France bears a historic responsibility in the realization of the Jewish
state project which led to the Nakba: the expulsion of Palestinians fromtheir lands. The French political class and the left, communists
included, then converged in a Zionist unanimity that is still
significant today. ---- In 1942, the Biltmore Hotel conference took
place in New York, where representatives of the international Zionist
movement demanded the creation of a Jewish state. The priority was then
to fight the "White Paper" of 1939 which limited immigration to
Palestine to 15,000 people per year, the only concession by the British
to the Arab revolt of 1936-1939[1].
If the Jewish Agency, a Zionist organization created in 1929 and then
headed by David Ben-Gurion, does not directly oppose the British[2],
this is not the case for the Zionist right: the Irgun and the Lehi -
also known as the Stern group, named after its founder Avraham Stern -
are increasing the number of assassinations and deadly attacks.
It is to this period that the links between the Free French Forces of
the Levant, then based in Palestine, and the Zionist movement date back,
particularly during the Syrian campaign. The Haganah (Zionist militia
controlled by the Jewish Agency) provides logistical facilities to the
Gaullists as well as technical assistance.
France, support of the Zionists
With the global conflict over, the war between the British and Zionist
groups continues in Palestine. France, already ousted from Syria and
Lebanon by Arab nationalists thanks to British support, does not intend
to be excluded from the region and thus provides support to Zionist
groups. In 1945, Ben-Gurion was in Paris where he organized the fight
against the British. He found many allies of the Zionist cause in the
political class, such as Léon Blum, then at the head of the SFIO. Lehi,
for its part, is setting up an operational center in the French capital.
From there, he coordinated a letter bomb campaign aimed at British
officials[3]. France was then a logistical base for Zionist troops, it
hosted numerous Haganah training camps[4].
French support also involves supporting Jewish immigration to Palestine
from the Var coast. André Blumel, close to Blum and unofficial delegate
of the Haganah, intervened with the Ministry of the Interior to
accelerate the transit of immigrants as well as weapons transported by
boat. He hosts a transmitter antenna at his home for the Haganah
surveillance network, tolerated by the Ministry of the Interior, which
will allow the "Mossad for illegal immigration" to charter several ships[5].
Upon liberation, European governments were concerned about the fate of
refugees from the Nazi camps, particularly the troubles that their
return home could create, while anti-Semitism was still virulent in
Europe (as evidenced in 1946 by the Kielce pogrom in Poland). The Jewish
state project in Palestine is seen as a way to "get rid of" refugees.
Western states, including the United States, kept their doors closed to
Jewish refugees during and after the war, effectively ruling out "any
solution to the question of Jewish survivors of Nazism that was not that
of a return to the "promised land""[6].
The partition plan: an imperialist convergence
A new event shocks public opinion. On July 18, 1947, the Exodus, a
Jewish refugee boat chartered by the Haganah and which had left Sète a
few days earlier, was boarded by the British off the coast of Haifa.
Investigators from the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine
(UNSCOP), then present in Haifa, witnessed the British assault on the ship.
The Exodus operation, "planned in such a way that failure could lend
itself to fruitful use[...]was a master stroke in terms of
propaganda"[7]: it influenced the investigators' report.
Following the UNSCOP report, the UN submitted to a vote a proposal for
the partition of Palestine on November 29, 1947. This provided 55% of
the territory for the Zionist movement, which then only owned 7% of the
land. . France is undecided. Initially, Alexandre Parodi, France's
representative to the UN, abstained on instructions from George Bidault,
the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The latter, who fears that the vote on
the partition plan will cause unrest in North Africa, proposes to
postpone the vote for one day.
This time is taken advantage of by the President of the Republic,
Vincent Auriol, and Léon Blum, who are working hard to ensure that
France decides favorably: Blum, in a letter to Bidault, writes "nothing
is worse for us, from the point of view of our territories in North
Africa, only a mark of weakness and fear vis-à-vis pan-Arab fanaticism"[8],
France's vote leads to that of Catholic countries in the Benelux and
Latin America. The United States, where Truman, for electoral reasons,
voted for the partition plan, put pressure on it to be voted on by
Haiti, the Philippines and Liberia (with threats from Firestone, the
tire giant, not to no longer buy local rubber[9]).
The USSR also voted for it: they were the first to recognize Israel on
May 15, 1948, and to deliver weapons to it, Stalin seeing behind the
Zionist project a means of establishing a foothold in the region[10].
The partition plan is refused by the Arab High Committee, which triggers
hostilities in Palestine: it is the beginning of the Nakba, the
"Catastrophe" in Arabic (see box).
Relations between Israel and France were distant during the first years.
France demands that Jerusalem be under international control, as
stipulated in the partition plan, to guarantee the protection of the
holy sites. Israel refused, which explains its late recognition by
France, on May 1, 1949. Pro-Israeli committees were then created in
France, arguing that the establishment of close relations with the new
state would allow it to "regain its influence in the Levant".
After the tripartite Israeli and Franco-British aggression of 1956
against the Egypt of Nasser, then support of the Algerian FLN, France
became, until 1967, the main support and supplier of arms to Israel.
Pro-Zionist left, North African anti-Zionism
The French left bears a political responsibility in supporting the
Zionist project: in 1947 the French League for Free Palestine was
created under the leadership of Sartre, then affiliated with the Hebrew
Committee for National Liberation under the influence of the Irgun. It
succeeded in establishing itself thanks to the recruitment of leading
intellectual and political figures such as Simone de Beauvoir, Jules
Romain, Louis Jouvet and Edgar Faure.
Only the newspaper Témoignage Chrétien and Daniel Guérin take a position
for the Palestinians[11].
If the Zionist project finds echo from the right to the left, this is
not the case among the Jews of France: in 1948, only 640 French Jews
migrated to Israel and, until 1968, never more than a hundred per year.
Lucid, Raymond Aron foresees "the inevitable sequel, a prolonged war
between the Jews who have become Israelis and the Muslim environment"[12].
On the contrary, among the Jews of France there arises the fear that
Palestine is imposing on them even though they have only just regained
their citizenship. The enthusiasm on the left raises questions: while
the fight of the Resistance was to reaffirm the republican unity of the
Jews as being French like the others, the left is rushing into an
ethnicist and genealogist reading of the Jews.
This is not a uniquely French trope: a 1945 International Trade Union
Conference motion declares that "the Jewish people be given the
opportunity to continue the reconstruction of Palestine as their
national home, and this through immigration , colonization and
industrial development"[13].
Arab nationalism is, for its part, decreed infamous, being perceived as
both "a by-product of Nazism and an invention of British
imperialism"[14]. If "the resistance of the natives remained elusive to
the categories of the left"[15], the representatives of the Algerian
People's Party (heir to the North African Star of Messali Hadj who had
denounced Zionist colonialism in the 1920s) underline the proximity
between the struggle of the Palestinians against Zionism and that of the
North Africans against French imperialism, "the "Jewish national home"
prefigured the "French national home" in North Africa"[16]. During the
vote on the partition plan, Abdel-Krim-el-Khatabi, leader of the Rif
Republic in the 1920s, exiled in Cairo with other North African leaders,
cabled Alexandre Parodi that the vote on this plan would have "serious
repercussions in North Africa".
The role of France
Franco-British rivalries, reactions to the threats of pan-Arabism to the
Empire, anti-Semitism keen to get rid of refugees from Eastern Europe:
these are the fundamental determinants of French support for the
creation of the State of Israel, as a child of imperialism and not of an
alleged bad conscience or other reparations. The support of the left can
be explained by a "Europeocentrism which was not yet shameful and which
meant that the Jews in Palestine embodied progress and, supreme
distinction, socialist ideals[...]opposition between these pioneers and
an immobile world, feudal, fanatical backwardness"[17]. If showing
solidarity with Palestine is still complicated today, it is because this
historical episode has largely determined the vision of France and the
left on Zionism.
Encumbered by this colonial heritage, the expression of solid
internationalist solidarity with the Palestinian people remains
difficult; it becomes urgent to overcome it.
Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Montreuil)
Chronology
-* 1942: Biltmore Hotel conference, official demand for the creation of
a "Jewish state".
-* 1942-1947: civil war between Zionist groups and the British.
-* JULY 22, 1946: attack on the King David Hotel by the Irgun, killing
91 people including 28 British, 41 Arabs and 17 Jews.
-* SUMMER 1947: boarding of the Exodus by the British, causing worldwide
emotion.
-* NOVEMBER 29, 1947: vote on the proposed partition plan for Palestine
at the UN. The Zionists accept, the Palestinians refuse. Start of the
1947-1948 civil war in Palestine and the exile of Palestinians.
-* MAY 14, 1948: proclamation of the State of Israel by Ben-Gurion,
declaration of war by the Arab States the next day.
-* AUTUMN 1956: tripartite Franco-British and Israeli aggression against
Egypt following the nationalization of the Suez Canal. France becomes
Israel's main ally.
The Nakba and the war of 1947-1948
From November 30, 1947 to May 14, 1948, the date of the proclamation of
the State of Israel, a first war took place between Zionist armed
organizations (Haganah, Palmach, Irgoun and Lehi) and the Palestinians
supported by volunteers from countries Arabs. On December 1, the Arab
High Committee declared a three-day general strike. The fight was led by
Abd el Kader Al Husseini: at the head of a few thousand volunteers, he
organized a siege of Jerusalem lasting several months. From December
1947 to January 1948, around 70,000 Palestinians fled the cities. At the
end of March, the total number of refugees reached around 100,000. The
Dalet plan of military perimeter - in reality a global expulsion plan
drawn up by the Haganah and adopted on March 10, 1948 - involves the
movement of villages and targeting the "enemy centers": "proceed to
encircle the central Arab municipal sector and isolate it from access
routes, as well as stopping its essential services (water, electricity,
fuel) ".
Haganah troops militarily take control of the territory that had been
given to the Jewish state and expand it. In section 3b of the plan,
among the objectives are how to deal with "occupied enemy population
centers": "destruction of villages[...], particularly population centers
whose continued control is difficult.[...]In the event of resistance,
the armed forces must be destroyed and the population expelled outside
the borders of the Jewish state"[18].
On April 9, 1948, the Deir Yassine massacre took place west of
Jerusalem, perpetrated by 120 Irgun and Lehi fighters, which caused 120
to 250 deaths. Other massacres followed, favoring the exile of
Palestinians. The 1948-1949 war completed the expulsion of 800,000
Palestinians.
To validate
[1]See "The great Palestinian revolt of 36-39", Libertarian Alternative,
March 2010.
[2]Ben-Gurion declares: "We will help the British in the war as if there
were no White Paper and we will fight against the White Paper as if
there were no war", "David Ben Gurion (1886-1973)", Hérodote.net,
October 13, 2023.
[3]Charles Enderlin, The Jews of France, between Republic and Zionism,
Seuil, 2020.
[4]Samir Kassir and Farouk Mardam-Bey, Itinerary from Paris to
Jerusalem, France and the Israeli-Arab conflict. Volume 1, 1917-1958,
The books of the Palestinian studies review, 1992.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Jacques Derogy, The Law of Return, the secret and true story of the
Exodus, Fayard, 1970.
[8]Samir Kassir and Farouk Mardam-Bey, op.cit
[9]Jean-Pierre Langelier, "The partition of Palestine", Le Monde,
November 30, 1997.
[10]The support of the PCF stems from this alignment of Stalin: in 1941,
the Soviet ambassador in London Ivan Maiski declared: "If Soviet Russia
wants to be interested in the future of the Middle East, it is obvious
that the advanced Jews and progressives of Palestine hold more promise
for us than the backward Arabs controlled by feudal cliques," Arnold
Kramer, "Soviet Policy on Palestine. 1947-1948", Journal of Palestine
Studies, winter 1973.
[11]Daniel Guérin, Here lies colonialism. Algeria, India, Indochina,
Madagascar, Morocco, Palestine, Polynesia, Tunisia. Activist testimony,
De Gruyter/Mouton, 1973.
[12]Samir Kassir and Farouk Mardam-Bey, op.cit
[13]Ibid.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Ibid.
[16]Ibid.
[17]Ibid.
[18]1. Ilan Pappé, The 1948 war in Palestine, La Fabrique, 2000.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Palestine-1947-la-Nakba-la-France-et-la-gauche
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