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The Myth of Palestinian Dispossession and the Impact of Zionism

The central pernicious myth of anti-Zionist propaganda is that "Zionism" plotted to dispossess the Arabs of Palestine and turn Palestine into a "Jewish Exclusivist" state.

The origins of this idea were in pre-World War I Arab nationalist agitation, but it was most fully developed in the propaganda of the Nazi Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini. He was apparently financed by Fascist Italy and perhaps Nazi Germany. The goal of the propaganda from the Nazi viewpoint was to delegitimize the British Mandate for Palestine in the eyes of the Arabs, and turn the Arabs of Palestine against it. It was lent credibility by Jewish land purchases and industrialization of Palestine, both of which resulted in removal of Palestinian Arabs from the land. This could be interpreted in an agrarian society as "dispossession," but in fact it was the same process that occurred everywhere in the world that industrialization took place.

In fact, there is little support for dispossessing Arabs in early Zionist ideology and there is no evidence that Zionists ever plotted or planned to remove the Arabs of Palestine by force. Theodor Herzl's Altneuland  was a novel that envisioned a pluralistic Jewish state, where Jews and Arabs had equal rights. Numerous real Zionist Quotes show that early Zionists believed they could have good, cooperative relations with the Arabs. The Brit Shalom movement was established to form a bi-national state. Support for Jewish-Arab coexistence disintegrated in the face of violent Arab opposition in the Arab Riots and Massacres of 1929 and later in the Palestine Arab Revolt. As the violence grew, support for the transfer idea took shape. Ultimately it was the British who proposed the idea of "voluntary transfer" in the Peel Commission plan. But in fact, from the first, it was the Mufti and his henchman who had wanted to dispossess the Jews, and send them back to Europe, and they did not hide this goal from anyone.

In a popular article called Zionism and its Impact, written for a propaganda work called the "Encyclopedia Of The Palestinians" Ann Lesch tried to somehow make a case that Zionist policies were aimed at the dispossession of Palestinian Arabs. The fact is however, that Zionist economic investment was benefiting Palestinian Arabs and causing a net in-migration into Palestine under the Mandate. If the Zionists were plotting to dispossess the Arabs, their policies were certainly a failure.

Ultimately, the Mufti's propaganda became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Palestinians and the Arab states attacked Israel, but the Palestinians lost the war and fled or were expelled. The fact that dispossession occurred in 1948 however, does not prove that it was the intentional result of Zionist policy. Post facto, anti-Zionists developed the myth that Zionists wanted to establish a "Jewish exclusivist" state. This slogan leverages on Anti-Semitism, since a standard charge leveled against Jews since before Christian times is that they are an "exclusivist" people.

The perpetuation of this myth figured prominently in peace negotiations, since the Palestinians insisted that Israel must take sole responsibility for the "dispossession" of Palestinians in 1948.

See also:  Zionism and its Impact

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