Not even Einstein could solve the middle east conflict

Physicists and historians will naturally be drawn to the thousands of documents relating to the general theory. But interest will also be focused on the clear evidence that Einstein’s support for a Jewish homeland was tempered a fervent and lifelong desire for peace with Arabs in the Holy Land.

“He was a Zionist but be careful how you use the word,” Roni Grosz, curator of the Einstein Archive, said yesterday. “He had his own views on what Jews should and shouldn’t do and about how they interact with their Arab neighbours.”

As late as 1947 Einstein was doubtful about the idea of a state of Israel, though he supported it after its establishment the following year, and indeed on his deathbed was composing a broadcast for its seventh anniversary. But he refused the invitation to become its first President on the grounds that while he would be free as a private citizen to disagree with any future policy, as President he would not.

The full flavour of his thinking is conveyed in his correspondence during the British mandate with Azmi al- Nashashibi, the Arab editor of the newspaper Falastin, which had reported Einstein’s theory while disparaging growing Jewish immigration. Einstein responded in December 1929 by writing that he had long been convinced that the future must be built on “an intimate community of nations.”

He added: “I had therefore expected that the great Arab nation would more fully appreciate the Jewish need for restoring its national home in Judaism’s old homeland. I am convinced that the loving interest which the whole of Jewry takes in the land of Palestine can be of benefit to the entire population of the country… I think the two great Semitic peoples that have made each in its own way lasting contributions to the civilization of the modern Western world can have a great future in common and that instead of facing each other with unfruitful hostility and mutual distrust they should… seek for the possibility for sympathetic co-operation.”


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