'THE JEWS', BY GANDHI
FROM HARIJAN
NOVEMBER26, 1938
Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views aboutthe Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. Itis not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this verydifficult question.
My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in SouthAfrica. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I cameto learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables ofChristianity. The parallel between their treatment by Christians and thetreatment of untouchables by Hindus is very close. Religious sanction has beeninvoked in both cases for the justification of the inhuman treatment meted outto them. Apart from the friendships, therefore, there is the more commonuniversal reason for my sympathy for the Jews.
But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry forthe national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanctionfor it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews havehankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples ofthe earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earntheir livelihood?
Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to theEnglish or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews onthe Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moralcode of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surelyit would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestinecan be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.
The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews whereverthey are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have nohome but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave theother parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a doublehome where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords acolourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
But the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. Thetyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doingit with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive andmilitant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act ofhumanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad butintrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity.If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a waragainst Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would becompletely justified. But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the prosand cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.
But if there can be no war against Germany, even for such a crime as is beingcommitted against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with Germany. Howcan there be alliance between a nation which claims to stand for justice anddemocracy and one which is the declared enemy of both? Or is England driftingtowards armed dictatorship and all it means?
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when itis not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. Itis also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way topreserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? Isubmit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless orforlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of theChristians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact inessence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. Butas the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every actionof theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born inGermany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home evenas the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me inthe dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminatingtreatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join mein civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest arebound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept theprescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. Andsuffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy whichno number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed,even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities againstGermany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculatedviolence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way ofhis first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mindcould be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imaginedcould be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wroughtdeliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing,death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that wouldbe all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
It is hardly necessary for me to point out that it is easier for the Jews thanfor the Czechs to follow my prescription. And they have in the Indiansatyagraha campaign in South Africa an exact parallel. There the Indiansoccupied precisely the same place that the Jews occupy in Germany. Thepersecution had also a religious tinge. President Kruger used to say that thewhite Christians were the chosen of God and Indians were inferior beingscreated to serve the whites. A fundamental clause in the Transvaal constitutionwas that there should be no equality between the whites and coloured racesincluding Asiatics. There too the Indians were consigned to ghettos describedas locations. The other disabilities were almost of the same type as those ofthe Jews in Germany. The Indians, a mere handful, resorted to satyagrahawithout any backing from the world outside or the Indian Government. Indeed theBritish officials tried to dissuade the satyagrahis is from their contemplatedstep. World opinion and the Indian Government came to their aid after eightyears of fighting. And that too was by way of diplomatic pressure not of athreat of war.
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspicesthan the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous communityin Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And theyhave organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone withcourage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, thewinter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into thesummer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turnedinto a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessingthe strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a trulyreligious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanised man. TheGerman Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sensethat they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. Theywill have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be thereal Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, theGerman name into the mire.
And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are goingabout it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not ageographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to thePalestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it underthe shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aidof the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwillof the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rulesthe Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in frontof the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Seawithout raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinionin their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways ofreasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the Britishbayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a peoplewho have done no wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way ofnon-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantableencroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of rightand wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face ofoverwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing theway of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country istheir home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service. AJewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilisationby Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich theworld`s literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Giventhe will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to bedespised or patronised. He can command the attention and respect of the worldby being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fastsinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their manycontributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.
Segaon, November 20, 1938