Nathan is right about the Brits supporting Arab nationalist movements in other areas in the middle east as a means of transfering power from the colonial administration to new states. Although at times contradictory and evolving over time, it is clear that in the case of Palestine the Brits placed their resources behind certain elements of the Zionist movement. As far back as 1918 with the Belfour declaration, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed support for the creation of a jewish homeland in Palestine. Churchill's white paper of 1922 backtracked from this position, but the British were still much more lenient towards Zionists than they were towards Palestinian nationalists up until they pulled out in 1948. After the Palestinian revolt of 1927, the British authorities established a governing body for the region and appointed seats. Jews, who at the time were not more than 10% of the population received 1/2 of the seats with the other half going to Arabs.
In the wake of the Palestinian revolts of 1936-1939 Palestinians wer prohibited from carrying firearms and yet Zioists not only acquired and carried weapons but engaged in military training, without any significant opposition from British authorites. British enforcement of the illegal immigration laws was extremely weak and half-hearted. During the 1930's and 1940's British mandate authorities unilaterally turned over land, some controlled by the mandate legally and some seized from Palestinians, to Zionist settlers. Captured Zionists who took up arms against the mandate were most often simply deported, Palestinians who did the same were frequently executed. Finally in 1948 when the British pulled out of Palestine the Jewish minority of 600,000 people ended up with virtually the entire cache of military weapons (heavy machineguns, mortars, armoured cars, a few airplanes, munitions etc.) that the Brits had left behind. All of this was done in violation of the UK's own mandate from the League of Nations, which recognized Palestine as a state, in 1918, but charged the UK to administer the territory until such time Palestinian self-governance was feasible, as a single state.
As far as the geopolitical gains that accrued to the West in the cold war they needn't be "immediate" (as in suit cases of cash). Greg has mentioned the role of potential oil reserves and Lowi's (1993)book *Water and Power* (sorry I forget her first name) has an appendix which compiles U.S. government documents on the importance in making sure the Soviets stay out of the middle east and the key role Isreal and control of the Jordan River valley plays in such a goal in the early 1950's. Whether you are satisfied with the British and American motives for aiding in the creation of Isreal is pretty irrelevent anyway. Western support for Zionists happened and continues today.
Nathan writes to Rakesh that Isreal's war's were solely, or at least predominatly, forced on the Zionists by enemy Arab states. And yet it strains the imagination to say that the Arabs started either the 1948 war or the 1967 war. When a Jewish minority of a Palestinian population (and 1/3 of that Jewish minority are illegal aliens under the british mandate) unilaterally declare a state without any representation from the majority 2/3rds of the population (only one of the zionist leaders who signed the Isreali declaration of independence was even born in Palestine) the initial act of aggression was the declaration of the Jewish state itself. Also Nathan earlier held up UN resolution 181 as a sign of international support for the state of Isreal. he failed to mention that 181 calls for two states and the the territory occupied by Isreal following the 1948 war was 72% of Palestine but that 181 only allocated 54% to Isreal and that 181 called for a Palestinian state in the remaining 46%, which Isreal has never recognized. The fact that the PLO has had to repeatedly recognize Isreal's right to exist (as it is and in violation of 181) and yet Isreal has never once been compelled to recognize a Palestinian state (and threatens war if one is declared) speaks volumes about the benefits of being a U.S. client state.
With regard to the 1967 war here are some quotes from the key Zionists themselves on who started the war:
Menahem Begin, Minister without Portfolio in 1967:
"In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us, we must be honest with ourselves, we decided to attack him" (New York Times 8/21/82)
Yitshak Rabin, IDF Chief of Staff in 1967:
"I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into the Sinai on May 14th would not have been enough to unleash an offensive on Isreal. He knew it and we knew it" (Le Monde 2/28/68)
Not only Begin and Rabin, but Mittitiahu Peled (General IDF), Ezer Weizman (General IDF), Modechai Hod (general Isreali Air Force), Yifal Allon (Minister of Labor) and many others all contradict Nathan's claim that Isreal was the innocent party in its second expansionist war or that Isreal had any respect for the territorial integrity of its neighbors. Gold Meir once said: "the boundary is wherever Jews are living, not a line on a map." and Yigal Allon said of the 1967 war:
"Begin and I wanted Jerusalem"
In his response to me Nathan puts the term *expulsion* in scare quotes and re-plays the Zionist line that Palestinians left "in the midst of war with many deliberate defections to opposing war camps." Nathan wants desperately to minimize expansionist policies followed by the Zionists from the beginning and yet the Zionist literature is quite open about expelling Palestinians and creating a greater Isreal. Joseph Weitz, director of The Jewish National Fund, wrote in 1940:
"It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country. If Arabs stay, the country will remain narrow and miserable. The only solution is Eretz Isreal."
The Jewish National fund later became the primary mechanism for distributing seized Palestinian homes and land to Jews. Also The term "Transfer" was used from at least the 1930s on as a euphemism for the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland. As Benny Morris documents from Isreali Defense Forces Documents the IDF itself claims that 81 percent of the Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948 did so due to the actions of zionist forces, either in the form of propaganda, intimidation, air-raids, random mortar attacks and outright massacre in villages such as Dier Yassin, Kafor Kasem and others. Out of 420 villages studied by Morris, he found that Zionist efforts were directly responsible for the evacuation of Palestinians in 380 cases. Again, Morris is a prominent historian, a jew and a secular Zionist with strong affiliations with the Isreali Labor Party. I am surprised Nathan didn't claim that Arab radio broadcasts ordered the Palestinians to leave, which is the standard Likud mythology on the expulsions of 1948-51. Importantly, Palestinians who remained inside Isreal during the 1948 war also had their land and homes confiscated whether they fled to a nearby village still inside Isreal or never evacuated at all. The Isreali's designated Palestinians who were internal refugees as officially "Present Absentees" and seized their property because they fled during the fighting, even though they never left Isreal. In 1949 the number of present absentees was 75,000 out of 160,000 remaining Palestinians. So along with outright force and terror, Jews acquired Palestinian property via the legal farce of declaring someone who never left Isreal, to be "absent" and thus the Isreali government could seize their property.
More on the proposed solutions to the Palestinian conflict later....
Sean Noonan seanno at ksu.edu