Did Netanyahu imply “transfer”?
It is the Arabs who claim Israel cannot be the nation-state of the Jews and moreover, can Jews live in Jordan, a part of the territory originally to become part of the Jewish national home?
And that phrase, “Jewish national homeland.” It’s international legal basis is in the 1922 decision of the League of Nations (which, by the way, is a document that never mentions “Arabs” but only “non-Jews”). Here:
the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country…The Mandatory shall be responsible for…the establishment of the Jewish national home
And if we are discussing Jabotinsky, let’s consider this:
…Arabs who do not want the Jews ever to become the masters of Palestine; for they obviously think that the main “national” fact about any country is not a question of rights but a question of numbers: who is the majority, and how big is the majority?
So, Jabotinsky not only considered “majority” as a deciding factor but the “right of possessing a national home.” Who is correct about Jabotinsky?
More from that 1930 article:
If, on the contrary, we Jews become the majority in Palestine (in which case, no doubt, it will be a matter of pride for us to endow our country with the most perfect of all bi-national constitutions), the tendency will be in the opposite direction, towards a Jewish national State ever more pronounced and complete; and with every oncoming year that tendency will grow stronger…
I confess that there are moments when I, too, dream dreams of an Arab-Jewish agreement on Palestine. True, these are only moments of exceptional tiredness, or, perhaps, of exceptional sublimation which, they say, are an experience reserved only for souls or minds which are utterly tired. Then I dream of a great pan-Arab gathering containing representatives of a long belt of lands stretching from Agadir to Bassora; and the Jewish delegate, facing that gathering, openly and honestly claims the whole of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan for his own people’s home and state, to settle and govern. In my dream, this is what he says,” This land is less than one hundredth of the immensity of space which God has given you, and my people are homeless; and in my heart I have always called this land mine. I must have it or die; I am ready to fight for it: but perhaps fighting is not necessary; perhaps, O Sons of Father Ibrahim, Ishmael will uphold the claim of Israel, not because compelled to nor because deceived, but simply because it is right that God’s earth should be re-distributed so that a homeless nation may re-occupy its ancient kingdom.” And the great gathering’s answer in my dream is in the affirmative.
The world has no right to assume that Jewish statesmanship is unable to create as decent a régime as that created by English, Canadian or Swiss statesmanship. After all, it is from Jewish sources that the world has learned how the “stranger within thy gates “should be treated. …it may be that some people are genuinely worried as to what would happen to the rights of the Palestinian Arabs if the country became a Jewish State. The author can at least give them some idea of what Jews themselves intend to do in this respect when they are in the majority and when Palestine is a self-governing State. It may reassure such persons to learn how not the moderate but precisely the so-called “extremist” wing of Zionism visualizes the constitution of the Palestine of the future…the Jews are ready to guarantee to the Arab minority in a Jewish Palestine the maximum of the rights which they claimed but never obtained for themselves in other countries…
Jabotinsky was a political realist and was not shy:
…Whether the Arabs would find all this a sufficient inducement to remain in a Jewish country is another question. Even if they did not, the author would refuse to see a tragedy or a disaster in their willingness to emigrate…Palestine, astride the Jordan, has room enough for the million of Arabs, room for another million of their eventual progeny, for several million Jews, and for peace; for so much peace that there would then be peace also in Europe.
Visit My Right Word . / Yisrael Medad
