The United Nations were warned today that they should not underestimate the Arab threat of a “holy war” between the Islamic world in the East and the Christian world in the West if Palestine is established as a Jewish State.
The warning was sounded by The Spectator, one of Britain’s leading liberal publications, in an editorial declaring that “the United Nations must realize that the Palestine problem is unquestionably a problem intimately concerning the Arab communities in the Middle East.”
“We cannot ride roughshod over their interests without injustice and peril,” the editorial says. “It would be unwise to minimize the extent of the Arab feeling with regard to the Palestine question, even if this feeling is not just,” the article adds, referring to the threat of Azzam Bey, general secretary of the Pan-Arab League, concerning a “holy war.”
The editorial then goes on to point out that the World Zionist Conference which concluded last week in London was “extremely provocative” in its demand for the establishment of Palestine as a Jewish State. This demand, the article says, is not only a misrepresentation of the Balfour Declaration, but “is quits impossible of fulfilment.”
“Palestine is no larger than Wales and has no space to receive immigrants on a scale-which would solve the world Jewish problem, even if the rights of the Arab majority which are assured under the Balfour Declaration are entirely ignored,” the article argues. It asserts that the British Government is faced with a difficult and delicate situation and “with risks attached to any decision it may make.” It therefore urges the government “to take time and to think,” before issuing any statement on the Palestine issue.
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.
