PREFACE GANDHI AND THE MIDDLE EAST i GANDHI AND THE MIDDLE EAST ii PREFACE GANDHI AND THE MIDDLE EAST Jews, Arabs and Imperial Interests S P -B IMONE ANTER RICK iii GANDHI AND THE MIDDLE EAST Published in 2008 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © 2008 Simone Panter-Brick The right of Simone Panter-Brick to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84511 584 5 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall From camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author iv PREFACE Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Preface by Professor Wm. Roger Louis xi 1. Introduction: Focus on Palestine 1 1. The Enigma 5 2. Tree by Tree, Acre by Acre 11 3. Palestine to the Arabs 19 4. Briefing the Mahatma on Palestine 27 5. Palestine in 1936 39 6. The Offer of July 4th, 1937 53 7. The Relevance of the Indian Context of 1937 67 8. O Time, Suspend Your Flight 85 9. End of a Summer Dream 93 10. The Depressing Year 1938 103 11. The Two Palestines 113 12. A Pharaoh May Come That Knows Not Joseph 121 v GANDHI AND THE MIDDLE EAST 13. Disengagement 129 14. An Almost Insoluble Problem 141 14. Conclusion: A Love Affair in the Middle East 153 14. Envoy: The Rose, the Lily, the Lilac and the Lotus 161 Document 1: The Jews, Harijan, November 26, 1938 163 Document 2: Jews and Palestine, Harijan, July 21, 1946 169 Notes 171 Bibliography 183 Index 189 vi PREFACE List of Illustrations MAP 1: Zones of British and French influence as agreed in 1916 (Sykes-Picot Agreement). Map adapted from The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs. xv MAP 2: Palestine in 1937. Map adapted from Martin Gilbert (2005) The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. xvii FIGURE 1: Pyarelal (centre), Gandhi’s secretary, with the Mahatma and Madeleine Slade (known as Mirabehn, Gandhi’s ‘adopted daughter’), at the time of the Round Table Conference in London, 1931. 17 FIGURE 2: Hermann Kallenbach and Gandhi (front row) in 1910, at Tolstoy Farm, bought by Kallenbach during the South African Satyagraha Campaign (1906-1914). 35 FIGURE 3: Gandhi, Nehru and Azad, at Segaon in August 1935. They were the three Indian mediators envisaged for the July 1937 Project. 61 FIGURE 4: Gandhi and Jinnah in discussion, November 1939, before the demand of the Muslim League for an independent state of Pakistan. 89 vii GANDHI AND THE MIDDLE EAST FIGURE 5: Mahatma Gandhi and the Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, on a mountain walk during the Mahatma’s revigorating stay in the North-West Frontier Province, October 1938. 111 FIGURE 6: C.F. Andrews, the fifth mediator enrolled in July 1937, relaxing in Gandhi’s ashram in 1939. 133 FIGURE 7: Certificate of Gandhi’s admission to the Inner Temple, authorizing him to practise at the Bar on the 10th of June 1891. 148 Reproduced with permission Copyright holders: PASSIA (The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs) (Map 1) Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group (Map 2) GandhiServe Foundation (Figures 1–7) Navajivan Trust (Documents 1–2) A very comprehensive collection of photographs of Mahatma Gandhi was edited by Peter Rühe (2001). viii PREFACE Acknowledgements This book has benefited from the academic and professional skills of various members of my family, for which I thank them with all my heart. In Your Love My Roots ix