Re: what really happened in Tel Aviv and Jaffa (#137039)
by Mark A. LeVine (UC Irvine History Professor) on September 16, 2009 at 11:37 AM

well, there are innumerable documents showing how the british were supporting tel aviv. the rapid growth itself during the mandate period, which the british supported by allowing its borders to grow and it to gain control of land from surrounding palestinian villages, supports that fact. there are speches by high commissioners about tel aviv, and all sorts of government support for it. so does the larger growth of zionist institutions in palestine, which the british by and large supported in complete contradistinction to the suppression of palestinian national institutions, both at the elite level of politics and among workers especially (see zachary lockman's comrades and enemies for the best analysis of this and i talk about it re tel aviv and jaffa in my book).

what mr green does not understand is that there was often a difference bt british officials on the ground and at lower levels in the colonial administration, who often were more sympathetic to palestinians because they saw the impact of the increasing zionist presence and power on palestinians, especially in terms of land, and the more senior people, especially in london but also at the high commissioner's office, who remained far more committed to zionism as a matter of policy and would overrule their subordinates regularly. i talk about this in my book and it's clear in terms of land cases where you can literally look at the files from them and see hand written notes from different officials at various levels arguing about which side should be supported.

but such a complex narrative is obviously not useful to those who want a black and white picture of good jews vs bad arabs/muslims who irrationally opposed a movement that clearly was intended to replace them as the dominant power in the country (who would ever agree to that, i wonder?), who prefer to talk about oppression that jews suffered in other lands hundreds of years earlier as being relevant to the modern conflict bt the two nationalist movements in the late 19th and 20th centuries than talk about what was happening on the ground then.

history, however is more complex, and if you don't accept the complexity and contradictions inherent in it--that is, the messiness of the story--you wind up with facile analyses that serve to support one ideological position or another but don't come close to describing what actually happened.

i would also point out language like "it is also said that policemen..." and the like that mr green uses. i don't know who said what or when, or whether british policemen joined in with arabs. if mr green has proof of that i would like a reference to the specific citations where that is, not to people's claims, but to the source of the claims. not "it is said" but such and such testimony before such and such committee stated without contradiction that x or y happened, and if it happened, what happened to the policemen who engaged in this activity and what was the government response and was it part of a larger pattern (which it was absolutely not, since in fact the british forces worked with tel aviv police in 1936). without these specifics, such claims are quite literally meaningless, as they can't be assessed or understood.

but even if a few policemen supported arabs, this doesn't mean at all that official british policy was to support arabs. nor does someone chanting "al-dawla ma'ana" mean this either. i don't know who said this, where it was reported, and what the context was. to begin with, in arabic in that period, it would be very interesting to see the palestinians using the word 'dawla' for the british government in 1921, since it didn't describe itself as a 'state' yet (it was still an occupation administration, if i'm not mistaken, and palestine was an "OET" or at least not a mandated territory yet in 1921), that way and the more normal expression would 'hukuma', meaning government. i don't have access to my files from arab newspapers and other sources where they would use that language right now so i can't comment on it specifically. perhaps mr green can provide the source for this chant and the context.

but let's assume that they used the term dawla. what does that mean? when, how and how often it was used, and by whom and how many people were there when it was shouted. and just because it was shouted by a mob, does that make it reality--ie, the british government actually supported them? this right at the time the british were institutionalizing their commitment to zionism vis-a-vis the balfour declaration through the terms of the mandate. it's ludicrous to mention this chant without the other side, and again, meaningless.

and does the fact that a few british officers are reported to have encouraged people to engage in violence mean that it happened, and if it did, that it represented the policies of the government?

unless i'm mistaken, most everything that is presented to be supporting mr green's case seems to come from memoirs written in english by former british officials or at least be from this perspective. i would appreciate some citations to archival sources. i would like to know what the hagana was writing about these issues as contained in the hagana archives, i would like to know what the zionist leadership in its private discussions/debates were saying about the british vis-a-vis tel aviv and jaffa, i would like to know what the palestinian leaders and the press were saying in arabic about the specific instances being mentioned, and i would like a more balanced analysis that puts the instances that green mentions into the larger context of british policy, both vis-a-vis tel aviv and jaffa in particular and the larger country.

i spent almost three years in the archives looking at these sources, so i feel confident in the narrative i have offered. no narrative is complete, but nothing mr green has put up here challenges any of the essential points, in fact even after my first reply he didn't answer the questions about how they are relevant to the way tel aviv was framed at the TIFF and whether or not the idea of tel aviv as the city that exists today being build on palestinian land is or is not true. obviously it is, which is why he cannot argue that fact. nor can he argue my rebuttal to his other points, bc there isn't one based on factual evidence.

finally, i would point out that if the arab forces in jaffa had managed to gain part of tel aviv's territory during the war while holding jaffa, which was supposed to be part of the palestinian state, kicked out the jews living there, took over their homes and gave them to arab refugees and refused to let the jews back in after the fighting even though by int'l law they were obligated to do so, would he support that as a legal and moral policy? bc if he does, then the jewish claims to east jerusalem or the settlements in gush etzion that had existed before 48 are illegitimate, since the arabs would have the right to have taken over the property and homes and done what they wanted to with them. of course, the same process occurred after 1967 and thus it would legitimate israeli policies today, which are basically "to the victors go the spoils." yet it would mean that the arabs/palestinians would have the right to attack israel as soon as they felt strong enough and liberate whatever land they could and then kick out the jews and resettle it with palestinians. it can't be right only for one side to behave that way.

on the other hand, if he wouldn't support such a view, then why is it okay that the palestinian residents who were forced out were not let back in? if he or anyone wants to claim that jews have certain rights in the west bank because of previous occupation of territory, then how is it that palestinians don't have the same rights in israel, including jaffa and the villages on which tel aviv stands.