by William B. Ziff A New Force in Jewry
We must first recognize that England is deliberately in the process of creating, not a free community, but a Jewish ghetto in Palestine.
We must next get rid of all the managers and spokesmen of Jewry who have managed to betray our cause so ingloriously. We must face the British politicians with a new type of leadership, men of hard, indomitable will, who will not be swerved from our needs by any threats whatsoever. We cannot match these cold-blooded, materialistic statesmen with gentle chemists and Messianic rabbis. They must be matched with hard-headed young men who cannot be talked or bamboozled out of a single right belonging to the Jewish people.
We must back their will up with a devoted Jewish folk, one that is bound to them by an authoritarian Jewish structure, which will allow our claims to be backed by something more tangible than empty words. We must make Lloyd George’s words no mere phrase but a prophecy.
MUST BE STATESMEN
Our leaders must be statesmen not panhandlers, who will know directly what they want and as directly go after it.
We must recognize this for what it is, life and death struggle of the Jewish people, and abandon the word “compromise” completely.
Our program should be substantially as follows:
We do not recognize any parity of interests in Palestine of any kind.
It is no longer a vague place where a few Jews are admitted, but the foundation of the Jewish State to which the British are on paper at least committed. The words of the Mandate “reconstituting the Jewish home in Palestine,” we can construe to mean nothing less than that.
ASKS WAUCHOPE’S RECALL
We demand the free right of Jews to come and go as they please, in both Palestine and Transjordan, in conformity with the Mandate, subject only to such restrictions as are recognized by the regularly constituted Jewish Agency.
We ask for the immediate recall of High Commissioner Wauchope and his replacement by some other official who will be more acceptable to us.
We ask the right to settle both Sinai peninsula and the island of Cyprus without interference from the British.
We demand the immediate repeal of all restrictive legislation of any kind directed against the Jewish population.
RIGHT TO ARM
We ask for the right of any free people to arm and protect ourselves from the desert marauders on all sides of us.
We do not recognize the English as our overlords and masters, but merely as administrators to a mandate territory, for which they have received a fully compensating advantage.
We ask to be left alone in our desire to construct a Jewish economic, cultural and political sphere of interest in the Near East as an outpost of western civilization. We will not brook interference from anyone on this.
This seems to be a large order, but we can get it.
Our faint-hearted must recognize that nothing one does not have to fight for is worth getting. We must realize that on the other side lies death.
How shall our demands be given force and command?
ONE LEADERSHIP
Again all Jewry must be behind one resolute authoritarian leadership which is not weakened by being forced to compromise within its own ranks.
We must take stock of England’s position first, as well as the cause of her attitude towards us.
They sum up as follows:
(1) A vague but very real existence of antagonism to the Jews on the part of English officialdom itself.
(2) The English fear of Communism, since there lies the breakup of her empire, and the possibility of using a Jewish Palestine as a bulwark against it.
(3) The Moslem population of India, which is being counterbalanced against the Hindu majority in an effort to hold India for the empire. England is afraid of these Indian Moslems and the Palestine Arabs realizing this have played on it and based much of their truculence on the fact.
A VULNERABLE NATION
(4) The British position in the world as a manufacturing, hence vulnerable nation.
(5) Palestine, which is both on the road to India and abutts the vitally important Suez Canal, is held only by virtue of a mandate for the Jewish people, and not as a dominion or possession.
(6) The territories of the world which are anxious to throw off England’s yoke.
(7) The other nations of the world which have a jealous attitude regarding England’s world position, and would be deeply gratified over any misfortune befalling her.
(8) The presence of antagonistic political parties in England.
(9) The existence of Soviet Russia as a threat to the maintenance of the present social structure.
CAN’T CHANGE OFFICIALS
Surveying all these postulates with a broad view to see which offer possibilities to us, we must dispense with any notion of altering the basic anti-Jewish feeling of English officialdom itself.
The sore spot of the empire is at the present India. Moreover, neither Indians nor Arabs have shown any historic loyalties at any time, and by both character and tradition can hardly be expected to.
The Arabs are fanatic and war-like and, by the same token that they are abetted by Indian Moslems, will support Indian Moslems in turn against any anti-English, anti-Christian insurrection. In the latter event this would leave England’s flank totally unprotected with a solid block of Arabs and Afghans between England and the Suez Canal.
Such an all-Moslem insurrection would immediately surround the Canal, in which event it would be hopeless to try to hold India.
VITAL TO EMPIRE
The presence of a large, peaceful Jewish nation on the Eastern Mediterranean, friendly to England, and apart from the community of interests which exists in the Moslem world, is utterly necessary to the future security of the empire. We should take advantage of this accident of circumstances and press it home strongly to the English War Office.
Next in order of importance is England’s far flung position, and her situation as a manufacturing nation which is not self-sufficient.
If a loyal and devoted Jewry were to have it directly and continuously pointed out to them that the English brand of anti-Semitism is a far more malignant disease on its body than the German kind, since it deliberately sabotages the Jewish effort to escape into a free. wholesome life, they can be prevailed upon to recognize that a de facto condition of war exists and guide themselves accordingly.
COULD INVOKE BOYCOTT
Since the English have shown themselves unworthy of their word, there is no reason to assume that they could be trusted in any other undertaking, commercial or otherwise. Our people everywhere, even in the dominions, could be taught to be completely and bitterly anti-English, to refuse to buy English goods, and to ally themselves with the Irish, French, Italians, Indians or any one else who wishes to take a hand at breaking up the English overlordship. Even the Germans are by no means to be overlooked in this, since they among others have not only a strong commercial rivalry with England but a hard resentment against her hegemony of colonial possessions.
Nations which are commercially and politically hostile to England and have looked on us as weak, cringing and worthless individuals in the past, will welcome our attitude and, being realists, directly seek to gain by it. In other words we will simply play the game of the nations against England, as she has played it against us in Palestine.
‘PERFIDIOUS ALBION’
We will energetically publicize the name “perfidious Albion” throughout the world and treat her to a relentless bitter dislike that she will be a long time curing.
We must believe that there is a considerable body of decent English public opinion which is at absolute variance with the present dishonorable British policy in Palestine, and looks on the Jews quite correctly as England’s friends. If we can equip these friends with the threat of retaliation, so that they can put teeth in their remarks, it is quite possible that English officialdom can be moved from its obdurate course before a complete breach is effected by that nation with a resentful Jewish people. However, it might take these smug officials a long time to realize that they were not dealing with the same kind of apologetic weaklings that they faced before, and time is of tremendous importance to us.
ACT THROUGH LEAGUE
We can lay our case before the League of Nations, not by merely complaining about England’s actions, but by actually refusing to cooperate with England further, refusing to pay taxes and to recognize her officials holding out that she had betrayed her trust and had nullified the mandate.
We might strike boldly with open armed rebellion in Palestine which would electrify even our apathetic Jewish masses throughout the world and bring the matter to a showdown, since England would then be in the position of shooting down Jews in the streets and fields of Eretz Yisroel itself.
All this would put the case in unyielding relief before the League which happily appears to be growing stronger. England would be compelled to justify herself before the League, since as I pointed out, Palestine is not an English possession but a mandatory territory, held in trust for the Jewish people. She might be in some danger of losing it and at best would be put in the position of holding it illegally, a position she would hardly care to be in.
SOVIET A BUGABOO
Again, there is the presence of the great Russian bear to the north. This Soviet apparition is a great unspoken bugaboo in the British picture.
No one can believe that the Soviets have ever given over their scheme for world revolution. In making the recent cross-checking set of treaties against territorial aggression, Russia deliberately reserved the right to accept any other nation into the Soviet union which cared to go Communist and join her. With all Asia seething with unrest, this mere statement remains an ominous threat.
Every nation in Western Europe and the British most of all, has a holy horror of any increasing strength of the Soviet Union by virtue of this kind of threatened increase in its territories.
This brings us down to the sad situation of the Jews in eastern and middle Europe.
The world must be perfectly aware that you cannot degrade a virile and highly civilized por-
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
