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Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem

CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE Part 3 of 4

THE SOLUTION

There are three alternative solutions to the Palestine Problem:

1. THE SOLUTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND JUSTICE.

2. THE COMPROMISE SOLUTION OF IMPLEMENTING ALL THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE SECURITY COUNCIL ON PALESTINE FROM 1947 UNTIL 1990.

3. THE COMPROMISE, HUMANITARIAN AND RELIGIOUS SOLUTION BY RECOGNIZING PALESTINE AS A HOLY LAND STATE.

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1. THE SOLUTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND JUSTICE

The following premises are sustained according to the principles of International Law:

a) The United Kingdom had no right to issue the Balfour Declaration in 1917, promising the Jews of the world a "national home" in Palestine. It was an invalid promise and had no legal effect. The United Kingdom did not own or possess Palestine and had no right to give such a promise. The incorporation of the Balfour Declaration in the Palestine Mandate was improper and invalid.

b) Palestine was recognized by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations as a provisionally independent State "subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as its people are able to stand alone." Article 22 stated also "there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization, and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this covenant." Great Britain, as the Mandatory, should have recognized the independence of Palestine in the same way it recognized the independence of Iraq and Jordan, which were under Class A Mandates as was Palestine.

c) the United Nations General Assembly had no jurisdiction to recommend the partition of Palestine, and therefore its resolution 181 (11) of 29 November 1947 was illegal. It follows that all resolutions of the general Assembly and the Security Council adopted regarding Palestine which were based on the above mentioned resolution were ultra vires and have no legal effect on the rights of Palestinians to self-determination, independence and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. On the termination of the Palestine Mandate Palestine became, on the 14th of May 1948, a sovereign, independent State.

d) The revolt by the minority of Jews, composed of Palcstinian citizens and aliens, and their violation of the integrity of the Palestine State by occupying 80% of its territory in 1948 and the Declaration of a Jewish State in that occupied territory has no validity in international law. Israel is an illegitimate state which as no legitimate existence and was established by force and by committing massacres, war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide as outlined above.

e) Zionist leaders committed in Palestine from 1948 to 1967 the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide stated above and therefore they cannot enjoy the fruits of their crimes. In accordance with the well-established doctrine of non-recognition neither the United Nations nor its members can recognize the existence of Israel as a State. Professor Lauterpacht agrees with other international jurists about the significance of the doctrine of non-recognition. He states: "This construction of non-recognition is based on the view that acts contrary to international law are invalid and cannot become a source of legal rights for the wrongdoer." (44) We have dealt extensively with this subject in Chapter 37.

In accordance with the above mentioned principles, the United Nations General Assembly must revoke its Resolution 273 (111) of 11 May 1949 and expel Israel from the United Nations, and must accept the independent sovereign State of Palestine as a Member of the United Nations. The Security council must take measures under chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter to disarm Israel and to terminate the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and to send United Nations Peace-keeping forces to keep peace and order in Palestine and protect both Jews and Arabs.

The United Nations General Assembly should form a United Nations commission to administer all the territory of Palestine which was placed under the mandate, for a few months, to enable the Palestinian citizens of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths to reconstruct the government of Palestine on a democratic basis without any discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or political belief.

f) All Palestinian citizens who were expelled from Palestine since 1948 should be allowed to return to Palestine and repossess their homes, lands and properties in accordance with the International Law of Restitution.

g) A Palestinian Military Tribunal should try all Zionist war criminals who committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Palestinians from 1948 to 1990.

2. THE COMPROMISE SOLUTION OF IMPLEMENTING ALL RESOLUTIONS OF THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND SECURITY COUNCIL ON PALESTINE FROM 1947 UNTIL 1990.

This solution entails the recognition by the United Nations of an Arab State, a Jewish State and the International Regime for Jerusalem in accordance with the boundaries recognized by the United Nations in Resolution 181 (11) of the 29th of November 1947.

We have mentioned before that the Jewish Agency for Palestine advocated the partition of Palestine between the Arabs and Jews in its Memorandum to the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine. representatives of the Jewish Agency took part in the discussions of Sub-committee No. 2 of the Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine and advocated, and agreed to, the boundaries recommended by the Sub-Committee and which were adopted by the Partition Resolution. Representatives of the Jewish Agency made statements before the Ad Hoc committee on Palestine in 1947 and before the First Committee which discussed the problem of Palestine in 1948, and recognized the boundaries decided in the United Nations Partition resolution.

In their Declaration of Independence on the 14th of May 1948 the Zionist leaders in Palestine relied upon the United Nations General Assembly resolution of the 29th November 1947 and declared that "the State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the General Assembly resolution of the 29th of November 1947." Moshe Shertock, as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Provisional Government, sent a telegram to the Secretary General of the United Nations informing him of the Declaration of Independence in accordance with the Partition resolution of the 29th of November 1947.

Eliahu Epstein, Agent of the Provisional Government of Israel, sent a letter to President Harry S. Truman on May 14, 1948 requesting U.S. recognition for the Jewish State in which he stated:


My dear Mr. President, I have the honor to notify you that the State of Israel has been proclaimed as an independent Republic within the frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947. (45)

When Israel was admitted as a Member of the United Nations, Aubrey Eban, as Representative of Israel, assured Members of the Ad Hoc Political Committee on Palestine that Israel will comply with all United Nations resolutions, and would cooperate in their implementation. The General Assembly adopted Resolution 273 (111) of 1 1 May 1949 admitting Israel to membership in the United Nations, which stated "Recalling its resolutions of 29 November 1947 and 11 December 1948 and taking note of the declarations and explanations made by the representative of the Government of Israel before the Ad Hoc Political Committee in respect to the implementation of the said resolutions."

The Protocol of Lausanne of the 12th of May 1949 signed by Israel and the United Nations Conciliation Commission recognized the boundaries of the Partition Resolution.

In order to implement all Resolutions of the General Assembly and Security Council on Palestine from 1947 until 1990 the General Assembly and the Security Council must take the following steps:

a) Recognize the Palestine State which was declared by the Palestine National Council on November 15, 1988 within the boundaries of the Arab State defined in Resolution 181 (11) of 29 November 1947.

b) Admit the State of Palestine to Membership in the United Nations.

c) The General Assembly and the Security Council must order Israel to withdraw its military forces from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and from all the areas it occupied from 1948 to 1967 outside the boundaries which were defined for the Jewish State by Resolution 181 (11).

d) The General Assembly and the Security Council must order the implementation of Resolution 194 (111) and all other resolutions recognizing the rights of the Palestine refugees to return to their homes in Occupied Palestine, namely the towns and villages from which they were expelled.

e) The General Assembly and the Security Council must adopt resolutions to implement all Resolutions which guarantee the rights of Palestinians to their homes, lands and properties and to order the restitution to the Palestinians of all of their lands, houses and commercial properties which were usurped by Israel from 1948 to 1967, and to restitute to the Palestinian owners their houses, apartment buildings and commercial buildings in Tiberias, Safad, Acre, Beisan, Haifa, Jaffa, Lydda, Ramie, Jerusalem, Majdal, Beersheba and Gaza.

f) The General Assembly and the Security Council must adopt resolutions ordering Israel to pay compensation to the Palestinians for the movable property and assets which it looted and usurped from the Palestinians from 1948 to 1967.

g) The Security Council must order Israel to withdraw its 86,000 citizens living in the 175 Jewish settlements illegally established by war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza and to deliver all houses and apartments in these settlements to the Palestine State for settling some of the Arab Refugees who wish to settle in these areas.

THE INTERNATIONAL REGIME FOR THE CITY OF JERUSALEM

The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special International Regime. The boundaries of the city shall be those defined by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 18 1 (11) of 29 November 1947, and shall be under a special international regime administered by the United Nations as was decided by the Trusteeship Council during 1948-49.

3. THE COMPROMISE, HUMANITARIAN AND RELIGIOUS SOLUTION BY RECOGNIZING PALESTINE AS A HOLY LAND STATE

In order to establish a permanent peace in Palestine and the Middle East, men of good will must assist the Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians to open a new page in the history of Palestine so that they can live as fellow citizens in the Holy Land of Palestine.

As a first step the United Nations Security Council must send United Nations forces to occupy the West Bank and Gaza and Israel for a period of three months to enable the Christians, Muslims and Jews to determine the form of government on the lines of the Swiss constitution. The country can have five to ten Jewish Cantons and five to ten Arab Cantons in accordance with the centers of population. Jerusalem will be a Canton of mixed population.

A Religious council may be established of four Jews, representing Jewish denominations, four Christians representing Christian denominations, and four Muslims.

Palestine shall be united as a democratic State under a Federal constitution. The Constitution shall guarantee the freedom of religion and non-discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic background, or religion.

The Holy Land State shall have no army, no navy nor air force, but only a police force for keeping order. All weapons shall be either sold or destroyed, as the Prophet Isaiah said, "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks." (Isaiah 2:4). The Western Powers and the Arab countries must establish a fund of five billion dollars per year to build the economy of Palestine as an industrial and agricultural country. The Holy Land State shall enter into a Common Market with the neighboring Arab countries. The Holy Land State shall be open for pilgrimage of Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout the world.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS SOLUTION?

(1) It will make Palestine again the Holy Land of peace. All Palestine is a holy shrine for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Every part of it has been sanctified and blessed by the patriarchs, the prophets and by Jesus Christ and the Prophet Mohammed. It is a negation of its sanctity, indeed it is sacrilege, to keep the Holy Land a military state with the ugly weapons of destruction and war.

It is a total disgrace that the Holy Land of Christians, Muslims and Jews is now an arsenal for drug dealers in Colombia, Panama and other countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Former Israeli Chief of Staff General Rafael Eitan admits that "Someday, perhaps, if it's decided that the stories can be told, you'll see that the state has been involved in acts which are a thousand times more dirty than anything going on in Colombia. These things were decided by the govemment, in cabinet meetings."& The cynical attitude of the Zionists in their arms sales was aptly put by Lt. Col. Amatzia Shu'ali, Instructor at the Israeli Security Forces School, when he stated: "I don't care what the gentiles do with the arms. The main thing is that the Jews profit." (47)

(2) It will bring peace to the peoples of the Middle East who will divert their efforts from war and bloodshed to developing their countries and raising the standard of living of their peoples.

(3) It will save about $7 billion spent annually on defense and buying the tools of war and destruction. Should this fabulous amount be spent on economic and cultural development, it will bring progress and happiness to all the peoples of the area.

(4) It will be a great blessing to world peace, and will lessen political tension throughout the world.

This solution will conform to a vision of the three hundred American Jews who on March 4,1919 handed a statement to President Woodrow Wilson for transmission to the Paris Peace Conference, in which they stated:


As to the future of Palestine, it is our fervent hope that what was once a "promised land" for the Jews may become a "land of promise" for all races and creeds, safeguarded by the League of Nations which, it is expected, will be one of the fruits of the Peace Conference to whose deliberations the world now looks forward so anxiously and so full of hope. We ask that Palestine be constituted as a free and independent state, to be governed under a democratic form of government recognizing no distinction of creed or race or ethnic descent, and with adequate power to protect the country against oppression of any land. We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish State. (48)

Martin Buber, the noted theologian and philosopher, advocated self-determination for the Jewish community in Palestine with justice for and within a community carried out without threatening the rights of any other community, and that independence of one community could hardly be gained at the expense of another. Buber stated: "Jewish settlement must oust no Arab peasant, Jewish immigration must not cause the political status of the present inhabitants to deteriorate and must continue to ameliorate their economic condition." Buber saw the aim of a regenerated Jewish people in Palestine as twofold: to live peacefully with the inhabitants of the land and to cooperate with Palestinians in opening and developing the land. As Buber wrote, "Such cooperation is an indispensable condition for the lasting success of the great work, of the redemption of this land."

Buber saw the cooperative basis as offering room for both the Jewish and Palestinian people, and though this necessitated autonomy, a demand for a Jewish state or a Jewish majority was of less importance. Buber stated: "We need for this land as many Jews as it is possible economically to absorb, but not in order to establish a majority against a minority. We need them because great, very great forces are required to do the unprecedented work. We need for this land a solid, vigorous, autonomous community, but not in order that it should give its name to a state; we need it because we want to raise Israel and Eretz Israel to the highest level of productivity they can be raised to.

"The new situation and the problem involved ask for new solutions that are beyond the capacity of the familiar political categories. An internationally guaranteed agreement between the two communities is asked for, which defines the spheres of interest and activity common to the partners and those not common to them, and guarantees mutual non-interference for these specific spheres." (49)

Judah L. Magnes, professor and afterwards Chancellor of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, testified before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in 1947. "He proposed a bi-national state in an unpartitioned Palestine that would be based on political parity between Jews and Arabs, and advocated a transitional period of trusteeship for Palestine under the United Nations, with Great Britain as the trustee, until the bi-national state could be set up."50

Recently, the Central Rabbinical Congress in the U.S.A. and Canada of Brooklyn, New York, representing three hundred Orthodox Jewish Congregations of the United States and worldwide with more than 200,000 followers, published a "Manifesto of Torah True Jewry" in The New York Times of April 27, 1990, in which inter alia it stated:


It is a basic Halachic (Jewish Law) rule that Jews must not take the holy land with force, and that Jews must not establish a land and government in Eretz Yisrael before the coming of the Messiah. Only the Messiah King will redeem Jews from the dispersion and exile and will reestablish the Kingdom for Jews in Eretz Yisrael.

The very establishment of a government and statehood in our holy land is a cardinal sin that incorporates several very serious sins; rejection of faith in the coming of Moshiach, rebellion against the Kingdom of G-D, rejection of faith in the gathering of the exiles, rebellion against the nations of the world and the spilling of blood. This is quite apart from the horrendous sins of the Zionist power in the area of uprooting the fundamental tenets of our faith and suppression of religion and religious faith ...

The Torah does not allow Torah Jews to support a power that is a renegade of Torah irrespective of its political persuasion.

The Torah does not suggest occupying territories or retaining such territories. It does say that not one Jewish life should be sacrificed even for the entire statehood. Whoever says otherwise distorts Torah.

Jews arc not a people of war. Jews do not spill blood. Jews always were,and still are,ready lo sacrifice theirlives for their faith and for the sacred Torah, but not for territories ...

We. the childred of Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob have taken an oath not to rebel against the nations of the world, and not to take sovereignty by ourselves before the coming of Moshiaeh. Jews cannot sacrifice Jewish lives for statehood or territories. Jews believe in the ultimate and eternal redemption and eagerly await the coming of Moshiach who will redeem us from our dispersion and return us to Eretz Yisrael.


ISRAELI LEADERS AND THEIR AMERICAN ZIONIST SUPPORTERS WILL REJECT THESE SOLUTIONS

Israeli leaders of all parties and their Zionist supporters in the United States will not accept any of the above three solutions. They cannot accept the solution based on international law and justice because they live by the law of the jungle. They cannot now accept the solution of implementing all United Nations resolutions although they accepted them, fought in the United Nations Committees for the partition plan, and took part in fixing the boundaries of the Jewish State, Arab State and the International Regime for Jerusalem. It is obvious that they were not honest and sincere in accepting the Partition Resolution and that they considered it only as an expedient first step and a stepping stone for their criminal plans for expansion and aggression against the Arab World. In Chapter 36, the Crimes Against Peace, we outline the Zionist plans of aggression against the Arab World as was revealed in the diaries of Moshe Shertock (Sharett). As far back as 1949 they were planning to occupy and annex all of Palestine and Jordan, occupy Lebanon and Syria and divide them into small principalities dependent on Israel. They also planned to divide Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt into small Israeli-satellite states and exploit the Arab World economically.

Israeli leaders have never abandoned their plans of aggression against the Arab World. They deceived themselves in believing that Israel is invincible on three assumptions. Assumption Number One is that Israel will remain militarily superior to all the Arab States combined. Assumption Number Two is that the Arab States will remain disunited. Assumption Number Three is that the United States will continue forever giving Israel military, financial, economic and political support.

Israeli leaders and their American Zionist supporters will learn sooner or later that the above three assumptions are a mirage. Israel has never been militarily superior to all the Arab States combined. Israel never won a war except by deception, by foreign aid , and by treachery in some Arab ranks engineered by the Western Powers. In 1948 the Palestinians were winning the war against the well armed Zionist gangs. While the Security Council imposed an arms embargo on all parties in the MiddleEast, the Zionist gangs were saved by arms, ammunition and aircraft provided by the Soviet Union through Czechoslovakia, while the Western Powers were using their influence to prevent weapons from reaching the Palestinian forces.

The 1956 war was won by the assistance of Britain and France. The 1967 war was won by deception and treachery and the mistakes of President Nasser of Egypt, who was neither prepared nor willing to make war. The United States assisted with weapons and electronic devices and information about Arab Forces. The arms merchants who were mostly Jews were supplying the Arab States with defective ammunition. In 1973 Israel was saved from total defeat by United States intervention which supplied it with unlimited sophisticated weapons and airlifted ammunition.

The situation has changed today. The Arab States are well armed with all the weapons which will defeat Israel whenever the Arab States have the will and determination to fight and defend themselves against Israeli aggression. Israel may have 200 atomic bombs and certainly has unlimited quantities of chemical and biological weapons and has the missiles and airplanes to launch these nuclear and chemical warheads. The Arab States have chemical and biological weapons and may soon obtain nuclear capability to defend themselves. Therefore, the arrogance of Israel in believing in its military superiority will prove to be very costly to its own people and all the peoples in the Middle East.

The assumption of Arab disunity will soon disappear because the Arab peoples and governments know by now that Israel is not interested in peace and is only interested in war and aggression. The Arab States have now the will and determination to fight and defend themselves against Israeli aggression.

The third assumption, that the United States will continue to assist Israel militarily, economically, financially and politically will prove to be illusive in the long run. The Israeli lobby presently controls the U.S. Congress, and has infiltrated U.S. policy planning staffs throughout the Executive Branch. Unfortunately for Israel this fact has become known to the people of the United States. Many Members of Congress have been humiliated by the Israeli lobby and are resentful. The Israeli lobby does not seem to be aware of the whispers in the United States Congress about their haughtiness and arrogance. Nationalistic elements in the United States are actively planning to liberate the United States Congress from the Israeli lobby's domination. Many Members of Congress, the most important of whom is Senator Robert Dole, have declared that they do not wish the Israeli lobby to control U.S. foreign policy. Senators and Congressmen do not believe any more in the myth that they can only be elected to Congress if they are subservient to the will of the Israeli lobby. Furthermore, the United States is financially bankrupt with a national debt of 1.5 trillion dollars. The United States is giving Israel more than eight billion dollars a year in direct and indirect aid, and depriving its senior citizens, school children and the homeless of any substantial aid. This eight billion dollars, together with the three billion dollars a year given to Egypt, because it made peace with Israel, would greatly assist the senior citizens, school children and the homeless in the United States. The American people are in revolt against this policy of aiding Israel and giving every Israeli citizen more than $1,500 per year, to the detriment of United States citizens domestically, let alone the United States national interests abroad.

The American people started feeling the shame of allowing a small minority of immigrant Russian, Polish and German Jews to control their Congress and their foreign policy to the detriment of the United States' best interests.

The American Zionists must bear the full blame and responsibility for what will happen in the future. American Zionists must recall what happened to the German Jews, who were in control of the professions, the media, the economic life and real estate in Germany. They must recall that it was Jews who dominated the Bolshevik Revolution. Jews were 80% of the top officials of each Bolshevik government department from 1918 until 1929. Now the Zionists are spreading the rumors that the Russian people are anti-Semites and that anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union is forcing the Jews to immigrate. The Russian Jews are not Semites. They are of Khazar origin, and their ancestors never set a foot in Palestine. They are of Turko-Finn origin who lived in the Southern part of Russia and were converted to Judaism in the 9th century. We have dealt extensively with this matter of the Khazar Jews in Chapter 40 of this Encyclopedia. Zionism is the creation of these Khazar Jews. We should like to remind the Zionists of America what Lord Montagu, who was Secretary for India, stated in a Memorandum in 1917 to his colleagues in the British cabinet:


When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every' country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens.

This was the reason why three hundred top American Jewish leaders, led by Congressman Julius Kahn, Rabbi Dr. Henry Berkowitz, Max Senior, and Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr. and others handed President Wilson the Memorandum on the 4th of March 1919, the full text of which we have published in this chapter, opposing the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish State.

This is the reason why Jews insisted to put a proviso in the Balfour Declaration "it is being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." The mass emigration of Soviet Jews today because of alleged anti- Semitism, should be a warning to the American Zionists that one day American Jews will also be forced into a mass emigration to their "beloved" Israel.

We predict that if Israel and its Zionist American supporters will continue in this arrogance and refuse to make peace with the Palestinians in accordance with any of the above mentioned solutions, we shall have a nuclear and chemical war in the Middle East within the next five years. 70% of the people of the Middle East will perish by this holocaust and the surviving 30% will be contaminated with terminal illnesses. The responsibility of this holocaust will be on the heads of the Zionist leaders in the United States and their supporters in the United States Congress, The time has come for the United States to foresee what will happen in the next five years. The Israeli leaders and their Zionist supporters in the United States are determined to expel all the Christian and Muslim Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, annex the area, occupy the Kingdom of Jordan, and annex Southern Lebanon. This will be the spark which will explode the holocaust in the Middle East. We believe that it is the responsibility of the United States Administration and Congress to foresee this catastrophe and immediately pressure Israel to make peace with the Palestinians, abandon its criminal plans and ambitions of aggression and abandon its fanatic dream of destroying Al-Masjid al-Aksa and building a Jewish Temple on its site. This fanatic dream is bound to arouse the whole Muslim world to the war of Jihad against Israel and the Jews of the world.

The only power in the world that can stop this tragedy is the United States Administration and Congress. They should inform the Israeli lobby and Israeli leaders that they will stop all military. financial, economic and political support for Israel unless it accepts to make peace with the Palestinians, either on the basis of Solution Number Two or Three outlined in this Chapter, namely the implementation of all United Nations Resolutions from 1947 until 1990, or the establishment of The Holy Land State.

APPENDIX A

CENTRAL CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN RABBIS TOTALLY DISAPPROVE OF ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE

Jacob A. Rubin in his book Partners in State Building (New York: Diplomatic Press, 1969. pp. 35-36) summarized the struggle between the Zionists and anti-Zionists as follows:


The conflict between Zionists and anti-Zionists thus became to a large degree a conflict between "East and West." The American Israelite of January 13, 1898, stressed this point clearly:

The whole noise is made by some persons of recent immigration, with which we American Jews have absolutely nothing to do.

Brandishing Zionism as a movement alien to American Jews was therefore among the main tactical measures anti- Zionists adopted. They were not prone to be too sensitive in selecting arguments and even less in using proper language. Vituperation, abuse, upbraiding and insult were the common weapons of the anti-Zionists. The fact that the majority of those fighting anti-Zionists were Rabbis, casts a special light on the intensity of this fight, and the extremity of emotions it was to express.

The press, the sermons in the most important reform temples, the resolutions of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform) are a most vivid illustration of the concentrated attack to which early American Zionism was exposed.

Leading this anti-Zionist crusade was the American Israelite. Quotations from this paper speak volumes:

These are fantastic dupes of a thoughtless Utopian fata morgana, momentary inebriation of morbid minds, and a prostitution of Israel's holy cause to a madman's dance of unsound politicians ..... Zionism is a public lie and together with anti-Semitism comprises twin engines of Jewish destruction, with Zionism potentially the more dangerous.

To support these arguments, the anti-Zionists made use of quotations from statements of people who fought Herzl on his native ground, in Vienna. Dr. Moritz Guedeman, the Chief Rabbi of Vienna was quoted as having said-that "Zionism is a suicide attempt on the part of Judaism. If anti-Semitism sets the brain of Herzl on fire, must we act as madmen too?"

Press attacks were not isolated excursions of the enemies of Zionism into the field of public discussion on what appeared, at that time, a burning problem of American Jewry's outlook on its future, on the future of the Jewish people in general. The representative organization of the Reform Rabbinate, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, considered Zionism a problem deserving its utmost attention. A resolution adopted at the Convention of 1897 stated:

Resolved that we totally disapprove of any attempt for the establishment of a Jewish State. Such attempts show misunderstanding of Israel's mission, which, from the narrow political and national field has been expanded to the promotion among the whole human race of the broad and universalistic religion first proclaimed by the Jewish prophets ..... We reaffirm that the object of Judaism is not political nor national, but spiritual.

The dissemination of the Zionist idea made further references to it a recurrent theme of the conventions of the Reform Rabbis. Their main concern was explicitly political Zionism.

"We are unilaterally opposed to political Zionism," stated another resolution, adding, "The Jews are not a nation but a religion. Zion was a precious possession of the past, the early home of our fathers, where our prophets uttered their worldsubduing thoughts and our psalmists sang their worldenchanting hymns. As such it is a holy memory, but it is not our hope for the future. America is our Zion."

The argument which decades later used to be known as the "dual loyalty" issue became very soon a potent weapon in the hands of anti-Zionists.

"..such (Zionist) attempts do not benefit but infinitely harm our Jewish brethren where they are still persecuted by confirming the assertion of their enemies that the Jews are foreigners in the countries in which they are at home, and of which they are the most loyal and patriotic citizens," stated another resolution of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. Individual leaders of the Reform Rabbinate were no less zealous. They tried to coin slogans. They attempted to frighten the newcomers from joining the Zionist movement unless they wished to cast doubt on their Americanism. America is our Palestine, the flag of this country is our banner, that Statue of Liberty in our harbor is the symbol of patriotism.

APPENDIX B

TRANSFER: THE EXPULSION OF PALESTINIANS FROM PALESTINE

The Israeli lobby is advocating to members of the United States Congress the idea of "transfer." They tell members of the United States Congress that the only solution to the Palestine problem is to "transfer" the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, and even in Israel who remained since 1948 in the occupied areas, to Arab countries. "Transfer" is a euphemism for forced expulsion.

In view of the fact that top Israeli government leaders have recently openly advocated the expulsion of the Palestinian people from the West Bank and Gaza, we believe that it is important that we should deal with the history and the evidence of this conspiracy to commit this War Crime and Genocide against the Palestinians. Israeli Hebrew newspapers published recently many declarations of Ariel Sharon stating that if he becomes Minister of Defense in a Likud government, he would implement the Plan of Transfer, namely the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.

The new Likud government formed on the 10th of June, 1990, includes the following persons who expressed several times their idea about the "transfer" of the Palestinian population from the West Bank and Gaza, namely to expel them. They are: Yitshak Shamir, Prime Minister; Moshe Arens, Minister of Defense; Ariel Sharon, Minister of Housing and Settlement of Immigrants; Yuval Ne'eman, Minister of Science and Energy; and Rafael Eitan, Minister of Agriculture.

Each one of the above is committed to the idea of expelling the Palestinian population from the West Bank and Gaza.

Alexander Cockburn, a courageous American journalist, in an article in The Wall Street Journal on June 14, 1990, entitled "Israel's Democratic Image vs. the Harsh Truth" said:


It is clear that this is a cabinet replete with people openly committed to holding the territories forever in a colonial status ..... 1 think Israeli policy is to maintain effective control over the territories, with some politicians saying the ultimate answer is transfer. This transfer-expulsion-is being seriously raised as a policy option.

Mr. Cockburn quoted Binyamin Netanyahu's statement of November 24, 1989, advocating that the Israelis "carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."(51)

A leading advocate of military operations to expel the Palestinians, is Benjamin Netanyahu, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Ambassador to the United Nations, who was reported by Yediot Aharonot in November, 1989, to have said the following:


Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations in China, while the world's attention was focused on these events, and should have carried out mass deportations of Arabs from the territories. Unfortunately, this plan I proposed did not gain support, yet 1 still suggest to put it into action.

A former Deputy Minister of Defence, Michael Dekel, known as a Shamir stalwart, in July, 1987, "called for the dispatch of Palestinians into Jordan, arguing that 'transfer is the only way to solve the Palestinian problem.' And he wasn't the only one to pick up the refrain. The more that relations between Israel and the Palestinians deteriorated, the more right wingers realized that far from being the solution to the conflict, the annexation of the territories would only exacerbate it. Thus the idea of transporting the Palestinians to their 'homeland in Jordan' began to acquire a following on the Israeli Right. Hearing such ideas bandied about so openly in Israel, and remembering what had befallen their people in 1948, many Palestinians were filled with dread. In light of the new 'fad,' moreover, a number of recent events looked increasingly like a diabolical scheme to dispose of them." (52)

The "Transfer Plan" was developed by a "Secret Intelligence Unit" set up by the Levi Eshkol cabinet in 1967. Among those involved was Yaacov Herzog, then Director General of the Prime Minister's office, and brother of Chaim Herzog, present President of Israel.

Israel Shahak, president of the Israeli League for Human Rights, wrote an important article entitled, "A History of the Concept of 'Transfer' in Zionism" (53) which follows:

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Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem
By Issa Nakhleh

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