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bnever easy to be a lodger in someone else’s home. But his unhap- bpiness will not be resolved, for the Jew will not turn a lodger into ban owner. If the Arab would rather live in his own home and batmosphere, he is welcome in any of the twenty-plus Arab states bthat exist. Israel cannot, and morally dare not, change its Jewish bcharacter. For Israel to change that Jewish character would be bto turn those who created it on the basis of the Jewish historical bright into liars and thieves. bIt would be more than admitting that “Jewishness” was bused in the past only in order to take away Arab land. It would bbe a cynical slap in the face to world Jewry which gave of its benergies, funds, and in many cases, lives for the dream of a Jew- bish state. It would be a despicable cutting off of all obligations to boppressed and persecuted Jews who see in today’s Israel their btrustee and defender. The Israeli who was once in need of a bhome and who found it in a state that was pledged to help him bwould now—no longer in need—selfishly cut the lifeline for oth- bers. bThe Jew has no moral right to an Israel that is a non-Jewish bstate. But in a Jewish state let no one insult the Arab by insisting bthat he is equal and that it is “his” state, too. It is this ultimate bcontradiction between the Jewish character of Israel and the bdemocratic right of the Arab to aspire to all the rights that Jews bhave—including to have an Arab majority in the land—that will bnever give the Arab rest or allow him to accept the status quo. bFrom the very beginning non-Jews understood this far more beasily. Most Jews instinctively sensed the contradiction but bcould not give up the idea of a Jewish state, and so they re- bpressed the reality. But Gentiles conversant with the problem bhad no such difficulties. Alvin Johnson, president emeritus of the bNew School for Social Research, discussed the “Palestine” prob- blem in January 1947, one and a half years before the estab- blishment of Israel. Writing in Commentary magazine, he stated: b“It would be no simple matter to establish and maintain a Jew- bish majority in Palestine. . . . It is entirely realistic to say that bthe Arabs of Palestine do not want to live as a minority under bthe Jews, no matter what formal guarantees are given of minor- bity rights. . . . A national minority must expect to be oppressed. Even if bit is no more oppressed that the Sudeten Germans and Slovaks bin Czechoslovakia, the minority will consider itself oppressed. . . . I b
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