Jewish Leaders Rebuke Dr. Pritchett for His Report on Palestine Prospects

Jewish public opinion in the United States, as expressed in the statements of Zionist and non-Zionist leaders, was unanimous in its disapproval of the substance and tone of the arguments of Dr. Henry S. Pritchett on the prospects of the Zionist efforts to create a Jewish national home in Palestine.

The only exception was the statement made by Henry Morgenthau to a representative of the New York “Tribune,” voicing his agreement with Dr. Pritchett. Mr. Morgenthau recalled that he was in Palestine “from Christmas to New Years (eight days) last year.” Mr. Morgenthau, referring to a chapter entitled “Zionism a Surrender” in his autobiography, expressed his surprise “how two men could arrive at conclusions so nearly the same. I am completely in accord with Dr. Pritchett’s report,” he stated.

Statements taking issue with Dr. Pritchett’s report were made by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization; Louis Marshall, president of the American Jewish Committee; Dr. Stephen S. Wise, honorary chairman of the United Palestine Appeal; Samuel Untermyer and Judge Bernard A. Rosenblatt.

At the office of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, a representative of the “Jewish Daily Bulletin” was told that Dr. Butler considers it the business of Dr. Pritchett to make any reply he deems necessary to the statements issued yesterday. Dr. Pritchett could not be reached at the time of going to press.

DR. WEIZMANN’S REPLY

“I have not as yet seen the report of Dr. Henry S. Pritchett except the parts of it that have appeared in today’s newspapers.” Dr. Weizmann stated. “My comments, therefore, must be confined to what has been published. I may say at the outset, that the observations of Dr. Pritchett contain statements and arguments, all of which have been made and answered many times before. Unfortunately, these statements and arguments have been the usual stock-in-trade of anti-Zionist agitators both in and out of Palestine. I consider it necessary to make a somewhat extended reply to Dr. Pritchett’s observations only because they have been given out under the auspices of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an organization of merited high standing.

“The report of Dr. Pritchett lends itself with difficulty, to a systematic reply for the reason that his observations lack the elements of orderly presentation. It may be gathered, however, that his criticism of Jewish work in Palestine, and his pessimism with regard to the future of this work, are based upon a number of considerations, chief of them being the agricultural impotence of the land, the absence of industry and industrial possibilities, as well as the fear that Zionism is fraught with disturbing possibilities to the peace of the Near East.

“With regard to the agricultural possibilities of Palestine in general and Zionist colonization work in particular, it is not necessary to engage in academic discussion with Dr. Pritchett. These matters have been the object of investigation by impartial and competent experts, among them Dr. Elwood Mead, formerly of the University of California, and now Reclamation Commissioner of the Department of the Interior of the Federal Government. In a published report by Dr. Mead, he says:

QUOTES PROFESSOR MEAD

” ‘In their agriculture and rural life these valleys promise to be a replica of Southern California. The coastal plain of Palestine, reaching from Gaza to Haifa, is, in everything except its development, a counterpart of the coastal plain of southern California from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Both permit the growth of all kinds of semi-tropical products, and in both the climate makes possible a healthy and attractive life in the open.

” ‘The irrigated areas can be made such a picture of agricultural opulence and rural beauty that they will be a source of pride and satisfaction to the members of the race wherever they live. They can create along the shores of the Mediterranean spots that will rival Cannes and Nice. There is an unrivalled opportunity awaiting the wealth, artistic taste, and national pride of the race around the shores of the bay which has Haifa on the south and acre on the north. Mount Carmel is the southern background; the Syrian hills the northern, with the blue Mediterranean in front and the well-watered plain of Esdraelon as the field on which to create a life that will rival the ancient greatness of the country. Sooner or later the homes and gardens around the bay at Haifa will be one of the show places of the world.’

ARABS PROFITED FROM JEWISH COLONIZATION

“Dr. Pritchett’s observation with regard to the standard of living of the native Arab population is no doubt correct. He fails to observe, however, that this low standard is due entirely to the primitive agricultural methods employed by the Arabs. The fact is that with the recent Jewish colonization only six or seven years old, many of the Jewish settlements are already on the way towards self-support. The fact further is that the modern scientific methods introduced by the Jews are being imitated by the native Arabs with a consequent rise in the standard of living of the native population.

“Immigrants who are now entering Palestine do not, it is true, look forward to a sumptuous mode of living. They are satisfied with modest standards. They have a right to expect that liberal-minded men will not injure their chances for obtaining such a living by circulating reports that make their tasks more difficult. They have confidence in their future on the land. Many who have come have seen the quality of their endeavors, and how the quality of their endeavors, and how the hard soil gives way to the pressure of their intelligent labors, have been convinced that they will succeed in creating a Jewish agricultural class. Why should depreciation and ill-founded pessimism enter to break their splendid morale?

PRITCHETT OVERLOOKED INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

“It is surprising that Dr. Pritchett failed to observe the energetic and promising industrial life which is developing today in Palestine. It were only necessary for him to have visited the city of Haifa which is to become in the near future the leading harbor of Palestine and perhaps of the Near East. There, he could not have failed to observe a number of industrial plants in full operation which would do credit to advanced western countries. Among them he would have found the Nesher Portland Cement Factory, a $5,000,000 enterprise which is not only providing Palestine with cement but is exporting its products to other Near Eastern countries. He would have found the Shemen Oil and Soap works; he would have found the Palestine Flour Mills; he would have found the Palestine Flour the Athlit Salt works, all of them plants of considerable dimensions. In Tel Aviv which he has apparently visited, he should have found a number of industrial enterprises of equally large dimensions, including the Delphiner Silk Works, as well as some six hundred smaller industrial plants,” Dr. Weizmann declared.

“It is more than surprising to find how summarily Dr. Pritchett dismisses the Rutenberg electrification project which has only recently been fully capitalized and organized with the Marquis of Reading former Viceroy of India, as the Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr. Pritchett states that there is no water power in Palestine except a “modest amount that might be developed from the Jordan between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea.” Perhaps the Project is modest if it is to be compared with Niagara, but so far as Palestine is concerned, the Rutenberg project, as has been amply attested by competent government engineers, will be sufficient to provide electric light and power as well as accomplish the irrigation of large tracts of land, not only for Palestine but for Transjordania as well. Is it possible that Dr. Pritchett was not aware of the fact that the Palestine Electric Company, which is carrying through the Rutenberg Concession, has secured a capital of $5,000,000 for the Jordan project and that the chairmanship of the Marquis of Reading as well as the presence on the Board of Directors of such industrialists and financiers as Sir Alfred Mond, Sir Hugo Hirst, James de Rothschild and others are the best attestation of the soundness and value of the enterprise? Granted that for hundreds of years Palestine was retrograde in an industrial sense, this evidence of industrial possibilities should be greeted with satisfaction, and not with a blanket rejection of every possibility for the industrial development of the land,” Dr. Weizmann stated.

PEACE IN PALESTINE DUE TO JEWS

“But Dr. Pritchett seems to be concerned principally with the political and international implications of the Jewish enterprise in Palestine. He expresses the fear lest the work that is being done by the Jews will complicate a situation that is fraught with danger to the peace of the Near East. On this question a great deal has been said and written, both before and after the Balfour Declaration and the issuance of the Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain. Dr. Pritchett may be assured that the statesmen who were responsible for the adoption of the Zionist policy in Great Britain, as well as those of the League of Nations who confirmed the Mandate, were not indifferent to this question. The arguments, however, in those days, were more or less academic. They dealt with prediction and supposition. Today it is no longer necessary to deal with the question in this manner. Today it is merely necessary to point to the fact that Palestine is the only country in the Near East which is being administered, and efficiently administered with practically no military forces. It is the only peaceful spot of the world full of unrest, and it has been admitted by those responsible for the security and order of Palestine that Jewish work in Palestine has acted as one of the most potent stabilizing forces for the peace of the country. So obvious is this fact to all observers in Palestine, that on his recent visit to Palestine de Jouvenel, the former High Commissioner of Syria, expressed the wish that the Zionists would extend their activities to that strife-torn country.

ARABS AND JEWS COOPERATING

“The record of the relations between the Jews and the Arabs since the war is a record of steady improvement. It is true that in the beginning interested and professional agitators succeeded in bringing about a certain amount of strain between these two kindred peoples. With the continuation. however, of our work in Palestine, the actual facts, which have resulted in improving the condition of the Arab population, have been more potent than the propaganda of agitators. The relations between the Jews and the Arabs are fast approaching relations of mutual cooperation. Jews and Arabs are forming business partnerships. Arabs are joining the Jewish Federation of Labor. Arab children are being educated in Jewish schools. Let no misguided friends of racial peace interrupt this growing amity and cooperation by over emphasizing temporary differences.

“The fear that Dr. Pritchett expressed that the incoming Jewish immigration is displacing the native Arabs is entirely groundless. Palestine is admittedly capable of holding a considerably larger population than it now has. The Jewish colonization policy is carefully conducted with a view to safeguarding to the utmost every right of the native Arab population and not a single instance of injustice resulting to an Arab from Jewish colonization can be cited to bear out the fear entertained by Dr. Pritchett” Dr. Weizmann said.

DENIES CHARGE OF “NATIONAL EGOTISM”

“Perhaps the most curious part of Dr. Pritchett’s report as published in the newspapers is his fear that the restoration of a Jewish National Home in Palestine will result in a segregation of the Jewish community that will express itself in an attitude of “national egotism” and antagonism to other peoples. Obviously, if the Jewish claim to national self-determination is to be denied on that ground, it follows that no national group has a right to a separate existence. It seems rather strange to charge a people that has been nationally helpless these past eighteen centuries with “national egotism.” It is hardly possible to enter here into an extended discussion of the theories of nationalism which Dr. Pritchett’s fear implies. Zionism undoubtedly flows out of the national consciousness of the Jewish people, out of their conviction that they are capable, as a national entity, of contributing to the sum total of the culture and civilization of mankind in the future as they did in the past. As Dr. Pritchett appears to use the word, segregation implies an anti-social attitude hostile to all the races of mankind. The Jewish community that is now developing in Palestine sees its future in an altogether different light. That community does believe in a national concentration, but one which will establish cooperative and peaceful relations with all other national groups for the common benefit of mankind.”

LOUIS MARSHALL TERMS PRITCHETT’S REPORT “EXAGGERATED AND HASTY”

Louis Marshall described Dr. Pritchett’s report as “exaggerated and hasty.”

“Dr. Pritchett’s conclusions are drawn rather hastily and indicate that he does not know a great deal about the Zionist movement,” Mr. Marshall declared.

“He exaggerates the idea of a conflict between the Arabs and Jews. My information is that now none but the friendliest relations exist between them.”

In a statement issued yesterday Dr. Stephen S. Wise said: “The Pritchett report on Palestine is not so much a report as a repercussion of the loose generalizations that can be heard from the lips of any Arab politician, absentee Syrian landlord or Mohammedan renegade. If I were not assured that Dr. Pritchett has just visited Palestine. I would be led to believe from the tenor of his co-called report that he has quoted from the files of Arab newspapers of 1918 and 1919 before Great Britain had become the mandatory power for the League of Nations. I shall postpone a fuller statement touching the Pritchett report until I have had the opportunity to read the documents in their entirety on which this report rests. I cannot, however, put off for a single moment dealing with the allegations that the leaders of the Zionist movement are unmindful of the difficulties of the problem and heedless of the interests of the existing native population. If Dr. Pritchett viewed Palestine with open mind as well as open eyes, he must have seen that the difficulties of the problem are being faced in the most earnest and resolute fashion and that the difficulties, great as they are, have in part been met and solved by the incredible sacrifices of the Jewish pioneers in the colonies and settlements of Palestine and by the material cooperation, as yet insufficient of world Jewry.

NOT DISPLACING ARABS, SAYS DR. WISE

“As for the charge that we are seeking to ‘displace’ the Arabs and are unconcerned with respect to their interests, did Dr. Pritchett learn nothing with regard to the enormous prices paid to Arab and are unconcerned with respect to their interests, did Dr. Pritchett learn nothing with regard to the enormous prices paid to Arab landlords for lands purchased from them and for the most part reclaimed for productivity after centuries of disuse. Surely Dr. Pritchett must have seen with what scrupulous care the Jewish settlers have regard to the interests of the Arab population. Does not Dr. Pritchett know that a referendum today of the Arab population of Palestine would result in a great majority in favor of Jewish settlement in Palestine because of what Jews have brought to and done for Palestine within a generation, transforming waste places and denuded hillsides into richly flourishing settlements, which have brought new standards of life to Arab, Christian and Jew in Palestine?

“It is not true that unhappiness and bitterness have been increased for the Jew and the Arab by the Jewish settlement of Palestine. Among a handful of pseudo-Christians and apostate Mohammedans, there may be illfeeling against the Jews in Palestine, but for the most part happier relations have come to obtain between Jew and Arab and will continue to obtain, unless misguided investigators and surveyors succeed in bedeviling a situation which is good, because Jews have brought nothing but good to Palestine and up to this time the Arabs are greater gainers than the Jews as a result of the processes which are transforming the land.

“Any man, who can look upon what young sacrificial Jewish men and women have done in the settlement of Palestine, performing miracles of material and moral and even spiritual regeneration, and speak of the results as Dr. Pritchett does as unfortunate, makes clear that any Jewish effort at self-redemption and self ennoblement appears unfortunate to him.

“There is more to be said,” Dr. Wise stated in closing.” It is a lamentable thing that a man, making such a report as this, should be clothed with the authority with which the Carnegie Foundation seems to invest him.”

UNTERMYER’S STATEMENT

Sharp criticism of the report was made in Samuel Untermyer’s statement. He said:

“It is apparent from Dr. Pritchett’s report that what he does not know about the political or economic conditions in Palestine would fill volumes. It is surprising that a man of his training and attainments should have undertaken to pass judgment on so complex a situation after a few days or weeks of investigation.”

JEWS PAY FOR LAND, SAYS JUDGE ROSENBLATT

Judge Bernard A. Rosenblatt, who sails soon on a trip to Palestine, contrasted the “morality” of the Jewish settlers, who, he says, purchase their land from the native Arabs, with that of the Pilgrims and Virginians who “took the land from the Indians without compensation.”

The Judge pointed out that Palestine contains about the same area as Massachusetts with only 800,000 residents as against that commonwealth’s 3,500,000. Palestinian oranges alone sold for $6,000,000 last year he said.