The Palestinian Quest

Eric Rouleau

From Foreign Affairs, January 1975

Summary:  In an editorial published in Paris the day after Robert Kennedy's assassination by Sirhan Sirhan, Le Monde wrote that this "criminal gesture by a Palestinian nationalist on this 5th of June 1968-anniversary of the Six-Day War-takes on a symbolic value. . . . Never have despair and hatred been so intense in a people who consider themselves deprived of their homeland."

Eric Rouleau is the chief Middle East correspondent and editorialist of Le Monde in Paris.

In an editorial published in Paris the day after Robert Kennedy's assassination by Sirhan Sirhan, Le Monde wrote that this "criminal gesture by a Palestinian nationalist on this 5th of June 1968-anniversary of the Six-Day War-takes on a symbolic value. . . . Never have despair and hatred been so intense in a people who consider themselves deprived of their homeland."

This appraisal, which would today appear both just and commonplace, provoked an explosion of indignation at the time. Many readers, although not at all implicated in the Israeli-Arab conflict, wrote to the editors of the paper to protest the use of the word "Palestinian." Where was Palestine? Had it ever existed? A Paris Zionist weekly accused Le Monde of having resorted to expressions whose only objective was to "justify a murder." A number of editorials in the Israeli press, and the ambassador of the Jewish state in Paris in a letter to Le Monde, pointed out that "this Arab from Jerusalem" was not even a refugee, but only an "emigrant." In an unprecedented gesture, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs at that time, Abba Eban, circulated an official statement about the "incident" in which he stated: "This editorial belongs to the most shocking literature of incitement. . . . There are attempts in certain quarters to praise the murder and the murderer, and to defend bloodshed as a means of expressing a political opinion. . . ." And yet the editorial in Le Monde had not only called the assassination a "criminal gesture" but had condemned the Palestinians' "thirst for revenge."

These reactions illustrate very well the sensitivity of a certain segment of public opinion less than seven years ago when confronted with the Palestinian question. The anger it generated was understandable: many people could not conceive that one could speak of the aspirations or nationalist feelings-justified or not-of a people that did not exist, unless one was inspired by dark ulterior motives of a political nature. Seven months before Robert Kennedy's assassination, the United Nations Security Council had unanimously adopted a resolution (No. 242, of November 22, 1967), recommending "a just settlement of the refugee problem" without specifying the national identity of the refugees.

Two years later, Mrs. Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister, expressed a belief that was undoubtedly widespread in the Middle East (and which persists today, but to a lesser degree) when she maintained that the Palestinian people did not exist, and recalled with irony that formerly the Palestinians considered themselves "southern Syrians." Mrs. Meir was not breaking new ground. Theodor Herzl before her was convinced that Palestine was "a land without people for a people without a land" (the Jews).

II

The founder of political Zionism and the former Prime Minister of Israel were, of course, both wrong. At the beginning of this century, hundreds of thousands of Arabs lived in the territory which was to be entrusted to the British mandate in 1920 under the name of Palestine.1 Rooted in that country since before the Moslem conquest in the seventh century A.D., they pursued lucrative activities and often prospered. Like a number of other Arab peoples living under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire, they aspired to emancipation. It is true that many of them hoped to become citizens of a great independent Arab state stretching all the way to Syria, and that the germ of specifically Palestinian nationalism did not develop until after World War I, thanks to their twofold struggle against the British occupiers and the Jewish settlers who were fleeing persecution in Europe. For example, it is significant that the newspaper Filastin (Palestine), which appeared until 1967, was founded in 1911. The case of Palestinian nationalism is not exceptional. As has happened in Africa recently and in Europe and South America in the past, arbitrarily drawn frontiers have contributed to the formation of new nations.

Palestinian nationalism, although strongly tinged with pan-Arabism, began to manifest itself at the end of the last century. In December 1920, the third convention of the representatives of Palestine took place in Damascus, condemned the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 (which had promised the Jews a "national home") and protested Jewish immigration into Palestine. On the same occasion, they declared themselves in favor of independence and of the creation of a government responsible to a parliament elected by universal suffrage. Ever since, united behind these principles, the Palestinians have ceaselessly fought-peacefully or violently-for the territorial integrity and national independence of their country. The sacrifices they have made prove not only the existence but also the virulence of Palestinian nationalism: during the armed uprising which lasted from 1936 to 1939-to give only one example-3,000 Palestinians were killed, 110 agitators were executed, and nearly 6,000 were interned. On the other side, the Jewish settlement mourned 329 dead and 867 wounded during the same period; the losses of the English forces in charge of the repression were 135 dead and 386 wounded.

Since its inception, the Zionist movement has been divided about the attitude it should adopt with regard to the indigenous population of Palestine. While the majority of its leaders deny the very existence of the Palestinians, some have courageously preached recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian people. These latter Zionists are not only recruited from the left wing of the movement. Marxists, humanists, or just realists, they try to favor a compromise between the two peoples fighting for possession of the same country.

It is curious that David Ben-Gurion-who, when he came to power, did not exactly sympathize with the Arabs, to say the least-should have been one of the first partisans of the Palestinians' right to self-determination. The following are extracts from a lecture he gave in Berlin in 1931.2 "The right to self-determination is a universal principle. We have always and everywhere been among the most fervent defenders of this principle. We are entirely for the right to self-determination of all peoples, of all individuals, of all groups, and it follows that the Arab in Palestine has the right to self-determination. This right is not limited, and cannot be qualified by our own interests. . . . It is possible that the realization of the aspirations [of the Palestinian Arabs] will create serious difficulties for us but this is not a reason to deny their rights. . . ."

Despite the generosity of Ben-Gurion's stand, it was not entirely lacking in naïveté, feigned or not. Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders of the time claimed that they were convinced that the aspirations of the Palestinians were not irreconcilable with those of the Jewish people. However, the Zionists' objectives ran directly counter to those of their Arab adversaries, who were against the continuance of the British mandate and were seeking to found an independent Palestinian state. In addition, the Arabs opposed the mass immigration of Jews and refused to grant the descendants of the Hebrews any national rights whatsoever. These descendants constituted a minority until the formation of the state of Israel in 1948, and besides, the majority of its members were emigrants, principally from Russia, Poland, and Germany.