File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2002/postcolonial.0204, message 329


From: "M Alfadel" <alfadelm-AT-batelco.com.bh>
Subject: GHANDI'S OPINION
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 19:48:26 +0300


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.





>Subject: GHANDI'S OPINION
>Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:08:38 +0200
>
> Gandhi's opinion. It came a few days before his assassination in 1948
>
>"Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views 
>about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews
>in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my
>views on this very difficult question.
>My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in
>South Africa. Some of them became lifelong companions. Through these
>friends, I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have
>been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their
>treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is
>very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the
>justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the
>friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my
>sympathy for the Jews.
>But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The
>cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. 
>The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which
>the Jews have hankered after a return to Palestine. Why should they not,
>like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they
>are born and where they earn their livelihood?
>Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to
>the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose
>Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be
>justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction
>but that of the last war. Surely, it would be a crime against humanity
>to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can 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 wherever they are born and bred. 
>The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that
>Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but
>Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other 
>parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double
>home where they can remain at will?
>This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the
>German expulsion of the Jews. But the German persecution of the Jews
>seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so
>mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious
>zeal. For, he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant
>nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of
>humanity to be rewarded there and hereafter. The crime of an obviously
>mad but intrepid 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 war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a
>whole race, it would be completely justified. But I do not believe in
>any war. A discussion of the pros and 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
>being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with
>Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to
>stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of
>both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it
>means?
>And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are
>going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of Biblical conception is
>not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look
>to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to
>enter under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be
>performed with the aid of the bayonet or bomb. They can settle in
>Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They
>should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart
>who rules the Jewish heart... They will find the world opinion in their 
>favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of
>reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the
>British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in
>despoiling a people who have done
>no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had 
>chosen the way of
>non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as the
>unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the
>accepted cannons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the
>Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
>Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by
>choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on
>earth. Every country is their home, including Palestine, not by
>aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book
>called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a
>record of what Jews have done to
>enrich the world's literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine,
>agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as
>the outcast of the West, to be despised or patronized.
>He can command the attention and respect of the world by being the
>chosen creation of God, instead of sinking to the brute who is forsaken 
>by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing
>contribution of non-violent action."
> 
> 


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>Subject: GHANDI'S OPINION
>Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:08:38 +0200
>
> Gandhi's opinion. It came a few days before his assassination in 1948
>
>"Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views
>about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews
>in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my
>views on this very difficult question.
>My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in
>South Africa. Some of them became lifelong companions. Through these
>friends, I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have
>been the untouchables of Christianity. The parallel between their
>treatment by Christians and the treatment of untouchables by Hindus is
>very close. Religious sanction has been invoked in both cases for the
>justification of the inhuman treatment meted out to them. Apart from the
>friendships, therefore, there is the more common universal reason for my
>sympathy for the Jews.
>But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The
>cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me.
>The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which
>the Jews have hankered after a return to Palestine. Why should they not,
>like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they
>are born and where they earn their livelihood?
>Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to
>the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose
>Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be
>justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction
>but that of the last war. Surely, it would be a crime against humanity
>to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can 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 wherever they are born and bred.
>The Jews born in France are French in precisely the same sense that
>Christians born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but
>Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other
>parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double
>home where they can remain at will?
>This cry for the national home affords a colorable justification for the
>German expulsion of the Jews. But the German persecution of the Jews
>seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so
>mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious
>zeal. For, he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant
>nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of
>humanity to be rewarded there and hereafter. The crime of an obviously
>mad but intrepid 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 war against Germany to prevent the wanton persecution of a
>whole race, it would be completely justified. But I do not believe in
>any war. A discussion of the pros and 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
>being committed against the Jews, surely there can be no alliance with
>Germany. How can there be alliance between a nation which claims to
>stand for justice and democracy and one which is the declared enemy of
>both? Or is England drifting towards armed dictatorship and all it
>means?
>And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are
>going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of Biblical conception is
>not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look
>to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to
>enter under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be
>performed with the aid of the bayonet or bomb. They can settle in
>Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They
>should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart
>who rules the Jewish heart... They will find the world opinion in their
>favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of
>reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the
>British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in
>despoiling a people who have done
>no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had
>chosen the way of
>non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as the
>unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the
>accepted cannons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the
>Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
>Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by
>choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on
>earth. Every country is their home, including Palestine, not by
>aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book
>called The Jewish Contribution to Civilization by Cecil Roth. It gives a
>record of what Jews have done to
>enrich the world's literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine,
>agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as
>the outcast of the West, to be despised or patronized.
>He can command the attention and respect of the world by being the
>chosen creation of God, instead of sinking to the brute who is forsaken
>by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing
>contribution of non-violent action."


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