British Papers Ask for the Fortification of Palestine Hills and Valleys

While some British newspapers are calling for the fortification of the mountains and valleys of Palestine and emphasise that the Jews can best check any landing of Nazi parachutists on the coastal plain, the Economist, leading British organ on economic questions, features an article today stating that “the most important problem at the moment is not how to satisfy Jewish ambitions but how to defend Palestine and the Middle-East.”

“The weight of this defense cannot be borne by a Jewish force,” the paper writes. “Even if expanded to the very maximum, such a force will have to fall on British and Empire troops. The Jewish genius can best serve the interests of Palestine and of the war effort by directing itself to the question of supplies in which it has already made some extraordinary achievements.”

A different attitude is taken in an article published in the Tribune by Geoffrey Lanstowne, noted British journalist. Stressing the fact that the defense of Palestine is vital for the protection of empire communications, the writer argues that the triangle Haifa-Suez-Aden must be defended at all costs in order to keep the lines open for conveying store and reinforcements to the Middle East intact and to prevent the Nazis from forcing the backdoor to the Caucasus.

JEWS LIVE IN PALESTINE REGIONS WHERE NAZI PARACHUTISTS COULD LAND

“It is fortunate,” Landstowne writes, “that the coastal plain and the valleys of Palestine where enemy forces and parachutists could land are settled by Jews. The natural defenses of the hilly areas in the Sinai peninsula and Judea, on which a second line of defense ought to be based, would present enormous difficulties to the invader, while a still better guarantee for successful resistance can be found in the loyalty and devotion of Palestinian Jewry to the Allied cause.”

“Whatever their complaints against the British,” the article continues, “the Jews of Palestine, like their fellow-Jews throughout the world, will always keep faith with the Allied cause. Hitler’s chances in the Eastern Mediterranean would have been much fairer if it were not for the Jews in Palestine. The fact that there are 500,000 of them, spiritually and physically virile, a progressive civilized society, and with the consciousness of a nation in the making, is of paramount importance in relation to the fate of democracy and the issue of the war in that part of the world.”

The article then goes on to point out that Palestine would have become a stimulus to the whole of the Middle East had it not in the years preceding the war been “the scene of much obstruction from feudal Arabs, Axis agents and also from stale, unimaginative British officials.” After comparing the fact that thirty million Arabs in Egypt and East of Suez have not given any appreciable military support to the Allies, with the tremendous war effort of the half-a-million Jews in Palestine, the article concludes by urging more moral support and encouragement to be given to the fighting Jews of Palestine.