Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1918. THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 18, 20 July 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1918. THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE

The report of General Allenby's campaign which reached us from Jericho on Thursday was in itself of a very satisfactory character. The Turks, with a considerable German stiffening, had made an attack somewhere in the Jordan Valley with the object of seizing our water supply, and signally failed. The chief point of the story is indeed .'that it was the German stiffening that bore the brunt of the fighting, 'and, being insufficiently supported, was badly mauled. Three German battalions made the attack in reliance on the help of two Turkish divisions, but the Turks had more urgent business elsewhere, with the result that "the Germans suffered an overwhelming defeat and the Turks were completely disillusioned," and over five hundred prisoners were taken. The military value of an incident of this kind is hot to be despised, but it may be of still greater service from its effect upon the relations between the Turks and their masters. The fact, however, that, despite all his troubles, the enemy is still able to take the offensive, even if unsuccessfully, somewhere apparently in the neighbourhood of Jericho is evidence of the difficulties which General Allenby is encountering and of the slow progress which he has made. As far as Jerusalem his advance was extraordinarily rapid. Beersheba. was taken on 31st October, Gaza a week later, and the Holy City on 9th December. The distance from the southern boundary of Palestine to its capital, was traversed ■in less than six weeks, but since then a campaign of more than six months has failed to carry the British Army across the not much longer distance that divides Jerusalem from Nablus, the ancient Shechem. The exposure of, the right flank of an army advancing northward from Jerusalem, the great difficulties .presented by the rugged country to the east of the Jordan, the command of tho Damascus railway by the Turks, and their probable withdrawal of large forces from Mesopotamia for the purposes of this campaign, may be presumed to constitute General Allenby's chief troubles. his forces have been at Es Salt, x and they have made frequent raids upon the railway, but its permanent seizure may perhaps demand larger forces than can yet "be- spared from the West.

If General Allenby's northward march is slow, the campaign of peaceful penetration for which the operations in the south prepared the way is proceeding apace. Under happier conditions than those of the mission of Joshua the son' of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Zionist Commission under the auspices of the British Government has been to spy out the land and has brought back its report. The Commission, which arrived at Jerusalem on 10th April, was rapturously received. The following day was proclaimed a Jewish public holiday, and a great demonstration was held by the Jerusalem community on the proposed university site on Mount Scopus. Four thousaiid people were present at this ceremony to welcome the Zionist Commission, to rejoice over the bright future that is opened up for the Jewish race in the land of their ancestors, and to express their gratitude to the soldiers and statesmen of Great Britain, to whom this beatific vision is due. The proceedings concluded with the singing by the .whole audience of the British National Anthem and the Hatikvah, thp Jewish national song. If the Lord has turned again the captivity of Zion, the Jews are not slow to recognise who have been his. chosen instruments for the purpose. Even the Zionists of Germany appeared to appreciate this fact when the deliverance of Jerusalem was first announced. But an organisation which seems to have been formed in Berlin while the Commission was in Palestine follows punctiliously correct lines. The object of this society is the promotion of Zionism "within the limits of Germany's policy in the Orient."

It is not the limits of Germany's policy in the Orient nor the doubts and fears of her Jewish population that have created any difficulties for the Zionists who are not bound to take their orders from the Kaiser, but some trouble has been caused by British, Jews who fear that the new scheme may imperil their present privilego of British nationality. This point of view has found corporate expression in the League' of British Jews, of which Major Lionel de Rothschild, M.P., is the president and Lord Swaythling and - Sir Philip Magnus, M.P., are vice-presidents. The declared objects of this organisation are: (1) To uphold the status of British subjects professing the Jewish religion. (2) To resist the allegation that Jews constitute a separate political nationality.' (3) To facilitate the settlement in Palestine of such Jews as may desire to make Palestine their home. At the opening meeting of the League Lord Swaythling expressed his dissent from one expression in the letter written by Mr. Balfour on behalf of the British Government, which constitutes a sort of Magna Chart* for the Zionists. Mr. Balfour had referred to "tho national home for the Jewish people in Palestine," and upon this Lord Swaythling commented as follows:—

" They could not possibly accept the term ' the Jewish people '; there was no such tiling. If they did, how could they expect Mr. Balfour at the Peace Conference to express what they and their fathers bad fought for for generations—the absolute rights of those of the Jewish religion in. the countries where they'had been born and bred ? How could they insist on equality-in Russia, Germany, and Austria

if they pretended that they were a people apart? They all hoped that a British protectorate would arise for Palestine, where a colony would be formed into which anyone of any religion would be allowed to go._ They would use their influenoe to assist any Jews who desired to go there, and ho hoped they would be eventually a majority in that country."

Though Lord Swaythling professes in his concluding sentence the" same sympathy with the settlement of Jews in Palestine that is declared by the third object of the League, the organisation represents a schism which may seriously hinder the Zionist movement. It,. is certainly not to be expected that such British Jews as Lord Swaythling and Lord Beading, for instance, shall sacrifice the inestimable privileges of British nationality for a new allegiance and a new home,, but Lord Beading does not grudge . other Jews the chance of the option, nor can we see why anybody else should. It is, however, clear that Zionism can neither claim a monopoly of the Jewish race nor a monopoly of Palestine. Its reasonable objects were sanely stated by Sir Alfred Mond at a meeting of welcome to the American Zionist medical unit in London, over which, it is to be noted, Lord Rothschild presided. In a cable message which we published on Tuesday the speech was reported as follows: "Sir Alfred Mond said that Zionism did not intend to proclaim a monopoly of the Holy Land and exclude other races. Its object was to establish in Palestine a Jewish national centre where Jews from all over the world could maintain the life, thought, and mission of the Jewish race in complete harmony with the other peoples of Palestine."