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bnew. Joseph Weitz of the Jewish National Fund saw the Arab bproblem clearly and wrote: “It should be clear that there is no broom for both peoples to live in the country . . . and in that case bthere is no alternative to moving the Arabs to the neighboring bcountries, moving them all, except, perhaps, those living in bBethlehem, Nazareth, and the Old City of Jerusalem. . . .” b(Joseph Weitz, Diaries and Letters to the Children, Tel Aviv, 1965, p. b181). bWeitz was a strong proponent of the Judaizing of the bGalilee and was influenced by veteran Joseph Nahmani of the bJewish National Fund. Nahmani’s understanding of the prob- blem is seen in the memorandum sent to Prime Minister Ben- bGurion in January 1953 concerning the problem of the Arabs in bthe Galilee: “The very existence of a unified Arab group in this bpart of the country is an invitation to the Arab states to press btheir claims to the area. . . . When the time comes, it will play bthe part played by the Germans in Czechoslovakia at the begin- bning of World War II. . . .” bAn angry Professor Ephraim Urbach told a symposium on bthe Arabs in 1968: “I read an interview with the author Haim bHazaz [one of Israel’s most pretigious writers], in which he bsimplistically suggested solving the problem of the Arabs as fol- blows: the war cost us three billion pounds—let’s take three bbillion more pounds and give them to the Arabs and tell them to bget out” (Midstream, April 1968). Urbach is a well-known dove. bHe did not find Hazaz’s views, in his words, “edifying.” Perhaps bnot, but Urbach has no answer at all. bIn 1937 the British Royal Commission under Lord Peel bproposed as a possible solution to the Jewish-Arab conflict the bpartition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. As part of bthis plan the transfer of some 200,000 Arabs from the proposed bJewish state to the Arab one was proposed. A great debate arose bin the Zionist movement over this, and especially in the largest bof the groups, the Laborite Mapai. Two of the central figures bin the party, who were also among the leading figures in the bZionist movement, came out strongly for the transfer. Berl bKatzenelson, ideologician and spokesman, declared: “The ques- btion of the transfer of population has aroused controversy: Is it bpermitted or forbidden? My conscience in this is perfectly clear. bA distant neighbor is better than a close enemy. They will not b
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