Palestine and the Zionists

The period of tranquility and progress which Palestine has enjoyed since the Cairo Conference of 1921 has been suddenly and violently disturbed by a fierce explosion of racial and religious passion. Nearly two hundred cruel murders, for the most part of defenseless people, have startled and distressed the numerous public widely distributed throughout the English speaking world to whom the vision of a Jewish National Home makes its persevering appeal. Order has now been restored. Troops, ships and aeroplanes have swiftly reached the scene. The situation is under control and searching and impartial inquiry is being made to ascertain the immediate causes and to apprehend and punish the guilty according to law. We have now to think of the future and to decide upon measures which will prevent the recurrence of such tragic events.

At the Cairo Conference in 1921 I made a general settlement of British affairs in Palestine and Mesopotamia. These arrangements have in principle been accepted by every government, Coalition, Labor and Conservative, which has held office since. The object I had steadily in view was the faithful fulfillment with the minimum of military expense of the undertakings into which Great, Britain had entered during the war. For this purpose it was and still is imperative that fair and equal treatment should be extended both to Jew and Arab in the Middle East. Thus, while on the one hand, the development of the Zionist aim was fostered and furthered, the Arab race was conciliated by the creation of an Arab kingdom in Iraq under the Emir Feisal, and the appointment of the Emir Abdulla, another son of the sherif of Mecca, to be Governor of Transjordania. The guiding principle was to convince both Jew and Arab that fruitful and happy destinies lay before them in these wide regions, that each could develop his own ideals, that both were respected and that each in his own way could enjoy his inheritance and enrich a common country. This conception must rule our thought and action today.

But the policy of 1921 for Palestine did not neglect the practical side. I formed a British Gendarmerie, five hundred strong, composed largely of men of the ex-officer class, who were to be the prime means of keeping the public peace. A police force of this kind is far more effective for preventing disorders in such countries than military garrisons. These superior police riding about the country or swiftly traversing it in motor cars, are in intimate and friendly touch with every section and class in the community. They know what is going to happen before it happens. They acquire great influence with the population and soon win their confidence. They become the trusted guides and advisors of the people in many difficulties.

This force was fully established and functioning when I left office at the end of 1922. When I returned in 1924 I found it had been disbanded. I regretted this, but we were assured that the situation had so much improved that this heavy expense upon the Palestine budget could be dispensed with Indeed, it may be argued that all would have been well but for an unfortunate and precipitate action by the new labor socialist government. In order to gratify some extreme sections of their supporters, they went out of their way to dismiss Lord Lloyd, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, and theerafter published proposals involving the withdrawal of the British troops from Cairo and Alexandria. The whole of the Middle East is intimately related. Beneath the smooth surface of British rule and the slender garrisons which normally sustain it are smouldering the antagonisms of centuries. There are always feuds and animosities. There are always scores to be settled and fanatical thirsts to be slaked.

Any appearance of lack of will power on the part of the British government or of lack of confidence in their mission in those countries, blows like a draught of air on the dull, fierce embers. I have no doubt that the declaration that the British garrisons would evacuate Egypt, where for nearly fifty years they have maintained peace and progress and the marked censure and humiliation of a competent and fearless administrator like Lord Lloyd, was taken as a signal by the discontented factions among the Arabs that the hour to strike had come. What has happened in Palestine is only a bloody foretaste of what will undoubtedly happen on a far larger scale throughout the Nile Valley and would happen on a gigantic scale from one end of India to the other once the sober guiding and pacifying influence of the British imperial power were withdrawn.

Curiously enough, however, the Arabs could not have chosen a worse moment for their outbreak. Their leaders have completely misread the British political situation. There never has been a government which, if it does its duty, can more easily reestablish order in Palestine. If the outbreak had occurred with the Conservatives in office, the Socialist and Liberal parties would have assailed the government and in their criticism must inevitably have been drawn step by step towards advocating the abandonment of the mandate for Palestine and the refutation of the promises made to the Zionist Jews. In this they would have been vigorously supported by the popular Conservative newspapers like the “Daily Mail” and the “Daily Express.” The Conservative government therefore would have had a very difficult political situation to face had these disasters occurred during their tenure.

Mr. MacDonald’s administration are, however, politically in a very strong position on this question. They are themselves pledged as a party spontaneously and by their own free will to make good the Balfour Declaration and to further the creation of a Jewish National Home. They have not failed to take the necessary steps to restore order. They will certainly be supported in any requests they may make for money or men by the vast majority of the Conservative and Liberal members of the House of Commons. The hostile organs of the Conservative press will not be able to exercise any influence upon the decision. There is therefore, every assurance that a calm and firm policy can and will be carried out in (Continued on Page 4)

Palestine and that the obligations into which Great Britain has entered will be faithfully discharged to Jew and Arab as far as that is humanly possible.

Let us see what these obligations are. It has never been contemplated that the Jews were to be constituted a ruling and dominant race in Palestine to which all other races should be made subservient. The rights and claims of the Arabs to an equal citizenship, to an equally careful study of their special interests and legitimate sentiments are also sacred. Why should these be thought to be incompatible with the building up of a Jewish National Home? The Jews have done no harm to the Arabs of Palestine. On the contrary they have brought them nothing but good gifts, more wealth, more trade, more civilization, new sources of revenue, more employment, a higher rate of wages, larger cultivated areas, a better water supply-in a word the fruits of reason and modern science.

Anyone who has seen, as I have, the beautiful garden township of Tel Aviv, or the fruitful groves of Rishonle-Zion will need no further convincing. Here, out of the blistering desert, patience, industry and civilized intelligence have created green, smiling fields ### vineyards and delicious, shady groves, the home of thriving, happy, simple communities who, even if there had been no Balfour Declaration would deserve the strong protection and the sympathies of free and enlightened people in every quarter of the globe.

Out of the evil may come good. The attention not only of the British Empire but of the whole world has been directed to Palestine and its fortunes. It is too soon to anticipate what measures of additional security must be taken. But I am glad to have this opportunity of making it clear that I regard the maintenance of an effective British Gendarmerie as an essential element in the proper discharge of our task. For the rest, there is room for all. There is no country of whom it can more truly be said than of Palestine, “that the earth is a generous mother and will provide for all her children if they will cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.” The population is not a fifth, perhaps not a tithe of what it was in Roman times. The barren hillsides are still marked by the terracings of a vanished agriculture. The arid plains lack only comparatively simple irrigation works to bloom like a garden.

So long as the Zionist leaders keep their ranks vigilantly purged of the vicious type of Russian subversive they will have it in their power to revive the life and frame of their native land. They are entitled to a full and fair chance. All great victorious powers are committed in their behalf and Great Britain which has accepted a common responsibility in a direct and definite form must not and will not weary in its lawful discharge.

Copyright 1929 by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.