Friday, April 24, 2009
Quotable: Ben-Gurion on Zionism & the UN
We consider that the United Nations' ideal is a Jewish ideal.
Source: David Ben-Gurion as quoted in "The Watchman." Time. August 16, 1948.
... for many of us, anti-Semitic feeling had little to do with our dedication [to Zionism]. I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Plonsk [the city in Poland where Ben-Gurion né Grün/Gryn was born in 1886] was remarkably free of it ... Nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Plonsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for negative reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland ...
Life in Plonsk was peaceful enough. There were three main communities: Russians, Jews and Poles. ...
The number of Jews and Poles in the city were roughly equal, about five thousand each. The Jews, however, formed a compact, centralized group occupying the innermost districts whilst the Poles were more scattered, living in outlying areas and shading off into the peasantry. Consequently, when a gang of Jewish boys met a Polish gang the latter would almost inevitably represent a single suburb and thus be poorer in fighting potential than the Jews who even if their numbers were initially fewer could quickly call on reinforcements from the entire quarter. Far from being afraid of them, they were rather afraid of us. In general, however, relations were amicable, though distant.
Source: David Ben-Gurion. Recollections. (London: Macdonald Unit 75, 1970) pp. 36-37.
Source: David Ben-Gurion as quoted in "The Watchman." Time. August 16, 1948.
... for many of us, anti-Semitic feeling had little to do with our dedication [to Zionism]. I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Plonsk [the city in Poland where Ben-Gurion né Grün/Gryn was born in 1886] was remarkably free of it ... Nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Plonsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for negative reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland ...
Life in Plonsk was peaceful enough. There were three main communities: Russians, Jews and Poles. ...
The number of Jews and Poles in the city were roughly equal, about five thousand each. The Jews, however, formed a compact, centralized group occupying the innermost districts whilst the Poles were more scattered, living in outlying areas and shading off into the peasantry. Consequently, when a gang of Jewish boys met a Polish gang the latter would almost inevitably represent a single suburb and thus be poorer in fighting potential than the Jews who even if their numbers were initially fewer could quickly call on reinforcements from the entire quarter. Far from being afraid of them, they were rather afraid of us. In general, however, relations were amicable, though distant.
Source: David Ben-Gurion. Recollections. (London: Macdonald Unit 75, 1970) pp. 36-37.
Labels: Jews, quotations, United Nations, Zionism
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Quotable: Folke Bernadotte on Palestinian Refugees
It is ... undeniable that no settlement can be just and complete if recognition is not accorded to the right of the Arab refugee to return to the home from which he has been dislodged by the hazards and strategy of the armed conflict between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. The majority of these refugees have come from territory which ... was to be included in the Jewish State. The exodus of Palestinian Arabs resulted from panic created by fighting in their communities, by rumours concerning real or alleged acts of terrorism, or expulsion. It would be an offence against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims of the conflict were denied the right to return to their homes while Jewish immigrants flow into Palestine, and, indeed, at least offer the threat of permanent replacement of the Arab refugees who have been rooted in the land for centuries.
Source: From the "Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine" by Folke Bernadotte. 16 September 1948. United Nations General Assembly Doc. A/648. Part one, section V, paragraph 6.
Source: From the "Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine" by Folke Bernadotte. 16 September 1948. United Nations General Assembly Doc. A/648. Part one, section V, paragraph 6.
Labels: Folke Bernadotte, Palestine, quotations, United Nations
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Skins & Fighting for Uncle Scum
Yesterday, I finished reading Adrian C. Louis' 1995 novel, Skins. Rudy and Mogie, the book's two main characters, are both "full blood" Lakota (aka Sioux) Indians and Vietnam combat veterans. I've long pondered the devotion to the US armed forces by many Indian people. They are hugely overrepresented in the ranks of veterans and the active duty military and almost every powwow one goes to begins with an honor guard composed of Indian veterans; sometimes, even bearing individual military branch flags.Louis has some ideas about what explains this attachment to the very military that, years before, was used to kill and dispossess so many Indians. While watching the PBS documentary Last Stand at Little Big Horn (co-written by James Welch and narrated by N. Scott Momaday) last night it was driven home to me that the poor and immigrant soldiers, including the "Buffalo soldiers," who drove the Lakota from their lands in the late 1800s were not much different from the Lakotas who fought for the US in Vietnam or, for that matter, the Lakotas who took control of what became Lakota territory in the 1700s. Here's a quote from Black Hawk--a Lakota veteran of the 1876 battle of the Little Big Horn--from the film: "These lands once belonged to the Kiowas and the Crows but we whipped those nations out of them and in this, we did what the White men do when they want the lands of Indians." Indeed, as a result the US Army was assisted by Crow scouts in their campaign against the Lakota. And so it goes.
Labels: art and literature, class, Empire, history, identity, Indians, race, United Nations
