XI. / "Us and the Arabs" /

1. On the "Iron Wall"

Contrary to my good custom of beginning every article with the heart of the matter, this time I am 'forced' to open with an introduction, and a personal one at that. The writer of these lines is sometimes classified as a hater of the Arabs, as a person who wishes to expel them from the Land of Israel, and so on. This is not correct. From an emotional-political standpoint—my attitude towards them is determined by two fundamental assumptions. First—I consider it an impossible thing to expel the Arabs from the Land of Israel; two peoples will always remain there. Second, I apparently belong to that group that in the past drafted the Helsingfors Program, the program of national rights for all peoples found under the wings of one government. In clarifying this program, we took into account not only the Jews, but all peoples, one and all—a guarantee of rights. I am prepared to swear, in our name and in the name of our grandchildren, that we will never violate a guarantee of rights, and we will never try to weaken it—this is a peace "credo."

Different, however, is the question of whether it is forbidden, God forbid, to achieve a peace-compromise through peace concessions, for the solution to this question depends not on our attitude towards the Arabs, but solely on the attitude of the Arabs towards us and towards Zionism.

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After this introduction, one can get to the heart of the matter.

Of a peace-compromise between us and the Arabs of the Land of Israel, one cannot even speak, not now and not in the foreseeable future. I express this conviction of mine in such a sharp manner not because I desire to cause sorrow to the proponents of reconciliation in Zionism, but because I will not cause them false grief: except for those who have hoped in their naiveté since the day they were born, all the moderate Zionists have understood for a long time the absolute impossibility of obtaining an agreement from the Arabs of the Land of Israel of their own free will.