The Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
"The Balfour Declaration, made in November 1917 by the British
Government...was made a) by a European power, b) about a non-European territory,
c) in flat disregard of both the presence and wishes of the native majority
resident in that territory...[As Balfour himself wrote in 1919], 'The contradiction
between the letter of the Covenant (the Anglo French Declaration of 1918
promising the Arabs of the former Ottoman colonies that as a reward for
supporting the Allies they could have their independence) is even more
flagrant in the case of the independent nation of Palestine than in that
of the independent nation of Syria. For in Palestine we do not propose
even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants
of the country...The four powers are committed to Zionism and 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 desire
and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land,'"
Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."
Wasn't Palestine a wasteland before the Jews started immigrating
there?
"Britain's high commissioner for Palestine, John Chancellor, recommended
total suspension of Jewish immigration and land purchase to protect Arab
agriculture. He said 'all cultivable land was occupied; that no cultivable
land now in possession of the indigenous population could be sold to Jews
without creating a class of landless Arab cultivators'...The Colonial Office
rejected the recommendation." John Quigley, "Palestine and
Israel: A Challenge to Justice."
Were the early Zionists planning on living side by side with Arabs?
In 1919, the American King-Crane Commission spent six weeks in Syria
and Palestine, interviewing delegations and reading petitions. Their report
stated, "The commissioners began their study of Zionism with minds
predisposed in its favor...The fact came out repeatedly in the Commission's
conferences with Jewish representatives that the Zionists looked forward
to a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants
of Palestine, by various forms of purchase...
"If [the] principle [of self-determination] is to rule, and so
the wishes of Palestine's population are to be decisive as to what is to
be done with Palestine, then it is to be remembered that the non-Jewish
population of Palestine - nearly nine-tenths of the whole - are emphatically
against the entire Zionist program.. To subject a people so minded to unlimited
Jewish immigration, and to steady financial and social pressure to surrender
the land, would be a gross violation of the principle just quoted...No
British officers, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist
program could be carried out except by force of arms.The officers generally
thought that a force of not less than fifty thousand soldiers would be
required even to initiate the program. That of itself is evidence of a
strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist program...The initial claim,
often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a 'right' to
Palestine based on occupation of two thousand years ago, can barely be
seriously considered." Quoted in "The Israel-Arab Reader"
ed. Laquer and Rubin.
Side by side - continued
"Zionist land policy was incorporated in the Constitution of the
Jewish Agency for Palestine...'land is to be acquired as Jewish property
and..the title to the lands acquired is to be taken in the name of the
Jewish National Fund, to the end that the same shall be held as the inalienable
property of the Jewish people.' The provision goes to stipulate that 'the
Agency shall promote agricultural colonization based on Jewish labor'...The
effect of this Zionist colonization policy on the Arabs was that land acquired
by Jews became extra-territorialized. It ceased to be land from which the
Arabs could ever hope to gain any advantage...
"The Zionists made no secret of their intentions, for as early
as 1921, Dr. Eder, a member of the Zionist Commission, boldly told the
Court of Inquiry, 'there can be only one National Home in Palestine, and
that a Jewish one, and no equality in the partnership between Jews and
Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as soon as the numbers of the race are
sufficiently increased.' He then asked that only Jews should be allowed
to bear arms." Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."
Given Arab opposition to them, did the Zionists support steps towards
majority rule in Palestine?
"Clearly, the last thing the Zionists really wanted was that all
the inhabitants of Palestine should have an equal say in running the country...
[Chaim] Weizmann had impressed on Churchill that representative government
would have spelled the end of the [Jewish] National Home in Palestine...
[Churchill declared,] 'The present form of government will continue for
many years. Step by step we shall develop representative institutions leading
to full self-government, but our children's children will have passed away
before that is accomplished.'" David Hirst, "The Gun and the
Olive Branch."
Denial of the Arabs' right to self-determination
"Even if nobody lost their land, the [Zionist] program was unjust
in principle because it denied majority political rights... Zionism, in
principle, could not allow the natives to exercise their political rights
because it would mean the end of the Zionist enterprise." Benjamin
Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins."
Arab resistance to Pre-Israeli Zionism
"In 1936-9, the Palestinian Arabs attempted a nationalist revolt...
David Ben-Gurion, eminently a realist, recognized its nature. In internal
discussion, he noted that 'in our political argument abroad, we minimize
Arab opposition to us,' but he urged, 'let us not ignore the truth among
ourselves.' The truth was that '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'... The revolt
was crushed by the British, with considerable brutality." Noam
Chomsky, "The Fateful Triangle."
Gandhi on the Palestine conflict - 1938
"Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England
belongs to the English or France to the French...What is going on in Palestine
today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct...If they [the Jews]
must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong
to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot
be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in
Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs... As it is, they are co-sharers
with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of
non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment
upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong,
nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming
odds." Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in "A Land of Two Peoples"
ed. Mendes-Flohr.
Didn't the Zionists legally buy much of the land before Israel was
established?
"In 1948, at the moment that Israel declared itself a state, it
legally owned a little more than 6 percent of the land of Palestine...After
1940, when the mandatory authority restricted Jewish land ownership to
specific zones inside Palestine, there continued to be illegal buying (and
selling) within the 65 percent of the total area restricted to Arabs.
Thus when the partition plan was announced in 1947 it included land
held illegally by Jews, which was incorporated as a fait accompli inside
the borders of the Jewish state. And after Israel announced its statehood,
an impressive series of laws legally assimilated huge tracts of Arab land
(whose proprietors had become refugees, and were pronounced 'absentee landlords'
in order to expropriate their lands and prevent their return under any
circumstances)." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."