News Brief

tion, the general welfare is served? It is the general welfare that we are after.

LAND QUESTION REQUIRES STUDY

This question of the land therefore requires thorough-going study and careful and just handling, and here, too, restrictions must be placed upon the power of the Legislative Assembly; and the League of Nations, through the International Labor Bureau or otherwise, should be concerned with the land question in an active way and not merely in the capacity of a receiver of reports.

RECOGNITION OF HEBREW STUMBLING BLOCK

One would have thought that the official rights of the Hebrew language in all schools and governmental departments would be recognized as a matter of course. But I have been amazed to find that among some Arab leaders this is one of the chief stumbling-blocks. They are ready to show all honor to the Hebrew language. But they want the one official language to be Arabic. This would be for them the symbol of the Arab National State or Government. But if the theory advanced in these pages be true, that the Holy Land is no place for an Arab National State or Government, but for a bi-national country with a Mandate as nearly permanent as possible held by Great Britain from the League of Nations, it should be clear that the official and equal status of the Hebrew language must also be removed constitutionally from the competence of the Legislative Assembly to interfere with. It is not sufficient for the genuine revival of the Hebrew language and culture, for Hebrew to be taught in the schools alone. It must permeate life. No more can a Jewish spiritual and intellectual Center be created if we have a Hebrew University alone. The University must be based on a community living an Hebraic life, both through its participation in Government and in its agriculture, industry and labor.

I have not thought it essential to mention here such self-understood and non-controversial points as the complete freedom of religious practice and belief, and the equality of every individual before the law. Nor have I included such controversial points as the fate of advanced social and labor legislation, and the political status of woman.

If a political regime can be worked out either through a constitution or through a treaty or in some other binding and international way, that can safeguard the three rights above outlined, then I am heartily in favor of including within this regime, but by no means as the whole of it, a Legislative Assembly in which the two nationalities shall participate upon the basis of a carefully worked out system of suffrage.

MAINTENANCE OF COLONIAL REGIME IMPOSSIBLE

It is right in morals—insofar as political forms have anything to do with morals at all—that the people of this and every other country should have a voice in their own government; and it is not possible, even though it were desirable, to maintain the present status quo—an absolutist colonial regime. It is not possible, because the British Government is making or has made political concessions in Egypt, Iraq and India, even in wild Transjordan, and the French Government has been doing the same in Syria. Why then not Palestine? Because the Jews are there? The Jewish conscience will not bear this for long. It must recognize, sooner, rather than later and from good will rather than through compulsion, that the inhabitants of this country, both Arabs and Jews, have not only the right but the duty to participate, in equitable and practical ways, in the government of their common Homeland.

I am asked, must we do that now? My answer is: Yes, now, and the pity is that we did not do it before Hebron and Safed. Now, because it is right that it be done, and the sooner the right thing is done the better, practically speaking, all round. We must pay bitterly for our fault of not having proposed and done this long since. The blame rests on each of us. Mea culpa.

MUST FACE PROBLEMS DESPITE POGROMS

And as the reward for the butcheries of Hebron and Safed, you ask me? But I would repeat what I said at the University: “We must face this problem, not because of the pogroms but despite them, not as a result of violence, not because of pressure from without but because of spiritual pressure from within ourselves.”—Yet, let us not deceive ourselves—over our head hangs the sword. What a terrible thing it is to have to yield to violence. But have we as men and women responsible for each others’ lives and for our work and hopes here any choice? Is not the world pagan—whatever high-sounding religious names it gives itself? Is it not a world of force and is it not against such a world that Israel with his body and his spirit has been destined al aong to bear testimony? The Eastern peoples have learned that the most effective argument with the Western world is force and violence. Heaven forbid that Israel take up arms against such a world with the weapons of that world.

LET NOT ISRAEL BE SELF-RIGHTEOUS

And with those men—Arab and English—who are directly or indirectly responsible for the shedding of the innocent blood of our brothers and sisters? Yes—if necessary for our brothers’ and sisters’ sake, and for the peace of Zion—even with them. Israel’s question always is, and whether we want it or not, will always be: Are my own hands clean of blood? Not, are his hands clean? Have I done him wrong? Not, has he done me wrong? That he has done us wrong we know, and resent, and suffer from in our own flesh and blood. Shall we therefore refrain from giving him what he has a right to ask? Look about us. Governments at war brand each other as criminals and declare that they will never, never negotiate. Yet the time comes when they sit down together and negotiate. Let at least Israel not be hypocritical and self-righteous. This simple Jew who has come to the Holy Land with clean hands and a pure heart is of more importance to me than all my pride and honour, and all my political calculations and theories. What matters to me is that he and I and our People get a chance to live and to work here, and to make the Holy Land and the Holy City sacred again through our labor and our life.

The argument is adduced by men struggling sincerely with the constitutional problem, that although we Jews are devoted democrats and liberals and internationalists and even pacifists elsewhere, it is not possible, much to our regret, under present circumstances for us to yield on the constitutional question until the Jewish community is much stronger and until the Arabs have been through a period of political education, beginning with the municipalities, over a considerable period—10—15—20 years.

COUNTRY NEEDS POLITICAL EDUCATION

As to the latter point, I think no one will deny the great need of political education in the country. The incompetence and corruption of many of the Municipalities are not particularly encouraging to those advocating representative government. But the way to train a people in self-government is to place responsibility upon it, not to withhold self-government from it. This placing of responsibility should take place cautiously and gradually, and for that reason much care must be taken to safeguard all Jewish and minority rights and international obligations. Nor need the political forms adopted ape dogmatically or mechanically those of other lands. But a beginning has to be made all along the line from the municipalities through the Legislative Assembly and such other legislative and executive organs of government as are required and devised.

BRING PARTIES INTO OPEN

The life of this unhappy country will be much saner and much less hysterical the sooner its population can exercise its political energies in legitimate and practical and constructive ways. It would bring men and parties out into the open instead of as today giving the extremist his chance to work in the dark. It will give some of the younger men their opportunity, and it will show the moderate the way of assuming responsibilities. It may realign parties along other than nationalistic lines, cutting through present groupings and bringing together into one party those Jews and Arabs who have common economic and social interests. The more the nationalist extremist, who works in the dark, can stir up passion, the more expense and trouble he can cause, the more he can embitter the lives of the mandatory representatives and of the moderates among the Arabs and Jews, the greater is his chance of landing eventually on top.

There are of course dangers in all