The iron wall (essay)

The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs) ( Engl. The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs)) is an essay  Ze'ev Jabotinsky , the first time in "Rassvet", a character appearing in exile Zionist magazine on 4 November 1923 on  Russian was published.

It was followed in the same newspaper on November 11, 1923 by a supplementary essay called The Ethics of the Iron Wall .

An English translation of The Iron Wall , for example, appeared in the Jewish Herald (South Africa) on November 26, 1937, the translation of the follow-up article The Ethics of the Iron Wall in The Jewish Standard on September 5, 1941.

Jabotinsky wrote the essay after the British Colonial Minister Winston Churchill had withdrawn Transjordan from Jewish rights in the first British White Paper of June 3, 1922 and banned settlements on the eastern bank of the Jordan . In 1923 Jabotinsky founded the revisionist youth organization Betar as a reaction to British policies on Palestine , and in April 1925 the Party of Revisionist Zionism (Brit HaTzionim HaRevizionistim / Hatzoar), also in order to maintain the claim to Transjordan.

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Jabotinsky started from two principles:

• The expulsion of the Arabs is impossible. So there will always be two nations in Palestine-
• As a co-founder of the Helsingfors program, he assumes the national rights of all nationalities living in a state. The basis is the equality of rights.

His view was that the Arabs of Palestine would never voluntarily accept a majority Jewish population in Palestine and that no “consideration” was possible for taking over the land. Therefore, the Zionist colonization must either stop or go ahead regardless of the local population.

"Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population - behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach . "

“The Zionist colonization must either stop or go ahead regardless of the local population. This means that they can only advance and develop under the protection of a power that is independent of the ancestral population - behind an iron wall that the native population cannot break through. "

He saw the Arabs as a nation, but as "culturally lagging behind us 500 years, they have neither our perseverance nor our determination" and compared the Jewish settlers with the settlers in North America fighting the Indians and with the Spanish in Mexico fighting against The aztecs. He considered the rejection of settlers by the indigenous population and the rejection of the prospect of becoming a minority in their own country to be fundamentally given and not to be overcome through negotiations. In no instance in history has colonization taken place with the consent of the indigenous people.

He considers the efforts to reach an understanding and compromise to balance interests through offers from the Israeli side to be ridiculous and mendacious. they also underestimated the Arab nation.

The only solution to achieving peace and a Jewish state in Israel, he said, is for the Jews to first establish a strong Jewish state that would eventually force the Arabs to "drop their extremist leaders whose slogan 'Never!" and to hand over the leadership to the moderate forces, who will approach us with the suggestion that we both make concessions to each other. "(" drop their extremist leaders, whose watchword is 'never!' and pass the leadership to the moderate groups, who will approach us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. ") These compromise proposals would address practical issues such as guarantees against displacement, legal equality and national autonomy.

Helsingfors program

The 3rd Conference of Russian Zionists took place in Helsinki in December 1906. In addition to the “current work”, the advocated program included strengthening the cohesion of Judaism in the diaspora as a central objective of promoting democracy in Russia with recognition of the autonomy rights of all national minorities. In this context, efforts were made for Jews in Russia to have official recognition of their languages, the Sabbath and the "recognition of the Jewish people in Russia as a single political entity with the right to govern themselves in matters of national culture".

The ethics of the iron wall

On November 11, 1923, a week after the essay was published, the addition "The Ethics of the Iron Wall" followed. Avi Shlaim interprets this writing as a reaction to the criticism of moderate Zionists of Jabotinsky's remarks.

In it he argued that Zionism was moral and just because it acknowledged national self-determination as a sacred principle that the Arabs were also allowed to practice.

The claim of the Jews to part of the land of Arabs is just.

"It is an act of simple justice to alienate part of their land from those nations who are numbered among the great landowners of the world, in order to provide a place of refuge for a homeless, wandering people. And if such a big landowning nation resists which is perfectly natural - it must be made to comply by compulsion. Justice that is enforced does not cease to be justice. This is the only Arab policy that we shall find possible. As for an agreement, we shall have time to discuss that later. "

It is an act of simple justice to alienate a portion of their land from those nations who are among the great landowners of the world in order to provide refuge for a homeless wandering people. And when such a large, land-owning people oppose, which is perfectly normal - they must be coerced into agreeing. Justice enforced through coercion does not cease to be justice. This is the only policy towards the Arabs that we believe is possible. As for treaties, we will have time to discuss them later.

He explained that with the sparse population density, Arabs had no right to ask Jews to give up their own land; this was a legal conception of cannibals compared to the law of the starving.

The assumption that one could achieve the Israeli goals through compromises with the Arabs, he described as "idiotic". No nation would allow compromise to steal anything that they believed was theirs alone.

reception

The historian Avi Shlaim , one of the so-called new Israeli historians , criticized in 1999 that the article, which had become the “Bible of the Revisionists ”, was mostly misunderstood, by opponents of Zionism as well as by representatives of revisionism itself. Jabotinsky's remarks on “Iron Wall” should be understood in relation to the situation at that time. A detailed understanding of the article shows that the long-term goal for Jabotinsky was the political autonomy of the Arabs within a Jewish state. In the texts, he understood the Palestinian Arabs as a nation and accordingly recognized their claim to some national rights, albeit limited ones , not just individual rights.

In his 2007 analysis, Ian Lustick stated that the main statements of Jabotinsky's analysis were quickly accepted across the spectrum of political opinions, from Jabotinsky to David Ben-Gurion , from Berl Katznelson to Menachem Begin and from Chaim Arlosoroff to Chaim Weizmann . He referred to the explanations of Arthur Ruppin , Moshe Dayan's approval of Ruppinn's support for the policy of the Iron Wall, confidential communications from Arlosoroff from 1932 to Chaim Arlosoroff to Chaim Weizman . For the agreement between Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky on the Arab question, he referred to Anita Shapira's historical account.

In an essay from 1998 Ian Lustick analyzed early statements by Zionist politicians and tried to show that the Arab question - contrary to the usual representations - was clear to them from the start within its reach. The clearest and most illuminating evidence of this appeared to him in Jabotinsky's articles. Lustick rejected the usual interpretations, in sharp rejection as well as in understanding defense of the rejection of compromise solutions, as polemical. Jabotinsky openly and honestly faced the main problem of establishing a state and expressed what would then become the basic (rational) principle of Israeli politics until the late 1980s.

Lustick attests that Jabotinsky's view is the exact reflection of the Israeli attitude:

Indeed, it is precisely in its mixture of insight and blindness, of shrewdness and naiveté about how politics works, that this article mirrors the reality of Zionist Arab policy, of the substantial effectiveness of that policy, and yet of its tragic incompleteness.

Indeed, it is precisely his mixture of insight and blindness, sagacity and naivety about the way politics works that this article reflects the reality of Zionist policy towards the Arabs, the considerable effectiveness of that policy, and yet also its tragic incompleteness.

Lustick examined the inherent logic of Jabotinsky’s strategy and came to the conclusion that the first three steps of the strategy (building a legal and military wall, defending the wall, painful defeats of the enemy) had been implemented, with the fourth step, willingness to negotiate with moderate forces, For example, after the Six Day War, Israel instead pursued the goal of claiming additional territories. The Arabs' offers to negotiate had been turned down. In doing so, Israel deviated from its original position of enforcing clear and minimal demands and developed into a policy of maximum demands due to the supposed superiority that was contrary to Jabotinsky's strategy. From 1977 onwards, these goals had become open.

Uriel Abuloff stated in 2014 that the Second Intifada had failed the Iron Wall strategy, the success of which had been considered certain in the peace process of the 1990s.

In 1998, Christopher Hitchens interpreted Netanyahu's foreign policy as a continuation of Jabotinsky's colonialist ideas. Even in the extreme right of France, the articles are seen as a revelation of the actual political goals of Israel.

Other uses of the expression "iron walls"

In the letter to Aristeas the term iron walls is used to represent metaphorically the separation of the Jews from other peoples and religions: “Our lawgiver, who was a wise man and gifted by God with the special ability to understand all things, saw every detail with an all-embracing look and surrounded us with impregnable ramparts and walls made of iron, so that we do not mix with the other peoples, but remain pure in body and soul, free from all empty imaginations, in the worship of the one almighty God over all creation . "

literature

• Avi Shlaim : The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Allen Lane, London 2000, ISBN 0-7139-9410-X .
• Ian Lustick: Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and "The Middle Eastern Muck" . In: Middle East Policy . Fall 2007. Middle East Policy Council, 2007 ( mepc.org ).
• Uriel Abulof: National Ethics in Ethnic Conflicts: The Zionist "Iron Wall" and the "Arab Question" . In: Ethnic and Racial Studies . 2014, doi : 10.1080 / 01419870.2013.854921 ( tandfonline.com ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Рассвет" _ (журнал) #. C2.AB.D0.A0.D0.B0.D1.81.D1.81.D0.B2.D0.B5.D1.82.C2.BB_.281922 _-_ 1934_. D0.B3 ._. 29 «Рассвет» (1922 - 1934 г.)
2. ↑ http://www.infocenters.co.il/jabo/jabo_multimedia/Articles/1923_916.pdf
3. ^ "The Iron Wall". In: www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
4. ↑ http://www.infocenters.co.il/jabo/jabo_multimedia/articlesl/%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA/1923_204.pdf
5. ↑ http://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf
6. ↑ מכון ז'בוטינסקי. In: jabotinsky.org. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
7. ↑ http://www.infocenters.co.il/jabo/jabo_multimedia/articlesl/%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%AA/1923_201.pdf
8. ↑ Zionist Freedom Alliance - Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ^ Don Peretz: The Middle East Today . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, ISBN 978-0-275-94576-3 , pp. 318 ( google.de [accessed on January 8, 2017]).
10. ^ Helsingfors Program. In: www.zionism-israel.com. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
11. ^ Ze'ev Jabotinsky: The Iron Wall. (PDF) November 4, 1923, accessed January 7, 2017 . 
12. ↑ "My readers have a general idea of ​​the history of colonization in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonization being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilized or uncivilized, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilized or savage. And it made no difference whatever whether the colonists behaved decently or not. The companions of Cortez and Pizzaro or (as some people will remind us) our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands; but the Pilgrim Fathers, the first real pioneers of North America, were people of the highest morality, who did not want to do harm to anyone, least of all to the Red Indians, and they honestly believed that there was room enough in the prairies both for the Paleface and the Redskin. Yet the native populatio n fought with the same ferocity against the good colonists as against the bad. Every native population, civilized or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators. "
13. ^ Paul R. Mendes-Flohr , Jehuda Reinharz : The Jew in the Modern World: A Documentary History . Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-19-507453-X .
14. ^ Helsingfors Program. In: Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
15. ^ Helsingfors Program. In: www.zionism-israel.com. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
16. ^ The Iron Wall. In: www.nytimes.com. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
17. ^ Ze'ev Jabotinsky: The Ethics of the Iron Wall. ( Memento of November 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) November 11, 1923.
18. ^ The Iron Wall. In: www.nytimes.com. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
19. ↑ Ian Lustick. In: www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
20. ^ Memoirs, Diaries, Letters. Herzl Press, 1971, pp. 189, 196, 216, 277.
21. ^ Memoirs, Diaries, Letters. Herzl Press, 1971, pp. 215-223.
22. ↑ Chaim Arlosoroff: Reflections on Zionist Policy. In: Jewish Frontier. October 1948, pp. 1-7.
23. ↑ Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force 1881-1948. Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 156-158 and 210-211.
24. ^ Ian Lustick: Abandoning the Iron Wall: Israel and "The Middle Eastern Muck" . In: Middle East Policy . Fall 2007. Middle East Policy Council, 2007 ( mepc.org ).
25. ^ Ian Lustick: To Build and To Be Built By: Israel and the Hidden Logic of the Iron Wall. In: Israel Studies. Volume I, No. 1, summer 1996, pp. 199ff.
26. ^ Ian Lustick: To Build and To Be Built By: Israel and the Hidden Logic of the Iron Wall. In: Israel Studies. Volume I, No. 1, summer 1996, pp. 203ff.
27. ↑ Christopher Hitchens: Netanyahu's Iron Wall. In: The Nation. April 13, 1998.
28. ↑ Emmanuelle Gatier: Les guerriers d'Israël: Enquête sur les Milices sionistes. Facta, 1995, ISBN 2-9508318-1-8 .
29. ↑ Anna Maria Schwemer: The Septuagint between Judaism and Christianity . Mohr Siebeck, 1994, ISBN 3-16-146173-8 ( google.de [accessed on January 6, 2017]).