Ghandi on Palestine

The discussion about the Palestine Israel conflict
has been concentrating on the aftermath of a disastrous
decision by the West to change the course of history.
The Zionist propaganda machine was successful in
steering the discussion away from the root of the problem.

In a recent article in the Hamilton Spectator, the author
asked: "where is the Arab Ghandi?" Here is Ghandi's
opinion on what was happening in Palestine in 1938.

Ghandi on Palestine

My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them
intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long
companions. Through these friends I came to learn much
of their age-long persecution. They have been the
untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between
their treatment by Christians and the treatment of
untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious
sanction has been invoked in both cases for the
justification of the inhuman treatment meted out
to them. Apart from the friendships, therefore,
there is the more common universal reason for
my sympathy for the Jews.

But my sympathy does not blind me to the
requirements of justice. The cry for the national
home for the Jews does not make much appeal
to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible
and the tenacity with which the Jews have
hankered after return to Palestine. Why
should they not, like other peoples of the earth,
make that country their home where they are
born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense
that England belongs to the English or France to
the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose
the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in
Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral
code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction
but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime
against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so
that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly
or wholly as their national home.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just
treatment of the Jews wherever they are born
and bred. The Jews born in France are French in
precisely the same sense that Christians born in
France are French. If the Jews have no home but
Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced
to leave the other parts of the world in which
they are settled? Or do they want a double home
where they can remain at will? This cry for the
national home affords a colourable justification
for the German expulsion of the Jews.

I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they
had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what
they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable
encroachment upon their country. But according
to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing
can be said against the Arab resistance in the face
of overwhelming odds.

Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove
their title by choosing the way of non-violence for
vindicating their position on earth. Every country
is their home including Palestine not by aggre-ssion
but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a
book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization
by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have
done to enrich the world’s literature, art, music, drama,
science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the
Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West,
to be despised or patronized. He can command the
attention and respect of the world by being man, the
chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is
fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They
can add to their many contributions the surpassing
contribution of non-violent action.

SEGAON, November 20, 1938
Harijan, 26-11-1938
(Vol. 74, pp. 239-242)