Martin Buber (1878 – 1965) was an outstanding Austrian-born Jewish philosopher. A Zionist and immigrant to Palestine he nevertheless, informed by Humanity and his I-Thou religious existentialism, argued for non-racism and a bi-national state (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber ).
Martin Buber, “The National Home and The National Riots in Palestine”, speech in Berlin, 1929 after Palestinian riots: “Every responsible relationship between an individual and his fellow begins through the power of genuine imagination, as if we were the residents of Palestine and the others were the immigrants who were coming into the country in increasing numbers, year by year, taking it away from us. How would we react to events? Only if we know this will it be possible to minimize the injustice we must do in order to survive and to live the life which we are not only entitled but obliged to live, since we live for the eternal mission, which has been imbedded within us since our creation.” [1].
Martin Buber, “The Bi-National Approach to Zionism”, 1947: “We describe our program [that of the Ichud Association] as that of a bi-national state—that is, we aim at a social structure based on the reality of two peoples living together. The foundations of this structure cannot be the traditional ones of majority and minority, but must be different. We do not mean just any bi-national state, but this particular one, with its particular conditions, i.e. a bi-national state which embodies in its basic principle a Magna Charta Reservationum, the indispensable postulate of the rescue of the Jewish people. This is what we need and not a “Jewish State”.” [1].
[1]. Martin Buber quoted by Leonard Schwartz, “After the Assault on Gaza”, Common Ground News Service, 26 March 2009: http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=25104&lan=en&sid=0&sp=0&isNew= .
Martin Buber (anti-racist Jewish Austrian philosopher who opposed establishment of a Jewish state, supported Arab rights in Palestine, and argued for a joint Arab-Jewish state) in an open letter to Mahatma Gandhi: “You, Mahatma Gandhi, who know of the connection between tradition and future, should not associate yourself with those who pass over our cause without understanding or sympathy. But you say ? and I consider it to be the most significant of all the things you tell us ? that Palestine belongs to the Arabs and that it is therefore "wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs." Here I must add a personal note in order to make clear to you on what premises I desire to consider your thesis. I belong to a group of people who from the time Britain conquered Palestine have not ceased to strive for the concluding of a genuine peace between Jew and Arab… Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers, the Arab farmers, to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land ? to "serve" it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them. We do not want to dominate them: we want to serve with them” (Martn Buber, “Martin Buber’s letter to Gandhi regarding Palestine”, Jewish Virual Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/martin-buber-s-open-letter-to-gandhi-regarding-palestine ).