ARAB FEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 9

ARAB FEARS.

NOT GROUNDLESS. Britain Breaks Wartime Promises. DELEGATES* STATEMENTS. British Official Wireless. (Received I.SO p.m.) RUGBY, February 10. It was stated by the Arab delegates at the London Conference that Britain's policy since the war has shown that the Arab fears are far from groundless. The Arabs hail been denied their independence promised by Britain's pledge in 1915 in return for the Arab share of the allied victory. The terms of the mandate had proved a flagrant Eolation, not only of the promises, but of the right of political independence specifically recognised by the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Palestine's post-war administration liad been exercised by an unfettered power equivalent to a dictatorship thereby depriving the Arabs, who before the war enjoyed the parliamentary representation of the elementary rights of self-government.

The Jewish population in Palestine had increased by 22 per cent since the war and was now 400,000 of a total of 1,400,000 people. The Jews in 191S owned 150,000 acres and now owned 330,000 of the total of 1.950,000 available, driving the Arabs from the most fertile parts. Arab villages were razed and mosques, homes and cemeteries were I wiped out. The Real Issue. The real issue was whether the Arabs after the continuous occupation of Palestine for over 1300 years should be forcibly evicted in order to enable the Jews to establish a national home.

A statement of the Arab case was made at the Palestine Conference bv Prince Husseini, cousin of the Grand Mufti. He emphasised that it had nothing in common with anti-Semitism, and was not inspired by any hostility to the British people or to any other people, but the Arabs felt that it was one of self-evident justice, resting on the natural right of a people to remain in undisturbed possession of their country, and their natural desire to safeguard their national existence, and ensure that it should be secured and developed in freedom and harmony with their traditions and ideals.

Prince Husseini also made a point that up to the time of the Balfour Declaration and the mandate, relations between the Arabs and Jews were peaceful and friendly. After arguing that the policy pursued by the mandatory power in Palestine had proved the justice of Arabs' fears, and contending that the immigration of Jews and Jewish land purchases had been on a scale detrimental to the material interests of the Arab population, he declared that the Arabs had never, and would never recognise the Balfour Declaration or the mandate, but in the eyes of the Arabs, the question was not primarily one of material interests, but first and foremost one of moral and political value*. "Grave Injustice to Arabs." The Arab case was based on the fact that the policy hitherto pursued in Palestine constituted a grave injustice to the Arab people, of a kind for which there was no parallel, and that, until that injustice was adequately redressed, there would be no peace in the Holy Land.

Prince Husseini concluded by summarising the demands of the Palestine Arabs under four heads: —

"Firstly, recognition of the right of Arabs to complete their independence in their country; secondly, the abandonment of an attempt to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine; thirdly, the abrogation of the mandate and illegalities resulting from it, and its replacement- by a treaty similar to that between Britain and Iraq, creating a sovereign Arab State; and, fourthly, the immediate cessation of all Jewish immigration and sales of land to Jews."

The Arabs, he said, were prepared to negotiate in a conciliatory spirit the conditions under which reasonable British interests shonM be safeguarded, and would approve the necessary guarantees for the preservation of, and right of access to; all lioly places, and for thtf protection of all the legitimate rights of Jewish and other minorities in Palestine.