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er, Martin, and George

en Palestine Was at StakeHarry Clarkand Palestinian Arabs, was also a fundamental clash of principles. The differences are shown by a

parison of the liberal Arab nationalist, the Zionist binationalist, and the Reform Judaism anti-Zionists.Arabs sought independence for Palestine, as Britain had promised for the Arab role in Britainspaign against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Instead Britain had concluded the secret Sykes-t agreement with France to divide the Arab heartland conquered from the Ottomans, and then issuedBalfour Declaration in support of Zionism in Palestine. The term Nakba, a byword for the destructionab Palestine in 1948, was first applied to the 1920 dismemberment of historic Syria into enlarged

non, Palestine, and rump Syria, ruled by Britain and France. In the 1940s, the Arabs were willingant Jews full rights of citizenship in a democratic Palestine, but emphatically not national rights, and

osed further Jewish immigration.Zionist movement publicly proclaimed its long-standing goal of a Jewish state in Palestine in 1942,accepted partition when proposed by the UN in 1947. The binationalists among the Zionists opposedtion, and proposed that Arabs and Jews share power equally, when Jews were around 33% of the pop-on. The binationalists also insisted on Jewish immigration to achieve demographic parity, and even

ority. Binationalism was another form of Zionism, despite its enlightened reputation, and is discussed ashere.

e among USsh groups,American Council for Judaism supported democracy in Palestine.ACJ opposed the 1939 British White Paper limiting Jewish immigration, and advocated immigration for

The future of Palestine was at stake in the 1940s, and the fundamental clash of interests, betweenZionist


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war refugees, on liberal, non-discriminatory grounds, as it did to destinations other than Palestine. Atsame time it opposed binationalism, deriding its demographic engineering schemes, and did not envisiondemographic transformation sought by the binationalists. The ACJ argued that the future of Palestineld be determined by all its residents.

onsider the Arab view at greater length, the 1930s were a time of growing existential anxiety forArabs of Palestine, no less than for the Jews of Germany. The Arab uprising in 1929 had caused Britainconsider its support for Zionism, but this was reversed by the London Zionist lobby. Greatly increased

sh immigration after 1933, and a deep crisis in rural Palestine, from the lingering devastation of WorldI and from Zionist land acquisition, exacerbated Arab desperation. Arab political initiatives with thesh came to nought, and the pressures exploded in the Arab revolt in 1936, brutally suppressed by thesh. In 1937 a British investigation resulted in partition schemes and renewed talk of transfer of some

population. The revolt broke out again more violently in late 1937, Britain lost control of large partse country, and finally prevailed with still greater violence.rge Antonius, in his classic The Arab Awakening. The Story of the Arab National Movement, pub-d in Britain and the US in 1938-9, saw clearly the threat to Arab Palestine, which he defended in the

ngest terms.he rights of the Arabs are derived from actual and longstanding possession, and rest onstrongest human foundation. Their connection with Palestine goes back uninterruptedlye earliest historic times, for the term Arab nowadays denotes not only the incomersthe Arabian peninsula who occupied the country in the seventh century, but also the older

ulations who. . . became permanently arabised. The traditions of the present inhabitants areeeply rooted in their geographical surroundings as in their adoptive culture, and it is a fallacy

magine that they could ever be induced to transplant themselves. . .addition to those natural rights, the Arabs had acquired specific political rights derivedthe Sharif Husains compact with Great Britain and the help they gave her, in Palestine

ngst other theatres. . . rights which followed from the disappearance of Turkish sovereignty,the Arab share in its overthrow.nius led the Arab delegation to the February, 1939 Palestine conference convened by the British inon. He achieved unity in demanding independence for Palestine and cessation of Jewish immigration,

ritish surprise, and forced a tacit admission that Palestine was not excluded from the lands promised


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harif Husayn. The outcome was the British White Paper of May, limiting immigration to 75,000 overyears. Meanwhile, in the last months before the outbreak of war, British consular officials in the Reichmany and Austria] were granting emigration visas to Britain virtually without limit. The White Paper

mised independence in ten years. Palestinian Jamal Husayni, speaking for the Arab delegation, explainedthe Jews could expect full civil and political rights, control of their own communal affairs, municipalnomy in districts in which they are concentrated, the use of Hebrew as an additional official language ine districts, and an adequate share of the administration.nius died in 1942, but the 1939 terms were elaborated to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry

946. For twenty-five years. . . [i]mmigration has been forced on [the Palestinian Arabs] against their willwithout their consent. . . They declare their willingness to enter into full community with their fellowsh citizens of Palestine. . . If this is not compromise, what is? At a London conference in late 1946 the

League proposed recognition of Jews as a national minority. Jamal Husayni reaffirmed liberal termsn commenting on the UN Special Committee on Palestine proposals in September, 1947. Jamal, cousin of the Mufred

1939 White Paper, and after the war sought to ally the Palestine Arab Party, the largest in Palestine, withern elements.modern political formations in Palestine favored liberal acceptance of the Jews, including the Is- [Independence] party, of urban professional and business figures, which opposed the traditional notable

ership. The Istiqlal had opposed only Britain (and protected Jews) during the revolt, and had accepted1939 White Paper. Labor groups worked sporadically with their Jewish comrades, despite Zionism,also favored acceptance, including the Palestinian Arab Workers Society, the more radical Arab Work-Congress and its affiliated, communist-led, Arab National Liberation League. The latter distinguished

ween Jews and Zionism and denounced the traditional leadership for not doing so.traditional leadership was above all Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, a re-

onary, pan-Islamic cleric from a leading notable family, whom the British appointed as their moderateehead. He emerged as a political leader after the 1929 Arab uprising, viewed as having thwarted Zionistgns on Muslim holy sites. The 1936-39 revolt propelled him into leadership of the Arab Higher Com-


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ee. He fled to Lebanon to avoid arrest, orchestrated a pro-German coup in Iraq in 1941, and moved on toand Germany. There he met Hitler and Himmler, learned of the Final Solution, broadcast anti-semiticngues, and tried quite unsuccessfully to rally the Arabs to the Axis. He was admitted to France undereillance after the war, and escaped to Egypt in 1946.e 1942 Biltmore Program the Zionist movement called for establishing a Jewish commonwealthlestine. Before the war ended, they began ruthless campaigns against British rule in Palestine, andfluence Palestine diplomacy. The British declined to crush the Jewish revolt as they had the Arab.rary to the White Paper, the war was followed by more Jewish immigration, and diplomacy to preclude,

achieve, sovereign independence.Mufti was not admitted to Palestine, but wielded influence through his traditional networks, and hist popularity in the countryside as a symbol of the revolt. The Mufti was anathema to the Arab League,

h refused to acknowledge him as a Palestinian representative. In early 1947 the Mufti-influenced AHCgnized only Jews resident before 1917 as Palestinians, though the British viewed this as a response toist irredentism, the Muftis greatest resource. The League firmly rejected any idea of expulsion of Jews.UN partition plan gave the Jews, a third of the population, 55% of Palestine, and 84% of its agricul-land, as well as a third of the Arab population. UN approval of partition in November, 1947 led to civilby May 14, 1948, the last day of British rule, there were over 300,000 Palestinian refugees. The out-bered and mostly inept forces of the Arab states, propelled by public opinion, invaded only after Britishended, to preserve a unitary Palestine and contain the Zionists. King Abdullah of Transjordan, with aern, British-trained force, sought to divide Palestine with the Zionists. The result was a military fiasco.new state of Israel was recognized immediately by the US, and conquered nearly 80% of Mandatorystine before hostilities ended.tionalism was the expression in Palestine of the pre-1914 neoromantic Zionism associated aboveith Martin Buber, whose disciples were prominent among binationalists. The Young Guard Zionisth movement from pre-1914 Galicia, another source of binationalism, also originated in Buberite ne-

manticism; its socialist trappings were added in Palestine. In 1925, when Jews were 17% of Palestines


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ulation, the binationalist Brit Shalom called for complete political equality and immigration to achieveographic parity. In 1930, Young Guard, by then established in Palestine with a network of kibbutzim,d for binationalism leading to a Jewish majority.tionalism was quiescent during the 1930s, but in 1939 as war loomed Jews and some Arabs formedLeague for Arab-Jewish Rapprochment. The League proposed a program of Arab-Jewish outreach, anded the need for political parity and immigration to achieve parity. Young Guard joined after the Leaguemed opposition to any tendency to crystallize the Jewish community as a minority in Palestine, interYoung Guard proposed alliance with Arab peasants and workers against the nationalist effendis and

British Empire, in a revolt against the Arab majority. A modern scholar has written of a socialist-Zionistion civilisatrice toward Arab workers in Palestine.League was followed by the Ihud (Union), led by Judah Magnes, chancellor of the Hebrew Univer-

which espoused a Government in Palestine based on equal political rights of the two peoples and aerative union of Palestine and neighboring countries. The Union opposed fixation of the Yishuv as amanent minority, and sought the absorption of the greatest possible number of Jewish immigrants instine. In a federated Palestine the Arabs would no longer need to fear being swamped by the Jews,could then afford to look at Jewish immigration with greater liberality, with the possibility of Jewishigration beyond parity in Palestine. Binationalism was racialist demography, replete with busy cal-tions of immigration quotas and growth rates. Postwar, the Union called for the admission of 25,000ren, 25,000 parents, relatives and older person, and 50,000 young people from Europe. This was aist prescription, emphasizing young pioneering stock.in Buber was the most distinguished advocate of binationalism. His 1944 lectures On Zion. The

ory of an Idea were grandiose national-religious mystification. The Introduction, Zion and the Otheronal Concepts, is like the vorabend of an opera cycle, announcing the urmotif. Zions essentialty lies precisely in what differentiates it from other concepts, being named after a place and not,

the others, after a people. The name Zion was applied by poets and prophets to the whole city of

salem. . . Zion is the city of the great King (Psalms 48, 3), that is, of God as the King of Israel. The


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e has retained its sacred character ever since. The vorabend is followed by four mythopoeic essaysh present Zionism as the culmination of 3,000 years of Israelite and Jewish history, each like an oper-Singspiel, further divided into three to five subtopics like acts. In the last essay, Zionist titans espy andr the promised land, like heroes entering Valhalla, and the curtain rings down.

946 Buber published a sequel of secular mystification, Paths In Utopia, which argued that Zion-n Palestine realized utopian socialism. For a secular topic Buber abandoned libretto form. The briefword states: I had to speak of one particular attempt. . . an attempt that did not fail, i.e., Zionism. Its necessary to point out [utopias] significance in the present hour of decision, i.e., while the futurealestine was being contested. Buber defined an idea of freedom based in the group, and federation ofps as a social principle. He romanticized medieval society and cited cooperatives, settled on the land,

he modern ideal. Buber ignored or slighted positive aspects of European socialism and communism that

e of no use in colonizing Palestine. He could thus proclaim one success in the socialistic sense, andis the Jewish Village Commune in its various forms, as found in Palestine. This commune was forer an instrument to disposess the indigenous people.r thousands of years in which the country was a wasteland, we have transformed it into a settledtry. . . The right deriving from creation and fertilization is in fact the right of settlers, stated Buber after

1929 uprising. In 1947, Buber found that Arab love for their homeland is dimmer, simpler and moreoate than that of the Hebrew pioneers. Yet it could have developed among them as well to the pointre they were drawn to take an active part in a great joint undertaking to make the land bring forth its but for the call for democracy with, inevitably, an Arab majority. The Arab population does not needrab state in order to develop its potential freely. The Arab leaders have acted in a negative, defensivener instead of developing positive and social features (e.g., Jewish immigration) which would haveeatened their interests.view that nothing should be done unless the Arabs consent to it, is doomed to failure, warnedng Guard. It likewise accused reactionary Arab leaders who forsook national emancipation of a pro-

sive [Zionist] character of a deliberate contribution to failure, i.e., of not capitulating to their veiled


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matum. As the late Maxime Rodinson observed, the Palestine War was not seen by anyone in the Arabs as a war of liberation led by anti-British, and hence anti-colonialist, Jewish revolutionaries againstsure-seeking feudal lords who pushed stupefied and mule-like peasants in front of them to safeguardown class interests.

tionalism put a liberal face on an iron will to possess Palestine. It was preposterous condescensionesent the Jewish usurpation as an uplifting Arab development. The question of true benefits and costse Arabs aside, any Arab patriot naturally preferred that the country remain impoverished and barrennother hundred years, until we ourselves are able to develop it on our own. The Arab League statedly: All these plans contravene the right of the majority to live under a government of their ownsing, and to make their own decisions in such matters as immigration. The question of Palestine in

1940s was not the cliche of right vs. right, but of right versus arbitrary national-racial violence.

anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism supported the spirit, if not exactly the letter, of the Arab. The ACJ was founded in late 1942, in response to the Biltmore Program, to uphold the classicalrm view of Jews as a religious minority. Reform was the response of enlightened Jews to modernal conditions, and was the most influential Judaism in western Europe and North America in the 19thury. In the words of Reforms 1885 Pittsburgh Platform:ecognize in the modern era of universal culture of heart and intellect the approaching ofealization of Israels great Messianic hope for the establishment of the kingdom of truth,ce and peace among all men. We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religiousmunity, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship undersons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.ism gained credence with Jews only under the impact of Hitler and Nazism. In 1937 the Reforminical body narrowly approved Zionism. Rabbi Elmer Berger had led the opposition, and founded then 1942 with several other notable rabbis and laymen. Despite fierce Zionist opposition, it becametional organization, mostly among affluent Jews of German background. Indeed, Reform was often

ded by Yiddish socialists as the vehicle of the assimilated bourgeoisie, but for Berger and his colleaguess a fighting creed. They began an active program of public and government outreach to counter whatsaw as a Zionist juggernaut. An August, 1943 statement proclaimed:


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mericans of Jewish faith we believe implicitly in the fundamentals of democracy, rooted,hey are, in moralities that transcend race and state and endow the individual with rights forh he is answerable only to God.. . .e oppose the effort to establish a National Jewish State in Palestine or anywhere else as a

osophy of defeatism. . . We dissent from all those related doctrines that stress the racialism,nationalism and the theoretical homelessness of Jews. We oppose such doctrines as inimicale welfare of Jews in Palestine, in America, or wherever Jews may dwell.. . .. We look forward to the ultimate establishment of a democratic, autonomous governmentlestine, wherein Jews, Moslems, and Christians shall be justly represented; every manying equal rights and sharing equal responsibilities; a democratic government in which ourw Jews shall be free Palestinians whose religion is Judaism, even as we are Americans

se religion is Judaism.ACJ welcomed the binationalists opposition to partition, but disputed their proposals. The peace-evelopment of Switzerland [cited by Magnes] might never have come about if any of these languageps had maintained political ties with non-Swiss nationals throughout the world. Moreover. . . Palestine. . . would

e immigration procedures that would not apply to the other Cantons. In this, the analogy with the peace-Swiss model breaks down completely. Magnes advocated immigration into Palestine based on itsomic capacity to attain parity. Such a formula might put off indefinitely the attainment of numericaly, which might require a frenzied call (and propaganda) for the migration of additional Jews. . . Woulds be required to leave Palestine if it were impossible to get enough Jewish immigration to maintainy? Would the natural population increase of Jews and Arabs be manipulated? Any formula departingthe traditional religious identification of Jews will not work. Only if Palestine is a country in which

em, Christian and Jew are to be equal citizens, Palestinians all, only then is there some hope.all Jewish groups, the ACJ had adamantly opposed the 1939 British White Paper limiting Jewishigration. After the war the ACJ supported the Zionist call for the immigration of 100,000 Jewish

gees to Palestine, whose population in 1946 was 608,225 Jews and 1,237,334 Arabs. The annual Arabease was about 50,000; admission of 100,000 Jews was quite insufficient to overturn the Arab majority,ed a common view was that voluntary Jewish immigration would not achieve parity.ACJs sole interest in Jewish immigration was succor for the Jewish survivors of Nazism. It op-d a Zionist attempt to use Palestine immigration certificates for American Jewish youth, and actively


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ht immigration for Jews elsewhere, including the US. President Roosevelt proposed to Jewish leadersadmission to the US of 150,000 refugees after the war, but the Zionist campaign for statehood was in fullg and the proposal was rejected vehemently. In 1944 the ACJ testified to Congress: All of Palestinet share in the establishment of a democracy. In 1946 the ACJ proposed to the Anglo-American Com-ee of Inquiry immigration controlled by representative bodies of all [original emphasis] the inhabitantsalestine. . . and the progressive and rapid institution of home rule. It seems fair to say that the ACJnot seek or envision the demographic transformation sought by the binationalists, and would have beenfied for Palestines Jews to exercise their civil rights with an Arab majority.Antonius and Buber, Berger produced a history and manifesto, The Jewish Dilemma, published in

5. In the first section, The Myth of the Jewish People, Berger placed himself firmly in the world, notghetto. I rejoice in what other human beings have contributed. . . But I am really not concerned whether

e men made these contributions as Jews or not. I believe Abraham Lincoln today is as much a parthat Jews hold sacred as Amos. There is no such an entity as a Jewish people except in the senseamong all Jews are certain similarities of religious belief and practice and [p]erhaps. . . a heightenede of responsibility to other Jews in times of suffering. In Jewish history Berger found diversity, not

ycultured Andalusia vs. backward Ashkenaz, and Inquisition persecution vs. Ottoman protection.er related Jewish emancipation to the success or failure of larger progressive struggles in eastern,ral and western Europe, North America and elsewhere. Where Buber dated Zionism from biblicalsalem, Berger dated emancipation from Jeremiahs words to the Babylonian exiles: Seek the peacee city whither I have caused ye to be carried away captive. . . for in the peace thereof shall ye havee. Thus began the brilliant and prosperous history of Mesopotamian Jewry, until Zionism made Iraqiimpoverished captives, demographic fodder for the Jewish state.

Zionist Nationalism, Berger argued that Zionism had recreated the medieval, corporate Jewishmunity ruled and represented by unaccountable leaders, against the emancipation and integrationws. He denied any essential difference between cultural and political Zionism. Both approaches

ht the national existence of the Jewish people, against emancipation and integration. Berger noted


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isms paradoxes: its deprecation of Jewish relief for its national program; its antagonism of the Arabs itosed Jews should dwell among; its efforts to control Jewish communal life; its appeals to anti-semitismmperialism; its reliance on emancipated conditions and the funds of emancipated Jews. He excoriatedewish elite for failing to oppose Zionism and showed how non-Zionism and humanitarian measures

e utilized for Zionist ends.ers third section, For Free Jews in a Free World, surveyed the history of Jewish emancipa-Berger described the Lessing-Mendelssohn formula, after Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Moses

delssohn in 18th c. Germany. Mendelssohn translated the Pentateuch into German, and argued that Or-ox Judaism had rationalist and universalist elements. Lessing, a dramatist and philosophe, befriendeddelssohn and advocated Jewish emancipation. Berger compared the Christian reactionaries who op-d Lessing to the Jewish reactionaries who proscribed and publicly burned Mendelssohns bible transla-

Emancipation gradually succeeded in western Europe, and the German catastrophe was offset by thehe only nation in the world in which the concept of a Jewish people had never played a historic part,re the Lessing conditions were assured under law from the start.e anti-semitism clouded this picture somewhat in the late 19th c., Berger faulted the Jewish leader-and Reform especially for not opposing Zionism as they did anti-semitism. Bergers liberal faith was

shaken by anti-semitism, Nazism and the Judeocide, but confirmed by the total destruction of the Axisers. The great Allied victory also confirmed that Zionism was reactionary and anachronistic. Bergerd the new-old official Jews, representing and coercing the Jewish public, and its new-old messianicor. He cited ACJs defense of emancipation, and argued that Jews had to choose between Zionism anddom.e 1948, the state of Israel has exposed Bubers meretricious eloquence, and confirmed the values ofnius and Berger, and their prescription for Palestine.F of this article with notes is at https://sites.google.com/site/alandalusdoc/palestine/palatstake.pdf.y Clark can be reached at [email protected].

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