by Adel Beshara
We are not driven by conceit to claim total monopoly on devotion to the nation. Nay! We declare that every individual who works for the good of the nation and seeks its salvation with the right methods is a valued comrade to us, whether or not he joins the Party. To us, the Party is a means and the nationalist, from our standpoint, is a soldier: a silent soldier who works for the good of the nation without ambition for reward.
7
THE PARTY IS A LEAVEN FOR THE NATION’S LIFE
Granted first that “party” is a symbol of the nation’s sovereignty and a vehicle for the practical fulfillment of this sovereignty; second that it is an institution to nurture the young generation and to develop and rear citizens; and third that it is a practical system for implementing some reform projects and developing modern institutions, the “party” is an indispensable and vital necessity in the nation’s life. The people cannot build an advanced national life and enjoy a life of freedom and prosperity unless the right kind of party rises among them. However, there is a fourth and final purpose for the “party” that is a by-product and the result of the three other purposes. The party, in its members, supporters and advocates, is like a leaven in the nation’s body. From it, new virtues, high ideals, and fresh faith penetrate and seep into the ranks of the people.
In the body of an ageing, deteriorating nation lying dormant over its weaknesses, desperate of the possibility of reform, and torn into factions, sects, classes, and clans — in the heart of such a nation, the party is, a new society and a new nation spinning with a new life. A good party represents the nation of tomorrow in the nucleus of the nation of today and yesterday! It represents the embodiment of sound values and sublime ideals and their dynamic implementation in the heart of a weak and backward nation.
Accordingly, a good party evokes conflict between the tendency for renewal that it represents and society’s tightly held forces of conservatism and reaction. As the bearer of the banner of liberation in a battle fought inside the soul of each citizen, its echoes reverberate in every sphere of the nation. It is a reservoir of the forces of momentum that stir up revival and liberation, feed it with fuel, and furnish it with firmness, intrepidity, and perseverance. In the course of its life, in the virtues that are embodied in that course, and in the interaction between its members that translates, consequently, into mutual cooperation and collective determination, the party is a perpetual fountain of dynamic vitality in the nation’s body: a vitality that seeks to root out its vices and create a new nation.
Therefore, if the party is an institution that embodies the new values and systems, and if it is a source for their conflict with the old values and systems at the core of the nation’s entity, then it is a harbinger of the establishment of the new nation. Indeed, it is the rising free new nation in its first incarnation. It is the new nation unveiled at the heart of a nation desperate for renewal. It is the new life taking shape and running in the veins of the present nation to renew its blood, energy, and vitality. It is the virtuous nation we seek, the nation we work to build, which now exists among us and which we have seen in the lives of its children and in their interaction. The party is indeed the nation of tomorrow within the nation of today. The party is an entity that will create a nation in its own image and after its model.
8
NOTE ON THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
SUBMITTED TO THE ANGLO-AMERICAN INQUIRY COMMITTEE PREPARED, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL PARTY
FAYIZ SAYIGH, M. A.
BEIRUT - MARCH 19TH, 1946
Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Committee
It gives me pleasure to express my gratitude for the privilege kindly accorded me of presenting to your honourable Committee the point of view of the National Party, concerning a problem which we consider to be vital and of great significance, and upon the just solution of which peace and security in the Holy Land and in the Near East will depend.
The National Party has, as a matter of fact, hesitated before deciding to present its point of view to your honourable Committee: for our experiences of previous Commissions, that had inquired into the Palestine Problem, and attempted to reach a just solution for it, without avail, are not very encouraging; and national groups, in the Arab World, have developed - not without reason - an attitude of suspicion towards the possibility of arriving at a just solution of the Palestine Problem through Investigation Commissions.
But, in deciding to present its point of view to your honorable Committee, the National Party has given fresh evidence of the deep-rooted confidence which our people have in your sense of justice, as well as in the sincere resolve of the British Government to come at last to a just solution of the Palestine Problem.
I. THE RIGHT APPROACH TO THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
It behooves us, at this stage, to look back upon the above- mentioned attempts of previous Commissions to offer successful solutions to the Palestine Problem, and to study the causes of the failures of such attempts as such a study may save us from falling again into previous errors. In this spirit and with this objective I beg to digress, at the outset of this Note, into casting a glance at the natural limitations of the methods of inquiry of previous Commissions, and the principles determining their study of the Problem, which could not but render their efforts futile.
1. In the first place, the previous studies of the Problem have all taken their departure from an erroneous starting-point. For it was the promises given by British Officials to Jewish and Arab representatives, and binding the British Government to definite lines of policy, that have been studied; and it is the reconciliation of such conflicting pledges through giving them particular interpretations, that has been attempted. This, however, is considered by us an erroneous starting-point, and an erroneous manner of approach, not only because - empirically - the attempts have proved fruitless, but also because they were a priori doomed to failure: for they did not look upon the problem - as they ought to have done - from the standpoint of a judge seeking to redress a grievance, nor from the viewpoint of an arbiter aiming at giving a just solution, but rather from the position of a politician desiring to mitigate an embarrassing perplexing situation, and to disentangle a complex knot, which is rendered all the more intricate by the conflicting pledges that have gone to create it. It is in this very conception of the Problem that the difficulty of reaching a solution for it lies; and it is precisely this conception of the Problem that gives it the character of apparent insolubility which it seems to possess.
In our opinion, such an approach must give way to an alternative approach. The traditional conception of the Palestine Problem as a dilemma with which the Promising Authorities are confronted, due to their simultaneous declaration of contradictory and irreconcilable promises, must be exchanged for the alternative view of the Problem as an injustice which the Palestinians have been made to suffer through the introduction, into their country, of an alien people, ambitious enough to look upon this country as their own, and to seek to transform it into a national home wherein they will be not only the numerical majority, but the ruling power of the state as well! For, indeed, it is this that is the problem; and it is from this angle that it has to be viewed.
If it is true that an erroneous conception of a problem, and a wrong approach to it, inevitably lead to an erroneous solution, and consequently preclude the possibility of finding a real solution at all - it follows that the previous failures of all attempts to solve the Palestine Problem are due less to an intrinsic insolubility than to an unfortunate blunder in the approach to it.
2. Going side by side with this erroneous starting-point, and rendering the problem all the more intricate, was the error of linking up the solution of the world-wide Jewish Problem with the solution of the Palestine Problem. Such an attitude is erroneous not only because the former Problem is extremely complicated, and involves International Jewry on the one hand, and the whole Western World on the other, but also and primarily because, on principle, it links up two independent problems, and suspends t
he solution of one of them until the other is settled.
In recording this fact, we have the pleasure to record our sincere appreciation of the wise distinction between the two Problems, which has been recognized by your honourable Committee; and we welcome this new approach to the Palestine Problem as a measure that will put your investigations, from the very start, on the right track.
For the truth is that the unfortunate situation of World Jewry (which certainly, provokes our sympathy and the sympathy of all humanitarian people) must not be remedied by any such measures as would involve equal misery to another nation, or would simply pass on the plight of one people to another. If the world-wide Jewish difficulty has to be settled (and the effort to settle it is certainly one upon which we look with sympathy and appreciation), it still must not be settled in such a way as to create a new and equal difficulty to a people which, to say the least, is not responsible for it. To seek to alleviate the sufferings of the Jews, by causing equal sufferings to another people, is not only an unreasonable attempt; nor only a fruitless attempt (seeing that Palestine certainly cannot solve the Jewish Problem); nor only an imprudent attempt (which would create a new problem, while leaving the first unsolved) but also and primarily an unjust attempt, which imposes new miseries upon a people which is by no means responsible for the miseries, the alleviation of which is being sought.
We have no intention, in this Note, to make a study of the Jewish Problem, nor to offer proposals for its settlement: but we insist that the Palestine Problem has been rendered insoluble precisely by this artificial link that has been made between its solution and the solution of the Jewish Problem. And while we assure your honourable Committee of the sympathies which our people have towards the alleviation of all sufferings, and the settlement of the world-wide Jewish Problem, we beg also to emphasize that a continuation of the attempt to make such alleviation and settlement at the expense of the national rights of the Palestinians, is a moral blow to our confidence in the sense of justice that prompts such settlements, and a serious impediment against all good will in the Arab World towards the British Government, as well as against security in the Holy Land and in the Arab World in general.
3. A third confusion that has proved detrimental to the previous attempts to solve the Palestine Problem was the confusion concerning the real objective of the attempts. For, in all such attempts, what has been sought was a compromise rather than a genuine solution - a compromise that has “peace” for its aim rather than a “justice”. In our view, there are situations when peace ought to be sacrificed for justice: and the whole experience of humanity in the last war has been a confirmation of this belief. It is not peace at-all-costs that true peace-lovers work for; but rather a just peace; and even extreme pacifists are at times confronted by situations where a just peace seems unattainable, and where justice is preferred to peace. The Palestine Problem seems to confront its investigators with such a situation; and where the alternatives are either a compromise which sacrifices justice, or a sincere loyalty to justice even at the risk of disorder and unrest, then the moral sense ingrained in the peace-loving conscience ought to suspend its pursuit of peace in the name of its endeavour to achieve justice. In the name of true peace in the Holy Land, we insist that an unjust peace must be abandoned, and justice must be first sought!
It would appear from the above survey that only if the Palestine Problem is looked upon by your honourable Committee as a national problem in the first place, involving the fate of a nation rather than the pledges of a foreign power, and only if the said Problem is distinguished from the Jewish Problem, and its solution is separated from the settlement of the latter; - and only if the solution is sought in the direction of justice rather than in the direction of formal stability resting upon unjust foundations: only then will the Palestine Problem be really understood, and your efforts to find a solution for it prove fruitful. And, when viewed in this light, the solution will not be far to find.
It is from this angle that we shall present to your honourable Committee the grievance of the Palestine People, and describe the nature of the Palestine Problem - confident that the very presentation of the Problem in this light is itself the sure guide to its solution, and the true pathway to the achievement of justice.
II. THE NATURE OF THE PALESTINE PROBLEM
A. HISTORICAL ORIGIN
It does not require a thorough acquaintance with the history of Palestine to realize that the country is, socially and economically, a part of a wider social unity, a fraction of a national community; and that its isolation and segregation into a political territory is only an arbitrary act, justified by, and depending upon, no natural factors and considerations. As a matter of fact, such isolation, when introduced after the First World War, was not only provocative of serious protests both within and outside Palestine, but also was detrimental to its National, social and economic interests. So, historically, the Palestine problem goes side by side with the creation of Palestine as a political entity, and such a creation is itself part of the problem in its wider aspects.
Social life in Palestine, even before the emergence of nationalism, was part of a wider social life in a community which “developed freely within the boundaries of the Syrian country” immediately, and within the Arab World in general.
Into the territory of which Palestine was a part, hordes of Semitic tribesmen, of various branches, infiltrated, peacefully at times, and warringly at times; and, through the contact and interaction of these various groups, a process of national social blending developed and continued from time immemorial. Within this social context, social, economic and cultural interaction resulted in the amalgamation and fusion of these racial groups, and in the emergence of a national community with a distinctive national character. Arabic groups - among other groups - had infiltrated into the country on various occasions: but by far the most influential movement, both numerically and politically, was the general movement of Arab penetration, after the rise of Islam, which settled in the country (and in neighbouring countries), and interacted with the pre-existing population, and gave the nation its languages. The newcomers interacted also with the pre-existing national culture, thus making of the nation an Arab nation, more strongly akin to its sister-nations than ever before. It follows that the “Arabs of Palestine” of the present day are the descendants of that ancient native stock, living in the country from time immemorial.
Jewish immigration, it goes without saying, was thus not an exceptional movement in the history of the country. But, as is well known, it was predominantly a movement of warfare; and the Hebrews penetrated into the country as conquerors, and established their principalities by the force of arms. Thanks mainly to their deep-rooted Messianism; and their racial belief in their chosenness as a people, and in their ordination for a divine mission appointed to them by God; and their resultant racial exclusiveness, the Hebrews failed to be assimilated within the wider social community, into whose life they had entered as intruders, and in which they maintained their aloofness and segregation. When their defeat at the hands of foreign armies took place, and their dispersion ensued, they left behind them not a home from which they were expatriated, but rather a temporary abode, into which they had entered by warfare, within which they had maintained their precarious rule as victors, and from which they were expelled as a vanquished race.
The subsequent career of the Jews - the intensification of their Messianism, their further crystallization as a defeated and grieved race, their subsequent inner solidarity as an embittered minority, their aspiration for the repetition of a golden age of political dominance and freedom associated with Palestine, their belief in a divine promise to re-assemble in the Holy Land, all these spiritual developments, born of frustration and of hope, are not parts of the history of Palestine, but rather of the racial history of the Jews.
In due course, however, such spiritual feelings and aspirations as the Jews had developed, were passed from one generation of Jews to another, all
over the countries of their dispersion; and grew in intensity as time passed on, failing to disappear, due to their religious and literary associations. And instead of the assimilation of the Jews in their new abodes, there arose the unfortunate phenomenon of a racial group, jealous of its internal solidarity, proud of its religious and cultural mission, and ever-aspiring to return to a country it believes to be its own. Such a lack of preparedness on the part of the Jews to be assimilated naturally resulted in a corresponding unwillingness to have them assimilated; and a mutual feeling of embitterment and ill will arose between the Jews and their hosts. The fact that this feeling emerged in more than one national community, goes to prove that no one particular nation is responsible for it, but rather that the Jews themselves bear the first responsibility.
The Jewish Problem, thus arose before the advent of the Jews into Palestine, was maintained during their temporary sojourn in Palestine, and grew more intense after their dispersion; and it is evident that the Jews themselves, to say the least, are not entirely innocent of the charge of having contributed to the rise of such a situation of ill will between them and the world.
The Jews, however, did not abandon their golden dream of returning to Palestine, where at last they would resuscitate the brief period of their political dominance. And, whenever circumstances proved promising, they made use of the opportunity to transform their age-long aspirations into a very pressing demand and necessity of the moment! Hence the rise of Zionism in the last century.
