Rehovot

Is there any hope of establishing a pattern of government and of living in Palestine on which a peaceful existence can be based?

During all of my fifty-five years in this country I have believed in the possibility of the peaceful co-existence of Jews and Arabs in Palestine and of a mutual understanding between them. I have not lost this faith even now. Conditions have indeed greatly worsened in the last years. Many opportunities for rapprochement and a cordial entente have been lost, the fault being mainly that of both parties concerned. Nevertheless, there is still hope.

Right are those who hold that there is no racial animosity between the two peoples of our country; and where there is no enmity there is the possibility of living together in peace. The collisions that take place at times between Jews and Arabs in the course of land quarrels prove nothing whatsoever. Such conflicts, though sometimes going as far as bloodshed, are frequent among Arabs themselves. In rare cases there have even been stormy land quarrels between Jews—but these did not reach bloodshed. “For a slice of bread will man sin”; and bread has its origin in the soil.

The disturbances that have broken out in our country at various times did not originate in racial hatred. It was evil-intentioned incitement, coming from outside, that caused them; and these disturbances increased in direct proportion to the “interest” in our country of a variety of fascists. And indeed, right in the midst of the disturbances Arab women used to come to the Jewish settlements, bringing their children with them to seek medical aid from Jewish physicians. Was ever trust a consequence of hatred? And I know of scores and scores of cases of friendly relations and mutual confidence between Jews and Arabs, fellaheen and effendis alike. Nor are there any psychological factors that would prevent those individual instances from becoming the general case.

Nor is there such economic competition between the two peoples as is likely to create bad relations. On the contrary, there always were and there exist today, too, relations of mutual economic aid between Jews and Arabs. Any Arab will admit that Jewish colonization has not exploited the Arabs to their own detriment; nay, it improved and strengthened their economic condition. Effendi, fellah and laborer alike have benefited from Jewish colonization. The effendi sold his land to Jews at exaggerated prices that only an unfortunate, wandering people, hungering for land and a home country, could think of paying. The prices Jews paid for land in Palestine were five times higher than the market prices based on the revenue from it—and that was before the depreciation of our currency.

The fellah sells his produce to Jews in towns and settlements at a price three times higher than that he used to get in the markets of the Arab towns. And it was only with the increase of Jewish settlement that the fellaheen began to increase their own areas of vegetable cultivation. And the Arab laborer has succeeded in getting wages four times larger than those he received on the properties of effendis or wealthy fellaheen, and his daily hours of work have decreased from twelve to eight.

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The Arabs have, moreover, learned much from the Jewish settlers in the way of improving their agriculture. They have learned how to handle trees properly; they have learned the techniques of manuring and crop-rotation. Admittedly, they understood citriculture before the arrival of the Jews; nevertheless, the latter are responsible for great improvement and great achievements in this field. The Jews have considerably improved well-drilling in Palestine, thereby making available large quantities of underground water, and they have improved the country’s irrigation methods remarkably. The Arabs witnessed those innovations and did likewise. For they are intelligent and capable pupils.

The Jews also derived no little benefit from the Arabs. The principles of dry-farming were learned from them, the Arab plough doing remarkable work in this respect. The fundamentals of the packing of citrus fruit were learned from them, and improved on later. In the course of World War II, if not for Arab labor, most of our citrus groves would have gone to ruin. And the Arab-Jewish organization of citrus-growers, now in its fifth year of existence, has already been of great benefit to the whole of the Palestinian citrus industry. This organization and the cooperative delegation of Jewish and Arab growers that visited British, Swedish and Continental markets at the end of 1945 are living proof that Jews and Arabs are capable of economic cooperation. Additional evidence is furnished by other instances of Arab-Jewish business partnership.

Industry in Palestine is a Jewish creation. It has attained an annual production of 36,000,000 pounds, thereby increasing exports—without which no country can exist economically—from 5,117,769 pounds in 1939 to 14,638,463 pounds in 1944—and this has been done in spite of a frightful drop in citrus exports, which fell from 4,355,853 pounds in 1938-39 to an almost negligible quantity in 1943-44.

But our industry has derived no small benefit from our Arab customers in Palestine, and more particularly from customers in the neighboring Arab countries. The Arabs are now beginning to learn about Jewish industry and to copy it. Factories in the neighboring Arab countries are also learning a good deal from Jewish industrial men in Palestine.

There is, as I have said, no economic competition between the two peoples in Palestine—only mutual aid. This fact is a source of encouragement for the future. We are tying up our future economic development in Palestine with large-scale hydraulic projects for irrigation. These cannot materialize unless Arabs and Jews cooperate, for the main sources of our water lie in areas belonging to the Lebanon, and the irrigation canals will have to go through Arab regions. This mighty irrigation project can be achieved only on the base of a Jewish-Arab economic understanding. Jews will supply the financial means and the technical skill and Arabs will provide water and land. The resulting blessings will be shared by all.

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The question arises: If neither hatred nor economic competition is involved, what is it that separates Jews and Arabs, estranges them more and more, and turns them into opposing camps? It is fear—and that “awl will not be hidden in the sack.” And the consequences of fear are no less dangerous than those of hatred or economic competition. It is not for nothing that the Atlantic Charter was intended to save humanity from fear.

In the hearts of us Jews there has always been a fear that some day this country would be turned into an Arab state and that the Arabs would rule over us. This fear has at times reached the proportions of terror. For we have not come to Palestine to exchange one servitude for another. Ahad Ha’am, who as far back as fifty-five years ago insisted on relations of mutual understanding and agreement between Arabs and Jews in Palestine, and warned us of the dangers lurking in the future unless an understanding with the Arabs was arrived at—even he used to say that an Arab state in Palestine meant enslavement for us.

Now this same feeling of fear has started up in the hearts of Arabs with the development—of our Yishuv—fear lest the Jews acquire the ascendancy and rule over them. This fear has constituted the main ground for incitement against us since the days of the Balfour Declaration: “The Jews are upon you, Arabs, and the British are with them!” The spokesmen of the Zionist movement have at every opportunity denied any intention of acquiring rule over Palestine. They have maintained that Zionism does not aspire to political rule, but aims merely at unlimited possibilities for economic and cultural development. But agitators told the Arabs that the Zionists were hiding the truth. Then the mistake committed by Zionist leaders in a hapless hour at the Biltmore Hotel perjured the promises of Zionism and confirmed Arab misgivings.

Their fear has since turned into panic, which is always a bad counsel. And matters have reached such a state that the Arab heart, which is not bad naturally, has hardened to the point of showing a cruel attitude to the fugitives of Israel escaping from the sword and knocking on the gates of Palestine, their last refuge from death and perdition. And the Arabs forget their own Law, which requires them to open their doors to fugitives from death, and do not even dread the curse that falls upon him who locks his door in the face of those who seek shelter.

Has the possibility for a covenant of peace between Jews and Arabs been lost? No! I am deeply convinced that there is a way out. However, that way is not the one ideally most desirable. For it is not by mutual agreement of the parties concerned, but by pressure exerted from the outside, through authority imposed from above. And such an agreement will be lasting only under two conditions: if it is just and if the determination is steely in the hearts of those who have the power to execute it and also if it is executed without wavering or shrinking, regardless of opposition in the early stages. Then in spite of revolts, which will unquestionably break out in the beginning at the instigation of fanatics in both camps, peace will gradually and progressively come to reign in Palestine. For the two peoples are longing for a life of peace and work and hate bloody adventures.

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Now, what would such a just agreement be?

First: mass Jewish immigration in accordance with the country’s capacity for economic absorption. Every limitation of immigration on political grounds is an evil deed—an act of wickedness toward the Jewish people of the Diaspora, who see in Palestine their last hope for personal and national existence; an act of wickedness against us, the Jewry of Palestine, for it relegates us to the position of a permanent minority, to which we will never consent; an act of wickedness also with respect to Palestine, as a whole, which, without a large Jewish immigration, cannot be restored and cannot emerge from its centuries-old desolation.

Second: the abrogation of any limitation placed on the Jewish acquisition of land in any part of the country. In order, however, to safeguard the vital interests of the fellah and the land-tenant, a law should be passed like that in existence in Egypt, according to which the fellah is not allowed to sell his last five acres. As for the tenant, he should not be deprived of the right to retain in lease at least five of the acres he had been holding. This should apply to regions susceptible of irrigation and rational farming. In dry regions not susceptible of irrigation, the acreage in question should be enlarged in proportion to the fertility of the soil.

Third: to eradicate the fear that one of the peoples of Palestine may acquire political supremacy over the other, it is absolutely indispensable to base the agreement on an obligation by the United Nations Organization never to permit the establishment in Palestine of an independent state, whether Jewish or Arab.

This last condition is not only the sine qua non for peace in Palestine, but it is also indispensable to the country’s future economic and cultural development. Every small state is pregnant with more possibilities for misfortune than for blessings. The political independence of a small people is in every case a “favor” that ends as a transgression. Political independence received as a gift is no more than a self-delusion. And there is no greater misfortune for a nation than self-delusion: a misfortune for the small nation involved and a misfortune for the whole world. The “armies” of small peoples and their political wiles contain that which will be the ruination of these nations’ own material means and moral forces, and they constitute a permanent rock of dissension and a storehouse of explosives.

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Is the absorptive capacity of Palestine such as to allow for further large-scale immigration?

According to my innermost conviction, the answer is absolutely in the affirmative. Speaking for myself, I do not close my eyes to the possibility of a temporary economic crisis in Palestine in the near future. The transition from war to peace in industry, the absolutely moneyless character of our present immigration, the Arab boycott of Jewish products, and the present state of restlessness and uncertainty in the country—all these are capable of bringing about a temporary economic crisis. Yet there is an assured possibility, not only of averting such a crisis, but even of opening up a new period of prosperity and of vast economic vistas by the use of large financial means and technical and economic skill, all supported by a Jewish-Arab agreement.

If the Jaffa-Ramleh area, for instance, which comprises 1,260 square kilometers, gave in the 1938 census a total of 402,095 souls, of whom 174,000, both Jewish and Arab, were living on the land, it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that the Gaza District, comprising 1,110 square kilometers, could also support an equivalent or nearly equivalent population instead of the present total of 105,596 souls, of whom 66,000 live on the land. Since 1938 no official census has been taken in Palestine. Were one to be made now, the difference between the two areas would be even more pronounced—with the Jaffa-Ramleh area showing to advantage. It should be borne in mind that the soil of the Gaza area is not inferior to that of Jaffa-Ramleh; that its concealed stores of water are in most parts not small; that the Gaza harbor is no worse than that of Jaffa; and that the climate in the Gaza area is better than Jaffa-Ramleh’s. Furthermore, in the Gaza area vegetables and fruits ripen earlier. The superiority of the Jaffa-Ramleh area is the result of Jewish immigration, which concentrated on it and brought it its blessings.

From this example let us pass on to examine the absorptive capacity of the country as a whole. Roughly, we divide the country into four regions: the Negev, the Mountains, the Coastal Plain and the Interior Valleys.

The Negev contains 12,577 square kilometers supporting 51,505 souls. There are admittedly only about .3,500 square kilo meters of good land here. However, this land could be readily converted by irrigation and rational farming into a terrestrial paradise. We have learned from experience that under rational farming the farm-unit may be limited to five acres. Yet even if we raise the limit for the Negev to ten acres under irrigation, we find it has room for 70,000 settlers—that is for 350,000 souls in all. In other words, the Negev can support an additional 300,000 souls living on the land alone.

The Mountain Region spreads for 9,623 square kilometers. In our ancient past, while we were all still living on our own soil, it was the area of densest population in Palestine, and olive groves and vineyards used to thrive there. In the course of the many centuries since then, the mountains have been devastated by erosion, for the terraces our ancestors had built went to ruin and the trees they had planted were hewn down, and the rainwater was carried off the fertile surface-soil into the valleys and the sea. Yet some 4,000 square kilometers of the Mountain Region still constitute fertile soil, while some 3,000 additional square kilometers can be improved by terracing and clearing of stones. Here also the population is relatively quite thin, with only some fifty “agricultural” souls per square kilometer. Undoubtedly, it would be possible to increase this population by another 300,000 souls on the land.

The two remaining regions, the Coastal Plain and the Interior Valleys, which together comprise 4,480 square kilometers, constitute the best soil of the country. They are rich in water, and they are also the most thickly inhabited areas, averaging some ninety souls per square kilometer on the land. However, from the above comparison between the two coastal areas of Gaza and Jaffa-Ramleh we can see that not all parts of these regions are equally populated, and that they still have ample room for more people. There are in these regions big areas still covered with swamps, such as the Huleh, the drainage of which would result in the addition of very fertile soil for agricultural use. The Valley of Beissan, the Jordan Valley, the Huleh Valley and portions of the Esdraelon Valley are still only partially inhabited. We shall therefore be far from any exaggeration if we arrive at the conclusion that here, in these two regions as well, room is available for an additional agricultural population of 300,000 souls. And the farming unit in these regions can in most cases be as small as five acres.

Thus the soil of Palestine is capable of “embracing,” of supporting some additional 900,000 souls on the land. This would mean doubling the present Jewish-Arab agricultural population now numbering some 900,000 souls.

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There are those who raise the question of the size of the farm-unit, which we have set at from five to ten acres. They ask: assuming that the farm-unit would satisfy the needs of the settler and his family, what would his children do when their turn comes to set up house for themselves? I believe that if a Jewish-Arab Palestine should exist in peace, harmony and due cooperation, it would be possible in the future to expand its limits by an understanding with the adjacent countries.

To the south of Palestine stretches the Desert of Wad-el-Arish, which was once offered to Jewish immigration, and which, like the smaller Negev, can be reclaimed. To the east, beyond the inhabited Transjordan, spreads the Syrian Desert. Now the inhabitants of the Transjordan are too poor and too few to reclaim these barren wastes by their own efforts; consequently, some of the settlers’ sons would be able to settle there and some of them would, as usual, go into industry. For an additional agricultural population of 900,000 souls would unquestionably be capable of affording a basis for two souls in industry or commerce for each on the farm.

Furthermore, there exist in Palestine additional occupations that are capable of maintaining at present tens of thousands of souls—and in the future, hundreds of thousands. The tourist trade was an important source of revenue for our country and is destined to increase greatly in importance. He who knows our wonderful winter will not doubt the possibility of developing seaside resorts here on the model of the Italian and French Rivieras. The sea too is indeed destined to yield ample sustenance to those who live on its shores. And when the mountains of Palestine are afforested, they will in the summer attract people residing in nearby countries with inescapably hot summers.

It is of course understood that because of the iron laws of economics, not to be violated with impunity, Jewish immigration cannot flow into Palestine like a flood. Any unplanned, unorganized, flighty immigration ends in flight the other way. However, we can estimate with almost absolute certainty, on the basis of our experience during the immigration period of 1932-37, that if we take into consideration the development our industry has since attained as well as the available plans for irrigation, construction and agricultural training, the country will be able to absorb annually some 100,000 new immigrants.

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But what is the political form most desirable for Palestine?

Just as a “Jewish state” and an “Arab state” are unsuited to Palestine, so are, according to my deepest conviction, a “Palestinian state” and a “bi-national state.” For a small state is valueless, precisely because it is small, because it is an artificial creation with no right to existence. Every people, even the very smallest, is justified in demanding cultural and economic independence, but not political independence. A politically small country must be incorporated in the political structure of some big country and become a link in a chain.

Fate has tied our country to Great Britain and its commonwealth of peoples, and it would be most unwise to detach it. The government of Palestine has committed many a grave error. The gravest, which borders on a crime, is the White Paper. The White Paper was a crime because it tended to discriminate between two neighboring peoples; and because it propitiated terrorist bands in Palestine, thereby creating the impression among fanatics, Arab and Jewish alike, that the end in view justifies violence and the shedding of innocent blood, and that the government is open to “persuasion” by acts of terrorism.

Yet, as we learn from history, Great Britain has always known how to learn from her own mistakes. She will undoubtedly also learn now. It should not be forgotten that under the British Mandate our country also enjoyed good, bright periods, of which we failed to take full advantage. The period under Lords Herbert Samuel and Plumer and particularly under Sir Arthur Wauchope, up to the days of the propitiation of the Arabs (wherein he fell into error), were days of “more light than shadow.” For in the final account, in the era of the British Mandate we Jews grew from a population of 50,000 to one of 600,000; our landed property increased fourfold, and we managed to develop a good-sized industry. And our growth was not always impeded by governmental indifference, but sometimes also by our own.

The British government has indeed committed very serious errors in Palestine, but there is no guarantee that any other rule, let it be what it may, will not err, too, until it has learned.

The country should remain under a British mandate during the period of transition—but under the strict supervision of the United Nations Organization. The ultimate goal should be dominion status, a Palestinian member of the British commonwealth of peoples. The renewed British Mandate should be based clearly and explicitly on the principle of Jewish immigration in proportion to the economic absorptive capacity of the country; on the abrogation of the prohibition of land-acquisition by Jews; on the “five-acre principle,” as previously explained; and on the gradual preparation of the country for the status of a British dominion. This preparation should find its expression in the near future as follows:

1. The full, all-embracing educational autonomy of the two communities should be established with the Treasury covering all budgetary expenditures involved in public education, said expenditures to be covered by taxation.
2. Legal and financial aid should be granted to commercial or industrial Jewish-Arab organizations—in particular to cooperative enterprises.
3. Complete autonomy should be granted to municipalities and village councils.
4. There should be encouraged an equal, steadily progressive participation of Jews and Arabs in the administration of the country in all ranks from district governor to the higher offices of the central government. Except that the posts of High Commissioner, Chief Secretary and Chief Justice should always be filled by British officers until the granting of dominion status, with all other administrative posts to be equally divided among British, Jews and Arabs.
5. A “Legislative Council” composed in equal parts of elected representatives of the two peoples, Jews and Arabs, with a British chairman, should be constituted to pass on the laws of the country and to prepare the political foundations for dominion status.

I feel confident that such a political form for Palestine will ensure its peace, progress and development for generations to come.

(In its continuing presentation of diverse views on the Palestine question, COMMENTARY will print in future issues the following articles: “No Hope Except Exodus,” by Shlomo Katz; “The Arab Mind Today,” by S. D. Goitein; “My Kvutzah Revisited,” by Meyer Levin, and “Build on Palestine Realities,” by Ahad Ha’am.)