Full Text Dr. Judah L. Magnes’s Pamphlet “like All the Nations?”

I am issuing this pamphlet in English and in Hebrew entirely on my own responsibility, and no organization, institution or body of men is to be held responsible for it.

For more than seven years I have been in Palestine, a witness of some of the noble work done here, and I have done what I could to further this work myself and through others. But all this while and for several years before that, I had been an onlooker at Zionist politics and I have seen things done and left undone which it was hard to pass by in silence. I had, however, participated in previous years so actively in Jewish and Zionist work in America, and my opposition to the war to which I gave free expression, gave me such a surfeit of politics, that I had determined to make every effort “to keep out of politics” should I be fortunate enough to carry out the ardent hope of many years to settle in the Holy Land.

I had thought that by devoting myself single-mindedly to the building up of the Hebrew University as a center of learning and of inspiration, in the idea of which I believed throughout a generation, it would be possible to leave politics to others.

EXPLAINS ENTRANCE TO POLITICS

But recent events have made me realize again, all too clearly, what I should have preferred to forget, that, after all, politics means lives and all too often, too, the determination of moral, social and even religious issues. It was for that reason that I concluded, not without conflict with myself, that it would be necessary for me, as it should be for all of us in these critical times, to contribute my share, whatever it was worth, to the political discussion. I found this the more imperative because the official attitude on the Arab question appeared to me either intransigent or vague. Not being an official of any organization that is entitled to speak or negotiate in political matters, I have felt and I feel that I could be most helpful by speaking my own mind. This might at least aid in bringing about intelligent discussion and decision in Palestine and elsewhere.

CONVOCATION SPEECH NECESSARY

The interest with which my address at the opening of this year’s term at the University (November 18, 1929) and my interviews in the New York “Times” and the New York “Day” have been met, is proof that speech was necessary. If now I issue this pamphlet, it is that the process of clarification may be carried further. It may well be that it is premature for official personages and organizations to speak out or to take action. But it is not premature for others to discuss the fundamental and practical problems involved. Indeed, the discussion and the planning as well as action should have been going on for ten years past.

FIRST ARTICLE ANSWERS CRITICS

The first article in this pamphlet is published here for the first time and is, in a measure, an answer to some of my critics. It does not pretend to be a full answer, because the elaboration of some points would make this pamphlet too much like a book.

The second article is a reproduction of an interview which appeared in the New York “Times,” November 24, 1929, as a comment upon an interview published on the same day and prepared by Mr. H. St.J. B. Philby, the author of “The Heart of Arabia,” “The Arabian Mandates” and “Arabia of the Wahabis,” and formerly Chief British representative in Transjordania, and before that Adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, Mesopotamia. I am inserting also the main points of Mr. Philby’s interview.

ATTACHES IMPORTANCE TO PHILBY’S ARTICLE

I have been asked why I attached importance to Mr. Philby’s article, which was written before I had met him. It was for these reasons: First, because Mr. Philby knows Arabia and Arabs as but few non-Arabs do. Second, because Mr. Philby is well known for his friendship to the Arab cause, and he has also had the reputation of being unfriendly to Zionism. It seemed to me that a moderate expression of opinion from such a source should be treated seriously. Third, because Mr. Philby is a not unknown member of the British Labor Party, now in power in England. And fourth, because Mr. Philby wrote his article after he had been in conference with not un-important Arab leaders.

I am also publishing a telegram I sent to the New York “Day.” This was in answer to a telegram from them saying that an interview with me had been published in New York on November 20 making me say I advocated the abrogation of the Balfour Declaration—just the opposite of what I actually did say in the genuine interview published on November 24 in the New York “Times.” It appears that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in Jerusalem has made premature use of an advance copy of my “Times” interview, and had sent what purported to be an interview I had given them. I had given them no interview. Recording this here may also help us realize just how “like all the nations” some scribes of Israel in the Land of Israel have become.

REPRINTS LETTER OF 1921

There is also included a letter which appeared in the London “Jewish Chronicle” on August 26, 1921. This letter was written after the Jaffa riots of May 1921, and was an answer to a suestion of some of my friends in America as to why I could not reenter Zionist life. This letter was published a week before the first after-the-war