"They Deal With the Arabs With Hostility and Cruelty": A Warning From 1891
In 1891, leading Zionist ideologue Ahad Ha'am described violence and abuse by Jewish settlers against the native Palestinians. In 2026, as genocide rages on, it is clear that the world still has not heeded his warning.
"They deal with the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamefully for no sufficient reason, and even boast about their actions."
This isn't a quote from a current report on West Bank settler violence, but from a report written by Ahad Ha'am and published in June 1891.
Ahad Ha'am (the pen name of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg) was a leading Zionist ideologue and the founder of "Cultural Zionism". This excerpt is from a report, written after his first trip to Palestine, called Truth from the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), which was published in HaMelitz, a Hebrew newspaper printed in the Russian Empire.
1891 was six years before the official birth of the modern Zionist movement, or "Political Zionism", sixteen years before the establishment of the first Zionist militia in Palestine (Bar Giora), and twenty-six years before the Balfour Declaration. But by this point, at least five Palestinian villages had already been uprooted to make room for proto-Zionist Jewish settlements.
Zionism was always a colonial, violent, racist movement. Zionists never saw Palestinians as human beings equal to themselves. The supremacist tendencies were always there, embedded in the mindset of the colonial settlers, who raised the next generation on the same values. The next generation, in turn, kept the indoctrination going, and so on.
And now, 135 years later, we are seeing the inevitable culmination of this supremacist way of thought. The Zionists are committing an unimaginably horrific genocide against the native people of Palestine. And somehow, the world still turns a blind eye, just like it ignored the warnings all the way back in the 19th century.
The full excerpt from Ginsberg's report:
"We must surely learn, from both our past and present history, how careful we must be not to provoke the anger of the native people by doing them wrong, how we should be cautious in our dealings with a foreign people among whom we returned to live, to handle these people with love and respect and, needless to say, with justice and good judgment. And what do our brothers do? Exactly the opposite! They were slaves in their Diasporas, and suddenly they find themselves with unlimited freedom, wild freedom that only a country like Turkey [the Ottoman Empire] can offer. This sudden change has planted despotic tendencies in their hearts, as always happens to former slaves ["eved ki yimlokh" – when a slave becomes king – Proverbs 30:22]. They deal with the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamefully for no sufficient reason, and even boast about their actions. There is no one to stop the flood and put an end to this despicable and dangerous tendency. Our brothers indeed were right when they said that the Arab only respects he who exhibits bravery and courage. But when these people feel that the law is on their rival's side and, even more so, if they are right to think their rival's actions are unjust and oppressive, then, even if they are silent and endlessly reserved, they keep their anger in their hearts. And these people will be revengeful like no other."
In the attached image: The excerpt as published in HaMelitz on June 26, 1891.
Originally posted on my Twitter account in September 2024.
