What may have been...

CARL ALPERT SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

We pause in our reporting on current affairs and take a short trip back through time to recall an episode that drew little attention at the time, but now takes on significance in view of more recent developments. One is led to ponder the vagaries of fate, and what might have been....

In many circles, "transfer" is a controversial word. It is used to designate the removal of large numbers of Israel's Arabs, who prefer to be known as Palestinians, and their transfer to other, neighboring Arab states. This step is advocated to assure a Jewish majority in Israel, which sometimes seems threatened by the large Arab natural increase. Opponents of transfer look upon it as extreme, xenophobic Jewish nationalism and it is not openly supported by moderate Zionists.

But an interesting echo from the past reveals that some 70 years ago, a distinguished American Jewish leader, Felix Warburg, by no means a Zionist, not only suggested transfer of Arabs out of Palestine in their own best interests, but also vigorously conducted a quiet campaign to bring it about.

The story is told in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Jewish Archives, where Rafael Medoff, a scholar and historian, reveals what he found in the Warburg archives. As early as 1930, addressing a rally in Madison Square Gardens, Warburg advised the British government that if it wanted to help the Palestinian Arabs it could best do so by making agricultural land available to them across the Jordan River. Said Warburg: "It is unjust to speak of such an offer of land in Transjordania as expatriation of the Arabs, as Transjordania is distinctly Arab territory."

Medoff notes that at first this seemed to contradict Warburg's previously expressed views, which had always advocated concessions to the Arabs, for the sake of peace. And though he continued to advocate concessions, he just as vigorously pursued proposals to encourage Palestinian Arabs to leave the country. Indeed, precisely because he was interested in helping the Arabs, he felt they would be much better off away from the Zionists. When the British proposed setting up a commission to explore ways of helping the Arabs, Warburg saw in the commission a means to "facilitate emigration of [Palestinian] Arabs into Transjordan." Apparently, out of a desire to make it attractive to the Zionists, he added, thereby "increasing agricultural possibilities for Jews in Palestine." He pursued the matter with Sir John Robert Chancellor, the British High Commissioner for Palestine. He depicted his proposal as less of a population transfer than an attempt to provide work for the Arabs where ample land was available.

He continued to press the British to provide financial assistance to aid aggrieved Arab farmers by resettling them in Transjordania and, at the same time, increase the "absorptive capacity" of Palestine in order to facilitate increased Jewish settlement.

Though the British rejected the suggestion, Warburg continued to advocate the resettlement program as a road to peace between Arabs and Jews, even while he openly opposed establishment of a Jewish state. When another non-Zionist, Edward Norman, suggested a program to finance the emigration of Arabs from Palestine to Iraq, Warburg enthusiastically offered to help finance it. As a result of British lack of interest, nothing came of the proposal. Subsequently, when the Arab riots broke out in 1936, he contributed generously to the defence needs of the Jewish settlements.

Warburg's espousal of the transfer program at the Madison Square Gardens meeting was his only public expression of support for the idea. Yet Medoff's research reveals that he was constantly trying to influence the British to accept the transfer program.

As for the political status, Warburg urged the creation of a federation comprised of three independent cantons, Iraq and Transjordan as Arab units, and Palestine, or some parts of it, as a Jewish canton. The project excited him, and he explored it with Dr. Chaim Weizmann and with representatives of the British government. How far it would have gone we shall never know, for he suddenly suffered a heart attack and passed away in 1937.

Carl Alpert is a freelance writer living in Haifa.

In 1944, Frieda Schiff Warburg, widow of prominent businessman and philanthropist Felix Warburg, donated the family mansion at 1109 Fifth Ave. (near 92nd Street) to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America for use as a museum. The Jewish Museum, as it is called, is one of the world's largest institutions devoted to exploring the scope and diversity of Jewish culture.

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