Sunday, September 13, 2009

Jabotinsky Quotation Shown To Be A Lie

I found this:

Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his last work, The Jewish War Front, (1940) wrote of his plans for the Palestinian people:

Since we have this great moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of Arabs, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay. Herr Hitler has recently been enhancing the popularity of population transfer

here. And here.

And I tracked it down to page 64 in this book: The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman and it is sourced at Leni Brenner's book, p. 107. I found my copy of his The Iron Wall and he claims that the passage, with a lot of ... meaning skips and jumps appears somewhere in pages 220-222.

Here it is as it appears in Brenner, in the chapter on Jabotinsky's last year (look for footnote 61):
whether the Arabs would find all this a sufficient inducement to remain in a Jewish country is another question. Even if they did not, the author would refuse to see a tragedy or a disaster in their willingness to emigrate. The Palestine Royal Commission did not shrink from the suggestion. Courage is infectious. Since we have this great moral authority for calmly envisioning the exodus of 350,000 Arabs... we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay.., it would even be undesirable from many points of view; but ... the prospect can be discussed without any pretence of concern ... Herr Hitler, detested as he is, has recently been enhancing its (population transfer) popularity ... his critics ... disapprove of ... removing Germans from the Trentino and the Balticum and planting them in fields and houses robbed from the Poles: but it is the robbing of the Poles, not the moving of the Germans, which really elicits the censure. One cannot help feeling that if only Germans ... Italians and Balts ... were concerned, the operation might in the end prove not so bad ... the idea of redistributing minorities en masse is becoming popular among “the best people”.
Okay, let's fill in those empty spaces marked by "..." and see if Brenner has altered Jabotinsky's intent and context.

1. the exodus of 350,000 Arabs from one corner of Palestine, we need

2. with dismay. The writer [that is, Jabotinsky], as he has already said, cannot see any necessity for this [Arab] exodus: it would even be undesirable

3. but if it should appear that the Arabs would prefer to migrate, the prospect can be discussed

4. of concern. Since 1923, when within a few months at least 700,000 Greeks were moved in Macedonia, and 350,000 Turks to Thrace and Anatolia, the idea of such migration has been familiar and almost popular. Herr Hitler, detested as he is,

5. popularity. Of course, his critics very strongly disapprove of his policy in removing Germans

6. that if only Germans, on the one hand, and Italians and Balts on the other were concerned

7. not so bad for their common welfare. When Mr. Roosevelt forsees the existence of 20 million potential refugees after the war, he is doubtless considering that the position of all minorities may have becme untenable in many countries, so that some radical solution may have to be found. Nuistania, which, as we know, is situated between Andivia and Hedulia, and populated by a potpurri of both races, has a majority of Andivians, so in 1918 it was adjduged to Andivia. [and here I myself have to place an "..." and jump a few line to] but in the case of nationalities, the medicine simply does not work except as an irritant; and the alternative, minority rule, would be still worse. One radical remedy would be the Graeco-Turkish precedent of 1923. The writer frankly doubts whether that would be feasible; at all events, other solutions - which cannot be examined here - might be given a trial. But theoretically the idea of redistributing minorities en masse is becoming more popular among 'the best people', and there is no longer any taboo on the discussion fo the subject.

Now, what elese did the Trotskyite Brenner leave out?

True, Jabotinsky discusses Arab emigration but he then goes on to point out that the Jews have no ambition, as is the case in other poly-ethnical areas, to dominate over anyone. What the Jews do have, though, is "the tragic necessity that these immigrants must find a home...the cause is genuine hunger, the nostalgic passion of people who have nowhere else where they can make a home for themselves" as a result of Hitler's policies. And he continues:

"Should the Arabs prefer to migrate, the very fact that they can do so would prove that they, on the contrary, have a 'somewhere else' where they can build a new home...But this is an aside; it has nothing to do with war aims. Palestine, astride the Jordan, has room enough for the million of Arabs, room for another million of their eventual progeny, for several million Jews, and for peace; for so much peace that there would then be peace also in Europe."

I think any person would realize that Brenner and all those who followed him are misconstruing what Jabotinsky wrote and thought.

In short, a lie.

2 comments:

yolanda G said...

send your excellent analysis to Leni Brenner on all sites that he bloggs for making RIGHT what he LEFT out

YMedad said...

Help me, you do it too