be expected to pay the price for crimes committed against the Jews by Europeans. They violently objected to further Jewish immigration and to the acquisition of land by the Jews.
20. The struggle between the two nations in the country appeared in the emotional sphere as the "war of the traumas." The IsraeliHebrew nation carried with them the old trauma of the
persecution of the Jews in Europe: massacres, mass expulsions, the Inquisition, pogroms and the Holocaust. They lived with the consciousness of being an eternal victim. The clash with the ArabPalestinian nation appeared to them as just a continuation of anti-Semitic persecution.
21. The Arab-Palestinian nation carried with them the memories of the long-lasting colonial oppression, with its insults and
humiliations, especially when compared with the background of the historical memories from the glorious days of the Caliphs. They, too, lived with the consciousness of being victims, and the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 appeared to them as the
continuation of the oppression and humiliation by Western
colonialists.
22. The complete blindness of each of the two nations to the national existence of the other inevitably led to false and distorted perceptions that took root deep in their collective consciousness. These perceptions continue to affect their attitudes toward each other to the present day.
23. The Arabs believed that the Jews had been implanted in Palestine by Western imperialism, in order to subjugate the Arab world and control its natural resources. This conviction was supported by the fact that the Zionist Movement, from the outset, strove for an alliance with at least one Western power, in order to overcome Arab resistance (Germany in the days of Herzl, Britain from the time of the Uganda plan and the Balfour Declaration until the end of the Mandate, the Soviet Union in 1948, France from the 1950s until the 1967 war, the United States from then on). This resulted in practical cooperation and a community of interests between the Zionist enterprise and imperialist and colonialist powers, directed against the Arab national movement.
24. The Zionists, on the other hand, were convinced that the Arab resistance to the Zionist enterprise-which was intended to save the Jews from the flames of Europe-was simply the consequence of the murderous nature of the Arabs and of Islam. In their eyes, Arab fighters were "gangs," and the uprisings of the time were "riots."