30 mahatma gandhi and the jewish national homewas an Islamic land; Jews had no po liti cal claims over it. The Zionists
would later regret that these one- sided observations of the Mahatma
“went unchallenged.”^19
Following the Khilafat phase, the Mahatma refused to discuss the
problem of Palestine and repeatedly admitted his reluctance to express
his views on the subject. Despite his meetings with Zionist emissaries in
London and in India and the eff orts by Kallenbach in 1937, Gandhi made
no public statement on the subject. He eventually broke his silence and
wrote a long exposition in the November 26, 1938, issue of Harijan. Some
suggest that his observations were unnecessary and avoidable. Margaret
Chatterjee, for example, suggests that the Mahatma could have practiced
“noninterference [regarding Jewish] aff airs and also refrain[ed] from
making judgments about them.”^20 But, as the Mahatma admitted at the
very beginning of his Harijan article, he wrote it because of “several let-
ters” that he received “asking me to declare my views about the Arab- Jew
question in Palestine and the persecution of Jews in Germany.” Aware of
the complexities and controversies surrounding both issues, he confessed
that it was “not without hesitation that I venture to off er my views on this
very diffi cult question.”^21 He subsequently responded to his critics, say-
ing, “I did not write this article as a critic. I wrote it at the pressing re-
quest of Jewish friends and correspondents. As I decided to write, I could
not do so in any other manner.”^22
The November 1938 Harijan article earned him the wrath of the Zion-
ist leadership and swift responses and rebukes both inside and outside
India.^23 The Jewish phi los o pher Martin Buber joined with Judah Magnes
and explained the philosophical underpinnings of the Zionist move-
ment.^24 This was later published as Two Letters to Gandhi^25 and at times is
described as the “Buber- Gandhi correspondence.” Some suggested that
“Buber and Gandhi were involved in a polemical exchange of views on the
Jewish problem.”^26 Despite such claims, there is no evidence to suggest
that Gandhi read the Buber- Magnes letters, let alone that he replied to
them.^27
Acting on his somewhat neutral stand, which he detailed in his confi -
dential note to Kallenbach in July 1937, the Zionist leadership sought his
categorical endorsement for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Zionist
pressures for a public statement from Mahatma Gandhi boomeranged.
Disappointed and outraged by his public endorsement of the Palestinian
position, an editorial in The Jewish Advocate, based in Bombay (later
Mumbai), wrote a “comprehensive and dignifi ed” editorial. It lamented