The following statement was handed
to President Wilson on behalf of the signers by Congressman Julius Kahn on
March 4th, 1919, for transmission to the Peace Conference at Paris. The
Statement was prepared conjointly by the Rev. Dr. Henry Berkowitz, of
Philadelphia, Mr. Max Senior, of Cincinatti, and Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr.,
of the University of Pennsylvania
As a future form of government for Palestine
will undoubtedly be considered by the approaching Peace Conference, we, the
undersigned citizens of the United States, unite in this statement, setting
forth our objections to the organization of a Jewish State in Palestine as
proposed by the Zionist Societies in this country and Europe and to the
segregation of the Jews as a nationalistic unit in any country.
We feel that in so doing we are voicing
the opinion of the majority of American Jews born in this country and of those
foreign born who have lived here long enough to thoroughly assimilate American
political and social conditions. The American Zionists represent, according to
the most recent statistics available, only a small proportion of the Jews
living in this country, about 150,000 out of 3,500,000. (American Jewish Year
Book, 1918, Philadelphia).
At the outset we wish to indicate our
entire sympathy with the efforts of Zionists which aim to secure for Jews at
present living in lands of oppression a refuge in Palestine or elsewhere, where
they may freely develop their capabilities and carry on their activities as
free citizens.
But we raise our voices in warning and
protest against the demand of the Zionists for the reorganisation of the Jews
as a national unit, to whom, now or in the future, territorial sovereignty in
Palestine shall be committed. This demand not only misrepresents the trend of
the history of the Jews, who ceased to be a nation 2000 years ago, but involves
the limitation and possible annulment of the larger claims of Jews for full
citizenship and human rights in all lands in which those rights are not yet
secure. For the very reason that the new era upon which the world is entering
aims to establish government everywhere on principles of true democracy, we
reject the Zionistic project of a "national home for the Jewish people in
Palestine".
Zionism arose as a result of the
intolerable conditions under which Jews have been forced to live in Russia and
Roumania. But it is evident that for the Jewish population of these countries,
variously estimated at from six to ten millions, Palestine can become no
homeland. Even with the improvement of the neglected condition of this country,
its limited area can offer no solution. The Jewish question in Russia and
Roumania can be settled only within those countries by the grant of full rights
of citizenship to Jews.
We are all the more opposed to the
Zionists, because they, themselves, distinctly repudiate the solely
ameliorative program. They demand and hail with delight the "Balfour
Declaration" to establish "a national home for the Jewish people in
Palestine", i.e., a home not merely for Jews living in countries in which
they are oppressed, but for Jews universally. No Jew, wherever he may live, can
consider himself free from the implications of such a grant.
The willingness of Jews interested in the
welfare of their brethren to aid in redeeming Palestine from the blight of
centuries of Turkish misrule, is no acceptance of the Zionist project to
segregate Jews as a political unit and to re-institute a section of such a
political unit in Palestine or elsewhere.
At the present juncture in the world's
affairs when lands that have hitherto been subjected to foreign domination are
to be recognized as free and independent states, we rejoice in the avowed
proposal of the Peace Congress to put into practical application the
fundamental principles of democracy. That principle, which asserts equal rights
for all citizens of a state, irrespective of creed or ethnic descent, should be
applied in such a manner as to exclude segregation of any kind, be it
nationalistic or other. Such segregation must inevitably create differences
among the sections of the population of a country. Any such plan of segregation
is necessarily reactionary in its tendency, undemocratic in spirit and totally
contrary to the practices of free government, especially as these are
exemplified by our own country. We therefore strongly urge the abandonment of
such a basis for the reorganization of any state.
Against such a political segregation of
the Jews in Palestine or elsewhere we object:
1. Because the Jews are dedicated heart
and soul to the welfare of the countries in which they dwell under free
conditions. All Jews repudiate every suspicion of a double allegiance, but to
our minds it is necessarily implied in and cannot by any logic be eliminated
from the establishment of a sovereign State for the Jews in Palestine.
By the large part taken by them in the
great war, the Jews have once and for all shattered the base aspersions of the
Anti-Semites which charged them with being aliens in every land, incapable of
true patriotism and prompted only by sinister and self-seeking motives.
Moreover, it is safe to assume that the overwhelming bulk of the Jews of
America, England, France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland and the other lands of
freedom, have no thought whatever of surrendering their citizenship in these
lands in order to resort to a "Jewish homeland in Palestine". As a
rule those who favor such a restoration advocate it not for themselves but for
others. Those who act thus, and yet insist on their patriotic attachment to the
countries of which they are citizens, are self-deceived in their profession of
Zionism and under the spell of an emotional romanticism or of a religious
sentiment fostered through centuries of gloom.
2. We also object to political segregation
of Jews for those who take their Zionistic professions seriously as referring
not to 'others' but to themselves. Granted that the establishment of a
sovereign Jewish State in Palestine would lead many to emigrate to that land,
the political conditions of the millions who would be unable to migrate for
generations to come, if ever, would be made far more precarious. Roumania -
despite the pledges of the Berlin Treaty - has legally branded her Jews as
aliens, though many are descended from families settled in that country longer
than the present Roumanian government has existed. The establishment of a
Jewish State will manifestly serve the malevolent rulers of that and other
lands as a new justification for additional repressive legislation. The
multitudes who remain would be subject to worse perils, if possible, even
though the few who escape might prosper in Palestine.
3. We object to the political segregation
also of those who might succeed in establishing themselves in Palestine. The
proposition involves dangers which it is manifest, have not had the serious
consideration of those who are so zealous in its advocacy. These dangers are
adverted to in a most kindly spirit as warning by Sir George Adam Smith, who is
generally acknowledged to be the greatest authority in this world on everything
connected with Palestine, either past or present. In a recent publication, Syria
and the Holy Land, he points out that there is absolutely no fixity to the
boundaries of Palestine. These have varied greatly in the course of the
centuries. The claims to various sections of this undefined territory would
unquestionably evoke bitter controversies. "It is not true", says Sir
George, "that Palestine is the national home of the Jewish people and of
no other people". It is not correct to call its non-Jewish inhabitants
'Arabs', or to say that they have left no image of their spirit and made no
history except in the great Mosque". "Nor can we evade the fact that
Christian communities have been as long as ever the Jews were".
"These are legitimate questions", he says, "stirred up by the
claims of Zionism, but the Zionists have not yet fully faced them".
To subject the Jews to the possible
recurrence of such bitter and sanguinary conflicts which would be inevitable,
would be a crime against the triumphs of their whole past history and against
the lofty and world-embracing visions of their great prophets and leaders.
4. Though these grave difficulties be met,
still we protest against the political segregation of the Jews and the
re-establishment in Palestine of a distinctively Jewish State as utterly
opposed to the principles of democracy which it is the avowed purpose of the
World's Peace Conference to establish.
Whether the Jews be regarded as a 'race'
or as a 'religion', it is contrary to the democratic principles for which the
world war was waged to found a nation on either or both of these bases.
America, England, France, Italy, Switzerland and all the most advanced nations
of the world are composed of representatives of many races and religions. Their
glory lies in the freedom of conscience and worship, in the liberty of thought
and custom which binds the followers of many faiths and varied civilizations in
the common bonds of political union. A Jewish State involves fundamental
limitations as to race and religion, else the term 'Jewish' means nothing. To
unite Church and State, in any form, as under the old Jewish hierarchy, would
be a leap backward of two thousand years.
"The rights of other creeds and races
will be respected under Jewish dominance", is the assurance of Zionism.
But the keynotes of democracy are neither condescension nor tolerance, but
justice and equality. All this applies with special force to a country like
Palestine. That land is filled with associations sacred to the followers of
three great religions, and as a result of migrating movements of many centuries
contains an extraordinary number of different ethnic groups, far out of
proportion to the small extent of the country itself. Such a condition points
clearly to a reorganization of Palestine on the broadest possible basis.
5. We object to the political segregation
of the Jews because it is an error to assume that the bond uniting them is of a
national character. They are bound by two factors: First, the bond of common
religious beliefs and aspirations and, secondly, the bond of common traditions,
customs, and experiences, largely, alas, of common trials and sufferings.
Nothing in their present status suggests that they form in any real sense a
separate nationalistic unit.
The reorganization of Palestine as far as
it affects the Jews is but part of a far larger issue, namely, the constructive
endeavor to secure the emancipation of the Jews in all the lands in which they
dwell. This movement, inaugurated in the eighteenth century and advancing with
steady progress through the western lands, was checked by such reactionary
tendencies as caused by the expulsion of the Poles from Eastern Prussia and the
massacre of Armenians in Turkey. As directed against Jews these tendencies
crystallised into a political movement called Anti-Semitism, which had its rise
in Germany. Its virulence spread (especially) throughout eastern Europe and led
to cruel outbreaks in Roumania and elsewhere, and to the pogroms of Russia with
their dire consequences.
To guard against such evils in the future
we urge that the great constructive movement, so sadly interrupted, be
reinstituted and that efficient measures be taken to insure the protection of
the law and the full fights of citizenship to Jews in every land. If the basis
of the reorganisation of governments is henceforth to be democratic, it cannot
be contemplated to exclude any group of people from the enjoyment of full
rights.
As to the future of Palestine, it is our
fervent hope that what was once a "promised land" for the Jews may
become a "land of promise" for all races and creeds, safeguarded by
the League of Nations which, it is expected, will be one of the fruits of the
Peace Conference to whose deliberations the world now looks forward so
anxiously and so full of hope. We ask that Palestine be constituted as a free
and independent state, to be governed under a democratic form of government
recognizing no distinctions of creed or race or ethnic descent, and with
adequate power to protect the country against oppression of any kind. We do not
wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a
Jewish State.
(printed as Annex in Anti-Zionism -
Analytical Reflections, by Roselle Tekiner, Samir Abed-Rabbo and Norton
Mezvinsky, editors, Amana Books, New York, 1988. Distributed by American Jewish
Alternatives to Zionism, Inc., New York)