An Israel of Pride and Shame
By Roger Cohen
Dec. 29, 2017
Banners thanking President Trump were on display in Israel in December.
Credit
Abir Sultan/European Pressphoto Agency
In 1919, David Ben-Gurion, who 29 years later would become the founding prime minister of Israel, dismissed the possibility of peace.
Speaking at a public discussion, he said:
'Everyone sees the difficulty of relations between Jews and Arabs but not everyone sees that there is no solution to that question. There is no solution. There is an abyss and nothing can fill that abyss... We want Palestine to be ours as a nation. The Arabs want it to be theirs, as a nation.'
Almost a century on, Ben-Gurion’s prescience, in this statement, is clear. Today, Jerusalem, contested city, is adorned with banners saying: “God Bless Trump. From Jerusalem DC (David’s Capital) to Washington DC.”
President Trump’s rash recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, its boundaries to be determined, has won him friends in Israel even as it has envenomed the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One thing is safe to say about 2018: It will not bring peace to the Holy Land. Peace is not built on provocations or ultimate-deal fantasy.
Tom Segev, a prominent Israeli historian who has just completed a biography of Ben-Gurion, told me Israel’s founding father was not much interested in Jerusalem when he first went to Ottoman Palestine in 1906. He was not drawn to 'David’s capital,' preferring to stay with the Jewish pioneers in Petah Tikva and elsewhere.
'Jerusalem had too many Orthodox Jews, who were anti-Zionist, and too many Arabs,' Segev said. Ben-Gurion was interested in forging a new Jew: the scrawny scholars of the European shtetl poring over sacred texts would become vigorous tillers of the soil. 'Tel Aviv was the capital of Zionism; Jerusalem of Judaism,' Segev suggested.
NU de Joodse en Extreem Christelijke Zionistische Propaganda: De houding van het CIDI verraadt hoe pathologisch het huidige zionisme is. Het stelen van andermans grondgebied om er Joodse dorpen en steden te bouwen, die volgens het Internationaal Gerechtshof -- 's werelds hoogste rechtsinstituut -- illegaal zijn, dient volgens het CIDI als doodnormaal te worden beschouwd. De werkelijkheid staat haaks hierop. In 2005 schreven dr. Jeff Handmaker, Senior Lecturer in Law, Human Rights and Development International Institute of Social Studies in Den Haag, en Ineke Boerefijn, universitair hoofddocent van het Studie- en Informatiecentrum Mensenrechten van de Universiteit Utrecht, in het gezaghebbende Nederlands Juristenblad:
De verplichtingen van Israël waren niet het enige waar het Internationaal Gerechtshof uitspraken over deed. De overgrote meerderheid van het Hof concludeerde dat andere staten verplicht waren de illegale situatie die Israël heeft gecreëerd niet te erkennen, en Israël geen financiële steun te verlenen bij het in stand houden van de illegaal gebouwde muur. Volgens het Hof hebben Staten die partij zijn bij de Conventies van Genève van 1949 en bij het Handvest van de Verenigde Naties (waaronder Nederland) de verplichting de naleving door Israël van deze verdragen te verzekeren.
Internationale mensenrechtenorganisaties, zoals Amnesty International, wijzen er al jaren op dat de Israëlische praktijken in de Bezette Gebieden in strijd zijn met internationale mensenrechtenverdragen. In het Advies wordt nu dezelfde conclusie getrokken.
Duidelijk is dat het CIDI een extremistisch standpunt inneemt, door net te doen alsof er geen sprake is van zionistische schendingen van het internationaal recht, en dat daarom het besluit van Airbnb domweg ‘antisemitisch’ is. De onuitgesproken gedachte hierachter is dat het zionistisch regime in de ‘Joodse Staat’ boven de wet staat. Dit extremisme is niet nieuw, het is altijd al de kern geweest van het zionisme. De feiten uit onder andere ‘Declassified Israeli Documents & Personal Diaries’:
It is worth emphasizing that the "Jewish state" was founded on the basis of an ancient Biblical map, and to this date the "Jewish state" still refuses to declare its borders in favor of future expansion. There is nothing like this Biblical map to send shivers among Arabs and Muslims, since its borders spans the occupied West Bank (including occupied East Jerusalem), occupied Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon, the western parts of Jordan, and southern Syria including the occupied Golan Heights.
This deep fear was the prime motive behind the Palestinian and Arab rejection of the U.N. GA proposed partition plan in 1947.
Related Links
- Zionist FAQ: Why Arabs rejected the 1947 U.N. GA proposed partition plan of Palestine?
- Zionist FAQ: Why seven well armed Arab armies attempted to annihilate the poorly armed Jewish State in 1948?
As WWI was ending, Ben-Gurion went on to draw a map of the "Jewish state" to be. This map clearly excluded Damascus (although it was part of Biblical "Eretz Yisrael"), and limited the "Jewish state's" future northern borders to 20 km south of the Syrian Capital. He rationalized this decision as follows:
"It is unthinkable that the Jewish state, in our day and age, could include the city of Damascus… This is a large Arab city, and one of the four centers of Islam. The Jewish community there is small. The Arabs will never allow Damascus, their pride, to come under Jewish control, and there can be no doubt that the English, even were it in their power, would agree to such a thing." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 34)
If these are all sound reasons to exclude Damascus from being under Jewish control, then what makes Zionists think that occupied Jerusalem is any different? Although Damascus was never occupied by the Christian Crusaders, Jerusalem was occupied and pillaged, and to liberate it almost a million Muslim and Arab were martyred! Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims often wonder where the Zionist Jews were when their "Promised Land" needed them during the Crusaders' genocide!
From the beginning, Zionists advocated a "Jewish State" not just in Palestine, but also in Jordan, southern Lebanon, and the Golan Heights as well. In 1918 Ben-Gurion described the future "Jewish state's" frontiers in details as follows:
"to the north, the Litani river [in southern Lebanon], to the northeast, the Wadi 'Owja, twenty miles south of Damascus; the southern border will be mobile and pushed into Sinai at least up to Wadi al-'Arish; and to the east, the Syrian Desert, including the furthest edge of Transjordan" (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 87) Click here to view the "Greater Israel" map that was submitted by the Zionists to the peace conference after WWI.
In the mid-1930s, Ben-Gurion met George Antonius (an advisor to al-Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who was one of the few Palestinians whom Ben-Gurion had contacts with), and suggested that Palestinians should help the Zionists to expand the borders of their future "Jewish state" to include areas under French control, such as southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights. In response, Mr. Antonius burst laughing and answered:
"So, you propose that what England did not give you [as stated in the Balfour Declaration), you will get from us." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 162)
According to Ben-Gurion, Antonius had complained about Zionists who "want to bring to Palestine the largest number of Jews possible, without taking [the Palestinian] Arabs into consideration at all. With this type," said Antonius, "it is impossible to come to an understanding. They want a 100% Jewish state, and the [Palestinian] Arabs will remain in their shadow." By the end of their talk, Antonius could, with reason, conclude that Ben-Gurion belonged precisely to this category of Zionists. (Shabtai Teveth, p. 163)
According to Ben-Gurion, Palestine was a "matter of life and death" for the Jews. "Even pogroms in Germany or Poland, and in Palestine, we prefer the pogroms here." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 163)
On July 29, 1937, Ben-Gurion stated to the World Convention of Ihud Po'alei Tzion in Zurich that Maronite ruled Lebanon would serve the Christian minority better if it allied itself with the future "Jewish state." He said:
"Having Lebanon as a neighbor ensures the Jewish state of a faithful ally from the first day of its establishment. It is not, also, unavoidable that across the northern side of the Jewish state border in southern Lebanon the first possibility of our expansion will come up through agreement, in good will, with our neighbors who need us." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 88)
Ben-Gurion was enchanted that Jerusalem's neighboring Palestinian communities had been emptied. He stated to the Mapai Council on February 8, 1948:
"From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]... there are no [Palestinian] Arab. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change… What had happened in Jerusalem… is likely to happen in many parts of the country… in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)
'The Muslims rule of Lebanon is artificial and easily undermined. A Christian state ought to be set up whose southern borders would be Litani River. Then we'll form an alliance with it." In the coming years he repeated this idea, and according to Moshe Sharett, Moshe Dayan (who was Israeli's chief of staff in the early 1950s) responded favorably to this idea and who according to Sharett said: "In his [Dayan] view, all we need to do is to find a Christian Lebanese officer, perhaps no higher than a captain, and win him over or buy him with money, so that he would declare himself the savior of Maronite population. Then the Israel army would enter Lebanon, occupy the territory in question and establish a Christian government which would form an alliance with Israel." Sharett himself considered this an "awful" idea. (1949, The First Israelis, p. 10 & Righteous Victims, p. 497)
What's ironic that this "awful" idea was precisely executed thirty later by Manahem Bagin and Ariel Sharon during the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon between 1982-2000.
In a letter Chaim Weizmann sent to the Palestine-British high Commissioner while the Peel Commission was convening in 1937, he wrote:
"We Shall spread in the whole country in the course of time ..... this is only an arrangement for the next 25 to 30 years." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 62)
In 1938, Ben-Gurion made it clear of his support for the establishment of a Jewish state on parts of Palestine ONLY as an intermediary stage, he wrote:
"[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state--we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 107, One Palestine Complete, p. 403)
Ben-Gurion emphasized that the acceptance of the Peel Commission would not imply static borders for the future "Jewish state". In a letter Ben-Gurion sent to his son in 1937, he wrote:
"No Zionist can forgo the smallest portion of the Land Of Israel. [A] Jewish state in part [of Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning... Our possession is important not only for itself... through this we increase our power, and every increase in power facilitates getting hold of the country in its entirety. Establishing a [small] state... will serve as a very potent lever in our historical effort to redeem the whole country." (Righteous Victims, p. 138)
In August 1937, the 20th Zionist Congress rejected the Peel Commission proposed partition plan because the area allotted to the "Jewish state" was smaller than expected. On the other hand, the concept of partitioning Palestine into two states was accepted as a launching pad for future Zionist expansions, and to secure unlimited Jewish immigrations. In September 1938, Ben-Gurion explained why he advocated partitioning the country NOW, and to accept the Peel Commission's proposal:
"The ONLY reason that we agreed to discuss the [Peel commission proposed] partition plan," Ben-Gurion wrote Moshe Sharett, "is mass immigration. Not in the future, and not according to abstract formula, but large immigration now." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 184)
And in October 1938, he wrote to his children that :
"I don't regard a state in part of Palestine as the final aim of Zionism, but as a mean toward that aim." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188)
In September 1937, he stated to a group of American Jewish labor leaders in New York:
"the borders [of the Jewish state] will not be fixed for eternity." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188)
On July 30, 1937 Yosef Bankover, a founding member and leader of Kibbutz Hameuhad movement and a member of Haganah's regional command of the coastal and central districts, stated that Ben-Gurion would accept the proposed Peel Commission partition plan under two conditions: 1) unlimited Jewish immigration 2) Compulsory population transfer for Palestinians. He stated that:
"Ben-Gurion said yesterday that he was prepared to accept the [Peel partition] proposal of the Royal commission but on two conditions: [Jewish] sovereignty and compulsory transfer ..... As for the compulsory transfer-- as a member of Kibbutz Ramat Hakovsh [founded in 1932 in central Palestine] I would be very pleased if it would be possible to be rid of the pleasant neighborliness of the people of Miski, Tirah, and Qalqilyah." (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 70)
Similarly, he also stated to his son Amos in October 1937 that a "Jewish state" in part of Palestine was:
"not the end, but only the beginning." Its establishment would give a "powerful boost to our historic efforts to redeem the country in its entirety." For the "Jewish state" would have "outstanding army-- I have no doubt that our army will be among the world's outstanding--and so I am certain that we won't be constrained from settling in the rest of the country, either by mutual agreement and understanding with our Arab neighbors, or by some other way... I still believe... that after we become numerous and strong, the Arabs will understand that it is best for them to strike an alliance with us, and to benefit from our help, providing they allow us by their good will to settle in all parts of Palestine." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188)
Regarding settling the Negev desert, which was allotted to the Palestinian state according to the Peel Commission, Ben-Gurion stated:
"It is very possible that in exchange for our financial, military, organizational and scientific assistance, the [Palestinian] Arabs will agree that we develop and build the Negev [which as of 2002, the Negev is still mostly populated by Palestinian-Israeli citizens]. It is also possible that they won't agree. No people always behaves according to logic, common sense, and best interests." If the Palestinian Arabs "act according to sterile nationalist emotion," and reject the idea of Jewish settlement, preferring that the Negev remain barren, then the Jewish army would act. "Because we cannot stand to see large areas of unsettled land capable of absorbing thousands of Jews remain empty, or to see Jews not return to their country because the [Palestinian] Arabs say that there is not enough room for them and us." (Shabtai Teveth, p. 188-189) It is worth noting that the Negev is still a barren desert, and under populated by Israeli Jews.
When Zionists were debating the Peel Commission's partition plan, Ben-Gurion advised his colleges to accept the concept of partitioning ONLY as a first stage of a complete conquest. He stated in 1937:
"Just as I do not see the proposed Jewish state as a final solution to the problems of the Jewish people, so I do now see partition as the final solution of the Palestine question. Those who reject partition are right in their claim that this country cannot be partitioned because it constitute one unit, not only from a historical point of view but also from that of nature and economy." (Simha Flapan, p. 22)
and while addressing the Zionist executive, he again emphasized the tactical nature of his support for partition and his assumption that:
"after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine" (emphasis added). (Simha Flapan, p. 22)
Similarly he also stated:
"The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today--but the boundaries of the Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them." By 1949 Ben-Gurion had proved that he was as good as his word. (Simha Flapan, p. 52-53)
Soon after the Biltmore conference in New York in May 1942, Ben-Gurion reiterated his commitment for a "Jewish state" in all of historic Palestine, he explained in a meeting of Histadrut Counsel:
"this is why we formulated our demand not as a Jewish state in Palestine but Palestine as a Jewish state" (emphasis add), and he advised "not to identify the Biltmore Program with a Jewish state in part of Palestine." (Simha Flapan, p. 23-24)
Ben-Gurion wrote in his dairy on November 30, 1947 after the UN vote to partition Palestine into two states:
"In my heart, there was joy mixed with sadness: joy that the nations at last acknowledged that we are a nation with a state, and SADNESS that we LOST half of the country, Judea and Samaria, and , in addition, that we [would] have [in our state] 400,000 Arabs." (Righteous Victims, p. 190)
Soon after the U.N. Proposed Partitioning Palestinian in November 1947, Ben-Gurion urged his party to accept the partition because it will never be final,
"not with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements." (Simha Flapan, p. 32)
Similarly, even most left wing parties reaffirmed their commitment to the complete redemption of Biblical "Eretz Yisrael," the United Hebrew Labor (Ahdut Haavodah) stated:
"partition is the best or shortest way of realizing greater Zionism" and declared that its members would "not cease to strive for the integrity of the homeland." (Simha Flapan, p. 33)
When Pinhas Rozen, who became Israel's first Israeli Justice, demanded that Israel's Declaration of Independence should cite the COUNTRY'S BORDERS, Ben-Gurion objected, and both exchanged the following points:
ROZEN: "There's the question of the borders, and it CANNOT BE IGNORED."
BEN-GURION: "Anything is possible. If we decide here that there's to be no mention of borders, then we won't mention them. Nothing is a priori [imperative].”
ROZEN: "It's not a priori, but it is a legal issue.”
BEN-GURION: "The law is whatever people determine it to be." (1949, The First Israelis, p. xviii)
Ben-Gurion clearly never believed in static borders, but dynamic ones as described in the Bible. He stated during a discussion with his aides:
"Before the founding of the state, on the eve of its creation, our main interests was self-defense. To a large extent, the creation of the state was an act of self-defense... Many think that we're still at the same stage. But now the issue at hand is conquest, not self-defense. As for setting the borders -- it's an open-ended matter. In the Bible as well as in our history, there all kinds of definitions of the country's borders, so there's no real limit. Bo border is absolute. If it's a desert -- it could just as well be the other side. If it's sea, it could also be across the sea. The world has always been this way. Only the terms have changed. If they should find a way of reaching other stars, well then, perhaps the whole earth will no longer suffice." (1949, The First Israelis, p. 6)
It has been customary among all Zionists leaders to use the Bible to justify perpetrating WAR CRIMES. Regardless of the methods used to build the "Jewish state," the quote above is a classical example how the Bible is used to achieve political objectives.
During the course of the 1948 war, Yigal Allon submitted a detailed plan to Ben-Gurion for the military conquest of the West Bank, arguing that the Jordan River would provide the best strategic border. He believed that a substantial part of the Palestinian population would flee east because of the military operations, he stated:
"Our offensive has to leave the way open for the army and the refugees to retreat. We shall easily find the reason or, to be more accurate, the pretexts, to justify our offensive, as we did up to now." (Simha Flapan, p. 114)
When Israel signed the armistice agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, Ben-Gurion stated:
"The November 29[, 1947 U.N.] decision had given the Jewish state 14,920,000 dunums; now we have 20,662,000 dunums in our control. While the UN has not yet recognized our borders, Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, and Lebanon have done so." (Simha Flapan, p. 49)
In other words, Israel managed to expand its borders 38% more than the area allotted to the "Jewish state" by 1947 UN GA partition plan. It should be noted that 60% of the Israelis soldiers were killed in action, were killed in offensive actions in the areas conquered beyond areas allotted by the UN to the "Jewish state." (Simha Flapan, p. 198-199)
One day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine, Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun and Israel's future Prime Minster between 1977-1983, proclaimed:
"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever." (Iron Wall p. 25)
Yigal Allon wrote in an article published just before the outbreak of the 1967 war:
"In. . .a new war, we must avoid the historic mistake of the War of Independence [the 1948 war]. . . and MUST NOT cease fighting until we achieve total victory, the territorial fulfillment of the Land Of Israel." (Righteous Victims, p. 321)
In 1934 Ze'ev Jabotinsky introduced for his youth movement followers the Betar Oath:
"I devote my life to the rebirth of the Jewish State, with a Jewish majority, on both sides of the Jordan." (Israel: A History, p. 76)
Al deze informatie wordt angstvallig verzwegen wanneer een propaganda-organisatie als het CIDI critici van het extremistisch zionistisch regime voor ‘antisemieten’ uitmaakt. Het ware probleem hier is niet politiek, maar cultureel, religieus, psychologisch, namelijk de centrale veronderstelling dat Joden een uitverkoren volk zijn, superieur aan alle andere volkeren, en in dit opzicht een bepaalde rol in de geschiedenis moeten spelen. In werkelijkheid gedragen Joods-Israeli’s zich even schlemielig als vele andere volkeren, en worden ze gedreven door dezelfde tribale driften als elk ander volk dat meent in zijn voortbestaan te worden bedreigd. De Brits-Amerikaanse geleerde Freeman Dyson, beroemd door zijn werk op het gebied van ondermeer kwantummechanica, verklaart in de interessante documentaire The Uncertainty Has Settled van de Nederlandse cineast Marijn Poels:
Bij de kudde horen en hetzelfde te denken als de ander, zit in onze natuur. Het is nog steeds belangrijker bij de stam te horen dan de waarheid te vertellen…
Dit fenomeen is nergens zo diep verankerd als onder tribale volkeren, zoals de Joden. Door de veronderstelling ‘Gods uitverkoren volk’ te zijn, of door de overtuiging wezenlijk anders te zijn dan alle andere volkeren, neemt de druk van de omringende wereld voortdurend toe, waardoor een deel van zelfs de geseculariseerde en geassimileerde joden in de zogeheten 'diaspora' het ‘steeds belangrijker’ vindt ‘bij een stam te horen,’ met als gevolg 'dat de waarheid’ hieraan ondergeschikt wordt gemaakt. Het 'Jodendom' gaat gehuld in mythen.
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