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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, No 15. July 3 1974
Robinson replies to emotionalism
Robinson replies to emotionalism
Dear Sir,
Being victim of an emotional smear from the supposedly accurate and literate pen of Janet Fullarton in Salient no. 14 I would like to answer some of the points raised.
| 1) | Unfortunately this point of view is unsubstantiable. The British Cabinet was split between pro-Zionists and non-Zionists. Churchill and Balfour were two of the more well known pro-Zionists. Their influence plus that of a large section of the British public ensured that colonisation went ahead despite the qualms of the more "conservative" politicians. However, this split was directly responsible for Britain's releasing of the Palestinian mandate to the UN and its abstention from the voting on partition. Definitely, 1956 showed clearly the strong support in England for the Zionist state. |
| 2) | The main point I tried to make about the UN voting was the lack of voice given the Third World. Today with Third World countries uniting as a power in the UN there would be much less chance of passing a plan of partition taking, as it did, land from Palestinians and arbit-arily giving it to the Jews. |
| 3) | Jewish emigration from Europe did account for a large part of the growth of the Jewish population in Palestine. However, the Zionists never tried to encourage emigration elsewhere, for Palestine 'the true home of the Jews' was seen as the only logical destination. Pre-WWII Palestine was incapable of supporting the size of influx needed to save the Jews from Hitler's advance and so formed only part of the solution to Jewish emigration. Yet Zionists gave little thought to diis point and so spent all their time fighting for increased emigration to Palestine and not making any attempts to open up other emigration routes which if opened could have been responsible for many more of the eventual Jewish victims of the Nazis being saved. |
| 4) | It is true that Jewish immigrants to Palestine backed by large amounts of foreign capital and a knowledge of advanced technology was able to develop a land that capital-scarce and ill-educated Palestinians could not. This does not justify Jewish colonisation it merely reflects economic laws. |
It is also true that up till about 1947 the Arabs were still reluctant to leave this land. It is not surprising that when foreigners plan to buy your land in order to set up an exclusive state of their own in an area you and your ancestors have inhabited for well over a thousand years that you are reluctant to sell, reluctant to give up your claim to your own land. It was obvious that Jewish settlement was a prelude to the setting up of a Jewish state — this was rightfully opposed by Palestinians and all Arabs.
| 5) | Zionist terror was one of the main causes for Britain giving its mandate to the UN. Immigration wasn't fast enough and neither were moves for the creation of a Zionist state for the Zionists. So they engaged in guerilla tactics against the British on one hand (their allies against Hitler?) and Arabs resident in 'Jewish' territory on the other hand. Both were successful. |
The British were scared off and the UN hastily forced partition on Palestine. The resident Palestinian Arabs started to leave en masse as terror like that of Deir Yassin intensified. The exodus was so great that Israel was able to expand beyond even that territory given it by the partition plan. Ill-organised and ill-financed and equipped Arab armies were no match for the slick machine of the Jewish forces as they came to the defence of their brothers. So the Jewish invasion of Palestine was finally formalised in the Jewish state (considerably larger than that given in the partition plan).
| 6) | Arabs never really accepted this state of affairs and were unwilling to compromise by merely resettling evicted Palestinians. They saw the Palestine homeland as being occupied by Israel and endeavoured to regain it for evicted Palestinians to be able to return. Israel's armed might ensured this did not happen and in fact, launched, in 1956 with the aid of 'Western powers', an aggressive war against the Arabs. |
The 650.000 Jews Israel so graciously "absorbed" only reinforced the Jewish majority of the Jewish state and the subjugation of the Arab minority that remained. It was no more a benevolent act than the accepting of mercenaries
As for the Jews forced to leave Arab countries, this represents a complex story: firstly, Zionist expansion bred in Arab countries an anti-Zionism which as the conflict intensified became an anti-semitism. This influence although incorrect was brought about by the reality of Zionism and not the 'historic' anti-semitic nature of the Arabs. Had there been no Zionism, there is no doubt that Oriental Jews would have been allowed to continue to co-exist in Arab countries as they had done for centuries beforehand, as Janet correctly notes.
Secondly, the same Zionist terror groups active in Palestine were also active in Arab nations in terrorising local Jewish populations in order that they would emigrate to Israel. In 1950 Jewish quarters in Iraq were bombed by the Zionist underground to spur Jewish emigration. (Report in 'The Black Panther", the official publication of a group of Israeli Jews from Arab countries, November 9, 1972).
| 7) | "Mere self-preservation", as Janet Fullarton puts it, is an honourable objective. But the objective reality of this is the "mere self-preservation" of a Jewish settler state on the land of Palestinian Arabs. It is the "mere self-preservation" of a state that subjugates both Arabs and non-European Jews (by law as well as prejudice) inside its borders and subjugates those exiled Palestinians forced outside its borders. These borders are, themselves, the recognition of Zionist imperialism. The borders are those of a state propped up by a mammoth capital inflow (especially from the US) and propped against the original inhabitants of the land. |
A Jewish state on Arab land is an act of aggression itself and the fundamental cause of present conflict in the Middle East. Only a secular Palestinian state of both Palestinians and Jews can solve this problem.
| 8) | The Middle East forms an area of confrontation of imperliasm (US) and social-imperialism (USSR) in the quest for control of the raw-material, oil. The Arab oil squeeze showed why control of this area is so important to the imperialist powers. After Israel (the main base of US imperialism) was shown to have flaws in its defence in the October War, Arab countries who were normally US pawns felt they had the power to demand more rights as raw material supplying Third World countries. They were able to hold the 'free' world to ransom because this 'buffer' had been shown to be weak. |
Now the US has been forced to increase aid to Egypt (aid with concrete ties to the US) so that it will have power and influence' on both sides. There is nothing mysterious about this or the importance of Israel in the US-USSR tussle for 'power and influence' in the Middle East.
Having (hopefully) answered at least some of the points raised by Janet Fullarton I will bring the argument back to her. I fail to see how she can rest her pro-Zionist argument so glibly on "the little children of Israel and the Arab countries" and "their suffering". They deserve a far better researched analysis to point the way to a solution of their suffering.
Emotionalism of the sort Janet raises succeeds only too easily in obscuring the points at issue and passing the blame anywhere else but the crucial fact of Zionist aggression — a Jewish state on stolen Palestinian soil.
Under the impression I was writing merely a brief historical summary as objectively as possible I felt it unnecessary to sign my name. It appears to be the case that I am guilty of expressing a strongly biased and inaccurate opinion based on an incredible lack of information. All I can say is that arguments based on bending history, emotional catch phrases, 'facts' that merely add confusion, and with an objective of denying any solution other than a Zionist solution such as given by Janet Fullarton and for too long propagated by our governments news media and some brands of so-called "socialists" are the ones that need examining for their logic.
Bruce Robinson