American Revisionists to Hold Conference December 13

Commission of Inquiry, the Palestine Jewish Federation of Labor said, ‘the new settlers know that it is their task to widen the country’s framework, opening up new avenues of employment for large masses to come, by developing latent resources, by reclaiming the wastes, by intensifying the farming of semi-cultivated land, by creating new enterprises in industry. With the help of scientific methods and the perseverance of devoted pioneers, the country which supported millions in bygone years can surely be made into a home for millions once more.’

ARAB APPREHENSIONS UNFOUNDED

“I believe that Arab apprehensions as to the future of their race in Palestine are, for the most part, unfounded, and that even the short view that they take is a mistaken one. There is no wholesale depression of Arab cultivators. Of fewer than 700 tenants distributed in the Plains of Esdraelon and Acre, 90-95% have been absorbed as tenant farmers in adjacent villages, and there is not a single case where an Arab peasant owner has been uprooted. They sell only a part of their land, and use the money to pay their debts and improve the quality of their holdings. The main facts of the land situation are—I am without the information likely to be contained in the report of Sir John Hope Simpson,—that of the 11 million dunams of tillable land in Western Palestine, one million dunams are in Jewish ownership, five millions are occupied by Arab fellaheen and five millions are either uncultivated or are bare fallows.

“It has been said that the fundamental cause of the riots in Palestine was ‘the Arab feeling of animosity and hostility towards the Jews.’ This in effect means that the Jews brought massacre upon themselves by being where the nations of the world said they had the right to be, and where His Majesty’s Government said they were ‘as of right and not on sufferance.’ Had there been no Jews in Palestine there would of course have been no ‘animosity and hostility aroused against them,’ where there are now beautiful orange groves and smiling fields, there would have remained the fever-stricken swamps where the Arabs themselves could not live because the angel of death too often visited their tents.

PEACE ONLY SOLUTION

“I have now reached the point in my study of the racial problem in Palestine when I can see no way out of the present trouble other than that peace should be made between the peoples themselves.

“How can this beneficent understanding between them be assured? First of all by a real attempt on the part of both Arabs and Jews to understand each other. Both must be prepared to concede as well as to demand, and both must face the situation as it is. The Jew must somehow convince the Arab that he is regarded as an equal partner in the creation of a prosperous land; the Arab must accept the fact that the Balfour Declaration cannot, and will not be withdrawn, and he must henceforth devote his efforts to getting the best out of the conditions as they exist.

POSSIBILITIES OF RACIAL COOPERATION

“Let me say at once that the possibilities of racial cooperation are more promising than many people believe, and much has already been done. By their provision of hospitals, clinics, schools, etc., the Jewish people have laid the foundations of this new Palestinian life, and I have reason to know that an enlightened section of the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine are working at the problem with an insight and a zeal which promises the best results.

“Until their studies of the methods by which further attempts at racial cooperation can be made are more advanced, it would not be helpful for me to make any extended comment upon what is possible. It seems to me, however, that the movement for racial cooperation can best be begun in, and be based upon, life in the villages wherever Arabs and Jews live and work side by side. The cooperation attempted must be of a practical kind for ends that are mutually beneficial.

“It is stated in the main report of the Palestine Commission of Inquiry that during the long period of the year when the soil cannot be tilled, the politically minded Arab devotes all his attention to political discussion. If this is so, it would be for his own good, and for the good of Palestine, if some of his interest could be diverted to immediate neighborly duties. I am not competent to say just how this should be done but I have ventured to suggest that the work of the interracial committees in the southern states of America should be studied. A similar plan was adopted in South Africa after the Boer War. These local committees should restrict themselves to the practical affairs of their own community such as clean streets, pure water, child welfare, hospital services, nursing, home hygiene, sanitation, education and the development of cooperation in methods of farming and water conservation. They should not attempt to deal with racial difficulties, but aim only to prove beneficial to the whole population in the area they serve. Central committees in the towns should pool the experience of all for the use of all, and a national representative committee should do for the nation what the central committees would do for their respective areas.

ADVISABILITY OF INSTITUTE

“It might also be advisable to consider the question of the creation of an Institute of Middle East Relations, on the lines of the Institute of Pacific Relations in order that cooperation between the peoples might extend over a wider area.

“Let me in conclusion summarize what I have been trying to say to you. Every nation has a rightful claim to racial preservation and to cultural identity, and the Jewish contributions to civilization make its claim almost incontestable. Nationalism is an evil only when it develops into extra-nationalism and self adoration. The Jewish people in the past generation have begun a new epoch in the history of their race. Their fathers waited for ages—waited and prayed, until it occurred to Herzl and others that they had for ages been asking God to do for them what He might have been waiting for them to do for Him.

“Therefore Herzl, himself a prophet, like Nehemiah, said to his people, ‘Let us arise and build.’ Great Britain will not break her promise to the Promised Land; she will faithfully carry out her obligations under the Mandate and she asks for patient cooperation of both Arabs and Jews in her efforts to build in Palestine a united and prosperous nation.

DEPRESSION UNJUSTIFIED

“Finally, I would say that there appears to me little to justify the depression which has settled upon the Jewish people. The disappointments of the past ten years are small in comparison with the results achieved. The Jewish people have been trained to endure and to overcome difficulties, and they have always found their Mordecai in the hour of their need. What you have to do in Palestine is, without haste and without rest, to continue your work, and then, as in the times of Isaiah, you will be able to say, ‘The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.’ (IX-10.)

“And meanwhile let the pioneers in Palestine also take courage ‘for the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose’.”