ARAB-JEWISH TREATY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 17 June 1936, Page 7

ARAB-JEWISH TREATY

LAWRENCE'S NAME BROUGHT UP SUGGESTION THAT IT WAS MISTRANSLATED COPY PRODUCED AS PROOF (United Press Association—By Electric Tolegraph—Copyright) LONDON, 16th June. The “News-Chronicle’s” Jerusalem correspondent says that propaganda in the Arab-Jewish struggle has thrown up the name of Lawrence of Arabia, who allegedly mistranslated l'or King Feisul the Arab-Jewish treaty signed in L'^' l in 1919. and which was recently published. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem, produced a copy of the treaty as proof. Feisul strongly sympathised with the Jewish National Home in Palestine, but Arabs declare that the document is .a Jewish forgery. This is improbable, but it is suggested by photostatic copies of the treaty that Lawrence mistranslated the treaty because he realised that unless Feisul could be forced into giving the Jews their demands he could not fulfil his dream of a great j Arab empire. Feisul was unable to read English and added a protective footnote, which Lawrence translated on Dr. Weizmann’s copy and Feisul signed thus: “If the Arabs are established as I asked in a manifesto addressed to the British Foreign Secretary, I carry out this agreement.” A photostatic copy of Feisul’s Arabic shows that he wrote “should the Arabs obtain independence,” etc. It is said that Lawrence, as a faultless Arabic scholar, could not have made a faulty translation, and it is accordingly suggested that if he mellowed Feisul’s footnote he almost certainly toned down the Zionist aspirations presented to Feisul. The Moslem Council supports this view, declaring that when it was hinted that a treaty existed, Feisul telegraphed denying his signature. This telegram is now in the possession of-Hadi Bey, a signatory to the treaty, at present interned in connection with the disorders. NIGHT RAID AIRPORT AND BROADCASTING STATION ARABS REPULSED BY GUARDS (Received 17th June, 11.35 a.m.) JERUSALEM, 16th June. Arabs made a night raid on the Lydaa airport and the Ramleh broadcasting station. They were repulsed by guards, after burning lorries and a storehouse.