what she said to me was on camera, from her own lips, it had had a far wider and greater impact than quotations attributed to her in newspapers.
Golda was not alone in her view that the Palestinians did not exist. Her statement represented Zionism’s official line on the matter; a line that was accepted and repeated parrot-like by Israel’s unquestioning supporters everywhere.
What she had actually said on camera was: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” 17
Lou continued. “Golda told me to give you a message, but she made me promise I would not deliver it until she was dead.” Pause. “She told me to tell you that as soon as those words left her mouth, she knew they were the silliest damn thing she ever said!” 18
The significance of that message from the grave was almost impossible to exaggerate.
On a personal level I took it to mean that Golda wanted me to know that she was not actually as deluded as I might have imagined her to be on account of her denial, while she lived, of the existence of the Palestinians as a people with rights and an irrefutable claim for justice.
Put another way, she was acknowledging the difference between, on the one hand, Israel’s propaganda—the myth Zionism had created to fool the world and comfort itself—and on the other hand, what she knew to be true. In effect and posthumously Mother Israel was admitting that the creation of the Zionist state had required the doing of an injustice to the Palestinians, and that Israel was living a lie.
The problem for Golda’s generation with the truth—the actual existence of the Palestinians—was that it raised fundamental questions about the legality and morality of the Zionist enterprise (her life’s work) and the legitimacy of Israel’s existence.
On reflection, and because of her last message to me, I am inclined to the view that Mother Israel went to her grave troubled by the injustice done to the Palestinians in the name of Zionism. She would not have been able to escape the logic of reality and the question it begged. If the Palestinians did not exist—no problem. But if really they did exist— “What have we done?”
The Golda Meir I knew would have asked herself that question when it was obvious—as it was before her death—that the regeneration of Palestinian nationalism was as much a fait accompli as the existence of her state.
As it happened the truth was too uncomfortable for Mother Israel to confront while she lived. That was to be a task for her children. The implication of her last message to me was that she wanted them to confront it, by asking themselves what they must do to right the wrong done in Zionism’s name to the Palestinians. (Some of my secular, anti-Zionist Jewish friends have said that I have been much too kind to Golda. She was, they insisted, “an unchangeable gut-Zionist zealot.” They could be right and I could be wrong; but I think I knew Golda more intimately than they did and I’ll stick with my own interpretation).
2
BRITAIN PLAYS
THE ZIONIST CARD—
EVENTUALLY
In the minds of Zionism’s founders a Jewish state in Palestine was to be the answer to the age-old curse of anti-Semitism, which, at the time of Zionism’s birth in 1897, was mainly a phenomenon of European cultures. For many centuries previously Eastern Europe and mainly the Russian Empire of the Tsars had been the heartland of world Jewry. For most Jews in this heartland life was one of abject poverty and they were required to live in ghettos—designated and restricted areas where they could be watched and controlled. And more easily persecuted. But the ghetto was not just a physical thing. It was a mental thing. A Jewish mindset. A coping mechanism.
According to Zionism, it was only in a state of their own that Jews could be guaranteed security and freedom from
Golda was not alone in her view that the Palestinians did not exist. Her statement represented Zionism’s official line on the matter; a line that was accepted and repeated parrot-like by Israel’s unquestioning supporters everywhere.
What she had actually said on camera was: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” 17
Lou continued. “Golda told me to give you a message, but she made me promise I would not deliver it until she was dead.” Pause. “She told me to tell you that as soon as those words left her mouth, she knew they were the silliest damn thing she ever said!” 18
The significance of that message from the grave was almost impossible to exaggerate.
On a personal level I took it to mean that Golda wanted me to know that she was not actually as deluded as I might have imagined her to be on account of her denial, while she lived, of the existence of the Palestinians as a people with rights and an irrefutable claim for justice.
Put another way, she was acknowledging the difference between, on the one hand, Israel’s propaganda—the myth Zionism had created to fool the world and comfort itself—and on the other hand, what she knew to be true. In effect and posthumously Mother Israel was admitting that the creation of the Zionist state had required the doing of an injustice to the Palestinians, and that Israel was living a lie.
The problem for Golda’s generation with the truth—the actual existence of the Palestinians—was that it raised fundamental questions about the legality and morality of the Zionist enterprise (her life’s work) and the legitimacy of Israel’s existence.
On reflection, and because of her last message to me, I am inclined to the view that Mother Israel went to her grave troubled by the injustice done to the Palestinians in the name of Zionism. She would not have been able to escape the logic of reality and the question it begged. If the Palestinians did not exist—no problem. But if really they did exist— “What have we done?”
The Golda Meir I knew would have asked herself that question when it was obvious—as it was before her death—that the regeneration of Palestinian nationalism was as much a fait accompli as the existence of her state.
As it happened the truth was too uncomfortable for Mother Israel to confront while she lived. That was to be a task for her children. The implication of her last message to me was that she wanted them to confront it, by asking themselves what they must do to right the wrong done in Zionism’s name to the Palestinians. (Some of my secular, anti-Zionist Jewish friends have said that I have been much too kind to Golda. She was, they insisted, “an unchangeable gut-Zionist zealot.” They could be right and I could be wrong; but I think I knew Golda more intimately than they did and I’ll stick with my own interpretation).
2
BRITAIN PLAYS
THE ZIONIST CARD—
EVENTUALLY
In the minds of Zionism’s founders a Jewish state in Palestine was to be the answer to the age-old curse of anti-Semitism, which, at the time of Zionism’s birth in 1897, was mainly a phenomenon of European cultures. For many centuries previously Eastern Europe and mainly the Russian Empire of the Tsars had been the heartland of world Jewry. For most Jews in this heartland life was one of abject poverty and they were required to live in ghettos—designated and restricted areas where they could be watched and controlled. And more easily persecuted. But the ghetto was not just a physical thing. It was a mental thing. A Jewish mindset. A coping mechanism.
According to Zionism, it was only in a state of their own that Jews could be guaranteed security and freedom from
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