A Binational Histadrut?

According to Bernard Avishai, prior to the War of Independence --in 1947-- 250,000 Palestinians left Palestine without being forced out (others left under duress, but I don't have reason to doubt Avishai's numbers regarding those who were not forced out), mostly from the areas designated for a Jewish state in the 1947 UN partition plan. They were not leaving as a voluntary population transfer, but rather sought to return home once the impending war had passed. The usual Israeli hasbarah, or "explanation" of this occurance is that the all the Palestinians who left did so of their own accord and that the Zionists did not expel anyone at all. In places like Jaffa, Ramle, Lod (and Deir Yassin at the hands of Irgun gunmen) this was clearly not true. Another possible conclusion that can be drawn from this mass flight is that the fellahin were a sensible people, desiring life for themselves and their families over ideological anti-Zionism or any form of Arab nationalism. What does this mean? First off, that the Yishuv's attempts to negotiate with Abdullah, the Mufti or any other Arab leaders over the Palestinian people were wrong-headed. Most of these leaders were selected by the British, and as in the case of the Mufti were chosen from hard-line groups intentionally. We should not point to the Mufti as the representation of the will of the Palestinian people. But how could the Yishuv's leaders have sought to reach out to the Palestinians? What common cause could they share? Weren't they just doomed to fight one another all along anyway?

The answers are: 1) economics 2) land redistribution 3) no.

The Histadrut, the Yishuv's shadow government/labor union, was organized along the principle that conflict with the Arabs would best be avoided by ignoring them. They sought to encourage Jews to only hire other Jews. This may seems an unreasonable or racist measure at first. However, its intention was fairly humane. It sought to simultaneously keep the new Jewish immigrants together so that they could learn Modern Hebrew and to avoid exploiting the Arabs in a colonial manner. Rather than exploiting their labor (as was the model of European colonialism) they sought to avoid contact all together (saying that they did not want ethnic conflict along the same lines as class conflict). Undoubtedly demographics too were at least part of the program; by buying their lands and depriving them of work the Zionists knew they were forcing them to leave the country or at least the parts of it under the Yishuv's control. However, beyond these rather minor points about potential moral problems with the policy, there lies a much more significant concern: the Labor Zionist economic policy was not entirely self-contained from the Palestinian economy. Land purchasing policies were designed to aquire lands from absentee landlords and left the peasants that worked the land without land or payment. Additionally Histadrut Hebrew labor practices in hiring left them without jobs. Combined, such an economic policy inadvertantly destroyed the already stagnant Palestinian economy, putting cash in the pockets of the effendis/landlords while taking the fellah's very livelihood.

In light of the fact that the tax and landlord arrangements before didn't leave the fellahin any better off, and that the Palestinian standard of living rose drasticly during those years, why should we care? How is this the concern of the Zionists?

Peace with the Palestinians could only have been maintained/achieved by making this our concern. Zionism's health is dependent upon peace.

What economic program could have been employed to benefit the fellahin? Inclusion in the Histadrut and a joint share in the socialized land (Professor Himadeh and other like-minded intellectuals could have been called upon to organize a binational labor movement). (Now of course the Zionists were defensive of their immigrants, wanting them to have a chance to become Israeli Hebrew-speakers before being exposed to close contact witht the Arabs. For this reason the native-born members of the Yishuv should have been the only ones deployed to work in daily contact with the Arabs, leaving the olim to have at least a few years in Jewish collectives to learn the language on their own.) Essentially this amounts to a class war of the halutz-fellah working-class vs. the effendi-Rothschild upper-class. At the precise tactical moment of strength the (binational) Histadrut could have claimed ownership of all Arab estates, unclaimed lands, and non-Labor Zionist tracts. Inevitably there would need to be a strong nonviolent resistance to British attempts to defend the absentee propertied class's ownership rights. But if successful, such a resistance could unite the Jews and Palestinians against the foreign elites, and challenge the British presence there.

Such an economic program is not simply justified by leftist economic theories, but was a practical step necessary to dismantle the oppresive Palestinian economic situation and bring autonomy to the members of the Yishuv from foreign patrons and bodies. Most importantly it is a pragmatic program to maintain peace, and hence Zionism as well. If such a program were connected to a clearly stated Zionist goal regarding territoritorial compromise (preferably only an autonomous zone in the Tel Aviv region), the fellahin would have had plenty of reason to not only not fight the Yishuv, but feel close to it.

Timing would have been the key to making it work, toing the line with the British, Western donors, and effendis until organization was sufficient to topple foreign paternalistic and exploitative influences from the land.

Eventually I hope to post here what steps could be taken at present to continue such a line of thinking.