Bi-national Palestine
BI-NATIONAL PALESTINE WE ARE inclined to discount recent alarmist des- patches from Palestine. It is three months since the outbreak of rioting there-too short a time to effect a basis for...
...But during these three months we have seen the emphasis passing from a citation of grievances, Jew against Arab, Arab against Jew, and both against England, to an inventory of the safeguards of peace...
...Even John Haynes Holmes has asked, in his book, Palestine Today and Tomorrow: "Is it impossible to write a constitution in that land which shall create a political balance of power between the two contending interests, which in turn shall give security to both sides, as the American constitution gave security to states small as well as large ?" So far as the Jews are concerned, the events of August ought to have indicated the danger of adopting a more ambitious political policy than this...
...Magnes assents, declaring that if it means the establishment of a "bi-national government, a Palestinian government, in which the word Palestine includes all three religions equally . . . then I am for it...
...and, by implication, it was a confirmation of the already firmly established belief that peace between the Jews and Arabs is more natural than is enmity...
...Philby, every reasonable aspiration of Jew and Arab in Palestine would be met, while Great Britain would be relieved of the necessity of maintaining the Declaration by force alone...
...To this Dr...
...Bi-nationalism would not be an abandonment of any position to which the Jews are entitled to advance...
...Philby, and to the chancelor of the Hebrew University, Dr...
...Such are the statements attributed to the Arab sympathizer, Mr...
...As Maurice Samuel writes, in What Happened in Palestine, the sporadic and limited nature of the "uprising" exposed the falsity of the claim that "the Arabs are opposed to the building of the Jewish homeland...
...Freedom of immigration would be stipulated according to the capacity of the country, and thus, says Mr...
...It is three months since the outbreak of rioting there-too short a time to effect a basis for conciliation-and it is only natural that the country should be in a state of the greatest unrest...
...Magnes's statement in this country it would seem that a considerable number of Jews still look for Jewish nationalism in Palestine...
...Every account of modern Palestine which we have seen stresses the absence of anti-Jewish feeling among the Arabs-is there any good reason why these two peoples should not develop as harmonious and stable a government as the French and English in Canada...
...Therefore it is not enough to ask, as Einstein does in the Manchester Guardian, that the "unprecedented reconstructive effort" of the Jewish colonies be guaranteed from interference by a "small clique of agitators, even if they wear the garb of ministers of the Islamic religion...
...Yet from the criticism which greeted Dr...
...Philby suggests that without abrogating the Balfour Declaration, Palestine might operate under a national government, in which each part of the population would have representation according to its numbers, while the rights of minorities, such as the Jews, would be protected by reserving the power of veto to the British High Commissioner...
...Bi-nationalism, of course, is being preached from a dozen quarters just now...
...Magnes...
...It must be guarded as well from extremists within the ranks of Zion...
...Moreover, it is up to them to justify the trust of the majority of their Arab neighbors, who refused to participate in anti-Jewish demonstrations, and befriended refugees from the scenes of rioting...
Vol. 11 • December 1929 • No. 8
