THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
by William B. Ziff
Opinions
"Having read
'The Rape of Palestine,' I stand amazed at the scholarship, the courage arid
the competence of William B. Ziff, its author.
The book is full
of political dynamite — in its documented indictment of the British camarilla
which in betraying the Jewish nation is betraying the British nation as well;
in its unsparing exposure of self-divided Zionist leadership; in its passionate
and convincing demonstration that anti-Semitism threatens to annihilate not
only us Jews but everything connoted by 'Christian civilization/ It is a moving
and powerful and vastly significant book, the kind of book, it seems to me,
that makes history." — Eugene Lyons
"The Palestine
It is a perfectly
amazing historical document. Its clarity and charm of style, its forthright
logic and masterly presentation of facts make it one of the outstanding books
of this generation." — William Griffin, Editor and Publisher, New York
"At last
there has come what has so long been needed, a clear, accurate, dependable
account of the betrayal of the world's hope in Palestine
— Charles Edward
Russell
"This book
should be read by all those in responsible position in American public affairs
who are interested in the foreign scene."
— H. Styles Bridges , U. S. New Hampshire
"Every lover
of humanity and everyone who hopes to preserve our present civilization against
disaster should read these dynamic pages.
This book is an
eye-opener." — William Green, President, A. F. of L.
"I heartily
recommend Wm. B. ZifF's book. This great book should be in the hands of all
those interested in gaining a proper understanding of the vexing Palestine
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
William B. Zijf
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
LONGMANS, GREEN
AND CO.
ZIFF
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
COPYRIGHT • I938
BY LONGMANS, GREEN
AND CO., INC,
ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED, INCLUDING THE
RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK, OR
ANY PORTION
THEREOF, IN ANY FORM
First edition
November 1938
Second edition
November 1938
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
. . I hope the
Hon. Members will believe me when I say that I am not pro-Jew; I am
pro-English. I set a higher value on the reputation of England Palestine May 29, 1934 .
PREFACE
The parlous
condition of the Jewish people over a large part of the known world, and
particularly in such countries as Germany Poland Rumania Palestine Great Britain League of Nations . The Mandate, when it was written, as well
as the antecedent Balfour Declaration, clearly contemplated that the
"home" to be established in Palestine
If this was indeed
the purpose of the Mandate it has proved a miserable failure, since it has
solved nothing and has only succeeded in adding a new and formidable problem to
a world already sinking under the weight of problems. Many reasons are adduced
for this failure. Much is made of the irreconcilable differences between Arabs
and Jews, which the mandatory now claims render the Mandate unworkable.
The claim that an
opposing promise was made to the Arabs will be examined in these pages, as will
be the circumstances under which the Balfour Declaration and Mandate were
issued. The assertion that the Declaration was extorted from an unwilling
Vii viii
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
For a hundred
years Zionism, as we shall see, had been almost as much an English movement as
it was a purely Jewish one. As for local conditions in Palestine Holy Land in 1837, London Palestine Palestine
As for the
Declaration itself, it may be assumed that Lord Balfour, its author, is an infallible
witness to its intended purpose.
He wrote:
"The national and international status of the Jews to that of other races
. . . would be promoted by giving them that which all other nations possess: a
local habitation and a national home . . . [where] they would bear corporate
responsibilities and enjoy corporate duties of a kind which, from the nature of
the case, they can never possess as citizens of any non-Jewish state." 2
It will be evident from the records that neither the Declaration nor the Mandate
confers upon non-Jews any rights which would allow them to interfere with the
growth and operation of the National Home. It is obvious that if these
documents were to be interpreted so as to include National Home rights to
non-Jews, both the National Home grant to the Jews and the rights of non-Jews
would be repealed by implication.
PREFACE
ix
The document would
then repeal itself, which on the face of it would be a reduction ad absurdum.
As will also be
seen from these pages, British trusteeship of the Holy Land was the result of
Jewish demand itself at the request of the British government, Wedgwood
admitting rather shamefacedly in this respect that the Jews were "almost
the only non-Anglo-Saxon people who seem to believe that on the whole England
does try to behave decently towards other people." 3
If the records are
to be believed, the Mandatory for Palestine Mediterranean , in which the Mandate was used for the
purpose of surrounding British Imperial strategy in the Middle East with the aura of sanctity. A factor of
even greater importance, however, is the gross anti-Semitism of a handful of
civil servants in the bureaus of Whitehall Westminster Holy Land can be traced. Its wantonness is not flaunted;
it is true, like the excesses of the German Nazis or the Polish Endeks.
It lies icily
beneath the shining hardness of bureaucratic logic.
It is overlaid
with the softness of English colonial skill — but, as we shall discover, it is
in no sense less intense, and fully as implacable, as the open anti-Semitism of
the Nazis on the Continent.
This, briefly,
will be found to be the underlying condition which hides beneath the maze of
pretension by which London Holy Land in these past years to be given over to
hooligans and desperadoes who have murdered its citizens, burned its crops and
houses and demoralized its commerce.
The records are
voluminous. This book attempts only the barest factual description, as free as
such an account may reasonably be from evaluations or interpretations
X
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
which the facts do
not bespeak in themselves.
For those who
desire fuller information on the various aspects of this subject, a selected
list of reference works will be found in the notes and bibliography. The
attention of the reader should also be brought to the fact that except where
otherwise indicated, italics are in every case my own.
W.B.Z.
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The People of
the Book .1
The Ancient Land Israel Independence
II. "May My
Right Arm Wither. . 21
The Jew Never Gave
Up His Claim to Palestine
The First
Essential to Jewish Title
III. The Wandering
Jew 25
Fifteen Hundred
Years of Tragedy — "Liberty
Fraternity !
Equality ! " — 'The Lost Ten Tribes'
— Reawakening
Hebrew Consciousness — Herzl
IV, The Jewel of
the Mediterranean 45
Topography —
Jewish Pre- War Settlements
V. The Balfour
Declaration 52
VI. Brass Buttons
and Stuffed Shirts 64
Marching Jews —
Revolting Tribesmen — The Arab View of Zionism — The Military Junta — Hand-rubbing
Statesmen — Pogrom and World Horror
VII. The Mandate
by the League 90
Weizmann Obliges —
The First Partition
xi
xii
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
CHAPTER PAGE
VIII. A Man Named
Samuel 100
Under the Colonial
Office — A Jewish Ruler After
Two Thousand Years
— The Pogrom of 1921 —
The Grand Mufti -
The Churchill White Paper
— Severance of
Trans Jordan — Samuel is Replaced
— Field Marshal
Lord Plumer
IX. The White
Paper Barrage 121
The Third High
Commissioner — The Pogrom of 1929 — Who Was Responsible ? — Commissions and
White Papers — The Report of Hope-Simpson
— The Passfield
White Paper — The MacDonald Letter — The Kid Glove High Commissioner — The
Report of Mr. French
BOOK TWO
I. Jews Have a
Reputation for Intelligence . .152
The Zionist
Organization — The Palestine
II. "The
Desert Shall Bloom Like the Rose" . .176
'Unprecedented Prosperity'
— Population and Cities — Character of the People
III. Bureaucracy
Looks at Jews 192
The Holy Land and Whitehall
IV. Welcome Home!
234
The Jew Tries to
Enter Palestine — Tourists — Hunting down Illegals — The Arab Comes in Like a
Gentleman — Britain
V. Close
Settlement on the Land 254
Soil Hunger — A
Famine in Land — Double Standard of Taxation
CONTENTS
xiii
CHAPTER PAGE
VI. Bricks without
Straw 271
Sabotaging
Industry — Banking and Currency — Citrus — Economic Insanity — 'Heads, I Win: Tails,
You Lose' — On Air and Sea — Roads and Railroads
VII. Dual
Obligation to Two Peoples 304
The Tax Moneys —
Public Expenditures — Cheating Children with Cockles — Health and Sanitation —
Laws, Benefits and Public Services — 'No Jews Need Apply' — An Anglo-Saxon
System of Jurisprudence — The Wolf Named Sheriff to the Lambs — Numerous Clauses
and Censorship
VIII. Trans Jordan
the Judenrein 340
Legalities : 'Made
in England
IX. Whooping it up
for Democracy 352
The Legislative
Council — "By Their Acts You Shall
Know Them ! "
— Some Odious Comparisons
BOOK THREE
Does an Arab Race
Exist? — Arab Types and Traits — Levantine Worship of God — The Son of the
Desert Suffers from Jewish Competition — Nashishibis and Husseinis — Claims,
Objectives and Methods — 'Semitic Brothers'
II. Jehovah
Abdicates in Favor of Downing Street 410
'Let Not Thy Right
Hand Know What Thy Left Hand Doeth' — Revolt by Permission — Blaming Italians
and Communists — Another Royal Commission—Downing Street Runs the Gauntlet — Mr. Weizmann Obliges
Again — Saint George Spits in the Dragon's Eye
xiv
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Collapse of
Emancipation 478
'Enemies of All
Mankind' — The Refugees
II. Solving the
Jewish Question in the Holy Land 492
Absorptive Capacity
— Landless Arabs and Agricultural Possibilities — 'No Water' — A Prospect of
Agricultural Competence — Mineral Resources — Other Possibilities — An
Overcrowded Country
III. "Am I My
Brother's Keeper?" 514
Notes 527
Appendixes 571
Selected
Bibliography 584
Glossary 598
Index 601
Maps appear on end
pages, inside front and back covers.
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
1 THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
THE ANCIENT LAND ISRAEL
The Zionist fabric
is not new. It is of a piece with the whole history and tradition of the Hebrew
people. It is inextricably a part of that dynamic stream of consciousness which
has swept the Hebrew past a long succession of centuries which, by all logic,
should have suffocated him. Unconsciously, even the apostate Disraeli
acknowledged the great compulsion of the Hebrew past in the life of the living
Jew. Cut to the quick by fellow-members in Parliament who taunted him with
being a Jew as he made his maiden speech, he cried in reply: "That is all
very well — but when your ancestors were chasing each other around trees with
stone axes, mine were writing the Talmud."
A short glimpse into
the history of this remarkable people will shed a clear light on much of the
present Jewish situation which must otherwise remain confused and inexplicable.
For countless
generations the world has been content with the paradox which allowed it to affirm
with Sir William Jones, that the Hebrew Scriptures "contained more
sublimity, more exquisite beauty, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence
than could be collected from all other books that were ever composed in any age
or any idiom"; and in the same breath to believe that the Hebrews who
wrote them were a tribe of wild, illiterate shepherds on a scale of development
comparable to that of the modern Bedouin.
Recent
archaeological research brings us to the more reasonable conclusion that the
people who wrote the Bible were a race who lived in a high state of
civilization, not inferior in many of its aspects to that of the present day.
Among the most
interesting of these discoveries is the undoubted proof that Abraham
2 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
actually lived. We
have the word of Sir Leonard Woolley and other scholars that "the fact of
Abraham's existence was vouched for by written documents almost, if not quite,
contemporary with him." 1 And Prof. J. Garrow Duncan Ur
It is now clear
that the Jews originated in Mesopotamia , a colonizing offshoot of that ancient Akkadian-Sumerian culture,
in which, according to the consensus of modern scholarly opinion, civilization
itself was cradled.
The Hebrews
entered Palestine Lachish
Recent excavations
confirm completely descriptions in the texts of the Old Testament. At Tell
Sbustujeh in Samaria were found exquisite decorations, delicately carved
inlays, and various articles of metal craftsmanship, obviously those referred
to in Kings 22:39, Amos 3:15 and Psalms 45:8. Here are the palaces of Ahab, and
houses built with hewn stone, often of two or three stories, speaking evidence
of the rich civilized life which produced them. Excavations elsewhere in Palestine Gezer Jerusalem
In the light of
these findings, the great prosperity of the Hebrew nation cannot be dismissed
as so much oriental braggadocio. It must be accepted as a faithful
3 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
account of historical
fact.
The soil had been
the basic source of Palestine Palestine
"There were
figs and grapes and more wine than water. Its honey was ample and its oil abundant
and all kinds of fruits hung from its trees. There were wheat and barley and
all kinds of flocks, without number." 5 About 200 B.C. another articulate
traveler, one Aristeas, raptly describes the country as an agricultural paradise.
0 Josephus himself never grew tired of praising the fertility of his native
land. The Galilee uplands he describes as being so closely
cultivated as to resemble "a large garden." Tacitus echoes much of
this unbounded adulation; while Polybius declared that the district between
Beth Shan and the Lake of Galilee
Biblical testimony
itself was unstinting in its lush description of the region as being a land flowing
with milk and honey. Deuteronomy describes it as a beautiful country with
"brooks of water and fountains and lakes that spring out of valleys and
hills, a land of wheat, barley and vines, and fig trees and pomegranates, a
land of olive oil and honey, a land where one can eat without scarceness, where
there is no lack of anything. .
The Jew had been a
skilled agriculturist. He knew how to prepare the soil, manure it and clear it
of stones and debris. He was accustomed to terrace the hills and knew how to
practice irrigation by means of cisterns, wells and canals. The ploughshare itself
was made out of iron. 7 The ground had to be turned over at least three times,
and the plough followed by the harrow. 8 So highly was agriculture esteemed
that even Saul, although he was already anointed king, is seen returning from
his day at the plough. 9
In the hands of
this provident people who loved their soil, this whole territory was an
4 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Grain crops and
vegetables of all kinds grew in profusion both in the valleys and on the hills.
The land was so rich in fruits of every kind that they were exported to world
markets, where they were famous for their superior quality. All through ancient
times the Jordan Valley Judea as famous for dates as Egypt Galilee was known throughout the ancient world for
its olive oil. Its importance alone is shown by the amount supplied annually to
the King of Tyre by Solomon: i 60,000 gallons of best quality. 11 Across Jordan Bashan were proverbial. And Gilead bore perfume and medicine for the whole
Eastern world. Hence the proverb, "Is there no balm in Gilead ?"
Up to the Fifth
Century A.D. the bare hills of Moab Bethlehem Sharon Carmel
In this Eden
Dairying was of
sufficient importance to make a cheese market necessary in Jerusalem Jordan
They were equally
alert and practiced in handicrafts which were considered a family
5 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
pride and
tradition. At the time of Jesus, Jewish literature mentions no less than forty
kinds of craftsmen. Hillel was a wood-cutter; R. Yeshoshua ben Hananya a smith;
Jesus of Nazareth a carpenter and maker of cattle yokes, and Saul of Tarsus a
weaver of tent cloths. An interesting picture of various crafts is given in the
Wisdom of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) , a book belonging to about 200 B.C. Here
the ploughman, the grazier, the carpenter, the engraver, the smith, the potter
and the physician are all spoken of.
Excavations at
Tell Beit Mirsim (the Biblical Debir) showed that the industrial life of Israel
At the south end
of Lake Tiberius Lebanon land of Moab
In those days the
present industrial relations between East and West were reversed. The Orient
was then the great industrial center and exchanged its manufactured products
against the raw materials of the less developed Western countries.
Solomon was canny
enough to exploit the unique geographical position of his country. He was the
originator of the policy of customs and levied on both imports and exports to
keep his treasury full. 17 The commerce of the Hebrew State China Natal Zululand where
6 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
coins dating from
the time of the Maccabee’s have been recently discovered. 18
On the sea,
Rawlinson observes that while the friendly dealings of Hiram with David and Solomon
are well known, "the continued alliance between the Phoenicians and the
Israelites has attracted less attention/'. 19 This continued composition of
interests between the two neighboring Semitic nations is mentioned by Herodotus
and other ancients and is confirmed by modern authorities. 20 Says Klausner:
"Jewish sailors were just as numerous as Jewish donkey-drivers." 21
Fishermen too were
numerous and the catch so plentiful that much of it was salted and sold abroad.
Trade both by sea and over the camel routes thrived. Aristeas declares
fulsomely that "a great mass of spices, precious stones and gold is
brought into the district. . . For the country is well adapted for commerce, as
well as for cultivation and the city [Jerusalem
This was the
country which Jehovah had promised to his people Israel
Population
estimates vary, curtained by the dust of antiquity, but in every case they were
so considerable as to cause the modern observer to gasp. In an age where
opportunities for sustaining concentrated industrial populations were largely
non-existent, the land certainly maintained a per capita density incomparably
larger than that which allegedly overcrowds it today.
Diodorus, Strabo,
Tacitus, and Dio Cassius all agree that "the population to the square
7 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
mile was larger in
Palestine
The book of Exodus
12:37 we are told that there were "about 600,000 on foot that were men,
besides women and children" plus "a mixed multitude" that went
up from Egypt Jerusalem Galilee alone must have held fully 3,000,000
people, while the whole of Palestine
Certainly if one
may judge from Roman accounts of the wars with Judea , where figures running into the millions were
given for the slain, and the numbers sold into captivity ran into legions,
these figures are not incredible.
CHARACTER OF THE
HEBREW
If the Jews are to
return to become a collective force in the world of men, they will beyond doubt
resuscitate their ancient law. Prof. A. A. Berle points out that "that
law, only vaguely understood, and of only very limited application in world
history, will have then a full exposition and a thorough working out in terms
of modern life/* 26 An increasing army of educators, disgusted with the
tyrannical and unpleasant philosophies which are blasting civilization to its
foundations, see in the Hebrew laws the elements for a social regeneration of
this sick world. "Certainly," says Berle, "many of the laws
relating to the ordinary life and relations of mankind, as laid down in ancient
Mosaic law, if applied to a modern city block, would regenerate it root and
branch."
Most of what
passes for a history of the Hebrew people has been filtered through hostile
Greek and Roman sources and through the hardly less hostile bias of
8 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
medieval
Christianity. The significance of Hebrew genius in relation to its peculiar
understanding of cultural values is hence not generally understood.
Dr. Marion E. Cady
says of this situation that "now it is being fearlessly asserted that as
in religion, so in education, the Jews have made the greatest contribution of
any nation, ancient, medieval or modern." 27 Prof. E. C Baldwin of
Illinois University concludes that "modern culture, both artistic and
ethical, goes back to Athens and to Jerusalem, but that English culture owes
far more to the Hebrew than to the Greeks." 28 And Dr. F. T. Lamb asserts
that "if our boys and girls were trained as Jesus was
trained up to
twelve years of age, they would be in every desirable respect greatly the
superior of the boys and girls trained under the best methods of the present
day." 29
The essential core
of the Hebrew idea was the superiority of reason. That system of life which is
commonly called Judaism was in the most real sense no religion at all. It was
never formal, abstract and separated from life, but a throbbing and vital part
of it. It was completely unlike pure theological systems such as that evolved
by the Greeks — which, attempting to reconcile themselves with the world in its
broadest sense, found religious inheritance irreconcilable with rational
thinking. It is necessary to understand Judaism in this sense, as a
civilization rather than a religion, in order to grasp adequately the dynamics
and vitality which have kept Zionism consciously alive over this great lapse of
years. Judaism was concerned deliberately with the quality of living on this
earth, with the bringing of every phase of existence into relation with eternal
truth. "It is worth remarking," comment Graham and May, "that no
matter to what heights of social vision and spiritual exaltation the Hebrew
seer might climb, he never lost that urge toward physical well-being which had
impelled his remote ancestors to venture into the Promised Land.
In the same breath
in which he speaks of multitudes streaming to Zion
"The drift of
all Hebrew thinking," says MacDonald, "as thinking, was to link up
morals and intelligence." 31 Judaism significantly regarded stupidity as
the source
9 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
of evil in
individual man. A sinner was a blunderer and not a rational person, and the ultimate
morality was not to be a fool. Worshiping Reason, the Hebrew could not credit
anything which was either irrational or static. To his mind, nothing existed
rigid and unalterable in a state of 'being,' but only of 'becoming.'
The great Rabbi
Hillel, who preceded Jesus by a generation, typified this remarkable viewpoint.
Asked by a heathen who wished to make sport of him, to be taught the whole
Torah 32 while standing on one foot, the gentle Hillel replied: "What is
hateful to thee do not to others. This is the whole Torah. The rest is merely
commentary."
While the Hebrew
concept regarded all life forces as constituting one unity not capable of being
subdivided on varying moral bases to suit varying emergencies and occasions, it
was irrevocably anchored in an implicit belief in the sacredness of the
individual personality. At a time when Romans compelled gladiators to slaughter
each other for sport in the arenas, when material appetites and gross
oppressions were the elements of universal law, this free people was living in
accordance with a code which for sheer gallantry of expression has had no equal
before — nor perhaps since. A spirit of mercy and humanity pervaded the Hebrew
legal system. In Jewish law there was never such a thing as legal justification
for inequality. No man could vindicate an act of injustice by an appeal to law.
Complete equality before the bar of justice was the right of all from humble
herdsman to king. The Deuteronomic Code declares no single witness sufficient
to convict a man of wrongdoing. Malicious witnesses were severely dealt with.
"A straying animal must be taken up and returned to its owner, and if a
beast has fallen under a burden the passerby must aid the owner in raising it
to its feet again." 33
This applied also
to lost articles and provided that if the owner were unknown the finder must
care for them until the owner appears. 34
10 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
"thou shalt
not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the grain." 36 Love of the resident
alien is explicitly demanded in Deut. 19:33; Deut. 10: 19 and Exodus 22:21 ; 23:9. The duty of treating strangers,
together with orphans and widows, with justice, mercy and generosity is
emphasized, decreeing that the gleanings of grain fields, orchards and
vineyards must be left free for them to gather and enjoy. 37 The taking of
interest on loans to the poor is forbidden. 38 Runaway slaves must be received
and treated kindly and are not to be surrendered to their owners or oppressed.
30
More amazing
still, in an ancient world of cruelty and ruthlessness, are the injunctions of
Deut. 24:16, where the principle of individual responsibility is laid down, so
that a relative may not be punished for the misdeeds of a son — in striking
contrast with practices in operation even today in such allegedly civilized
states as Russia Germany Europe and in parts of America
Un-cleanliness is
completely discountenanced. In his splendid book, Medicine in the Bible, Dr.
Charles Brim details the amazing medical knowledge and sanitary understanding
of the ancient Israelites. Says Dr. Victor Robinson in this regard: "There
are passages in the Pentateuch which deserve a place in the Corpus
Hippocraticum." 41 And Col. Edgar Erskine Hume avers that every principle
of modern military sanitation was known and used by Moses.
Hebrew law also
emphasized good breeding, as : "Let another man praise thee and not thine
own mouth," 42 or : "When thou sittest among many, reach not thine
hand out first of all." 43
Education was
widely diffused. The sons of rich families had their tutors, while parents in
more modest circumstances taught their own children. Those who could afford it
wore handsome clothing of various colors and often the outer garment was embroidered
with gold. Everywhere and at all times song and music were to be found. The
harp or organ was one of the many instruments known. We hear of pipes,
11 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
psalteries,
cymbals and trumpets, all of which required skill in playing and therefore implied
instruction. 44 Music seems to have been the joyous climax of all occasions of
public or private life. The international repute which Jewish singers had achieved
is indicated from the inscription on an Assyrian monument where the chief item
of tribute laid on Hezekiah by an Assyrian ruler was the demand for a company
of men and women singers.
Labor was highly
esteemed. The Talmud directed every father, regardless of his social position,
to teach his son some useful trade. 45 "The tradesman at his work,"
it declares, "is the equal of the most learned doctor"; and avers
that "he who derives his livelihood from the labor of his hands is as
great as he who fears God." The most prominent authors of the Talmud were
in fact simple workingmen, shoemakers, ironworkers, laborers; proud men who
knew no masters and brooked no slaves.
We can also
conclude that among the Jews, women enjoyed a free and independent social
position. Two of the twenty-four books of the Bible received their titles from
the names of women, Ruth and Esther. There were seven prophetesses spoken of in
the Talmud. Among them Deborah judged the people and went out with Barak to
fight against Sisera. During the reign of Josiah, Huldah was so highly thought
of as to be consulted by the chief officers of the kingdom. The king himself
bowed down to his mother, as Solomon did to Bathsheba. Wherever in Precepts,
Psalms or Proverbs filial devotion is mentioned, father and mother are made
equal, as is done in the Fifth Commandment.
Hebrews were never
ruled like slaves of an Eastern despot. They were called into council by their
kings and contended boldly for their rights. Decrees affecting the whole
community were ratified by the general voice of the people, freely assembled.
This free people,
for all their gentle philosophy of life, were always animated by the spirit of
liberty and inspired by the cry 'To your tents, O Israel V They knew how to
resist oppression.
They were not
overawed by the cruelties of Antiochus or Herod; nor, alone among the peoples
of the earth, cowed by the might of Imperial Rome.
12 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Specific
legislation defined and restricted the powers of the crown, in itself eloquent
testimony to the democratic spirit prevailing in Israel
We search
antiquity in vain for an example of free government comparable to that provided
by Israel 21:23 -24 and 23:30 , it had the authority to make and unmake
kings and on occasion actually did so. Remarks Sulzberger: "While the
modern monotheistic conception of the universe is largely the product of their
[the Jewish] genius, so the modern conception of the rational, democratic,
representative government owes its origin to the same ancestry." And adds
the famed Master of Balliol, Edward Caird: "It is not without significance
that the great struggle for political freedom in this country [England
The bulk and
mainstay of the nation were middleclass farmers and villagers, each one of whom
felt himself equal to Caesar. Tacitus remarks on their health and the fact that
they are "capable of enduring great fatigue." Josephus describes them
as a war-like people, greatly desired as mercenary soldiers and disliked for
their arrogance and pride of race.
The idyll of
Jewish speculation was no Valhalla , but a time of grace when swords would be beaten into ploughshares
and Spears into pruning hooks. 47 They were the first people in history who
regarded their fate not from the standpoint of physical supremacy but from that
of moral harmony; yet there were no people in history who possessed the haughty
pride in race and the passionate love of country which continually
distinguished them. This passion of the Jewish people for Palestine
13 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
Coeval with the
Race and is disclosed in every tarn in their history — a sentiment as enduring
as the Jew. "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"
begins the Psalms. The Hebrews, a poetical people, addressed their country with
all the ardor of one referring to a loved one: "Land of beauty!"
"The princess among the nations!" "The joy of the whole earth!"
Coexistent with
this infatuation for the country was an unbending love of liberty, so reckless and intense as to amount almost
to an obsession. The Jewish greeting was Shalom (peace), but all who
encountered him were shortly to discover that it did not mean peace at any
price.
STRUGGLES FOR INDEPENDENCE
Situated in the
very pathway of invading world conquerors we find this brave people again and
again refusing to pay tribute or accept oppression. Typical in sheer pathos is
the bitter rebellion of the little country, under King Jehoiachim, against the
world power of Babylon Jerusalem Jerusalem
Nebuchadnezzar
thought he had put a final end to this rebellious and irreconcilable people;
but not more than fifty years later he who by his own claim sat at the right
hand of God, became with all his works only a memory and the Jews returned to
14 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Typical again of
the magnificent character of this race were their later wars under Judas, son
of Mattathias, who was surnamed Maccabeus. A new conqueror had risen in the
shape of Antiochus, the Syrian Greek. Now was to begin the first of those world
struggles in which the force of idea was advanced as taking precedence over
that of inherent personality. This war was fought to stem the sweeping onrush
of Hellenism by which the known world seemed about to be engulfed.
With a small group
of his determined followers Judas refused to yield. Attacking giant armies
again and again with his little band of guerrilla fighters, he won a succession
of victories. The Syrian in a towering rage at this Lilliputian effrontery,
declared his intention of utterly exterminating every individual of the Jewish
people. He invaded with the enormous armies so characteristic of despots of the
period.
Able to muster but
a handful of ill-equipped men, Judas was counseled to retreat. He replied with
characteristic recklessness: "If our time has come to die, let us die; but
let it never be said of us that we turned our back on an enemy." With only
eight hundred men he attacked the invading legions near Adorsa. Here, fighting
grimly to the last, the stern company gave up their lives. But the miracle had
happened: the invader, nonplussed by the unexpected nature of this furious
resistance, was stopped dead in his tracks. Jonathan, brother of Judas, took up
the struggle. The Syrian levies, dismayed and beginning to believe they were
fighting devils instead of men, gave the matter over as a bad business and went
into retreat. 49 Once more Jews saluted each other with the old greeting of
Shalom and began to build where they had left off.
FINAL REBELLIONS
It was inevitable
that the lengthening shadow of Rome
15 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
anyone who would
hold a firm grip on the rich hinterland of Asia and Africa . The times were turbulent. The Maccabean
princes themselves were in civil war, Hyrcanus warring against his brother,
Aristobulus II. Finally the two brothers entreated the assistance of Pompey,
then commander-in-chief of the Roman troops in the East, and elected him
arbiter of their mutual differences. The consequences of this step were fatal
to the Jews. Pompey with true Roman forthrightness, finding the place pleasant,
decided to remain. He therefore invested Jerusalem
Under Herod, who
was soon to sit on the Jewish throne as a Roman puppet, a conscious policy was
adopted aimed at denationalizing this dynamic people. In despair the frantic
nation writhed and spat in every direction like a caught wildcat. Continuous
sullen insurrection made the air electric. A large number of Jews turned in
sheer weariness from what was evidently a hopeless struggle, to a desire for a
world religion where peace and justice would reign once more. The new prophet,
Joshua of Nazareth whom the Greeks called Jesus, arose to interpret this new
direction of Jewish hope. He preached to a rebellious, crushed and unhappy
people, his own nation, a class whose stake in the world had been gradually
destroyed. Reason had spoken against the futility of attempting to maintain a
Culture and State independent of the redemption of unhappy mankind the world over.
They turned to this great new prophet, confidently considering the national
devotion of the rest of Jewry as so much outworn, reactionary adherence to a
social order clearly failing and soon to be outmoded in the coming brotherhood
of man.
The Jews of the
Dispersion carried the new faith with them and "formed the bridge
16 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
across which
Christianity entered the Roman world." 50 It was from the synagogues of
the far shores of the Mediterranean that its gospel of world brotherhood was fervently proclaimed, so
that for generations there was so little difference between Jew and Christian
that both factions attended the same synagogues together. Had anyone told the
followers of this new idyllic creed that in its name their brother Jews would
one day be flayed alive and boiled in oil, he would have been considered a lunatic.
In Judea itself things went from bad to worse. One
Roman governor outdid the other in cruelty and rapacity. The whole Hebraic
conception of life crumbled under an onslaught of graft, lust, sabotage and
provocation. The old courtly idea of Jewish ethics became a liability;
dishonesty and venality were soon recognizable as the only guides to a
comfortable existence, and began to corrupt the character of the people
themselves. The country was overrun with robbers, and justice was sold to the
highest bidder. Great numbers of the wretched Jews, unable to stand this
intolerable situation any longer, emigrated.
These were the
conditions that preceded the disastrous war which desolated Jewry and dispersed
the Jews. Goaded to wild desperation they rose once more in insurrection, a
rebellion the most desperate of any recorded in history.
Ironically enough,
Agrippa II, descendant of the Maccabean kings, thoroughly Latinized, joined
with the Romans. Attempting to show the rebels the folly of opposing the
conquerors of the world, he urged them to lay down their arms and submit. The
reply was open defiance.
Retaliating, the
Romans massacred almost a hundred thousand Jews. The hills around Jerusalem
The rebels however
were made of stuff that was not to be cowed by these punitive measures. They
attacked with such indomitable fury that they soon held a large section of the
country.
Enraged by this
unheard-of insolence, Cestius Gallus invaded from Syria
17 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
the inhabitants.
Investing Jerusalem
The Emperor Nero,
puzzled by this extraordinary occurrence, wisely decided to take no chances. He
appointed the great General Vespasian to prosecute the war, who again laid
siege to the capital.
Meanwhile the Jews
were wasting their strength and resources in internal quarrels. Within the city
sanguinary civil wars and sub-civil wars rent to shreds the defenders, who
displayed a common front only when the invaders were visible beneath the walls.
When the Romans had been driven back, these fratricidal contests were at once
resumed.
The attack was now
in the hands of Titus, Vespasian's son. Grown weary of this interminable in
vesture, he attempted to parley with the insurgents, who contemptuously refused
any terms whatsoever save unconditional freedom. Finally, as a result of the
continuing internal struggles of the defenders themselves, the city fell.
Josephus graphically pictures the indescribable events that followed; "One
would have thought that the hill itself on which the Temple Holy City Rome Egypt Cyrene
18 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
as captives, to fight
as gladiators in the public theater or to be devoured by wild beasts.
Living symbol of
the indomitable Semitic spirit, three fortresses still held out to the end. The
last to be taken, Masada , under the command of the lion-hearted
Eleazor, maintained itself for long months as an island of resistance after the
sea around it had been beaten into submission. Rather than surrender, the
defenders slew each other, the last survivor defiantly setting fire to the
castle before executing himself. So they fell, writes Tacitus, "with
swords in their hands, contending for liberty, and, in the act, preserving it.
53
It had taken Titus
more than seven years to subdue a tiny corner of the earth whose inhabitants
had not much more to offer in arms and battlements than their simple valor.
Returning to Rome
Large numbers of
Jews who had escaped the destruction sought asylum in various parts of the
world. The dispersion had begun in earnest.
THE DISPERSION
Even these
catastrophic losses did not serve to break the Jewish spirit. Scarcely a
generation had passed when the same old revolt broke out again, more tempestuous
than ever (A.D. 116). This time the dispersed Jews suddenly rose in blazing
fury to
aid their brothers
who had been struggling in Judea .
"Myriads," says Eusebius, "had already been killed in the past
seventeen years." There is plenty of evidence that the Jews did equal damage
to their enemies.
Simultaneously the
scattered men of Israel Egypt Cyprus
19 THE PEOPLE OF THE
BOOK
Whole provinces were
devastated in this amazing struggle of one small gallant nation against the
mightiest empire of the world. Bar Kochba had succeeded in accomplishing the
impossible: he drove out the Roman, holding the entire Empire at bay, and set
up a Jewish State. The quality of the man may be judged from the prayer he is
said to have addressed to the Lord Jehovah asking that no assistance be given
to the enemy. "As for ourselves," he finished piously, "we ask
no help — we will take care of ourselves."
The Emperor Hadrian
was appalled. In desperation he set aside all other tasks of state,
concentrating his energies on the business of wiping out Judea , which had now become a menace to the very
life of the Empire. 54
For almost four
years the contest continued. When finally resistance ceased, Judea resembled a wilderness. All men capable of
bearing arms had fallen, together with their auxiliaries from the Diaspora; and
"the unburied bodies of the hundreds of thousands of the dead poisoned the
air." At the fall of Betar alone half a million Jews are said to have lost
their lives.
Such vast numbers
were sold into slavery that in Rome Judea and swept it clear of Jews. He rebuilt Jerusalem Galilee .
It is interesting
to note that to the Roman, Christianity was still merely a schismatic Jewish
sect. Even at that late date he regarded Mount Calvary Temple Golgotha or Calvary ; and in the Grotto at Bethlehem
Even after the
ferocious revenge taken by Rome Zion
Utterly ruined and
bitterly oppressed, they still had strength enough under the reign of Constantine
20 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
indiscriminate
slaughter. The survivors taken captive were sold as slaves. But if the Imperial
Government thought it was through with this obstinate race whose will to
national existence continued without a State, without territory and almost
without human rights anywhere, it soon realized its miscalculation. The fierce
determination of the Hebrew to recover what was his by main force remained
fiery and undeterred as before. When King Chosroes of Persia Palestine
This was the last
straw. Along with the barbarians it had absorbed, Christianity had taken on
much of the pagan hatred for Jews. The monks had long been urging the Emperor
Heraclius to exterminate this obstinate people. This was their opportunity to
drive their argument home. When the country reverted to Byzantium Egypt Palestine
CHAPTER II
"MAY MY RIGHT
ARM WITHER. . »
THE JEW NEVER GAVE
UP HIS CLAIM TO PALESTINE ISRAEL
The whole history
of the Jew, if it has any meaning at all, lies in a demand for political
restoration and sovereignty. Despite the spirit in which Jewish history later
began to be falsified, one may understand that what these unhappy exiles
concentrated all their hopes and yearnings on was the dream of a reborn Jewish Sovereign
State. It dominated the writings of the rabbis; it permeated prayer and poetry;
it was part and parcel of every expression of existence. "We cannot,"
they complained in prayer, "serve Thee according to Thy commandment."
And mournfully the Talmud proclaims: "He who has not tasted the bread of Palestine Israel
Their oath of
fealty is famous wherever men gather who love character and devotion: "May
my right arm wither ere I forget thee, O Jerusalem!" For a thousand years
their toast and blessing rang in challenge and prayer: "Next year in Jerusalem
Jews were buried
with a bag of Palestine Jerusalem Temple
No matter where
the Jews lived, culturally and spiritually they moved in a Palestinian milieu.
"It did not matter to them that
Palestine - Israel
was occupied and in possession of Bedouin or Turk" — three times daily the
petition went up that her crops might prosper — exactly as though the Jews
still lived there in undisturbed possession.
"After each
meal the Jew gave thanks for the Land as though he were still living in it and
enjoying its produce." 2 He was certain of again of liberating and occupying
it, and always remembered that he was in exile.
The scattered
communities of the Jews, until modern enlightenment shattered them beyond
recognition, were far more than mere retreats of religious zealotry. They were
21 Pics
22 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
rather an organized
attempt to continue their national existence in every possible sphere and to
remain as an individual force in history. All through the Dispersion, from the
captivity in Babylon
The entire
structure of Jewish existence stemmed from the faith that the Temple
One can readily
understand the sweet Hebrew poet Halevy, singing a thousand years after the Exodus
in identical strain with the troubadours who composed the psalms. All
chivalrous hearts must weep for the constancy and the beauty with which he
lifts his lyrical voice and cries: "To weep upon thy misery I am like a
howling jackal; but when I dream thy return and restoration
I am the harp for
thy joyous songs."
So also, in this
unbroken continuity of belief and longing, the Modern Hebrew poet Bialik,
eye-witness to the pogroms of South Russia , was to pledge his faith in the destiny of his people; singing in
deathless words that unending claim which to the Jew is his title in this
world:
"Thou wilt
not totter, tent of Shem —
I shall rebuild
thee.
Thou wilt yet
outlive the palaces
As thou didst the
days of the destruction
When the towers
crumbled."
THE FIRST
ESSENTIAL TO JEWISH TITLE
It is on this
tenacious, unwavering concentration of hope, sacrifice and prayer that the
first part of the Jewish claim to Palestine Israel
23 "MAY MY RIGHT
ARM WITHER ..."
is based and not
alone, as Judeo-phobes would attempt to make out, on the mere existence of a
Jewish State in remote antiquity.
Dr. Wm. E.
Blackstone, quoting the foremost authorities on international law, pointed out
in 1891 that since the Jews never gave up their title to Palestine - Israel,
the general law of dereliction' could not hold in their case: "for they
never abandoned the land.
They made no
treaty, they did not even surrender. They simply succumbed, after the most
desperate conflict, to the overwhelming power of the Romans . . . and were
captured or enslaved. . . Since then, having no sovereign nor political head
through whom they could speak, they have disputed the possession of the land, by
continued protest through their literature and their public and private
worship." He showed that the Jews throughout the ages have continually
stated in the Passover service: "Next year we hope to celebrate it in the land of Israel Jerusalem
Blackstone quotes
the outstanding legal luminaries of his day, who agree that the Jewish claim
was legally, at least, sound. He points out that according to the logical
precedents established by such authorities as Buswell, Wheaton, Clifford,
Phillimore and others, "the forcible manner by which Israel has been kept
out of the land, with no means of redress, is equivalent in principle to a
continued state of war," and that therefore "limitations should in no
event run against them until they have had the opportunity to present their
claim at the bar of the only possible earthly court, an International
Conference."
The greatest legal
authorities have agreed that according to the foundation principles of
international law there is no basis for prescription against Israel, either on
the ground of dereliction or of undisputed possession — that therefore the Jews
have a valid claim on Palestine - Israel as long as there is a single Zionist
alive. Certainly no more desperate opposition to despoliation has ever existed
in history, nor a sterner demand for restitution.
The British
Government in 1920 recognized without reservation the validity of this claim. 4
It points out in clear, ringing words that Jewish nationalism has been
continuous, and refers to the fact that it is "the oldest nationalist
movement in
24 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
history."
No more thorough,
comprehensive or understanding statement of Jewish aims has ever been penned
than this official English publication which is now buried somewhere in the
dusty files of Whitehall
CHAPTER III
THE WANDERING JEW
FIFTEEN HUNDRED
YEARS OF TRAGEDY
Despite the
frightful suffering to which their position in medieval life daily exposed
them, the Jews maintained a vigorous, colorful, picturesque existence in which
their communal and personal life blossomed out in rich and luxuriant beauty.
Scattered from the Persian
Gulf to the Irish Sea , the Jewish communities acknowledged
equally a system of law that bears comparison with the great systems of the
world. With dynamic resilience Jewish life readjusted itself to the new
conditions, but carried over with it the old Eastern civilization intact. In
the midst of the intellectual decay which overtook mankind during the Dark
Ages, it is astonishing to see Levi ben Gershon calmly asserting the existence
of primary matter, Hasdai Crescas refuting the narrow concepts of Aristotle,
and Rambam dipping his majestic mind into the realms of psychiatry. Academic
research and such modern subjects as sex hygiene were part of the regular
curriculum of Jewish schooling. Every child was taught the Law; and the sages
even implied that the study of the Torah and the observance of its laws were
more important than the ceremonies of Worship.
"All the mitzvoth
[religious injunctions] are not equal to one word of the Torah," says an
authority of the Third Century with sweeping bluntness.
It was in this
vibrant atmosphere that Judaism thrived and held staunchly to its belief in the
recon quest of the Promised Land, and not in the pallid air of religious
zealotry which was later to settle on its spirit like a sickness.
Behind the shroud
of silence to which anti-Jewish bias has consigned it, the organized
civilization of the Jews during the Dispersion glistens like a diamond. While
all else was in the most impenetrable darkness and ignorance, Hebrew writers
and scholars not only constructed original works, but studied and elab orated
the writings of
25 Pics
26 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
classical antiquity
and rendered them accessible to the Christian countries of the Occident. The
Arab invasion which followed the rise of Islam was instructed from the same
source. Jews wrote the first works on fevers and material medica and translated
them into other languages. They founded and supported the famous schools of Salerno Montpellier
Until the end of
the Sixteenth Century medicine was almost a Jewish monopoly. In all of the other
arts and sciences, mathematics, astronomy, physics, alchemy, history and geography,
Jewish minds excelled. Typical of the stature and enterprise of these lordly
exiles was the expedition of Columbus Columbus Columbus New World was the Jewish interpreter Luis de Torres, closely followed by the
Jewish surgeon Marco and the Jewish physician Bernal. 2
The Jews left no
branch of learning or science untouched. Said Sombart: "Israel passes over
Europe like the sun; whenever it appears new life shoots up, but when it is
withdrawn all that once flourished withers away." 3 The German scholar,
Dr. M. I. Schleiden, declares that during the “Middle Ages” "the Jews were
the preservers of agriculture, of all large industries." 4 And Valeriu
Marcu assures us that "the most important monarchs seem to have been
unable to manage without Jewish educators, advisers and ministers. . ." 5
In commerce as in
culture, the part played by this expatriate people was tremendous. "At all
points where the formation of cities was going on, where an urban community was
developing out of the former castellum of the Romans, the Jews contributed
a decisive element
by bringing trade within the walls." 6 This is expressed in a truly
27 THE WANDERING JEW
27
classic manner in
the words with which Bishop Rudiger of Speyer village of Speyer Spain
The distinguished
character of this Hebrew culture is traceable everywhere, where it is not
hidden by slander and omission.
The personal life
of the Jew was no less well-ordered. Until later edicts ousted them from that
work, agriculture was the most highly esteemed of occupations; and they
practically held a monopoly on handicrafts where taste as well as manual skill
was required. As a speaking instance, when the edict of expulsion reached Sicily
expelled at once
we shall lack craftsmen capable of supplying mechanical utensils, especially
those made of iron, as agricultural implements and equipment for ships,
galleys. . 7
Labor itself
remained dignified in Jewish life, as it was in the old homeland. Bespeaking
this attitude, Maimonides laid down the axiom that "a single coin earned
by one's manual labor is worth more than the whole revenue of the Prince of
the
Captivity, derived
as it is from the gifts of others." 8
The sanctity of
the Jewish home continued in undiminished tradition. Nothing in modern life can
excel the courtly respect and single-hearted devotion which the Talmudic
husband displayed towards his spouse. "He loves her as himself,"
declares the Talmud, "but honors her more than himself."
All through this
period the Jews justly prided themselves on their fastidious habits and regard for
the amenities. Cleanly habits were in fact codified, and Jewish medieval law
contained a systematized scheme of etiquette, of good custom and refined taste.
It was not until centuries of ghetto life and cruel degradation had rendered
the Jews indifferent to their surroundings that this old characteristic ceased
to distinguish them.
It was the Fourth
Lateran Council under Innocent III which in 1215 made the first
28 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
serious
encroachments on the freedom and possessions of the Jews, forcing them by
decree to wear a distinctive mark on their clothes, the so-called fellow
badge.' The decree of the Synod of Breslau in 1267, prohibiting Jews from
living together with Christians in the Eastern provinces where "the church
was still a tender shoot," finally led to the establishment of the Ghetto
in all countries. The Jewish quarter was usually situated in a disreputable,
crowded, unhealthful section of the city. It was guarded by night so that no
one could enter or leave. Its area was to serve for all time; it was not to be
enlarged. Its narrow, crooked streets were always dark. In this foul area where
sunlight could not enter, there was no room for trees, grass or flowers. Infant
mortality was staggering; the faces of young and old alike were habitually
pallid.
Deprived of all
legal position and branded as incorrigible Satanists, isolated like lepers from
the rest of mankind, these proud Semites found themselves unwittingly the prey
of all comers. The attitude of the Church gave pitch to the orchestra of hate
and despoliation in which state, city and populace largely participated. Not
content with humiliating and caging them like dangerous animals, accusation
upon accusation was piled at their door. It was claimed that they made a
practice of stealing the consecrated host wafers, mistreating the body of
Christ in them until blood flowed forth. At the time of the Black Death they
were accused of poisoning the wells; and lending tone to these charges, in many
places confessions were extorted from them on the rack.
Jews were
compelled like cattle to pay a poll tax, a heavy admission tax, and a whole
list of other imposts partly ridiculous and partly humiliating. When they could
be mulcted of nothing further, they were expelled over night and their meager
possessions confiscated.
Even the written
records of Hebrew science, philosophy and learning, so lovingly and
painstakingly collected, were prohibited. A typical example is the decree of
destruction of the Talmud in France
29 THE WANDERING JEW
In Germany
The entire world
had become a horrible dungeon in which this proud and intellectual people
suffered the tortures of the damned. They were exterminated in York London Spain Italy Poland Bohemia France Moravia Austria Europe
to the other, ripped open with pitchforks and scythes, or beaten to death like
dogs. In France Germany Spain Savoy
Century had the
Jews unexpectedly driven out to obtain possession of their goods ; and that of
Charles VI, who in 1394 again decreed banishment and conversion of their
possessions to the state Exchequer.
The onrush of the
Crusaders exposed the Jews to a new series of sadistic outrages. Whole
communities were wiped out in cold blood, sacked, and forcibly converted. In
the Rhineland , and in France Anjou Bordeaux Jerusalem
The list of
tortures and outrages suffered by this unhappy people is unending. In 1336 a
mob of five thousand peasants led by two nobles, the 'Armleders,' armed with
pitchforks and axes, traversed Franconia, Alsace, the Rhineland, Bavaria and
Austria, and massacred all the Jews of one hundred and twenty communities in
their lust for spoil. In 1298 a nobleman from Roettingen named Rindfleisch, declaring
himself appointed by heaven to exterminate the Jews, marched through the
country and for
30 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
six months
committed the most unheard of outrages against his hapless victims. One hundred
and forty-six communities were reduced to bloody shambles.
In Spain Portugal Ukraine
1648, the entire
Jewish community, almost eight hundred thousand human creatures, was butchered
with revolting tortures so hideous as to defy description. All over Europe the dread "Hep! Hep! Hep!" of
the hooligans echoed in the dark streets of the ghettos. In all parts of the
Western world Jewish blood flowed down many widely separated rivulets into one
mighty stream. In North
Africa and the
Orient, like a sickening flood, the same indignities, cruelties and disasters
overtook their fleeing footsteps.
Each new depth to
which this once sturdy people were pushed only served to open up deeper and
unsuspected abysses of horror. Forbidden to own land, to engage in handicrafts,
deprived of membership in the all-powerful guilds so as to be virtually excluded
from trade, harried, slandered and ridiculed, the walls of the Ghetto held them
like a prison.
The effects of
this system of branding a whole people as a pariah class were as deplorable as
they were inevitable. The Jew became the mark for the meanest of insults. He
was beaten, reviled, scorned and abused by everyone. This constant humiliation
and degradation finally brought him so low that he became the mockery of
mankind. He lost the courtly bearing, the refinement of speech and manner which
had always distinguished the Hebrew character. Suffering and debasement had
also wrought vast changes in the inner consciousness of the race. Where once he
had stood on his native Judean hills, the fiercest, most intractable fighting
man in all the ancient world, long centuries of persecution had made him
submissive like a whipped dog. Meekness and non-resistance became rationalized
into a veritable philosophic code. The once lofty Jewish mind hardened and be came
grooved in a maze of ritual.
31 THE WANDERING JEW
31
Where once had
stood the proud gentility of Hillel, now huddled the wraith-like figure of the
pious Israel of Miedzyboz, who preached "humble submission" and a
dervish-like rapture of worship which could not but have amazed the stiff-necked
old Hebrews in whose name this slave doctrine was enunciated.
The love of
inquiry, the intellectual penetration traditional to the Jew, was now
transformed into an absurd concentration on dialectical speculations. Deprived
of normal outlets to his energies, futile speculations and the splicing of fine
theories became his entertainment. The old great Jewish culture disappeared, unnoticed,
in a wilderness of stratified formalities, words and ritual.
To complete this
sorry picture of deterioration and collapse, the strangled Jewish mind became obsessed
by a peculiar indirectness of approach to all problems. The most realistic of
all peoples became unreal, pedantic and mystical. All of these changed factors
of character and outlook are reflected in the development of the Messianic
doctrine.
It must be noted
that the earlier seeking after a Messiah rested on quite a different base. It
spoke for the sturdy rebellious nature of this people that their thoughts were
always on freedom. It reflected a passionate desire for a leader who in
strictly mortal fashion would help them redeem what had been raped from them.
The remolded
concept rested very subtly on a completely opposite psychology, although the
idea appeared to be the same. The impatient rebelliousness, the stiff
self-assurance, the commonness of instinct, which had caused the widely
separated Jews to rise like one man under Bar Kochba, had vanished. In their stead
lived a new zealotry in which dogma and visionary metaphysic vied for mastery.
Like a dazzling light, blotting out the sordidness of his surroundings, a deep
sense of mission now enveloped the
befuddled Jew. With humble piety he conceived of himself as the instrument
whereby all the peoples of the earth, including those who had abused and
vilified him, would be led into eternal gentleness and bliss. Thus tremulously
awaiting the divine deliverer lived the Jews, a great nation who had shriveled
to a
32 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
caricature of
themselves through the crudest set of circumstances ever to beset the path of
man.
They had not long
to wait. A whole host of Messiahs appeared in response to this wishful
expectation. From Abu Isa of Ispahan in the Seventh Century, Zonarias of Syria
in the Tenth, to he shabby Zabettai Zevi, they periodically kept the Jewish
world in a fever.
Most notorious of
all of these was perhaps Zevi, who announced himself to be the Messiah in Smyrna Amsterdam , Hamburg Venice Holy Land .
Others subjected
themselves to penance in order to be rendered worthy of redemption. In the
meanwhile the 'Messiah' was hamstrung by the Muslims, who gave him the usual
choice, and Zabettai, no martyr, became a Mohammedan.
The colossal
collapse of Zevi sent a crushed chill through the Jewries of Europe. They
shrank like condemned men into their hovels. Only an ironclad religious particularizes
could save the Jew from the deep confusion and widening chaos which was engulfing
him everywhere. To this he retreated.
"liberty!
fraternity! equality!"
Two events
conspired to put an end to the Ghetto. One was the discovery of America
Out of the ashes
of this decaying order gradually developed a new force, the power of industrial
capital. This new force immediately discovered itself in mortal opposition to
the entire system of life the Medieval Era had erected, since it could only
maintain itself by free competition and continuing consumer expansion, which
meant the opening of new markets. The greater the competition among merchants
and those who held the power to grant credit, the better would industry
flourish.
33 THE WANDERING JEW
The Ghetto was one
of the medieval corporations which had to go in the interest of a speedy
evolution of capitalism. Though it continued in some cities into the modern
era, its fate was sealed.
It was this young
and growing industrial capitalism which was the great lever creating the modern
democracies, and with them the emancipation of the Jews.
The new system
soon developed a philosophy justifying itself, and fiery expounders of its
tenets. "Liberty
The question arose
as to whether this queer race of the Jews whose glorious past history was long
forgotten, sunk in the torpor of religious formalism, was capable of supporting
such enlightened ideas. Learned debates took place as to whether, if they
were enfranchised,
they could take their place in an organized secular society ; whether they could
become soldiers, manufacturers, artisans, professional men — in short, whether
they were capable of competing in the civil society which was to be based on
the new order. The atheist and liberator Voltaire considered them dangerous and
incurable reactionaries, a source of religious superstition. Others like
Tallyrand, Montesquieu and Mirabeau asserted that the Jew must be included in
the new dispensation.
Almost coincident
with these events the American Revolution exploded in the face of an archaic
world and based its fundamental principles on the same Rights of Man. Soon
thereafter the victorious young Napoleon was carrying the doctrines of the new
belief along with his cannon and gun-powder and putting them into operation by
force.
In this onrush of
the Liberal spirit the Western Jew miraculously found the walls of the
Judengasse 10 torn down. They fell before his eyes like the walls of Jericho
Enthusiastically
the Jews put themselves in line with this glorious theme of world brotherhood.
For the first time the vernacular took the place of Hebrew in their daily
34 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
life. The Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries were the age of Massentaufen (mass baptism). In Berlin
Early an attempt
was made to meet this wholesale desertion of Judaism by creating a new and
reformed liturgy and a new attitude towards Jewish destiny. Inaugurated in Germany Germany Holland Brunswick
The last step in
this denationalization process, in which the Reform Rabbis led the procession,
was the transformation into metaphor of the doctrines of Jewish nationalism for
which the race had steadfastly held over so long a period. All that now
remained of laws meant to control the social and economic interests of the Jews
was dead ritual.
For a brief
century the ideal of again making themselves an individual force in history
sank into comparative insignificance and gave place to a desire to become
adapted to environment. Both the spirit and fact of Jewish history became
falsified; and Jews endeavoring to win equal rights in every sphere of human
activity began to frame both their thought and action with an eye to the
opinion and point of view of others. As a living force with legitimate, healthy
rights of its own, Judaism was discountenanced by Jews, who had transformed
themselves into neo-gentiles. It survived only as an innocuous shadow.
35 THE WANDERING JEW
The inexorable
forward movement of 'toleration' hit its peak immediately after the World War. Palestine Germany Weimar Republic
Enthusiastically
the Western Liberals and 'Assimilationists' went to the very point of denying
the existence of a Jewish nation altogether. Learnedly they 'proved' that a
Jewish race could no longer possibly be in existence.
Had anyone told
these enraptured Jews that the last strongholds of ignorance, meanness and tyranny
would not yield but would instead reacquire vitality and strategy capable of
once more putting Liberalism desperately on the defensive, his only reply would
have been a smile of pity and commiseration? How could they dream that the
Germany of Mendelssohn and Lasker would become the Germany of Hitler and Goering;
that throughout the civilized world the old blood libel, the old mass hysterias
and slanders, the old inhumaneness and cruelties, would be revived with even
increased force and viciousness? All of this was contrary to the rationale of
the new order; hence it became schematically impossible.
While all this was
happening, the torch of Jewish nationalism distorted and vitiated, but alive,
spluttered among the masses still going about their daily tasks in the ghettos
of East Europe .
'the lost ten
tribes'
In the wake of the
irresistible Liberal sweep which was de Judaizing the Jews, occurred a most
remarkable phenomenon: the Anglo-Saxon people, rising rapidly to world power,
literally pitched themselves headlong at the same time into a Judaizing
process.
Aroused by such
magnetic personalities as Knox and Tyndale the British peoples retreated to
creative Prophecy, to the stern and simple democracy of the Hebrew Bible. The
Old Testament in particular was studied with impassioned thoroughness.
36 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
James Truslow
Adams remarks that "Christ did indeed occupy a place in their [the
Puritan] theology, but in spirit they may be considered Jews and not
Christians. Their God was the God of the Old Testament; their laws were the
laws of the Old Testament, their guides to conduct were the characters of the
Old Testament." 11 "They baptized their children," writes Lord
Macaulay, "by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs
and warriors." 12 Even the Old Saxon names, once household words, were
condemned to oblivion. 13 "Cromwell hath beat up his drums clean through
the Old Testament," comments Cleveland
Every attitude of
the aggressive young imperialism which the Anglo-Saxon was erecting became
tinctured with Hebrew philosophy. So completely was it absorbed that a large
section of the English people began to look upon themselves as being actually
descended from Israelites. A whole body of literature sprang into being
claiming that the word British was derived from Brit and Ish of Hebrew, meaning
'circumcised man,' and that the English were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes
of
This conviction on
the part of a large part of the British public became so great that it resulted
in the forming of 'The British-Israel World Federation,' at one time claiming
over five million members, and including such eminent personages as Queen
Victoria and King Edward VII.
The Hebraizing
spirit attended other considerable sections of the Reformation though it was
particularly at home with the Anglo-Saxon peoples, whose identification with
Hebrew history and philosophy became so complete as to almost appropriate it
for themselves. Lecky expressed this debt in the famous remark: "Hebraic
mortar cemented the foundation of American Democracy!" In the same vein
Ulysses S. Grant advised his countrymen to "hold fast to the Bible. It is
the sheet-anchor of your liberties. . ." And Jean Paul bespoke his times
when he declared that "the first leaf of
37 THE WANDERING JEW
the Mosaic record
has more weight than all the folios of men of science and philosophies."
Protestant
theology in particular, rested on the belief that the world of mankind was
evolving towards a millennium in which holiness was to be triumphant
everywhere, and that a primary prerequisite to this happy eventuality was the
return of God's
Chosen People, the
Jews, to the Holy
Land . 15
Supporting their position with direct quotation from Biblical Prophecy, a large
group of earnest men, divines, statesmen and writers, set themelves to be the
instruments to speed this desired end. Specialized histories of the Jews gained
wide circulation, and it was not long before the political emancipation of Zion
By 1839 popular
interest had become so intense that the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland, after sending a special commission to the Holy Land to report on conditions there, addressed
"A Memorandum to the Protestant Monarchs of Europe on the Subject of the
Restoration of the Jewish People to the Land of Palestine
The Government,
taking canny notice of this body of public feeling and being interested in the Near East on its own account, commenced to take a
hand. With the entry of the murderous anti-Christian Mehemet Ali into Syria
Interest mounted
rapidly in all circles. The statesman Lord Shaftsbury became so absorbed in the
project that he learned Hebrew. The colonization expert, Colonel George Gawler,
devoted virtually all his time to this cause, firmly convinced that
Jewish
repatriation was a political desideratum for England Near East befriended the Jews and took an active
interest in their cause. It became a ruling passion with such men as Laurence
Oliphant and the archaeologist Conger,
38 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
A mountain of
literature and a whirlpool of activity had by now been brought to bear on the
matter. All these writers and orators pointed out the desolate, empty,
semi-savage condition of the country. Various associations were formed to
agitate the cause, and monster mass-meetings were held. English statesmen such
as Sir Samuel Montague guaranteed publicly that "not only will the Jews be
assisted in colonizing Palestine
While the interest
in the fate of the Jews was most spectacular and deep-seated in Britain
In France Holy Land . Here, too, Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross and author of
the Geneva Conventions, was an ardent Zionist. Napoleon also is said to have
contemplated the restoration of Palestine Egypt Near East .
In America United States Judea , an independent nation. . ." The
lively sympathy for Hebrew resettlement is shown also by the petition
to President Benjamin
Harrison submitted by Dr. Wm. Blackstone, Chairman of the Conference of
Christians and Jews, in 1891. Signed by an imposing list of the greatest names
in America, clergymen, corporation presidents and public officials, it offered
an elaborate plan for Jewish colonization, declaring that "not for
twenty-four centuries since the days of Cyrus, King of Persia, has there been
offered to any mortal such a privileged opportunity to further the purposes of
God concerning his ancient people."
By 1914 a powerful
non- Jewish public opinion, favoring the enterprise as a rational historical
development, existed everywhere. In England
39 THE WANDERING JEW
REAWAKENING HEBREW
CONSCIOUSNESS
As unaware of all
this as if it had taken place on Mars, a wholly independent movement began
stirring in the Hebrew ghettos.
As early as 1857
the Hungarian Rabbi Jehouda Alkalai suggested the purchase of Palestine
Others like the
writers Hess, Kalisher and Smolenskin began to voice articulate opinions.
In 1882 Leon
Pinsker issued his volume Auto-Emancipation in which he demanded that the Jews
redeem themselves by their own self-will. Like a lone tragic eagle, Pinsker
gazed with tortured sympathy at the misery of his people. Appalled at their apathy
and wretchedness he wrote : "Among the living nations of the earth the
Jews occupy the position of a nation long since dead. With the loss of their
fatherland, the Jewish people lost their independence and fell into a decay
which is not compatible with existence as a whole vital organism. The State was
crushed before the eyes of the nations,
but after the Jewish people had yielded up their existence as an actual State,
as a political entity, they could not nevertheless submit to total destruction
— they did not cease to exist spiritually as a nation. The world saw in this
people the uncanny form of one of the dead walking among the living. The
ghostlike apparition of a people without unity or organization, without land or
other bond of union, no longer alive, and yet moving about among the living,
this eerie form scarcely paralleled in history, unlike anything that preceded
or followed it, could not fail to make a strange, peculiar impression upon the
imagination of the nations."
Finally fired by
the atrocious pogroms that were taking place in South Russia a group of
intellectuals formed the Chovevi Zion Society 16 which soon attempted practical
work in the direction of a resettlement in the Old Land
Jewry which had
been gazing on all these vague groping’s with tolerant amusement, living like a
drugged man on promises of a new world order where men would live like gods,
was jolted from this fantasy by two startling events. The first of these had
40 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
been the arrest,
torture and conviction of the leading Jewish notables in the city of Damascus Syria
murder charge was
historically proven.
In France
the whole case was
a deliberate frame-up that the ensuing hubbub forced the authorities to retry
the Jewish officer some four years later, when, under farcical circumstances,
he was once more sentenced to Devil's Island .
The doughty
novelist, Zola, risked his career by issuing the famous J y Accuse, exposing
the outrageous nature of this affair. Arrested, he fled to England
After an agitation
which convulsed the entire civilized world, Dreyfus, who had been kept in an
iron cage on the Island , was pardoned, still un-vindicated.
The anti-Semitic
movement now grew with marvelous rapidity, confounding every theory of the
educators, who had held such a result impossible. Jewry once more began to seek
communion with its own organic forces. The desire for a specifically Hebrew
cultural scheme in which they could live their lives out, began to arise in the
minds of the unhappy creatures groping their way around tortured ghetto paths.
Vienna Europe , apparently so firmly established in the
prosperity of those days, were not to last. They would fall and would be
replaced by tyrants, either royal or popular, who would be worse than
Jerusalem Edom valley of Esdraelon Asia and Africa , splits
Sterling
PALESTINE
Britain Asia . She already held fabulously rich India China Germany Britain
HERZEL
Sitting quietly in
the press galleries during the second Dreyfus trial was a young Viennese
journalist named Theodore Herzel. 17
41 THE WANDERING JEW
A thoroughly
Westernized Jew who accepted the Enlightenment as a matter of course, he
suddenly saw the Jewish problem outlined stark naked. Returning to Vienna
Friends,
de-Judaized like himself, to whom he enunciated these 'revolutionary ideas,'
counseled that he had been working too hard and urged him to see the great
brain specialist Max Nordau, which nothing daunted, Herzel did.
One of the
journalist's friends inquired anxiously of Nordau after the visit: "What
do you make of him?"
"Well,"
said Nordau thoughtfully, "it is of course quite possible that he is crazy
— but if he is, so am I, because I agree with him."
Tall, majestic,
handsome, looking like an Assyrian god who had stepped down from an old frieze,
the magnetic personality of this figure suddenly galvanized the incoherent
movement into action. Until then Zionism had been resting upon a vague
Cultural-settlement
base, with no definite scheme of control.
The great
difference between Herzel's viewpoint and that of his immediate predecessors
was his pointblank insistence on political guarantees before a single other
step was taken. Claimed this new master: ". . . the solution of the Jewish
difficulty is the recognition of the Jews as a People, and the finding by them
of a legally recognized home to which Jews in those parts of the world in which
they are oppressed would naturally migrate, for they would arrive there as
citizens just because they were Jews, and not as aliens" With prophetic
insight Herzel insisted on complete political guarantees. He wrote: "An
infiltration is bound to end in disaster. It continues until the inevitable moment
when the native population feels itself crushed, and forces the Government to
stop the further influx of Jews. Immigration is consequently futile unless
based on an assured supremacy"
His a priori
demand was for "sovereignty over a tract of the earth's surface that is
adequate for our rightful needs as a nation."
There was
something almost omniscient in the man's ability to peer into the curtained
future. In a letter to the Rothschild’s at
42 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the aristocracies
whom the parliamentary governments had dis-placed. 19 It took less than forty
years for this prophecy to come true.
At the first
Zionist Congress he predicted that the Jewish prob-lem would inevitably be
turned into the problem of Zion
On all sides the
storm of opposition mounted like a rising hurri-cane. Assimilationist rabbis
thundered against him in their pul-pits. The Jews of Germany, where he proposed
to hold his first Congress, gazed on the man as a dangerous lunatic, so the his-toric
Congress was held in Basle
instead. But he had gotten the ear of the crushed Jewish masses and had touched
their imagina-tions as no figure had since the ill-fated messiah Zevi.
Abused and
ridiculed as few men have been in history, Herzl continued with his plan to
attempt the purchase of Palestine
who placed an
itching palm on the table. The Zionist leader went out to find ways of covering
it.
Jewish
millionaires might have easily provided the £i 0,000,-000 demanded by Abdul
Hamid for a concession in Palestine
The great man
listened benevolently and finally said: "Herr Herzel, I observe that you
are an intelligent man — but you have such fantastic ideas."
In vain Herzel
cajoled and pleaded: he could not raise the money; and in the meanwhile the
'Young Turks' made an end to Abdul Hamid and the Palestine
On the pulse of
these events the British kept practiced and in-terested fingers. When Herzel
came to London
43 THE WANDERING JEW
whose interests
were coincidental to this scheme of development, had created ready-made for him
a galaxy of famous and influ-ential supporters. Powerful organs such as the
Daily Chronicle and Pall Mall Gazette were demanding the fulfillment of the
Zionist program
and calling for a conference of the Powers to consider it.
Herzel had already
appeared at the sittings of the Royal Com-mission on Alien Immigration. Given
the honor of being the first witness on the problem of Jewish homelessness and
immigra-tion, he had been questioned closely by the Commission for an exact
definition of what was meant by Zionism. He replied with his usual straightforwardness
that it meant the establishment of a Jewish State under absolute guarantees of
political control, and nothing else.
The British now
took a direct hand and offered the territory of Uganda in West Africa on a full
autonomous basis under chartered rights, "a recognition," states the
official British Peace Handbook No. 162^ "that Herzel and his following
were regarded seriously in serious quarters." Supporting the Government in
this well-intentioned offer was a young M.P. named Arthur James Balfour.
But the Russian
Zionists rebelled; and at the next Congress the whole Uganda Palestine
Within the Zionist
movement itself various schisms began to develop. The widest of these was that
of the so-called Practical Zionists who derived from the old Chovevi Zion
Society. They were bitterly opposed to Herzel's policy, were uninterested in
political
guarantees, and stressed 'cultural' and 'practical' work.
One of their
rising stars was the young chemist Chaim Weiz-mann. Their leader was Achad
Ha'am, a little pinch-faced man with a goatee and the eye of an ascetic.
Achad Ha'am
represented all that his arch-enemy Herzel would never understand in his
lifetime. He was born in a little village in the Pale and was brought up in an
ultra-orthodox home where secular knowledge was tabu. He literally concentrated
on the
Talmud, and his
knowledge of that book became so great that local rabbis would
44 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
local rabbis would
come to consult him when he was still in his early teens. He was a typical
hair-splitter in words, the per-sonified ideal of the spirit of philosophic
dialecticism in the flesh. He considered all 'political' Zionists to be
barbarians. "What
we lack," he
wrote, "is a fixed spot to serve as a national spiritual center, a safe
retreat, not for Jews, but for Judaism. . . The foundation of a single great
school," he insisted, "of learning or art in Palestine
the highest import
and would do more to bring us near to our goal than a hundred agricultural
colonies."
Fanatically
understood by the queer type of scholastic whose soul he interpreted, Achad
Ha'am, if influence counts, was the most potent of all the modern Zionist
forces. Belittling Herzel as a wild dreamer, his influence began to be apparent
after the lat-ter's death, and finally triumphed. He was an extremist who could
care much for idea and little for men, a product and con-sequence of that
tragic pariah world into which the gentiles had sequestered Jehovah's people.
Herzel saw what
Achad Ha'am did not — what, indeed, he was incapable of seeing — that a free
and living culture is not the source but the outcome of an organized and stable
life, and that this contemptuous attitude towards political control could only
end in one more
ghetto — this time in Palestine
It is the Hebrew
tragedy that the manly Herzel should have died young and the visionary Ha'am
should have lived to a ripe old age. On July 3, 1904 , harassed and worn, the incomparable
leader suddenly sickened and died. He was then only forty-
four years old.
The Zionist
movement had already begun to be encumbered with ideological contentions, and
factions of various descrip-tions. Its leadership fell in the hands of minor
worthies, follow-ers for the most part of Achad Ha'am, who talked in learned
circumlocutory
motions and all but smothered in the mantle they had inherited. Even so, carried
along by its own irresistible momentum, Zionism continued to grow rapidly.
CHAPTER IV
THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
TOPOGRAPHY
The name 'Palestine Land of Wanderers Philistia . At first applied to a small section of the
coast it later spread to encompass the entire country. Until the
resurgent Zionist
movement brought this area into the sphere of world politics its identity was
largely interchangeable with that of Syria Asia
Minor but later
contracted to cover the confines of Palestine
With proprietary
determination the Jew has always referred to his homeland as Eretz Israel
By and large, this
territory must be accounted one of the most stirringly beautiful and,
certainly, one of the most remarkable countries on the face of Mother Earth. It
is not to be wondered by those who have seen it that "some of the finest
visions of the true age of reason have been penned within its borders." 2
Here in matchless
beauty can be found every climate from tropical to sub-alpine, and a
bewildering variety of flora and fauna to match — all in a half hour's ride. It
is possible to pass through four different zones, from the scotch fir in the
hill country down to the date palm growing in its native soil on the plains of Jordan
The valley of the Dead Sea , sultry and depressing, lies thirteen hundred
feet below the level of the Mediterranean . From this strange salt lake, almost visible to the naked eye is Jerusalem
night air one
feels as if he could reach up and touch the cold white stars. In the north the
country rises precipitously to a height of nine thousand feet above the ocean
45 Pics
46 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
calmly sunning
itself below, and becomes alpine. On the central range, snow has been known to
reach a depth of nearly two feet. This explains the feat of Benaiah who went
down and slew a lion in the midst of a cistern in the day of the snow. The
beast had strayed up the Judean hills from Jordan
A fertile plain
fronts the Mediterranean for the entire length of the country
except where rugged Carmel
the mountain range
which spreads across Palestine Haifa Jordan
In an area but
little larger than Vermont
heat; nor a roll
of iridescent desert like that which falls from the multi-colored rocks of Judea to the opal shores of the Dead Sea . Yet in these neighboring hills the
climate is so temperate that first rate apples may be grown ; and on the
hottest days the nights are cool enough to sleep under blankets.
The climate is
divided roughly into a rainy and dry season, with a short period of scorching
desert winds called the Humseen. The rain falling in the three winter months
becomes a deluge. Wild flowers follow each other in stunning confusion. Glittering
like precious gems, anemone, crocus, poppy, wild mignonette, oleander and
narcissus, sparkle in the sun just as they must have once delighted the Hebrew
women in the old days.
Overhead, birds of
all kinds make the air gay with their limpid notes. Whole hosts of harmless
lizards of every color dart like small genii across the banks of hedge and
sward. In the wilder-ness are tiny gazelles who look as if they had been
painted on the landscape. It is claimed that there are still wolves, hyenas and
jackals in the hills.
47 THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
Tristram speaks of
foxes near Nablus
Beyond this
eloquent native beauty, which the hand of barbarian man is not powerful enough
to destroy, the country has been stripped and starved. In parts it is a
veritable carcass of a land.
Travelers gazing
on Palestine Land of Promise
The great oak
forests of Gilead , Bashan and Lebanon Jordan Valley
their tops with
cornfields and vineyards, are dead. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that
while for miles and miles there is no appearance of life or habitation in the
hills of Judea except an occasional goatherd, there is
hardly a hilltop of the many within
sight which is not
covered by the vestiges of some fortress or city of former ages. Where now only
forbidding rocks greet the eye, the soil on their steep sides was once held
securely in place by ingeniously devised terraces.
The indescribably
wild state of the country, before the Zionists came, is pictured graphically in
the chronicles of the last century. Some of the descriptions given are almost
unbelievable. Churton refers to the plain between Jerusalem Jordan Walpole
Prophecy, the Rev.
A. G. H. Hollingsworth, wept that "here is one of the most remarkable and
best situated countries in the world, without a population, without resources,
without commerce." 7
West of the Jordan
48 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
hillsides, remain
to remind the traveler that once this country was populated by a civilized people. Standing on the Moab Moab Gilead and Bashan . That this vast region was
then one of the
most fertile and populous on the globe is amply proven by the multitude of
ruins which dot its surface at the present day. From a single outlook Merrill
counted as many as forty ruined cities and towns. 8 Buckingham described
"ruined towns in every direction, both before, behind, and on every side of
us. . . There was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could reach. ,, 9
Even in early
Christian centuries Trans-Jordan * was so thickly settled as to be honored with
the seat of a bishopric. Many Greeks drifted in and settled among the Syrian
and Roman elements. After the Fourth Century, the Bedouin Arab inundated
the country and
left it a wilderness again, as it remains today.
The tumbling
remains of fine marble baths, great columns, evidences of a cultivated life now
hushed in death, are looked upon by the Arab with uncomprehending eye. Merrill,
with the hurt conscience of a great archaeologist, complained bitterly that
these aboriginals were wantonly smashing the famous ruins.
At Jerash alone
are remains unexcelled by the best antiquities of northern Damascus Jordan
Today the very
names of these places are forgotten. The Bedu 10 hejd their sheep in these
deserted courts and make their rude beds of grass among their stones. They
extract the same blackmail, and if it is withheld, sweep off the harvests in
the same
time-sanctified
retaliation. Their frail houses of hair had been * Trans-Jordan, the territory
of the Jewish National Home lying east of the River Jordan (so designated to
distinguish it from Cis-Jordan, the area lying west of the River Jordan) was
later detached by the British as a separate administrative area under the name
of 'Trans Jordan.'
49 THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
The Jews were there
four thousand years before, and are there again today unchanged.
The whole of Eastern Palestine is incomparably more fertile and better
watered than the western third of the country. Draining it is a number of large
rivers, fed by innumerable springs, filled with fishes and other aquatic life.
Travelers
glowingly describe its rich soil and natural beauty. Irby and Mangles mention
"the vast variety of natural flora; and downs with verdure so thick as to
appear almost turf." 11 Lord Lindsay declares that "the whole of the
country ... on the
east of the Jordan Gilead "turning furrows which were nearly a
mile in length, and as straight as one could draw a line."
This whole area
across Jordan
JEWISH PRE-WAR
SETTLEMENTS
Historians agree
that there has been no period since the time of Joshua when there have not been
Jews in Palestine
The oldest
identifiable communities whose continuing record can be established are the
Jews of Pekiin, a village in the hills of upper Galilee near Safed, a group which has not moved in
two thousand years. This settlement is referred to in the Talmud under the name
of Tekoa, and then reappears more than a thousand years later in the narrative
of an early Sixteenth Century traveler. At Bukeia in the mountains is another
ancient community of Jews who claim to be descended from Israelites living
there before the Dispersion; and the Samaritans at Sechem are known to have
been
there since the
days of Nehemiah.
All through the
Dispersion, Jews sought to return to their homeland. They trickled in
50 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
from all
directions after each catastrophe in the Diaspora. Most of them succumbed to
massacre, forced conversion and disease. The rest were turned into broken-spirited
men whose cowed eyes became hypnotized by mere liturgical devotions.
The first
practical steps for modern colonization were taken in Russia University of Odessa
and to devote
their lives working at common labor for the reconstruction of the Land of Israel
Students with soft
white hands and determined wills began to arrive in small groups. The
great-hearted Englishman, Oliphant, his head full of idyllic schemes for buying
the country from the Sultan, found a number of them stranded in Galilee . He helped
them found what is
now the prosperous colony of Zichron Jacob, near Haifa
Soon at Petach
Tikvah a thriving agricultural colony was established. Jewish resettlement had
begun in dead earnest. By 1883, three thousand of these hardy dreamers had
landed in Jaffa
Progress continued
quietly and steadily. Arabs attracted by the magnetizing vitality of the
returning Jew began to drift in from impoverished Syria Egypt Palestine
British consular
report recognized that "there can be no doubt that the establishment of
the Jewish colonies in Palestine Palestine
Exports from the port of Jaffa Palestine
• The Palestine
Pound is worth approximately the same as the English Pound
51 THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
By 1914 the Jews
had increased to over 100,000. There were now fifty-four agricultural colonies,
with a total area of 110,000 acres. New land was being rapidly purchased,
garden suburbs laid out. The all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv
The official
British Peace Handbook on Zionism thus describes the settlements: "The
Jewish agricultural colonies, which have grown up during the past 25 years,
show a level of agricultural and scientific development far ahead of anything
else in Palestine
So stood the
Jewish effort at reclaiming their homeland, at the beginning of the World War,
when they wholeheartedly threw their destiny into the balance with that of the
Allies. They had already achieved a solid foundation for a sound national
economy. Soon they were to have the solemn promise of the nations for a charter
which would finally end the tragedy of Jewish homelessness.
CHAPTER V
THE BALFOUR
DECLARATION
Indirectly, the
World War was fought for possession of the Near East . The natural route for expansion of the
mushrooming industrial growths of Europe lay in the direction of the great sluggish masses of Asia where vast consumer needs and untapped
natural riches excited the cupidity of Europe 's imperialists.
All great
conquerors whose interest was divided between East and West have considered the
possession of the land bridge between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates essential to their security. Assyria and Egypt Rome
maneuvering that
led to the Balkan and Crimean Wars.
Here Great Britain Russia Germany France
be vulnerable. The
whole course of German policy centered around the Drang nach Osten (Drive to
the East), whose undeclared objective was to cut the lifelines of British
communications with India Berlin
52 Pics
53 THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
53 THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
clear pathway
through the Balkans. The dying Turkish Empire was flooded with German generals, engineers, diplomats and agents.
"The Baghdad Railway was pushing rapidly down towards Mesopotamia . When it got to the Tigris and Euphrates ,
it would proceed
to Basra Karachi Calcutta Delhi Whitehall
Here was the most
potent threat the British
Empire had faced
in generations. If the German plans were allowed to come to a head, the Reich
would be in an infinitely better position to deal commercially in the East than
Britain
political
position. It would mean whopping big orders for German goods of all kinds, from
steel down to knickknacks. It would present the threat of a half million Teuton
warriors who could be transported within a matter of days by train from Berlin India
It was imperative
to British strategy that the German drive to the East be halted at the gateway
of the Asiatic continent. It was apparent that Great Britain Near East if her Empire was to survive. Like two
great patient cats England Germany
awaiting der Tag,
when the fight was unexpectedly precipitated by the explosion at Sarajevo
Though the primary
struggle was between the rival economic ambitions of the English and Germans,
the French too had their eye on this strategic sector. In March 191 5, Paris Syria Palestine Syria France
democracy' in
advance. Under this agreement Palestine Haifa Acre ,
which were to go to England
54 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
The entire Mediterranean
littoral was to go to France
be paramount in Damascus Aleppo Mosul
From 1788 till 1914,
Great
Britain India Germany France
EVENTS LEADING TO
LORD BALFOUR'S COMMITMENT
By the autumn of
1917, after a startling attack by the Turks on the Suez Canal , a wholly new idea had taken possession of
the minds of politicians and strategists. It was obvious that a protective
bastion had to be created to buttress the artery of communications with India Britain Palestine
Jews all over the
world to the Allied cause could be gained. And still a third factor, not to be
overlooked, was the poverty of Judea
and the surrounding desert. If the Jews would undertake to form a country here
and would invest the necessary money, Britain
All this sounded
too good to be true, and the Government began putting out feelers to see if it
could be finagled through. So potent, in fact, did this new policy appear that
55 THE BALFOUR
DECLARATION
London
Lawrence
already on November
22, 1915 a leading
article in the Manchester Guardian stated
that Palestine Egypt British Empire as a sea empire."
From a purely
military viewpoint, the friends of this idea in Britain Palestine Mediterranean a new dominion associated with Britain England
Still other
factors of pressing importance were at work. Lloyd George, wartime Prime
Minister, was anxious to bring over the United States Germany Palestine Palestine Turkey
reached the
British Foreign Office that Baron Rosen, German Ambassador to the Hague
Aside from
specifically British questions of policy, the hard pressed Allied spokesmen
were poignantly aware of the instability of their ally Russia
for them and their
families. The Allies were aware that the propaganda bureau of the Central
Powers was exploiting this fact for all it was worth. Daily, proclamations were
scattered over the Eastern battlefront informing Jews that German victory
56 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
meant liberty for
them; 5 and in all neutral countries adroit advantage was being taken of the
propaganda story which set the Kaiser's legions up as crusaders in a war of
liberation.
Thus in a large
sense the alliance of the Western Powers with Russia
British Foreign
Office at the time: "The persecuting Governments became our friends, and Palestine
Among the details
is a significant aide-memoire by the British Embassy in Petrograd to Sazanov, Russian Minister of Foreign
Affairs, on March 13, 1916 , reading:
. . Although as is
known, many Jews are indifferent to the idea of Zionism, yet a numerous, and
the most influential, part of Jewry in all the countries would very much
appreciate an offer of agreement concerning Palestine
"If the above
view is correct, then it is clear that by utilizing the Zionist idea important
political results can be achieved. Among them will be the conversion, in favor
of the Allies, of Jewish elements in the Orient, in the United States
". . . The
only purpose of H. M. Government is to find some arrangement, sufficiently
attractive to the majority of the Jews, which might facilitate the conclusion
of an agreement ensuring the Jewish support."
The rumors that Germany Turkey London
When the
inevitable happened and the great Russian bear began to collapse, the question
of an alliance with Jewry took on even greater importance. Jewish influence in Russia
57 THE BALFOUR
DECLARATION
revolution — but
they were greatly divided. "Some were for peace at any price, some for the
maintenance of the alliance with the Western Powers; many were utterly
uninterested in Zionism and had found a messiah in Karl Marx. . ." 7 But the
great bulk of the Russian Jews were known to be Zionists; and with calculating
eye the British computed that the alliance with Jewry might have permanent
value. Zionism became an important political issue.
Negotiations were
instituted with the Jewish leaders to sound them out on this pressing subject
and to determine their demands. By February 1917 the way had been prepared for
a formal meeting with Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office. Soon after,
Mr. Nahum Sokolow, representative of the Zionist Organization, opened
discussion with the French and Italian Governments. In July the Zionists
submitted a memorandum to the British Cabinet suggesting the formula to be used
in an official pronouncement of sympathy for their cause.
STRUGGLE WITH THE
NON-ZIONISTS
If the purposes
and aims of the Zionist movement needed clarification in anyone's mind, a
circumstance at once occurred supplying that deficiency. The intentions of the
Government were no sooner manifest than a loud and violent protest was set
up by certain
classes of Jews in England France America Zion
The Conjoint
Committee, the most influential of all Jewish bodies in England
58 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Jews were only a
religious community and not a nation. "The granting of a charter for Palestine
"Under the
pressure of Allied needs," says the official British historian at the
subsequent Peace Conference, "the objections of the anti-Zionists were
either overruled or the causes of objection removed. . ." 9 At that time
the Zionists could have practically written their own ticket, since there was
no subject on which
everyone but the
Jews themselves were so unanimously agreed as the matter of a pro Zionist declaration.
The only powerful opponent of this course in the Government was the India
Office, ultra-Islamic under a Jewish Secretary of State.
Although the
members of the Conjoint Committee had been hopelessly buried under an avalanche
of public ridicule, certain changes were made in the wording of the Declaration
to placate them.
As early as October
191 6, the Zionist leaders in Britain Palestine
On February
7, 1917 , Sir Mark
Sykes communicated with Weizmann and Sokolow, together with M. Georges Picot,
representing the French Government. 10 This was the first of a series of
round-table conferences. Its full minutes, as well as those of
subsequent
sessions, were transmitted to the American Zionist Organization by officials of
the British War Office.
Throughout the
negotiations President Wilson who, as early as 1911 had made known his profound
interest in the Zionist idea, was intimately consulted; and all drafts of the
proposed Declaration were submitted to the White House for approval.
The formula
accepted in July 1917 by the British Cabinet read : "H. M. Government,
after considering the aims of the Zionist Organization, accepts the principle
of
59 THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
recognizing Palestine
the Jewish people
to build up its national life in Palestine
"H. M.
Government regards as essential for the realization of this principle, the
grant of internal autonomy to Palestine
"The
conditions and forms of the internal autonomy and a charter for the Jewish
National Colonizing Corporation should, in the view of H. M. Government, be elaborated
in detail and determined with the representatives of the Zionist
Organization." 11
One of the changes
introduced to mollify the anti-Zionist Jews was the substitution of the phrase
"the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine Palestine
By November 2,
1917, after its wording had been sufficiently emasculated to suit the 'ideals'
of Jews all around, Lord Balfour placed it in the form of a letter to the
pro-Zionist, Lord Rothschild, reading as follows:
"I have much
pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty's Government the
following declaration of sympathy with the Jewish Zionist aspirations, which
has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet.
"His
Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine
which may
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine
"I should be
grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist
Federation."
Ironically enough,
the second part of the Declaration, which was since construed by Britain
60 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Zionists
themselves, partly to meet the objections of Sir Philip Magnus, Mr. Claude
Montefiore and other
powerful non-Zionist Jews; and partly as a symbol of that "nobility of
social vision" with which the strangled ghetto mind was obscured. 13
Written by Achad
Ha'am, this proviso was not in any remote sense considered as a modification of
the Declaration but rather as a polite sop to quiet the fears of the
non-Zionist Jews, and an equally considerate makeweight assurance to the
various religious communities scattered over the Holy Land .
All of these
alterations and changes in the British Government's commitment, says Herbert
Sidebotham, then secretary to Premier Lloyd George, "were inserted in
deference to the opinion of a minority, in the hope of securing complete
unanimity
among Jews. . . It
was certainly no British interest, either at this stage or later, that weakened
the scope of the promise and infected it with ambiguity." 14
The Zionist
negotiators, naive and inexperienced, felt that the introduction of these nice,
virtuous phrases in their magna chart a was a fitting and seemly gesture with
which to begin their great adventure. Herzel, who had the gift of seeing beyond
his nose, would have known better.
WHAT DID THE
DECLARATION MEAN?
In view of the
cool disclaimers which were to come later, it is interesting to note what
interpretation was placed on the British Government's Declaration to the Jews
at the time. Whatever bearing it might have had on the commendable questions of
humaneness and justice, it could hardly be regarded as a wholly benevolent
gesture. Balfour himself, handsome, clever and icy, was no mere romantic. He
who had pacified Ireland
The benefits immediately
accruing to the Allied cause need hardly be argued. Certainly the tremendous
number of Jewish soldiers fighting in the Armies of the
61 THE BALFOUR
DECLARATION
Western Powers
were fired by this warm earnest of good faith. Nor can one estimate the weight
of Jewish influence in neutral countries, which dropped heavily on the Allied
side of the scales. Nor the enthusiastic aid given to the Allenby invasion of Palestine Israel
it gave the Allied
claims when Palestine
Not only was the
effect of this superb piece of propaganda felt in all neutral countries but it
was immediate in its reaction on the morale of the Central Empires, with their
stew of subject races, accelerating the cleavage then taking place between the
subject
nationalities and
their overlords. Worthy of note, too, is the boldness with which the German
Zionist Conference in Berlin
declaration the
right of the Jewish people to a national existence in Palestine
chartered company
with a form of self-government and the right of free immigration into Palestine
Wholeheartedly the
great and important body of fundamentalist Christian opinion, hating war for
any proclaimed purpose, rose to the bait. Jann away expresses this profound
conviction in his book, Palestine
"Indeed,"
says a semi-official British publication, "support of the Zionist
ambitions promised much for the Allies. . . That it is in purpose a direct
contract with Jewry is beyond question." 16 This was acknowledged plainly
by General Smuts, member of
the War Cabinet,
who speaking retrospectively some years later, asserted that "the
Declaration was intended to rally the powerful Jewish influence for the Allied
cause
62 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Jewish influence
for the Allied cause at the darkest hour of the War"; a
statement which David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and others,
emphatically reiterated.
The Declaration
was unreservedly endorsed by the other Powers. On June 4, 191 7 the French Government, through its
Minister, M. Cambon, formally committed itself to "the renaissance of the
Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel China
In America Palestine November 2, 191 7, its desire that Great Britain League of Nations , as may be formed, to assure the development of Palestine Holy Land ." The minutes of its sessions show
that this under-
standing had not
altered by an iota five years later, when the American Congress was induced to
put its seal of approval, by resolution, on the selection of Great Britain Palestine
The utterances of
the Cabinet ministers who framed the Declaration were no less emphatic. General
Smuts asserted that "in generations to come you will see a great Jewish
State rising there once more." Declared Lloyd George grandly: ". . .
Great Britain Armenia Judea for the Jews." And 011 another occasion
he lumped the whole
63 THE BALFOUR
DECLARATION
matter in a
nutshell, telling the excited Zionists: "We have given you national
existence. In your hands lies your national future." Lord Balfour was no
less
clear. "The
destruction of Judea 1900 years ago," he asserted,
"was one of the greatest historical crimes, which the Allies now endeavor
to remedy."
British newspapers
were as one in their mighty paean of approval. Without exception they spoke of
"the new Jewish State which is to be formed under the suzerainty of a
Christian Power." Across the water, the American newspapers echoed these
remarks
in the same
expansive detail. A representative editorial of the time explains: "The
Zionists are that group of Jews who wish to found a Jewish Republic in Palestine Jerusalem
64 CHAPTER VI
BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
MARCHING JEWS
Anti-Zionists
invariably stress the part played by the Arabs during the War, inferring that
the sons of Ishmael earned their patrimony, and that the Jews, who had done
nothing, insolently demanded a chunk of the Arab pie when the spoils were being
divided.
Actually the
Jewish share in the victory was significant, well justifying in value received
the solemn bargain made with world Jewry to reconstitute the Land of Israel
In the neutral
countries the Allied cause, associated everywhere in the Jewish mind with justice
and equity, was given invaluable support. Jews fought in the armies of all the
Western Powers. Over a hundred thousand Jewish soldiers were killed in action.
In the British
Empire itself,
out of a total community of 425,000 Jews, 50,000 were in uniform. In true
Maccabean spirit they earned more than their share of honors and decorations on
the battlefield. One of them was the heroic Sir John Monash, leader of the
Australians.
Behind the lines,
the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann was the genius directing the Admiralty
Chemical Laboratories. According to Lloyd George, he "absolutely saved the
British army at a critical moment" by devising a substitute for exhausted
English
supplies of
acetone, used in making the basic material in gunpowder. Among others, Sir
Alfred Stern invented the tank, which saved the Western Powers from
annihilation during the latter part of the fighting. Solomon J. Solomon created
the idea of camouflage, allowing harassed Allied shipping to run the U-boat
blockade. Everywhere Jewish brains, money, valor and enthusiasm were placed
wholeheartedly at the service of the Allies.
65 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
In Palestine
In 1915
Palestinian refugees in Egypt
In the meanwhile a
brilliant young Russian writer, Vladimir Jabotinsky, had been scurrying around
in an attempt to organize a legion of Jewish volunteers from the Diaspora
countries to fight directly under the Jewish flag. With rare insight he pointed
out that words and promises were soon forgotten and that the most enduring Jewish
title to the Holy
Land would come
from a direct investment of Jewish blood under a Jewish flag.
The influential
capitalist Jews were aghast. They put pressure on the British War Office to stop
this little impassioned Zionist with the under-slung jaw who they believed was
jeopardizing their position in the gentile world with his lunatic nonsense. But
the British needed this Jewish regiment for publicity purposes: they had made
themselves the champion of the oldest betrayed nationality in existence, impressive
to the Poles, Czechs, Armenians, etc., who had been listening to the noble
assurances of the Western Powers with their tongues in their cheeks. The War
Office consequently overrode the objections of the anti-Zionists and allowed
Jabotinsky to form The Jewish Regiment. As the protest of the scared English
Jews became louder, the regiment's name was changed to The Judea? is, official
sub-title for the 38th Royal Fusiliers. Following hard on its heels came another
Jewish battalion, the 39th Fusiliers.
66 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
At a giant mass
meeting seeing the Jewish warriors off, the Hon. G. N. Barnes, M.P.,
spoke fulsomely in
the name of His Majesty the King. He eulogized the Jewish soldiers as
"fellow fighters for freedom," and assured his listeners that
"the British Government proclaimed its policy of Zionism because it
believes that Zionism is identified with the policy and aims for which good men
and women are struggling everywhere."
In Palestine The
Judeans were joined by Colonel Patterson's seasoned campaigners, the Zion Mule
Corps. The Jewish national anthem rang in their ears as they marched, and over
their heads waved the Jewish flag.
Wildly
enthusiastic, the able-bodied Jews in the conquered territory enlisted. With an
appreciation almost reverential the British Peace Handbook No. 60 announced
that "the most important event which has taken place . . . since our
occupation, has been the recruiting of the Palestine Jews, whatever their national
States, into the British Army. . . Practically the whole available Jewish youth
of the Colonies . . . came forward for voluntary enlistment in the Jewish
Battalions."
The distinguished
service rendered by these Jewish regiments is indelibly written in the records.
Said General Bartholomew "For the Turks the end of the War was dependent
upon maintenance of the Jordan
sector of the
front not the Arab Army fought, but the Jewish Legion." 1 It was the Jews
who took the fords of the Jordan Damascus
Of fully as great
importance was the voluntary intelligence service rendered by the celebrated
Nili Society all over the Holy Land . Organized by the scientist
67 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
Alexander Aronson,
3 its daring exploits were largely instrumental in the success of Allenby's
campaign. Far from giving the invaders any help, the Palestine Arabs were, as
we shall see, either apathetic or directly hostile.
Spiritedly the
Palestinian volunteers addressed themselves to Colonel Patterson when he landed
with his Jewish boys: "We are convinced that Britain Britain England
blood." 4
They had every
reason to feel Convinced.' In April 1917 the British War Department had issued
a statement on War Aims in the Near East in which it was proclaimed that "Palestine Palestine Palestine Palestine
Addressing the
first Conference of Jews in the liberated area, Major W. Ormsby-Gore, later as
Colonial Secretary to suffer a serious case of amnesia, orated for His
Majesty's Government as follows:
"Mr. Balfour
has made a historic declaration with regard to the Zionists : that he wishes to
see created and built up in Palestine
68 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
People. What do we
understand by this ? We mean that those Jews who voluntarily
come to live in Palestine Palestine Palestine
The marching Jews
listened. The great dream which had inspired the Jewish mind for so many long
centuries, seemed about to be realized. They believed Britain
REVOLTING
TRIBESMEN
Part of Lloyd
George's technique during the War was connected with the old art of inciting
dissatisfaction within the enemy camp. This practice had proven especially
effective with the moribund Austro-Hungarian Empire, and several capable
agents, including the famous Lawrence Arabia to foment an insurrection there if
possible.
The English
started with little in their favor. To speak of Turkish oppression of the Arab
was actually an absurdity, unless one referred to the Levantine Christian on
the coast. The constitution of the Ottoman Empire was the Arab's Koran from which the Turk derived his law,
religion and culture. Even the Turkish language became half Arabic; and it was
only with the later revolution under Kemal Pasha that the decadent Arab
cultural pattern which ruled the life of the Ottoman nation was eliminated.
Under Turkish
suzerainty the Arab areas were virtually independent, ruled by local chiefs
whose authority was recognized by the Sultan. Arabs held high position all over
the Empire. The Sultan's Guards were almost completely Arab. The schools and
army were dominated by them. Even the Prime Minister, Mahmoud Chawkat Pasha,
was an Arab. The whole system of Muslimism itself practically precluded
any idea of
national sentiment, until it began to arise under the stimulus of British
agitators. In Baghdad
69 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
anynationalist
feeling. Regional sectarianism was everywhere the rule. The Shiah’s did not
desire a Sunni government; nor would the Sunnis tolerate a Shiah rule, while
the mass of tribesmen did not desire any government at all.
As matters rested,
the British were compelled to create a completely synthetic situation if they
were to have the great Arab revolt come off. They decided to rely on private
rivalries and ambitions; and here they made a shrewd guess: the desert was
a hotbed of
rapacity, hatreds and feuds.
Sitting immobile
in the Hejaz was the Sherif Hussein, descendant of the
Prophet and unbending hater of Christians and all their works. Almost alone
among the Arabian princes he was the nominee of the Turks. His measure may be
gained from the fact that he even prohibited talking-machines in his kingdom,
believing them to be the invention of the devil.
On the other side
of Hussein was his mortal enemy, the gigantic Ibn Saud of Nejd . Saud, a good hater who believed in the
old Mohammedan tenets of conversion by disemboweling, was also in conflict with
the powerful Emir of Hail, who was being supported by the Turks.
The British wanted
Hussein for the moral effect they presumed his name would have on the Faithful,
and made overtures to him early. Part of these 'negotiations' lay in the bland
threat to feed him outright to the ferocious Saud, to whom they were handing a
subsidy of £5,000 a month to insure his neutrality. To make the argument more
pointed, Britain Egypt Mecca Medina Hejaz with bankruptcy, since this pilgrimage
provided the barren land with its chief source of revenue. The Sherif had still
other and more urgent considerations to hasten his decision. One of these was
the British naval blockade of the Arabian coast, "inevitably aggravating
the internal distress caused by the lack of pilgrims." 6
That Hussein's
over-lordship of the Holy Places would make him an acceptable leader to all the
Arabs of the Peninsula turned out to be an error. Even at that
time, his mortal enemy, Saud, was the principal power in South Central Arabia
as was another
70 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
mutual opponent,
Ibn Rashid of Hayil, in the North Central part. Nor would the great sheikhs,
such as those of the Huwallah, the Shammar, or the Mutair accept Hussein's over-lordship,
or even permit him to speak for them. 7
The whole business
degenerated into a confused medley of intrigue, directed by a multitude of
British agencies acting under conflicting instructions and authority; the
powerful India Office, for example, bucked the traces completely and gave
encouragement to Ibn Saud as the logical leader of the rebellion. 8
Just what kind of
'Arab patriot' Hussein was, may be learned from the fact that he allowed a
contingent of volunteers to be recruited in his territory for the abortive
Turkish expedition to the Suez Canal in February 19 15, and used his influence
to assist the crew of the German cruiser Emden which had been harassing British
communications off the Red Sea Coast. 9 Thus he negotiated with Turks and
British alike until he could make sure he was backing the right horse. Actually
all he wanted
or hoped to secure
was complete independence in his own corner of southwestern Arabia , military support against his rival, Ibn
Saud, and unfettered control of the lucrative pilgrim revenue.
Finally, the
British High Commissioner in Egypt
to as fine a
mulcting as they have ever experienced. The Agreement entered into early in 191
6, reads that "The Government of Great Britain agrees to furnish this Arab
Government with all its needs of arms and ammunition and money during the
War." What this transaction was like is more than explained in the
wireless received by McMahon's confidential assistant, Sir Ronald Storrs, just
before the 'rebellion' broke out. It read : "Foreign Office has approved
payment of £107,000 to Abdullah and £10,000 to Sherif of Mecca. But this latter
payment only in return for definite action and if a reliable rising takes
place" 10 All told, the English handed over to the Sherif
71 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
a cool ,£11,000,000
in materials and money, and stimulated his patriotism with grandiose promises
of personal power. 11 Nothing else than this flood of gold, writes Lawrence
the field for five
months on end." And C. S. Jarvis, English Governor of Sinai Peninsula , comments that Arab actions from start to
finish "proved that they were only interested in the revolution for three
objects in the following order of importance — gold, loot, and the satisfactory
clearing up of their own daraks or areas." 12 Indeed, the only time a full
muster of the 'patriots' could be counted on was payday.
The whole
'campaign of the desert' was a strangely inept piece of business, vastly
enlarged on by British publicists for outside consumption. A good account of it
is given by the French General, Edouard Bremond, in his book Le Hedjaz dans la
Guerre Mondtale.
Hussein himself is described as "an obstinate, narrow-minded, suspicious
character," so insanely jealous of his son Feisal that he was forever
issuing from his throne in Mecca
Observers, neutral
and friendly, have described the character of these purchased levies. They were
not, by our standards, good soldiers. Bloodless victories were the kind that
they appreciated, and Lawrence Lawrence Lawrence
air." 15
men were blood
enemies of thirty tribes, and only for my hand
72 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
over them would
have murdered in the ranks every day. Their feuds prevented them combining
against me ; while their unlikeness gave me sponsors and spies wherever I went
or sent. . 17
Often the Arabs
refused to fight at all because they were not satisfied with the amount of loot
they were receiving. Lawrence himself was once abandoned with two companions in
the middle of an engagement, his Arab allies having gone raving
mad with the lust
of plunder. In their frenzy they fought among themselves, and soon were all
'missing,' "having dispersed with their spoil." Even in victory they
did not hesitate to leave their own wounded lying helpless on the ground while
they looted. Under these circumstances, says Lawrence
The British, in
fact, had their hands full with their wild allies. Aviators had to fly at a
considerable height to avoid being shot at by the Bedouins, who had "an
irresistible desire to shoot anything that was moving fast." 19 They found
the Arab chiefs volcanic and suspicious and ever ready to resent the presence
of infidels. "Many of them," writes Captain Hart, ""behaved
as if the British officers were their servants, and set an example of rudeness
that was imitated by their followers, as well as by their slaves." Lawrence
allies, the
Bedouins." 20 Nor would he instruct his tribesmen in the handling of the
high explosives used to cripple the Turkish transportation system, afraid that
they "would keep on playfully blowing up trains even after the termination
of the war." 21
The whole Lawrence Arabia at all,
73 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
and merely went
down the western coastal fringe from Mecca
along the Pilgrim
railway. 22 Most of the inhabitants of Arabia could hardly have known of his existence,
"while the suggestion implied of Arabian unification under a foreigner and
a non-Muslim is, of course, a myth." 23
His entire 'army'
of purchased irregulars did not amount to a row of peanuts when compared with
the Arabs fighting on the Turkish side against the detested infidel.
Simultaneous with the Sherif's commitment to the Allies, his powerful neighbor
Hussein Mabeirig,
chief of the Rabegh Harb, joined the Turks; and facing the invaders was at
least one entire Ottoman division made up entirely of Arab men and officers.
The number who
participated in the 'revolt' were an uncertain and fluctuating quantity,
"simply gathering," says Bertram Thomas, "for some particular
expedition in numbers that some- times reached a few thousand, but were more
often only a few
hundred."
Lloyd George estimated their total number to aggregate "but a few thousand
horsemen," remarking that "the vast majority of their race in the
Great War were fighting for their Turkish conquerors." 24
There have been
few peoples in history who have gotten so much for giving so little. In Iraq
was their principal
object. Blood-curdling eyewitness accounts tell how Turks and Englishmen alike
were murdered for their small possessions. Unfortunate prisoners had their
bellies ripped open in search of the gold liras which the Arabs thought
the soldiers had
swallowed. Graves containing Turkish and English dead were despoiled for any
articles which might have been buried with them. Throughout the Turkish Empire the phrase Khayin Arab (treacherous Arab)
became an ugly
proverb. 25
As shown by the
records, as far as Palestine
74 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Trans-Jordan it
was the Jewish Legions who, having assisted the English to take the passages of
the Jordan River , marched on to capture Es Salt, then
considered its principal town. Lawrence
At this time the
dazzling fiction of a Palestinian Arab struggle against the Turks had not yet been
invented. The British themselves, roiled by the disinclination of Palestine
Arabs to assist in any way, described them as "sunk in almost animal
brutishness, moved by no spirit of personal liberty or freedom for their native
land." A study of Lawrence Lawrence Palestine Palestine Burton
Despite the ado
subsequently made over the vaunted promises to Hussein, all the evidence
indicates that until British policy shifted after the War, the idea that Palestine Lawrence Syria Palestine
75 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
given to Hussein
which could be construed to mean that Palestine July 11, 1922 , Winston Churchill, then Secretary of
State for the Colonies, declared: "No pledges were made to the Arab Palestinian
Arabs in 1915. So far as I am aware, the first suggestion that Palestine Hejaz
to anything.
When Hussein
finally proclaimed himself Commander of the Faithful, it proved a fatal step, hardening
against him the Wahabis and other fanatic Muslim groups in whose eyes the
Sherif was an infidel backslider. London Hejaz refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles
and wriggled out of joining the League of Nations under British tutelage. Quietly they withdrew their support from
the recalcitrant Hussein and let it be known that he was now on his own. 27
Saud, who had been waiting for this moment, needed no further invitation. He
promptly occupied Mecca Cyprus
himself King of
the Hejaz and Sultan of Nejd.
While the Sherif
was engaged in this death struggle with his ancient enemy, Britain Red Sea port of Aqaba May
27, 1925 , the
British Government regretfully informed
the Commander of
the Faithful that if he would not accede to this demand, it "would have to
take Aqaba and Maan by force." On June 18, both towns became part of Transjordan . Here was created the need for a fresh
departure in British Arabic policy since their new protégé, Saud, would not
accept the fact of British possession gracefully; he continued to roar with aggrieved
self-righteousness that he had been robbed. This friction, which persists until
today, resulted in still another of
Whitehall
76 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
THE ARAB VIEW OF
ZIONISM
During all the
period that the Zionists had been without benefit of Balfour Declaration or
Mandatory 'assistance the attitude of the Arabs toward the Jewish National
Movement had been one of almost unanimous approval. In 1906, Farid Kassab, famous
Syrian author, had expressed the view uniformly held by Arabs: "The Jews
of the Orient are at home. This land is their only fatherland. They don't know
any other." 28 A year later Dr. Gaster reported that he had "held
conversations with some of the leading sheikhs, and they all expressed
themselves as very pleased with the advent of the Jews, for they considered
that with them had come barakat, i.e., blessing, since the rain came in due
season." 29
The Muslim
religious leader, the Mufti, was openly friendly, even taking a prominent part
in the ceremony of laying the foundation stone for the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus Arabia the chiefs were for the most part
distinctly pro-Zionist; and in Palestine
The Arab National
Movement itself, puny, inexperienced, and hated by the huge Levantine
population who continued to regard themselves simply as Ottoman subjects,
looked to the
BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS 77
strong,
influential Zionist Organization for sympathy and assistance.
Hussein of the
Hejaz who had been booted upstairs by the British into a position of recognized
authority in the Arab Nationalist Movement after the War, distrusted European
nations and their statesmen to the very marrow of his bones. He looked
to the Zionists,
as a kindred folk, for the financial and scientific experience of which the
projected Arab state would stand badly in need. When the Balfour Declaration
was communicated to him in January 1918, he had replied "with an
expression of good will towards a kindred Semitic race." 31
In May of the same
year, at Aqaba where he held court and made camp, Hussein was visited by Dr.
Weizmann, head of the Zionist Commission. At this desert conference the British
Government and the Arab Bureau in Cairo
Feisal, dark,
majestic son of the Sherif, spoke as the Arab representative. Intimate mutual
cooperation between the two Movements was pledged. The Zionists were to provide
political, technical and financial advisers to the Arabs; and it was agreed
that Palestine
Basic hostility to
all Christian powers characterized father and son, who felt that the Jews were
the indispensable allies, and indeed the instruments, of a new Arab
renaissance. They regarded a dominantly Jewish Palestine Arabia ; and were anxious for a rapid development
of the Peninsula if it were to become capable of resisting
the attacks which their weakness must sooner or later invite.
When Feisal came
to Europe in 1919 representing the Arab cause, the
Zionists submitted their plans to him. Both Feisal and Lawrence approved of
them, and early in 1919 these conversations culminated in a Treaty of
Friendship. Solemnly signed, this convention provided for the "closest
possible collaboration" in the development of the Arab State
78 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Mohammedan
control; the Zionist Organization undertook to provide economic experts to the
new Arab State; and the Arabs agreed to facilitate the carrying into effect of
the Balfour Declaration and to "encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews
into Palestine January
3rd, 1919 a formal Agreement was signed by Faisal representing the Arabs and
Weizmann representing the Jews. This Agreement confirmed the understanding by
King Faisal and the Arabs that Palestine
On March
3, 1919 , Feisal
acting officially for the Arab movement wrote: "We Arabs look with the
deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation in Paris
most hearty
welcome home."
The Arab leaders
placed themselves on record everywhere in an obvious effort to attain Zionist
support for their own aspirations, then under the cloud of European Imperialist
ambitions. A representative example is Feisal's public communication to
Sir Herbert
Samuel, pleading the need to "maintain between us that harmony so
necessary for the success of our common cause."
On meticulous
English records, carefully buried in the Government vaults, the entire story is
written in comprehensive detail. At all discussions British representatives
were present. Lawrence Whitehall
THE BRITISH
MILITARY JUNTA
Whatever the
mighty deeds and feats of derring-do by English arms elsewhere in the Great
War, it is not a fact that they alone conquered Palestine
79 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
When with pennants
flying, Sir Edmund Allenby made his historic entry into Jerusalem December 9, 1917 , the Hebrew battalions were also there.
Sir John Monash's Australians were the bulk of his effectives. Under his
command, among others, was a contingent of French Colonials and a force of
Italian Bersaglieri from Lybia. As he victoriously entered, Allenby was flanked
on one side by M. Francis Georges-Picot and on the other by Major d'Augustino,
the French and Italian representatives respectively.
It was understood
all around that the expressed Jewish wish was to have the British in control
during the early period when the foundations of the Jewish National Home were
to be laid. The Zionists were at the time much afraid of the practical results
which might follow from the International control favored by the French and
Italians; and they looked on the English as their friends and sponsors. Under
this Jewish insistence the Latins generously allowed their interests to lapse,
and the English military was left in complete authority.
The surrender of Jerusalem Temple
said on entering:
"We have come not as conquerors but as deliverers."
But hardly had the
Turks been driven out when it became apparent to Jew and Arab alike that the
entire Administration was uncompromisingly opposed both to the letter and the
spirit of the Balfour Declaration. In his solemn proclamation after taking the Capital,
Allenby spoke as if the Balfour Declaration had never been issued. In fact no
mention was made of the Jewish National Home in any official announcement in Palestine May 1, 1920 . Even all references to the Jewish Legion,
unstintingly praised in the military dispatches for its gallantry in action,
were suppressed by G.H.Q. from the dispatches as published in the Palestine
80 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Weizmann and his
cohorts had been used to dealing with suave statesmen whose assurances were
still ringing in their ears. Balfour had just reiterated that "no one is
now opposed to Zionism. The success of Zionism is secure." 35 Ormsby-Gores
had even gone so
far as to urge the immediate creation of a Jewish passport. In Jerusalem Palestine British Empire ; but its administration should be largely
entrusted to Jews of the Colonist type. . . Zionists of this way of thinking
believe that, under such conditions, the Jewish population would rapidly
increase until the Jew became the predominant partner of the combination."
The Zionists were
under the impression that they had "gained the adhesion of the Powers to
practically the exact terminology of the Basle program adopted in 1897" under the
direction of Herzel. 36 They were totally unprepared for the unexpected attitude
of the Military, and stood around rubbing their hands in consternation.
The Generals,
looking on the pro-Zionist commitment of the Foreign Office as little less than
criminal lunacy, virtually refused to carry out London Cairo Syria
in high elation
reported that he had interviewed a number of 'Syrians' and that "their
idea of Government for Palestine Palestine
81 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
from which Jews
were to be excluded.
The Zionists were
put in their place with a bang. Despite the Jewish majority in Jerusalem
receipts should be
printed in English and Arabic only; and the Military Governor of Jaffa
The attitude of
the Generals toward the Jews was contemptuous and hostile; and subordinates
were swiftly responsive to the cue supplied by their superior officers. General
Money asserted with cool complacency: "I have asked many people in
position — in England England Holy
Land had been
handed over to Weizmann who had
demanded it as his
pound of flesh for having invented "in the nick of time . . . some
ultra-Teutonic deadliness of gas and bombs." 38
Not un-instructive
of the whole tone of this administration is the case given by Horace Samuel, late
Judicial Officer in Palestine
damn good fellows."
*°
HANDRUBBING
STATESMEN
It was tragic for
the hopes of Zion
82 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
dreaming and
weakness under attack which had characterized life in the Russian Pale. Wise
politicians would have known that the Balfour Declaration was only the
beginning of their troubles; that from this time onward, the Jewish estate
would
have to be
protected by every artifice that stubborn determination and vigilance could
invent. But the inexperienced Zionists considered their provisional charter to
be the solution to all problems. Learnedly they mapped and blueprinted the
perfect society which was gradually to unfold its petals like a lovely orchid
in the new Land of Israel
Shocked by these
pedantic vagaries, the shrewd Nordau urged that a half million Jews be thrown
into Palestine Israel Holy
Land under any
conditions. The practical difficulties to such a project were by no means
insuperable, and, fully as important, Arab resistance to the policy of the
Jewish National Home was at this time scarcely visible. Arab landowners,
holders of great vacant stretches, were under the impression that radical land
legislation was impending and were anxious to sell at any price. It was a
golden opportunity, never to come again.
But Zionist
spokesmen at that time were opposed to what they considered 'premature'
immigration, and wanted to build on 'sound 5 lines. With cautious logic they
demanded to know: "How will these people live? We have no houses for them
—
they will starve
!" 41
"Let them
live in tents — let them starve!" replied Nordau. "But you had better
bring them in at once while the opportunity lasts. Gentlemen, you have the
Balfour Declaration: but you don’t know England
The Hierarchy,
condemning Nordau and his followers as 'impractical, un-idealistic and
headstrong,' was content to wait. Its initiative had been immobilized by the
collapse of Russia
coming into power,
had outlawed the movement on the grounds that it was a tool of the Imperialists
and a betrayal of the Jewish masses. Quoting the master, Marx, to show that
Jews were only a social class and not a nation, they declared Jewish
83 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
nationalism a
counter-revolutionary activity.
Completely upset
by this volcanic withdrawal of their principal source of support, the
bewildered Zionists did nothing. Their complete reliance on the good faith of
British assurances caused them to neglect the most logical and prudent step,
that of consolidating their position quickly, before opposition forces had had
time to collect themselves.
The British could
hardly believe their eyes when the Jewish leaders, obsessed with vague schemes
for national ownership of the land, actually welcomed the drastic legislation
ordered by Allenby prohibiting land sales as well as immigration. They
did not even
protest when the Jewish Legion was cavalierly disbanded and told to leave the Holy Land for their points of origin, though the
balance of Allenby's force remained under arms.
In London July
24, 1918 ,
equipped, with the authority of the British Government, to advise the Palestine
Administration on Jewish affairs. As head of this essentially political body,
Weizmann's first act was to warn his hearers to beware of treacherous
insinuations that Zionists were seeking political power. 42
The Generals, who
had been treating the Jewish population as if it were non-existent, did not
even bother with blandishments ; they simply ignored the Commission altogether.
Not even a pretense of friendship with the Government could be maintained.
With a pointed
demonstration of contempt, when the Jewish National Anthem was played at a
concert in a Jewish school, General Money and his staff deliberately kept their
seats. Putty soled Zionist leaders, who might have used the incident for a
complete show-down fight in a world where the advantage of sympathy and
legality was all theirs, remembered the knout of the Czars, sweated and kept
silent.
84 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Incident
multiplied itself on incident, and for twenty months the status quo of the
country remained unchanged. The onlytime the Zionist leaders opened their
mouths was when "the notorious anti-Semite Colonel Scott (acting head of
the Judiciary) publicly insulted the Jews and the Jewish religion in the
corridor of the Law Courts." 43 The howl that went up, forced by Orthodox
institutions, compelled him to resign.
The Zionists were
badly rattled. Wanting the hardihood necessary to handle this admittedly
difficult situation, they could only sit helplessly by, hoping for the best.
They watched apathetically while a civil agent of the Government, an apostate
Jew named Gabriel,
busied himself in promoting British commercial interests while the Jews,
treated as social, commercial and political outcasts, were kept at a distance.
With equal meekness they stood by while the Government sabotaged Jewish efforts
to come to an understanding with the Arabs.
With conscious
design the Administration fostered hostility between Arab and Jew. It directly
advised the amazed Arabs of Palestine and Egypt
as a weapon
against the Zionists on the slightest pretext. It instructed astonished Arab
young-bloods in the technique and tenets of modern nationalism, in order to
resist Jewish pretenses.' And in London
The Arabs were not
only instigated and advised, but supplied with funds, and their arguments
ghost-written by Englishmen in high places. They proved a tolerably good
investment. Their ready compliance may be seen in the very convenient demands
put forward in the Third Arab Palestine Congress (timed to coincide with the
British plot to force the French out of the Near East altogether) that the Holy
Land be not separated from Syria. During all this time the Military had been
playing a high game
of politics on its
own, maneuvering carefully to present the forthcoming Peace Conference with a
fait accompli which would set the lily-livered civilian officials in London
85 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
to who should
control the Eastern
Mediterranean .
The French, traditional protectors of Syria Sidon Jerusalem
The Generals aimed
at one big Arab state or federation of states, to include the Hejaz , Iraq Syria Palestine Egypt Britain Palestine Syria Levant or a Zionist policy
in Palestine
Now began a
technique of instigation and incitement from which the Anglo-Saxon rulers of
the Holy Land have never varied wherever they had a point
to be gained. Tension between France England London Palestine
Matters came to a
head in 1920 when Feisal staged a revolt against the French in Damascus Palestine
part of Syria Jerusalem
mean the end of
Zionism, that the League
of Nations , which
had not yet officially named a mandatory, would be forced to 'recognize the
rights' of the native population and cancel out the Zionist adventure.
86 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
POGROM AND WORLD
HORROR
The Governor of
Jerusalem was General Louis Bols. Chief of Staff to Bols was Colonel Waters
Taylor, whose ideal polity was a military government in perpetuity, and who
later became an anti-Zionist organizer in London
When Colonel
Patterson, staunch Zionist friend, heard that Bols had been appointed, he was
shocked. He writes: "I knew Bols well, having worked with him for two
years. I knew him as an out and out anti-Semite, who would leave no stone
unturned to destroy the Jewish National Home root and branch." So moved
was this honest English soldier that he boarded a train for Cairo that very day
in order to warn Weizmann of the danger, urging him to oppose Bols' appointment
with might and
main. In reply
Weizmann informed Patterson that his fears "were really exaggerated, as he
had just had a two-hour conversation with Bols and had found him a very nice
man." Despite Weizmann's optimistic appraisal, the result of Bols'
appointment
was soon to be
written in Jewish blood.
Ominous incidents
crowding fast on the heels of the intensive propaganda which followed the
crowning of Feisal in Syria
The riots of April
1920 broke on the heads of the astonished Jews like a clap of thunder. Misled
by the naiveté of their responsible leaders, they awoke from their dreams of a
Jewish Commonwealth to scenes no different than those from which
they had fled in Russia
The action was
perfectly timed. Moslem crowds had gathered for the Nebt Monssa festival in Jerusalem
Now agitators were
addressing this churning mass, urging them forward against the
87 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
Jerusalem
Poland Germany Ukraine Palestine Lebanon Valley Israel Europe or perish. The Arabs, undeterred by the
restraining 'principles' of the Zionists, had demanded, and received, more than
they had ever envisioned in their wildest dreams. At a moment when public
opinion would have completely approved of the Zionists taking immediate
possession, they demurred on 'democratic' and 'social' grounds.
Palestine
Palestine
London
Jews. Hesitant for
a moment, the reassuring cry arose: "The Government is with us !"
The stage had been
ably set. All Jewish policemen had been relieved from duty in the 'Old City Jerusalem
Shrieking madness
covered the Old City
to rape.
Shivering with the
emotion of an unhappy, betrayed man, Weizmann, supreme Jewish leader, wept
bitterly. In another part of the city, Jabotinsky, the little Russian writer
with the prognathous jaw, was raging. Cursing the wordy timidity of his Zionist
confreres he swiftly gathered together a group of ex-Legionnaires. Heartened,
other young Jews joined the "Self-Defense." Where they appeared the
rioters ran for their lives.
Meanwhile the
Government surrounded the Old City
raised a hand to
interfere. 45
Jabotinsky and his
Legionnaires were arrested as fast as they could be apprehended. It was
symptomatic of the general tone of the Administration that Howes, the
Commandant of Police, caused Jabotinsky to be held in the common lockup, while
Arab agitators who had also been arrested were accommodated in a pleasant room
in the Governate itself. Zionist stock slumped still lower when Jewish notables
were refused an audience, while motor cars were placed at the disposal of Arab
leaders for
the purpose of
granting them an interview with the Chief Administrator. 46
With ghoulish
thoroughness the Government both during and after the riots searched
88 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the Jews for arms,
deliberately rendering them defenseless, and causing numerous arrests of those
guilty of protecting their homes and loved ones. Cynically Sir Louis Bols
complained in a dispatch to Cairo
So devilishly
inhuman a course would hardly seem credible if it were not supported by the
word of many witnesses, some of them distinguished Englishmen, revolted by this
sickening parade of events. The tone of the Administration was so hostile that
a celebrated American archaeologist, a non-Jew, told Horace Samuel "quite specifically"
that because of his sympathy for the riot victims "he found himself
deliberately cold-shouldered by the British officials." 47 A thoroughly
upset British lady felt compelled to write that "for the first time
yesterday I felt ashamed of being born an Englishwoman." 48
never to fade. Far
away in the little Galilee village of Tel Hai
In a
vermin-infested jail, awaiting trial, was Jabotinsky — Jewish patriot and
ex-officer of His Majesty's Army — now stripped of his honors and treated like
a dangerous felon. With scant ceremony he was tried, and with his Legionnaires
sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor.
Shocked by this
savage order, the Jews shut their shops in protest. The Government replied with
a ukase ordering the shops reopened under penalty of a fine of £50; an action
more than interesting in view of the way subsequent Arab strikes were handled.
Suddenly, like a
typhoon which had gathered from nowhere, a tremendous wave of protest swept the
world. England Ireland India
89 BRASS BUTTONS AND
STUFFED SHIRTS
The Generals' plan
had become a boomerang. The League had not yet granted an official mandate; and
the French, irritated to the boiling point, took action to throw
King Feisal; out
of Syria Palestine
The English were
in a tight spot. They stood morally condemned before the world. The precious
life line to India
Here was another
shining opportunity laid right in the Zionists' laps. The functionaries in Whitehall Palestine Israel
CHAPTER VII
THE MANDATE BY THE
LEAGUE
WEIZMANN OBLIGES
At the Peace
Conference, held at Versailles Europe .
An example of
their attitude is contained in the assertion by Sir Herbert Samuel that
"the immediate establishment of a complete and purely Jewish State in Palestine
90 Pics
91 THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
91 THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
Both at Versailles Palestine England
Throughout the
Versailles Conference the view taken by the British delegation, and supported
by the Plenipotentiaries, "was that if there was to be a Jewish
nationality, it could only be by giving the Jews a local habitation and
enabling them to found in
Powerful America Europe in her pocket, was heart and soul for a
Zionist solution. The official American recommendation at the Peace Conference
was for the establishment of a Jewish State. A commission of prominent Americans
had been sent by President Wilson to investigate, and their recommendations,
adopted by the President and other American delegates without dissent were
direct and forthright, stating bluntly that "it is right that Palestine
The frank of America Holy Land were protected, opposition virtually did
not exist. The Arabs themselves were more than friendly and in fact were
looking to the obviously influential Zionists for support of their own program.
Again, as in the
case of the Balfour Declaration, the only oppositionists were Jews —
capitalists or Marxists — who considered Zionism a move of gravely dangerous
import. In England America
92 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
effect "against
the program of political Zionism." But the only effect of these hysterical
renunciations was to cause the Plenipotentiaries to scratch their heads in
wonder and dismiss the authors as a bunch of well-meaning crackpots.
Heavily in the
Zionists' favor was the biting rivalry between the British and French, each
determined to shut the other out of the Near East if it could. Sticking in the craw of the
British was the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which all but handed the Levant over to France India
Able tacticians,
they pointed out that the Balfour Declaration, to which Paris
The French, secure
in the largest military establishment on earth, already almost at war with England Palestine Syria
Though the Kaiser
was chopping wood somewhere in Holland Palestine
The French stood
pat. They wanted Palestine
As it became
evident that the Zionists held the decision in their hands they were courted by
both sides. Sir Mark Sykes and M. Georges-Picot, authors of the earlier
agreement, both declared themselves as favoring the Zionist solution.
What the French
had not figured on was the almost pathological pro-Anglicism of the Jews,
enduring product of an earlier generation of English friendship. It must be
rioted that
93 THE MANDATE BY
THE LEAGUE
there was nothing
either in the Balfour promises or in the negotiations at Versailles Great Britain
The Zionists,
prompted by London Great Britain
the return of the
Jews to Zion Poland Great Britain League of Nations . This request was made in an elaborate
statement on the future of Palestine France
Condensing a
volume of duplicity and ingratitude in a few words, De Haas remarks that
"the British at once commenced a process of whittling the phraseology before
the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference." 4
So matters stood
when in April of 1920 the League Council met at San Remo Palestine
94 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
that England
The reaction of
the Arabs to the San Remo Iraq
A few months later
the matter was clinched for England Turkey
Secure in the
knowledge that the over-lordship of this coveted territory was now theirs, London
producing it in
its final form.
The Zionists made
plea after plea, realizing that they had put their feet in quicksand. They
appealed to the League as if the procrastination lay there. On February
27, 1922 ,
representatives of the Zionist Organization went through the play-acting
of informing the
League Council in Paris that the Jews of Palestine, at a conference in Jaffa, appealed
to the Allied and Associated Powers "to nominate Great Britain as their
trustee, and to confer on her the government of Palestine
95 THE MANDATE BY
THE LEAGUE
the Jewish People
in building up their Commonwealth." 5 A confirmed Zionist, President
Harding made his interest known unofficially; and in April of 1922 the United
States Congress stated by resolution its profound satisfaction that "owing
to the outcome of the World War and their part therein, the Jewish people,
under definite and adequate international guarantee, are to be enabled ... to
recreate and reorganize a National Home in the land of their fathers,"
commending "this act of historic justice about to be consummated" as
"an undertaking which will do honor to Christendom."
Still the British
continued to hem and haw, utilizing every trifling technicality to spar for
time. It was not until the revised convention with Turkey
powers limited by
language ambiguous enough to be interpreted in any direction the ruling power
of Palestine
It provided that
in the territory east of Jordan
In view of later
English contentions that under the Mandate they were forced to consult the
Arabs in implementing their actions, it is interesting to note that the Arabs
were not approached when that responsibility was handed to Britain
were consulted. It
is also remarkable that the word 'Arab' never once occurs in the whole document
as apart from the recognition of Arabic as one of the official languages of the
country. A most casual reading makes it plain that the League had
* See Appendix
'A,' p. 571.
96 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
engaged itself to
a definite and positive policy of Jewish development, not only permitted, but
fostered and subsidized by the Government of Palestine Palestine
as a whole who are
the beneficiaries. The Mandate is clearly for an absent people who are not yet
there on the ground, with the existing populations secondarily guaranteed full
liberty and civil rights. 6 This alteration of basic law came under discussion
at the twelfth meeting of the Twentieth Session of the Mandates Commission
(June 1931) in connection with a British observation to the effect that
"in international law there was no such thing as a Jew from the standpoint
of nationality." To this the Vice-Chairman of the Commission replied that
the remark would be correct except for the existence of the Balfour Declaration
and the Mandate, which had introduced a new element into this law in favor of
the Jewish People.
Included in the
Preamble was the Balfour Declaration and its ratification by the Powers at San Remo Palestine Palestine Palestine
Of the direct
commitments the most important was Article II which stated that "the
Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political,
administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the
Jewish
National Home as
laid down in the Preamble. . While Article VI ordered the Mandatory to
"facilitate Jewish immigration" and to "encourage, in
cooperation with the Jewish Agency . . . the close settlement of Jews on the
land including State lands and wastelands not required for public
purposes."
On December
3, 1924 , the United States
97 THE MANDATE BY
THE LEAGUE
the contracting
parties to this international arrangement. This treaty, known as the
American-British Mandate Convention on Palestine League of Nations . In the correspondence relating to the several draft treaties
submitted, it is plainly evident that the American Government considered
England only as the temporary custodian for what was soon to be a Jewish State
and, for this reason only, allowed herself to relinquish the special capitulation
rights she had enjoyed under the old Turkish regime. The final draft of this
agreement guarantees that "the United States
of the League of Nations and their nationals, notwithstanding the
fact that the United States League of Nations ."
The determination
of America United States
For once the
Nations were attempting to solve their problems in a consciously intelligent
manner. They had tackled the question of Jewish homelessness vigorously, and
rested from their labors sincerely believing that they had rid the world of one
of
its oldest
problems.
THE FIRST
PARTITION
At the time of the
Peace Conference there was no haggling over the size of the Jewish territory.
The American Commission took it for granted that "the new State would
control its own source of water power and irrigation, from Mount Hermon in the east to the Jordan Palestine Syria Egypt Iraq
98 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
by Egypt Iraq Hejaz . The English viewpoint, embodied in
British Peace Handbook No. 60 on Syria and Palestine, even contended that
Damascus itself could very well be included, asserting that the whole
"portion of the center of Syria that lies to the east of Jebel esh-Sharki
may easily be separated from northern Syria Palestine River of Egypt
With the San Remo Downing
Street , suddenly
showing a neighborly spirit, began to make territorial concessions to the
French at the expense of the Jewish National Home. Satisfied with those
elements relating purely to the safety of their Empire, English negotiators
were completely indifferent to proper Palestinian boundaries from any other
point of view. The Zionists were in consternation when London
Since the coming Hebrew Commonwealth Mount Hermon . This strategic sector, as well as the
lands of Naphthali, Dan and Manasseh, was lopped off and uselessly handed to Syria Israel Galilee whence came the chief Zealots and patriots
of the Roman wars.
Mincing no words,
Colonel Wedgwood wrote that this first jettison of the patrimony of Israel
Outraged by what
he also considered an act of unpardonable vandalism, President Wilson rose from
his sick bed and cabled the following protest to the British Cabinet: "The
Zionist cause depends upon rational northern and eastern boundaries for a
99 THE MANDATE BY
THE LEAGUE
self-sustaining,
economic development of the country. This means on the north, Palestine Litany River
a mutilation. . .
I need not remind you that neither in this country nor in Paris
This was in the
Spring of 1920. Procrastinating, sugaring the Zionists with promises, London Jordan Jordan
The logic of this
inexplicable indifference to British interests became clear later when the
Zionists began to get a glimpse of what was in the back of the bureaucratic
mind. Even at the sacrifice of desired territory, they wanted to make certain
that Zionism could not succeed. A Zionist Palestine they regarded as a new
Ireland in embryo, a development even more fraught with trouble for the Empire.
They proceeded
cautiously. Time was in their favor.
Bols and the
Generals had been dumped overboard. To show good faith a hand-picked Jew, Sir
Herbert Samuel, had been appointed first High Commissioner under the coming
Civil Administration. Of this change, Colonel Patterson commented grimly:
"Bols went, but the system he implanted remained. The anti-Semitic
officials that he brought with him into the country remained. . ." 11
CHAPTER VIII
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
UNDER THE COLONIAL
OFFICE
The Military
Administration was over. Anxious, but still un-protesting, the Zionists
discovered that the Palestine
The country was
now being directly governed by the Crown Colony Code and by a bureau which by
the very nature of its experiences and interests could not fail to be opposed
to the Mandate. This type of administration is maintained almost solely for the
control of uncivilized tropical or sub-tropical races. The English themselves
were later to admit that it "is not a suitable form of government for a
numerous, self-reliant, progressive people, European for the most part in
outlook and equipment, if not in race." 1 The evolution of self-rule even
in backward India
The worst of its
features is the unwritten law of the Colonial that the Colony exists chiefly to
supply cheap raw material to, and to buy manufactured goods from, the mother
country. It is his business to discourage industrial development, which might
eventually offer substantial competition to the factories at Glasgow Lancashire . The perfect example of desirable
condition was that offered by Indian and Egyptian cotton, which after being
hauled over half the globe to England Egypt India
The Colonial
Office, caring nothing about developing a body of officials acquainted with the
needs of the country, actually does the reverse. It wants no functionaries even
remotely identified with the territory they rule ; hence it rotates these
officials
100 Pics
101 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL 101
from one colony to
the other. Typical of the men who were to interpret the needs of Zionism were
Police Chief R. B. G. Spicer, late Police Chief in Kenya Colony ; Chief Secretary
Mark Aitchison Young, previously Colonial Secretary for Sierra Leone ; Michael
Francis Joseph McDonnell, Chief Justice of the Palestine Supreme Court,
formerly Assistant District Commissioner of the Gold Coast ; and Sir John
Chancellor, High Commissioner of unlamented memory, who came from Southern
Rhodesia where he had kept the peace with rifles.
These were all
career men, suffering invariably from an ingrown sense of superiority; some of
them educated and clever, others recruited from the backwash of the English
slums. They were taught an attitude of cold reserve, a system of playing native
factions off expertly against each other, a technique of incitement, and a
calloused disregard for everything not connected with the spirit of the Crown
Colony Code.
Under this set of
regulations, created to serve settlements of Englishmen marooned among easily
subdued or barbarian natives, the Zionists found that even the slightest
trivialities had to be referred to some bureaucrat in London Jerusalem London Palestine
in what was hoped
to be an important financial institution for issuing mortgages and bonds on
Jewish property. The reason given was the Crown Colony Code. Another official
was refused permission to aid in the development of so unprofitable a venture
as the Hebrew Opera Company. The reason? The Crown Colony Code. 2 Even though
there is only a scant handful of English school-children in the area, under the
Code, Palestine
Just what rights
the Crown Agents had in a mandated area was never made clear.
102 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
But the Zionists
were not to be bothered by formalities. They had a colossal disrespect for
politics. They declared that what they wanted was to 'build up the country' and
let politics take care of itself.
A JEWISH RULER
AFTER TWO THOUSAND YEARS
Sir Herbert Samuel
arrived in due course, dressed for the occasion in gold braid and a resplendent
white uniform. Throughout the Jewish world he had been trumpeted as the new
Moses, the man of destiny. When he at last arrived in Jerusalem
Samuel was an
impressive man, handsome and soldierly looking as he clicked his heels before
the welcoming cameras; though closer inspection was not so reassuring,
revealing a moody face whose whole expression was searching and suspicious. He
had been Home Secretary in the British Government during the War and a had a
reputation for treating Jews in a way that would not redound to the credit of a
liberal gentile administrator." 3 The famous 'Tay Pay' O'Connor had
briefly described him as having an "utter disregard for all the occupations
and prizes of life except those to be found in politics. ,, 4 His inability to
understand even the most obvious conditions under which the masses of Jewry
lived is shown by an incident occurring in the Fall of 191 9 when Samuel was
functioning as leader of a British Committee of Investigation in Poland
The heavens were
almost covered with omens in reference to the mettle of Mr.
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
Samuel; but nevertheless
the Zionists allowed themselves to be hoaxed into accepting him. Acting on a
polite hint from high British quarters, they actually sponsored him; and
officially his appointment was the result of their direct demand. Ruefully,
Weizmann was later to admit : "Perhaps 1 am responsible for this chapter 'Samuel.'
" 6
History will
undoubtedly look on the man Samuel with wonder, as a striking commentary on his
times. His first official act was to throw the brave Jews, jailed for their
part in the self-defense during the riots, into the same class with Arab
rapists by magnanimously pardoning both, all in the same breath and the same
document. 7
Shortly after his
arrival he held a reception for the members of his staff. The reaction, blurted
out of the mouth of one of them was: "And there I was at Government House,
and there was the Union Jack flying as large as life, and a bloody Jew sitting
under it." 8
Sir Herbert was
surrounded from the first by anti-Zionist subordinates, whom he was afraid to
offend by appearing to favor the Jews. Horace Samuel declares that throughout
his whole tenure of office Sir Herbert suffered acutely from the consciousness
of being a Jew, causing him to pivot right around to an actual pro-Arab
attitude.
The important
Political Department of the Secretariat was assigned to an officer who labored
under an intensive and fanatical hostility to the declared policy of His
Majesty's Government in Palestine Richmond Palestine
103 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
whose influence
was reduced to little. In the subordinate jobs, particularly on the Police
Force and Intelligence Department, nearly all the key non-British positions
were filled by Arabs, who were quick to respond to the cue given them by their
superiors. The situation became so obvious that a number of Jewish officers of
the Administration threw up their jobs "with the statement that they were
doing so because there did not seem to be room for Jewish officials in the
National Home." 11
It is no
exaggeration to say that every subterfuge used to obstruct Zionist advance in
future years, originated with Samuel. Characteristic of the man was this
statement attributed to him: "If the Jews really want Palestine
it is worth."
At the Fifth Session of the Permanent Mandates Commission he stated that it was
"the fundamental intention of the Government" to deal with the Arabs
"as if there had never been a Balfour Declaration." 12 Samuel's
interference almost
lost the important
Dead Sea concession for the Jews. He had
deliberately held it up, not considering it seemly that Jews should get such a
valuable concession. 13
Incongruously
enough, Sir Herbert was so religious that he believed it a sin for Jews and
non-Jews to intermarry. He deliberately snubbed a senior Christian official who
had married a Jewish girl, remaining stiffly rude to both man and wife, even on
those occasions when the duties of His Majesty's service made it impossible to
avoid him.
THE POGROM OF 1921
The result of
Samuel's policies was a pogrom. Only a scant year had passed since the previous
massacre of Jews in Jerusalem
It was the end of
April. The Moslems were celebrating their annual festival of the Prophet Moses.
This fiesta at which howling creatures with quivering eyes and distorted
features worked themselves into a lather, had been the starting point for
104 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
trouble the year
before. Each year, as the Moslems carried on their wild dances in the streets,
anxiety spoke from the faces of the Jews until the Nebi Moussa festival was
over. Notwithstanding this, the British Commandant of Police was conveniently
away. The few Jews on the police force had been mysteriously taken off duty for
the day.
"Bolsheviki!
Bolsheviki! The Zionists are flooding the country with Bolsheviki!" This
ugly cry had reverberated from many throats, Christian and Moslem alike, for a
long period of months. With tacit consent the Authorities had given
sullen approval to
the accusation that "every Jew is a Bolshevik." This malignant
propaganda had been carried on openly under the eye of the Administration until
the saturated minds of every section of Palestine
Suddenly during
the Festival the mad shout arose that "the Mosques were being attacked by
the Bolsheviks" (Jews). At Jaffa Jaffa
A howling horde
led by uniformed policemen armed with rifles, bombs and ammunition stormed the
Zionist Immigration Depot. Thirteen newly arrived immigrants were butchered
amid horrible scenes of rape and looting. The water-front workmen, huge
ruffians armed with long boat-hooks, ran through the streets impaling Jews on
their weapons. Respectable looking Arabs with well-ironed fezzes, polished
shoes, well-creased pants and starched collars, rushed into stores and helped
themselves to all kinds of merchandise. 16
The conflagration
immediately spread beyond the Jaffa
106 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
delivered in
military formation, "directed by a gentleman with binoculars." 17
Hopelessly outnumbered the colonists fought with desperate courage for their
lives. The colony Kfar Saba was destroyed and Rehovoth and Hadera badly
damaged. Everywhere Arabs ruined beautiful fruit orchards, the work of a lifetime,
burned homes and carried off movable property and cattle. Only the circumstance
that almost all Jewish workers were former soldiers prevented the Jewish
National Home from being consumed in one grand conflagration. 18
The most revolting
spectacles had taken place. Defenseless old people and little children alike
had been cut to ribbons and mutilated beyond recognition. Women were dragged
out into the open street and outraged before being murdered. Bedlam shrieked
all over the land of Moses
All Palestine England Holy Land , the wife of the Labor leader Philip
Snowden fixed the responsibility on "the activity of certain
British subjects
in Palestine England
infested area,
asked him what his orders were and received the reply: "I must not
shoot." 22 The policy of the police can be judged from the case of Shakeer
Ali Kishek, one of the Bedouin chieftains who had led the attack on Petach
Tikvah. Subsequently arrested, he "was immediately released on bail as a graceful
gesture;
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
107
while . . . the
chief notable of the colony, one of the most respected Jewish colonists in the
whole of Palestine Jerusalem
As a token of its
displeasure the Government plastered a punitive fine on the villages that had
attacked Hadera, which the Arabs never bothered about paying. Warrants were
issued against some individuals living in the notorious Tulkarm district who
were identified as having been involved in the murderous assaults, but "no
efforts were made to execute the warrants." 24
The Authorities
refused pointblank to make any investigation, so the Zionist Commission
together with Judge Horace Samuel and Mr. Sacher engaged the services of a
British enquiry agent, "who, immediately after he had gotten on the track,
was promptly ordered by the military authorities to leave the Jaffa
district." 25
According to the
principal Medical Officer the total number of casualties in the pogrom were 95
killed and 290 wounded. 26 Lending a ghoulish touch to the after-performance,
while the Jews were bowed in mourning for their dead, General Storrs,
Governor of Jerusalem
The insurrection
of 1921 marked a variation of Administration technique. It constituted a
precedent for the principle — observed by all ensuing Administrations with
almost religious scrupulousness — that every outbreak of armed Arab violence
was ipso facto to be rewarded with political concessions and to be followed by
a Commission of Inquiry whose importance was to be in proportion to the scale
of the revolt.
The Haycraft
Commission was appointed to investigate and fix responsibility for the terrible
events which had just passed. One of its three members was Harry Luke, the man
whom Palestine Jewry was to hold responsible for the terrible excesses of 1929,
when Jewish Palestine almost went up in smoke. This
108 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
body finally ended
by finding guilty the 'Bolshevik' Jews who had been coming into the country and
who had aroused the patriotic Arabs by their May Day demonstrations.
Within forty-eight
hours of the Jaffa
Samuel went so far
as to offer the Arabs complete control over immigration, a tender they
foolhardily refused. Reduced to simple terms, what they demanded was the
enforced return of the Jews to their pre-war status as a tolerated minority
without political rights.
This was the same
Samuel who had asserted in 191 7 that Jewish immigration must be regulated by
the responsible Jewish body in Palestine Palestine
London
Palestine Jordan Carolina Israel
Downing
Street had
demanded Trans-Jordan in the name of "the forthcoming Zionist Government,"
36 and the French finally conceded the issue. Under the Leygues-Harding Agreement,
signed December 23, 1920 , in Paris Britain Iraq
Great Britain Palestine Hejaz was a clear violation of both the spirit
and letter of this provision. Right after the Zionists, cringing under
Churchill's empty-threat, ratified the White Paper, Abdullah and his invaders
were installed as masters of Eastern Palestine . In July the terms of the Mandate for Palestine League of Nations , and in the same month Abdullah was
formally instated as Emir of Transjordan. Adding insult to injury, the Palestine
THE GRAND MUFTI
Implicated in the
disturbances of 1920 was a political adventurer named Haj Amin al Husseini. 31
Haj Amin, a leering ruffian with misshapen ears and close-cropped scanty beard,
was descended from an Egyptian family known for its turbulence and penchant for
intrigue. In a general housecleaning under taken to appease the Jews at
109 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
the San Remo
Conference, he had been sentenced by a British court to fifteen years at hard
labor, as a dangerous gang leader and agitator. Conveniently allowed to escape
by the police, Haj Amin was hiding out in neighboring Syria London
Caliphate, in Jerusalem
Haj Amin was not
in the literal sense an Arab patriot. He considered Western Nationalism a work
of the devil. His ideal was the old Moslem particularism functioning in an area
without boundaries, where none but the Faithful would be allowed to remain with
bowels. Beyond that, he was somewhat stupid, honest in his way, ambitious, and
a fanatical hater of Jews. During the war he had been an officer in the Turkish
Army.
With a pardon from
Sir Herbert tucked up his flowing black sleeve, this man who had fled Palestine
This was only the
beginning. Samuel was determined to go whole hog in anchoring this son of the
Husseini in the seat of power. He created the 'Supreme Moslem Council which was
presumably authorized to elect its own leadership by democratic vote. In the
balloting the Government candidate, Haj Amin al Husseini, polled only nine electoral
votes against nineteen eighteen and twelve for his three rivals. This fact, however,
weighed little with the High Commissioner, who forced the chosen
110 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
candidate, Sheikh
Hussam ed Din Effendi Jarallah, to step aside, and made Haj Amin President.
Soon after, the Mufti was created Reis al Ulema, president of the religious
(Sharia) courts, thus concentrating in his hands the highest posts of distinction
and power Palestine
Few men have had
such benefactors as Haj Amin discovered in Sir Herbert Samuel. In his person he
now combined the headship of the Church and the Law, so closely connected in
the Islamic religion. Under the Turks the Wakf, or religious bequests, were
under rigid State supervision from Istanbul
or other
charitable endowments, as well as the Mohammedan courts and educational
institutions, including even the Industrial School Jerusalem
and fifty paid
assistants was allowed the Supreme Moslem Council to superintend the six
hundred men employed in the various Wakf departments.
As if to make the
anti-Jewish lineup airtight, Sir Herbert took the pet scheme of the Generals,
the Moslem-Christian Union, under his wing. Although a large number of Arabs
objected, he gave it semi-official standing. Under his generous patronage it
soon developed strong roots.
THE CHURCHILL
WHITE PAPER
In June 1922,
Samuel drew up a long document, deadly in its import to the Jews, which when
signed by Winston Churchill became known as the Churchill White Paper. The
Papal Secretary, Cardinal Gaspari, annoyed by the procrastination in
formulating Article XIV of the Mandate, regulating the Holy Places, had put up an
outright demand that this Article be clarified and acted upon. Whitehall Palestine
111 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
purpose constituted
a bold reinterpretation of the Balfour Declaration. With carefully chosen words
it smashes at the legal base for Zionist repatriation, arriving at the
remarkable conclusion that the terms of Balfour's Declaration "do not
contemplate that Palestine Palestine
In phrases
unctuous with sophistry the White Paper attempts to explain away Britain Palestine Palestine
be formally
recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."
Thus in two short
years Samuel had changed from an impassioned advocate of the reestablished
Jewish State, to a pleader for "a national Jewish home in Palestine Palestine
112 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
bringing in a
leavening of able, enterprising Jews.
Buried in the
Churchill-Samuel White Paper was a neat little paragraph holding that while
Jews had every right to return to their homeland freely, this immigration must
not be so great in volume "as to exceed whatever may be the economic
capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals." This sounded
very nice and sensible; but it was to prove the formula which future anti-Semitic
administrations utilized to justify their depredations by principle.
Included also was
a scheme for an elective Legislative Assembly to be composed of a trinity of
Arabs, Jews and British officials, who would presumably spend their time in the
subtleties of reciprocal intrigue. Samuel had originated this as bait for the
Arabs, who were mortifying His Excellency by referring to the Administration as
'that Jewish Government.'
Ably the White
Paper juggled words, hemmed and hawed, to make it clear that Palestine
The Zionists were
in an uproar. The White Paper had been sprung on them out of the clear sky, a
few days before the terms of the Mandate were to be published in their final
form. Fuming with indignation, the Zionist Executive balked. At this, Churchill
called in the ever reliable Weizmann and pointed out to him that the tenor of
the Memorandum was a reflection of British needs in the Near East . Britain Egypt India Great
Britain Britain
113 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
Executive did not
agree in twenty-four hours. 33
Weizmann hurriedly
called a meeting of his colleagues, most of whom wanted desperately to call
Churchill's bluff. The fact was that the only method by which the projected
revision of Jewish status in Palestine Israel
There can be no
doubt that the largest share of the Zionist acquiescence to this move rested on
an exaggerated loyalty to the interests of their friend and patron, Britain Levant . Had they stood their ground, any coercive
tactics used against them would have reacted infallibly against the schemers in
London Jerusalem Palestine Britain
Acceptance of the
White Paper at the same time placed the Zionist stamp of approval on another
outrage even more deadly to their hopes.
SEVERANCE OF TRANSJORDAN
On the second
anniversary of the Balfour Declaration Samuel had quite rationally declaimed
that "you cannot have numbers without area and territory. Every expert
knows that for a prosperous Palestine Jordan
114 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
indelibly over
every part of its hills and plains. It was the permanent home of two of the
Twelve Tribes, as well as the half tribe of Manasseh. The five cities of the
plain were Trans-Jordanic. Two of them, Nebo and Pisgah, are like household
words.
Between 1918 and
1921, when the creation of a Jewish National Home was being negotiated with the
Zionists by the British Government, there was no question of a Palestine West
of the Jordan River or East of the Jordan River . The Balfour
Declaration
embraced both sides of the Jordan Palestine Palestine
This whole area
was embraced in the British Mandate largely because of London Palestine Syria Palestine Palestine Palestine Manchester
Guardian alleged
that both from a historical and economic viewpoint Trans-Jordan was an organic
part of the Holy
Land .
115 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
Feisal, puppet of
the British generals, had just been driven out of Syria
Abdullah,
gathering an army of his wild nomads, marched out of the Hejaz and headed north for Syria Amman
Samuel again grew
jittery. He had to curb the Military or face the possibility of the French
attacking Abdullah in TransJordan and remaining there. But Abdullah refused to budge. It seemed
necessary to placate him in some fashion — and Sir Herbert had a brilliant
idea: he invited the little Arab to a conference to 'talk things over,' and
suggested that he park a while in the territory of the Jewish National Home.
Abdullah, gaping at this unexpected chance for power, thought that this would
be very nice. He took over the administration of Eastern Palestine "for a period of six months,"
ostensibly to restore order 38 — a rather comic provision since the only
disorder in the territory was that created by Abdullah and his Sherifian Army
itself.
Stroking his chin
quizzically at Samuel's droll move, Churchill waited for the Zionists to blow
the roof off. For once Winston Churchill, master of bluff and stratagem, was
nonplussed. The Zionists had been gagged by Samuel's threat of still further restrictions,
and their silence was token of acquiescence.
Secure in the
knowledge that Jewish spokesmen would not prove troublesome, London Eastern
Palestine from
the rest of the country.
116 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
The earlier drafts
of the Mandate all contained twenty-seven paragraphs, none of which mentioned a
separate Transjordan . The final text, sprung with the quickness
of legerdemain, consisted of twenty-eight paragraphs. The new one, number
twenty-five, empowered the Mandatory with the consent of the Council of the
League of Nations (which had no such power), "to withhold or set aside, in
the territories between the Jordan River and the eastern boundaries of Palestine,
the employment of such mandate agreements which are found to be inapplicable
because of local conditions," certainly an innocent enough appearing
proviso. It was explained on the basis of Britain
117 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
"in the name
of the British Government . . . that Great Britain
The second brutal
rape of the territory of the Jewish National Home was now all but accomplished.
Transjordan henceforward became the only territory in
the 'world to all intents and purposes Judenrein (free of Jews). It was the
first country to prohibit Jews from even practicing a profession or owning
land. Its ban on them was complete.
Beyond whimpering a
little, the Zionist Executive kept its peace, and actually covered up this
gigantic theft of the Jewish patrimony by a new festival campaign "for the
Jewish National Fund." As late as October 1934, Dr. Weizmann was with gentle
self-abnegation declaring that "we do not wish to change the status of
Trans-Jordan by applying the Balfour Declaration there... 40
SAMUEL IS REPLACED
Probably no man
was so cordially detested by his own people as this latter-day Herod called
Herbert Samuel. In any other community this deep-seated resentment would have
flared up in periodic attempts at violence. Jews, who have an instinctive
abhorrence of lawlessness as a method of settling their problems, kept their
peace but hardly hated him the less.
Among his public
acts was the matter of the allotment of the Crown lands, which under the
Mandate were to have been placed at the disposal of the Zionists. The story of
their distribution is amazing.
The cream of these
Government lands were in the Beisan area, in the fertile region known as the Ghor Valley
118 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
any suggestions
for improvement of their housing, water supply or education. . . There were no
trees, no vegetables. The fellaheen, if not themselves cattle thieves, were
always ready to harbor these and other criminals. . . The Bedu, wild and
lawless by nature, were constantly at feud with their neighbors on both sides
of the Jordan Transjordan tribe of nomads who had pitched camp there
for the winter.
Nettled, Samuel
returned to his earlier technique of placating the tribesmen with gifts. He
immediately announced that he was giving the Beisan lands to the same truculent
nomads who had insulted him. All told, the Government gave these Arabs almost
four hundred thousand dunams (a dunam is about a quarter of an acre) 41 of the
best land in Palestine Israel
Immediately these
lands became the subject of the most cynical speculation. Tribesmen were not
interested in the hard work cultivation requires and most of them were given
far more acreage than they could handle by themselves. The net result was that
the major part of the soil was immediately offered to the Zionists at fancy
prices. Even more sardonic, much of the land given to these Bedouins was resold
later to the Government at a profit of some 500 percent, to be used for the
resettlement of so-called displaced Arabs. 43 Everywhere Arab speculators
entered, scenting a middleman's profit. Many of the tribesmen sold at inflated
prices and disappeared into Trans-Jordan and Iraq
The Government was
now in fact compelled to tackle a new problem: that of preventing the Beisan
lands from subsequently falling into the hands of land-hungry Jews, who were
willing to offer almost any price.
119 A MAN NAMED
SAMUEL
It was during Sir
Herbert's regime that Arab opposition to the Jews took definite form and
grooved itself. The entire Administration was honey-combed with anti-Semitic
officials who made the Executive Offices a nest of pro-Arab activity. Samuel,
masking himself behind a screen of 'liberalism,' made not the slightest move to
interfere.
When in 1925 Sir
Herbert was relieved by Lord Plumer, Jewish Palestine woke as from a nightmare
and breathed free again. He had done about as much damage as it was possible
for one man to do to the Jewish cause; but the Zionist Organization thought it
politic to go through the mummery of giving him a testimonial banquet. 44
FIELD MARSHAL LORD
PLUMER
When the hated
Samuel finally packed his duffle and left for England England
Compared to
Samuel, Plumer was a vision of fair delight. By any other reasonable criterion
he was a total loss. The Field Marshal was a hard man, iron-willed, who ruled
with a clenched fist. He was the only High Commissioner who held his Jew-baiting
subordinates within reasonable check. The best that can be said for him is that
under his rule there were no pogroms. When the Arabs, persisting naively in the
same tactics which were so successful under Samuel, approached him in delegation,
warning that if a planned procession of Jewish war veterans were held, they
"would not be responsible for the peace of Jerusalem
120 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
responsible."
The Arabs never tried that trick again as long as the Field Marshal remained in
Palestine
However, the old
policies continued unchanged. Typical of his regime is the loan of £20,000 to the Beersheba Bedouins in 1928 to
quiet their grumbling against the indirect Governmental refusal to allow land
sales to Jews. 45 It was also under Plumer that Jews were practically banned
from participation in the defense forces of the country. A whole succession of
carefully developed ordinances directed against Zionist penetration marked his
regime. Despite this, the Zionists, with good reason fearful of his unknown
successor, were sorry to see him go.
When he resigned,
a sudden outburst of Jewish energy brought General Smuts, Zionist friend and
incorruptible executive, under consideration for the post. Smuts declined, obviously
not caring to accept the burden of reconciling his conscience with the policies
of the Colonial Office.
Storrs Storrs
necessary to know that Cafferata was an intimate of
the Princess Kerachi, one of the
Hebron
Whitehall
England
CHAPTER IX
THE WHITE PAPER
BARRAGE
THE THIRD HIGH
COMMISSIONER
The soldier Plumer
was succeeded in 1928 by Sir John Chancellor. Chancellor was an unfortunate
choice for the Jews. He had the general appearance of the Shakespearean actor
who, with a certain forgivable pompousness, loves to play the great man. His
graying hair and regular features were imposing; but his countenance was too
complacent and unwrinkled for a man his age, giving an impression of appalling
smugness. His contempt for Jews was so deliberate as to appear ostentatious.
It was under this
man that the bloody outbreak of 1929 took place. When these excesses brought on
an unlooked-for wave of world indignation that threatened to swamp his regime,
he issued an hysterical statement condemning the Arabs in terms of unbridled
virulence. When he saw the Zionists disinclined to press their advantage and
yielding to British blandishments, he maneuvered the placing of political
responsibility onto Jewish shoulders.
Chancellor was
hardly equal to the standards of shrewd manipulation set by the Colonial Office.
When he retired in July 1931, he became an anti-Zionist spokesman in London
Lieutenant-General
Arthur Grenfell Wauchope.
THE POGROM OF 1929
There are few
chapters in civilized history that can match for sheer inhumanity and outrage
the record of the British Government in Palestine Israel
With
characteristic blind-optimism the Zionist leaders were running around like
fussy ants, unconscious that a heavy heel was about to crush down on their hill.
With fine disregard for actual conditions, they were making ready to repair to Europe for a
121 Pics
122 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Congress which was
announced as "a turning point in the history of Zionism — the close of an
illustrious epoch and the beginning of a new and still greater period."
Ignored were the desperate appeals of Palestine Jewry, who knew better how to
evaluate the signs
and portents written on sky and fencepost than the mighty orators who held the
fort in Europe .
For a period of
six years the Zionist Executive had been negotiating with powerful Jewish
bodies with a view to forming a vastly enlarged Jewish Agency. Such financial
giants as Felix Warburg of New York
Alarmed, the
Palestine Administration watched developments like a cat at a rat-hole. Article
IV of the Mandate, long ignored, gave the Jewish Agency considerable power. The
Bureaucrats in Jerusalem
Carefully the
story was built and circulated that the Jews planned to tear down the Mosque of
Omar, which Moslems believe marks the exact center of the earth, and to rebuild
the Temple
Immediately
adjoining the Mosque is located the most sacred of all Jewish devotional objects,
the Wailing Wall, last remnant of Solomon's Temple
123 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
rights of all Jewry.
Four centuries of Turkish rule had protected Jewish title to this holy place
without disturbance. Neither the Wall itself nor the immediate patch of Temple Jerusalem
The Wall had been
a cul de sac, and when the Government allowed, or instigated, the Moslems to
erect a mosque on the right side of it, and to break through the Wall proper to
open a new avenue to the Mosque of Omar, all Jewish Palestine rose in indignant
protest. Donkeys and their Moslem masters now passed in droves through the
sacred precincts which had been undisturbed for centuries except for the soft
prayers of the worshipers.
On the Day of
Atonement, holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Keith-Roach, Governor of Jerusalem,
learned that the worshipers had placed a portable screen at the Wall to protect
themselves from Arab abuse. The Neilah, or closing services, were being recited
when an English officer, under the Governor's instruction, violently broke into
the midst of the worship, with no more regard than if he were invading a den of
thieves, and removed the screen.
I24 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Incident now
followed incident, with the Arabs growing daily-more pugnacious and the
Administration openly abetting them. Matters had been allowed to develop to
such a point of high tension that it seemed as if taut nerves must burst if
even a firecracker popped. In the Arab press an intensive anti-Zionist and
anti-Jewish campaign was going full blast. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
were being widely circulated. The Communists, too, like great carrion birds
sensing disaster from afar, had joined in the campaign of incitement, urging
"an Arab fight to the finish against Zionism." 1 Just before the
actual bloodshed started, they took advantage of the growing excitement to
issue a manifesto urging a general strike against the policy of the Jewish
National Home.
The Zionist
hierarchy had treated this pernicious propaganda with aloof disdain as
small-time matters of a passing character, and airily dismissed as 'alarmists'
those friends who warned them that blue fury was about to blaze in the Land of Israel
happy children
they went traipsing off to their Congress in Switzerland Palestine
High Commissioner
had arranged to be absent from his post for the first time, and was on visit to
London Jerusalem
On August 1 6 a
fanatical Moslem demonstration was held in Jerusalem
125 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE 125
the Mufti that
Friday the twenty-third was to be der Tag, instructing the villagers to await
orders on that day.
In this atmosphere
of threat and uncertainty the Government once more deliberately disarmed the
Jews, leaving the colonies defenseless. 5
The riots were
precipitated by the police themselves, who with extraordinary savagery attacked
a procession of mourners who were carrying the casket of a seventeen-year-old
Sephardic 6 boy who had been stabbed to death by Arabs. Old men, women and
children were beaten up indiscriminately. 7 The city was swarming with
fellaheen and Bedouins armed with clubs, knives and guns and they needed no
further invitation. Like a flood of death they broke loose over the city with
the old cry: "Al daula Maana /" (The Government is with us.)
In Jerusalem
For eight days the
country was given over to an orgy of violence. Far from declaring martial law
the moment these outbreaks occurred, no attempt was made to disarm the
invaders. Even after the massacres began the police did not use their firearms,
under "orders from headquarters." 8 The Acting High Commissioner,
Luke, cynically informed an anxious Jewish delegation begging for help, that he
had "given orders not to shoot."
Jewish youths
responded with hidden arms and clubs in the desperate work of self-defense. A
group of visiting Oxford England
126 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
with chivalric
courage. On August 24, Luke decided to disarm all Jewish special constables in
response to a request of the Mufti. 9 The possession of arms by the Jews was everywhere
and at all times illegal. Jews were sentenced to long prison terms for even
owning a dagger, standard Bedouin equipment. Those defending themselves were
arrested and charged with murder.
A typical incident
took place in the village of Jabniel
Horrible days of
nightmare followed for the Jewish colonies, who found themselves beleaguered by
veritable armies of screaming savages. The colony at Ekron sent a delegation to
the British officer stationed at Naaneh. He received them brutally and refused
to offer any advice as to how the Jews were to defend their lives and property.
Asked what was to be done with the cattle, he said, "put them in the
synagogue." And when the Jewish physician of Ekron pressed him for a
sensible answer, he boxed his ears. Shaken by this ruffian attitude the
colonists decided to evacuate their homes, and went down to the railroad
station. At four in the afternoon, the same officer appeared with a guard and
demanded all the weapons in the place. 10
It was at Hebron
127 THE WHITE
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moving spirits in
the anti-Semitic International then taking form in Europe . Openly warned, the Jews at Hebron Hebron
The police, says
an eye-witness, then "shot into the air, and at once the street was
empty." 11
Refugees from Hebron Hebron Hebron
Whatever
interpretation one might place on the role of the Government in this crazy mélange
of revenge, its actions following the riots can hardly be described as anything
less than contemptible. Its press releases set a new high in official
128 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
mendacity and
ill-concealed dislike for the stricken victims themselves. In its reports the
attacker is classed with the attacked, the criminal with the innocent, even
though not a single case existed of Jewish assault on an Arab quarter or of
Jewish looting.
Following its
usual technique, all Jewish newspapers were suppressed; while Arab publications
with open brazenness proclaimed Arab guilt and aggression, as if victors in
some medieval holy war. Some picture of the utter depths this bias reached can
be gained from the notice issued by the Administration that it "deprecated
any mention of the Arabs having mutilated their victims." To this Duff
exclaims: "They had not mutilated them — they had merely hacked them to
pieces." 15
Since the days of
the Crusaders no such massacre of Jews in Palestine
of innocent
creatures who had come, eager-eyed, to this country to build a new life for
themselves. The wounded and maimed were everywhere. Were it not for the miracle
that the Arabs attacked in broad daylight instead of night, giving the Jewish
self-defense an opportunity to organize, the Jewish Yishuv * would have been
wiped off the map of the Near East .
WHO WAS
RESPONSIBLE?
All witnesses
agree that the uprising was neither spontaneous nor unforeseen. As in the previous
pogroms, evidence of careful preparation was plainly written. Setting the
general tone of comment, the correspondent for Alif Beh, great Arab newspaper
of Damascus Lawrence Palestine
* Hebrew name for
the Jewish Community.
129 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
have been no
trouble for the Jews there." 16 The venerable Hindu poet, Rabindranath
Tagore, urging a united fight on England London England Palestine
Everywhere it was
admitted that the mob, justified or not, had acquired the belief that the
Administration was on their side. Among other incidents, when some Arabs were
placed in custody for their part in the Hebron
In a paroxysm of
revulsion Palestine Jewry spit out the gag that had smothered its voice and
directly fastened responsibility on the Administration for the riots. In a grim
Protest Memorandum to the High Commissioner signed by the whole Jewish community,
no words were minced in calling blunt attention to "officers of the
Government whose responsibility for these events is beyond doubt... 21 The
Memorial of the Jews of Hebron submitted to the High Commissioner "in the
name of sixty-five slaughtered, eighty-five wounded, and many orphans and
widows, and in the name of the remnants of the plundered and the
tortured," pathetically "accuses the Government, which did not
fulfill its duty ... the Commander Cafferata, who deprived us of the means of
appealing for help and defense, betrayed us with empty promises, and gave the
murderers and robbers their opportunity; the Police, which . . . behaved with
contemptible baseness; and the Emissaries of the Mufti and the Muslim Council .
. . who proclaimed the massacre."
The drums of
horrified protest now rolled with increasing tempo all over the world. The
Administration had overplayed its hand again. Realizing its error it was doing
its best to cover up, and once again the Zionists were presented with a brilliant
130 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
opportunity for
reversing the tables.
Chancellor
himself, noting which way the wind blew, repudiated the entire affair in these
blasting words: "I have just learned with horror of the atrocious acts
committed by bodies of ruthless and bloodthirsty evil-doers, savage murders
perpetrated on defenseless members of the Jewish population regardless of sex,
accompanied ... by acts of unspeakable savagery, of the burning of farms and
houses in town and country and of the looting and destruction of property.
These crimes have brought upon their authors the execration of all civilized
people throughout the world." The Government was in full retreat all along
the line, casting anxious glances at the effect on America Egypt Ireland India
The Zionists,
however, were hardly political-minded enough to understand their opportunity.
They considered that the Jews had no strength and that their strategy must
continue to be one of wheedling for slight gains. Catching its breath, the
Government placated them with soft words, condemned its minions in Palestine London
Having held the
business-end of a live wire so long the Zionists should have been prepared for
shocks. But when the 'Commissions' after long delays brought in pro-Arab
reports, they stared in bewildered amazement. They looked on still more
unbelievingly when practically everyone accused of having a hand in the riots
was promoted. Cafferata, the evil genius of Hebron
Chancellor's
"bloodthirsty evil-doers" all got off with nominal sentences. The
highest term any of the Hebron
131 THE WHITE
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which this
business was handled was the case of a fellah who had killed the two young sons
of a woman named Fruma Charkel by dashing their brains out. He had known the
family for years, and had only laughed at the mother's plea for mercy while the
little boys were being battered to death. With her surviving son she appeared
against him, as did the invalid father and several other eye-witnesses to the
attack, including the revered Rabbi Epstein. Despite this weight of testimony
the court finally freed the Arab, finding "insufficient evidence." 22
Even more ribald
were the 'awards and amends' which the Government had contritely promised the
riot victims, and which were finally doled out after an interminable wait. Here
are some of the 'compensation awards,' selected at random: Rabbi Hassoun, whose
house at Hebron
The Jewish
Community of Hebron, with a loss of £2000 including the destruction of its synagogue,
asylum and other communal institutions, was paid £54. Asher Karlinsky, whose house
at Hebron Hebron Jerusalem
Beyond muttering
at length on "the shameful attitude of the Government," the Jews took
it like a dose of castor oil, which having once been poured down their throats,
admitted of no further argument. But a still more fantastic occurrence, which
even this patient people could not stomach, arose when the Arabs at Hebron
Jewish creditors,
asserting them to be non-existent under the Palestine
132 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the money. The lenders
had, however, all been massacred by the borrowers. There
seemed to be
nothing in the law which provided for such a situation, leading the newspaper
Door Hayom to ask in outraged fury whether it was the policy of the Government
"to have the Hebron
However, like all
abominations, these things began to lose their edge as time went on and were
soon half-buried in the past. In many of the villages eternal peace was
declared between Arab and Jew, to the accompaniment of colorful oriental
festivities and the usual slaughter of a sheep to wipe out the blood feud.
But it was only a
matter of a few months before the British-Muslim combination was up to its old
tricks of provocation. A fair illustration is the case of technical school
student Zilbaski, who was arrested in April 1930 for chasing Arab hoodlums who
had been stoning worshipers at the Wailing Wall. Fined seven shillings he was
warned, in essence, not to interfere with the pleasures of Arabs.
COMMISSIONS AND
WHITE PAPERS
Headed by men
whose 'broad Socialist principles' had more than once declared themselves
flatly in favor of the Jewish Homeland, the Labor Party sat firmly entrenched
in power in England. Lord Passfield, and Sidney Webb, Marxist radical, was
Colonial Secretary. Arthur Henderson, who had drawn up a handsome resolution in
1917 approving the Zionists' right "to form a Free State under International
Agreement, where the Jewish people may return and work out their own salvation
without interference by those of alien race or religion," was the power
behind the throne. Perched directly in the saddle was J. Ramsay MacDonald,
Prime Minister and a self-announced Zionist who had asserted after visiting the
Near East in 1922:
"The Arab population
does not and cannot use or develop the resources of Palestine
133 THE WHITE
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During pre-war
days the Socialist International had been openly hostile to Zionism of any
brand, recognizing in fine that a Zionist proletariat was a contradiction in
terms, a force devoted incongruously both to separatist and merging principles.
Shifting its position after the War, Labor Zionism was adopted as part of the
international politics of the Socialist world. A Socialist Pro-Palestine
Committee was created to place the mighty strength of the movement behind
Zionism. Among the most wordy in their enthusiasm for this fabulous commission
were the English members, MacDonald, Landsbury, and others, who" were
later to disembowel their little Jewish brother with their left hand while they
embraced him with their right. 24
These were the
men, self-announced exponents of the coming brotherhood, who held the destinies
of the Jewish experiment in their fingers. Confident of the outcome the
Zionists settled back complacently to await the result of London Downing Street had let them down pretty sadly. The Shaw
report was outspokenly anti-Jewish. Charged only with investigating
responsibility for the riots, it had gone far a field conducting a probe
altogether outside its sphere of reference; creating a most clever confusion of
issues, and engagingly shunting off the main purpose of the investigation to
the background.
It included among
the immediate causes of the outbreak, the enlargement of the Jewish Agency,
though it is doubtful whether any of the murderers at Hebron
Agency or its
enlargement. It touched deftly on the cupidity of the Jews, and blamed the
Zionists for bringing in too many potential Bolsheviks into the country. It
held the primary cause of the riots to be, in essence, the crafty way in which
the Zionists had taken advantage of the innocent Arabs, who were being deprived
of soil and sustenance. Thus was created the 'landless Arab' fiction which was
to serve the Government of Palestine as a convenient symbol for many years. In
a statement, bizarre even in this land of extravaganza, it found an extenuating
circumstance for
134 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the outbreak in
that it was "not premeditated." The Grand Mufti, a self-convicted
perjurer whose guiltlessness was best proven when he referred the Commission to
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion* was given an adept whitewashing. The
Commission made no mention of the source or prevalence of arms in Palestine
It endorsed Luke's
action in disarming the Jews and refusing to fire on the mobs. It omitted to report
that all the special Jewish constables had been publicly paraded and disarmed
at the demand of the Arabs. While stating that all the special constables were
of British nationality, it is nowhere mentioned that a large proportion of
those disarmed because they were Jews were ex-servicemen of the British Army,
many of <whom had held the King's Commission.
Only two short
years before, the Government of Palestine had published the fact that "the
country suffers from a lack of population — it is under-cultivated and needs
capital." 25 But the Commission now found that Palestine
Recommended in
solution was the curtailment of Jewish immigration and land purchase, and a
Government subsidy to buy up acreage which was to be handed scot-free to the
'landless Arabs' wherever these worthies could be found. Completely challenging
Jewish position in Palestine Palestine
17, 1930.)
Another member of
the Commission, Lord Snell, turned in a minority report fairly
• See note 6, page
542.
135 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
bristling with
contempt for the findings of his colleagues. He accuses the Administration of
encouraging the Arabs "to believe that they have suffered a great wrong
and that the immigrant Jew constitutes a permanent menace to their livelihood
and future," despite the plain fact that "Jewish activities have
increased the prosperity of Palestine Israel
Time has shown
conclusively that the findings of the Shaw Commission, as well as those of the
bodies which followed in its train, were so wrong as to seem willfully
ridiculous. Each one of these Commissions proved itself more hostile than its
predecessor, making recommendations so opposed to the self-evident facts as to
lead one to believe that the substance of their findings must have been dictated
in advance. This presumption is at least indicated, since each of these bodies
appeared to operate on a preconceived plan aimed at erecting a structure of
precedent which was to serve as authority for future commissions, thus creating
a new body of apparent facts to substitute for the actual facts.
The Zionists had
been mercilessly jobbed. They choked and spluttered in amazed exasperation. The
incredible posing of landless Arabs' in a country suffering from a drastic
shortage of workers was past understanding. So, too, was the Commission's
demand that Jewish capitalists be forced to put all Arab unemployed to work
before another Jew could come in, which meant literally the employment of all
the natives of Northeast
Africa and Arabia (since these outsiders were already
flowing into the country in a steady stream).
Lloyd George,
coming to the point where the Shaw Report declared that there was "no more
room" in Palestine Britain Palestine
136 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
there now.' 26
THE REPORT OF
HOPE-SIMPSON
The trick was
something like that of the catch-penny auctioneer, who glibly makes good to his
spluttering victim by selling him another object more worthless than the first,
accepting the parcel complained of in part payment. This is the kind of
business that experienced British dealers in international legerdemain were now
practicing on the naive, frightened Zionists.
The new
Commission, headed by Sir John Hope-Simpson, 27 was replete with a staff of
'experts.' Sir John had had a good deal of experience in the mass movement of émigré
populations. He had gained his
knowledge of the refugee problem as Vice- president of the Refugee Settlements
Commission (which had conducted the mass transplantation of 1,300,000 Asiatic
Greeks) in Athens
job.
On November
20, 1930 ,
Hope-Simpson's report was published by the Government simultaneously with
Cabinet decision acting upon it. 28 With the lightning stroke of an expert
matador the Zionist development in Palestine
In releasing both
the Cabinet's White Paper and Hope-Simpson's report so precipitously, both
precedent and practice were coolly ignored. Under time-sanctioned Colonial
usage, the Zionists would normally, as party to the matter, have been allowed
to study the Report and make the usual observations and criticisms before it
was actually put into effect.
Hope-Simpson's
Report consisted of a symposium of oblique attacks against the
137 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
Jews. It embodied
all the anti-Semitic conceptions of its day: the professed inability of native
races to compete with superior Jewish ability and cunning, the omnivorous greed
of the 'rich' Jew for further gain. It carried a de facto recommendation for numerous
clauses in all directions, as the only method of keeping this objectionable
Jewish attributes within reasonable bounds. As Sir John puts it, "it is
the Government's duty under the Mandate to see to it that the Arab position is
not prejudiced by Jewish immigration." The Commissioner decries the
purchase of land by Jews and suggests that they be prohibited by law from
buying more. The unfortunate Arab had to be protected against the Hebrew who
was crawling over his land like a plague. This, clothed in the niceties of diplomatic
language, was the substance of Hope-Simpson's findings. To support them he
brought up an array of figures and facts, which had they been accurate, would
have been imposing.
Hope-Simpson went
so far as to compute (with a figure inferring mathematical precision) that
29.4% of the Arab rural population was landless, leaving in the reader's mind a
vague impression that it was owing to Jewish settlement activities that
landlessness had reached such alarming proportions. With nice precision,
leading to the patent inference that it is the result of an exact survey, he
gives the area of cultivable land as 6,544,000 sq. Dunams. He makes no effort
to explain the astounding difference between this estimate and the figure of
11,000,000 dunams supplied by the Director of Lands of the Palestine Government
to the Shaw Commission; or the figure of 12,233,000 dunams given by the
Johnson-Crosbie Report on the position of agriculturists in Palestine
Government
figures, accepted as correct for years, were 100% off.
Operating on
figures which events were also to show unsup ported by factual
138 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
evidence, Hope-Simpson
discovered that a fellah family needs 130 dunams of land, 28 whereas the 61,408
fellah families actually had only 90 dunams per family; leading ipso facto to
the only possible conclusion, that the land was already overcrowded and
immediately faced with a pressing problem of Arab landlessness. 29 Everywhere
he uses the words landless' and 'tenant' indiscriminately and interchangeably,
leading one to wonder whether the great tenant-farmer class of
Bespeaking the
common distaste and distrust for Jews. Hope-Simpson states with ominous
reserve: "The Federation of Jewish Labor continues to carry out, at the
expense of World Jewry, a social and economic experiment of great interest but
of questionable value. The Jewish Agency either approves of this experiment or
is impotent to suppress it." (Even more explicit in its left-handed charge
that the Jews were introducing Bolshevism into Palestine
Simpson's Report,
issued at the same time.) With a queer, new-found type of ethics, Sir John proclaims
in regard to the settlements which were being subsidized by the Jewish National
Fund, that "it is undesirable from the point of view of ordinary morality
that colonists should be allowed to benefit by the large expenditure which has
been made for their settlement, and yet to escape payment of the amount spent
upon them.
In addition to
these generalities, several practical measures are included in the Hope-Simpson
Report. One was the demand that irrigation work of any kind be virtually
prohibited 30 (which would put an absolute stop to Jewish irrigation development);
and another that the Government buy land out of the public funds, i.e., with
Jewish money, to hand over to all Arabs who could prove they were landless.
Jews were to be virtually restricted to the cities. Not even in Czarist Russia
had anyone ever suggested a scheme as cruel and unfair as this.
Hope-Simpson, who
had been sent to the Holy Land under instructions to investigate the slaughter,
looting and rapine perpetrated on Jewish colonists, like his predecessors and
successors, had left his field of reference far behind and nowhere
139 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
now to be seen. In
the meanwhile, to leave a convenient retreat in case anything went wrong, still
another 'Commission,' headed by Lewis French, retired officer of the Indian
Service, was puttering away in Jerusalem
THE PASSFIELD
WHITE PAPER
Lord Passfield,
smug dean of English social reform theoreticians, was not long in assimilating
the technique of the Colonial Office when he took over the portfolio of
Colonial Minister in the Labor Cabinet. A radical whose expressed admiration of
Soviet method and
theory remained constant; he also observed the Bolshevik inconsistency toward
the Jew: he did not concede that they had the right to be Zionists. He frankly
admitted that he was opposed to the Histadruth (The Jewish
Federation of
Labor). He did not approve of the type the Histadruth was bringing into the
country, stating openly that he preferred the old type of Palestinian immigrant
of before the War, the 'pious' Jew who went there to die. He emphasized that
since he was a Socialist, he was not opposed to the new immigrants because they
were Socialists and trade unionists, "but because they were
Zionists." 31
He was nasty to
Jews wherever a convenient opportunity arose, and pursued the Zionists with all
the hatred a zealot holds for infidels. Asked in 1930 by the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency for a New Year's message to Jewry, he curtly refused. Before he took the
bull by the horns to issue his 'White Paper,' he had attempted to push through
an ordinance ghettoizing Palestine Jewry in the cities, frustrated only by an
energetic fight on the part of the Jewish Agency.
Despite all this,
the Jewish Socialists continued to vocalize their undying 'solidarity' with
Comrade Webb, the fellow- Marxist. Commenting on a perfectly venal statement
Passfield had just issued, the influential Socialist New York Jewish For-
ward stated
editorially on July 9, 1930 that "the whole document breathes a
warm desire to convince the Jewish world of the full friendship toward Jews and
toward
140 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the Jewish work in
Palestine
20, 1930,
Officialdom deemed that the sapping operation had been completed. Comrade Webb
himself, with pious words of explanation, touched off the fuse.
The Zionists
abruptly awoke to the realization that they had built on sand ; that it was the
end of them and their dreams of salvation, their fund collecting, their
stereotyped statement that "our relations with the Mandatory are
satisfactory."
England Palestine Palestine
Eder ; who fought this policy bitterly in the
inner councils of the movement. Eder for example boldly told the Court of
Inquiry, following the Jaffa disturbances of 1921, that "there can be only
one National Home in Palestine, and that a Jewish one, and no equality in the
partnership between Jews and Arabs, but a Jewish preponderance as soon as the
numbers of the race are sufficiently increased." But these men were by one
artifice or another squeezed out of any position of real power.
England Palestine
All the
distortions, the veiled anti-Jewish hostility of the Hope-Simpson Report, were
in the White Paper. Benignly it asserts that since there are only 6,500,000
dunams available, there is not enough for the Arabs, who require 8,000,000;
therefore land purchases in future would be permitted "only if they do not
interfere with the Government's plans for development," an artful method
of saying that Jews could no longer settle on the soil. To make the matter
air-tight it sets up the principle that land with tenants on it cannot in future
be sold — in effect freezing the vast stretches held by great Levantine
landlords, mostly émigrés living with their retinues in Cairo Paris
The outcome of
this reasoning was the recommendation for complete stoppage of immigration
"in view of the responsibility under the Mandate" and of the "close
relationship of immigration and the land development policy." In keeping
with the
same argument it
holds that the older type of Jewish immigration benefited the Arabs, whereas
"The Zionists' contentions regarding the benefits which their colonization
work has bestowed upon the Arabs has been proven . . . fallacious."
Massing a frontal
attack on the stupefied Jewish Agency, Socialist Passfield cries that a
"modus vivendi" must "be established between the Government and
the Jewish
141 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
Agency regarding
their respective functions, and full account must be taken of the influence in
policy exerted by the General Federation of Jewish Labor over the Jewish
Agency. . . It is necessary to take into account the part played by the General
Federation of Jewish Labor . . . [which has] adopted a policy implying the
introduction of a new social order" Here we have an astonishing though not
unusual spectacle : the pot calls the kettle black; the British Labor Party,
speaking as the Government of Great Britain, sanctimoniously expresses
dissatisfaction with its Jewish comrades for following a line of policy in
Palestine identical to that which the Labor Party itself is committed to in
England.
Loading its guns
for bear, the Government released at the same time a statement of policy
announcing the realization of Samuel's pet scheme, the Legislative Council.
This maneuver, which would have handed the country over irrevocably to Arab
politicos, was issued with the remarkable explanation that it "should be
of special benefit to the Arab section of the population."
As a sop to the
Jews the White Paper included the usual verbiage in reference to the
Government's good intentions, and the droll "hope that the White Paper
will restore the confidence of the Jews in the British Government." This
gratuitous bit of buffoonery was too much for even the compliant Zionist leadership.
With cries of stung anguish it bolted the traces and started to run amuck.
THE MACDONALD
LETTER
Once again the
Bureaucrats were to find to their amazement that they had fallen into a pit of
their own digging. The Laborites, newer to Imperial sleight-of-hand, had been
too incautious — far too obvious in their tactics.
For a few days it
appeared to the Jews that this was the end — that Zionism had been terminated.
Jewish idealists who had fought all their lives for this cause, walked down the
streets of the principal metropolises of Europe , openly weeping.
142 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Then a sudden
revulsion struck the body of Jewry. A cry of 'shameful betrayal* arose, and
rapidly gathered volume. Vitriolic ally the late Lord Melchett challenged the
White Paper as "an act of almost unparalleled ingratitude and treachery .
. . towards a credulous and harassed people who believed they had found a haven
under the broad aegis of the British flag and the guaranteed word of British statesmen."
The venerable Menachem Ussishkin, stolid and unimaginative but one of the few
men with common sense in the Zionist leadership, was allowed to speak his mind.
"For thirteen years," he declared, "there had been
falsification. Lord Passfield . . . has spoken the truth.
In America France Germany America Palestine United
States South Africa Warsaw Britain
In England
143 THE WHITE
PAPER BARRAGE
The leaders of the
Conservative and Liberal parties gleefully seized on the affair as
a mighty club to
beat the Laborites over the head with. Loudly they voiced their incensed
feelings and clamored for the repeal of this disgraceful pronouncement. Mr.
Baldwin, Sir Austen Chamberlain, with Mr. Amery, in a joint letter complained
that the White Paper "would create in America
Conventions; fouling
the honest name of England
At this point a
shrewd, courageous Jewish leadership could have made an expeditious end to
Colonial Office plotting. Fate had laid in their laps another rare gift of
chance — a situation they could not have improved on if they had artifice it
them selves, with the Bureaucrats caught flat-footed in a position they could
neither defend at home nor abroad.
Until this time in
their relations with London London
144 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
steps were to be
taken.
The air fairly
crackled when two days later Felix Warburg, head of the Jewish Agency, also
resigned, charging that Passfield had deliberately tricked him in the
behind-the-scenes negotiations, making him "the innocent vehicle of
misstatements to his colleagues of the Jewish Agency." In a rousing attack
in which the roiled banker stepped completely out of character, he smote the
British hip and thigh, making it plain that no reliance whatsoever could be
placed on the word of Passfield or the
Government he
represented, and that further relations with them were therefore hopeless.
Painfully alive to
the situation, the Labor Government saw in consternation that the affair was
assuming the proportions of a cause celebre; and that its political opponents
were hoping it would prove the pole to tumble it from power. Prominent
Englishmen,
convinced that Britain Palestine Ireland
145 THE WHITE
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MacDonald makes a
worse one of Jewry"
Completely taken
aback by the force of the storm that had gathered, MacDonald offered to do the
noble thing. As an earnest of good intentions he held out the bait of fifteen
hundred immigration certificates.
A circumstance of
grave importance now threw its shadow over the entire proceedings. This was the
emergence of the Socialist labor organizations as a strong factor in Zionist
politics. Although definitely in the minority, they were an important portion
of the support which kept Weizmann in power. Pressure now began quietly
operating on Weizmann from the Comrades in the Labor groups, who in turn were
being high pressured by the Second International which had finally admitted
them to membership only a few months before. Leon Blum of France England Palestine Britain
agreed. 33
Friends of
Zionism, and bitter opponents of the Labor regime, waiting eagerly to crush the
MacDonald Government by bringing the affair to a test vote, gulped
unbelievingly when they were informed that Weizmann had given over his golden
opportunity in exchange for a few suave promises and fifteen hundred immigration
certificates. The Zionist Actions Committee was informed that the scheduled
congress, feared by Whitehall
now held out that
it was necessary to 'negotiate' with the English Government. His major premise
for this recommendation was little less than astonishing:
146 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Zionist finances
were not in good shape — therefore it were better to eschew 'politics' and
concentrate on 'practical' matters.
On the Actions
Committee sat the Revisionists (right-wing Zionists) and the Mizrachi (religious
Zionists). The Revisionists raged; the Mizrachi resigned in protest ; but the
Laborites and Weizmann's personal followers were in the majority, and they held
fast.
In return
MacDonald issued a letter to the Zionists, which later turned out to be
meaningless. Known as the MacDonald Letter, this communication promised a
redefinition of the term 'landless Arabs,' now explained to refer only to such
Arabs as
could be shown to
have been actually displaced from lands they formerly occupied ; to investigate
what State lands could be made available for close settlement in accordance
with Article VI of the Mandate; to reestablish the principle of immigration
"according to economic absorptive capacity" and to allow the Jewish
Agency the right to employ all-Jewish labor on works or undertakings of its
own. It also concedes the White Paper's error in attempting to substitute the
words "Jewish inhabitants of Palestine" for "the Jewish
People" as the beneficiaries of the Mandate, declaring "that the
undertaking of the Mandate is an undertaking to the Jewish People, and not only
to the Jewish population of Palestine." "In order to remove certain
misconceptions and misunderstandings" about the Passfield document,
MacDonald agrees that the Mandatory's "obligation to facilitate Jewish
immigration and to encourage close settlement by the Jews on the land, remains
a positive obligation of the Mandate."
On February
13, 1931 , the
MacDonald Letter, approved by Weizmann for the Zionists, was laid before
Parliament, thus becoming a State paper. Weizmann greeted this Pyrrhic victory
in the manner of a man who was distributing largesse all around.
He said : ".
. . Our work will benefit the whole of Palestine
147 THE WHITE
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The Government
showed its bad faith immediately. The Letter was released on Saturday, by
tradition a hint to newspapers not to editorialize. MacDonald had ably
retreated out of an ugly situation — and had conceded little. The London
But the fire had
been fanned so violently that it still smoldered. At the following sessions of
the Permanent Mandates Commission, the Mandatory was unmercifully
cross-examined. Hastily, Dr. Drummond Shiels, the English representative, replied
that though there had been a great deal of Jewish bad feeling before, that had
all been happily settled, and a love-feast had subsequently taken place between
the Zionists and the British Government. The now discredited Hope-Simpson
Report
would be ignored
and a new set of facts and figures, "ascertained by a development
authority on the spot, will be the basis of the recommendations regarding the
£2,500,000 Palestine development scheme which the British Government is now
framing." 35 Eying his interlocutors with a bland smile, Dr. Shiels asked
the Commission whether, in view of the manner in which the Premier's Letter was
received by Weizmann, he (Shiels) needed to make any further comments on the
controversy which had proceeded. 36
The Zionists were
not long in finding out that official Britain Whitehall
THE KID GLOVE HIGH
COMMISSIONER
In July 193 1,
Lieutenant-General Arthur Grenfell Wauchope became His Majesty's legate in Palestine
148 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
A slight man with
a delicately chiseled face, Wauchope had been the General Officer in command of
North Ireland . With him came the Black and Tans who had
wreaked so much havoc in the Emerald Isle. He was unique in not being a product
of the inflexible system of the Colonial Office.
He proved polite,
shrewd, aesthetically inclined, even something of an artist. He was the first
High Commissioner whom the Jews could even remotely understand. Sir Arthur
visited their colonies — and even expressed some interest in what was going on.
He has been known to give substantial personal gifts to various Jewish
institutions which caught his fancy.
The Jews tended to
like him. The regulations passed under his rule, clearly ear-marked as anti-Semitic
measures, were usually excused by them as proceeding from 'Mohammedan pressure,'
or from the sheer inability of a gentile administrator to get to the bottom of
Jewish problems. Even when things grew inexcusably vexatious, they still
refused to credit Wauchope with a deliberate anti-Jewish policy, and
compromised by calling him vacillating and irresolute. Yet from a practical
viewpoint, Wauchope was hardly an improvement over his predecessors. During his
regime the baleful French Report was released. Under Sir Arthur the disastrous
rebellion of 1936-38 took place; followed by the inevitable epilogue, a new
investigating 'Commission.' This latest body finally recommended a plan for
further partitioning the country, which if it were placed into effect, would
have produced much of the same result intended by the abortive White Paper of
Lord Passfield.
It is undoubtedly
true that Wauchope would infinitely have preferred not to be a party to this
epidemic of Jew-baiting had circumstances allowed. He is, however, a loyal
servant of a system which has come to regard Zionism as dangerous to the most
precious possession of Englishmen, the Empire.
THE REPORT OF MR.
FRENCH
The 'expert' Dr.
Shiels referred to before the Mandates Commission, whose findings were to
supersede the Hope-Simpson Report, not only used that report for his
149 THE WHITE
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precedent, but
went it one better in every acrimonious reference to Jews. A retired official
of the Indian Civil Service, Lewis French had been sent ostensibly on a great
Zionist development scheme, one of the concessions agreed to by the Labor
Government in its private conversations with Dr. Weizmann.
With the
astuteness of long practice, French stalled for time until the agitation over
the Passfield White Paper was well over. After a year and a half of
ostentatious preparation his report was submitted to the Arab Executive, and to
the Zionists, sitting in camera. The Zionists hit the ceiling — they had been
beautifully jobbed once more.
The report of Mr.
French consisted in the main of a compendium of generalities against the Jews.
He recommended, in brief, the adoption of a drastic Land Transfer Ordinance completely
prohibiting land purchase by Jews. As if to show French's comparative
reasonableness, his collaborator T. C. Kipching, more draconian still, appended
an auxiliary report asserting that it was necessary for Jews to give up what
land they had already acquired and migrate from Palestine
Poor Wauchope,
desperately trying to remain something of a gentleman in this whirlpool of
Crown politics, found the crude dissimulations of this 'Report' even more than
he could stomach. He objected. French, fuming at this 'traitorous' conduct,
threatened to resign.
In London Downing
Street the
'expert,' French, grudgingly agreed to modify his report, and finally resigned,
his place being taken by a subordinate, L. Y. Andrews. 37 Baffling months of
parleying took place in which the worried Zionists were placated with the usual
assurances. These were inevitably passed on to the rank and file of the
movement in Weizmann's conventional words: "The situation is satisfactory.
The Government desires faithfully to discharge its obligations in the spirit of
the Mandate."
On July 16, 1933
the French Report was finally issued. It placed land transfers
150 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
completely under
Government control. It stated bluntly that the hill Arabs required special
protection against Jews. It elaborated tiresomely on the landless Arab'
question. It found the Jews rich and predatory, and piously referred to the
'displaced' Arab as "a son of the soil to be replaced on the land of his
country."
Palestine
The huge
'development scheme' now turned out to be a plan to purchase citrus land for
Arab settlement. Arabs were not only to be given the land without charge, but
the cost of buildings, livestock, etc., was to be supplied by a paternal Government.
No recognition whatever was made of the fact that Zionism was and remained a
poor and struggling movement, largely the product of the distress of the Jewish
masses, of the economic pressure forcing their migration and resettlement. At
that very moment there were over seven thousand agricultural workers in the
Holy Land employed on private plantations who had waited from five to ten years
for the chance to get a parcel of land; and abroad there were more than forty
thousand young men and women trained on the Zionist agricultural farms who were
waiting anxiously for the chance to locate on a bit of Palestine's brown earth.
Landless Jews, if the Government generously permitted, would have to buy their
acres at prohibitive prices and depend on Jewish philanthropy for the rest.
Frankly interested
in perpetuating the country in its undeveloped state, French considers as
'cultivated land,' areas "on which a few score of half -starved Bedu
families are at present grazing goats and cutting reed-grass," to use his
own description. The returns of the latter 'industry' have been estimated at
three to five pence per dunam per year. In regard to the marshy Huleh area, a
malarial swamp which the Jews were seeking official permission to drain, French
agreed that "settled as Government tenants, a leavening of Jewish
colonists in this tract would tend to an acceleration of the desired
development after the marshes have been drained." The brazenness of this
observation is probably unparalleled: the Jews are to buy the swamp or pay for
draining it, and will then be permitted to supply 'a leavening' of Government
tenants in its precincts. The Arabs are to get the balance without cost.
151 THE WHITE
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Jewish settlement
on the land no longer appears as one of the primary purposes of the Mandate,
let alone a positive obligation of the Government. It is now merely to serve as
a device, to be applied in small doses only, for the stimulation and
enlightenment of Arab agriculturists.
The French Report
proposed legislation of an advanced type scarcely conceivable outside of Russia
Another clause of
this document practically fixes maximum rentals in perpetuity, so that more attractive
tenant offers to landlords could not be made. Incensed, the Jewish Agency
screwed up its courage to declare that the purpose "of the proposed clause
is to perpetuate
uneconomic use of the land and obstruct development."
In practice,
acceptance of this Report would make the establishment of new Jewish colonies a
complete impossibility. The Jews were to be put in a straight-jacket as they
were in the Russian Pale, forever condemned to be city dwellers and petty
traders.
Thus turned out
the great 'Palestine Development Scheme' with which Shiels had cajoled the
League's Mandates Commission almost two years before.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER I
JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION FOR INTELLIGENCE
THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION
An important
differentiation must be made between the Jewish community in Palestine Palestine Geneva London
Jews have a
reputation for expert organizing ability and for shrewd reasoning, but none of
these qualities are evident in the structure of the Zionist federations. Their
business is handled in the main by magnificent orators whose political
conceptions
are limited to the
viewpoint of platform lecturers; and their sessions are apt to result in mere
acrimonious debates between men who are more scholarly than practical. The
fervent support of many millions of Jews whose only hope lies in Zion
this organization
infinite possibilities for potency and strength; but this latent power has been
almost completely wasted by a group of pedantic spokesmen who obstinately
regard all creation as if it could be cut to the pattern of a book.
152 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION 153
The principal concern
of the American Zionist Organization, for example, is to raise money for the
upkeep of its considerable staff of officeholders, plus the question of whether
a Rabbi Goldman is to be president or a Rabbi Goldstein is to be president. At
a four day convention held in Providence Holy Land , and a resolution voicing confidence in
the Zionist President, Weizmann.
The Zionists
maintain a London Executive and a Palestine Executive who mainly specialize in
sending learned memoranda to the British Government and the League of Nations . With these executive bodies is affiliated
still another politically impotent appendage, the Jewish Agency. Article IV of
the Mandate solemnly provides that the Jewish Agency "shall be recognized
as a public body for the purpose of advising and cooperating with the
Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may
affect the establishment of the Jewish National Home." On paper it has all
the prerogatives of a chartered colonizing body, instructed to "take steps
in consultation with His Britannic Majesty's Government to secure the cooperation
of all Jews who are willing to assist in the establishment of the National
Home." The British have, however, reduced its powers to a collective zero.
Caught in the same web of strange infatuation which has ruled Zionism's
dominant leaders, the Agency, too, relegates politics to the background as
unimportant child's-play. The present Jewish Agency is the result of long
negotiations conducted by Weizmann with certain wealthy non-Zionists, in the
hope of inducting the moneybags of the latter into an enlarged circuit of
operations. 1 The inclusion of non-Zionists in this vitally important body was the
outcome of the ruinous conception that economic and cultural interests were the
sole levers capable of raising the Jewish edifice in Palestine
154 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
paralyze the
Jewish Agency as a political instrument.
From a
non-political viewpoint the Jewish Agency has been extremely successful. It is
conscientious, thorough and efficient, maintains fine statistical and research
units, and is usually better informed regarding economic trends and
possibilities than are the corresponding agencies of the British
Administration.
The identical
differences of opinion and conflicts of ideology which are shaking the
foundations of society everywhere are also evident throughout Zionist ranks.
The differences between Zionist factions are sharp, accentuated by the
unhealthy position the Jew occupies in relation to his environment in Europe . The same pressures which are creating
social conflicts in all countries are seen by this doubly harassed people
through a magnifying glass.
These
irreconcilable groups fall into the usual two camps. The first, interpreting
history in terms of applied Marxian economics, considers that the course of action
lies solely in a Socialist settlement scheme. What reason, its proponents
argue, to carve out a new unit on the earth's surface if not for the realization
of Socialism. This group, necessarily dualistic, regards all nationalism with
suspicion, and wants a bi-national cooperative State to include the Arabs. Here
are to be found the Zionist
Labor parties of
various degrees; of red and pink known as the Poale Zion and the Left Poale
Zion. They have surrounded themselves with the same Marxist slogans which
proved so hopelessly inadequate in Germany Austria Palestine
They make a
considerable effort to instruct their 'Arab comrades' in the mechanics of
class-struggle. It is they who have taught the Arabs the catch-phrases and
strike technique which has been used so successfully against the Jewish
National Home; and invariably it was these same favored Arabs who led in the
attacks against the Jews themselves. 111 The kind of irresponsible demagoguery
frightened British imperialists were greeted with can be seen in the
deliberations of the First Workers World Congress. Here the radical leader,
Joseph Sprinzak, stated that participation
155 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
of Jewish Labor in
the Zionist Organization did not mean a coalition with the bourgeoisie, but
"only with the Jewish workers," a declaration bettered by the Left
Poale Zion who asserted that any cooperation with the Zionist bourgeoisie was
"treason." 2
All the leftist
groups possess the traditional Marxist contempt for religion in any form, and
as a result suffer the ineradicable animosity of the religious elements, who
accuse them of trying to "substitute the religion of Marx" for the
fundamental principles of Judaism.
The opposing camp
of Zionist theoreticians suspects what Herzel also suspected— that if Zionism
did not early attain political control under an assured Jewish majority, all
economic and cultural efforts would finally end in the same ruin which overwhelmed
the Jewish cultural centers in Spain Lithuania Holy Land .
The Nationalists
insist on a monist course of action aimed solely at recreating the Jewish
State, emphasizing that in a modern world the old distinctions between
economics and politics have largely disappeared. They fear that the system of
compromising politics followed by the Labor camp must end in the doubtful ideal
of a Jewish community in an Arab land, satisfactory to the Marxist mind as long
as that ideal is Socialistic. They assert that during the period of national
colonization, class-struggle is a double misfortune— that it is logically
impossible to call the nation "to unite for the purpose of building a
Fatherland, and simultaneously split and crumble it into hating and babbling
classes. They demand compulsory arbitration in all labor disputes. In their
ranks may be found all shades of right-wing opinion. Their chief strength lies
in Eastern Europe where they represent the strongest and
most vital hope
156 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
among the younger
Jews. Giving these stifled youngsters an outlet to their emotions and creative
energies, Jewish nationalism has unquestionably saved them from the calamity of
Communism. Consisting mainly of Mr. Jabotinsky's Revisionists, the right-wingers
demand an emphasis on state diplomacy which recognizes the extent and pressure
of the existing Jewish problem, "perceiving the aim of Zionism to be a
complete and final solution of the Jewish world-problem in all its
aspects." It demands an orderly mass migration to relieve the intense
pressure which is crushing the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. This, it
asserts vigorously, is a State function requiring the active intervention of
the State Power, as contrasted to the present desultory efforts provided by
private enterprise and charity. Revisionism also holds uncompromisingly to a
demand for restoration of the stolen area of Trans-Jordan.
Jabotinsky's
external policy is founded on the belief that Zionism is providential for the
solution of British problems in the East, making the Jewish State London's
natural ally. He points out that all British strongholds from India Nile are inhabited by a solid Mohammedan bloc,
intrinsically unstable and hostile to European penetration. Should Palestine Near East . A Jewish Palestine, on the other hand,
located as an island in his grinding Mohammedan sea, would, notwithstanding the
uncertainties of future politics, be forced to rely on permanent alliance with Great Britain
Suffering like the
other Zionist leaders from an incurable Anglophilia, Jabotinsky has offered
Jewish Legions from Poland and elsewhere to police Palestine, or the whole near
East if required. In return the Bureaucrats treat both him and his movement
with surly dislike. Jabotinsky himself is prohibited from setting foot in Palestine
The Revisionists,
however, do not hesitate at times to damn British policy with refreshing
directness. Whitehall
157 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
Also moderately
right-wing are the orthodox religious Zionists, the Mizrachi. Its members may
be identified by their long black coats, curly side-locks, and general
inoffensive demeanor. Mizrachi is capable, when aroused, of common sense and unbending
courage, but it is not aroused often. Among the right-wingers also is the
Jewish State Party, a small group to all intents and purposes identical with
Jabotinsky's group in policy.
In the Center,
between all these violently contending factions, lies the General Zionist
group, itself split into factions 'A' and 'B/ dependent on whether they lean to
the right or the left, respectively. The General Zionists allege to be Liberals
and pure followers of Herzel. From their ranks are drawn Weizmann, Wise,
Ussishkin, Lipsky and most of the other recognized leaders of the Zionist world
movement. In actual practice they invariably tend toward simple opportunism,
leaning toward the policies of the party holding the deciding vote at Zionist
conventions. Their political philosophy has been marked by continuous compromise,
retreat and hope.
Tied to the
fortunes of these struggling factions in Palestine
The required sums
for running the somewhat complicated Zionist machinery are raised by a unique
method of self -taxation, and a system of unctuous levying on the rich, called
by the Jews 'schnorring' So dependent have the mechanics of Zionist activity
become on these necessary contributions that suspicion may well be entertained
that the major policy of the Zionist Organization has degenerated into a
promotion scheme for the raising of these vital moneys; that in short, the tail
now wags the dog. The most important of these organized endowments are the
Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund) and the Keren Hayesod (Palestine
Foundation Fund). The Revisionists have their own machinery, the Keren Tel
Chai.
This imperative
need for money to feed a gradually gathered army of officeholders appears to
dictate much that is otherwise inexplicable in Zionist policy. The basis of
such a precarious system of revenue is a continuous and increasing tempo of
ballyhoo
158 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Booklets must be
issued replete with stories of amazing achievement, leading to the inference
that all is going swimmingly and that these superb successes are only limited
by a regrettable inadequacy of private contributions. The poignant realization
that their revenue is dependent largely on an unceasing relation of 'triumphs'
to hard-headed Jews who want to see value for their money, is the nightmare of
Zionist existence, turning everything they undertake into an operation distinguished
mostly by its ballyhoo. As a net result, the Zionists' political policy is for
all practical purposes bankrupt, since they may not dare risk puncturing the beautiful
bubbles which they themselves have blown over so many years.
Up to May 1935 the
two biggest Zionist funds had collected a total of ^9,400,000 between them.
Despite self-adulatory publicity, up to that date the land settlement schemes
of the two Kerens had only succeeded in placing a total of 2800 families on the
soil. Effectually prevented by British-fashioned ordinances from carrying out
their ambitious colonization plans, the Zionist Funds have gone in heavily for
such luxuries as grants to the Hebrew University
Not included in
the official Zionist bodies is the Agudath Israel, an ultra-orthodox group who
consider women's suffrage an outrage against God, and Zionism itself a
heretical movement. They believe that when the Almighty is ready he will send
down a messiah who will miraculously lead the way to the Promised Land without
political
159 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
intervention. The
unworldly, wraith-like fanaticism of Agudath Israel Tel Aviv Israel
THE PALESTINE
It was not long
before the war between the Zionist factions degenerated into a wild fracas of
words, slander and bricks. Like the French revolutionist, Carrier, who said
"we will make a graveyard of France
Bad feeling
between these rival groups finally ended in wild physical attacks, in which
Revisionist meetings were stormed with rocks and tear gas bombs. According to
Professor Klausner of Hebrew University
Land; that did not
house a Revisionist wounded by leftists.
When thirty
Revisionists were injured in Haifa October 23, 1934 declared itself "outraged by the
brutal attacks which were poisoning the atmosphere of
Delighted at this
opportunity to smash Jewish nationalism with the help of Jews, the Government
took a hand in the persecutions. Revisionists, treated as common criminals,
were sentenced to penal servitude, their homes raided and their papers
160 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
suspended. Its
meetings suppressed as dangerous revolutionary activity, the besmirched and
harassed party was for a time practically driven underground.
Palestine May
16, 1934 . On May
17, he was promptly rearrested, charged with leading a "terrorist Revisionist
Organization," and held incommunicado in Acre Prison.
In the inner
business of Zionist politics the Revisionists had constituted themselves the
opposition to the policy of retreat initiated by Weizmann and the Zionist
Executive. This brought the Executive down on their heads like a swarm of
hornets, throwing it directly into the laps of the Laborites. A campaign of
slander and repressions followed. Feeling against the Revisionists rose to a
fever pitch, as may be seen from the assertion by the American Zionist boss,
Louis Lipsky, that "a party which makes disloyalty and violation of
discipline a political principle, which educates its youth to imitation of
Hitler organization methods . . . cannot expect to find place or countenance
within a movement like Zionism." 3
Here was a unique
alliance: the Jewish leftists who hated the capitalist system and British
Imperialism alike; the Jewish Agency capitalists who automatically detested
leftists and who could not avoid recognizing British persecution of their
cause; and the Whitehall Near East with dread. All of these regarded as their main enemy in the Palestine
In this atmosphere
of violence and incitement a prominent left-wing leader, Chaim Arlosoroff, was
murdered while walking with his wife on the beach near Tel Aviv.
Arlosoroff stood
for everything the Revisionists were against. He was an ardent advocate of
class war. As a member of the World Zionist Executive in charge of political
affairs, he established a policy of truckling to British pressure, denied that Palestine Palestine Czechoslovakia
161 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
The murder took
place at night in an isolated spot. An appalling number of European women had
suffered rape at Arab hands, and at first it was assumed that this was a
companion piece to that stream of outrages. Arlosoroff, dying in Hadassah Hospital
None of this
deterred the Labor press from immediately setting up the charge that here was a
political murder. Wildly they demanded blood revenge. In charge of the
investigation was Captain Harry Rice (Deputy Inspector General of Police), who
got busy at once. He promptly arrested a young Revisionist named Stavsky.
Stavsky was a
stout blond youth of handsome appearance who had been in the country some three
months. His whereabouts during the time of the murder was amply established by
a score of creditable witnesses, but Mrs. Arlosoroff promptly identified him as
the companion of the man who had fired the shots. Immediately after, a
Revisionist boy named Mintz was taken into custody, as were two Arabs named
Mejid and Lufti. The state's case was completed with the apprehension of Zvi
Rosenblatt a young
nationalist, who was also conveniently, identified by Mrs. Arlosoroff; as the man who committed the
actual murder.
Determined to make
a clean sweep of the Revisionists, the Administration ordered a mass arrest of
their leaders and held them without bail, accused of 'sedition.' In the formal
charges they were alleged to be part of an organization aiming "to raise
discontent among the inhabitants of Palestine German Consulate Building Jerusalem Jerusalem
162 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Among those
arrested was a prominent editor named Yevin, and Aba Achimeir, who was accused
of being the intellectual author of the murder. Achimeir, idol of the extreme
nationalists, was of the new type of Hebrew patriot, rigid, incorruptible, and
single-minded to the point of rhapsody. Slim and courtly, with black ringlets
hanging over a high, pale forehead, he looked like a figure from one of El
Greco's canvases.
The boy, Yehuda
Mintz, who had been identified by Mrs. Arlosoroff, was also suddenly freed,
without explanation, leaving Rosenblatt and Stavsky in the dock. At the trial,
Mrs. Arlosoroff, caught in a mass of self-contradictions, was accused by
innumerable witnesses of lying. The Government's own witnesses, insufficiently
drilled in their role, made it manifest that the accused could not have killed
Arlosoroff. It was shown that at the time he was supposed to have committed the
murder Rosenblatt was one of the main speakers at a mass meeting in another
city. More grimly amusing still was the peculiar position of Captain Rice in
refuting the confession of the Arab, Mejid, who had admitted to the murder with
rape as the motive. In an action unprecedented in modern jurisprudence, Rice
took the stand to swear to Mejid's innocence, and refused pointblank to call
witnesses in regard to the Arab's confession.
On June
10, 1934 , in one
of the most amazing decisions ever rendered, Stavsky, whom a flood of testimony
had placed, else- where at the time of the murder, was sentenced to hang. In
the indictment, he had been accused of holding the flashlight while Rosenblatt
did the actual killing. Rosenblatt who had been addressing a public meeting at
the time of the murder, was acquitted — yet the co-accused Stavsky was
163 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
convicted. Said
the doomed man on hearing the sentence: "This is a conspiracy by the
Jewish Labor Party, and the Palestine Government against me. I am totally
innocent."
An immediate
censorship was put on the Jewish press restraining it under peril of
confiscation from calling attention to the patent absurdity of the verdict.
Three Hebrew newspapers were stopped and their owners heavily fined for commenting
on the case as a miscarriage of justice.
Vindictively the
Poale-Zion-Zeire-Zion (United Jewish Socialist Workers Party) issued a
statement applauding the verdict, saying that "nothing could serve so well
to clear the atmosphere in our political life." It asserted that "the
foundations of British
Judicial
institutions . . . leave no ground for doubt as to the impartiality and legal
regularity of the trial." Despite this vote of confidence, Joseph F.
Broadhurst, Assistant Inspector General of Police, was later to admit that
"there was practically no evidence" against the accused. 4
The Laborites were
making all the capital they could out of this tragic situation, the first time
a Jew had been on trial for the murder of a Jew in the modern history of Palestine Palestine
Weizmann,
mild-mannered to Jewish enemies, had a fierce side when he faced Jews. He refused
to return to the leadership or even to come to the Congress, reputedly because
the Revisionists had not been expelled.
In the meanwhile
the pot, which had only been simmering, began to boil. Of the four
164 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
judges who sat on
the case, only one was Jewish, and he alone had voted for acquittal. Now this
Jewish judge, venerable Moshe Valero, braved the wrath of
the gods and
issued a strongly couched statement showing the virtual impossibility of
Stavsky's guilt. Chief Rabbi HaCohen Kook, beloved Palestine
With ferocious
ardor the Labor groups leaped to the defense of their kill. All over Palestine
The question
agitated the entire Jewish world, which soon became convinced that an innocent
man had been railroaded to the death cell for the sake of political expediency.
In London
Shrewd and capable
Horace Samuel was now the defense attorney. He pointed out, among other things,
the renewed confession of the Arab, Mejid, and demanded that the police records
be made public. Again Captain Rice mysteriously refused.
Evidence showing
that the leftists had exploited the murder for political purposes in the 1933 election
and that they had, together with the Jewish Agency, assisted the prosecution in
securing the conviction of Stavsky as a political measure, was excluded. Even
then the proof of collusion was so patent that the Palestine Court of Appeals
had no other recourse than to free the condemned man. He had been in prison a
year and walked out with his hair snow white.
The Marxists
showed their joy over the verdict by stoning the synagogue in which Stavsky and
Rosenblatt were worshiping. Davar, Laborite mouthpiece, followed up an official
leftist manifesto by declaring that the two men remained murderers.
165 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
Things rapidly
came to the point where Stavsky and Rosenblatt were warned by the Tel Aviv
police to leave the city as their lives were in danger and the police could not
be responsible for their safety.
Cheated out of its
sacrificial victim, the Government was determined to have its revenge. It
hounded all witnesses for Stavsky. An example is the almost immediate
deportation of the widow Becherev and her two children, who had aided in establishing
the accused's alibi. Its displeasure against Jewish nationalists in general
showed no signs of diminishing. It found Achimeir and the other Revisionist
leaders guilty of sedition and sentenced them to twenty-one months at hard
labor. On December 30, 1934 this Government which knew how to punish
Jews while Arabs murdered and revolted with impunity, announced that it had
revoked the citizenship of Yevin and Achimeir, making them men without a
country. This new formidable threat in a world where no nation wanted Jews, was
held as a terrible club over the head of all those who believed that the
Palestine Mandate envisioned the formation of a Jewish State.
LABOR DICTATORSHIP
Until the time of
the Arlosoroff murder, the Revisionists had been gaining ground so rapidly as
to make it appear that their ultimate control of the Zionist Organization was
inevitable. Under cover of the delirious charges and counter-charges growing
out of the Stavsky affair, the Laborites, possessing by far the best equipped
publicity machine, had succeeded in discrediting their enemies as a band of
ruffians and murderers. By a series of admirable maneuvers and coalitions, the
technique of which they had learned in the traditional Marxian schools of Europe , they succeeded, though still a minority
in the Convention, in excluding the Revisionists entirely from participation in
Zionist affairs. Expertly organized, and using the General Zionists as a front
so as to keep the Mizrachi from bolting harness, they took control. Anchored in
the seat of power, with the Organization's established income at their
disposal, they became almost impossible
166 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
to dislodge.
Ironically, Laborite activities were now directly subsidized by donations from
the same middle class Zionists all over the world whom leftist party platforms
had sworn to destroy.
The Revisionists
found themselves virtually outlawed. Jews who had always been the persecuted
now learned the business of persecution. For the mere matter of his 'ideology,'
a youth belonging to the Jabotinsky faction was to find himself completely shut
off from the possibility of obtaining a visa to Palestine League of Nations and collecting their own funds. Infuriated,
the Laborites set up a virtuous wail of 'sabotage' and 'secession.' Jews who
were letting British bureaucrats tread on them as if they were worms, now
fought Jews with an obduracy that neither gave quarter nor asked it.
The Zionist rulers
set an ironclad dictatorship in operation for better purposes of the battle.
Like the Confessional Churches in Nazi Germany, the Revisionists found
themselves in a box. Any utterance contrary to the ruling fiction that
"unbelievable progress was being made in Palestine
Shouting all the
slogans of democracy, the Zionist leadership preceded to place in effect a
rigid censorship of all news and utterances. When the only existing Jewish news
service offended them, they entered the news business with funds of the Jewish
Agency. Leading Yiddish newspapers were handed simple subsidies with the
gentleman's understanding that they would publish no news unfavorable to their
167 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
patrons. (The important
Yiddische Tageblatt of Poland accused the Zionist Executive in June 1936, of
trying to "imitate the tone of certain great powers" in its attempt
to censor news on the Palestine disorders.)
In January of 1933
the Revisionists had been formally tried by a Congress Court July 26, 1933 the recognized leftist Fuehrer, Ben
Gurion, laid down the dictum that "we shall under no circumstances
collaborate with a party of strike-breakers and anti-labor agitators." On March
9, 1934 the
Zionist Executive issued a communiqué announcing that the Revisionist Party
would henceforth be regarded as dissolved and non-existent. It declares that no
Zionist group is to be regarded as the Revisionist Sonderverbund, or to style
itself so, and asserts that the World Revisionist Party is outlawed from the
Zionist Organization and has no legal status within that organization or any of
its affiliated bodies. On February 6, 1935 , not satisfied by declaring the
Revisionists nonexistent, the Executive placed a cherem (ban) on the Revisionist
Fund, the Keren Tel Chai, ludicrously ordering Jews not to donate any money to
it. In 1935 Diey also incorporated a provision in reference to the purchase of
the shekel which by its very nature automatically excluded Revisionists.
In the meanwhile,
sensing that all this was beginning to make a bad impression on Jews all
around, the Zionist hierarchy had made a sudden attempt to compromise the
situation. Ben Gurion, speaking for the Executive, agreed to act with
Jabotinsky to end the inter-party strife. Conventions were arrived at and
signed outlawing all acts of violence, libel or slander. Both parties undertook
to discipline their membership on pain of permanent expulsion. The Revisionist
Union promptly ratified the act of their leader by a plebiscite. The Laborites,
however, wanted no 'peace' with the hated bourgeoisie represented by the
Revisionists. After one of the most vituperative campaigns in Zionist history,
they voted two to one to repudiate Ben Gurion's
168 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
signature.
A few months later
the provoked Revisionists went through the motions of resigning from a body
which had already all but thrown them out, and with some other dissident
factions formed the New Zionist Organization. At a great plebiscite which was
to determine the form and content of the new organization, some 750,000 votes
were cast — the largest number of ballots ever voted by Jews on a purely Jewish
matter since the days of the Dispersion. The foundation congress held in Vienna
middle-of-the-road
elements who, delighted with the concessions made to them, decided to remain
with the old organization.
Revisionist
tactics were also, in part at least; based on the assumption that Whitehall
REIGNING ZIONIST
PERSONALITIES
No Bill of Rights
ever penned can remake overnight the mental approach of a people whose mind has
been ground down by half a dozen centuries of abject horror. The memory of
these cruel generations left its stamp indelibly on the Jewish spokesmen who
took over the helm of the movement after Herzel’s death. Invariably they were graduates
of the Yeshiva atmosphere of the Russian Pale.
169 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
The circumstances
by which they literally fell into leadership were simple. The great mass of
Jewry was busy in the practical affairs of day-to-day existence. The
Socialists, Liberals and Conservatives kept themselves coolly aloof. The pro-Zionists,
engrossed in their own occupations, were content to show their sympathy by the
donation of funds or by occasional participation at rallies and meetings. It
was a small group of impassioned scholastics, which had made Zionism a
profession all their lives, who took over the actual machinery of operation.
When the collapse
of humanism in post-war Europe
endowed the movement with immediate, critical importance as a political
reality, these men still further entrenched themselves. They controlled the
Zionist income and sources of propaganda. The great bulk of stunned, ruined
Jews were now listed more than fleeing outcasts, trying desperately to
extricate their individual lives from the horrible quagmire in which they found
themselves caught. Artfully the career-Zionists parried their opposition,
contending that any attempt to wash dirty linen publicly during this precarious
period was downright mischievous.
It is only in the
light of these circumstances that one can understand the retention of a group
of leaders whose muddled policies have brought the Zionist movement so close to
disaster. The procedure of these men was from first to last a tragic comedy of
errors. With few exceptions they were brilliant intellectually, kindly and
idealistic. Completely misunderstanding human motivation, they regarded force
of any kind as barbarian. They were masters of hair-splitting disputation, unmatched
for pure decency of conception, but more useful in legal briefs than in the
serious business of repatriating a nation. The most influential of them had
adopted British nationality, which under the circumstance of any conflict of
interests brought them up squarely against the question of their prior
patriotism to England
More fatal still,
they lacked the fierce aggressive spirit, the shrewd realism, which the struggle
for national existence demands. In their minds was ever the idyllic vision of a
unique cultural community, taking precedence over questions of sovereign
political
170 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
rule. This
completely irrational conception, springing from the brain of the obstinate
scholastic, Achad Ha' am, served to create an ecstatic polity in which reality
could at no time be dissevered from metaphor and rhetoric. At times their
learned dogmatism lapsed into sheer nonsense, as witness Rabbi Freehof’s
declaration that Herzel's Jewish State was not a State of armies, navies and
political schemes, but the embodiment of "a Jewish civilization in Palestine
Throughout they
pursued a course of self-justification in which their noble theories had an
important part. It was they who first enunciated the conception of duty owed
the benighted local population, later to be transformed into fundamentals of
British policy. With the complication of left wing intrusion into the movement,
shrewd efforts at national self-sufficiency were left still further behind.
Certainly the
Zionist leaders were no match for clever British bureaucrats, trained in the
business of extracting every ounce of value from every possible situation. Time
after time they missed their chance; when the Irish were fighting a successful
Sinn Fein, when Mussolini offered his hand in friendship, when the French
turned to them, and when the Arabs themselves offered peace on an anti-British
basis. Far from following a strategy of resistance, they actually went to the
opposite extreme. Bulwarking their own weaknesses by an intensive propaganda
directed to their fellow Jews, they went to the point of publicly praising the
very British administrators who were conspiring against them. The influential
English Zionists especially, denounced in grandiloquent sarcasm any attempt to
question the good faith of England
There were some
among the Zionist leaders, such as Jabotinsky, Ussishkin, and Dr.
171 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
The most
influential of all the Zionist personages is the President of the World Zionist
Organization, Dr. Chaim Weizmann.
Weizmann was born
in Motele , Russia
Weizmann is bald,
but not unhandsome. His bearing is mild and thoughtful, but intense, brooding
eyes lend fire to his personality. He has made himself into a great chemist by
his own efforts and possesses a warm personal charm together with impeccable
manners.
He is a marvelous
money-raiser, capable of button-holing a prospect and turning on the full
stream of his great charm, to leave the interview with a check in his pocket.
He has always followed the path of least resistance, and early tied up his
political fortunes with those of the Laborites when it appeared that their star
was in the ascendant. He is a master of the technique of demagoguery, capable
of convincingly blotting out his own failures with such statements as "we
will show the world that
Jewish idealism
can bring forth a civilization as noble and fructifying as any which history
has known."
Considering the
unfettered criticism leveled at him by his peers for "a leadership that
has proven itself a failure and is bankrupt in all fields of its activity,"
6 he has managed to maintain an almost mesmeric hold over the Zionist
Organization.
172 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Part of this
technique of control is the assertion to uneasy Jews that "England
He is almost
pathologically amenable to British importuning. At a World Congress in 193 1,
after Dr. Stephen S. Wise had called attention to London America Great Britain
At another
Congress he answered Zionists who had charged Britain
In this almost
bizarre description of the head of a political movement, Weizmann's henchman
Louis Lipsky says: "He staked his leadership upon his faith in Great Britain Great Britain
173 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
Declaration, were,
in certain circumstances, liable to operate against the execution of a policy
based upon it. The British devotion to fair play and instinctive support of the
weaker side, so as responsible in some quarters for a feeling that the Arabs of
Pales-
tine needed to be
protected against the richer, better organized Jews. . r 9
His utterances are
unpredictable. On March 28, 1931 he flatly accused the Jews "of
contributing to the Arab's fears" and of not making the proper
concessions. On April 9, 1931 , he stated bluntly that cooperation
between Jews and Arabs would have been possible if England Manchester , England
The policies by
which he guided the Zionist movement may be judged from his continuous flow of
statements of a religiosemystic nature, inviting acceptance of the bi-national
state idea. At the Basle Congress of 1927 he described the Zionist movement as
"spiritual and cultural — not aggressive ... it is only the expression of
an urge." Arabs and Jews were somehow to "come together . . . above
politics and above programs." This was the typical kind of millennium over
which Weizmann could work himself into a religious fervor.
The English
bureaucrats think much of him. Gandhi too admires him greatly. In these two
facts many critical observers think the epitaph of Zionism has been written.
The great opponent
of Weizmann is the little ex-soldier, Vladimir Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky is one of
the few Jewish leaders with any adequate idea of the kind of policies the
present Jewish crisis demands. Among Hebrew nationalists he is idolized.
In the ghettos of Eastern Europe he is already a tradition. He is hated
without
174 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
reservation by the
Marxists who see him as their ready-made enemy. Once he answered some leftist attacks
by throwing a handful of pennies contemptuously in their faces, saying:
"Here is your patriotism."
As a spell-binder
Jabotinsky is almost without rival. He can hold an audience breathless, and
often will talk for three or four hours at a stretch. As an expert conniver in
the business of inner Zionist intrigue he is hopeless. He is handicapped by a
deficient understanding of the structural mechanics of modern political
warfare. Half a dozen times he has had thrown in his lap the chance to seize
control of shattered Zionist affairs, and half a dozen times he has muffed it.
He is impetuous and head- strong, and a poor judge of men. Despite these
inadequacies
he is the only
existing leader capable of supplying the flashing personality and keen insight into
events required if anything is to be salvaged from the impending collapse of
the Zionist adventure.
Outside of Dr.
Wise, whose influence is scanty, the other personalities of the movement
largely reflect all that Weizmann rep- resents. A fine example is the head of
the all-important Political Department of the Jewish Agency, in Palestine
Shertok, Shertok
is a commonplace fellow with wavy hair, a left-wing product who, called into
court as a witness on a case, declined to take oath on the Torah, declaring
that "to do so was in contradiction to his philosophy of life... 11 Some
idea of his
caliber is shown
in the evidence before the Royal Commission investigating the 1936 riots, where
he announced in the name of the Socialist Federation of Labor that a thousand
of the rioting Arabs, who had left their jobs at the Jewish settlements in
order to join the rebellion, should have their places kept in reserve for them
in case they wished to return. 12
The chief
political officer of the Zionist Executive, in London October 24, 1934 he asserted that "we are fighting
discrimination against Jews in the Jewish National Home." Yet less than
four months later he
175 JEWS HAVE A
REPUTATION
was heard
declaiming in London Great Britain Great Britain Palestine Great Britain Palestine
Among others whose
influence is strong is David Ben Gurion, a Laborite, now virtually Weizmann's
Prime Minister. When not handicapped by his associations, Ben Gurion is
inclined to show courage and general good sense. After the 1929 pogroms
he split no hairs
in declaring that "we must take care not to fall into the trap prepared by
hostile British officials who desire to instigate here a bloody religious
war." Later, to save himself from the fate which befell Jabotinsky and
other irreconcilables, he switched policy, and can be usually found
hand-in-glove with Weizmann.
Among the other
men on the inner Zionist councils with hard common sense is Menachem Ussishkin,
a stolid, bearded engineer from Odessa Palestine
Ussishkin's great
attribute is a healthy pugnacity, sadly lacking in Jewish leadership ; and the
Zionists might have done worse than to have had him at the helm in the stormy
weather they have been experiencing during all these years.
CHAPTER II
"THE DESERT
SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE"
'unprecedented
prosperity'
If one chooses to
ignore the political potentials which make it a house built on sand, Jewish
colonization in Palestine Palestine Holy Land , refers to it as an amazing record of
progress, "unparalleled in any part of the world."
The Jewish
community in the Holy
Land is a
dynamic, vital organism. One feels the electric quality the Zionists have introduced
in the country almost before he sets foot on its soil. An air of confidence,
eagerness and expectancy suffuses everything. Everyone seems to be in a rush to
go somewhere or do something. These people are at home — and irrespective of political
actuality, they consider the country theirs. They mean to build it up at
whatever cost, to be handed as a legacy to children who will never have known
ghettos. Their purpose is passionate and indomitable. If they are balked one
way, with unshakable will they try another? This is the miracle of the new Jew;
he has seen a vision, and with quiet fortitude he means to follow it to the
death. "Rarely in the history of the world," says the British M.P. Mr.
T. Williams, "have human beings shown so much faith and devotion or thrown
themselves
into a task so
wholeheartedly as the Jews in Palestine
The Jew has in
fact proven himself to be the best colonizing material on earth. He has built literally
out of nothing. Inexperienced, dealing with a seemingly resource less area, he
has raised himself practically by his own bootstraps. He has faced a hostile
176 Pics
177 "THE
DESERT SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE"
soil, a hostile
people, and a hostile government. It is in his light that his small successes assume
the proportions of greatness.
Visitors stop,
pleasantly surprised in this region of dilapidated mud huts, to see the modern
brick or red-tiled stone houses of the Jews. The lovely gardens around them are
kept neat as a pin. Shade trees surround the villages. Painstaking irrigation
ditches, lined with young trees, bespeak the unceasing energy of the
colonizers. In the field’s hardy pioneers, men and women alike, work from sunup
to sundown. Their voices ring with the familiar words of peasant song as they
labor.
Lloyd George
refers to these land settlements as "models of intensive culture."
Herbert Morrison unhesitatingly terms them "one of the most wonderful
moral demonstrations of the human race in the whole of the civilized
world," saying "it is work typical of the finest of British colonizers
in the history of our Empire." No less explicit, the American Senator
Hastings said after his visit in 1936 that "although Jews own but
one-twentieth of all the land in Palestine
In all branches of
farming, Jewish growers have been the pioneers of advance and progress. The
only agricultural literature published in this entire section of the Near East is issued under their auspices. They are
the first and only ones to bother about creating markets, advertising, grading
and selecting, and introducing new varieties. A few representative figures bring
the quality of Jewish agriculture into vivid relief. Their average milk
production per cow is 3695 quarts yearly compared with the Arab average of 845
quarts. The production of Jewish-owned hens is 150 eggs per annum; contrasted
with 70 as the Arab figure. In the most literal sense the settlers have made
two blades of
grass grow where only one grew before, experimenting, testing and adapting,
until their areas bloom like one vast garden.
The figures for
Jewish industry are no less impressive. Just as in 1930 Hope-Simpson 'proved'
that not another rod of land was available for new Jewish settlement, so he
178 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
also declared the
industrial outlook hopeless. His report shows 2274 Jewish factories and
workshops, employing 9362 workers, with an invested capital of ,£1,635,462, an
output of ,£2,100,000 and a sum total of wages of ,£476,452. He solemnly warned
that "it would be very bad, and might prove a fatal policy, to attract
large capital in order to start doubtful industries in Palestine
The Holy Land now manufactures goods of the most varied
kind. Among the new firms established in 1935-36 alone, were bakeries, milling
companies, plate glass and paint works; razor blade and paraffin paper factories,
iron works, kilns for producing earthenware, pharmaceutical works, foundries
and metal manufactories ; cement works, spinning and weaving mills and textile,
shoe and furniture factories. A census by the Jewish Agency shows the healthy
nature of this industry. Preparation of foodstuffs, stone and cement accounts
for nearly thirty-nine percent of the production value; metal and wood industries,
twenty-two percent and chemicals, nine percent. The remaining thirty percent is
divided among textiles, printing, paper and electricity; all forming a solid
base for the country's economy. In striking contrast to this wide ramification
of Jewish industry, Arab manufactures are few, the most important being
oil-pressing, making of laundry soap, quarrying, baking and various home handicrafts.
The amount of
Jewish capital invested in this tiny land is estimated to total more than £120,000,000.
Prior to the recent riots, Jews were bringing in money at the rate of two to five million dollars a month. In 1934 alone
they are estimated to have invested approximately 10,000,000 in Palestine
179 "THE
DESERT SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE" 179
community is
placed at £20,000,000 annually. 1 Bank deposits amounted to £16,000,000 and
currency in circulation increased in the single year of 1935, from £4,738,964
to £6,561,134.
All of this is
reflected throughout the country's economy, shattering its medieval inertia in
every conceivable direction. Every figure in connection with this mushrooming
process is remarkable. Before the War the tonnage cleared at Haifa
In a generation
these returning exiles have erected a civilization which the English writer
Ernest Main tells us the Levantine is not capable of duplicating "in five
hundred years." 2 Behind this singular development with its wealth of
flourishing settlements and growing range of industries, lie the spiritual
drive and moral tone of the returning Hebrews. Money and skill alone could not
have contrived it.
POPULATION AND
CITIES
The Government itself
says in relation to its population estimates that "the precision of these
figures is not great." 3 It is almost impossible to carry out a reliable
census. Looking back with suspicious memory to the tax-collectors of Turkish
times, the enraged peasants either drive the census-takers out or give them
falsified figures, believing any head count to be an artful prelude to new
levies. The Government computation is 848,- 342 Muslims, 370,483 Jews, and
106,474 Christians. Reliable
Jewish sources,
however, place the Jewish figure around 410,000. Most of these are concentrated
around Tel Aviv, which with its surrounding villages holds over a quarter of a
million people.
Tel Aviv, living
symbol of Jewish hope, is like nothing that anyone ever saw before. It is a
mad, poetic crazy-quilt, fashioned out of Jewish determination to recreate
180 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
life in terms of
Jewish self-sufficiency. The mayor is Jewish, the porters are Jewish, the
street-sweepers are Jewish, the police are Jewish. Even the thieves are Jewish.
Jerusalem Peace Jerusalem
Holy City Jaffa Judean Mountains Moab
Hawthorne
It was founded in
1910 on worthless sand dunes, some miles out of Jaffa
Today a city of
160,000 rears its head to justify the extravagant claims of these visionaries.
In America Near
East , where it vies
with cities established before the memory of man, it is a miracle.
The city looks
like a cross between some miniature Paris Levant . All of them are paved.
The architecture
is the last word in modernism. To one used to the orthodox conception of
cities, it looks almost freakish. The stores and amusement places are the most
up-to-date in the world. Along the boardwalk on the sparkling blue sea,
sit throngs of gay
people, leisurely relaxing in the warm evening. Mixed colorfully among the
streaming crowds are Arabs, decked in their finest raiment, who have come from
all over the Levant to gaze on this wonder of wonders. A
profound sense
of experiment is
everywhere, with a huge shopping district and cinema palaces giving an
impression of a town many times larger.
Tel Aviv takes
thirty-three percent of Palestine Palestine
181 THE DESERT
SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE"
Its budget for
1934-35 was 275,000 — a staggering sum for this section of the Orient.
The town places a
high value on literacy, and is the center of the printing industry of Palestine
The cosmopolitan
origin of this remarkable Hebrew community is mirrored in the school-children.
A survey in 1935 showed 8178 to be Ashkenazic (of East-European derivation);
1338 Sephardic (descendants of Spanish exiles, coming mainly from North Africa,
Greece and Bulgaria) ; n 25 Yemenite (native dark-skinned Jews from the
southern end of the Arabian Peninsula) ; 184 Caucasian, 177 Persian, 92 Bokharian,
and 3 of other communities. The 161 6 children of immigrants who settled in Tel
Aviv during 1935 were of 22 different nationalities.
A canvass of their
parents shows 39% to be ordinary laborers, 14% merchants, 13% artisans, 5%
members of liberal professions, 16% of miscellaneous callings — and the balance
housewives or of no occupation.
The high Western
state of culture of this city, as contrasted with the slough of the surrounding
Near East, is not limited to surface appearances. The per capita rate of water
consumption, always an indication of social and economic conditions, is 230
liters per day. This compares with 52 liters for Vienna Berlin London
There are over one
hundred and sixty synagogues and Talmudical houses of learning. The names of
the shops and commercial houses are derived from the Bible or the Talmud. At
the sound of the ram's horn on Friday afternoon all traffic comes to a halt,
stores close and commercial activity ceases. The peace of the Sabbath settles
like a soft blanket on the city until the following night. But nowhere is the
fundamental
182 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Jewish character
of this place; better shown than on the festival days. Tel Aviv is a city of
holidays. All the ancient Jewish festivals have been revitalized and made the
occasion for public rejoicing. Succoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, is welcomed
not only by farmers rejoicing in the abundant harvest. In Tel Aviv, too; thanks
is given for the kind bounty of Mother Earth, with great crowds of citizens
dancing the native Hora 4 in the public squares of the city. During the feast
of Chanuka great fancy-dress balls are held and school-children by the
thousands parade in torchlight procession through the streets, carrying candles
and torches, and singing native songs until the air is heavy with their shrill
voices. There is almost an endless list of holidays, memorial days and festival
occasions, all enthusiastically observed by this happy people who have found
out how to live. The greatest of these, for which Tel Aviv is famous, is the
Purim celebration, ushered in with street-dancing and huge parades with gaily
decorated floats. During this gay period which lasts a whole week, the city
becomes an enchanted fairyland of colored lights and music, and masked,
laughing figures. Myriads of people from all over the country jam the streets;
and annually thousands from neighboring Syria Egypt Palestine
Joseph F.
Broadhurst, former Inspector General of Police for the Palestine Government,
remarks that "it is at Tel Aviv that one realizes the inherent
possibilities of the Jews as a nation." He found that during his whole
term in office there was practically no important crime despite a polyglot
population newly arrived from all quarters of the globe. "The police
force," he adds, "was entirely Jewish and I never knew a Jewish
policeman to let me down. The men were smart and conscientious and
very anxious to
follow the best traditions of the British police." 5
One circumstance
in particular labels the citizens of this Jewish city as unrivaled for pure
self -discipline and force of character. When the 1936 riots were going full
blast, for more than twelve weeks the city of Tel Aviv
183 THE DESERT
SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE" 183
aware that the
normal constabulary of two hundred men had been commandeered to guard its
borders against attack. Yet amongst this population of one hundred and sixty-thousand
there was not a single crime, though the town was already harboring thousands
of refugees. During all this troubled period Tel Aviv was the only place in Palestine Jaffa
of the greatest
physicians, scholars and creative artists of Germany Russia
The city is slow
and sedate and wears its ancient dignity complacently on its shoulder. Here is
the seat of the British Administration, and the sites of innumerable convents,
monasteries, and churches of all nationalities. One suddenly comes into the
There are really
two Jerusalem
184 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
square kilometer.
Seven gates open at various points. The eighth, the Gate of Mercy, facing east,
is sealed up, to be opened according to Jewish legend when Messiah ben David
enters through it. The Old City
Christian
sentiment is centered around the Holy Sepulchre in the northwest section.
The twisting,
narrow streets of the Old City
Beyond this
strange and picturesque relic lies the modern Jerusalem Poland Greece Germany
At the north of
the country is Haifa
"THE DESERT
SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE" 185
undoubtedly be one
of the great cities of the world. Before the Zionists came it was a mere fishing
village. Today it is estimated to hold some 95,000 people, of whom 65,000 are
Jews. Cradled here is a rapidly expanding industrial area. Railway workshops,
electrical power houses, cement works, factories and mills of all kinds are
rising to swell the growth of this hungry young metropolis.
There is little
that may be termed oriental about the place. Its model landscape seems copied,
as it were, from geography textbook. Sea, mountains, plains and chalk cliffs
meet the eye all at once, gradually uniting with the Lebanon
In the harbor are
always to be seen the gray masses of British men o' war. On the open beach,
housed in an inauspicious building, is the terminus of the oil line from Iraq Palestine
The only other
important town is Jaffa. Its name derives from the Hebrew Japho, the
'beautiful.' Pliny declares that even before the deluge Jaffa Karnak the name of Japu occurs as having been
conquered by Thothmes III about 1600 B.C. One hundred years ago it had a population
of four thousand. Today it holds seventy thousand, overwhelmingly Arab, who are
largely descendants of the Egyptians and Ethiopians brought in by the conqueror
Ibrahim Pasha. The few thousand Jews who lived here fled during the 1936 riots,
abandoning their shops and property.
Jaffa and Tel Aviv
are really one town. Where the one begins and the other ends is told only by
the sudden descent from the modernity of the Hebrew city into the stuffy
squalor, ramshackle architecture and typical dirt and hoarse cries of an Arab
town. The British were responsible for its artificial dissection years ago,
fearing Jewish domination of the port.
186 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
CHARACTER OF THE
PEOPLE
There is something
awe-inspiring in the simple joy which shines from the faces of the incoming
Hebrews. Many of them arrive in the ill-ventilated, reeking holds of small
cargo steamers after having survived almost incredible hardships. Some are of
the tradesman and
professional type. Most are poor to the point of desperation. Fellow-travelers
are astounded to see these men and women, grimy workmen and petty bourgeoisie
hardly sus- pected of sentiment or romanticism, standing silent with tears in
their eyes as the brown Judean hills take form on the distant horizon. Eighty
generations fade from their tired faces, years of suffering, abasement and
homelessness. As they survey these shores their glance is illumined, speaking
without words an al- most fanatic determination that the Land of Israel
No one who has not
seen these faces with his own eyes can understand what a miracle it is for the
Jew, to stand once more on the soil that Simon Bar Giora trod, where Abraham,
Isaac and David walked, where Bar Kochba led his stern swordsmen.
Nothing can gloat
over the sheer majesty of this scene like the starved Jewish eye, now devouring
its outlines with a hunger sharpened by the nostalgia of two thousand years. As
at a beautiful vision, the newcomer stares at the rosy-cheeked children racing
in happy play. Their fresh, tumbling Hebrew speech gladdens his ear like beautiful
music as he harks back in shuddering contrast to the sallow emaciation and
frightened eyes of the only Jewish children he has ever known. Thrilled and
almost disbelieving, he gazes at the straight-limbed boys who have left the
puny catechisms of Europe far behind, to work with pick and shovel
under the broiling sun of this new land. Their bronzed faces are like the stark
brown hills around them. Like Ernest in
It is "a
wonderful youth," says M. J. Landa, one of the authorities on modern Palestine
187 "THE
DESERT SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE"
spirit." 6
Nowhere else is sheer idealism so plain in every office of life. Kindliness and
the desire to create a cooperative civilization worthy of the name of man,
everywhere takes precedence over individual ambition. The same determination
for a
socially-intelligent
existence which has distinguished post-war Sweden
of ten passing
motorists will stop in their journey and volunteer to assist in mending it.
For the first time
in modern Jewish life the distribution of occupation approaches normality.
Agriculture now absorbs 14% ; industry and crafts, 23.4% ; transportation, 6.1%
; building construction, 12.7% ; commerce, 20% ; public and civil service, 2.4%
; liberal professions, 12.4% ; persons living on income, 6% ; domestic and
hotel employees, 3%. Something in the way of flowers or greenery grows wherever
a Jew lives. The passion for growing things, for trees and blooms, is so
intense in this psychically starved people as to be insatiable. They love to
loiter in outdoor gardens, sipping their unbelievable fruit soups or nibbling
at sticky fruit compotes.
Hiking is a
national pastime. They go in for athletic competition with feverish zeal. There
are innumerable small sports clubs of every description and three major sports
federations, including the Football and Boxing Federation and the Amateur
Sports Clubs Federation. One of the great bi-annual events is the Maccabiad
(Jewish Olympics), held at the magnificent Tel Aviv stadium. In the tournament
of 1935, twenty-three countries were represented with over five thousand
participants. Fifty thousand people paid admission as the whole city made a
delirious holiday.
The love for the
theater and for music is intense and demonstrative; song is often a
188 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
substitute for
supper. An opera company holds a regular season in Jerusalem Haifa New York London
In addition to
numerous cinema houses there are a number of fine theaters. Habimah, the
national Hebrew theater, is reputed to be one of the finest stock companies in
the world. Its stage direction and sets are spoken of with admiration wherever
acting is professionally known. The workers too have their own theater, said to
be professionally superb, called the Ohel; and there is a famous children's
theater, the Theation Layelodem, where children are both the actors and
audience.
Innumerable art
exhibitions are continually showing, a thing unheard of in the moribund life of
the Near East before the coming of the Zionists.
Literature also flourishes. In Tel Aviv alone are ten publishing houses, some
of them prosperous. Palestine Jewry was responsible for 94% of all the books
published on both sides of the Jordan River in 1935. This is the astounding country where grimy-handed
peasants read Hegel and Strindberg.
All told there are
some three hundred organizations, societies, and associations of a cultural and
social character. In science, too, the Hebrew genius now shines directly on its
own. The Daniel Sieff Research Institute at Rehovoth is equipped with the most
delicate modern instruments; its experiments are watched by chemists all over
the world. And of the Hebrew University
189 "THE DESERT
SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE"
"It is
remarkable to find on the fringe of Asia a university which maintains the highest standards of Western
scholarship."
The conventional
neuroticism which marks so strongly the beleaguered Jews of Europe is not seen
here. These people are almost provincial, and certainly without complexes. A
comparison of the incidence of insanity, said to be higher generally among Jews
than in the surrounding populations, is startling. The average insanity for all
the races of the world is 300-400 per hundred thousand; while among Palestine
The speech of
these people is a lyrical Old-Testament Hebrew. Here in the old land of
miracles, the language of the Lord Jehovah and of the Seminarists, dead and
inert so long, felt the fire of Jewish rebirth breathed into it and is now the
everyday tongue of the people. 8 Love for the ancient language is so fierce
that even shopkeepers will pretend ignorance of other tongues and will allow a
customer to walk out rather than answer him in Yiddish. 9 The only exception to
this rule in Palestine Poland Warsaw Palestine
Going Hebrew is
not a fad — it is an irresistible compulsion. In Palestine
The Scriptures and
Prophets have also inspired the new-come nomenclature for the
190 THE RAPE OF
PALESTINE
places they have
occupied. The first of the new garden suburbs in Jerusalem Jerusalem
Russia Asia ,
almost frightened them out of their skins.
September 15, 1919 , just before the beginning of Denikin's great
retreat; when he observed that up to that date Britain England Russia
As in Tel Aviv,
Jewish holidays and festivals of Old Testament times have sprung into life
wherever these people live. In the settlements they are welcomed in a riot of
flowers, flags, ceremony, and music and dancing. The dead hand of religious
formalism has departed from them and they have become stirring national
holidays, declaring in sentiment and form, the re-won self-respect of the Jew.
With every year
that passes, admits the 1936 Royal Commission, "the contrast between this
intensely democratic and highly organized modern community and the
old-fashioned Arab world around it grows sharper," conceding that nowhere
in the world is the spirit of nationalism "more intense than among the
Jews in Palestine Palestine
All this lively
reborn life is reflected in the growth of the Hebrew press, truly astonishing
for such a small community. Davar, the largest daily, has a circulation of some
twenty-five thousand; followed by Ha’aretz y with some twenty thousand; and a
number of other dailies, together with many weekly publications, trade
journals, and miscellaneous publications.
191 "THE
DESERT SHALL BLOOM LIKE THE ROSE"
Jewish Palestine Israel
in the
Administration. Actually the Government considers its existence merely as one
of those concessions commonly made to the amenities, not consequent in
practice. Hence the Jewish National Assembly is restricted in its external
dealings to wordy
memoranda of
protest over decrees and legislation considered contrary to Jewish interests. In
internal Jewish affairs, however, it is potent and invaluable. Representing the
increasing solidarity of Palestine
CHAPTER III
BUREAUCRACY LOOKS
AT JEWS
THE HOLY LAND WHITEHALL
The largest and
most expertly conducted business in the history of man is the British Empire . The nerve center and business office of
that Empire is the section called Whitehall London
Virtually
independent of the electorate, these impregnable bureaucracies function
magnificently, undisturbed by the hot and cold breath of political change. They
are ruled by men who have been trained from boyhood into the tradition of the
Empire. To these men the slightest material advantage to Imperial business
comes first, irrespective of humanist philosophies and social codes. They are
smug, clever and loyal. They avoid the limelight — but their power is immense.
Among the men who
really rule England British Empire — a man whose taste for whiskey and
intrigue has won him the nickname of "Machiavelli-and-soda." He has
under his immediate control the admirable British Secret Service, and dispenses
thousands of pounds of the Foreign Office's "secret funds" — money on
whose expenditure the law expressly forbids any detailed account to Parliament.
He is also
chairman of the 'Coordinating Committee,' the Government's own propaganda bureau,
whose function is to influence the news in foreign countries where friendly
opinion is important. One of the functions which the 'Coordinating
Committee' has
assumed is responsibility for the Arabic broadcasts which go forth regularly
from London
Another of these
men is Sir Maurice Hankey, an unostentatious functionary who
192 pics
193 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
combines in his
person the post of Secretary to the Cabinet, Secretary to the Privy Council and
Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defense. Sir Maurice knows probably more
than any other men the closely held secrets of military and political intrigue,
the careful long-range planning, by which the future of the Empire is
safeguarded. Around these two men are grouped the political agents in direct
contact with the omnipotent Intelligence Service, "who are employed to
test or to alter public opinion" — a small group which numbers in its
ranks some of the best and shrewdest brains in England. 2
Among other
powerful figures are Sir Walter Runciman, head of the British Board of Trade,
and Sir Warren Fisher, Chief of the Treasury. Behind these Vansittarts and
Hankeys are a host of others — shadows behind shadows — men whose direct
influence often colors or dictates the actions of their chiefs. More are
continually in the course of training, eventually to take over their masters'
jobs. The mechanism is self -perpetuating.
The most important
of these Bureaus is the Admiralty, recognized as the 'sacred white cow' of British
political life. Following closely after the Admiralty in prestige and power are
the War and Colonial Offices. A number of lesser Bureaus, immensely powerful in
their own right, complete an impregnable web which has rarely failed to enmesh
every British Cabinet of modern times.
In the hands of
these brilliant functionaries there is no confused muddling of action, but an
artfully planned and carefully concealed continuity of objectives. The
appearance of clumsy incapacity is part of their technique; but when all the
presumed bungling is over, the strategic spots in question are always found to
be miraculously occupied by the British, without loss of moral tone. The
greatest part of their strategy is dictated by the fact that the Empire has
settled down to the point where it exists mostly as a market for
English-manufactured goods as well as a source of raw material. Tranquility is
the essence of Empire needs under the circumstances — hence these men will make
many concessions for it where vital require men will
194 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
make many concessions
for it where vital requirements are not at stake. This, plus the private
prejudices of the Bureaucrats, is the major basis of British ethics in the
business of Empire rule.
Their tactics,
developed over centuries of training, are ably devised. They consist in the
main of sudden surprise maneuvers covered by a barrage of pious rhetoric. If
the resistance is too great and a graceful exit available, they take it. They
regard a doughty antagonist with respect. They will treat with him when they
discover that more is to be gained in that way. If pushed so far that they
cannot return without losing face, their history indicates that they will fight
like bulldogs; but if allowed a convenient retreat, as one prominent European
states man once said to the writer, "They will give you not only what you
want, but fifty percent more."
They have an
immense contempt for elected politicians. Parliament they consider a necessary
evil. Their method of parrying pointed questions from that body is a marvel in
efficiency and insolence.
Among these
servants of the Crown there are often decisive and sometimes fundamental
differences of opinion. Taken by and large, however, the human content in their
computations does not exist. The terms in which they think are well represented
in the Chinese opium trade, forced on China Geneva Britain
The vast bulk of
these men believe the Balfour Declaration to have been a grave error, and that
by it Britain
The background for
this conviction was erected when English agents returned from
195 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
In the path of the
Bolshevik eruption came wild reports, and the consuming fear that the
established world was about to go up in flames. Riding high on the tide of
success, the Communists blatantly announced their plans for ripping the world
up by its foundations. Dynamite was in the air throughout Europe and Asia . Radicals had made good their Red promises
in Hungary Italy Germany Far
East was
infected. Typical of the kind of stuff that was rattling British brains was the
Manifesto of the Soviet Congress of Eastern Nations at Baku Near East to hatred. . ."
The English had
just finished their sad adventure in Russia
Revolution, the
identification of Jews with this dangerous movement became complete in the
Bureaucratic mind. Over-night the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a crude
forgery reputing to be the intimate documentary evidence of the Jewish plot,
196 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
achieved a
terrific circulation. 6 Men, otherwise quite sane, believed this fantastic
rubbish completely.
A vast literature
soon accumulated on the subject. Members of Parliament were flooded with
anti-Semitic leaflets and pamphlets daily, in which the term "hidden
hand" and other phrases such as "international finance" are
developed into an argot used to signify the Jewish conspirators behind the
scene. Represented as the modern genius behind this diabolical scheme for world
disruption is, remarkably enough, none other than Achad Ha'am; and as Ha'am's
"representative," in this strange literature, poor Weizmann is
translated into one of the most dangerous men alive.
To suspicious
Bureaucrats whose entire training in life lay in quiet conspiracy to gain
hidden ends, no part of this sounded like an impossible hypothesis. Antipathy
for the Jews assumed such proportions in whole sections of English society and
Government as to become pathological. The basis, in fact, of their fanatic
support of Hitler was the belief that he was the only man with the genius and
courage to fight the vast unseen Jewish octopus which was draining the Empire's
life blood and which was credited with instigating every misfortune and
misadventure which befell England
Some idea of the
influence of the Protocols alone can be gained from the critical study made by
Benjamin W. Segel, who found that "no recent book of world literature
could even in a slight degree compare with the circulation of the
Protocols."
The tremendous
influence and ready acceptance of this fantasy is hardly understood by Jews.
The Zionist leaders, especially, are capable of having this stuff swirling all
around their heads without being aware of it. When a few years ago the writer
showed it to one of them, he airily dismissed the whole business as sounding
"like Alice
Riddling the
Bureaucratic mentality also was a strong, though not properly recognized
neo-Pagan movement, borrowed from their liaison with the Germans. To these
groups many of the important officials of the various Bureaus belong. A
197 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
partiallarly
influential group meets in offices in the Temple England England
Official London Palestine Near East ." 7 Innumerable meetings,
semi-official in character, were told of the extreme danger lying in wait for
the Empire and assured that "Communism was alien to the Arab."
The embryo of
English Arabophilia reached back all the way to the period of peace negotiations.
Englishmen were speaking for all the varied Arab races to Englishmen in London Great Britain
198 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
It was a nice
feeling and it had its physical rewards in the immense resources of the Arabian Peninsula , seemingly wide open to exclusive British
exploitation. When the British eventually came up against another group, the
Jews, who had social theories, spoke English and proposed to represent
themselves in negotiations, they were thoroughly annoyed.
In London
Judeo-phobes and
anti-Bolsheviks began to discover that the Arab cause was a great and noble
one. They formed themselves into formidable committees in and out of
Parliament. Powerful figures such as Sir Henry Page-Croft, Sir Arnold Wilson,
Lord Sydenham and Lord Lamington associated themselves actively with the stage
management of the Arab campaign for public sympathy. Other still more powerful
figures operated from the shadows, telling the Arabs what to say, formulating
their demands and maneuvering their case. Lord Eustace Percy stated the
situation in Parliament, July 4, 1922 , declaring that "certain Englishmen —
who do not like the Zionist policy . . . have inspired them [the Arabs] with
certain ideas that they never dreamt of before, and have supplied this Arab
delegation with arguments." Arabs were made to say meaningfully that
"Communism is alien to our religion, our principles and our
conscience." Early Arab memoranda point out in staged horror
to the Government
that "the prevalent conditions of the Jewish immigrants are a very fertile
medium for the propagation of Communistic principles not only among Jews, but
also among Arabs." 8
Certainly, an
anti-Zionist campaign of this power and scope is far beyond the known strength
of the Palestine Arabs. Meeting with little counteraction from the Zionists, it
has affected many divergent sections of opinion. Ironically enough, the Independent
199 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
Labor Party
announces through its chairman, Archibald Fenner Brockway that "the
Balfour Declaration was issued in order to win the support of Jewish
Capitalism; that in itself is sufficient reason for our opposition to it."
9 The Communists, as expected, are categorically opposed to Zionism in any form
or shape. Their only Member of Parliament, William Gallacher, squarely asserted
during the 1936 riots that "if ever a people were justified in making a
protest and in making a demonstration in order to get justice, it is the Arab
people in Palestine
The most active
opponents of the Zionists are in the Admiralty, which has its eye on the strategically
importance of Palestine
Through the
mediation of these Bureaus, anti-Zionist propaganda has become an integral part
of the efficient publicity service with which the British Government advances
its views all over the world. The greatest part of this concentration of effort
is in America America London Palestine Columbia University
200 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
very name sends a
shiver down the back of the Palestine Jews. In adroitly-managed liaison with
American anti-Semitic elements, the anti-Zionist campaign is persistently and
expertly implemented. Its literature, distributed in ton lots in the large
cities, is heavy with neo-Pagan coloring. A sample is its virtuous announcement
that "the Jewish claim to Palestine
Actuated by the
permanent officials, the full force of the British Government has been thrown
in back of the anti-Zionist campaign. Its effect is seen in Turkey Japan Near East we shall shortly discover. The strength of
this determined animosity is spot-lighted by London's insistence that Palestine
be excluded from the sphere of operations of the Refugee Commission presided
over by MacDonald in 1936 — certainly as sardonic a commentary on England's
interpretation of her word as could be imagined.
There are of
course other and more respectable reasons which activate London Palestine Holy Land under a glass case — a perpetual survivor
of the tourist East. But whatever the reason, the factual result is tersely
given by Colonel Meinertzhagen. 11 Speaking February 9, 1938 , he coldly asserted that "Arab opposition
to Zionism is nursed and encouraged by anti-Zionist views not only in Palestine Whitehall Westminster Palestine London
201 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
THE JEWISH
NUISANCE
There is no lack
of evidence of the dislike held by the Palestine Administration for Jews. The
essentially pro-British propaganda of the World Zionist Organization is read by
the Yishuv with its tongue in its cheek — understood for what it is, a
sagacious part of the Zionist money-raising machinery. The Vaad Leumi,
occasionally provoked enough to forget the conditioning restraint placed on it
by its financial patron, the Jewish Agency, has sometimes spoken its mind with
great clarity as in its 1929 Memorandum to the League charging that the whole
continuity of spoliation, riots and 'Commissions,' was "the inevitable
consequence of a policy of opposition to the Jewish National Home" which
the Administration had "been pursuing for years."
Haifa Mediterranean . It is
Palestine Britain Egypt Africa . It has become a vital link in the whole
British chain of strategy. Desperately, as the open question arises as to the
relative efficiency of dreadnaughts and airships, Britain
London India Haifa
Downing
Street from
sleeping at night.
There can be
little question that the prevailing sentiment of the Government of Palestine is
a vigorous offshoot of that section of London City
The monist
ferocity of anti-Semites is too well known to require added description. The
structure of the British bureaus lends itself admirably to maneuvering by a
small cabal of determined political adventurers, and the anti-Semitic group has
not been remiss in utilizing every possible avenue for placing its own
'reliable' creatures in the Holy Land service. They tried desperately at one time to secure the
appointment of General Michael O'Dwyer as High Commissioner, and came close
enough to it to make the Jews shudder. O'Dwyer, said to believe religiously in
the existence of the great 'international Jewish conspiracy,' is the man
reputed to have shot six hundred
Indians in cold
blood, and made the others at Amritsar
These men want to
conduct legally, under the protection of the British flag in Palestine
202 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Commons of
individuals who are far from agreeable to this point of view; Hence they wear
such a mask of Christian benefaction as they can under the circumstances, and
attempt to justify their acts constantly by principle. Wedgwood contemptuously
refers to this type of Crown servant as "the ordinary narrow-minded, half-bred
Englishman who feels about Jews just as his counterpart Herr Hitler does."
The pagan
mentality is also much in evidence in the Holy Land Service if one may judge
from the published remarks of C. R. Ashbee, Civic Adviser to the City of Jerusalem Holy City
This official of
the New Jerusalem continues: "One still sees the Christ type in the
streets here, and it is usually the Jew who has it. . . Jesus Christ, if he
ever existed at all, was a Syrian and he's still here in Jerusalem
One of the early
reasons contributing to this feeling against Jews was the unscrupulous
propaganda of the German-Turkish agents, enraged by the deflection of the
Zionists. Originally intended to promote anti-British incitement, these canards
found the sympathetic ear of the English authorities on the spot, who for quite
other reasons were opposed to the Jews.
Among the grudges
held against the Jew was the claim that he was clannish and had behaved with
abominable inhospitality when the British first arrived. The newcomers were
lonely and without their wives, a condition often remedied by Arab sheikhs who,
considering that women do not possess a soul, had long made it a practice to
turn over a female of the household to a favored overnight guest. War-weary
English officers appreciated the soft inertia, slumberous music and polished
deference shown them by their Arab hosts ; while the inexplicable Jews had
vulgarly continued to toil in their fields and pore over their interminable
blueprints. "Whatever their station in
203 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
life,” says Horace
Samuel, "and whatever the angle of contact, the Arabs exhibited invariably
far better manners than did the Jews." 12 They were picturesque and
exotic, in striking contrast to the Zionists whose rolled shirt-sleeves and
incessant drive made the colorful indolence of their neighbors seem almost an
enchanting relief.
On the whole the
Jew proved quite the most desperately impossible human being to govern that
ever drove an annoyed bureaucrat to distraction. He was worse than the Afridis
who took to the mountains and shot off their rusty rifles; even worse than that
patience-trying creature, the Hindu, who calmly sat down on his brown haunches
and refused to recognize that the English existed.
The Jews first
looked on the all-but-sacred Crown Colony Code, the provincial's Bible, with
disrespect. Feeling that the country was theirs by solemnly ratified
international agreement, they chafed impatiently at its interminable red tape
and officiousness and often expressed their annoyance in no uncertain terms.
Britishers used to the languor of Timbuctu and Belize, who suddenly found their
snobbish hauteur deflated by even common Jewish workingmen who did not know the
word 'native' as applied to themselves, sat back in their chairs unpleasantly
puzzled. The tempo of activity these Jews set was perpetually ruffling to
officials who wanted to enjoy their jobs in peace. They did not warm to the determined
intellectuals who presented argumentative petitions when their plans were
balked. They were aghast at the grimy-knuckled men who did not hesitate to
invade the sacred sanctums of officialdom in their shirtsleeves; men of high
energy and courage, whose manners were often bad and who sometimes developed
antagonism by their very presence. Here was an enigma defying previous experience,
a charade of new values which the Colonial official, recruited from the
aloofness of the British manor or the worse officiousness of London
204 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
occurred to him to
brush me down after I got out of the car. I stood it for three months and then I
engaged an Arab chauffeur in his stead."
Even more galling,
the Jewish spokesmen, product of an ethnos incalculably different from anything
that makes an English Colonial, left the impression that they considered
themselves a higher order of humanity. They brought means, culture and capacity
with them, and a typically Jewish point of view that was apt to forget that an
Inspector was not necessarily an ass because he had not read Turgenieff and had
no taste for classical music.
A certain insight
into this matter was given by Mr. Spicer, Chief of Palestine Police, in reply
to the question, "Why are you all against the Jews?" Spicer, decent
as Colonial officials go, but stolid and unimaginative, replied obligingly:
"Look 'ere now, there's many reasons. The bloomin' h'Arabs are h'easier to
'andle. Now you take the h'Arabs when they want something. A crowd will gather
in front of my 'ouse, looking fierce and shaking their blasted clubs, and maybe
bryke a window.
Now w'ot do h'l do
! H'l tykes me military 'at, puts it on me 'ead, and walks outside. I tyke out
a cigarette, fix it slowly in the holder, flick the ashes off with a little
finger — so ! And h'l finally sye in an even voice : 'See 'ere you beggars,
what's the
damn meaning of
all this ! Go 'ome ! ' And they go 'ome.
"Now w'ot do
the Jews do! When they want something, they call h'up the day before for an
appointment. Then three distinguished lawyers come in on me with their arms
full of lawbooks to prove their bloomin' case. Hell, you know h'l don't know
anything about law."
Certainly a major
factor was the bristling hostility to Communism, which had been built in the
gentile mind into something closely approximating a Jewish phenomenon. To Officialdom
the new Jews coming to the Holy Land were nothing but the vanguard of Bolshevism, arch-enemy of
everything British. In Palestine
205 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS 205
Socialism
consisted mostly of words. Actually there were only some five hundred known
Communists in the entire country, most of whom were Arabs, and all of them
lock-stock-and-barrel against the Zionist experiment. But these were fine
points past the ken of uniformed officials who, constitutionally unable to
distinguish between the various brands of Marxism, viewed anything remotely
touched by it with dark suspicion.
What disturbed
them principally were a few small farm settlements called Kvutzoth, organized,
like the Christian Hutterites in the United States London
There can be
little question that there has finally grown up among His Majesty's officials
in Palestine an ingrained aversion to Jews, rendered almost ferocious by the
struggle to hold these 'unsavory foreigners' in their place. Even as
open-minded an
206 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
official as
Broadhurst refers to "the notorious Balfour Declaration." 13 It would
be difficult in fact to find anywhere a group of men as incapable of assistance
or understanding to such a project as the Jewish National Home as are quartered
under the roof of the Palestine Administration. Without question they regard
themselves as under some sort of queer duty to lead a stealthy filibuster
against the very policy they were commissioned to carry through. No one even on
speaking terms with the facts can doubt that the British and Jews in Palestine
The American
minister, John Haynes Holmes, visiting the Holy Land in 1929, found an invincible prejudice
against Jews among the Crown officials. These men, he relates, "talked of
the Zionist movement with impatience, frequently with contempt, and always with
the suggestion that they would be ineffably relieved, if not actually pleased,
if the whole thing would only blow up and disappear." 15 The English
writer, Beverley Nichols, paints an identical picture, saying, "I had not
been in Jerusalem Nathan Straus Street Jerusalem Holy City
Farrago, covering
the 1936 riots, describes the wives of highly placed British officials
207 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
openly carrying on
propaganda for the Arab cause among the newspaper correspondents. Even the
Chief Secretary of the Government, Hawthorn Hall, an official ranking next to
the High Commissioner, is found advising French Journalists to read the
anti-Semitic Arab press if they want to get at the true facts of the Palestine Palestine
"Arab! Don't
shoot me
Shoot the man
behind the tree.
He is a
treacherous Jew
I am an Englishman
true.
Arab! Don't shoot
me
Shoot the man
behind the tree."
A considerable
proportion of His Majesty's servants in Palestine London Palestine Transjordan , and then the letters written by Sir John
Chancellor inviting various individuals in the Government to subscribe money
for the upkeep of this "weekly paper in English to express the British
point of view." 20
There is not the
slightest doubt that the Zionists are faced in Palestine by a cynically hostile
Guardian, who in the very nature of events must sooner or later succeed in
grinding their movement to a pulp. It is in fact hard to conceive how, in a
modern world, any colonization enterprise can be conducted successfully when it
must contend with the active hatred of an overlord who sets immigration
conditions, tariff rates, taxes, and regulates by fiat every economic and
political condition under which the new settlers must live.
Zionist publicity
has proven itself adept at concealing this ugly situation. Colonel Wedgwood
visiting the country in 1927 was utterly astonished to hear at first hand the
bitter feeling of the Jewish settlers. He had been under the impression that
they were enraptured with the English Administration.
208 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Only old Menachem
Ussishkin among the Zionists has dared to speak his mind. With blunt candor he
declared that "from the start it was clear that the British officials in Palestine
Dr. John Haynes
Holmes puts the matter in a nutshell when he says : "It may well be
discovered, before the tale is done, that the English conquest of Palestine
'RULE BRITANNIA!'
Weizmann had
tartly informed the Twelfth Zionist Congress: "If you think we made
ourselves the agents of English politics in the Near East , you have the wrong idea. . . If you were
to ask any British Imperialist today whether Palestine
This, however, was
far from the opinion of the gentlemen in Westminster Whitehall Great Britain British Empire might be fatal to its interests in India Egypt Palestine
With grim realism
these men understood what Jewish politicians were too naive to grasp, that
there was no struggle between Jews and Arabs, but actually an undeclared state
of war between the Zionists and His Britannic Majesty's Government for
possession of this vital area.
It was
disconcertingly plain that if the Zionists put up a smart fight for their
patrimony the English would find themselves in parentheses. Palestine
209 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
this none too
reassuring olio of facts that British policy in Palestine Palestine Egypt Palestine
In 1875 Disraeli
got the Suez Canal for England Egypt Suez Britain Suez London Britain Alexandria Cairo
These changing
conditions leave the British Army, quartered in the Canal Zone , without any hinterland as a base. Palestine
Italians on the
newly acquired Island of Doumeirah Red Sea , their guns mounted menacingly right
athwart the Imperial line of communications. On the land side Italy Ethiopia Egypt Germany Bismarck England
210 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
domination in Europe , ultimate German colonial aims at the
expense of the British
Empire are unconcealed.
The old objective of the Czars, dreaded by Englishmen for a hundred years, has
been finally gained by the Soviets. At the Montreux Conference in 1936, despite
anything His Majesty's representatives could do about it, Turkey Mediterranean . Thus the danger of being outflanked both
by land and sea looms up more vividly real with each passing month. In the Far East , Japan Britain China Asia . Siam Persia India
Thoroughly
alarmed, Great Britain
The chain of great
naval bases reaching from Gibraltar to Singapore India Britain England
The Mediterranean is the principal trade route to all
British Dominions except Canada India Australia China Danzig , but Haifa
211 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
incomparably
better than that of Alexandria Ethiopia Malta Haifa Haifa Singapore
This port is
moreover the terminus of the great oil line through which the enormous stream
of Mosul oil is transported to the sea. 28 This factor becomes overwhelmingly
important in light of the fact that less than six percent of all fuel oil and
gasoline consumed in the United Kingdom Palestine Haifa Mosul Persian Gulf to either Haifa
The defeat of Germany Turkey Haifa Baghdad Persian Gulf , connecting with British-controlled Port India Haifa Cape to Cairo Railway by way of Kantara,
212 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
making Haifa Cape-
town and Calcutta Haifa Damascus Iraq Syria Haifa
If Haifa Red
Sea is
potentially of like importance. Its sheltered waters are ideal for a seaplane
base, while the high mesa which overlooks it provides the finest natural
aerodrome in the world.
Fifty airplanes
could take off simultaneously on this plateau. Plans are already actively being
formulated for the digging of a new canal to supplement Suez, to stretch from
Aqaba to Gaza,* This would relieve Britain of the fear of the water route reverting
to Egypt, and would give her a virtually impregnable line of communications,
making her master of the old world.
Bearing heavily on
English attitudes is still another factor of vast importance — the presence in
the Dead Sea of unlimited amounts of potash and other chemicals, valuable in
peace and absolutely essential in war. Palestine England Dead Sea development materialized, the Germans held
a practical monopoly on potash, placing the Allied Powers in a serious
predicament during the World War.
To the official mind, it became pressingly evident that some
pretext for permanent occupation of this indispensable area had to be found.
One thing was certain: England Palestine
These officials
look askance at the presence here of a large, intelligent, modern population
whose reaction in any crisis might involve an obstinate consideration of its
own needs and welfare; and which might under able leaders extend its hegemony
of interests to
cut through the indolent Arabic countries like a knife through so much
213 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
cheese, perhaps
even challenging British supremacy over Egypt Palestine Britain
The pioneering
energy shown by the Zionists has also alarmed London Japan Western Asia , who, sooner than was pleasant to
contemplate, would go into active competition for the all-important markets of Africa and the Orient. They dread the possibility
that an industrialized Jewish Palestine would form the spearhead for an
economic bloc of Near Eastern countries, ruining British position completely by
an enlargement of already conflicting interests. They uncomfortably remember
that in 19 14 India Great Britain Japan London Asia wherever it can, and is much more
interested in maintaining the old conditions. 29
The British know
that the Jew, with his resources and indomitable energy, if encouraged instead
of hampered would eventually bring the entire Near East into his sphere of
influence; and this possibility is sufficient to keep the gentlemen of
A persistent
minority of independent British opinion, however, takes a contrary view. On the
matter of trade it points out that markets depend also on consuming capacity
and that it is to the mother country's advantage to develop the Near East . It points to the increasingly large English
export to Palestine Canada Australia England
Such leaders as
Lords Snell, Lothian, Tweedsmuir and Cecil hold that the success of Zionism is
no less important to Britain
214 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
developing a loyal
population there whose interests would be tied up with those of the English.
These men view with disquietude the political instability of the Arab, as well
as the growing antagonism to Britain Gibraltar on the eastern end of the Mediterranean . The English pro-Zionists contend that
intelligent Imperial planning demands the driving of a stout Jewish wedge
between the Egyptian, Turkish and Arabian Muslims. Mr. L. S. Amery, former
Secretary of State for the Colonies, in his book The Forward View states that
the introduction of a strong Western force, allied with Britain Palestine Suez
Canal ."
Among the plans
that have been seriously advocated is the scheme for making Palestine
Josiah Wedgwood,
Sir Martin Conway and Lord Harrington. They maintain that it is absolutely
essential for the interests of the British Empire that the Jews realize their ideal of a national home in Palestine Palestine Palestine
215 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
feeling that this
plan would eliminate the heartbreaking disabilities from which the country
suffers. In sheer weariness, most of the Jewish leaders would have welcomed
this solution if any half decent guarantee would have been given them in exchange
for their voluntary relinquishment of the Mandate.
Storrs Arabia is a geographical ex of other Muslim sects press ion and
corresponds to no political entity." 38 The very use of the words
'Mohammedanism' and 'nationalism' in the same breath is a contradiction in
terms. Racial pride is unknown to Islam. Everyone who confesses Allah is
accepted as a brother and equal, whether he be a Negro, Malay or European.
Arabia is a mass of blood feuds and economic
rivalries. There are long drawn-out boundary disputes between the various countries,
and the traditional jealousies between the ruling houses, extends fan-shape
down the line through the whole host of minor sheikhs, sultans and imams.
Geneva France Syria
However, a
Dominion has certain privileges, as London Canada South Africa
The bureaucrats
did not want the Jews as partners in the Empire if they could avoid it.
Expressing this hostility, Joseph F. Broadhurst, long Assistant Inspector
General, C.I.D., to the Palestine Government, remarks: "I cannot see that
a hetero-generous collection of Jews dumped into a land with no connection with
our own would make the best of compatriots. This would never do, and few
British people would tolerate such a scheme." 33
While this
difference in opinion exists, the vast preponderance of power lies with the
anti-Semitic group, which is irrevocably opposed to the Jewish National Home.
They are painfully aware that the Mandate was given to fulfill Jewish, not
English, needs and that England Palestine Britain
One of the great
difficulties they encountered was the increasing pressure of millions of
desperate Jews throughout the world who banged on the doors of the country
frantically. Here the Bureaucrats were at once presented with the need for much
circumspect maneuvering so as to avoid bringing a storm of condemnation down on
their heads. Unwilling to drop its pose of decent impartiality in view of the
effect it might have on other subject peoples in the Empire, the Government was
forced from one impotent artifice to another.
Officialdom is
further faced with the fact that in England
216 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
known to buck like
a wild steer when this was outraged. Both in and out of Parliament there
existed, an enormous sympathy for Zionism which could not be dispelled over
night. As late as October 1936 a poll on the Palestine situation taken by the
anti-Zionist Daily Express showed even here a more than two-to-one majority in
favor of the Jews as against the Arabs Whitehall was espousing. In its own
literature the Government had acknowledged that outside of Jewry "an
overwhelming mass of public opinion would appear to favor Jewish administration
in Palestine
These
uncertainties are the only reasons why they do not annex Sinai to Palestine Egypt Holy Land will be successful and afraid that they
may yet, despite all their desperate juggling, be forced to deal with the fact
of an independent Jewish State.
The sum total of
this situation is certainly rather awkward for the men who sit at the mahogany
desks in Whitehall Western Asia into a British pasturage if they have to
turn half of creation upside down in the process.
THE ARAB EMPIRE
PROJECT
Many reasons are
advanced by the English to the bewildered Zionists to explain their conduct.
"We are sorry," they say confidentially. "We would really like
to do it, y' know, but we have to be careful of the ninety million Mohammedans
in our Empire."
Under examination
this hackneyed contention seems pretty thin. The British have only to refer to
their own T. E. Lawrence, who termed Pan-Islamism in politics "a
fiction." The men of Whitehall
217 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
forget recent
experience in a hurry. They can still remember the war with Turkey England Syria India
There is, on the
whole, more real difference between the various Muslim sects than there is
between the beliefs of a modern Englishman and an orthodox Jew from Bess Arabia.
Islam itself is more than a creed. It is a complete social system. Originally
it was a simple
and understandable faith, full of the spirit of generosity and brotherhood. To
the essential democracy it preached it added cannily a list of simple sugary
delights, including a Paradise containing beautiful and agreeable girls whose virginity
miraculously returned to them every morning. Today knowledge of the Faith is
everywhere confused with debased moral standards, superstitions and bigoted
ignorance.
The powerful Ibn
Saud preaches the unity of orthodox Muslims land the exclusion of all other
Arabs. His Wahabis adhere literally to the Koran, do not drink or smoke, and
consider every technical innovation of our time to be a tool of Satan. They
regard all the theological and philosophical speculations which made Arab
civilization famous during the Middle Ages, as heresies, to be relentlessly
purged. They are prepared for no compromises and consider the North Arabs as
Musbreks, unbelievers, who are to be viewed with more intense dislike than even
Christians or Jews. The Wahabis consider the wearing of a silk garment or gold
ornament to be a sin. They regard the
Prophet Mohammed
as just a man and repudiate bitterly the act of other Muslim sects
218 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
in turning him
into a supernatural being. The Wahabis look on any built place of worship as
being perilously close to idolatry. Only with difficulty were they restrained
from destroying in their zeal the beautiful architectural shrines in Mecca Medina Hejaz .
The Wahabis often
have threatened an attack on Iraq Iraq France Germany England
The bogey of a
militant Arab racialism is another invention of the ever-resourceful
Bureaucratic mind. Lawrence
There, moreover,
remains a strong identity between sectarianism and dynastic government.
Religion and law are so closely identified in Islam that the difference between
two sects assumes an important difference between the civil and criminal
219 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
sanctions under
which they respectively live. 39 The only way nationalism can be effective in
the Near East is by the secularization of religion, from
which these people are a long way off.
Bedouins meeting
in strange territory slaughter each other without mercy. Tribesmen are constantly
being killed in frontier raids from which not even Palestine Trans- Jordan Transjordan tribe of Atie in December 1928; and a typical pitched battle was
fought between the tribes at Koba near Jerusalem
The Syrian author,
Ameen Rihani, gives a graphic picture of the general state of affairs in one
Arab country, Yemen
In all the Arab
countries provincialism is a persistent factor. Syrians employed in the Iraqi
Government service, as an instance, are the constant object of agitation aimed
at ousting them.
The result of the
recent controversy between Turkey Syria Syria London Paris
220 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Negotiations
between Paris and Ankara, under the auspices of the League, finally ended in
the spring of 1938 in a settlement whereby this richest of all Syrian provinces
(called by the Arabs "the pearl of the Arab Empire") is to be
detached from that country and ultimately handed back to Turkey London Turkey Arab State Damascus Baghdad Iraq
None of this
prevents the Colonial Office mouthpiece Great Britain ARABIA AWAKE," asserting that the Arabs,
from Morocco Persia
Implacably
resolved to look upon Palestine Arabia ."
The whole plan for
a great Federated Arab State England Adowa . Slowly the Federation is taking shape as
British gold pours into the Near East .
The previous
tactics were to keep the Arab rulers at each other's throats. This was handled
by a system of agent’s provocateur, politely known as political officers, who
represented the Crown and dispensed its largesse in each place and
principality.
This method
revolves around a system of always having rivals, or powerful opponents, ready
to put forward if the existing ruler becomes difficult to handle. The big
question in every Arab land is the agreement or treaty with the British, and
the
221 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
amount of gold
that can be secured. The amazing elasticity and scope of this control system is
outlined by Rihani in his book, Around the Coasts of Arabia* 2 "They all
have to be satisfied," he comments, "the big chiefs, the litde chiefs
and all the chiefs between."
The Arab countries
are hardly more than camouflaged English colonies. Iraq October
10, 1922 , Iraq England Iraq Iraq England Britain League of Nations into position to hand over the Turkish
Vilayet of Mosul to Iraq Saudi Arabia
Today the official
plan involves closing the door to threatened expansion by Italy Bari London
Ibn Saud, in
exchange for an increase in his subsidy and wider autonomy from direct British
rule, agreed to enter the system of pacts, as did Iraq Whitehall London Palestine Iraq
222 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
of Iraq London
he learned what
side his bread was buttered on, is now in high favor with Downing Street as a man of "extraordinary good
sense." When during the Ethiopian incident the Mufti decided to balk, it
was the ever-pliable Abdullah, rising like an elfin Don
Quixote from his
little principality who issued the call to the Jihad against Italy Transjordan the Emir cuts rather a ludicrous figure,
but as King of a reunited TransJordanian-Palestine he becomes a respectable
monarch and an ideal counter-balance to the Hejaz Kingdom
In the formulation
of this plan, Abdullah was not to be trusted altogether with Palestine Jerusalem Haifa Britain
The authors of
this scheme allowed their imaginations to roam over the possibility of even
disengaging North
Africa from France Italy North Africa which will fall within the magnetic
influence of the free Arab Federation.
All this was
fraught with considerable difficulty from the Arab side alone. There had been
bad blood between Feisal and his brother Abdullah. The Emir felt that he should
have gotten the throne of Iraq Iraq Palestine Mecca
Working against
time, British agents like Philby, Cox and Peake, Pasha again criss-crossed the
desert handing out money and promises right and left. Under pressure,
223 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS 223
pressure, boundary
disputes are being speedily settled as this great effort to de-Balkanize the Near East goes forward. In complete liaison, British
agents were at work in Teheran and Istanbul Afghanistan Iraq Iran Turkey Egypt Palestine June 11, 1936 , Great Britain America
It is somewhat
sardonic to note that during the same period that official British publicist
were ballyhooing the right of self-determination as applied to Arabs in
Palestine, Britain had grabbed a huge chunk of territory from the Arabs in
Southern Arabia . By an Order in Council which became
effective April 1, 1937 the British Government arbitrarily annexed
to the Empire 111,025 square miles of territory, including some six hundred
thousand Arabs of different tribes and complexions. This
area is called the
Hadramaut (Yemen Italy Ethiopia Great Britain South Arabia necessitates the employment of terrorism
which we deplore when it is used by others. That aerial bombing is freely used
... is not denied by the Government." 45 The British also own another
slice of Arabia which they annexed shortly after the World
War I. This is the colony of Aden Red Sea at Mussolini's legions in East Africa .
224 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Obviously the vast
areas of the Hadramaut and Aden
Part of Whitehall Britain Turkey Persia Iraq Britain England Turkey Mosul Iraq Britain
Pro-Arab
propagandists additionally ignore the dark hatred with which the Arab regards
all Christians. The Hejaz , country of King Hussein, number one man
in this controversy, does not allow a single Christian within its sacred
borders.
Lieutenant-Colonel
Stafford writes that "at an official reception to the present King of Iraq
the usual cheers were followed by cries of 'Down with Britain
Shrewd English
observers, unimpressed by bureaucratic fetish, are of the absolute opinion that
in the event of a general war the first purpose of the Arabs would be to get
rid of Britain London Italy
225 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS 225
at the first
opportunity. 49
In Palestine England May 19, 1930 : "The
Jews lost an
opportunity to arrive at an understanding with the Arabs owing to the Jews'
obstinacy and blind loyalty to Great Britain India Palestine November 23, 1928 . "Not the Jews are our enemies,"
he shouted, "but British Imperialism which aims to seize all Muslim
lands."
The British were
in fact thoroughly cured of "all-Muslim Congresses" by occurrences at
the Congress of December 1931, which the Palestine Government had organized as
a weapon against the Zionists. One of the first resolutions it adopted claimed
that the highly strategic Hejaz Railway was Wakf (Muslim religious) property which
had been stolen by the English, and demanded its return within six months under
threat of
an international
Mohammedan boycott of British goods.
INTERPRETING THE
MANDATE
No matter what
opinions British politicians might have once expressed as private individuals,
once in office they invariably succumb to the demands of the anti-Zionist
permanent officials.
When Malcolm
MacDonald became Colonial Secretary he ceased to function as "Weizmann's
best friend," just as his father forgot most of his Socialism and all of
his Zionism when he became Prime Minister. Winston Churchill made beautiful speeches
for the Zionists, but Churchill in office made common cause with the clique
226 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
in the Departments,
and issued the crushing document which bears his name. Thomas as a Labor
leader, protested unreservedly against the theft of Trans-Jordan, but Thomas as
Colonial Secretary lapsed into all the stereotypes of his predecessors.
Ormsby-Gore's deep hearty voice had assured the Jaffa Jews that the Balfour
Declaration meant the "building up of a Jewish nation in all its various
aspects in Palestine
Even the MacDonald
Letter, supposedly edited in a tone of good-will toward Zionism, carries the
adroit observation that "the Mandatory cannot ignore the existence of
differing interests and viewpoints," which it infers will be readily
reconciled in a pending understanding between Arabs and Jews; but, quite
naturally, "until that is reached, considerations of balance must
inevitably enter into the definition of policy." Stripped of concealing verbiage,
this simply means that no essential measure in favor of the Jewish Homeland may
be effected unless there is an 'understanding,' i.e., if the Arabs agree. If
the Arabs object, the measure cannot be carried out. 51
This theory goes a
long way beyond any reservation even hinted at in the Mandate. The preamble to
that document protects the 'civil and religious rights' of the non-Jewish
communities but it nowhere mentions their psychological attitude as a factor
227 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
entitled to annul
the purpose for which the Home was conceived. Article VI of the Mandate reads:
'The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position
of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish
immigration. . ." In a process of hair-splitting that would do credit to
fifty Philadelphia
This whole sapping
operation has been accomplished by a series of graduated depredations.
Entrusted with complete supervision of the Jewish inheritance, the Bureaucrats
were in position to smash it effectively by degrees and still maintain a surface
attitude of benevolence. Year by year, under one pretext or another, they
managed systematically to illegally curtail Jewish rights under the Mandate and
to give that document various reinterpretations, most of which rested on a body
of precedent established by themselves. There is scarcely an evasion that was
not tried. With great shrewdness the British Palestine Government attempted to
transform the Jews, in its official reports, from a national entity to a
religious body. They questioned the meaning of the words 'Jewish National Home'
and pretended a vast ignorance of the meaning of 'Zionist aspirations.'
Ormsby-Gore, then Under-Secretary for the Colonies, was even smart enough to
retreat into the queer conception formulated by the Hebrew mystic, Achad Ha'am,
that Palestine
228 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Center for the
Jewish people and that "the quality and not the quantity of settlers
matters." 52
Like a master
magician turning up cards that shouldn't be there, the British went about the
business of proving that black was white. An all-important case revolved around
a decision by the Magistrate of Tulkarm, who had acquitted one Sherif Shanti of
breaking the Fast of Ramadan on the grounds that the old Turkish law under
which the defendant was charged was in opposition to Article XV of the Mandate.
In a judgment rendered December 16, 1935 , the Court of Appeals at Nablus Palestine
With more than an
astute eye to the future, the Jaffa District Court ruled that "a British
subject who voluntarily acquired Palestinian citizenship does not thereby lose
his British nationality" (June 5, 1934 ). Until then Britain Palestine
Some of the
Mandatory's decisions border on the ludicrous. One solemnly handed down by the
Jaffa District Court on May 25, 1928 reversed an ordinance passed by the City
Council of Tel Aviv declaring Saturday a legal holiday, as being found
contradictory to Article XV of the Mandate "since the Ordinance
establishes a sort of discrimination by prohibiting trading on the Sabbath to
Jews only."
Until recently,
the Government has maintained with fine rectitude that Jewish immigration,
keystone to the whole Mandate, must be based on the 'absorptive capacity' of
the country, an argument which can hardly be gainsaid, except for the fact that
the Mandatory made it dependent on an acute shortage of labor and on a
perpetuation of the status quo in industry and agriculture. In practice, this
principle, so nice on paper, put the Jews almost in a water-tight box.
Throughout the
official reports a stubborn silence is kept on the positive significance
229 BUREAUCRACY
LOOKS AT JEWS
of Jewish immigration.
Reading them one would hardly believe that the dynamic and decisive force in Palestine
During the entire
period of English occupation, not the slightest step was ever taken to
popularize the Mandate among the general body of Arabs. The High Commissioner
was never known to invite Jews and Arabs to sit at his table at the same time,
a move which might have done much to ameliorate bad feeling. And in the
numerous Government schools Zionism was treated as an alien and highly
unpleasant phenomenon.
Throughout the
years the Administration's reply to questions was "the Government's policy
is unchanged." But it was evident that when Britain Palestine
Stripped of all
disguise, the fundamental English attitude toward the ward entrusted to their
care by the Nations was defined by then Colonial Secretary, Cunliffe-Lister,
when he assured a Quaker Committee (June 28, 1934): "I will not permit Palestine
In all this
skillfully built design of plot and stratagem the British have had to wind
their way through a maze where in one breath it was imperative to hold that the
Jews held legal title to Palestine
The Jews were the
British excuse for being in Palestine Palestine
230 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
nationality" between
the nationals of all States Members of the League, as in the East Africa
Mandate. Suavely, London Palestine South Africa
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