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<font size=3><br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>THE JEWS IN PALESTINE
1938</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>By Mahatma
Gandhi</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>Published in the
Harijan</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>26-11-1938.</b></font><font size=3>
<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>Several letters have been received
by me, asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in
Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without
hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult
question.</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>My sympathies are all with the
Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became
lifelong 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.</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>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.</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>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 inhuman 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 </b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>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. </b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>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 colorable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in
history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have
gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For, he is
propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the
name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded
here and hereafter.</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>The crime of an obviously mad but
intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable
ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for
humanity, a war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a
whole race, would be completely justified. But I do not believe in any
war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is, therefore,
outside my horizon or province.</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>But if there can be no war against
Germany, even for such a crime as is being committed against the Jews,
surely there can be no alliance with Germany. How can there be alliance
between a nation, which claims to stand for justice and democracy and
one, which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England drifting towards
armed dictatorship and all it means? Germany is showing to the world how
efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any
hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing
how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness. Can the
Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution?
Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel
helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who
has faith in a living God need </b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah
of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the
Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact, in essence, He is
common to all and one without a second and beyond
description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe
that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If
I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I
would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German
might, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would
refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for
doing this I </b></font><font size=3>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>should not wait for the fellow Jews
to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in the end
the rest were bound to follow my example....
...</b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><b>And now a word to the Jews in
Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the
wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical
tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of
geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the
shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the
aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the
goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The
same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart... They will
find the world opinion in their favor in their religious aspiration.
There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only
discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers
with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. 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. </b></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2 color="#993300"><b>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</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>. Every country is their home,
including Palestine, not by aggression 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 outcast of
the West, to be despised or patronized. He can command the attention and
respect of the world by being the chosen creation of God, instead of
sinking to the brute who is forsaken by God. They can add to their many
contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent
action.</b></font><font size=3> <br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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