Communal Responsibility

Rabbi Melanie Aron

December 5, 2003

This Tuesday being Israel’s Independence Day, it seemed appropriate to consider where Israel is on this 56th anniversary of the establishment of the Jewish state. However, as the last few weeks progressed, the situation kept changing & it got more and more difficult for me to be sure where things are headed and what the significance will ultimately be of recent events.

Up until a week or two ago, it was clear that in Israel The Left was in favor of the withdrawal from the territories and The Right was opposed. The Arab community insisted that withdrawal was essential to any progress towards peace, and Israel out of the territories was certainly what the world community demanded.

This time, when Sharon proposed withdrawal of a sort, it was the Left and the Arab community who were up in arms. The Right seems, at least for the present, to have decided that it is better to remain in the coalition allowing withdrawal, in order to prevent Sharon from inviting the Labor party into the coalition. There are certain ironies in the situation. Whatever Bush may have said it is a strange day when his letter, a statement of US support for significant Israeli withdrawal from the territories, receives only harsh criticism from the World Community. Of course it’s a little more complicated than that. So what can we say about the proposed unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and much of the West Bank? Can we contextualize what’s going on today in any historical context?

Last Sunday evening – somewhat surprised.

The vehemence with which Arab spokesmen and the local Arabs with whom I meet have reacted, seems at some level disproportionate to recent events, unless we understand that some Arab-Americanized come to believe the issue before us is again partition - 1947.

The success of the intifada in reducing tourism to Israel and damaging the Israeli economy, along with causing over 1,000 Israeli deaths and many times that number of casualties, convinced the Arab world that there would be an eventual loss of will in Israel. This, coupled with the vehemence of the denunciations of Israel throughout the world community, again raised Arab hopes of a one state solution. As long as any settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be prevented, then eventually, under the democratic sounding slogan of “one man one vote”, the Arab community saw a future without an Israel. Combination of Sharon’s planned withdrawal & Bush’s remarks. Recent events have dashed that hope once again.

When I came back from our Arab Jewish dialogue meeting this past Sunday, I went back to the history books to consider the partition of 1947. It seemed to me that our situation now was more analogous to that era than to other later conflicts. Today again, as in the l940’s, there are calls for a one-state solution, a bi-national state, and today as in the 1940’s things seem to be constantly changing, realigning, as they were in the immediate pre-state era.

Let’s look for a minute at the history of that period from 1944, 60 years ago, until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

During the war there had been a truce between the Jews of Palestine and the British, but as the war drew to a close, there were those who questioned that policy. In 1944 two of the smaller, more radical organizations Etzel and Lechi declared an end to the truce. Through March of 1945 the Haganah remained committed to not initiating actions against the British. They tracked down and beat up Lechi and Etzel members who they caught attacking the British and even occasionally provided tips for their arrest by the British soldiers. However the continued pressure of the need to find a home for the survivors, and the British limit of 1,500 a month on Jewish immigration, created an untenable situation that could not continue.

At that time the United States joined in the plea made by Chaim Weitzman that 100,000 refugees from deportee camps be allowed to come into Israel, but British Foreign secretary Bevin and Prime Minister Atlee, were firmly opposed. Bevin and Atlee were known to believe that the Jews were not a nation and therefore didn’t need a state of their own. They are described as feeling that “the Jews were ungrateful, devious and cantankerous” while “the Arabs were a single straightforward people with a liking for the British.” Meanwhile there were anti Jewish riots throughout the Arab world in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Libya and a statement by the Arab community warning “ against regarding Jewish colonization in Palestine and Arab resistance in terms of white colonization of North America and Australia and the resistance of the indigenous peoples.”

The Anglo American Committee of Inquiry, created by Bevin to postpone the independence process and create a further trusteeship ended up recommending a bi-national framework and the issuing of 100,000 visas to refugees, thus pleasing no one.

Following the Etzel attack on the King David Hotel and the crackdown on the Haganah which followed, the British issued their Provincial Plan calling for defense, foreign affairs and economic matters to remain in British hands, while 4 provinces be created which would enjoy autonomy in municipal affairs, agriculture and education, all this leading to eventual independence. This plan of course was opposed both by Jewish and Arab residents of Palestine and in October 1946 Truman’s support for immediate immigration of refugees and a partition of Palestine raised the ante considerably.

The British despairingly handed the problem over to the United Nations, a move of which the Jews were wary but which pleased the Arab community, who felt secure with their supporters within the UN.

What motivated the British to hand Palestine over? While some speak of the influence of the Jewish attacks over the previous two years, more likely it was the Cold War context in which unity with the Americans was important, the continued problem of the refugees, which was a great embarrassment to Britain, and Britain’s financial woes. There were sufficient British troops in Palestine, 100,000 in 1947, to handle the Jewish rebellion, but there was no will. The Arab demands at the time, were a unitary state with the expulsion of all illegal immigrants and no political rights to Jews. The British were able to delay the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine’s recommendation of partition, with international trusteeship over Jerusalem and Bethlehem (where there was at that time a significant Jewish population) several times, but the delay did not lead to any compromise proposal from the Arabs. With the support of the Soviet Union and with the United States pressuring some of its allies, partition passed.

To the Arabs until today this was the great tragedy of their time. On the Jewish side, though there had been some objection to partition because of the indefensible borders and the separation of Jews from areas with long Jewish history and sizeable Jewish population, in the end Ben Gurion’s vision held sway. He said: “When we faced the choice of the complete land without a Jewish state, or a Jewish state without the complete land, we chose a Jewish state.”

The path to Sharon’s acceptance of this Labor sentiment came through Ehud Olmert’s “sudden” discovery this fall of the demographic time bomb and his realization that within a decade the Arab population, in the combined area of Israel and the territories would exceed the Jewish population. Following Abu Mazan’s failure to hold the reigns as Prime Minister of the Palestinitan Authority, Olmert, the former mayor of Jerusalem and current Deputy Prime Minister, stated: “We are reaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say: We’re persuaded, we agree with the Israeli far right. There’s no room for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All we want is the right to vote. The day we get to there, we lose everything. Even when they use terror it’s hard to convince the world that we are right. All the more so when the one demand is the right to vote.”

Ten minutes of Torah – forward.

Rabbi Yoffie sees some potential for progress in the events of the last two weeks. If Sharon fulfills his promises the Israeli withdrawal will be very significant. Eventually the far right parties will feel they have been pushed too far, making room for a government of national unity which could continue the process of withdrawal.

I join in Rabbi Yoffie’s hopes that Sharon’s recent interest in withdrawal will bear significant fruit. But there is an important lesson we must learn from the partition of 1947 and its aftermath. If those in Arab Palestine remain without meaningful governance, ruled either by other Arab states that refuse to grant them rights, or remaining in permanent refugee status then this partition of 2004 will be no more successful ultimately than the one 60 years ago. The necessary counterpart for the success of Israeli withdrawal is the replacement of Israeli rule with some form of government that is successful in serving the Palestinian people. Unfortunately as of yet the Bush administration’s success in nation building provides no reason to hope that this Palestinian version will be successful.