Years of No Decision - Chapter 2
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This document provides background on the Palestinian case and the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It discusses how Palestinians have historically lived in the land now known as Palestine and considers several important documents related to the conflict, including the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which Britain supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine without consulting Palestinians. It examines Britain's contradictory promises to Arabs and Jews and argues Palestinians were denied rights laid out in Woodrow Wilson's declaration about self-determination after World War I. The document provides historical context on the roots of the conflict over territory and nationhood.
![Years of No Decision
assailants killed, they looted, and finally they raped.”
The Irgun and Stern gang leadership which included both Menachem Begin and
Yitzhak Shamir, did not deny responsibility. The writers took their information
from the report of Jacques de Reynier of the International Red Cross and three
reports on the incident forwarded to the Chief Secretary of the Palestine British
government by the Assistant Inspector General of the C.l.D. on 13th. 15th and 16th
April l&4S. To avoid any doubt the writers cited the number of the “Secret”
dossier. A British interrogating officer visited a neighbouring village called
Silwan, where there were two to three hundred refugees from Deir Yassin, and
interviewed many of the women. He said “those women are very shy and reluctant
to relate their experiences, especially in matters concerning sexual assault. They
need great coaxing before they will divulge any information. The recording of
statements is also hampered by the hysterical state of the women who often break
down many times whilst the statement is being recorded.”
The writers concluded: “There is, however, no doubt that many sexual atrocities
were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young school girls were raped and
later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning
a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also
butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman who gave her age as 104. She had
been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts. Women had bracelets torn
from their arms and rings from their fingers. Parts of some of the women‟s ears
were severed in order to remove earrings.”
This is documentary evidence, reported in a book which was a best-seller in
America and elsewhere so let us go further and study what Mr Reynier. the Red
Cross Representative who was on the spot, writes in his diary about what he saw:-
“The first thing I saw were people running everywhere, rushing in and out of
houses, carrying Sten guns. rifles, pistols and long, ornate Arab knives. They
seemed half-mad. I saw a beautiful girl carrying a dagger still covered with blood.
I heard screams. We are still mopping up‟. my German friend [who intervened to
let Reynier visit the village because he owed his life to the Red Cross] explained.
All I could think of was the S.S. troops I had seen in Athens.”
Then, to his horror. Reynier noted, he saw:
“a young woman stab an elderly man and woman cowering on the doorstep
of their but.”
The two authors of 0 Jerusalem continued:
“Still dazed by that sight. Reynier pushed his way into the first](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/chapter2-121011050718-phpapp02/85/Years-of-No-Decision-Chapter-2-10-320.jpg)
![Years of No Decision
the message) because the names were phoney.
“They discussed the aims of the Sternists and, among other things. horrified
me by warning that the organisation intended to assassinate Count Bernadotte and
other advisers on the UN Mission just the way Sternists had murdered (my word,
not theirs) Lord Moyne[ in Cairo, Egypt] because it was necessary to frustrate the
UN effort to confine Israel within artificially constricted borders. At first I couldn‟t
believe them. When 1 was convinced I took them upstairs, awakened Alexis and,
as 1 pulled him up by the hair, said: „This is my brother-in-law. He works for the
UN and I don‟t want him murdered by mistake; he is not important enough for any
deliberate murdering. Remember this face.‟ Alexis looked bewildered. My visitors
nodded amiably and departed. After they left I told Alexis what it was all about.
We both inclined to dismiss this as just another one of the absurdities that are so
commonplace here. Nevertheless, I suggested he tell the UN people and I intend to
pass it on to Reuven Zaslani (later Shiloah). Ben Gurion‟s high muckamuck in
secret service and dirty tricks, if I can get him on this trip.‟‟11
“Menachem Begin, head of the semi-secret extremist organisation, Irgun
Zvai Leumi, refused to see me but sent me a written declaration which included the
following points: Irgun claims for Israel all of former Palestine plus all of Trans-
Jordan as Eretz Israel‟. If Britain‟s desert puppet, Abdullah, is not removed, we
shall he transformed into something resembling a ghetto, with its curtailed human
rights and, in the course of time, even pushed into the sea.‟
“Irgun will try and take control of the Government after permanent peace, but by
ballots, not bullets.‟ There is no possibility of any treaty with England which is still
the enemy of our people and country.‟
“Irgun respects no territorial limitations imposed by Palestine‟s partition.
We do not recognize nor consent to partition. We consider both to he illegal, and in
no way binding on our people.‟ 12
Count Bernadotte was assassinated on 17th September 1948 by the Stern Gang.
According to Sulzberger‟s Diary for 24th August 1948 Bernadotte had told a few
people confidentially in Rhodes on 22nd
11. C. L. Sulzberger. A 1.ong Row of Candles — Memoirs and Diaries 1934-1954, Macmillan, Ontario 1969, pp. 402-404 July 24
1948.
12. Ibid. p.402-403](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/chapter2-121011050718-phpapp02/85/Years-of-No-Decision-Chapter-2-12-320.jpg)
Years of No Decision - Chapter 2
- 1. Chapter 2 The Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem ‘‘Nothing can replace the need of the people to organise into U state in the territory in which they territory and which belongs to them. Jacobo Timerman, Jewish author and Argentine newspaper editor and Columnist. In this hook, I am trying to relate some of my experiences in the United Nations concerning the Palestine Question. It is not an autobiography in the real sense. The hook embodies the experiences of just one phase in my life, and reflects many years of the diaspora and unrest which the people of Palestine have endured. I shall take the reader through the mountains and hills of Palestine: I will walk with him through the gates and streets of the I holy City; look at the areas in the Holy Land where Palestinian men, women and children have suffered much humiliation and deprivation of their elementary human rights; visit places of massacres and destruction such as Deir Yassin. Kufr Kasim. Khan-Yunis, Bedrus, Imwas. Yalu and Beit Nuha. I shall then take the reader to what I call “The theatre of Reality”, the United Nations, where he will acquaint himself with the arm twisting and political expediency that has for so long played its role in making the Palestinians without hope. The reader will walk with me on this long and difficult way.
- 2. Years of No Decision besides familiarising himself with all those human problems, he will come to know some aspects of the Palestine problem. I feel I owe it to him, at this stage, therefore, to explain the background to that problem. Having become a representative of a member state at the U.N. authorised to speak in any debate and before any organ of the organisation, I spent much time going to the roots of the Palestinian-Jewish conflict. I studied all phases of the problem very thoroughly. To me the historical background was very clear. Since time immemorial, Palestinians have lived in the Holy Land with no distinction as to race or religion. They lived happily in their homeland as might any other people. It is a mistake to think that the only connection that the Palestinian Arabs have with Palestine came about since the advent of Islam. They are mentioned in history under different names according to whichever tribe or personality was prevailing at the time. The inhabitants of Palestine, like those of neighbouring countries, were of Arab stock. Thus Palestine had been the homeland of the Palestinians before some Jews came to live in it. A few Jews — mainly religious — have always lived peaceably in Palestine, in harmony for centuries. Since the first Zionist Congress in 1897, however. Zionist leaders have completely ignored the rights of the Palestinians. Theodor Herzl took advantage of the financial problems facing the Ottoman Empire, of which Palestine was part, and began negotiations with the Sultan, Abdul Hamid, seeking the Sultan‟s approval for mass immigration of Jews into Palestine. The Sultan realised what Herzl was after. Despite his financial difficulties, however, Abdul Hamid perceived Herzl‟s objectives and rejected his offer, making the well-known statement: “I cannot give you what you want. You want the land. The land is not mine but my people‟s.” Herzl wanted a state anywhere and at any price and at one desperate point he considered a British offer of territory in Uganda. When World War I broke out Weizmann and other Zionist leaders wasted no time contacting Great Britain, saying that if and when the Allies won the war, the Jewish people would like a homeland in Palestine. Only 50,000 Jews were then living in Palestine. All the other inhabitants were Palestinian Arabs. On 2nd November 1917 the British Government, ignoring the national rights of the Palestinians, unlike the Ottoman Sultan, issued the Balfour Declaration in which it supported the establishment of a Jewish national home. There was a special proviso attached to that promise which the Zionist leaders deliberately
- 3. The Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem disregarded. It emphasised that nothing in the declaration should affect the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communitites in Palestine. This was a specific reference to Moslem and Christian Palestinians. The full text of the Balfour Declaration is as follows: Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917 Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty‟s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet. “His Majesty‟s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. Signed: Arthur. Balfour1 The legal material I read on this promise was important. I found that judicial experts and leading lawyers from different parts of the world stated clearly that Balfour, an Englishman, owned nothing in Palestine which he could convey to the Jews. What is more, the Palestinians themselves were never consulted. The British Government made no effort to consider, let alone to satisfy, Palestinian national rights. How on earth could a British Cabinet dispose of the legitimate rights of others without their consent? The British Government could, if it wanted, promise the leaders of Zionism a home or even a “state” in its own British Isles, but not in what was, after all, the “homeland” of the people of Palestine. Regardless of the legality of the Balfour Declaration the question 1. The Balfour Declaration. Leonard Stein. Simon and Schuster. New York. 1961. pii.
- 4. Years of No Decision arises; Did Britain intend to establish a Jewish State and thus bring about the displacement of Palestinians and confiscation of all their property? The answer is “No”. The proviso in the Balfour Declaration affirms the civil and religious rights of the Palestinians. Needless to say, however, that the promise conflicts with the British Government‟s other promise made earlier to Sharif Hussain, the Sharif of Mecca, which promised the Arab peoples complete independence in all regions within the frontier requested by the Sharif of Mecca. Sir Arthur McMahon emphasized that no peace treaty would he concluded unless it embodied the freedom to all Arab peoples together with their complete independence from the authority of both Germans and Turks. Certainly the people of Palestine were among the peoples covered by McMahon promise, made on behalf of the government of Great Britain.2 America‟s President Woodrow Wilson, in an address on 4th July 1918, laid down the following as one of the four great objectives for which the Allies in World War I were fighting: “The Settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement or of political relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.”3 Of all the people in the world the Palestinians did not benefit from the rights embodied in the Wilson Declaration. Even prior to the Wilson Declaration, and on 25th January 1916, McMahon said that “now that Arab countries have decided to enter with us the war (against Germany and Turkey), we hope that this will bring happiness and welfare to all.” I often wonder how much happiness and welfare the people of Palestine are enjoying now.3 I also found that in a British Government White Paper of 1922 2. Hussain-McMahon Correspondence. Cmd. 5957, 1939, letter no.4 from McMahon to Hussain, dated 24th October 1915 and no.6, 14th December 1915, 3. See W. Wilson: “Four Factors of World Peace”, in Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson. A.B. Hart Edition 1918, p. 266. 4. Ibid. letter no.8. 25th January 1916.
- 5. The Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, made it clear that, in accepting the Mandate for Palestine, confirmed by the League of Nations, Great Britain intended to establish a cultural home for Jews in Palestine. This was reaffirmed in the Report of the High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, an influential British Zionist.5 Samuel‟s view and true intention, however, was a very clear statement made three years before the Balfour declaration was issued. In a conversation in November 1914, Samuel stated the case of Zionism in the following terms: “If a Jewish State were established in Palestine, it might become the centre of a new culture. The Jewish Brain is rather a remarkable thing and under national auspices the State might become a fountain of enlightenment and a source of a great literature and art and development of science.”6 Thus, not lack of desire on Samuel‟s part, but the fact that the majority of the inhabitants in Palestine were Arabs made him feel that immediate political privileges for the Jews in Palestine would be impossible, “partly because the Jews in Palestine were a small minority . . . and partly because any attempt at a Jewish State would at this moment fail with very great scandal to the whole of Jewry.”7 The first High Commissioner to be appointed after the British occupied Palestine, Herbert Samuel, rendered many services to help bring about the creation of a Jewish State. The Zionists took advantage of the Balfour Declaration and with the help of Herbert Samuel, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants started to arrive in Palestine. Through this immigration, arranged with the collusion of the British Government, the number of Jews steadily increased. Then, helped by successive British high Commissioners and with the steady increase in their number, they said openly: “We want a state in Palestine, as purely Jewish as England is English.” Of course, the Palestinians resisted this, with all their limited means. It was difficult, however, for the Palestinians, a small people, to defeat both the British Empire and the World Zionist Movement. The aggression continued. 5. Report of the High Commissioner on the administration of Palestine, 1920- 1925. London. Colonial Office, 1925 p. 24 6. H. Samuel, Mernoirs,London, Gresset Press. 1945. p. 14k) 7. The Balfour Declaration. Leonard Stein, New York, Simon and Schuster. 1961 p. 107
- 6. Years of No Decision While studying the problem I found that in 1937. twenty years after the Balfour Declaration was issued, the Palestine Royal Commission after a thorough examination of the records hearing on the question, came to the conclusion that: “his Majesty‟s Government could not commit itself to the establishment of a Jewish State. It could only undertake to facilitate the growth of a Home. It would depend mainly on the zeal and enterprise of the Jews whether the Home would grow big enough to become a State.”8 Certainly the Zionist leaders used their zeal and enterprise for the usurpation of Palestine. They organised campaigns of Political action, fund raising and propaganda which ignored all Palestinian rights, including the reservations embodied in the Balfour Declaration that: “Nothing shall he done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The Arab peoples, of course, were among those who fought alongside the Allies in the First World War and were promised complete independence, only to he betrayed later on by those whom they aided. Zionism, the expressed aim of making into Jewish territory the area from the Euphrates to the Nile, is a concept which has sustained Jews only for the past ninety years or so. It was formulated less from a deep-rooted desire to acquire this land than from the influence of the revolutionary climate of thought at work on Jewish communities in Eastern Europe then ruled by the Czar. It originated not out of a psychological need for land. for many of those who subscribed to the idea were settled members of their communities, but from intellectual forces at work on a few at the end of last century. For a long time there was no concrete hacking for the idea. Those who believed in it sufficiently to make the long and arduous journey to “the Promised Land” were more often disillusioned and disappointed than delighted. 8. Palestine Royal (Commission, Report. CMI) No.5479 (1937) at 24
- 7. Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem External circumstances — the advent of the Bolsheviks to power in Russia. the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in western Europe — had the effect of forcing into concrete shape what for fifty years had been a nebulous dream. The massive wave of immigrants into Palestine in the 1930s, whether legal or illegal, together with those who entered immediately after 1945, laid a viable, if questionable, foundation for the declaration of a state. In 1947, the British Government having committed many blunders surrendered its mandate over Palestine to the United Nations. in a letter to the Secretary-General dated April 1947. The United Kingdom requested that the question be placed on the agenda of the next regular session of the General Assembly, at which time the United Kingdom would submit an account of its administration of the League of Nations mandate over Palestine. The United Kingdom also requested the convening of a special session which would appoint and instruct a special committee to make a study of the question preparatory to the convening of the regular session. After a majority of the member states had approved the proposal to hold a special session, it met in New York between April 28 and May 15 1947. The only item on its agenda was the one proposed by the United Kingdom for constituting and instructing a special committee to make a preliminary study of the Palestine question. Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria requested the inclusion of an additional item the termination of the mandate over Palestine and the declaration of its independence, but this item was rejected by the Assembly; this special committee was constituted and recommended the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab. Lengthy debates followed in which many member states emphasised that the phrase “national home of the Jewish people” in the Balfour Declaration, whether intended to mean a “Jewish state” or a “homeland” conflicted with Arab national rights. Nevertheless the General Assembly by a vote of 33 in favour, 13 against and 10 abstentions9 recommended the partition 9. In favour : 33 Australia. Belgium. Bolivia. Brazil, Byelorussian S.S.R... Canada. Costa Rica, (Czechoslovakia. Denmark. Dominican Republic. Ecuador. France. Guatemala. Haiti. Iceland. Liberia, Luxembourg. Netherlands, New Zealand. Nicaragua. Norway. Panama. Paraguay. Peru, Philippines, Poland. Sweden, Ukrainian S.S.R... Union of South Africa, U.S.A... U.S.S.R... Uruguay, Venezuela. CONTINUED
- 8. Years of No Decision of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab 4h November 1947. The Jewish minority established its state thro force and aggression in May 1948. They Palestinians, convinced that the United Nations recommendation was illegal and unjust challenged its legality and asked that the matter he referred to the International Court of Justice for an advisory Opinion. However because of pressure from the United States, their request was defeated. Why did the Palestinians want to go to the International Court of Justice? They maintained that the partition was illegal; that it violated the United Nations Charter and especially the right of self-determination embodied in that Charter, and that the ideal solution would be the creation of a secular state — a single Arab- Jewish state in Palestine. They wanted the Court to decide, therefore, whether it was legitimate to deprive a people of the right to self-determination. Meanwhile, the Israelis started expanding through the use of force. They immediately occupied important parts of the area that had been allotted to the Palestinian Arab State. Their campaign to displace the Palestinian people continued. So also did the Palestinian resistance to foreign occupation. Today, the whole of Palestine is under Israeli control, together with other Arab territories in Syria and Lebanon. The Palestinians are now victims of a new diaspora. They are either under Israeli military occupation or having been forcibly expelled by them, they are refugees in the four corners of the earth, dispossessed, dispersed, denied and deprived of their inalienable rights. This, in short, is the background to the wars of the past thirty-eight years. The part played by the Palestinian people is no more than legitimate resistance to Israeli illegitimate occupation. I shall discuss the Six-Day-War later. I simply want to mention it at this stage that on 21st October 1969, the Israeli Ambassador CONTINUED Against : 13 Afghanistan. Cuba. Egypt. Greece. India. Iran. Iraq. Lebanon. Pakistan. Saudi Arabia. Syria. Turkey. Yemen. Abstained: 10 Argentina. Chile, China. Colombia. El Salvador. Ethiopia. Honduras. Mexico. United Kingdom. Yugoslavia. See United Nations General Assembly Resolution No.181 dated 29th November 1947.
- 9. The Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem repeated in the United Nations General Assembly his favourite expression that we (Arabs) “started the 1967 War”. He kept repeating the myth that all three wars, in 1948, in 1956 and in 1967, were started by the Arabs. In fact, exactly the reverse is true. The truth is that the Israelis chose the occasion of the run up to the American elections in 1947. 1955 and 1967 to start the wars and have since admitted this themselves. The Israeli initiation of the 1967 war is now well known. Brigadier Mordecai Hod, the Commander of the Israeli Air Force, told the Sunday Times of London on 16th July 1967 about the plan for invading the Arab territories: “Sixteen years‟ planning has gone into those initial eighty minutes. We lived with the plan, we slept on the plan, we ate the plan. Constantly we perfected it.” This explains the crux of the Palestinian issue. It has a history of a chain of acts of injustice, committed against an innocent people who had no lobby in Washington and did not possess the means Israel had to make their voice heard. Trouble started even before the state of Israel was horn. 2 One of the earliest massacres of the Palestinians took place at Deir Yassin even before the Israelis declared their state. In the hook 0 Jerusalem French and American writers explain how the Jewish “commandos” of the Irgun and Stern gang prepared the assault against Deir Yassin, a suburb of Jerusalem, the Holy City.‟ They wanted to frighten the population of the village, and other neighbouring towns and villages, so they would flee from their homes and leave them for occupation by Israeli settlers. Eye-witnesses explained how one of those “heroes “shot a bullet into the neck of a woman who was nine months pregnant. Then he cut her stomach open with a knife. Another was killed when she tried to extricate the unborn infant from the dead mother‟s womb. Other tragic scenes took place, in house after house. The writers say: “bit by bit Deir Yassin was submerged in a hell of screams, exploding grenades, the stench of blood, gun powder and smoke. Its 10. 0 Jerusalem, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. Granada Publishing. 1981
- 10. Years of No Decision assailants killed, they looted, and finally they raped.” The Irgun and Stern gang leadership which included both Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, did not deny responsibility. The writers took their information from the report of Jacques de Reynier of the International Red Cross and three reports on the incident forwarded to the Chief Secretary of the Palestine British government by the Assistant Inspector General of the C.l.D. on 13th. 15th and 16th April l&4S. To avoid any doubt the writers cited the number of the “Secret” dossier. A British interrogating officer visited a neighbouring village called Silwan, where there were two to three hundred refugees from Deir Yassin, and interviewed many of the women. He said “those women are very shy and reluctant to relate their experiences, especially in matters concerning sexual assault. They need great coaxing before they will divulge any information. The recording of statements is also hampered by the hysterical state of the women who often break down many times whilst the statement is being recorded.” The writers concluded: “There is, however, no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young school girls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman who gave her age as 104. She had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts. Women had bracelets torn from their arms and rings from their fingers. Parts of some of the women‟s ears were severed in order to remove earrings.” This is documentary evidence, reported in a book which was a best-seller in America and elsewhere so let us go further and study what Mr Reynier. the Red Cross Representative who was on the spot, writes in his diary about what he saw:- “The first thing I saw were people running everywhere, rushing in and out of houses, carrying Sten guns. rifles, pistols and long, ornate Arab knives. They seemed half-mad. I saw a beautiful girl carrying a dagger still covered with blood. I heard screams. We are still mopping up‟. my German friend [who intervened to let Reynier visit the village because he owed his life to the Red Cross] explained. All I could think of was the S.S. troops I had seen in Athens.” Then, to his horror. Reynier noted, he saw: “a young woman stab an elderly man and woman cowering on the doorstep of their but.” The two authors of 0 Jerusalem continued: “Still dazed by that sight. Reynier pushed his way into the first
- 11. The Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem house he reached.” „This is what he noted in his diary. “Everything had been ripped apart and torn upside down. There were bodies strewn about. They had done their „cleaning up‟ with guns and knives, anyone could see that.” Mr Reynier saw something moving in the shadows. “Bending down, he discovered a little foot, still warm. It belonged to a ten year old girl, still alive despite her wounds. Reynier picked her up and ordered his German escort to carry her to an ambulance. lie then furiously demanded he he allowed to continue his search for wounded. lie found two more, an elderly woman half paralysed with fear hiding behind a woodpile, and a dying man. In all, he estimated he had seen two hundred corpses. One of them belonged, his diary would record “to a woman who must have been eight months pregnant,” who had been hit in the stomach, with powder burns Ofl her dress indicating she had been shot point blank.” Mr Reynier could not complete his findings because his presence embarrassed the Irgun and Stern leaders who ordered him to go back to Jerusalem. lie returned, together with the wounded he had managed to save from the ruins. Many others were left to die for lack of treatment. 3 The same year another horrific event took place — the murder of Count Bernadotte, the Swedish U.N. Mediator whose presence in the area was made necessary by the outright Israeli hostilities. It was a well-calculated move to cultivate support for a „Greater Israel‟. The motives of the murders have not been disclosed in full. In his hook C. L. Sulzberger of the New York Times quoted the following from his diary of 24th July 194, written in Tel Aviv, only seventy days after the de facto establishment of the Jewish state: Tel Aviv. July 24th 1948. “A most extraordinary thing happened today. I was typing in our room and Alexis (who is a very late sleeper) was still in bed with the sheet wrapped round his head to keep out the light. A knock at the door and a message was handed to me: a name I did not recognise. Downstairs were two handsome, tall young fellows in khaki shorts and light coloured shirts. They shook hands and suggested we go out for a coffee because they had something to say. It turned out they were South African Jews who had come here since the war and were not only ardent Zionists, but members of the Stern Gang. They told me not to bother remembering their names (including the one on
- 12. Years of No Decision the message) because the names were phoney. “They discussed the aims of the Sternists and, among other things. horrified me by warning that the organisation intended to assassinate Count Bernadotte and other advisers on the UN Mission just the way Sternists had murdered (my word, not theirs) Lord Moyne[ in Cairo, Egypt] because it was necessary to frustrate the UN effort to confine Israel within artificially constricted borders. At first I couldn‟t believe them. When 1 was convinced I took them upstairs, awakened Alexis and, as 1 pulled him up by the hair, said: „This is my brother-in-law. He works for the UN and I don‟t want him murdered by mistake; he is not important enough for any deliberate murdering. Remember this face.‟ Alexis looked bewildered. My visitors nodded amiably and departed. After they left I told Alexis what it was all about. We both inclined to dismiss this as just another one of the absurdities that are so commonplace here. Nevertheless, I suggested he tell the UN people and I intend to pass it on to Reuven Zaslani (later Shiloah). Ben Gurion‟s high muckamuck in secret service and dirty tricks, if I can get him on this trip.‟‟11 “Menachem Begin, head of the semi-secret extremist organisation, Irgun Zvai Leumi, refused to see me but sent me a written declaration which included the following points: Irgun claims for Israel all of former Palestine plus all of Trans- Jordan as Eretz Israel‟. If Britain‟s desert puppet, Abdullah, is not removed, we shall he transformed into something resembling a ghetto, with its curtailed human rights and, in the course of time, even pushed into the sea.‟ “Irgun will try and take control of the Government after permanent peace, but by ballots, not bullets.‟ There is no possibility of any treaty with England which is still the enemy of our people and country.‟ “Irgun respects no territorial limitations imposed by Palestine‟s partition. We do not recognize nor consent to partition. We consider both to he illegal, and in no way binding on our people.‟ 12 Count Bernadotte was assassinated on 17th September 1948 by the Stern Gang. According to Sulzberger‟s Diary for 24th August 1948 Bernadotte had told a few people confidentially in Rhodes on 22nd 11. C. L. Sulzberger. A 1.ong Row of Candles — Memoirs and Diaries 1934-1954, Macmillan, Ontario 1969, pp. 402-404 July 24 1948. 12. Ibid. p.402-403
- 13. The Palestinian Case and the Israeli Problem July that he foresaw the following ultimate solution for Palestine: “There will be a Jewish State, no matter what else happens. Its boundaries will have to be radically altered to provide a more compact and workable state. Its Arab neighbours must be given an ironclad UN guarantee against any move to expand.” 13 Sulzberger also reported that Trygve Lie, the then UN Secretary General, had assured him that “the late Count Bernadotte had ascertained both British and American views on Palestine.‟ In effect. Bernadotte based his report on their recommendations; lie thought this was the only way to get practical results. Bernadotte was pro-Jewish by bias, according to Lie.”14 Yet Bernadotte was murdered by the Stern Gang! And the Security Council reaction next day to this grave event was “a very silly meeting in which they passed a resolution that his funeral expenses would be paid.” Harry S. Truman in his memoirs stated that Bernadotte proposed in September 1948 that there should be a different kind of partition.‟‟ He would give West Galilee in the north of Palestine to Israel but let the Negeb in the south to the Arabs. Truman said: “1 did not like this change. It looked to me like a fast reshuffle that gave to the Arabs the Negeb area, which still remained to be fully settled. If, however, one looked only at the map and how the two partition proposals appeared there, the Bernadotte plan may have seemed an improvement; it seemed to reduce the number of friction points along a long frontier between the Jews and Arabs. In any case, Secretary Marshall informed the UN that it seemed to him that it was a fair and sound proposal.” In July 1974, Menachem Begin at last came to power in his own right, not as a member of a coalition. The man wanted by Britain for being a terrorist was received in London and Washington with all official courtesies and honour. He continued to work for expansion, openly calling the Palestinian territories on the West Bank and Gaza Strip part of Eretz Israel. He annexed the Syrian Golan Heights, claiming that they were needed to protect Israel‟s security‟. He then 13. Ibid. p.405 14. Ibid. p.409-10 15. Ibid. p.412; Security Council Resolution No. 57, dated 18th September 1948 16. Harry S. Truman. The Memoirs of harry S. Truman. Years of Trial and Hope, 1946-1952, Doubleday. Inc. New York, 1956, vol.ii, p.I6,.
- 14. Years of No Decision prepared another war in Lebanon, sending in his armies in June 1982. Since the invasion, Israel has begun to lay the groundwork for permanent control OVCI Southern Lebanon, under the pretext that its rivers, springs and fertile areas are necessary for her security. Leading Israeli politicians are openly calling Jordan part of the Israeli homeland.