ARAB TREATY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 223, 17 June 1936, Page 11

ARAB TREATY

Suggestion That It Was Mistranslated

LAWRENCE’S PART

Possible “Mellowing" Of Feisul’s Footnote

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.

(Received June 16. H-10 P- ra -l

London, June 16.

The “News-Chronicle’s” Jerusalem correspondent says that propaganda in the Arab-Jewish struggle has thrown up the name of Lawrence of Arabia, who allegedly mistranslated for King Feisul the Arab-Jewish treaty signed in London In 19TJ, and which was recently published. t;Dr. Chaim Weiznuuin, president of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem, produced a copy of the treaty as proof. Feisul strongly sympathised with the Jewish National Home in Palestine, but Arabs declare that the document is a Jewish forgery. This is improbable, but it is suggested by photostatic copies of the treaty that Lawrence mistranslated the treaty because h e realised that unless Feisul could be forced into giving the Jews their demands he could not fulfil his dream of a great Arab empire. Feisul was unable to read English and added a protective footnote, which Lawrence translated on Dr. Weizmann’s copy and Feisul signed thus: “If the Arabs are established as I asked in a manifesto addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, I carry out this agreement.” A photostatie copy of Feisul’s Arabic shows that he wrote “should the Arabs obtain independence,” etc. It is said that Lawrence, as a faultless Arabic scholar, could not have made a faulty translation, and it is accordingly suggested that if he mellowed Feisul’s footnote he almost certainly toned down the Zionist aspirations presented to Feisul. The Moslem Council supports this view, declaring that when it was hinted that a treaty existed, Feisul telegraphed denying his signature. This telegram is now In the possession of Hadi Bey, a signatory to the treaty, at present interned in connection with the disorders. MORE TERRORISM Arabs Defy Death Penalty Jerusalem, June 15.

Terrorists continue to defy the death penalty, setting fire to buildings and throwing bombs, mostly duds. Snipers wounded two Gordon Highlanders. The damage to Jewish property is estimated at £150,000. The Arabs assert that they are losing £1,000,000 a month in trade wages, but they have not suffered much in property damage.

MATTER FOR COMMISSION

Analysing Causes of Trouble

(British Official Wireless.)

Rugby, June 15.

The Colonial Secretary, Mr. W. Ormsby-Gore, declined to make a statement in the House of Commons this afternoon on the causes of the recent unrest in Palestine, on the ground that they would be among matters for investigation by the proposed Royal Commission, and in these circumstances it would be most improper for him to attempt to analyse them at this moment.

Replying to a supplementary question, Mr. Ormsby-Gore declared emphatically that the commission would only be set up when law and order had been fully restored in Palestine.

There were other supplementary questions which went unanswered, but the Colonial Secretary intervened to contradict "clearly and definitely” an incidental suggestion that the Grand Mufti was paid a salary by the British Government.