THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 91, March 26, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PALESTINIANS WHO HELPED CREATE ISRAEL
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE PALESTINIAN MINORITY THAT IS WILLING TO LIVE IN PEACE WITH THE STATE OF ISRAEL: THE CRUCIAL ROLE
OF THIS MINORITY IN THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE EASTERN CONFLICT BETWEEN ARAB REJECTIONISTS & THE
ZIONISTS -- THE MOTIVES OF THE ZIONISTS' PALESTINIAN ARAB ALLIES -- THE IMPORTANCE OF PALESTINIAN
ASSISTANCE & COLLABORATION IN THE SUCCESS OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT IN ESTABLISHING & MAINTAINING THE
STATE OF ISRAEL IN THE HOLY LAND
FULL STORY:
Palestinians have so loudly and for so long (nearly a century) rejected Zionism that Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, Yasir
Arafat, and Hamas may appear to command unanimous Palestinian support.
But no: polling research finds that a substantial minority of Palestinians, about 20 percent, is ready to live side-by-side
with a sovereign Jewish state. Although this minority has never been in charge and its voice has always been buried
under rejectionist bluster, Hillel Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has uncovered its surprisingly crucial
role in history.
He explores this subject in the pre-state period in Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism,
1917–1948 (translated by Haim Watzman, University of California Press); then, the same author, translator, and
press are currently preparing a sequel, Good Arabs: The Israeli Security Agencies and the Israeli Arabs,
1948–1967, for publication in 2010.
In Army of Shadows, Cohen demonstrates the many roles that accommodating Palestinians played for the
Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community in the Holy Land. They provided labor, engaged in commerce, sold land, sold
arms, handed over state assets, provided intelligence about enemy forces, spread rumors and dissension, convinced
fellow Palestinians to surrender, fought the Yishuv's enemies, and even operated behind enemy lines. So great was
their cumulative assistance, one wonders if the State of Israel could have come into existence without their
contribution.
The Mufti's absolute rejection of Zionism was intended to solidify the Palestinian population, but had the opposite
effect. The Husseini clique's selfishness, extremism, and brutality undermined solidarity: using venomous language
and murderous tactics, declaring jihad against anyone who disobeyed the Mufti, and deeming more than half the
Palestinian population "traitors" pushed many fence-sitters and whole communities (notably the Druse) over to the
Zionist side.
Consequently, Cohen writes, "As time passed, a growing number of Arabs were willing to turn their backs on the
[rejectionists] and offer direct assistance to the British or Zionists." He calls collaboration with Zionism "not only
common, but a central feature of Palestinian society and politics." No one before Cohen has understood the historical
record this way.
He discerns a wide range of motives on the part of the Yishuv's Palestinian allies: economic gain, class or tribal
interests, nationalist ambitions, fear or hatred of the Husseini faction, personal ethics, neighborliness, or individual
friendships. Against those who would call these individuals "collaborators" or even "traitors," he argues that they
actually understood the situation more astutely than Husseini and the rejectionists: accommodationists presciently
realized that the Zionist project was too strong to resist and that attempting to do so would lead to destruction and
exile, so they made peace with it.
By 1941, the intelligence machinery had developed sophisticated methods that sought to utilize every contact with
Palestinians for information gathering purposes. Army of Shadows highlights that the Yishuv's advanced
social development; what Cohen terms the "deep intelligence penetration of Palestinian Arab society" was a one-way
process – Palestinians lacked the means to reciprocate and penetrate Jewish life.
Along with the development of a military force (the Haganah), a modern economic infrastructure and a democratic
polity, this infiltration of Palestinian life ranks as one of Zionism's signal achievements. It meant that, while the
Zionists could unify and go on the offensive, "Palestinian society was preoccupied with internal battles and was
unable to mobilize and unify behind a leadership."
Cohen is modest about the implications of his research, specifically arguing that Palestinian assistance was not "the
main cause" of the Arab defeat in 1948-1949. Fair enough, but the evidence he produces reveals the crucial role of
this assistance to the success of the Zionist enterprise in the period of his first volume. Interestingly, while that
assistance remains important to the Israel Defense Forces today (how else could the IDF foil so many West Bank
terrorist attempts?), the State of Israel deploys far greater resources than the Yishuv, making Palestinian assistance
much less central today.
Cohen also confirms the key fact that not all Palestinians are the enemies of Israel – something I have documented
for more recent times. This offers cause for hope; indeed, were the 20 percent of Palestinians who accept Israel
expanded to 60 percent, the Arab-Israeli conflict would close down. Such a Palestinian change of heart – and not
more "painful concessions" by Israel – should be the goal of every would-be peacemaker.
© Daniel Pipes 2009
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, March 26, 2009
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, March 26, 2009
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/6244/
palestinians-who-helped-create-israel
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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