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?”
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.
