Jabotinksy's another guy I studied a good bit last summer. I'm so glad I revisited him! It was hard because last summer I had to read a LOT of his writing in a very short period of time and I was overwhelmed and didn't process very much of it. But I LOVED what I read this time around! I have a new Zionist hero! He's such a badass.
He was born in Odessa, and became a foreign newspaper correspondent, traveling all over. In 1903 he helped organize a Jewish self-defense corps in Odessa, and later petitioned the British to form Jewish battalions in Palestine during WWI. He succeeded in forming three, and on one of them became a lieutenant. After the war, during the Arab riots of 1920, her formed a self-defense corps in Jerusalem, for which he was sentenced by the British to 15 years in prison or illegal possession of firearms, but popular outcry earned him a pardon. He was elected to the Zionist executive in 1921 but resigned because he believed in rapid massive immigration of Jews to Palestine and reliance on Jewish military and police, and felt that the Zionist Executive contrary views would lose Palestine for the Jews. He formed the New Zionist Organization, whig helped organize illegal immigration into Palestine and Irgun (Jewish paramilitary) action against the British. He died of a heart attack in 1940, and he willed that his body not be buried in Palestine until there is a Jewish state there... his remains were moved rather recently to Moutn Herzl in Jersualem :).
From his speech, "Evidence submitted to the Palestine Royal Commission" (1937)
"Whenever I hear the Zionist, most often my own party, accused of asking for too much - Gentlemen, I really cannot understand it. Yes, we do want a State; every nation on Earth... they all have States of their own. That is the normal condition for a people. Yet, when we, the most abnormal of peoples and therefore the most unfortunate, ask only for the same conditions as the Albanians enjoy, to say nothing of the French and the English, then it is called too much. I should understand it if the answer were 'It is impossible,' but when the answer is 'it is too much,' I cannot understand it. I would remind you (excuse me for quoting an example known to every one of you) of the commotion which was produced in that famous institution when Oliver Twist came and asked for 'more.' He said 'more' because he did not know how to express it; what Oliver Twist really meant was this: 'Will you just give me that normal portion which is necessary for a boy my age to be able to live.' I assure you that you face here today, in the Jewish people with its demands, an Oliver Twist who has, unfortunately, no concessions to make. What can be the concessions? We have got to save millions, many millions."
POW!!!
"So when we hear the Arab claim confronted with the Jewish claim; I fully understand that any minority would prefer to be a majority, it is quite understandable that the Arabs of Palestine would also prefer Palestine to be the Arab State No. 4, No. 5, or No. 6 - that I quite understand; but when the Arab claim is confronted with our Jewish demand to be saved, it is like the claims of appetite versus the claims of starvation."
ZING!!!
Honestly, his entire speech was brilliant. I loved it.
Jabotinksy <3 <3
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