At the beginning of his article Mr. Ludwig notes the racial similarity between Jews and Arabs. Though the Arabs in Palestine are superior in numbers to the Jews there, they are, says Ludwig, “confronted by one of the cleverest of all races, a race which by virtue of its intelligence and tenacity has maintained itself better than any other during the last 2,000 years. These qualities, it is true, do not make men more handsome, but they make them more successful.”
Palestine, according to Ludwig, “is the international land par excellence” because of its being sacred to three religions. Though only one percent of the Jews of the world live today in Palestine, only 4 percent of all the Arabs of the world live there. Because the Jews “are united by a culture which is closely linked with Christianity and hence is of greater concern to half a billion people than all the treasures of Arabian wisdom,” the nations of the world “decided to give back to this remarkable race a kind of center such as it long ago lost.”
When Ludwig asked the Jerusalem Mufti what Balfour had in mind during the war when he made promises to both Jews and Arabs, the Mufti replied: “He had England in mind.”
The Arab cry that “the Jews are dispossessing us” isn’t true, says Ludwig, who believes that the whole Arab resentment against the Jew is motivated by the Jews’ greater enterprise and success in agriculture and industry.
Zionists and Arabs, as well as the British in Palestine, have made mistakes, feels Ludwig. The Zionists have paid too little attention to the Arabs and have made too much noise, and “it was likewise a mistake to carry the events at the Wailing Wall from the sphere of religion over into that of nationalism,” that is, for the Zionists to take over a religious problem “which did not directly concern them.” The Arabs were mistaken when they thought the world would not be aroused by the August massacres. The greatest mistake of the British was that “nearly all their officials, with the exception of the half-dozen highest, have constantly found themselves in more or less silent opposition of the Jews.” Ludwig mentions the fact that during the Arab disturbances of 1921, when 12,000 British soldiers were at hand, the disturbances were not checked at the start, “because the execution of many orders was handicapped by the resistance of the officials.”
Ludwig quotes an Arab fellah as saying to him:
“If they kill a thousand Jews, millions more will come to avenge their brothers. If they kill a thousand Arabs, there are millions of others to avenge them too. Then why do they kill each other?”
Commenting upon this, Ludwig says:
“Even to the cadence in which it was spoken, this observation of the Arabian peasant resembled the answer of a Jewish scribe. This poor fellah came nearer to the solution of the question than all the politicians among the three interested peoples with whom I talked in Jerusalem.”
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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.
