The International Jewish Labor BUND and the State of Israel

The Bund seems astonishingly prescient in the statements published during the white heat of fighting over 75 years ago. The first statement was released during the local fighting that followed the declaration of the UN partition plan in November 1947. In this piece the Bund warns its readers that partition was the “beginning of a new bloody chapter” in Jewish-Arab relations and that “the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish State would lead to a new catastrophe, not only for the Jews in Palestine but for the Jews all over the world.”

The second piece is a statement adopted by their international coordinating committee (with a single dissenting vote) after the conflict expanded into war with nearby Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. Pulling no punches, the Bund states that “the country became from the very start a source of Irredentist movements, Jewish-Arab conflicts, and an open threat of war”, thus rooting the cause of conflict in the establishment of the Israeli state itself.

The General Jewish Labor Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, commonly known as the Jewish Labor Bund or just the Bund, was founded in Vilna (in Lithuania then part of the tsarist empire) in 1897. It was the first Marxist group in the tsarist empire to create a mass organization and remained the largest up to 1905. It participated in the establishment of the RSDLP, spear-headed the turn from educational work to agitation and played a major role in the 1905 revolution. The Bund also set up self-defence groups to protect Jews from pogroms. After 1917, the main area of activity was in Poland where it cooperated with the Polish Socialist Party in resisting anti-semitism and mobilising workers and supporters.

From very early on the Bund was anti-Zionist; a core concept was “doykeit” or “hereness” - the idea that the struggle must take place in the country where Jews lived, as counterposed to the Zionist core concept that resistance to anti-semitism was useless and that only in a national state established elsewhere could Jews be free from oppression.

By 1948, the organization had remained committed to this principle for 50 years in several continents. In the statements in The Bulletin the Bund again reiterates its opposition to Zionism.

Prior to WW2 the Bund was essentially a one-country party based pre WW1 in the tsarist empire and after it in Poland. The millions who migrated to other countries were focussed on supporting the main organisation.

But the Holocaust destroyed Jewish life in Poland and with it the foundation of Bund activities up to that time. The establishment of the state of Israel occurring straight after this loss was a turning point in their whole approach to political activity. As David Slucki shows: “Before its establishment, the Bund saw a Jewish state as a diversion from the real problems of national survival. After the creation of Israel, the bundist movement came to terms with the state’s existence.”[1]

Hot debates occurred during the 1940s. With the largest Jewish population now in the US, Emmanual Scherer argued that it was essential to continue socialist agitation and emphasised that “the Jews’ fate is tightly bound up with that of non-Jews”. Abraham Menes proposed the rebuilding of the European Jewish communities. However writer Yehiel Yeshaya Trunk argued from 1941 for a shift away from class and socialist ideas and towards Jewish nationhood.

The various tendencies came together in April 1947 at the first ever Bund world conference. The Bund was now a transnational body.

The two articles about the establishment of the state of Israel generated a “veritable deluge” of condemnation from the entire Jewish press and the Jewish community as traitors. The Bund response was “We shall not be diverted by any temporary nationalist trend”.[2]

Paradoxically the new international organising principles allowed the local Bund groups to focus more on local activities, where they tended to straddle “the divide between mainstream Jewish communities and the non-Jewish socialist left.” Despite continued talk about socialism, bundists in the post WW2 era now saw “cultural continuity as their chief mission”.

Slucki comments that the Bund in Melbourne, Australia “was likely among the most successful of all Bund organisations” and “strongly engaged with a local Jewish community that was overwhelmingly Zionist.” Thus, despite the formal opposition to Zionism, pragmatism led to an accommodation with Zionism and bundists in Australia sending money to Israel.

The Bund in Australia has recently issued two statements which contrast greatly with the content and spirit of the 1948 statements[3] The primary concern is to repeatedly condemn Hamas and express “solidarity with the Israeli people and the world Jewish community”. They look towards Israel as the body which must “articulate a path towards” peace. They use the same biased language found in many media eg the masses of desperate Palestinian victims are “displaced”.  There is no mass murder or genocide. There is certainly no criticism of the Zionist project itself.

Let the Bund of 1948 have the final word: they warn that the atmosphere among supporters of Israel “becomes more and more favorable for the development of political brigandry, terror, the extremes of home-grown Jewish fascism, nationalism, and reactionary tendencies”. How prophetic; and how sad.

 - Janey Stone

If I Am Not for Myself

by Mike Marqusee

If I Am Not For Myself is a passionate, thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be Jewish in the twenty-first century. It traces the author’s upbringing in 1960s Jewish-American suburbia,...

Jewish Labor BUND and the Jewish-Arab War in Palestine

November 21, 1947, the day on which the United Nations decided upon the partition-plan and the crea­tion of an independent Jewish State in Palestine, marks the beginning of a new bloody chapter in the history of Jewish-Arab relations. Since that day shooting and blood-shedding did not cease in the Holy Land. The Jewish-Arab War, though not formally declared, is in full swing. Every day adds new casualties to the total of wounded and dead Jews and Arabs. More than two thousand dead are already listed. 

The Jewish population the world over is appalled by this bloody result of the first steps by the Zionist Movement toward achieving its goal-to establish an independent Jewish State. It is now more apparent than ever before that, as far as human lives are con­cerned, the Zionist ideal is a very costly undertaking. However, this new acknowledgment did not yet lead to decreasing the Zionist influence over the majority of the Jewish population. As usual in cases of clashes between two nationalistic-minded camps, the bloodshed in Palestine worked like oil spilled on fire. Not only hatred toward the Arabs, but also hatred toward the British Labor Government became even more wide­spread among the Jews. The entire political and psychological machinery of war-times is now working full blast inside the Jewish Community. 

The Jewish Socialist faction alone, organized in the BUND and various other Jewish Socialist forma­tions, remains immune to the war-like nationalistic attitude of the Zionist-dominated Jewish population. The BUND organizations and groups in various coun­tries are strongly opposed to the indiscriminate Arab-­baiting, which is now in vogue among the Jews. The Jewish Socialist Movement under the BUND banner is the only one trying to bar the currents of hatred against the British Socialist Government which the Zionists are disseminating in such abundance. In fact, the BUND rank and file are not caught by the general nationalistic hysteria and remain opposed to the crea­tion of a separate Jewish State in Palestine. 

This does not mean, however, that the Jewish Socialists are not deeply grieved because of the thous­ands of Palestine casualties incurred since the partition decision of the United Nations. Every single human life sacrificed at the shrine of the Jewish State in Palestine increases the Jewish Socialists' sorrow and their feeling that a new national calamity is being committed. Many Jewish Socialists are therefore en­gaged in bringing help to the victims of the Jewish­-Arab War. This participation of he Jewish Socialists in rescue work for the Palestine casualties does not diminish, however, their political antagonism to Zionism in general and to the prolongation of the Jewish-Arab War in particular. 

Loot

by Adam Raz

Translated by Philip Hollander

During the 1948 War, Israeli fighters and residents alike plundered Palestinian homes, shops, businesses, and farms. This bitter truth was then suppressed or forgotten over the coming years.Tens of...

Professor L. Hersch, of the University of Geneva, Switzerland, one of the oldest Bundist leaders alive and a world-famous Jewish scientist, recently published a series of articles in the Paris Jewish Daily Unser Shtime, under the headline "Is partition of Palestine salvation or a catastrophe?" In these articles he came to the conclusion that the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish State would lead to a new catastrophe, not only for the Jews in Palestine, but for the Jews all over the world as well. The author of these articles does not at all believe in the possibility of a peaceful Arab-Jewish co-existence in the event that the planned partition did take place. He advocates a round-table Jewish-Arab Conference in order to stop the clashes and to establish a joint truly democratic Jewish-Arab State in an independent Palestine.

We shall quote below a few passages from the pamphlet Jewish Future by Dr. Emanuel Scherer, published recently in London by the International Publish­ing Company: 

"Palestine does not offer a solution of the Jewish question: Assuming for the sake of argument that the present Jewish population in Palestine could be doubled or trebled – an assumption which is in practice without foundation – it would then still constitute a very small minority of the Jews throughout the world, a minority unable to solve the problems of the overwhelming ma­jority of Jewish people outside Palestine. 

"There is no other solution for the Jews in Pales­tine, as elsewhere, than to co-operate with the non­Jewish democratic forces. The democratic trends among the Arab population are very weak. But, weak or strong, the possibility of a true, strong and stable Jewish-Arab co-operation is dependent upon a new attitude. on the part of the Jewish population. Without going into details, its essential foundation must be that, accepting for the future the Arab majority in Palestine, the Jews should have a guarantee of real security, of equal rights and of complete freedom to develop their own national and cultural life.'' 

The BUND Organization in France, with its head­quarters in Paris, recently issued a statement con­demning the partition plans of the United Nations, pointing out that those plans do not take under con­sideration the urgent need to reconcile the two nation­alities in Palestine, who must find ways and means for peaceful cooperation and mutual advancement. This statement is basically against the creation of an inde­pendent Jewish State in Palestine, which, it claims, is in no way a solution of the Jewish problem, and can only aggravate the situation and add to the difficulties of the Jewish displaced persons who must be re­established in various countries according to their free will. 

The BUND Movement in the United States – its New York Organization – after a prolonged debate published a resolution against the partition decision of the United Nations, stating its fidelity to the traditional anti-Zionist attitude of the BUND and calling for Jewish-Arab collaboration in an independent Palestine, where the rights of both main nationalities would be internationally guaranteed. In conclusion this resolu­tion states again that there is only one true solution of the Jewish problem – the establishment of a socialist way of life, which will put an end, once and for all, to all the hardships and persecution suffered by the Jews as well as by other minorities. This resolution of the New York BUND Organization, therefore, brings to the attention of the Jewish working population the undeniable fact that the British Socialist Government is engaged in a gigantic task of rebuilding Britain on foundations of Socialism and Democracy. Socialists all over the world who are against the totalitarian misde­meanors should do their utmost to support the British Socialist Government. Its success will also pave the way to solving the Jewish problem. 

A recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the mutual coordinating body of the BUND organizations and groups in various countries declared that its affiliated organizations would not undertake in connection with the events in Palestine any steps which could be interpreted as a positive attitude toward the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine or as a lessening of our opposition to the Zionist ideals. 

A small minority among the BUND members in various countries is of the opinion that the creation of an independent Jewish State in Palestine, under the prevailing circumstances, is indispensable. But even this minority remains strongly opposed to the Zionist ideology as a whole. 

***

BUND World Coordinating Committee: Brussels, Belgium, on June 12 - June 14, 1948

An extraordinary session of the Executive of the BUND World Coordinating Committee, meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on June 12 - June 14, 1948 and at which were present representatives of the BUND or­ganizations in the United States, France, Belgium, and other countries, after a thorough discussion and a great deal of deliberation adopted, with a single dis­senting vote, the following statement concerning the State of Israel. This same statement was subsequently adopted by the BUND groups in France, Belgium, Italy, the D.P. camps of Austria, et. al.

STATEMENT 

1. The Jewish people now live in a difficult, fate­ful period of its history. 

Deeply grieved and shaken after the murder of six million of their brethren, the masses of the Jewish peo­ple became enveloped by strong nationalist tendencies, which, used and fanned by skillful Zionist propaganda, caused among the Jews a psychosis of Zionist and Mes­sianistic illusions. In these circumstances it became easy to propagandize the newly-established Jewish State as the ostensibly unique remedy for national uncer­tainty and desolation. 

Yet the proclamation of the State of Israel placed in a most precarious position the entire Jewish nation –­ the Jewish community in Palestine, the Jews in the Arab countries, and the Jewish population the world over. 

Bloody war rages in Palestine. The future of more than 600,000 Jews there is in grave danger. The accomplishments of the Jewish settlements and their very existence are at stake. 

The Invention of the Land of Israel

by Shlomo Sand

Translated by Geremy Forman

What is a homeland? When does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land?...

DIFFERENCES WITH ZIONISM REAFFIRMED

In this grave hour the BUND World Coordinating Committee wishes to state: 

The important ideological differences which have caused the schism between the BUND and the Zionist movement in the past continue to divide the two fac­tions. We are, however, deeply concerned with the fate of the Jewish community in Palestine, which con­stitutes a part of the living organism of our people. We are filled with apprehension and fear regarding the present tragic position of the Palestinian Jews and the bearing it may have upon the lives of Jews through­out the world. Moved by these sentiments and by the will to help prevent a catastrophic end, we state : 

The heretofore negative attitude of the BUND to­ward the Zionist aim of statehood has become even more justified owing to the actual forms of the newly ­proclaimed State of Israel. A result of a purely ar­tificial division of the country, and having an impos­sibly long frontier, innumerable corridors and islands of Jewish and Arab minorities, ports without hinter­lands, and hinterlands without ports, the country be­came from the very start a source of Irredentist move­ments, Jewish-Arab conflicts, and an open threat of war. 

PEACE IN PALESTINE DEMANDED 

2.The Jewish settlements are more important than the Jewish State. The interests of the settlements are – peace; the way to achieve statehood is – war.

The very establishment of the State of Israel marked the beginning of a bloody war in Palestine. In the present tense conditions prevailing in the world, this local fighting may become the start of a terrifying universal war. 

We democratic Socialists, who fight against im­perialism and for the establishment of peace and the brotherhood of peoples based upon liberty, security, and equality of all nations rejecting war as a means of set­tling national controversies, demand that all powers involved employ all necessary means to establish peace on the entire territory of Palestine. 

But a true and lasting peace in Palestine depends, first of all, upon the peoples inhabiting the country and their mutual relationship. No solution based on force, no victory and rule of one faction over the other has a chance of acceptance. A freely accomplished under­standing between the two nations is a necessary condi­tion for the true, stable, and lasting solution of the pres­ent tragic Palestinian problem. 

NATIONALISM SCORED

Aggressive nationalist tendencies within both camps, tendencies continually increasing in intensity, are the main obstacle in the path toward such a solution. The only way to establish a true peace and to form a basis for a just solution of the Palestine problem is the re­nunciation by both the Arabs and the Jews, of their respective nationalist ideals and their lust for unlimited power. 

To defend their lives and their elementary human privileges is the natural right of every community and every individual – including, of course, the Jewish community in Palestine. But this right of self-defense must not be utilized in or identified with the struggle for Jewish statehood, or with sustaining such a struggle or the groups engaged in it. One must constantly keep in mind that the safety and the peaceful development of the Jewish settlements can indeed be secured by ap­plying the right policies – policies aiming at democrat­ic cooperation between the Jewish and Arab popula­tion within the framework of a common governmental structure which would ensure the fullest freedom of de­velopment both for the Jews and the Arabs. 

PALESTINE NOT A SOLUTION 

3. Safe from the threat of war, bent upon a peace­ful co-existence beside the Arab population, and freed from its Zionist illusions, the Jewish community in Palestine could truly contribute its share in the strug­gle for our national existence, and thereby play an im­portant part in the development of the Jews. But even in that case – and even if it were endowed with a state of its own – the Jewish community in Palestine would always comprise but a small minority of the Jews throughout the world. The vast majority of the Jew­ish nation will continue to dwell – as it dwells now, after 50 years of political Zionism – outside the bound­aries of Palestine. Thus Palestine cannot possibly solve the Jewish problem, in any case. The fight against anti-Semitism, for full equality, and for the full national and cultural development of the Jewish people must be waged – as it has been until now – side by side with the democratic and Socialist elements of the non-Jewish population in those countries and in those areas where more than 90% of the Jewish nation now live. The positive part which could be played by the Jewish settlements in Palestine in the national and cultural development of the Jews is now being under­mined by the Zionists' promotion of the Hebrew language, which causes a rift between the Jews in Pal­estine and the Jews in the so-called Diaspora. 

DANGEROUS ASPECTS OF THE JEWISH STATE

The national importance of the Palestinian Jews as a whole was basically damaged by the establishment of the Jewish state, which caused large parts of the Jewish people to fall prey to poisonous chauvinistic ten­dencies. Because of the proclamation of the State of Israel, a great many Jews are now inclined to slight the future and the development of the Jews in the so-called Diaspora, while the atmosphere in the Jewish commu­nities becomes more and more favorable for the de­velopment of political brigandry, terror, the extremes of home-grown Jewish fascism, nationalism, and re­actionary trends. Moreover, the tendency to regard all Jewish settlements throughout the world as but a sec­ond-rate hinterland of the State of Israel is constantly growing. Finally, the drive to capture all phases of Jewish life by terrorist and totalitarian methods – a tendency shared by Communists and Zionists alike – takes on more dangerous forms every day. 

ROLE OF FOREIGN POWERS 

The propaganda seeking to tie the future of the Jewish community in Palestine with the policies of the Soviet Union, practiced by the entire Communist camp and an important faction of the Zionist movement, is false and illusory. Such a line of reasoning may lead Jewish life as a whole to catastrophic results. The pres­ent support lent by the Soviet Union to the Zionist cause is dictated solely by the imperialistic aims of Soviet foreign policy and not by the best interests of the Jewish people. 

The positive attitude of the United States to the newly-established Jewish State is, on the other hand, a result of the contest for power waged by the two major American parties. The recently-adopted bill concerning the admittance of 205,000 D.P.'s from the camps, which contains anti-Jewish discriminatory rules, is a clear indication of how little the two political par­ties are really concerned with the true interests of the Jewish population. 

Great Britain – moved by the controversial ex­igencies of her foreign policy and by provocative ac­tions on the part of extremist Zionist groups headed by the lrgun and Stern gangs – adopted an attitude of unilateral help for and collaboration with the Arab camp, thereby taking upon her shoulders part of the responsibility for the present gory developments in Palestine. While we protest against this attitude, we refuse to be identified with the irresponsible demagogic campaign waged against the British Government and the Labor Party by the Zionists on one hand and the Communists on the other, a campaign which damages the cause of the Jewish people and the ideals of inter­national Socialism. 

COOPERATION IS BASIC SOLUTION 

4. A true and final solution to the Palestinian prob­lem can be found only according to the universal hu­manistic principles of justice, democracy, and interna­tional solidarity. 

In accordance with these principles, true internal peace must be established and secured in Palestine, after which the country should become politically indepen­dent. The government, created on the basis of full in­ternal democracy, oriented toward international demo­cratic Socialism, based upon constitutional equal rights for both peoples – rights guaranteed by the United Nations – should be a truly common government of the country's entire Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants. 

Free immigration, devoid of any discrimination on the basis of religion or nationality, and regulated by general rules, should be ensured. Yet these immigra­tion rules must not constitute the least obstacle for the struggle to open the gates of all democratic countries to the uprooted Jews. 

The full formal and actual rights of the Yiddish language in the political, social, and cultural activities of the Jewish community in Palestine must likewise be assured. 

The BUND World Coordinating Committee gives vent to its firm conviction that the realization of these principles and guarantees enumerated above is the true and just solution of the Palestinian problem – a solu­tion which is in full accord with both the well-under­stood interests of the Jewish people and the general ideals of international democratic Socialism. 

The Jewelers of the Ummah

by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Can we return to worlds destroyed by colonial violence? In a series of letters to her father, her great-grandmothers, and her children—and to thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and Hannah Arendt—Ariella...

COMMUNITY OF INTEREST WITH SOCIALISM EMPHASIZED 

5. As a result of the past 2,000 years of Jewish history, the Jews have become a nation of the world. The wheels of history cannot be turned backwards. The Jewish people, strewn throughout the world, can continue to exist and to best develop its national and cultural values in conditions of liberty, equality, economic security, and tolerance – conditions which shall most securely be realized by democratic Socialism. The struggle waged by the international Socialist movement for liberty and Socialism and the victory of that move­ment will cause the defeat of anti-Semitism and of all forms of national oppression and discrimination. A Socialist victory will create new and better social and political conditions, in which both Jews and non-Jews will be able to lead and enjoy a free, peaceful, and suc­cessful life – everywhere in the world. 

WE WILL NOT BE BULLIED

The statement concerning the establishment of the State of Israel, adopted by the Executive Session of the BUND World Coordinating Committee and reprinted in the current issue of the Bulletin, has already aroused against us all evil forces of Jewish nationalism. A veritable deluge of condemning articles was let loose. The entire Jewish press, dailies, weeklies, and scores of other publications, united in taking the BUND to task as a traitor to the Jewish cause. All shades of Jewish public opinion united, in mobilizing the Jewish communities against us - simply because we dare criticize the wisdom of the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. 

The circumstances of this anti-BUND propaganda within the Jewish communities resemble strikingly the past developments in all countries remaining in the grip of extreme nationalistic factions. Be this as it may, we wish to assure our political antagonists that we shall not allow them to terrorize us into silence. For half a century the BUND fearlessly expressed its Socialist views in the face of serious attempts to silence it on the part of the old Czarist regime and the reac­tionary pre-war Polish Government. We shall remain true to this old tradition of the BUND. As we have in the past, we shall continue to subscribe to the spirit of international Socialism. As in the past, our public statements shall be guided solely by our Socialist ideals. We shall not be diverted by any temporary nationalist trend, be it even as strong and triumphant as the wave of Jewish nationalism witnessed by the present days. 

ARAB REFUGEES

The United Nations now face a new problem, one caused by recent developments in Palestine. Almost the entire Arab population in the part of the country assigned to the State of Israel left their homes to es­cape the horrors of war. It is estimated that close to 400,000 people of Arab origin – men, women, and children – are now living as refugees, without shelter, adequate food, or medical supplies. These people wish to return, provided the Government of Israel will per­mit them to go back to their former homes. 

For more than two thousand years the appalling plight of exile and homelessness was too often the fate of the Jews, wherever they might have dwelt. Anti­-Semitism, discriminatory practices, and almost every war in history added to the number of displaced Jews. During World War I, the Czarist regime of Russia forcibly deported many hundred thousands of Jews. During World War II, Hitler's henchmen deported the Jews from all countries subjugated by the Germans' military might. 200,000 Jews, victims of the war, are held even now, three years after the end of hostilities, in the former concentration camps of Europe as D.P.'s, exposed to all the suffering and humiliation of their un­certain status. 

For the first time in two thousand years the Jews themselves now have to handle the problem of dis­placed persons of non-Jewish faith. Yet it appears that 2,000 years of suffering and of untold hardships caused by the misery of numerous deportations were entirely forgotten as soon as circumstances caused a fraction of the Jewish population to be placed in a position of self-government. True to its Zionist self, the Jewish Government of the State of Israel appears ready to forfeit the moral rights of the Jewish D.P.'s in Europe and elsewhere by refusing to permit the Arab refugees to return to their homes in Palestine. Na­tionalism is short-sighted, and Jewish nationalism is not excepted from this affliction. In the long run, the future of the Jews in Palestine depends upon the es­tablishment of peaceful relations with the Arab popula­tion and with the neighboring Arab states. What could contribute more to the establishment of these peaceful relations than a humane approach on the part of the Israeli Government toward the Arab displaced persons craving to return home?