⬅️ Hub: LonerBox Notes · Primary text: The Jewish State (Herzl, 1896) · Debate: Zionism Debate - Anti-Zionist Arguments & Zionist Responses
Quote audit
Separate a quotation’s authenticity from the interpretation placed on it. Check the full passage, edition, translation, date, audience, and whether the conclusion is representative of the writer’s broader position.
Raw Research
Zionism was anti-Semitic
Claim
“Early Zionists, including Theodore Herzl had the anti-Semitic belief that Jews themselves are the reason for anti-Semitism - that they create anti-Semitism by their very presence because they don’t belong anywhere other than their own homeland” (19:48 - 20:05)
Response
Herzl did believe that Jews would provoke anti-Semitism so long as they existed as a minority, but to suggest he believed this for anti-Semitic reasons is ludicrous. Throughout his work, Herzl was crystal clear in arguing that European Jews would be victimised regardless of what they did. This isn’t an indictment against Jews; it’s an indictment against non-Jews. In his early days, Herzl was a devoted proponent of Jewish assimilation. His turn to Zionism came towards the end of the 19th century where he began to believe that no amount of assimilation would help; that Jews would be deplored if they stayed poor, and resented if they prospered; that they’d be attacked if they stood down and attacked more if they fought back. Any honest reading of his work would make it blindingly obvious that he doesn’t blame the Jews themselves for this:
Herzl in The Jewish State
“We have honestly endeavoured everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities and to preserve the faith of our fathers. We are not permitted to do so. In vain are we loyal patriots, our loyalty in some places running to extremes; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers… It is useless, therefore, for us to be loyal patriots, as we were the Huguenots who were forced to emigrate. If we could only be left in peace… But I think we shall not be left in peace… For old prejudices against us still lie deep in the hearts of the people.”
- Herzl, The Jewish State, p. 5
Herzl on assimilationism
“We might perhaps be able to merge ourselves entirely into surrounding races, if these were to leave us in peace for a period of two generations. But they will not leave us in peace. For a little period they manage to tolerate us, and then their hostility breaks out again and again… We are one people - our enemies have made us one without our consent, as repeatedly happens in history.”
- Herzl, The Jewish State, p. 5
Hashmi uses a handful of quotes to further his initial claim. He gives the example of Herzl describing himself as a friend of European anti-Semites but taken in context, this hardly hits the mark. Herzl believed - against the more popular Jewish opinion of his time - that assimilation in European society was a lost cause. Given that he argued this only a few decades before the rise of Nazism in a country where Jews were more assimilated than they ever had been, he seems to have been correct here. His solution - for Jews people to leave Europe behind and establish their own homeland in Palestine - obviously overlapped with the goals of anti-Semites who were happy to see the backs of their Jewish minorities but this is hardly evidence of him sharing in those anti-Semitic beliefs. If a Jewish philanthropist managed to organise the emigration of 1,000 Jews out of Nazi Germany and wrote a quip in their diary about it where their actions as a favour to the Nazis, would this really be evidence of them holding anti-Semitic beliefs? Apparently, to some, it would be, especially if it seems to reinforce the common trope that “Zionism is anti-Semitism”. Unfortunately, one distorted reading can easily lead to another:
Zionism was anti-Semitic… according to most Jews!
“Most Jews… thought this [Zionism] was incredibly anti-Semitic and they didn’t agree with the Zionists and that’s why the first Zionist Congress, they were initially going to meet in Munich and they had to relocate because both the reformed Jews and the Orthodox Jews protested and said ‘you can’t have this anti-Semitic conference here and so they had to relocate to Basil. So that is the case of Zionism being a fringe anti-Semitic idea initially” (20:12 - 20:41)
This characterisation of Jews who opposed the First Zionist Congress is simply false. Zionism did start off as a fringe opinion and the First Zionist Congress was opposed by the Jewish community in Munich, not because they thought Zionism was anti-Semitic, but that they thought it would bolster anti-Semitism from non-Jews. The mostly assimilationist Jews of the time were worried about the Zionist congress being held because they thought it would be interpreted as a display of Jewish nationalism and separatism. On June 5th, 1897, a leading member of the Jewish congregation published a notice in the “Münchner Neueste Nachrichten” (Munich’s latest news), which described the Zionist project as a danger to the achievements of Jewish emancipation and integration. They accused the Zionists of “being water to the mill of anti-Semitism” and warned that “the anti-Semitic movement will gain new sustenance from this badly prepared anachronistic congress, which is attempting to unite elements that cannot be united for long.” There is no way Hashmi could have read about this story and concluded that they saw the Zionists themselves as anti-Semitic. He either made it up or this is just the inevitable distortions you run into when you start with a conclusion and then work backwards from it.
Interestingly, the struggle between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews would only become increasingly bitter as time went on. In 1914, a Jewish organisation called the Anti-Zionist Committee (Antizionistiches Komitee) issued a statement to the press warning the German non-Jewish public against the “danger of Zionist machinations in Germany” and accused the Zionists of “trying to ignite among the Jewish people… a ‘national Jewish’ chauvinism, which would place us at odds with our Christian fellow Germans,” effectively painting Zionists as disloyal traitors - maybe not the wisest thing to have done in Germany on the eve of World War One!
The only convincing evidence he gives here is from “Mauschel”, a short article written and published by Herzl under a pseudonym in 1897. The piece was published about a month after the first Zionist Congress and is effectively a screed against Jews who opposed Zionism, which is undoubtedly laced with anti-Semitic tropes and imagery. However - especially against the backdrop of toxic exchanges between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews at the time - this is hardly enough to paint Zionism itself as an anti-Semitic belief. When Malcolm X called MLK an “uncle Tom” or a “house negro” for his commitment to non-violence, was he being racist? Maybe, but a holistically racist person (an anti-black one, least) with a racist worldview? Personally, I think the bar is a little higher.
In the 1940s, Zionist lobbyists pressured Western governments into rejecting Jewish refugees
Claim
“[Zionists] prevented immigration of Jews to other countries. They put on pressure for the US and British not to accept Jewish refugees”, “The Zionist lobbyists lobbied for the immigration restrictions.” (49:03 - 49:48)
Ben-Gurion on Jewish refugees in the 1930s
Response
Obviously this quote - cold as it is - does nothing to support the idea that Zionists were lobbying Western states to close their borders to Jewish refugees. In fact, the evidence he provides might even be doing more work to prove the opposite of what Hashmi is claiming. That Ben-Gurion quote taken from a private meeting with the Mapai Central Committee came only a few months after the Évian Conference, where delegates from 32 countries met to discuss the issue of Jewish people fleeing Nazi persecution and all but one (the Dominican Republic) infamously refused to admit more refugees. Incidentally, the Zionists did have Golda Meir representing them at the Évian Conference as ‘the Jewish observer from Palestine.’ Of course, Meir did not try to convince anyone to reject Jewish refugees, nor could she have because she wasn’t even allowed to speak at the conference. She was forced to sit with the audience as opposed to the delegates and she absolutely did not support the decisions made there.
Golda Meir on the Évian Conference
“Sitting there in that magnificent hall and listening to the delegates of 32 countries rise, each in turn, to explain how much they would have liked to take in substantial numbers of refugees and how unfortunate it was that they were not able to do so, was a terrible experience. I don’t think that anyone who didn’t live through it can understand what I felt at Évian - a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration and horror. I wanted to get up and scream at them all, ‘Don’t you know that these ‘numbers’ are human beings, people who may spend the rest of their lives in concentration camps, or wandering around the world like lepers, if you don’t let them in?’”
- Golda Meir, My Life p. 127
Coming back Ben-Gurion, the results of the Évian Conference might shed some light on his thinking in relation to Europe. Ben-Gurion, like Herzl, believed that Jewish people would never be welcome in Europe and that the only way to save the group as a whole was to save the Zionist project in Palestine. In 1941, he said “It is our duty to uphold the banner of comprehensive Zionism, which aims not for individual redress, but for the deliverance of the people as a whole.” Throughout the war, he maintained this position, arguing in 1944 that “History has proved that we cannot survive as individuals.” In his biography on Ben-Gurion, Shabtai Teveth suggests a more nuanced understanding of this quote:
Shabtai Teveth on Ben-Gurion’s thinking
“Such was his custom, to state or indeed overstate his position in stark alternatives. But this brutal formulation may have been the result of his bitterness at the world’s indifference to Jewish misery revealed by the Évian Conference, at Britain’s betrayal of Zionism following the horrors of Kristallnacht, and at the blatant hypocrisy of Britain in claiming that the Jewish question could be solved… elsewhere and refusing to allow the rescue of the ten thousand German Jewish children by sending them to Palestine.”
- Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, p. 856
Verdict
Ben-Gurion’s words - as is often the case - are problematic to say the least. The quote is one of many which can be used to paint him as a cold calculator who didn’t see individuals, but only “the Jewish people”. The above quote above is one of many which demonstrates that he tended to view the events in Europe primarily through the lens of Zionism and sometimes did so in brutal terms. What it does not show is any effort from him or from the Yishuv in general to pressure Western governments into blocking Jewish refugees. The delegates at Évian needed absolutely no persuasion on that front.
The 1948 war was started by the Zionists
Claim
”… it was not the Palestinians who launched the war… it was the Zionists who launched the war; specifically it was the Irgun and the Lehi” (33:52 - 34:02)
“Benny’s book will also prove that Lehi and Stern Gang were the ones who - through an escalatory process - started the war because they kept bombing Arab villages… the Haganah had the policy of restraint for a couple months in which they only did defensive retaliation - now, their version of defence was: if an Arab village - even one person - attacks… we’ll attack the entire village… that’s Israel’s policy.” (53:26 - 54:09)
Response
Given that he’s citing Benny Morris’ work here, this should be fairly easy to disprove. I could just go to page 7 of The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited where explicitly describes the 1948 war as “a war that the Palestinians started” but Hashmi has an answer to that:
“It was by the Irgun and Lehi and the only reason Benny Morris is able to say that [the war was initiated by Arabs] is… because he excludes the Lehi and he says: ‘they don’t represent the mainstream Zionism… but he wouldn’t do that with the Palestinian side, right? (1:38:54 - 1:39:15)”
If this were true, it would be a very dishonest move from Morris, especially since we all know the first acts of Arab violence also came from irregular militias, not armies. If he was counting their attacks as instigations, but not the Irgun and Lehi, that would be outrageous. Here, we should try and figure out the timeline. If we start with the Wikipedia, the first Jewish terror attack following the UN Partition Plan vote (Nov 29th, 1947) was on December 11th when a group of Irgun operatives killed 13 people near Haifa. From there, we can check Benny’s section on the battle of Haifa in Birth to see that (a) he doesn’t exclude the Irgun attack and (b) that the fighting in Haifa was initiated four days prior by Arab irregulars:
Instigations in Haifa
”… from the start of hostilities in December 1947, Ibrahim [Chair of the Haifa National Committee] was to preach and embody moderation and to relentlessly pursue a ceasefire in Haifa. But Husseini agents and irregulars sporadically launched attacks on Jews, beginning on 7 December with ambushes against traffic moving through Wadi Rushmiya. From then on, there were almost daily exchanges of fire along the seam neighbourhoods, almost always initiated by Arabs. Beginning on 11 December, IZL operatives began to throw bombs at Arab crowds and buses. The first large Haganah reprisal, against the village of Balad al Sheikh, just east of Haifa, took place on 12 December (six Arabs were killed); other reprisals, against Tira and Hawassa, followed.
- Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 100
In short, Morris is not saying the Arabs initiated the war by excluding attacks from the Irgun and Lehi; he’s saying it because they’re the ones who initiated the war. Likewise, Hashmi’s characterisation of Haganah policy during the civil war is equally flawed.
Haganah policy
When he describes the Haganah policy of defensive retaliation as “if an Arab village - even one person - attacks… we’ll attack the entire village”, he might be citing an interpretation of the war that I’m not familiar with, but the fact that he claims this is backed up by Morris is baffling. This is a circular from a Haganah brigade which Morris describes as “in effect… Yishuv-Haganah policy down to the end of March 1948.”
Circular from the Levanoni Brigade, 2nd Jan 1948
“We must avoid as far as possible killing plain civilians and to make an effort as far as possible to always hit the criminals themselves, the bearer of arms, those who carry out the attacks… We do not want to spread the disturbances and to unite the Arab public… around the Mufti and his gangs. Any indiscriminate massacre of Arab civilians causes the consolidation of the Arab masses around the inciters.”
- B. Morris, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited p. 76
Haganah ‘Instructions for Planning Initiated Operations’, 18th Jan 1948
Reprisal attacks were (a) “not to spread the disturbances… to areas so far unaffected…” and (b) there should be “an effort to hit the guilty, while acknowledging the impossibility of precise individual targeting; to distinguish between (friendly and unfriendly) Arab villages”, “identifying and killing gang leaders. Harassing a settlement by firing at it and mining. Organising ambushes to hit transport to and from the settlement. Punitive operation against a village in order to hit the adult male combatants.’
- Morris, Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 77
This is the complete opposite of Hashmi’s assertion that the Zionists were lamenting a lack of resistance from the Palestinians and seeking a pretext for war. Even if they really were quietly hoping for an escalation, it wouldn’t change the fact that escalation was offered on a plate to them by Husseini’s militias and then ALA.
Negotiating the Right of Return
Claim
“Camp David, 2000, the demand from the Palestinian side was 10-20% of the total Palestinian Refugees” (2:02:21 - 02:03:17)
Response
It’s interesting that he describes this offer as “the demand from the Palestinian side” because his own citation clearly shows that this simply a suggestion from one negotiator in a conversation with Clinton, not an official Palestinian demand. Furthermore, the very next paragraph shows another Palestinian negotiator, Akram Hania, immediately following up with an insistence “on the right of every refugee to go back to his home.” This second half of the proposal is, obviously, something Israel would never accept as it would result in a two-state solution with both states being Palestinian. If you just look at the next page following Hashmi’s quote you get a pretty fair impression of what was happening here:
Scars of War
“Rob Malley, in the analysis of the summit he co-authored with Hussein Agha, repeated this remark: ‘Indeed, the Palestinians’ principal failing is that from the beginning of the Camp David summit onward they were unable either to say yes to the American ideas or to present a cogent and specific counterproposal of their own.’”
- Ben-Ami, Scars of War, p. 250
It wasn’t just the Americans who were unsure about what kind of refugee settlement Arafat would accept. In his talks with Yossi Beilin, Nabil Shaath suggested that Israel absorb 300,000 refugees but then also insisted that “all the refugees be allowed a year to decide whether they wanted to return to the Palestinian state or to Israel.”
Prophets Without Honour
“Shaath said that Arafat was interested in the return of 300,000 refugees, essentially the entire Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon, whom Arafat always referred to as ‘my brothers and beloved refugees of Lebanon.’ But, Shaath had truly no idea what the number would be that Arafat would say yes to, and he therefore added that all the refugees be allowed a year to decide whether they wanted to return to the Palestinian state or to Israel.”
- Shlomo Ben-Ami, Prophets Without Honour, p. 180
Decoding Arafat
Arafat’s own negotiating team may have been unsure about what he wanted a final refugee settlement to look like. But, thankfully, Hashmi isn’t unsure in the slightest!
“Arafat… agreed to no right of return… He wanted the right of return only for the Palestinian state (2:07:15 - 2:08:04)”
Hashmi does claim to have a source for this, but before getting into that, this statement simply betrays a gross ignorance of the subject being discussed. If I were to write a paper on the 2000-2001 peace talks, I doubt I’d even need a citation to say that a “right of return only for the Palestinian state” is something Arafat would have never have conceded to. We know that because this particular settlement on the refugee problem was actually the Israeli proposal that Arafat had already rejected at Camp David (Scars of War, p. 260). Even the Clinton Parameters offered left open the option for refugee admission to Israel “in special humanitarian cases”. Why would Arafat agree to even less than that? His source provides no such answer.
His reference to page 400 of Clayton Swisher’s book only contains a letter from Arafat to Clinton - sent on December 28th - simply asking for clarifications about the parameters! Even Swisher describes the letter as Arafat showing “detailed interest while listing his own reservations”, one of which includes “many questions relating to the return of refugees to their homes and villages.” As we’ll see below, Arafat’s choice of words here was very intentional. In other words, this letter from Arafat isn’t as “yes” or a “no” to anything.
Arafat’s letter to Clinton, 28th Dec 2000
“Mr. President, please allow me to address you with all the sincerity emanating from the close friendship that ties us, and the historical importance of what you are trying to do. I want to assure you of my will to continue to work with you to reach a peace agreement. I need your help in clarifying and explaining the basis of your initiative.
I need clear answers to many questions relating to calculation of land ratios that will be annexed and swapped, and the actual location of these territories, as well as the basis for defining the Wailing Wall, its borders and extensions, and the effect of that on the concept of full Palestinian sovereignty over al-Haram al-Sharif.
We understand that the idea of leasing additional territory is an option we have the right to reject, and is not a parameter of your bridging proposals. We also presume that hte emergency Israeli locations are also subject to negotiations and to our approval. I hope that you have the same understanding.
I have many questions relating to the return of refugees to their homes and villages. I have a negative experience with the return of displaced Palestinians to the West Bank and Gaza during the Interim Period. Because the modalities remained tied to an Israeli veto, not one refugee was allowed to return through the mechanism of the interim agreement, which required a quadripartite committee of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Palestine to decide on their return. Equally, I don’t see a clear approach dealing with compensation of the refugees for their land, property and funds taken by Israel under the aegis of the Israeli custodian of absentee property.
I feel, Mr. President, that the period for Israeli withdrawal specified in your initiative is too long. It will allow the enemies of peace to exploit the time to undo the agreement. I wonder if the “Period” is one of the fixed parameters of your proposal; a “basis” that cannot be changed.
Mr. President, I have many questions. I need maps, details, and clarifications that can help me take the necessary decisions with my leadership and people.
I would like you to appreciate that I do not want to procrastinate or waste time.
We need a real opportunity to invest once more your determination and creativity to reach a fair and lasting peace with your efforts and during your presidency.
I remain, Mr. President, ready to pay you a visit at the White House, in the shortest possible time if you find this visit appropriate, to discuss with you the bridging proposals and do exchange views on ways to develop them further.
Please accept my highest regards and best wishes,
Yasser Arafat
- Yasser Arafat, quoted in Swisher, The Truth About Camp David, p. 400
When the actual letter of acceptance did come from the Palestinian negotiating team on Jan 3rd, 2001, it absolutely did not - explicitly or implicitly - cede the right of return to Israel entirely. Instead - whilst acknowledging that they were “prepared to think flexibly and creatively about the mechanisms for implementing the right of return” - they reiterated Shaath’s position that “The essence of the right of return is choice: Palestinians should be given the option to choose where they wish to settle, including return to the homes from which they were driven” and that “Recognition of the right of return and the provision of choice to refugees is a pre-requisite for the closure of the conflict.” Of course, this essence of choice stood in direct opposition to Clinton’s proposal which asserted that “Israel would retain her sovereign right of admission” (Scars of War, p. 272). In other words, this reservation was - in Ben-Ami’s words - largely outside the parameters.
The Palestinian Negotiating Team’s remarks on Clinton’s proposal for refugees
On the issue of Palestinian refugees, driven from their homes as a result of the establishment of the state of Israel, the United States proposed that both sides recognise the right of Palestinian refugees to return either to “historic Palestine” or to “their homeland,” but added that the agreement should make clear that there is no specific right of return to what is now Israel. Instead, it proposed five possible final homes for the refugees: (1) the State of Palestine; (2) areas in Israel transferred to Palestine in the “land swap”; (3) rehabilitation in the host countries; (4) resettlement in third countries; and (5) admission to Israel. All refugees would have the right to “return” to the State of Palestine; however, rehabilitation in host countries, resettlement in third countries, and admission to Israel all would depend on the policies of those individual countries.
The United States proposal reflects a wholesale adoption of the Israeli position that the implementation of the right of return be subject entirely to Israel’s discretion. It is important to recall that Resolution 194, long regarded as the basis for a just settlement of the refugee problem, calls for the return of Palestinian refugees to “their homes”, wherever located - not to their “homeland” or to “historic Palestine”.
The essence of the right of return is choice: Palestinians should be given the option to choose where they wish to settle including return to the homes from which they were driven. There is no historical precedent for a people abandoning their fundamental right to return to their homes whether they were forced to leave or fled in fear. We will not be the first people to do so. Recognition of the right of return and the provision of choice to refugees is a pre-requisite for the closure of the conflict.
The Palestinians are prepared to think flexibly and creatively about the mechanisms for implementing the right of return. In many discussions with Israel, mechanisms for implementing this right in such a way so as to end the refugee status and refugee problem, as well as to otherwise accommodate Israeli concerns, have been identified and elaborated in some detail. The United States proposal fails to make refernece to any of these advances and refers back to earlier Israeli negotiating positions.
In addition, the United States proposal fails to provide any assurance that refugee rights to restitution and compensation be fulfilled.