Summary
A group of intellectuals and thinkers under the spiritual leadership of Martin Buber which for many years called for understanding and friendship between Jews and Arabs; in Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace it is one of the three bodies whose proposals include concessions on the status quo, and “the only group in the Zionist camp that espouses compromise and concessions” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.485, 487-488).
Details
- Ihud’s starting-point is “first and foremost humanitarian-moral”, so its proposals are mainly concerned with the refugee problem rather than territorial and political questions (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.485-486).
- Its five principles on the refugees (Ner, April-May 1956, p.27): both governments neglect the human side of the problem; Israel’s government wants to eliminate a problem “caused for the most part by us” by settling the refugees in Arab states as far away as possible — “If we did not forget the Land of Israel for 2,000 years, why do we imagine that it is possible for the Palestinian peasants to forget their homeland and the homeland of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers eight years after their exile from it?”; the Arab governments have not acted any better; the Great Powers and the UN treated the refugees as charity cases; and unrestricted return of all refugees is morally impossible amid years of hatred and a security problem on both sides (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.486-487).
- Ihud proposed that the UN send a committee of non-political “people of morality of international renown” to the country and the camps, to investigate absorption possibilities, speak with the refugees personally and let them choose between return conditions and alternatives “without any compulsion”; Israel “cannot claim sovereignty against these humanitarian concerns by the International Organization … to which it owes its right to exist”, and the Arab governments should permit free contact without political guardianship (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.487).
- Ihud opposed the Sinai War and the annexation of the Gaza Strip, and its publications continuously called for compromise and mutual understanding; the book gives it “special appreciation for their moral courage” but faults its non-political outlook: the conflict “is essentially a political problem, and a moral approach does not suffice to disentangle the knot” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.487-488).
- Of the three compromise bodies in Chapter 9, Ihud is the Zionist one — the Communists and Semitic Action “overtly declare themselves to be non- and even anti-Zionists” — but its approach is humanitarian-moral rather than political (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.502).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Martin Buber, Semitic Action, Maki, Self-determination, Right of Return