Gandhi on Jews, Arabs, and PalestineMid-East Realities,4 December 2000
  At the recent Ralph Nader gala rally in Washington just before election day, American liberals and progressives gathered to hear a litany of wrongs that their candidate, and the new Green Party, was dedicated to making right. It was an extraordinary event hosted by the dean of American Talk Shows personalities, Phil Donahue, and was broadcast live on cable throughout the country. The Palestinian predicament however was highlighted by its omission. Speaker after speaker chastised the Republicans, the Democrats, and And yet, even with Intifada II raging, there was no mention of the plight of the Palestinians, no mention of the powerful Israeli/Jewish lobby, no mention of the foreign policy blackout the major parties enforce when it comes to policies Middle Eastern. And very little about the near-genocidal immorality of U.S. policies toward Iraq even though weekly more than a thousand Iraqi children still die because of U.S. policies. Only the very last speaker at the last moment, Harvard Professor Cornell West coming straight from the airport and unbriefed it seemed, even mentioned the Palestinians. Interestingly, the single person quoted the most times during this liberal/progressive extravaganza was not an American, but rather Mahatma Gandhi. His concepts of social justice, political action, and personal responsibility resonated throughout the event. But here too, Gandhi was quoted about many things, but not about his extraordinarily significant views about Jews, Arabs, and And as one reads Gandhi's analysis of the situation in 1938, realizing the great amounts of reparations and compensation that have now been paid to the Jews of that era, it is vital to focus more clearly on our own day, to the 3.5 million Palestinian refugees, and to the urgent need for repatriation, compensation, and reparations to the people of Palestine for what has been done to them. Prophetic words from Mohatma Gandhi in 1938
Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my viewsabout the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution ofthe Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture tooffer my views on this very difficult question. My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately inSouth Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Throughthese friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution.They have been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel betweentheir treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables byHindus is very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in bothcases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out tothem. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the morecommon universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews. But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. Thecry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal tome. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity withwhich the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Whyshould they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that countrytheir home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that Englandbelongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong andin-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on inPalestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. Themandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be acrime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestinecan be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jewswherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French inprecisely the same sense that Christians born in France are French. Ifthe Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea ofbeing forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they aresettled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will?This cry for the national home affords a colourable justificationfor the German expulsion of the Jews. But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel inhistory. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to havegone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propoundinga new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name ofwhich any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here andhereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is beingvisited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If thereever could be a justifiable war in the name of and forhumanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wantonpersecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. ButI do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and consof such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province. But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as isbeing committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliancewith Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claimsto stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemyof both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all itmeans? Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be workedwhen it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masqueradingas humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible andterrifying it looks in its nakedness. Can the Jews resist thisorganised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preservetheir self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected andforlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living Godneed feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God morepersonal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus,though, as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all andone without a second and beyond description. But as the Jewsattribute personality to God and believe that He rules every actionof theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and wereborn in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germanyas my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him toshoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled orto submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I shouldnot wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but wouldhave confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow myexample. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescriptionhere offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And sufferingvoluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy whichno number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outsideGermany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declarehostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no innerstrength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in ageneral massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to thedeclaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind couldbe prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I haveimagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy thatJehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of thetyrant. For to the Godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyfulsleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshingfor the long sleep. It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for theJews than for the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have inthe Indian satyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel.There the Indians occupied precisely the same place that the Jewsoccupy in Germany. The persecution had also a religious tinge.President Kruger used to say that the white Christians were thechosen of God and Indians were inferior beings created to serve thewhites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitution was thatthere should be no equality between the whites and coloured racesincluding Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettosdescribed as locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those of theJews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagrahawithout any backing from the world outside or the IndianGovernment. Indeed the British officials tried to dissuade thesatya-grahis from their contemplated step. World opinion and the IndianGovernment came to their aid after eight years of fighting. Andthat too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of a threat of war. But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely betterauspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact,homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than theIndians of South Africa. And they have organized world opinion behindthem. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision canarise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter oftheir despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summerof hope. And what has today become a degradingman-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offeredby unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given tothem by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offeredagainst the godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews willscore a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sensethat they will have converted the latter to an appreciation ofhuman dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germansand proved their title to be the real Germans as against thosewho are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into themire. And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that theyare going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblicalconception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But ifthey must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home,it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. Areligious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or thebomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs.They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules theArab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha infront of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into theDead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will findthe world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. Thereare hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will onlydiscard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they areco-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done nowrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way ofnon-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantableencroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canonsof right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arabresistance in the face of overwhelming odds. Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title bychoosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position onearth. Every country is their home including Palestine not byaggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a bookcalled The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation by Cecil Roth. Itgives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world?literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture,etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as theoutcaste of the West, to be despised or patronised. He can commandthe attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creationof God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute andforsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions thesurpassing contribution of non-violent action. November 20, 1938 MiD-EasT RealitieS - www.MiddleEast.Org Released August 15, 2001, The Wisdom Fund Gandhi's major statement on the Palestine and the Jewish question came forth in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938, a time when intense struggle between the Palestinian Arabs and the immigrant Jews had been on the anvil in Palestine. His views came in the context of severe pressure on him, especially from the Zionist quarters, to issue a statement on the problem. Therefore, he started his piece by saying that his sympathies are all with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time. "But", Gandhi asserted, "My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?" He thus questioned the very foundational logic of political Zionism. Gandhi rejected the idea of a Jewish State in the Promised Land by pointing out that the "Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract." The Zionists, after embarking upon a policy of colonization of Palestine and after getting British recognition through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews," tried to elicit maximum international support. The Jewish leaders were keen to get an approval for Zionism from Gandhi as his international fame as the leader of a non-violent national struggle against imperialism would provide great impetus for the Jewish cause. But his position was one of total disapproval of the Zionist project both for political and religious reasons. He was against the attempts of the British mandatory Government in Palestine toeing the Zionist line of imposing itself on the Palestinians in the name of establishing a Jewish national home. Gandhi's Harijan editorial is an emphatic assertion of the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. The following oft-quoted lines exemplify his position: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home." Gandhi's response to Zionism and the Palestine question contains different layers of meaning, ranging from an ethical position to political realism. What is interesting is that Gandhi, who firmly believed in the inseparability of religion and politics, had been consistently and vehemently rejecting the cultural and religious nationalism of the Zionists. What follows then is that he was not for religion functioning as a political ideology; rather, he wanted religion to provide an ethical dimension to nation-State politics. Such a difference was vital as far as Gandhi was concerned. A uni-religious justification for claiming a nation-State, as in the case of Zionism, did not appeal to him in any substantial sense. The history of Palestine in the first half of this century has been characterized by the contention between two kinds of nationalism: Zionism and Palestinian Arab nationalism-the former striving for creating a Jewish nation in Palestine by colonizing its land through massive Jewish immigration and the latter struggling for freedom of the inhabitants of the land of Palestine from colonial and imperialist control. Gandhi, in his role as leader of the national struggle and the Indian National Congress (the organization embodying that struggle), had been actively engaged during the 1930s and 1940s in moulding the perception of the people of India to the nationalist and anti-imperialist struggles in the Arab world. The 1937 Calcutta meeting of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) "emphatically protested against the reign of terror as well as the partition proposals relating to Palestine" and expressed the solidarity of the Indian people with the Arab peoples' struggle for national freedom. The Delhi AICC of September 1938 said in its resolution that Britain should leave the Jews and the Arabs to amicably settle the issues between the two parties, and it urged the Jews "not to take shelter behind British Imperialism." Gandhi wanted the Jews in Palestine to seek the goodwill of the Arabs by discarding "the help of the British bayonet." Gandhi and the Congress thus openly supported Palestinian Arab nationalism, and Gandhi was more emphatic in the rejection of Zionist nationalism. The major political driving force in such a position was the common legacy of anti-imperialist struggle of the Indians and the Palestinians. Gandhi's views on the Zionist doctrine and his firm commitment to the Palestinian cause starting from the 1930s obviously influenced the design of independent India's position on the Palestine issue. Gandhi's prescription for the Jews in Germany and the Arabs in Palestine was non-violent resistance. With regard to the Jewish problem in Germany, Gandhi noted, "I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can, in the twinkling of an eye, be turned into the summer of hope." His views on Zionism and his prescription of non-violent action and self-sacrifice to the Jews in Germany generated reactions ranging from anger to despair. Famous Jewish pacifists, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Hayim Greenberg, who otherwise admired Gandhi, felt "highly offended by Gandhi's anti-Zionism" and criticized him for his lack of understanding of the spirit of Zionism. Martin Buber, in a long reply to Gandhi's Harijan editorial, remarked, "You are only concerned, Mahatma, with the "right of possession" on the one side; you do not consider the right to a piece of free land on the other side - for those who are hungering for it." As mentioned earlier, Gandhi refused to view the Zionist "hunger" for land in Palestine as a right. Gandhi wrote on 7 January 1939 the following in response to an editorial in the Statesman, "I hold that non-violence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expression of non-violence in its mutual dealing. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale." Also, it is significant to note that, as far as Gandhi was concerned, non-violent action was not pacifism or a defensive activity but a way of waging war. This war without violence also requires discipline, training and the assessment of the strength and weakness of the enemy. According to Paul Power, four factors influenced Gandhi's position on Zionism: - "First, he was sensitive about the ideas of Muslim Indians who were anti-Zionists because of their sympathy for Middle Eastern Arabs opposed to the Jewish National Home; second, he objected to any Zionist methods inconsistent with his way of non-violence; third, he found Zionism contrary to his pluralistic nationalism, which excludes the establishment of any State based solely or mainly on one religion; and fourth, he apparently believed it imprudent to complicate his relations with the British, who held the mandate in Palestine." Gandhi withstood almost all Zionist attempts at extracting a pro-Zionist stance from him. G.H. Jansen wrote about the failure of Zionist lobbying with Gandhi: - "His opposition [to Zionism] remained consistent over a period of nearly 20 years and remained firm despite skilful and varied applications to him of that combination of pressure and persuasion known as lobbying, of which the Zionists are past masters." Apart from responses to Gandhi's anti-Zionism from Jewish pacifists such as Buber, Magnes and Greenberg, Jansen points out at least four separate instances of Zionist attempts to get a favourable statement from Gandhi. At first, Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi's Jewish friend in South Africa, came to India in 1937 and stayed for weeks with Gandhi trying to convince him of the merits of the Zionist cause. Then, in the 1930s, as requested by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the American pacifist John Haynes Holmes, tried "to obtain from Gandhi a declaration favourable to Zionism". In March 1946, a British MP from the Labour Party, Sydney Silverman, an advocate of Indian independence in Britain, attempted to change Gandhi's mind. At the end of their heated conversation, Gandhi stated that "after all our talk, I am unable to revise the opinion I gave you in the beginning." The fourth Zionist attempt to change Gandhi's mind was by Louis Fischer, Gandhi's famous biographer, to whom Gandhi reported to have said that "the Jews have a good case." Later, Gandhi clarified in one of his final pieces on Zionism and the Palestine question on 14 July 1946 that "I did say some such thing in the course of a conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject." He added, "I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world." Gandhi went back to his initial position by categorically stating that "But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?" There were an influential number of Jews who thought that force, only force, could ensure the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. They adopted terrorism as the method to achieve their national goal. This policy of subjugation of the Palestinians by Zionist terror was totally rejected by Gandhi in no uncertain terms. A few months before his assassination, Gandhi answered the question "What is the solution to the Palestine problem?" raised by Doon Campbell of Reuters: "It has become a problem which seems almost insoluble. If I were a Jew, I would tell them: 'Do not be so silly as to resort to terrorism...' The Jews should meet the Arabs, make friends with them and not depend on British aid or American aid, save what descends from Jehovah." Dr. Ramakrishnan is a senior lecturer, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He presented this paper on June 13, 1998 at a seminar organized by the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies. The seminar was inaugurated by the chairman of India's National Minorities Commission, Prof. Tahir Mahmoud, who highlighted the traditional Indian support for the Palestinian struggle against Zionist Occupation. The United States walked out of the September 2001 World Conference Against Racism because it included two contentious issues: Zionism as racism, and reparations for slavery and colonialism. [Tim Wise, an activist, writer and lecturer based in Nashville, Tennessee, writes that "it is difficult to deny that Zionism, in practice if not theory, amounts to ethnic chauvinism, colonial ethnocentrism, and national oppression."--Tim Wise, "Reflections on Zionism From a Dissident Jew," Media Monitors Network, September 6, 2001] ["In the last decade the two countries have built up extensive military collaboration, involving arms sales, equipment upgrades, the transfer of technology and joint weapons development programmes. The latest multi-billion dollar defence agreements are seen as another watershed in the Indo-Israeli strategic partnership."--"Closer ties for India and Israel," Jane's Intelligence Digest, August 7, 2001] Carol Giacomo, "American Jews Are Key Advocates of U.S.-India Ties," Reuters, July 9, 2003 Mohandas K. Gandhi -- Oct 2, 1869 to Jan 30, 1948 "Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man." "Generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." "Gandhi was inevitable. If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable. He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk." by Richard Attenborough Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869 to Hindu parents in the state of Gujarat in Western India. He entered an arranged marriage with Kasturbai Makanji when both were 13 years old. His family later sent him to London to study law, and in 1891 he was admitted to the Inner Temple, and called to the bar. In Southern Africa he worked ceaselessly to improve the rights of the immigrant Indians. It was there that he developed his creed of passive resistance against injustice, satyagraha, meaning truth force, and was frequently jailed as a result of the protests that he led. Before he returned to India with his wife and children in 1915, he had radically changed the lives of Indians living in Southern Africa.Back in India, it was not long before he was taking the lead in the long struggle for independence from Britain. He never wavered in his unshakable belief in nonviolent protest and religious tolerance. When Muslim and Hindu compatriots committed acts of violence, whether against the British who ruled India, or against each other, he fasted until the fighting ceased. Independence, when it came in 1947, was not a military victory, but a triumph of human will. To Gandhi's despair, however, the country was partitioned into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. The last two months of his life were spent trying to end the appalling violence which ensued, leading him to fast to the brink of death, an act which finally quelled the riots. In January 1948, at the age of 79, he was killed by an assassin as he walked through a crowed garden in New Delhi to take evening prayers. "Things undreamt of are daily being seen, the impossible is ever becoming possible. We are constantly being astonished these days at the amazing discoveries in the field of violence. But I maintain that far more undreamt of and seemingly impossible discoveries will be made in the field of nonviolence." http://www.engagedpage.com/gandhi.html Peaceworkers/Nonviolent Peaceforce See our proposal, list of international observers, and updates at www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org. |
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