Jabotinsky had the strategic insight that Britain might take Palestine from the Ottomans, that the Zionist cause could be made or broken by British policy and that the Jews should take an active part – politically and militarily – in effecting Palestine’s liberation. He often quarreled in later years with Chaim Weizmann, but Jabotinsky and Weizmann saw eye-to-eye that the then top officials of the World Zionist Organization were wrong to adopt a policy of neutrality in the war. Though merely a journalist at the time, Jabotinsky led an effort over several years to persuade British officials to create a Jewish fighting force for use in a Palestine campaign.
In recent decades, it has been U.S. not British officials who have taken the lead in trying to engineer Arab-Israeli peace and they have done so in similar fashion by focusing on practical questions – the so-called “final status” issues – rather than recognize the profound nature of Palestinian Arab opposition to Israel. Hence for forty years or so, U.S. officials have repeatedly banged their heads against a wall. Time and again, they push the parties to discuss boundary lines, water rights, Jewish settlements, security arrangements, Jerusalem, etc., etc. The discussions go round and round and never achieve peace. This would not surprise Jabotinsky.
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