A Systematic Counter-Plan to the Zionist Threat
From the start Zionism was born to establish a ‘state for the Jews”. Initially, the newly conquered territories of Uganda, South America and Central Asia were considered as locations for the intended state, but Zionism harmonized its goal with that of British colonialism in the Near East. By the start of World War I, Zionism focused its attention on Palestine and persuaded Britain to endorse its plan of gathering all the Jews in “the Promised Land” by its infamous Balfour Declaration (1) against the wishes of the inhabitants of the land. A similar promise was obtained from France by a letter sent from the Secretary General of the French Foreign Ministry, Jules Cambon, to Nahum Sokolow, an official of the World Zionist Organization. It is important to note that “the Promised Land” was seen as a God’s favour to his chosen race: The Jews; a race which thought of itself as superior to God’s other creatures and privileged to receive His good treatment. However, Zionism’s plan was to create an Israelite nation (2), i.e., “Greater Israel” that would establish its domination over Palestine and the rest of geographical Syria as well as over neighbouring lands, states and peoples. This plan began to materialize with the help of Britain, which ruled Palestine with arms and terror from 1916 to 1946.
The Zionist goal posed a real threat to the Syrians as it came into being in a land that did not belong to the Jews, but to the indigenous inhabitants: The Syrians, and particularly the Palestinians, who were there for centuries and whose love and attachment to Palestine (that was known as the ‘land of Canaan’) preceded the occupation by the Zionists.
The Zionists are not descendants of the original inhabitants of Palestine. Historically, the Jews, or as they were called ‘the Israelites’, came to the land of Canaan as emigrants and lived with the Canaanites. There was never peaceful coexistence between them and the Philistines who also came to the land of Canaan almost contemporaneously with them. Eventually, the Israelites ruled the country for a while, but their rule came to an end following the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (3) by the Babylonians (in 587 BC) and the Romans. Their rule of Palestine was not longer than, or even as long as, the rule of other peoples. They virtually disappeared from Palestine after their deportation by the Romans following their second revolt in AD 132-5. Therefore, it may be maintained that while the Jewish presence in Palestine was of short duration and for many centuries actually ceased, in contrast, the presence of the Palestinians as the indigenous descendants of the original inhabitants was continuous until the present.
The Zionist goal, moreover, posed a real threat to the Syrians because the character of the Zionist state, “Israel”, as envisaged by the founders of Zionism is religious, that is, exclusively Jewish. The achievement of this goal meant to the Zionists two things: Firstly, that there should be no room for two peoples on this land; and secondly, that they would expropriate the land by different means (mostly by force of arms) and evict its inhabitants. Thus, the fathers of Zionism and the founders of present-day “Israel” adopted the slogan “the land without people”. In 1940, the leader of the Jewish National Fund, Joseph Weitz, stated:
It must be clear to us that there is no room for two peoples in this country. The only solution lies in the creation of Eretz Yisroel without Arabs, at least West of Jordan. This can only be done by transferring the Arabs, all the Arabs to neighboring countries. There is no alternative.(4)
The Zionists also adopted different means and methods to achieve their goal.
First, they encouraged and funded the cause of aliyah, immigration, into “Israel” to live in a Jewish ghetto. Moreover, the Zionist lobby exerted great pressure on world Jewry to drive them to leave their countries and immigrate to Palestine. They also “terrorized the Jews of the Arab world in order to get them to emigrate to Palestine to fill the homes vacated by the Palestinians.”(5)
Secondly, they discouraged the Palestinians from staying by committing a chain of massacres and by completely destroying hundreds of villages all of which aimed at evacuating the people from their land.
Thirdly, they denied the right of thousands of Palestinian refugees to come back to their homeland. Those who stayed have been subjected to harassment, discrimination and humiliation; their human rights are violated almost daily.
In 1948, the Zionist goal of building a home for the Jews in Palestine became a “reality.” The Jews, despite their differences and their various methods of pursuing the same goal, managed to declare their largest ghetto: The State of “Israel.” What means have they employed to achieve this goal?
The means to achieve this are numerous wars, massacres, assassinations and acts of terrorism. And the examples of this are plentiful: the destruction of King David Hotel; the massacres at Deir Yassin, Sabra and Chatilla; the continuous wars and invasions to annex more territory under the pretext of Israeli security; the pursuit of the leaders and members of the Palestinian resistance in order to exterminate them; the attempt to prevent any scientific or technological progress, in the Arab world, for example through the murder of scientists and the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor.(6)
Antun Sa’adeh’s prediction of the seriousness and fatefulness of the Zionist threat to our national existence preceded the establishment of the Jewish State. In the early twenties of the last century, he observed that all branches and associations of Zionism throughout the world worked for the same aim: to capture Palestine and evict its inhabitants. He wrote:
Despite that the Zionist movement is not rotating around a natural axis, yet, this movement has been able to make significant progress. Its actions are proceeding according to an accurate, systematic plan. If no other systematic, counter plan stands in its face, it will eventually succeed.(7)
Sa’adeh then warned “… we are in a situation wherein one of two basic consequences is incumbent: Life or death; whatever the outcome, we are the ones to answer for the consequence.”(8)
Sa’adeh’s answer was to institute a movement possessing a systematic counter-plan to Zionism. In 1932, he established this movement, calling it: The Syrian Social Nationalist Party.
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1) This declaration of sympathy for Zionist aspirations was sent, on November 2, 1917, by the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Lord Rothschild.
2) Sa’adeh argued that the Jews were no longer a nation because there was no unity among them except that represented by the bond of a common religion. They were a people without a specific territory to share on it a common life. Therefore, he asserted, “we cannot designate the Jews as a nation any more than we can designate the Muslims or the Christians, or the Sunnis as a nation”. See his work Nushu’ al-Umam (The Genesis of Nations), Beirut: SSNP, 1976, p. 142.
3) Under the leadership of David, the Israelites established a kingdom ruled by David
4) Riah Abu Al-Assal. “Zionism: As It Is in Israel for an Arab”, in Eaford & Ajaz (eds) Judaism or Zionism? What difference for the Middle East?, London: Zed Books Ltd, 1986, p. 170.
5) Isma’il R. Al-Faruqi. “Judaism, Zionism and Islam”, in Eaford & Ajaz (eds) Judaism or Zionism? What difference for the Middle East?, ibid., p. 64.
6) Abdulla Sharafeddin. “Introductory Speeches”, in Eaford & Ajaz (eds) Judaism or Zionism? What difference for the Middle East?, op. cit., p. 124.
7) Sa´adeh, Antun. Al-‘Athar al-Kamilah (Complete Works) vol. 1 Marhalat ma Qabl al-Ta’sis (1921-1932) (The Stage Prior to the Formation of the SSNP), compiled by the Cultural Department of the SSNP, Beirut, 1975, pp. 168 – 169.
8) Ibid., p. 169.
Dr. Edmond Melhem
Tag:Zionism