#3 – The Arabs missed an opportunity to have their own state in 1947.
Claim: The Arabs are justified in rejecting the 1947 U.N. partition plan because the land was stolen from them in the first place and rightfully belonged to them.
Land Ownership
As previously noted, Jews were the majority in the land allotted to them under UN Resolution 181. While Jewish immigration increased from Europe, Jews never had a chance to reach majority in the region. Jewish immigration and land purchases under the British Mandate period were severely restricted, while Arabs were free to enter the country. And many Arabs did immigrate by the thousands, which had been in decline prior to the Mandate in 1922.
Jews would have been given 55 percent of the land for a state, and Arabs 45 percent. However this 45 percent was on top of the 77 percent of the original mandate which was intended for the Jewish state, but under Arab pressure was cut off and granted to the Hashemites. It was Jordan that was meant to absorb the recently displaced Palestinian Arabs, who today make up over 70% of Jordan. The Jewish state was left with a mere 13 percent of the land from the original British Mandate, most of which was land nobody wanted, such as the Negev desert.
David Ben-Gurion Quote
The accusation that the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, intended to take all of Palestine by force is completely untrue. His quote is taken out of context from a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive which was the pre-state representative body of the Jews in the Palestine Mandate. In proper context, Ben-Gurion actually says the opposite:
"Mr. 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 establishment of] the Jewish State [on a small part of Palestine], 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 [of the country between Jews and Arabs] and we will expand throughout the Land of Israel.
Mr. Shapira [a JAE member]: By force as well?
Mr. Ben-Gurion: [No]. 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."
(From Efraim Karsh, “Falsifying the Record: Benny Morris, David Ben-Gurion, and the ‘Transfer’ Idea,” Israel Affairs, vol. 4, no. 2, winter 1997, at p. 52 ((found in Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America))
This misquote comes from Noam Chomsky’s book “Fateful Triangle”. Chomsky says, “This was, in fact, one of Ben-Gurion’s constant themes. In internal discussion in 1938, he stated that “after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine... The state will only be a stage in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our expansion into the whole of Palestine by a Jewish-Arab agreement... The state will have to preserve order not only by preaching morality but by machine guns, if necessary.” -(pg. 289-290). Not only does Chomsky put words in Ben-Gurion’s mouth, but he cleverly substitutes “Palestine” for “Israel”. So now instead of Ben-Gurion talking about expanding throughout the “Land of Israel”, he is now talking about expanding through “the whole of Palestine”, which encompasses a much larger territory.
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 4
Claim: The Arabs are justified in rejecting the 1947 U.N. partition plan because the land was stolen from them in the first place and rightfully belonged to them.
Land Ownership
As previously noted, Jews were the majority in the land allotted to them under UN Resolution 181. While Jewish immigration increased from Europe, Jews never had a chance to reach majority in the region. Jewish immigration and land purchases under the British Mandate period were severely restricted, while Arabs were free to enter the country. And many Arabs did immigrate by the thousands, which had been in decline prior to the Mandate in 1922.
Jews would have been given 55 percent of the land for a state, and Arabs 45 percent. However this 45 percent was on top of the 77 percent of the original mandate which was intended for the Jewish state, but under Arab pressure was cut off and granted to the Hashemites. It was Jordan that was meant to absorb the recently displaced Palestinian Arabs, who today make up over 70% of Jordan. The Jewish state was left with a mere 13 percent of the land from the original British Mandate, most of which was land nobody wanted, such as the Negev desert.
David Ben-Gurion Quote
The accusation that the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, intended to take all of Palestine by force is completely untrue. His quote is taken out of context from a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive which was the pre-state representative body of the Jews in the Palestine Mandate. In proper context, Ben-Gurion actually says the opposite:
"Mr. 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 establishment of] the Jewish State [on a small part of Palestine], 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 [of the country between Jews and Arabs] and we will expand throughout the Land of Israel.
Mr. Shapira [a JAE member]: By force as well?
Mr. Ben-Gurion: [No]. 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."
(From Efraim Karsh, “Falsifying the Record: Benny Morris, David Ben-Gurion, and the ‘Transfer’ Idea,” Israel Affairs, vol. 4, no. 2, winter 1997, at p. 52 ((found in Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America))
This misquote comes from Noam Chomsky’s book “Fateful Triangle”. Chomsky says, “This was, in fact, one of Ben-Gurion’s constant themes. In internal discussion in 1938, he stated that “after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine... The state will only be a stage in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our expansion into the whole of Palestine by a Jewish-Arab agreement... The state will have to preserve order not only by preaching morality but by machine guns, if necessary.” -(pg. 289-290). Not only does Chomsky put words in Ben-Gurion’s mouth, but he cleverly substitutes “Palestine” for “Israel”. So now instead of Ben-Gurion talking about expanding throughout the “Land of Israel”, he is now talking about expanding through “the whole of Palestine”, which encompasses a much larger territory.
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 4
