The Palestine Problem

Churchill saw it first

In the previous post, Palestine Is Not For Sale, I quoted from David Fromkin’s A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, which has an interesting account of Churchill’s dealings with the Arab leadership regarding Palestine. In another section, this account reveals so much not just about the core of the conflict, but also the patterns of behavior which later repeat themselves:

Churchill approached the complex, emotion-laden and muddled question of Palestine with a simple, rational, and clear program. He believed in trying the Zionist experiment, and thought that it would benefit everyone. When he visited Palestine after the Cairo Conference, he told a Palestinian Arab delegation on 30 March that “it is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national centre and a national home to be re-united and where else but in Palestine with which for 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews, good for the British Empire, but also good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine and we intend it to be so; they shall share in the benefits and progress of Zionism.”

…In the same statement he complained to the Arabs that it was not fair of them to refuse to negotiate: "it is not fair to come to a discussion thinking that one side has to give nothing and the other side has to give large and important concessions, and without any security that these concessions will be a means of peace."

Churchill had spent a lifetime immersed in the political culture of Europe, in which it was normal when putting forth a proposal to take account of the needs and desires of all interested parties, including adversaries… This was the sort of statesmanship to which Churchill was accustomed; but he did not find it in the Palestinian Arab delegation in London, which did no more than repeat its demands. Palestine was and is an area of complex and competing claims, but the Arab delegation took account of no claims, fears, needs, or dreams other than its own. Unlike the Zionist leaders, who sought to compensate Arab nationalism by supporting Arab versus French claims to Syria, who envisaged areas of Arab autonomy within Palestine, and who planned economic and other benefits for Arabs who chose to live within the confines of the Jewish homeland, the Arab leaders made no effort to accommodate Jewish aspirations or to take account of Jewish needs.

Dealing with Middle Easterners such as these was far more frustrating than had been imagined in wartime London when the prospect of administering the postwar Middle East was first raised. In Churchill's eyes, the members of the Arab delegation were not doing what politicians are supposed to do: they were not aiming to reach an agreement - any agreement. Apparently unwilling to offer even 1 percent in order to get 99 percent, they offered no incentive to the other side to make concessions. Churchill remonstrated with the Arab leaders - to no effect.

The Palestinians today reap what their leadership sowed. And they have repeated the same patterns of behavior. Believing that justice entitles them to everything, they have consistently avoided working out an arrangement that would give them at least something.

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On another note, this Shabbat I'm speaking at Kesher in Englewood. On Sunday, a week from today, I'm delivering a presentation at a parlor meeting in a private home in Woodmere, then again on Monday at a home in Bal Harbour, Florida and on Tuesday at a home in Boca Raton, followed by a presentation at Young Israel of Hollywood on Wednesday. If you'd like to participate in any of these presentations (note that they are fundraisers!) please drop me a note with your email address and my colleague will reach out to you with details.