India’s non-violence icon Mahatma Gandhi’s writing has indicated that he did not favour an independent Jewish state in Palestine.
While Gandhi did not favour a separate state, he still wished to keep cordial relations with the Jewish community. He said he sympathises with them.
‘Palestine belongs to the Arabs,’ Gandhi wrote in 'Harijan'. He added that it would be ‘wrong and inhumane to impose the Jews on the Arabs.’
Gandhi wrote a letter to a Jewish aide at the onset of World War 2. He greeted his associate with New Year wishes and hoped for an ‘era of peace.’
Gandhi reportedly believed that Palestinians were the first to make the region their home and that settlement of the Jewish community was violent.