Renee Parsons

It is said that history repeats itself or perhaps the past merely echoes in a circular direction with each generation confronting a similar dichotomy as if the key to illuminating completion lies buried deep within the memory of humanity.   Such recognition takes us back to 1939 when Harvard student John F. Kennedy, traveling on a life-expanding tour, found himself in Palestine, leaving the American public with melancholy thoughts of what might have been.   

Kennedy may not have expected to experience what became a hundred year interference of Zionist superiority into the historic domination of Palestine’s indigenous, antediluvian population and a reverence for its extermination.

Of special interest is JFK’s letter to his father, former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, written after completion of his visit and just prior to his departure for Bucharest.  The letter, a lengthy, detailed account of the ongoing struggle between the immigration of Zionists and the native-born Arabs revealed Kennedy as deeply perceptive, analytical and well informed about all facets of the Palestine situation – as if the brilliance of Kennedy’s mind was not yet known. Reading the letter and its many factual complexity, it is obvious that JFK and his father had a great interest in Palestine and had had previous communication regarding Palestine’s dire situation.

As a practicing Catholic, it may be that Kennedy had some concern regarding the Zionists aggressive intrusion into Palestine and its devastating effect on Christianity in what was still referred to as the sacred “Holy Lands” in those days.  Kennedy may also have been aware that the Palestinian Arabs had an ancient history as an indigenous, semitic  population whose ancestors lived in Palestine for thousands of years, since the time of Jesus Christ, based on genetic evidence from the Canaanite era (3000 years ago).

There is no way that a few snippets from the Letter in this article will suffice to provide the full picture of JFK’s thoughtful analysis of the Arab-Israel conflict or to provide the full measure of the man that JFK was becoming.  I encourage a full read of the letter in its entirety to fully appreciate how the conflict evolved since 1939 and especially as it evolved into the mass slaughter of the Palestinian people.

At the end of his visit to Palestine in 1939,  Kennedy wrote his father providing incisive insights into the political dilemma with a deep understanding of the complexities between the indigenous Arab semitic population and the Ashkenazi Zionist Jews predominantly from Eastern Europe to share one parcel of land.

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The Letter begins with “before the war. Palestine was at that time under Turkey, inhabited by Moslem Arabs with a scattering of Christians. There were also a few thousand Jews, though at that time the Zionists’ movement had not assumed great proportions.”

Prior to Kennedy’s visit, the League of Nations (established in 1919) confirmed the British Mandate over Palestine in 1922 as Palestinian Arabs demanded a halt to Jewish immigration and a ban on land sales to Jews.

By the time Kennedy arrived in Palestine, an Arab Revolt had occurred (1936-1939)  at the peak of Jewish immigration.  The revolt sought independence from British colonial rule and an end for British support of Zionism,  was largely unsuccessful and led to the Arab-Israel civil war in 1948.

Prior to WWI, the Arabs had lived for centuries in what became known as Palestine within the Ottoman Empire with Mufti Amin al-Hussein as its Muslim cleric who, after WWI, was exiled by Britain to Syria.

After WWI, the western powers busily divided the Ottoman Empire securing their strategic geopolitical interests as the reality of Israel as a sovereign nation began in 1917.  Initially it was the Balfour Letter addressed to Lord Rothschild which stated  a “declaration of sympathy with  the Zionist aspirations”  concluding that  “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”    

Further pledging that “nothing shall be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non Jewish communities in Palestine,” a gratuitous hollow phrase that hardly satisfied the Arab population’s need for self government.  Balfour contained no real reference to civil rights for the Palestinians, their future or the longevity of their residence as being reason for further consideration.    

In support of immigration, the League of Nations adopted the  British Mandates over Palestine in 1922 which put Balfour ‘into effect’ despite a succession of riots and revolts while providing administrative advice along the way.

Although Christian and Muslim Arabs had lived on the same land since Roman Days, there was little interest in becoming a separate nation until Zionists began to emigrate into Palestine, to buy its lands and establish their own nation.    

Regarding any preconceived sympathy for the Arabs.…”The sympathy of the people seems to be with the Arabs.  ..not only because the Jews have had, at least some of their leaders, an unfortunately arrogant, uncompromising attitude,… the country has been Arabic for the last few hundred years,”

Referring to the British Mandate as the White Paper, Kennedy asserted it “will not work ‘ with the coming of these new Jewish immigrants, new capital poured into Palestine”…”enabled the Jews to acquire about 15% of the land which included the most fertile. Arabs objected to Jewish encroachment.’ 

Seeing “no hope for working out British policy as laid out in White paper,”  Kennedy further identified  “there is no provision for an elected assembly under their own leadership which has been the first step in Iraq towards the formation of an independent state.”

In other words, the Palestinians were not receiving the same level of self determination or civil government consideration as the indigenous Iraqis had.

In addition, Kennedy identified the reality “from 1922 when mandate was given favoring the establishment of a national home for the Jews, the situation has been difficult as far as outrages and bombings.”

“They felt that the Jews, if permitted, would dominate in their country numerically as well as economically.”

The British government, desiring the assistance of the Jews and Arabs during WWI, had made separate promises to both.   Sir Henry McMahon agreed to recognize Arab independence with its own State “guaranteeing an independent Arabic state were quite vague and the territorial delineation was equally vague” and the Balfour Letter “also indefinite, giving with one hand what he took back with the other” interpreted as promise of a Jewish homeland.

After disregarding the British Mandate as ‘unworkable’ which both the Jews and the Arabs had rejected, JFK suggested ‘two autonomous districts with self-government for both” become policy that “Jerusalem, having the background that it has, should be an independent unit.”

In other words, Kennedy had already defined in 1939 what would ultimately  become a Two State solution as the recognized vehicle for two separate governments to live in peace.

Further, Kennedy identified “On the Jewish side there is the desire for complete domination, with Jerusalem as the capital of their new land of milk and honey, with the right colonize in Trans-Jordan” which today refers to the West Bank area.

Given the lack of clear precise direction between Balfour and the Mandate in comparing the Balfour Letter and the White Paper which predated the Mandate, neither offered a workable solution, Kennedy commented on a preferred option “best to not try to present a solution based on these two vague, indefinite and conflicting promises. This is my objection to the White Paper. It theoretically presents a good solution, but it just won’t work.”  Kennedy understood the bias and politically sensitive nature of allowing immigration where Arabs had lived for generations without any unsolicited interlopers.

Kennedy’s letter identified a major Arabic objection that the Mandate did not allow the Grand Mufti to return to Palestine:   “does not permit the return of the Grand Mufti, the religious and political leader made, incidentally, that, by the British, who is now in exile in Syria. He naturally wishes to return and therefore is unwilling to compromise” and “going to be extremely difficult to effect a solution without bringing him back” thereby denying the Palestinians access to essential leadership.

Referring to the Grand  Mutfi “that if the Arabs accepted the White Paper he would be all through, as the Paper calls for the Arab officials to be appointed by the British during the transition period, and they will naturally appoint Arabs that will be in their camp.”

JFK cited an example of Zionist extremists:  “There were 13 bombs set off my last evening there, all in the Jewish quarter and all set off by Jews. The ironical part is that the Jewish terrorists bomb their own telephone lines and electric connections and the next day frantically phone the British to come and fix them up” thus creating a climate of chaos and violence.

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Kennedy’s prescient nature was on display when he recognized that “Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away.”   

According to the Institute for Palestine Studies, the question has recently arisen whether Britain had legal authority over Palestine, whether its now-fabled Balfour Letter or its follow up Mandate for Palestine were sufficient to allow Britain the lawful authority to assume legal power to alter the structure of Palestine.  There is no evidence that Britain ever granted sovereignty over Palestine as the League of Nations never addressed the legality of Britain’s legal status in Palestine.

Britain’s failure to gain sovereignty of Palestine was a prerequisite for governing or as a determinate for holding a mandate.

Despite legal obstacles, Britain granted itself that authority in 1920 by creating what it assumed was a ‘governing authority’ with the “Mandate for Palestine” promoting a national homeland for Jews as if that declaration would be legally sufficient to provide a ‘homeland’ for Jewish people.

According to the Institute for Palestine Studies, since the League never achieved a legal status on the issue of Jewish territorial rights or on the legality of Britain’s governance of Palestine, it appears that the United Nations (UN) ‘overlooked this critical legal prerequisite when it assumed wrongly that Britain and the League of Nations had committed the international community to granting territorial rights to the Jewish people in Palestine.”   

The issue of territorial rights in historic Palestine remains unresolved to the present time.

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JFK apparently had more than a passing interest in Palestine since he revisited Palestine in 1951 after his election to the US House of Representatives.

When JFK first experienced Palestine in 1939, he had no way of knowing that, as a newly elected US President in 1960 and as a WWII combat veteran committed to the principle of nuclear non proliferation, he would be confronted with Israel’s secret construction of Dimona, a nuclear power plant in the Negev Desert including its secret facility to reprocess spent fuel into weapons grade plutonium as he became ensnared into Israel’s dark web of malevolence.   

Renee Parsons has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and a staff member in the US House of Representative in Washington, DC. Before its demise, she was also a member of the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and President of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter.