The urgency of arming the Palestine Jews in view of possible German attack is stressed by the Manchester Guardian in an editorial on the threat to Turkey and the Iraq oil fields.
Declaring that Syria, under Vichy administration, would not offer any obstacle to a German army which had forced its way through Turkey, the editorial asserted: “For many years it was argued in these columns that not only justice and honor demanded that the Jews be established in Palestine as a national home, but that this was a great imperial interest. So it was, and is, until now we are in need and nothing has been done.”
Pointing out that “of all peoples, the Jews would be most miserably doomed if Hitler came to Palestine,” the editorial said: “We can hardly do less now than we did during the Arab revolt, when Jews were trained as supernumerary police.” The paper referred to General Wavell’s praise of the “remarkable courage and splendid spirit of self-sacrifice” of Palestinians in the British forces in the western desert.
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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.
