CHAPTER Three

 

Zionist Policies towards the Arabs in Palestine 1917-1939

 

1. Introduction:

 

     The Zionist movement sent successive waves of Jewish immigrants to colonize Palestine before World War I. These immigrants discovered reality to be different from the way Zionist propaganda had painted it: there was an indigenous population in Palestine which was the extension of a nation, ten times as numerous as the Jews, occupying a vast geographic region. The local Jewish community had to find a way to deal with the Arabs. Since the culture and mentality of the majority among them was Western, they looked to their cultural experience for the desired approach to the Arabs and to cope with the Arab demographic majority.

     Zionist strategies for dealing with the Arab in Palestine became all the more significant after the Balfour Declaration, a significance that was played out  in successive stages between the two world wars. During the inter-war period, specific Zionist policies were adopted towards the Arabs of Palestine, including the idea of a binational state, which will be discussed in Chapter III. It is important to trace the evolution of Zionist policies in order to identify the formative influences on the Jewish effort to arrive at an understanding with the Arabs while at the same time guaranteeing Zionist objectives: to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine and all that required in terms of opening the gates of immigration and exercising control over the political condition in Palestine.

 

2. Zionist Reactions to the Arab Presence in Palestine

 

     The Arab presence was, and still is, a political problem that has forced itself on the Zionist agenda in Palestine. All trends within the Zionist movement recognized it as a dilemma which came to be known as 'the Arab question in Palestine.' During the period 1917-1925 three approaches by the Jews of Palestine to that problem may be identified:

 

a) The approach of an active minority which recognized it as a basic problem and a challenge to the moral core of Zionism and a rallying point for Arab opposition to begin with. This approach amounted to the belief that peace had to be achieved at any price, even at the cost of significant concessions.

 

b) The second approach, typical of a much larger section of the Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv), took the problem less seriously, treating it as a temporary obstacle which could be surmounted if handled skillfully.

 

c) The third approach, that of the majority, recognized the problem as a true dilemma requiring the adoption of countermeasures and the development of defenses capable of meeting the serious challenges posed by the political and demographic reality of the Arab presence in Palestine.

    

     During the 1930s these three approaches evolved into four:

 

a) the approach of the official Zionist Organization,

 

b) the approach of the Revisionist Zionists,

 

c) the approach of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair, the mother organization    of Mapam.

 

d) the approach of the intelligentsia which embraced the idea of    a binational state in Palestine.

 

     These approaches determined the conduct of the Jews of Palestine regarding what came to be known as the Arab question. It is well known that the local (Yishuv) Jews were pushed out of the positions of leadership in the Zionist movement in Palestine, and were replaced by European Zionist leaders, although the Yishuv, the Palestinian Jews, were the flesh and blood of the Jewish National Home.

     The Jews of Palestine were represented by two main organizations: Vaad Zamani, the Provisional Council of the Jews of Palestine, and Vaad Leumi, the National Council of the Jews of Palestine, which was elected after October 1920. Vaad Leumi had 26 members, an exective board of composed of three members, and an executive committee which had 14 members.

     In addition to these organizations, the Jews of Palestine held a congress at the end of December 1918, called the Eretz Israel Congress, which is considered to have been the first congress after World War I to be attended by representatives of all the Jews of Palestine. The most important item on its agenda was a discussion of the political future of the Jews of Palestine. The Congress adopted a plan which had two main points: 1) the Jewish people demand that Palestine should become their national home, and that the final say in the affairs and administration of Palestine should belong to the Jewish people throughout the world; and 2) Great Britain was chosen as the power to be assigned a mandate by the League of Nations to help the Jewish people establish their national home. The plan also included details on how Palestine was to be governed, and the bodies that were to be established for that purpose, and it affirmed that both Arabic and Hebrew should be official languages. There was mention in the plan of an interim period during which the Jews would become the demographic majority in Palestine. Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of the New Zionist Organization and Revisionist Zionism, declared at the Congress that he was pessimistic concerning the possibility of solving the "Arab dilemma", emphasizing that there were contradictions which could not be easily overcome. He asked: "Could the Arabs, who had been living in the country for 2000 years, be expected to agree that amother people should come and multiply in it?" He cautioned Jews not to deceive themselves into believing that the Arab majority will relinquish the position it occupies in return for Jewish offers of a constitution based on numeric equality. Jabotinsky respected the perceptiveness of the anti-Zionist Arab agitators who made Jewish immigration the focal point of their opposition, more so than the establishment of a Jewish government, for they recognized Jewish immigration to be the  effective instrument which would inevitably bring about a Jewish majority and consequently a Jewish state.[1]

 

3. Zionist Treatment of the Arabs of Palestine between 1917 and      1925:

 

     After World War I, two dominant positions could be identified in the Yishuv on the subject of how to treat the Arabs. The first position was that the Arabs were already there on the territory of Palestine and constituted a majority; there was no way around them, and the Zionist movement therefore had to improve relations between Arabs and Jews and to try to win the sympathy and acquiescence of some if not all the Arabs to the Jewish presence in Palestine. The second position was that the Zionists had no hope of winning the Arab sympathy for the Jews, and that it was therefore pointless to try establish relations with the Arabs; and the Zionists ought to devote themselves to the establishment of Zionist and Jewish institutions and to go forward with building a Jewish national home in Palestine.

     Those who subscribed to the first position were led by H. M. Kalvarisky,[2] [ head of the Arab Department of the Zionist Executive in Jerusalem in the early twenties] who, sat out his position in his speech before the fifth convention of the Provisional Council of the Jews of Palestine in June 1919. He warned that it was dangerous to belittle Arab opposition, and he maintained that winning the sympathy of the Arabs was a precondition for Zionist success.[3] Those who subscribed to the second position were led by David Ben Gurion, who articulated this position in his speech before the same convention of the Provisional Council of the Jews of Palestine, maintaining that an Arab-Zionist struggle was inevitable: the two sides were separated by a chasm, and the conflict could not be resolved by putting a pretty face on things. He added: "I do not know if the Arabs would accept that the Jews should have Palestine even if the Jews were to learn Arabic. As a nation, we would like this country to be ours; the Arabs as a nation want it too." As a result of the convention of the Provisional Council of the Jews of Palestine in June 1919, the majority came to the conclusion that limited political dealings should be initiated with the Arabs, as long as this was not detrimental to the establishment of Jewish national home and did not retard the process. The convention limited itself to the affirmation of the importance of relations with the Arabs and referred the matter to a committee.[4]

     In fact, the Zionist aim was not to establish even-handed relations with the Arabs, but to divide the Arabs, and prevent them from adopting a united position on Zionism, so as to show world public opinion that not all Arabs were against Zionism or rejected the Jewish presence in Palestine. " They therefore allocated funds for the establishment of parties and organizations from an Arabic melieu without anti-Zionist  "There thus appeared parties and associations among the Arabs, such as The National Muslim Association, which Kalvarisky announced to the world in 1921. The Zionist Organization supported " [financed] "  such societies; for example, in June 1921, a loan of 20,000 Palestinian pounds was made available by the Zionist Executive for a discretionary fund. Shortly thereafter, the Zionist Organization made 15,000 pounds available to the Jewish Foundation Fund (Kiren Hayesod) for the same purpose, " (Also)" and the Zionist Congress set up a 25,000 pound fund for personal expenditures in May 1921." The observer of that period will)" note the connection between these personal expenditures and the activities of the Jewish organization in certain Arab circles, which helped it realize some of its practical goals.

     There were two main goals. The first was to provide evidence -- meant for foreign consumption -- to support the claim that there was a section of Arab opinion which was not hostile to Zionism. This helps explain Weizmann's willingness to provide financial support to the National Muslim Association, which tried to undermine the standing  of the Federation of Muslim-Christian Associations as representative of the Arabs[5] during a visit by a delegation from the FMCA to London in 1921 and 1922.

     The second goal was to have the National Muslim Association at "(the beck and call of the Zionists)", to exercise a calming influence and  appeal for peace and law and order during periods of tension, as in fact happened during the disturbances that followed the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1921; the Nabi Musa festivities in March 1922, and the imposition of the Mandate in July 1922. However, the National Muslim Association was soon exposed for what it was before Arab public opinion in Palestine, and consequently it failed to achieve the two objectives set for it by the Zionist Organization. Even Zionist leaders such as Leonard Stein[6] and Frederick Herman Kisch[7] began criticizing it quite frankly in 1923, pointing out that no Arabs of any consequence had joined it. Furthermore, the benefits that the Zionist Organization derived from it were quite modest if compared to what the Zionists had spent on it, so that Kisch went so far as to suggest that it be allowed to die a quiet death.[8]

     Despite the failure of the National Muslim Association , the Zionists did not give up on the idea of creating a moderate Arab party that was not anti-Zionist; both Kisch and Stein supported this idea vigorously. An opportunity arose in the Autumn of 1923 to establish just such a party when opponents of the Muslim Christian Association went to Kalvarisky to ask for his help in setting up a new party. This was to prove to be more beneficial to the Zionist movement than the National Muslim Association had been. The birth of the Palestinian Arab National Party was announced on November 1, 1923. However, the connection between this party and the Zionist movement was exposed from the day it was founded, and it became apparent that the tactical plan behind it was to undermine the Muslim Christian Association; it consequently garnered little support among the Arabs. Despite all that, Kisch felt that the establishment of the party and the publication of its organ, Mirror of the East, was a gain for Zionism, because, as he put it, the extremists became preoccupied with fighting it instead of fighting Zionism.

    

     Only three months later, the Zionist Executive for Palestine [or is it the Jewish National Council, Vaad Leumi mounted a third attempt to create an alternative to both the Palestinian National Party and the MCA.  This took the form of farmers' cooperatives in rural areas; the Zionist Executive provided material and moral support for the establishment of so-called "farmers' parties" in the countryside around Nazareth, Nablus, Jenin and Hebron. The rational for Zionist support of these organizations was to capitalize on resentment by village leaders against the emergence of a new urban political elite which was taking the reins of Arab leadership. The Zionists consequently hung high hopes on these farmers' parties. Kalvarisky even entertained hopes in 1925 of forming a mixed Jewish-Arab party through the merger of the Farmers Party with the Jewish Farmers' Union.

 

     The policy of the Zionist Organization in the seven years following the Balfour Declaration had two principal, and related aspects: avoiding contacts with official Arab organizations in Palestine, and avoiding any legislative or legal connections with the Palestinian Arabs.

     We shall begin by examining the first aspect, because it predates the second one. Leaders of the Zionist movement were wary of the establishment of popularly elected legislative institutions, for they realized early on that such institutions, regardless of their powers, posed a threat to the Zionist agenda as long as the Jews constituted a minority in Palestine. They spoke frankly of these fears from the beginning of the military administration in Palestine; they drew a connection between he establishment of such institutions and the absorptive capacity of Palestine for Jewish immigrants and to the right of self-determination for the Arab inhabitants, particularly after the end of World War I and the end of Ottoman rule. During 1918 and 1919, Weizmann emphasized for British public consumption what he described as the qualitative and fundamental differences between Jews and Arabs. He maintained that the Arabs would not be ready for self-government for a long time. Zionist experts in international law debated the most effective arguments against the introduction of democratic institutions in Palestine for a the foreseeable future. They could not admit publicly however they favored postponing the establishment of such institutions until the Jews constituted a majority or a near majority. They realized that as long as they were a minority in Palestine, they could not promote democracy and realize their objectives at the same time.\

 

     Among the ideas that were discussed by the Jews of Palestine in 1919 was autonomy for all national groups in Palestine as a legitimate alternative to parliamentary democracy or majority rule which was better suited to the conditions in Palestine. Yishuv leaders kept the demand for self-rule in reserve as an option they could bring into play, but they kept it to themselves and did not propose it publicly. Shlomo Kaplansky[9], one of the most prominent Zionist thinkers to deal with the issue of Arab representation in legislative institutions in Palestine, took up in his writings the subject of what he termed "the right of self-determination in a country with a small population". In debating this topic, Kaplansky thought of Palestine as consisting of Palestine and Transjordan. He therefore thought that the absorptive capacity of "the whole of Palestine" was far greater than its existing population at the time. He was of the opinion that there was a minimal population required to exercise the right of self-determination.[10]

 

     The Cairo conference, which convened on March 21, 1921 and was presided over by Winston Churchill, decided on the creation of a legislative council in Palestine in place of the consultative council appointed by the high commissioner. Still, Churchill himself did not authorize the high commissioner to release any statement that parliamentary institutions in Palestine were under consideration unless he could do so while avoiding the use of the terms 'elected' and 'representative'; consequently that was how the May 1921 statement by the high commissioner was issued. In implementation of that statement, the British government proposed in 1922 that a legislative council be established in Palestine; but this council was bereft of authority, in fact, it was prohibited from discussing any issue that went against the policy of the Mandatory government or the provisions of the Mandate for Palestine. The proposed legislative council was to have no executive authority.[11]

 

     Although the proposed legislative council was weak, the Jewish National Council (Vaad Leumi) rejected it and appeared to be afraid of the idea. In their meeting with the High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel in June 1922, members of the Jewish National Council opposed any formula for elected institutions, because the presence of such elected institutions would make it difficult to carry out the mandate from the League of Nations and promises of the British government. Although the Jewish National Council decided to participate in the elections of 1922 under pressure from the high commissioner, those elections failed because of a total Arab boycott. Consequently, the high commissioner issued a decree annulling the elections. This was what the Jewish National Council wanted, and the Jews of Palestine heaved a sigh of relief, particularly since the failure of the elections was due to the Arabs, which exonerated the Jews from blame for not supporting the plan of High Commissioner Samuel.[12]

 

     The second aspect of Zionist policy towards the Arabs emerged following the transfer of power to the British civil administration in Palestine. It is exemplified in the unofficial contacts between Kalvarisky and certain Arab leaders both inside and outside Palestine. Kalvarisky initiated contacts with a number of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian leaders. He did so in his personal capacity, so that they would not be binding on the Zionist Organization, despite the fact that Kalvarisky was acting with the approval of the Zionist Organization and with the knowledge of its leaders. Among those contacts was a meeting in March 1920 between the land salesman, Yehoshua Henkin[13] and Najib Sfair, Dr. Rashed Karam and Yusef Mu'iz-zidin on the Arab side. In the two meetings during June of that year, Kalvarisky and S. Felman, the representative of the Zionist Organization, met with Mu'in al-Madi, Riyad as-Sulh, `Ihsan al-Jabiri, 'Adel Arslan, Hashim al-Atasi, Wafiq al-Tamimi and Amin al-Husseini from the Arab side.[14] There are no Arab or impartial sources available on those meetings. Kalvarisky put forward a program which the Arabs rejected point by point; they said in brief that the Arabs could not countenance as legitimate the existence of any nation other than the Arab nation in Palestine, that they strongly opposed Jewish immigration because they saw it as harmful and a danger to the Arabs, and they said that they would under no conditions accept for Hebrew to become an official language of instruction or one in which the affairs of government were transacted.

     When Kalvarisky tried to placate the Arabs by softening some of his terms, the Arabs responded that such meetings should not take place at an unofficial level, and that negotiators should be delegated by the Zionist organizations in Palestine. Kalvarisky replied that he would invite a member of the Palestine Zionist Executive. The Arabs told him that there would be no negotiations unless the Palestine Zionist Executive agreed to the following terms:

1. Palestine was part of independent Syria;

2. The concept of a Jewish national home was unacceptable;

3. Hebrew was not an official language;

4. The Arabs would not consent to Jewish immigration.

     Jewish sources add that two committees, each consisting of five delegates from one side, were to have continued negotiating in total secrecy, but news of the talks leaked out. The involvement of Riyad al-Sulh  caused  his father, Rida al-Sulh, to resign from the first cabinet named by King Faisal in Damascus. The above-mentioned talks ended because the Arabs would not consent to a Jewish national home in Palestine.[15]

     Some Zionist circles are of the opinion that Palestinian Arab leaders did not reject the idea of reaching an understanding with the Zionists out of hand; some of those leaders resorted to tactics which allowed them to deal with the British administration and with the Zionists...For example, Jamal al-Husseini (1893-1982) suggested to Kalvarisky in 1924 that the Arab Executive Committee could withdraw its demand for national autonomy in favor of an Arab-Jewish understanding on the basis of a bicameral legislative assembly: a lower house that would be elected on the basis of proportional representation and an upper house which would ratify the decisions of the lower house. An immigration committee would be set up, consisting of two Jews, one Muslim and one Christian, headed by a Britisher. As security for the Jews, Jamal al-Husseini gave his tacit approval to grant the high commissioner the power of veto over all legislation. Official Zionist circles were cool to the idea for fear of a conflict between the elected chamber and the elected one. High Commissioner Samuel was suspicious of the initiative for his own reasons, and the initiative came to naught because of the lack of response from the other parties.[16]

 

 

4. The Position of the Histadrut on Organizing Arab Labor:

 

      Arabs were excluded from membership in the Histadrut, the General Federation of Jewish Labor in Palestine. They would not mix with Jewish labor and not develop class consciousness as workers; there was no danger of a class coalition between Arab and Jewish workers. Such a merger or coalition would have carried a double danger to Zionism: on the one hand, Arab workers may have become more developed, and on the other Jewish labor may have deviated from Zionist doctrine. This policy of the Histadrut was just another aspect of the attitude of Zionist economic institutions towards non-Jewish labor, another facet of Zionism's Arab dilemma: how to maintain a qualitative line of demarcation between Arabs and Jews. The irony in this is that Zionism was projecting the image of not being anti-Arab and of promoting Arab-Jewish understanding and wanting to raise the cultural and social level of the Arabs.

 

     In an effort to deal with the problem of competition from cheap Arab labor, the Histadrut discussed the possibility of organizing Arab workers. Three formulas were proposed: mixed Jewish-Arab unions; separate Jewish and Arab organizations within a national union; and counter unions. In May 1920 Ben Gurion proposed setting up mixed social clubs and a common health care fund, cooperative  restaurants and common athletic and recreational activities. The Histadrut focused on the cultural angle; a series of lectures and booklets were prepared in a simplified Arabic to educate Arab workers so that they could organize their lives, work together in a cooperative spirit and learn discipline and responsibility towards their comrades.

 

5. The Policy of the Zionist Organization towards the Arab of Palestine after the Disturbances of (1929):   

 

     In August 1929 violent clashes broke out between Arabs and Jews in a number of Palestinian towns and villages. The events were a shock to Jewish public opinion in Palestine, and there was a debate among Zionist circles concerning future relations between Arabs and Jews. The Zionist Organization tried to find a moderate formula to establish a balance between Arabs and Jews. This position was expressed in the memorandum from the Jewish Agency to the British government in May, 1930 which asked that the Jews should be equal partners with the Palestinian Arabs in political matters. The same memorandum pointed out that the Jews in Palestine did not want in any way to control the non-Jewish population, nor would they ever accept hegemony over them by the non-Jews.

     One of the highlights of this period was the discussion of the draft constitution prepared by Ben Gurion and made public in January 1930. He defined the special status of Palestine and the political problems arising from the Mandate. The draft constitution proposed a transitional period of five to ten years after which Arab and Jewish communities would have the right to elect representatives to municipal and legislative councils so that the number of seats would be proportional to the ratio of each community in the total population. But this draft constitution turned out to be no more than wishful thinking and an expression of the weakness of the Zionist position after the Wailing Wall riots.[17]

     Ben Gurion initiated discussions with Arab leaders in Palestine to induce them to accept the fait accompli as it was then. In a meeting by the executive committee of the Labor Party (Mapay) on March 22, 1934, he pointed out the need to approach influential Arabs who would be willing to accept the fait accompli, namely that any agreement between Arabs and Jews must be based on the fact that the Arabs could not get what they wanted, and had to take what was given to them. J.L. Magnes presented Ben Gurion to several Arab leaders. Ben Gurion met a number of Arab leaders in 1934; he met 'Awni 'Abdel Hadi in July and Musa al-'Alami in August; he also met Shakib Arslan and Ihsan al-Jabiri in Geneva that year. As a result of those meetings, particularly the one in Geneva, Ben Gurion became convinced that the only way for the Jews to reach agreement with the Arabs on a footing of equality was for the Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv) to grow more numerous and stronger.[18]  Chaim. Arlosoroff[19] also set out to establish contacts with Arab leaders; he met with 'Awni 'Abdel Hadi in March 1932, for example. He formed the impression that it was doubtful that an agreement could be reached with the Arabs. He put this in a long letter to Weizmann dated June 30, 1932, saying :

 

           The Arabs are no longer strong enough to destroy our position but still consider themselves strong enough to establish and Arab state in Palestine without taking into consideration Jewish political demands, whereas the Jews are strong enough to preserve their present position without possessing sufficient strength to assure the constant growth of the Jewish community through immigration, colonization, and the maintenance of peace and order in the country in the course of this development.

           The next "stage" will be attained when the relationship of real forces will be such as to preclude any possibility of the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine, i.e., when the Jews will acquire such additional strength as will automatically block the road for Arab domination. This will be followed by another "stage" during which the Arabs will be unable to frustrate the constant growth of the Jewish community through immigration and constructive economic activity. The constantly growing strength of the Jews will influence the Arabs in the direction of seeking a negotiated accord. This will be followed by a "stage" during which the equilibrium between the two peoples will be based on real forces and an agreed solution to the problem.

           The test of the evolutionary practices of Zionist policy within the framework of the British mandate consists in whether it will be possible to attain the next "stage" by means of this policy. Should that be possible, then it is the part of political wisdom and common sense to ignore all the hardships and interference, to overlook bitterness and disappointments, and to continue diligently to add one asset to another until the next "stage" is attained. But should that prove impossible, then all efforts in this direction would be wasted and it would no longer be feasible to cling to the evolutionary method of Zionist policy or to base on it the strength and the endurance of the Zionist movement. I am inclined to think that it is not possible.[20]

 

     This position led Orlosoroff to conclude that Zionism will be unable to attain equality between the Jews and the Arabs in the light of the prevailing circumstances. This issue of equality was a bone of contention with the British mandate authorities, as those authorities were wary to apply equality between Arabs and Jews in the legislative council on a numerical basis, until Malcolm MacDonald, the colonial secretary, decided on June 14, 1935 to adopt the principle of equality  in the proposed legislative council. The position of the Zionist movement on equality evolved from demanding equality in the early thirties to limiting such demands to the legislative council without adopting  it as official Zionist policy. This development arose as a result of the rise in immigration and in the expectation that Jews would become the majority in Palestine.  It is well known that the Palestinian Arabs had been insisting on proportional representation for Jews on the legislative council and other bodies.

 

6 The Zionists' Arab Contacts and Initiatives:

 

     The various streams within the Zionist movement felt that they could not depend on the Mandate authorities to deal with the 1936-39 Arab reb

ellion; nor did they feel that the British commitment to the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine would be adequate to the task unless Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine was stepped up.  There were four major trends:

1. The official line of the Zionist movement, which was exemplified in Ben Gurion's plan to lay the ground for the immigration of about one million Jews over a five to ten year period. This depended on taking advantage of the international situation and the pressures on Jews in Europe. During the period it took to complete this immigration, Palestine could be turned into a de facto Jewish state.

2. The line of the Revisionist Zionists, which advocated increased Jewish immigration to both Palestine and Transjordan, with the expectation that within five to ten years between one to two million Jews would have settled in Palestine and Transjordan, driven by the pressures on Jews in Britain and elsewhere.

It was the aim of the Revisionists to establish a strong Jewish state which would be a strategic asset to the British Empire in the Middle East.

3. The line of the advocates of a binational state. This group had come up with some new ideas, as expressed by Magnes, which acknowledged both the Zionist agenda in Palestine and the Arab effort to establish a Palestinian state. On this basis, Magnes wondered if there could be a compromise between the two, considering that the Arabs had been living in Palestine for centuries, and were at the least as nationalistic as the Zionists.

He believed that each side would arm itself for a decisive battle in which the stronger would impose his will on the weaker.

4. The line of Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair (the Young Guard), which had a socialist Zionist line on Jewish-Arab relations. Its position was that as the number of Jews in Palestine increases and as the Arabs come to appreciate the attendant economic benefits, social awareness would develop among the Arabs and common class interests would take shape. Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair attributed anti-Zionist trends among Arab workers to the failure of Zionism to achieve this.[21]

     At the same time, the Zionist movement in Palestine tried to establish contacts with prominent Arabs who were known for their moderation by Zionist standards. In April 1936, Ben Gurion met with George Antonius, a Palestinian author who was an advocate of the union of Greater Syria; however the gap between them proved too great. Antonius could not agree that Arab aspirations did not conflict with Zionism. He said that a Jewish national home was acceptable only as a spiritual center, but not a political one. He said that the idea of a Jewish state contradicted Arab aspirations. Ben Gurion rejected this view of the Jewish national home. Antonius suggested that the Jews could immigrate to Greater Syria. Antonius repeatedly stated that Arabs-Jewish understanding could not come about unless Jewish immigration to Palestine was limited. The most that Antonius could propose was some kind of partition under which the Jews would be able to establish a state along certain stretches of the coastal plain, where they would constitute a majority; such a state could unite in a Greater Syria federation. The impasse between Antonius and Ben Gurion reflected conflicting aspirations in Palestine. Ben Gurion recorded this observation in his account of his talks with George Antonius, but it does not appear to have been taken into account.[22]

     Simultaneously, other Zionist proposals were being circulated among narrow circles or in a private capacity. Among the most important of these was Ben Gurion's proposal of 1936 which is known as the Union Plan . This proposal involved agreement with the Arabs on laws to protect small landholders, being responsive to Arab economic concerns, equality between Arabs and Jews in the executive branch in response to Arab political demands, and the establishment of a union of local states within the British sphere of influence, with which the Jewish state would be affiliated. However, the Jewish Agency rejected the ideas in Ben Gurion's plan for several reasons, including: the difficulty of Britain exercising control over a large Arab region, and the desire to avoid arousing French fears of expanding British influence in the region.

     In addition, contacts were established between Zionist circles and a number of what the Jewish Agency considered to be moderate Arab personalities, during the first phase of the Arab rebellion in 1936. The Zionist aim in establishing these contacts was to open a dialogue with the High Arab Executive Committee and its president, Amin al-Husseini. Gad Frumkin and Magnes met Musa al-'Alami. Chaim Solomon, a member of the Jerusalem municipal council, met the mayor, Hassan al-Khalidi, who was a member of the Arab Executive Committee. However, these meetings did not lead to the results that the Jewish Agency had in mind. The Jewish Agency then tried establishing contacts with Arabs outside Palestine which could lead to a dialogue with the Arab Executive Committee. Nahoum Finiski met in Cairo with Muhammad Ali 'Allubah in early May 1936, he also met there with Abdul Rahman Shahbandar, and the journalist Amin al-Sa'id. The Jewish Agency also dispatched Bernard Joseph[23] to Cairo at the end of September 1936, where he met with Shahbandar to discuss three points concerning Jewish-Arab relations: Land, governmental institutions and immigration. Joseph also met with Shukri al-Quwatli and Fakhry al-Baroudi around that time, and he met Jamil Mardam in Paris.[24] When the Peel Commission went to Palestine, it met Weizmann on December 21, 1936 and heard his views on dividing Palestine into cantons, or partitioning it among Arabs and Jews. Weizmann was of the opinion that a division into cantons was impractical, but he did not reject the idea.

     On January 8, 1937, the Peel Commission asked Weizmann his opinion on the recommendation for partition. He gave no specific answer, and asked for time to think it over. In July 1937 the Peel Commission issued its report, recommending the partition of Palestine among Arabs and Jews. The Commission's recommendations aroused bitter criticism, particularly from the representatives of the Arab Executive Committee. Zionist policy was clearly influenced by the recommendation for partition; this was reflected in land purchases, the construction of settlements in new areas and the discussion of Arab minority rights in the area allotted to the Jews under the commission's proposals. Zionist circles set up committees to debate the essence of Arab minority rights in the proposed Jewish state, under the partition scheme. Arab minority rights received a lot of attention from Zionist circles, and from the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency, whose debate focused on two sensitive points: the transfer of the Arab population from the proposed Jewish state, and the rights of the Arab minority that was expected to remain in the proposed Jewish state. When the Peel Commission raised the possibility of such a transfer of population, the British government rejected the idea of evicting the Arabs.[25] Official Zionist agencies discussed in great detail the transfer of Arab population, such as during the World Congress of the Jewish Workers which was held in Zurich July 29-August 7, 1937. Ben Gurion expressed the opinion of the Jewish Agency on the issue at the congress:

 

           The proposal to transfer the Arab population from this territory involves the possibility of expanding Jewish settlement, with their consent if possible, otherwise forcibly. The Committee has no proposed expelling the Arabs, it has called for their transfer and resettlement in Arab countries. It seems to me that it is not necessary to explain the fundamental and profound difference between expulsion and transfer. So far, settling our people has involved transferring people from one place to another; during our settlement activities, we have not found it necessary to transfer the population who were there before we came except in a very few places.[26]

 

     At the convention, a number of Zionist leaders dealt with the subject of transferring the Arab population from the land allocated for the proposed Jewish state under the Peel Commission's partition plan. They linked the idea of the transfer of Arab population to the possibility of the outbreak of a war to expand the geographic boundaries of the proposed Jewish state which would make possible the absorption of a larger number of Jewish refugees. S. Levy remarked:

 

     The request to transfer the Arabs so as to create room for us is a totally just and ethical request; since they have ample places to go to, whereas there isn't a single place or corner of the world where we can be safe.  However, under the existing conditions we are not in a position to put forward these demands seriously in the political arena.  We therefore have to accept partition in spite of ourselves.[27]

 

     In the summer of 1938, the British government began to search for an alternative the Peel Commission plan. At the end of |June of that year, the new Colonial Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald raised the possibility of negotiations between Arabs and Jews. At the end of July, Weizmann warned that partition will create turmoil among the Arabs and in the Islamic world. Official Zionist circles had become aware that the British government had abandoned the partition plan by November 1938. At the end of that year, the British government issued invitations for the Round Table Conference which convened on February 8, 1939. One week after the conference began, disagreements erupted between the colonial secretary and the Zionist delegation, which accused MacDonald of siding with the Arabs.

     In the second half of February, discussions at the conference centered on three issues: immigration, land purchases and the future constitution of Palestine. The talks continued at meetings on the side through part of March, but no agreement was reached. On May 17, the British government unilaterally issued a white paper declaring that

 

           The objective of His Majesty's Government is the establishment  within ten years of an independent Palestinian State in ...treaty relations with the United Kingdom...

           The independent State should be one in which Arabs and Jews share in government in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are satisfied.[28]

 

     This meant that Britain had given up on establishing a Jewish state as recommended by the Peel Commission partition of 1937. Two principal objectives of the 1939 White Paper were limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine during a five year period ending in 1944 to 75,000 (including refugees), and virtually halting land sales, as the High Commissioner was granted wide powers to ban land sales and supervise the transfer of titles of ownership.[29]

 

     Zionist circles thought the 1939 White Paper represented a retreat on the part of the British government from its policy regarding a Jewish national home in Palestine and its commitments to the Zionist movement.  However, those circles preferred to remain quiet about the position of the British government until 1942 and accepted the inevitable restrictions on immigration during the early part of World War II.

     The 1939 White Paper clearly brought the official and Revisionist Zionists closer together. Still, the official Zionists did not neglect the possibility of a negotiated settlement with  the Arabs, and they also became more pragmatic in recognizing the existence of two nationalist movements struggling over Palestine. The official Zionists woke up to the fact that Arab opposition to a Jewish national home could not be overcome with bribery or expectations of economic benefits to the arabs from the Jewish presence in Palestine. They realized that the 1939 White Paper had destroyed any possibility of agreement with the Arabs, for the Arabs would accept no less than what was in the White Paper.

     The official and Revisionist Zionists ended up in agreement over the fact that Arab opposition could be overcome in only one of two ways: either through intensified immigration, or through military force.[30] Zionist organizations continued to entertain quiet reservations about the 1939 White Paper during the early years of World War II. The Zionist movement had no opportunity to rebel against the White Paper and reject its contents until the Biltmore Conference of 1942, when the Zionist movement began looking to the United States. Chapter IV will deal with the effect of that conference on Zionist policies and approaches to the Arabs of Palestine.

 

                                Notes