It would be an understatement to say that the Arabs of Palestine were
unanimously opposed to the establishment of either a Jewish state or of any
large-scale immigration of Jews - or any peoples at all for that matter - into
their region. They expressed as much consternation towards Zionism as the Irish
for instance would today if the province of Leinster were cordoned off and
declared the domain of Greater Nigeria.
In fact, the 1917 Balfour
Declaration made no mention of securing an Israeli state within Palestine only
committing Britain to facilitate the establishment within Palestine of "a
national home for the Jewish people" and then only on the condition that;
"nothing may be done which shall prejudice the civil and religious rights of
the existing non-Jewish communities .."
When Woodrow Wilson set up
the King-Crane Commission in 1919 to investigate the feasibility of the Zionist
project it reported that the people of Palestine were "emphatically
opposed" to the entire Zionist programme whilst the Zionists themselves;
"looked forward to a practically complete dispossession of the
present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine"
- which at the
time comprised over 90% of the population. Correctly gauging the entire project
to be ill-conceived from the onset it concluded by expressing; "a deep sense
of sympathy for the Jewish cause" but ultimately recommended the limitation
of Jewish immigration and the abandonment of the goal of a Jewish state on the
grounds that it would be "a gross violation of the principle of
self-determination .. and of the people's rights".
The Commission was
the only international study group ever charged with consulting the views of
Palestinian Arabs on the Zionist question and could see clearly from reactions
it received on the ground that the seeds for perpetual war would be sown if
immigration proceeded apace. Its recommendations went largely ignored due in no
small part to cloudy emotive reasoning such as evidenced by Balfour himself who
in a moment of Shangri-La-ism declared that;
"Zionism, be it right or
wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future
hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000
Arabs who now inhabit the ancient land."
Wilson's fourteen points and
the much vaunted Covenant of the League of Nations went out the window under the
British Mandate - along with Arab calls for autonomy and representative
government. This is most clearly shown by the powerlessness of the indigenous
Arab population to prevent the immigration of some 400,000 Jewish settlers
between 1920 and 1945 - an influx considerably hastened, it may be added, by the
anti-Semitic pogroms in Russia and Europe.
Nevertheless, the indigenous
Arab population have always viewed this process as an enforced usurpation, an
appraisal that David Ben Gurion himself acknowledged when he said in 1938 at the
height of the Arab nationalist revolt;
"..in our political argument
abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us .. but let us not ignore the truth
among ourselves . politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves
.. the country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here
and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country,
while we are still outside".
He went on to characterise the revolt
as an active resistance by the Palestinians to what they regard; "as a
usurpation of their homeland by the Jews ".
Israel declared
independence on the 14th May 1948, the day the British Mandate expired. It is
commemorated annually in the national holiday of Yom Ha'atzmaud. For
Palestinians it is known simply as Yawm al-nakba, or Catastrophe Day.
The subsequent wars, refugeeism and atrocities (committed by both sides)
have cruelly vindicated the early reservations of the Crane Commission and as
bad as they have been we can only hope that their worst impacts do not yet lay
before us.
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