You will read:
I. Reflections on What Took Place.
III. Reflections on Actions Which Americans Might Take.
II. Reflections on Moral Principles.
 
 

   This chapter reflects more fully on the morality of U.S. involve-ment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in the events which led up to and accompanied Israel's founding. The investigation is developed in the light of the history just examined. 1. The reflection briefly brings together some of the moral principles already treated separately in the historical chapters. 2. It expands on some of the moral principles and their applications which were touched on briefly in those chapters. 3. This chapter concludes by looking briefly at actions which fittingly stem from this reflection.

I. Reflections on What Took Place.

   In order better to assess the morality of U.S. actions, the study first asked: Who has a greater moral right to the Holy Land? In response, Chapter One examined the issue of whether the Bible is a "deed of ownership" to the land of Canaan for today's Jewish people. It was noted that, except for Biblical literalists, most mod-ern scripture scholars question the historical factualness of the per-tinent passages. Therefore these passages are considered too flimsy as evidence to be used as a basis for a claim to a moral right to the land. Except for Biblical literalists, the Bible is not considered a "deed of ownership" to the Holy Land for today's Jewish peo-ple. Therefore American leaders who used the Bible as a basis for their own political actions which harmed the Palestinian Arabs were, at best, on theologically shaky ground. (The Church-State issue involved in U.S. officials taking a theological position based on their interpretation of the Bible is primarily a Constitutional issue.)
   Chapter Two also responded to the question, who has a greater moral right to the Holy Land. It examined the moral hereditary right to it. The chapter showed that (a) most Jews did not choose to return to Palestine after the Babylonian Captivity ended; (b) in the succeeding centuries most Jews opted for life in the Diaspora rather than in Palestine, even when it was ruled by the Jewish Hasmonians; and (c) in the decades and centuries after the deportation by the Romans in A.D. 135 many Jews freely emigrated from Palestine, and most Diaspora Jews did not choose to immigrate to it. This gradually reduced to the vanishing point their descendants' moral hereditary right to Palestine. Therefore modern Diaspora Jews' historical relationship with Eretz Israel did not establish such a weighty moral hereditary right to its land that it outweighed the moral rights of the indigenous people, most of whom were Palestinian Arabs, to that same land.
   Chapter Three treated the period from A.D. 1800 to 1914. It noted that Jews, considered just as immigrants, had at least as much moral right as other people to immigrate to Palestine. This right is limited; it must not violate the native people's moral right to their "common good rightly understood." Thus, no one has a moral right to move to a country intending to supplant its natives, prevent the exercise of their right to self-determination, or other-wise disrupt their common good. But many Zionist immigrants intended to establish an almost exclusively Jewish state or at least a specifically Jewish state in much or all of Palestine. Executing this intent would inevitably disrupt the natives' common good. Therefore it would seem that these Zionists by their intent forfeited whatever moral right they may have had to immigrate to Palestine.
   The same onus, Chapter Three argued however, would not seem to fall on these immigrants' descendants who were born in Palestine. It would seem that ordinarily a person has a moral right to be a first-class citizen in the land of one's birth. Regardless of the moral legitimacy of one's parents' actions, it seems inappropriate to expel someone from the land of birth. A problem with this position is that one generation of aggressors can unjustly inundate a territory; then their children, enjoying the moral rights of first-class citizens, may be able to swamp the other natives. Like all other moral rights, this one must be weighed against competing moral rights. It thus seems difficult to delineate how substantial this birth right is, especially when applied to a large number of people in a limited time and space. Many Israelis were born in the Holy Land. Arabs should recognize that especially these Israelis may have a strong moral right to live there. Moreover, this moral right would seem to increase with the length of time that their modern ancestors have lived there.
   If these moral rights apply to native Israelis they apply even more strongly to those Palestinians who have a longer continuous ancestry within the Holy Land. This includes refugees and those born away from their ancestral homes because their parents or grandparents were unjustly expelled or were unjustly barred from returning. Moreover, whatever moral rights to political self-determination might flow from birth in the Holy Land and from modern ancestral presence there, they would not establish a moral right to property confiscated as recently as 1948.
   The conclusion of the first three chapters is that whatever moral claims Diaspora Jews may have had to the Holy Land prior to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, they were not great enough, even when combined, to outweigh the rights of the native people.
   Chapters Four and Five showed how Britain, unjustly in terms of moral principles, deprived Palestine's natives of the exercise of their moral right to self-determination. Britain did this through its Balfour Declaration and its mandate over Palestine. For the reasons and moral principles set forth in the first five chapters it seems clear that one cannot objectively justify the actions of Presidents Wilson, Harding and Coolidge in their support of the Balfour Declaration and the British mandate. This is also true of the actions of both houses of the Sixty-seventh Congress, and of the Senate of the Sixty-eighth Congress, noted in Chapter Six. (The subjective aspects are, of course, beyond this investigation's purview.) At about the same time that the U.S. government was supporting Jewish immigration to Palestine it was restricting immigration to much less densely populated America.
   Chapter Seven raised the question: Did the Holocaust create for those trying to escape death a moral right to immigrate to Palestine (a) in large numbers (b) with the intent of founding a Jewish state? The corresponding question was: Did Palestine's natives, and Britain as the mandate authority, knowing of the threat this presented to the natives, have a moral duty to accept Jewish refugees in large numbers? This moral issue was modified by the Zionist policy of opposing the settling of Jewish refugees in havens other than Palestine. It was thus never clear that Palestine was really the only haven to which refugees could have fled. Al-though this apparent victimization of Jewish refugees by Zionists seemingly increased the moral dilemma which the natives of Pales-tine faced, it is not clear that they had a moral obligation to accept the refugees as immigrants. For accepting them would foster the deprivation of their own moral rights to political self-determination, to their own culture, and to their own homes and land.
   Chapter Seven noted that America itself accepted some refugees but rejected most. Their threat to America was presumably much less than their threat to the people of Palestine. President Roosevelt repeatedly tried to solve the Jewish refugee problem but was repeatedly thwarted by Zionists.
   Chapter Eight dealt with Holocaust survivors, together with postwar Jewish refugees from eastern Europe. Many in these two groups reportedly chose Palestine as their preferred haven. This postwar Jewish refugee problem was also rendered less clear mor-ally because of Zionist insistence that Palestine was its only solu-tion. Again other possible havens were either rejected or not used to their full potential. Thus the refugees' plight was dragged on; this served the Zionist political goal of statehood in Palestine. Americans' guilt feelings and compassion regarding Jewish refu-gees were harnessed to support Zionist goals. Truman in effect adopted the Zionist position that Palestine was the refugee problem's only solution. However, he eventually also worked somewhat for Jewish refugees' admission to America. In time he allowed himself and America to become embroiled in the statehood issue itself.
   Chapter Nine investigated America's role in partitioning Palestine. This role included the use of threats by federal officials to gain UNGA approval of partition. The chapter also dealt with the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs by the yishuv, and with Truman's recognition of the new state of Israel despite numerous atrocities committed by yishuv military. Truman had wide support within Congress and among American citizens for his actions. This seemingly increased America's moral involvement in the injustice.
   Chapter Ten treated the new state's continuation of the policy of expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland. It also dealt with repeated truce violations in 1948 and 1949, through which Israel expanded the territory it controlled. America's implicit support of this expansion, in the UN and through financial assistance, deepened U.S. involvement, at least in a moral sense, as an accomplice in Israeli policies and actions.

II. Reflections on Moral Principles.
 
   This section looks at (a) general moral principles which pertain to this investigation, (b) applied moral principles pointed to by international covenants, (c) moral principles regarding complicity in the unjust actions of other people, (d) certain moral rights of people involved in the conflict, (e) the moral responsibility to make reparation, and (f) Americans' corporate responsibility.

   A. General Principles: The general moral principles used in this investigation do not reflect any one religious tradition but are widely accepted principles that cut across religious and cultural heritages. These include: do to others as you would have them do to you, help those in need, do not kill unjustly, and do not steal. The investigation asks whether a given situation or action is fair. It asks: If the roles were reversed so that what the yishuv or the Israelis did to the Palestinian Arabs were now done by the Arabs to the Israelis, how would one judge the morality of the action or situation? Conversely, if the policies of the Arabs toward Jewish refugees during World War II, for example, were reversed, how would one judge the morality of that situation? Or, for example, if the UN were to partition America to enable 500 million non-Americans to carve out a separate nation comprised of the seventeen contiguous states west of Kansas City (some 53 percent of U.S. territory), would Americans agree that this is fair? (Cf. Maps Two and Three.) One problem with this reverse-role method is that it tends to over-simplify complex issues. Many factors in a situation do not easily lend themselves to the reverse role. The method smacks of being ad hominem. However, it has great value in bringing home the principle of the golden rule.

   B. Applied Principles: During the past century nations have en-acted several covenants to make war more humane. These include (a) the Annex to the Fourth Hague Convention of October 18, 1907, signed by several major powers; (b) the Fourth Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949, which most nations eventually agreed to; and (c) the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (the scope of which was broader than warfare situations) which UNGA passed on December 10, 1948. These covenants are cited here not for their legal value but as attempts by nations with many different religious and cultural traditions to make life more truly human. It would seem that these agreements help guide people regarding what is widely considered moral or immoral in human-rights mat-ters, particularly during warfare. As moral guidelines, or at least as rough approximations of moral guidelines, they seem to apply whether or not a nation or a group of people have formally em-braced them. Thus, the policies and actions of both the Palestinian Arabs and the yishuv, even before achieving statehood, seemingly can be evaluated morally, partly in the light of the three covenants. (Again, this concerns objective, not subjective, morality.)
   This line of reasoning seems particularly relevant to Americans. Americans were subject to the moral principles behind the covenants, especially after the development of the covenants made the moral principles behind them better known and understood. Or is this presuming too much? America voted for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. America also eventually signed the Fourth Geneva Convention. Through these two actions it would seem that America added to its already-existing moral responsibility to observe the moral principles behind the covenants. It undertook an added moral responsibility not to be an accomplice in violating them. (Appendix Two has relevant excerpts from the two conventions.)

   C. Complicity: From the viewpoint of objective morality, one is an accomplice in an unjust action if one cooperates in it in such a way that one's own action contributes to the injustice. Thus, if Wilson's approval of the proposed Balfour Declaration helped bring about its passage by the British war cabinet, Wilson was an accomplice in that injustice. This would be true even if Wilson's help was not crucial to the declaration's passage. The same would be true of America's much more vital role in the November 29, 1947, UN vote to partition Palestine. America's actions helped, and were probably crucial to, the passage of the partition proposal. America thus contributed to the injustice brought about by the partition.
   To acquire more territory, Israel repeatedly broke various cease-fire agreements it entered into in 1948 and 1949. It seems clear that America was an accomplice in these actions because, through using its veto power in the SC and through other of its UN actions, it protected Israel in carrying out this policy. By these actions America also implicitly encouraged Israel to continue breaking its truce agreements. Both encouragement to perform unjust acts and protection afterward from their consequences are forms of complicity. (Cf. Appendix Three.)
   Similarly, one may also be an accomplice after the fact if, for example, one helps maintain an injustice. America ran diplomatic interference for Israel and, after June 30, 1950, regularly gave it financial and eventually military aid. These U.S. actions directly helped Israel to continue barring the Palestinian Arab refugees from returning to their homes. This seemingly violates at least the spirit of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Yet America in August 1995 was still backing Israel in this.

   D. Moral rights involved:
    1. Regarding Palestinian refugees there are several moral-rights issues:
     a. Their right to return to their ancestral homes. If their own property is not repossessable they have the right to just compensation for it and the right to live in their ancestral neighborhood or in some place nearby.
     b. Their right either to repossess their property or, if they so wish, to be compensated for its value. If improvements have been made on the property by Israelis, the latter must be reimbursed for this by those Arabs who wish to repossess the property. (In Israel much of the land is held in trust for all Jewish people by the state, which leases it either directly or indirectly to individuals, who construct the buildings.)
     c. Refugees' right to compensation for harm done to them as a result of their enforced exile.
     d. Their right to be first-class citizens of Israel and to live anywhere in it. As noted above in Section I concerning Chapter Three, this right seemingly extends to refugees who were born outside of Israel because their ancestors were unjustly expelled or barred from returning to it.
    2. Regarding the Arabs living in Israel the primary moral-rights issues are seemingly their de facto second-class citizenship and the fact that they have never been allowed to determine their own political life. Their lives were perhaps not as disrupted as were those of the refugees, although some were forced to relocate within Israel. Nevertheless, their common good and their other moral rights have also been seriously harmed by America's complicity in the yishuv/Israeli conflict with them. America's blatant disregard of human-rights violations in Israel, America's double standard by which it subsidizes a long list of discriminatory practices in Israel - all of this cries out for redress.
    3. Regarding the non-refugee Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza, the primary moral issue is seemingly their moral right to a fully independent state of their own. This assumes that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these is liberty.  One might also argue that non-refugee Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza have a moral right to some political participation in at least part of the territory that was taken from the Palestinians. This would seem to be more of a moral-rights issue for the Palestinian refugees from Israel than for the people whose roots are in West Bank and Gaza. However, it is not clear that the latter have no moral claim to political participation in at least some part of UN-allotted Israel. (When Israel's statehood was declared, its borders were not defined. Its current frontiers are partly either truce or cease-fire lines, treaty lines with Egypt and Jordan, or the Lebanese border. (Cf. Map Five.) However, negotiations now taking place may soon change some of these situations.) To return to the Kansas City analogy, which parallels only the 53 percent allotted by the UN: If everything in the seventeen contiguous states west of Kansas City were taken from the Americans by the UN, would the Americans east of that line have a moral claim to regain all or part of that western area? If so, how long would that right last? Another analogy: In 1848, after America defeated Mexico in a war of aggression, Mexico was forced to cede its legal title to 40 percent of its territory. But a treaty unjustly forced on Mexico would not take away its moral right to its land. Does that right have any moral strength left in it for Mexico today, 147 years after the treaty? The analogy, though helpful, perhaps limps. The ceded land was part of Mexico when Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821. Spain had previously forced Spanish sovereignty on the indigenous tribes, and thus violated their political rights. These tribes' moral right to political self-determination would seemingly also need to be considered.
    4. Regarding the Palestinian refugees from Israel living in West Bank or Gaza, and their descendants: They would seem to share in the issues mentioned in the previous paragraph. They also share in the issues that involve the refugees mentioned above.
    5. Regarding Israeli frontiers: It might be argued that there are varying degrees of moral legitimacy to the areas now within Israel:
     a. The most legitimate, morally, would seem to be the 5-6 percent of Palestine that Jews owned before the November 29, 1947, passage of the UN partition resolution. It would seem that the yishuv may have had a moral right to establish a Jewish state on at least the larger contiguous parcels of this territory. Such a basis for a moral claim has several weaknesses. It would allow any group who could purchase or gain political control over a parcel of territory to proclaim an independent state. This might violate the common good of the citizens of the rest of the state or area. The American Civil War was fought by the North to preserve the Union. Northerners implicitly considered the Southern rebellion a violation of Northerners' common good. Southerners maintained that their right to self-determination included the right to secede. If the yishuv had a moral right to establish a state in the territory they owned, by the same token Arabs within Israel have an equal moral right today to form their own state. Arabs complain that Israel has effectively isolated Arab villages from each other by building intervening Jewish settlements and roads. This has cut up many large contiguous parcels of territory inhabited by Arabs.
     b. Much less morally legitimate than the 5-6 percent owned by Jews before the November 1947 UN partition vote was the approximately 48 percent of Palestine that was then owned and inhabited by Arabs but allotted to the Jewish state by that UN resolution. This latter area arguably was gained through diplomatic aggression. Perhaps even less legitimate is the some 20 percent of Palestine taken by Israel through military aggression during the 1947-49 war or shortly thereafter. (The Golan Heights and the parts of West Bank incorporated into Jerusalem after the June 1967 war are outside the scope of this volume.)

   E. Reparation: It would seem that the yishuv/Israel and Britain were the primary agents in the violation of Palestinian Arabs' rights. However, Britain's role virtually ceased in May 1948, shortly after America's role had become very significant. Ordinarily the primary agents rather than the accomplices have the first obligation to make restitution to the harmed party. However, if the primary agents do not make restitution, the obligation falls on the accomplices.
   According to some theologians,  the moral obligation to make restitution is based not only on the harm done but also on the subjective guilt of those causing the harm. By this reasoning, if U.S. officials thought they were acting morally in supporting Israel the way they did, they have no moral obligation to make restitution. (However, if the action was also illegal, and a court ordered reparation, there would be a moral obligation to make the reparation.) A problem with this position is that unless a court requires reparation the harmed party is left without moral recourse. Meanwhile the accomplice of the one doing the harm, because of ignorance or some other faulty conscience, is completely free of a moral onus, at least in justice, to help the victim. This does not seem to meet the fairness criteria. It does not seem equitable. This conclusion seems helpful in evaluating America's role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. American leaders took it upon themselves to make decisions that would radically affect, for unforeseeable generations, the lives of millions of Palestinian Arabs. They therefore had a proportionately serious obligation to learn the facts that would enable them to make decisions based on justice, rather than on propaganda, guilt feelings, emotion or winning the next election. Can Americans just dismiss what seems at best irresponsible actions by some of their leaders and seemingly misguided support by many American citizens? Can Americans just say "Sorry about that!" and walk away?

   F. Corporate Responsibility: What U.S. leaders have done regarding the Zionist/Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had either the approval or at least the acquiescence of most American citizens from Wilson's presidency to Bill Clinton's. Even Americans who now think that the Palestinians were treated unjustly, generally seem indifferent to, or at least reluctant about, changing U.S. policy. With regard to several American miscarriages of justice, including, as noted previously, the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, Americans have acknowledged corporate wrongdoing and made at least some sort of collective amends. Such acknowledgements do not require that judgement be passed on the subjective guilt or non-guilt of the persons involved in the act for which amends are being made. It would seem that in fairness, America, because it was an accomplice in various injustices against the Palestinian Arabs, especially the refugees and their descendants, should make reparations. These should be equal to the amount of harm done as a result of American actions.

III. Reflections on Actions Which Americans Might Take.

   It is probably unrealistic to hope that Israel and Britain will make reparation for their acts. Waiting for them to do this would at least substantially delay correcting the injustice - which correction is already long overdue. Meanwhile, delaying justice is denying it. Although America should encourage both nations to make reparations, the demands of fairness in America's own relations with the Palestinians urge it to move ahead unilaterally. America could fund its reparations to the Palestinians, especially the refugees. Congress and the White House still send approximately three billion dollars in annual gifts to Israel. Except perhaps for commitments that America has already made to Israel, America does not owe it anything special in justice. In fact, it can easily be argued that U.S. gifts to Israel are perpetuating injustice and for that reason alone should be stopped. A strong case can be made that America owes the Palestinians a great deal. America has obviously exercised a long sponsorship of Israel and it should act in a manner that is appropriate to that relationship, as long as this does not require America to act immorally. This does not necessarily mean keeping Israel on the U.S. dole. America should make reparations for the wrongs America has done to Palestinians its second highest Mideast priority, surpassed only by true peace with justice. It should also serve notice that it will protect Israel from becoming a victim of injustice.
   In addition to making financial restitution, America can make reparations in other ways. One way is to work not only for peace in the Holy Land, which it has already been doing, but to work for peace with true justice. If America seeks peace without also seeking true justice it will merely further institutionalize the injustices already committed. It is not the purpose of this investigation to try to solve the conflict but only to examine the morality of America's role in the conflict's beginnings and to urge correction of the injustices. But hopefully Americans will respond both by correcting the injustices and by working for true peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It will be a true peace only if it is a just peace for the people on both sides.
   It must also be a peace with compassion. People on both sides have suffered horribly at one time or another since Hitler's rise in 1933. The residues of those traumas must be understood and cleansed in so far as this is possible if there is to be peace not only on paper but also in Israeli and Palestinian hearts and minds. Some Americans have wonderful insights into this dynamic. Hopefully they will contribute their skills as part of Americans' acts of reparation. For it is only through compassion, only through a loving entering into the suffering of the humans on the "other" side, that Israelis and Palestinians will be truly reconciled. But it must not end there. For true reconciliation should be only the beginning of a loving, neighborly friendship between these two peoples, both of whom may be children of Abraham, both of whom certainly are children of God.