mahatma gandhi and the jewish national home 29
Britain has made a promise to the Zionists.... All I contend is that
they cannot possess Palestine through a trick or a moral breach. Pal-
estine was not a stake in the war. The British Government could not
dare ask a single Muslim soldier to wrest control of Palestine from
fellow Muslims and give it to the Jews. Palestine, as a place of Jewish
worship, is a sentiment to be respected, and the Jews would have a
just cause of complaint against [Muslim] idealists if they were to pre-
vent Jews from off ering worship as freely as themselves.At the same time, he warned: “By no canons of ethics of war... can Pal-
estine be given to Jews as a result of the war.”^16 A few weeks later, he went
a step further and argued:
The Muslims claim Palestine as an integral part of Jazirat al- Arab.
They are bound to retain its custody, as an injunction of the Prophet.
But that does not mean that the Jews and Christians cannot freely
go to Palestine, or even reside there and own property. What non-
Muslims cannot do is acquire sovereign jurisdiction. The Jews can-
not receive sovereign rights in a place, which has been held for centu-
ries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim
soldiers did not shed their blood in the late war [World War I] for the
purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control.^17Thus Mahatma Gandhi unreservedly endorsed the historical and reli-
gious claims of the Muslims and categorically ruled out non- Muslim
sovereignty in Palestine.
The Mahatma’s remarks about Palestine being an integral part of the
Jazirat al- Arab came within the context of the Khilafat struggle. As he
repeatedly admitted, it became his “duty” to help his Muslim brother “in
his hour of peril,” and “by helping [the Muslims] of India at a critical
moment in their history, I want to buy their friendship.” He was honest
enough to admit his own predicaments: “I would like my Jewish friends
to impartially consider the position of the seventy million Muslims of India.
As a free nation, can they tolerate what they must regard as a treacherous
disposal of their sacred possession?”^18 These statements, which came af-
ter the Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917) but before Palestine was
granted to Great Britain as a mandate (July 1922), ruled out Jewish claims
to Palestine and their demands for a national home. Palestine, for him,