Letter fromMartin Buber to Gandhi
1939,February 24
Jerusalem, February 24, 1939
My dear Mahatma Gandhi,
He who is unhappy lends a deaf ear when idle tongues discuss his fate amongthemselves. But when a voice that he has long known and honoured, a great voiceand an earnest one, pierces the vain clamour and calls him by name, he is allattention. Here is a voice, he thinks, that can but give good counsel andgenuine comfort, for he who speaks knows what suffering is; he knows that thesufferer is more in need of comfort than of counsel; and he has both the wisdomto counsel rightly and that simple union of faith and love which alone is theopen sesame to true comforting. But what he hears - containing though it doeselements of a noble and most praiseworthy conception, such as he expects fromthis speaker - is yet barren of all application to his peculiar circumstances.These words are in truth not applicable to him at all. They are inspired by mostpraiseworthy general principles, but the listener is aware that the speaker hascast not a single glance at the situation of him whom he is addressing, that heneither sees him nor knows him and the straits under which he labours. Moreover,intermingled with the counsel and the comfort, a third voice makes itself heard,drowning both the others, the voice of reproach. It is not that the suffererdisdains to accept reproach in this hour from the man he honours. On thecontrary, if only there were mingled with the good counsel and the true comforta word of just reproach, giving to the former a meaning and a reason, he wouldrecognise in the speaker the bearer of a message. But the accusation voiced isanother altogether from that which he hears in the storm of events and in thehard beating of his own heart: it is almost the opposite of this. He weighs itand examines it - no, it is not a just one! And the armour of his silence ispierced. The friendly appeal achieves what the enemy`s storming has failed todo; he must answer. He exclaims, "Let the lords of the ice inferno affix myname to a cunningly constructed scarecrow; this is the logical outcome of theirown nature and the nature of their relations to me." But you, the man ofgoodwill, do you not know that you must see him whom you address, in his placeand circumstance, in the throes of his destiny?
Jews are being persecuted, robbed, maltreated, tortured, murdered. And you,Mahatma Gandhi, say that their position in the country where they suffer allthis is an exact parallel to the position of Indians in South Africa at the timeyou inaugurated your famous "Force of Truth" or "Strength of theSoul" (Satyagraha) campaign. There the Indians occupied precisely the sameplace, and the persecution there also had a religious tinge. There also theconstitution denied equality of rights to the white and the black race includingthe Asiatics; there also the Indians were assigned to ghettos, and the otherdisqualifications were, at all events, almost of the same type as those of theJews in Germany. I read and re-read these sentences in your article withoutbeing able to understand. Although I know them well, I re-read your SouthAfrican speeches and writings, and called to mind, with all the attention andimagination at my command, every complaint you made therein, and I did likewisewith the accounts of your friends and pupils at that time. But all this did nothelp me to understand what you say about us. In the first of your speeches withwhich I am acquainted, that of 1896, you quoted two particular incidents to theaccompaniment of hisses from your audience: first, that a band of Europeans hadset fire to an Indian village shop, causing some damage; and, second, thatanother band had thrown burning rockets into an urban shop. If I oppose to thisthe thousands on thousands of Jewish shops destroyed and burned out, you willperhaps answer that the difference is only one of quantity and that theproceedings were of almost the same type. But, Mahatma, are you not aware of theburning of synagogues and scrolls of the Law? Do you know nothing of all thesacred property of the community - some of it of great antiquity - that has beendestroyed in the flames? I am not aware that Boers and Englishmen in SouthAfrica ever injured anything sacred to the Indians. I find only one otherconcrete complaint quoted in that speech, namely, that three Indianschoolteachers, who were found walking in the streets after 9.00 p.m. contraryto orders, were arrested and only acquitted later on. That is the only incidentof the kind you bring forward. Now do you know or do you not know, Mahatma, whata concentration camp is like and what goes on there? Do you know of the tormentsin the concentration camp, of its methods of slow and quick slaughter? I cannotassume that you know of this; for then this tragi-comic utterance "ofalmost the same type" could scarcely have crossed your lips. Indians weredespised and despicably treated in South Africa. But they were not deprived ofrights, they were not outlawed, they were not hostages to a hoped-for change inthe behaviour of foreign Powers. And do you think perhaps that a Jew in Germanycould pronounce in public one single sentence of a speech such as yours withoutbeing knocked down? Of what significance is it to point to a certain somethingin common when such differences are overlooked?
It does not seem to me convincing when you base your advice to us to observesatyagraha in Germany on these similarities of circumstance. In the five years Imyself spent under the present regime, I observed many instances of genuinesatyagraha among the Jews, instances showing a strength of spirit in which therewas no question of bartering their rights or of being bowed down, and whereneither force nor cunning was used to escape the consequences of their behaviour.Such actions, however, exerted apparently not the slightest influence on theiropponents. All honour indeed to those who displayed such strength of soul! But Icannot recognise herein a watchword for the general behaviour of German Jewsthat might seem suited to exert an influence on the oppressed or on the world.An effective stand in the form of non-violence may be taken against unfeelinghuman beings in the hope of gradually bringing them to their senses; but adiabolic universal steamroller cannot thus be withstood. There is a certainsituation in which no "satyagraha" of the power of the truth canresult from the "satyagraha" of the strength of the spirit. The wordsatyagraha signifies testimony. Testimony without acknowledgment, ineffective,unobserved martyrdom, a martyrdom cast to the winds - that is the fate ofinnumerable Jews in Germany. God alone accepts their testimony' God "seals"it, as is said in our prayers. But no maximum for suitable behaviour can bededuced from that. Such martyrdom is a deed - but who would venture to demand it?
But your comparison of the position of the Jews in Germany with that of theIndians in South Africa compels me to draw your attention to a yet moreessential difference. True, I can well believe that you were aware of thisdifference, great as it is, when you drew the exact parallel. It is obvious that,when you think back to your time in South Africa, it is a matter of course foryou that, then as now, you always had this great Mother India. That fact was andstill is so taken for granted that apparently you are entirely unaware of thefundamental differences existing between nations having such a mother (it neednot necessarily be such a great mother, it may be a tiny motherkin, but yet amother, a mother`s bosom and a mother`s heart) and a nation that is orphaned, orto whom one says, in speaking of his country, "This is no more your mother!"
When you were in South Africa, Mahatma, 150,000 Indians lived there. But inIndia there were far more than 200 million! And this fact nourished the souls ofthe 150,000, whether they were conscious of it or not; they drew then, as youask the Jews now, whether they want a double home where they can remain at will?You say to the Jews: If Palestine is their home, they must accustom themselvesto the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which theyare settled. Did you also say to the Indians in South Africa that if India istheir home, they must accustom themselves to the idea of being compelled toreturn to India? Or did you tell them that India was not their home? And if -though indeed it is inconceivable that such a thing could come to pass - thehundreds of millions of Indians were to be scattered tomorrow over the face ofthe earth, and if the day after tomorrow another nation were to establish itselfin India and the Jews were to declare that there was yet room for theestablishment of a national home for the Indians, thus giving to their diasporaa strong organic concentration and a living centre, should a Jewish Gandhi -assuming there could be such - then answer them, as you answered the Jews, that"this cry for the national home affords a plausible justification for yourexpulsion"? Or should he teach them, as you teach the Jews, that the Indiaof the Vedic conception is not a geographical tract, but that it is in yourhearts? A land about which a sacred book speaks to the sons of the land is nevermerely in their hearts; a land can never become a mere symbol. It is in thehearts because it is the prophetic image of a promise to mankind. But it wouldbe a vain metaphor if Mount Zion did not actually exist. This land is called"holy", but this is not the holiness of an idea; it is the holiness ofa piece of earth. That which is merely an idea and nothing more cannot becomeholy, but a piece of earth can become holy just as a mother`s womb can becomeholy.
Dispersion is bearable. It can even be purposeful if somewhere there isingathering, a growing home centre, a piece of earth where one is in the midstof an ingathering and not in dispersion and from where the spirit of ingatheringmay work its way out to all the places of the dispersion. When there is this,there is also a striving, common life, the life of a community that dares tolive today because it hopes to live tomorrow. But when this growing centre, thisincreasing process of ingathering is lacking, dispersion becomes dismemberment.On this criterion, the question of our Jewish destiny in indissolubly bound upwith the possibility of ingathering, and this in Palestine.
You ask, "Why should they not, like other nations of the earth, make thatcountry where they are born and where they earn their livelihood theirhome?" Because their destiny is different from that of all other nations ofthe earth. It is a destiny that in truth and justice should not be imposed onany nation on earth. For their destiny is dispersion - not the dispersion of afraction and the preservation of the main substance, as in the case of othernations. It is dispersion without the living heart and center, and every nationhas a right to demand the possession of a living heart. It is different, becausea hundred adopted homes without one original and natural one render a nationsick and miserable. It is different, because, although the wellbeing and theachievement of the individual may flourish on stepmother soil, the nation assuch must languish. And just as you, Mahatma, wish that not only should allIndians be able to live and work, but that also Indian substance, Indian wisdom,and Indian truth should prosper and be fruitful, so do we wish this for the Jews.For you, there is no need to be aware that the Indian substance could notprosper without the Indian`s attachment to the mother soil and without hisingathering there. But we know what is essential. We know it because it is justthis that is denied us or was, at least, up to the generation that has justbegun to work at the redemption of the mother soil.
But this is not all. Because for us, for the Jews who think as I do, painfullyurgent as it is, it is indeed not the decisive factor. You say, Mahatma Gandhi,that a sanction is "sought in the Bible" to support the cry for anational home, which "does not make much appeal to you". No - this isnot so. We do not open the Bible and seek sanction there. The opposite it true:the promises of return, of re-establishment, which have nourished the yearninghope of hundreds of generations, give those of today an elementary stimulus,recognised by few in its full meaning but effective also in the lives of manywho do not believe in the message of the Bible. Still, this too is not thedetermining factor for us who, although we do not see divine revelation in everysentence of Holy Scriptures, yet trust in the spirit that inspired theirspeakers. What is decisive for us is not the promise of the Land - but thecommand, whose fulfilment is bound up with the land, with the existence of afree Jewish community in this country. For the Bible tells us - and our inmostknowledge testifies to it - that once, more than three thousand years ago, ourentry into this land was in the consciousness of a mission from above to set upa just way of life through the generations of our people, such a way of life ascan be realised not by individuals in the sphere of their private existence butonly by a nation in the establishment of its society: communal ownership of theland, regularly recurrent levelling of social distinctions, guarantee of theindependence of each individual, mutual help, a common Sabbath embracing serfand beast as beings with equal claim, a sabbatical year whereby, letting thesoil rest, everybody is admitted to the free enjoyment of its fruits. These arenot practical laws thought out by wise men; they are measures that the leadersof the nation, apparently themselves taken by surprise and overpowered, havefound to be the set task and condition for taking possession of the land. Noother nation has ever been faced at the beginning of its career with such amission. Here is something that allows of no forgetting, and from which there isno release. At that time, we did not carry out what was imposed upon us. We wentinto exile with our task unperformed. But the command remained with us, and ithas become more urgent than ever. We need our own soil in order to fulfil it. Weneed the freedom of ordering our own life. No attempt can be made on foreignsoil and under foreign statute. The soil and the freedom for fulfilment may notbe denied us. We are not covetous, Mahatma; our one desire is that at last wemay obey.
Now, you may well ask whether I speak for the Jewish people when I say "we".I speak only for those who feel themselves entrusted with the mission offulfilling the command of justice delivered to Israel of the Bible. Were it buta handful - these constitute the pith of the nation, and the future of thepeople depends on them. For the ancient mission of the nation lives on in themas the cotyledon in the core of the fruit. In this connexion, I must tell youthat you are mistaken when you assume that in general the Jews of today believein God and derive from their faith guidance for their conduct. Jewry of today isin the throes of a serious crisis in the matter of faith. It seems to me thatthe lack of faith of present-day humanity, its inability truly to believe in God,finds its concentrated expression in this crisis of Jewry. Here, all is darker,more fraught with danger, more fateful than anywhere else in the world. Nor isthis crisis resolved here in Palestine; indeed, we recognise its severity hereeven more than elsewhere among Jews. But at the same time we realise that herealone can it be resolved. There is no solution to be found in the life ofisolated and abandoned individuals, although one may hope that the spark offaith will be kindled in their great need. The true solution can issue only fromthe life of a community that begins to carry out the will of God, often withoutbeing aware of doing so, without believing that God exists and this is his will.It may be found in this life of the community if believing people support it whoneither direct nor demand, neither urge nor preach, but who share the life, whohelp, wait, and are ready for the moment when it will be their turn to give thetrue answer to the inquirer. This is the innermost truth of the Jewish life inthe Land; perhaps it may be of significance for the solution of the crisis offaith, not only for Jewry but for all humanity. The contact of this people withthis land is not only a matter of sacred ancient history; we sense here a secretstill more hidden.
You, Mahatma Gandhi, who know of the connexion between tradition and future,should not associate yourself with those who pass over our cause withoutunderstanding or sympathy.
But you say - and I consider it to be the most significant of all the things youtell us - that Palestine belongs to the Arabs and that it is therefore "wrongand inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs".
Here I must add a personal note in order to make clear to you on what premises Idesire to consider this matter.
I belong to a group of people who, from the time when Britain conqueredPalestine, have not ceased to strive for the achievement of genuine peacebetween Jew and Arab.
By genuine peace, we inferred and still infer that both peoples should togetherdevelop the Land without one imposing his will on the other. In view of theinternational usages of our generation, this appeared to us to be very difficultbut not impossible. We were and still are well aware that in this unusual - evenunexampled - case, it is a question of seeking new ways of understanding andcordial agreement between the nations. Here again, we stood and still standunder the sway of a commandment.
We considered it a fundamental point that in this case two vital claims areopposed to each other, two claims of a different nature and a different origin,which cannot be pitted one against the other and between which no objectivedecision can be made as to which is just or unjust. We considered and stillconsider it our duty to understand and to honour the claim that is opposed toours and to endeavour to reconcile both claims. We cannot renounce the Jewishclaim; something even higher than the life of our people is bound up with theLand, namely, the work that is their divine mission. But we have been and stillare convinced that it must be possible to find some form of agreement betweenthis claim and the other; for we love this land and we believe in its future,and, seeing that such love and such faith are surely present on the other sideas well, a union in the common service of the Land must be within the range ofthe possible. Where there is faith and love, a solution may be found even towhat appears to be a tragic contradiction.
In order to carry out a task of such extreme difficulty - and recognising thatwe have to overcome an internal resistance on the Jewish side, as foolish as itis natural - we are in need of the support of well- meaning persons of allnations, and we had hope of it. But now you come and settle the wholeexistential dilemma with the simple formula: "Palestine belongs to theArabs."
What do you mean by saying that a land belongs to a population? Evidently you donot intend only to describe a state of affairs by your formula, but to declare acertain right. You obviously mean to say that a people, being settled on theland, has such an absolute claim to the possession of this land that whoeversettles in it without the permission of this people has committed a robbery. Butby what means did the Arabs attain the right of ownership in Palestine? Surelyby conquest and, in fact, a conquest by settlement. You therefore admit that,this being so, it constitutes for them an exclusive right of possession; whereasthe subsequent conquests of the Mamelukes and the Turks, which were notconquests with a view to settlement, do not constitute such in your opinion, butleave the former conquering nation in rightful ownership. Thus, settlement byforce of conquest justifies for you a right of ownership of Palestine, whereas asettlement such as the Jewish one - whose methods, it is true, though not alwaysdoing full justice to Arab ways of life, were, even in the most objectionablecases, far removed from those of conquest - do not in your opinion justify anyparticipation in this right of possession. These are the consequences thatresult from your statement in the form of an axiom that a land belongs to itspopulation. In an epoch of migration of nations, you would first support theright of ownership of the nation that is threatened with dispossession orextermination. But once this was achieved, you would be compelled - not at once,but after the elapse of a suitable number of generations - to admit that theland belongs to the usurper.
Possibly the time is not far removed when - perhaps after a catastrophe whoseextent we cannot yet estimate - the representatives of humanity will have tocome to some agreement on the re-establishment of relations among peoples,nations and countries, on the colonisation of thinly populated territories aswell as on a communal distribution of the necessary raw materials and on alogical intensification of the cultivation of the globe, in order to prevent anew, enormously extended migration of nations which would threaten to destroymankind. Is then the dogma of "possession," of the inalienable rightof ownership, of the sacred status quo to be held up against the men who dare tosave the situation? For surely we are witnesses of how the feeling, penetratingdeep into the heart of national life, that this dogma must be opposed isdisastrously misused. But do not those representatives of the most powerfulStates share the guilt of this misuse, who consider every questioning of thedogma as a sacrilege?
And what if it is not the nations who migrate, but one nation? And what if thismigrating nation should yearn toward its ancient home, where there is still roomfor a considerable section of it, enough to form a center side by side with thepeople to whom the land now "belongs"? And what if this wanderingnation, to whom the land once belonged, likewise on the basis of a settlement byforce of conquest - and which was once driven out of it by mere force ofdomination - should now strive to occupy a free part of the land, or a part thatmight become free without encroaching on the living space of others, in order atlast to acquire again for itself a national home - a home where its people couldlive as a nation? Then you come, Mahatma Gandhi, and help to draw the barriersand to declare, "Hands off! This land does not belong to you!" Insteadof helping to establish a genuine peace, giving us what we need without takingfrom the Arabs what they need, on the basis of a fair adjustment as to what theywould really make use of and what might be admitted to satisfy our requirements!
Such an adjustment of the required living space for all is possible if it isbrought into line with an all-embracing intensification of the cultivation ofthe whole soil in Palestine. In the present, helplessly primitive state offellah agriculture, the amount of land needed to produce nourishment for afamily is ever so much larger than it otherwise would be. Is it right to clingto ancient forms of agriculture, which have become meaningless, to neglect thepotential productivity of the soil, in order to prevent the immigration of newsettlers without prejudice to the old? I repeat: without prejudice. This shouldbe the basis of the agreement for which we are striving.
You are only concerned, Mahatma, with the "right of possession" on theone side; you do not consider the right to a piece of free land on the otherside - for those who are hungering for it. But there is another of whom you donot inquire and who in justice, i.e., on the basis of the whole perceptiblereality, would have to be asked. This other is the soil itself. Ask the soilwhat the Arabs have done for her in thirteen hundred years and what we have donefor her in fifty! Would her answer not be weighty testimony in a just discussionas to whom this land "belongs"?
It seems to me that God does not give any one portion of the earth away so thatits owner may say, as God does in the Holy Scriptures: "Mine is theland". Even to the conqueror who has settled on it, the conquered land is,in my opinion, only loaned - and God waits to see what he will make of it.
I am told, however, that I should not respect the cultivated soil and despisethe desert. I am told that the desert is willing to wait for the work of herchildren. We who are burdened with civilisation are not recognised by heranymore as her children. I have a veneration of the desert, but I do not believein her absolute resistance, for I believe in the great marriage between man (adam)and earth (adama). This land recognises us, for it is fruitful through us, andthrough its fruit-bearing for us it recognises us. Our settlers do not come hereas do the colonists from the Occident, with natives to do their work for them;they themselves set their shoulders to the plough, and they spend their strengthand their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves thatwe desire its fertility. The Jewish peasants have begun to teach their brothers,the Arab peasants, to cultivate the land more intensively. We desire to teachthem further; together with them, we want to cultivate the land - to"serve" it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes,the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire todispossess them; we want to live with them. We do not want to rule; we want toserve with them.
You once said, Mahatma, that politics enmeshes us nowadays as with serpent`scoils from which there is no escape, however hard one may try. You said youdesired, therefore, to wrestle with the serpent. Here is the serpent in thefullness of its power! Jews and Arabs both have a claim to this land, but theseclaims are in fact reconcilable as long as they are restricted to the measurethat life itself allots, and as long as they are limited by the desire forconciliation - that is, if they are translated into the language of the needs ofliving people for themselves and their children. But instead of this, they areturned through the serpent`s influence into claims of principle and politics,and are represented with all the ruthlessness that politics instills into thosewho are led by it. Life with all its realities and possibilities disappears, asdoes the desire for truth and peace; nothing is known and sensed but thepolitical slogan alone. The serpent conquers not only the spirit but also life.Who would wrestle with it?
In the midst of your arguments, Mahatma, there is a fine word which wegratefully accept. We should seek, you say, to convert the heart of the Arab.Well, then - help us to do so! Among us also there are many foolish hearts toconvert - hearts that have fallen prey to that nationalist egotism which onlyadmits its own claims. We hope to achieve this ourselves. But for the other taskof conversion, we need your help. Instead, your admonition is addressed only tothe Jews, because they allow British bayonets to defend them against the bombthrowers. Your attitude to the latter is much more reserved. You say you wishthe Arabs had chosen the way of non-violence, but, according to the acceptedcanons of right and wrong, there is nothing to be said against their behaviour.How is it possible that, in this case, you should give credence - if only in alimited form - to the accepted canons, whereas you have never done so before!You reproach us that, having no army of our own, we consent to the British armypreventing an occasional blind murder. But, in view of the accepted canons, youcast a lenient eye on those who carry murder into our ranks every day withouteven noticing who is hit. Were you to look down on all, Mahatma, on what is doneand what is not done on both sides - on the just and the unjust on both sides -would you not admit that we certainly are not least in need of your help?
We began to settle again in the Land thirty-five years before the "shadowof the British gun" was cast upon it. We did not seek this shadow; itappeared and remained here to guard British interests and not ours. We do notwant force. But after the resolutions of Delhi, at the beginning of March 1922,you yourself, Mahatma Gandhi, wrote: "Have I not repeatedly said that Iwould have India become free even by violence rather than that she should remainin bondage?" This was a very important pronouncement on your part; youasserted thereby that non-violence is for you a faith and not a politicalprinciple - and that the desire for the freedom of India is even stronger in youthan your faith. And for this, I love you. We do not want force. We have notproclaimed, as did Jesus, the son of our people, and as you do, the teaching ofnon-violence, because we believe that a man must sometimes use force to savehimself or even more his children. But from time immemorial we have proclaimedthe teaching of justice and peace; we have taught and we have learned that peaceis the aim of all the world and that justice is the way to attain it. Thus, wecannot desire to use force. No one who counts himself in the ranks of Israel candesire to use force.
But, you say, our non-violence is that of the helpless and the weak. This is notin accordance with the true state of affairs. You do not know or you do notconsider what strength of soul, what satyagraha has been needed for us torestrain ourselves here after years of ceaseless deeds of blind violenceperpetrated against us, our wives, and our children, and not to answer with likedeeds of blind violence. And on the other hand, you, Mahatma, wrote in 1922:"I see that our non-violence is skin deep.... This non-violence seems to bedue merely to our helplessness... Can true voluntary non-violence come out ofthis seemingly forced non-violence of the weak?" When I read those words atthat time, my reverence for you took birth - a reverence so great that even yourinjustice toward us cannot destroy it.
You say it is a stigma against us that our ancestors crucified Jesus. I do notknow whether that actually happened, but I consider it possible. I consider itjust as possible as that the Indian people under different circumstances shouldcondemn you to death - if your teachings were more strictly opposed to their owntendencies ("India," you say, "is by nature nonviolent").Nations not infrequently swallow up the greatness to which they have givenbirth. Now, can one assert, without contradiction, that such action constitutesa stigma! I would not deny however, that although I should not have been amongthe crucifiers of Jesus, I should also not have been among his supporters. For Icannot help withstanding evil when I see that it is about to destroy the good. Iam forced to withstand the evil in the world just as the evil within myself. Ican only strive not to have to do so by force. I do not want force. But if thereis no other way of preventing the evil destroying the good, I trust I shall useforce and give myself up into God`s hands.
"India," you say, "is by nature nonviolent." It was notalways so. The Mahabharata is an epos of warlike, disciplined force. In thegreatest of its poems, the Bhagavad Gita, it is told how Arjuna decides on thebattlefield that he will not commit the sin of killing his relations who areopposed to him, and he lets fall his bow and arrow. But the god reproaches him,saying that such action is unmanly and shameful; there is nothing better for aknight in arms than a just fight.
Is that the truth? If I am to confess what is truth to me, I must say: There isnothing better for a man than to deal justly - unless it be to love. We shouldbe able even to fight for justice - but to fight lovingly.
I have been very slow in writing this letter to you, Mahatma. I made repeatedpauses - sometimes days elapsed between short paragraphs - in order to test myknowledge and my way of thinking. Day and night I took myself to task, searchingwhether I had not in any one point overstepped the measure of self-preservationallotted and even prescribed by God to a human community, and whether I had notfallen into the grievous error of collective egotism. Friends and my ownconscience have helped to keep me straight whenever danger threatened. Weekshave now passed since then, and the time has come, when negotiations areproceeding in the capital of the British Empire on the Jewish-Arab problem - andwhen, it is said, a decision is to be made.
But the true decision in this matter can come only from within and not fromwithout.
I therefore take the liberty of closing this letter without waiting for theresult in London.
Sincerely yours,
Martin Buber