A CANDID CONVERSATION (Part 2)
By Boris Shusteff
"And you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land
before you . . . and if you will not dispossess them . . . they
will oppress you over the land in which you are settled"
(BaMidbar, Ch. 53).
In order to solve the problem of Arab subversion in the State of
Israel, one must understand how it was born. Luckily, in this
case, the answer lies on the surface. From the very beginning of
the modern Zionist enterprise, when on the eve of the 20th
century the torrent of Jews returning to Eretz Yisrael became
stronger and stronger, the Jewish leaders never seriously
considered the option of the "people that dwells
alone." They were always ready to share the land of Eretz
Yisrael with the Palestinian Arabs.
The option of resettling the Arabs somewhere else was never
viable. The major argument was constantly the same: it is immoral
to uproot people from their houses. Therefore, when Rabbi Meir
Kahane began to talk about transfer, the word itself became a
forbidden one and Kahane was ostracized and became a pariah.
Perhaps this happened because of poorly-chosen terminology. It is
possible that if Kahane had used the term "population
exchange," instead of the word "transfer," today
Israeli Jews would have been sun bathing at the Gaza beaches.
Obviously, it would have been much better if this idea had come
into the heads of the state´s founders, but it was completely
unrealistic to expect this from a people with a socialist
mentality, obsessed with the "brotherhood of nations."
All those who are ready to accuse the author of this article of
racism and ask him if he belongs to the Kach party should calm
themselves. It is worth mentioning that the concept of
"population exchange" was not invented by Kahane. An
Arab leader introduced it even before Israel was established.
"In 1939, Mojli Amin, a member of the Arab Defense Committee
for Palestine, drew up a proposal, published in Damascus and
distributed among Arab leaders, entitled ´Exchange of
Populations.´" (1). Amin suggested that, "All the
Arabs of Palestine shall leave and be divided up among the
neighboring Arab countries. In exchange for this, all the Jews
living in Arab countries will go to Palestine. The exchange of
population should be carried out in the same way that Turkey and
Greece exchanged their populations. Special committees must be
set up to deal with the liquidation of Jewish and Arab
property." (1) Amin wrote, "I fear, in truth, that the
Arabs will not agree. But in spite of this, I take upon myself
the task of convincing them" (1). Not only this Arab leader,
but the world community, as well, saw nothing criminal in a
population exchange of this type. A report by President Truman´s
International Development Advisory Board, published on March 7,
1951 emphasized that, "The exchange of the Arab population
of Palestine with the Jewish population of the Arab countries was
favored by the League of Nations as an effective way of resolving
the Palestine problem. In practical effect, such an exchange has
been taking place. The resettlement of the Arab refugees is much
simpler in Arab lands" (1).
Those who think that an exchange of Arab and Jewish populations
would have been a unique thing are greatly mistaken. Between the
years 1933 and 1972 the number of refugees and displaced people
that moved from one place to another all over the world
constituted 179,200,000 people. (1). One of the most well-known
population exchanges took place between India and Pakistan in
the1950's, when 8,500,000 Sikhs and Hindus from Pakistan fled to
India and almost 6,500,000 Muslims moved from India to Pakistan.
Speaking at a press conference in Cairo in 1960, Pakistani
President Mohammed Ayub Khan "suggested that Pakistan´s
settlement of the nearly seven million refugees from India might
act as an example for the ´three-quarters of a million refugees
from Palestine´ in Arab countries"(1).
Today, moving several million Palestinian Arabs out of Israel,
Judea, Samaria and Gaza (Yesha) is a much more difficult task
than it would have been in 1948. Nevertheless, it is a great
mistake to think that it is unachievable. Perhaps it cannot be
done in one all-encompassing step, although this option should
not be taken out of consideration, but Israel must develop a
clear and unequivocal overall strategy. First of all, Israel must
decide for herself if she wants to remain a Jewish state or if
she wants to be an accomplice in her own dismantling. If we
accept the assumption that Israel wants to remain a Jewish state,
the only possible conclusion is that the relocation of the Arabs
from Israel and Yesha is an inevitable and important step in that
direction.
Obviously, a certain number of the Arabs will decide to remain
inside the Jewish state, since living standards in Israel are
much higher than in any Arab country. If the Israeli Arab
citizens pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state, and
devote their life to its strengthening and prosperity, they will
be welcomed as equal citizens of the Jewish state. However, no
right to remain in the Jewish state whatsoever can be given to
people who are ready to put their signature to the letter sent to
the Knesset on June 20 by Azmi Bishara, which stated, "I am
not an Israeli patriot. I am Palestinian, a member of a nation
whose tragedy did not end in 1948. Don´t ask me, for example, to
rejoice in Israel´s victories on the battlefield, or to
celebrate Independence Day. By the way, on this count too, you
will be hard pressed to find Arab citizens who hold a position
that differs from mine. I am an Arab and a Palestinian. Israel´s
victory is my tragedy."
On June 24 "The Jerusalem Post" confirmed Bishara´s
comment about Israel´s Arab citizens. According to the latest
polls, only 11% of the Israeli Arab population "identified
themselves as Israeli Arabs. Nearly 70% identify themselves today
as Palestinians, and an almost equal number say that they would
support the Palestinians in an all-out confrontation with
Israel." For Bishara, and for Arabs like him, who see
Israel´s victory as a tragedy, there is no room in a Jewish
state. They can love their pseudo-people, but they cannot expect
to live together with the Jewish people. And they should not be
rewarded for their hatred of the Jews with primordial Jewish
lands. If Bishara and other Palestinian patriots do not want to
move to Jordan, a Palestinian state, where the Palestinian Arabs
have exercised their right to self-determination for more than
fifty years, they should be clearly told that in the rest of
mandated Palestine there is no place for them either. Like the
Palestinian Arabs in Yesha, they will have to abandon their
houses and move.
The exchange of populations that begun in 1948 –
artificially interrupted by Israeli leaders who tried to keep
Arabs inside the Jewish state - must resume. Israel must choose
this extreme option not because of antipathy to the Arabs, but
because it is the only way for her to remain a Jewish state.
However, in order to do this, Israel will have to devote all of
its public relations efforts to a massive campaign in order to
explain to the world community the absolute necessity of this
step.
At the same time, Israel must make it unequivocally clear to the
Palestinian Arabs that they cannot satisfy their national
aspirations within the Jewish state, sharing with the Jews the
crumbs of the Jewish land. If their national ambitions are not
satisfied with one Palestinian state, called Jordan, they should
appeal to the world community to help them obtain a parcel of
land in Sinai to build another Palestinian state there. The
resettlement of the Palestinian Arabs from Israel and Yesha in
Sinai will make the Middle East much more stable. Israel will
retain the borders that will give her the necessary strategic
depth, guaranteeing her security and forever extinguishing Arab
hopes to get rid of the Jewish state. At the same time, the
Palestinian Arabs, unlike any other people in the world, will
have a unique second opportunity for self-determination.
23 July 2001
1. Joan Peters. From Time Immemorial. Harper &Row,
Publishers, New
York, 1984.
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Boris Shusteff is an engineer. He is also a research
associate with the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies.