samson's foxes and the refugees 19 9 had been made inevitable by the operation of the vicious circle. Such responsibility as there is must be shared by both sides. Cowardice, irresponsibility and indifference, were as responsible as terrorization, lack of humanity, and the brute spirit of violence.
On the Arab side, no constructive war aim had been formulated throughout the war or, indeed, until today. The victory of the Arabs in 1948 would have meant a national disaster for the Israelis, a second Holocaust, possibly total physical extermination. On the Israeli side, the colonizing spirit inherent in Zionism was well-served by the flight of the Arabs, which left thousands of houses and hundreds of thousands of acres ownerless, to be turned over to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants pouring into the country after 1948. Because of the immigration, it was anathema to Israelis even to think about the possibility of repatriation.
Many reasons have been advanced to justify the Israeli stand-legalistic, economic and political, and the overriding considerations of internal security. Each has some validity, but could also be refuted. The average Israeli quite sincerely believes that giving the refugees the right to return would mean a catastrophic flood of hatred-ridden Arabs submerging the new state by force of numbers. Personally, I believe that behind all the arguments against repatriation, plausible and senseless, there lies the basic ideal of Zionism: a homogeneous Jewish state, a state "as Jewish as England is English," as was said many times by Zionist leaders.
My friends and I have advocated, since the very first days after the '48 war, the principle of giving the refugees the choice between repatriation and compensation. While compensation without repatriation has been offered by the Israeli Government, but was unacceptable to the Arabs, any kind of repatriation is by far the most unpopular view anyone can propagate in Israel. Yet we feel that the solution of the refugee problem is the key to peace, an act of