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Observer Blames Ambiguity of British Promises for Palestine Troubles

January 30, 1938
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Britain’s ambiguous promises, which have made Palestine “the twice-promised land,” and the effort to rule by remote control underlie the Holy land’s troubles, declares Phelps Adams, member of the staff of the New York Sun, in a series of fifteen articles, beginning Saturday, entitled “The Truth About Palestine.”

Mr. Adams visited Palestine on instructions to “find out the truth about Palestine and then come back and write it.” He studied reports, interviewed Government officials, Arab and Jewish leaders and others.

“The ambitions of both (Jewish and Arab) communities,” he says in the third article, “are…founded on the ambiguity of British diplomacy, and the fruit of that ambiguity today is the blood of the victims of the present wave of terrorism. Palestine today is the twice-promised land.”

Much of the trouble, he says in the fifth article, lies in the fact that the local administration has little authority, while policy is fixed in London, with final authority resting with the League of Nations. “And so Palestine is everybody’s business — and consequently nobody’s,” the writer holds.

Italian influence, Mr. Adams asserts in the fourth article, is “not a factor of major importance in the Palestine problem today” but “it serves as a constant warning to the residents of this unhappy country that in the event of the outbreak of another international war in the Mediterranean, the Holy Land is inevitably destined to serve as an important battle ground in that conflict.”

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