Zionists Ask Britain How It Expects to Defend Palestine; Urge Jewish Mobilization

With military authorities in England expecting a Nazi attempt to invade Turkey and break through to Syria and Palestine, Zionist leaders here today posed the following question to the British:

“What are the authorities going to do to prevent such disasters in the Middle East as have been experienced in Malaya?”

The question asked in an editorial which appeared today in the Zionist Review, official Zionist organ, is answered in the same editorial with a suggestion urging the immediate mobilization of all able-bodied Jews in Palestine. Pointing out that “some of the Arab leaders are still sitting on the fence while others, including the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, are already in the Axis camp,” the editorial says: “The only wise course to take would be the immediate mobilization of Jews in Palestine for the defense of their own homeland. Further delays are not justifiable on any grounds. They would sooner or later have unfavorable repercussions on the welfare of the Arab people as well as on those whose whole future depends entirely upon the victory of the United Nations.”

In a second editorial the Zionist Review condemns the terroristic acts which have been taking place in Tel Aviv and Haifa during the past few weeks. “It is too early as yet to express any view regarding those responsible for the terror, but the Jews in Palestine are determined to do everything in their power to discover the criminals whose murderous deeds and danger for the country should not be underestimated,” the Zionist organ writes.

LEGEND OF JEWS “DISPOSSESSING” ARABS FROM THEIR LAND REVIVED IN ENGLAND

Zionist circles here are disturbed over the fact that the Earl of Harewood, the King’s brother-in-law, is reviving the allegation that poor Arabs in Palestine are being dispossessed by Jewish land purchasing agencies.

Addressing a luncheon in Leeds today under the chairmanship of Hyman Morris, the Jewish mayor of the city, Harewood criticized the fact that “a large number of Jews were put in Palestine and allowed to buy land there.” He asserted that the Jewish land purchasing companies in Palestine are selling land to Jews “under the distinct provision that nobody but Jews can be employed to work on that land.”

The Earl of Harewood concluded his address by claiming that the British land policy in Palestine has “divorced the Arab peasantry from the land” since it enabled Jews to buy land from Arabs at high prices and thus dispossessed the poorer Arabs from their lands. “The Jews,” he said, “have bought up Arab land at high prices and paid more than the land is worth. But 600 or 700 pounds in cash are not the same for an Arab family divorced of its land as is 500-pounds worth of land. We have made a mistake by encouraging such land transactions in Palestine.