The Jerusalem correspondent of Great Britain and the East, semi-official Colonial Office publication, reports that the Arabs are afraid to give their consent to the legislative council proposal because they fear a Zionist trap.
Although many of the leaders favor the council, the correspondent says on the basis of information “obtained from many reliable quarters,” their suspicions have been aroused by the Jews’ vigorous opposition to the council.
The Arabs reason that since it is known they would join in any project opposed by the Jews, the Zionists are only faking opposition to lure them into accepting the council, the correspondent says, adding that the Arabs fear the Jews may then turn about and take part in the assembly.
The Arabs are apprehensive, the correspondent says, that in this way the Jews “hope to secure Arab-Jewish cooperation and harmony under one roof and proclaim this to the world.”
The publication, expressing gratification over the re-appointment of Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope as Palestine High Commissioner, holds the council is “a perfectly natural development” in view of Britain’s record in overseas countries.
The altering of the Holy Land’s position by the Ethiopian war is stressed. “It is now bound up irretrievably with strategic and commercial considerations which interest a far larger section of the world than the Eastern Mediterranean.”
The publication complains about “the continuation of lawlessness” in Palestine.
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