The Background of Arab-Israel

THE GROUND OF ARAB-ISRAEL CONFLICT

The support which India gave to the Arab cause in the recent conflict between the Arab States and Israel has been criticised pretty extensively and severely in India and elsewhere as anti-democratic, as against national interests of India, as a violation of non-alignment, and, above all, as painfully immoral. As the recent outburst is but the latest of a series, it is essential to recall the ground to understand it. In expressing in the Indian Parliament India’s sympathy for the Arab cause, Mr. M. C. Chagla, the Minister for External Affairs, summarised it as the creation of Jewish State of Israel in Arab Palestine. Britain, by her Balfour Declaration in 1917, was primarily responsible for the creation of the Jewish Home in Palestine, and America was primarily responsible for the creation of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948, against the consistent and persistent protests of the Arabs.

It is a most lamentable fact of history that in most Christian countries and during many centuries, most Jewish people have en despised, insulted and confined to ghettoes, like untouchables India, Their persecution reached an incredible climax in Hitler’s rule in Germany. The people of India, who suffered under British imperialism, had all along felt sympathy, deep and burning, for the persecuted Jews and welcomed their emancipation. There is a general consensus of opinion that the establishment of a Jewish Home, and later a Jewish State, and the methods adopted to achieve them were far from just to the Arabs, particularly to Arabs displaced from Palestine by force. These events have been a running sore between the Arabs and Jews, and an intractable problem for the United Nations.

II

During the First World War, when the fortunes of the Allies had touched a low, Britain sought the help of both Arabs and Jews by making secret promises to both, which were mutually in-compatible. In 1916, it seduced the Arabs under the Sheriff of Mecca from his loyalty to the Sultan of Turkey by a secret promise that, in the event of Allied victory, it would support the independence of Arab lands, practically from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. Almost simultaneously, it made a pact with France by the secret Sykes-Picot agreement to partition the Arab lands, and let France take over Syria and itself take over Palestine. This agreement amounted to a violation of the promise of independence to the Arabs who helped it to win the war. The famous Englishman, Laurence of Arabia, said in his Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

“If we won the war, the promises to the Arabs were dead paper. Yet, the Arab inspiration was ourmain tool in winning the Eastern War. So, I assured them that England kept her word in letter and spirit. On this comfort, they performed their fine things, but, of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I am continually and bitterly ashamed.”

When the Allies won the war, France took over Syria and Britain took over Palestine as Mandates from the League of Nations. The Arabs were cheated and felt bitter, particularly against Britain.

III

As long ago as 1894, Theodore Herzl conceived the idea of a National Home for Jews in Palestine to escape persecution in Christian countries. Not much notice was for long taken of it either by Britain or America. Indeed, the persecution of Jews was dismissed a “domestic” problem of each nation, outside the scope of international concern! But when, in 1917 Britain’s fortunes in the First World War were low, she looked for financial help from international Jewry and received scientific help from Cham Weisemann and, in return, made the famous Balfour Declaration promising the establishment of a National Home for Jews in Palestine. Speaking in the British House of Commons on June 19, 1936, Prime Minister David Lloyd George said:

“Let me recall the circumstances to the House. At the time the French army had mutinied, the Italian army was on the eve of collapse, and America had hardly started preparing in earnest. There was nothing left but Britain, confronting the most powerful combination the world has ever seen. It was important for us to seek every legitimate help we could get. We came to the conclusion, from information received from every part of the world, that it was vital we should have the sympathies of the Jewish community. In these circumstances and on the advice which we received, we decided it was desirable to secure the sympathy and co-operation of that most remarkable community, the Jews, throughout the world. They were helpful in America and in Russia....

“In these conditions we proposed this (National Home for Jews in Palestine) to our Allies….All the nations which constituted the League of Nations accepted it. And the Jews–I am here to bear testimony to the fact–with all the influence they possessed responded nobly to the appeal which was made. I do not know whether the House realises how much we owe to Dr. Weisemann with his marvellous scientific brain. He absolutely saved the British army at a critical moment when a particular ingredient, which was essential we should have for our great guns, was completely exhausted. His great chemical genius enabled us to solve the problem. But he is, only one out of many who rendered great services to the Allies. It is an obligation of honour which we undertook, to which the Jews responded. We cannot get out of it without dishonour.”

Mr. Leopold S. Amery said in the House of Commons on March 24, 1936:

“In these days, when defence problems are uppermost in our minds, we cannot forget the immense importance of Palestine as the effective air centre of the British imperial system…Palestine offers the very outlet to the Mediterranean for oil supplies under British control. Who knows whether we shall have access to American supplies in future?….If we had in Palestine a prospering and developing community, bound to this country by ties of gratitude, influenced by the fact that we have made an ancient dream come true, the effect would surely be well worth keeping in mind.”

It is obvious that the Balfour Declaration, promising a National Home for Jews in Palestine, was not inspired even remotely by humanitarian sympathy for Jews who were being treated as lepers and outcastes, but as a war-bargain, to serve British imperial interests!

The Balfour Declaration, which was issued on November 2, 1917, while it promised a National Home for Jews, took care to insist that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities.” But the militant international Jewry would have none of it. Dr. Eder, Chairman of the Zionist Commission in Palestine, said:

“There can be only one National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish National Home, and no equality and partnership between Jews and Arabs, but Jewish pre-dominance as soon as the members of the race are sufficiently increased.” (Servant of India, July 23, 1936)

About 1936, Britain proposed to establish a Legislative Council, consisting of some nominated and some elected members, with fourteen Moslems, seven Jews and three Christians, as at the time the Moslems numbered 725,000, Jews 320,000 and Christians 100,000, The Jews would have none of it. Lord Melchet, who had the reputation of being a moderate, said in the House of Lords on February 26, 1936:

“We take the view that we cannot put ourselves in a minority in a National Home. A minority status of the Jewish people is neither novel nor singular. It has, lasted for centuries and is world-wide. But if “National Home” is to have a real meaning, we cannot of our own volition and free will accept a minority status.” (Servant of India, July 23, 1936)

With a view to becoming a majority, the Jews promoted immigration, both legal and illegal, and with the help of finance furnished by international Jewry, began to buy up lands in Palestine from the Arabs.

IV

Britain, which had promised to create a Jewish National Home in Palestine and had it incorporated in the Mandate, proceeded to encourage immigration of Jews and the purchase of land by them from resident Arabs by the enactment of land laws which promoted it. When the protests of the Arabs became strident and even violent, Britain decided to prohibit further alienation of Arab lands to immigrant Jews and to limit further Jewish immigration. The Jews revolted against Britain. Faced with violence, which it could not control, Britain surrendered the Mandate in 1948, and handed over the problem to the United Nations. In 1949 it issued a White Paper that it had contemplated only a Jewish Home in Palestine and not a Jewish State. Before Britain renounced the Mandate and the United Nations could take over the administration, the Jews proclaimed the emergence of the independent State of Israel! Within minutes of it, America surprised the whole world, and even its delegates in the United Nations, by rushing de facto recognition of the new State.

Subsequently, Israel conferred Israeli citizenship on all the Jews in the world, even those who had no intention to come to Israel, and declared that the State of Israel would be extended from Egypt to Persia, and reduced the status of resident Arabs to a second-class citizenship and denied them the right of habeas corpus, and otherwise lorded over them.

V

The Palestine Arabs resented even more the methods adopted, with the connivance of Britain and America, by Jews to gate-crash into Arab Palestine. Prof. Arnold Toynbee of Britain said:

“If the heinousness of sin is to be measured by the degree to which the sinner is sinning against the light that is vouchsafed to him, the Jews had even less excuse in 1948 A.D. for evicting Palestinian Arabs from their homes than Nebuchadnaezzar and Titus and Hadrian and the Spanish and Portuguese inquisition had for uprooting, persecuting and exterminating Jews in Palestine and elsewhere at diverse times in the past. In A. D. 1948 the Jews knew, from personal experience, what they were doing; it was their supreme tragedy that the lesson learnt by them from the encounter with Nazi German Gentiles should have been, not to eschew but to imitate, some of the evils that the Nazis had committed against the Jews.

“The Arabs in Palestine...became in their turn the vicarious victims of the European Jews, indignation over the ‘genocide’ committed upon them by their Gentile fellow-Westerners in A. D. 1933-45.”

Prof. Hocking of Harvard University in America, said:

“The documented facts leave no doubt that Israel was the aggressor….Before the British Mandate ended on May 14, 1948, and two months before the State of Israel could legally be proclaimed….the Zionist-Israel armies had already illegally occupied much of the territory reserved for the Arab State...During the six months period of hostilities 300,000 Arabs were driven out of their homes by terrorist tactics and became refugees–contrary to every human decency. The impact of these sufferings extended in deep waves to the entire Arab world. Sympathy and an outraged sense of justice became a determined antipathy to Israel.

VI

The United Nations made several attempts to bring about some peaceful settlement between the Jews and the Arabs. Among them was the partition of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish State. It also suggested that the displaced Arabs should be given the choice of repatriation to their former lands and homes from which they were driven out by force by Jews, or the Jews should give adequate compensation for the displaced Arabs. The Jews refused to give option to them to return, and Arab States declined to absorb them to oblige the Jews, and the displaced Arabs became refugees from their own homes and lands and have been looked after by the United Nations for nearly two decades.

The unfortunate and pitiable plight of the Palestine refugees has been universally recognised, but few acceptable solutions have been suggested, except that justice should be done. Recently, Prof. Arnold Toynbee said that the ideal solution was repatriation of all the Palestine refugees, as desired by them. He, however, doubted if many of them would return to live under Jewish rule in the present atmosphere. He, therefore, suggested that some of those who would not wish to return should be invited to settle in Syria, Canada, Australia, Venezula, and above all, United States of America.

The choice to return to Palestine is likely to be acceptable to them if Israel becomes a secular state, like America, and gave equal status to all its citizens, irrespective of race and religion, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations and modern secular trend in polity, which should be encouraged by all progressive forces. Jews have equal rights in the United States and even exercise significant influence on its government, without insisting that it should be a Jewish State.

It seems very odd, to say the least, that recent Jewish immigrants, mostly from Europe, should be allowed to gate-crash into Palestine against the wishes of the local Moslems, in order to gratify their sentiment that many centuries ago their forefathers lived there and to dismiss callously the sentiment of Arab Moslems who, and whose ancestors for centuries, have been living in the same land! The immigrant Jews have only their sentiment, but the displaced Arab Moslems, have not only an equally strong sentiment, but also economic interests in lands and homes and self-government. If justice be the criterion, the recent Jewish immigrants should emigrate from Israel, as they are more likely to find admission into, and assimilation in, countries like America, than the Arab refugees.

Another solution is to place Israel under United Nations Mandate, unless some voluntary agreement can be reached between Israel, the Palestine refugees and the Arab States, and consent replaced coercion.

VII

It has been said in favour of Israel that the United Nations approved of the State of Israel and admitted it to its membership. But it is the consent of the Arab States, amongst which Israel has been planted, that is more relevant. And they have so far refused to recognise even the existence of Israel!

In the United Nations the Arab States opposed the partition of Palestine and proposed a unitary state. The partition proposal was carried on Nov. 29, 1947, by 33 to 13 votes and 10 abstensions in the General Assembly. While America and Russia voted for, all the Muslim countries–Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen–voted against, India voted against, Britain abstained, and declined to enforce partition. Israel’s application for membership of the United Nations was carried in the Security Council by 9 votes to 1. Egypt opposed and Britain abstained.

Israel defied the United Nations on several occasions and was censured. Egypt agreed to the stationing of the UN peace-keeping force on its side of the boundary between itself and Israel, but Israel refused to let it be stationed on its side also. If it had permitted the recent hostilities could have been prevented, even if Egypt had asked the UN force to quit from its soil.

VIII

India’s sympathies have all along been with the Arabs in the conflict between them and the Jews. As stated earlier, it voted against the partition of Palestine, along with all Muslim countries. Mahatma Gandhi said on Nov. 12, 1938:

“I have all my sympathies with the Jews. But sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for a national home for Jews does not make much appeal to me. Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong to impose the Jews on the Arabs. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or, do they want a double home where they can remain at will?”

He returned to the subject on Nov. 26, 1938:

“The Palestine of Biblical conception is not the geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if Jews must look to Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of British guns.”
He returned to it again on August 1947:

“The Jews have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine, with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism. Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land?”

And yet again in 1948:

“It should be clearly understood that the basic problem of Palestine is between the Arabs of Palestine and the Jews who want to come from abroad to settle there. Unless the Jews are able to convince the local Arabs of their bonafides, no basis could ever exist for the Jewish entry into Palestine.”

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said in 1937:

“Balfour Declaration is a great betrayal of Arabs by Britain.”

The Indian National Congress said in 1928:

“Indian National Congress assures the Palestinian Arabs of its full sympathy towards their struggle to free themselves from the grip of Western imperialism, which in its view is a great menace to the Indian struggle.”

It referred to it again in 1937:

“The Congress strongly condemns the imperialist machinations and the reign of terror unleashed with a view to coerce the Arabs in accepting the proposed partition of Palestine.”

And yet again in 1938:

“The Congress condemns the decision of Great Britain as a mandatory power to bring about the partition of the Palestine and the appointment of a commission to carry out this project. The Congress records its emphatic protest against the reign of terror in Palestine to force this policy upon the unwilling Arabs. The Congress expresses its full sympathy with the Arabs in their struggle for national freedom and their fight against British imperialism.”

Mr. R. K. Nehru, former Secretary-General, Ministry of External Affairs and ex-Ambassador to UAR, said in 1965:

“No Afro-Asian can ignore the fact that the State of Israel is essentially a foreign creation. India has not established diplomatic relations with the new State. Indians felt that approval should not be shown of the way in which Israel was created and is functioning. Israel is the result of an act of imposition from outside. The creation of this new trend is not in line with the general trend of the Afro-Asian resurgence.”

India has thus followed a consistent policy since at least 1928. Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, and External Affairs Minister, Mr. M. C. Chagla, have recently adopted the same attitude.

The only possible criticism of the Government of India is not that its policy is unjust, but not prudent in so far as it goes against the USA, on which India depends a great deal for food, finance and military ware and atomic umbrella. If power is pitted against justice in international affairs, the former often wins and the latter loses. Justice and morality are yet not the governing factors in international affairs. It is sad but true.