Savarkar on establishment of Israel

19th December, 1947

I am glad to note that the overwhelming majority of the leading nations in the world should have recognized the claim of the Jewish People to establish an Independent Jewish state, in Palestine and should have promised armed assistance to get it realized. After centuries of sufferings, sacrifices and struggle the Jews will soon recover their national Home in Palestine which has undoubtedly been their Fatherland and Holy-land. Well may they compare this event to that glorious day in their history when Moses led them out of the Egyptian bondage and wilderness and the promised land flowing with milk and honey came well within sight.

Judging from the Indian Press in general our public seems to be misinformed by a sinister pro-Moslem propaganda regarding this Palestine issue. It must be emphasized therefore that speaking historically, the whole of Palestine has been, from at least two thousand years before the birth of the Moslem Prophet, the National Home of the Jewish people. A long line of their great prophets and kings, of Abraham and Moses, of David and Salomon, has endeared that country to them as their Fatherland and Holy-land. The Arabian Moslems invaded Palestine only a few decades before they invaded our Sindh and just as their fanatical fury exterminated the ancient Egyptians or Persians, they attempted to wipe out with fire and sword the Jewish people too. But they failed in this unholy ambition. The Fatherland or the Holy-land of the Arabian Moslems lies in Arabia and not in Palestine.

In justice, therefore, the whole of Palestine ought to have been restored to the Jews. But taking into consideration the conflict of self-interests of the powerful nations in the UNO, their support to the resuscitation of the Jewish State in a part of Palestine at any rate wherein they still happen to be in majority and which includes some of their prominent Holy Places constitutes an event of historical justice and importance.

It is consequently to be regretted that the delegation which represented our Hindusthani Government in the UNO should have voted against the creation of the Jewish State. The speeches of Shrimati Vijayalaxmi in particular were justly ridiculed when she declaimed melodramatically that the Indian Government refused to stab the unity and integrity of the Palestine State in the back by carving out a separate Jewish State,—forgetting for the while that the very Indian Government had stabbed the unity and integrity of their own nation only the other day and gloated over it as an event for public jubilations! Pandit Nehru made his case more untenable by stating that the creation of the Jewish State was opposed by his Government to secure the goodwill of the group of the petty Moslem States in Asia. But what about the loss of the goodwill of the Jews in India and outside and of the powerful nations which voted in support of the Jewish State? As a policy it is as absurd as to sacrifice the goodwill of an army of giants to secure the goodwill of a handful of pygmies. Moreover, can Hindudom at any rate forget that these petty Moslem States and even the Chinese Moslems who are conspiring to create a Chinese Pakistan have been egging on the- Moslem League to carve a Pakistan out of our Motherland?

The international policy of Hindudom at any rate must always aim to break up the power of the Moslem Blocks from Africa to the Malayan Peninsula. The creation of a strong and independent Jewish state must serve to checkmate the aggressive tendencies of Moslem fanaticism in general. The Jewish people bear no political ill-will towards Hindudom. The Jewish minority in Hindusthan too had given us no cause to suspect them as we have been compelled to suspect the Moslem minority. Whatever the attitude of the present Congressite Government be, the Hindu Sanghatanists at any rate cherish goodwill towards and extend their moral support to the establishment of the independent Jewish State in Palestine on moral as well as political grounds….