Abu Mazen As Ben-Gurion

Same sh*t, different day. Abu Mazen, who won't lift a finger to dismantle the infrastructure of terror is whining again that Israel's "security measures" are only making things worse:

Two hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians in East Jerusalem and suburbs, the core of our nation's social and industrial life, and thirty thousand Palestinians in Bethlehem, are isolated from all normal contact with the outside world, facing complete breakdown of the mechanism of civilized life apart from food supplies and a skeleton medical service. Industry crippled, trade paralyzed, unemployment threatening to become catastrophic. Industrial raw materials cannot enter, goods manufactured with available stock cannot be marketed outside. Workers cut off from places of work, children from schools. These restrictions have not affected terrorists nor stopped their outrages but instead have increased resentment of the hard-hit population, created fertile soil for terrorist propaganda, frustrating the Authority's attempt to combat terrorism by itself. Collective punishment is absolutely futile and senseless unless its real intention is to punish the whole community, ruin its economy and destroy the possibility of a viable Palestinian state.

Actually, Abu Mazen never really said that. But it sounds just like him doesn't it? Funnily enough, it's actually based on a quote by David Ben-Gurion, from an opinion piece he had published in the London Times in 1948, decrying the use of martial law in response to Zionist terrorism in Palestine. This is what he really wrote:

Two hundred and fifty thousand Jews of Tel Aviv and suburbs, core of country's social and industrial life, and thirty thousands of Jews in Jerusalem, mostly working-class quarters, isolated from all normal contact with outside world, facing complete breakdown of [the] mechanism [of] civilized life apart from food supplies and skeleton medical service. Industry crippled, trade paralyzed, unemployment threatening to become catastrophic. Industrial raw materials cannot enter, goods manufactured with available stock cannot be marketed outside. Workers cut off from places of work, children from schools. These restrictions have not affected terrorists nor stopped their outrages but instead have increased resentment of hard-hit population, created fertile soil for terrorist propaganda, frustrating community's attempt to combat terrorism by itself. Martial Law absolutely futile and senseless unless really meant to punish whole community, ruin its economy and destroy the foundations of the Jewish National Home. ...

As I was researching my last post, I was very struck by some of the comments I came across from Palestine in 1948, on the one hand from the British authorities commenting in exasperation on the failure of the Jewish Agency to combat Zionist terrorism and impose law and order, and on the other from the leadership of the Jewish Agency which walked a tightrope between working with the British authorities while refusing to become security contractors for what they regarded as an unjust British occupation.

If you just change a few names, there is a striking similarity with the Israeli government that today wants the PA to fight Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, and the Palestinian Authority that finds itself in the predicament of being expected to crack down on militants who are fighting for the same goal that the Authority shares. So I thought some of the comments warranted a post in their own right.

1. On the failure of the Jewish Agency to help the British governments efforts against Zionist terrorism:

It is with the deepest possible regret that His Majesty's Government announce that at approximately 8.40 in the morning of 29th February the passenger train from Kantara to Haifa was blown up by unknown persons a short distance north of Rehovoth railway station… I wish, on behalf of His Majesty's Government and the Government of Palestine, to express deep sympathy with the relatives of those who lost their lives as a result of this shocking outrage.

A statement has been issued by the Government of Palestine in Jerusalem today recalling the catalogue of enormities perpetrated by Jewish terrorists in recentmonths, anddrawing attention to the failure of the Jewish community to assist in bringing the guilty to justice and, in particular, the refusal to give evidence in the official police inquiries into the Ben Yehuda Street explosion. The statement declares:

"The leaders of the Jewish community have felt themselves unable, for political reasons, to take any steps to bring to justice the persons responsible for these crimes and have thus facilitated the spread of lawlessness and disorder to a point at which the community itself is threatened with destruction by elements within itself. In this neglect of its responsibilities the Jewish Agency has attempted to excuse itself by resort to calculated innuendoes, falsehoods and propaganda directed against British members of the Security Forces who are, in fact, every day protecting Jewish property and saving hundreds of civilian lives, even at the risk of their own."

…The Government, mindful of the duty of the Security Forces to maintain law and order, and confronted with the deliberate policy of the Jewish Agency to render their task as difficult as possible, desires now to bring once more to the serious attention of the Jewish community in Palestine the fact that the continuance of indiscriminate murder and condoned terrorism can lead only to the forfeiture by the community of all right in the eyes of the world to be numbered among civilised peoples."

-- Statement to the British House of Commons by the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. Rees-Williams, 1 March 1948. via the Encyclopaedia of Palestine.

2. On Ben-Gurion’s refusal to act as a police force for continuing British rule in Palestine:

Although officially denouncing anti-British terrorism, Ben-Gurion and the Zionist authority he headed, the Jewish Agency, didn't cooperate with the British in apprehending terrorist suspects or even in calling upon the Jewish community to respect the law. On the one hand Ben-Gurion maintained that on principle he couldn't assist enforcing an unjust occupation. "Without in the least condoning the acts committed," he wrote to British officials, "the Executive considers the policy at present by the Mandatory Government…to be primarily responsible for the tragic situation which has developed in Palestine. The Executive cannot agree that it can in fairness be called upon to appear in the invidious position of assisting in the enforcement of that policy." On the other hand Ben-Gurion pleaded that he had lost control over the Jewish community, which no longer accepted occupation.

3. On the likelihood that an attempt by the Jewish Agency to dismantle the infrastructure of terror would push the population into the hands of the extremists as long as the legitimate grievances at the root of terrorism lay unaddressed:

"What was intolerable - and what was in fact being done - was to attempt to have it both ways," a sympathetic British Labor MP on the scene observed, "to claim constitutional rights for the Jewish Agency as a loyal collaborator with the mandatory, and simultaneously to organize sabotage and resistance." While Ben-Gurion sought "to remain within the letter of the law as chairman of the agency" by officially condemning terrorism, he also "tolerate[d] terror as a method of bringing pressure on the administration." Zionist leaders acquiesced in the deadly attacks for another reason as well, according to the British MP. Jewish terrorism was "winning popular support" as "perfectly decent Jews in Palestine cannot help somehow admiring the terrorists and even assisting them when they seek refuge in their houses." Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency had to "condone terrorism" in order to "prevent a swing of public opinion" to extreme Zionist parties and against themselves. The only means to fight Jewish terrorism, the British MP concluded, was "to remove the legitimate grievances of every Jew in Palestine," and to "state objectively…the historical causes for the growth of this beastly phenomenon in a decent people." Were the British to do this they could "rely on the support of moderate elements in suppressing terrorism, and I believe that the majority of the population would turn against the extremists." If, however, the British ignored the reasons behind Jewish support for terrorism and simply demanded "the replacement of the Jewish Agency by another organization and the disarming" of the Jewish resistance, the MP warned, it "would merely provoke the Jews into a fanatical support of the extremists."

4. On the use of collective punishment as a response to terrorism, and its counter-productive effect of radicalizing the general population against the occupation:

When the British imposed martial law in retaliation for multiple Zionist terrorist attacks… Ben-Gurion passionately condemned the draconian measures for both inflicting collective punishment on the Jewish people and effectively hindering the struggle against terrorism. If only for its current resonance, this denunciation deserves extended quotation:

Two hundred and fifty thousand Jews of Tel Aviv and suburbs, core of country's social and industrial life, and thirty thousands of Jews in Jerusalem, mostly working-class quarters, isolated from all normal contact with outside world, facing complete breakdown of mechanism civilized life apart from food supplies and skeleton medical service. Industry crippled, trade paralyzed, unemployment threatening to become catastrophic. Industrial raw materials cannot enter, goods manufactured with available stock cannot be marketed outside. Workers cut off from places of work, children from schools. These restrictions have not affected terrorists nor stopped their outrages but instead have increased resentment of hard-hit population, created fertile soil for terrorist propaganda, frustrating community's attempt to combat terrorism by itself. Martial Law absolutely futile and senseless unless really meant to punish whole community, ruin its economy and destroy the foundations of the Jewish National Home. ...

Plus ca change, plus c'est le same idiot mentality at the top, as the phrase has it.

Footnote: Paragraphs 2, 3 & 4 all via An Introduction to the Israel-Palestine Conflict at normanfinkelstein.com