Editing Zionism (section)

=== The Peel Commission partition proposal ===
[[File:PeelMap.png|thumb|right|Provisional frontiers of the Palestine partition from the Peel Commission]]
In response to the revolt the British appointed in 1937 a [[Peel Commission|commission of inquiry]] that eventually recommended the partition of the land. The proposal included creating a small Jewish state occupying 17 percent of Mandatory Palestine's territory,{{sfn|Khalidi|2006|p=45}} while Jerusalem and a corridor to the sea would remain under British control, and the remaining 75 percent of the territory would form a Palestinian state connected to Transjordan under King Abdullah's rule.<ref>{{Cite news |date=February 1, 2024 |title=The Road to 1948, and the Roots of a Perpetual Conflict |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/01/magazine/israel-founding-palestinian-conflict.html |access-date=January 7, 2025 |work=[[The New York Times]] |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250207025354/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/01/magazine/israel-founding-palestinian-conflict.html |archive-date=February 7, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Morris |first=Benny |author-link=Benny Morris |date=April 3, 2020 |title=The War on History |url=https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/7210/the-war-on-history/ |access-date=January 7, 2025 |website=Jewish Review of Books |language=en-us |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241229114844/https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/7210/the-war-on-history/ |archive-date=December 29, 2024}}</ref> At this point, Jews owned 5.6% of the land in Palestine; the land allocated to the Jewish state would contain 40 percent of the country's fertile land.{{sfn|Roy|2016|p=33}}
The commission also proposed a [[population transfer]] of the Palestinian Arabs from the areas designated for the Jewish state, based on the precedent of the [[Population exchange between Greece and Turkey|1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robson |first=Laura |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c0InDgAAQBAJ |title=States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East |publisher=University of California Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-520-29215-4 |pages=115–116 |language=en |quote=The members cited the Greek-Turkish exchange as a model for population exchange: "The courage of the Greek and Turkish statesmen has been justified by the result. Before the operation the Greek and Turkish minorities had been a constant irritant. Now Greco-Turkish relations are friendlier than they have ever been before."}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Katz |first=Yossi |year=1992 |title=Transfer of population as a solution to international disputes: Population exchanges between Greece and Turkey as a model for plans to solve the Jewish-Arab dispute in Palestine during the 1930s |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/096262989290019P |journal=Political Geography |volume=11 |issue=1 |page=59 |doi=10.1016/0962-6298(92)90019-P |pmid=12343537 |issn=0962-6298 |quote=The Commission, however, believed that a secure peace could not be achieved solely by partition and the establishment of a boundary between the two countries. In its opinion, the attainment of peace would necessitate the implementation of population exchanges and land transfers between the Jewish and Arab states on the model of the Greco-Turkish precedent}}</ref> For Ben-Gurion, the transfer proposal was the most appealing recommendation put forward by the commission.{{sfn|Ben-Ami|2007|p=25}} Indeed, this sentiment was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population.<ref>{{harvnb|Flapan|1979|p=261}}: "Ben-Gurion declared unequivocally that sovereignty of the Jewish state, especially in matters of immigration and transfer of Arabs, were the two conditions sine qua non for his agreement to partition."</ref>

The Zionist leadership viewed the mass transfer of the Arabs as morally permissible, but were unsure of its political effectiveness.<ref>{{harvnb|Gorny|1987}}: "In any event, the idea of a mass transfer did not strike them as morally deplorable at any time, and their hesitations related only to its political effectiveness."</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2024}} Much of the Zionist leadership spoke in strong support of the transfer plan, asserting that there is nothing immoral about it.{{efn|Various leaders spoke strongly in favor of transfer. Ussishkin said, "We cannot start the Jewish state with ... half the population being Arab ... Such a state cannot survive even half an hour." There was nothing immoral about transferring sixty thousand Arab families: "It is most moral.... I am ready to come and defend ... it before the Almighty." Ruppin said: "I do not believe in the transfer of individuals. I believe in the transfer of entire villages." Berl Katznelson, coleader with Ben-Gurion of Mapai, said the transfer would have to be by agreement with Britain and the Arab states: "But the principle should be that there must be a large agreed transfer." Ben-Gurion summed up: "With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] .... I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it."{{sfn|Morris|1999|p=144}}}} Within the Zionist movement, two perspectives developed with respect to the partition proposal; the first was a complete rejection of partition, the second was acceptance of the idea of partition on the basis that it would eventually allow for expansion to all territories within "the boundaries of Zionist aspirations.".{{sfn|Chomsky|1999|loc="The Boundaries of Zionist Aspirations"}} It was the right wing of the Zionist movement that put forward the main arguments against transfer, with Jabotinsky strongly objecting it on moral grounds,<ref>{{harvnb|Rubin|2019|p=12}}: "...Jabotinsky also rejected the [partition] plan on moral grounds, fiercely opposing the idea of transferring the Arab population from Palestine. Jabotinsky underscored this point in several letters and speeches from 1937, and expanded on it in an article published in the Revisionist Zionist publication Hayarden...<br />Jabotinsky could not have been more clear about his opposition to transferring a single Arab from Palestine. He also argued that the Peel Commission drew the wrong lesson from the Greek–Turkish case. It was not a 'great precedent', as the commission noted in its report, but a tragedy that involved the expulsion of one million Greeks from Turkey."</ref> and others mainly focusing on its impracticality.{{sfn|Flapan|1979|p=264}} However, in his last book "The Jewish War Front" published in 1940, after the outbreak of WWII, Jabotinsky no longer ruled out the possibility of voluntary population transfer, though he still didn't view it as a necessary solution.<ref>{{harvnb|Rubin|2019|p=15}}: "...in early 1940...Jabotinsky for the first time publicly proposed expelling Arabs from Palestine, even as he still noted that population transfers was by no means a necessary solution and repeated his promise for minority rights in the future Jewish state."</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Schechtman|1956|p=}}:{{pn|date=March 2025}} "In his last book... he fully endorsed the idea of a voluntary Arab transfer from Palestine, though still insisting that it was not mandatory since, objectively, "Palestine, astride the Jordan, has room for the million of Arabs, room for another million of their eventual progeny, for several million Jews, and for peace.""</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Shilon|2021}}: "...in his last book, The Jewish War Front, Jabotinsky did not rule out the possibility of population transfer—that is, expulsion of Arabs. The book was published in 1940, shortly before his death, and was written in the gloomy context of World War II:<br />'I see no need for this exodus, and it would be undesirable from many perspectives. But if it becomes clear that the Arabs prefer to emigrate, this may be discussed without a trace of sorrow in the heart.'"</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Śegev |first=Tom |title=One Palestine, complete: Jews and Arabs under the British mandate |last2=Śegev |first2=Tom |date=2001 |publisher=Holt |isbn=978-0-8050-6587-9 |edition=Owl Books |series= |location=New York |page=406-407}}</ref> Some leaders, such as Ruppin, [[Leo Motzkin|Motzkin]], and writers such as [[Israel Zangwill]], also referred to transfer as a "voluntary" action that would include some form of compensation.{{sfn|Morris|2009|pp=349–360}} However, "Palestine's Arabs did not wish to evacuate the land of their ancestors... The matter raised ethical questions that troubled the Yishuv".{{sfn|Morris|2001|p=140}} The revolt was inflamed by the partition proposal and continued until 1939 when it was forcefully suppressed by the British.{{sfn|Khalidi|2020|loc=Chapter 1}}

Later, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the right-wing Zionist leader, drew inspiration from the Nazi demographic policies that resulted in the expulsion of 1.5 million Poles and Jews, in whose place Germans resettled.{{sfn|Finkelstein|2016}} In Jabotinsky's assessment:
<blockquote>The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has almost become fond of them. Hitler{{--}}as odious as he is to us{{--}}has given this idea a good name in the world.{{sfn|Finkelstein|2016}}</blockquote>



By the time of the [[1936 Arab revolt]], almost all groups within the Zionist movement wanted a Jewish state in Palestine, "whether they declared their intent or preferred to camouflage it, whether or not they perceived it as a political instrument, whether they saw sovereign independence as the prime aim, or accorded priority to the task of social construction".{{sfn|Gorny|1987|p=243-245}} The main debates within the movement at this time were concerning partition of Palestine and the nature of the relationship with the British. The intensity of the revolt, Britain's ambiguous support for the movement and the increasing threat against European Jewry during this period motivated the Zionist leadership to prioritize immediate considerations. The movement ultimately favored the notion of partition, primarily out of practical considerations and partially out of a belief that establishing a Jewish state over all of Palestine would remain an option.<ref>{{harvnb|Gorny|1987|p=323}}: "In the end, all of them accepted partition, less out of inner conviction than because of international pressure and force of national discipline, and in some cases were comforted by the thought that the path to a greater Palestine was still open."</ref> At the 1937 Zionist congress, the Zionist leadership adopted the stance that the land allocated to the Jewish state by the partition plan was inadequate—effectively rejecting the partition plan that faded away in the face of both Arab and Zionist opposition.{{sfn|Cleveland|2010|loc=Communal Conflict and the British Response}}

In response to Ben-Gurion's 1938 quote that "politically we are the aggressors and they [the Palestinians] defend themselves", Israeli historian [[Benny Morris]] says, "Ben-Gurion, of course, was right. Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement", and that "Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist." Morris describes the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine as necessarily displacing and dispossessing the Arab population.{{sfn|Morris|2001|loc=Conclusions}}