Middle East Notes: Civil War

From ‘Freedom: Anarchist Fortnightly’, March 20, 1948, London, UK

(By Our Correspondent)

The Palestine Scene

As previously indicated in these columns, civil war in Palestine is now opening up and the rival terrorists are meeting. How can one convey what it means? One can only see vague flashes. An isolated Jewish settlement in the middle of hills from which Arabs come swooping down at night. A poverty-stricken Arab village which could be wiped out at one swoop by a nearby Jewish town and whose houses shiver at every mortar.

The Eastern Jews — more Arab than Jewish — cooped up in the walled, narrow Old City of Jerusalem surrounded by hostile neighbours who once were friends. The mixed slum area between Arab Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv which has become the “Flanders” of the war. The Westernised Arab men who have caused the biggest boom in the tarboosh industry by rushing to buy the red “fez” (tarboosh) with their Western clothes . . . and the Westernised Arab girls who are prepared to face death rather than go back to the feudal woman’s dress which cannot be limited to head-gear alone.

The isolated communities (Armenians, Coptics, Greeks, etc.) who are neutral in a situation that forbids neutrality. And the forgotten British soldier, called-up on the pretext of an “emergency” arising from the defeat of Germany, who is sent to the warring country against his will and finds himself in the midst of a situation of which he knows nothing, and is court-martialled for negligence because somebody who is interested in what goes on there steals his rifle; or suffers as a “reprisal” because of the activities of a group of would-be Lawrences of Arabia who have retired from the police and Army and look forward to being Smith Beys or a Jones Pashas.

If there are any encouraging signs, it is only that, in spite of everything, there are one or two people with the moral and physical courage to swim against the stream. And “one or two” is literal. The fact that here and there some people of different nationalities still speak to each other is the only encouraging sign for the future.

Arab Reaction

The arrival of Fawzi Kawukji will give a tremendous impetus to the Arab reactionaries, as he represents the extreme Right in the Arab camp. The liberal trend is represented by Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, secretary-general of the Arab League, but the fact that the Arab League has promised so much and done nothing bar raise collections has lowered his stock considerably.

It is significant that Kawukji’ s arrival strengthening the Arab Right comes at a time when the Haganah’s united front with Irgun strengthens the Jewish Right. The inevitable result of civil war. Fawzi Kawukji will how ever increase the dissent among Arab leaders — King Abdullah of Transjordan distrusts him and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia has sworn to behead him with his own uncalloused hands.

The Mufti of Jerusalem, who shares with Fawzi bey Kawukji the leadership of Palestine Arabs, is now dominant in Arab counsels and is sending volunteers from Syria. (This is the only Arab country which has sent practical aid to the Palestine Arabs and it is said that it is partly motivated by a desire of the Christian Arab rulers of Syria to get rid of as many Moslem Arab Syrians as they can.)

Simultaneously com es a move by the Mufti (a Husseini) to settle his scores with the Hashashibi family, the only dominant family to dispute his leadership (the feud between them goes back years). It is said the Hashashibis would prefer the Jews to the Husseinis, and similarly, that Ibn Saud would prefer the Jews to Fawzi Kawukji. Possibly a “Munich settlement” may come about at top level — who can tell? — but the Right Wing is against it and their influence is the most telling now.

A grim joke said — apropos the fact that the Sternists tried to bump off the Jewish Mayor of Tel Aviv about the same time as Arab terrorists killed the Arab labour leader of Jaffa — that in view of the appeal for economy in transport, the rival gangs were exchanging blacklists and working street by street on a mutual basis. This, of course, is absurd as they both have entirely different reasons for doing the same thing . . .

★

One often feels tempted to think there might be something in the criticism of Anarchists that we are “tolerant of intolerance” and prepared to allow reactionary groups to carry on who will one day destroy us. But an interesting confirmation that “freedom is the best security” came my way recently.

It might fairly be claimed that the Irgun Zvai Leumi [IZL] and the Sternists were preparing to take control of the Jewish State should this emerge victorious from a civil war. As the earliest Anarchist criticisms of Zionism said — a new nationalism could only create a State and this would become more reactionary, as witness the decline of Italian nationalism into fascism. This, however, is answered in Palestine by a fair query: How do you know the terrorists are fascists?

The general impression among the Jewish community is that they are over-zealous Zionists; if they are condemned, it is not for their views, but for their violence. Haganah has at the moment of writing (10/3/48) made a pact with the Irgun with the sole proviso that it ceases its terrorist attacks on the British, but Haganah (largely social democratic) makes no proviso as to the views and policy of the Irgun and it is expressly under stood that Irgun will be able to remain a separate entity so that after the war it can emerge as a political party with its own influence.

However, it can be clearly seen in England that the I.Z.L. and the Sternists are fascist in nature and aim, quite apart from the use of violence, which is used by all political groupings other than pacifists on one occasion or another. Accordingly there is little support or tolerance for them among the Jewish community. The reason for this is solely due to the difference in the British Government’s policy; in Palestine the terrorists are illegal and cannot state their views openly, in England they can, and don’t have to be exposed, because they expose themselves.

Their organ The Legionaire (Voice of the Hebrew Legion) gives their points of view. I quote from its issue of 13/2/48. From start to finish it preaches unadulterated racial hatred in a tone reminiscent more of the Rosenberg publications in English which the Nazis sent out from Munich before World War II than of half-baked editions of its local fascist counterparts.

Although it deplores (inaccurately) that “this land is in the happy position of being the only one where it is legal to be anti-Semitic”, it may be said that The Legioniaire ought to be thankful for that fact because any laws against the propagation of racial hatred would knock it right on the head. Not only is it against the English and, of course, the Arabs (“Islam is the same murder religion wherever it appears” is its passing contribution to the Punjab question), but I cannot see how anyone can deny that The Legionaire is anti-Semitic.

It makes strong attacks on a certain “thirty dumb Jews, the wonder of the world” not because they are Labour M.P.’s [Members of Parliament] but because they are Jews also!

“Unser [our] socialist Jews have thin skins and tender consciences. Not about us, Hebrews.”

It appears that a new racial theory has been invented by them.

“The difference between Hebrew and Jew grows clear every day.”

Accordingly they attack the Jews a la Hitler in defence of “the Hebrews”! This enables one to understand the fact of compliance with pogroms in Eastern Europe. Irgun itself (as quoted in the same issue) says “the Soviet Union is among the most important of our friends”. Its general attitude is pro-Stalin. Certainly if an artificial division is made between the Jews suffering in Stalin-controlled territory and “ Hebrews” (i.e. Jewish nationalists not necessarily in Palestine, as far as one can tell from the paper in question), the Hebrew Legion and hence the Irgun and Sternists may be quite logical in their fascism.

The persecution of Jews behind Stalin’s Iron Curtain may lead to more “Hebrews” via Cyprus and the D.P. [Displaced Persons] camps. They are certainly no more illogical than the Jewish proletarians in Mile End who kept out Mosley’s marchers during Hitler’s pogroms and elected Piratin to Westminster during Stalin’s pogroms.