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btional home in Eretz Yisrael [“the Land of Israel”].” And bwithout blinking an eyelid, the same program could blithely de- bclare its intentions to “create conditions to raise and improve the bsituation of the working masses, Jewish and Arab. . . . The eco- bnomic development of the land that will come about with the bgrowth of Jewish immigration and settlement and the faithful binfluence and help of the Jewish worker’s movement will raise bthe Arab worker from his low state and will prepare him to fill bhis political and social role. . . .” bOne can, of course, imagine the touching impact this blend bof socialist noblesse oblige and white-man’s-burden mentality had bon Ishmael. What is more pertinent, however, is the incredible bblindness of the early Zionists who had not the slightest under- bstanding of that their efforts on behalf of the Arab would indeed bprepare him for his “political and social role,” but that role bwould be very different from the one that the Jewish socialist bKiplings had mapped out for him. What Jewish progress and bdevelopment would create was a Frankenstein monster, an beducated and radical Arab generation that would vow to drive bthe Jews out of Eretz Yisrael. bBlindness. How else can we explain the 1925 article in bDavar the Histadrut Labor Federation’s official organ? Written bby Moshe Beilinson, one of the editors of the paper, it lavishly bpraised the Jaffa workers council for a successful strike of Arab bfactory workers. Beilinson wrote: “We know that the Arab peo- bple who are not still disunited can and probably will tomorrow bbe strong and united.” The joy that one was presumably sup- bposed to feel over this development was apparent only to those bwho refused to see that it was precisely Jewish education and borganization that would develop an Arab people, strong and bunited in its determination to wipe out Zionism. bBlindness, yes. But it is apparently a hereditary disease, bthis political glaucoma, for the children and grandchildren, the bpresent-day generation of Zionists, suffers from the very same bcase of vision failure. They, too, educate, develop, “raise up” bthe Arab. They, today, create the PLO leader and follower pre- bpared “to fill his political and social role. . . .” bIn 1930, after twenty years of bloody Arab rioting, Ben- bGurion could still meet with his inner circle (4 Cheshvan 5680 b[1929]) and emerge with a statement that paid lip service to an b
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