18
principle of bi-nationalism
53
). Even while agreeing to such wide-ranging and fundamental
concessions, however, the efforts of Brit Shalom’s rarely, if ever left the sphere of
intellectual argument.
Nevertheless, the position of Brit Shalom can hardly be described as “moderate”
along the lines proposed by Hagit Lavsky. Even though they did not engage in politically
radical actions, as Aharon Kedar has shown, the position of Brit Shalom’s “radical group” in
particular was indeed among the most radical within the Zionist movement: few other
Zionist demanded that “the Zionist movement disassociate itself completely from the
Balfour Declaration, and replace it with an Arab declaration recognizing Zionist rights […]
even before any Arab declaration was made.”
54
And indeed fewer still referred to the Balfour
Declaration as “’the original sin’ of the Zionist movement, which branded the movement
forever as a collaborator with imperialism, and was nothing but part of an imperialist
53
See “Memorandum by the ‘Brit Shalom’ Society on an Arab Policy for the Jewish Agency” of 1930: “In
accordance with these fundamental principles of the National Home, we recognise that Palestine must be
neither a Jewish State nor an Arab State, but a ‘Bi-national’ state in which Jews and Arabs shall enjoy equal civil,
political and ‘national’ rights, without distinction between majority and minority” (Introduction I.4.) in Brit
Shalom Folder, Scholem Archives, Arc. 4 - 1599. While this memorandum talks about a “bi-national state,” it
is, however, important to distinguish the position of the Brit Shalom from the bi-nationalist position of 1948,
shared, among others, by Arendt, but notably not by Scholem and other former members of the Brit Shalom.
The Brit Shalom memorandum speaks of a bi-national state hypothetically: were there to be a state in Palestine,
this state would have to take into account the claims to Palestine of both Arabs and Jews. In 1930, statehood
seemed arguably neither feasible, nor desirable to the members of the Brit Shalom. The actual question of
statehood doesn’t arise until almost twenty years later, at which point their positions had undergone significant
changes. See Scholem’s letter to Arendt in which he sharply criticizes for her attack on the Zionist leadership:
“Even though I have a clear notion of the vast differences between partition and a binational state, I would
vote with the same heavy heart for either of these two solutions. Yet you make fun of both with truly
astonishing ignorance. The Arabs have not agreed to a single solution that includes Jewish immigration,
whether it be federal, national or binational. I am convinced that the conflict with the Arabs would be far easier
to deal with after a fait acompli such as partition than it would be without it. […] Certainly, as an old Brit
Shalom follower, I myself have heard the precise opposite argued. But I am not presumptuous enough to think
that the politics of the Brit Shalom wouldn’t have found the same Arab opponents, who are primarily
interested not in the morality of our political convictions but in whether or not we are here in Palestine at all
[…],” in Gershom Scholem A Life in Letters 1914-1982, ed. and transl. Anthony David Skinner, 331-332.
54
Kedar, 60.
Convention