Against the British Plan to Divide Palestine By William Gallacher, M.P., The Communist International Vol. XIV, November 1937, pages 804-807

The question of Palestine has been raised in a new and acute form. The Royal
Commission proposes to divide this small country into three separate parts and
by this means not only to prevent the people of Palestine from realizing
national independence, but also to keep open and intensify the enmity and hatred
between Arab and Jew that have been so sedulously fostered by British
imperialism.

In the discussion of the report of the Royal Commission which took place in the
British House of Commons, there were many different interpretations given of
what Sir Henry McMahon promised the Sherif Hussein of Mecca in 1915, or of what
he meant when he said that Great Britain will, "acknowledge the independence of
Arab countries, in every sense of the word -- independence.."

There were also similar attempts to water down what was done by "Lawrence of
Arabia" just as there were numerous interpretations of what Balfour said, or
what Balfour meant, in his declaration on a National Scheme for the Jews in
November 1917. But however much speculation there may be on such matters as
these, they all appear to be beside the point.

Whatever British diplomats or politicians may have promised to one side or the
other, noting can alter the facts that the Arabs of Palestine have and must
secure the right to own their land, to develop their own form of government and
to determine the course of their own lives in cooperation with their Arab or
non-Arab neighbors.

For centuries Arabs and Jews have lived in close association, in peace and
amity. There is no reason why it should not continue to be so. When during
the Middle Ages, Jews were suffering the most unspeakable persecutions
throughout the rest of Europe, in Spain under the Moorish occupation they made a
mighty contribution to the advance of civilization.

Today when in a number of countries, the terror against the Jews has reached a
level never known before, the Jews in Palestine have an opportunity, as loyal
members of an Arab state, of contributing their share to a new advance in that
country, and by this mans to assist in winning the people of other lands for
support of the campaign to end Jewish persecution in Europe.

This means finishing forever with the reactionary policy of Zionism. For
Zionism, in so far as the solution of the "Jewish problem" is concerned, has
always been nothing but a harmful reactionary illusion. In actual fact it has
represented and carried through an invasion of Palestine, not in the interest of
the Jews, but of British imperialism.

The Arabs, I am certain, would never have objected to a moderate immigration of
European Jews. The more far-seeing would have welcomed them, realizing the
valuable part they could play in helping forward the development of the country.

But this immigration could only usefully take place on the basis of the full
recognition of Palestine as an Arab state. Therefore, from the earliest stages
of the immigration the Jews ought to have worked with the Arabs for the ending
of the British mandate and for the setting up of an independent legislative
assembly. Instead of following this, the only wise course, the Jews of
Palestine endeavored, under the incitement of the Zionists, to carry through an
occupation of Palestine at the expense of the Arabian people.

What other result could have been expected other than the tragic events recorded
in recent history? No people, unless they were utterly lost and decadent,
would submit without a struggle to the loss of their homeland and to the
wholesale buying up of their land, which threatened to deprive them of their
living and turn them into homeless wanderers. Certainly the Arabs were not
prepared to tolerate it and time and again they demonstrated their hatred
against the administration that was primarily responsible for their bitter
wrongs.

In the report of the Royal Commission we read:

"It has been pointed out that the outbreak of 1933 was not only, or even mainly,
an attack on the Jews, but an attack on the Palestine government. In 1936,
this was still clearer. Jewish lives were taken and Jewish property destroyed,
but the outbreak was chiefly and directly aimed at the government. The word
'disturbance' gives a misleading impression of what happened. It was open
rebellion of the Palestine Arabs assisted by fellow Arabs for other countries
against British mandate rule."

Despicable propaganda has been used in Britain and elsewhere in an effort to
discredit the heroic struggle of the Arab people. Arab men and women valiantly
placed their lives and liberty in jeopardy because they were fighting in a cause
that was just, the cause of national liberation. Yet we were told that it was
all the outcome of "foreign incitement" or that it was the "fanatical" Mufti and
his immediate associates amongst the big Effendi who were using the Arabian
people for some sinister end of their own.. But it does not require "foreign
incitement," or Muftis, to arouse a people threatened as the Arabs were. They
were left no other course but the path of revolt, and all who believe in
freedom, in the right of peoples to self-determination should have been
wholeheartedly with them in their fight.

With great courage they have asserted their right to Palestine and demonstrated
their determination to carry on till this right is recognized and established.
So now, the British imperialists, faced with the impossibility of continuing
with the mandate, make a new and almost unbelievable maneuver in order to retain
their power over this important center in the Near East. In several
discussions in the House of Commons emphasis has been laid on the vital position
of Palestine arising out of the new international situation in the Mediterranean
and the Red Sea. With quite cynical disregard of the Arab people, Mr. Amery,
the diehard imperialist and Conservative leader, told the House of Commons that
in the new situation that had developed, "Palestine was the 'Clapham Junction'
of the air" and must be retained at all costs by the British Empire. (Clapham
Junction is a well-known center in London from which roads and transport branch
out to all parts of
London. -- note by William Gallacher)

The Mandate, the regime that existed hitherto, having failed, it is with this
end in view that partition is now proposed. Whatever is offered to the Arabs
or the Jews, the real power, the real control, remains with the British
imperialists.

But the Arab people will no more submit to partition than to the Mandate. They
will carry on the struggle against the proposed "rape of Palestine" and for full
self-government over the whole of the country. Already much of the best land
has been taken from the Arab peasants and now it is proposed that 225,000 Arabs
on the Jewish side of the "partition" are to be transferred. What a blessed
word -- "transferred." Driven off the land they have owned and cultivated for
generations, they will be "replanted" somewhere, maybe to starve and die.
"Transferred" and "replanted." How is it possible that such barbaric treatment
of a great people (however simple their economy may be) can be contemplated?

At the dawn of capitalism in Great Britain, year after year thousands of men,
women and children were driven off the land, forced to cross the sea to the new
land of the West, never any more to see or cultivate the land they loved so
dearly.

Is this picture to be repeated in Palestine?

Can the people of Britain tolerate such a terrible injustice, which can only be
perpetrated by the prodigal use of armed might? For certainly the Arab people
will never tolerate it. They will fight with every means against this robbery,
against the attempted "rape" of their land, against the attempt to turn it into
a "Clapham Junction of the air" for British imperialism -- and they will be
right to fight.

But what of the Jews throughout the world? What have they to say to this
criminal attempt forcibly to tear a country to pieces and drive its peoples off
the land? Are they still under any illusions about the politics of Zionism or
are they beginning to understand that the reactionary leaders of this movement
are actually betraying the Jewish people?

My own Jewish comrades have always been clear on the reactionary role of
Zionism, but thousands of splendid young Jewish men and women have come under
the influence of the Zionist leaders and have been led to believe that Zionism
was the way of release from the persecutions that have made life a continuous
hell of torture for so many Jews.

But when the Zionists lead them into the camp of British imperialism, when they
identify their interests in Palestine with the interests of Britain and against
the Arab people, then the question arises: Is this policy calculated to bring
relief to the Jewish people who are enduring so much in Germany and Poland?
Will it make their lot easier or more difficult? Obviously the latter will be
the case.

Have the young men and women in the Zionist movement ever discussed the meaning
of the project that Palestine should be given to the Jews and should become "a
dominion of the British Empire"? Ivor Montagu, one of our very best Jewish
comrades, effectively exposes and disposes of the Zionist Congress in the Daily
Worker of August 14. Here is what he says:

"The Zionist Congress in Zurich must make all Jews, proud of their people, blush
with shame.

"They will assert their rights to Palestine. They will obtain their rights.
From whom? The British government.

"The British government, to whom Palestine does not belong, is called on to keep
its promise, which it had no right to make, by forcing the inhabitants, to whom
the country does belong, to give it to the Zionists.

"The Zionists are modern; go-ahead, destiny is on their side; Arabs are
backward, lazy, barbaric, and will be benefited by the invaders. The Zionists
claiming Palestine speak with the accents of Mussolini claiming and empire, or
Hitler, or Japan in China. . . .

""Realists among the Zionists are aware, and say frankly, that their one card is
to play good little combination excuse-policeman for the British Empire. They
are not realist enough to reflect on what happened to the Assyrian, who did the
same thing, when the British Empire had no more use for him.

"Jews who were not Jewish Nazis would know their only 'right' in Palestine is
such that they can negotiate with liberated Arabs and share in equal and
non-exclusive citizenship there with all inhabitants, not discriminating."

Ivor Montagu is right. The only "right" of the Jews in Palestine is to
cooperate with the Arabs in the building up of a prosperous Arab state. If
only they will understand this and act accordingly how much better it will be,
not only for them, but for the Jewish population throughout the world.

For all of us must participate in the struggle to secure for Jewish men and
women in the land of their birth or adoption equal rights to citizenship as any
other citizens. This must apply in Germany, in Poland and in all other
countries. Only in the land of triumphant socialism, the U.S.S.R, has an end
been put both to all kinds of national oppression and to anti-Semitism. The
U.S.S.R. represents a real fraternal alliance of the peoples. The Jews
throughout the world have made a civilization of which they can be rightly
proud. Cooperation of the Gentiles with the Jews must take the place of the
criminal anti-Semitism that is being so vigorously fostered in certain European
countries at the present time.

But the struggle to establish the rights of the Jews in Germany, Poland and
elsewhere cannot be aided if the Jews allow themselves to be used by the British
imperialists for the purpose of depriving the Arabs of their rights. On the
contrary the greatest possible injury will thereby be inflicted on the Jewish
cause.

Therefore, I appeal to all Jewish men and women, as one long associated with
them in the fight against persecutions and slander, to give no support to the
attempt that is being made to carve up Palestine. Palestine is the country of
the Arabs. An independent Arab state guaranteeing full and equal citizenship
to Jewish men and women will do a thousand times more for the Jews throughout
the world than any alliance with British imperialism can ever do.

In unity with the Arabs, establishing a strong democratic legislative assembly,
building up the economic life of the country, and in this the Jews can give an
extraordinary contribution, developing its culture and general well-being -- in
this way Palestine can become a prosperous and happy country and the unity
established there can be the forerunner of a greater unity throughout the world.

No partition of Palestine, but Palestine as an independent Arab state, for this
all honest Jews and all lovers of freedom, man and woman, must fight.