Speaking at the Jan 2024 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, President Herzog of Israel stated that he wanted a better future for the Palestinians, who, he said, “are our neighbours”.
One must admit that Israel appears to be doing its level best in fulfilling this aspiration. It has only killed 25,000 of its neighbours in the last three months. As we have been told on numerous occasions, the death toll could be much worse if Israel, who has the world’s most moral army, did not observe the rules of war, among which are the principle of proportionate response and the safeguarding of civilians.
Well done Israel and President Herzog. It is clear that far from relating to your neighbours with “polite indifference”, as the Zionist Ze’ev Jabotinsky advised in his settler-colonial blueprint The Iron Wall, you are in fact going the extra mile and “showering” Palestinians with your particular brand of neighbourliness.
In an affectionate personal touch, President Herzog also signed an artillery shell before it was fired at his neighbours. With such attention and thoughtfulness to detail, who would not want Israel as neighbour?
There are two kinds of states: those that need propping up lest they collapse, and those that are self-perpetuating.
For the majority of history up until roughly the Second World War, the division of the Earth’s surface into recognised states (or kingdoms and empires as they were better known prior to the concept of the modern state) was fluid. Kingdoms came and went, empires rose and fell, with only a relatively few managing to survive for centuries and in rare cases millennia.
Not until we reach medieval times do we see the first signs of long-term stability, and not until after the industrial revolution does that stability gather force and become more widespread. And the aftermaths of both World Wars see the creation of many more independent states, many in the Middle and Far east, such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Israel and Pakistan.
In our modern era of a well established and more or less stable geographical division of the Earth’s surface into nation states, the self-perpetuating state is by far the overwhelming variety. There have been a few cases in modern times when countries – for example, Rhodesia and Somaliland – have gone bust so to speak, to vanish forever off the face of the Earth (with a resulting increase in the worth of their postage stamps). But, generally, the roughly 200 odd countries that currently exist have been around a while, and most do not look likely to be going anywhere soon. Most importantly, few have their legitimacy in question (which is to skate over the argument that many, if not all states are illegitimate, since the concept of statehood is arguably invalid), and few among them face any serious challenge to their continuation. There are disputes a-plenty, with political wrangles and physical skirmishes over bits of territory deemed to belong to one or other state. But essentially, more or less, the country map of the world is not likely to change much in future.
However, though much change in the global map is unlikely, some change is quite likely. China may reclaim Taiwan (quite likely), Russia may subsume Ukraine once more (not so likely), the Greek Cypriots may succeed in shaking off Turkey’s hold (who knows), and Israel may implode (a near certainty.)
Of course, here we are interested only in the Apartheid state of Israel, which has existed for less than a century yet has managed to keep an entire region profitably at war for all of that time.
And therein lies the key to Israel’s future. As long as Israel is profitable, it will survive. The question to ask, however, is profitable for whom? The answer is of course obvious, which is the countries that use Israel as a means to interfere in the region, as well as the Israeli and Zionist elites that gain power and wealth through Israel’s existence. Israel’s existence would not have come about had the interest in imposing it on the region was simply the safety of Jews. In the minds of those who paved the way – namely, Britain and later the USA, there were greater interests than helping Jews who, let us remember, the West had not stopped persecuting for thousands of years. Britain “viewed with favour the creation of a Jewish state” because 1) many in Britain wished rid of their Jews, and 2) the Zionists made it abundantly clear they would “kick-back” benefits to Britain, which at that time was beginning to take a leading role in controlling Middle East oil. Later, the USA would take on the role of supporting Israel once its existence had been imposed on the region in 1947, and till today American tax dollars lavish tens of billions in finance, military hardware, and munitions on the Apartheid state. This is not to mention the potent political leverage that the USA exercises on behalf of Israel, vetoing UN resolutions that could help Palestinians escape persecution and occupation, and protecting Israeli officials from criminal prosecution at the International Court of Justice.
The long and short of the argument here – which is by no means scientific or scholarly, but nonetheless rests intuitively on the strong evidence we daily see before us – is that Israel is propped up. Without the aid, military support, exceptionalism, and protection from criminal prosecution, to say nothing of the deference to powerful Zionist interests and fear of being called an antisemite should anyone dare to criticise, Israel continues, like a wind-up clock, sustained by the hands that turn the crank. To the West it is a tool, an instrument, a gadget of regional control, and should those hands tire or find something more profitable to prop-up, or, heaven forbid, develop a conscience, Israel is left not just high and dry but winding down. It cannot sustain itself no matter how smart its tech industry, no matter how clever its academics and corporate leaders. The Israeli Apartheid regime knows this, and it is why it has sought alliances with Arab states, in particular with the fellow oppressive regime in Saudi Arabia. If it could normalise permanently with the wider Arab world whilst completely marginalising the Palestinians, its future is better assured, especially as the West grows tired of propping up and apologising for its criminality.
As Western interests in the region wane over the coming decades, and their complicity and support wind down, without strong regional alliances the Zionist state is doomed (Jews, however, are not, let us be clear on that). This is why, whatever you might think of it, the attack on October 7 was a logical move for Hamas. What will come of it in the short term is not important. Even if Israel manages to resuscitate the so-called Abraham Accords which began to normalise relations with Arab states, in the long-term Israel has been exposed for what it is – a genocidal apartheid state – and no amount of alliances will protect it from that. We saw what happened to the vicious apartheid regime in South Africa. In today’s world, even with all its flaws and injustices and conflicts, apartheid and “on-air genocide” are unsustainable.
Is Israel Guilty Of Apartheid Against Palestinians?
The Coalition for Naming Injustice (CNI) has recently issued guidelines on how to respond to the guidelines on antisemitism issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). In its “working definition of antisemitism” (presumably designated as “working” such that, should these definitions be successfully shown as unfounded and politically motivated, it can be reviewed and amended without loss of face), the IHRA has advised, and some would argue all but decreed, that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.
The CNI had this to say in a statement issued today with regard to the increasingly difficult task of trying to avoid comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany:
“We further advise that in order to avoid false accusation under the IHRA’s weaponised form of antisemitism, those campaigning against Israeli apartheid occupation, oppression, and genocide simply refer to Israel as a nasty state. Few who are familiar with justice will disagree this is an apt description of a state that, as Israeli journalist Gideon Levy says, “treats Palestinians like animals”. And that it is, as a result, a very nasty state indeed.
Gideon Levy at the National Press Club, speaking on the loss of hope in Israel’s behaviour
At the time of writing, nearly 20,000 Palestinians, among them 8000 children and 5000 women, have been murdered by the Israeli Offensive Forces in Gaza.
One distinct feature of Zionism is not only its supremacist-racist underpinnings, but its consummate ability to turn lies into perceived truths. As the malign Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels proclaimed, if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it.
Zionists have successfully mastered this dark art, filtering their lies via various efficient means into the public consciousness. The most notorious and pernicious of these lies is the slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land”, denying Palestinian existence as part of Zionism’s attempt to erase them. Aside from much scholarly work disproving this lie, a very accessible, powerful exposure and rebuttal is to be found in the courageous testimonies and analysis by a number of Jews and Palestinians in the book A Land With a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism.
Fortunately, as with all anti-human and inhumane ideologies, Zionism contains the seeds of its own destruction. Zionism’s first and principal crime is the slow genocide and ethnic cleansing mercilessly conducted against the Palestinians. But Zionism’s second, less known, though no less abhorrent crime is the sullying of the reputation of Jews as a collective, many of whom stand with Palestinians in their struggle for justice. In a chilling and sinister reality, Zionism has unwittingly brought apparent truth to the lies of antisemites. That is what antisemites can now exploit, correctly comparing Israel to a fascist entity but wrongly and maliciously exploiting this to attack Jews, claiming they were right all along in their distrust and loathing for Jews. In the antisemite’s distorted vision, Jews are a merciless, hateful people whose ultimate aim is world domination, towards which Israel was the first step. What they have done to the Palestinians is what they will eventually do to others who stand in their way.
The persecution and genocide we witness in Gaza since October 7, and the ethnic cleansing being planned by the neo-Nazi ministers in control of Israel – who are so confident in their power as to state their genocidal aims openly – is the wake-up call for Jews. In the face of such crimes against humanity, happening now and being planned for the future, it can only be a question of time before more Jews – and there are many already, though not nearly enough – will realise the grievous harm done to both them and Palestinians by the violent, supremacist ideology of Zionism.
As the renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe clearly explains, we are witnessing the beginning of the end, and it can really only be a question of time before Israel ceases to be. Its demise not at the hands of a subjugate people who lack even a fraction of the might necessary for the task, but by its own internal contradictions that place land before people, Jewishness before democracy, and Jews before and above Palestinians.
It is only a question of time before the Parthenon sculptures are restored to their rightful owners. A clear indication of this eventual restoration of justice lies in the increasing divergence between ever more intransigent posturing by the British government, and the mounting public voice in favour of their return.
A similar dynamic is now in play with regard to Palestine. As the former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy observes, on the one hand the impunity afforded by Western governments to Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestinians has led to ever more outrageous violations of Palestinian rights; yet, simultaneously on the other, because these rights are so blatantly violated, public opinion and support for Israel has plummeted. Eventually, the divergence will be so great as to set into motion a protest movement on the scale of that which led to the eventual collapse of apartheid in South Africa.
It is the combination, on the one hand, of systematic oppression and violence by corrupt states, and their tolerance by allies otherwise able to put a stop to them; and on the other, the outrage of principled ordinary folk that eventually brings about change.
As with the current dynamic surrounding the Parthenon sculptures, a similar dynamic, driven by concerted activism as with South Africa, will eventually see Palestine both restored and transformed into a land where Jews, Muslims, and Christians once again live together as one people in one land. As they had once done before Zionism destroyed that existence.
Speaking near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Belgian counterpart Alexander de Croo laid the blame for the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza on Israel, with Sánchez calling for European Union recognition of a Palestinian state, saying Spain might do so on its own. De Croo said that “A military operation needs to respect international humanitarian law. The killing of civilians needs to stop now. Way too many people have died. The destruction of Gaza is unacceptable,” adding that, “We cannot accept that a society is being destroyed the way it is being destroyed,”
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen lashed out at the two leaders, condemning “the false claims of the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium who give support to terrorism,” claiming that “Israel is acting according to international law.”
The problem Zionists face in their publicly stated goal of eradicating Hamas – like so much vermin – is that people know the truth. Hamas’s charter may say it wants to wipe Israel off the map, but the facts tell us that Zionists have already wiped Palestine off the map, and since have not stopped trying to wipe Palestinians from their native lands. (Furthermore, unlike the extreme far right Zionists, of which there are many currently in the Israeli regime, Hamas’s charter categorically does not call for harm to Jews or for forcing them out of Palestine. Indeed, Article 16 of the 2017 Charter states: “Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project and not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish, but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.”).
Truth will out, and is coming out. Unwittingly, Zionists hasten Israel’s self-inflicted demise as they attempt to bury the truth and smear everyone who states it.
It can no longer be denied that in its current Zionist guise, Israel is a criminal state founded on ethnic cleansing and apartheid, and it continues to murder, oppress and dispossess an innocent people for the purpose of stealing more of their land. That is the truth, and it is time to tell it as it is.
Jews will need to renounce the supremacism proclaimed by Zionism on their behalf, and learn to live with Palestinians and Arabs peacefully and respectfully, as Jews had done for millennia, before European Zionism destroyed that ancient coexistence for the benefit of a very few.
Standing with a placard bearing the words “JEWS SAY CEASEFIRE NOW”, a Jewish woman protesting the genocide in Gaza is verbally assaulted by two other Jewish women, counter-protesting in support of Israel.
Pro-Israel protesters to a Jewish pro-Palestine activist: “I wish they’ll rape you alive”
The verbal assault is difficult to watch, feeling almost as if the woman with the placard is actually undergoing a physical attack. She not only stands her ground with immense dignity, but also clearly states the truths that the two women attacking her either do not know or have chosen to deny.
As the very disturbing verbal abuse is hurled at her, the woman protesting for Palestinian rights responds by listing the crimes and human rights violations committed by Israel, saying at one point that “Israel controls whether they have water”, before being cut off by one of the pro-Israel supporters who shouts, “we generously give them water.” To this, the woman suffering the abuse simply answers, “It’s their land that was taken from them”, going on to state that 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed in the 1948 Nakba.
If there is anything that shows that Palestinians should not despair and lose hope, it is this woman and the many, many other Jews doing the same, at times with great risk to themselves. Jews who not only know the truth, but speak it, fearlessly and steadfastly. Without the Jewish voice, Zionism cannot be exposed and defeated for the racist, supremacist ideology it is. And if Zionism is not defeated and consigned to the shameful litany of 20th century ethnoviolent ideologies, there will be neither liberation for Palestinians nor peace for all between the river and the sea.
Palestinians need to recognize that their struggle is not simply about liberation and human rights – not even, not at this late stage; it is about defeating Zionism, which is enemy to both them and Jews. Those two pitiful women hurling unrepeatable abuse are indeed not to be hated, and instead should be seen, as no doubt the courageous woman and target of their abuse sees them, as victim-products of Zionism. Palestinians must recognise their struggle is neither complete nor assured of success unless it unites with that of Jews, such that the two are indistinguishable.
And just as Jews fight for Palestinians rights, Palestinians must fight with Jews against antisemitism.
In an article titled “BEN-GURION’S NOTORIOUS QUOTES: THEIR POLEMICAL USES & ABUSES” (here), Ralph Seliger, a writer on Israel and Jewish cultural and political issues, attempts to grapple with David Ben-Gurion’s candidness regarding the practices and goals of Zionism, as well as his supremacist, messianic attitude towards the Palestinians whose homeland he had stolen – his own word – to establish a Jewish state.
Seliger’s attempt at defence and justification of Ben-Gurion’s remarks appears in an email exchange between himself and a number of anti-Zionist Jews. The quotes Seliger addresses in his justificatory analysis are not only considered highly controversial, distasteful, and disturbing for their racist and anti-humanist content (explaining why Seliger feels the need to defend them); they have in actual fact proven catastrophic and deadly to the Palestinian people, who have lost their homeland and continue to be slaughtered and ethnically cleansed by Israel, Ben-Gurion’s apartheid creation.
Whilst I have reproduced the selected sof Ben-Gurion here below (What did David Ben-Gurion say?), I shall only reproduce the 6 points Seliger makes as part of his attempt to justify, what he himself admits, is Ben-Gurion “clearly advocating ethnic cleansing against the Arabs” (entire text evailable here):
To sum up my reaction [writes Seliger]:
1. The Jews were engaged in a life or death struggle with the Arabs of Palestine, mostly because of the choice of the latter. 2. Selected quotes of one leader are not representative of an entire spectrum of parties and factions that equally saw themselves as “Zionist.” (They might not even be so representative of his movement or even of him; they were uttered in times of extreme pressure.) 3. When is the bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and violence of the Arab world going to become PC for the left to examine honestly and completely? 4. How many countries in the world were not born of historical “sin” of some sort or other? 5. When are we going to stop talking ancient history? 6. When are we going to stop talking about “Zionism” and start relating to this conflict in human terms? Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians have to see each other as fellow human beings entitled to equal respect, rights and protections.
Taking Seliger’s attempts at justification of the Ben-Gurion quotes on ethnic cleansing one by one, let us critically examine them from the perspective of universally recognised human rights and ethical norms:
1. The Jews were engaged in a life or death struggle with the Arabs of Palestine, mostly because of the choice of the latter.
First, from a human rights perspective, the context of conflict does not justify policies promoting ethnic cleansing or the disregard for the rights and well-being of the Palestinian Arab population. Human rights principles emphasize the protection of all individuals, regardless of the historical or political context. Resorting to extreme measures, such as forced displacement, cannot be morally justified by the intensity of the conflict.
Second, Seliger, without irony it seems, attempts to portray the resistance of Palestinians to their proposed ethnic cleansing as actual justification for carrying it out. That is, Seliger says, Jews were forced into ethnic cleansing mostly because of the choice of Palestinians to resist the taking of their homeland by Zionists. By this, Seliger denies Palestinians the right to resist what would rob them of their homeland, accusing them of pushing Jews into a life and death struggle simply by virtue of their resistance to their own dispossession. The arrogance of this view is second only to the quotes Seliger is attempting to justify, and were we to adopt it as an ethical guide could adequately justify occupying our neighbour’s garden simply because he resisted our attempt to do so. It was because he resisted, and threatened us,” says Seliger to the judge, “that we evicted him, your honour.”
2. Selected quotes of one leader are not representative of an entire spectrum of parties and factions that equally saw themselves as “Zionist.”
While it’s true that not all Zionists may have shared Ben-Gurion’s views advocating human rights violations and discriminatory attitudes towards Palestinians, we should remember that only Ben-Gurion is under examination here. Proper evaluation of the moral implications of actions and statements specificaly by Ben-Gurion must be conducted irrespective of the diversity of opinions within Zionism. Dismissing these quotes as unrepresentative does not address the ethical questions they pose. This can be seen as an attempt by Seliger to deflect attention from Ben-Gurion’s advocacy of ethnic cleansing, made all the more poignent by the fact that Ben-Gurion was not just a Zionist, but a leading Zionist who later became the first Prime Minister of Israel.
3. When is the bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and violence of the Arab world going to become PC for the left to examine honestly and completely?
Pointing out the shortcomings of others does not negate the need for accountability. Examining human rights violations in one context should not preclude addressing issues in another. Ethical norms demand a consistent approach to evaluating violations, regardless of the parties involved. Focusing on the actions of others should not divert attention from addressing one’s own responsibilities and moral obligations.
4. How many countries in the world were not born of historical “sin” of some sort or other?
Interesting that Seliger uses the word sin, even in quotation marks. He should note, however, that acknowledging historical wrongs does not diminish the importance of ongoing human rights violations, particularly when accused of them oneself. While many nations have sinful histories, it does not absolve any country or leader from accountability for human rights abuses.
5. When are we going to stop talking ancient history?
Human rights violations, regardless of when they occurred, demand acknowledgment and redress. Seliger’s attempt to cast Ben-Gurion’s quotes as “ancient history” is perhaps the most disingenuous of his justifications. The problem with Seliger’s apologetics is that Ben-Gurion is not ancient history. His version of Zionism is very much alive in Israel today, both in theory and practice, particularly in light of the recent comments made by the far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Amichai Eliyahu, among others. Speaking in the Knesset, Smotrich threatened Israel’s Palestinian citizens with ethnic cleansing, cautioning them they “Are here by mistake, because Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the job.” In an interview, Eliyahu suggested wiping out Palestinians in Gaza with a nuclear bomb.
Historical injustices and the intention to commit them often have lasting consequences, and Ben-Gurion’s are a text book case. Dismissing as ancient history the comments and actions of the Zionists of yester-year unfortunately doesn’t work, because the Zionists of today are still calling for them. Ben-Gurion’s words and spirit live on in Zionists such as Smotrich, Eliyahu and Ben Gver, all of whom cannot be seen as anything other than Israel’s version of the Nazis.
6. When are we going to stop talking about “Zionism” and start relating to this conflict in human terms?
One doesn’t really know what to respond to this. How can we stop talking about Zionism when it is still on the rampage and becoming increasingly more vicious? (See response 5, above).
In summary, Seliger applies a series of bad-faith arguments in an attempt to negate the intention and execution of human rights violations advocated by Ben-Gurion, as stated in the selected quotes. He attempts to draw out a supposed irrelevance and redundancy of the quotes over time, uses false equivalences and ad hominem attacks, and finally, for good measure, displays wilful blindness to the continuing realities of Zionism precisely as advocated by such extreme, and one might say, entirely heartless figures as Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion may have been the father of Israel, but, by his own words, he had to advocate the rape of Palestine to give it birth.
The sacrifice of Palestinians to obtain Israel was not the only sacrifice Ben-Gurion was prepared to make. By his own words, he was also prepared to sacrifice Jews to this end, in particular Jewish children (quote 6 below). Through Ben-Gurion alone, a significant voice, Zionism is exposed for the heartless and morally bankrupt ideology that it is. It is not the saviour of all Jews (and this, through sacrifice of Palestinians), but as Ben-Gurion himself tells us, only of some Jews, should that ever fit Zionism’s goals. (On this topic see What the BBC fails to tell you about October 7 by Jonathan Cook, a Nazareth-based journalist.)
To Palestinians, Zionism is Nazism, an ideology intent on their elimination one way or another. No amount of apologetic analysis can deny it, nor rehabilitate figures such as Ben-Gurion. Although, there may be some hope for Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich and all the rest of those yearning to “finish what Ben-Gurion started”. That is, if only they would listen to Seliger, and “stop talking about Zionism and start relating to this conflict in human terms”.
What did David Ben-Gurion say?
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” — David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.” — David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
“We must do everything to insure they (the Palestinians) never do return.” — David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
Ben Gurion also warned in 1948: Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes: “The old will die and the young will forget.”
“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” — David Ben-Gurion May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.” — Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).
“It’s not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion.” –Ben Gurion
“Every school child knows that there is no such thing in history as a final arrangement — not with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements.” — Ben Gurion, War Diaries, 12/03/1947 following Israel’s “acceptance” of the U.N. Partition of 11/29/1947 (Simha Flapan, “Birth of Israel,” p.13)
“We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population? ‘Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘ Drive them out! ‘ “ — Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
Partition: “after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine “ — Ben Gurion, p.22 “The Birth of Israel, 1987” Simha Flapan.
“The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today — but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concerns of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.” — P. 53, “The Birth of Israel, 1987” Simha Flapan
October, 1936, during the Jewish Agency Executive meeting Ben-Gurion arguing in favor of transfer as a policy, he said “We are not a state and Britain will not do it for us…” although “there is nothing wrong in the idea.”
“If it was permissible to move an Arab from the Galilee to Judea, why it is impossible to move an Arab from Hebron to Transjordan, which is much closer? There are vast expanses of land there and we are over crowded….Even the High Commission agrees to a transfer to Transjordan if we equip the peasants with land and money. If the Peel Commission and the London Government accept, we’ll remove the land problem from the agenda.”
The Arabs, Ben-Gurion claimed, would not become landless as a result of Zionist land acquisition; they would be transferred to Transjordan.
October 29, 1936 the 21 member of the Jewish Agency Executive endorsed the proposal of a transfer of displaced Arab farmers to Transjordan. Only two of the four non-Zionist members opted to dissent. — Flapan, Zionism and the Palestinians, citing protocols of the Executive meeting, p. 261
12 July 1937, Ben-Gurion entered in his diary: “The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own feet during the days of the First and Second Temple” – a Galilee free from Arab population.
Ben-Gurion went so far to write: “We must prepare ourselves to carry out” the transfer [emphasis in original]
27 July 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We have never wanted to dispossess the Arabs [but] because Britain is giving them part of the country which had been promised to us, it is fair that the Arabs in our state be transferred to the Arab portion”
5 October 1937, Ben-Gurion wrote in a letter to his 16 year old son Amos: “We must expel the Arabs and take their places…. And, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places- then we have force at our disposal.”
“It is very possible that the Arabs of the neighboring countries will come to their aid against us. But our strength will exceed theirs. Not only because we will be better organized and equipped, but because behind us there stands a still larger force, superior in quantity and quality …the whole younger generation of Jews from Europe and America.” Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p.297-299, p. 330-331. See also Teveth, Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, p. 182-189
Ben-Gurion in an address to the central committee of the Histadrut on 30 December 1947: “In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment will be about a million, including almost 40 percent non-Jews. Such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority…. There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent.”
On the 6th of February 1948, during a Mapai Party Council, Ben-Gurion responded to a remark from a member of the audience that “we have no land there” [in the hills and mountains west of Jerusalem] by saying: “The war will give us the land. The concepts of “ours” and “not ours” are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning” (Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. 1, entry dated 6 February 1948. p.211)
Addressing the Mapai Council the following day, Ben-Gurion declared: “From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema… there are no Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been so Jewish. In many Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single Arab. I do not assume that this will change… What had happened in Jerusalem… is likely to happen in many parts of the country …in the six, eight or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country.” (Ben-Gurion, War Diary, Vol. 1, entry dated 7 February 1948. p. 210-211)
And two months later, Ben-Gurion speaking to the Zionist Actions Committee on 6 April, Ben-Gurion declared: “We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area….I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of the Arab population.” [Ben-Gurion, Behilahem Yisrael, Tel Aviv, Mapai Press, 1952, pp. 86-87]
Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary on 12 July 1937: “the compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the projected Jewish State…. We have to stick to this conclusion the same way we grabbed the Balfour Declaration, more than that, the same way we grabbed at Zionism itself.” (Ben-Gurion, Zichronot [Memoirs], Vol. 4, p. 299)
In summary, Ben-Gurion’s statements are as abhorrent and indefensible as the subsequent crimes against humanity resulting from them, and which have been committed by Ben-Gurion, his fellow Zionists of the time, and all Zionists since to the present-day and ongoing massacre by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza.
Hypothetical news reporter Ifit Wereso reports on the statement issued by the IPRM in wake of the collapse of the Zionist led coalition government in Israel.
Marwan Barouki, the leader of the Israel-Palestine Liberation Movement (IPRM), which is in alliance with the Jewish led Palestine-Israel Liberation Movement (PIRM) headed by Stefania Goldberg, today addressed Jews all over the world in a brief statement.
“Had you come as Jews, you would have met with no resistance from us. But that now is the past. We understand why and do not condemn you, and ask that you understand why we resisted you and do not condemn us. Let Zionism and nationalism fall away, let us stand together as one people in one land, so that we may begin the process of healing and building a new society, one based on equality, empathy, selflessness and the shared gaols of happiness, prosperity and peace.”
PIRM will shortly be releasing a statement that is widely expected to echo Barouki’s words. It is thought the two statements were drafted jointly by both organizations. It is also expected that the unification of the two parties will also be announced at a not too distant date, forming one body in the struggle against Zionism, the last remaining settler-colonial ideology. In the wake of the collapse of the Zionist led coalition government in Israel, questions are being asked whether Zionism is not now a relic from the past, with many Jews having deserted the Zionist parties and many more renouncing Zionism altogether, seeing it as a hindrance to peace and the root cause of the 127-year conflict.