Arab leader's 1947 comment on war with a Jewish state
The Azzam Pasha quotation was part of a statement made by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, the Secretary-General of the Arab League from 1945 to 1952, in which he declared in 1947 that, were a war to take place with the proposed establishment of a Jewish state, it would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."[1]
The quote was universally cited for decades as having been uttered on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and the Arab states several months later. The source of the quote was traced by the computer scientist Brendan McKay to an October 11, 1947, article in the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar al-Yom, titled "Arab countries prepare for war" (ar: البلاد العربية تستعد للحرب) in a section titled "War of extermination..." (ar: ...حرب إبادة), which included the quote, with the added words "Personally, I hope the Jews do not force us into this war, because it would be a war of extermination and momentous massacre ...".[1][2]
The historian Efraim Karsh considers this quote a "genocidal threat".[1] The Israeli historian Tom Segev has disputed Karsh's interpretation, saying that "Azzam used to talk a lot" and pointing to another statement from May 21, 1948, in which Azzam Pasha declared his desire for "equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine".[2]
Historical context
In August 1946, the head of the Arab department of the Jewish AgencyEliyahu Sasson visited Cairo to lobby for partition in Palestine. He proposed a deal where Egypt would convince the Arab states to accept partition and in return the Jewish Agency would lobby on behalf of the Egyptians to persuade the British to transfer their troops on the Suez Canal bases to the new Jewish state. Suprisingly, the Egyptians were very receptive to this offer. Sasson reported back:
In his [Azzam’s] view there is only one solution and that is: partition. But collective debates and discussions are required in order to arrive at this solution. As the Secretary of the Arab League, he cannot appear before the Arabs as the initiator of this suggestion. His position is very delicate. He is married to seven wives (that is, he is the Secretary of seven Arab states), each one fearing her fellow wife, competing with her and trying to undermine her. He can see fit to support partition on two conditions: If one of the Arab states will find the strength and the courage to take the initiative and to propose the matter at a meeting of the League, and if the British will request that he follow this line.[3]
The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was set up in May 1947 to develop proposals for the partition of Palestine. Recommendations to this effect were made in September of that year. The majority plan proposed a distinct two-state solution, the minority plan foresaw a federal state. Though the Jews had accepted the majority plan, the Arab countries were unanimous in their negative reactions to both plans, and openly spoke of taking up arms were either of these proposals enacted.[4][5] For Ernest Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary, the majority plan would only lead to an outbreak of generalised violence, as clearly unjust to the Arabs, whilst the minority plan was inapplicable since it assumed a prior accord between Jews and Arabs.[6]
On September 15,[7] Azzam Pasha, who was held in high esteem by David Ben-Gurion,[2] met a Zionist delegation in London, consisting of Abba Eban, David Horowitz, both liaison officers with the Jewish Agency who were accompanied by the journalist Jon Kimche.[2] The emissaries stated that there was no doubt that a Jewish state would be established and requested that the Arab states accept the consequences and cooperate. They were willing to give cast-iron guarantees against any form of Jewish expansionism.[8] Azzam Pasha, in his capacity as Secretary General of the Arab League, suggested that the Zionist project be abandoned, and that the Jews could integrate themselves into Arab society on the basis of autonomous entities. He argued that it was pointless to appeal to political realism when the whole Zionist project demonstrated the efficacy of will-power. There was no option but war. The Zionists, he argued, would be thrown out in the future, just as the Crusaders had been. His Zionist interlocutors read this statement as a fascist declaration, unable, according to Henry Laurens, to see that, as with the Jews of Europe, emancipation from enslavement for the Arabs was seen as requiring recourse to force.[2][9]
In Horowitz's account, Azzam declared:
"We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions."[2]
Upon being informed of the meeting, Ben-Gurion, who had previously called Azzam the "most honest and humane among Arab leaders", and who had earlier ordered the Haganah to prepare for a war, summarized Azzam's position in a meeting with members of his political party:
"As we fought against the Crusaders, we will fight against you, and we will erase you from the earth."[2][10]
At the pan-Arab summit of 19 September 1947, which convened at Saoufar in Lebanon, the League decided to employ all available means to ensure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state.
On October 11, the editor of Akhbar el-Yom, Mustafa Amin, ran an interview he had obtained from Azzam Pasha to report on the outcome of the summit. The article was entitled "A War of Extermination", and in one passage contained the following words.[1]
I personally wish that the Jews do not drive us to this war, as this will be a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Tartar massacre or the Crusader wars. I believe that the number of volunteers from outside Palestine will be larger than Palestine's Arab population, for I know that volunteers will be arriving to us from [as far as] India, Afghanistan, and China to win the honor of martyrdom for the sake of Palestine ... You might be surprised to learn that hundreds of Englishmen expressed their wish to volunteer in the Arab armies to fight the Jews.
—Mustafa Amin, Arab countries prepare for war, Akhbar al-Yom, October 11, 1947
In early December 1947 Azzam told a rally of students in Cairo that "The Arabs conquered the Tartars and the Crusaders and they are now ready to defeat the new enemy," echoing sentiments he had expressed to a journalist the previous day.[11]
Jewish Agency Memorandum
A Jewish Agency memorandum, submitted on February 2, 1948, to the U.N. Palestine Commission, tasked with the implementation of the partition resolution, and yet again to the U.N. secretary-general on March 29, 1948, referred to the Azzam Pasha quotation, citing the October 11, 1947, article in Akhbar al-Yom.
... The "practical and effective means" contrived and advocated by the Arab States were never envisaged as being limited by the provisions of the Charter; indeed, the Secretary-General of the Arab League was thinking in terms which are quite remote from the lofty sentiments of San Francisco. "This war," he said, "will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongol massacres and the Crusades."
At the time of the utterance, according to Segev, the Arab–Israeli conflict was raging also in the media of the day, as either side sought to show the other side was agitating for war. Azzam had, he concludes, 'supplied the Zionists with a sound bite that serves Israeli propaganda to this very day,' and some 395 books, and roughly 13,000 websites cite this excerpt to this day.[2]
Azzam's quoted first sentence, without its initial caveat, appeared in English in a Jewish Agency memorandum to the United Nations Palestine Commission in February 1948.[12] During the next few years, the same partial sentence appeared in its correct 1947 setting in several books.[13] However, by 1952, many publications, including one published by the Israeli government, had moved its date to 1948,[14] specifically to May 15, 1948, shortly after the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.[1] As the war got underway, The Jerusalem Post quoted a further declaration from him:
Whatever the outcome, the Arabs will stick to their offer of equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine and let them be as Jewish as they like.[2]
Quotation source and authenticity debate
Until 2010, the source of the quotation has been commonly claimed to be a press conference in Cairo on May 15, 1948, one day after the Israeli declaration of independence, which some versions say was broadcast by the BBC.[15]
An Egyptian writer in 1961 maintained that the quotation was "completely out of context". He wrote that:
"Azzam actually said that he feared that if the people of Palestine were to be forcibly and against all right dispossessed, a tragedy comparable to the Mongol invasions and the Crusades might not be avoidable. ... The reference to the Crusaders and the Mongols aptly describes the view of the foreign Zionist invaders shared by most Arabs."[16]
In 2010, the source of the quote was traced by the computer scientistBrendan McKay to an October 11, 1947, article in the Egyptian newspaper Akhbar al-Yom, titled "A War of Extermination", which included the quote with the added words, "Personally, I hope the Jews do not force us into this war, because it would be a war of extermination and momentous massacre ...".[1][2] McKay shared his discovery with Jewish-American pro-Israel researcher David Barnett, who then published a paper on his discovery together with Karsh. Karsh nonetheless accused McKay of failing to share it 'with the general public' on Wikipedia, 'so as to keep Arab genocidal designs on the nascent Jewish state under wraps', which McKay called 'quite a distortion'.[19]
Interpretation debate
Karsh, together with his co-author David Barnett, consider the Azzam Pasha quotation a "genocidal threat".[1]
Tom Segev, also an historian, disputes this interpretation, saying that "Azzam used to talk a lot" and pointing to another statement from May 21, 1948, in which Azzam Pasha declared his desire for "equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine".[2] In response to Segev, Karsh wrote that while it is true that Azzam was prepared to allow survivors of the destroyed Jewish state to live as dhimmis, in his view "this can hardly be considered an indication of moderation".[19]
Michael Scott Doran offered a different view on Azzam's goals. In his opinion:
The flimsy alliance that the Egyptian authorities pretended to let King Abdallah lead into battle was, at one and the same moment, an anti-Israeli and an anti-Jordanian instrument. Cairo viewed the coalition not as a weapon for destroying Zionism but, rather, as a catapult designed to hurl the Jordanian army at the Israelis. The distinction between these two conceptions is indeed fine, but significant nonetheless. In military terms, the goal of the coalition was to liberate as much Palestinian territory as possible and to weaken, if not defeat, the enemy. In political terms, however, its purpose was to prevent the partition of Palestine between Israel and Jordan by forcing Amman, first, to make war against Zionism, and, second, to refrain from cutting a deal with the enemy without the authorization of Cairo. ... In addition, they had no choice but to capture the moral high ground of Arab politics by advocating a policy of no compromise, even though they realized that compromise would be a very likely outcome of the conflict. Calling for the liberation of Palestine, and behaving in a manner consistent with the call, were essential components of the Egyptian project, but they did not constitute its central objective. Thus, partial failure on the battlefield would not constitute a failure of the entire operation, if the maneuver were to result in driving a wedge between King Abdallah and the Zionists. If Cairo stopped short of destroying Zionism and yet still succeeded, say, in creating a Palestinian state sandwiched on the West Bank between Jordan and Israel, then it would have achieved its fundamental goals of preventing the expansion of Jordan and thwarting the creation of an Amman– Tel Aviv axis.[20]
Translation
Personally I hope the Jews do not force us into this war because it will be a war of elimination and it will be a serious massacre which history will record similarly to the Mongol massacre or the wars of the Crusades. I think the number of volunteers from outside Palestine will exceed the Palestinian population. I know that we will get volunteers from India, Afghanistan and China to have the glory of being martyrs for Palestine. You might be shocked if you knew that many British have shown interest in volunteering in the Arab armies to fight the Jews.
This fight will be distinguished by three grave issues; faith, since all fighters believe that his fight for Palestine is the short road to heaven. Second it will be a chance for looting on a grand scale. Third, no one will be able to stop the zealous volunteers who will come from all over the world to revenge the Palestinian martyrs because they know that the battle is an honor for all Muslims and Arabs in the world...
Moreover, the Arab is distinguished from the Jew in that he accepts defeat with a smile, so if the Jews win the first battle we will win in the second, third or the last. On the other hand a single defeat of the Jews will destroy their morale.
The Arabs in the desert love to go to war. ... I remember once while fighting in the desert I was called to make a peace and the Arabs told me how come you do that? How can we live without a war? The Bedouin finds enjoyment in war which he does not find in peace!
I warned the Jewish leaders whom I met in London about continuing their policy, and I told them that the Arab soldier is the strongest in the world. Once he lifts his weapon, he not put it down till he fires the last bullet in the battle, and we will fire the last bullet...
In the end I understand the consequence of this bloody war, I see in front of me its horrible battles, I can imagine its victims but I have a clear conscience since we were called to fight as defenders and not attackers![21]
Zionist political violence refers to politically motivated violence or terrorism perpetrated by Zionists. The term is used to describe violence committed by those who support the political movement of Zionism, and violence committed against opponents of Zionism. The violence often takes the form of terrorist attacks and has been directed against both Jewish and Arab targets. The most active period of most notable Zionist political violence began on June 30, 1924, through the 1940s, and continues to the present day, usually for the purpose of expanding Zionist settlements in Mandatory Palestine.
Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in the 19th century to enable the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Following the establishment of the modern state of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that supports the development and protection of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
David Ben-Gurion was the primary national founder of the State of Israel as well as its first prime minister. As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led the movement for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine.
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as Resolution 181 (II).
Mohammed Amin al-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine. Al-Husseini was the scion of the al-Husayni family of Jerusalemite Arab nobles, who trace their origins to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians and unarmed soldiers.
A homeland for the Jewish people is an idea rooted in Jewish history, religion, and culture. The Jewish aspiration to return to Zion, generally associated with divine redemption, has suffused Jewish religious thought since the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile.
The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined on 5 May 1945. Since its formation the Arab League has promoted the Palestinian Arab cause in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, including by imposing the Arab League boycott of Israel. The Arab League opposed the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947. On 15 May 1948, the then seven Arab League members coordinated an invasion of what was by then the former British Mandate, marking the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine was the first phase of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. It broke out after the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine.
During the 1948 Palestine war in which the State of Israel was established, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs or 85% of the total population of the territory Israel captured fled or were expelled from their homes by Israeli forces. The causes for this mass displacement is a matter of great controversy among historians, journalists, and commentators.
The Palestinian people are an ethnonational group with family origins in the region of Palestine. Since 1964, they have been referred to as Palestinians, but before that they were usually referred to as Palestinian Arabs. During the period of the British Mandate, the term Palestinian was also used to describe the Jewish community living in Palestine.
During the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, there was civil, political and armed struggle between Palestinian Arabs and the Jewish Yishuv, beginning from the violent spillover of the Franco-Syrian War in 1920 and until the onset of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The conflict shifted from sectarian clashes in the 1920s and early 1930s to an armed Arab Rebellion against British rule in 1936, armed Jewish Revolt primarily against the British in mid-1940s and finally open war in November 1947 between Arabs and Jews.
Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, also known as Azzam Pasha, was an Egyptian diplomat and politician. He was the first Secretary-General of the Arab League, from 22 March 1945 to September 1952.
Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
The Arab Higher Committee or the Higher National Committee was the central political organ of Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It was established on 25 April 1936, on the initiative of Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and comprised the leaders of Palestinian Arab clans and political parties under the mufti's chairmanship. The committee was outlawed by the British Mandatory administration in September 1937 after the assassination of a British official.
The 1937 Ben-Gurion letter is a letter written by David Ben-Gurion, then head of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency, to his son Amos on 5 October 1937. The letter is well known to scholars as it provides insight into Ben-Gurion's reaction to the report of the Peel Commission released on 7 July of the same year. It has also been subject to significant debate by scholars as a result of scribbled-out text that may or may not provide written evidence of an intention to "expel the Arabs" or "not expel the Arabs" depending on one's interpretation of whether such deletion was intended by Ben-Gurion.
The 1948 Palestine war was fought in the territory of what had been, at the start of the war, British-ruled Mandatory Palestine. During the war, the British withdrew from Palestine, Zionist forces conquered territory and established the State of Israel, and over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. It was the first war of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the broader Arab–Israeli conflict.
The London Conference of 1946–1947, which took place between September 1946 and February 1947, was called by the British Government of Clement Attlee to resolve the future governance of Palestine and negotiate an end of the Mandate. It was scheduled following an Arab request after the April 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry report.
There have been explicit or implicit expressions, statements, and rhetoric made by individuals, political entities, and factions within Arab, Islamic, Palestinian or left-wing discourse advocating for the elimination or annihilation of the State of Israel as a political entity. These anti-Zionist calls often involve the use of strong language, genocidal threats, or declarations aiming at the complete eradication of Israel from the region. Such expressions may be manifested in official statements, speeches, charters, or public discourse, reflecting a position that denies the legitimacy of Israel's existence and seeks its removal through various means, including military action or other forms of political and ideological resistance.
↑ Howard Morley Sachar,Europe leaves the Middle East, 1936–1954, Knopf, 1972 p.494, gives October the 14th. This date however is not that given by Abba Eban himself. See A. S. Eban, 'Note of Conversation with Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha,' London, Sept. 15, 1947,' in Neil Caplan, Futile Diplomacy, Frank Cass, 1986, Vol. 2, pp. 274–76; Laurens, Question de Palestine, vol. 2 p. 680 n. 103 for additional bibliography.
↑ Howard Morley Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, Knopf, May 15, 2007, pp. 285, 333.
↑ Joseph Heller, The Birth of Israel, 1945–1949: Ben-Gurion and His Critics, University Press of Florida, 2000 p.79
↑ "British Institute Gutted; Demonstration near Cairo". The Times of India. December 3, 1947. p.5.Margaret Pope (December 1, 1947). ""Will Fight to Finish," Says League Official". The Scotsman. p.2.
↑ Jewish Agency for Palestine, Memorandum on acts of Arab aggression to alter by force the settlement on the future government of Palestine approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations, Submitted to the United Nations Palestine Commission. Lake Success, New York. February 2, 1948. A copy appears in UN document S/710.
↑ "The Toynbee-Herzog debate". The Egyptian Economic & Political Review. 7 (3): 6–9, 20–30. March 1961.
↑ AH Joffe and A Romirowsky (2010). "A Tale of Two Galloways: Notes on the Early History of UNRWA and Zionist Historiography". Middle Eastern Studies. 46 (5): 655–675. doi:10.1080/00263206.2010.504554. S2CID147251065.
↑ Benny Morris (July–August 2010). "Revisionism on the West Bank". The National Interest: 73–81.
↑ Mustafa Amin (11 October 1947). "The Arabs prepare for war". Akhbar el-Yom (in Arabic). Cairo. pp.1, 9.
Further reading
Doran, Michael (1999). Pan-Arabism before Nasser: Egyptian Power Politics and the Palestine Question. Oxford University Press. ISBN9780195160086.
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