"The Jews in Palestine" written by Gandhi in 1938

[2banon]

Fascinating piece written by Mahatma Gandhi in 1938..

The Jews In Palestine

(By Mahatma Gandhi - Published in the Harijan - 26-11-1938).


In compliance with the 3 paragraph rule, I excerpt these three, but it is important to read it in it's entirety to get the full breath of the context informing his perspective. It isn't long.


In the opening, Gandhi's analysis compares the similarities of the persecution of the Jews in Germany with the untouchables of Christianity and drawing parallels with the untouchables by Hindus, what I understand to be in the context of bigotry and hatred of "the other" . (my words)


It opens with:

Several letters have been received by me, asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.

---snip

Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my sympathy for the Jews. But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice.

--snip

And now he addresses the question as regards Palestine

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart.

There's a bit more.

I think this is an interesting perspective as well as prescient in the sense that this was written before the atrocities of the German Nazi "Solution" which was visited upon the entire Jewish Diaspora of Europe, and then revealed to the world.

It also seems to be logical (to me) as the history of humanity has revealed time and time again. But that Israel as a Zionist State should visit upon people indigenous to the region much of what was done to them in Warsaw is beyond comprehension to me.

I wonder what Gandhi would say about current events, now?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

1. "...beyond comprehension to me."

Victim becomes victimizer.

[enough]

5. Jacobo Timerman, who was tortured by the Argentine regime in the 1970's

made the telling observation that when the regime needed more torturers to run their operation, they purposefully tortured people, which made the victims very willing to become torturers themselves.

Essentially he said, if you want to create torturers, torture people. This was in his book, Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number.


I read that book a long time ago, when it first came out. Just now I was checking my facts on Wikipedia before posting this, and learned for the first time that Timerman, born a Jew in the Soviet Union, had a very complicated relationship with Israel. I did not know about any of this until just now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobo_Timerman

snip>

Soon after completing his prison memoir, Timerman and other journalists were taken to Lebanon to see Israel's 1982 war up close.[2] In response, he wrote a book titled, The Longest War: Israel's Invasion of Lebanon (1982). He was deeply disturbed by the 1982 invasion of Lebanon although he had been an ardent Zionist for most of his life.[2]

Timerman was also disappointed by Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. He wrote: "And I'm angry, too, with us, with the Israelis who by exploiting, oppressing, and victimizing them [the Palestinians] made the Jewish people lose their moral tradition, their proper place in history."[2] The book describes Timerman's decisions: still recovering from having been tortured in prison, he advised his son Daniel to accept a jail sentence rather than to fight in the 1982 war.[83] Daniel was sentenced to prison.[2]

Described by some critics as “a polemic” and “unabashedly pro-Palestinian”, the book identifies Israel as the aggressor in the 1982 conflict. Timerman compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of Blacks under Apartheid.[83] He also criticized the U.S. policy in the Mideast: "History will not forgive the United States for not having taken a hand in the conflict long before 1973, as would have been proper for the leading power at the time."[2] Timerman included an epilogue about the Sabra and Shatila massacre, a mass slaughter of Palestinians in Lebanon refugee camps that occurred in September 1982. He held the Israeli Defense Forces and the government's foreign policy responsible.[84] Conservative Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg "found [Timerman's] criticism of the Israel Army exaggerated."[2]

Timerman was one of the earliest and most outspoken Israeli critics of the war, and his status as a Zionist human rights advocate made his opinion difficult to discount.[85] But his position was not popular among Israelis, who justified the war to themselves. "Jacobo Timerman is asking for trouble", wrote Canadian journalist Patrick Martin, then the Middle East correspondent for the Globe & Mail. "He has been in Israel for less than three years and has written a book which attempts to purge the Jewish state of its hatred for Palestinians.”[83] In addition, his book received little coverage by the Jewish press and others in the United States.[2]

snip>

Timerman died in 1999.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

7. Thank you.

[2banon]

8. Fascinating read.. Timmerman first to identify what was going on as Apartheid is also interesting

thank you for contributing, I know I wasn't paying any attention to M.E. issues in '82, largely because I didn't understand it. Still learning, but understand a lot more. thanks again.

[frazzled]

2. Ghandi wasn't so great at assessing current events

So I probably wouldn't be inclined to ask him now.

In May 1940 he wrote:

I do not want to see the allies defeated. But I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed. Englishmen are showing the strength that Empire builders must have. I expect them to rise much higher than they seem to be doing.

Letter to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, regarding the military situation between England and Germany (May 1940), quoted in Collected Works (1958), p. 70.

Not the most prescient guy on the block. Ghandi was so committed to nonviolence that he failed to respond to a threat that was already in progress. (And continued to do so.) Nonviolence can work for social justice and similar causes, but his admonitions to the British to stop fighting and let the Nazis take what the wanted (because they couldn't take your "mind" or your "allegiance&quot were entirely unrealistic.

Ghandi was never in favor of a Jewish state and expressed it repeatedly. That's okay. This quote is probably not:

Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions.

[2banon]

10. Odd statement attributed to Gandhi, considering what he said in the piece I posted.

the logic doesn't seem to jive. interesting.

[frazzled]

19. But not to be dismissed: we can't pick and choose

what we want to highlight or hear. Let's just say, I wouldn't have picked Ghandi to be an arbiter of this particular dispute: he had long opposed the formation of a Jewish State in Israel (where, by the way, Jews were living continuously for thousands of years to the present time, well before the UN recommended the establishment of two states).

So, by virtue of setting him up as the one to listen to on this subject, you are kind of de facto saying, the state of Israel should not exist. Which is, of course, the Hamas position. But I'll tell you--no matter what you or I think about what feels be a disproportionate response (and I feel that it is disproportionate, and not helpful)--the Jewish citizens of Israel really aren't going to take that any more. They took it for thousands of years, time and again. And it worked out very badly for them. And I think that unless you try to understand the existential position of the other side, you are really not going to be helpful in solving this problem one little bit.

You'll just be repeating Ghandi's mistake in saying the British really shouldn't have fought to retain their land, and let the Germans take it. Gee, it seemed to him that dropping bombs on Germany was just as bad, if not worse, and disproportionate to what Hitler was doing. They should just sit back and take it. (And there is no doubt that he held that position: his letters to Britain on that score are preserved and readable.) I think history has proven him wrong on that score.

So it's more than just "interesting." You really need to think multidimensionally about these things.


PS: One of the things that intrigued me in your post, is the idea that there is a sort of "statute of limitations" on the legitimacy of a displaced people. Ghandi appears to have been saying, more or less, you know, too much time has elapsed since the majority of Jews were driven from their homeland, taking refuge in surrounding states of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Greece, and moving on to eastern Europe. They really don't have a "right of return." That's a really interesting concept if you apply it to the Palestinian situation: what's the statute of limitations there? Do you see why this problem is so much more complex than people would like to make it?

It's funny also to remember that when the state of Israel (along with re-division of all the other territory from the former Ottoman Empire) was established, it was the complete darling of the radical left, both in Europe and here, and its birth and its legitimacy were extolled. So, putting aside questions of over-reacting to rockets being fired (though that is serious: and if they didn't react, they would soon not exist as more surrounding states would resume their hostility), which we all agree on, what happened for so many on the left now seeming to doubt the legitimacy of that state? Why is it less legitimate than Jordan or Syria, which were also carved out of that region in the twentieth century? I don't know the answer to that.

[Ken Burch]

21. As to Israel and the Left

I'd say the key factor was the realization that Palestine had never been "a land without people", and that the Palestinian Arab population were being made to suffer, in many respects, to pay for the crimes of Christian Europe and for the refusal of the English-speaking countries to do the decent thing and allow the Jewish refugees of Europe to at least have sanctuary within their borders until Hitler and his minions were defeated.

There needs to be a lot more done to fight antisemitism, as there needs to be a lot more done to fight all other forms of bigotry(all of which are just as lethal as antisemitism. Defending the Israeli government on these barbaric bombings, or the continued Siege of Gaza in general, or the West Bank Occupation, or the illegal West Bank settlements, is clearly not the way to do that.

[frazzled]

23. No, you'd be wrong

It was because of the socialist orientation of the new state, the communal kibbutzes, and the success of those institutions in turning fetid, useless desert into productive land.

[Ken Burch]

42. I'd be wrong about what?

The Left didn't become less pro-Israel because of any of the things you listed above...none of which required the dispossessions of '48 OR the post-1967 occupations of the West Bank and Gaza.

And actually, Palestinians had a long-term agricultural tradition of their own.

Palestine was never a wasteland...and it was never "a land without people".

If Israel is ever to have peace, its leaders need to address this.

They need to admit that Palestine, whether independent or not, had been a nation and a distinct nationality for centuries, and that that should have been acknowledged and respected from the start. They need to admit that MOST of those driven out in 1948 and 1967 had done nothing to deserve dispossession.

There needs to also be an admission that Palestinian resistance had nothing in common with the European Christian crimes against Jewish peoples that inspired the creation of the Zionist movement.

[2banon]

24. Addressing a few points...

Many points to respond to.. I can only address one or two, due to time constraints at the moment.

First, let me say that it wasn't my intention to set Gandhi up as the arbitrator on this on going "dispute", I just thought it was an interesting perspective given world events at the time of his statement, but I take your point.

I should also make clear, that I am not a Pacifist. Long ago I recognized that although I am staunchly "anti-war" I cannot say that I'm a Pacifist and never will be. For that reason I haven't taken a deep and thorough interest in his life history or his work other than a casual reading when someone references him. However most of my comrades are well read on Gandhi, do give a high degree of reverence to his life's endeavors and advocacy, so for that reason I thought this piece might be interesting to discuss.

You assert that I have not tried to understand what Israeli's have suffered through for thousands of years. This is a false assumption/assertion by a huge degree. Throughout my entire childhood in the (50's and 60's) I was to learn about the atrocities perpetrated on the Jews by the Nazi's under Hitler. I learned all about the Holocaust as a youngster and teen, early to mid adult life over and over and over again. The horrors is deep in my psyche.

As to your remaining points, let me just summarize my response as best as I am able..

It is perfectly human to say, think, feel and react to acts of violence, oppression, humiliation and threat in kind. It ends when everyone recognizes that fact and also that there is no victory when one subjugates or annihilates the other. For the past 60+ years that ratty, filthy shoe is on the other foot. Has it ever occured to you, that the Palestinians are just as human, and feel the same pain and suffering from the horrible humiliations, loss of identity, property, life and liberty as any other human being would?

[frazzled]

40. We're closer than you think

in our thinking. I have a great deal of compassion for the Palestinians caught up in this maelstrom, and I have repeatedly expressed my view that I think the Israeli actions are not only horribly disproportionate but, ultimately, futile. I don't like the Israeli government (at least in this particular aspect of its policy), and I especially don't like the more rabid settler population. But there are some nasty figures on the other side, as well. If I had my choice I'd slap both sides and tell them to stop already.

I only emphasized the things I did because it sometimes feels a corrective is needed here to the wild historical inaccuracies and sometimes cartoonish labels of utter evil placed on that country (when others, just as "evil," seem to go scott free). It's all just discussion. No one is going to change anyone's mind here any more than Israeli or Palestinian minds will be changed ... except over time. And it's been too long of a time for this thing to still be going on. Back to work.

[2banon]

41. Have you seen this yet?

[Recursion]

39. Read up on the UK-caused famines in India

Millions died; it was comparable in raw numbers to Hitler's final solution. Both Gandhi and Bose (read up on him, too; fascinating story -- probably easier to find under the title "Netaji&quot courted support or at least rapprochement with anybody who worked against the British Empire.

[cemaphonic]

45. Yeah, that last quote is pretty appaling

though, I suppose it is at least consistent with his ideology of extreme pacifism. Satyagraha worked because the prevailing British view on colonialism was that they were benevolent leaders bringing civilization to India, and they built up a colonial system that reinforced that view. Gandhi's tactics demonstrated that it was largely a veneer, and that the British would either have to face themselves as the exploiters they were, or give up at Empire. The Nazis on the other hand, believed that Jews and Slavs were literally subhuman parasites, and that by murdering them and taking their land and property, they were doing the world a favor. Pacifism in the face of that worldview would only have made the Nazi era an even bigger disaster than it already was.

Gandhi was a brilliant politician who accomplished some amazing things, but he had his flaws like racism and being kind of an asshole in his personal life, and it irks me that people treat him like a font of neverending wisdom.

[oberliner]

3. "What was done to them in Warsaw..."

Startling how many comments like this I am reading here.

[2banon]

14. not a good enough comparison for you?

you don't see Gaza/OT as a prison ghetto?

[jwirr]

4. That man was truly brilliant.

[dembotoz]

6. i remember when native americans aserted their treaty right for fishing up in northern wisconsin

the rage shown by whites at the boat landings was real.

now imagine it those same native americans pushed these folk out of their homes and businesses and force them into refugee camps.

the outcome would not be pretty

[Uncle Joe]

9. This was Naomi Wolf's interpretation of the Old Testament as well.

And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart.

On a thread by kpete.

http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/10025292023

(snip)

Again and again in the "covenant" language He never says: "I will give you, ethnic Israelites, the land of Israel." Rather He says something far more radical - far more subversive -- far more Godlike in my view. He says: IF you visit those imprisoned...act mercifully to the widow and the orphan...welcome the stranger in your midst...tend the sick...do justice and love mercy ....and perform various other tasks...THEN YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE AND THIS LAND WILL BE YOUR LAND. So "my people" is not ethnic -- it is transactional. We are God's people not by birth but by a way of behaving, that is ethical, kind and just. And we STOP being "God's people" when we are not ethical, kind and just. And ANYONE who is ethical, kind and just is, according to God in Genesis, "God's people." And the "contract" to "give" us Israel is conditional -- we can live in God's land IF we are "God's people" in this way -- just, merciful, compassionate. AND -- it never ever says, it is ONLY your land. Even when passages spell out geographical "boundaries" as if God does such a thing, it never says this is exclusively your land. It never says I will give this land JUST to you. Remember these were homeless nomads who had left slavery in Egypt and were wandering around in the desert; at most these passages say, settle here, but they do not say, settle here exclusively. Indeed again and again it talks about welcoming "zarim" -- translated as "strangers" but can also be translated as "people/tribes who are not you" -- in your midst. Blew my mind, hope it blows yours.

https://www.facebook.com/naomi.wolf.author/posts/10152548360004476?fref=nf

Thanks for the thread, 2banon.

[2banon]

12. you bet.

[toby jo]

17. Great stuff, Unc ~

I could never get the Jewish predisposition for the physical loci when interpreting spiritual law.

" 'My people' is not ethnic -- it is transactional." That's big. That shifts the whole Abrahmic tradition towards the eastern / shamanic traditions. It's the screw they keep missing.

[New Orleans Strong]

11. If you dig... just s teensy bit -

You will understand why the death ratio is so insane. Iron dome. U.S. taxpayer iron dome. When "Bombs raining upon us" is discussed, let us try to ascertain why nobody is dying in Israel. When hear about 2,000 bombs a day, may we be perplexed about the lack of civilian deaths in Israel? And remain perplexed when THAT is a main talking point? Mayn't we??

[2banon]

13. Sure. what's stopping you/us?

[NRaleighLiberal]

15. from what I've read and heard, the Iron Dome doesn't really work well at all

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/07/25/israels-iron-dome-is-more-like-an-iron-sieve/

I heard a discussion to the same effect on NPR's Diane Rehm show last week - don't recall the person on the show stating this.

[defacto7]

16. Would you suppose

if Israel had less protective mechanisms there would be less deaths? Maybe less reason to attack the other or maybe more opportunity for discussion and truce? On the other hand, would Israel have been obliterated a long time ago if they hadn't had deterrents or protections?

Something to think about.

[New Orleans Strong]

18. Waitng for pics of crippled israel

Waiting.... for pics of destruction of Israel.
By bombs...

g for r

[Oilwellian]

20. Welcome to DU

I was a fellow New Orleanian years ago...finally settled in Slidell for several years before eventually moving to Virginia.

This map was recently posted on DU and speaks volumes:

[former9thward]

22. The map is nonsense.

The West Bank is a contiguous area. Not the spots you show "from a map posted on DU". Yeah, I wonder who posted the "map".

[gaspee]

25. This map

Is a fantasy map - carve out about 2/3 of this map for illegal Jewish settlements and you get the real map. It is completely disingenuous to claim this is what the west bank looks like today!

[Comrade Grumpy]

27. Thank you. You'd get the impression some posters are in the employ of the IDF.

[Larkspur]

30. Who knows, some posters may be IDF agents

following Frank Luntz's propaganda playbook for Israel.

[former9thward]

32. And there is a communist hiding in your home.

Check quickly!

[former9thward]

33. And here I thought some posters were in the employ of Hamas.

[Larkspur]

34. Hamas doesn't pay enough

but Israel has lots more money.

[Larkspur]

29. What Juan Cole's map shows that yours does not is how

illegal Israeli settlements and barrier walls have stolen land from the Palestinians.

[randome]

26. And all weekend long, we heard how religion has nothing to do with the state of Israel.

Gandhi had it right all along. Too bad no one listened.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[Larkspur]

28. Gandhi refused to give his blessing to the creation of the state of Israel at least 4 times

including to entreaties made by Zionists after WWII.

He saw Zionism as a mutation of Western European colonialism, which India suffered under. That's the main reason why he opposed Zionism.

Need to look at Gandhi's words in the context of his life experiences. Unlike Americans and Western Europeans, Gandhi was a man from a land under colonial rule and that shaped his world view.

Gandhi would oppose the violent methods of the Palestinians BUT Israel treats non-violent Palestinian protestors the same as militant ones. And America turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to the Palestinian non-violent protests. Successful non-violent strategy relies heavily upon a media strategy that depicts the oppressors as inhumanely treating their subjects and the victims of oppression as human. What groups like AIPAC and Christian extremists have done with Israel's blessing is bully any major media outlet from depicting the plight of the Palestinians, who suffer under Israeli Occupation, in the United States. The rest of the world has seen the real Israel, the brutal bully, but most Americans have not.

And if Gandhi were alive today, he would join Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu in calling Israel an Apartheid state.

[2banon]

36. Thank you Larkspur.. very astute analysis, I think.

[KamaAina]

31. I thought it was the 4-paragraph rule

[2banon]

35. Oh, I thought it was three..

did that rule change or have I had it wrong all this time?

[KamaAina]

37. From DU's Terms of Service:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice

Don't willfully and habitually infringe on others' copyrights.

To simplify compliance and enforcement of copyrights here on Democratic Underground, we ask that excerpts from other sources posted on Democratic Underground be limited to a maximum of four paragraphs, and we ask that the source of the content be clearly identified. Those who make a good-faith effort to respect the rights of copyright holders are unlikely to have any problems. But individuals who willfully and habitually infringe on others' copyrights risk being in violation of our Terms of Service.

[2banon]

38. ah.. there ya go then.. thnx! :)

[LWolf]

43. A great conclusion:

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home, including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world's literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcast of the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being the chosen creation of God, instead of sinking to the brute who is forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.

[Major Hogwash]

44. Amazing foresight.

But, that worldview is not popular today amongst American politicians.

Except, maybe for President Obama.