PALESTINE TO-DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 20984, 24 December 1931, Page 8

PALESTINE TO-DAY.

‘‘The atmosphere of Jerusalem I found indescribably grim and alien,” Dean In go has written of a visit to the Holy Land. “ Tho bare and stony deserts which surround it seemed to symbolise something hard and cruel in tho character of tho inhabitants, lb seemed tho homo of a nation in whoso sacred books no one ever laughs, unless somebody is to bo ‘laughed to scorn.’” Tho hardness of life in Palestine has been accentuated by economic depression, which is no now thing there, and in recent years by tho feuds and mutual suspicions of Jews and Arabs, which have made continual troubles for tiic mandate. Two years ago they blazed up into sanguinary riots, and last year was a year of reports by commissions, designed to allay those jealousies as far as possible and to make new conditions for future contentment. Tho. long silence of the cables in regard to Palestine, contrasting with tho reports of angry meetings and disorders which were frequent a year ago, might suggest that tho Commissioners had succeeded in their task, but such a conclusion would apparently bo unwarranted. Tho old enmities go on there unappeased. The report that not only Iraq, but also Syria, might soon cease to bo mandated areas was the latest cause of alarm to Jews and of rejoicing to Arabs. Tho Arabs maintained that if the Balfour Declaration were out of tho way there was no reason why Palestine should remain tho only Near Eastern region under mandate. Tho Jews would prefer to see their neighbouring countries under the League of Nations, for they constitute a minority in Palestine, surrounded by much larger independent and Arab States, which would resent tho holding back of their compatriots for the sake of tho Jews. While too many of the chosen people have their grievances against the mandate, they recognise its benefits to them. The British Government’s latest development scheme, for which a loan of two and a-half millions was proposed, has just been rejected by tho Arabs as a “temporary palliative, which would do little good and burden tho country with taxes,” and by tho Jews because it could not bo promised that half tho money would he spent on their settlors. Zionists were rejoiced by the fall of tho British Labour Government and the supplanting of Lord Passfield by Mr Thomas, whom they expect to ho more favourable to their claims. In that hope they arc likely to he disappointed. No British Government can do anything except hold tho scales as evenly as possible between the rival races, and no British Government, probably, will expect either of them to bo contented.