeration of 170 million people. To reinforce its domination the bureaucracy does not even hesitate to resort in a scarcely camouflaged manner to chauvinistic tendencies, above all to anti-semitic ones. The latest Moscow trial, for example, was staged with the hardly concealed design of presenting internationalists as faithless and lawless Jews who are capable of selling themselves to the German Gestapo.
Since 1925 and above all since 1926, anti-semitic demagogy, well camouflaged, unattackable, goes hand in hand with symbolic trials against avowed pogromists. You ask me if the old Jewish petty bourgeoisie in the USSR has been socially assimilated by the new soviet environment. I am indeed at a loss to give you a clear reply. The social and national statistics in the USSR are extremely tendentious. They do not serve to set forth the truth, but above all to glorify the leaders, the chiefs, the creators of happiness. An important part of the Jewish petty bourgeoisie has been absorbed by the formidable apparatuses of the state, industry, commerce, the cooperatives, etc., above all in their lower and middle layers. This fact engenders an anti-semitic state of feeling and the leaders manipulate it with a cunning skill in order to canalize and to direct especially against the Jews the existing discontent against the bureaucracy.
On Biro-bidjan I can give you no more than my personal evaluations. I am not acquainted with this region and still less with the conditions in which the Jews have settled there. In any case it can be no more than a very limited experience. The USSR alone would still be too poor to resolve its own Jewish question, even under a regime much more socialist than the present one. The Jewish question, I repeat, is indissolubly bound up with the complete emancipation of humanity. Everything else that is done in this domain can only be a palliative and often even a two-edged blade, as the example of Palestine shows. January 18, 1937
A lesson Israels leaders forgot or ignored.
Once upon a time Israel had real leaders with Brains, Courage, Wisdom, Vision and Leadership!
Passive Defense
by David Raziel
Commander in Chief of the Irgun from 1937-1941
“If the objective of the war is to break the will of the enemy; we clearly cannot be content with defensive action. Such a method of defense, which enables the enemy to attack as he sees fit and to retreat at will, to reorganize and to attack again – such defense is known as passive defense‚ and ends in defeat and ruin; he who does not wish to be defeated must attack.”
@ dweller:
Compare the THE IDEOLOGY OF THE LEHI National Revival Principles (HaTechiya) The Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (FFI) – The LEHI with either jabo’s stated aims and ideology and that of stern who wrote the LEHI statement of principles. I inclose them below:
1. THE NATION
The Jewish people is a covenanted people, the originator of monotheism, formulator of the prophetic teachings, standard bearer of human culture, guardian of glorious patrimony. The Jewish people is schooled in self-sacrifice and suffering; its vision, survivability and faith in redemption are indestructible.
Stern
2. THE HOMELAND
The homeland in the Land of Israel within the borders delineated in the Bible (“To your descendants, I shall give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great Euphrates River.” Genesis 15:18) This is the land of the living, where the entire nation shall live in safety.
3. THE NATION AND ITS LAND
Israel conquered the land with the sword. There it became a great nation and only there it will be reborn. Hence Israel alone has a right to that land. This is am absolute right. It has never expired and never will.
4. THE GOALS
1. Redemption of the land.
2. Establishment of sovereignty.
3. Revival of the nation.
There is no sovereignty without the redemption of the land, and there is no national revival without sovereignty.
4. These are the goals of the organization during the period of war and conquest:
5. EDUCATION
Educate the nation to love freedom and zealously guard Israel’s eternal patrimony. Inculcate the idea that the nation is master to its own fate. Revive the doctrine that “The sword and the book came bound together from heaven” (Midrash Vayikra Rabba 35:8)
6. UNITY
The unification of the entire nation around the banner of the Hebrew freedom movement. The use of the genius, status and resources of individuals and the channeling of the energy, devotion and revolutionary fervor of the masses for the war of liberation.
7. PACTS
Make pacts with all those who are willing to help the struggle of the organization and provide direct support.
8. FORCE
Consolidate and increase the fighting force in the homeland and in the Diaspora, in the underground and in the barracks, to become the Hebrew army of liberation with its flag, arms, and commanders.
9. WAR
Constant war against those who stand in the way of fulfilling the goals.
10. CONQUEST
The conquest of the homeland from foreign rule and its eternal possession.
These are the tasks of the movement during the period of sovereignty and redemption:
11. SOVEREIGNTY
Renewal of Hebrew sovereignty over the redeemed land.
12. RULE OF JUSTICE
The establishment of a social order in the spirit of Jewish morality and prophetic justice. Under such an order no one will go hungry or unemployed. All will live in harmony, mutual respect and friendship as an example to the world.
13. REVIVING THE WILDERNESS
Build the ruins and revive the wilderness for mass immigration and population increase.
14. ALIENS
Solve the problem of alien population by exchange of population.
15. INGATHERING OF THE EXILES
Total in-gathering of the exiles to their sovereign state.
16. POWER
The Hebrew nation shall become a first-rate military, political, cultural and economical entity in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean Sea.
17. REVIVAL
The revival of the Hebrew language as a spoken language by the entire nation, the renewal of the historical and spiritual might of Israel. The purification of the national character in the fire of revival.
18. THE TEMPLE
The building of the Third Temple as a symbol of the new era of total redemption.
Yair broke away due to a disagreement over priorities: the Irgun, believed that the fight against the British had to be suspended for the duration of World War Two, since the British army was engaged in defeating the Nazis; the Irgun therefore limited their actions against the British to those organizations and units actively trying to prevent Jewish immigration into the Land of Israel. Stern, by contrast, believed that the British constituted the enemy of the Jewish People no less than the Germans, as they were actively preventing Jewish lives from being saved. The fate of the Jewish People, he argued, would be determined by an independent Jewish State, and the obstacle to that independence was Britain rather than Germany.
YAMIT YOU ARE A POLITICAL CHANCER OF THE FIRST ORDER
Let’s take this bit of Yamitean crapology:
.
By “Classical Zionism” you mean or should mean bourgeois Zionism, that of Herzl and Ben Gurion as two examples, both of whom were for capitalism in the world, Ben Gurion being the social democratic or labourist form of capitalist ideologue.
I do not think that form of Zionism is dead at all. It is all there is in fact. It takes in every aspect of Zionism, from Ted Belman, to yourself, and also includes all of the religious fervent movement, because they all want to live in the confines of capitalism.
But capitalism is a system of wars and is a system of deep Antisemitism.
And these bourgeois Zionists of today do not quite know what way to turn at the moment.
Rather than defend Gadhafi and defend against the Muslim Brotherhood Ted Belman called here on Israpundit for NATO to bomb Gadhafi and Libya. Obama I presume was pleased.
You Yamit lined up with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nazi Izetbegovic such was your hatred for the Serbs who did fight Hitler in every way, did actually did slow down Hitler’s invasion of Russia, and it was that which delayed the Nazi invasion of Russia, and also it was that slowing of the invasion which did for Hitler in the end, and thus the lives of Millions of Jews were rescued from certain death.
But Ted and Yamit are not dead, in fact very much alive, and very much doing great damage to the Jews.
Not dead but politically bankrupt.
And politically dangerous for the Jews. Just at the time when the Jews need the clear leadership of a Trotskyist Party in Israel, Yamit rifles the dunghill of the Antisemitism of the Whites and the Mensheviks, does not answer any of the points made by the Professor and myself concerning these Whites, and plasters his reply to me WITH ANTISEMITIC WHITE ATTACKS ON TROTSKY.
And that is where a major component of Nazi Hitlerian antisemitism came from, from the Whites. Which Yamit in 2012 regurgitates. What a pompous and stupid ignorant fool!
Yamit
You are like a little baby lying there in your pram. Your Mum has invested wisely in a rattle which she has knowingly (knowing you) bought for you and it stretches across your pram and across your little world. My what a time you are having rattling your rattle. Nothing has changed x years later, Yamit now has a new rattle, and that rattle is “Google”. Yamit Man of little resource. Yamit will go on expeditions into Google and will pick up any shite which he can find (he did it with the Serbs and he did it here with Leon Trotsky, not even taking time it appears to follow the lead I gave)
Read it carefully http://4international.me/trotsky-foresaw-in-1938-that-hitlers-programme-would-led-to-the-holocaust/
and answer who else was making such a prediction for the fate of the Jews, with or without war, in 1938. No waffle yamit, I need names and sources.
Ninety years too late. So what do we do now that the horse is out of the barn?
@ yamit82:
More samples of “evidence at hand”:
I could give you more, but I think you can see the arc & direction of the man’s thinking. In any case, I can’t put any more time into it at this sitting; I had to type out all the above directly from the book — couldn’t find it online (notwithstanding the fairly recent printing).
@ yamit82:
Assumption is based directly on the evidence at hand. A few [more] samples (again, note the continuing pattern):
One more, coming up shortly.
@ yamit82:
Right.
Wrong. Actually the assumption is based directly on the evidence at hand. A few samples:
I’ll provide more examples in another post (trying to keep these to under 400 wds) — but they should be seen as part of a pattern & directional arc.
@ yamit82:
It must be exhilarating to be able to judge history after the fact.
But then as they say, hindsight is typically 20-20.
As Kjerkegaard noted, however, the reason history is so commonly misunderstood is that people conveniently & egotistically overlook the fact that these judgments are always made in reverse gear
— while the events themselves are of course always LIVED in the forward gears. . . .
Mostly Schechtman — but I think Katz touches on it as well in Lone Wolf.
And an open-minded searcher shouldn’t have much trouble finding additional evidence.
In fact, you might want to include his poetry in any exploration of the matter.
@ yamit82:
“Yemach shmo”?!!!?
— as in, “may his name be blotted out“?
I mean, I understand that you don’t like his giving up the Sinai for ‘Peace’; and you don’t like the ‘autonomy’ gambit in the heartland.
But “yemach shmo”? — You don’t find that just a trifle extreme?
In any case, what’s that got to do with when Begin took on the Brits?
@ dweller:
You are so full of it. The British occupation of Palestine was incidental at best to the war effort. Germany was finished the day they invaded Russia. The total British contribution to the war effort after the Americans entered were slightly more than marginal and in many cases even prolonged the conflict.
I never said there wasn’t.
Playing Freud again? Your source?
Assumption but not based on the evidence at hand. Maybe he would and maybe not, you can’t know for sure. The more I learn about Jabo the more I can see the misplaced reverence accorded to him by the revisionists.
@ dweller:
Eldad was using this original “H Story” applying it to Begin.
Rabbi Zusha used to say: “When I die and come before the heavenly court, if they ask me, ‘Zusha, why were you not Abraham?’ I’ll say that I didn’t have Abraham’s intellectual abilities. If they say, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I’ll say I didn’t have Moses’ leadership abilities. For every such question, I’ll have an answer. But if they say, ‘Zusha, why were you not Zusha?’ for that, I’ll have no answer.”
@ moshe:
With all due respect, Moshe: Weak. Shallow.
Jabotinsky was hardly unaware of history (Jewish or anybody else’s).
It’s clear that he used those terms [“native,” “colonizer”] only in a relativistic sense.
Yes, but you draw the wrong conclusion from this.
You ASSUME that with the right posture, you can eliminate from that point onward that whole element of the struggle.
Reality, however, asserts otherwise.
The truth is, as a US president once had occasion to note — over a thoroughly different, but entirely analogous, set of circumstances — “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same…”
There’s no way around that.
@ dweller:
Begin (“Yemach Shmo”) true colors shown bright with his agreement with Egypt.
An Open and Distressed Letter to Menachem Begin
from Hegyonot Yisrael
“I hope that you receive not only echoes of the political opposition and security fears, but also the recurring waves of impassioned amazement, of bitter disappointments, of betrayed loves, of crises of faith in the heart. Although many of those close to you and the veterans of the national movement who cannot find in their political mind any justification for your actions, nevertheless exempt themselves and silence themselves with the short answer:
I rely upon him, nevertheless one cannot but be receptive to the tremor in their voice. These waves are not reported in the media, but a leader such as you has to be receptive to them with the vessels of the heart. Furthermore, I still hope that somewhere in an unoccupied corner of your soul, you are even happy at the opposition that has arisen against you, which is like an amplified resonance of the doubts in your mind and the twinges of your conscience.[…]”
“You are not under compulsion. You are the one who wants to sign the Government of Israel to a new White Paper, without festive attire or disguises for the words: “self-rule” for the Arabs of Eretz Israel means, in the not-so-distant final analysis: a clear White Paper, a new division of western Eretz Israel ! If this is not obvious to you, Menachem Begin, then something has happened to your political judgment, which was one of the keenest in Israel. And there is no need for great ability to reconstruct the devastating political address that you would have delivered, if such a proposal had been raised by the Alignment.”
“And also for the benefit of history: would it not have been preferable for the Alignment to raise such a proposal, with your formidable opposition? Was it for this that you were elected? You drove the British out of the land,you drove the Alignment from power, and now will you in effect drive out Zionism and the Jewish people, and possibly settlers as well, from Judea, Samaria, and Sinai?”
“Levi Eshkol established a large state – and Menachem Begin is destroying it, dwarfing it to its previous, not historical, not just, dimensions.[…] Why are you doing this, Menachem Begin, to your people and to yourself? ‘What happened?’ many good, wise, and loyal ones are asking?[…]”
“Either you are making a most serious, catastrophic mistake, or – or we must rise up, and confess, saying: political Zionism in its entirety erred: there is no importance to principles, to declarations, there is importance to concrete action on the ground, whenever and wherever this is possible. And so, they did much – but we opposed this. We believed in mastery over territories that are not in our hands, and we were thought to be madmen. And now?”
“Now we are doing a deed [maaseh ] of which the practical [Zionists – ha-maasi’im ]’ never conceived: to surrender – this is what this is in practice – what we possess. Not to impose sovereignty over the parts of Eretz Israel in our hands, not to settle the parts of Eretz Israel in our hands with masses, to acknowledge the right of a minority over parts of our land in our possession.[…]”
“I am heartbroken, Menachem Begin, and the hearts of many here are broken. If only your physical heart will be strong enough to bear the spiritual, the moral sorrow, and that it and you will have the courage to recoil at the last minute from the abyss.[…]”
“Son of Ze’ev, reconsider, in this last hour.”
“[…] the Hasidic story is well-known. Rabbi Meir of Peremyshlyany said: “They will never whip me in the World to Come for not being Abraham. I was not Abraham. They will whip me for not being Meir.” And so, you, Menachem Begin, are not deserving to be whipped for not going forth to realize the Israelite kingdom according to the territory promised to Abraham, or according to the territory of David. Nor do you deserve lashes for not being Ze’ev Jabotinsky. You are not Ze’ev Jabotinsky. But why are you not Menachem Begin? This is the question that is being asked by the surprised and sorrowful many, who have been so deeply wounded.”
@ yamit82:
There were a MULTITUDE of reasons for the Lechi split from Irgun
— not the least of which was Stern’s enduring personal distrust of Jabotinsky, with whom he had long had a serious “father” thing going on.
Right; better to have had a Palestine ruled by the Reich than by HMG
— unmistakably the lesser of the two evils.
Was there a full moon out on the night of the 22nd?
@ yamit82:
🙂
Long story
yamit82 Said:
dear yamit,
i agree with your statement and i definitely understand how such a thing could happen…many a time i am watching my two ‘tree hugging kids’ and wonder…
let’s just say that your comment has not fallen on ‘deaf ears’…
a personal question, if i may.
you obviously exhibit a vast knowledge of bible, mishna, gemarah etc.
did you come from a religious background (i.e. that was a natural thing for you) or, were you secular and then ‘drawn into it’?
@ leonard white:
What happened to your favorite expression..HELLS BELLS?
@ the phoenix:
Classical Zionism is dead. It succeeded, so it’s primary goals no longer apply or are relevant. Religious nationalist Jews see their Zionism intertwined with the redemption and for them Zionism is a redemptive process and movement. Let’s be Frank the only Jews who can be relied upon to hold the torch of both Judaism and a return to Zion or those Jews, as opposed to non observant Jews and atheist hypocritical religious Jews still living in their New Israels and new Jerusalem’s in NYC and Southern California.
Non observant Jews do not transmit their strong feelings for Judaism or Israel beyond 1-3 generations.
Jews today need to return to fundamentalism, a return to a Judaism grounded in the Living in the Land of Israel.
Source Halacha 12:
Talmud Bavli, Ketuvot, 110b, Our Rabbis taught: One should always live in the Land of Israel, even in a town most of whose inhabitants are idolaters, but let no one live outside the Land, in a town most of whose inhabitants are Israelites; for whoever lives in the Land of Israel may be considered to have a G-d, but whoever lives outside the Land may be regarded as one who has no G-d. For it is said in Scripture, To give you the Land of Canaan, to be your G-d. [Vayikra 25:38] Has he, then, who does not live in the Land, have no G-d? But [this is what the text intended] to tell you, that whoever lives outside the Land may be regarded as one who worships idols. Similarly it was said in Scripture in [the story of] David, For they have driven me out this day that I should not cleave to the inheritance of the L-rd, saying: Go, serve other gods. [Shmuel I 26:9] Now, whoever said to David, ‘Serve other gods’? But [the text intended] to tell you that whoever lives outside the Land may be regarded as one who worships idols. [Tosafot,’Avoda Zara, 5]
The Jew living outside the Land, constitutes the worshiping of idols because doing so denies the foundations of the Torah, i.e., the enactment of the Torah, and the living by the statutes of the Law. The project of enacting the Torah can only be legally accomplished in the Land as defined by the Law. This is traditional Judaism and traditional Zionism. There is no difference. Judaism is Zionism and Zionism is Judaism.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Yes that may be eminently doable for the short term. But if your population is no more than 6-7 mil, surrounded by close to 400 mil enemies,you constantly live in a state of permanent anxiety.The inevitable result is a constant outflow of people who wish security over anything else. And that is precisely what is happening with Germany become the current nation with the largest growing Jewish population (mainly from Israel).
@ yamit82:
Oh gosh- That is terrible.We can hardly wait.
My reply to Felix is in moderation pls release.
@ Felix Quigley:
Zionism ulike communism has succeeded beyond anyone’s most optimistic dreams. The state exists, most of world Jewry is here, I am sure many more will still come and we have the ULTIMATE ability to defend ourselves and if not unlike at any time in history to take the whole world with us if that scenario ever comes to pass. That said, like other isms and ideological movements, once the the success or failure becomes an unassailable fact the terms of reference change/ Zionism has changed from a revolutionary movement of Jewish National Liberation to that of support for Zionism successful creation ie, The State of Israel.
I agree that Zionism or what some might term classical Zionism is dead or better yet REDUNDANT. It has successfully completed it’s
objective and today means something different to many different people and movements from Christians to some Japanese religious sects. Once Kenya succeeded in removing the British yoke and declared a state that was recognized by the world the Mau Mau’s, ceased to exist.
Compare our movements success with yours. Communism has never created anything but death and misery for hundreds of millions of people. If that was their aim then I guess you could call Communism a success.
By the Way Trotsky is DEAD as should his ideology and those who apply their versions to Trotsky. He was as much a Zionist as Stalin was.
He was not the only one who saw what was coming down in Germany and the danger to the Jewish people (see my references below) but with his prescient what I call obvious insight of the danger to the Jews what then did he do with his insight? How many Jews did he save or help to escape the coming Holocaust? HOW MANY? If Bronstein was a Zionist he would be alive today and his great grandchildren might today be serving as officers in the IDF. He betrayed his family and his people. Trotsky was many things to many different people but he was never a Zionist and did nothing to help Jews as Jews and not part of the general principles and ideology be lived and died for.
In the wake of the reports regarding the humiliation and sufferings to which Jewry was exposed under the heels of the Nazis, (President) F.D.R. called for an international conference with the bold intent of finding a solution for those wretched people. The plan for the conference was announced on March 22, 10 days after the Anschluss. Hitler’s response to the intended conference was immediate and full of scorn. Addressing
himself to the OTHER world as opposed to the Nazi world, he said:
It took a full three and a half months to organize the conference to be held at the French
luxury resort, Evian, on Lake Geneva – though the newspapers reported virtually daily
shocking episodes of Jewish humiliation (See for example, London Times, June 19, 1938).
No one caught more clearly the impact of the moment than Anne O’Hare McCormick who
wrote in the The New York Times:
We ought to note: This was not the year 1944, or the year 1942, not even the year 1940. In the beginning of July 1938, the The New York Times wrote about the policy of extermination formulated by the Germans against the Jewish People. The tip of the iceberg began showing above the waves; those who were ready to face facts with a grain of realism could tell. The indicators were unmistakable.
moshe Said:
moshe,
in yesterday’s “liberating our jerusalem” thread, i had a similar exchange with yamit.
i simply stated the fact that i may not be ‘religious’ in the ritual sense, but nonetheless, i consider myself a zionist, i love israel, and am proud of my jewish heritage.
i also explained as sincerely as i could, that it would be impossible/strange/weird for me now, in my middle age, to embrace a ‘kippah and a beard’ or as i put it, “hayahafoch kushi ‘oro v’namer havarburotav”
so… if i understand you correctly, a person such as myself is ‘worthless’? do i really have NOTHING to offer???
@ ArnoldHarris: Perfect fit. Wordmanship has been for far too long the Jewish “enterprise”.
Time’s up.
Can we win? Certainly but regretfully, the present governing cadre is not made of leaders of Jews. Israeli unJews simply are not fit to lead the Jewish people.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Your kind of talk sounds good to me and I wish Israel would apply these methods.
Jabotinsky represented BOURGEOIS Zionism…in the end a dead end
Leon Trotsky represented Zionism the future
see
http://4international.me/trotsky-foresaw-in-1938-that-hitlers-programme-would-led-to-the-holocaust/
@ yamit82:
Virtually everybody BEGAN by trusting the Brits
— and virtually everybody [Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, et al.] eventually got ’round, at one point or another, to kissing that off as a real possibility.
Jabo would have done so as well
— but he died in 1940.
In fact, the realization — that the Brits had indeed become the enemy — may well have contributed to what killed him.
Not quite so.
Actually Begin launched “The Revolt” to oust the Mandatory Authority in the final year of the European struggle.
Having newly assumed command of the (reorganized) Irgun, Begin ordered the raiding of armories and blew up government offices, police headquarters & military installations while the European conflict was still under way.
True, it wasn’t yet the all-out struggle that it would become after the war.
The challenge to the British Crown’s continued legitimacy as Mandatory proceeded to full intensity as soon as hostilities ceased in the European theater in early May 1945.
Jabotinsky’s philosophy carries the seed of self-destruction. Once you accept that the Arab is “native” and the Jew a “colonizer”, you can proclaim your rejection of “false morality” all you want. You have already defeated yourself. In a single generation, at most two, normal morality will reassert itself and, full of guilt, the descendants of the “iron wall” secular “colonizer” will seek to shamefacedly placate the “colonized” by giving back that which was taken. Don’t believe me? Behold! Tzipi Livni’s father was an Etzel commander on whose gravestone it is written “both sides of the Jordan”. And do I need to mention one Ariel Sharon?
The lesson here is simple — only those steeped in the Torah can have the self-justification to carry on the struggle to liberate the Land and rebuild a lasting, secure Jewish State. If a “Zionist” has no kippah and no beard, he is worthless. And if he has a kippah and a beard, why bother to say “Zionist” instead of “Jew”? Chiloni “Zionism” is dead. Bury it already and have done!
@ CuriousAmerican:
Are we supposed to accept the fantasy that “colonization” is “bad”? Am I illegitimate, somehow, because my ancestors — and the ancestors of Mexicans, Brazilians, Manchurians, Siberians, you name it, are “colonists”? “Reclaim?” Pshaw! Abraham COLONIZED Canaan Land at God’s command, I’M DAMNED GLAD HE DID!
Question: Does Bibi hesitate in the hope and sense that Obama will lose the election and with the support Congress and evangelical Christians, he would play the annex card? I hate thinking that he would and could do that, but let’s offer a little prayer.
@ jrob:
By 1937 as per his speech to the House of lords, it should have been clear what the British intentions were. In 1937 the Jews of Germany were being discriminated and persecuted by the Hiter regime and thousands of German Jews were arriving in Palestine. Less than 2 years after his speech in the House of Lords Britain issued her White paper. He was well aware of the Arab riots 1929 and 1933-34 including the Hebron Massacre.
He was well aware of the British betrayal of Balfour and their aid to the Arabs including arming and training them to kill Jews. Yet he put all of his marbles on the British. All of the leaders of the Jewish agency were British stooges and appointed by the British. Even Begin refrained from attacking the British till after the war. That’s why the Lechi split with the Irgun. In retrospect Stern was correct and Begin and Jabotinsky wrong.
‘Islam’ is an impotent and luddite ideology. I think he underestimated or didn’t forsee the fact that the Brits/Vatican/EU/US would sponsor/fund/intensify this ‘Islam’ in the region.
@ Hugo Schmidt-Fischer:
I agree with your comments.
Excerpts from
A Jewish State Now:
Evidence Submitted to the
Palestine Royal Commission
presented by Vladimir [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky
to the Great Britian’s House of Lords, February 11, 1937
… I am going to make a “terrible” confession. Our demand for a Jewish majority is not our maximum — it is our minimum: it is just an inevitable stage if only we are allowed to go on salvaging our people. The point when the Jews reach a majority in that country will not be the point of saturation yet — because with 1,000,000 more Jews in Palestine to-day you could already have a Jewish majority, but there are certainly 3,000,000 or 4,000,000 in the East who are virtually knocking at the door asking for admission, i.e., for salvation….
There is no doubt Jabotinsky had little understanding of either the Arab mentality or that of Islam. While being the Ulimate nationalist he was also an impractical liberal rationalist who viewed his world tainted by 19th and early 20th century romanticism.
I agree with the conclusions of this great article of Jabotinsky though, with one important reservation.
Jabotinsky was a European, and he did not know the Arabs well enough or study them sufficiently. He reflected upon them like a national movement such as the ones he knew from the French, Italians or Austrians. Hostilities among them eventually could be solved one way or the other, by war, time, inertia or whatever. Jabotinsky wrongly thought that by force, such a resolution would one day apply to Israel as well.
Arabs residing in Palestine however, had no national aspirations as such. Which is why they did not revolt against Nasser’s regime in Gaza or Hussein’s in East Jerusalem. The vehicle for Arab nationalism is not a country per se. Islam is the vehicle for Arab supremacy.
So why is this so important?
For one it will be difficult to design any useful strategy if a problem is not well understood. In this particular case, Jabotinsky erred when he thought an agreement could ever be reached. Since he did not perceive of Islam, did not study its concepts and how it motivates the Arabs, he was not aware of its implications. He had a belief that an Iron Wall will be the path to an agreement in future. He was wrong.
And then, not understanding the underlying currents explains why even his hard-line followers the Likud in recent years have blundered. They too thought good fences make good neighbours. They have not understood that Islam never had and never will make concessions. And that any agreement with Infidels is only temporary, and can always be reneged. That it is fine to deceive your counterpart. That a so-called ‘peace process’ is only there to wear your opponent down; it is a waste of time and effort.
I have no disagreements with an ‘Iron Wall’. But not understanding the force of Islamic depravity, the impact of that culture on the behaviour of Arabs will end in futile efforts. It will result in the loss of opportunities to present facts as they are to the outside world, at least to those that would be willing to listen, and many still are. And it means that misinformed Israelis are in a denial of the reality.
Therefore, the Iron Wall is only to be reflected on with an important caveat.
Laura,
Concepts such as “native population” are relatively meaningless when measured against the sweep of history. If you were born and raised someplace, you are part of the native population of that place. But if you and your people got conquered and driven off, then what had been your country gets replaced with some newer native population. When and if Israel completes the task of taking and holding the whole of Eretz-Yisrael, then the Jewish nation once again will be the native population. It doesn’t really matter whether or not other nations recognize your sovereignty. The only thing that counts is the ability and will to apply whatever force is needed to take and hold the land.
This kind of talk probably does not sound very nice to most people. But if you have been reading my comments, you surely understand that I don’t care at all how war policies sound. My only concern is what they objectively accomplish.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Jabotinsky had it wrong regarding the Arabs of Palestine being the native population. The Jews were the native people who were expelled and then returned to their historic homeland.
ArnoldHarris Said:
the key here is THE WILL to use it…
in ’48, israel for all intents and purposes was a mouse that had the ‘mistaken notion’ that it was a lion and fought as such…and won.
today…how painful is it to watch this mighty lion afraid to even meow…
your post is spot on !
Contrary to popular myth of the peaceful Indians being slaughtered by the “evil” white man.
I’m not interested in word games. Either the Jewish state expels the Arabs from Aretz-Yisrael, or the Arabs expel the Jews from Falastin. The Aztecs lost Mexico because the Spaniards represented a superior power. The Sioux lost the Dakotas and the Mexicans lost Texas and what became the whole southwestern USA because the Anglo-Saxons represented a superior power. In the clash of civilizations and the endlessly competing territorial imperatives of the nations, there is no morality. The winners, who always do what they can, impose their will upon the losers, who always suffer what they must. In the end, that’s all there is; power and the will to use it.
Organize yourselves to become winners, and act accordingly, or get swept once again into the historical dustbins of the perpetual losers.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Be careful, Ted. That quote by Jabotinsky, says “his [the Arab’s] country.” Jabotinsky saw it as a colonial endeavor, at least in method. His writings should therefore be used with caution; or at least with a disclaimer. Anti-Zionists love to quote Jabotinsky often for just that reason. They say Jabotinsky admitted it was colonial.
Be careful to clarify the context or the anti-Zionists will have a field day with that quote.
When you follow up with this comment, “His message to us today is end the peace process and colonize the land,” you hand the game to them. You should have used “reclaim,” instead of “colonize.”
I move that Israel accept Jabotinsky’s position on “agreement”.
Second?