‘jewish Chronicle’ Urges Zionists Center Efforts in One Palestine Area

(J. T. A. Mali Service)

proposal to limit Zionist activities to a part of Palestine, consolidating the progress so far made and solving the prevailing difficulties, is advocated by the London “Jewish Chronicle,” leading Anglo-Jewish weekly, in its issue out today.

“Ten years experience has shown, we believe, that Zionists, in their splendid enthsuiasm, took upon themselves a larger burden than they could possibly carry to success when they undertook Zionist work as regards the whole of Palestine,” the “Jewish Chronicle” writes. “They have not the men to do the work, nor the means wherewith to accomplish it. And the real and obvious question to which Congress should bend its attention is whether there cannot be a lightening of the present load.

“Why should not Zionists seek means whereby a definite portion of Palestine could become a Jewish Commonwealth, the National Home for the Jewish people? They could concentrate on that portion of the land and put into it intensive work. They have at hand the means whereby a part of Palestine could be nationalized by Jews and for Jews. The means for thus transforming the whole of Palestine they have not. Once that portion, however, became Nationally Jewish in the real sense, it could well become the nucleus from which Jewish Nationalism would spread so that other parts of the land would gradually and naturally in due time come under the Jewish aegis.

“There are, of course, difficulties in the suggestion. But, on the other hand, we are convinced it would solve many very awkward problems, and not least that of the Arab population. Above all, it seems to be the only method having regard to all circumstances, for preserving the National idea and bringing it to fruition. It may be argued that Zionism has come to mean something else than Jewish Nationalism–prosperous and comfortable colonization for instance, as a non-Zionist put it the other day, and as the policy of the Jewish Agency would seem to indicate. If so, however, then tourism were obsolete, and the Zionist Movement would have no further place in the Jewish economy. That we do not believe. If Zionists do what they are able to do well, rather than spoil entirely a larger effort that is evidently beyond their powers, they will at least have been true to Zionist principles After all, the Jewish State which was destroyed by the Romans, was a mere province of Palestine. Yet its influence was world-wide, enduring even to this day.

“Today the Zionist Movement is risking the loss of the substance for the sake of endeavoring to grasp at what is, for practical purposes, no more than a shadow. Some such measure as we suggest is, we believe, an alternative to utter failure. It is, however, one which is best likely to secure in the end all for which Zionism strives,” the paper writes.

“Signs are abundant that there is a prevalent sense in the Zionist Movement of its critical condition,” writes the “Chronicle.” “The coming Congress,” it says, “is being heralded by passionate discussions in which, however, there is tacit agreement in regarding Zionism as having reached a point at which all who range themselves within the ambit of its activities have cause for much anxiety. We cannot hide from ourselves the very obvious fact that the turbulence with which the Congress is being greeted, is indicative of deep and not merely surface causes. For two thousand years the Jewish people had been praying for the opportunity to become once again a National entity in the land they rapturously hailed constantly as their own. They spoke of themselves as in Exile even when material conditions were as favorable for them as man could desire.

“The love of the Land of Israel was bound up in the religion of the Jew. Yet ten years have now elapsed since a great Power declared its desire to encourage Jews as a nation again to people Palestine, and out of some fourteen million Jews in the world no more than about 78,000 have since determined to settle there! It matters nothing to the argument to say that many more would have gone to reside in Palestine if they had been provided with the means, or had been permitted to. The point is that they have not; that last year there were more who emigrated from Palestine than the number of immigrants, that in the ten years since the Balfour Declaration the proportion of Jews in the country to the rest of the population has risen only by about 6 per cent., and that there does not seem much prospect in the near future of a larger settlement. It was a bold thing to contemplate, as did Zionists, and still more so to invite into being, as did the British Government, a Nation to be composed of those who were absent. That it was right and wise and just, does not make it any less a courageous thing to do. It could have succeeded; but the building up of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, without Jews in sufficient numbers there to make the purpose effectual, is an impossibility. Morover, and in a sense, what is even more important, the Jewish people have but inadequately supplied the necessary means whereby the National work could be accomplished.

“Compared with these considerations the policy pursued by the British Government as Mandatory Power, important to be sure, is but a minor matter,” the paper writes.