The Two Revisionist ‘petitions’

This is the last of a series of three articles by Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Revisionist leader, written specially for the Jewish Daily Bulletin.

When a man in America says, “I am not a Republican,” it means that he is an adherent of some other party, probably a Democrat. When a man says the same thing in England, it means that he is a Monarchist. Which is a reminder that the same term can often cover quite different phenomena: another example is the word “petition.”

The officially prescribed way in which a private group or individual in Palestine can approach the Permanent Mandate Commission in Geneva, is by sending their request or memorandum through the High Commissioner: and the document thus forwarded is called “petition.” It may bear many signatures or one only: the Revisionist memorandum was signed by Mr. A. Weinshal on behalf of the Palestinian Revisionists.

This has nothing to do with the “Petition Movement” initiated by the Revisionists a year ago. That movement demands signatures en masse: between April and June, 600,000 signatures were collected, and this year we intend to raise the number up to several millions. The mass petition is not addressed to the Mandate Commission or to the League of Nations: its four different texts are explicibly addressed (a) to his British Majesty, (b) to the British Parliament, (c) and (d) to the government and parliament of the country where the petitioners reside. And, in fine, this mass petition has not yet been “presented” either in London or in any other capital, but will only be presented after many preliminary manifestations, culminating probably in a World Congress of the petitioners themselves.

Those who are genuinely interested should, therefore, remember that anything that may have happened in Geneva to Dr. Weinshal’s memorandum, officially described as “petition,” or may subsequently happen to his next memorandum to Geneva, has no bearing whatsoever on the progress of the real petition—the mass movement petition.

The two have also different aims. The mass petition is primarily meant to register all those who actually and personally want and need repatriation to Palestine. Secondly—to impress upon the governments of those countries where the Jewish distress has become a grave local problem that it is in those governments’ interest to start a friendly talk with the British Mandatory about facilitating Jewish immigration. Thirdly—to bring home to British Jews’ suffering, and to British public conscience the discrepancy between a pledge and a reality.

The memorandum to the Mandates Commission had another aim, to “draw” that body into a discussion on that all-important subject: what is the true meaning of a “national home” — is it a Jewish State or just a new Jewish minority?

I know, of course, that there are people who consider such a discussion undesirable. We Revisionists consider it necessary and intend to go on promoting it until we obtain the inevitable final result: an admission, on the part of the League’s organ supervising the Mandates, that “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine” means Palestine transformed into a self-governing commonwealth with a Jewish majority; that this was the intent of the Balfour Declaration and of the Mandate. As I said, such an admission is inevitable provided there is a discussion: wherefore, we will see to it that the discussion should continue.

In forwarding to Geneva Mr. Weinshal’s memorandum we knew, of course, that the first reaction of the Mandates Commission would be negative. For the last seven years or more I have been quoting in my public addresses a proverb current in one of the Mediterranean countries: “In politics, just as in true love, it is only after the seventh ‘no’ that you can hope to hear the bashful ‘yes.’ No important political advance has ever been reached in any other way but via several preliminary refusals: the first very dry and curt, the second probably angry. This is how the Jewish Legion was formed: the story began with Kitchener’s “no.” The same applies to the story of the Balfour Declaration, or to any political story worth telling. Whoever fears that preliminary cold drop had better renounce all hope of ever getting anywhere.

The Mandates Commission has said its first “no.” That important body must forgive me for pointing out that this answer clashes with the Commission’s own attitude with regard to all the problems implied in our question. Logically, the present situation in Palestine can only end in one of the following three ways: (a) the Mandatory withdraws, leaving Palestine a State with an Arab majority; (b) the Mandatory stays on forever and ever; (c) a State with a Jewish majority.

As to the first eventuality—the Permanent Mandates Commission at half a dozen of its sessions, when dealing with the question of a Legislative Council for Palestine has always stubbornly maintained that any kind of majority rule by the Arabs would endanger the Jewish national home, would therefore be contrary to the Mandate, and was therefore inadmissible—which all, and a fortiori, applies to an Arab State.

As to the second eventuality (“the Mandatory strays on forever”)—that would be tantamount to annexation, therefore contrary to the very letter and essence of the League of Nations’ Covenant. Some people in England may desire it, but there is at least one body under the sun which simply cannot admit such a perversion of the Covenant—and that body is