Palestine
The increasingly frustrating reality of the Jewish - Arab situation during the British Mandate over Palestine (1922-1948) proved to be a fertile ground for passionate discourse on the nature of the co-existence of the two races in the region. From this intensely zealous debate came many forums for political expression in the form of scholarly dissertations, inflamed rhetoric and even novels, such as Amos Oz�s Panther in the Basement and Yahya Yakhlif�s A Lake Beyond the Wind. Both authors lived through those troubled times as citizens of the state of Israel and displaced Arab Palestine respectively. Central to this multifaceted conflict was the question of a right to existence - a particularly sensitive question in a time of growing anti-Semitism and political uncertainty. From afar, most of the struggles seemed to be centered on religious and economic rights; however, at base, it was a fight against political helplessness and for the right to live that was deeply rooted in history.
The quest for survival was not a new one for the Jewish people, whose history was pockmarked with turmoil and retribution. Though they had existed in Palestine for centuries, their numbers were relatively few compared to the Arabs, who were the main sources of population for the Middle East area. The first large-scale immigration to Palestine came in 1882, after the Russian state-sponsored pogroms or massacres drove many Jewish to safer environs. These waves of immigrants were to continue well after the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948; this was to be the source of much of the friction between the Arab and Jewish people. In 1906, the Zionist Congress declared Palestine to be the new Jewish homeland, and just three years later, Tel Aviv was founded to house the immigrant population that was overcrowding nearby Jaffa.
The involvement of the Allies, and Britain in particular, tended to make the already present tense situation more complicated. The end of World War I signaled a general redistribution of the Middle East areas beyond the previous allocations by the colonial powers and the Ottoman Empire. Palestine became a wild card when the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 left Palestine to management by the League of Nations. During the same year, the British had enlisted the support of the powerful emir of Mecca in return for the subsequent establishment of an Arab state in and around this area; the Arabs felt betrayed when the British publicly announced its support for �a national home for the Jewish people�, in the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
It wasn't until 1922 that the Palestine question was settled. The Mandate of Palestine was released by the League of Nations, providing the British with full administrative powers over the Palestinian territory to move toward self-autonomy and protect the �civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion. The agreement provided 75% of the allotted area for a new country, Transjordan, and the rest for what was to become the state of Israel, in recognition of the �historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.�
Very rapidly, the relations between the Arab and Jewish people began to break down. As more Jewish immigrants flooded into Palestine, the Arab peoples rapidly grew disgruntled and fearful of the growing Zionist influence. Racial troubles began in earnest after the 1929 anti-Jewish riots in Hebron, where 133 Jews were killed before the riot was crushed by British forces; its roots lay in Arab mistrust of the Jewish influx. To the further chagrin of the Arab community, the British paid little attention to the founding of a Jewish defense organization, the Haganah, that was quickly integrated into the Jewish political structure. The Arabs lost trust in the British administration after the repudiation of the Passfield White Paper in 1931. This document had supported the setting aside of lands for the many Arabs displaced from their homes by Jewish settlement. To regain some of their rights and their land, an Arab High Committee was founded in 1936, and a general strike called against Jewish products. This led to increased violence on both sides, culminating in a dismissal of the strike after a thousand Arabs had been killed.
An analysis of the Jewish - Arab situation led to the conclusion by the Peel Commission of 1937 that the Mandate was no longer tolerable, and that cooperation was impossible. It suggested more direct control of Jewish immigration. Upon publication, Arab violence began again and eventually forced the authorities to actually limit immigration. As World War II started and the Holocaust began to systematically murder Jews in Europe, the harsh enforcement of British decrees against immigration quickly alienated the Jewish people in Palestine, many who had family members who were unable to enter the area and were deported back to Europe and almost certain death. Jewish protest led to the British decision to begin withdrawal in 1947.
In Panther in the Basement, Amos Oz describes a Jerusalem during the final months of the British occupation under the Mandate. As residents prepare for the establishment of the first Jewish state and expected animosity from their Arab neighbors, fear is rampant and the enemy - both the Arabs and the British - is roundly hated. The community is composed mainly of refugees: "not called 'refugees', nor were they termed 'pioneers' or 'citizens': they were described as the 'organized community'" (18). This organized community is united in a common front by their hatred of the "bloodthirsty Arabs" and the British, whose actions "were casting a deep shadow, and the Hebrew nation was called upon to withstand the test" (5). It was understood by all that "the excuses for hatred change, but the hatred itself continues forever" (20). To Oz's protagonist Proffi - a little boy indoctrinated with the ideals of Eretz Israel - the reasoning that the Jews are hated because "we have always been right" does not seem to make being right a worthwhile option, for, as he realizes, �because we are the few and we are in the right� surrounded on all sides and without a friend in the world� (106). His parents do not clarify the matter much, for his mother tells him that "we should try not to hate." His father, the objective one, tells him with authority that "we must not be weak. To be weak is a sin" (20).
It is this attitude, of pride and strength in the face of adversity, that attest to the considerable achievement of the survival of Israel and also to their inability to come to a qualified peace. Like his countrymen, Proffi felt it was his duty to be a part of the struggle, and to show a strong face to his enemies: "from now on a new age will start: the age of the panther" (20). Meek no longer, for this boy's dreams were filled with "the possibility of a coordinated lightning strike on the British naval bases..." (27). As founder and second-in-command of the Freedom or Death organization, it was their juvenile responsibility to ensure the survival of the Jewish state with imaginary battles. It was interesting, then, that their main targets - as were the main targets of the Underground and his father's radical slogans - were British rather than Arabs, their discontent neighbors.
However, he comes to encounter a deep problem that is central to the situation that his entire nation is caught up in. With a certain naivete and innocence, plus a liberal dose of kindness, he strikes up a friendship with a British soldier who escorts him home after being caught outside after curfew. For this, he is punished by his father. Much more painful to him is the reaction of his friends, after he is caught continuing this friendship with weekly meetings in a cafe, to learn English. He excuses himself: "by doing this I would be a thousand times more useful to the Underground...henceforth I was a spy" (43). He styles himself after Tyrone Power, in the imaginary movie "Panther in the Basement" - a man able to disappear into the fog, continually changing his identity. At his trial, Chita Reznik hysterically refers to Proffi as a "low-down traitor and a liar" (66). Ben-Hur, the compassionate but ultimately objective general in this ragtag army, calls Chita's behaviour that of a "little Nazi" (66). In a parallel with the ideological positions of the 'grownups', Chita is a militant, and Ben-Hur, the majority that seeks to distance himself from the cruelties of the militant but not subject himself to the weakness of those who cannot hate. Ben-Hur goes on: "it's because you love the enemy. [It] is the height of treachery" (69).
Proffi comes to a genuine impasse here, as his mother has told him that "anyone who loves isn't a traitor" (2). As the novel closes, Proffi begins to understand that this is impossible for Israel. To love at such a level would mean a sacrifice of the body for an abstract ideal; the idea of survival cannot co-exist with such a heretic doctrine. He realizes that this everlasting suspicion will remain for Israel: �the opposite of what has happened is what might have happened if it weren�t for lies and fear� (147). He doesn't resent his role as friend and listener, or spy, for he thinks that "there are other secrets in the world apart from liberating the Homeland... were they perhaps really brothers who were pretending, for some reason of their own, to be strangers and enemies? One must observe and keep quiet" (142). There is hope, he seems to say, that the Jewish people and their enemies will stop pretending, and live as brothers.
On the final day of the Palestine Mandate, May 14, 1948, Israel proclaimed its independence: �we hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine to be called 'Medinal Israel'� [we are] open to the immigration of Jews from all the countries of their dispersion.� Since April 1948, they had utilized Plan D, which allowed field officers to conquer and level Arab settlements within the Israeli state to protect its borders. This announcement of superiority and their groundbreaking independence sparked the First Arab-Israeli War, which began on May 15, 1948. The Israeli forces won an upset over the larger Arab army, made up of units from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Amidst the violence, at least 600,000 Arabs fled Palestine for neighboring countries, ending the Arab majority in Israel.
Yahya Yahklif's A Lake Beyond the Wind is set during this war. He portrays Samakh, a town fearfully awaiting the arrival of the war: �there was nothing to fill the space of the small town except anxiety; nothing, any more, to evoke a sense of security� (1). As opposed to the people of Oz�s Jerusalem, the Arabs of Samakh focus their hatred on the Jews, and not on the British, who were withdrawing from the area � though they were roundly cursed for bringing reinforcements to the Jewish armies. Their war hinged too on survival, but with a muted sense that their existence depended on it. �Scores of men were going east�enlisting in the Arab Liberation Army, seeking out arms and khaki uniforms, dreaming of heroism and courage and medals� (7). They looked to regain and liberate the lands that they had lost.
Many of the characters, like Haj Mahmoud, leader of some of the riots in the 1936 general strike; Abd al-Karim, a world-weary shopowner; and Mansour, a ticket seller who takes great delight in observation, seem to view the entire war with a sense of grimness, as if they are expecting a defeat at the hands of their enemies. �Tiberias fell after bitter fighting� there was no break in the wailing and crying� Mansour nodded sadly, as if knowing that it would be Samakh�s turn next� (179-180). For these people who were losing their homes, livelihoods and their world, it was another seeming blow to their heroic stances by the pervasive influence of the Jewish onslaught. Yakhlif�s outlook is depressing: �I realized then that everything had been lost, and that all paths led to exile and dispersion. Such a melancholy prospect. Such a lonely road� (214). His view doesn�t tend to include the possibility of a reconciliation � his creative image of the Arab nation is one that has given in, and must attempt its existence elsewhere, and alone, without friends. It is poignant then, that for this same reason, the Jewish people draw their strength to continue their fight.
However hopeful or dejected these novels seem to be, there is no escaping the utter impasse at which the two cultures arrived at since early in the 20th century. To the fearful Jew, there are wolves a-plenty, even among their allies and protectors; to the displaced Arab, there is only betrayal. With this sense of mistrust � to the Arabs that would kill Proffi�s relatives, and to the Jews that would shoot Abd al-Karim�s friends � there is no answer but death, and the mounting frustrations have only found outlets in bloody riots, to which a character in A Lake Beyond the Wind says: �there are dark days ahead� (1). There is always the possibility that things will change. As Proffi realizes, as he approaches the time for his trial for treason in Panther in the Basement, �maybe the natural laws of our own time were also temporary laws, and would soon be replaced by new ones?� (62).