Kardo Bokani
The intention behind this article is to recollect the plights and predicaments that the Jewish nation suffered through out the history and to evaluate the extent to which the Jewish nation has forgotten their history and elicit no word of protest upon the significant support of Israeli government in oppression of the Kurds by the Turkish state. I will be focusing on the efforts of political Zionism for the establishment Jewish home land in Israel, or a Jewish state. A state that has forgotten about the successive oppression and the massacre of his own people, and has collaborated with a brutal and military state such as Turkey in oppressing and massacring the Kurds, the people who similar to the Jews, have been struggling for the recognition of their distinct identity throughout the history.
According to Hebrew mythology thirty years before the destruction of Troy in 1200 B.C., the Israelite tribes, led by Joshua, conquered the Land of Canaan. The ancient Jewish civilisation was based on patriarchal figures such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the prophet Moses. Moses believed to have codified the “law of Yahweh” into the Bible during the exodus in slavery in Egypt. Yahweh designed Canaan to Abraham as the “Promised Land” which is now known as the Palestine. In 587 B.C the Chaldean II destroyed Jerusalem and deported the Judean to Babylon. From that moment of history the dreams of the Judean was to return to ‘Zion’ or the ‘Land of Israel’. As Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Political Zionism puts it; “The Jews have dreamt this kingly dream all through the long nights of their history. ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ is our old phrase,” Hence the term Zionism entails the Jewish nationalist movement, whose aim was to create a Jewish state in Palestine. There are few types of Zionism but the theme of this paper will be centred on the “Political Zionism”
At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were around 3 million Jews in the world. About four-fifth of them lived in the Eastern Europe including the “Pale of Settlement”, a frontier of the Russian Empire designated in 1794 for the Jewish settlement. The modern Zionism found its roots among Russians Jews who had hoped for assimilating into the Russian society had the chance was given. The French Revolution and the Declaration of Human Rights offered the Jews an opportunity to assimilate into the French society and the majority of the Jews in the Western Europe were opting for assimilation. Modern political Zionism begins with the writing of Moses Hess and has become identified with Theodor Herzl and it differs from the traditional and religious Zionism. Political Zionism emphasise the role of political and diplomatic means and is off secular nature. Herzl tells us that; “I think Jewish question is no more a religious than a social one…. It is a national question, which can only be solved by making it a political world-question to be discussed and settled by the civilised nations of the world in council.”
It has been argued that the Dreyfus event had significant importance on the birth of modern Political Zionism. In 1894, an assimilated Jew, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was found guilty of treason by French Military court and sentenced to degradation and deportation for life. This news shocked the Jews all around the world particularly the assimilated ones. What was significant of this event was the fact that no one would escape the anti-Semitism, even a well-trained military official such as Captain Dreyfus. Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Political Zionism was like Captain Dreyfus; an assimilated Jews, whose life was changed by that event and started to sketch out a solution to the Jewish issue. His first solution was to find a place in the world where he could settle all the Jews in and prepare the ground for the establishment of the Jewish State. Some of the places that he thought of were Argentina and Uganda. He thought Palestine as inappropriate due to its harsh climate.
Prior to Herzl however, there were Zionist organisations such as BILU whose members were the founding father of late Zionist movements. Hibbat Zion (The Love of Zion) was emerged in 1881-1882 and it believed that the immediate step toward migrating to Palestine is not a good option. The groups were led by Leon Pinsker who believed they should acquire territories some where to escape the persecution. In his powerful work known as “Auto-emancipation”, he regarded the Jews as “The ghostlike apparition of a living corpse, a people without unity or organisation, without land or other bonds of unity, no longer alive, yet walking among the living.” He believed that the Jews had to emancipate themselves rather than relying on on-Jews to give them freedom.
What is significant of Pinsker’s words is the fact that there is an absolute similarity between the stateless Kurds and the Jews whose freedom was the main objective of Pinsker. However the Kurds are neither a “ghostlike apparition of living corpse” nor “a people without a land or other bodes of unity”. The Kurds have their own land and have organised and developed themselves through one of the most unique and revolutionary organisations such as the Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK), and the Kurdish nation proved potent in resisting to the oppressions of the occupying powers of Kurdistan. Notwithstanding the Israeli’s cooperation with the Turkish military regime in committing another Holocaust against, not the Jews this time, but against another stateless nation in the region, is totally implausible, unbelievable and objectionable by all the freedom loving people including the Jews. It seems that the Israeli state has totally forgotten about the history of its own people, his own resistance and the Political Zionism sacrifices in liberating the Jews. But the Jewish state should not over look the fact that, as the Kurdish national leader Abdullah Ocalan stated, “Without the Kurds, Israel can not exist on his own”. This is a reality that the Jewish state comes to realise before its too late!
The founding father of Political Zionism, Theodor Herzl concentrated his works on three main directions. First he raised financial support for the establishment of national loan fund. Secondly, he sought to achieve political support and recognition by the world great powers such as Britain. Thirdly he organised all the individuals and the associations which had Zionist viewpoints. In order to establish the World Zionist Organisation, Herzl invited all the delegations of the Jewish community to attend the first Zionist Congress, which was held in Basel in 1897. The main objective of the congress was to establish the home land for the Jewish people in Palestine. It should be noted that in the first congress they did not mention about the state of the Jews. Nonetheless, the most important tools they established were the bank and the Jewish National Fund which its contribution to the creation of Jewish state was off decisively importance. Herzl favoured diplomacy and he sought an official recognition of Jewish right to Palestine. He believed that formal agreement must be reached with the Turkish authorities. Thus he appealed to the Ottoman’s aid in achieving his goals. He was aware that the Ottoman Empire was in economic crisis and he sought to exploit this weakness by offering them economic support. In his visit to Sultan, in 1897 Herzl offered 20 million lire for Palestine, to which Sultan gave his famous response: “please advise him to never mention this. I can’t sell one inch of this country”…
It seems that Turkish current Premier is inspired by Sultan’s phrase and seeks to, un-sell the segments of the Ottoman Empire, sending the “Free Gaza Flotilla” with the aim of liberating Gaza. Israelis should be aware of the political inspiration of Turkish state that has overwhelmingly leaned toward Islamic landscape of re-dominating the region. These evidences shed lights on the claim that the Jewish state has totally forgotten about its own history and has been playing a significant role in Turkish efforts to eradicate the Kurds from the region. The Jewish state should not forget about its history and halt to sponsor the Turkish military regime in the eradication of the Kurdish nation. The history is not prepared to witness another Holocaust! The Jewish state should also remember that the Ottomans passed laws forbidding Jews from purchasing lands in Palestine and they could entre Ottoman territory as the individuals not as a distinct community.
During the First Jewish Aliya, from 1882 to 1903, about twenty-five thousand Jews arrived at Palestine. However it should be noted that the majority of Jews in the first wave (Aliya) were not technically Zionists; they were inspired by religious rather than nationalist motives. From 1904 until First World War second Aliya took place. Few years later Tel Aviv (Hill of Springs) was founded on the purchased land from the Turks. In 1911 the first Jewish hospital was founded in Haifa. The purchase of land and buildings by the Zionist aroused the Arabs who were already there. What is significant and to some extent shed doubts on the Arabs claim over Palestine is that the Arabs, who lived in Palestine prior to the first Jewish Aliya, were not identifying themselves as Palestinian; they had proudly identified themselves as Arabs. Once they saw the persecuted Jews escaping the violent death and returning to their original home land, they started to claim the land they were previously reluctant to call their own. They saw the coming back of the Jews as the European colonialism, threatening the lands that they had for centuries. The Jews were entering Palestine as tourists and visitors, but they remained there and acquired the protection of foreign consuls. As Smiths tells us the Zionists were protected by the capitulation while bringing in wealth lacking to the Arabs.
Sharif Hussein was the official guardian of the holy Mecca and Madina. In February 1914, Sharif Hussein of Mecca sent his son, Abdullah, to Cairo to appeal to British aid against the Turks since the Turks were planning to extend the Hijaz railway to Mecca. At first the British refused but later they agreed to help Hussein and thus they prepared the ground for a relation that lasted throughout the war. The British hoped to inspire the Arabs to rebellion against the Ottomans so that they could divert the Ottomans from threatening the Suez Canal. In July 1914 Hussein exchanged letters with Henry McMahon, the High Commissioner of Cairo. He demanded that the British should recognise the “independence of Arab countries” that included; Palestine, Iraq and the Arabia Peninsula. In return the Sharif would grant the British “preference in all the economic enterprise in the Arab countries”. In response McMahan claimed that the British desired for the independence of Arab countries in the areas where Britain is free to act without jeopardising her ally France.
In 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement was ratified whereby the demarcation of the British and French sphere of influence was made clear; The British would occupy Iraq from Bagdad and France would take the control of Lebanon and Syria. Mark Sykes was in favour of internationalisation of Palestine since the British regarded it as a buffer-zone between French controlled territories and the British-held Egypt. Notwithstanding the British interest in Zionism increased by 1916 since there was revolution in Russia in 1917 and it was likely that the Russians would withdraw from the war, letting the Germans to concentrate their forces on the British and the French. In November 2, 1917 the Balfour Declaration was signed and promised the Jews a national home in Palestine. The Declaration was the result of an intense lobbying by several Zionist leaders, the most prominent of those was Chaim Weizmann, who later became the first Israeli president. Weizmann was highly active in persuading the British for the creation of Jewish home land. He established good relations with high profile politicians in Britain, including Mark Sykes, who supported Zionism. After the Balfour Declaration, the British drove the Turkish forces out of Jerusalem and worked with the Zionists in establishing the Jewish National Home.
The Paris Peace Conference held on 27 February 1919 agreed to grant the Palestine Mandate to Britain and accepted the need to establish the Jewish National Homeland as stated in Balfour Declaration. The Mandate was given substance in White paper known as Churchill memorandum in which the British deny the claim that the West of River Jordan was promised to Sharif Hussein by McMahon. The implication behind all these is that the British government was in favour of the creation of Jewish National Home. The Mandate clearly stated that; “recognition has been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country”. The Mandate also gave recognition to Zionist organisations as the bodies of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine. It recommended facilitating of the Jewish migrations while ensuring the “rights” and the “positions” of the other section of societies. Churchill and the British High Commissioner Samuel however, envisaged the creation of Middle Eastern Federation in which the Jewish National Home to be a member. Samuel declared that the Balfour Declaration didn’t entail that Jewish Government would be formed to rule the Muslims.
In March 1921 however, the Haganah was founded as secret body acting without the consent of British authority. Its aim was to train members and defend the Jewish community as well as their lives. That was natural for all colonised nations to have a military organisation to drive out the occupiers from what they perceived as their own territories. Within that framework, the Jews had a military organisation such as the Haganah which later in 1948 became the Jewish Army. What strikes me here is that the Jewish state has been intricately collaborating with the Turkish Army for the eradication of Kurdish resistance movement spearheaded by Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK). A people who founded Haganah, now seeks to eradicate the PKK, a people who was subjected to Holocaust now sponsoring the Turkish Fascist regime to commit genocide against the Kurds! These evidences too well expose the extent to which the Jewish state has forgotten about its history.
By 1923 a tripartite system of government was established which continued throughout the mandate. At the same year the militant underground organisation known as Betar was founded under the influence of the Vladimir Jabotinsky who subscribed to the Revisionist Zionism. Betar adopted retaliation as its strategy on dealing with Arabs. In 1924 the Fourth Aliya took place and resulted in a significant increase of Jewish residing in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. Jabotinsky believed that the issue was not concerned only with the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine but throughout the world. He was of opinion that the Arabs in the world owned 22 different countries and the Jews with the population of 10 million people had nothing. He opposed to the Peel Commission which published its report in July 1937 in which it declared that the only solution was the partition of Palestine. This scheme was endorsed by the British as well as Weismann and Ben-Gurion but it was opposed by the Arabs. In opposition to that the Arabs revolt spread out and lasted until 1938. Nonetheless the partition was affirmed by the League of Nations in the same year.
In May 1942 the conference of the American Zionists took place in Biltmore Hotel in New York in which the Biltmore Resolution declared that the Jews should form a Commonwealth in Palestine and regulate immigration to the country. In 1947 the United Nations Special Committee in Palestine recommended the end of British Mandate and also recommended the partition of the Palestine into Arabs, Jewish and with international zone for the Holy sites. Weizmann was really active in the US and sought to persuade the President Truman to accept the Jewish state. After the decades of hard works and with the great sacrifices of Jewish people, the Zionists achieved their dreams and on 14May 1948, and the Independent Israel was declared by Ben-Gurion. Notwithstanding, it seem extremely stunning that how the Jewish state has forgotten all about their national struggles and do sponsor the Turkish military regime in oppressing the Kurds. What I want to conclude here with is the famous phrase of Kurdish national leader Ocalan, and do reinstate that; “Without the Kurds, Israel can not exist on his own”.
Kardo Bokani
19/06/2010
Bibliography
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