Note
Two decades before the founding of the State of Israel, Camillo Berneri warned against the danger of bloodshed in Palestine because the Zionists wanted to become the new rulers of that land. For Berneri, Zionism is not only as a smokescreen for British imperialist policy but also a nationalist-hegemonic threat to peaceful coexistence between the new colonisers and the long-standing inhabitants of Palestine. What is instead needed is a situation of full tolerance towards the Jews in Europe, because only in this way the problem of Zionism can be truly solved.
Source: Vogliamo! Monthly magazine of social, historical and literary culture, Biasca-Annemasse-Lugano, year I, no. 4, November 1929
Let us leave the ‘Wailing Wall’ out of the way. It is merely the backdrop to the picture. Symbolically, it can be considered the centre of the tragedy, but historically it is not. Every Friday for ten years, Jews have been free to go to Solomon's Wall, which juridically belongs to the Arabs, to mourn the despair and misfortunes of their race. Arab fury has never raged against the Orthodox Jewish element. Arabs are tolerant, good Muslims in religion. Their “fanaticism” can be explained by demographic data rather than historical reminiscences and psychological amateurism. The Arab revolt was, by circumstance, anti-Jewish; by nature, simply xenophobic.
I have before me two interviews: one with Dr. Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organisation, and the other with Amein Hussein, religious leader of the Arabs of Palestine. The former declares it necessary that the Arabs understand that England has no intention of changing its policy of protecting Zionism, and that it is necessary to facilitate Jewish immigration as much as possible. The second reaffirms that the current government of Palestine [under British mandate] is opposed to the Arabs in its constitution and policies; he calls for the adoption of a democratic form of government in which all the inhabitants of Palestine are represented proportionally, and for the abandonment of British policy in favour of the development of a “Jewish national centre”, especially with regard to immigration.
Two clearly opposing positions. A contrast that is difficult to resolve. Which side is right? It is the Arabs. Sentimentality is out of place. If the world press has reported on Jewish victims, it has also depicted the horrific scenes of the massacres of defenceless Zionist settlers; if there is a just tradition of pity for the Jews who were victims of absurd and unjust laws and massacred in pogroms; if the Zionist effort is admirable, all this is counterbalanced by the weight of Arab victims, by the fact that Zionism serves as a smokescreen for British imperialist policy and the regime of inequality that prevails in Palestine.
The Jews declared themselves certain that they would be the future rulers of Palestine. The Arabs saw hundreds of Jews disembarking from every steamship arriving in Jaffa and Haifa, they saw the Jews occupying the most favourable areas of their territory, they saw lands made fertile by Arab farmers becoming the property of Jews, they saw most of the expenditure on public works going to benefit the Zionist community, they witnessed the huge profits made from the resale of land bought for very little money, and they were denied the convening of the Palestinian parliament.
Before the European war [the First World War], there were 43 Zionist agricultural colonies, with approximately 13,000 inhabitants. With the British occupation of Palestine (December 1917), Lord Balfour became the protector of Zionism. This protection led to large-scale Jewish immigration. In 1919, there were 57,000 Jews in Palestine; from that year to 1927, their number increased by 90,200. Between 1922 and 1927, a total of 77,792 immigrants arrived. Immigration peaked in 1925 with 35,801 individuals. After 1925, immigration declined rapidly, so much so that in 1927 the contingent was 2,788 individuals.
At the same time, there was an exodus that rose to over 7,500 individuals after 1925. What do these figures mean? They mean this: after the initial rush towards the promised land, a crisis ensued due to the environment's inability to absorb immigration quickly enough. If we take into account the prevailing nature of the soil and the population density (38 inhabitants per km²), as well as the ratio of the Arab population (80%) to the Jewish population (19%), the economic contrast mentioned above becomes very clear.
But demographics are not the main issue. What worries people is the nature of Jewish immigration, which is economically selective and technically capital-intensive. The Immigration Ordinance of 1925 stipulates that Jewish immigrants must have an annual income of at least £60 or a capital of at least £250. Jewish immigration is therefore almost entirely composed of wealthy individuals. In addition, many of the Jewish settlers are technically educated (engineers, agricultural experts, science professors, etc.). The Arabs are therefore unable to compete because of administrative inequality in favour of the Jews, Jewish hoarding of the best land, and the combination of capital and technical expertise that characterises Zionist colonisation.
The solution cannot be that advocated by the leader of Zionism, but rather that advocated by the leader of the Muslims of Palestine. However, England has in Palestine a base for expansion into Asia Minor and will not renounce its policy of protecting Zionism. On the other hand, millions of Muslims live in British-controlled territories in Asia and Africa, and this will have to be taken into account in the not too distant future; all the more so in Iraq, Transjordan and Syria, where Muslim discontent is far from being appeased.
The problem of Zionism must also be resolved in Europe, as a problem of tolerance towards Jews. The fact that in 1925, 50.5 per cent of Jewish immigrants to Palestine came from Poland is enough to show that the idea of reconstituting the Jewish nation grew and developed on the basis of suffering, fear and inferiority, which made and still makes Jews a rejected race in some countries.
Solomon's wall was the altar of a scattered and oppressed people. The Zionists wanted to turn it into a throne. But above that worn wall stands the mosque of Amar in all its beautiful grandeur. Behind Rome, the destroyer and persecutor, the Arab Muslim has advanced.
Have the Jews found in England an ally that can disperse the people of Mohammed? The problem of Palestine is this: either the Arabs or the Jews. The land is too small to be populated by both, living together in peace and freedom. The Zionists who want to open Palestine to unlimited Jewish immigration can only want the Arab diaspora. But the people of Judah were a complex of tribes of believers. It was religion that constituted the nation. The Arab people of Palestine are a fraction of the Islamic world. And Islam is not dispersed, because it has many vital centres and a sphere of life that encompasses much of the world.
If the Zionists fail to see the problem clearly, they will find themselves driven out of Palestine. The exodus of settlers from the bloodstained Jewish oases should serve as a warning. Unfortunately, London is calling for exemplary punishment, and new blood will soak the soil and sands of Palestine. With this sowing of hatred, the fruits of Zionist colonisation can only be bitter.