Cont'd
Gandhi and the Congress thus openly supported Palestinian Arab nationalism, and Gandhi was more emphatic in the rejection of Zionist nationalism. The major political driving force in such a position was the common legacy of anti-imperialist struggle of the Indians and the Palestinians. Gandhi's views on the Zionist doctrine and his firm commitment to the Palestinian cause starting from the 1930s obviously influenced the design of independent India's position on the Palestine issue.
Gandhi's prescription for the Jews in Germany and the Arabs in Palestine was non-violent resistance. With regard to the Jewish problem in Germany, Gandhi noted, "I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can, in the twinkling of an eye, be turned into the summer of hope." His views on Zionism and his prescription of non-violent action and self-sacrifice to the Jews in Germany generated reactions ranging from anger to despair.
As mentioned earlier, Gandhi refused to view the Zionist "hunger" for land in Palestine as a right. Gandhi wrote on 7 January 1939 the following in response to an editorial in the Statesman, "I hold that non-violence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expression of non-violence in its mutual dealing. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale."
Also, it is significant to note that, as far as Gandhi was concerned, non-violent action was not pacifism or a defensive activity but a way of waging war. This war without violence also requires discipline, training and the assessment of the strength and weakness of the enemy.
According to Paul Power, four factors influenced Gandhi's position on Zionism:
- "First, he was sensitive about the ideas of Muslim Indians who were anti-Zionists because of their sympathy for Middle Eastern Arabs opposed to the Jewish National Home; second, he objected to any Zionist methods inconsistentwith his way of non-violence; third, he found Zionism contrary to his pluralistic nationalism, which excludes the establishment of any State based solely or mainly on one religion; and fourth, he apparently believed it imprudent to complicate his relations with the British, who held the mandate in Palestine."
Gandhi withstood almost all Zionist attempts at extracting a pro-Zionist stance from him. G.H. Jansen wrote about the failure of Zionist lobbying with Gandhi:
- "His opposition [to Zionism] remained consistent over a period of nearly 20 years and remained firm despite skilful and varied applications to him of that combination of pressure and persuasion known as lobbying, of which the Zionists are past masters."
Apart from responses to Gandhi's anti-Zionism from Jewish pacifists such as Buber, Magnes and Greenberg, Jansen points out at least four separate instances of Zionist attempts to get a favourable statement from Gandhi. At first, Hermann Kallenbach, Gandhi's Jewish friend in South Africa, came to India in 1937 and stayed for weeks with Gandhi trying to convince him of the merits of the Zionist cause. Then, in the 1930s, as requested by Rabbi Stephen Wise, the American pacifist John Haynes Holmes, tried "to obtain from Gandhi a declaration favourable to Zionism". In March 1946, a British MP from the Labour Party, Sydney Silverman, an advocate of Indian independence in Britain, attempted to change Gandhi's mind. At the end of their heated conversation, Gandhi stated that "after all our talk, I am unable to revise the opinion I gave you in the beginning." The fourth Zionist attempt to change Gandhi's mind was by Louis Fischer, Gandhi's famous biographer, to whom Gandhi reported to have said that "the Jews have a good case."
Later, Gandhi clarified in one of his final pieces on Zionism and the Palestine question on 14 July 1946 that "I did say some such thing in the course of a conversation with Mr. Louis Fischer on the subject." He added, "I do believe that the Jews have been cruelly wronged by the world."
Gandhi went back to his initial position by categorically stating that "But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?"
There were an influential number of Jews who thought that force, only force, could ensure the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. They adopted terrorism as the method to achieve their national goal. This policy of subjugation of the Palestinians by Zionist terror was totally rejected by Gandhi in no uncertain terms.
A few months before his assassination, Gandhi answered the question "What is the solution to the Palestine problem?" raised by Doon Campbell of Reuters:
"It has become a problem which seems almost insoluble. If I were a Jew, I would tell them: 'Do not be so silly as to resort to terrorism...' The Jews should meet the Arabs, make friends with them and not depend on British aid or American aid, save what descends from Jehovah."
Dr. Ramakrishnan is a senior lecturer, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He presented this paper on June 13, 1998 at a seminar organized by the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies. The seminar was inaugurated by the chairman of India's National Minorities Commission, Prof. Tahir Mahmoud, who highlighted the traditional Indian support for the Palestinian struggle against Zionist Occupation.
The United States walked out of the September 2001 World Conference Against Racism because it included two contentious issues: Zionism as racism, and reparations for slavery and colonialism.
[Tim Wise, an activist, writer and lecturer based in Nashville, Tennessee, writes that "it is difficult to deny that Zionism, in practice if not theory, amounts to ethnic chauvinism, colonial ethnocentrism, and national oppression."--Tim Wise, "Reflections on Zionism From a Dissident Jew," Media Monitors Network, September 6, 2001]
["In the last decade the two countries have built up extensive military collaboration, involving arms sales, equipment upgrades, the transfer of technology and joint weapons development programmes. The latest multi-billion dollar defence agreements are seen as another watershed in the Indo-Israeli strategic partnership."--"Closer ties for India and Israel," Jane's Intelligence Digest, August 7, 2001]
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2001/0815-GandhiZionism.html