THE ERASURE OF the Palestinians on display this week as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a one-sided “vision for peace” might have been an unusually blatant act of disregard, but it was in no way new.Khalili is right. The Israelis produce useful things- they may be the first out of the gate with a COVID vaccine- and thus are well regarded. The Palestinians have evoked pity but also terror and disgust at the criminality, corruption and cretinism of its politicians and public intellectuals. This is not to say that there aren't plenty of excellent Palestinian Doctors and Scientists and Entrepreneurs and Artists. Nor can anyone deny that Palestinians, as hard workers and good neighbors, have been a blessing for any Western country where they have emigrated. But, whereas there are some things every country needs to import from Israel, there is nothing Palestine, as a political entity, exported which wasn't poisonous. Consider Zia's Pakistan. It supported the PLO. Yet the PLO sold anti-aircraft missiles to Bhutto's sons who wanted to bring down Zia's aircraft. Why did they do so? How did it help the Palestinian cause? It was sheer mindless thuggery. The PLO wasn't even making much of a profit on the transaction. It's just that if some stupid, evil, shit was going to go down in Pakistan, the Palestinians wanted to be in on it. At one time, Israel too would train anyone who could pay, but they moved up the value chain. That's why they are well regarded whereas the Palestinians are neglected.
Khalili reverses the relevant arrow of causality, He thinks it is because Palestinians, as forming a polity, are given a wide berth that there is conflict. If only everybody said nice things about the Palestinians and invited them to their birthday parties and insisted they take a Permanent Seat on the Security Council and accept a Prize for being the Best and Mightiest Nation ever; then and only then would there be no conflict. Also, the Jews could kindly convert to Islam- or Christianity at the least- and confine themselves to shining the shoes of the Palestinians. That would put an end to conflict, sho' nuff.
Would history have been different if Palestinians had been consulted at every stage? No. Khalili makes this clear by telling us about an ancestor of his who basically told Herzl to c'mon over and get comfy- Palestine was their ancient patrimony- though, obviously, they'd need to square the indigenous folk and grease plenty of palms.
The omission is the essence of the conflict. I was reminded of this back in the early 1990s, when I lived in Jerusalem for several months at a time, doing research in the private libraries of some of the city’s oldest families, including my own. I spent over a year going through dusty worm-eaten books, documents, and letters belonging to generations of Khalidis, among them my great-great-great uncle, Yusuf Diya al-Din Pasha al-Khalidi.So, the Palestinians had a representative as smart as the Jews. They weren't 'subaltern'. They weren't 'aborigines'. There was no big difference in color or education of material civilization.
Through his papers, I discovered a worldly man with a broad education acquired in Jerusalem, Malta, Istanbul, and Vienna. He was the heir to a long line of Jerusalemite Islamic scholars and legal functionaries, but at a young age, Yusuf Diya sought a different path for himself. After absorbing the fundamentals of a traditional Islamic education, he left Palestine at the age of 18 — without his father’s approval, we are told — to spend two years at a British Church Mission Society school in Malta. From there, he went to study at the Imperial Medical School in Istanbul, after which he attended the city’s Robert College, recently founded by American Protestant missionaries. For five years during the 1860s, Yusuf Diya attended some of the first institutions in the Middle East that provided a modern, Western-style education, learning English, French, German, and much else.
With this broad training, Yusuf Diya filled various roles as an Ottoman government official: translator in the Foreign Ministry, consult in the Russian Black Sea port of Poti, governor of districts from Kurdistan to Syria, and mayor of Jerusalem for nearly a decade. He was also elected as the deputy from Jerusalem to the short-lived Ottoman parliament established in 1876, and he did stints teaching at the Royal Imperial University in Vienna.
As a result of his wide reading, as well as his time in Vienna and other European countries, and from his encounters with Christian missionaries, Yusuf Diya was fully conscious of the pervasiveness and virulence of European anti-Semitism. He had also gained impressive knowledge of the intellectual origins of Zionism, and he was undoubtedly familiar with “Der Judenstaat,” or “The Jewish State,” by the Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl, published in 1896, and was aware of the first two Zionist congresses in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897 and 1898. Moreover, as mayor of Jerusalem, he had witnessed the friction with the local population prompted by the first years of proto-Zionist activity, starting with the arrival of the first European Jewish settlers in the late 1870s and early 1880s.Frictions? Did the Jews enter peacefully and pay for what they bought? In any case, Herzl was repulsed by Jerusalem and the mendicant habit of its Jewish community. Initially, Zionism was a 'back to the land' movement interested in acquiring and cultivating marginal land.
Yusuf Diya would have been more aware than most of his compatriots in Palestine of the ambition of the nascent Zionist movement, as well as its strength, resources, and appeal.It had little strength, few resources and its appeal only increased as both the US and the UK clamped down on Jewish immigration. Ottoman officials expected that a Jewish exodus from Christendom would follow the same trajectory as that of the Sephardim. It is important to remember that the Jews were not considered a martial people till the second half of the Twentieth Century.
He knew perfectly well that there was no way to reconcile Zionism’s claims on Palestine and its explicit aim of Jewish statehood and sovereignty there with the rights and well-being of Palestine’s Indigenous inhabitants.This is foolish. The Ottoman Empire wasn't militarily negligible. It might want more Jews in Palestine to counterbalance Christians in Lebanon. But talk of 'Zionism's claims' would have been laughed at. It would be like the Iyer claim to Ireland. Or the Lesbian claim to Libya.
On March 1, 1899, Yusuf Diya sent a prescient seven-page letter to the French chief rabbi, Zadoc Kahn, with the intention that it be passed on to the founder of modern Zionism.Why did he write this letter? Was he hinting that the Ottoman Empire was so weak that a bunch of Jews could take over Palestine? No. He was saying something subtle- too subtle perhaps- which had to do with 'don't trust whoever it is has been taking your money at the Sublime Porte. You are being cheated. Send your people here and they will be hostages. You will have to pay through the nose to avoid 'spontaneous' pogroms.'
The letter began with an expression of Yusuf Diya’s admiration for Herzl, whom he esteemed “as a man, as a writer of talent, and as a true Jewish patriot,” and of his respect for Judaism and for Jews, whom he said were “our cousins.” He understood the motivations for Zionism, just as he deplored the persecution to which Jews were subject in Europe. In light of this, he wrote, Zionism in principle was “natural, beautiful, and just.” He added, “who could contest the rights of the Jews in Palestine? My God, historically it is your country!”
A page of the letter Yusuf Diya sent to Theodor Herzl.
Image: Central Zionist Archives
But the former mayor of Jerusalem went on to warn of the dangers he foresaw as a consequence of the implementation of the Zionist project for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine. Whatever the merits of Zionism, Yusuf Diya wrote, the “brutal force of circumstances had to be taken into account.” Palestine “is inhabited by others.” It had an Indigenous population that would never accept being superseded, making it “pure folly” for Zionism to plan to take Palestine over. “Nothing could be more just and equitable” than for “the unhappy Jewish nation” to find a refuge elsewhere, but, he concluded, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.”
Herzl replied—and quickly, in a letter on March 19. His letter was probably the first response by a leader of the Zionist movement to a cogent Palestinian objection to its embryonic plans for Palestine.It was a letter from a guy with no power whose people were being killed to a guy with a little power under an Empire which was on the brink of turning Turkish Nationalist and downgrading Arabs like himself. It is foolish to read anything into it. The fact is Herzl did not like Jerusalem. Jews who went there would demand alms to pray. They would be a financial drain. Herzl wanted young people to cultivate the land and turn into a muscular yeomanry. He looked to the are around Jafa or the mountains or even the Negev. The slogan was 'a land without people for a people without land'. The last thing Herzl wanted was for Jews to become artisans and middle-men serving an agricultural population.
Herzl simply ignored the letter’s basic thesis, that Palestine was already inhabited by a population that would not agree to be supplanted.For the excellent reason that the indigenous population was subject to an Emperor who didn't give a shit about them. If he wanted Jews in Palestine, that's what he'd get. Anyone who tried to make trouble would be slaughtered.
Although Herzl had visited Palestine once, in an 1898 visit timed to coincide with that of German Kaiser Wilhelm II, he (like most early European Zionists) had not much knowledge of or contact with its native inhabitants.He was put off by the smell.
Glossing over the fact that Zionism was ultimately meant to lead to Jewish control of Palestine, Herzl deployed a justification that has been a touchstone for colonialists and that would become a staple argument of the Zionist movement: Jewish immigration would benefit Palestine’s Indigenous inhabitants. “It is their well-being, their individual wealth, which we will increase by bringing in our own,” Herzl wrote, adding that “no one can doubt that the well-being of the entire country would be the happy result.”Sadly, this may well be the verdict of history. The average income of Arab Israelis is 13000 dollars, of West Bankers less than 4000 dollars- about the same as Jordan. But in Syria it turned negative. Gaza, of course, is a disaster zone. There can be little doubt that Arab Israelis would be materially better off now, if they had accepted Jewish refugees- Zionist or not.
Herzl’s letter addressed a consideration that Yusuf Diya had not even raised: “You see another difficulty, Excellency, in the existence of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. But who would think of sending them away?”The idea that the territory would be better off without its indigenous inhabitants is quite recent. Palestinians do well when they live in countries under the rule of law. They haven't done well in Gaza under their own elected leaders. This was not the outcome most would have predicted twenty years ago. But then who foresaw Syria?
But Herzl had underestimated his correspondent. From Yusuf Diya’s letter, it is clear that he understood perfectly well that at issue was not the immigration of (as Herzl put it) “a number of Jews” into Palestine, but rather the transformation of the entire land into a Jewish state.Khalili is either a cretin, or he is lying. Yusuf Diya never dreamed that the Jews would create a powerful military State which Turkey dared not mess with. Nobody, at that time, had any such notion. It was only when the Ottomans entered the War against England that Jabotinsky could start dream of a militaristic, 'maximalist' Zionism.
Instead, Herzl offered the preposterous inducement that the colonization, and ultimately the usurpation, of their land by strangers would benefit the people of that country.Did Herzl say to an Ottoman official, "I'm gonna conquer a piece of your Emperor's territory and colonize it and usurp your rights in it?' No. He wouldn't have been thrown in jail for doing so. He'd have been locked up in a lunatic asylum. Why is a Professor of History writing such nonsense? It is because his immersion in Palestinian politics has turned his brains to shit. He believes that Jews have supernatural powers. They know the future. For some mysterious reason, they choose to get massacred. But it is all just a ploy. Their real aim is to turn up and grab our ancestral land which very generously our ancestors assured them they had a historical right to. Just because the Zionists got their shit together and turned into a proper State does not mean that it is totes unfair that Palestinians who did not get their shit together and who ran around like headless chickens spreading terror aren't being treated as their equals.
Herzl’s reply to Yusuf Diya appears to have been based on the assumption that the Arabs could ultimately be bribed or fooled into ignoring what the Zionist movement actually intended for Palestine.Some people were fooled into thinking the Palestinian cause was worth supporting. Bur doing business with Israel has not proved foolish. Intellectuals must no longer be bribed or fooled into backing Palestinian leaders whose actual intentions for Palestine and its neighbors are nothing less than an exercise in criminal psychopathy.
This condescending attitude toward the intelligence, not to speak of the rights, of the Arab population of Palestine was to be serially repeated by Zionist, British, European, and American leaders in the decades that followed, down to the present day.Sadly, there was no intelligence to condescend to. There was just corruption and criminality.
As for the Jewish state that was ultimately created by the movement that Herzl founded, as Yusuf Diya foresaw, there was to be room for only one people, the Jewish people.Whereas anywhere the Palestinian leaders established hegemony turned into a shit-show- till the Palestinians were expelled. This does not mean there are plenty of hard working Palestinians in Israel or Jordan or elsewhere. But, the misdeeds of their leaders have caused them to be expelled even from places like Kuwait and the Gulf States and, after Saddam's fall, even Iraq. Jordan has taken plenty of refugees from Syria. The one group they don't want is Palestinians. In Lebanon, a Palestinian can't even bequeath his own property to his children. A Doctor who qualified in Lebanon, can't legally practice medicine there if she is Palestinian. Apparently, such Doctors can't even migrate to the Gulf- whereas Hindu Indians and Confucian or Communist Chinese are welcome! This is the situation facing Palestinian youth in an Arab country. Yet this stupid Professor is obsessed with what Herzl said to his great great grand uncle!
As for the others, “sending them away” was indeed what happened, despite Herzl’s disingenuous remark.'Sending them away' worked for Jordan and Kuwait and so forth. 'Not letting them in' works too. Yet, there is no one in the Middle East who would deny that Palestinians are excellent workers, good neighbors, and produce excellent Doctors and Scientists and Architects and Entrepreneurs. Many of their politicians are actually quite good. But when they are bad, they are awful.
Herzl’s letter referred to Palestinian Arabs, then roughly 95% of Palestine’s inhabitants, merely as its “non-Jewish population.”Herzl said that Jewish immigration would raise the material standard of living for the non-Jews. He was right. Non Jews in Israel are better off than they would be under Palestinian or other Arab rule.
The Jewish state, Herzl wrote in “Der Judenstaat,” would “form a part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.”He was a true prophet. By contrast, Sirhan Sirhan- a Palestinian Christian- shot Bobby Kennedy. Then the PLO really got its act together and with things like the Munich massacre brought barbarism back to Hitler's first playground. At the time, terrorism looked cool. But anyone can do terrorism. It isn't a high value adding industry. Israel did State building properly. Its Army pays for itself by being a technology incubator. It exports high value technology vital for Global Peace and Security.
Indians used to hate Israel. Then President Kalam pointed out that they were giving Africa and Asia desperately needed water conversation tech for free. Did Israel lose by this generosity? No. Indian States started paying Israeli a lot of money for customized solutions. Meanwhile, nobody needs the Palestinians to train them to be terrorists. The Pakistanis can do it much more cheaply. As for genocidal psychopathy, the Palestinians even at their craziest were simply too nice. The Caliphate and Boko Haram have raised the bar too high.
Herzl’s imperious disregard of the Palestinians has been replicated over the decades in much discourse in the United States, Europe, and Israel; indeed, it was clearly audible from the White House as recently as this past week.What worries young Palestinians is not Trump's 'imperious disregard' for Palestinians, but that of their fellow Arabs who want them to shut the fuck up, take one for the team, and let a Saudi-Israeli alliance fight the Iranians.
Why won't Palestinian savants help their own people? What is Khalidi's major malfunction? Part of the answer is that he has been seduced by a metaphor- Palestine was 'colonized'. Everything be Whitey's fault. Comparing his country to India he writes
There was never any question of Whites 'supplanting' natives in India. The Tagores and other compradors just wanted enough of them around to spread European ideas and values. One reason the Indians wanted to get rid of the British was that their rule was too Oriental. Having lost faith in their own Christianity, they were willing to lend adherence to crazy Theosophical shit. They had even begun to babble about 'Aryanism' and enforce a stupid caste system amongst themselves. Anyway, Pax Brittanica had only been tolerated when it was cheap- i.e. when the Royal Navy was unchallenged. But the First World War was expensive. So the Indians refused to pay for any military expedition outside their own territory. This meant that Britain ran up a huge debt to India during the Second World War. Of course, India could have become independent much before that. Indeed Warren Hastings, in 1818, thought the day not distant when the only relationship between India and England would be that of trade. But, because Indians were divided and showed little interest in developing a Navy of their own, they preferred a cheap night-watchman state financed by low caste or tribal people growing indigo or opium or tea or coffee in areas which had never previously yielded much revenue to the Elites.
Khalidi, despite being a Professor, thinks Indians suffered the same fate as the Tasmanian aborigines. They didn't. Neither did the Palestinians. Their population went up during British rule. Christians, in particular, came up. Khalidis and Husseinis and other families did well. But they had not loyalty to the British and were divided among themselves. Grand Mufti Husseini chose Hitler during the War. The Jews had no choice but to fight for the Brits. But this meant they were on the winning side. They'd get a bigger share. However, the crucial factor was that their State was financially viable. Palestine was not. Thus Egypt and Jordan took bites out of what should have been their land. Both would regret doing so. Palestine could not pay its way. It still can't. It is a basket case. Some politicians and intellectuals can make a good living out of the Grievance industry. But it is at the cost of the rising generation in Arab lands.
Only the truth can help the young. Repeating stupid lies, in the age of Wikipedia, only causes people to think you are a stupid liar- not an 'engaged' intellectual. Still, Khalidi is well paid and I suppose, from that point of view, it is a case of 'nice work, if you can get it'. But the rising generation can't get that sort of work. The money for Grievance Studies is drying up. So, for an educator, it really isn't nice work at all.
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