ZIONISTS DENOUNCED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21933, 30 January 1946, Page 5

ZIONISTS DENOUNCED

NATIONALISM IN PALESTINE DANGER OF JEWISH STATE PLAN GEN. SPEARS’ BLUNTNESS AT INQUIRY (10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 29. With many of the undesirable features which characterised the Nazi movement in Germany, the Zionist policy, as to-day manifest in Palestine, was not a religious movement but a national one, declared Major-General Sir Edward Spears. He was giving’ evidence before the British-American committee on Palestine. . “I believe that if the Zionist policy were to succeed m its obiective of a Jewish State in Palestine, it would be a source not of peace but of insecurity in the Middle East and its fanatical elements would continue to be as they are to-day—violently anilBritish “It would be a permanent cause of unrest and a major obstacle to the development of Arab unity which I believe is essential to progress and stability in this area. Solution Vital for Peace dreadful as the horrors already in-

General Spears added that the solution of the Palestine problem was not only essential in the interests of the British Commonwealth, but fundamental for world peace.

dreadful as the horrors already inflicted on them, 1 ’ said Dr. Maude Royden. the noted lecturer, preacher and writer, giving evidence before the committee.

The Arabs were terrified that if largescale immigration into Palestine continued, they would become a minority, subject to alien Jewish rule. They were desperate and ready to use force rather than suffer what they felt was a bitter injustice. There was no essential incompatability between the promises to the Jews under the Balfour Declaration with the promises to the Arabs. No responsible authority or the British Government had ever promised that Palestine would be a Jewish State or that unrestricted Jewish immigration would be permitted. The promises to the Jews of a national home in Palestine had been fulfilled. One of the greatest causes of Arab hostility, added General Spears, was the fact that the great majority of Jewish immigrants were completely alien to the Arab way of life. Most of the Jews had no racial connection with Palestine. They were not descendants of the Israelites who went to Palestine from Egypt but had descended from the Ascenasi Jews who were converted to Judaism in the eighth and ninth centuries.

The committee, after hearing on the previous days the representatives of nine British Jewish organisations urging that Palestine should become a Jewish state, to-day heard witnesses opposing the Zionist ideal. Dr. Royden. recalling her experiences in Palestine in 1939, said that she found no case for Zionism at all. No benefits which the Arabs might reap from the presence of the Jews could compensate for .the horrors of civil war. Issue for Arabs Alone The claim that Palestine must be industrialised was one which the Arabs must settle themselves, said Dr. Royden. An agricultural country with

Dangerous Antii-Jewish Feeling

There was much dangerous antiJewish feeling in the Middle East. “There is no doubt that if largescale immigration into Palestine is continued, the Jews will live in the same conditions of insecurity' which drove such of them as could to escape from Europe after the rise of the Nazis in Germany,” he said. Urging that the Arabs should not be asked to bear the whole burden, General Spears suggested that the United Nations should shoulder the responsibility with large contributions from Britain and America with a view to their resources, both in living space and wealth. General Spears affirmed his confidence that the Arabs would accept a continuance of the Jewish national home provided the Zionists abandoned their political aims and endeavours by violence, illegal' immigration and pressure to achieve the objective of a Jewish majority in Palestine.

comparative poverty was better off than an industrial one with civil war. “If the Jews claim rights because it is their holy land, the Christians can lay similar claims,” she declared. ■ Mr. Thomas Reid, a Labour M.P.,opposed the idea of a Jewish state, arguing that it would be unwise, utterly impracticable and unjust for pressure to be brought on the Arabs to' leave Palestine to make room for the Jews. The Arabs were the people who should say how many Jews should be admitted to Palestine.

Jewry Hated in Palestine

“The worst offence of Zionism is that its leaders are leading the Jewry into a land where they are deeply hated, and it will. need a standing army to prevent massacres and progroms as