HOME FOR THE JEWS

Grey River Argus, 16 February 1946, Page 7

HOME FOR THE JEWS

(REV. C. R. SPRACKETT, M-A.) Pick up your daily paper and somewhere on the foreign news page you are almost sure to find a despatch about Palestine. Palestine is in the news. To-day it was an account of the proceedings of the British-American Committee on Palestine sitting in London, sometimes it is about a riot or a bomb outrage in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, a murder of a British police officer or the Arab boycott of Jewish goods. We are not. told much, but we read enough to know that Palestine is one of the “trouble-spots” of our world and a possible danger to world peace. We New Zealanders ought tohave an opinion about the problem of Palestine; we ought to know what is happening there, why it is happening and what can be done about it NUTSHELL HISTORY There is the history of Palestine in a nutshell. The Jews were in its hill country 1,100 years before Christ was born and after wars with the Philistines of the coastal plain, Jewish kings. David and Solomon, built a kingdom which was secure and prosperous until it divided in 930 8.C.. The southern kingdom, Judea, was the last to survive conquest; it fell in 556 B.C. and the Babylonians took 42,000 Jews into captivity. Later, 49 years later, some of them began to r’eturn and to rebuild the ruins of Jerusalem. They succeeded in spite of the hardship and. the opposition and once again lived a’ national life, until the Romans lost patience with them —and thoroughly destroyed Jerusalem. The majority of the Jews were scattered around the Mediterranean. That was in 135 A.D. Their wanderings and their troubles have not ceased to this day. The Arabs, inspired by the new religion of Mohammed, overran Palestine some 500 years later. They ruled until the eleventh century, when the Seljak Turks conquered Palestine. The Christian Crusaders from Europe established a kingdom of Jerusalem from 1095 to 1275 A.D. The Ottoman Turks captured Jerusalem in 1517 and they ruled Palestine from Constantinople for a period of 400 years —until 1918 when Allenby’s forces took the country. Under Turkish rule, the Arabs continued to live in Palestine and regard it as their home. The Jews, who have been persecuted in Europe for religious, racial, and economic reasons, began to return to Palestine at the end of the last century. A party of European Jews returned in 1881. Since that time, the ‘Return’ of the Jews has continued up to to-day, when 1,500 enter every month. (The present Arab boycott of Jewish goods is an attempt to force Britain to stop Jewish immigration altogether.) Britain has played a part in the history of Palestine; her interest is practical and’ humanitarian. Practical because Palestine is vital to the security of the Suez canal, because it is a terminus of the oil-pipe line from Iraq and the motor road to Asia and because it is a stopping point on the air route to India and beyond. Humanitarian because Britain has a long tradition of common decency towards the Jews. A key document is the Balfour Declaration of 1917: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achieve • ment of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice, the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights or political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The Government of the United States approved this declaration. R.ead the declaration again and notice that Palestine is not declared to be the national home of the Jewish people, but that the government is said to favour a national home ‘in’ Palestine; the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities he., the Arabs are to be protected and at the same time the Jews are to build their national home! Since 1920 Britain has had a difficult and costly task of balancing and controlling the Jewish and Arab interests in Palestine, and no wonder for she is pledged to help the Jews to build their national home and at the same time protect the rights of the Arabs.

THE PROBLEM History then has set the problem in Palestine which faces Britain and the United Nations to-day. There are three policies operating there: The Jewish, which is to build a national home; the Arab which is to establish an independent Arab state; the British, which is to secure important interests there.

The Jews have worked hard , to build their home in Palestine. The motto of the Tel Aviv coat of arms is —‘Again I will build thee and thou shalt be built.’ The Jews have taken that motto seriously. They have drained and irrigated land, planted orange and grape-fruit trees and made ‘desert places blossom like the rose.’ Notable among their achievements are their co-operative farming colonies and producers and consumers’ co-operatives, the modern city of Tel Aviv, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and their trade union movement which is a powerful force socially, as well as industrially. What has been done by so few in such a short time is amazing and worthy of our praise. They have devoted all their energies to build their national home, but have unfortunately failed to reach an understanding with the Arabs and the bitterness between the two peoples has increased witn the The Return of the Jews has made the average Arab better off than ne was, owing to the prosperity, employment and health services uhicn the Jews have created, but the Arabs aie afraid that continued Jewish immigration and land-buying will nuan their loss of Palestine. So a bitter Arab nationalism has arisen. Aidb landowners, who are afraid of losi & their power over their P' through their contact with Jewisn trade unionism, are largely behind the opposition to the Jews. Ihe landowners have attempted to m a'e i question a religious one, but it is an economic one. The Arabs weapon, are violence, terrorism, stuke &nn boycott. The Jews have to be commended for their restraint when they have been attacked. The Jews, a homeless people, have a just claim to a home in the land of their forefathers. Britain recognises that claim. The Arabs have a just claim to a home in a land they hawlived in for 13 centuries. What is Britain to do? What is the answer. ANSWERS No one knows the answer to the problem of Palestine, hence Britain’s uncertainty and delay. One answer

is to divide Palestine into three political units: A Jewish state in Galilee and the coastal plain; a British mandated area from Jerusalem to the sea; the rest of Palestine united with territory east of the river Jordan to form a large Arab state. Jews and Arabs say ‘No’ to this answer for varying reasons. Another answer is to make Palestine into a state in which both peoples control their own affairs, but have representatives on a governing body. Both Jews and Arabs distrust this proposal. Another answer is not to make the Jewish national home in Palestine at all. This would suit the Arabs, but large numbers of Jews are determined to return to Palestine for religious reasons. They will not agree to a ‘home’ in the British Empire, in the United States of America.

A workable answer to the problem may be found along this road: The immediate calling of a Jew and Arab round-table conference by the United Nations; Palestine to be placed under the authority of the United Nations; the number of Jewish immigrants to be increased to meet the needs of homeless Jewish war victims; Arabs displaced by Jewish immigration tube compensated and transferred to the neighbouring Ara’b states. This answer rests on some certainties

The first is that the Jews hiive a right to survive as individuals and as a people. The second is that they have a right to a homeland where they may live by right and not by sufferance. The third is that they have a religious and social right to a home in Palestine. The Arabs also have a right, but, —and this is important —the Jews have the greater need as they 7 are a homeless people, while the Arabs possess 1,200,000 square miles in the Middle East. Palestine is only 7 10,000 square miles. So from the land point of view, the relation of the Arab to the Jew is that of rich man to poor man. The United Nations could compensate displaced Arabs by helping to rehabilitate themselves in neighbouring Arab territories. Another certainty is that it is the duty of the United Nations to end the Jewish exile and suffering. YOU AND i Our Prime Minister said that the problem of Palestine was a world problem and responsibility, m his fiiat speech as the United Nations Assembly in London. What you and I think about it in New Zealand is important, because through our spokesman, we may help to shape the ciscussion and decisions of the United Nations when they deal v.ith Pales tine. The Churches here could and should create opinion in support of the Jews in their effort to build a national home in Palestine. Lee justice be done to the Jew.