Early Zionist Leaders & Yusuf Khalidi’s Letter
Reference the following quotes and discuss: What do you think of the colonizing rhetoric of early Zionist leaders and Yusuf Khalidi’s call to avoid dividing Palestine?
- Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, 1895: “Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. … We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization, as opposed to barbarism. … We should form a guard of honor about these sanctuaries [of Christian Europe] … the great symbol of the solution of the Jewish Question after eighteen centuries of Jewish suffering.”
- Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Zionist leader & a founder of the Irgun militia, 1925: “If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must find a garrison for the land, or find a benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. … Zionism is a colonizing venture and, therefore, it stands or falls on the question of armed forces.”
- Leo Motzkin, liberal Zionist thinker, 1917: “Our thought is that the colonization of Palestine has to go in two directions: Jewish settlement in Eretz [the land of] Israel and the resettlement of the Arabs of Eretz Israel in areas outside the country. … It does not require too much money to resettle a Palestinian village on another land.”
- Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, 1923: “Culturally [the Palestinian Arabs] are 500 years behind us … 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 … 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.”
- David Ben Gurion: “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.” (1937) “I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.” (June 1938)
- Yusuf Khalidi — mayor of Jerusalem at the time and the great-great uncle of the author (Rashid Khalidi) — wrote to Zionist ideologue Theodor Herzl in 1899. Khalidi declared his respect for Judaism and Jews, whom he described as “our cousins.” He deplored the persecution of Jews in Europe. In a famous line (often taken out of context) he exclaimed: “who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine!” Reading closely, Khalidi is affirming the centrality of Palestine to Jews and Judaism, as well as the belonging of the Jews of Palestine to Palestine. He was clearly not in favor of a Jewish takeover of Palestine. In fact, he warned Herzl that Zionism would divide the people of Palestine and endanger Christians, Muslims & Jews — a rather prescient prediction. Khalidi also described the Zionist project to take over Palestine and create a Jewish state as “pure folly” because Palestine “is inhabited by others.” He pleaded: “In the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.”