In an address before the Canadian Women’s Club, George Young, M.V.O., former member of the diplomatic corps and one of the Labor Party in England, declared that the cause of the recent trouble in Palestine was not a religious one, but rather the clash of western industrial civilization and eastern Islamic civilization. It is the collision between two continents-Europe and Asia. It was hoped, he stated, that when the Ottoman Empire, after its adoption of the old Byzantine Greek institutions, had fallen into a decadent condition, it might adopt western civilization. Palestine was largely set up in the hope that the returning Jews would further in Asia the adoption of western industrialism in the form of nationalism. This was introduced by the Zionists. “We British,” he added, “have every sympathy for the Zionists, the idea of their having a national home appeals to us.” The difficulty of the position, Mr. Young claims, lies in the population of Zionists in Palestine. The Zionist Jews who are of the most militant section come in from Russia and are Communists. They have not the same ideals as those from England and the United States. Thus these Zionists, that compose exactly one-sixth of the population in Palestine, are given at least one-half of the political power, with the British casting votes in their favor.
However, Mr. Young strongly affirmed that “we of the Labor Party are going to maintain the Mandate, even if we have to charge the British taxpayer for it, but we shall not be able to do it if this serious trouble in Palestine continues. British public opinion would not stand for it. There is one way to which we may make up our minds. We might hand the Mandate back to the League of Nations, for there would be no authority of armed force behind it. That would put upon the inhabitants of Palestine the obligation of maintaining the peace among themselves. That might quite possibly give the Zionists a chance. Zionism is not only Jewish nationalism. In a certain aspect, it is Jewish imperialism. The artificial establishment of Jewish authority in a place where the Jewish race has no real root, is rather a reversal of the usual order of things. The Jewish race will only be able to succeed in Palestine if they are able to build within the mind the empire that abides.”
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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.
