ARAB RISING THREATENED.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 8

ARAB RISING THREATENED.

(By G. A. Evans, Editor of'the Palestine Mows.)

Palestine is on the brink of revolt. The return of the Arab delegation to the Holy Land, dissatisfied, flouted by British statesmen, and with its appeals unheeded by the League, of Nations, has tanned the smouldering (hime of resentment against the British policy in Palestine. A ' recent despatch recording the murder of prominent Zionists in various parts of the Holy Land, following the Moslem Conference at Xablus, gives some indication of the real and imminent peril of an Aral) revolt. There are more than 500,000 Moslems in Palestine, as compared with about (jO.OOO Christians and the same number of .Jews, and unless something is done, and done quickly, we shall have an Arab rising otn our hands. The Daor Hyom. the most important, Zionist organ in Jerusalem, advocates a. policy of repression, and it is assumed that the British taxpayer will pay the cost of coercing the Aral) people to the Balfour declaration.

1 have, lived in Jerusalem for a considerable period, and have had ample opportunity of studying the Zionist question at close quarters, and after examining both sides of Hie problem 1 have come to the conclusion that fin; policy of repression against the Arabs will not work. Repressive and coercive methods, inaugurated by Sir Herbert, Samuel, are the cause of much of the trouble in Palestine to-day. The Press censorship is far more rigorous than' it was in the time of the Turk. Arab editors who try to tell of the injustices of thci Zionist immigration have been fined, arrested .and imprisoned. "An Arab genius for intrigue has not been repressed, but forced to other channels. The country is honeycombed with secret societies, plotting and planning, with dreams of a pao-Islanue empire from Mesopotamia to Arabia, and including Syria and Palestine. I have seen plastered on the walls of the Holv City seditions circulars pealed with the impress of a bloody hand, entreating the Arabs to revolt. I have met well-educated and influential young Arabs in Cairo who' are memhers of a secret organisation raised to turn the French out of Syria and Palestine under Arab rule. The desert Bedouins of Trans-Jo rdania and the Hauran are another formidable factor. They are all well armed, and thousands of guns and rounds of ammunition* left behind by the Turkish army before Lord Allonby's victorious troops are carefully hidden until the time is ripe for the Arab revolt. There is only one way to avert disaster. Britain must remember ,her pledge to the Arabs and listen sympathetically to their grievances. Will the British taxpayer still continue to pay cheerfully for the seeds of discord which arc being sown in Zion ?