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$5,000,000 Needed for Arab Reconstruction in Palestine

November 10, 1924
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The Jews all over the world are helping the Zionists to make Palestine a Jewish National Home. We must urge all Moslems and Christians abroad to help us to retain Palestine as a Moslem and Christian country, writes “El Carmel” of Haifa today. Our people must learn to make sacrifices for the general interest. We must fight our enemies with their own weapons. We must be financially organized by the following means: (a) Banks for giving credit to farmers, tradesmen, merchants and workmen at a low rate of interest; (b) A special fund for the purchase of lands which should be resold to peasants in small holdings; (c) A special educational fund. The money needed for the execution of this scheme can be found in Palestine. It cannot save Palestine all at once and put a stop to the danger which threatens her, but it will remedy the evil to some extent.

And then there must be the movement abroad. We can collect funds in many countries. We have the sympathy of important financial and political circles. Moslems and Christians all over the world would give us moral and material assistance. In the same way as the Jews all over the world are helping to make Palestine a Jewish National Home, the Moslems and Christians all over the world should help to keep Palestine a Moslem-Christian country.

The Moslem Caliphate Congress will meet shortly. There will be present influential Moslems from all countries. The delegates from the Holy Land should seek to convince their colleagues of the importance of Palestine from the religious, social and economic point of view and should urge them to enter upon a determined economic and political activity which will preserve the Moslem character of Palestine. If the Congress does not do this, it will help the Jews to filch from the three hundred million Moslems of the world a land to which they are closely attached by religions, historical, geographical and economic ties, much more closely attached than are the Jews. The Palestine delegates to the Moslem Congress should urge the Congress to make the Palestine question its own. With the help of the financial resources of the whole Moslem world we should found a Moslem bank to advance credits to Palestinians at a low rate of interest, and to form a land purchasing society to save Palestine from the establishment of a Jewish National Home and to prevent the economic domination of an Arab country by Jews.

A million pounds is needed. If the three hundred million Moslems of the world cannot provide this sum as a gift to Palestine, it is useless for Arabs and Moslems to think of unity for they will have shown that they are not fit for it.

The movement should not be only a Palestinian movement. The political and economic organization founded to carry it out should be conducted by experts in their respective fields so that the work should be carried out efficiently and with good prospects of success, says the paper.

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