GLUBB PASHA REVEALS VIEWS ON PALESTINE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22697, 23 July 1948, Page 5

GLUBB PASHA REVEALS VIEWS ON PALESTINE

(From Ranald Maclurkin, Reuter’s Correspondent.) LONDON (By Air Mail). Glubb Pasha, British commander of the Transjordan Arab Legion fighting the Jews in the Palestine war, reveals his personal views on the Palestine trouble in his new book entitled “The Story of the Arab Legion.’’ “The Jewish tragedy owed its origin to the Christian nations of Europe and America. . . .bqt when it came to the payment of compensation in expiation of their past shortcomings, the Christian nations of Europe and America decided that the bill should be paid by a Moslem nation of Asia.” he writes: The 52-year-old desert soldier, centre of bitter controversy since he stayed on as commander when his troops entered Palestine, writes that the villains of the Palestine tragedy—“lf villains there be” —were neither the Jews, the Arabs, nor the British. Other Nations Gave No Help “Ironically enough, the Arabs and the British had discriminated against the Jews less than any other races of the West. Other nations of Europe and America, some of whom had discriminate against and actually persecuted the Jews, did nothing whatever to solve the problem which they had created. They had one and all refused to accept any displaced Jews themselves, but were loud in their criticisms of Britain and the Arabs for not doing more. “Is it an exaggeration to brand such an attitude as cynical and immoral?" Saying that at least 600,000 Jews have entered Palestine since 1920. he estimates that an equivalent “invasion” of Britain would have meant an influx of 25,000,000 aliens. On the Jewish case for Palestine, Brigadier Glubb comments that habitation 2000 years ago can scarcely be accepted as justification for a claim to the ownership of a country today, Would it be practicable today, he asks, to hand back North America to the Red Indians? Arabs Refused a Voice

“A Jewish claim to the ownership of Palestine, based on the Balfour Declaration. is no less difficult to justify. When that declaration was made, 90 per cent of the people of Palestine were Arabs. Now democracy is the political creed of the British Government. By democracy, we mean that the majority of the population has the right to decide policy. “There may be much to be said for and against government by majority, but there can be no doubt that it is the official doctrine of the British Government. In every country in the world, except Palestine. Great Britain advises the adoption of this system. The Arabs of Palestine alone have not been allowed a voice in their own future.

“It was one of the many ironies of the Palestine muddle that the Jews, who seemed in Europe to be an oppressed minority, arrived in Palestine m the guise of European colonisers. Many of the parties which in Europe and America have been loudest to denounce European imperialism yet support the forcible colonisation of Palestine by military force. A movement which to Europeans stands for liberal idealism is thus transformed in Palestine into military imperialism.” Glubb Pasha descripes Britain’s part in Paletsine as “a piece of quixotic idealism. . . .a piece of muddleheaded and vacillating idealism.” “Father of White Camel”

John Bagot Glubb, who is a son of a First World War general, went to the Middle East as a volunteer to quell the Arab revolt in Iraq in 1920. He has lived among the Arabs ever since.

Speaking Arabic better than any other living European, Glubb is loved by the Arabs who call him affectionately “Father of the White Camel.” He in turn loves the Arabs, and his descriptions of their wild charges into battle, singing and calling out the names of their sisters —traditional desert battlecry—is exultant. “I believe the Arab tribesman to be first-class military material,” he writes. “I am convinced that they are the same men who conquered half the world 1300 years ago.” During the last war, Glubb tried hard to get the British Army to allow him to take the Arab Legion to light in Italy but was turned down. The Arab Legion longed to fight in Europe, but failed to get the opportunity. “Thereby one of the world's greatest martial races failed to regain the estimation to which its ancient virtues entitled it, but which centuries of political obscurity had caused to fade into oblivion.” Brigadier Glubb describes the friction between the British and French in Syria from 1919 to 1945, as “most unfortunate.” “The local representatives of the two nations have often been criticised and charged with spite, jealousy and parochialism. British-French Friction “The fact is that British and French minds are of a different texture. When the same problem is presented to both they rarely produce the same answer. The policies of France and Britain towards the Arabs weie thus essentially different, if not diametrically opposed. They did not adopt these divergent systems in order to spite one another, but because their minds worked on different lines. To each Government, its own policy seemed the only wise and logical one.

“It so happened, however, that the British policy was more popular with the Arabs than the French policy, with the result that the Syrians drew, between the two nations, comparisons which were sometimes unfavourable to the French. The latter, perhaps overready to believe in the perfidy of Albion, attributed this state of affairs to, British propaganda and intrigue. Tliey were entirely mistaken in these suspicions.”

The many people all over the world, who look with sad hearts at the events in Palestine today may take most comfort from Glubb Pasha’s story of the old Arab who stood on a Syrian hilltop alone firing at enemy planes during the war against the Vichy French, When the last enemy aircraft disappeared. Za’al Ibn Mutlaq came down from his hilltop. He picked up the cloak he had left on the ground and made for the now deserted coffee-pots. ‘AI Harb al yom ma biha leddha’ (There is no joy in war nowadays), he said, pouring himself out a cup of coffee.