James Malcolm, former Minister of Trade and Commerce, recalled today that the late Prime Minister Disraeli drew up a convention envisioning Cyprus, among other things, as a facade to a Zionist Palestine.
Long before Dr. Theodor Harzl had initiated the movement for political Zionism, Mr. Malcolm said in a letter to The Times, the convention was approved by the Sultan of Turkey, but was frustrated by outside opposition.
Mr. Malcolm emphasized that the Arabian peninsula was never more than a fraction populated, and therefore there was no danger of Jews occupying too much of its area, even if they immigrated at a great rate.
Citing as an example Lebanon, French mandated territory, where the Arab minority does not fear the Christian majority, he asked:
“Why not establish similarly a sort of Jewish majority in the Lebanon-like region in that small corner of the vast territory, to which the Philistines gave their name?”
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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.
