Transcript Palestinian Nationalism and Zionism in International Context

IAFS/JWST 3650
Palestinian Nationalism
and Zionism
in International Context
Outline
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Palestine, pan-Islam, and Indian nationalism
1936 Arab Uprising
1937 Peel partition plan and challenges
Zionists and Gandhi
1930s: Pan-Islamic Connections
• 1931 pan-Islamic
Congress in
Jerusalem: “epochmaking” (Antonius)
• Mufti as polarizing
force
• Call for more Indian
Muslim reps
George Antonius
Gandhi and Palestinian
Nationalism
• Akram Zu‘aytir’s
adoption of
Gandhian methods
• 1930: Gandhi’s Salt
March
• Zu‘aytir’s attempted
march across
Palestine
Gandhi on Salt March
Gandhi as
Time’s
Man of the
Year (1931)
The Mufti’s Trip to India
• 1933: Mufti to India for
fundraising
• Government of India
concerns
– Hajj Amin
“spread[ing]
propaganda for
Palestine Arab case”
Hajj Amin
The Mufti’s Trip to India
• Trip a financial disappointment, “moral”
success?
– Palestine Police report: “Indian Moslems
have shown increased sympathy . . . And
this is what is required to bring pressure on
the British Government.”
1936 Arab Revolt
• Strikes, violence, wide popular support
• Viceroy’s attention to Indian Muslim
interest in revolt
• August 1936: British
declaration of martial
law in Palestine,
decision to
send troops
Peel Commission Proposal
• 1937: Peel Commission
—recognition that
Britain’s WWI
promises
were
incompatible
—recommendation
that Britain partition
Palestine into Arab
state and Jewish state
Peel Plan
Challenges to Peel Plan
• 1938: Woodhead Commission (aka
Technical/Partition/Re-Peel Commission)
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—Peel partition plan impracticable
Challenges to Peel Plan
• 1938: British rejection of Palestine
partition
• 1939: PM Neville Chamberlain: “if we
must offend one side, let us offend the
Jews rather than the Arabs.”
1939 White Paper
• Limitations on Jewish immigration to
Palestine
—75,000 over the next five years
• Zionist vow to “fight the war as if there
were no White Paper, and to fight the
White Paper as if there were no war.”
Zionist Contacts with Gandhi
• Efforts to win Gandhi’s
support for Jewish state
in Palestine
• Gandhi’s international
influence
• Zionist efforts
unsuccessful
Gandhi and
Hermann Kallenbach in 1937
Zionist Contacts with Gandhi
• Disappointment at advice to use non-violence vs
Nazis
—Gandhi: “if the Jewish mind could be prepared
for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have
imagined could be turned into a day of
thanksgiving and joy”
—Judah Magnes: Violence against Jews “makes not
even a ripple on the surface of German life. . . .
Contrast this with one of your fasts, or with your
salt march to the sea, or a visit to the Viceroy,
when the whole world is permitted to hang upon
your words and be witness to your acts.”
Zionist Contacts with Gandhi
• 1939 meetings
• Zionist identity: European or “Eastern”?
– Early alignment with British empire
– 1930s shift: Jews as “Eastern people”
• Zionist distrust of advice to practice nonviolence
Gandhi’s Advice to European Jewry
• 1946: “The Jews should have thrown
themselves from cliffs.”