Journeys from Zionism (15) John Lynes

JVL Introduction

This is the 15th in the series “Jewish Journeys from Zionism”.  At 96 years old, John is the oldest person JVL member Kitty Warnock has interviewed and his experiences are varied and many including spending six years in Hebron and the South Hebron Hills.

As always we thank Kitty for her work interviewing and drafting the many stories for publication and we trust that you find this useful as well as interesting.

Index of all the personal stories

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My name is John Lynes, and my age is 96.

My Zionism

I was born in London in 1928, into a Reform Jewish family. As I was growing up our synagogue was, I would say, politely anti-Zionist; so was my family, so was I. This wasn’t discussed, just taken for granted.

That changed for me around the end of the war, when I met teenagers of my own age who had come to England, just liberated from the concentration camps. Some were hosted by local Jewish families. I had had a conventional grammar school education – I played cricket and rugby, got my first bicycle – but these fellow Jews had had a very different life. They hadn’t played cricket or football or got bicycles, they hadn’t taken their School Certificates. And they had lost everything – their homes, their parents, their possessions – everything! All that kept them going was the hope of moving to a national home in Palestine – and who was I to say they were wrong? It wasn’t just me: all of us teenagers in the synagogue became Zionists, one by one, because we couldn’t question their logic, or their sincerity, or their need.

When the State of Israel was declared in 1948, many of my friends went to fight for Israel, and I would have gone, no question, but I had been conscripted into the British Army, and deserting was a big step which I hesitated to take. It soon became obvious that the Israelis didn’t need me, so I didn’t go, but I was definitely a Zionist, I was on the side of Israel.

The particular flavour of Zionism which I was actively associated with was Hashomer Hatzair[i]. Hashomer’s goal was a binational state. Historically, Zionism, as I supported it, wasn’t calling for a Jewish state, but a national home. In those days nobody said that wasn’t Zionism. Back in the 19th century when it began, Zionism had been a colonialist enterprise, but it gradually evolved and right through the 1920s and 30s a binational state was official Zionist policy. The idea was that under the British mandate, Palestine was essentially a British colony, and it would naturally evolve to achieve self-government, as happened in Canada, Australia, New Zealand. This was Zionist policy. Jabotinsky’s Revisionists, as they were called, were unquestionably a minority in the 1930s. But then came the Holocaust, when Jews from Germany and Europe were refused entry to Palestine, and it was at that point, in 1942, that the Biltmore Declaration’s demand for a Jewish state became official Zionist policy[ii]. If you read the 1948 constitution of Israel, it said it was a state for all its citizens, and Arabic was an official language along with Hebrew. Even in 1948, wanting a Jewish state mainly meant wanting a state Jews would be free to go to.

It’s a tragedy the way the British mandate ended. When the British left their colonies in West Africa, East Africa, and Asia, in each case they left behind an elected parliament, a constitution, a police force, a set of laws, a flag, a national anthem and so forth. But when they left Palestine they did none of those things; they just left, literally. They knew that the surrounding Arab states were going to invade, and that the Israelis were going to fight back. The Nakba became inevitable. The Arabs made big mistakes, the Zionists made big mistakes, and the British made colossal mistakes. They are all to blame for the situation.

As far as I’m concerned, Zionism ended in 1948, once the Jewish state was established. The Zionism I supported, anyway. Other people have said the same, Chomsky for example. I don’t call myself a Zionist or an anti-Zionist.  I’m just passionately committed to reconciling Israelis with Palestinians and ending this tragic quarrel.

Becoming a pacifist

I had signed on to the army for “the duration of the emergency”, and at the end you were transferred to the “Class Z Reserves”[iii].  On leaving the army I got involved in the peace movement.  By the time the Korean War[iv] started, in the early 1950s, and Class Z reservists were being recalled, I realised I could no longer return to the Army.  I declared myself a pacifist.  I was prepared for imprisonment, but the war ended before I was called up.

The trigger to my becoming a Quaker was, I suppose, that I fell in love with a non-Jew, and we had to decide where to get married. She was a Scottish Presbyterian, and she didn’t want a Jewish wedding. Somebody suggested that we should have a Quaker wedding, and the Quakers duly married us in 1953, though neither of us was in membership. I was attracted by the Quakers in a lot of ways and carried on worshipping with them. My family weren’t happy about me marrying out, nor about me being a pacifist. In fact they refused to believe that I was a pacifist. But I didn’t cut off relations or argue with them; it was an unspoken thing.

Of course my pacifism made me critical of Israel and Israeli nationalism. Later came the occupation of the West Bank, and a number of things which I really couldn’t go along with. By this time I was getting on with my professional life, alternately as an engineer and as a university lecturer.  I retired when I was 65, in the mid-1990s.

Quaker activism in Palestine

My wife died in 1999. In 2000, during the Second Intifada, the Quakers in Britain started to send observers to Palestine. I applied, but I didn’t expect to be accepted because I was obviously too old, I didn’t have the qualifications they were asking for – and anyhow I had a Jewish background which made me hardly neutral. But my CV mentioned that I had been in prison, for a peace offence. (Just a week’s sentence for refusing to pay a £10 fine for sitting outside the Ministry of Defence). In my interview, the Quakers asked all sorts of questions about prison. Of course I had thought quite a lot about prison, having both been a prisoner and subsequently visited prisoners with the prison chaplaincy.  I’m sure that’s why I was appointed as a Quaker observer. There were three of us – a doctor who had worked with the ambulance service in Gaza, a woman who spoke fluent Arabic, and me. It was not obvious what I could do in Palestine!

I was attached as an intern with what was then called the Christian Peacemaker Teams, now the Community Peacemaker Teams, in Hebron. It is an American organisation, founded by the three historic ‘peace’ churches – the Quakers, the Mennonites and a group called the Church of the Brethren. I doubt if the Quakers would have sent me there if they had realised exactly what the CPT were up to in Hebron. We worshipped together each day so our work became an expression of our faith – but we lived dangerously and didn’t hesitate to get arrested, or to intervene in situations of violence. We lived with Palestinians, we shared their life, we bought our food at the same market, our landlord was a Palestinian landlord. We stood with Palestinians at checkpoints, or wherever they were threatened or attacked.  We protected Palestinian kids on their way to and from school.  We got physically attacked by settlers. On two occasions I had to be rescued by the Israeli army, which was embarrassing – but I lived to tell the tale.

As I had been a university lecturer in the UK, the Quakers arranged for me to do some teaching in the Islamic University of Gaza. It’s run by Hamas. When I left to go back to Hebron the students gave me a Hamas badge. Not every Jew has one of those!

During my three months with the CPT, the World Council of Churches launched its ecumenical accompaniment programme[v], and they appointed the British Quakers to administer volunteers from Britain and Ireland. I signed up as soon as I got back to England, and I was in the first EAPPI contingent from the UK in the West Bank. The EAPPI has evolved into a less confrontational group than CPT, and I found it hard to adjust to their more cautious expectations.  Both groups do a necessary job, and I have learned to respect their differences. But I was grateful when my friends in CPT urged me to take their 4-week training in Chicago and join them as a full-time volunteer.  I worked with them for six years in Hebron, in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta) and subsequently, until my health failed, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

My last formal interaction with Israel was in 2011.  Several “flotillas” carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza had been boarded by the Israeli Navy and prevented from landing[vi].  What would happen if instead we entered Tel Aviv openly on a commercial flight?  Would we be admitted?  It turned out that we were arrested straightaway.  In Ramle Prison we launched a hunger strike.  We were soon deported, and our passports were endorsed “Entry Denied”.  Sadly I have had to abandon hope of ever returning to the Holy Land, but I remain passionately committed to a peaceful solution.

My former longing for a binational state has receded but not vanished.  Today I recognise that it must be preceded by the establishment of an independent Palestinian State alongside a secure State of Israel as a necessary step towards confederation.

These thoughts obviously reflect my position of unearned privilege.  As a Jew I have to dissent when Netanyahu claims to speak for all Jewish people.  As an ex-soldier I can feel for Israeli youngsters conscripted from school and trained to kill out of loyalty to their nation.  Having spent six years in Hebron and the South Hebron Hills I have seen the worst of both Israeli settlers and Palestinian gunmen.  As a retired teacher I hate to think of students learning to fear and hate their neighbours on the opposite side of an artificial barrier.  As a Korean War “refusenik” I can echo the stand of Israeli Reservists and Combatants for Peace who reject military blandishments.  As an ex-prisoner I can feel for Palestinians “detained”, powerless and humiliated, and for Israeli hostages and their waiting families.  I can testify from my own experience that family and friends can suffer more anxiety than those in prison.

I reflect that the turning point in Northern Ireland was when Republicans were released from prison to take part in the political process.  The turning point in South Africa was when Nelson Mandela and his colleagues were released and stood for parliament.  We all know that at the conclusion of the Gaza onslaught Israeli hostages will be liberated and Palestinian prisoners will be freed.  I can’t point to the Palestinian Mandela, but I bet that right now s/he’s in an Israeli prison. The sooner the prisoners are exchanged the better. The souk in Hebron is already full of Palestinian ex-prisoners working to support their families; many are friends of mine.  What are we waiting for?

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[i] Hashomer Hatzair is a Labour Zionist secular Jewish youth movement founded in 1913 in Austria-Hungary. It established several kibbutzim in mandatory Palestine, and then a political party with the same name in 1946, the Hashomer Hatzair Workers’ Party. Politically situated between the moderate mainstream Mapai party and the communists, Hashomer Hatzair was the only Zionist party to advocate a binational solution for Palestine, with equality between Arabs and Jews. The party merged with other parties in 1948 to form Mapam, the United Workers’ Party. The youth movement still exists worldwide.

[ii] At a 1942 conference in New York’s Biltmore Hotel, 600 Zionist delegates from 18 countries adopted for the first time the demand “that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth”. Hashomer Hatzair delegates voted against this.

[iii] Following the Second World War, a “Z Reserve” of soldiers and officers who had served between 3^rd September 1939 and 31^st December 1948 were available for recall if under 45 years of age.

[iv] Korean War 1950-53. 56,000 British troops participated on the side of the United Nations force, the second largest force behind the United States.

[v] The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, launched in 2002 in response to a call from Churches in Jerusalem, formed of 16 partner Churches and NGOs. The UK and Ireland part of the Programme is coordinated by the British Quakers. EAPPI sends volunteers to serve for three months as human rights monitors.

[vi]  In May 2010, six ships from various countries set off from Turkey bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. (Gaza’s land borders had been closed to most goods since 2007). On 31 May the Israeli navy raided the ships, 40 km from the Gaza shores. 9 activists were killed on the Mavi Marmara, and dozens injured. Freedom Flotilla 2 was planned to sail to Gaza in July 2011, with 10 ships and 1000 activists from 20 countries. In the end it did not take place. The flotillas were organised by a Turkish NGO and a number of NGOs from other countries.