Chanting the Chants That Europe wants to Hear – Israeli Academics who Demonise Their Own Country

“Thy destructors and destroyers shall come from amongst you “ warns Isaiah (49:17). And in recent years such would-be obliterators of the Jewish State have included not only far-left, often deracinated, Jews, but Israelis or ex-Israelis (yordim), many of whom teach in universities.

Interfering with academic freedom is rarely if ever a worthy undertaking. Stifling the free expression of opinion leads to the burning of books and to McCarthyist witch hunts, and is the hallmark of tyrannous dictatorships. Nevertheless, when some academics, in their classrooms and outside them, advocate harm to their own democratic nation state – for example in the form of crippling economic boycotts – it seems prudent to subject them to scrutiny. Similarly, when they call for that state to be dismantled altogether, it seems not unreasonable to suspect them of sailing close to the wind of treason.

In 2004, alarmed at the presence on campuses of Israeli academics calling for BDS, a non-profit watchdog organisation called Israel Academia Monitor (IAM) was founded, stating that "Israeli academic institutions have been misused in recent years for radical anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic propagandizing, often by tenured radicals with embarrassing academic records and dubious research credentials." IAM aimed to "bring to light statements written by and about the academic extremists and university anti-Zionists...to expose their activities”.

Derided by a leftwing journalist in Ha’aretz last year as a "vigilante group of dangerous cranks”, IAM has this year participated in a campaign to persuade university Boards of Governors - particularly that of Tel Aviv University – a comparative hive of such activity, being arguably the most radical campus in Israel – to take action against "anti-Israeli" academics. It’s also supporting the Knesset Education Committee’s investigation into calls for BDS by Israeli academics.

IAM’s chairman is bluntly-spoken Dr Mordechai Kedar, from the Department of Arabic at Bar Ilan University, who has become something of a star of the airwaves, not least for a memorable interview he gave to Al Jazeera.

He’s also on record as saying:

“Those leftists act under academic freedom, and there is no greater vileness than this ...If they think that Israel is an apartheid state oppressing the Arabs, let them go to the place that they love....

All we do is expose to the public the hypocrisy of those whose actions are contemptible while sanctimoniously they adorn themselves as impartial humanitarians.

We do not call for their execution at the marketplace, nor do we have gallow trees. We do not demand that they get fired. That final conclusion is for the academic institution to make. When I draw a rector’s attention to the fact that a certain lecturer calls for a boycott of the institution that he works for and by doing so he harms the livelihood of his colleagues, the rector will summon that lecturer and will ask him why he is harming his colleagues. Anyway, who authorized all those academics, who call for a boycott of Israel, to harm their colleagues livelihood ?...

I would like them to behave honestly. If the state and its institutions commit apartheid, as they claim, then let them stand up and boycott the institutions that feed them.

.... What is going on behind the closed doors of appointment committees, where lecturers are getting their promotions is one of the big secrets. I would like to believe that before promoting someone, the institution considers his statements."

He’s convinced that some left wing academics are willing to betray Israel for the sake of career advancement.

 “Nowadays, there are anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist, and anti-Jewish tendencies in many departments of Israeli academia ...

These fellows chant the chants that the world wants to hear. The world nowadays, mostly in Europe, has neglected the issue of the nation-state. In academia, it is expressed by Israelis chanting the European chants. They have given up their ethnic and religious identity and were accepted into the academic inner circles. Academic promotion is based on your colleagues’ opinions about you and their reviews of your books.

Since there are no laboratories in humanities and social sciences, and they cannot prove theories by lab-experiments, the researcher is dependent on his colleagues to accept whatever he says. Therefore, they broadcast the chants that Europe wants to hear. Humanities academics are captured in their European colleagues ideology and they will sell the state history and the future for their personal promotion.

They use academic freedom as a pretext, and there is nothing more vile than that. For example, there is a certain researcher who found out that Israel is an apartheid state (i.e. the racial segregation policy practiced in South Africa until 1994). I have no problem with this provided he gives freedom of speech to those that prove him wrong. You see, in South Africa, black people were not allowed to live everywhere. There were buses, hospitals and schools for white people only. No such phenomena exist in the state of Israel."

And this no-holds-barred specialist on the Arab world has this warning for the West:

“Islam is a religion designated to replace all other religions and to abolish idolatry. Islam, according to its own point of view, is compatible to [sic] every culture, every people, every background and every person. From the Islamic point of view, peace is possible only when all accept the essence of Islam. Therefore, peace is principally impossible under the Islamic umbrella."

The Jewish Thought Series: The Meaning of the Month of Iyar

       This article by Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem is crossposted from http://jcwatch.wordpress.com/

The purpose of this article is to search for meaning in the occurrence of three important events in Jewish History in the month of Iyar: the War against Amalek, Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence and the Six Day War . The article was originally written in Iyar 5733, a few months before the Yom Kippur War.  Avraham Reiss, Jerusalem, Nisan 5754.

I
The Shulchan Aruch cites a list of days upon which it is fitting to observe rites of mourning because of disasters that befell our ancestors on those days. The Shulchan Aruch finishes by saying that “in the future, G-d will transform these days into days of rejoicing”.

This "prophecy" has begun to be fulfilled, for amongst the days recommended for mourning, is the 28th day of Iyar, the day upon which the Prophet Samuel died; a day which in our lifetime suddenly became a day of great rejoicing. On this day in 1967, the Old City of Jerusalem, with the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, were returned to the Jewish Nation at the climax of an amazing war.

Closer study of the circumstances preceding the death of Samuel, reveal to us that it was not by mere chance that these two events (Samuel’s death and the return of Old Jerusalem to Israeli ownership) occurred on the same date.

II
The Gemara (Masechet Ta’anit) tells us that Samuel requested from G-d that King Saul (who was anointed by Samuel) would not die during Samuel’s lifetime, in the same way that Moshe and Aharon did not live to see the death of their successor, Joshua.

G-d then asked: "What shall I do? Samuel does not want King Saul to die first, and if Samuel dies now people will say he died young because of sins [Samuel was 52 when he died, the Gemara tells us], and if neither of them die now the time for the Monarchy of David to begin will have arrived, and no two Monarchies are allowed to encroach upon each other’s decreed time span by even so much as the breadth of a hair."

G-d therefore said: "I will make him look old".  (Samuel will die now, but he will become aged-looking before he dies, so people will not say he died young because of sins).

We see from this that Samuel’s death was brought about with the express purpose of expediting the Monarchy of David. The 28th Day of Iyar, the day upon which the city of Jerusalem, David’s capital, was returned to the Jewish Nation, to the State of Israel, is obviously a great milestone in the final stages of our final Redemption.

III
The aforementioned Gemara explains that the whole purpose of removing the Monarchy from Saul and transferring it to David, was because of King Saul’s failure to destroy the descendants of Amalek.

In order to increase the depth of our understanding, we ask here two questions:

(1) Why was Saul chosen as king in the first place, when he was not of the House of David, or of the Tribe of Judah, from where a king must be chosen?

(2) If already chosen, why was only a partial failure in the war against the descendants of Amalek considered sufficient reason to remove the Monarchy from Saul, and to transfer it to David?

IV

The Shlah (Shnei Luchot HaBrit) explains that Saul was originally chosen as king in order that he would fight against the nation of Amalek, this because Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin. (It is interesting to note, since we are discussing the 28th of Iyar, that Saul was the 28th generation after Benjamin!). Benjamin was the only tribe which did not bow down to Esau, for the simple reason that at the time of Yaakov’s meeting with Esau Benjamin had not yet been born. This, the fact that Benjamin had not bowed down to Esau, gave him (Benjamin) a unique spiritual advantage over Esau compared with all the other tribes, empowering him with the strength to vanquish Esau in battle; thus it was a descendant of Benjamin, Saul, who was chosen to defeat the Amalekites, descendants of Esau, in the time of Samuel and Saul.

All this is even hinted at in Saul’s very name, says the Shlah; Saul, in Hebrew, Sha-ul, means "borrowed", and hints that although the Monarchy of Israel belongs to a descendant of the tribe of Judah, it was "borrowed" by Saul in order that he should vanquish Amalek’s seed. When Saul failed to kill all of the Amalekites as commanded, by leaving their king alive, he had failed in his mission, and there was thus no longer a reason for allowing the Monarchy to be personified by one who was not of the tribe of Judah.

V
However, we must still ask why the mitzvah of destroying all remnants of the seed of Amalek is regarded as so important that for this purpose the monarchy was at first awarded to one who was not of the tribe of Judah?

As a simplistic answer, we could say that the matter had already been decided by our Sages when they said in the Gemara:

"Israel were commanded to perform three mitzvot when they entered the Land of Israel:

1. To appoint a king

2. To destroy the seed of Amalek

3. To build the Temple in Jerusalem"

There, the Gemara states that these three mitzvot must be performed in the above order, and the Rambam brings this as a decisive halachah.

According to this, we could simplistically state that King Saul, by not completing the mitzvah of destroying the seed of Amalek, was hindering the process of performing the third mitzvah, the building of the Temple. The second mitzvah had not been performed in its entirety, since Saul had left some Amalekites alive, and so the Temple could not yet be built.

This could be regarded as sufficient reason, at a simplistic level, for removing Saul from the monarchy.

(Incidentally, since Saul was not of the tribe of Judah, one might say that the first mitzvah, to appoint a king, had not been performed in it’s entirety either, for the mitzvah of appointing a king requires that he be of the tribe of Judah).

Strangers Within. And Enemies.

Born in Warsaw as the nineteenth century approached the twentieth, Abraham Bevistein grew up in London’s East End. Upon the outbreak of the First World War he rushed to serve the country in which his family had so recently taken refuge from the scourge of Eastern European antisemitism by enlisting in the Army – underage and using a false surname.

His regiment was sent to France in May 1915, and the teenaged Abraham was slightly wounded the following December. A couple of months later, as he lay in a trench, three grenades exploded nearby. Unnerved and temporarily deafened, the bewildered lad scrambled out but was ordered back after being passed as fit.

But he wasn’t fit, and shortly afterwards he wandered off, desperately seeking a few days’ respite in which to recuperate.

On 20 March 1916 he was shot for desertion – becoming one of the 306 British soldiers (most of them similarly shell-shocked) who paid that penalty during the First World War. (In 1990 the ‘Shot at Dawn’ campaign was launched to secure their official pardons, which were finally granted in 2006.)

He was also one of the 10,000 Jews – many of them first generation immigrants – who flocked to the British colours before conscription was introduced, and one of up to 60,000 co-religionists who served in the British forces during that appalling conflict; of these, 1,105 received military honours – five the Victoria Cross – and over 8,600 lost their lives, including no less than four sons of a Birmingham widow from Russia.

(For their counterparts in the Second World War see Martin Sugarman’s just-published book.)

Each year, on Armistice Day, the eleventh day of the eleventh month, people stop whatever they are doing and observe a two-minute silence beginning at eleven a.m., and on Remembrance Sunday a wreath-laying ceremony takes place at the Cenotaph in London’s Whitehall to honour people like Abraham – people of all creeds and colours – who fought and died under the Union Jack in the First World War and its successors.

The symbol of Britain’s fallen is the poppy – redolent of the blood-red poppies of the Flanders fields where so many of the casualties occurred. The wreaths are formed of poppies, and (overseas readers might not know this) people wear paper poppies, sold annually by the Royal British Legion to raise funds, in their lapels. Even the trendily non-patriotic Al Beeb has its on-screen presenters wear the poppy – and they first don their poppies well-ahead of Armistice Day.

Last Wednesday, the day before this year’s Armistice Day, a columnist in a northern newpaper, Asian Image, enjoined fellow-Muslims not to shun Armistice Day parades as urged by some:

 “We all talk about the shortcomings in the government and services provided to us by this country.

For starters many of us need to look around in the rest of the world and accept we get a lot more than most others, and start appreciating what we have.

This Islamic group who were thinking of protesting at a welcoming parade in my opinion were steeping over the mark.

There may only have been a handful of them but that is enough in this day and age to cause hysteria.

We would have been playing into the hands ...  of the far-right and become ‘chamchays of the media.’ We need to separate the issues our political differences on the rights and wrongs of a war and the appreciation and thanking to our troops in being in our armed forces there to defend us by putting their lives on the line. We need to realise in a flood these same soldiers would be airlifting all of us from being drowned.

The backlash and disturbing image this protest would have left is unquantifiable setting race relations back 20 years.

I’ll be perfectly honest about this - your normal person on the street would have started to think we were a bunch of looneys!

Personally, I urge Muslims to attend the welcoming parade and show their support of these young men and women who protect us and show the whole community that Muslims are loyal and law abiding citizens.”

However much such wise counsels prevailed among the Muslim community generally, in London, while the solemn two-minute silence was taking place, a repulsive group of Islamic extremists calling itself “Muslims against Crusades” held a squalid and (literally) inflammatory ceremony in London’s South Kensington.   (Here they are, being escorted through the neighbourhood underground station by poppy-wearing police.)

They insulted Britain’s fallen and our brave servicemen and women fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan by setting fire to a gigantic replica poppy and screaming “British soldiers burn in Hell!” (which they also had written on their placards).

The Bible enjoins us to show kindness to “the stranger within thy gates”. But it doesn’t tell us to indulge the enemy within. Yet these dangerous, loathsome fanatics – who clearly seek to comprise a fifth column in our midst – were given a police escort to their place of depravity, where in the name of the liberty of speech which they would triumphantly destroy, they were permitted to hold their “ceremony” – protected by police from angry citizens.

And now the following event is scheduled to take place http://www.izharudeen.com/revival-conference.htmlfeaturing the firebrand (Islam4UK) Anjem Choudary and chums, although I doubt that one featured star speaker, Omar Bakri, will be attending, having been captured overseas last week.  (Choudary, a British-born former lawyer, is also behind the poppy-burning group, I'm told.)

As the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick (pictured, in a still from that wonderful Latma spoof "We Con the World") observed in that paper's issue of 12 November, in an article about the danger posed to Israel by home-grown Islamic fanatics like fiery antisemitic Nazareth imam, Nazim Mahmoud Salim, who’s been charged with inciting violence and terrorism in mosques and on the web, hard facts have to be faced and leftist apologists for Islamic fanatics put firmly in their place:

“As Israelis wake up to the reality of al-Qaida in Nazareth, our leftist establishment remains in denial about it role in enabling this reality.

Today, leftist judges together with leftist politicians and opinion makers block all efforts by politicians and the public to acknowledge and address the growing lawlessness and jihadist bent of Israel’s Muslim minority. Fear of the politically correct Supreme Court has deterred authorities from outlawing the Islamic Movement. Efforts to contend with illegal land seizures and building have been blocked by the leftist media, pressure groups largely sponsored by the New Israel Fund and the courts. Even symbolic measures like the government’s recent bid to require non-Jewish immigrants to pledge loyalty to the state have been viciously attacked by Israel’s leftist establishment as fascist and racist.

But as Europe is belatedly acknowledging, these politically correct commissars must be sidelined if the free world is to withstand the growing threat of homegrown jihad. Nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks, global jihad remains the central threat to the West, and not because of its popularity in western Pakistan. It remains the central threat to the free world because of its popularity among the Muslims in the free world.

To remain free, free societies must shed our politically correct shackles and address this growing menace to everything we hold dear.”

A Noble Gesture against the British Academic Boycott of Israel

The eminent British cardovascular physiologist Emeritus Professor Denis Noble CBE, FRS, has resigned from the University and College Union in protest at its discriminatory attitude and double standards towards Israel, an attitude which he now believes is motivated by antisemitism. His letter to the union’s general secretary, Sally Hunt, is printed in the Oxford Magazine, and I reproduce it here from the website of the anti-academic boycott organisation Engage, run by London academic David Hirsh http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2010/11/14/open-letter-of-resignation

where more details may be found.

'I joined the AUT nearly 50 years ago as a young assistant lecturer at University College London. When I retired from my Oxford professorship in 2004 I chose to retain my membership – although I no longer stood to gain from the union’s negotiating any improvements in salary or conditions of service – because I believe in trade unions and thought that by remaining a member I would, in some small measure, help colleagues. But the behaviour of UCU over the past several years has made it impossible for me to continue, and I now resign my membership.

In a letter I wrote to you over a year ago, which has remained unanswered and unacknowledged, I said that UCU’s repeated conference decisions to discriminate against certain colleagues (Israelis) on the grounds of their nationality were unacceptable. Such discrimination is contrary to the universally recognised norms of academic practice, as set out (for example) in the Statutes of the International Council of Science (ICSU). I also sent a letter as President of IUPS, which adheres to ICSU. Nobody in the world of learning can take seriously a professional organisation that purports to represent academic staff but which entertains proposals to discriminate whether it be on grounds of sex, race, national origin or other characteristics that are irrelevant to academic excellence. Nonetheless our union has voted repeatedly in favour of such discrimination, and those who have been discriminated against are always Israelis. The wording of the discriminatory resolutions has sometimes been contorted for legal reasons, but the intention has been transparent: to hold Israeli colleagues responsible for, and punish them for, the actions of their government via a type of reasoning (guilt by association) that is never applied to the academics of any other country. Of course, I accept that the Israeli government is guilty of human-rights violations, and I accept that the union is entitled to criticise it. But many other governments in the world are also guilty of human-rights violations, often far more egregious than those committed by Israel, and yet Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) have never been endorsed by the Annual Congress of UCU against any other country.

It is instructive to compare the motion about China adopted by Congress at its 2010 meeting with one of those about Israel. (I choose these examples because both countries have been in occupation of the territories of a different ethnic group for many years and both have encouraged their citizens to settle in the territories thus occupied). The motion on China, while asserting that UCU “will continue to condemn abuses of human rights of trade unionists and others”, recognised “the need to encourage collegial dialogue” with Chinese institutions. By contrast, a motion on Israel approved in the same session of Congress reaffirmed its support for BDS, sought to establish an annual international conference on BDS and a BDS website, and severed all relations with the Histadrut, the Israeli counterpart to the TUC. There are many countries in the world whose governments are guilty of atrocities: there is no other country in the world whose national trade union organisation is boycotted by UCU.

I find it impossible not to ask myself why UCU exhibits this obsession with Israel. The obvious explanation – that the union is institutionally anti-semitic – is so unpleasant that I have till recently been unwilling to accept it, but I changed my mind after witnessing the fate at the 2010 Congress of the motion of my local branch (University of Oxford) about Bongani Masuku. As you know, Masuku was invited to a meeting on BDS hosted by the union in London last December. Some months earlier, he had made a speech during a rally at the University of the Witwatersrand. This speech has been described by the South African Human Rights Commission (the body set up by the Constitution to promote inter-racial harmony after the end of apartheid) as including “numerous anti-semitic remarks which were seen to have incited violence and hatred”. The Oxford motion debated at Congress did not allege that the union invited Masuku despite knowing his views; instead it merely invited Congress to dissociate itself from Masuku’s views. This was the minimum that UCU could be expected to do to reassure members like me that we still belong. That this motion was rejected by a large majority makes it clear to me that the union either regards anti-semitic views as acceptable or, at least, has no objection to their being expressed in public by the national official of a fraternal trade union organisation. I do not wish to remain a member of such a union.'

For more on Bongani Masuko, International Relations Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), see http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/.../bongani-masuku-an-invited-guest-of-ucu/
and
http://www.engageonline.wordpress.com/.../hate-speech-ruling-against-bongani-masuku/

The Jewish Thought Series: What Bibi Should Have Replied to Obama

This is a Guest Blog by Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem

Obama insisted on a settlement freeze - and Bibi agreed.
In the face of Jewish Thought. And against it. We have precedent. A number of precedents.
I'm saying here how I think the Jew Netanyahu should have answered the gentile Obama.
And I'll say first in Obamese, and then in Jewish.

Obamese:

Mr President, former President Calvin Coolidge is reputed to have said that the business of America ... is business. I have to remind you that the business of Israel is ... Zionism. And Zionism first and foremost means building the Land of Israel. Settling the waste lands, and making them liveable.
During the Cold War, Mr President, had the Soviets come to an American President with a condition for disarmament talks that America stop doing business for three months, on the grounds that Capitalism negates the Communist way of life, would any American President have taken the demand seriously? Would he have said "peace with the Soviets is more important, let's stop doing business just for three months"?
I hope you can infer both my position and my answer from that analogy, Mr. President.

That was in Obamese.

Now in Jewish Thought.  From two different sources.

(1)
What is considered as probably the holiest of prayers uttered on our holiest of days, Yom Kippur, is probably the Unetaneh Tokef, whose composition is attributed to Rabbi Amnon of Magenza (Mainz), at the time of the Crusades.  (A translation of the prayer into English can be found at: http://www.ou.org/chagim/roshhashannah/unetanehtext.htm )

For the sake of brevity I am using a Google source to tell the story. http://www.ou.org/chagim/roshhashannah/unetaneh.html

'The prayer entitled U'Netaneh Tokef is attributed to a Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, Germany, who lived about one thousand years ago. The story behind this piyut, a prayer-poem, is sad and poignant, and may shed light on the prayer itself.The Bishop of Mainz summoned Rabbi Amnon, a great Torah scholar, to his court and offered him a ministerial post on the condition that Rabbi Amnon would convert to Christianity. Rabbi Amnon refused. The Bishop insisted and continued to press Rabbi Amnon to accept his offer. Of course, Rabbi Amnon continued to refuse. One day, however, Rabbi Amnon asked the Bishop for three days to consider his offer.

As soon as Rabbi Amnon returned home, he was distraught at the terrible mistake he had made of even appearing to consider the Bishop's offer and the betrayal of G-d. For three days he could not eat or sleep and he prayed to G-d for forgiveness. When the deadline for decision arrived, the Bishop sent messenger after messenger to bring Rabbi Amnon, but he refused to go. Finally, the Bishop had him forcibly brought to him and demanded a response. The Rabbi responded, "I should have my tongue cut out for not having refused immediately." The Bishop angrily had Rabbi Amnon's hands and feet cut off and then sent him home.

A few days later was Rosh HaShanah, and Rabbi Amnon, dying from his wounds, asked to be carried to shul. He wished to say the Kedushah to sanctify G-d's Name and publicly declare his faith in G-d's Kingship. With his dying breath, he uttered the words that we now know of as the U'Netaneh Tokef.

Three days later Rabbi Amnon appeared in a dream to Rabbi Kalonymous ben Meshullam, a scholar and poet, and taught him the exact text of the prayer. Rabbi Amnon asked that it be sent to all Jewry and that it be inserted in the prayers of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur for all time.’

That story, Mr Prime Minister of Israel, should have been the guiding light and spirit behind your reply to President Obama.

(2)
But we can go back much further. The Torah, the Written Law, is written entirely in Hebrew, except for two words. These two words are in Aramaic. The English translators couldn’t handle them, and so they appear together as one word, in transliterated Aramaic.

Genesis 31, 46-48:
46 And Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones; and they took stones, and made an heap: and they did eat there upon the heap.
47 And Laban called it Jegarsahadutha: but Jacob called it Galeed.
48 And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed;

The translation is little short of atrocious, but the meaning is understandable even in the current translation.

The commentator Sforno points out that Jacob uses the Hebrew term for a monument (the “Galeed” is actually in Hebrew two words: Gal Ed, Gal meaning a heap of stones, and Ed meaning a witness. Such a heap of stones thus “bears witness”, and is therefore what we know as a monument.

So what actually happened here, says Sforno, is that Laban (whose native tongue was Aramaic) named the monument to peace between himself and Jacob in his language – Aramaic – but Jacob insisted on using the Hebrew – Gal Ed. And Laban “capitulated”, reverting to the Hebrew term as declared by Jacob.

This, says Sforno, is the power of Jacob: when Jacob insists on his terms, he has the power to subjugate his opponents.

Did you get that, Bibi?

British Plans for the Resettlement of Palestinian Arabs

Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis will know that from time to time I delve into historical archives, and it’s something I’ll continue to do. The article below isn’t by me, however – it was written 30 years ago by Professor Joseph Nedava, a political scientist at the University of Haifa (citation details at the end).

Let me, as a prelude, explain who some of the people mentioned in the article are, since they may not be familiar to non-British or younger readers. Robert Boothby (1900-86) was a long-serving, very colourful Conservative MP who was given a life peerage as Baron Boothby in 1958. During the 1930s he was strongly anti-Appeasement. Richard Crossman (1907-74) was a Labour MP and Cabinet Minister well-known for his support of Israel. Like Boothby, he was familiar to television viewers , often appearing in political discussion programmes. William Ormsby-Gore (1885-1964) was a Conservative MP from 1910-38, when he succeeded his father as Baron Harlech. During 1921-22 he was British representative to the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission, and from 1922-29 – except briefly in 1924, when Labour was in power – was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. From 1936-38 he was Colonial Secretary. Sir Alec Kirkbride (1897-1978), who served as an officer under General Allenby from 1916-21, was Governor of Acre (1922-27 and 1937-39). One of Britain’s principal advisors to King Abdullah, he was Deputy Resident in Transjordan (1927-1937), Resident (1939-46), and then Ambassador to Jordan. Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was an army officer who served under General Allenby, attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and was involved in the creation of the Mandate; he came of a non-Jewish merchant banking family and was, incidentally, the nephew of Beatrice Webb. Hugh Dalton (1885-1962) was a Labour politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1945-47. St John Philby (1885-1960), father of Soviet spy Kim Philby, was an Arabist explorer and intelligence officer.


Many a historian is responsible for the injection of a myth into recent Jewish history; they claim that the underlying causes of the present Israeli-Arab conflict are to be ascribed to the error of omission of the Zionist leaders in not perceiving the existence of a latent Arab problem – a problem which wide expansion of the Zionist settlement could only exacerbate.

This, however, is clearly a misconception. Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, was not blind to realities. When he visited Palestine in 1898 he found an almost empty country with a relatively small Arab population (estimated by some reliable authorities at 250,000). He saw no reason to regard them as a potentially hostile element, and he sincerely believed that they would easily be integrated into a sovereign Jewish State, reaping all the prospective benefits due to a loyal minority. In his Utopian novel Altneuland Herzl paints in most idyllic terms a multi-racial society in a prosperous Holy Land.

Israel Zangwill

Of the “Founding Fathers” of modern Zionism, Israel Zangwill was the only one to deny the possibility of peaceful Jewish-Arab co-existence in the future Jewish State. In his mind there was no room for both peoples in this small country, and as “we cannot allow the Arabs to block so valuable a piece of historic reconstruction ... therefore we must gently persuade them [the Arabs] to ‘trek’. After all, they have all Arabia with its millions of square miles ... and Israel has not a square inch.” (The Voice of Jerusalem, London, 1920, p. 93.)

Zangwill’s original view caused quite a furor [sic] in official Zionist circles in 1919, and Max Nordau expressed a well-established consensus when he wrote to him from Madrid (15 January 1919):

“...The stand you have taken in the Arab question seems to me regrettable. It’s no use qualifying your scheme as your own individual idea – we have not to count on the good faith of our eternal enemies, and henceforward they will quote you as their authority for the accusation that, not you Israel Zangwill, but ‘the’ Jews, all the Jews, are an intolerant lot dreaming only violence and high-handed dealings and expulsion of non-Jews and longing for the continuation of Joshua’s methods after an enforced interruption of 3400 years or so.” (Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem.)

Zangwill’s views, though unusual, had an impact on various British statesmen, and their effect was particularly felt on the eve of the Balfour Declaration (1917). Intimation of a possible transfer of the Palestinian Arab population to the neighbouring states can be seen in the early drafts of the Declaration. This was brought out as late as 1963 in Lord Boothby’s contribution to the BBC Third Programme’s tribute to Dr Weizmann. He stated that “the original Balfour Declaration made provision for the Arabs to be moved elsewhere, more or less”. (Jewish Chronicle, London, 3 January 1964, p. 7)

Richard Crossman

A lively controversy in the British-Jewish press followed Lord Boothby’s broadcast. The Jewish Chronicle categorically disclaimed the allegation, contending that all the versions of the Declaration were on record, and “the displacement of the Arabs was never considered or thought of, either on the British or the Zionist side”. (Ibid.) Lord Boothby stood his ground, reiterating in his rejoinder that “at the time of the original Balfour Declaration, some resettlement of the Arabs in Palestine east of the Jordan was envisaged following the establishment of the National Home”. (Ibid., 17 Jan., p. 7)  He based himself on an essay written by Richard Crossman on Weizmann, as well as on Sir Alec Kirkbride’s memoirs. (Sir Alec Kirkbride, as a British civil servant, was closely associated with the Hashemite family in Transjordan for many years. In his book A Crackle of Thorns, London, 1956, pp. 19-20, he writes: “... the remote and undeveloped areas which lay to the east of the [Jordan] river... were intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine ... became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming an independent Arab state.”)

Moreover, Lord Boothby, who proclaimed himself a life-long Zionist, was absolutely convinced that a massive immigration of Jews to their small historic homeland, “without great natural resources, was quite unrealistic unless accompanied by some resettlement of the Arab population.” (JC, 17 Jan. 1964, p. 7)

Lord Boothby

In the wake of the Jewish Chronicle's rebuttal, Lord Boothby finally admitted his error in implying the existence of a written substantiation of his allegation, but he still insisted on the validity of his argument quoting Mrs Weizmann’s letter to him (The Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, London, 28 Feb. 1964) by way of support and having his contention confirmed by Mr Boris Guriel, senior staff officer of the Weizmann Archives. In a letter to the London Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, Mr Guriel writes:

”Serious substantiation can be found for Lord Boothby’s contention as to the original meaning of the Balfour Declaration prior to the final version... The Arabs were never mentioned in the original draft, and, by way of omission, the possibility of a transfer became plausible... Regardless of whether or not the actual draft contained the “transfer” point in letter, it is the spirit and the logical consequence which count.” (The Weizmann Archives, Rehovoth, Israel)

Further confirmation of Lord Boothby’s contention is found in some remarks made by Churchill concerning the prospects for a Jewish Palestine in years to come. Presumably having Zangwill’s views in mind, Churchill is quoted as having said that “there are the Jews, hom we are pledged to introduce into Palestine, and who take it for granted that the local population will be cleared out to suit their convenience.” (Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, London, 1975, vol. IV (1916-1922), p. 484)

The prospect of an Arab transfer also occupied Emir Abdullah’s mind when the Churchill-Abdulla  [sic] “settlement” was discussed in March 1921. The Hashemite prince wanted to know whether “His Majesty’s Government mean to establish a Jewish kingdom west of the Jordan and to turn out the non-Jewish population? If so, it would be better to tell the Arabs at once and not keep them in suspense.”  Churchill may have been somewhat unhappy about a decision of the Allies to that effect, for he remarked sarcastically: “The Allies appear to think that men could be cut down and transplanted in the same way as trees.” (ibid., p. 561)

Even when the bitter experiences and cruelties of the Arab riots of 1929 clearly demonstrated that Jewish-Arab co-existence was nothing but an empty vision, Zionist leaders consistently refrained from airing suggestions of a possible Arab transfer. It was a British Royal Commission, set up to investigate the 1936 disturbances, that dared to bring up such a proposal openly. In its Report (1937), proposing the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab State, it dealt, inter alia, with the problems involving exchange of land and population, and suggested the transfer of about 225,000 Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab State. It cited as an example the precedent which saw some 1,300,000 Greeks and some 400,000 Turks exchanged following an agreement reached by Greece and Turkey in the wake of the Greco-Turkish War of 1922. (Palestine Royal Commission Report, London, 1937, cmd. 5479, ch. xxii, p.390)

The Partition proposal was hotly debated in the Zionist camp, and the provision for the Arab transfer no doubt greatly helped in strengthening its supporters. (See, for instance, the reasoning which led David Ben-Gurion to his final acceptance of the Partition Plan. Zichronot (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, 1974, vol. 4, pp. 297-299)

The British Government was determined to implement the Partition Plan, fully subscribing to the Arab transfer provision. Appearing before the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, the British Colonial Secretary, Mr W. Ormsby-Gore, although emphasising that the Mandatory Power would not accept the proposal for compulsory transfer contained in the Report of the Royal Commission, pointed to the possibility of a voluntary transfer of Palestinian Arabs to the neighbouring states. “These people”, he said,

“had not hitherto regarded themselves as ‘Palestinian’ but as part of Syria as a whole, as part of the Arab world. They would be going only a comparatively few miles away to a people with the same language, the same civilization, the same religion; and therefore the problem of transfer geographically and practically was easier even than the interchanges of Greeks and Turks between Asia Minor and the Balkans ... if homesteads were provided and land was prepared for their reception not too far from their existing homes, he was confident that many would make use of that opportunity.” (Permanent Mandates Commission, Minutes, 13 August 1937, pp. 179-181)

In a conversation Dr Weizmann had with Mr Ormsby-Gore, the latter reassured the Zionist leader that the British Government was proposing to set up a Committee for the purpose of finding land for the Arab transfer (in Transjordan, and, possibly, also within the borders of the Arab State, in the Negev), and for arranging the actual terms of the transfer. Mr Ormsby-Gore mentioned the name of Sir John Campbell, who had much relevant experience in the field. (JC, 13 August 1937, pp. 22-25)

The recommendations of the Royal Commission became Dr Weizmann’s political platform for the following years up to the establishment of the State of Israel. In his article in Foreign Affairs (on the eve of the Biltmore Conference), he outlined the position of the Arabs in the prospective Jewish State: “In that state there will be complete civil and political equality of rights for all citizens, without distinction of race or religion, and, in addition, the Arabs will enjoy full autonomy in their own internal affairs. But if any Arabs do not wish to remain in a Jewish State, every facility will be given to them to transfer to one of the many and vast Arab countries.” (“Palestine’s Role in the Solution of the Jewish Problem”, Foreign Affairs, N.Y., January 1942, pp. 337-338)



Ze'ev Jabotinsky

 A similar stand was taken by the Revisionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, in the book which turned out to be his last (1940). He and his party have quite often been wrongly and maliciously attacked for their ostensible intention to drive the Arabs out of Palestine. (See, for instance, Hannah Arendt’s article in The Menorah Journal, Autumn 1945, vol. xxxiii, no. 2, reproduced in Zionism Reconsidered, edited by Michael Selzer, London, 1970, where she mistakenly states (p. 215) that the transfer of all Palestinian Arabs “is openly demanded by Revisionists”, and that “they [the Revisionists] were the first to advocate the transfer of Palestine Arabs to Iraq” (p. 218).)

Nowhere and at no time did Jabotinsky propagate the evacuation of the Arabs from Palestine. On the contrary, he expressed himself many times in favour of granting the Arabs in a Jewish State full equality, but, as he was not sure that all this would be sufficient inducement for the Arabs to remain in a Jewish country, he

“would refuse to see a tragedy in their willingness to emigrate. The Palestine Royal Commission did not shrink from the suggestion. Courage is infectious. Since we have this great moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of 350,000 Arabs from one corner of Palestine, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay.” (The War and the Jew, NY, 1942, pp. 218-219)

Chaim Weizmann

Jabotinsky based himself on the Greek-Turkish precedent of 1923, and Dr Weizmnn, too, often referred to the “Greek example”. At a meeting held in New Court, London, Dr Weizmann told the assembled representatives of British Jewry (Anthony de Rothschild, Lionel de Rothschild, Lord Bearsted, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen, Lord Victor Rothschild, Mr Leonard Montefiore and others), that the question of a Jewish State’s boundaries raised the question of transfer of population; "If, for instance, they could transfer those Arab tenants who owned no land of their own (he believed there would be about 120,000 of them) they would be able to settle in their stead about half a million Jews.” (Note of meeting held at New Court, Tuesday, 9 September 1941, Weizmann Archives).

Officially and publicly Dr Weizmann quite often expressed himself, in the late 20s and early 30s, against Zionist aspirations for a Jewish State in Palestine, or for a Jewish majority, but in informal gatherings and in his private correspondence he almost never repudiated what seemed to him the correct interpretation of the historic pledges made by the British concerning the fulfilment of Zionist aims. He referred to a Jewish State and the prospective evacuation of at least a portion of the Palestine Arabs to the neighbouring states. To cite but one example, in his letter of 17 January 1930 to James Marshall, the son of the well-known leader of American Jewry, Louis Marshall, he writes: "There can be no doubt that the picture in the minds of those who drafted the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was that of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. Palestine was to be a Jewish State in which the Arabs would enjoy the fullest civil and cultural rights; but for the expression of their own national individuality in terms of statehood they were to turn to the surrounding Arab countries – Syria, Iraq, Hedjaz, etc.” (The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem, 1978, vol. xiv, p. 206)

R. Meinertzhagen

The Royal Commission’s recommendation to the effect of an Arab transfer really proved to be infectious, and it caused great enthusiasm among British friends of Zionism. Col. Meinertzhagen insisted on the need to establish Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, and “if any Arabs have doubts about it, let them go to the large Arab territories bordering Palestine after full compensation”.

He believed that two or three million pounds would be enough to “buy the lot out”, and he was sure that thousands of Englishmen would follow his example in contributing to this cause. (R. Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary (1917-1956), vol. xx, p. 203)

The Partition proposal with its concomitant clause about a transfer of Palestinian Arabs was ultimately shelved by the British Government itself, mainly because of Arab opposition, but its basic principles seem to have lived on, and to have been implemented by the force of inexorable circumstances brought about through the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The British Labour Party too, on the eve of its coming to power, adopted the transfer proposal. Its Party Conference, held in December 1944, adopted the following Declaration on “The Post-War International Settlement” with respect to Palestine:

'There is surely neither hope nor meaning in a “Jewish National Home” unless we are prepared to let Jews, if they wish, enter this tiny land in such numbers as to become a majority. There was a strong case for this before the war. There is an irresistible case now, after the unspeakable atrocities of the cold and calculated German plot to kill all Jews in Europe. Here, too, in Palestine, surely is a case, on human grounds and to promote a stable settlement for transfers of population. Let the Arabs be encouraged to move out, as the Jews move in. Let them be compensated handsomely for their land, and let their settlement elsewhere be carefully organized and generously financed. The Arabs have many wide territories of their own... Indeed, we should re-examine also the possibility of extending the present Palestinian borders, by agreement with Egypt, Syria, or Transjordan.’ (Documents Relating to the Palestine Problem published by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, London, 1945, p. 81. See also Dr [Hugh] Dalton’s statement on behalf of the Labour Party Executive 1945, on the same issue – Ibid.)

This unexpected pledge caught Dr Weizmann completely by surprise. In his autobiography he tells us that he pleaded with Dr Hugh Dalton, the Labour statesman, saying that there was no need of their proposal, and that the Zionists “never contemplated the removal of the Arabs, and the British Labourites, in their pro-Zionist enthusiasm, went far beyond our intentions.” (Trial and Error, Phila., 1949, vol. 2, p. 436.)

St John Philby

Another British plan to solve the Palestine problem, involving the evacuation of the Palestinian Arabs, was afoot in 1938-1939, at the initiative, or at least, with the active participation of King Ibn Saud’s “confidant”, St John Philby. Under “Philby’s Plan”, “The whole of Palestine should be left to the Jews. All Arabs displaced therefrom should be resettled elsewhere at the expense of the Jews , who would place a sum of £20 millions at the disposal of King Ibn Saud for this purpose.” (J. B. Philby, Arabian Jubilee, NY, 1953, pp. 212-213) The price the British and American Governments were expected to pay for this was the formal recognition of the complete independence of all Arab countries with the exception of Aden. It was Philby’s allegation that the Plan failed because Dr Weizmann was unable “to interest his powerful friends [Churchill and Roosevelt].” (Ibid., p. 214. As for Dr Weizmann’s version of the story, see Trial and Error, pp. 427-428.)

Victor Gollancz

The readiness to entertain the idea of a transfer of the Palestinian Arabs to neighbouring states, which was a radical change in the accepted view of the Palestine problem, evolved as a result of the impact of the Holocaust on British public opinion. This also accounted for the change of mind regarding Zionism on the part of such a leftist intellectual as the publisher Victor Gollancz. Arguing for the Zionist cause he writes:

“Suppose that a few hundred thousand of the million Arabs at present in Palestine would consider life in a Jewish Commonwealth impossible ... is there no way out? Surely there is, and a very simple one. The world has recently been discussing the project of moving great hordes of men and women – not a few hundred thousand, but ten to twelve million – from their old homes to a new environment... Suppose the United Nations said to the Arab statesmen “We desire to establish, by the necessary stages, a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine, for we believe a settlement of the Jewish question on lines such as these to be an indispensable part of the world settlement. We give our guarantee that every Arab in Palestine shall have complete civic equality and religious freedom. But if, in spite of this guarantee, any Arab should wish to leave Palestine and settle elsewhere we would make it easy for him to do so; we will see to it that the change takes place in the best conditions, and we will provide ample funds, in each case, for the decure establishment of a new home.” (Nowhere to Lay Their Heads, London, 1945, pp. 28-29)

Mr Gollancz then points out that the agricultural and industrial development of the Arab lands is hampered by shortage of population. Iraq, for instance, openly invited Arabs to come and settle on its land.

Indeed, efforts were made during World War II and the years immediately following, to bring about a transfer of the Palestinian Arabs to Iraq. In one such project, the correspondent of the London Times, H. T. Montague Bell, was involved. In his article “Iraq To-Day”, he writes: “Iraq’s paramount requirement is an increase of population. With from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 inhabitants, she cannot do justice to the potentialities of the land – the lack of labour is a constant problem – and she is at a disadvantage against Turkey and Iran with their far larger populations ... any substantial increase of population in the near future must come from outside.” (The Times, 27 Oct. 1938, p. 13. For a discussion of Mr Bell’s involvement with the plan for the transfer of Palestinian Arabs to Iraq, see my article “Exchanges of Population Plans for the Solution of the Palestine Problem” (Hebrew), Gesher, Spring-Summer, 1978, pp. 160-162.)

However, all these plans, too, failed to materialise either because of lack of goodwill or sustained drive.

(Article first published in Forum on the Jewish People, Zionism and Israel, No. 42/43, Winter 1981, pp. 101-107; pictorial content added for this blog by Daphne Anson.)

On Jews Who Reject Israel

Very recently I posted Ray Cook's excellent blogpost concerning Jews who profess to be "ashamed" to be so in light of Israeli policy. Now, Avraham Reiss of Jerusalem has given a most interesting insight, from a Religious Zionist perspective, on this issue. Mr Reiss blogs at http://jcwatch.wordpress.com/ but this blogpost of his, entitled "Who Rejects Who?" was posted at the London Jewish Chronicle's blogs (thejc.com) on the evening of 13 November. (I've added the pictorial content):

Rabbi Zvi Yehudah HaCohen Kook was the son of the illustrious Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, first Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael. Rav Zvi Yehudah, as I knew him, was the Rosh Yeshiva of Mercaz HaRav here in Jerusalem until he passed away during the 'eighties. I had the honour of studying under him for a number of years.

Some months ago appeared a book dedicated to him, in which former students (many now well-known rabbis within the Religious Zionist movement) recounted their experiences while studying in Mercaz HaRav.

The book is named Mashmia Yeshua, which translates roughly as "Proclaimer of Salvation", an apt description of the legacy of Rav Zvi Yehudah's father [pictured], which expounded his attributing the 20th century Jewish renaissance in the Land of Israel to the swift approach of the Final Days of Redemption. Rav Zvi Yehuda was a very original thinker, but he subjugated his entire life to publication of the astounding number of books - in the spheres of both Halacha and Jewish Philosophy - written by his father.  I once innocently asked Rav Zvi Yehudah if we are now at "the start of the Redemption" (itchalta d'geula), and he replied "Start? We are in the actual days of the Mashiach" (Etzem yemot HaMashiach).

The book contains 600 pages, and I am in the habit of taking it to shul and reading from it between Mincha and Maariv each day.

Yesterday night, Leil Shabat, on pages 237-238 I read the following story (which originally appeared in a book named Angels as Men), which immediately brought to mind the handful of Israel-haters which the JC is so happy to host and accommodate on these blog pages. I'm telling the story here because I doubt if the book will ever be translated into English (owing to lack of demand), and because I deem the story relevant to these blog pages.

One comment, and my apologies in advance to our lady readers for this sentence: they say that a translation is like a woman – either attractive or faithful, but never both. For that reason I am not translating word for word, but re-telling the story as I read it, in English.

The story was told by Rav Zvi Yehuda once at a shabbat meal in his house. It was told after Rav Zvi Yehudah heard that some Jewish tourists had returned to their country of origin and foul-mouthed the Land of Israel. The story was originally told by Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever [pictured, on an Israeli stamp], a 19th century founder of Religious Zionism and of the Mizrachi movement.

In a certain village there lived a young man who was very rich – and was as uncouth as he was rich. In the same village lived a very poor family, one of whose daughters was a very beautiful girl, who was also possessed of exceptionally good personality traits.

The young man was very attracted to the young lady, but despite his sending a few shadchanim (match-makers) to arrange a meeting between them, the lady was not interested and refused every suggestion. One day her father asked for his sake to meet with the young man just once, so that he would stop pestering her and the family. She agreed, and he was invited for shabbat lunch.

When he arrived, the young lady appeared in an old, not-too-clean dress, no make-up, her hair dishevelled, and in general showed him no affection whatsoever.

The young man left, telling everyone he knew that the stories about her beauty and character were a lie, that she was in fact ugly and ill-mannered.

This, said Rav Zvi Yehudah, is Eretz Yisrael. This is a holy land with special qualities, which will not accept people whose spiritual qualities are not suited for it. In such cases it makes itself appear to them in an unappealing fashion, so while they are going around saying how much the Land of Israel is not worthy of them, in fact it is they who are not worthy of living in the Land of Israel, which has in effect rejected them.

This is how one should react to Israel-haters; they are in fact rejects.