“We pretend to be innocent victims. Of course the Arabs attacked us. Since they have no armies, they could not obey the rules of war. They perpetrated all the barbaric acts that are characteristic of a colonial revolt.”
This was written in 1929. By a Zionist.
1/19
This was written in 1929. By a Zionist.
1/19
First, the historical context:
A violent uprising broke out in Palestine in 1929. Unlike the localized clashes since 1880s when Zionists started settling Palestine, the 1929 violence spread across the whole country.
3/19
A violent uprising broke out in Palestine in 1929. Unlike the localized clashes since 1880s when Zionists started settling Palestine, the 1929 violence spread across the whole country.
3/19
133 Jews were killed, some in gruesome acts of mob violence. 6 Zionist colonies were entirely destroyed. Even old Jewish communities, which predated Zionism, were attacked in Hebron and Safed. 116 Palestinians were killed by British colonial forces and Zionist militias.
4/19
4/19
The British set up a commission to investigate the roots of the violence and concluded that the cause of Arab animosity toward the Jews was the "disappointment of the Arabs’ political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future".
Aka: Zionist colonialism.
5/19
Aka: Zionist colonialism.
5/19
The intensity and scale of the violence shook the Zionist movement. It was becoming clear that the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine was going to be a violent process.
One Zionist leader who was particularly shaken by the events of 1929 was Hans Kohn.
6/19
One Zionist leader who was particularly shaken by the events of 1929 was Hans Kohn.
6/19
Kohn was born in Prague in 1891. He was a devoted Zionist by age 17, worked for Jewish & Zionist organisations in Europe, migrated to Palestine in 1925, and became one of the directors of the Palestine Foundation Fund, the financial arm of the World Zionist Organization.
7/19
7/19
3 months after the riots, Kohn wrote a resignation letter to his colleagues at the Palestine Foundation Fund. This was months before the British investigative commission into the causes of the uprising, Kohn had already reached the same conclusions:
8/19![Screenshot of the quote: “We have been in Palestine for twelve years [i.e., since the Balfour Declaration] without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people. We have been relying exclusively upon Great Britain's military might. We have set ourselves goals which by their very nature had to lead to conflict with the Arabs. We ought to have recognized that these goals would be the cause, the just cause, of a national uprising against us.”](/images/1px.png)
8/19
![Screenshot of the quote: “We have been in Palestine for twelve years [i.e., since the Balfour Declaration] without having even once made a serious attempt at seeking through negotiations the consent of the indigenous people. We have been relying exclusively upon Great Britain's military might. We have set ourselves goals which by their very nature had to lead to conflict with the Arabs. We ought to have recognized that these goals would be the cause, the just cause, of a national uprising against us.”](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gb5JAefbUAAayzj.png)
Kohn continues:
9/19
9/19
In these circumstances, Palestinian violence – including the more gruesome acts committed during the riots – did not surprise him:
10/19
10/19
Kohn continues, lashing out at the Zionist movement’s inability to learn from the horrors of the uprising:
11/19
11/19
Kohn foresaw that by responding to Palestinian grievances with armed force, the Zionist movement would become stuck in a downward spiral of violence and repression from which it would not be able to extricate itself:
12/19
12/19
![Screenshot of the quote: “I believe that it will be possible for us to hold Palestine and continue to grow for a long time. This will be done first with British aid and then later with the help of our own bayonets – shamefully called Haganah [defence] – clearly because we have no faith in our own policy. But by that time we will not be able to do without the bayonets. The means will have determined the goal. Jewish Palestine will no longer have anything of that Zion for which I once put myself on the line.”](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gb5JhyvawAEC15y.png)
Almost a century later, Kohn was right: Israel is a militaristic society that can only fathom responding to Palestinian grievances not with bayonets, but with M16s and F-35s.
13/19
13/19
Before Israel was born – before the Nakba, military occupation or settlements – Kohn had put a finger on why Zionism was bound to fail. This is what many anti-Zionist Jews are saying today, and what millions of Palestinians have been saying for a century.
14/19
14/19
After resigning from the Palestine Foundation Fund. Kohn left Brit Shalom, an organisation he had cofounded five years earlier to advance the idea of a binational, Jewish-Arab state in Palestine. And in 1934, he left Palestine for the United States, never to return.
15/19
15/19
Leaving Zionism was not easy.
Kohn wrote one month before resigning: “Today I am almost forty years old, twenty of which – the very best years – I have devoted purely to Zionist work and thought. In a certain sense, thus, I feel orphaned. I do not know where to begin.”
16/19
Kohn wrote one month before resigning: “Today I am almost forty years old, twenty of which – the very best years – I have devoted purely to Zionist work and thought. In a certain sense, thus, I feel orphaned. I do not know where to begin.”
16/19
Kohn's experience speaks to me and so many other Jews turning away from Zionism: even after decades or work and commitment in a movement, we retain our freedom to step away. We are not condemned to perpetual loyalty to a cause, especially if we realize it to be unjust.
17/19
17/19
But abandoning Zionism needn’t mean abandoning hope. Kohn's call for future Jews to forge alternatives.
18/19
18/19
Almost a century later, Jews are still exploring these new and different paths, but it is starting to feel like we are slowly building – or rebuilding – a Judaism and a Jewish identity outside of Zionism.
19/19
19/19
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