ZIONISM AND PALESTINE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 19 April 1939, Page 4

ZIONISM AND PALESTINE

• I>• I ii*' I'i.lit.irl Sir.—As a regular reader of your paper for many years, also as one who has taken a keen interest in the Zionist movement for some thirty-five years, I was particularly interested in your lengthy report of the address given by Mr C. Lucie-Smith, former DeputySuperintendent of Police in Palestine, to the Nelson Rotary Club, and recorded in your issue of Friday evening last. 14th inst.. 1* t was somewhat amazed on reading that he expressed the opinion that it would have been better had the assimilation of the Jews by the Christian nations continued instead of trying to establish a national home for them.

I wondered when 1 read this, if the lecturer had ever acquainted himself with the writings of Moses and the prophets as recorded in the Old Testament regarding the promised land and Deity’s chosen people (the Jews), or if he had ever read anything from the Gospels regarding the birth of the Jews’ long-promised Messiah. His early boyhood. His manhood. His immersion by John the Baptist; declared from heaven to be the Beloved Son of God, the miracles of His life; the darkness over the whole land at His death. His resurrection. ascension. His promised return to rule the world n righteousness, when the law shall go forth from Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and He shall reign from the river unto the ends of the earth. I append a cutting from a magazine 1 received from London over a week ago.—l am, etc.. PETER THOMSON. Nelson. 17th April. "Glad Tidings” for March last contained the following:—“As we go to press it has been announced that the Government have decided to publish the correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and the Grand Sherif Hussein in 1915, and an Anglo-Arab Committee is to be set up to examine the questions raised during the last three meetings regarding the scope and purport of the promises made to the Arabs in 1915. So far there is no indication that either the Arabs or the Government have moved an inch from their contradictory positions. The impasse is occasioned by differing interpretations of a particular passage in the correspondence The Grand Sherif had mentioned the Mediterranean as the western limit of the independent Arab area, and the Arabs took this to include Palestine. The late King of Iraq (then the Emir Feisal) made this contention in a conversation at the Foreign Office in January, 1921, but withdrew it after hearing the British explanation of the passage in question. In a memorandum of 3rd June. 1932, Mr Churchill stated that the reservation made by Sir Henry McMahon was always regarded by the Government as excluding Palestine, and one of Colonel Lawrence’s recently published letters entirely supports Mr Churchill’s statement. Now that this correspondence is to be left to a joint Committee, there can be a closer discussion of the claim that an independent Arab State of Palestine should be set up. It is hoped to keep the two Conferences parallel, so that Drogress from principles to practical suggestions should synchronise as far as possible.”