PALESTINE DIFFICULTIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22434, 2 June 1936, Page 8

PALESTINE DIFFICULTIES

The difficulties faced by the governing authorities in Palestine show no sign of growing less. In one way the situation is worse. Official representatives of the Arabs have turned a deaf ear to an appeal from the High Commissioner. They have said they cannot pacify their people until the demands behind the present unrest have been conceded. To concede them is more than Britain as the mandatory Power can do. It is her duty to hold the scales evenly between the two races, so far as that is possible. If Jewish immigration and the sale of land to the Jews were stopped, the main purpose of the present system would be destroyed. It is Britain's responsibility, under the League of Nations, to further the policy of establishing a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine, while safeguarding the interests of the Arabs. To stop immigration would be as much a betrayal of the trust as it would be to allow it in such proportions as would exceed the country's capacity to absorb newcomers. The Arabs have risen in protest on the assumption that Jewish interests are being unduly favoured. Not long ago the British Administration was being drastically criticised from the Jewish 'standpoint because of the proposal to establish a Legislative Council—a measure of self-govern-ment long delayed because of the lack of racial agreement. There was a demand from the Zionist side that representation in the Council should be calculated to allow for the fact that the Jews in Palestine represented world-Jewry. Britain could not concede such a point. The Council must represent the people in Palestine, Jew and Arab, and not any population beyond the borders of the country. When such demands on the one side are contrasted with the Arab drive to have immigration stopped and land sales banned, some idea can be gained of the difficulty Britain faces as mandatory Power.