Welcome to the Prayer for Peace Blog
January 27th, 2008 . by Tony
Welcome to the blog site. In the main website I aim to be balanced and fair about both the Israelis and the Palestinians (Jewish people and Arabs). I have no delusions of infallibility,and it may be that there are inaccuracies and unintentionally biased comments.
I suppose if I have got the balance right I will upset the hardliners on both sides - Zionist or “Pro-Palestinianist”! So I expect the site to be controversial.
Have a look at the main website and then write to this blog, whether you agree to disagree with me. I welcome comment and, if what I see is a genuine error comes to light, I will gladly make amendments. I have no desire to further biased polarization on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Rather I want to take the needs, pain and fear of both sides seriously and to encourage prayer on that basis.
My position is that God loves the Palestinian and the Israelis equally. So should the rest of us!
Tony, thanks for starting this website, and for your excellent work with Paradox over the past few years.
Other than blind prejudice it seems the other reason for such disagreement on the issue is that the historical record is vigorously contested, particularly c.1948.
I therefore note that in your theological statement you mention that the Palestinians “left” their towns and villages - a relatively weak verb. Elsewhere you state that they either fled in fear or were forced out, language that seems better to reflect the consensus.
On this point, what do you make of Ilan Pappe’s book ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ with its compelling presentation of evidence (particularly from Ben Gurion’s diary) that suggest this flight was very much part of the Zionist project which required a secure Jewish majority if it was ever to call itself a Jewish state?
Thank you for your encouragement, Mark. Actually, I think the context of my referring to Palestinians leaving their homes is important, namely:
“After the terrible history of Anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, the UN decided by a majority vote that a Jewish homeland should be established in part of Palestine. Many Christians would see behind this a divine provision of a much-needed (relatively) safe homeland for the deeply traumatised and vulnerable Jewish people. However it caused great trauma to the Arab residents of Palestine and violence was suffered by both sides, with many Arabs leaving the land.”
I wasn’t trying to make a point through using the word “leaving” but simply to state a fact which I enlarge upon elsewhere.
You raise an important point, so I have decided to extract some of the main information on it from the website to facilitate others joining in the discussion.
Starting with Ben Gurion. In my “History of the Conflict” I state that in 1919 “The Jewish Yishuv (community in Palestine) met to hear David Ben Gurion say: “We as a nation want this country to be ours. The Arabs as a nation, want this country to be theirs.” The inevitability of conflict was being recognised.”
But the footnotes to that paper state that sometimes Ben Gurion may have been misunderstood. I quoted from “British Government, Foreign Office No. 800/215 (1919), quoted in The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1988, Part I published by the United Nations:
Ben Gurion: sometimes Ben Gurion is quoted out of context as supporting a violent dispossession of the Palestinians when he says: “after we constitute a large force following the establishment of the state - we will cancel the partition and we will expand throughout the Land of Israel.” In context, Ben Gurion opposes such violence in favour of the method of “mutual understanding and Jewish-Arab agreement.” It is difficult to see how Ben Gurion could have expected this to be acceptable to the Palestinians and some have said his words were simple diplomacy. The quotations in context are as follows:
Ben-Gurion: The starting point for a solution of the question of the Arabs in the Jewish State is, in his view, the need to prepare the ground for an Arab-Jewish agreement; he supports the Jewish State, not because he is satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we constitute a large force following the establishment of the state - we will cancel the partition and we will expand throughout the Land of Israel.
Shapira: By force as well?
Ben-Gurion: Through mutual understanding and Jewish-Arab agreement. So long as we are weak and few the Arabs have neither the need nor the interest to conclude an alliance with us… And since the state is only a stage in the realization of Zionism and it must prepare the ground for our expansion throughout the whole country through Jewish-Arab agreement - we are obliged to run the state in such a way that will win us the friendship of the Arabs both within and outside the state.
In my “History of anti-Arabism” I state:
December 17th 1947 The Arab League Council decided to fight against the Jewish people They rioted and besieged Jerusalem. So began what Palestinians call the Nakhba (“Disaster”). Tragically there were massacres on both sides. There were well-documented instances (e.g. Ain al-Zeitoum and Er-Rama) where the Israelis demanded Muslims left their villages for Lebanon on pain of death. Some Israeli historians claim that many war crimes: murders, massacres, and rapes took place. But most Palestinians refugees made their own decision to flee the country for fear of their lives. In April 1948 most Arabs left Haifa. Some Arabs were told by Jewish forces that they were to be removed from their homes temporarily. But in many cases this led to permanent exile. In 1952 a memorandum from the Higher Arab Committee shows that Arab states did agree to take Palestinians until fledgling Israel could be destroyed although some Israeli historians claim that the Arab governments really wanted the refugees to stay in Palestine. Because the West was seen as supporting Israel they were blamed as well as Israel. This was seen by many as a new crusade, setting up a new crusader kingdom in Palestine.
In “History of the Conflict, under the heading “Arguments for the repatriation of Palestinian refugees” I write: Palestinians (and some Israelis) argue that the refugees were forced out of their homes by the Israelis. According to a 1948 (Israeli) Haganah report:
• 55% of refugees left because of Haganah (IDF) action
• 15% left because of action by the Irgun and Lehi
• 2% were directly expelled by the Israeli military
• 1% fled because of psychological warfare
• 22% left out of general fears
• 5% left at the encouragement of Arab governments.
I haven’t read the book you mention, so can’t comment specifically.
Thanks a lot for the site / blog. The quotation by Ben Gurion is extremely different in context to what I have read in other media (where Ben Gurion’s full comments are conveniently left out). Thanks for pointing it out.