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 [Josué]
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.
Vladimir Jabotinsky
First published in Russian under the title "O Zheleznoi Stene"
in Rastsvet, 4 November 1923.
Published in English in Jewish Herald (South Africa), 26
November 1937.