Evening Post THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1939.

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 33, 9 February 1939, Page 12

Evening Post THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1939.

PALESTINE-IN LONDON

To bring representatives of the parties to an open, bitter feud, if not into the same room to sit round a common table, yet into the same building in a city thousands of miles away from the .scene of the quarrel, is no mean achievement.. This is what Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald, the British Colonial Secretary, has* succeeded in doing with the Arabs^ and the Jews, who for sixteen years and over have been more or less Im conflict with each other in Palestrae. The new scene is St. James's Palace, London, and there on Tuesday begam, in the words of the cable messaige, "one of the strangest conferences «:ver held." In the picture gallery a£ the Palace the British Prime Minister (Mr. Neville Chamberlain) received the Moslem delegates. As these Arabs had declined to sit at the same table as the Jews, arid vice versai, Mr. Chamberlain later received tfee Jews in the banqueting room on tits opposite side of the Palace, Aru'd if the separate gatherings in the two rooms was a token of the division; between the races in space, their different garbs were symbolical of the difference in time. Foe, says the cable, ■ ' in contrast with the Arabs, who were stately 'figures in silken, robes and white head dresses, wearing ceremonial daggers with jewelled hilts, the Jews wore morning dress or lounge suits. This picture all but tells the whole story. The Jews and the Arabs aredescended from the saime race in the far historic background of the Bible, but the.Jews, dispersed all over the earth, have come back to their ancestral homeland, there to find rej mote cousins who never left it. The ■Jews have changeid in all but their faith and. their memories; the Arabs, not only in their traditional costume, but in their customs and outlook, remain essentially the same —unchanged. That is the real clash in Palestine, the cflash of ancient and modern, the andient fearing they will be swept awajy by the inrush of an alien modern "world, and the moderns irritated by active and passive resistance to progress. These are the underlying motives, but they are overlaid by political ambitions on both sides and the intrigues and schemes o£ alien nations endeavouring to make more trouble for the nation charged with the administration and faaving nothing to gain and everything to lose by a continuance of disorder^ Thus Palestine has become not a melting-pot of races in which, as in America, they may be fused into o:n>e, but a boiling-pot of incongriao»us ingredients, surging up and spelling over from time to time in an ebullition of hatred. This is the problem Britain as the Power internationally trusted with the government of Palestine has tried by almost every conceivable means to solwe, but without success. The London conference is therefore in the nature of a forlorn hope. In addressing the Arab delegates ftrjst, Mr. Chamberlain emphasised .Britain's impartiality in the dispute /by stating that the representatives /of Britain would not commence the proceedings by laying down any basis for discussion, nor would they offer their.own views until both the Arabs and the Jews, in their separate discussions with the Government, had been given a full opportunity of putting their case. He added that the policy of Britain was the promotion of peace —"peace in our relations with European countries In which our interests are so closely interlocked, and peace in lands for whose administration we bear a special responsibility." Of the purpose of the conference he said: The problem before us is difficult. It has sometimes been called insoluble. But the more difficult the problem the more I am convinced of the importance of personal contact between men of influence concerned. It is the task of statesmanship when faced by what may appear to be a deadlock between two peoples to achieve a t compromise on the basis of justice. This is the task before us, difficult, no doubt, but not beyond the capacity of our united powers. "A compromise on the basis of justice"—that is the only possible basis of settlement in Palestine. Neither side can be allowed to have all its own way. The dream of an Arab Empire, as in the days of the Caliphate, is no more compatible with a peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem than the other dream of a great independent Zionist State. It is the old story of the halfloaf which is at any rate better than starving. The trouble with the London conference is that it is unfortunately not fully representative of the Arab side. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, now in exile in Syria, the' original leader of the Arab revolt and, it is believed, still the fountainhead of trouble, has declined to come to London, and the Arab Defence

Party is not represented at the present conference. The British Government has offered to hold a separate consultation with the delegation representing the Defence Party which has come to London. In the meantime disorders, with sabotage, are again reported to have broken out in Palestine. It is obvious that certain intes?ests outside Palestine would like to see the London conference fail, but tactics of this kind may as easily create disgust among those who see in tfae London conference a genuine, laonest effort to come to a peaceful settlement. In any event, whatever Britain is not likely to shirk her task, as Mandatory Power, of maintaining order in Palestine.